IGF CultureWatch

On Thursday night, my partner David and I went to a moving event at the Smithsonian Institution in D.C., as the papers and other memorabilia of pioneering gay activist Dr. Frank Kameny were formally welcomed (and some displayed) by the National Museum of American History. Kameny's early political placards can now be viewed in near proximity to Jefferson's desk, Lincoln's stovepipe hat, and Dorothy's ruby slippers. Kameny himself, now in his '80s, spoke of being fired from his government post when it was revealed he was a "deviant," how he coined the phrase "Gay is Good" and organized the first-ever openly gay picketing in front of the White House, how far we've come, and how much farther we have to go still.

The event brought together a range of activists from across the political spectrum. I was happy to have an opportunity to socialize with, in addition to IGF's Jon Rauch and contributing author (and registered Democrat) Rick Rosendall [Rick corrects me, in the comments, that he's not a "Democratic activist," as I originally stated], political comrades including Log Cabiners Rich Tafel and Patrick Sammon. But there were also HRC activists who, over a decade ago, I worked with canvassing for Clinton. Ouch. And on the way toward the door, someone called out, "Stephen, it's been a long time....." It was Mike Rogers, who has been in the news quite a bit of late and who I haven't spoken to in over a decade, but who, as much younger men, was once part of my "set."

You can't go home again, and I make no apologies for being critical, on a near-daily basis, of those who hold to a politics I can only term "reactionary liberalism." I must be true to my principles, as they stay true to theirs. But it's an odd sensation when one's past calls out and reminds you how connected we all are, despite how far apart we have become.

During Thursday night's GOP debate, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) again made the dubious case that because so many children are born out of wedlock, we need to amend the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Excerpt:

We don't need more children born out of wedlock; we need more children born into wedlock between a mom and a dad bonded together for life.... When you take the sacredness out of marriage, you will drive the marriage rates down. And currently in this country, currently we're at 36 percent of our children born out of wedlock....

I guess that's why Brownback and his fellow socio-religious conservatives are sponsoring constitutional amendments to make divorce more difficult...oops, never mind.

It seems the more that conservatives embrace, at best, serial public monogamy, the more they need to blame gays for the fact that marriage just isn't what it used to be. The possibility that integrating gays into the institution might actually help restore widespread expectations around marriage and commitment as adult responsibilities just doesn't occur to them.

In the big, gay-related but non-Larry Craig story last week, on Thursday in Polk County, Iowa, a trial court declared the state's exclusion of gay couples from marriage unconstitutional. After one gay male couple (college students) received a license and were legally wed, the decision was stayed on Friday, pending appeal to the Iowa Supreme Court.

PoliticsIowa.com reports that Republicans denounced the ruling, and the Iowa Democratic Party declined to comment. So, what's new?

The conventional wisdom is that the decision won't stand, or if it does, the state constitution is likely to be amended to reverse it (probably barring civil unions along the way). Politicslowa.com also suggests that the ruling could swing the closely divided Iowa legislature to the GOP; Iowa isn't Massachusetts.

But it will be interesting to see how this plays out. If it ends badly, it will be yet another sign that judicial rulings for same-sex marriage in states where the electorate is strongly opposed serve only to set things back, and not to drive our equality forward. But if by some miracle the ruling survives judicial and legislative challenge, it could signify a backlash against the backlash. But given that Iowa is "a traditionally conservative Midwestern state" (as the Chicago Tribune put it), I'm not holding my breath.

More. From The Politico, Gay rights advance may be Pyrrhic victory:

Iowa's new state Democratic regime, for its part, may feel pressured to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage-a proposed constitutional amendment must pass two consecutively elected state legislatures and a public referendum to be adopted-to avoid charges of being weak on traditional marriage during their reelection campaigns.

All of which makes it difficult to see how last week's ruling will help gay couples achieve the American dream, even if one couple did manage to tie the knot before the Polk County decision was stayed. In fact, the most favorable outcome for gay couples nationwide may be for Iowa's Supreme Court to end the political drama by overturning last week's decision.

We're quoted in The Economist!

I'm bumping this up (it was an addition to my earlier Craig post):

• A president is caught having sex with an intern in the Oval Office and lies to cover it up; he finishes his term (and may yet return as president-consort).
• A congressman sends salacious e-mails to former pages now of legal age; he resigns in disgrace.
• A senator engages in the illegal activity of hiring prostitutes-even (it's come to light) taking a call from his madam while on the floor of the United States Congess; he's finishing his term and no one is suggesting prosecution.
• A senator taps his toes in a men's room in a subtle signal only a fellow seeker would recognize and respond to; he's entrapped, charged with a crime and forced to resign in disgrace.

