IGF CultureWatch

Iraq a Gay Issue? This weekend saw another rally in our nation's capital opposing military action to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. On this matter, IGF contributor Rick Rosendall has a timely column in the Washington Blade taking issue with those, such as gay Muslim activist Faisal Alam, who argue gay groups should oppose the war, in Rosendall's words

"without showing the slightest awareness of which side actually treats gays better. (Hint: It's the one that allows gay Muslims to organize and publish op-eds.)"

Also of interest is syndicated columnist Hastings Wyman's recent roundup of where gay movement organizations stand in relation to the question -- and the not surprising fact that many on the LGBT left favor joining the alliance opposing action to free the Iraqi people, and the world, from this monster.

Sen. Wellstone, in Perspective. The tragic death of Sen. Paul Wellstone, perhaps the Senate's most left-leaning lawmaker, is being noted by the Human Rights Campaign, which issued a statement that lauds him as "a hero of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender movement," as well as "a powerfully eloquent and passionate voice for fairness today," whose death represents "a devastating loss to our community." And, indeed, Wellstone was a leading advocate for the proposed Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), a federal bill that would forbid private companies from discriminating against gays and lesbians.

But it's also important to remember this, as reported by the Associated Press:

Labeled by a magazine, Mother Jones, as "the first 1960s radical elected to the U.S. Senate," Wellstone still managed to disappoint liberal followers on occasion. In 1996, he angered gay rights supporters by voting for the "Defense of Marriage" bill, which allowed states to withhold legal recognition of same-sex unions from other states [and bars the federal government from recognizing such unions].

HRC considers ENDA, which the group carefully crafted and which it promotes to contributors as its chief product, as the most important issue on the gay agenda (so to speak). Many of us feel that the denial of gay marriage and government discrimination toward gays in the military -- the nation's single largest employer -- impact more gay lives to a far greater degree than private-sector employment discrimination, given that surprisingly few cases can truly be documented, that a rapidly growing number of companies are formally adding gays to their non-discrimination policies on their own despite the lack of government decree, and that a libertarian case can be made that employers should be entitled to hire the workers they choose, and that ENDA paves the way for both baseless lawsuits (profiting trial lawyers, if no one else) while creating an incentive not to hire open gays (for fear that you could never fire them).

I"m not among those who oppose ENDA; on the whole, it would be a nice symbolic statement. But discrimination sanctioned and practiced by our government, especially denial of the right to marry, should be our main focus, and it's not. And it certainly wasn't for Paul Wellstone, and it isn't for HRC, NGLTF, and many other movement leaders.
--Stephen H. Miller

The Political Zoo. If I don't often focus on the bad stuff coming out of the GOP camp, it's because mindless Republican-bashing is the heart of most gay websites, which obscures the real progress that's been made as of late. But as it is campaign season, there are plenty of instances of Republicans behaving badly that can, in fact, be noted. And some examples where they"re getting a bad rap as well. Among the transgressors, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush disgraced himself in a recent debate with Democratic challenger Bill McBride, who quite rightly called Florida's law prohibiting gay couples from adopting children discriminatory and ''not the American way.'' Bush the younger defended the ban, saying that children should find permanent homes only with couples who are ''a man and a wife.'' He added, for good measure, ''It's the law of the land, but I believe it personally.''

Sadly, Bush is on target about most issues in this campaign. For instance, McBride thinks the school problem can be solved be shoveling still more money down the system's bureaucratic rat hole, while his backers at the teachers" unions oppose the sort of real reforms that could, finally, make schools accountable for their wretched performance. Too bad Jeb is combining his support for innovation and enterprise with subservience to the religious right on an important matter of equality and fairness. If I were a Floridian, I might vote Libertarian in this race.

As an international aside, the British have also been debating the adoption question, and Lady Thatcher made a special appearance at the House of Lords to take part in "heated exchanges" and drive a stake through the heart of Tony Blair's bill to allow gay and unmarried partners to adopt. Of course, if gays could marry then the matter wouldn't be confused by throwing unmarried heterosexuals (who can, but don't , make the commitment) into the mix. But it's not like conservatives are supporting that idea, either.

