IGF CultureWatch

This L.A. Times headline says it all: Nothing but 'I Do' Will Do Now for Many Gays. The article reports that many gays "denied wanting marriage when it wasn't a possibility. When that changed, new feelings emerged." Here's more:

Goals that once seemed sufficient -- health benefits for domestic partners, say, or spousal rights in child-custody matters -- now seem like tepid half-measures to many gay people. -- [It's] a change that, on a national scale, may not bode well for the long-term acceptance of compromise solutions, such as civil unions.

I'd add that time and again revolutions happen not when oppression is at its worst, but when rising expectations have been ignited and then quashed. If the power of government is used to forbid even willing states from recognizing gay unions, the growing gay counter-backlash to the conservative backlash will become a force to contend with.

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3/14/04 - 3/20/04

Much attention has been focused this week on rural Rhea County, Tennessee, whose commission enacted, then rescinded (following a burst of national publicity) a proposal to ban gays from living in their midsts. Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who proposed the original motion (passed unanimously by the 8-member panel), had said: "I'd like to make a motion that those kind of people cannot live in Rhea County or abide in Rhea County."

The commission meets in the town of Dayton, Tenn., famous as the locale for the "monkey trial" that convicted John Scopes of teaching evolution in the 1920s, and immortalized (if fictionalized) in the play and movie "Inherit the Wind." As described in one news account, the scene sounded like something out of that earlier drama:

When [commissioners] entered the meeting room in groups of four, there was a loud audience cheering and booing. "Thank you J.C., we appreciate you doing this," resident June Griffin shouted. Many in the packed crowd, which spilled out into the way, carried home-made signs advocating human rights. One of them read: "The gluttons are next."

Gee, even our supporters in Rhea County don't seem to "get it."

Addendum: After reading the above, a correspondent writes:

Maybe I'm a little biased because Tennessee is one of my home states, but I'd give the people carrying "The gluttons are next" posters in Dayton a little more credit. They were just fighting fire with fire and a little irony. And it doesn't hurt to remind fundamentalists that they too contradict the literal word of the Bible.

Maybe, but the "we don't forbid other vices" argument is more pervasive than you might imagine.

Odd Allies.

Looks like popular rapper "50 cent" and J.C. Fugate are in agreement.

Two important articles take aim at the misconception, widely promoted by opponents of same-sex marriage, that a constitutional amendment is needed because once Massachusetts makes such marriages legal, other states would be forced to recognize them. Clearly wrong, writes legal analyst Stuart Taylor Jr in the National Journal. He quotes not only our colleague Jonathan Rauch, but Professor Lea Brilmayer of Yale Law School who said in congressional testimony on March 3: "Marriages have never received the automatic effect given to judicial decisions. They can be refused recognition in other states without offending [the Constitution's full faith and credit clause]." Taylor then goes on to argue:

By no stretch of the imagination...is the proposed amendment behind which Bush has placed his prestige an appropriate way to protect representative government. Quite the contrary. ... This amounts to an anti-democratic, anti-federalist effort to ban all state legislatures, for all time, from experimenting with gay marriage -- even if and when most voters in most states come to support gays' right to wed.

And the New York Times reports:

What is notable about the 1967 decision [by the Supreme Court, striking down bans on interracial marriage] for the gay marriage debate, then, is that it did not mention the full faith and credit clause. Although the case involved a Virginia couple prosecuted for violating that state's ban on interracial marriage by visiting the District of Columbia, which allowed such marriages, the Supreme Court did not suggest that Virginia was obligated to recognize the marriage.

Thus, the main thrust of the anti-gay, anti-federalist opposition to letting states decide gay marriage is built on a misconception -- or a lie (I'm shocked, shocked!).

An upstate New York district attorney has filed criminal charges against two Unitarian Universalist ministers for performing same-sex weddings, the first attempted prosecution in the United States of clergy for marrying gay couples, the Washington Post reports. The Ulster County D.A. brought the charges against the Rev. Kay Greenleaf and the Rev. Dawn Sangrey, "who performed 13 same-sex marriages in a scenic field in New Paltz, N.Y., two weekends ago," the paper recounts.