All together, guess which orientation is cut no slack? It's an unsettling pattern of homophobia-tinged double standards that those gays who cheered the fall of Foley and Craig might want to consider.

Also, on a lighter note, a joke making the rounds suggests that the best Larry Craig defense to pitch to conservatives would have been, "It's not like I wanted to marry the cop!"

Relatedly. From the New York Times:

With the corruption issue having weighed down some of their Congressional candidates in the disastrous 2006 elections, Senate Republicans saw Mr. Craig as inviting even heavier damage, especially on the heels of ethics cases involving two other Republican senators, David Vitter of Louisiana, who was the client of a dubious escort service, and Ted Stevens of Alaska, who faces a widening inquiry into whether he traded official favors.

Corruption, whores, or (closeted) gays-which senator must resign?

And unrelatedly, an interesting take sure to annoy ideologues on all sides of the issue, via H. Alexander Robinson, the openly gay head of the National Black Justice Coalition, who argues: "Society must come to terms with the fact that not everyone who has gay sex is necessarily gay. Although it may be a difficult concept for some to comprehend; gay sexual behavior does not equate to gay sexual orientation."

A sympathetic note. Former N.J. Governor James McGreevey writes, movingly, A Prayer for Larry Craig:

After all the whispering, fights, insults, reading of academic journals and lessons from the church, you simply say to yourself: This thing, being gay, can't be me. Everything and everyone told me it was wrong, evil, unnatural and shameful. You decide: I'll change it, I'll fight it, I'll control it, but, simply put, I'll never accept it. You then attempt to place "it" in a metaphorical closet, keep it separate from open daily life and indulge it only in dark, secret places.

Larry Craig became part of the problem (voting to keep homosexuality a second-class status), but he was also a victim.

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), that is. He voted anti-gay by supporting the Clintons' Defense of Marriage Act and such, so there is rejoicing among the GOP-haters aplenty. But leaving aside the ongoing and endless debate over outing, it's interesting that no one, not even on the gay left, is even questioning why the state has a right to set up surveillance/sting operations in public men's rooms with the aim of prosecuting gay guys, closeted or otherwise, caught cruising.

More. A news blitz. The Task Force weighs in and does mention that police stings are a dreadful business.

Still more. Dale Carpenter asks:

Given the long history of police fabrication of evidence and entrapment of gay men in these sting operations, there should be no presumption that the officer's version of events is correct. But assuming for the sake of argument that Craig did everything the officer alleged, how was it the basis for a criminal charge that could get him a $1,000 fine and/or ten days in jail?

But get a load of some of our commenters defending police entrapment!

Yet more still. I'm away for an extended Labor Day weekend so haven't added much. Assuredly, Craig is no poster boy but a sad story of the closet (the near total lack of any sympathy for him, from left or right, is another story). Even so, here's a thought:

• A president is caught having sex with an intern in the Oval Office and lies to cover it up; he finishes his term (and may yet return as president-consort).
• A congressman sends salacious e-mails to former pages now of legal age; he resigns in disgrace.
• A senator engages in the illegal activity of hiring prostitutes; he's finishing his term and no one is suggesting prosecution.
• A senator taps his toes in a men's room in a subtle signal only a fellow seeker would recognize and respond to; he's entrapped, charged with a crime and forced to resign in disgrace.

All together, guess which orientation is cut no slack?

A Washington Blade headline: Church rejects couple's bid for ceremony at facility. Subhead: Lesbians file lawsuit in dispute over civil union by the ocean.

According to the Blade report, the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights has threatened to prosecute the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association of the United Methodist Church for refusing to allow the lesbian couple's civil union ceremony in their seaside pavilion.

"Religious groups have the right to make their own decisions without government interference," said Brian Raum, senior legal counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund, a conservative organization defending the Camp Meeting Association, in a prepared statement on the suit. "The government can't force a private Christian organization to use its property in a way that would violate its own religious beliefs. This action by the State of New Jersey is a gross violation of the First Amendment."

So why is this lesbian couple suing, and the state intervening, to force a religious group to allow its property to be used in a way that violates its religious beliefs?

Conservative (that is, anti-gay) religious groups often charge that the ultimate aim of the gay movement is to force them to alter their religious beliefs and, in particular, perform gay marriages. Gay activists routinely call that nonsense. This case doesn't quite go so far as to insist that the Methodist group perform the ceremony, but it comes pretty close. It's the collectivist, "use the state to force our way" grain of truth that energizes conservative claims. And it's entirely gratuitous and unnecessary.

Freedom of choice for gays cannot be premised on denying others, particularly religious groups, freedom of conscience (not to mention respect for their property rights!).

