IGF CultureWatch

Gay Patriot West takes a look at just how wrong-headed HRC has been, with its focus on defeating Bush instead of fighting state referendums. And an excellent point relayed about their infantile "George Bush, You're Fired" sound trucks during last summer's GOP convention:

Who were they trying to influence? I mean, did HRC actually think GOP delegates who spent thousands of dollars to go the convention (not to mention all the political capital, such as years of activism for GOP causes, it takes to win election as a delegate) would read those signs and change their minds about a man whose nomination they came to celebrate?

[Update: As quoted in the Washington Blade, gay Republican activist Carl Schmid drives the point home:

"You can just fight, fight, fight and try to defeat these Republicans, but that hasn't been successful," Schmid said. "HRC spent millions to defeat Republicans and maybe they should spend some money on educating Republicans. The issue of gay marriage is not doing so well. I don't think 'George Bush: You're Fired' does a good job at educating America about gay marriage."]

Gay Patriot also ponders why Log Cabin can't bring itself (as of this late writing) to comment on Bush's victory. I'd add that LCR has a big problem right now. The nonendorsement (which I supported) and public criticism of Bush (which I think did veer close to endorsing Kerry) put them on the outs with the White House. For the life of me, I can't fathom why or how Chris Barron, who began 2003 supporting John Edwards for president, became political director and spokesperson -- the most highly visible position after executive director Patrick Guerriero. Did this not seem like it would be a problem?

And I'm disappointed that when Bush made his statement a few weeks ago that civil unions were ok by him and that the GOP platform committee was wrong to oppose them, there was no response whatsoever from LCR. Talk about missing an opportunity to re-open dialog! This really did make it seem that they were hoping and betting on a Kerry victory.

LCR is needed, but Guerriero and the board have made terrible mistakes. If they don't shape up, they'll remain totally marginalized. Championing core Republican policy initiatives would help them re-establish their now-in-doubt GOP credentials and not seem like Democrats in drag. Sulking with the gay left about Bush's victory (with over 1 million self-identified gay votes!) is simply churlish.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), a moderate, gay-rights supporting Republican poised to take over chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee, "bluntly warned newly re-elected President Bush today against putting forth Supreme Court nominees who would seek to overturn abortion rights or are otherwise too conservative to win confirmation," reports the AP.

Specter helped kill President Reagan's nomination of arch-homophobe Robert Bork to the Supreme Court, and of Jeff Sessions to a federal judgeship. Specter called both nominees too extreme on civil rights issues. Sessions later became a Republican senator from Alabama and now sits on the Judiciary Committee with Specter.

The Human Rights Campaign vigorously opposed Specter's re-election, despite his co-sponsorship of the HRC's Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and Hate Crimes Prevention Act, among other measures. If HRC had been successful and Specter had been defeated, the Judiciary Committee could have been headed by a right-wing social conservative such as Alabama's Sessions.

[Updte: A new letter in our mailbag takes me to task over Sen. Specter's liklihood to stand up to anti-gay judicial nominees.]

Four years of incumbency should have given a sitting president with a relatively robust economy a clear edge; instead, Iraq remained the dominant issue, trumping the economy and everything else - including gay issues. Americans are fiercely split over the war and its continuing casualties, though I believe history will judge Bush right on this, the big one.

Nevertheless, it's clear that his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment wasn't the winner Bush (and Karl Rove) expected it to be. The millions of "missing" evangelicals that Rove believed could be brought into the GOP fold never materialized. Instead, the FMA cost Bush the active support and votes of gay and gay-friendly moderates, libertarians and economic conservatives, as well as all those turned off by what seemed an extremist ploy. And significantly, the anti-gay perception helped drive away young voters, who turned out in higher numbers than ever and voted overwhelmingly for Kerry. The GOP now must decide whether, going forward, it will be the party of Arnold Schwarzeneggerr, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, or of Bill Frist and Rick Santorum.

[Update: OK, if you've read down this far you know Bush's victory was bigger than it first appeared on Tuesday evening, and that the passage of gay marriage bans in 11 states (by huge margins) showed the issue did play a significant role. That's why this was an initial reflection. Enough of the e-mails! ]

More Recent Postings
10/24/04 - 10/30/04

Bush has won. And more comfortably than it seemed last night. I'm not in mourning. Kerry would have offered little to gays other than symbolism that didn't require expending political capital - and some mid-level patronage appointments to the leading gay Democrats who helped mobilize votes on his behalf. Gay Democrats demanded nothing of Kerry for their support, and nothing is what they would have gotten. The man who declared, "The president and I have the same position, fundamentally, on gay marriage. We do. Same position," would have proved, in this case at least, true to his word.