While ministers from gay-supportive denominations condemned the charges, the Rev. Richard Land, head of the Ethics and Religious Liberty [sic] Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said that "We have an obligation to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's," adding, "If these ministers feel this is an unjust law, then I'll look forward to reading their letter from the Ulster County Jail."

No, can't think of a better example of what a mean-spirited, anti-spiritual, state-worshipping faith the Southern Baptists now represent.

Vatican Joins Islamic States at U.N.; Polygamy OK, Gay Unions Anathema.

Another example of religious corruption on a grand scale. A bloc of more than 50 Islamic states, backed by the Vatican, is seeking to halt U.N. efforts to extend spousal benefits to partners of gay employees from countries where such benefits are provided, such as Belgium and the Netherlands. But get this: "The United Nations has recognized polygamy, a common practice in the Islamic world, as a legitimate form of marriage and permits employees to divide their benefits among more than one wife," says the Washington Post. Which, apparently, is just fine with the Vatican.

A Different Religious View.

A very distinct, spiritually nourishing view, from Jewish Week, where David Ellenson writes:

As a religious Jew who favors the extension of full rights to gays and lesbians in both civil and religious realms, I contend that "the actual realization of the biblical quest for justice" is the primary motivating factor for our support of this stance. ...

For many of us, this biblical quest for justice stems from a vision of humanity that is stated at the beginning of Genesis, where the Torah teaches that every human being is created b"tzelem, "in the image of God." Furthermore, this notion is complemented by the demand found in Exodus and elsewhere in the Torah that commands us as Jews to champion an ethic of compassion and empathy. The Bible reminds us again and again not to "oppress the stranger, for we were strangers in the Land of Egypt and you know the heart of the stranger."

A Jew who takes these commandments seriously can assert with religious integrity that the overarching ethos of these mitzvot provides sufficient sanction for the claim that Jewish tradition can permit gays and lesbians to enjoy the same privileges and entitlements that heterosexuals do.

No, such views won't please the Vatican, nor the Islamists, nor the Orthodox Jews, for that matter. Way too life-affirming and spirit-filled for that.

Reports the Boston Globe, in an article by Naomi Schaefer of the Ethics and Public Policy Center:

If the Bush campaign is searching for the 4 million evangelical voters who stayed home during the 2000 election, they should know that the editorial board of the Baylor Lariat, which voted 5 to 2 to support gay marriage, is not unrepresentative of the views of younger evangelicals.

Baylor is a conservative Baptist university, and the Lariat is the student newspaper. The article continues:

the growing support for gay marriage among young evangelicals finds its roots in another trend as well. These students are more likely to place some distance between their religious beliefs and their political views than their parents and grandparents did. The editor of the Lariat explained that the board's decision was based on legal grounds not moral ones. Putting it more bluntly, one young man at the evangelical Wheaton College told me, "Christianity should never be reduced to politics."

So even among self-identified evangelicals, the next generation is far more accepting of gay equality than their elders. And that certainly bodes well for the future.

Not All of One Mind.

Here's more on divergent views among evangelicals. On the conservative Wall Street Journal "opinionjournal.com" site, there's an interesting essay by the Rev. Donald Sensing, pastor of the Trinity United Methodist Church in Franklin, Tenn. Though his view of homosexuality clearly leans to the religious right, he scores some original observations about the decline of marriage being unrelated to gays desire to join the club. In "Save Marriage? It's Too Late --
The Pill made same-sex nuptials inevitable," he writes:

If society has abandoned regulating heterosexual conduct of men and women, what right does it have to regulate homosexual conduct, including the regulation of their legal and property relationship with one another to mirror exactly that of hetero, married couples?

I believe that this state of affairs is contrary to the will of God. But traditionalists, especially Christian traditionalists (in whose ranks I include myself) need to get a clue about what has really been going on and face the fact that same-sex marriage, if it comes about, will not cause the degeneration of the institution of marriage; it is the result of it.

