IGF CultureWatch

Some interesting demographic findings were reported by the New York Times in "Opposition to Gay Marriage Is Declining, Study Finds" by Robin Toner. According to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:

53% of respondents said they opposed gay marriages, while 38% said they backed them. In 1996 65% said they opposed such marriages, while 27% favored the idea.

That reveals surprisingly rapid progress. But the research also showed "a growing gap in opinion -- along racial and religious lines." Specifically:

White evangelical Protestants were the most firmly opposed to the idea of gay marriage: 83% said they opposed it; 84% opposed it in 1996. Opposition among blacks also remained essentially unchanged, with 64% opposing gay marriages today, and 65% opposing the idea in 1996.

In contrast, white Roman Catholics and white mainline Protestants have become increasingly open to the idea, according to the poll" .

The evangelical finding isn't surprising. But the unchanged opposition among blacks suggest that the efforts of gay progressive activists to build a united coalition of the left, fighting homophobia and racism and promoting big government social programs, hasn't quite moved the masses. Gay activists may be obsessed with "building an anti-racist GLBT movement" (as the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force puts it) and lamenting that "The GLBT movement is"disproportionately led by white people and lacks a consciousness of the intersections of racism and homophobia"", but there has been no corresponding commitment within the African-American community to combat homophobia.

Not Helpful.

"Critics of gay marriage say we"ll destroy the entire institution. Maybe they"re right, and maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing," is the subhead the Washington Blade gave to an op-ed by lesbian law professor Nancy D. Polikoff. To be fair, Polikoff herself never uses those exact words, but she does argue
that "Gay marriage will move us in the wrong direction if it limits legal recognition to married couples only."

Polikoff wants state benefits for a variety of unmarried partners, including siblings or friends that care for each other, or even a son who takes care of his mother. But that misses the point. Marriage is much more than just a domestic partnership, which is why the anti-gays want to keep us out. The lesbigay left just doesn't get that marriage is important.

School Days

New York City is opening a full-fledged high school for gay and lesbian (and bisexual and transgender) students.
Which, of course, has the anti-gays hopping mad.

I'm for school choice and support a safe environment for those gay kids who might need it. But I suppose I'd prefer a privately run school, with the state using its education taxes to provide students with tuition vouchers. I just don't trust the state educrats.

Recent Postings

07/20/03 - 07/26/03

IGF contributing author Dale Carpenter's op-ed in the Houston Chronicle thanks, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the leaders of the Texas Republican Party for remaining steadfast in their support of criminalzing gay sex. Writes Dale:

all their fundamentalist fervor has yielded the most far-reaching decision affirming the basic dignity of gay people ever issued by the Supreme Court, with more to come. We couldn't have done it without them.

Dale also recounts:

I had my own run-in with the Texas GOP on the subject of the state sodomy law. In 1996, I was president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Texas. We applied to run an information booth at the state GOP convention that year. Our application was denied because, the party's executive director told me, "Sodomy is illegal in Texas." When I offered to forbid our members to sodomize each other in the booth, state party leaders were unmoved.

Gee, you offer a fair compromise and it gets you nowhere!

During the congressional brouhaha last week, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) let loose with this tirade:

"You little fruitcake, you little fruitcake, I said you are a fruitcake."

According to Fox News, which is always sensitive to any hint of anti-gay prejudice (yes, that's a joke), "Stark directed the word -- considered by some to be a gay slur -- at Republican Rep. Scott McInnis, who is married and by all accounts not gay."

Moreover:

Republican sources also claim that during the chaotic scene in the committee, Stark fired another gay slur in the direction of Chairman [Bill] Thomas. The word is too vulgar to print in full, but the last half of it is "sucker." -- Now, one Republican wants to know where is the outrage at the Democrat for his seemingly intolerant remarks. "This isn't the first time. That's the problem here. The Democrats fail to recognize this is an ongoing problem," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla.

