IGF CultureWatch

Flashback: In 1989, on ABC's thirtysomething, the hint of intimacy within a relationship between recurring gay characters Russell (David Marshall Grant) and Peter (Peter Frechette) was enough to trigger an advertiser boycott, led by the anti-gay American Family Association, which in turn led ABC to pull the episode from its re-run schedule. Russell and Peter, although once shown lying in bed together, were not allowed to share a romantic kiss (a later episode did feature a quick peck on the cheek at a holiday party).

Flash forward: This week, on ABC's Brothers and Sisters, Kevin (Matthew Rhys) was allowed a full mouth-on-mouth kiss with his boyfriend. That this kiss seemed entirely unexceptional (there have been other prime-time same-sex smooches over the years) brings home just how far things have progressed on TV and in American culture generally.

Also a plus for Brothers and Sisters: Kitty (Calista Flockhart) is a pro-free-market pundit constantly at odds with her liberal, anti-business mom, Nora (Sally Field), and it's liberal Nora who intolerantly can't abide the thought that anyone in her family might have a right to disagree with her leftwing politics.

Still another sign of the times: T.R. Knight, who plays George on ABC's Grey's Anatomy, has become the first actor to publicly come out while appearing on a top-rated television show.

Udate: Some background comes to light:

In a statement of apology jointly issued to Entertainment Tonight and People Magazine, Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington is clearing his conscience after an on screen fight with co-star Patrick Dempsey in which he allegedly referred to co-star T.R. Knight as a faggot.

He issued his apology to People and ET! Got to love Hollywood.

From the Oct. 19 Wall Street Journal story, "Uphill Hike for Republicans in Colorado":

In the Fifth District, retiring Rep. Joel Hefley refuses to endorse the Republican running for his seat. And in the vast rural Fourth. . .the national party is spending heavily to save [anti-gay stalwart] Rep. Marilyn Musgrave. . . .

Ms. Musgrave, a star to the Christian right but a lackluster campaigner, is proving to be costly. Not only has she required sizable aid form the national party, but her actions helped to jeopardize the race for the seat from the neighboring Fifth District, by aggravating the divide between traditional Western conservatives such as Mr. Hefley and a more aggressive type of conservative identified with her national campaign against same-sex marriage.

"I wonder if they are going to get tired of saving Marilyn and look at somebody they don't have to save every time," Mr. Hefley says.

The Journal reports that Musgrave was instrumental in lining up money and support for fellow wingnut Doug Lamborn, who took the August primary in Hefley's district, accusing GOP rivals of "supporting a radical homosexual agenda." Hence, Hefley's declaration "I will not vote for Doug Lamborn, I will not."

A couple of welcome GOP House losses (starting with Musgrave and Lamborn) along with senators such as Rick Santorum (R-PA), is sorely needed to flush these toxins out of the party.

More. OK, maybe pollution metaphors are a bit too much like the fascistic and dehumanizing slurs often thrown our way. Maybe Rick Santorum really is a nice guy who actually fears that gay marriage will lead to man-on-dog sex. Could be (though I'd argue Musgrave and some others do, in fact, come across as haters seeking political gain by scapegoating a vulnerable minority). In any event, the GOP would be better off without them.

Ohio's top court must decide if the state's gay-marriage ban negates protection for unmarried couples, according to the Dayton Daily News.

Two years ago, Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage by nearly a 2-to-1 ratio. Now, the Ohio Supreme Court will hear a case that argues the state's 27-year-old domestic-violence law conflicts with the new gay-marriage ban. If the state Supreme Court strikes down part of the domestic-violence law, "t could wipe out longstanding legal protections for unmarried Ohioans in abusive relationships."

Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values, which worked to pass the marriage amendment, filed an amicus brief arguing that the marriage amendment should be broadly applied and part of the domestic violence law that applies to unmarried couples ruled unconstitutional.

More on 'judicial strategy.' In Virginia, 53% of likely voters said they would vote for the amendment. According to the Washington Post:

The lower numbers in Virginia reflect a national trend of weakening support for state efforts to ban same-sex marriage, several experts said. Twenty states have passed similar measures since 1998, many with about 75 percent support. The lowest level of support an amendment received was 57 percent in Oregon in 2004.

But this year, poll results in several states with similar ballot measures show weaker support than in 2004, when 11 states passed constitutional amendments. Polls in Colorado and Wisconsin show results similar to Virginia's; poll results in South Dakota are mixed.

John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life, said the momentum for such amendments at the ballot box has been hurt by recent court cases that have upheld bans on same-sex marriages.

Which is another sign of the wrong-headedness of activists who prefer judicial decrees to winning popular support. Unless, of course, their strategy was to lose their legal suits.

