IGF CultureWatch

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

The State of Maryland has invalidated the marriage of Georgie and Angie Mauler, just as they were about to celebrate their first anniversary around Valentine's Day, the Washington Post reports:

After pronouncing Georgie and Angie Man and Wife, the State of Maryland Found Out Otherwise. Now It's Put Their Marriage Asunder

As you might have guessed, the question of gender and marriage is again at issue. Georgie Mauler is a male-to-female transsexual who was legally wed to Angie, a woman-born-woman (Georgie had produced a birth certificate identifying Wayne George Mauler as male, and received a marriage certificate in return). Before undergoing sex-reassignment surgery, Georgie (as Wayne George) had been legally married and divorced from another woman. Although Georgie identifies now as female, Angie, interestingly, says she is not a lesbian and views Georgie as male:

"I'm never going to make you happy," Angie would tell Georgie before they exchanged rings, "because I'm not going to see you as a woman." Georgie would answer, "Then I'll go back to living as a man." Angie would shake her head. She knew Georgie's story.

When the state revoked the marriage's legality last November, "it also erased the couple's legitimacy - at least for Angie," the Post reports. A sad story. But you might also remember that last May the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that male-to-female transsexual J'Noel Gardiner was still legally a man and thus not entitled to the estate of her late husband, Marshall - in effect, invalidating the marriage after Marshall's death. If you combine the Maryland and Kansas rulings, a transsexual wouldn't be able to marry anyone!

Of course, this is all statist nonsense. If, in Maryland, Georgie could marry a woman before surgery, but not after, does this mean male paraplegics shouldn't be allowed to marry since they, too, don't have functioning male anatomy? Had Georgie remained married to the woman who was then his first wife, and subsequently had reassignment surgery, would that marriage have been invalidated after the fact? And if, in Kansas, J'Noel can't marry a man, can she marry a woman? Wouldn't that be validating a lesbian union?

Eventually, the federal courts will have to sort this out. But the obvious best solution would simply be to allow unmarried adults to marry other unmarried adults of their choosing.

Has Beens.

That gay men and lesbians (or, more to the point, men and women) have a very different experience of sexuality is highlighted by Amy Sohn in her New York Magazine piece "Bi For Now":

If the lipstick lesbian was the gay icon of the nineties, these days she's been replaced by her more controversial counterpart, the hasbian: a woman who used to date women but now dates men.

Though Anne Heche is the most prominent example, many hasbians (sometimes called LUGS: lesbians until graduation) are by-products of nineties liberal-arts educations. Caught up in the gay scene at school, they came out at 20 or 21 and now, five or ten years later, are finding themselves in the odd position of coming out all over again - as heterosexuals.

It's dangerous to overly generalize, and many lesbians are unwavering in their homosexual orientation. But it has to be acknowledged that more lesbians are sexually far more fluid in terms of which gender they're attracted to than are men. And for a significant number of women, lesbianism is an expression of feminism for a defined period of their lives, rather than a fixed aspect of identity:

Some hasbians identify as bisexual, while others say they're straight and describe their lesbianism as a meaningful but finite phase of their lives, like listening to a lot of Morrissey or campaigning for Dukakis.

(Just imagine a guy offering a similar explanation!) How this plays out in the "LGBT community" and its internal dynamics is at least something that might be discussed, but in general it isn't.
-Stephen H. Miller

Recent Postings

02/11/03 - 02/15/03

02/02/2003 - 02/08/2003

01/31/2003 - 01/26/2003

Says National Gay & Lesbian Task Force head Lorri Jean, in a press release responding to Andrew Sullivan's criticism of NGLTF's leftwing coalition building:

I doubt the organization has ever taken any stand on capitalism!

Well, consider this bit of economic analysis by Urvashi Vaid, then-director of the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, in 1999:

Capitalism has worked several inversions on old values of work and old notions of industry and productivity. "capitalism has convinced us that producing and consuming are more important than doing neither, and the worst is doing nothing. What, after all, is the work and activity that most of us engage in? Producing junk that is sold for money that we use to buy more junk that someone else has produced.

And then there's this, from a past column by IGF contributing author Rick Rosendall:

Former National Gay and Lesbian Task Force executive director Urvashi Vaid, despite being an avowed anarcho-syndicalist, ... said that America "has taken off its ugly white hood to show its sexist, racist, anti-gay and capitalist face." When this was quoted to her, Vaid acknowledged having said it but accused her interlocutor of "McCarthyite red-baiting."

