IGF CultureWatch

Here's a different take on the Sandy Koufax brouhaha (see my March 2 posting), from Bob Conrad of Chicago. His full letter is now in the IGF Mailbag, but he writes in part:

Perhaps because of your sensitivity to gay issues, I think you're really missing the main points of the New York Post/Sandy Koufax story. The blind item to which Koufax responded by leaving the Dodgers did not suggest that he was gay. It suggested that he was a gay coward, succumbing to political blackmail, agreeing to cooperate with a biographer lest she reveal a personal secret.

Sure, Koufax is known as a heterosexual, but he is better known as a man of heroic principle, historically able to stand up for his rights as a minority against even the strongest pressures of the times. The implication of cowardice is an insult, even where the insinuation of gayness is not. ".

By all accounts, he was prepared to [respond] with all the grace and dignity of a silent protest. He did not, like [Mets catcher Mike] Piazza, find it necessary to hold a press conference reconfirming his heterosexuality, thereby perpetuating the slur against homosexuals that such an action implies. --

I"d still argue that since the press did blow this story up, the lack of even a perfunctory "not that there's anything wrong with that" from Koufax indicates, as might be expected from a man of his generation, he was reacting to the accusation of being gay rather than merely to the insinuation that he was closeted and thus unprincipled.

By the way, if you're in New York or traveling there soon, I recommend the new play "Take My Out" by Richard Greenberg, which I enjoyed during its pre-Broadway run. It's about a major league star who comes out -- and the repercussions. It couldn't be more timely.

Court of Law, or People's Court?

I have also been asked how I can argue (as in my earlier posting, below) that anti-gay media personalities are best countered through public debate rather than advertising boycotts and other censorship-like tactics meant to cut off discussion, while, on the other hand, insisting that courts should grant gays the right to marry by judicial decree, as opposed to winning that right in the court of public opinion and through legislative action. Isn't that being inconsistent?

I'll respond by saying that while the role of courts should be limited in many regards, guaranteeing basic constitutional liberties to minorities is, in fact, one of their core roles. And the right to wed (now before a Massachusetts court), as well as the right to adopt (now before a Florida court), is premised on the guarantee of equal treatment under the law, without government discrimination. It's true that public opinion can't be ignored or else, as I've noted, we could face anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendments that could set back the cause of equality for years. But I don't think our constitutional system was intended to allow the majority to withhold equal rights to a minority solely on the basis of popular prejudice. And if so, what was that fighting in the 1860s (and marching in the 1960s) all about?

Here's an update on the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation vs. Mike Savage contretemps. Savage, a bombastic and conservative San Francisco-based radio personality, is slated to have a talkshow slot on MSNBC, so GLAAD is targeting both the network and its sponsors (see my March 4 posting). In a Washington Post story by Howard Kurtz, GLAAD (with its ally, NOW) boasts of mobilizing more than 2,000 protest letters against a show that has yet to air, but which they know will contain views and ideas Americans ought not to hear. An enraged Savage labels this "Nazism" and "economic terrorism." Moreover, says the Post:

Savage says some of the inflammatory quotes trumpeted by his critics are "eight years old" or "out of context," and "some are said in jest, and they know it."

"It's actually a gay-friendly show," he says. "I'm quite libertarian when it comes to sexuality."

But if GLAAD and NOW have their way, we may never know.
--Stephen H. Miller

The benefit of reading coverage of gay issues in the conservative press is that you actually get some insight into what anti-gay social conservatives think. For instance, in the Boston Herald's story about a lawsuit before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court seeking to allow same-sex marriage in that state, virtually all we're told about the opposing side is that:

opponents of same-sex unions contend marriage is by definition a union of a man and a woman. Various organizations have submitted 15 amicus briefs contending that down through the ages, the concept of marriage always has involved a woman and a man.

Compare that with the story in the Washington Times:

Their goal is to "get courts to destroy marriage as the union of male and female in one state," [Matt Daniels of the Alliance for Marriage] said. "Once they have that, they will launch an attack in the name of false constitutional arguments on the marriage laws in all 50 states and the federal DOMA" he said, referring to the Defense of Marriage Act that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Should the suit prove successful, the anti-gay groups will undoubtedly propose amending the state constitution -- and intensify nationwide efforts to amend the U.S. Constitution -- to bar gay unions. That's bad, but progress is seldom made without generating a reactionary response, and reaction can only be exposed and vanquished through vigorous and open debate.