The tired cast of religious right televangelist "leaders" may be anti-gay to their core, but Karl Rove's dream of using a marriage-ban amendment to energize the base and add 4 million evangelical votes to Bush's ledger may be headed for a hard crash into a far more complicated evangelical reality.

More Recent Postings

3/07/04 - 3/13/04

Michael S. Greve, a scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, writes in an article titled "Same-Sex Marriage: Commit It to the States":

It is rarely a good idea to enact social policy in the Constitution, and same-sex marriage is no exception. A decade or so hence, a majority of citizens may still disapprove, as they do now, of same-sex marriages. They may come to conclude nonetheless that the costs of prohibiting that institution greatly exceed the costs of tolerating it. The Constitution should not stand in the way of that collective judgment.

Taking a cue from Jonathan Rauch (who is credited in a footnote), Greve writes that instead of the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment backed by President Bush, a better strategy for conservatives, consistent with maintaining federalism and the rights of states, would be an amendment that says the Constitution does not require the federal government and the states to accept same-sex marriage, but then leaves it to the states (and the federal government) to decide what marriages to recognize. If that were the mainstream conservative position, we'd certainly be a lot better off.

David Knight, the gay son of State Sen. William "Pete" Knight, California's leading opponent of same-sex marriage, wed his longtime partner in San Francisco on Tuesday. The LA Times reports:

The middle son of the conservative author of [California's] Proposition 22, which defined marriage as being solely between a man and a woman, David Knight, now a 43-year-old woodworker, and Joseph Lazzaro, a 39-year-old specialist in interior architecture, kissed and held hands as they were pronounced "spouses for life" under the landmark rotunda where more than 3,600 gay and lesbian couples have married since Feb. 12. "

In a wave of civil disobedience that the elder Knight has denounced as a "sham" and a "sideshow," gays and lesbians have been married in New Mexico, New York and Oregon, in addition to the ceremonies here that have been solemnized in defiance of state law.

David Knight said that after Prop. 22 passed, "communication effectively ended" between father and son, although six months ago he called his father "just out of the blue, to see if we couldn't slowly try to mend, but it was futile." Another example of how brazenly anti-family the "family values" crowd truly is.

The NY Times takes a look at gay GOPers in this frontpage article. Interestingly, the Log Cabin Republicans "worried last month that the president's backing of an [anti-gay marriage] amendment might demoralize or cripple" the group, but instead they've received a sudden increase in memberships and financial support. So the amendment has stoked the coffers of the anti-gay religious rightists, gay Democrats, and gay Republicans. It's like a full employment act for pro- and anti-gay activists.

Update: The Washington Post reports that LCR is launching a $1 million advertising campaign today attacking the administration for trying to ban same-sex marriage. Log Cabin leader Patrick Guerriero says that "his organization had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations in the last two weeks and that the ad campaign could be expanded if fundraising continues to surge." The ads, running in seven "swing" states, can be viewed through this link.

Coast to Coast: It Just Grows.

Meanwhile, a Portland, Oregon judge rules that the state's most populous county can continue to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Seattle's mayor vows to recognize the marriages of gay city employees who tie the knot elsewhere. And in Asbury Park, NJ, a gay couple exchange wedding vows in City Hall after being issued a license by city officials,who claim New Jersey law does not explicitly ban such unions. Coming soon: the first state-recognized same-sex marriages in Massachusetts.

The Washington Post takes a look at fast-moving recent events in "Same-Sex Marriage Vaulted Into Spotlight." From backlash to counter-backlash (or "frontlash"?), these are the benchmarks that are defining what some contend is "the fastest-growing civil rights movement we've seen in a generation."

A tangent: In the Post story, proponents and opponents of gay marriage both have their say, but this stood out:

Rick Garcia, political director for Equality Illinois, worries that too much focus on the marriage issue could jeopardize legislation outlawing discrimination against gays. "Sometimes, it makes our job harder," he said.

In other words, he thinks that adding more government directives on the hiring and promotion policies made by private employers trumps equality before the law and the ability to partake in society's most fundamental institution.

