IGF CultureWatch

This new article by Jonathan Rauch and Bill Meezan is one of the best yet on same-sex marriage and gay parenting. Among the research findings:

[T]here is no evidence that children of lesbian and gay parents are confused about their gender identity.

And:

[I]n general, children raised in same-sex environments show no differences in cognitive abilities, behavior, general emotional development, or such specific areas of emotional development as self-esteem, depression, or anxiety.

And finally, on the issue of being teased and ridiculed:

The evidence is mixed, however, on whether the children have heightened difficulty with peers, with more studies finding no particular problems.

The PDF version includes a textbox describing the new study of same-sex parenting by Patterson et al. - a true population-based sample that should (but probably won't) put to rest questions raised by anti-gay activists at the Family Research Council and elsewhere about the methodology of earlier research.

Left-leaning columnist Keith Boykin has an even-handed look at gay betrayals from the left and the right. He writes:

Maybe it's time we stop supporting Democrats who take our money but won't take our positions. Maybe it's time we stop sucking up to powerful Republicans just because they have power. And if we're going to sleep with the enemy, we should at least get something positive out of the relationship.

Also, from an editorial in the Chicago Tribune:

Supporters of gay marriage need to build public acceptance community by community, state by state. That won't be accomplished by court edict. It may, however, be accomplished by dogged work in the legislatures, and Massachusetts may wind up leading by example.

And California, too, despite the veto.

Is it really "discrimination" to forbid a pre-operative transsexual from using the women's shower at a shelter for hurricane evacuees? Do the women-born-women who don't want to share the shower with a physical male have no rights? Judging from coverage like this, you'd suppose the answer is, no, they don't. If they're uncomfortable showering with a physical male (and too insensitive to see that their shower mate is psychologically a female), that's just too bad.

I'm not willfully insensitive to the struggles faced by the transgendered, but demands such as this are what make the public, not unreasonably, tune them out altogether.

Further: I agree, the arrest seems highly unwarranted. Government isn't known for its sensitive handling of these issues.

More Recent Postings
9/11/05 - 9/17/05

The Massachusetts legislature, meeting as a constitutional convention, on Wednesday rejected an anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment 157 to 39.

That's good news, although some gay-marriage enemies also opposed the amendment because it would allow civil unions, and they've started petitioning for a stricter amendment that would ban both gay marriage and CUs. But the earliest that amendment could be voted into law is 2008.

Also on Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives unexpectedly backed a measure that would expand the federal hate crime program, adding sexual orientation, gender, gender identity and disability to a federal hate crime law that provides grants to the states to help prosecute such crimes.

The law does not mandate increased penalties for hate crimes, which some oppose as punishing thoughts rather than actions. Companion legislation awaits action in the Senate.

But some gay media think the big news is that the House-passed bill was "trans-inclusive." You wouldn't know from this headline that gays were also covered!

The comments problem: Sometimes (though, alas, not too often) we have good discussions in our comments zone, and sometimes (alas, far too often) those who abhor the center-right/libertarian view of this blogger are brimming with such antagonism that discussion is brought to a halt as name-calling is met with counter-name calling. We haven't tended to interfere, except in cases of obscene language, but we've been asked more than once to be more active in moderating the discussion and deleting (or, to the extent we can, closing the gates) on those who don't wish to engage in civil discussion, or who so distort the comments of others (and of this blog) that it makes serious discussion impossible. So, going forward, we'll give that a try and see if it helps.
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The New York Times reports that under Pope Ratzinger the Vatican is planning a purge of gay seminarians:

the American archbishop who is supervising the seminary review said last week that "anyone who has engaged in homosexual activity or has strong homosexual inclinations," should not be admitted to a seminary [and that] the restriction should apply even to those who have not been sexually active for a decade or more.

I don't have much to say; my views on the Roman church and what it's done to the gospel message would make what some of my commenters think of Republicans seem tame.

(And more views in our mailbag.)

Judge John Roberts, blasted by gay abortion leftwing activists as a dangerous threat to our basic liberties, during his testimony on Tuesday spoke eloquently about the equal protection clause, saying that while the context was clearly about slavery, the intent of the framers was broader than just racial inequality:

They [the founders] didn't write the equal protection clause in such narrow terms. They wrote more generally. That may have been a particular problem motivating them, but they chose to use broader terms, and we should take them at their word, so that is perfectly appropriate to apply the equal protection clause to issues of gender and other types of discrimination beyond the racial discrimination that was obviously the driving force behind it. (emphasis added)

Of the right to privacy (the basis for overturning "sodomy" laws), he remarked:

the court has...recognized that personal privacy is a component of the liberty protected by the due process clause. The court has explained that the liberty protected is not limited to freedom from physical restraint and that it's protected not simply procedurally, but as a substantive matter as well. And those decisions have sketched out, over a period of 80 years, certain aspects of privacy that are protected as part of the liberty in the due process clause under the Constitution.

