IGF CultureWatch

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.

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.

Arizona became the first state to reject a ban on same-sex marriage because voters felt government should stay away from it, not because people supported gay marriage, according to a poll released last week.

A clear majority, 60 percent, of those who voted against the measure said they felt it violated individual rights. While 30 percent said they voted against the measure because it was not fair to deny benefits to unmarried couple, only 8 percent said they supported same-sex marriage.

As reported by the AP:

"This issue had nothing to do with same-sex marriage," said Kyrsten Sinema, a Democratic state lawmaker and leader of a campaign against the proposal. "What it did was take away benefits and legal protections that unmarried families in Arizona had. And Arizonans believe that's wrong: that the government shouldn't take things away from people." ...

"What we did in Arizona, which wasn't done successfully in any other state, we showed the real lives that would be hurt if this passed," Sinema said.

Several backward states prohibit gay couples from adopting children. In one of these, Oklahoma, the legislature passed a bill prohibiting the state from acknowledging adoptions by same-sex couples from other jurisdictions-blocking parental rights post-adoption, reports the Los Angeles Times.

Here's what happened: A gay couple in Washington state adopted a child born to a mother who resides in Oklahoma, with the intention of allowing the birth mother to remain a part of the child's life. But since Oklahoma refuses to recognize the couple's legal paternity, they dare not travel to the Sooner State to visit the child's mother or allow their daughter to bond with her maternal grandfather and other birth relatives. Should the child get hurt and need hospitalization, for example, they would have no rights to make care decisions (or even to ride in the ambulance!)

Even if one misguidedly thought that barring gay couples from adopting somehow "protects" children, how does refusing to recognize parental rights post-adoption do anything but put children at risk?

Some good adoption news. A reasonable decision, from Virginia, of all places. Overlawyered.com has more.

[Note to readers: I will be out of town, and without Internet access, for most of the coming week. I encourage you to visit some of the blogs I find most valuable.]

Much of the Republicans' recent defeat, strategists tell Bloomberg News:

can be attributed to the party's previously fail-proof tactic of firing up its core supporters by appeals on social issues such as gay marriage. This year, that approach backfired, particularly among young voters, who are more likely than others to call themselves independents, and who overwhelmingly backed Democrats.

One-third of the electorate now say they are independents, and "exit polls suggest this group is still up for grabs, with nearly a third of young voters saying they made up their minds about how to vote in the final days of the campaign." Significantly, these young independents "tend to be either pro-gay marriage or more indifferent to the issue compared with older voters."

But "Democrats will face demands from their own base-and if that leads to tax increases, overzealous hearings on Bush policies or runaway spending, independents will be put off Democrats, too."

Former Enron exec Michael Kopper was sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to return $8 million to the government. But his domestic partner, William Dodson, has been allowed to keep $9 million in funds that Kopper helped him obtain through Enron-related scams.

According to the Washington Blade:

the fact that U.S. and Texas laws do not recognize same-sex relationships most likely prompted authorities against going after Dodson's financial gains in the Enron affair, financial observers have said. Federal prosecutors forced the married spouses of several Enron figures to forfeit money they obtained in schemes operated jointly with Enron executives.

In other words, if Kopper and Dodson were married, the Enron funds that now belong to Dodson would be considered jointly owned by the two men under the marriage laws of most states. As Alphonso David, a staff attorney for Lambda Legal, puts it:

"It's ironic that some of the same people who are opposed to legal recognition of marriage between same-sex couples are upset that this couple gets to keep about $9 million in stolen funds.... This highlights the point that people don't always think about the obligations as well as the rights that go with marriage."

Israeli citizens can now enter into same-sex marriages in foreign jurisdictions that allow them (such as Canada, Massachusetts and some European countries) and have them recognized by the Israeli state. As Andrew Sullivan points out: "The contrast with the murderous homophobia in the Arab-Muslim Middle East could not be starker."

But don't tell that to San Francisco-based QUIT! (Queers Undermining Israeli Terror).

And so it begins, with Romney charging that McCain is being "disingenuous" by claiming to oppose gay marriage. Meanwhile, McCain may be trying to put some distance between himself and Rudy.

More Politics. As alerted to in the comments: Nancy Pelosi has announced that the Democrats intend to keep Don't Ask, Don't Tell around for the foreseeable future. Via the Boston Globe:

Pelosi has also tempered hopes of reversing the "don't ask, don't tell" policy on the service of gays and lesbians in the military... Though Pelosi believes homosexuals should be able to openly serve, she has made clear that she believes Democrats have more urgent national-security priorities - including changing course in Iraq and investigating war-related contracting.

Memo to gay activists: If you're waiting for the new Congress to pass an ENDA (Employee Non-Discrimination Act) that includes, at your insistence, the transgendered, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn that might interest you.