Will GLAAD Be Sad?

Speaking of which... I've long been critical of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation -- a group in which I was active some 10 years ago -- for putting too much emphasis on trying to silence their opponents rather than countering their arguments in public debate. This is a flaw that runs throughout the 'politically correct' left, and is at its ugliest when even moderate conservatives are blocked from speaking on college campuses or else drowned out by cliques of shouting students determined to silence any views with which they disagree.

GLAAD is somewhat more dignified -- the group threatens to boycott sponsors of talkshow hosts who GLAAD believes are demeaning gay people (or, in pc parlance, LGBT people). As reported in the NY Post, GLAAD has teamed with the National Organization for Women to keep MSNBC from airing a new TV talk show with radio personality Michael Savage. However:

Savage is angrily threatening to counterattack "with all the abilities I have," including filing lawsuits and, if necessary, mobilizing his army of listeners. "I'm not Dr. Laura and I'm not going to lift my skirts and run," Savage told The Post, referring to the tough radio shrink whose 2000 TV show was set upon by gay-rights groups that scared away advertisers and, arguably, forced a toned-down program that few watched, resulting in an early demise.

"If we let these bastards win, they will have elevated themselves to being a de facto national television censorship board," said Savage.

Yes, folks, this could shape up as one pug-ugly fight, especially if the GLAAD/NOW arsenal consists of nothing more than trying to mau mau the network and its sponsors. Frankly, I'd let Savage expose himsef, so to speak. Sunlight is often the best disinfectant.
--Stephen H. Miller

Recent Postings

02/23/03 - 03/01/03

02/16/03 - 02/22/03

02/11/03 - 02/15/03

I haven't commented on Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax's tempest over a blind item in the New York Post hinting that someone very much like the former Dodgers great is gay. But I think Billy Bean, who came out several years back after retiring from professional baseball, pretty much gets it right, as quoted in the Washington Blade's story. Koufax's over-reaction -- threatening to cut all ties to the Dodgers since the team is owned by the same parent company as the Post -- demonstrates that Major League Baseball still has little tolerance when it comes to gay players. Said Bean of the twice-married Koufax:

If he had been able to portray tolerance, that would have made a huge difference. ... I wish [players about whom the media speculates] wouldn't feel such an emphatic need to deny those rumors so vehemently.

Adds Jim Buxinski of outsports.com:

What's so bad about having been alleged to be gay? ... One would hope that he'd be comfortable enough to laugh it off. "Me, gay? Yeah, right, just ask my ex-wives and current girlfriend."

Koufax exited baseball in 1966, so he's of a generation in which being called gay was considered an atrocious slur. Some would argue things haven't changed much in big-time competitive men's sports, but players who've grown up in a far more tolerant world are now coming into their own. Last May, when (yes, again) the NY Post speculated about Mets catcher Mike Piazza and he held a press conference to say, "I'm not gay, I'm heterosexual," his reaction, as compared with Koufax's, was far more subdued. Slowly, things do progress, and will continue to do so.

Related: The NY Daily News "confirms" Koufax is heterosexual. The San Francisco Chronicle urges the gay-obsessed NY Post to "come out."

For Shame.

Couldn't you guess. There are some gay anti-assimilationists who seem to lament that the era of gays as outcasts is over. According to the press release for a "Gay Shame" conference to be held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor at the end of March:

The purpose of the conference is to inquire into various aspects of lesbian and gay male sexuality, history, and culture that "gay pride" has had the effect of suppressing. The conference intends to confront the shame that lesbians, gay men, and "queers" of all sorts still experience in society; to explore the transformative impulses that spring from such experiences of shame; and to ask what affirmative uses can be made of these residual experiences of shame now that not all gay people are condemned to live in shame.

The theme of the conference responds to recent celebrations of "Gay Shame" in cities across the US, Canada, and Europe, celebrations that often criticize contemporary gay politics and challenge current definitions and practices of "gay pride."

No, I'm not making this up.

Who's Your Momma?

The conservative Washington Times ran a article on the cancellation of liberal Phil Donahue's show on MSNBC, with this information:

Indeed, Mr. Donahue featured Rosie O'Donnell as his very last guest, dwelling upon her feelings as a "mother" and a pacifist.

