IGF CultureWatch

The longish, wistful feature from the Washington Post, "Inventing a Marriage -- and a Divorce" looks at what lead one gay couple to join together in what they termed a "holy union" -- in 1976.

It was the spiritual, not the legal, side of marriage that was important to them, [Wayne] Schwandt recalled more than 25 years later. They wanted the blessing of the church and hardly thought about the state. "I was naive," Schwandt said. "I would not have understood what the 'legal protections of the law' would have meant.'"

Their union had no legal standing, but they hyphenated their names. "We were crazy," [James] Fortunato said. "It doesn't even fit on a credit card." He recalled trying to reason with irate Department of Motor Vehicles workers to change his name on his driver's license.

Sadly, like half of all marriages, their union didn't last the test of time, in part because it turned into a media circus. But one went on to a new, 20-year (and still counting) relationship that included a private exchange of rings at a church altar. Just a look at common lives being lived in uncommon times.

"The U.S. House of Representatives voted [last week] in favor of a bill supporting military recruitment on college campuses, prompting gay rights groups to vow to fight the bill when it moves to the Senate." That's the lead paragraph to this news story, and I can't think of a worse -- or better -- example of liberal activist myopia, and why such activists are held in disdain by so many Americans.

Yes, "don't ask, don't tell" is a terrible policy and we should lobby hard to revoke it, so that gays can serve openly in a military that holds all servicemembers to the same rules of on-duty decorum. But trying to stymie recruitment to the armed forces, while America is fighting a war on terrorism, makes me apoplectic. Do these activists really think a weaker military is the answer to discrimination? Sadly, the answer is probably yes.

And then there's the issue of recruitment bans on elite campuses themselves, which suggest that military service is best left to the less educated, non-latte drinking classes.

(IGF contributing author James Kirchick had more to say about campus recruitment bans in this column from the Yale Daily News.)

More Recent Postings

3/28/04 - 4/03/04

Perhaps fearing that its pandering to the religious conservatives' anti-gay agenda has gone too far (or been perceived as such), the White House declared this week that gay federal employees should not face workplace discrimination. The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

"Long-standing federal policy prohibits discrimination against federal employees based on sexual orientation," said White House spokesman Ken Lisaius. "President Bush expects federal agencies to enforce this policy and to ensure that all federal employees are protected from unfair discrimination at work."

The surprise announcement came on the heels of mounting controversy over actions last month by a Bush appointee that appeared to reverse part of that policy. Social conservative Scott Bloch -- new head of the office charged with protecting federal workers from discrimination (!) -- in early February removed references to sexual orientation from his agency's website, complaint forms, brochures and training documents. Reports the Chronicle:

The Bloch controversy has threatened to undermine Bush's repeated efforts to emphasize his tolerance for gays and lesbians even as he backs a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. It may also cement perceptions that the president is hostile to the gay community"

It's unclear, however, whether Bloch himself will now be pressured to reverse his "gay removal" policy, as the administration tries to find just the right balance between appearing too tolerant and too intolerant.

More on Massachusetts.

A correspondent writes:

In fairness to Kerry, the proposed MA "civil unions" are marriage in all but name. So, of course, the religious right is dead set against them and the constitutional amendment [in Massachusetts, which bans gay marriage but puts in place civil unions]. This issue boils down to how important you think a name is.

Ok, let me try this again. Kerry is better than Bush on gay issues, but not to the extent that justifies the free pass from gay supporters he's been getting. If Massachusetts had simply passed a Kerry-backed civil unions bill, that would be one thing. But once the state's Supreme Judicial Court put access to "real" marriage on the table, the bar for what's acceptable was permanently raised. Now, it would be a large step backwards to tie civil unions to a constitutional amendment that enshrines the concept that:

It being the public policy of this commonwealth to protect the unique relationship of marriage, only the union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage in the commonwealth.

In other words, they're saying that they'll never let us have full marriage equality -- not now, not down the road, no how.

This is more than just a matter of names, in my opinion, or even of whether civil unions might, under other circumstances, have been prudent as an intermediate step.

While the Bush-backed Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution increasingly looks like it's going nowhere in Congress, the Kerry-backed Massachusetts state constitutional gay-marriage-ban amendment has now passed the Bay State's legislature. The amendment, of course, aims to quash gay marriage in the only state where it's on the verge of being recognized. Under state law, the amendment must again be approved by the next session of the legislature and then by the voters, at which time it may enjoy the support of President Kerry.

Here I bite my tongue to avoid making the obvious partisan comment and enduring the angry emails of gay Democrats, who are no doubt celebrating the great victory for civil unions in Massachusetts.

"For Some, a Sanitized Movement" in the Washington Post provides a voice for those gays who think marriage is a sell out:

The gay rights activists and theorists and feminists who critique the campaign from the left are the voices less often heard in the battle over gay marriage. -- [T]hey are mortified at the fate of a revolution pasteurized. They wonder what happened to championing sexual freedom and universal health care, and upending patriarchy?

