IGF CultureWatch

The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force co-sponsored a new study showing that black lesbian couples are raising children at almost the same rate as black married couples, and that black same-sex couples raise children at twice the rate of white same-sex couples. The Task Force concludes that "Black same-sex couples have more to gain from the legal protections of marriage, and more to lose if states pass amendments banning marriage and other forms of partner recognition."

Fair enough, but being the Task Force, they add:

"These facts underscore the hypocrisy and wrong-headedness of the Bush Administration's aggressive attempts to deprive same sex couples equal marriage rights while touting its multi-million dollar 'African-American Healthy Marriage Initiative' as a way to strengthen the African American family," said Matt Foreman, the Task Force's Executive Director. "This report clearly shows that denying the protections that come with marriage disproportionately hurts...gay and lesbian African American couples....

Yep, blacks suffer "disproportionately," of course. And while it's fair enough to castigate Bush over the federal marriage amendment, what about Kerry's support for state marriage amendments -- the current threat. Also, the Task Force makes no mention of the devastating breakdown of straight black marriage that their study reveals (because if they did, they couldn't attack Bush for trying to address that problem and hit him on both fronts).

Something else the Task Force doesn't mention: the marriage amendment received a higher percentage of votes in the House from black Democrats than from Democrats as a whole.

Of the 36 Democrats who voted for the anti-gay amendment, 7 were members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Rep. Harold Ford, D-Tenn., a rising star in the party and one of John Kerry's earliest backers in Congress. (Of the 158 Democrats voting against the amendment, 25 were black caucus members, a somewhat smaller percentage). Which, ahem, seems to suggest some "disproportionate" homophobia among black Democrats.

Engaging the Enemy.

Jonathan Rauch has an interesting debate with David Blankenhorn, a pro-fatherhood, pro-family advocate over at the website Familyscholars.org (Jonathan's latest posting has links back to earlier installments). The discussion focuses on federalism and why honest conservatives should support letting states decide their own marriage laws.

I'm not the only one who viscerally felt that John Edwards' raising the issue of Mary Cheney during the vice presidential debate had the feel of a sting. Said Edwards in response to a question about gay marriage (which Cheney had answered without mentioning his daughter):

let me say first that I think the vice president and his wife love their daughter. I think they love her very much. And you can't have anything but respect for the fact that they're willing to talk about the fact that they have a gay daughter, the fact that they embrace her. It's a wonderful thing.

As blogger Mickey Kaus of Slate's Kausfiles put it, "I got the heebie jeebies when [Edwards] smarmily praised Cheney for having a gay daughter." My interpretation: Hello, socially conservative-leaning independents. Did you know about this.

Addendum: The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto agrees. From his Wednesday OpinionJournal.com debate analysis:

At present, a vast majority of Americans oppose same-sex marriage; when it comes up to a statewide vote--whether in a red state or blue--voters typically reject it by majorities ranging from 60% to 80%. This means there are a lot of Democrats who...belong to their party despite its views on social issues.

We don't agree with the gay-rights crowd that "bigotry" is behind all opposition to same-sex marriage, but there's no doubt that some opponents harbor antigay prejudice. Were these the voters John Edwards was addressing when he brought Cheney's daughter into the debate?

Racial demagogue and slander-monger Al Sharpton, scheduled to give the evening's keynote address at the Human Rights Campaign's annual National Dinner in Washington, DC, has pulled out of the event, citing a scheduling conflict (apparently, he's got a gig as an analyst for the Oct. 8 presidential debate). "We're disappointed that he can't make it, but of course we understand," HRC spokesperson Steven Fisher told the Washington Blade. Perhaps there's still time to get Louis Farrakhan.

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9/26/04 - 10/2/04

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has angered social conservatives by signing legislation requiring health insurance policies to provide coverage for registered domestic partners, a bill to help law enforcement battle hate crimes (including anti-gay violence), and a measure to legalize the sale of over-the-counter syringes to slow the spread of AIDS. So, he's a liberal, right?

Wrong. The "Governator" also outraged the left (including gay Democrats) by vetoing a string of anti-business measures, including a bill to jack up the state-enforced minimum wage, and "consumer protection" and anti-pollution mandates that would add significantly to the costs of doing business. As the state's economy struggles under what's already one of the most onerous regulatory climates in the country, perhaps the world, unions and liberal lobbyists -- and the legislators they fund -- think driving small businesses out of business (and bigger businesses out of the state) is dandy as candy.

Arnold is so appealing because he's willing to stand up to the professional activists of the left, while standing firm on issues of legal equality.

There's one proposed constitutional amendment I'd happily support: allowing foreign-born U.S. citizens to run for President. This constitutional prohibition - a legacy of Alexander Hamilton's political opponents! - is itself an affront to legal equality that should be done away with. Here's hoping.

The House of Representatives on Thursday solidly defeated the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment (now, apparently, titled the Marriage Protection Amendment). The final tally came in 63 votes short of the two-thirds majority necessary to alter the Constitution.
As for party discipline, 27 Republicans joined the opposition to the amendment, while 36 Democrats voted in favor of the marriage ban.

Scheduling the vote on the eve of the first presidential debate seems to ensure that it receives limited media coverage. But that doesn't matter: this circus has fulfilled its mission -- shoring up Bush's support from social conservatives. The federal measure is now deader than a dodo. But the manifold state constitutional amendments are alive and kicking. That's where the real damage will be done.

Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, penned an op-ed that dominated Tuesday's Wall Street Journal editorial page. And guess what, it was titled "The Marriage Amendment Is a Terrible Idea."

