IGF CultureWatch

Think what you will about Scientology (and I don't think about it too much), it hasn't by any stretch been in the forefront of the religious right's political anti-gay campaign. So what to make of the call to boycott Hollywood's latest version of "Hairspray" because it stars John Travolta, a prominent Scientologist? What's next, calls to boycott movies with devout Southern Baptists, Mormons or Catholics (which, if you buy the "logic" of this campaign, would actually make more sense)? In fact, the whole thing smacks of a cheap stunt, or at least narrow-mindedness-which, ironically, is what "Hairspray" is dissing.

Travolta, for his part, vehemently denies he (or Scientology) is anti-gay. And John Walters, gay-camp auteur of the original film, is backing him up.

A more legitimate critique of the newest "Hairspray," made by some critics, is that the original 1988 indie film starring the late, famed transvestite "Divine," and the subsequent Broadway incarnation starring Harvey Fierstein (who also cut his performance teeth as a cross-dresser) were in-your-face transgressive. You never doubted that Divine or Fierstein were drag queens playing big mama Edna Turnblad, which expanded the theme of prejudice against those outside the mainstream. Whereas Travolta, the AP's Christy Lemire writes, plays Edna as a woman, not as a drag queen pretending to be a women. "He plays it straight, for lack of a better word, and with a touch of pathos. The joke is completely lost," she laments.

That may or may not be a legitimate critique, but if gay activists and activist-editors feel that way, their beef is with the film's openly gay producers, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, and not with Travolta-or Scientology.

I suppose it should come as no surprise that, despite the abolition of sodomy laws, lives are still being destroyed by arrests for soliciting gay sex, as in this sad story about Florida State Rep. Bob Allen. The seven-year legislator is (was?) a Florida co-chairman of U.S. Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign.

A big difference between incidents like Allen's and, say, the exposure that Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) used an escort/prostitution service, is the fact that Vitter wasn't arrested and no one is even remotely considering charging him for soliciting heterosexual sex. Also, Vitter is a married, family-valued promoting hetero seeking hetero sex on the side. Allen, too, is married, but seeking gay sex in a park reeks of the closet, and the closet reeks of internalized homophobia.

Some stories have mentioned that Allen is a former Little League volunteer and has donated time to the Girls and Boys Town of Central Florida. Get the drift. The thinly veiled suggestion that his kind shouldn't be near innocent kiddies is also something never suggested in reporting on hetero transgressors like Vitter.

More. David Boaz blogs:

Vitter's hostility to gay marriage while cheating on his own is a matter of simple political hypocrisy. The more specific issue...is that Vitter (presumably) supports the laws against prostitution. Yet he himself, while a member of the United States Congress, has broken those laws and solicited other people to break them.

Vitter should be asked: Do you think prostitution should be illegal? If so, will you turn yourself in?

The answer, of course, is yes he does, and no he won't.

Sen. Mike Gravel may be a very long shot for the Democratic presidential nomination, but that hasn't stopped CNN, PBS, NBC and the NAACP from inviting him to their sponsored debates. So why has the Human Rights Campaign, the mega-Washington LGBT/Democratic Party lobby, excluded him from their upcoming gay issues forum, where questions will be posed by HRC head and abortion-rights activist Joe Solmonese and lesbian singer/celeb Melissa Etheridge? Gravel has an answer: his pro-gay stances, especially on marriage and military service, would make HRC's designated party faves (Hillary, Obama, Edwards) look bad.

Comments Andrew Sullivan, Gravel "understands that HRC cares much less about gay equality than about their own money and access. This debate is designed to maximize both. There will be no tough questions. Especially of Clinton. Solmonese and Etheridge are her stooges."

Update. Responding to the criticism, HRC relents and invites Sen. Gravel. Also, the Log Cabin Republicans' Scott Tucker states the obvious: "With Melissa Etheridge, a Democratic activist, asking the questions, it should be no surprise that the Republican candidates decided not to participate." True, but it's not likely they'd have come anyway.

But just why did HRC decide to stage a candidates forum that looks like American Idol?

Also, regarding Sullivan, he gives IGF this plug while making the point that-despite what both liberals and conservatives tend to think-all gay people are not supporters of bigger government with ever-increasing regulation, even when those constraints on individual liberty are portrayed (a la HRC) as advances for "gay rights."

Another angle on the immigration debate, Persecuted Gays Seek Refuge in U.S. From the Washington Post:

Harassment and abuse of gay men and lesbians is becoming increasingly accepted as grounds for legal asylum in the United States, even at a time of conservative judicial activism, fear about HIV/AIDS transmission and increased scrutiny of asylum seekers.

[But]...such asylum cases are still extremely difficult to win, according to lawyers in Washington and elsewhere.