One of the most bizarre cases of reactionary Republicanism comes from Houston, Texas, where a GOP candidate for justice of the peace, who also happens to be openly gay and president of the Houston chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans, is being attacked by a GOP political activist who sent his party's voters an automated telephone message telling them not to vote the straight Republican ticket because, as the
Houston Chronicle paraphrased it, "If you vote straight, you vote gay." It's just a wacko case, but shows how deep the hatred is among the unreconstructed right.

The Other Side. On the other hand, there are some happier examples of Republicans behaving well. For instance, New York's Gov. George Pataki is successfully pushing a resistant Republican-controlled state senate to pass a gay rights bill, which he promises to sign. Regardless of the merits of such bills, his support indicates a more generally enlightened attitude towards inclusiveness. Pataki has also backed post-9/11 survivors benefits for gay partners.

Finally, there's an instance where a Republican may be getting a raw deal. In the Massachusetts gubernatorial race, the GOP's Mitt Romney has pledged: "As Governor, I will introduce legislation to establish a domestic partnership law in Massachusetts, and I support any city, medical facility or business that chooses to extend these rights and benefits to their employees." So of course he's being denounced as a homophobe. A Mormon, Romney endowed a management school with a $1 million donation to Brigham Young University, a Church school with clearly antigay policies (he is not on the board or otherwise affiliated with BYU). As the executive who ran the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, gay groups praised Romney's outreach to gays and lesbians.
(A Human Rights Campaign press release from last January stated: "Our community's level of participation is unprecedented, thanks to the Salt Lake Olympic Organizing Committee's inclusive policies that respect all residents who want to help make this the most successful Olympics ever").

For a highly visible Mormon to support gay rights and domestic-partner benefits is a Big Deal, and perhaps of more value than support from a liberal, or even an ex-Mormon (which is what Romney would be if he took on his Church's anti-gay policies directly). If gay activists truly believe in the separation of Church and State, they might cut Romney a little slack on this one.
--Stephen H. Miller

Baucus Unbowed. Sen. Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, continues to dish out more "Not in Our State" slime, at least in the view of one anti-Baucus website .

Why Gays Hate (some) Republicans. Pennsylvania's GOP gubernatorial candidate Mike Fisher boasted he would veto any bill attempting to give state employees domestic partners insurance or other benefits, saying "I think it's even more important to protect Pennsylvania's traditional family values.'' Democratic front-runner Edward G. Rendell signed such a measure as mayor of Philadelphia, but it was struck down by the courts. As the AP story reports, Libertarian Ken Krawchuk "provided the biggest of several laughs of the evening" when he observed, "I think what's good for the goose and the gander is good for the goose and the goose, and the gander and the gander."

Down the Drain. Transgendered and gay students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, calling themselves Restroom Revolution, have launched a petition drive and "mass mobilization" to create coed dorm bathrooms, the Boston Globe reports:

"Transgendered students have nowhere to go to the bathroom on campus," said Mitch Boucher, 33, a PhD candidate organizing the campaign". About 30 Restroom Revolution activists, including leaders of gay and transgendered advocacy groups, met earlier this month and announced their new focus". But at UMass-Amherst the prospects remain uncertain. Efforts to raise awareness of transgendered concerns led to sensitivity training sessions for adult dorm staff and student residential assistants this past summer that will now be conducted annually". But Stephen Pereira, assistant director of the Stonewall Center, a campus resource facility for gay, bisexual, and transgendered students, believes that until the campus community learns more about transgendered students, mobilizing broad-based support may be difficult.

This actually may be a real issue for politicized transgendered students, but it seems to me it's the one issue most likely to arouse primal opposition among those who prefer their public, multi-stall restrooms to be sex-segregated.

Certainly the transgendered, outside of the halls of ivy, face greater issues -- like not being murdered, as highlighted by the recent, awful killing of Eddie/Gwn Araujo, a 17-year-old beaten and strangled recently in California. As the AP reports, stories of attacks are familiar to cross-dressers, and rather transcend trendy on-campus restroom "mobilizations." Making straights use coed johns isn't going to improve matters in this regard.

