IGF CultureWatch

Steve Chapman, a libertarian-minded columnist for the Chicago Tribune, takes a look at recent converts to the cause of states rights - now that the GOP controls the three branches of the federal government. He writes that "somewhere along the line, the two factions switched sides. The result is like watching a version of 'The Odd Couple' in which Jack Lemmon is the slob and Walter Matthau is the neat freak." Specifically:

People who cheered the expansion of federal power under Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal have suddenly rediscovered that the Constitution assigns many prerogatives to state governments. . . . Conservatives claim the [anti-gay marriage] amendment is needed to prevent gay marriage from being mandated nationwide by the courts. But if that were the true goal, the amendment would simply affirm the sovereignty of the states over the issue, instead of forcing them all to prohibit same-sex unions.

While Chapman suspects that "the left's deployment of federalism is mostly a tactical maneuver, not a principled one," he still holds out that "if liberals keep championing the rightful powers of the states, they may develop a lasting attachment." Especially since:

In these instances [states recognizing gay marriages, medical marijuana in California, and "death with dignity" in Oregon] conservatives want faraway bureaucrats butting into local affairs, while liberals say that maybe Barry Goldwater was right about the dangers of big government. Already, this alignment is beginning to look normal rather than bizarre. We can all be thankful for gravity, because the world seems to be upside down.

And isn't it fun to see Barney Frank defending states rights!

(Note: IGF contributing author Paul Varnell made similar points here.)

New Hampshire Sen. John Sununu was one of only six Republican senators last year to vote against the gay-marriage-banning Federal Marriage Amendment. A genuine free-market conservative, he's also an impassioned advocate of meaningful Social Security reform. Here's an article from Tech Central Station asking Why Not Sununu? in 2008. Here's hoping.

A little late, I've been directed to a column in The Nation, the ultimate Bush-baiting leftwing bible, by David Corn. Surprisingly, he offers a thorough critique of the outing of Jeff Gannon. Corn writes:

Bloggers have made much of his apparent effort to earn a buck as a prostitute for men. This is not gay-baiting, they say, it's hypocrisy. The question is, hypocrisy on whose part? On Gannon/Guckert's? He's been accused of being a gay-baiter. But how true is that?

As part of my investigation, I had my assistant, Alexa Steinberg, search through a collection of Gannon/Guckert's articles for pieces on gay-related themes. She found eight pieces. Most were straightforward accounts of political tussles over gay marriage.... This is pretty tame stuff....

Gannon/Guckert clearly was writing for a conservative audience. But he was hardly a flame-thrower on gay issues. His observation about Kerry was clumsy but not homophobic.

Sure, he worked for an organization that supported an administration and party opposed to gay rights, and he was a Bush-backer. But does that automatically qualify him for outing? Should a lesbian reporter who works at the Wall Street Journal or at any metropolitan daily that editorializes against gay marriage be outed? Reporters are not elected officials. They do not legislate the behavior of others....

[H]e has been hounded for being a gay male hooker. Should we even care if a reporter is moonlighting on the side in this fashion? I don't-let Helen Thomas be a professional dominatrix in her free time-unless that reporter explicitly claims to be a person of family values or publicly decries homosexuality or prostitution. I have not seen evidence that Gannon/Guckert struck such a stance.

The line of attack, supported by outing-advocates in our comments area (and vigorously opposed by other commenters), has been that Gannon deserved to have his sex life publicized because he was anti-gay, but it appear his only "crime" was being a reporter for a Republican-supporting news outlet. It was said he lied to gain entrance to the press briefings, but it now appears he used his real name and driver's license to sign in, and that use of a pen name is hardly unheard of (one anti-outing commenter points to the NY Times's Nick Gage/Nikos Gatzoyiannis). And it's been said he broke the law by being an escort (another commenter asks if Gannon's critics would have made the same case against all gay reporters in jurisdictions that had sodomy laws, and whether outers favor enforcing the anti-escort laws).

Conclusion: Gannon was a victim of the politics of personal destruction. He transgression was being a supporter of the Bush administration. As another commenter puts it, for the Bush-haters that, unfortunately, seems to justify all.

Update: He says he's "bruised, not broken" - Jeff Gannon's blog, and more power to him!

