IGF CultureWatch

There's an Old Testament decree that forbids the wearing of any cloth made from more than one fiber, which has inspired the parody website www.godhatesrags.com. Have fun.

The firing (i.e., forced resignation) of executive director Cheryl Jacques by the board of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lesbigay lobby, is welcome news. Jacques had made an already too partisan organization a total front for the Democratic National Committee, even opposing the re-election of one of the GOP's most gay-supportive senators, Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter, who was the lead GOP sponsor of HRC's signature Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) bill and is the incoming chair of the Senate's powerful Judiciary Committee.

But the news that Hillary Rosen, partner of past HRC leader Elizabeth Birch, will be taking over (at least on an interim basis) is not good news. The rot at HRC began under Birch, who ended HRC's former policy of focusing on congressional races and not endorsing presidential candidates. Once the decision was made to devote the lion's share of HRC's resources to electing the Democratic presidential candidate (and in 2000, under Birch, that decision was made before it was clear that George Bush, and not John McCain, would be the Republican nominee), HRC effectively closed the door on any meaningful dialog with the national GOP.

And dedicating $28 million to purchase and refurbish a fancy HQ building in Washington, D.C., as opposed to spending those funds on, say, a nationwide communications program, or developing real grassroots networks, was another Birch decision.

Christian Grantham (hat tip to Gay Orbit) has more on Jacques firing, reporting that:

Sources say some board members expressed deep misgivings with how HRC presented itself during the 2004 elections. HRC Board member Bruce Bastian was particularly upset with HRC spending money on bumper stickers, t-shirts, billboards and tattoos that read "George Bush, You're Fired!"

Making Jacques a scapegoat, alas, won't solve the deep-rooted problems plaguing HRC.

Update: The Washington Post reports:

"For the organization that is considered to be responsible for setting the strategy for the [gay] community, the defeat that occurred on November 2 was stunning," one major donor said. "I think every single gay person in this country is trying to figure out what went wrong."

Gee, maybe giving John Kerry a free pass to endorse those anti-gay state amendments wasn't such a good strategy for gay (as opposed to Democratic Party) activists!

Following this month's clean sweep in 11 states, amendments banning gay marriage are likely to be on the ballot in at least 12 to 15 more states next year, reports the Christian Science Monitor.

And as was the case in nine of the 13 state amendments passed since August, most ballot measures are likely to target officially sanctioned civil unions and other nonmarriage forms of domestic partnership as well.

At the federal level, Karl Rove plans to keep pushing to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage. According to the Monitor:

Advocates of the amendment (which will be reintroduced in the new Congress) picked up support among newly elected senators and representatives - a sure majority in the House and a likely majority of the Senate, although both chambers have considerable distance to go before reaching the two-thirds majority necessary to amend the Constitution.

But at the same time, the Monitor reports:

Most Americans oppose gay marriage. But they're also against a US constitutional amendment. And most approve either legalizing same-sex marriage or officially sanctioning civil unions for such couples, according to exit polls in this month's election. Even Mr. Bush has spoken approvingly of state-established civil unions for gay couples.

And Matt Foreman is quoted saying something that's not crazy:

"Let's not pretend it doesn't hurt," says Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. "We need to step back, reflect, and process why the margins of loss in most of the states were depressingly large, where we should go from here, and how we are going to get there."

For one thing, Mr. Foreman told the group's annual conference in St. Louis just days after the election, gay-rights advocates failed to build sufficient grass-roots support before it began lobbying lawmakers and filing lawsuits....

"If the movement had been thinking clearly, we would have had a political and public education strategy that preceded the legal strategy," he said. "That obviously didn't happen."

No, I guess it didn't.

More Recent Postings
11/21/04 - 11/27/04

The activist mythos holds that all who voted for gay marriage bans did so out of "hate." The idea that folks might be genuinely (if wrongly) concerned about weakening marriage is simply dismissed. Oregon, however, presents a problem - the state voted strongly for Kerry, but also strongly to ban same-sex marriage. That means there were an awful lot of Democrats who also voted "anti-gay." Activists don't really want to think about that, as it produces troubling cognitive dissonance.