And, of course, the inability of non-U.S. partners of U.S. citizens to receive citizenship (as hetero spouses do) or to otherwise legally reside here for "family reunification" is another bitter gay-immigration overlap.

Fox's Bill O'Reilly goes off the deep end with a segment titled "Violent Lesbian Gangs a Growing Problem," built around an interview with "Fox News crime analyst" and anti-gay activist Rod Wheeler.

According to the O'Reilly Factor website:

The Factor [O'Reilly] was astonished by Wheeler's revelations. "I never would have thought of this. We associate homosexuality more with a social movement, not a criminal movement."

Wheeler paints a delirious picture of the USA as a country run amok with hundreds of violent lesbian gangs-more than 150 gangs in the Washington area alone!-forcibly converting young girls to homosexuality and calling themselves the "pink-pistol packing group." This led the actual Pink Pistols, a law-abiding, pro-gun gay group, to fire back. [Update: Wheeler apologizes]

Alas, too many social conservatives would rather pander luridly to anti-gay bigotry than consider the worth of working with gays who are themselves critical of the big government liberal-left agenda, such as (in this case) the pro-Second Amendment Pink Pistols. Bigotry first, it seems. (initial hat tip: Andrew Sullivan)

More. Interestingly, the Washington Post just ran this story about a lesbian FBI agent who used her firearm to foil a break-in of her neighbor's home. One can only imagine the fervid spin O'Reilly would give to an account of this incident!

Britain's Conservative Party reaches out to anti-gay Islamists by appointing the British Muslim's equivalent of Anita Bryant to his "shadow cabinet." Oh, and she also supports Hamas.

Now there's a conservative strategy for you-soft on Islamofascism, but awake to the threat posed by too much tolerance toward gays and Zionists. Is this the future of a Europe that seems increasingly in denial?

This, from a gushing puff piece in The Advocate:

The man who took on Bush and 9/11 has set his sights on another tragedy-the American health care system. In his latest documentary, Sicko, Michael Moore reveals the dark side of health care in a capitalist system. But the question remains: will he ever make a movie about us?

Yes, if only instead of rancid capitalism with its evil pharma and health care firms, motivated by sordid profits to develop life-saving miracle drugs, we had a system like Cuba's! Of course, all HIV-positives have to live in state sanatoriums unless and until they can convince authorities otherwise. But mentioning that wouldn't make for effective propaganda, would it.

For another more critical take on Sicko, see here.

IGF contributing author James Kirchick writes at the New Republic Online about Jerusalem's gay pride parade:

it is not just the ultra-Orthodox community that has opposed gay pride events in Jerusalem. Even liberal stalwart (and newly-elected President) Shimon Peres proved feckless... Ha'aretz reported that Peres promised to oppose the parade in exchange for the votes of Knesset members belonging to religious parties. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who has an openly gay daughter, also expressed opposition to holding a gay pride parade in Jerusalem, because of the city's "special sensitivity." Such a stance-having no problem with a gay pride march in principle but disapproving of it in Jerusalem-assumes that there is something morally wrong with homosexuality, and that such an event would tarnish the holiness of the ancient city.

And yet:

Hagai El-Ad (the founder of Magi, an acronym for "Israeli Gay Party," which he hopes will one day be represented in the Knesset) told me that the parade's "existence is a victory for freedom. Its existence proves that Israel is a democracy." In a region of the world where homosexuality can be met with state-sanctioned death, Jerusalem's sixth annual gay pride event is yet another testament to the freedom, openness, and diversity of the Jewish State.

More evidence, via the Wash Post, that civil unions (or even state-recognized same-sex marriage in Massachusetts) are running into roadblocks. Specifically, courtesy of federal law overriding the states, employers do not need to extend health and other benefits to the partners/spouses of same-sex employees, and many are not doing so.

But the article also notes that public shaming can be an effective means of bringing opprobrium to those who treat gays as second-class employees-and by doing so, help shift the culture overall in a positive direction.

The Philadephia Inquirer's Faye Flam looks at new research on the psychological underpinnings of homophobia. She writes that "University of Pennsylvania psychologist and disgust expert Paul Rozin says it's particularly a guy thing-most heterosexual men are disgusted by the thought of touching other men."

Also at work: "The moral compass of the religious right factors in that additional dimension of sanctity/purity, which is driven by disgust as well as religious teachings."

But she also quotes University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Arthur Caplan:

"People used to think it was revolting when two people of different races got married," Caplan says. Letting your sense of disgust guide your views on gay marriage, he adds, "is just bigotry and bias dressed up with the clothes of wisdom."

Or, as Flam nicely puts it: "Isn't it kind of babyish to declare gays immoral because you think their sex lives are icky?"