Foley, of course, who would like to be Florida's GOP senate candidate next year, has been the center of much unwelcome speculation about his own alleged closeted homosexuality. Which colors the following just a bit:

Foley questioned whether Democrats get a pass when it comes to casting aspersions, and whether there is indeed a double standard. "I trust that you would understand that if a Republican said that, there would be a public lynching," Foley said.

Well, it is a good point. Especially in light of the following:

A spokesman from the gay activists group [the Human Rights Campaign], usually quick to condemn hints of slight or slur against the gay community, defended the hot-headed lawmaker [Stark], saying he probably used the word to mean McInnis was nutty.

Give me a break, as they say.

A follow-up story reports that "five sources have confirmed...that they heard Stark call Thomas that "sucker" word at Friday's meeting..." Any guesses as to how HRC's gonna spin that one?

One Sort of Inclusion.

In New Hampshire, the State Supreme Court heard arguments about whether a woman who is married to a man, but has sex with another woman, has committed adultery.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders filed a brief calling for equal treatment, saying:

"Gay and lesbian relationships are as significant as non-gay ones and therefore pose the same threat to the marital union. . . . New Hampshire courts should treat gay adultery the same no matter the gender of the person with whom a spouse engages in an extramarital relationship."

True, but perhaps the state should also let us marry (or at least be civil unionized) before allowing us equal opportunity to be parties to adultery.

July 20, 2003

Defending Gay Marriage (and the Constitution).

Out congressmembers Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin, and Jim Kolbe are circulating a letter urging their congressional colleagues not to support the proposed anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment. Their letter, reports the Boston Globe, quotes Vice President Dick Cheney from his VP debate in 2000 against Joe Lieberman, when Cheney said that ''people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into,'' and added:

''That matter [marriage] is regulated by the states. -- I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area.''

The letter signed by Frank, Baldwin, and Kolbe argues that lawmakers should reject the constitutional amendment as an intrusion on states' rights: The Globe reports:

''While we acknowledge that we do not find ourselves in complete agreement with the Vice President on all public policy issues,'' the letter said, ''we believe that [Cheney's statement], given one month before the presidential election, makes a very strong case against a Constitutional amendment which would establish precisely 'a federal policy' of the sort that the Vice President opposed."

Of course, one could question the last time Barney Frank had a kind word for federalism, but that would be churlish.

Interestingly, the anti-gay group Focus on the Family, when denouncing the letter on its website under "Gay Lawmakers Assail Marriage Amendment," weakly asserts "Cheney's words during the debate don't lead everyone to the same conclusion."
Guess they decided it would be too much of a political hot potato to take on the VP directly.

In other marriage developments, Virginia's Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Senator George Allen, who is reliably conservative and a member of the Senate Republican leadership, "has taken a separate tack from Majority Leader Bill Frist and has declined to endorse a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage," at least for now. A good sign.

Oh, Politics!

In other congressional news, during the brouhaha between House Democrats and Republicans over whether a) the Demos were being obstructionists over a pension reform bill by demanding a line by line reading and then leaving the room, or b) the GOPers went bonkers by calling the Capitol police to force the Demos back to the chamber, the Washington Post noted that:

one Democratic member of the panel called a Republican colleague "you little fruitcake" in the midst of the standoff.

Finally, ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman's story claiming low morale among U.S. soldiers in Iraq led, it seems,
to someone in the Bush White House (think gung-ho West Winger) to have conservative webmeister Matt Drudge link to a story about Kofman in the Advocate -- a story that reveals the ABC reporter is both openly gay and a Canadian. Drudge's link to the Advocate piece was headlined: "ABC News Reporter Who Filed Troop Complaint Story is Canadian."

Recent Postings

07/13/03 - 07/19/03

Out congressmembers Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin, and Jim Kolbe are circulating a letter urging their congressional colleagues not to support the proposed anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment. Their letter, reports the Boston Globe, quotes Vice President Dick Cheney from his VP debate in 2000 against Joe Lieberman, when Cheney said that ''people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into,'' and added:

''That matter [marriage] is regulated by the states. -- I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area.''

