IGF CultureWatch

With the passing of Gerald Ford, it's worth recalling the man who, in 1975, saved the then-president when Sara Jane Moore (not the other would-be Ford assassin, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, as I originally misstated), aimed a gun at him. The late Oliver "Billy" Sipple:

had served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, where he was wounded twice.... While [openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey] Milk and Sipple's friends in San Francisco knew he was gay, his family did not. Following the press report his mother disowned him.

Some have noted that the adulation initially given to the ex-Marine "hero who saved the president" cooled off noticeably following reports that he was a gay man.

More. Sipple's story, in the Washington Post.

IGF contributing author Bruce Bawer's blog, from a politically incorrect gay cultural critic now living with his Norwegian partner in Oslo, is worth checking out. A recent posting speculates as to why in Europe gay marriages don't raise much ire but gay adoptions do: He writes:

In America, when it comes to gay people adopting kids, the devotion to the American tradition of keeping government out of family matters kicks in, even in the cases of many on the religious right who don't really want to see gay people bringing up kids. For them, the idea of the government regulating families is apparently too sinister even to bring it into play in the lives of gay people. For them, presumably, that slope is just too slippery....

But in Europe? Once gay couples are accepted, registered, and official, they're under the thumb of the social-democratic system.... The system knows that you can't keep people from being gay-but you can forbid them from adopting children. For years I've heard "pro-gay" Norwegian politicians fervently declare that gay people who want to adopt children are simply being selfish. Period! Case closed! That's the mantra here, on both left and right.

And from an earlier posting:

From [Britain's] Gay Community News, which reports that "The leading imam in Manchester...thinks the execution of sexually active gay men is justified." The imam made his comments in a discussion with a Manchester psychotherapist, John Casson, who wanted the imam to clarify the Islamic position on the execution of gays in Iran....

So the question is this: did the gay-dominated but Muslim-friendly BBC report on the Manchester imam's comments? I searched the BBC site and found a brief story [dated two days after the event].... And look how they spun it. The story is framed not as a report of a Muslim leader's affirmation of the legitimacy under Islam of executions of gay people, but as a report of an effort to smear Muslims.

And we think the straitjacket of liberal political correctness is bad here!

Episcopal parishes in Virginia plan to place themselves under the leadership of the Anglican archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, who has called the growing acceptance of gay relationships a "satanic attack" on the church, and who supports legislation in his country that would make it illegal for gay men and lesbians to form organizations, read gay literature or eat together in a restaurant.

As I've said before, let those who want to march in lockstep to a gospel of hate go their own way. That such as Akinola is even awarded prominent standing within the Anglican Communion would make me question why anyone who embraces the gospel message would want to be affiliated with such a body at all.

More. Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson nails it.

And more, here.

A House subcommittee report released last week on the Rep. Mark Foley scandal admonishes many of his colleagues who may have known of inappropriate communications between Foley and former House pages for a "disconcerted unwillingness to take responsibility," but did not issue any formal reprimands. Thus this highly politicized "October surprise," launched in large measure by certain gay Democratic outing activists feeding pre-election reports to the media, ends with a whimper.

But the effects are not so easily dismissed. According to the Washington Blade, a Human Rights Campaign poll conducted shortly after Foley resigned showed the scandal made 23 percent of Americans feel "less favorable" toward gays, leading Matt Foreman of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force to comment, "It's going to take us some time to make up that lost ground.... Without in any way, shape or form condoning Foley's egregious and stupid behavior, the uproar that it caused clearly points to continuing evidence of homophobia."

As noted in this Washington Post essay by Philip Kennicott, the new movie The History Boys (based on Alan Bennett's Tony-winning play) focuses on a group of late-teen British students who take a casual attitude toward the flirtations of one of their male teachers. Kennicott points out the contrast with the hysteria unleashed in American society over any sexually tinged intersection between teenagers (especially boys) and adult men. He writes:

The American drama of sexual abuse, played out almost weekly in hysterical terms on [NBC's] "To Catch a Predator," has very little room for the larger continuum of the sexual interactions between adults and youth suggested by Bennett's play.... there is a lot more to be learned about how sex is negotiated-especially between adults and youth who are almost adults-than American popular culture is quite ready to acknowledge.

Paul Barnes has resigned from the 2,100-member Grace Chapel, a church he founded in suburban Denver, Reuters reports. He is the second Colorado evangelical leader in little over a month has resigned from the pulpit over a scandal involving gay sex:

Barnes' resignation follows last month's admission by high-profile preacher Ted Haggard that he was guilty of unspecified "sexual immorality"' after a male prostitute went public with their liaisons. ... Barnes told his congregation in a videotaped message on Sunday he had "`struggled with homosexuality since he was five years old."