Just another glimpse, via Reason magazine's spotlight on Iranian state television, of the depth of Islamofascism's hatred of both Jews and gays.

I'd add that the ongoing failure of U.S. "progressives" to recognize and respond to such evil (witness the silence of international LGBT groups to far worse anti-gay deprecations in the Islamic world ) has all to do with two decades of multiculturalist indoctrination propagandizing how all cultures are equally deserving of respect except for Western culture, which is the source of all the world's ills.

More. Some commenters note that principled activists such as Peter Tatchell have protested Islamic homophobia. Fair point. But as reader Avee advises, it's worth re-reading one of Rick Rosendall's columns from last year, "No Excuses for Iran."

On July 7, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) announced that it would join the July 19 worldwide action with a vigil against the death penalty [aginst gays in Iran] outside the Iranian mission to the United Nations. On July 13, however, IGLHRC pulled out of the protest and announced it was moving its July 19 event and changing its focus to one of introspection for Westerners....

Joining IGLHRC at New York's LGBT Community Center were Human Rights Watch (HRW), National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and others. IGLHRC said that the worldwide call for protests raised questions like "How do we avoid reinforcing stereotypes and playing into hostilities prompted by our own government?"

And then there's this jolly view, as related in a review of a new work by Joseph Massad, associate professor of modern Arab politics at Columbia University, who argues that promotion of gay rights in the Middle East is a conspiracy that "produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist." It's certainly a rather paranoid perspective in light of the relative inattention that Western gay rights groups have given to the Middle East.

Are civil unions a 600-year-old tradition? A new study (again) makes the case:

Opponents of gay marriage in the United States today have tended to assume that nuclear families have always been the standard household form. However, as [historian Allan A. Tulchin] writes, "Western family structures have been much more varied than many people today seem to realize, and Western legal systems have in the past made provisions for a variety of household structures."

For example, in late medieval France, the term affrèrement-roughly translated as brotherment-was used to refer to a certain type of legal contract, which also existed elsewhere in Mediterranean Europe. These documents provided the foundation for non-nuclear households of many types and shared many characteristics with marriage contracts, as legal writers at the time were well aware, according to Tulchin.

The new "brothers" pledged to live together sharing 'un pain, un vin, et une bourse'-one bread, one wine, and one purse.

When the late John Boswell made similar arguments over a decade ago, issues with his scholarship undermined his work. It may be interesting to see if Tulchin has greater success.

When it comes to the laws against prostitution, anti-sex moralism, enforced arbitrarily and often vindictively and corruptly by the state, is the order of the day. But in a free society why shouldn't adults be able to enter into these transactions? How many more lives and careers must be ruined until Americans (probably on a state by state level) at long last decriminalize consenting sexual relations between adults that involve an exchange of filthy lucre (as opposed to perfectly legal exchanges of expensive gifts and such)?

Karl Rove, Bush's key political adviser, is resigning. Good. As the Washington Blade reports:

Rove is widely seen as having masterminded the 2004 campaign against gay marriage. That effort, which resulted in gay unions being banned in 11 states, was designed to drive conservative voters to the polls and increase Bush's popular vote tally....

Patrick Sammon, president of Log Cabin Republicans, said such campaign strategies were proven ineffective two years later, when vehemently anti-gay voices, such as Republican Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, were defeated. He said a majority of Americans now support certain gay rights and protections, and the 2004 campaign might mark the final time any "anti-gay strategy" is used on the national stage.

"It's disappointing and unfortunate that Karl Rove pursued the strategy he did in 2004," Sammon said. "He went down that course and divided the country and it was a mistake, and I think history will judge him harshly because of it."

To gay "progressives" who place fealty to the Democratic Party above all, the GOP is basically unredeemable (and the more homophobic all the better for keeping gay voters on the correct political reservation). But, in fact, there can be no widespread victory for gay equality without moving the GOP to accommodate statewide moves toward same-sex unions/marriage and turn against enshrining discrimination at the federal level.

Early in his administration, it seemed that Bush was willing to be more open on gay issues, but when the going got tough he opted to listen to Rove and pursue an appeal to prejudice (much as Nixon had done a generation earlier with his "Southern strategy").

But Log Cabin's Sammon is essentially right; as gay openness increases and we and our families are seen as part of the "normal" fabric of society, ginning up bigotry for political gain becomes less effective. Which is why this is no time to embrace the "one party" strategy. Not only will that never ensure gay rights ("Hey Democrats, free votes from gays; nothing required") but it's an affront to the 25 percent of gays who routinely tell exit polls they vote for Republicans, and who aren't going to abandon their beliefs that confiscatory tax rates, government-controlled healthcare and anti-trade protectionism are disasters that must be averted-and that gays deserve full equality from their government.