More Recent Postings
2/20/05 - 2/26/05

An interesting editorial in The Oregonian makes the case for civil unions. After noting the failure of gay marriage advocates to listen and respond to the concerns of opponents, the editors call on the state (now saddled by voters with an anti-gay-marriage amendment) to pass a comprehensive civil unions law:

Critics say civil unions exemplify the separate but equal doctrine used to justify segregation in the South, but it's a "facile and deeply wrong" comparison, suggests Yale law professor William Eskridge Jr., an expert on civil unions....

"[S]eparate but equal" was a legal doctrine used to mask inequality. Vermont used the term "civil union" to mask equality....

Some will continue to argue that civil unions are inherently inferior to marriage, but in Vermont, the difference is mainly in name. Those joined in a civil union are even called "spouses."

Certainly, as others have noted, this is the view of many gay-marriage opponents, which is why they, too, are adamant in opposing civil unions. But fortunately, when the issues is CUs and not marriage, a majority of Americans don't share their opposition.

Another editorial of interest ran in the Roanoke (Vir.) Times. It notes that Episcopal priest Deborah Hentz Hunley and other clergy:

hope that the current debate over gay marriages can be expanded to "looking at Christian marriage and what we think it means." For her, that includes the possibility of separating the governmental recognition of a marriage - deciding who is eligible for the legal benefits and obligations that entails - from the religious blessing of the union.

The current system of having clergy act as agents of the state is so taken for granted that we rarely think about the illogic of it in a country that has no established religion. Separating the two functions seems to offer benefits with few, if any, disadvantages.

A couple have to appear before a governmental representative as it is now to receive a marriage license, so there's no good reason why that process couldn't include having them sign on the dotted line to be married. Everyone would then have a civil union - whose rules the state could decide outside of religious considerations. Then, couples who wanted a religious ceremony to solemnize that union could find a willing priest/minister/rabbi/imam/shaman or whoever to bless them.

It seems far-fetched to expect this now, but good ideas have a way of taking off that's sometimes totally unexpected. So even if it's not around the corner, making civil union the new legal norm may eventually be an idea whose time will come.

More Recent Postings
2/27/05 - 2/05/05

Have you read of the uproar over a leftwing activist for an obscure leftwing news outlet (many would label it propaganda) who regularly attends White House press briefings and asks highly partisan questions? Gee, I can't imagine why not! But Russell Mokhiber, who writes for the Naderite "Corporate Crime Reporter" newsletter and the "progressive" website Common Dreams boasts on that site's blog of asking Bush's press secretary derogatory questions (read them here). So far, though, conservatives haven't pummeled through his sex life.

As Andrew Sullivan notes:

It's an Animal Farm moment: the difference between a fanatic on the gay left and a fanatic on the religious right is harder and harder to discern. Just ask yourself: if a Catholic conservative blogger had found out that a liberal-leaning pseudo-pundit/reporter was a gay sex worker, had outed the guy as gay and a "hooker," published pictures of the guy naked, and demanded a response from a Democratic administration, do you think gay rights groups would be silent? They'd rightly be outraged. But the left can get away with anything, can't they? Especially homophobia.

It certainly seems so.

Some interesting new letters posted. Check 'em out here.

Democratic politicians, spurred on by left-leaning bloggers, continue to make hay out of the "scandal" of Jeff Guckert (who used the pseudonym Jeff Gannon as a White House reporter for a small, conservative wire service apparently linked to the GOP). Guckert was outed by lefties who found he had hosted gay porn sites and, allegedly, been a male escort. They considered his scalp a great victory.

The N.Y. Daily News reports, complete with shirtless-hunk photo:

Democrats in Congress are trying to keep an embarrassing GOP scandal alive by asking that the official probe of White House propaganda be widened to include how an alleged gay hooker with an alias got into the press room every day. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) asked officials to see whether sometime reporter James Guckert, aka Jeff Gannon, violated a ban on "fake" news stories by reprinting White House press releases verbatim....

There is no evidence that Guckert got any money from the White House. However, he received extraordinary access - including daily passes - despite having no journalistic experience and working for an obscure conservative Web site.

Guckert's sordid past as a $200-an-hour gay escort was uncovered by liberal bloggers....

Leaving aside the debatable issue of whether or not Gannon/Guckert deserved press credentials, it does seem that the liberal-left is simply shocked, shocked, that a gay escort was permitted into professional company. My, just what is the world coming to!

Scratch a liberal, find a 'phobe?

More on Guckert in his own words, from his interview on the Today show, here.