Barnes was confronted by an associate pastor of the church who received an anonymous phone call from a person who heard someone was threatening to go public with the names of Barnes and other evangelical leaders who engaged in homosexual behavior....

The New York Times takes a look at Gay and Evangelical, Seeking Paths of Acceptance. So maybe the new generation of evangelicals who happen to be gay won't feel that they have live lives of duplicity, hypocrisy and quiet desperation.

Either Mitt Romney was lying back in 1994 when, while running for the senate against Ted Kennedy, he said this in support of full equality for gays and lesbians:

"For some voters, it might be enough to simply match my opponent's record in this area. But I believe we can and must do better. If we are to achieve the goals we share, we must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern. My opponent cannot do this. I can and will."

Or he's lying now as he woos hard-right social conservatives by proclaiming his opposition to gay equality and his support for traditional family values, especially as regards marriage.

Most likely: whatever is politically expedient at the moment becomes Mitt's truth.

In San Francisco, openly lesbian state senator Carol Migden wants to allow hetero couples to go the "marriage lite" route via domestic partnerships that offer some of the state-provided benefits of marriage with fewer of the mutual obligations. To their credit, some gay activists are politely suggesting that the aim should remain on granting gays full marriage equality, rather than watering down marriage for everyone.

Meanwhile, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force has put out an election analysis ballywhooing that in November "LGB [lesbian, gay, bisexual] voters overwhelmingly identified as Democrats (52 percent) and as liberals (43 percent)." Well, I guess if you define 43 percent (or even 52 percent) as "overwhelming."

The Washington Post gossip column explains the legalities facing Mary and Heather.

David Boaz has much more. Responding to social conservative whining, he writes:

...children growing up in single-mom households do have a rough time; they're more likely to drop out of school, commit crimes, and produce fatherless children themselves. ... But the situations aren't analogous. ... all the data about the poor outcomes for fatherless children are based on single-mother households. Mary Cheney's baby won't have a father, but it will have two parents who live together as a loving couple. That's very different from having only one parent....

Although Virginia's refusual to recognize Heather as a co-parent certainly doesn't help matters.

An essay in the New Republic by Brink Lindsey, vp for research at the Cato Institute (summarized in this Washington Post column), asks whether libertarians would be better off aligning with liberals rather than conservatives. The issue: conservatives want to impose big government on our personal lives to serve a reactionary morals agenda, while liberals want to turn back the clock on globalization, lower taxes, workplace flexibility and modest business deregulation. Excerpt:

Would libertarians be more comfortable in the company of Democrats? On moral questions-abortion, gay marriage, stem cell research-clearly they would. But on economic issues, the answer is less obvious. For just as Republicans want government to restore traditional values, so Democrats want government to bring back the economic order that existed before globalization. As Lindsey puts it in his New Republic essay, Republicans want to go home to the United States of the 1950s while Democrats want to work there.

If Democrats can get over this nostalgia, there's a chance that liberaltarianism could work.

But don't hold your breath waiting for liberal Democrats to embrace freedom from government in the economic sphere anytime soon. Rising star Barack Obama cut his teeth in the Illinois legislature fighting (sadly, with success), at big labor's behest, to block even modest reform of government overtime mandates, insisting that the jobs for which businesses are forced to pay an hourly rate (rather than a salary), despite what management or even the workers themselves might want, must remain unchanged from the era of the Great Depression.

More. Linday's full New Republic essay is posted on Cato's website, here.

Still more. As Daniel Drezner asks about the Democrat-controlled Congress, "Is there any step towards economic liberalization that they won't block?" (hat tip: Instapundit)

Two of the country's largest Episcopal congregations-both in Fairfax County, Virginia-will vote next week on whether to leave the U.S. church over the ordination of an openly gay bishop (and other perceived heresies) and to affiliate instead with a vehemently anti-gay Nigerian archbishop.

Social conservatives hope a split will establish a legal structure that would make it easier for more like-minded congregations to depart the national denomination.

From a short-term perspective, the Episcopal Church can ill afford such defections after years of declining membership. But in the long run, a commitment to the gospel message that embraces the worth of all, and a rejection of selective literalism motivated by anti-gay animus, would offer a far better prospect for the renewal of a vibrant, spiritual community.

More. Conservative Judaism's governing body votes to permit same-sex commitment ceremonies and ordination of gays, with some stipulations.