The letter signed by Frank, Baldwin, and Kolbe argues that lawmakers should reject the constitutional amendment as an intrusion on states' rights: The Globe reports:

''While we acknowledge that we do not find ourselves in complete agreement with the Vice President on all public policy issues,'' the letter said, ''we believe that [Cheney's statement], given one month before the presidential election, makes a very strong case against a Constitutional amendment which would establish precisely `a federal policy' of the sort that the Vice President opposed.'

Of course, one could question the last time Barney Frank had a kind word for federalism, but that would be churlish.

Interestingly, the anti-gay group Focus on the Family, when denouncing the letter on its website under "Gay Lawmakers Assail Marriage Amendment," weakly asserts "Cheney's words during the debate don't lead everyone to the same conclusion."
Guess they decided it would be too much of a political hot potato to take on the VP directly.

In other marriage developments, Virginia's Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Senator George Allen, who is reliably conservative and a member of the Senate Republican leadership, "has taken a separate tack from Majority Leader Bill Frist and has declined to endorse a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage," at least for now. A good sign.

Oh, Politics!

In other congressional news, during the brouhaha between House Democrats and Republicans over whether a) the Demos were being obstructionists over a pension reform bill by demanding a line by line reading and then leaving the room, or b) the GOPers went bonkers by calling the Capitol police to force the Demos back to the chamber, the Washington Post noted that:

one Democratic member of the panel called a Republican colleague "you little fruitcake" in the midst of the standoff.

Finally, ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman's story claiming low morale among U.S. soldiers in Iraq led, it seems,
to someone in the Bush White House (think gung-ho West Winger) to have conservative webmeister Matt Drudge link to a story about Kofman in the Advocate -- a story that reveals the ABC reporter is both openly gay and a Canadian. Drudge's link to the Advocate piece was headlined: "ABC News Reporter Who Filed Troop Complaint Story is Canadian."

Recent Postings

07/13/03 - 07/19/03

With the Massachusetts marriage decision on hold for who knows how long, and Pat Robertson urging his flock to pray for God to remove three justices from the U.S. Supreme Court, the culture wars continue unabated. Yes, there's always something to write about here at Culture Watch.

Another look at why conservatives should support gay marriage, by Rondi Adamson in the Christian Science Monitor:

true conservatives ought to support gay marriage, particularly those partial to family values. It's difficult to argue that society doesn't benefit from stable relationships. And what better way to encourage stable relationships than to support gay marriage? It is hard not to snicker at the idea that same-sex marriages would threaten straight ones. We straight people in Canada and the US have done a good job of bringing the divorce rate close to 50 percent all on our own.

Meanwhile, Mark Leibovich at the Washington Post sees the Human Rights Campaign's presidential candidates forum as pander bears on parade. Worse, most of the Democratic candidates' views on gay marriage aren't that much better than Senate leader Bill Frist's, though maybe they don't want to re-write the constitution to make their point.

Frist, by the way, is quoted in the Wash. Post's Reliable Source (scroll down) commenting on the prospects of gay marriage in Massachusetts thusly:

"Marriage is very simple: one man and one woman. Not two men or three men or four men or one man or one woman or two women and three women or three women and three men. It's not that. It's one man, one woman."

The Post says he held up various fingers to illustrate his points. He should have added, "I'm as big a bigot as Trent Lott, yes I am!"

I guess there'll be no free makeover for Frist from the gay guys on Bravo's new "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" show, which appears to be a ratings hit (at least by Bravo's standards), with the network's new "Boy Meets Boy" reality show soon set to launch. But then political change always seems to trail behind popular culture by about a decade.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist/humorist Mark Steyn writes:

Personally, I'm relaxed about sodomy, which isn't the same as being relaxed during sodomy. --

I've hung around the theater most of my adult life, and I love the likes of Cole Porter and the eccentric English composer and painter Lord Berners. These are the fellows who thought homosexuality was one of those things ''Too Good For The Average Man,'' in the words of Lorenz Hart's sly lyric--too special for the masses. These days, the gay movement insists it's as average as any man, if not more so. Watching the two chubby gays being wed by a gay vicar on the steps of the courthouse in Vancouver the other day, Cole Porter would have wondered what on earth was the point of being homosexual.

