IGF CultureWatch

Press release headline: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force study finds that Social Security privatization will disproportionately harm lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans . Yes, allowing gay people to bequeath their life-long retirement savings to a partner (or anyone else they choose) sure would be a bad thing, and allowing all people of modest means to access the wealth-generating power of the equity markets, if they so choose, is a sure threat to gay equality.

Oh, and the study also finds that "LGBT people of color, in particular, face an income disadvantage that leads to lower Social Security benefits." Well, yes, which is why capital accumulation via low-expense asset-class index funds would give them a fighting chance at a comfortable retirement.

Update: Reader "David" comments:

This is a dishonest study, done by leftists to advance the left's agenda rather than by actual gay activists with an interest in the actual lives of gay people.

Social Security choice is inherently pro-gay. If people put their retirement in private accounts, those accounts belong to them. They can leave their assets to their partner or to anyone else. If gays could get married, then this provision would not matter to us more than to anyone else - but we can't.

The study says: "If we earn less, we receive a lower Social Security payment in retirement." Well, duh. But that's a fact - or a complaint - about the current system. A large-accounts privatization plan would allow lower-income people to accumulate assets the way upper-middle-class people now do. If indeed gays are more likely to have lower incomes, then they would be disproportionately benefited by privatization.

I think the study notes, for instance, that money you leave to your partner is taxable, while assets left to your spouse are not. That's discrimination, and we should support ending it - but it's a comment on current law, not Social Security reform. In fact, we might even be able to quietly get a provision into the reform law that says that private Social Security benefits could be inherited tax-free. (And besides, left-liberals are always telling us that only the very rich pay the estate tax, so the taxability of retirement assets is hardly an issue for "low-income LGBTs.")

If you'd like to leave the money you've saved all your life to your partner - or to HRC - you should support Social Security choice.

Mainstream Christianity long ago become profoundly alienated from human sexuality - and, it goes without saying, especially gay sexuality. Could anything be more absurd than a directive issued by the Anglican Church of England (cousins of U.S. Episcopalians) allowing gay clergy to form civil partnerships but requiring that they pledge to be celibate?

If this was an attempt to placate the virulently homophobic Africans in the Anglican Communion, it apparently didn't work - they're furious at the mere idea of gay priests, anyway.

Update: Gay priests are set to defy their bishops over the no-sex-despite-partnerhips order, reports the U.K.'s Telegraph.

More Recent Postings
7/31/05 - 8/6/05

News that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts performed pro bono work on behalf of gay rights attorneys in the landmark Supreme Court Romer v. Evans case, originally reported by the Los Angeles Times ("Roberts Donated Help to Gay Rights Cause"), has ignited concern among social conservatives. While the pro bono work was at his firm's request, Roberts showed no hesitation, and the gay-rights attorneys praised his efforts in preparing them to go before the Court and successfully argue their case. All of which led right-wing radio host Sean Hannity to opine for several hours on Thursday that the disclosure seems to indicate Roberts does not share the judicial philosophy of Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas.

The revelations could cause a number of social conservatives to turn on Roberts. A more interesting question is what gay political lobbies such as the Human Rights Campaign, which opposes Roberts over abortion, will do.

If left-liberals continue to work against Roberts, it's doubtful they'll actually get a nominee better on abortion, but now it's certain they won't get a nominee better on gay issues.

Update: The New York Times reports that "Liberal critics of Judge Roberts, however, continued to assail him on Thursday as a foe of civil rights," but that "James C. Dobson, chairman of the evangelical group Focus on the Family, said Judge Roberts's work in the case was 'not welcome news to those of us who advocate for traditional values.' "

From 365gay.com: "Conservatives 'Concerned' Over Judge Roberts Gay Past" (how's that for a bit of innuendo!).

The HRC website still has a banner saying Roberts "threatens to tip the Supreme Court to the far right," and a hit piece charging he would "undermine a woman's right to choose" and lacks "commitment to environmental and other vital protections," as well as a quickie response downplaying Thursday's news, saying it merely "re-emphasizing the need for full examination" of Roberts, especially regarding his views on abortion.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center shows that while only 36% of Americans favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally (slightly higher than in previous studies), for the first time a majority (53%) favors permitting gays and lesbians to enter into legal arrangements that would give them many of the same rights as married couples.

