IGF CultureWatch

Another interesting report of bigots against business. In this case, two gay partners are trying to run their successful barbecue establishment in the struggling town of Rockaway Beach, Mo., where the mayor and the president of the Chamber of Commerce seem intent on driving them out.

The article is from the Jewish Daily Forward (one of the partners being Jewish), and recalls how prejudice against the "other" - especially when they happen to be more successful than some native locals - is a recurring motif among those who don't cotton to capitalism, whether on the left or right.

Some Democrats are making hay over reports that Karl Rove had a gay stepfather, now deceased, accusing Rove of hypocrisy. I agree with those who are appalled by Rove's promotion of the anti-gay federal marriage amendment and otherwise carrying water for the religious right to get them to pull the GOP lever. But if the guy he called "dad" abandoned Rove's mom to lead the gay life in Palm Springs, and his mom then committed suicide, wouldn't you expect that might make him more hostile toward gays, not less?

Governor Schwarzenegger has vetoed SB 1437, a bill that would have prevented any "adverse reflection" on gays in California curriculum, saying it provides no protections that don't already exist under California law. Since school textbooks aren't exactly brimming over with anti-gay venom, it's unclear to me why this bill mattered except as an exercise in political correctness (and easy symbolism to shore up gay votes for Democrats).

Here at IGF, contributing author David Link opposed the bill (the final measure was watered down from the original, and thus of even less significance). But we were not all of one mind, and Paul Varnell wrote favorably about it, arguing that the mandate for inclusion (in the original, not the weaker version that Arnold vetoed) would help bring gay history out of the textbook closet.

J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, is a conservative judge who has been on conservatives' short list for the U.S. Supreme Court. So it's worth noting his op-ed in the Washington Post that's critical not only of the proposed federal anti-gay marriage amendment, but also of state constitutional bans on gay marriage. In Hands Off Constitutions: This Isn't the Way to Ban Same-Sex Marriage, Judge Wilkinson writes:

The Framers meant our Constitution to establish a structure of government and to provide individuals certain inalienable rights against the state. They certainly did not envision our Constitution as a place to restrict rights or enact public policies, as the Federal Marriage Amendment does. ...

I do not argue that same-sex marriage is a good or desirable phenomenon, only that constitutional bans on same-sex unions carry terrible costs. ...

It is sad that the state of James Madison and John Marshall [Virginia] will in all likelihood forsake their example of limited constitutionalism this fall. Their message is as clear today as it was at the founding: Leave constitutions alone.

Behold, a principled conservative!

More. Something must be in the water down in old Virginny. Here's another anti-amendment column by another Republican judge, Raymond A. Warren. He writes:

More troubling is the effect the amendment might have on private arrangements such as domestic partnership health benefits now widely offered by major employers in Virginia. ... It would be a rational legal conclusion that such programs create either a "partnership" or a "legal status" that Virginia's courts could not recognize. ... Even private contracts cannot violate the Commonwealth's public policy and it is not inconceivable that the courts could read the new amendment broadly enough to create a public policy against such contracts. . . .

Worse, the everyday documents many unmarried couples (including non-gay couples) use to protect their legal and financial interests would be called into question by the proposal's broad language. ...

All this would leave Virginia at a distinct disadvantage in the global economy.

And he's right. Some conservatives care about liberty, legal equality, and prosperity (and yes, they are linked). Others, especially social conservatives, are not only bigoted but are as economically illerate as their leftwing counterparts.

I often note how gay groups put big-government left-liberalism ahead of working broadly to advance liberty and legal equality for gay people. But it's interesting to see religious social conservatives upset that the Christian Coalition is forsaking a focused agenda and, in the view of its critics, "drifting to the left" by staking out positions on issues such as support for regulating internet access. Or at least so reports (wishfully?) the L.A. Times.

Rabbis who are part of Conservative Judaism, which falls midway between Orthodox literalism and the more liberal (in the good sense) Reform movement, foresee a possible schism coming over ordaining gay rabbis and performing same-sex marriages, notes this article in the Jewish Daily Forward.

I view schism within Conservative Judaism the same as I view schism among Anglicans/Episcopalians or within other denominations. Let 'er rip. Just as Northern protestants broke with their Southern denominational counterparts over slavery, so let those who choose to mask the dark path of intolerance and bigotry in religious rhetoric go their own way, and good riddance!

California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill that bans discrimination in state operated or funded programs on the basis of actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. The anti-gay group Focus on the Family wails that the measure "requires businesses receiving funds from the state to condone homosexuality, bisexuality and transsexuality, or lose funding. No exceptions for faith-based organizations." But over at Positive Liberty, Jon Rowe writes that:

although these antidiscrimination laws do indeed limit private freedom, that's an issue not particular to "sexual orientation codes," but to antidiscrimination laws in general. ...

the antigay right evidences utterly faulty logic whenever it tries to argue that presently existing antidiscrimination statutes are just fine, as long as sexual orientation is kept off the list, because it's not like the other categories. ...

All of this isn't to justify antidiscrimination codes as they apply to private markets but rather to debunk the notion that antidiscrimination codes traditionally protect racial categories only and all other categories on the list are "just like race" in the sense that they are immutable and sexual orientation is not. What nonsense.

As others have pointed out, religion is a lot less "immutable" than sexual orientation, but the religious right activists (who otherwise believe you must freely choose to be a Christian) ignore this contradiction in their demagoguery. As a result, they advocate that their religious beliefs ought to receive government protection that extends to private companies, but that sexual orientation should not be afforded the same privilege. Well, isn't that special!

Other gay-related bills awaiting a decision by the governor would (1) prohibit schools from using textbooks or providing instruction that criticizes people because of their sexual orientation - I rather doubt this was actually much of a problem - and (2) far more significantly, let domestic partners file joint state income tax returns.

Wal-Mart is reaching out to gays, and some conservative groups are mad as hell. But then, too, so are some gay "progressives" such as Pride at Work, which puts big labor's agenda (and the Democratic Party's talking points) first in promoting unwarranted attacks on the giant retailer that brings low-priced goods to working Americans.

At overlawyered.com, Walter Olson provides an update on the Vermont-Virginia lesbian custody battle (citing Eugene Volokh's "Volokh Conspiracy" blog), looking at how Virginia's court put anti-gay animus over solid legal jurisprudence by letting a (now ex-)lesbian partner who fled to Virginia ignore a Vermont court's joint custody decree. In effect, the Virginia court used that state's Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to override the intent of the federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act (PKPA).

An interesting hypothetical: If there had been no civil union and only a joint custody decree (which can be granted to unmarried partners co-raising a child who then split), the Virginia court would not have been able to use the state DOMA to invalidate the custody decree, and the partner who fled to Virginia could have been prosecuted under the PKPA.

Patricia Todd, an openly lesbian Democratic who narrowly won a primary race for the Alabama legislature, has been disqualified by the party committee based on a seldom used filing technicality. Todd is quoted by the AP saying that she believes the challenge has nothing to do with the fact she is gay but is about the fact that she is white and won in a majority black district. She blamed Joe Reed, longtime chairman of the black Democratic caucus, who wrote a letter before the election urging black leaders to support Todd's black opponent and stressing the need for keeping the seat in black hands.

But that can't be, because only whites are racists, right?

Update. Todd has been reinstated. The glare of publicity again proves the best tonic for political corruption.