IGF CultureWatch

Harry Reid, the U.S. Senate's Democratic leader, has suggested that four of his Republican colleagues be considered by President Bush as potential Supreme Court justices. Among Reid's recommendations: Florida Sen. Mel Martinez. "There are people who serve in the Senate now who are Republicans who I think would be outstanding Supreme Court members," Reid said.

Martinez is best remembered by gay voters for his rabidly homophobic slanders, which were the cornerstone of his election bid. He accused his opponent, conservative former GOP Congressman Bill McCollum, of being "the new darling of the homosexual extremists" and "anti-family," and of trying to appease "the radical homosexual lobby" because he supported a bipartisan federal hate-crimes bill that included sexual orientation.

Walter Olson notes that all four of Reid's recommendations are reliable allies of the trial lawyers' lobby, a key Democratic Party funding bloc. Olson writes, "while none of Sen. Reid's four faves are identified with the GOP's socially liberal Chafee-Snowe wing, all four. . .have repeatedly broken partisan ranks to side with the Democrats and the organized bar against liability reforms. "

Apparently, Reid is ok with a virulent homophobe (and maybe even a Roe v. Wade skeptic) as long as he'd be likely to keep the lawyers happy.

Sure looks like someone's taking HRC and its gay dollars for Democrats for granted.

This story on legal battles against the military's don't ask, don't tell policy suggests how important the next Supreme Court justice will be for hot-button gay issues. The Pentagon wants the challenges dismissed, saying that the Supreme Court's Lawrence ruling nullifying sodomy laws has no bearing on the case because the dismissed service members "could have abstain from sexual activity and not reveal their sexuality." The plaintiffs maintain that the current policy denied them the right of privacy, equal protection of the law and freedom of speech.

In Lawrence, the majority ruled that sodomy laws were an unconstitutional violation of privacy for gays and straights alike, while Justice O'Connor's concurring decision ruled against same-sex sodomy statutes as a violation of equal protection under the law for gays. As I've said before and others have reiterated in their comments on my earlier post about O'Connor, her take (though not embraced by the majority) remains by far the more valuable in fighting legal double-standards on marriage, the military, and other areas of state-sponsored discrimination.

Whether her replacement is a fair-minded, small government conservative like O'Connor, or a flaming bigot like Scalia, will make a huge difference in our lives for many years to come. Bush's assertion that abortion and gay marriage won't be "litmus test" issues offers at least some room for hope.

Ashraf Choudhary, a prominent Muslim lawmaker who serves in New Zealand's Labour government, has condoned the stoning executions of homosexuals and adulterers as prescribed by strict Islamic law. Laughably, New Zealand's Prime Minister Helen Clark responded:

Clearly Ashraf is a devout Muslim and he will have his own views. But for the record let me spell out the Labour Party does not support capital punishment. It does not support flogging. It does not support stoning. We have very strong views about that.

How very reassuring.

Local media in New Zealand reports that Choudhary's views are considered mainstream among New Zealand's growing Muslim population and that "Labour's Muslim MP is representing the majority of the Muslim community."

This situation, of socialists downplaying Islamic-fundamentalist hate, isn't unique to New Zealand. Recently London's leftwing mayor, "Red Ken" Livingstone, embraced radical Islamists as part of his coalition, as bemoaned by one appalled gay Muslim, here.

Meanwhile, Sir Elton John laudably called on his government "to ensure that ending violations of gay people's fundamental human rights around the world becomes an explicit issue in its diplomatic relations with other countries." He added, in reference to London's gay pride celebration:

There are many parts of the world where such a celebration could not take place, because basic human rights are not respected and people face threats, attacks, prosecution and even possible execution just because of their sexuality.

And there are clearly many who are willing to bring that very culture to the West if they think it may serve their own political purposes.

Happy July 4th! We've got three new articles posted, by IGF contributing authors Paul Varnell, Jon Rauch and Dale Carpenter.

Also, Andrew Sullivan has a fine essay on the meaning of American liberty, which you can read or listen to here.

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In 1986 Sandra Day O'Connor, then still a relatively new Supreme Court Justice, voted with the majority in Bowers v. Hardwick to uphold the constitutionality of a Georgia "sodomy" law that criminalized non-missionary position sex in private between consenting adults. Some 17 years later, a far more experience Justice O'Connor voted with the majority to overrule Bowers in Lawrence v. Texas.