Update: The Washington Blade reports "Experts debate whether sex life of gay journalists is news." This story notes that Guckert told CNN's Anderson Cooper: "[W]e seem to have established a new standard for journalists in this country. If someone disagrees with you, then your personal life, your private life, and anything you have ever done in the past is going to be brought up for public inspection."

Also quoted, David Boaz of the libertarian Cato Institute (the Blade misspells his name), observing: "What you have in the Guckert case is left-wing people using homophobia to destroy a Republican operative... Even Republicans are entitled to be gay and to run porn Web sites."

From the AP:

The [Connecticut] legislature's Judiciary Committee approved a bill that would allow same-sex couples to enter into civil unions.... Gay rights advocates oppose civil unions, which give gay and lesbian couples the same rights as married heterosexual couples. Gay rights activists say civil unions would make same-sex couples second-class citizens in Connecticut.... If civil unions are approved, Connecticut would be the first state to voluntarily create such a system.

I don't think it's much of a stretch to think that if actual gay people were polled, instead of the activist vanguard, they'd favor having civil unions now as opposed to not having civil unions and maybe sometime in the future getting marriage.

Of course, getting civil unions legislatively would not only make it more likely that Connecticut gays would eventually get marriage, but send a strong signal to the nation that gays can advance through the democratic process, rather than relying on unpopular judicial fiats. And there would be little chance of legislative action engendering the kind of backlash that's followed judicial decrees in Hawaii and elsewhere, leading to marriage-banning constitutional amendments.

Meanwhile, the U.K. prepares for civil partnerships (which the press is referring to as "civil unions," the same term used for city hall marriages), and gay couples are starting to announce their upcoming unions in the Times of London. If it were New London, Connecticut, instead of London, England, gay activists would be protesting.

Interestingly, the Times of London annoucement states that "After their civil union, Mr O'Connor and Dr Jones will have their partnership blessed at an Anglican church." Just like Prince Charles and Camilla!

I guess I know how moderate liberals feel when the far left infuriates them. In the Social Security debate, center-right conservatives and libertarians now have to deal with homophobes mixing together attacks on opponents of personal accounts with attacks on gays. Great synergy, guys.

As the New York Times reports, a right-wing group called USA Next plans to spend up to $10 million on commercials and other tactics attacking AARP, the retirees' lobby that's using its own brand of fear-mongering to fight personal social security accounts. One USA Next ad features a photograph of a soldier in camouflage, crossed out by a red X, juxtaposed against a green check mark over two tuxedo-clad men kissing. The caption reads, "The real AARP agenda." In fact, AARP takes no position on same-sex marriage.

The libertarian Cato Institute's Michael Tanner, a leading advocate of personal accounts, told the Times:

"This is not very bright politics. . . .Introducing homophobia and other things that are not relevant to Social Security reform is not helpful. . . . You need to build a coalition to win this fight. You're not going to get Social Security reform passed just through the right wing of the Republican Party. Groups like gays are disadvantaged by the current system, and I'd think we would want to bring them into the campaign, not insult them."

Hard to argue with that.

Libertarian-minded columnist Ryan H. Sager, writing at the TechCentralStation site, takes a critical look at the just-concluded Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which brought together the right wing of the right wing (when it comes to opposing immigration, for example, they make Bush look like a liberal). Sager observes:

Make absolutely no mistake about it: This party [the GOP], among its most hard-core supporters, is not about freedom anymore. It is about foisting its members' version of morality and economic intervention on the country. It is, in other words, the mirror image of its hated enemy.... [A]s one Log Cabiner asked, just when did the Republican Party become the party of Washington, D.C.? Just where in the Constitution is the federal government given the power or responsibility to manage citizens' family lives?

On the TechCentralStation comments board, reader "Mrs. A" responded:

"I'm not bothered by homosexuals and gay behavior.... And I want to hear what the Log Cabin Republicans have to say. We're scared the traditions we hold in our souls are being ripped up and stomped on. What do they have to say about that?"

This, I think, sums up the fears of many GOP voters, and it's paramount we reach out to these people and convincingly address their fears in a langauge that they understand (hint: it's not the language of entitlement to "benefits"). Because if we don't, it will mean further surrendering the Republican Party and its majority of American voters to the activist right's social conservative hard core.

You can read more about the CPAC meeting on Ryan's "Miscellaneous Objections" blog.