Unexpected Source. The conservative, and typically very gay-negative, CNSNews.com ran a odd piece titled "Pink Pistols Say Media's Sniper Reporting Off-Target," about the gay and lesbian group that defends the right to bear arms. The story focused on firearms, not sexuality, and never used the words gay or lesbian. Still, it noted:

In addition to defending the Second Amendment, the Pink Pistols also advocates the "rights of consenting adults to love each other how they wish, however they wish."

"We are dedicated to the legal, safe, and responsible use of firearms for self-defense of the sexual-minority community," says a statement on the group's website, which carries the motto, "Pick on someone your own caliber."

Being treated as a legitimate source by the right-wing media is some evidence of progress, I think. It certainly goes against the usual stereotype!

Gay Media Myopia. A report in the Boston Globe quotes attempted shoebomber Richard Reid explaining his motivation as follows:

"This is a war between Islam and democracy," he e-mailed his mother. A society that permits homosexuality and sex outside marriage (and that is marred by alcoholism and drug addiction) also violates God's will, he believed.

It's now undeniable that Islamic extremists would seek to exterminate us, given the chance. Yet there's still a politically correct queasiness about saying so. The current issue of the Washington Blade, one of the nation's largest circulation gay papers, ran (several weeks after the fact) a short article on the stabbing of the openly gay mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoe, and simply neglected to report that the attacker was at least to some extent motivated by Islamic homo-hatred. The story simple states: "Azedine Berkane, 39, has told investigators that he committed the crime out of dislike of gays and politicians" But as I noted in an earlier posting, the AP reported that he also explained to police that he was a devout Muslin, which is the context for his beliefs. I repeat, yet again: can you imagine how completely different the story would have been reported in the gay press if the perpetrator had been a Christian fundamentalist? Demented multiculturalism, holding that only Western Civilization and Judeo-Christianity are worthy of criticism, is Orwellian indeed.

I"m Back. A bit jet-lagged, but ready to pick up where we left off.

More on Montana. When last we blogged, the news of Democratic Sen. Max Baucus's slimy attack ad had just hit, and I wondered what the response might be. In fact, the Democratic-leaning Human Rights Campaign did come out with a critical statement saying, "HRC deplores any attempt to make a political issue of a candidate's real or perceived sexual orientation," and that "This type of ad has no place in politics, it is an affront to gay people and we hope we have seen the last of this campaign tactic." The HRC release, however, includes a lengthy excerpt from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee denying that the ad traded on anti-gay stereotypes. HRC does not comment on the DSCC statement. Are they trying to have their cake (denouncing a clearly homophobic tactic) and eat it, too (by avoiding giving too much offense to Democrats)?

Mickey Kaus of Slate's kausfiles had an item that includes a link to the ad. Comments Kaus, "It's a fabulous, highly-refined exercise in sleazy, leering innuendo, especially the final few nanoseconds in which Taylor's hand reaches down, down. ...." [toward his customer's crotch]

And finally, it was nice to see Marc Racicot, former governor of Montana and current head of the Republican National Committee, criticize the ad by telling the AP that "What is particularly insidious is that the Democratic Party has tried to present itself as a champion of fair and equal treatment of everyone, including those who are victims of judgment based on sexual orientation." Still, his comments come close to suggesting that labeling someone as gay is what's unacceptable, rather than the offensive stereotypes and, as Kaus says, leering innuendo.

More Political Slime. A Campaign Update from the Democratic National Committee's Office of GLBT Outreach that's making the e-mail rounds (but not posted online) focuses on the race between Oregon's GOP incumbent Sen. Gordon Smith and his opponent, Democrat Bill Bradbury. It's titled "Bradbury Calls on Gordon Smith to Explain Comment Comparing Homosexuality to Adultery and Implying that Gays and Lesbians Should be 'Saved"."

Gordon Smith, you might not realize, is a pro-gay moderate Republican who supports both the proposed federal Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and the proposed federal hate crimes statute, two key items on the liberal gay movement's agenda. His transgression, apparently, was to appear before a group of religious conservatives and to try to mute their opposition to a hate crimes law that would increase penalties for attacks motivated by anti-gay bias. Smith reportedly told them, "If Christ can save a woman's life caught in the act of adultery -- without endorsing her lifestyle, but saving her life -- why can't we do that?"

