IGF CultureWatch

I haven't weighed in on the Michael Jackson spectacle, and really don't want to do so now. Cleary, the guy has got, er, "issues." Whether the prosecution proved its child molestation case wasn't so clear from my (admittedly) cursory tracking of the trial.

But in light of the controversial acquittal, you may want to revisit James Kirchick's article posted last September, Michael Jackson, Yale's 'Queer Theory' Post Boy, about how professors of "queer studies" have lauded Jackson for his "subversion" of traditional gender and sexual roles.

Republican Congressman Christopher Cox of California has been nominated by President Bush to become the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cox is a fiscal conservative and a federalist. And he not only voted "no" on the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, but penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled "The Marriage Amendment Is a Terrible Idea."

Many liberals, however, are gunning for Cox, blasting him as "pro business" (which is about the worst epithet they can think of). Conservative columnist George Will, however, has come to his defense, writing:

The [Washington] Post's headline on his nomination said: "Congressman Has Taken Pro-Business Stances on Issues." Who today, one wonders, is "anti-business"? And what does that mean?

A [New York] Times columnist disapprovingly said Cox "is a big-business advocate." Leaving aside the vacuity of such labels - what might it mean to be an "advocate" against "big business" and its big numbers of employees. . .?

Here's hoping the move to the SEC is just a step for Cox toward even more prominence on the national level, and within the GOP.
-- Stephen H. Miller

The Republican Unity Coalition (RUC) looks like it may be gearing up again to take on homophobes who think the GOP ought to remain their exclusive club. The RUC just announced that former Republican Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, who cautioned his party recently about the influence of the religious right, has joined its advisory board.

Other RUC advisory board members include former President Gerald R. Ford, David Rockefeller and former Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson, who serves as board chairman. The group, which describes itself as "for gay and straight 'big tent' Republicans, opposes the anti-gay constitutional amendment and seeks to make sexual orientation "a non-issue" in the GOP.

But they've certainly got their work cut out for them - for example, Danforth's own successor in the Senate, Jim Talent, joined 26 other Senate Republicans in co-sponsoring the proposed amendment to ban states from letting gays marry.

Update: The Log Cabin Republicans score a feature story in the Los Angeles Times magazine. The group's Patrick Guerriero suggests that when it comes to the battle for an inclusive GOP, "The drama is only at intermission."
-- Stephen H Miller

More Recent Postings
6/05/05 - 6/11/05

IGF contributing author Dale Carpenter shares some insights into why allowing gays to marry is a "deeply conservative idea," in an interview with columnist Craig Westover in the St. Paul Pioneer Press (take 30 seconds for the required registration, or read it on Westover's blog).

Dale's key point: "Gay marriage advocates have to do a better job explaining how gay marriage is a deeply conservative cause. And we have to do that by appealing to our fellow citizens, not by running to the courts."
- Stephen H. Miller

In quite a contrast to the lone star state, the New York GOP has rebuffed a state senator who sees gay Republicans as disloyal. Queens senator Serphin R. Maltese tried to block the Log Cabin Republicans from obtaining greater power within the state party organization, reports the New York Times, but

The move against the gay Republicans was rebuffed by other party members, led by the state chairman, Stephen J. Minarik, and the Manhattan chairman, James Ortenzio, who both argued that the party should have a "big tent" image heading into 2006.

The GOP will have to confront the bigots at some point, and it's good to see some steps in this direction.

Whatever you think about McCain, if he runs it could galvanize the big tenters to try to take the party back from the grip of the evangelicals. But I just hope they don't turn wishy washy and "moderate" (i.e., liberal) on deregulation and limited government but instead offer a fiscally conservative, socially libertarian alternative that could draw support from both the left and the right.

More Recent Postings
6/06/05 - 6/12/05

Texas Gov. Rick Perry suggests that gay veterans unhappy with his proposed anti-gay constitutional amendment should move elsewhere, reports the Southern Voice.