Finally, on his pro bono work on behalf of the gay attorneys arguing Romer v. Evans, the landmark gay rights case in which the Supreme Court ruled that states couldn't single out gays for discrimination, Roberts said (and here, he has to worry about inflaming the anti-gay right as well):

I was asked frequently by other partners to help out....And I never turned down a request. I think it's right that if there had been something morally objectionable, I suppose I would have.

Of course, in the view of the Human Rights Campaign, expressed before they bothered to hear his testimony, "Judge Roberts has such as a narrow view of what the courts can and should do, it's a wonder he wants the job at all." And the newly partisan-ized Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) fulminated, "We cannot sit back and allow a man with a demonstrated record of hostility towards privacy and minority rights to make decisions on our nation's highest court...."

Oh, what a beast.

Further, HRC and others also have expressed their concern that Roberts will not show sufficient "adherence to precedent" as regards prior court decisions - necessary to uphold Roe v. Wade from future challenges. But of course if "adherence to precedent" was as binding as they (now) insist, Bowers v. Hardwick would not have been overturned and we'd still have sodomy laws. And let's hope a future court won't feel bond by precedent when it comes to revisiting the awful Kelo decision that stuck at the heart of property rights!

Got to love the politics of the culture war! Take this blog, which is pretty bizarre, to say the least. It was "established to support a Blog Community of right-of-center conservative and libertarian leaning Blogs that support Judge Roberts." It does so by mocking the innuendo of some leftwingers and, especially, the Bush-hating Daily Kos, that Roberts could be gay (as a ploy to undermine his conservative support). You'll either find it a hoot - or deeply offensive.

Update: Gay Patriot West blogs on the latest from the HRC (the large abortion-rights lobby that targets lesbian and gay donors). He references a column by the group's leader, Joe Solmonese, that proclaims "the Human Rights Campaign joined the growing chorus of those speaking out in opposition to the Supreme Court nomination of John Roberts."

Comments Gay Patriot West: "He neglects to mention that this 'growing chorus' of opposition largely includes only voices from the far left (with an a handful of extreme right-wingers thrown in). And his piece merely rehashes the standard left-wing arguments against the good judge's confirmation," which deal, primarily, with abortion.

Here's a bit of a break from bad news. This is a nice story from Liverpool, where the city's council "has backed plans to create more of a gay scene in the city, with some councillors calling for a selection of gay restaurants, clothes shops and hair salons to be built in the city centre."

And even in China, things may be loosening up a bit.

Further: Some readers have rightly noted that it is not the proper role of Liverpool's government to favor one sort of business over another via preferential treatment and that the market is better at allocating resources than any economic planner. I do agree, and had considered that critique. But while I share those qualms about the economics, I thought the item represented a positive cultural change worth noting (i.e., the attitude of "if we could only get gays to come here, how much better things would be!")

More Recent Postings
9/4/05 - 9/10/05

This column from today's Wall Street Journal asks why Jewish community leaders should assert that Jews must be on the left, supporting issues such as gay rights and abortion, and the push back from Jewish Republicans (many of whom are Russian immigrants, who know a thing or two about the left). It's interesting because the assumptions of these civic leaders in the Jewish community parallel those of gay "leaders," and because everyone herein assumes that gay rights is something only leftists support.

But respect for individuality and uniform application of law are arguably just as much in the libertarian and small-government conservative tradition as they are in the left's collectivist, redistributionist tradition. Which is why such a surprising number of gays (over 20%) routinely vote Republican, in hopes of reforming the party rather than abandoning it to the Santorums of the hard right.
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Not unexpectedly, but still regrettably, Gov. Schwarzenegger has announced he'll veto the California gay marriage bill, saying it conflicted with Prop. 22, passed by voters in 2000, which prevents the state from recognizing same-sex marriages.

Still, that an elected legislature passed the measure, rather than having a court ruling impose it, was a good thing. And putting the best face on it, the veto may deflate somewhat the push to pass a same-sex marriage-banning amendment to the state constitution. But while I think there is some justification to the backlash fears (see previous item), it would have been a monumental thing to enact gay marriage through the democratic process. It will happen, eventually.