And on the diversity front: "The only group to significantly cross party lines was blacks. In the poll, blacks supported [Democratic senate candidate Jim] Webb by 81% to 11%, but they favored the amendment 61 percent to 34 percent."

The Foley hysteria continues to be fanned by Democrats and the liberal national media at one end and social conservatives at the other. And, as with all politically generated hysteria, the consequences are not good.

Example: According to the Washington Blade, as of a few days ago: "Some Arizona gay rights advocates say the increased opposition among state residents to a constitutional ban on gay marriage, as reflected in recent polls, is attributable to Rep. Jim Kolbe (R), the state's retiring gay congressman, who is a vocal opponent of the amendment."

Now, of course, the unholy left/right alliance is fueling a rush of attack stories slandering Kolbe, based on politically motivated allegations by our old friends "unidentified sources." The likely result: to ensure passage of the Arizona amendment.

Gay Patriot has more.

Democrats are in a bit of a bind, praising the late Gerry Studds as the first out gay Congressman while downplaying the fact that, unlike Foley, he actually had sex with a page. Fortunately for them, outside of the obits the media is pretty much ignoring Studds' passing.

The Cato Institute has published a new paper by David Boaz and David Kirby titled "The Libertarian Vote," analyzing exit poll data. A finding of interest:

The common story line these days is that there are conservatives who support lower taxes, less regulation, gay marriage bans, and the war in Iraq and voted for President Bush in 2004, and liberals who support bigger government, national health insurance, gay marriage, and withdrawal from Iraq and voted for Sen. John F. Kerry in 2004-and not many true independents or swing voters who cross those categories. But it's not so hard to find counterexamples if you look. ...

According to the [2004 exit] poll, for instance, 25 percent of respondents support same-sex marriage, of whom 22 percent voted for Bush, with 77 percent perhaps understandably for Kerry. Another 35 percent support civil unions, and 52 percent of those voted for Bush. That means that 28 million Bush voters support either marriage or civil unions for same-sex couples-not your stereotypical "red" voters. ...

Why would gay-union supporters vote for Bush? Presumably because they don't like Democratic positions on such issues as taxes and regulation (or, of course, on terrorism and national security ...).

Meanwhile, our leading GLBT lobbies insist on promoting a broad leftwing "progressive" big-government agenda-and only supporting candidates who do the same.

More. Yes, I agree that there are too few politicians willing to put both economic and personal liberty ahead of special interest political pandering. But it doesn't help when GLBT groups commit only to "coalition building" on the left. How about a pro-liberty agenda: school choice, flat taxes...and marriage equality. Now there's an idea!

The U.S. Supreme Court turned down an appeal by a gay California gay couple who wanted the court to mandate that California (and presumably every other state) permit them to wed. It is the first time the issue of same-sex marriage has been offered to the high court.

If the Supremes had taken the case, it could have had only two possible outcomes. The court definitively rules against a constitutional right to marriage (which would have overwhelmingly been the likely outcome, and could have had negative effects in other non-marital areas), or the court rules in favor (highly unlikely, but absolutely certain to trigger passage of the federal marriage amendment).

The deeply misguided "judicial strategy" (as opposed to working for enough electoral support to pass same-sex marriage legislatively) is bad enough on the state level, where it has succeeded in ensuring passage of numerous state-constitutional amendments banning gay marriage for generations to come. Why on earth would anyone pursue it at the federal level?

Mark Pietrzyk's study critiquing the Family Research Council et al. on the alleged homosexuality/pedophilia link is now on the web. In "Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse: Science, Religion, and the Slippery Slope," Pietrzyk writes:

In response to the scandal involving former Congressman Mark Foley, a number of conservative religious groups have claimed that homosexuals pose a substantially greater risk of committing sexual abuse against children than heterosexuals, and have issued papers citing a number of scientific studies to support these claims. However, when one examines the studies cited in these papers, one finds that the religious right has engaged in some serious distortion of the works of others. The scientists who authored the studies made no such claim about homosexuals posing a greater threat to children, and in fact in many cases argued the opposite.

In other Foley news (All Foley, All the Time, Until Nov. 7), yes, it really is completely about politics and manipulating the electorate in the most cynical fashion.

And the Democrats have known about the emails for months, waiting, waiting, waiting for October.

More.

Via Gay Patriot: Screenwriter Nora Ephron gets it right. She told the Huffington Post:

And yet when I watch the liberal punsters on television, I can't help suspecting that they're taking advantage of the homophobia in the culture in order to make slightly more of this episode than it may in fact turn out to be worth. When I watch the Democratic politicians smack their lips, I can't help wondering whether they've forgotten that this is the sort of scandal that can happen to either party, and there's no evidence that Democrats would have handled it any better. In short, I can't help thinking that the homophobia is catching.

More Democrats are running ads claiming GOP leaders allowed Foley to "molest boys," while social conservatives are making their gay=pedophile claim all over the blogosphere.