Unlike the Georgia law, the Texas statute applied only to same-sex sex, allowing Justice O'Connor to find it unconstitutional on equal protection grounds (and to maintain the fig leaf that she wasn't directly contradicting her earlier ruling). But for all intents and purposes, she sent to history's dustbin a scurrilous anti-gay legal precedent she had originally helped put in place. Those 17 years had allowed Justice O'Connor, and much of the country, to develop a far deeper understanding of gay people as citizens entitled to equal treatment under the law.

Let's hope other conservative jurists eventually will follow in her footsteps.

Update: A critical view and my response, in our mailbag.

Following protests from the "muzzle 'em all, muzzle 'em now" crowd at GLAAD and its anti-free speech allies, ABC has canceled the broadcast of its new reality show "Welcome to the Neighborhood."

From the ads I had seen and ABC's description, the show explored the prejudices among Middle American Red Staters and how they are eventually (more or less) overcome. The premise: a diverse group of families, including a gay couple, competed to win a 3,300-square-foot, four-bedroom, 2 1/2 -bath house on a cul-de-sac near Austin by convincing the neighbors to welcome them. I had been looking foreard to watching it.

However: "These residents are making their judgments because of race, national origin and religion," Shanna Smith, National Fair Housing Alliance president and CEO, complained. She also hinted that the show violated the federal fair housing laws, which could subject ABC to prosecution, since the neighbors air their concerns about the "suitability" of some of their potential neighbors, and we're all suppose to pretend that such considerations never, ever happen in real life.

The Post also reports that "the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation also had cautioned ABC after seeing the first two episodes." Specifically:

GLAAD entertainment media director Damon Romine, who has seen the entire series, said that although it's clear "the producers intended to send a powerful message about the value of diversity and embracing the differences of others," the episodic format "created serious issues in terms of depicting the neighbors' journey from intolerance to acceptance."

Got that? GLAAD admits that showing people confronting their prejudices might be worthwhile, but the show could initially confuse the masses into incorrect thinking, and thus must not be permitted to air.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that if, heaven forbid, these would-be cultural commissars ever had the political power, they'd be burning books and videotapes in the streets.

GLAAD's mission ought to be to respoind with intelligence and conviction to the anti-gay polemics of the religious right -- not stiffling debate, and not telling us all what we can and can't read or watch. But that's just not as much fun, I guess.

First Canada, now Spain.

Don't expect the U.S. to be swayed to follow their examples anytime soon. But it definitely is a changing, and changed, (Western) world.

Update: Some bizarre assertions about the beneficence of European socialism, effectively refuted, in the comments zone.

Columnist and IGF contributing author Deroy Murdock provides this take on gays in the Islamic world. Pray for them.

The American Political Science Association issued this release on critical views toward gay marriage - from feminists and lesbigaytransqueeractivists who'd like to do without marriage altogether.

The author of the study, Jyl Josephson, director of women's studies at Rutgers University, writes:

For some queer critics of the same-sex marriage quest, the current heterocentric vision of marriage inappropriately associates the public granting of a privacy privilege with adult citizenship for those professing lifelong, monogamous sexual relationships. Their objection is not so much to the fact that same-sex couples wish to have such relationships recognized, but rather to privileging this form of sexual relationship above all others.

If married couples-opposite or same-sex-are provided greater social, economic, and political privileges than nonmarried individuals, the result will be secondary exclusions and reinforcement of an undesirable link between a particular form of intimate association and adult citizenship.

Surprise, the libertarian in me doesn't think this is totally off the walls. Government should recognize and enforce private contracts between individuals, but perhaps we should leave it to the voluntary institutions of civil society to support and encourage those types of relationships that their adherents feel ought to be supported and encouraged.

I happen to favor marriage as a stabilizing institution; but I don't think it's right for everyone. And I have qualms about government using its awesome power to "promote" it with a broad range of incentives.

Still, it will be a long trek to the time when state and federal governments don't see themselves as mandated to use the laws and tax code to favor matrimony over other relationships - and certainly, in the view of some (not all) IGF authors, that's well and good for society as a whole. And as long as government is both recognizing and "privileging" heterosexual marriage, surely it's unacceptable not to do the same for same-sex marriage, too.

Despite boycott threats from anti-gay groups and the perception of a gay marriage backlash from the American public, corporate sponsorship of gay pride festivities held around the country remained strong this year.

As I wrote some time back in my article Corporate Liberation, "the religious right isn't the only group attacking business support for gay events. The gay left is simply beside itself," labeling the acceptance of corporate money as "a surrender to 'commodity fetishism.'" (Rick Rosendall provides more examples of anti-corporate animus, in the comments zone.)

But whereas some on the gay left like to complain about being targeted as a highly desirable market demographic (to paraphrase, "give us your money, capitalist pigs"), it's actually something to celebrate - and take pride in.