IGF CultureWatch

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."

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.

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."