According to the survey, there has also been a slight decline (down to 29%) in the number of Americans expressing support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

There is no reason that state ballot initiatives that ban both gay marriage and same-sex civil unions are passing with such high numbers, given public sentiment on civil unions. If national gay groups choose not to devote enough time, money and resources on these referenda (in favor of throwing money at national Democratic candidates with broad-based left-liberal agendas), then pressure should be brought to bear.

The monstrous Rev. Fred Phelps and cult/clan is now protesting at the stateside funerals of American soldiers who fell in Iraq. I'm surprised that gay activists aren't making more of the fact that the Phelps crew is not just virulently anti-gay, but also anti the U.S. military - an opportunity missed, it would seem.

A friendly reminder: Discussions and debates among readers are welcome in the comments zone, but if you use obscenity to voice your disagreements with one another, we'll delete the comment. Thems the rules.

I'm off for a week's vacation. If the gods of wi-fi are with me, I'll post during that time; if not, see you next week.

Finally, on the topic of being provocative, and just to make the left-liberals apoplectic, here's a link to an opinion column by gay conservative bete noire Jeff Gannon, in this week's Washington Blade. While I'm more of a libertarian than Gannon, kudos to the Blade for embracing real "diversity" rather than the p.c. variant (i.e., everyone who agrees with us from a variety of ethnicities) and running a gay conservative voice. Expect the anti-heretics to go berserk.

More Recent Postings
7/24/05 - 7/30/05

For thoughtful responses to recently posted articles by IGF's contributing authors, including how to respond to the religious right on the marriage issue, check out our mailbag.

As letter writer John Stamper puts it:

[A]ctivists need to understand why people are rightly skeptical about their arguments. Understanding that skepticism, and not attributing it in reflexive rainbow robothink to "homophobia," is critical....

Not a gay story, but the California Supreme Court has ruled that a manager who has consensual affairs with subordinates can create a work climate that constitutes sexual harassment for uninvolved employees. The state attorney general's office said the decision "tells employers that having an anti-nepotism policy is not enough. You need to do more to make sure that you have a hostility-free work environment, even when employees are having consensual sexual relationships."

Others see this as yet another opening of the floodgates for class-action lawsuits against companies, to the ever-increasing enrichment of the trial lawyers' lobby. And another way that the government is increasingly regulating sexual life - not because of the religious right, but in response to the cultural left.

At one time, professors routinely dated (and often married) students; now it's verboten. The same is rapidly happening in the workplace. Except if it's in a Democratic White House.

This week the Teamsters, the Service Employees International, and two other disaffected unions began to split from the AFL-CIO, saying too much dues money (and staff labor) had been spent helping to elect Democrats, and too little on grass-roots organizing. According to the AP, the move spooked Democratic Party leaders, many of whom spoke at this week's AFL-CIO convention, where they nevertheless asserted to the remaining AFL-CIO stalwarts that all was well.

The AP reports, however, that the Teamsters and the Service Workers alone account for more tan $20 million of an estimated $120 million AFL-CIO budget, and that "much of the money goes to Democratic candidates and to political operations that benefit the Democratic Party." As Teamsters leader James Hoffa complained, "Their idea is to keep throwing money at politicians."

During the 2004 election, the lion's share of funds collected by the Human Rights Campaign, and most of its staff time, was spent on behalf of Democratic candidates rather than in organizing grass-roots efforts to fight state anti-gay initiatives (some of which were supported by the very candidates HRC was financially backing). On Nov. 2, anti-gay marriage bans bulldozed to victory in all 11 states that voted on them. Amendments banning same-sex marriage were passed earlier last year in two other states. 13 defeats by wide margins; no ballot victories.

Maybe more donors should take a cue from what happened this week to the AFL-CIO.

Iran publicly executed two gay teenagers for having sex with each other. Homosexuality is illegal under Sharia law, which allows execution of children as young as nine.

Tom G. Palmer's blog has pictures of this horrific crime, and urges letters to Iran's Canadian ambassador.

Update: London calling - British gay groups report receiving death threats from Islamic fundamentalists, and warn that gay clubs could be targets for terrorist bombers.