On the downside, anti-gay marriage bans (endorsed in principle by Kerry), bulldozed to victory in all 11 states that voted on them: Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon and Utah. Amendments banning same-sex marriage were passed earlier this year in Louisiana and Missouri. They joined Alaska, Hawaii, Nevada and Nebraska, whose constitutions define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

There's just no way to put a spin on that. But it does mean we need to ask a bold question -- given the American electorate, was fighting for the "M" word too much, too fast, too soon? Great Britain just established same-sex "civil partnerships" apart from marriage. That's the path taken by many EU countries -- even some, such as the Netherlands, that later evolved their partnerships into full marriage.

Prior to last year's Massachusetts' court decision declaring that the state must provide equal marriage access for same-sex couples, I feared that such a ruling would result in a huge backlash. Then I got caught up in the euphoria. Now, I think it would have been far better if the court had followed Vermont and ordered the rights of marriage, but not necessarily full marriage, via civil unions.

This is a matter that is, of course, debatable both in terms of what's right and what's strategic, but it's a debate we need to have.

Exit polls from CNN and the Washington Post report that 4 percent of the overall electorate self-identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual, down from 5 percent in 1996, (the Washington Blade has a good wrap up). CNN says Kerry garnered 77 percent of the gay vote; compared with the 70 percent that went to Gore four years ago (the 2000 figure is from an ABC poll). But hold on to your horses: Bush got 23 percent of gay votes this time, says CNN - the same percentage as four years ago. The Washington Post comes close to the same conclusion, putting the gay vote breakdown at 78 percent Kerry, 21 percent Bush and 2 percent Nader. And the polls were skewing toward Kerry!

Very quick analysis: gay culture is so dominated by liberal-left (and left-left) activists and media that we forget that many gay folks are just folks, going to work, running small businesses, attending church and worrying about security, taxes and crime. They don't view Bush with the paranoid vision of gay activists.

I can also relate that among a good quarter of gay folks there is outright hostility toward a dominant gay left that does not speak on their behalf, though it claims to. As for the Log Cabin Republicans, their "non-endorsement" of Bush didn't seem to have much effect on the gay GOP electorate, either.

[Update: In 2000, Bush actually received about 25% of the gay vote according to exit polls. If we take the 21% gay vote figure that the Washington Post reports Bush received this year, the falloff is 4% -- within the margin of error.]

Here's a moving account of what truly sanctifies a relationship.

I never put much stock in claims by Larry Kramer and others that Abe Lincoln was homosexual. But this review of an upcoming posthumous work by psychologist C.A. Tripp does seem to make a case. Still, there have been so many assertions that historical personages are "gay" based on scant proof that even a mountain of circumstantial evidence in Lincoln's case is likely to be scorned.

The European Parliament forced the rejection of the Italian nominee to be the EU's commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security after he caused an uproar by saying "homosexuality is a sin." OK, he additionally said marriage was designed to give women "the right to have children and the protection of a man," which also didn't sit too well with the liberal parliament.

As of Thursday evening, still nothing on the Log Cabin site that I can find acknowledging President Bush's unexpected critique of the GOP platform's opposition to civil unions. Even if Bush's statement is too little, too late, it's nevertheless a step in the right direction that could be leveraged to create dialogue. But LCR is silent. Meanwhile, Bush's statement is being bashed (no surprise) on the Stonewall Democrats' website, and even referenced on their home page.

Blogger Tim Hulsey's My Stupid Dog site takes a look at a fundraiser for the Charlottesville, Vir., AIDS/HIV Services Group (ASG) that turned into an anti-GOP hate fest. Hulsey notes:

There was one joke claiming that Bush and an al-Qaida terrorist were alike, because each one "takes flying lessons and works to destroy the country." (You see, Bush was a member of the Texas Air National Guard, which makes him practically the same as the folks who flew those planes into the World Trade Center. Get it?)

And he comments:

[W]hen a nonprofit charity with tax-exempt status and a generous share of public money sponsors explicitly partisan political invective, I have a very big problem. ...

Over the past three years, Congress has increased public funds for organizations like ASG by nearly thirty percent. Meanwhile, Virginia's [GOP controlled] legislature retained and expanded drug subsidies during hard economic times, and even expanded its own funding for AIDS prevention efforts. Thanks largely to these massive infusions of public money, ASG has managed to expand over the past two years -- renting larger offices, starting a new family-housing plan, and serving more clients over a larger area than ever before.

In short, Republican legislators helped make AIDS/HIV Services Group the social-service organization it is today. Last night, while their backs were turned, they finally received their reward.

And it's all par for the course. But remind me, which is supposed to be the Party of Hate?