Steyn's bio reveals he's a straight Canadian who writes books on Broadway musicals. Go figure.

Not So Long Ago.

In a Washington Post op-ed titled Evolution on Gay Marriage, Fred Hiatt asks:

At one time most states banned marriage between races, and courts upheld such laws many times. Does our evolution -- today we read those decisions with horror -- provide a template for where society is heading with respect to homosexual marriage?

I guess we'll know soon enough.

Democratic presidential contender John Kerry told the Washington Post: "I have a belief that marriage is for the purpose of procreation and it's between men and women."

Reality check: While Kerry has two daughters from a first marriage that ended in divorce, and his current wife, Teresa Heinz, has children from her prior marriage (she was widowed), Kerry and Heinz have failed to live up to their sacred obligation to procreate children together and thus validate what they refer to shame-facedly as their "marriage."

The Escalating Debate.

As we await a ruling from Massachusetts on whether the state must grant marriage benefits to same-sex couples (the anti-gay Family Research Council is already freaking out), it's clear that marriage will be the defining issue of the gay rights struggle for the years ahead. Given that most of the leading gay political groups have made lobbying for local, statewide, and federal anti-discrimination and hate crimes laws their highest priority while downplaying the marriage issue (with the noted exception of Lambda Legal Defense), this has required a fairly significant change of focus.

Gay groups were caught off-guard by the Defense of Marriage Act that Bill Clinton signed (allegedly after leading activists told him that marriage wasn't that big a deal). Can they manage to put together a credible effort to block the proposed anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, which requires a two-thirds majority in both the House and Senate before being sent to the states? Let's hope so.

Virginia Postrel, a libertarian writer, offers her take on the same-sex marriage debate. She asks, "Do we think it's a terrible thing for the law to break up loving couples? Or do we think that gay couples aren't real couples (or, perhaps, real people)?" Someone should ask John Kerry.

Several commentaries of late have been referencing David Boaz's argument to "privatize" marriage, published in Slate back in 1997 and well worth revisiting.

Syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock confronts Justice Antonin Scalia head on, making the "presumption of liberty" case that many libertarian-minded constitutional scholars share: that is, "The Constitution is no ceiling of liberties. It is a floor of freedoms." Murdock writes:

Social conservatives often demand to know where the Constitution enshrines freedoms they oppose. "

What if the elected city council of West Hollywood (a potentially majority-gay jurisdiction) prohibited heterosexual acts within city limits? Would Scalia -- support such a law provided a legislative majority approved and the mayor signed it? "

The rights to sodomize, fornicate and use sex toys can be assumed under the Ninth Amendment. Citizens need not scour the Constitution for a vibrator clause. Government must demonstrate why such a liberty should be curbed, namely to shield the lives, competing liberties or property of other citizens.

Clear enough?

Recent Postings

07/06/03 - 07/12/03

Andrew Sullivan argues that the proposed anti-gay marriage amendment isn't going anywhere. Aside from the hard-core religious right, he contends:

conservatives rightly view the Constitution as a sacred document to be messed with only very carefully. Many conservatives will oppose such an amendment on those grounds alone. They should. --

Wouldn't that be a wonderful use of conservative resources: going around the country actually trying to break up committed couples. And all under the pro-family banner!

For more evidence on the anti-gay, pro-family right's ideological confusion, check out the vignette below. It's a few weeks old, but I just came across this piece by the Washington Post's Hank Stuever on an "abstinence convention" in, of all places, Las Vegas:

Amy Stephens, a former Focus on the Family counselor from Colorado Springs, who now works full-time as an abstinence consultant, chipperly describes her enthusiasm for the movement's success in schools. When asked if the movement will ever teach gay teens to wait until they too can get married, she smiles, blinks twice, as if her brain reboots, then says she doesn't see how abstinence-only programs are going to be able to do that. "But isn't that an excellent question," she gushes, then proclaims: "Whew! I need a Starbucks!"