Looks like NGLTF's been caught red-handed in a two-faced bit of disingenuousness.

Passing It On.

In The Death Tax for the Other 98 Percent of Us,
David Boaz reminds us that when you shrug off your mortal coil, you can't leave your accumulated Social Security to anyone other than a legal spouse. But with privatized retirement accounts, you could leave those funds to anyone you choose. I'd say that's a good argument why private accounts are good for gays, in particular.

Make His Day.

Another unconventional view on how liberal left policies may not be quite so "pro-gay" after all, as Tom Palmer explains why allowing citizens to bear arms is in the interest of gay people, as reported by the conservative (and none-too-gay-friendly) Washington Times:

"It's unreasonable to insist that citizens put their lives in the hands of the D.C. government," said Mr. Palmer, adding that he had been assaulted and beaten several times because of his homosexuality.

Mr. Palmer, 46, a political-science researcher, said that several years ago he and a friend were chased by a group of some 20 young men at night. The men threatened to kill Mr. Palmer and his friend, telling them that their bodies would not be found. Mr. Palmer said he stymied his assailants by pulling out a 9-mm handgun.

"The presence of a weapon changes a situation dramatically, and suddenly people who are full of bravado are brought up short. It's not very fun when the prey can fight back," Mr. Palmer said.

I'm not for selling guns over the counter at 7-Eleven, but I do think there's convincing evidence that allowing licensed individuals to carry concealed weapons does, in fact, reduce violent crime, since criminals have to worry about putting themselves at risk when assaulting others. More guns, less crime, safer gays - now there's a thought to drive liberals into a frenzy!

"The ideological rift in The City's gay community led to arrests and bloodshed when police broke up a group of leftist demonstrators at a fundraiser for the new San Francisco LGBT Community Center," reports the San Francisco Examiner. According to the paper:

Sixty to 70 members of Gay Shame, a radical LGBT group that opposes the mainstreaming of the gay community, rallied outside the event. -- No matter who was to blame for the violence, it brings to the surface a simmering tension in The City's LGBT community, where politically moderate middle-class gays and more radicalized gays often are at odds on everything from homelessness policies to safe-sex issues.

Actually, the "politically moderate" of San Francisco would be considered extremely liberal in most other burgs. Only in comparison to the city's far left do they come off as centrists. Still, it was positive to see Supervisor Bevan Dufty, described by the Examiner as "a moderate gay politician," reflect that "It really seemed to me like I was in a parallel universe and I was watching a Fred Phelps demonstration."

As the nation moves in a more conservative (but not necessarily intolerant or anti-gay) direction, the hard left is becoming increasingly shrill. I expect that liberals will have to decide whether they can perpetuate coalition politics built on forming united fronts with these groups. Or whether the left will make demands that are so beyond the pale that they'll further marginalize themselves into cult-like political sects driven by anger and narcissism.

None So Blind...

In Grant Parish, Louisiana, some Christian ministers are up in arms over their discovery of a rural retreat for gay men called Manitou Woods. Reports The Town Talk website:

"We have a good, quiet community. We certainly don't want that (camp) in our community," said the Rev. Eddie Douglas of First Baptist Church in Pollock. -- The Rev. Mike Malone of Victory Baptist Church in Pollock said he is organizing a prayer vigil on March 5, coming out against the camp and the lifestyle of its visitors. -- "If you don't say something, God will hold us all accountable for our actions," Malone said. "We're standing up for the word of God."

Skip Ward, 82, has operated the rustic camp since 1995. "We've never really had any publicity for the camp around here because many of the people who come to our gatherings are not from here," he said. Now, he's receiving hate mail. According to the news story:

A local disc jockey, after using numerous sexually graphic references and expletives, wrote: "Basically, what I am saying is this 'homo-camp' you guys (and I use that term loosely) have put together is disgusting and immoral. I, nor 99 percent of my radio audience want to be, nor want our families and children to be, subject to this appalling display of filth." He ended the e-mail by saying the camp "will not happen."

He's a bit confused with his threat, of course, since the camp has been in business since 1995, with no negative impact on the community noted. But it's interesting how the good parsons' "hate the sin" exclusionary gospel so easily trickles down into the "hate the faggots" of the gutter bigots.

