IGF CultureWatch

The document on gay priests has been released. It's not an outright ban, as some expected, but the decree holds that men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" or who fail to reject "gay culture" may not become priests. Men who have "overcome" tendencies that were "transitory" and who have remained celibate for three years before joining the seminary are still eligible.

The language is just ambiguous enough to allow it to be used, or not used, in an arbitrary and cruel fashion. But judging from this silly L.A. Times headline, "Vatican Document Bans Active Gays as Priests," you might think that prior to the document noncelibate gays had been deemed ok.

The Human Rights Campaign weighed in with a call for gay Catholics to speak out, which is fine, but their statement refers to the Vatican "Decision Banning Gays," which is not quite accurate (and if you're opposing a policy, you really should understand what that policy is). [Update: A subsequent HRC release got it right, correctly noting the policy is a "restriction of gays in the priesthood."]

To add insult to injury, the Vatican then came out with another official statement, charging that homosexuality risks "destabilizing people and society," has no social or moral value and can never match the importance of the relationship between a man and a woman. The more things change...

In Sweden, a model state according to many U.S. lefties, Pentecostal pastor Ake Green was sentenced to one month in prison for a sermon in which he condemned homosexuality. He's now been acquitted by the Supreme Court of Stockholm, to the chagrin of Swedish gay activists:

Gay right groups have condemned the verdict, saying that it makes a nonsense of the law. "It is extremely serious when the church is turned into a free zone for agitation," said Soren Andersson, chairman of gay rights group RFSL. ... Prosecutor Stefan Johansson argued that Green had gone much further than the Bible, and had expressed his own views. ...

Andersson said that the judgment showed the need for the law to be strengthened. ... "Agitation and threats, such as those uttered by Ake Green, limit LGBT people's rights and opportunities to participate in debate."

OK, even if the sermon was over the top, barring what a pastor can preach in front of his own congregation shows an appalling lack of respect for basic civil liberties. Sadly, it's what many censorious gays would like to see enforced here as well, and why moderates become fearful of "the gay agenda."

For more, check out this analysis on the Swedish Law Blog (no kidding!). Krister Bruzelius comments:

The sermon does not seem to fit very well with the kind of language one would expect to see in a speech contrary to the hate crime legislation. ... Neither does [Green's] closing statement in his sermon: "We must never think that some people, because of their sinful lives, would end up outside of grace." ... Nothing about killing all gays at all; only a disgusting expression of assumed moral superiority over sinners.

--Stephen H. Miller

Elton John is planning to wed his partner of 12 years, David Furnish, according to news headlines. Yes, even the Voice of America and CNN" say John and Furnish are "to marry."

But the United Kingdom doesn't offer gays what American activists call "full marriage equality"; instead, Britain has a civil partnership act which allows same-sex couples to register their unions and receive most of the legal rights and responsibilities that married couples enjoy. A separate religious ceremony is optional and at the couples' discretion. (The AP story does seem to get this.)

Here in the U.S., a far larger number of voters (and political leaders) seem ok with civil unions or domestic partnerships, but not ok with same-sex marriage. That's a big reason why so many states have recently passed constitutional amendments which ban gay marriage (and which increasingly have also banned civil unions, too, though that's sneaked into the language).

Some have argued that rather than demanding full marriage equality right now, a better strategy would be to work for civil unions in the belief that (1) people will soon treat civil unions as if there were, in fact, marriages, which seems borne out by the Elton John coverage, and (2) after that happens and Americans get used to the idea, merging civil unions into full marriage won't seem like such a big deal.

But domestic gay activists are now firmly ensconced in the "full marriage now" movement, which seems more likely to lead to no same-sex marriages outside the most liberal states (Massachusetts and perhaps California) for a very long time, and may bring down civil unions in the backlash as well.

There's a growing battle between conservative campus Christian groups at public colleges and gay students who try to join.

At state institutions funded by taxpayer money, should such groups be able to exclude gays in defiance of their school's own non-discrimination policies? I'd argue that the right to freely associate is constrained when you dip into the government's till. But then should gay groups be forced to admit anti-gay religious conservatives who apply for membership (keeping in mind that the same policies the ban sexual orientation discrimination also forbid discrimination on the basis of religion)?

More Recent Postings
11/20/05 - 11/26/05

HIV among gay men is, reportedly, up 8 percent. According to the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, it's Bush's fault.

In Miami, Kansas, County Attorney David Miller has filed a new charge of "unlawful voluntary sexual relations" against Matthew Limon. In 2000, Limon, then 18, was sentenced to 17 years in prison on a charge of criminal sodomy for having sex with a 14-year-old boy. He served four years until the Kansas Supreme Court ruled the state can't punish underage sex more harshly if it involves homosexuals (and if Limon's partner had been a 14-year-old girl, the maximum he could have received would have been 15 months).

But Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline's office repeatedly described Limon as a "predator," and so this baseless, homophobic, double-jeopardy persecution continues.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Lucas Dawson, a gay man who fought back while being punched by several gay-bashers, stabbing one of his attackers to death, was initially cleared of any wrongdoing but still may face prosecution for manslaughter.

Said Police Capt. Michael Costello, "the level of force used by Dawson did not correspond to the threat.... He [Dawson] wasn't all that injured, yet he introduced deadly force."

So, having been jumped and while being repeatedly punched by several bashers, Dawson should have evaluated what level of force would be just right? Or maybe the police view is more akin to the anti-Semites' view of Israel: Jews (or gays) should not be permitted to defend themselves. They should just die.

From the New York Times, "And the Winner Is...Only Acting Gay." Writes Caryn James:

There has been an explosion of Oscar-baiting performances in which straight actors play gay, transvestite or transgender characters.... The actors are straight as far as we know..., an issue that matters only because it becomes part of the filmmakers' shrewd if unspoken calculation.... [P]ortraying gay, transvestite and transsexual characters allows actors to draw on a huge supply of gimmicks-wigs and costumes, mannerisms of speech and posture-that signify Acting.

A bit cynical, in that snide, superior NYT culture-coverage way, but still of interest.
--Stephen H. Miller

More Recent Postings
11/13/05 - 11/19/05

George Will takes a look at the Republican coalition's internal contradictions in Grand Old Spenders. He writes:

The conservative coalition...will rapidly disintegrate if limited-government conservatives become convinced that social conservatives are unwilling to concentrate their character-building and soul-saving energies on the private institutions that mediate between individuals and government, and instead try to conscript government into sectarian crusades.

And he explains why, once in office, conservatives start to spend like liberals, owing to "Washington's single-minded devotion to rent-seeking-to bending government for the advantage of private factions" (which, of course, amply stuff politicians' pockets, whether the factions/special interests/professional fear-mongers are on the left or the right).

Will also quotes Gerard Alexander of the University of Virginia, who says:

Perhaps conservatives were naive to expect any party, ever, to resist rent-seeking temptations when in power. Just as there always was something fatally unserious about socialism-its flawed understanding of human nature-is it possible that there has also been something profoundly unserious about the limited-government agenda? Should we now be prepared for the national electoral wing of the conservative movement...to identify with legislation like the pork-laden energy and transportation bills, in the same way that liberals came to ground their identities in programs like Social Security?

Then Will warns of the possibility that "limited-government conservatives will dissociate from a Republican Party more congenial to overreaching social conservatives."

I think the social conservatives have crested (intelligent design and stem-cell research have done far more harm to their cause then attacks by the big-spending, bureaucracy-loving left). But then liberals do have a knack for scaring the country back to the right when a moderate course could deliver them victory. (hat tip: Right Side of the Rainbow)

Update: Andrew Sullivan has more on the GOP's lack of limited-government consistency, noting that not a single Republican Senator who voted against the federal anti-gay marriage amendment also voted for a recent spending-cut bill. [Correction: Sullivan was mistaken - one GOP Senator did vote for lower spending and against banning gay marriage: New Hampshire's John Sununu.]

So while there are plenty of social conservatives in the party who expect the federal government to enforce their moral codes, and a dollop of "moderates" who are socially liberal big spenders, there seem to be few real "social inclusives and fiscal conservatives" willing to step forward. But when one does, he or she might find more support then they imagine.

The left teaches that the impoverished are victims of an unjust economic system that the government should mitigate through confiscatory taxation and economic redistribution. The right believes that the poor remain mired in inter-generational poverty owing to dysfunctional individual and family behavior, made worse by a culture of welfare entitlement.

This story of a Minnesota lesbian couple that tried to help a displaced Louisiana family seems to make the case that culture counts.

Jonathan Rauch, IGF's co-managing editor, made the conservative case for gay marriage to students at Princeton, the Daily Princetonian reports:

Rauch said gay marriage would make people take the institution of marriage more seriously and encourage single parents to remarry. "My belief is that the cultural message that same-sex marriage will send is not that 'anything goes,' but that marriage goes," he said. . . . As a result, he said, fewer children would be born out of wedlock and more would be raised in two-parent homes.

Of course, the next day Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, argued that changing the legal boundaries of marriage will destroy Western civilization.

Still, it's good that conservatively minded students heard that there's another view of gay marriage beyond the social right's fear-mongering and the gay left's focus on "rights" and "equality" (which sound good to liberal ears but won't win arguements with conservatives who've been told gay matriomy will destroy the institution).
--Stephen H. Miller