IGF CultureWatch

Several new pieces are now posted, covering important global themes, the ongoing polygamy debate, and Dale Carpenter's look at why Catholic charities should be allowed to discriminate. Carpenter remarks, provocatively (but insightfully):

While gay advocates may strongly disagree with church doctrine, there's no basis for saying that the Catholic Church's objections to gay adoptions have "nothing whatsoever to do with faith." Exempting Catholic Charities would serve the higher purpose: of respecting the deep religious convictions of a major faith tradition, without hurting children or appreciably affecting the adoption prospects of gay parents.

But hey, there's no fundraising fire in that accommodation.

By the way, our new site redesign is now in the final stages of being tweaked (with a good deal of volunteer labor). We hope to launch in just another month or so. Thanks again to all those who are, through their generous support, helping us to bring this about.

A site called "Queer Beacon" offers a replay of the latest TV spot for the Dodge Caliber, which QB thinks is homophobic. While it does play off stereotypes, I can't say that it struck me as offensive. Actually, I thought it was somewhat amusing, and I'm fairly thin-skinned. But to each his own.

Some people also take offense at the Nabisco snack fairy commericals.

I remember some years ago reading a complaint charging that a commercial for frozen dinners used the anti-gay voiceover tag line, "They're not for queers." Turns out the ad actually said, "They're not for quitters."

It's a small thing, but worth noting because it goes against a stereotype. On Wednesday night, Tony Snow on Fox News interviewed Cholene Espinoza, former Air Force pilot and military correspondent for Talk Radio News Service, about her efforts to help those in rural Mississippi devasted by Hurricane Katrina, the subject of her new book. Espinoza said, rightly, that individuals need to personally take action instead of expecting the government to do it all. She also noted she had gone to the hurricane-ravaged areas with "my partner, Ellen Ratner."

As it turns out, Ratner is a sometimes commentator for Fox News, which is no doubt why Espinoza's efforts and book got the producers' attention (journalists often get their friends and relations into stories).

What's worth noting? That nobody at Fox seems to care that these women are in a committed relationship. And that's what goes against the stereotype.

In my posting yesterday (below), I remarked on Fox News interviewing an out lesbian (and former U.S. Air Force pilot) on the need for individuals to take responsibility for helping Katrina victims instead of expecting big daddy government to make everything right.

Now, today, the Wall Street Journal's conservative OpinionJournal/Best of the Web approvingly cites Gay Patriot for his observations on "the Orwellian worldview of Bush-haters."

The issue here is not whether you agree with Ms. Espinoza or Mr. Patriot (a point some commenters missed). It's that conservative mainstream media and conservatives in general (excluding the hardcore social/religious right) are less bigoted than the gay left imagines.

There are openings here for gay conservatives to work with straight conservatives on issues of mutual concern, which could do a great deal to break down the misinformation and stereotypes that feed opposition to gay legal equality.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), currently wooing the leftwing of the Democratic Party in an attempt to outflank Hillary in the 2008 presidential primaries, announced last weekend his support for allowing same-sex couples to marry: That's fine in and of itself. We want Democrats to pony up something real while they rake in LGBT dollars, and Hillary's ongoing support for the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), while making kissy face with her adoring and star-struck lesbigay fan club, is quite sickening.

But to judge from the Feingold-praise unleashed by HRC and NGLTF, you'd think that all we have to do is get the leftwing of the leftwing party on board and our deliverance is nigh. In truth, coming on the heels of Feingold's grandstanding attempt to censure George W. for listening in on the international calls of terror suspects, the danger is that gay marriage, yet again, gets conflated with the rest of the crazy left agenda in all its relentless silliness.

So Sen. Feingold did a good thing, joining fellow senators Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in supporting marriage equality. But it's going to take the support of the center as well as the left to make a dent in DOMA, a fact apparently unrecognized by HRC, NGLTF and much of the rest of the Washington-based "send us your money" crowd.

Jeff Cleghorn, a retired Army major and former attorney with the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, states the obvious. Those who sued the government to block military recruitment on college campuses, even while dining at the federal trough, were "driven more by an anti-military animus than by a genuine desire to help lift the ban."

But the whole, woeful, counter-productive effort, ending in a unanimous Supreme Court repudiation, received scant criticism while it was underway and, instead, got the full rah-rah treatment from most gay media.

In his otherwise quite good analysis of the gay marriage debate, in USA Today, law professor Jonathan Turley is also supportive of polygamy:

Whether damnation awaits monogamists or polygamists or same-sex couples is a matter between citizens and their respective faiths. The government should address that aspect of marriage that concerns its insular needs: confirming the legal obligations of consenting adults. As for our politicians, there are levees to be rebuilt, corruption to end and wars to win.

Is this a harbinger of where liberal, or even libertarian, opinion feels compelled to head?

IGF co-managing editor Jonathan Rauch, who moonlights at the National Journal, weighs in to the polygamy debate with One Man, Many Wives, Big Problems. He writes:

So far, libertarians and lifestyle liberals approach polygamy as an individual-choice issue, while cultural conservatives use it as a bloody shirt to wave in the gay-marriage debate. The broad public opposes polygamy but is unsure why. What hardly anyone is doing is thinking about polygamy as social policy.

Let's hope this helps frame the issue as something other than a cudgel to use against gay marriage.

The Evan B. Donaldson Institute, a prominent research group specializing in adoption issues, has a new report on adoption by gays. It's quite supportive.

Apparently, both Christians and gays are being targeted for death by Iraqi terrorists. But I don't expect much state-side mutual empathy to come of it.

More. Are things worse now for gays? Winnipeg Sun columnist Charles Adler opines, "Homosexuality in Saddam Hussein's Iraq was punishable by death.... Had the the Peacemakers succeeded in keeping Saddam Hussein in power, a homosexual in Iraq would have zero hope for having an openly gay life.... the threat to gays wasn't coming from Western Imperialism."