No matter what you think of O'Donnell, she's not only an out lesbian but legally the mother of three children by adoption (her partner, Kelli Carpenter, also gave birth to a child who will bear O'Donnell's surname). The paper's use of what could be termed scare-quotes around "mother" is meant to disparage gay parents, but winds up insulting all adoptive mothers and fathers as well. I hope they protest.
--Stephen H. Miller

Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, of instapundit.com fame, takes aim at sodomy laws and explains why the Supreme Court should strike them down in Lawrence v. Texas:

This isn't a question of "finding new rights," but of observing traditional limitations on what's a legitimate governmental concern.

He provides some fine links as well.
--Stephen H. Miller

The conservative worldnetdaily.com website earlier this week ran a news story on the sodomy law case now before the U.S. Supreme Court, and it provides some insights into the minds of those on the anti-gay right. According to the report:

The U.S. Supreme Court could soon grant homosexual activists their own "Roe v. Wade" decision, a constitutional guarantee that would undermine scores of laws that protect the traditional family, according to some opponents. At issue is a challenge to a Texas law barring "homosexual conduct," or sodomy, but some legal minds involved in the case believe the stakes are much higher. ...

This would be a "huge trump card" for homosexual activists, asserts Texas attorney Kelly Shackleford, an "atomic bomb that they could carry around to attack any law that does not treat homosexuality on an equal basis with heterosexuality."

Aside from the nightmare of equality under the law for gays and straights (which is an overly optimistic scenario, in any event, given that the court tends to limit its ruling as narrowly as possible), what else do those on the other side of the culture wars fear?

Shackleford argues that the court essentially could elevate sexual activity to a right equal to free speech, thus undermining laws against incest and prostitution.

But such slippery slope sophistry just isn't convincing anymore. Even more revealing, however, is this remark:

"If you asked people, is there a right to engage in sodomy in the U.S. Constitution, 100 out of 100 would probably start laughing," [Shackleford] said. "So this would be seen as extreme judicial activism. Five people would be ruling our country rather than the elected people in our state legislatures."

I think this statement shows just how wrong the religious right is. Most people would be shocked to learn that private, consensual, non-commercial lovemaking isn't a basic right in the land of the free. The fact that rigid social conservatives think that defending sodomy laws is a winning issue for them bodes well for their continuing decline into irrelevance.
--Stephen H. Miller

IGF's own Walter Olson, one of our chief behind-the-scenes gurus, is the subject of this glowing profile in Wednesday's New York Sun, focusing on his day job as one of the nation's leaders in exposing how our legal system has gone law suit mad.

Taking on the trial lawyers and advocating tort reform is regarded as a conservative cause, so it's wonderful that this story prominently mentions Walter's work on behalf of IGF and his family life with partner and new son. Given the tendency of liberals to assume gays are automatically in their camp, and of conservatives to assume we're not, don't underestimate the importance of stories like this.
--Stephen H. Miller

This moving story, via the Hartford Courant, is about New York police detective Frank Coppola, who is testifying in support of proposals to broaden the state's definition of marriage. His partner, Eddy, a New York firefighter, perished on September 11, and the two last saw each other in the lobby of the stricken World Trade Center. As the article tells it:

During the six years they were together, Eddy had not engaged in public displays of affection or acknowledgements of their life together. When Coppola left after visiting Eddy at his firehouse, Eddy would lower his hand along his side and say "I love you" in sign language.

As Eddy headed for the [Trade Center] stairs to begin his climb up the tower, he shouted to Coppola, "I love you." Coppola, startled, gave him the familiar sign. "Chicken," called Eddy, their final exchange as he ascended into the maelstrom.

At Eddy's memorial service, Coppola was asked to stay in the back of the church and not speak to family or friends. Moreover, "He was mistakenly told that Eddy's remains had been recovered in October 2001. He called Eddy's mother, who refused to explain." Coppola says he knows nine gay firefighters who were killed, and that six of them were couples. He's also known surviving partners of gay and lesbian victims who have committed suicide. We're told:

He wrestled often with those dark thoughts himself. "I am lost a lot." He insists he must have been spared for a purpose. Randomness of life is no explanation.

The legislature's judiciary committee is considering three bills: a change in the statutes that would broaden the definition of marriage; a measure that would establish civil unions between same-sex couples; and an anti-gay proposal to ban same-sex marriage outright.

Meanwhile, across the nation in Washington state, another civil unions bill is being debated. According to the Seattle Times/AP story:

The bill says community property, separation and dissolution, child custody and support, property division and other rights and responsibilities apply just as in a heterosexual union.