Said Bradbury, "Smith's quote equating homosexuality with adultery undermines his claim that he supports the gay and lesbian community." Now think about this. Here is Gordon Smith trying to talk to religious conservatives in the language they understand, telling them that even if they don't accept homosexuality based on their religious literalism, they should still support -- or at least not mobilize to oppose -- efforts to curtail anti-gay violence (and, by the way, this is regardless of our own debate about whether a hate crimes bill actually will accomplish this). But oh, he used the word "lifestyle" and drew on a religious parallel. For shame! He's a HOMOPHOBE, so vote him out of office.

Time Off. I"ll be traveling for the next week and a half and won't be posting. But I"ll be back in touch after Oct. 20th.
--Stephen H. Miller

As I Depart. Let's see if all those liberal GLBT groups that were outraged by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's joking about lesbianism will take offense at a campaign ad by Democratic Sen. Max Baucus (Montana) that seems to have traded on anti-gay stereotypes. In castigating GOP candidate Mike Taylor, who ran a beauty school (and who says he's straight), the Baucus ad shows a videotape of Taylor from the 1980s in which he's wearing an open-front shirt and gold chains while massaging a man's face. Hmmm.

Bears in Toyland. Newsweek's website has a nice piece about Gay Day at Disneyland. Writes Ana Figueroa in A Gay Old Time:

I noticed that throngs of red-shirted men had gathered at the "Grizzly River Rapids" to brave the water ride together.... "Bill," a middle-aged man from the San Fernando Valley, was wringing out his socks after a soaking from the ride. His red shirt read, BEARS LA and had a picture of the Grizzly Mountain attraction on it. The Bears, he explained, are a "Gay Day subgroup." From what I could tell, they are also a rather hirsute subgroup. All the Bears on the ride seemed to have beards, and from what I picked up, a fixation not only with the Grizzly River Rapids but with the "Country Bear Jamboree" attraction at Disneyland.

After trying unsuccessfully to steer me away from the red shirts, my media guides exchanged heated words under their breath. No doubt each blamed the other for letting me stray off the pre-arranged press program. But they needn't have worried that I"d hear anti-Disney utterances. Throughout the park, groups of Gay Day attendees strolled around, enjoying themselves. Perhaps this wasn't the crowd Disney would have liked as a backdrop for its new attraction of rides for little kids. But, then again, there were numerous gay parents there with their children. I asked countless red-shirted patrons if they"ve been hassled by security, or made to feel in any way unwelcome. All replied in the negative.

Just another all-American outing -- and just as it should be.

Too Much of a Good Thing? A new Gallup poll reveals that Americans estimate approximately 20% of the general population is gay or lesbian. About a quarter of the public thinks that more than 25% of Americans are gay or lesbian. Note: this is a survey of public perceptions only, not a count of gay people. Actual studies of the gay population often show from 3 to 5% are gay. Activists, twisting a figure from an old Kinsey study, like to claim we're 10%. But it's startling to think that so many Americans think that we are so many.

Comments Cathy Renna of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in a press statement: "Clearly, the public realizes that the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community is sizable. Our hope is that this represents a better understanding of the complex nature of sexual orientation and a growing trend of respect and acceptance for our community and our lives." But I"m not so sure that the oversized guesstimate in this or another poll GLAAD references (but neither of which, contra GLAAD, asked about the transgendered) is necessarily a good thing. All it says, in and of itself, is that Americans think there are more of us -- which for some means, I"m sure, that we"re a larger threat.

Here's another interesting finding by Gallup:

While just slightly more than 50% of the public says that homosexual relations should be legal, well over eight out of ten say that homosexuals should have equal rights. These two questions may play to different norms that exist in contemporary America. The legal question may tap into a general sense of morality, and a reluctance of a more conservative segment of society to sanction what they consider to be deviant behavior. The question about equal opportunity, on the other hand, may invoke the public's attitudes about discrimination, fair play and equal treatment.

Read that again; just over 50% thinks we should be legal, or at least legally allowed to have sex (although I think it's possible some respondents were confused by the term "homosexual relations" and may have thought it referred to gay marriage).

