IGF CultureWatch

Breaking news... Isaiah Washington has agreed to tape a public service announcement for GLAAD. Hmmm. Here's a possible PSA for him: "Don't call people faggots. Even if they're faggots."

What's interesting about the latest Grey's Anatomy homophobic flare-up is the way the show's creator and executive producer Shonda Rhimes, and ABC, seem quite willing to allow actor Isaiah Washington to get away with using (and then lying about using) the slur "faggot" to denigrate gay cast member T.R. Knight. If an actor used a racist or anti-Semitic slur against a fellow actor, would the response from producer and network be so benign? It's another sign of how acceptable casual homophobia remains, even among Hollywood uber-liberals.

Update. IGF's critique brings powerful to heel? Well, probably not. But according to the AP:

...on Thursday, ABC chastised Washington for using the term "faggot" about Knight in an on-set dustup in October with co-star Patrick Dempsey and then using the slur again at this week's Golden Globes as he denied ever uttering it.

Later Thursday, Washington, who's gotten hold of the biggest role of his career on "Grey's Anatomy," conceded using the invective and issued a heartfelt apology. But it remained to be seen whether it would mollify Knight or co-star Katherine Heigl, who had leaped to his defense.

I wonder if, this time, Washington actually knows what's in the apology being attributed to him.

Still more. I guess now it's a real story , with the NYT giving it major play.

Washington says Chastity Bono made him the "GLAAD poster boy" for his portrayal of a gay man in Spike Lee's "Get On The Bus." Then again, GLAAD can never resist going gaga over "inclusive" representations of gays of color, particularly in leftwing message films.

Still even more. Embattled 'Grey's' Star Now Headed to Rehab... Maybe he'll meet up with Mark Foley.

A damning critique of the now fully partisan Human Rights Campaign, via Chris Crain, referencing this laudatory Boston Globe story. Comments Crain:

How has the hijacking of HRC by Democrats worked out so far? For one, HRC took money out of the fight against ballot initiatives to ban gay marriage, even when they would amend state constitutions. "[HRC leadder Joe] Solmonese said the group decided after the losses of 2004 that they could be more effective by focusing on candidates instead of ballot initiatives," the Globe reported.

So instead, HRC sank money and support in favor of Democratic Party priorities, like winning a majority in the New Hampshire state Senate. In fact, the Globe reports, HRC was the single largest donor on New Hampshire state Senate races. How exactly does that move gay Americans closer to equality?

The effect of the new HRC strategy is to put all the gay movement's marbles in the Democratic Party basket, even though from Bill Clinton and John Kerry on down, the party has almost never taken a political risk for its gay constituents. The Globe story compares the new HRC strategy as akin to that of labor unions. We can all see how powerful they aren't, after sinking themselves into a one-party, no message strategy.

Some lessons need to be learned over and over, it seems.

With a MLK Day hat tip to Gay Patriot West, here's another interesting take on gay culture, by way of a conservative gay student at Stanford responding to the assertion that acceptance of homosexuality will open the floodgates to sexual anarchy (e.g., polygamy and bestiality).

Writing in the conservative Stanford Review, Yishai Kabaker notes that gays are not politically and ideological monolithic (as social conservatives like to assert), but also advises:

"if the LGBT community wants to eliminate the irrational fear of opening the deviant sex floodgates...., it should vigorously show that it desires the responsibilities of marriage along with the rights."

Many might say it's not our responsibility to prove we're worthy of legal equality, and there's truth to that. But in the real world, pragmatism sometimes requires demonstrations of human dignity in the face of irrational bigotry, not just turning to the courts for judicial solutions. Dr. King, I believe (though quite skilled at pursuing judicial remedies), also understood that.

Here's an interesting piece from the San Francisco Chronicle on A deepening challenge for America's gay men; New movement looks for more in identity, relationships. Excerpt:

Meet the new players in the great American debate about values: Ryan, a 25-year-old newlywed, who is helping other men find husbands; Doug, 50, who is helping gay men in San Francisco create their ideal community; and Chris, 36, whose pursuit of happiness has switched from chasing New York hotties to seeking down-home enlightenment.

They and others across the country are engaging gay men in conversations about their goals and values-both personal and collective-and challenging the sense of who gay men are and what makes their community....

"Gay men are standing in the middle of a tornado, with the pope and the president on one side telling them one thing and 'Will & Grace' and 'Queer Eye' telling them another thing and the gay culture telling them another set of issues," [author Christopher Lee Nutter] said. "I think that very tornado is what has directed a lot of men to say, 'OK, who ... am I going to believe?' "

While many of those quoted urge moving beyond the hedonism of modern (urban) gay life, I suspect others are mostly critical of their fellow gay men not being "progressive" enough politically. Still, the piece does include a reference to IGF as an alternative resource that "aims to elevate the discussion of gay issues."

That's the new line enunciated by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Left Coast), who suggested that Secretary of State Condi Rice's lack of children meant she lacked standing to support continued military action in Iraq (and, by extension, to help direct war policy generally).

While some see an insinuation of lesbianism in Boxer's attack (heavens, Democrats using homophobia to advance their aims? Who could imagine!), I see it more as yet another round of feminist hypocrisy.

A new study of "Generation Next" (aged 18 to 25) by the Pew Research Center shows that today's young adults are the most supportive of any generation on social and legal issues relating to gay people, and lead the way in their support for gay marriage:

Nearly six-in-ten (58%) say homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society. This compares with 50% of those over age 25. On balance, the public opposes allowing gays and lesbians to marry, but young people are evenly split on the issue. Nearly half of Gen Nexters (47%) favor gay marriage, and 46% are opposed to it....