The Christian Coalition and other religious conservatives will resist both bills, said the coalition's state director, Rick Forcier. The civil-union bill is "dead on arrival," but foes will make their opposition clear, he said.

"For us, it's out of concern for issues of public health," he said. "It seems to us to be a work against nature, a very quick trip to 40 or more kinds of sexually transmitted disease. It is an unhealthy thing."

Here we have two stories about two same-sex partnership/marriage struggles in two states. Which side do you think the average American will see as occupying the moral high ground?

Reconfiguration Before Rights?

Meanwhile, in Florida:

A man who was born a woman won custody of two children on Friday, with the judge ruling he is legally a male and his marriage to their mother did not violate Florida's ban on same-sex unions.

So Florida joins the ranks of those states holding that a person who undergoes enough surgical redesigning of the genital area can marry someone who shares the same sex both had at birth (and, usually, throughout most of their lives) -- or, put another way, who share the same gender chromosomes. Yet before being surgically altered, this person could not marry someone of the same sex.

But wait a minute, isn't he/she the same person she/he was, or does the court think a soul transplant also occurred? And if it's the same person, why do surgical cosmetics make it legal to wed a loved one who, absent surgery, you'd be forbidden to marry. Does any of this make sense to anyone?
--Stephen H. Miller

Recent Postings

02/16/03 - 02/22/03

02/11/03 - 02/15/03

02/02/2003 - 02/08/2003

Regarding my post on Senate Democrats giving a free ride to judicial nominee Timothy Tymkovich, a critic of the Supreme Court's Romer vs. Evans ruling that found Colorado's Amendment 2 (barring localities and the state from passing gay anti-discrimination provisions) to be unconstitutional, a libertarian correspondent e-mailed to take me to task. He wrote, "I don't believe anyone should be considered anti-gay merely because of their support of Amendment 2. Looking at it as a libertarian, there is nothing anti-gay about refusing to extend laws you think are bad to yet another class of people."

Let me say, in response, that I don't in fact favor most laws that dictate to private employers whom they can hire and fire (while I do favor shareholder petitioning, customer lobbying, and employee organizing against companies that discriminate). But Colorado's Amendment 2, by singling out gays as the one group for whom localities and the state government would be constitutionally barred from enacting anti-discrimination protections, legally enshrined gays as second-class citizens. Again, if Colorado wanted to bar all such anti-discrimination laws for all categories, I'd probably be in favor.

Thus, I think Evans was not only correct, but of historic importance in holding that, as a matter of equal protection under the law, gays cannot be singled out for special discrimination (as the one group for whom no protections can ever be enacted) based solely on anti-gay animus. Tymkovich, of course, feels otherwise.

For Shame.

If you're interested in reading our opponents legal brief's supporting anti-gay "sodomy" laws in the Lawrence case now before the Supreme Court, here's a link. The amicus brief filed by the states of Alabama, South Carolina, and Utah (give it a few minutes to download -- it's long), holds that:

a constitutional right that protects "the choice of one's partner" and "whether and how to connect sexually" must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia (if the child should credibly claim to be "willing").

For all intents and purposes, petitioners seek to enshrine as the defining tenet of modern constitutional jurisprudence the sophomoric libertarian mantra from the musical "Hair": "be free, be whatever you are, do whatever you want to do, just as long as you don't hurt anybody." ...

The States should not be required to accept, as a matter of constitutional doctrine, that homosexual activity is harmless and does not expose both the individual and the public to deleterious spiritual and physical consequences.

You'd be hard-pressed to find another example of how anti-liberty these right-wing conservatives truly are.

Moreover, sodomy statutes can rear their ugly heads in surprising and disturbing ways. The Boston Phoenix has a piece by Michael Bronski on the application of the Kansas same-sex sodomy law, under which a slightly retarded man, who was 18 at the time, has been sentenced to 17 years in prison for sexual activity with a minor aged 14. If the two had been of opposite sexes, however, there would have been no prosecution because the state's "Romeo and Juliet law" decriminalizes sexual activity between young people under the age of 19 who engage in consensual sexual activity with teens between 14 and 16 years old. Special discrimination has very real consequences.

Rubbing It In.

"Senators find irony in staunchly anti-gay colleague's voucher bill" is a headline from a Denver Post story about the unintended consequences of increasing the freedom to choose. It's convoluted, but a school voucher bill put forward by an extremely homophobic Colorado state senator has a funding mechanism that gives a higher tax credit to "two persons who own property as joint tenants with right of survivorship" than to single people -- thus earning it the support of local LGBT groups, to the chagrin of the measure's sponsor.