Eventually the rightwingers will have to confront their cultural contradictions, or they'll totally short circuit!

Former Wyoming senator Alan K. Simpson, who serves as the honorary chairman of the Republican Unity Coalition, spoke with Newsweek's online edition about gay Republicans, the religious right and the 2004 election, saying:

The difference between 10 years ago and today on the gay-lesbian issue in this country is an eon apart. And if we"ve moved this far in just 10 years, in the next 10 years it will be just as dramatic.

On Sen. Rick Santorum likening homosexuality to bigamy and incest., Simpson remarked: "I thought [those comments] were sad. I know Rick and I respect him, but I think that view was a little bit bizarre." And on Sen. Bill Frist calling for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages, Simpson said: "I don't think that's appropriate. I think that minimizes the Constitution." But is the party listening?

The Real Revolt Against the Constitution.

Conservative commentator and attorney Bruce Fein takes on Roy S. Moore, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, in the Washington Times for blatantly disregarding the Constitution. He writes that the fact Moore:

revels in seeking to unravel the rule of law shocks. And what multiplies the shock is the deafening Republican silence over Justice Moore's rebellion against the Constitution despite their characteristic celebration of law and order.

How bad is Moore? The Texas Triangle reports Moore's calling homosexuality "an inherent evil against which children must be protected." Guess this is Scalia's kind of justice.
--Stephen H. Miller

First, a celebratory moment as Michael Demmons, the DiscountBlogger, shares a photo and some thoughts on his wedding in Ottawa.

Now back to the culture wars. While Republicans face a problem catering to the anti-gays in their party without seeming so intolerant as to alienate the independents, the Democrats don't quite have it all figured out, either. As Deborah Orin writes in the New York Post:

Key Dems just don't want to, er, commit themselves and now Bill Clinton's office won't even say whether he still backs the "Defense of Marriage Act" he signed into law in 1996 - it says wedlock means a union between a man and a woman. Hillary (D-N.Y.) won't take a stand on the law her husband signed, nor will Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) even though he voted for it back in 1996.

And speaking of DOMA, this story from The Telegraph (in New Hampshire) reminds us that:

Of the five Democratic candidates [for president] then in Congress, three voted for the measure: Rep. Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri and Sens. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and Bob Graham of Florida. Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts opposed it, but said at the time he also was against same-sex marriage. --

When Democratic contenders roundly praised the Supreme Court ruling last week, the issue of gay marriage was conspicuously absent. Lieberman's statement was typical: "The court,"" he said, "moved us a step closer to giving gays and lesbians a full, fair place in our society."" But he did not say what the next step should be. A spokesman declined to elaborate.

Not exactly profiles in courage.

Sodomy Potpourri.

For the legally minded, the National Law Journal offers some in-depth analysis of the likely ramifications of the Lawrence decision.

By the way, it's not just gays who fell prey to sodomy laws. The Roanoke Times reports that:

For the past 5-1/2 years, Trey Gregory has lived the life of a convicted felon who is not in prison, yet not entirely free. He cannot vote. He must list his crime on job applications. He cannot buy a gun for his son because firearms are not allowed in the home of a felon. Gregory's crime? He and a woman engaged in consensual oral sex in the privacy of his home.

And they say "Virginia is for lovers!"

IGF contributing author Rick Rosendall wonders why some gays can't admit we're winning.

And columnist Larry Daughtrey in The Tennessean ponders what Bill Frist's recent outburst is all about when "The spokesman for the get-government-out-of-our-lives party wanted to get government into the bedroom, cutting off that bunch of known liberals at the Supreme Court before they legalize even more sodomy."

Meanwhile, Neil Steinberg's column in the Chicago Sun-Times only appears to be about James Joyce. Stay with it.

Recent Postings

07/06/03 - 07/12/03