IGF CultureWatch

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.

I haven't yet commented on the ACLU's successful (pending appeal) suit to prevent the annual Boy Scout Jamboree from taking place at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia. The ACLU claims that the Defense Department's support violates the 1st Amendment because the Boy Scouts of America "excludes atheists and agnostics" and calls for members to believe in God. But both leftwing and rightwing web sites invariably bring up the Boy Scouts' ban against gay scouts and scoutmasters as an underlying motive behind the ACLU's action.

I think a reasonable case can be made that the federal government shouldn't provide such support to the Boy Scouts, and I also believe funding for PBS and the National Endowment for the Arts goes beyond the federal government's role as defined by the Constitution.

But like fighting to ban military recruiters from college campuses (in a case now headed for the U.S. Supreme Court), the suit against the Boy Scouts' holding their Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill is horrendously bad politics. In fact, if we hired an expensive public relations firm and asked how we could ensure that independents and moderate conservatives, especially in the red states, would continue to see "gay rights" as an example of cultural extremism tied to the noxious left and its anti-Americanism, they'd probably say "target military recruitment and the Boy Scout Jamboree."

Update: The New York Times misreports, "a Senate vote this week on a measure allowing military installations to continue acting as hosts to the Boy Scouts, whose policy barring gay leaders has prompted lawsuits to deny the Scouts access to government property."

A few items ago I praised the United Church of Christ (UCC) for its endorsement of same-sex marriage - a pro-gay position that, sadly, may have led to a fire being set at one historic UCC church. Yet often when liberal-left organizations or parties do something that advances gay equality, I'm chided for not supporting the overall lib-left agenda.

Well, here's an example of why I don't. Just as the UCC backed gay marriage, last month its governing body called for a boycott of companies with ties to Israel. As noted in the Wall Street Journal:

The United Church of Christ is particularly noteworthy for its hypocritical treatment of Israel. The UCC condemns Israel's security barrier for, among other things, "changing an international border without direct negotiations between partners." Yet the divestment resolution, passed at the same meeting, specifies exactly what Israel's final border must look like and what Israel must give up, including Judaism's two most holy sites. . . .

The resolutions blame terrorism on Israeli "occupation." But Palestinian terror against Israeli civilians began well before Israel took Gaza from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War. At Camp David in 2000, Israel offered to withdraw from almost all these areas and allow the creation of a Palestinian state. The Palestinian leadership rejected the offer and began a homicidal spree that has cost the lives of more than 1,000 Israelis.

Of course, it's typical in these circles to blame the West, and America and Israel in particular, for Islamist terrorism. So bully for the UCC's gay stance, and shame on them for their fashionably leftist "anti-Zionism." It's all the worse for us when our cause gets sullied by such an association.

Update: Following an obscene anti-Israel diatribe in the comments zone, others raise questions about what the UCC actually did or didn't do. Apparently, the UCC web site reports the call on Israel to remove its defensive barrier and pay Palestinian reparations, but not the repoted divestiture vote. But the Anti-Defamation League has this:

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) is troubled and dismayed that the leadership of the United Church of Christ (UCC) has adopted an "economic leverage" resolution against Israel, while at the same time calling on Israel to "tear down" its West Bank security barrier.

Despite months of discussions with Jewish leaders concerned about the implications of any divestment vote against Israel, the Church's General Synod nevertheless adopted resolutions yesterday in Atlanta to support such action.

So, either the UCC web site is being disingenuous, or the ADL is. In any event, this is not a Middle East blog, and I raised the issue simply to point out that those on the political/cultural/even religious left may deserve praise for their actions on behalf of gay equality, but that doesn't mean turning a blind eye to the dark side of the left any more than the support by those on the right for an economics of growth, prosperity and individual initiative means excusing their homophobia.

More Recent Postings
7/17/05 - 7/23/05

I don't want to make predictions about John Roberts. While I don't see any evidence he's a fire-breather like Scalia, his background is such that he could be another Rehnquist -- but also, maybe, another Anthony Kennedy (whose background isn't too dissimilar).

I am, however, repulsed by some of the knee-jerk attacks against Roberts. Much is being made in "progressive" circles, for example, about the fact that his wife, attorney Jane Sullivan Roberts, has extensive ties to the group Feminists for Life and served as its executive vice president.

For the Human Rights Campaign crowd and others, opposing abortion is a de facto signal of opposition to gay equality. But it's just not so. Feminists for Life, it turns out, is fairly socially liberal except on abortion, and the group has stood up for and worked with the Pro-Life Alliance of Gays and Lesbians (PLAGAL). Here's their creed:

"Established in 1972, Feminists for Life is a non-sectarian, grass-roots organization that seeks true equality for all human beings, particularly women. We oppose all forms of violence, including abortion, euthanasia and capital punishment, as they are inconsistent with the core feminist principles of justice, non-violence and non-discrimination. Our efforts focus on education, outreach and advocacy, as well as facilitating practical resources and support for women in need."

While the lib-left points to Jane Roberts' affiliation as a red flag, it's in fact a positive signal. Let's hope that in this regard her husband does share her views.