Despite what any poll may mean by itself, if anything, gay people will keep on being who we are, and eventually the American public, however bad with numbers -- or with the concept of equality under the law for all -- will come around.
--Stephen H. Miller

Someone Else's War. During a rally on Monday organized by Harvard Law School's student-run gay rights group, faculty members urged the university to file suit against the U.S. government. Their aim is to keep the military's Judge Advocate General Corps (JAG) from recruiting on campus. While I share their disdain for "don't ask, don't tell," do these people really think this is the time to be publicly undermining recruitment efforts? And doing so in the name of gay rights, as the nation prepares for what may be a necessary war to secure our safety from a foreign tyrant armed with weapons of mass destruction, can only cast aspersions on our patriotism -- just the message we don't want to send the military as we lobby to undo the policy.

Said Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, one of O.J. Simpson's trial lawyers, "I don't see the downside of litigating"" They never do.
--Stephen H. Miller

The Other "Religious Right". As of 6 p.m. Monday, the popular gay news site planetout.com had not listed the stabbing on Sunday of openly gay Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe by a religiously motivated Muslim under either "Today's Headlines" or "Hot Stories". But planetout did have room to regurgitate the fact that GLBT groups are "outraged" at Florida Gov. Jeb Bush over his off the cuff remarks this weekend regarding two women charged with fraud in connection with a foster child's disappearance ("Bet you don't get that in Pensacola," Jeb kidded a group of upstate legislators about the women, one of whom reportedly told co-workers to "Tell my 'wife' I've been arrested.").

I suspect planetout.com will get around to the stabbing, as will the typically "outraged" GLBT groups themselves, perhaps by the time you read this. After all, unlike gay but conservative Dutch political leader Pim Fortuyn, whose assassination by a leftwing animal rights activist earlier this year triggered no outrage whatsoever from GLBT movement groups, Delanoe is a socialist. Still, the delay may be evidence of how touchy and "controversial" it still is for some gay folks to deal with the fact of the virulently homophobic Muslim religious right.

Advocate.com, I should note for the sake of fairness, does lead with Paris mayor stabbed in antigay attack, although unlike some wire accounts the fact that the assailant was motivated by his devout Muslim beliefs is relegated to the final graph. Would they have done the same if Delanoe had been attached by a Christian religious rightist? Dream on.
--Stephen H. Miller

Arguments can be made on either side about the likely war with Iraq. However, it's regretful that the leadership of the Metropolitan Community Churches - the world's largest gay and lesbian Christian body - have issued a statement about Iraq that suggests American aggression is the true villain. Titled A Call for Peaceful Resolution to Conflict with Iraq,
the statement begins:

Today America and Britain stand poised to go to war against the nation of Iraq and its people. Over the past 12 years international policies toward the Iraqi government have vacillated between support for Iraq in its quest to suppress opposition forces to vilification of the Iraqi nation as the personification of evil.

We call upon all people of faith and people of goodwill everywhere, especially our sisters and brothers in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities who know first hand what it means to be vilified, labeled and violently attacked, and who also know how difficult it is to survive under such circumstances, to join with the friends and members of Metropolitan Community Churches to oppose any further acts of aggression against Iraq.

Well, excuuuse me. But even if the MCC elders don't believe Saddam Hussein's regime of mass murder and his attempts to stockpile weapons of mass destruction represent a threat to the world, do they really think it's the Iraqi people our government is vilifying so that they can be "violently attacked" in "further acts of aggression against Iraq"? I have seen nothing that seeks to degrade the long-suffering people of Iraq; it is clearly the totalitarian regime headed by Saddam Hussein that is being presented - with a good deal of hard evidence - as an ongoing threat. The goal is regime change, which would liberate the people of Iraq.

The left likes to claim that this will be a racist war because the Iraqi army is non-white (if Arabs are non-white, are Jews?). While MCC doesn't use that phrase, it lurks behind the charge that the war will be an attack against the Iraqi people, with a strained equivalence made to gay-bashing in the U.S. Give me a break.

