IGF CultureWatch

No, seriously. UPS says it will offer health care benefits to all civil union partners of its Teamster-represented hourly workers in New Jersey. According to a statement from UPS:

We are taking this step based on discussions and input over the last few days from several state officials, including the attorney general and governor."

Our policy in this regard has been clear from the start: UPS offers same-sex benefits to all non-union employees now and our intent is to offer these same benefits to all unionized workers. In the case of union workers, however, we cannot unilaterally extend these benefits without going through the collective bargaining process.

The only exception to collective bargaining is when an individual state recognizes same-sex partners as married spouses. New Jersey has enacted a law recognizing the right of same-sex partners to join in civil unions. Based on an initial legal review when this law was enacted, it did not appear that a "civil union" and "marriage" were equivalent.

Over the past week, however, we received clear guidance that at least in New Jersey, the state truly views civil union partners as married. We've heard that loud and clear from state officials and we're happy to make this change.

In other words, state officials put the screws on UPS to treat civil unions like marriage when it comes to benefits for employees' spousal-equivalents. Fine for UPS's gay and coupled Teamsters (an unknown number, apparently). But many other Garden State employers still don't see the equivalence, or at least choose not to.

More. The New York Times chimes in:

The couples now eligible for benefits may celebrate, but their success is seen in some circles as evidence that the civil union law can be leveraged to force equality, undercutting at least some of the argument that nothing short of marriage is adequate.

But it looks like a confusing hodge-podge among employers, many of whom are not offering spousal benefits to their civil unionized employees.

In our comments, questions are raised about why, if UPS was offering partner benefits to nonunionized workers, the Teamsters failed to press for the same treatment for their dues-payers during contract negotiations (and why pro-union gay activists aren't mentioning this).

If anti-gay "family values" groups actually do start to focus on curbing heterosexual divorce, as the Washington Post reports, might it limit their support? Probably only if they move beyond rhetoric and support for voluntary options such as less easy to dissolve "covenant marriage," and instead work for actual legal barriers to marriage dissolution-which isn't all that likely (don't expect any proposed state or federal constitutional amendments!).

Not surprisingly, as the Post story indicates, you can leave it to liberal Democrats (in this case, openly gay Virginia house delegate Adam Ebbin) to suggest, in response, that what's really needed to discourage divorce is for the government to force employers to pay higher wages and to further nationalized health care.

Most Americans believe their fellow citizens hold strong biases against minorities, according to a new poll by Zogby International, one of the most comprehensive ever conducted on prejudice. On sexual orientation, it found:

62% said they believe Americans oppose same-sex marriages. Yet 58% would elect a gay person for President-about the same as for an Arab-American (57%), and more than for a person over age 70 (51%) or for an atheist (51%).

Meanwhile, a plurality (47%) believe gays and lesbians should be allowed to adopt children.

Pollster John Zogby said:

Over my years of polling, I've learned that Americans tend to offer socially acceptable responses when questioned on their own views about race and prejudice. That's why in this poll we predominantly asked people about "most Americans'" views on race and prejudice. We believe this provides a far more accurate window into how people really think about these issues. Americans are more forthcoming when discussing the problem in the context of their neighbors' lives than in the context of their own lives.

The upshot: Popular opposition to same-sex marriage remains the prime hurdle to full legal equality for gay Americans.

I'm not a supporter of the proposed federal hate crimes bill, but gay activists tied at the waist to the Democratic Party are, so it's interesting to watch how the congressional Democrats are treating this supposed high priority item-burying it within an attempt at Iraqi war defunding-a measure which, even if passed, Bush has pledged to veto-and how gay "progressives" are providing them cover. Gay Patriot has the run down in his own highly partisan (going the other direction) style. Still, a valid critique on the Democrats' "throw the gays a meaningless bone" tactics. His money quote:

Democrats controlled the U.S. House for 40 years before 1995, and the Senate many times throughout. The only major gay rights legislation or mandate to come from the Democrats when they had the chance in power: Defense of Marriage Act and Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Great record, eh?

More. For those who reflexively dismiss anything from Gay Patriot, here's the independent-minded Chris Crain, a former Washington Blade editor and a hate-crimes bill supporter, weighing in, too. And in a follow-up, Crain takes further issue with "HRC and the Democrats...claiming that the DOD authorization was a good strategic vehicle." Right.

The sophisticated (or merely pretentious) among us loved to mercilessly mock Tammy Faye Messner (formerly Baker), who died this weekend after a long battle with cancer. But as the Washington Post obit notes, she grew up in a house with no indoor plumbing and where makeup was considered a sin-and in a life marked by scandal and renewal, ended up something of a gay icon and a speaker at gay pride rallies.

And it wasn't only drag queens that seemed to take her to heart.

Scoff all you want, but it's Tammy Faye's audience that we need to reach out to and convince if we are to secure gay equality outside the bluest precincts. And she, in her waning years, tried to help do just that.

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!