Now something else peculiar is happening in Oregon. As the state's Albany Democrat-Herald reports:

Just a few weeks ago, state Sen. Ben Westlund voted "yes" on Measure 36 to ban gay marriages in Oregon. Now, the central Oregon lawmaker is hard at work drafting a civil unions bill for the 2005 Legislature to give gay and lesbian couples some of the rights bestowed on married couples.

"It's just the right thing to do," the Tumalo Republican says. "Nothing in Measure 36 prevents the Legislature from affording equal rights and privileges to same-sex couples."

Of course, there are many social conservatives who oppose granting any kind of legal recognition to gay relationships. But the numbers who support gay marriage plus those who oppose marriage but support (of at least don't oppose) civil unions is the majority we need to advance our rights. Oregon could be showing us the way.
- Stephen H. Miller

More Recent Postings
11/21/04 - 11/27/04

James Driscoll writes, in an op-ed running in the conservative Washington Times titled New Gay Political Strategies:

[W]hy was it necessary to wave a red flag before religious conservatives and give ammunition to the far right by backing a sensational split decision from one of our most liberal state courts? Timing is everything in politics: In America in 2004, gay marriage was not an idea whose time had come.

The gay movement's haphazard embrace of gay marriage seems reactive and media driven. Too often gay-rights groups measure their success in volume of newsprint and minutes on prime time, rather than in numbers of openly gay people at the tables where decisions are made.

Instead of gay marriage, our strategic priorities for 2004 should have been: 1) allowing gays to serve in the military without hiding who they are; 2) eliminating employment glass ceilings for gay people; 3) getting our place at the table, which means openly gay representation in government and both parties in rough proportion to our numbers and talents; 4) civil unions.

While our strategy has been adrift and ill-timed, our ham-handed tactics have frequently played into our enemies hands.

More Recent Postings
11/217/04 - 11/27/04

I'm with those who believe court-ordered gay marriage in Massachusetts ignited the backlash that led 13 states to pass constitutional amendments this year banning same-sex marriage, 11 having done so on Nov. 2. But blogger Steve Sanders' Reason & Liberty site makes the argument that courts should order marriage equality. I still don't agree with him, but I like having my ideas challenged and found it worth a visit.

More Recent Postings
11/14/04 - 11/20/04

I've been out of town, so here are a few catch-up items.

The Washington Blade article Bridges burning, gay groups cope with GOP dominance, reports (at long last) some big donors to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lesbigay lobby, are questioning the group's strategy. The main issue: the decision by HRC leader Cheryl Jacques, a former Democratic state legislator for Massachusetts, to direct the lion's share of the group's resources to a defeat-Bush campaign. Said Randy Foster, a member of HRC's Federal Club (for large donors):

"Until we create a new strategy knowing we live in a conservative environment, as a community, we will be ineffective ...

If HRC, by its nature, should be bipartisan why have posters that say, 'George W. Bush, you're fired' ... Little or no conservatives will reach out to us. The strategy to date has failed."

Jacques responded that "working with this administration is going to be hard" but that HRC officials were working on a long-range plan for the next year, though she declined to elaborate, says the Blade. No kidding.

Michael at Gay Orbit shares a letter he sent to HRC on their campaign against Arlen Specter:

You've sure put Arlen in his place... even though I distinctly remember him saying he was absolutely going to vote against the [Federal Marriage Amendment] if it came to a floor vote.

Thank you for doing everything you can to make sure that gay and lesbian Americans aren't taken seriously by the majority of Americans who did not vote for the presidential candidate you so desperately wanted to win. By taking this stand against our best Republican friend in the Senate, you sure showed them, didn't you? I know, as you do, that it's not about advancing gay issues. ... I know it's not your job to fight for my equality, but rather, to cement your position as a supporter of the Democratic Party, because you know, it's not like they'd ever take us for granted or anything...

Elsewhere in the Blade, editor Chris Crain has penned another worthy editorial which, after taking some well deserved shots at the GOP, notes:

The Democrats aren't much better. They ran fast and furious away from our issues in the 2004 election and somehow still managed to blame us for their defeat. It still confuses me how a party can refuse to defend us before the general public and still claim their loss is our fault. ...