Not everyone is opposed, thankfully. Fran Demers, a spokeswoman for the local Chamber of Commerce, said:

"If it brings people to Grant Parish and those people spend money, then that is good for the economy of the parish. We can't afford to arbitrarily say who can and can't open a business in our parish. If they conduct themselves in a manner that is community-minded, I believe people need to accept it."

Yes. capitalism is the real progressive force, and always has been. But man does not live by bread alone, so not giving up on the spiritual front remains vital. As the Rev. Jim Reed of Colfax United Methodist Church told The Town Talk:

"My personal belief is that God calls every person to be in fellowship with Him," Reed said. "And that fellowship is available to every person. Anyone who excludes (homosexuals) is missing the point of the Gospel."

Which is a point worth making.

Faith or Fundamentalism

On the subject of matters of the spirit, there's a very fine letter by Jay Michaelson in Gay City News. It's in response to an interview journalist Rex Wockner conducted with David Bianco, the founder of the gay-press Q Syndicate, who announced he is selling his remaining shares of the company, no longer identifies as gay, and hopes to marry a woman because he has become an observant Orthodox Jew. Michaelson responds to Bianco, saying:

One of the most important teachings of Judaism is that everything is God. God is absolutely everywhere, here, now, in every moment, One. In loving relationships, of whatever configuration, God is especially, noticeably Present.

Let's hope love continues to win out over narrow fundamentalisms of all stripes.
--Stephen H. Miller

Recent Postings

02/02/2003 - 02/08/2003

01/31/2003 - 01/26/2003

01/23/2003 - 01/20/2003

The International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission has issued a statement that's simply Orwellian. According to their release, IGLHRC Opposes Bush's Warmongering:

US actions in the war on terrorism demonstrate a disregard for international law. ... Our position is guided by our sense of solidarity with and accountability to the activists we work with all over the world, and especially those in regions which are greatly impacted by US foreign policies. The US policies of military aggression have served to render those who deviate from sexual and gender norms and people living with HIV/AIDS especially vulnerable to state-sanctioned violence and discrimination.

Just try to parse the meaning here. Not only are they defending Saddam's rule in the name of human rights (quite an obscenity, really), but they"re claiming it's U.S. policy that's responsible for the oppression of gays and lesbians (and the transgendered too, I suppose) in Saddam's Iraq and other tyrannies. This is too loopy for words.

Lies Are Truth.

But the left doesn't have a monopoly on inflammatory positions. The Liberty Legal Institute is one of the rightwing groups filing a brief in support of the Texas sodomy law in the Lawrence case now before the Supreme Court. According to a summary on the group's website:

Homosexual advocacy groups are challenging the Texas sodomy law". If the Court rules the law is unconstitutional discrimination (as they argue), all marriage laws restricting marriage to being between a man and a woman only would also be unconstitutional." LLI is also filing a brief with the Supreme Court of the United States, representing dozens of Texas legislators who are calling for the Supreme Court to uphold the sodomy law as part of the state laws protecting marriage.

Liberty Legal isn't even bothering to argue that ending sodomy laws could be a "slippery slope" toward legalizing same-sex matrimony; they simply assert that if sodomy laws are found unconstitutional, then barring gay unions will ipso facto be unconstitutional, too. Would it were so! Surely this "legal institute" knows that's ridiculous, but in the game of firing up the donor base, truth is a mere abstraction.

Muzzling versus Debate.

The always inflammatory gay columnist Michelangelo Signorile writes in Deflating a Gasbag that advertisers should be threatened with boycotts if they don't stop sponsoring Rush Limbaugh's popular radio show, because of Limbaugh's criticism of anti-war protestors. Signorile doesn't even have a clue as to what a perfect little McCarthyite he's become, or how all this is reminiscent of the 1950s "Red Channels" boycotts of advertisers on radio shows which featured communists (real or not).

Signorile compares boycotting Limbaugh's sponsors to the effort against advertisers of "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger's radio and (now defunct) TV shows. But "Dr. Laura" was an easier target than Rush. Advertisers are more sensitive to accusations they're sponsoring anti-gay or racial/ethnic bigotry than they'll be to a charge of supporting criticism of leftwing anti-war demonstrators.

I didn't support the "Dr. Laura" boycott (though I recognize she is a bigot), and instead urged that the response to bad speech is public argument, not attempting to silence your opponent by threatening sponsors. Targeting Limbaugh's advertisers because of his expressed political views has even less merit. It's the tactic of those who don't believe they can win in the give and take of public discourse.