The public is more open to the idea of gay people adopting children, and here too young people take a more liberal position. About six-in-ten Gen Nexters (61%) favor allowing gays and lesbians to adopt, compared with 44% of those over age 25.

Bad news for Republicans: 48% of Gen Nexters identified more with the Democratic Party, while just 35% affiliated more with the GOP. This makes Gen Next the least Republican generation according to Pew Research, and should serve as a wake up call for the party's hidebound leadership-that is, unless they want the GOP to end up marginalized as a party of elderly religious rightists.

Many gay activists in Nepal supported the Maoist guerrillas, but now :

on the brink of achieving effective government power in the Himalayan kingdom, [the guerrillas] ]have turned their attention to so-called "social pollutants" and denounced homosexuals as "a by-product of capitalism" ... even though many gays were previously aligned with the Maoists....

Maoist cadres ... have warned home owners not to let out rooms to gays and lesbians.

In a way, the Maoists are right-only under market capitalism with its recognition of individual autonomy (rather than collectivism) and a civil/economic sphere not under the thumb of government bureaucrats/cadres/party hacks do gays have the freedom to socialize, organize and come out.

From InvestmentNews.com:

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., today worried that the Federal Reserve Board will raise interest rates to stop long-overdue wage increases that are just beginning to take hold in the U.S. economy.

Mr. Frank, who will take over as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee when the new Congress convenes tomorrow, railed against the inequality of wealth in the U.S. at a National Press Club luncheon in Washington.

He seems to think malicious conservatives will do anything to make workers suffer! The Democrats: Better on gays, but populist demagogues (and redistributionists) on economics.

More. Some heated debate in the comments! And a further thought: If the Fed decides that a federal funds rate hike is needed to stave off a new round of inflation, would Frank actually prefer to have inflation unleased in the hopes that workers' salaries would rise? That he and his allies are now in a position to influence economic policy is frightening.

According to the U.K.'s Telegraph:

The Royal Air Force has called in a gay pressure group to help solve its recruitment crisis. The Service will take advice from Stonewall on how to make itself more attractive to homosexual and bisexual men and women, and is aiming to spend tens of thousands of pounds on advertising in the "pink" media.

It can, and eventually will, happen here. As with civil partnerships/marriage, I'd say we're about a decade behind-and maybe less, if the GOP ticket in 2008 is fiscally conservative but socially tolerant, reaching out to the broad center rather than seeking to solidify its support from the religious right.

More. Gen. John Shalikashvili, who was Joint Chiefs chairman when the Pentagon adopted its "don't ask, don't tell" policy, says he's changed his mind. More on that here.

In Texas Monthly, libertarian pundit Virginia Postrel writes of the residents of Plano, Texas, that:

These solidly conservative, mostly Christian families are not about to launch a pogrom against their gay neighbors. "I have yet to know somebody on finding out that an educator or volunteer was gay in to say, 'Oh, gosh, I can't have them working with my child,'" Kelly Hunter says. "I have known them to say that about the mom who drinks before she goes some place." By the standards of twenty years ago, and certainly by those of Peoria, Planoites are positively accepting....

Plano residents aren't "wildly exercised about sodomy," notes a gay friend who last year moved from Dallas to Los Angeles, "but most anti-gay people aren't. They are wildly concerned with making sure their kids never hear the word 'sodomy'; never ask, 'Mommy, what's a drag queen?'; and never have to deal with anything even remotely related to sex....

He exaggerates, of course. But Plano parents want to determine when and where they talk to their kids about sex, and they assume that explaining that some men fall in love with other men is "about sex."

"We don't have control over a whole lot in the world, but hopefully the education of our children is part of it," Hunter says.

Hat tip to Kausfiles, wherein Mickey Kaus uses the above to snipe (again) at Andrew Sullivan and argues:

Even in a highly Republican town like Plano, in other words, the religious objection to gay marriage isn't the crucial objection. Fear that moral entropy will envelop your family's children is the crucial objection. I don't see how that fear is addressed theologically. I would think it has to be addressed practically, over time, by repeat demonstration. But time is one thing a rights-oriented, judicial route to gay marriage doesn't allow.

And another hat tip to Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds), who adds: "As I've said before, I support gay marriage, but I think the move to accomplish gay marriage via judicial action is politically unwise and likely to be counterproductive."

These fears of "moral entropy" and even sexual anarchy may be without merit, yet they're heartfelt and must be addressed, not simply dismissed with disdain. That's why I generally concur that the judicial strategy is misguided. In fact, it wouldn't seem like such a bad idea if the Massachusetts legislature would follow the procedure set forth (as argued here) in that state's constitution and allow the voters to weigh in on keeping gay marriage. A "pro" vote could do wonders to actually advance the cause of marriage equality.

Update: A vote may, in fact, be coming.

Perhaps a decade from now, when gay unions are accepted by a nation that has witnessed that they strengthen rather than weaken the moral norms that bind families and societies together, a future Supreme Court will rule that the remaining state amendments that deny gays the benefits of marriage (and especially those that ban civil unions and other partnerships) are unconstitutional. And in that future era, the reactionaries won't be able to mobilize an effective backlash, for as with earlier civil rights movements they will no longer have a majoirty of the folks in places like Plano on their side.

More. B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest) writes that gay activists have missed the boat by demanding marriage equality in terms of rights denied, instead of (with few exceptions, mainly linked to this site) making a positive case for why marriage for gays is good in and of itself, for gay people and for society. He encourages activists to "make clear to the world at large that gay people who choose marriage are willing to live up to the obligations of this ancient institution. And to our own community, they need show the benefits that arise from meeting those obligations."