Giving priority to employment discrimination laws was the great hoax sold to the gay community, since (a) it's easy for companies to discriminate without formally announcing that they're doing so, and (b) the only way around (a) is through quotas/preferences tied to "disparate impact" studies showing the proportion of a minority in a given jurisdiction is under-represented in terms of a company's hiring/promotion numbers. That's just not going to happen with gays, so anti-discrimination laws are at best symbolic -- nice to have as a sign government doesn't countenance discrimination, but of little, if any, additional value.

Right and Left, Transposed.

Ok, back to marriage. In the National Journal's Feb. 28 issue (not available online), William Powers writes that gay and lesbian couples

are begging to embrace the very institution that President Bush and his supporters consider "the most fundamental institution of civilization," as Bush himself put it this week. In short, the Lefties want to do something so traditional it's downright conservative, and the Righties won't hear of it.

Pretty ironic, huh?

The New Mainstream.

And speaking of history in the making, conservative columnist George Will writes:

More telling was Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's casual statement that he would have "no problem" with Cook County issuing such licenses. Daley, whom you might send to Mars to show Martians what a typical American is like, is about as radical as a grilled cheese sandwich. His reaction to same-sex marriage is evidence that the American center has no stomach for what looks increasingly like a struggle over mere custody of the word "marriage."

Will goes on to note that "At this point it seems probable that the president's proposal to amend the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman would not be ratified by three-quarters of the states even if it could -- which seems unlikely -- muster two-thirds support in both houses of Congress."

I think the social right is beginning to experience shock that their constitutional gambit has no traction, which may just drive them to push all the harder for it up to and at the GOP convention. At which point the public backlash to their anti-gay backlash just might give them whiplash.

Even John Kerry's liberal supporters are growing increasingly worried over their candidates wishy-washy, both-sides-now stance on a range of issues, including gay marriage. Washington Post columnist Marjorie Williams describes herself as "a charter member of the ABB Society -- Anybody But Bush." But, she writes in a column titled "Win One for the Flipper," of increasing disillusionment with Kerry. "I finally lost my grip, though, when I opened my newspaper a few days ago to read of Kerry's latest lunge in the direction of some politically feasible position on gay marriage," she writes. In particular, when the Supreme Court of Massachusetts interpreted the state's constitution to require the option of gay marriage:

Kerry responded by endorsing an amendment to the state's constitution that would forbid gay marriage but allow civil union. He was the only member of his congressional delegation to take this stance, for good reason: Endorsing a constitutional amendment at the state level seriously undermines the arguments for fighting an amendment at the federal level.

The Washington Blade reports that Kerry's recent statements reverse a position he took two years ago when he signed a letter beseeching the Massachusetts legislature to terminate a similar amendment. Also noted by the Blade: After Julia Thorne, Kerry's wife of 18 years and mother of his two daughters,

requested an increase in alimony in 1995, Kerry sought an annulment of their marriage from the Catholic Church, a move observers saw as retaliatory. Kerry eventually received the annulment from the Boston diocese despite Thorne's vehement objections.

The Blade also recounts that in a Washington Post interview last year, Kerry said, "I have a belief that marriage is for the purpose of procreation and it's between men and women." Kerry's current marriage to heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry is childless.
Yes, just another defender of the sanctity of traditional marriage. Bush may be dead wrong and politically unsupportable, but at least he believes what he believes. You just can't say the same for Kerry.

A House Divided.

If you haven't read Andrew Sullivan's column on the Culture War, Reloaded, written for the Sunday Times of London and now posted on Sullivan's website, take a look. He writes:

There is no more drastic action available in America than amending the Constitution itself. Banning civil marriage for gays in the founding document itself therefore represented a huge and risky upping of the ante in the strife over marital rights.
--

President Bush came to office pledging to be a "uniter not a divider." But the nation under his leadership has rarely been more polarized. The war is upon us. And this election will be its battleground.

And as some of us see it, neither side, sadly, is worth cheering for.

More Recent Postings

2/29/04 - 3/06/04