IGF CultureWatch

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.

A leader of a major Palestintian terrorist group cited gay Israeli soldiers as a factor that shows Israel can be defeated militarily.

Abu Oudai, chief rocket coordinator for the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank, hailed Hezbollah's performance in the war in Lebanon and said in an interview with World Net Daily, "If we do [what Hezbollah accomplished], this Israeli army full of gay soldiers and full of corruption and with old-fashioned war methods can be defeated also in Palestine," the Israeli website Ynetnews reports.

Think about that the next time you see American leftists marching in solidarity with Israel's enemies.

California's anti-gay GOP state legislators are once again shaming themselves, and this time opposing a tax cut to boot. Here's hoping Gov. Arnold does the right things and signs this bill letting domestic partners file joint state tax returns-giving committed gay couples the same tax break that hetero married couples get when they file jointly.

The new Pension Protection Act the president just signed is a good law, ensuring that employers adequately fund traditional pensions if they offer them to workers, and improving the flexibility of 401(k)s. It's the sort of common-sense bill that usually goes down in partisan wrangling, but enough horse-trading was done to achieve a good measure of bipartisan support, despite vehement union opposition.

The Human Rights Campaign likes the bill, too, so we are in rare agreement. But it's interesting to note that HRC praises it because of a provision it supported that will allow anyone to inherit a 401(k) nest egg without immediately paying taxes on the windfall, a benefit that in the past was reserved for spouses.

HRC frames this as a victory for domestic partners, and it can be construed as such. But only in the sense that your cousin Joe, or your home health aide Bessie, or your best friend Ryan from college, can now be left your 401(k) without having to cash it out and pay taxes. In other words, a former benefit of marriage has now been made generally available to any non-spouse.

If we can't achieve spousal recognition for gay couples (either via marriage or federally recognized civil unions), then such "victories" may be the best we can do. And I don't want to suggest that this won't be helpful for gay partners (as well as for cousin Joe). It's just not the kind of "milestone in the ongoing fight for the rights of gay and lesbian couples" that makes me want to celebrate.

SteveS comments:

Where's the gay left and HRC on eliminating the estate tax? They're nowhere to be found because it cross-pressures their other positions and allegiences.

I've tried to get some HRC-type gay activists in Florida to bring pressure on Sen. Nelson to support repeal of the estate tax, pointing out the benefit that would mean for gay couples to pass along high-priced homes and other assets to the survivor tax free as hetero couples can. The thought had never ocurred to them and they figured that something must be wrong with it if they thought long and hard enough. Finally they said that they were opposed to incrementalism. Evidently they wanted the whole enchelada or nothing. A great example of being slaves to doctrine and group-think rather than working to achieve the achieveable.

The Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, one of the preeminent lesbian cultural gatherings, not only bans women who weren't born women (that is, male-to-female transgendered women), but in a new wrinkle, reports the New York Times, is also saying keep out to "transmen" who are either females transitioning to males or (increasingly) adopting male personas without genital reassignment. So now, the only ones welcome through the gates are "women born as women and living as women."

If any other group discriminated against the transgendered in so blatant a fashion, wouldn't the p.c. police be out in droves?

Limited blogging through next week due to a family health situation. But I wanted to note Jonathan Rowe's take on the latest calumny from anti-gay crank Paul Cameron and his admirers in Christian-right media.

Unrelatedly, more signs that the Human Rights Campaign has abandoned any pretense of being nonpartisan, with its membership in America Votes, a coalition of the left that mobilizes voters for a full range of big-government, take-your-money schemes.

"Less than a week after becoming the 170th member of Congress to affirm that his office does not discriminate in its employment practices based on 'sexual orientation or gender identity and expression,' U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., on Wednesday rescinded his signature on the diversity statement," gay.com reports.

Santorum's signature came after a meeting between the senator and GenderPAC volunteers, who got Santorum to pose for a picture with them (and just what must he have been thinking!). A copy of the senator's statement was faxed to GenderPAC on Aug. 1, and the signature was confirmed the next morning by Santorum's openly gay communications director, Robert Traynham.

But the next day, Santorum faxed GenderPAC a new statement that read in part, "To be clear, my office has not adopted the proposed 'diversity statement' nor the agenda of your organization. ... My name should no longer be reported as having adopted the 'diversity statement.' "

What happened? All too predictable criticism from Santorum's Christian right base, such as this missive from the Agape Press blog:

What does Rick Santorum have to gain by placing his John Hancock on this statement? ... why would Santorum sign a propaganda pledge that bestows legitimacy to a cause Santorum has long fought? Why bolster your opponents at a time when you have them on the ropes? Why let the enemy impose his will on you?

Thus even this obviously disingenuous political feint toward the center gets quashed by the Republican theocratic right.