IGF CultureWatch

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!")

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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.

California lawmakers on Tuesday became the first in the country to approve a bill allowing full same-sex marriages. Now come the real battles. Gov. Arnold is under big-time conservative pressure to veto the measure. That would be a shame. But even if he does allow it to become law, California voters will likely face two ballot initiatives next year, to ban gay marriage, or to ban both gay marriage and domestic partnerships.

The betting money, unfortunately, is that voters will keep DPs but scrap marriage equality. Nowhere have voters, to date, failed to ban gay marriage when given the chance, and when initiatives have included DPs, they've been banned as well.

The worst case scenario: voters scrap existing domestic partnerships, which in California confer virtually all state rights and benefits associated with marriage.

In 2000, California voters roundly approved Prop. 22, which altered the Family Code to limit marriage to a man and a woman, by a vote of 61.2 to 38.8, and the legality of that measure is now in the state courts. If there's a Schwarzenegger veto, he'll probably cite the voters' expressed opinion. Coming up, we'll see how things go when a full-blown constitutional ban is on the initiative table.

We know that relying on liberal courts to push through marriage equality is a recipe for backlash. But will a liberal state legislature's approval fare better with voters?

Update: Gay Patriot blogs:

I'm torn between the will of the people and the will of the elected representatives. I think this is an important step. But what do the 61% of Californians who voted against same-sex marriage in the year 2000 think about their elected representatives? I don't know. I admit I struggle with it.

And one of his commenters, Joe, writes:

I fear their move is an overreach-one that will be repudiated at the polls (initiative process). It was a purely symbolic, unnecessary move because they already passed strong civil unions last year. Led by Democrats, they did it basically to say "screw you" to conservatives (and California voters) who don't like gay marriage. I would rather they hadn't done it at this time. I say this as a longtime supporter of gay marriage. Most of society (in your state) has to be on board with you, for the new law or institution to work.

If things turn out badly regarding next year's referendum, we'll recognizes these, in hindsight, as valid concerns.

It's disappointing to read that John McCain is supporting a state constitutional amendment in Arizona to bar gay marriage. But could McCain, running for the GOP presidential nomination, be expected to fall to the left of the "progressive" Democratic presidential nominee on gay marriage? Remember, Kerry/Edwards supported anti-gay-marriage amendments in Massachusetts, Missouri and elsewhere. If the party of the left, backed by national gay activist groups and receiving copious amounts of gay dollars, endorses anti-gay amendments, how high a bar is set for moderate Republicans to do the right thing?

Dale Carpenter's newly posted column takes a look at the attacks by certain gay groups against Supreme Court nominee John Roberts-now nominated to be Chief Justice-who helped gay attorneys win a landmark Supreme Court case. He writes:

The unofficial reason for gay groups' opposition has nothing to do with Roberts' record on gay rights and everything to do with the politics of abortion and progressive "coalition building." The left has decided to oppose anyone President Bush names to the Court. . .

I'd add that having surrendered their credibility by going ballistic over Roberts, a nominee moderate senate Democrats are poised to support, what cachet do these groups expect to have if Bush nominates a real, gay-unfriendly social conservative to fill the newly vacant opening?

More "bandwidth attacks" on our server, knocking us out again for a few days. We're back now, and trying to erect adequate defenses. Stay tuned.

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8/21/05 - 8/27/05

Jonathan Rauch, who in his spare time volunteers as IGF's co-managing editor, focuses his column in National Journal on why Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), one of the senate's leading advocates against gay marriage (and against sodomy law repeal, for that matter) is "the anti-Reagan" at odds with his party's Barry Goldwater/conservative legacy (note to our left-liberal readers: that's meant as a critique). Writes Rauch of Santorum's new book, It Takes a Family:

Where Goldwater denounced collectivism as the enemy of the individual, Santorum denounces individualism as the enemy of family. . . .

In an interview with National Public Radio last month, he acknowledged his quarrel with "what I refer to as more of a libertarianish Right" and "this whole idea of personal autonomy." In his book he comments, seemingly with a shrug, "Some will reject what I have to say as a kind of 'Big Government' conservatism."

Which, as Rauch points out, is exactly what it is.

Also taking a look at Santorum's new opus, blogger Tim Hulsey comments that Santorum uses Reagan's rhetoric to destroy Reagan's smaller-government legacy, and that:

Reagan in his prime would have had the perfect four-word review of Santorum's book: There you go again."

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8/21/05 - 8/27/05

Ideological activists on both the left and right aren't shy about using gut-wrenching human tragedy to advance their zealotry. Witness those on the anti-gay religious right who blame gays for the destruction of New Orleans, and those on the climate-alarmist left who blame "global warming," which even the New York Times initially couldn't swallow, although its anti-Bush-at-all-costs editorialists seemly could. (Hat tip: James Taranto's Best of the Web -- take a look.)

Back after a week's vacation, so I'm a bit late commenting on this story - about a gay Iraqi lamenting that life was better under Saddam's absolute dictatorship. But I think it raises an interesting point. Iraq has its first democratically elected governing assembly, which may enact a constitution that, by recognizing Islamic law, leads to persecutions of gays. (Of course, under Saddam, if you were a Kurd or Marsh Arab, you were subject to organized genocide, and any dissidence, even among the favored Sunni, would get you and your family - small children included - imprisoned, tortured and executed, but that's another story).

Here in the U.S., too, some gays may worship at the altar of the Democratic Party, but fear and loathe democratically elected governments that are against expanding legal equality for gays (and hence, they favor a strategy focused on achieving judicial decrees from left-leaning judges that can be enforced against the intransigent electorate).

So, is democracy good for gays?

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8/14/05 - 8/20/05