Cox is no supporter of same-sex marriage, mind you, and he blasts as "judicial arrogance" the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling earlier this year ordering the state to recognize gay marriages, but he then calls the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) an assault on the tradition of federalism:

The Supreme Court has frequently opined that the regulation of domestic relations "has long been regarded as a virtually exclusive province of the states." That would change. Not only same-sex marriage and family law in general, but other areas could move into the federal judicial sphere.... Restraint in the allocation of governmental authority to the national government from the states is fundamental to our Constitution.... [W]hen it is not warranted, neither should we succumb to the temptation to federalize what the states have handled will for centuries.

Cox also notes that, "Like the Balanced Budget Amendment..., the FMA is more symbol than substance, given the near impossibility of a two-thirds vote. But unlike a requirement to balance the budget, the FMA would do more harm than good were it to be enshrined in our charter." Clearly.

I didn't catch last Sunday's "60 Minutes" interview with Fox News' superstar Bill O'Reilly, but I'm informed that O'Reilly told Mike Wallace he was in favor of civil unions for gays (albeit such unions would be open to "all" who wanted them) and favored gay couples adopting as a "last resort," to keep kids out of the system of orphanages and foster care.

Along with Rush Limbaugh, O'Reilly is an icon of populist conservatism. That he breaks with conservative orthodoxy at all on civil unions and adoption is a sign of progress. If it weren't for the hot-button issue of gay marriage and the intense backlash it has engendered (increasingly our "bridge too far," for now), the scope of gay advancement would be much more apparent.

Evidence of this can be found in last Sunday's Washington Post, which began a series of articles on "Young and Gay in Real America." The first installment, which dominated the front page and continued on two full pages inside, told the story of an openly gay teenager named Michael Shackelford who lives in a small town in Oklahoma and longs for marriage with the right man and a white picket fence. Despite the hardships (being taunted and ostracized, and his more activist friend had his car keyed), Michael's life is vastly better than it would have been just a decade ago. He's out -- not entirely voluntarily. He's dated a number of guys -- in a small Oklahoma town! He hasn't joined the Gay-Straight Alliance at his high school, but it attracts about a dozen gay members. He goes to a gay youth group and a gay dance in Tulsa. He sends a note to a classmate (who, alas, turns out not to be gay). He has no qualms asking an Abercrombie clerk if he's gay. He goes to Barnes & Noble to buy a book on how to be gay.

What this shows is how much progress there has been in a generation. Rather astounding, and mostly beneath the radar.

Just when you think the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) couldn't veer farther off course, they do. The featured speaker at the upcoming 8th annual HRC National Dinner in Washington, D.C., is none other than the Rev. Al Sharpton, perpetrator of the 1987 Tawana Brawley rape hoax/slander and organizer of demonstrations in 2000 against Freddy's Fashion Mart, a Jewish-owned Harlem store that Sharpton denounced as a "white interloper," after which the store was set on fire by an arsonist, killing seven people.

Here's an online account of Sharpton's sick, sad history. Way to reach out to the mainstream, HRC!

Writing in the Sunday New York Times Book Review, William Saletan, chief political correspondent for Slate, looks at new books on same-sex marriage by gay activist and organizer Evan Wolfson and gay historian George Chauncey. Says Saletan, too often advocates of marriage equality fail to address the fear that drives opposition to gay marriage. As he puts it:

Every movement that seeks to change society faces two great tasks. The first is to discredit the old order. The second is to offer a new one. Without the assurance of a new order, the debate becomes a choice between order and chaos, and order wins. ...

This larger menace -- the abolition of moral discrimination -- is what frightens reasonable people into joining the antigay resistance. They worry that marriage is losing its meaning and being supplanted by less stable relationships. Wolfson and Chauncey vindicate their fears. Chauncey welcomes the spread of domestic partnership benefits.... Wolfson praises California for extending "family protections" to unmarried heterosexuals. ... Neither author asks why couples who can marry but choose not to do so deserve such protections.

In contrast, Saletan notes that gay marriage advocates such as Jonathan Rauch and Andrew Sullivan understand "marriage as a way to mainstream gay culture," not just a series of government benefits that ought to be available to anyone who shacks up. Concludes Saletan:

We can absorb gay marriage into our society not because it's gay but because it's marriage. It's compatible with the moral distinctions we already understand and treasure. We don't have to honor every lifestyle we tolerate or treat cohabitation like marriage. It's the enemies of gay marriage who want to make this debate an all-or-nothing, order-or-chaos proposition. Let's not help them.

My two cents: Time and again, gay activists dismiss anyone opposed to the profound socio-cultural changes the movement for gay legal equality represents as a "bigot" or "hater." Well, some may be, but most are work-a-day folks who fear the breakdown of the norms they believe knit society together. Addressing their fears and not stoking them (as some "queer liberationists" delight in doing) is a vital step too often ignored.

The Washington Blade's Chris Crain says about John Kerry's pronouncements on gay marriage:

Kerry opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment backed by President Bush...but he backs those in Massachusetts and elsewhere who are amending their state constitutions to accomplish the same end.... Kerry's public support arguably gave political cover to enough swing votes to affect the exceedingly narrow vote by the Massachusetts Legislature in favor of the constitutional ban.

After Missouri voters passed a constitutional ban on gay marriage this summer, Kerry told reporters he would have voted with the majority. Later, when he was under the impression that the Missouri measure banned civil unions as well, he switched positions and said he would have opposed it. Still later, when his campaign learned that the Missouri amendment actually took no position at all on civil unions, Kerry demurred entirely....

As with his shifting stances on Iraq and other issues, Crain writes, Kerry's "congenital inability to state a clear, principled view and then stick to it is costing him dearly and may decide the election."

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9/19/04 - 9/25/04