IGF CultureWatch

Virginians, who will vote this November on a constitutional amendment excluding any "unmarried individuals" from "union, partnership or other legal status similar to marriage," live with an untested 2004 law prohibiting "civil unions, partnership contracts or other arrangements between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage."

Gay couples now fear (with some justification, say some family-law attorneys) that their shared ownership of homes and businesses could be cast in doubt if a state court feels the underlying contracts too closely mimic the intent of marriage. So it's no surprise that gays are beginning to flee the Old Dominion, reports the Washington Post:

...even though it is more expensive to live in the District or Maryland, where taxes are higher than in Virginia. One former Virginian who moved to the District was shocked to face a $14,000 recordation tax on the purchase of a $650,000 condo; the same tax in Virginia would have been less than $1,000, Johnson said. The buyer proceeded with the sale anyway.

People are not solely motivated by economic ends (although they are more so than liberals will admit); nevertheless, Virginia has succeeded in making even the confiscatory, redistributionist mecca of D.C. appear to be a more rational economic choice for gay people.

More. The Outright Libertarians blog has words of warning using the example of Alabama, which wasted millions on a failed campaign to attract Silicon Valley firms. A first-hand description of one unsuccessful pitch:

The Alabama rep was furious. "You're saying we have to accept that lifestyle to get investment," he fumed. He didn't understand that not harassing or targeting gays is not "accepting a lifestyle," but rather following the dictates of the Bill of Rights.

He insisted that Intel, Apple, AMD, Hewlett-Packard and other companies could simply force their employees to move to Alabama - he wasn't aware that most of the top marketing, strategy, design, engineering and finance people at all of those companies have standing offers for employment at competitors which they could take at any time.

He then insisted that the companies could move their heterosexual-only employees to Alabama. Ignoring the absurdity of such a proposition (can you imagine the HR implications?), he didn't understand (or care to understand) that often, gay employees are the decision-makers in such a scenario and would never go for it.

Priceless.

From U.S. World & News Report, For Gays, New Math: Rethinking Tactics After a Series of Setbacks:

The losses may have been self-inflicted. ... Matt Foreman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force acknowledges, "Our legal strategies got ahead of our political strategies."

Gee, when I said that, some were quick to express their indigation.

More. Trying a different strategy in Colorado: a gay-supported constitutional ballot initiative to secure domestic partnership rights.

This New York Times piece by Jane Gross looks at gay man who marry women and have furtive relationships with men on the side:

They spend decades denying their sexual confusion to themselves and others. They generally limit their encounters with men to anonymous one-night stands and tell all manner of lies if their wives suspect.

What's interesting is that, as Gross points out:

…so-called "Brokeback" marriages have hardly disappeared, as many experts assumed they would, even in an age when gay couples, in certain parts of the country, live openly and raise children just like any family.

Internalized homophobia, guilt, and fear of life outside the culturally enshrined heterosexual norm are still potent forces.

Another article of interest, from the London Times, looks at sexual fluidity. Matther Parris argues that sexuality often doesn't fit neatly into the categories of "gay" and "straight":

I think a substantial preponderance of men are more heterosexual than homosexual, but scattered fairly evenly between 100 per cent and half-and-half; and that the smaller number who think of ourselves as gay are likewise quite evenly distributed along the spectrum from the halfway point.

That's seems a bit too fluid to me, and I think Kinsey was probably right that toward the ends of the spectrum sexual orientation is pretty well fixed and in no sense a "choice." Still, Parris may be right when he notes:

... we who call ourselves gay know well that most men who call themselves "bisexual" are more gay than straight, but afraid or unwilling to say so. But what we overlook is that for every gay posing as a bisexual, there are probably a dozen bisexuals posing as straight.

And in a better world, of course, all that posing wouldn't be necessary because (among consenting adults) who you love and how you build a life together just wouldn't make any difference.

Over at Slate's Kausfiles, there's a transcript from MSNBC with New Republic editor Peter Beinart debating Ann Coulter over her contention that gay men are inherently more promiscuous than straight men. Coulter says, in passing, "I like gays. I like all gays, and not just the ones who are Ann Coulter drag queens." See, reaching out across party lines works! [Irony alert ;-)]

Right Side of the Rainbow offers his thoughts, noting that:

the people who say gay men are inherently more promiscuous than straight men are usually the same people who say gay men aren't inherently gay. Are we supposed to think that gay men are inherently homosexually promiscuous, but they're not inherently homosexual?

Andrew Sullivan also weighs in:

For bigots, the testosterone problem that is universal among men is somehow inherently-and not just circumstantially-unique to gays. Every discomforting aspect about human nature, in the bigot's mind, becomes associated with a minority they already despise. For Gibson, war is about the Jews. For Kaus and Coulter, promiscuity is about the gays.