Tears for Leona?

Having just defended Rush Limbaugh's right to speech, I can just imagine what my critics will make of this item. But here goes: Leona Helmsley is a sad, sick woman. But I"m not cheered by the jury verdict forcing her to pay $11 million-plus for discriminating against a gay employee. Specifically, the jury found she had subjected Charles Bell to a "hostile work environment" when he was general manager of her Park Lane Hotel (for about 5 months). Yes, it's quite possible Helmsley was a boss from hell, used the word "fag," and ultimately fired Bell. Guess what, this is the woman who made her reputation firing staff for the pettiest of reasons, real and imagined.

You take a job with the 'Queen of Mean,' you should know what you letting yourself in for. And Bell, now a restaurant manager, isn't exactly a factory laborer or short-order chef suffering privations because he was let go. Said Helmsley of her jurors, "They"re crazy -- They don't like me, I guess," and it's hard to disagree with that analysis.
--Stephen H. Miller

Attorney General John Ashcroft has authorized federal prosecutors to pursue the death penalty against a man charged with killing two women at a secluded campsite in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park -- slayings seen as an anti-gay hate crime, reports the Washington Post. Darrell Rice is charged with capital murder in the deaths of Julianne Williams and Laura "Lollie" Winans, two victims who, prosecutors have quoted Rice as saying, "deserved to die because they were lesbian whores." Since the grisly crime was committed in a national park, federal prosecution was triggered. According to the Post:

Although bias against gay people is not an aggravating factor under the terms of the federal death penalty law, prosecutors are permitted in general to seek harsher penalties in crimes that are shown to be motivated by such bias. Rice's case marks the first time that prosecutors in Virginia have invoked a 1994 law making it possible to seek the harder penalties for crimes motivated by bias against gay people.

It remains to be seen if invoking the death penalty will prove controversial. In the Matthew Shepard slaying case, some gay groups that support hate crimes legislation, which increases penalties for crimes motivated by bias, also belonged to liberal coalitions opposed to the death penalty. (See, for example, Death Penalty in Shepard Case Slammed by Activists.) Even before the Shepard trial, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force had passed a resolution opposing the death penalty as a criminal sanction because, among other reasons, they claimed it's "disproportionately applied to poor people and people of color."

The conundrum: If the penalty for premeditated murder is either life in prison or death, and if hate crime laws bump up the penalty, you wind up with death. When progressive gays support hate crime bills but oppose capital punishment (often labeling it inherently racist), it parallels their call to let gays serve in the military while opposing U.S. military action as imperialist and (again) racist. Let's add lobbying for private-sector anti-discrimination laws but finding capitalism so objectionable that corporations are condemned, for their corrupting influence, when sponsoring floats in gay pride marches. Or demanding an AIDS Cure Now while trying to limit the incentive of drug company profits. And, of course, supporting the right of gays to wed while holding that marriage is an oppressive patriarchal institution. Somehow, they don't see that you can't have it both ways.

I generally oppose hate crime laws and believe it is criminal acts that should be prosecuted, not the underlying thought of the perpetrator. As it happens, I also oppose the death penalty, but not because I think it's a tool for class oppression. In fact, I find it persuasive that executions serve some role as a deterrent. But I can't get beyond the belief in my gut that killing killers who are not currently trying to kill you is morally indefensible -- and also gives the state too much power. You may disagree with me on that, but at least my dual opposition is not inconsistent.
--Stephen H. Miller

Syndicated "Lesbian Notions" columnist Paula Martinac took both myself and IGF contributing author Dale Carpenter to task in her Jan. 24 column "Speak Out Against War." Martinac quotes me as labeling those who question American foreign policy as "extremist, infantile, America-hating whiners." What she doesn't say is that my remarks are from an essay titled "What's Left?" published one month after the Sept. 11 attacks. I was castigating ad hoc groups of leftwing gays who had taken to the streets against America's pursuit of Al Qaeda terrorists and the liberation of Afghanistan from Taliban rule. While I am also critical of gay groups that recently joined the coalition against military action in Iraq, I have not done so with language as harsh as I used to describe protestors who blamed America for Sept. 11 - a fact Martinac obscures so she can dismiss my views as anti-anti-war extremism.