Unfortunately, the article buys the false line that the gay movement began with leftists in the 1960s, after which time "conservatives" took advantage of the opening and moved in. Simply not so: Many very early gay activists were either political moderates favoring what's now termed "assimilation" or libertarians strongly opposed to socialism and statism. True, left-leaning radicals gained the spotlight in the '60s and '70s, but let's not entirely rewrite history!

A move to add sexual orientation to the list of categories protected by the United Nations has been dropped in the midst of intense pressure from the Vatican and Muslim nations, reports GayWired.com. The motion was again shelved after it became clear the Vatican and Arab countries led by Egypt wouldn't let it pass. One openly gay member of the European Parliament, Britain's Michael Cashman, labeled the opposition as "The Unholy Axis" and added,

"Millions of people across the globe face imprisonment, torture, violence, and discrimination because of their sexual orientation. For the second year running the UN has failed to condemn this discrimination and the continuing abuses of human rights on the basis of a person's sexuality. Both the Vatican and the Conference of Islamic States should hang their heads in shame for having reduced their beliefs to the gutter of bigotry and discrimination."

The same alliance is attempting to revoke an executive order by Secretary General Kofi Annan that would provide the same-sex partners of UN workers with the benefits granted to married couples if their home countries approve.

One could be churlish and note that the bloody history of the Vatican and the Islamic states regarding the right to life and liberty for religious dissenters/minorities (not to mention gays and lesbians) is so dreadful that you have to wonder, gape jawed, at their sheer audacity to yet again promote an agenda of prejudice under the guise of religious orthodoxy.

More Recent Postings

3/28/04 - 4/03/04

Comedian Robin Williams lashing out at President Bush: "It's nice to have a President who confuses his commandments and amendments." OK, fair enough. But here's John Kerry justifying why he supports lesser civil unions for gays but favors amending state constitutions to ban gay marriage, from his interview with MTV:

"What is distinct is the institutional name or whatever people look at as the sacrament within a church, or within a synagogue or within a mosque as a religious institution. There is a distinction. And the civil state really just adopted that."

So, where are the Democratic voices rising up in anger over Kerry's adopting the position that religious sacraments shoud be dispensed by the state, at the expense of legal equality for gays? Don't hold your breath. Even this MTV story leads with an assertion of Kerry's support for granting gays "equal rights under the law," then buries his remarks about sacraments being an exception.

One thing is clear: this is going to be the nastiest presidential campaign in memory, with both sides sinking to new lows to ignite the emotions of their respective bases. And the partisan news media (and make no mistake, they're all partisan -- especially those who feign "objectivity") can't be trusted. George Orwell was never so right about how politics debases the simple meaning of words (e.g., "equality.").

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Addendum: A correspondent disagrees with my assessment and points out that Kerry also said, "It's the rights that are important, not the name of the institution." OK, but even assuming that civil unions would be separate but otherwise equal to marriage on a state level, Kerry still supports a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex "marriage" on the basis that marriage is a sacrament. Sorry, but I just don't see how that differs from Bush's reason for supporting an (admittedly worse) federal amendment.
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Joel Kotkin's Sunday op-ed in the Washington Post compares the ideological and theological divisions in 2004 America with those of England just before its 17th-century civil war. He writes:

All Americans have a stake in improving the quality of the political discourse on both sides. Issues such as the war on terrorism, the role of the state in private life, the nature of marriage and the fear of obsolescence are the issues that divide Roundhead and Cavalier America today. And they are weighty enough to be treated with something more than dueling hyperbole.

But I woundn't count on a return to bipartisan civility, not to mention rationality, anytime soon.

More Recent Postings

3/21/04 - 3/27/04

David Bernstein, writing at The Volokh Conspiracy blogsite, lays waste to columnist Maggie Gallagher's confused arguments against gay marriage. Well worth reading. Excerpt:

[Gallagher] emphasizes that heterosexual marriage is deeply rooted in Christian and Jewish "not to mention" Muslim tradition. Well, polygamous marriage is deeply-rooted in Muslim tradition, and, for that matter, Mizrahi (Eastern, non-Ashkenazic) Jews practiced polygamy from Mosaic times until the middle of the twentieth century.... Then there's the oddity of both citing Islam as a source of eternal wisdom for its views on heterosexual marriage and as an existential moral danger for its views on polygamy in the same piece.

He concludes: "If the anti-gay marriage forces are going to win the day, they are going to have to do better than such incoherent claptrap." Yes, indeed.

What Year Is This?

Here's a story from the L.A. Times that shows why marriage recognition is so important. Ron Fanelle, a Camarillo middle school teacher, is in trouble. He's become the focus of protests from anti-gay parents, angry that, when asked, Fanelle told students he was just married and his spouse's name is Randy. To the anti-gay mind, not lying about your marital status is somehow equivalent to providing a detailed description of sexual activity, it seems. The school board has launched an investigation of the "charges," and Fenelle has had to hire a lawyer to defend himself.

Read Rauch.