MCC tells us the war will not "promote the equitable distribution of resources" and instead will "divert international attention and resources from more critical issues including world poverty, a rapidly deteriorating ecological destruction, and oppression of too many of the world's peoples." This is stale leftist cant, implying that the war wouldn't make the Iraqi people freer (and allow them to participate in the world's market economy, making them richer), but instead would lead to more oppression and poverty. "We must stand together unequivocally for peace," state the MCC elders. But there are times when passivity in the face of evil is not a righteous act.
--Stephen H. Miller

Oct. 3, 2002

More than two weeks after the error was first called to their attention, the Human Rights Campaign has finally corrected its online press release denouncing the nomination of Michael McConnell to the U.S. Court of Appeals. As I noted in my Sept. 19 posting In His Own Words?, HRC put quotes marks around a paraphrase of McConnell's remarks by a conservative group, making it seem as if the words are a direct quote from McConnell. HRC was immediately notified about their error, but waited more than two weeks to post a revision. "Mistakes made in this press release were corrected," readers are now told, with no further elaboration.

In the meantime, reliable Bush-antagonist Michelangelo Signorile picked up the non-quote quote and used it to attack McConnell's nomination in his New York Press column. That's why misquotes are so dangerous; if not corrected quickly, they take on a life of their own. Now you can expect the false quote to be used again and again by gay rights advocates critical of McConnell.

My original posting was not an endorsement of McConnell (who has been endorsed, however, by the Log Cabin Republicans, the gay GOPers), but primarily a criticism of the misuse of quotes by HRC - which I view as a very serious matter, journalistically speaking. I was also critical of HRC's failure to note that McConnell had a few pro-gay notches (such as supporting the rights of students to form an official Gay-Straight Alliance at a high school in conservative Salt Lake City), and to note that while McConnell was part of the Boys Scout's legal defense, that many people also support the right of associations to control their own membership and leadership without necessarily being bigots or homophobes.

Nevertheless, this week the Independent Gay Forum received a rather impassioned letter from Wayne Besen, HRC's Deputy Director of Communications.

Besen writes that:

"Miller is correct to point out that in a recent press release the Human Rights Campaign directly attributed to U.S. Court of Appeals nominee Michael McConnell a statement paraphrasing one of his speeches. As the author of this press release I apologize for this mistake. However, I write to rebut Miller's characterization of McConnell's record and to re-affirm HRC's opposition to his nomination. We do not believe a mistake in punctuation resulted in any distortion of his record. Furthermore, we question the value of Miller's accusations attributing a sinister motive to HRC over an innocent typo."

In case there is any doubt, let me note that the quote marks above indicate that this is taken verbatim from Besen's letter; it is not a paraphrase by a person or group with its own agenda. To put words in someone's mouth they didn't utter, especially when the issue is as high-charged as whether a judicial nominee is anti-gay in his thoughts and emotions, as opposed to a believer in judicial restraint or even an advocate of some sort of equivalence for both religious conservatives and gays (however strained), is not simply "a typo" of no consequence. Quotation marks have a very specific and in some cases legal meaning, which everyone understands. To fail to correct this "typo" for several weeks, during a period when the media was initially focused on the nomination battle, is simply not acceptable.

Besen also writes:

"Miller should redirect his anger to criticizing those who truly threaten our liberty - the extreme right. Although fair criticism of GLBT groups is desirable and understandable, Miller's attacking GLBT groups for opposing a judicial nominee with a consistent anti-gay record is disgraceful and unconscionable."

Let me say this about that: Virtually all gay organization or news websites copiously cover the antics of the religious right; taking aim at the groupthink of the gay liberal-left is still fairly unique, and I make no apologies for marching out of lockstep. If Besen actually did welcome "fair criticism" he wouldn't be so furious that someone had actually dared to, well, criticize.

IGF has posted Besen's entire letter, so you can judge for yourself. Also, you should check out IGF contributor Dale Carpenter's latest Out Right column, defending McConnell. Dale, now a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, was a student of McConnell's and finds HRC's version of the man a gross distortion. Guess he can expect a little letter from HRC as well.

An Addendum. The McConnell nomination is also discussed by Hastings Wyman, who writes the syndicated Capital Letters column on politics and gays. Wyman writes: "On balance, given that one cannot expect Republican George W. Bush to nominate a lawyer with liberal credentials on social issues for a judgeship, McConnell probably isn't so bad." He also observes, "What is different about this nomination, however, is that even a Republican White House now understands that trying to win at least a modicum of gay support is an important part of the confirmation battle," and shows how this is, in itself, is a sign of progress.