Meanwhile, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which recently announced its anti-war position, is spending time and energy defending itself against those even further to the left who accuse it of not being anti-war enough. And the Audre Lorde Project (which describes itself as a center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit and Transgender people of color communities) and the LGBT Programs Community Relations Unit of the American Friends Service Committee have been sending a statement around the Internet that reads in part:

we know that militarism and war rely on and promote many forms of oppression -- including homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and racism. As LGBTST people, we know what it means to be targets of hate and violence. We understand what it means to be scapegoated. -- With care and respect, we call on LGBTST organizations and communities to join national and local coalitions to struggle for peace with justice -- and actively and creatively oppose U.S. policies and actions of military/economic/political aggression and war.

You see, I don't demean, I just let the gay left speak for itself. ("Two-spirit," by the way, is what the politically correct crowd now considers acceptable labeling of Native American gay folks.)

Less Regulation, More Gay Inclusion

Back in the real world, Virginia Log Cabin spokesman David Lampo has this op-ed published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, arguing that Virginia law hurts the state's economy by prohibiting (yes, prohibiting) private businesses from granting health insurance to anyone who isn't the spouse or child of an employee, effectively barring benefits for same-sex partners. It's another case where government isn't the solution, it's the problem, holding back a private sector that wants to move forward.

Also in a libertarian vein, IGF contributing author David Boaz has an op-ed exposing the pro-choice hypocrisy of some big-name Democrats running for president. He writes:

what question of choice -- other than abortion -- does Gephardt think should be answered "not by the state but by the individual"? Like Kerry, he opposes Social Security choice, school choice, and the right of individuals to choose what drugs they will use, either for medical or recreational purposes. He voted to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry the person they choose.

Meanwhile, our friends on the left dream of an even more intrusive regulatory state that would, of course, only do good, progressive things. Naturally.
--Stephen H. Miller

Recent Postings

01/31/2003 -- 01/26/2003

01/23/2003 -- 01/20/2003

Gloria Steinem doesn't get "The Hours." Neither do her critics. The Oscar-contender, based on the prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham, is a meditation on Virginia Woolf's novel "Mrs. Dalloway" and, for most folks, a thought-provoking two hours of cinema -- unless you happen to be an ideologue of left or right. Writing in the Los Angeles Times on Jan. 12 (not available without a fee), all Steinem sees is feminist propaganda, which makes her glad. She's especially fond of the storyline set in the 1950s about a suicidal housewife trapped in suburbia with spouse and child (and another one on the way) -- prime Steinem territory. She writes:

"Some male moviegoers emerged bewildered about why Laura wasn't happy with just her nice house, nice marriage, and nice son -- as if they would have been."

This provoked conservative columnist Rod Dreher, writing in National Review Online to comment:

"Well, call me a caveman, but yes, I did wonder why Laura (Julianne Moore)"with a loving husband and a small boy who adores her, was made so miserable by her existence.... It's telling that Steinem"assumes that all women naturally understand Laura's decision (guess what, they don"t)."

I"m not going to give away Laura's "decision," put you get the point. Dreher, who labels the film an "apologia for evil," buys Steinem's interpretation and rejects both the film and Steinem.

But neither grasps the movie I saw. Consider the two other storylines in the film. In the earliest, Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) has been free to rebel against Victorian repression with her Bloomsbury Set colleagues and a husband who is willing to sacrifice his own career to support her life of artistic self-expression. She's miserable and suicidal. In the present-day story, Clarissa (Meryl Streep) is a lesbian mother (via a sperm donor) with a loving partner (Allison Janney) and a rewarding career as a Manhattan literary editor who throws parties for the avant garde. She's miserable and suicidal.

If Laura is depressed because 1950s conformism clashes with her, as they say, lesbian tendencies, Clarissa is unhappy because, as it turns out, the true love of her life was a poet, Richard (Ed Harris), who after one blissful summer left her for a man. In sum, the film, like "Mrs. Dalloway," is a reflection on why people can't be happy, always pining for what they don't have or think they"ve lost. Ultimately, Clarissa in the movie, as with her namesake in Woolf's novel, finds that it's the small, fleeting happinesses of life that are to be treasured.

But if Gloria Steinem wants to see a feminist anthem, and if Rod Dreher wants to condemn it as such, then I hope they enjoy themselves. But they've missed out on a truly interesting film.
--Stephen H. Miller

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01/31/2003 -- 01/26/2003

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