IGF's co-managing editor, Jonathan Rauch, who is also writer in residence at the Brookings Institution, has a new book: Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America. Available at Amazon.com and better bookstores everywhere. Judging from the Publishers Weekly review on the Amazon site, lefties are already taking aim at Jon's argument that full gay marriage equality is needed to forestall the spread of "marriage lite" arrangements. The PW reviewer, for instance, is miffed by the way Jon praises the importance of marriage. From the review:

Allowing gays to participate in "the great civilizing institution" would inevitably ennoble gay relationships; providing access to marriage would give them access to "a better kind of love." Such sallies will leave some readers wondering whether "better," for Rauch, really means "straight."

Addendum: A correspondent writes to say that the libertarians at Reason Online have kinder words about Jon's efforts, calling the book "a great case for gay marriage, from just about every conceivable angle."

Proponents of gay legal equality naturally find themselves at odds with conservatives. And indeed, many conservatives joined in this debate seem motivated by little more than anti-gay animus. But it's worth recalling now and again that conservatism and liberalism, tradition and change, both have a role in maintaining society. In that vein, I found this article posted at Tech Central Station of interest. The theme: conservatism ensures that possibly dangerous social change is held in check until the preponderance of evidence shows that the change won't rend the social fabric. Writes social philosopher (and liberal turned conservative) Keith Burgess-Jackson:

Conservatism is not committed to the proposition that every tradition is respectable and valuable, and therefore worth conserving. It is committed to a presumption in favor of tradition. ... [Conservatives] believe that traditions incorporate and express important values. ... It's often said that conservatives are obstructionists. They are, of course, but they don't obstruct for the sake of obstructionism any more than liberals endorse change for the sake of change. Conservatives obstruct because they're trying to keep liberals from making things worse.

Liberals have a dismissive attitude toward what came before. They are confident that they can do better. ... Conservatives, by contrast, have a respectful attitude toward what came before. They view the present as a link between past and future. ... Liberals look forward, believing that peace, justice, and happiness are just around the corner, if only we let reason be our guide. Conservatives look backward, believing that if we tinker with tradition, even with the best of intentions, we are as likely to get war, injustice, and misery as their opposites.

Here's one example: 60s-era liberals condemned conservative opponents of welfare/income redistribution as mean-spirited reactionaries; welfare expansion then fostered an inner city culture of dependency that perpetuated poverty.

Of course, many conservative-rightists may be disingenuous haters of "the other"; but then so are many "caring" liberal-leftists (as I can personally attest from some of the name-calling hate mail I've received). Either political philosophy, if not held in check, can unleash authoritarian impulses and produce its own version of tyranny.

More Recent Postings

3/21/04 - 3/27/04

Supporters of the proposed anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) have made their first strategic retreat. As originally introduced, the amendment read:

"Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution or the constitution of any State, nor state or federal law, shall be construed to require that marital status or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon unmarried couples or groups."

This wording would have voided any state or federal statute granting spousal partnership benefits, such as civil union laws (i.e., "the legal incidents" of marriage). Originally, the religious groups backing the amendment insisted that same-sex civil unions, or "marriage in all but name," were as big a threat as actual same-sex marriages. But faced with likely defeat, they've relented. The new wording reads:

"Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman. Neither this Constitution, nor the constitution of any State, shall be construed to require that marriage or the legal incidents thereof be conferred upon any union other than the union of a man and a woman."

While courts are still forbidden from interpreting the federal or state constitutions are requiring spousal benefits, by deleting the words "nor state or federal law" it appears that Congress or state legislatures could recognize civil unions and spousal-equivalent benefits, but not actual marriage -- still limited to "the union of a man and a woman."

The Alliance for Marriage and its leading member groups, such as Focus on the Family, are painting this as a small technical change to make the amendment's meaning clearer. Don't believe it. This is a fairly substantial retreat. Which is why the wackier parts of the alliance, such as the Culture and Family Institute, aren't happy with the alteration (as the New York Times notes).

And more may be in store. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) is shopping around an even weaker alternative that would not define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, but would simply say that "civil marriage shall be defined by each state" -- meaning that no state would be compelled to recognize marriages performed elsewhere. This change is too much of a retreat for the Alliance for Marriage, which is strongly opposing it.

Hatch, by the way, is from Utah, where a fair number of dissident breakaway Mormon traditionalists still practice polygamy, though these unions aren't legally recognized. Some months ago I saw Hatch on TV and was quite surprised by his semi-defense of polygamists -- that they shouldn't be thought of as bad people (similar to what some "tolerant" conservative types say about gays). Perhaps he feels some cultural affinity for Mormon fundamentalists and is thus disinterested in an amendment that would limit matrimony to one man and one woman.

The revised FMA now being pushed by the Alliance for Marriage is still terrible and must be defeated. Hatch's alternative is far less egregious, which is why the Alliance for Marriage is against it.

The Future.

Polls show the young are much less opposed to same-sex marriage than their elders. In another generation or two, it won't even be debated.