"I want to thank Sen. Cairns for allowing gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender couples to participate" in the tax credits, said one activist, making sure to be oh-so politically correct. Liberal Democrats, however, are voting against the bill because they oppose school choice.

How Low Will Chirac Go?

As he shakes the bloody hand of dictator Robert Mugabe, a fanatically anti-gay purveyor of torture and terror, it becomes clear that French President Jacques Chirac has never met a mass murderer he didn't like.

He's Telling.

The Miami Herald has a nice piece on IGF supporter Steve Herbits, a highly regarded Pentagon consultant who hasn't shied away from speaking out against the increasingly self-defeating "don't ask, don't tell" policy and other matters of gay equality.
--Stephen H. Miller

Some people argue that divided government is a good thing, and that at least the Democrats will fight Bush's attempts to appoint anti-gay judges favored by the religious right. But that's not quite what's happening. Consider the nomination of Timothy Tymkovich for a seat on the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

As Colorado's solicitor general, Tymkovich vigorously supported the notorious Amendment 2 to that state's constitution, which would have voided local gay rights statutes and forbidden the state from considering such protections in the future. He also went beyond his official duties when he wrote a law journal article criticizing the U.S. Supreme Court for overturning Amendment 2 in its historic Romer vs. Evans ruling, in which Justice Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee, wrote that gay citizens could not be singled out as a class for special discrimination solely on the basis of popular animus.

In his article, Tymkovich argued that Romer illustrated "judicial histrionics," adding that it was "merely another example of ad hoc, activist jurisprudence without constitutional mooring." Clearly, this man does not believe equality under the law has any meaning for gays and lesbians.

So are the Democrats in the Senate threatening a filibuster? According to The Advocate:

None of the Democrats who questioned Tymkovich -- senators Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, and Charles Schumer of New York -- said they would oppose his appointment. Most congratulated him on his nomination, and Kennedy even noted that some of his friends have urged him to support Tymkovich.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are engaged in a filibuster against appeals court nominee Miguel Estrada, a conservative Hispanic with no anti-gay record. Worse, they've promised to vigorously oppose the nomination of Charles Pickering to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In 1991, Pickering sharply rebuked an attorney who tried to use a plaintiff's homosexuality in a fraud trial. "Homosexuals are as much entitled to be protected from fraud as any other human beings," Pickering instructed the jury. "The fact that the alleged victims in this case are homosexuals shall not affect your verdict in any way whatsoever." In 1994, an anti-gay citizens group in the town of Ovett, Mississippi launched a crusade to drive out Camp Sister Spirit, a lesbian community. When the group took Camp Sister Spirit to court, Judge Pickering threw their case out.

Pickering is strongly supported by the Log Cabin Republicans, but opposed by liberal groups, including the Human Rights Campaign.

The lesson: if you are conservative but not anti-gay, look for the Democrats to oppose you with everything they've got. But if you're anti-gay but not otherwise objectionable, that's just dandy. I guess the Democrats figure no matter what they do, gay liberals will keep supporting them. And, sadly, they're probably right.

Good News.

Here are some positive stories in the news. USA Today ran a report about how gays are making strides in family law:

Even some groups that oppose expanded rights for homosexuals acknowledge that the trend in state family courts is running against them. "It's becoming a tougher battle each day," says Peter Sprigg, senior director of cultural studies at the Family Research Council, a Washington, D.C., group that wants the law to recognize only marriages between men and women. "We're probably losing ground."

The article also notes how states that won't allow same-sex couples to adopt children are seeing some mighty productive citizens picking up roots and moving to more fair-minded jurisdictions.

Meanwhile, the Boston Globe featured a Unitarian Universalist minister who announced to his congregation at Sunday services that he wouldn't be signing Massachusetts marriage licenses anymore -- at least not until the state lets him sign them for same-sex couples as well.

A symbolic statement, but one that strikes the right chord. The prohibition against letting gay and lesbian couples wed must come to be seen as no more acceptable than laws prohibiting two adults of different races from marrying. And the struggle goes on.

Inequality Wear.

On a lighter note: So what's with the Human Rights Campaign, which uses an equal sign as its ubiquitous symbol, sending out a 24-page catalog of "EqualityWear," with the equal sign on everything from teddy bears to key chains, and charging extra for the XXL items? What about equality for the differently-sized?
--Stephen H. Miller