Via Right Side of the Rainbow: "The media are trying to sex up another gay Republican, this time with nothing but cheap innuendo." How low can they go? Pretty damn low.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has rightfully condemned "emerging attempts to shift responsibility for the Foley scandal by blaming gay Republican congressional staffers for supposedly covering up prior reports of predatory behavior by former Rep. Mark Foley." A release from the group further states:

Discussions of a supposed network of closeted gay Republicans working on Capitol Hill have swept the blogs and been raised on MSNBC and CBS. There are allegations, for example, that gay former Foley aide Kirk Fordham, the recently resigned chief of staff for Tom Reynolds (R-NY), worked to play down complaints about Foley's behavior. Fordham has said that more than three years ago he had "more than one conversation with senior staff at the highest level of the House of Representatives asking them to intervene. ...

The parallels to McCarthyism are chilling. Here it is gays, not communists, "operating at the highest levels of government." ...

While many Democrats may be taking real pleasure in watching the GOP twist and turn, it's long past time for them-and other leaders-to denounce these shameful, gay-baiting, responsibility-evading tactics.

I'd go much further: Both Democrats and social conservatives have quite openly been fanning the flames of homophobic panic in an attempt to secure political advantage.

More.

Gay Patriot cites a blog posting by David Corn, a columnist for The Nation, here, describing how some gay Democrats have been sending to social conservatives copies of "The List" of gay staffers working for Republicans on the Hill, in an effort to get them fired.

The WSJ's Daniel Henninger looks at the political/media circus, noting, "I have an idea: Let's fire the Members and replace them with the pages. We could do worse. We are."

National Journal calls the Foley scandal "A Calamity for Gay Republicans."

From the Drudge Report:

According to two people close to former congressional page Jordan Edmund, the now famous lurid AOL Instant Message exchanges that led to the resignation of Mark Foley were part of an online prank that by mistake got into the hands of enemy political operatives, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.

According to one Oklahoma source who knows the former page very well, Edmund, a conservative Republican, said he goaded an unwitting Foley to type embarrassing comments that were then shared with a small group of young Hill politicos. The prank went awry when the saved IM sessions got into the hands of political operatives favorable to Democrats.

It's all politics, of course, in the era of the October Surprise (an "unkown source" first gave the Foley e-mails to ABC News). And here's how the game is played out (from a campaign press release):

Richard Wright, Democratic Party nominee for the House of Representatives in the 4th Congressional District [in Washington state], will hold a press conference Tuesday morning in Pasco to demand that Congressman Doc Hastings explain why he is not investigating House leaders who were aware of the sexual predatory activities of a Florida Congressman but did nothing about it for months.

The Democrats: Our best hope against the forces of perversion!

More. Gay Democratic activist Mike Rogers brags about his role.

As one of our commenters, "Guy," suggests, the scandal is causing a huge anti-gay political backlash that's likely to ensure passage of all the anti-gay amendments. I've also heard that it's leading to a purge of gay/gay-friendly GOP staffers on the Hill, now seen as "pedophile protectors."

Also. If the House leaders had moved earlier to censure Foley, as high-horse Democrats declare they should have, based on the evidence they had at the time - overly solicitous e-mails to male pages (and not the IMs) - can you imagine the cries of "homophobia" for Democrat/gay activists!

I received the following provocative query on the Foley scandal and thought some readers might find it worth discussing:

The Democrats are totally on the warpath about Foley and the GOP leadership-what did they know and when did they know it? It's outrageous not to have kicked him out way back when! And the media are reacting the same way.

But the Democrats (except Lieberman) never wavered in their insistence that Clinton's actual sexual contact with a young intern was completely irrelevant, and the media largely agreed, after they got the thrill of reporting the salacious story.

So-is it just partisanship? or homophobia? or truly the distinction between a 16-year-old former page and a 22-year-old intern that makes the difference in the reaction?

It's fair to say that Monica was an adult and the page wasn't. But I can't believe that people who are SO outraged over this would be totally indifferent to a 55-year-old married man bagging a 22-year-old who worked for him.

I think homophobia plays some part in this (the anti-gay Family Research Council makes that explicit), and much of the expressions of outrage convey that there is no possibility, ever, that a 16-year-old guy could be sexually interested in an older man.

That's not to say this was appropriate behavior by a congressman toward a page (it was not) or to deny it was outright sexual harassment (though that case hasn't been proved). It's just to recognize that gay-predator tropes are in full flower.

And the Democrats are fanning the flames, hoping to alienate the GOP base and keep 'em home on Nov. 7. My, what a surprise that this all hit the presses just weeks before the election!

It's often said of popular representatives (like Foley was) that the only way to bring them down is to catch them with a dead girl or a live boy. How true that's turned out to be.

More still. A video re-enactment.