A new marriage ad is making its mark on the web (and, I believe, on MTV). Clever and effective, or patronizing, pleading and overly hip? Click here and scroll down to "Permission" to see for yourself. (Yes, our IGF technology is much inferior to that at AndrewSullivan.com and elsewhere; deal with it.)

More. The link also has additional marriage ads produced by Public Interest. Comments Lebain (and I found this interesting so I'm reposting it all):

I was unfortunate enough to be one of the (small) donors who supported Public Interest productions (www.publicinterest.tv) in the production of these ads. Never again!

First, the ads came out AFTER the important Congressional votes on marriage, and AFTER primaries and the November elections when so many marriage bans were passed (or at least my media kit from the producers arrived after the elections), even though I had donated well in advance of both votes. The producers told me MTV would donate $1M of airtime for the ads, but the ads were delivered so late, most if not all that opportunity was missed.

Second, with the exception of the "Permission" ad, all included the most disgusting imagery possible on such a sensitive subject. Two weiners in a boiling pot? Two donuts? Sex toys and graphic images of piercings? I'm sure the producers had MTV's demographic in mind, but instead of creating spots that respect their young audience, they produced trasparently veiled pornography meant more to shock and disgust their audience.

As a public company with govt. affairs and tax lawyers, MTV also probably didn't want to seem to blatantly endorse one position or the other on marrige. Hence the weak "Think Before You Vote" message rather than a more direct "Vote to Support Marriage Equality."

In response to recent defeats on the marriage equality front, some progressives are returning to a view they unleashed when the marriage debate began but have been soft-pedaling since: that marriage itself should be knocked off its perch as a "privileged" relationship, and government should instead provide support to all manner of cohabitating arrangements. A new "Beyond Marriage" manifesto backing this view was issued last week, signed by some 250 left-liberal LGBT activists.

Washington Blade editor Chris Crain responds in Revenge of the Anti-Conjugalists, writing that "realizing the Right's worst fears" - about gay marriage being the frontline of an attack against marriage itself - "is the last thing our movement needs to do at this critical juncture."

Note: The progressives want various non-conjugal relationships to receive access to "all vital government support programs, including but not limited to: affordable and adequate health care, affordable housing, a secure and enhanced Social Security system, genuine disaster recovery assistance, welfare for the poor" and so on. This makes their argument distinct (if superficially similar) to the view expressed by some libertarians that government should simply get out of the marriage-sanctifying business and leave that to private religious institutions and contracts.

Update. No surprise; social conservatives have picked up on the lesbigay left's new manifesto. Robert P. George writes in First Things:

The choice facing us as a nation is this: Either we retain as legally normative the traditional conjugal understanding of marriage as the exclusive union of one man and one woman, or we give legal standing and public approbation to every form of consensual sexual partnering and child rearing, including polygamy and polyamory. Just ask those notable "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and allied activists, scholars educators, writers, artists, lawyers, journalists, and community organizers." They'll tell you exactly what lies "beyond gay marriage." They already have.

And the rest of us are the ones who have to deal with the fallout.

Anti-Jews and Anti-Gay, Mel Gibson Go Away.

But seriously, Jew-hatred and gay-bashing typically go together like peas and carrots, don't they.

In the grand scheme of things, which has the greater impact: Another judicial defeat for marriage equality, this time in Washington state, or Lance Bass of N'Sync coming out?

Comment sample.
Big Daddy: Lance Bass. People don't follow political discourse, but everyone seems to read People magazine.

I guess they meant well. But publishing this ad in newspapers, showing that the usual gang of leftwing activists, liberal politicians and big-labor leaders (and some progressive religious folks) support marriage equality made me bristle. In my view, if big labor is for it, then it certainly can't be good. I think many who aren't on the liberal left have the same visceral reaction.

I wonder if any Republican or conservative gay people (Log Cabin? Andrew Sullivan?) were even approached. And what about respected libertarian conservative figures, such as Charles Murray, who favor allowing same-sex marriage (as noted here)? Nope, no reaching out across party lines in this ad.

Maybe the aim was to shore up left-liberal support. But if they alienate independents, libertarians and centrists, what's gained? More likely, there was no strategy behind this ad at all.

Comments sample:
kittynboi: There seems to be little evidence that the right wing will support us if we drop the support of the left wing.

Avee: If we continue to present gay equality as part of a broad-based leftwing agenda (unions!), we will NEVER expand the range of our support out to the center, much less to the libertarian right. We will continue to remain a leftwing niche, preaching to ourselves, running ads for ourselves, focused solely on ourselves.

Ryan Sager finds surprising strength for Rudy G. among GOP activists not otherwise prone to support a pro-gay, pro-choice fiscal conservative.