In an appearance Monday on National Public Radio, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a longtime gay rights supporter, went so far as to complain that Kerry's failure on gay marriage was one of communication, not substance. She argued, incredibly enough, that the Bush and Kerry positions on gay marriage were indistinguishable, since both were opposed to legalizing it. ...

Remember that the same infamous exit polls that supposedly signaled the triumphant rise of "values voters" also indicated that a substantial majority - 61 percent - support [either] gay marriage or civil unions. If gay rights groups and their allies in both parties would only find their backbone and actually make the case for our equality, we can win this mighty battle. But if we are afraid to try, we are surely doomed to fail.

More Recent Postings
11/21/04 - 11/27/04

Connecticut is likely to legislatively adopt civil unions next year, according to this article in the Danbury News Times:

On Election Day, voters in 11 states approved constitutional bans on gay marriage. But when the Connecticut legislature meets in January, the state may buck the national trend.... Elsewhere in the country, the Democrats might encounter fierce opposition from leading Republicans. But in Connecticut, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell and House Minority Leader Robert Ward of North Branford have said they might be willing to expand rights for gay couples, though they oppose same-sex marriage.

Rep. Robert Godfrey, D-Danbury, and other lawmakers say it is almost
inevitable that a gay union measure will become law in the 2005 session of
General Assembly. "Connecticut may be the first state in the nation where the legislature cobbles something together," said Godfrey, the chairman of the screening committee that decides which bills go to the House floor. "I have yet to meet a colleague that says it will not happen. There will be a resolution this year."

Legislatively approved civil unions that aren't mandated by split state court decisions will carry far greater legitimacy. And clearly, it's going to be civil unions, and not marriage, that will be under consideration.

More Recent Postings
11/14/04 - 11/20/04

An editorial titled Gay Lessons ran in the Monday, Nov. 15 issue of the Wall Street Journal (online for WSJ subscribers only). The Journal editorial page is a bastion of conservatism, so it is, I think, significant when the editors opine:

The lesson here for gay rights activists is to trust the democratic process, rather than use the courts to circumvent it. Public attitudes toward homosexuality are much different than they were even 20 years ago, with (for example) many companies already offering benefits to gay partners. Letting voters reach a democratic consensus on their own schedule is also a good way to avoid a repeat of the endless cultural warfare that has stemmed from that monument to judicial activism known as Roe v. Wade.

The editors then add this worthwhile suggestion:

In the meantime, if liberals really care about discriminatory legal protections and benefits, they might consider agitating for a repeal of the death tax, which puts gay couples at a disadvantage. Married couples are allowed an unlimited transfer of assets to a spouse before death, a tax benefit denied gay couples. And only heterosexual spouses can inherit each other's assets without paying estate taxes.

They might also have added that private social security accounts also serve the interest of gays, for the same reason (they'd be transferable to any designated beneficiary).

Active support for such measures would an opportunity for Log Cabin's leadership to take a stand that serves gay interests while building bridges with the GOP, if they have the foresight to do so.

More Recent Postings
11/14/04 - 11/20/04

There are some interesting things in E.J. Graff's New Republic column on why nearly one in four gay voters chose Bush (online, but only for New Republic subscribers). She writes:

Bush winning 23 percent of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual vote isn't all that surprising. And the inclination to find it surprising rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of the gay and lesbian community.

LGBT voters aren't like any other interest group. Aside from being attracted to the same sex, we have nothing in common. And I mean nothing: not our color, religion, region, culture, community, class, educational aspirations, or politics....

The Rapid City, South Dakota, lesbian moms whose idea of a big Friday night is to get all dolled up for the greyhound races and a meal at Denny's simply do not have the same political point of view as Dupont Circle lobbyists or Berkeley activists. This becomes clear when you break down gay votes by region. In the South, for instance, 32 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual voters went for Bush; in the East, a far less surprising 8 percent did.

The heart of the matter, I think, is whether being gay is your primary cultural identity or just one aspect of who you are. Or maybe gay GOP voters just felt Bush was the better choice for the nation overall, and took Kerry at his word that there was "no difference" between his opposition to gay marriage and Bush's.

More Recent Postings
11/14/04 - 11/20/04