The right-wing Texan had been asked what he would tell gay war veterans returning from Iraq. "I'm going to say Texas has made a decision on marriage and if there's a state with more lenient views than Texas, then maybe that's where they should live," Perry declared.

Not all Republicans believe their party should be an auxiliary of the religious right, but those who do clearly have decided that appealing to bigotry trumps the need to give the highest respect to soldiers who have risked their lives in the defense of liberty.

Update: A Washington Post editorial says Perry's remark dishonors Texas.

Under the principle of "eminent domain," local, state and federal governments can force property owners to sell their land if the government decides it's in the government's (er, the "peoples") interest that they do so. In Washington, D.C., an outlying area is home to a number of gay clubs that now stand in the way of a new stadium, and the city's liberal mayor and city council are forcing club owners to get out even if it means the loss of their livlihood.

These are successful businesses operating in the one area where the government's draconian zoning laws had, to date, tolerated their existence. But apparently if you're deemed "sleazy" by the state then you're not entitled to any respect for your property rights.

First they came for the strip clubs...

The Supreme Courts ruled 6-3 today that the federal government has the power to prosecute the use of marijuana for medical purposes even in states that have enacted laws permitting medical marijuana use, in a decision by liberal Justice John Paul Stevens. Joining the liberal anti-federalists was the most anti-gay member of the court, Antonin Scalia. Only three members of the court defended the principle of federalism: Sandra Day O'Connor, William Rehnquist and Clarence Thomas.

Justice O'Connor said in her dissent that the majority ruling was effectively "extinguishing" experiments with medical marijuana laws. "This case exemplifies the role of states as laboratories," she wrote.

Many state medical marijuana laws were passed directly by voters through ballot initiatives, so it's not a happy day for democracy, or for patients with cancer and AIDS. And it doesn't help the cause of backing states as "laboratories" in other areas, such as same-sex marriage, when the federal authorities decide to quash such experiments in democracy.

Update: Instapundit, as usual, provides links to some of the best blogosphere analysis of the decision and its ramifications.

More Recent Postings
5/29/05 - 6/04/05

A nonconservative, nonlibertarian blogger, Joe Perez, explains why he appreciates the articles we post on this forum despite his political difference of opinion:

If they were followed uncritically, many of the proposals voiced in the IndeGayForum would be likely to take the gay movement in a harmful, self-destructive direction that I could not support. Fortunately, there is little chance of that happening any time soon. As a matter of fact, gay conservatives and libertarians are a distinct minority in the gay movement and do not define "the gay agenda." Their critical perspective, as the "minority government in power" gives the gay movement a precious gift: intellectual gridlock. They're our check and balance.

The gay movement very much need thinkers like those featured in IndeGayForum to challenge the sloppy logic and dangerous excesses in the movement's mainstream. Even if some of these challenges are way off base.

He may hope we'll see the light, and I'll wish the same of him (for instance, liberals truly aren't "making health care more affordable" - far from it, Joe, by increasingly turning health care over to government and away from market forces, they've driven medical costs through the roof).

My third attempt to get a letter published in the Washington Blade countering their oft-repeated misrepresentation of a ruling by California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown has succeeded, after I directly asked editor Chris Crain to allow it to run. Chris, apparently, is more willing than his letters editor to allow different points of view to be expressed, for which I am appreciative. Still, the preponderance of gay media will continue to robotically repeat the Democrats' talking points against Brown, no matter how distorted their charges are.

Speaking of Blade editor Crain, he has a nice editorial in this week's issue on the Democrats acquiescence to the appellate nomination of a true anti-gay bigot, William Pryor, and the lackluster response from Washington's leading gay political lobbies. Crain writes:

It is not the job of a civil rights movement to offer political cover at crunch time. Conservative groups understand this and never scream more loudly than at their own allies when they waiver.

But as I've often said, too many of our activists are Democratic Party loyalists first and foremost, and the rest of us let them get away with it.