IGF CultureWatch

I"m Not Making This Up. From the AP earlier this week, about a priest's slightly unusual online offering:

A Web site founded by a priest that featured images of young wrestlers in bikini briefs was voluntarily shut down after questions were raised about its content and purpose. --

So he's just a wrestling fan, I guess.

A Movement of Their Own.Yet another annual "Dyke March" will decend on Washington, D.C. this weekend. According to the official Dyke March website, organizers are "Calling all "lesbians -- dykes -- bi-women -- lesbian moms -- lesbianas -- transwomen -- androgs -- queers -- gay girls -- womanists -- asian dykes -- dykes on bikes -- senior lesbians -- lesbians of color -- rural dykes -- femmes -- butches -- goddesses -- poly girls -- amazons -- hippy chicks -- lipstick lesbians -- lesbian avengers -- differently abled dykes -- wise old lesbians -- boychicks -- grrrls -- leather dykes -- babydykes and all those in between!" Well, that about covers it.

The event will once again be an "in-the-streets in-your-face celebration/demonstration of dyke love, power and rage," as if you couldn't guess.

By the way, can you imagine the righteous outrage if gay men dared to entertain the thought of staging a male-only march to celebrate male solidarity and male-bonding (and reached out to straight men in order to form a broader men's movement?) And what if this "for men only" march were led by male-only groups ranging from a "Gay Male Avengers" (with a "bomb with lit fuse" logo) to a "National Center for Gay Male Rights." I"m not advocating it, mind you, it's just that the sexist double standard ("We want our own groups and events; oh, and we want control of the biggest lesbigay groups and events, too. You disagree? Sexist pig!) is so all-encompassing that we typically don't even bother to recognize it anymore.

Actually, maybe my crankiness is, in fact, just jealousy. There was a time in the early days of the movement when it was acceptable for both gay men and lesbians to have their own cultural, social, and political space (aside from the purely sexual spaces, that is). Working to create a culture of gay men was not automatically denounced as part of an anti-woman conspiracy. But today, lesbians may claim their own sphere, but outside the bars and sex clubs, gay males can't associate in private gay-male associations without being denounced as part of an anti-lesbian conspiracy -- unless the purpose of the group is to confess and work towards overcoming their supposed misogyny.

So There. The New Republic has published my letter taking to task their recent anti-Log Cabin "one party's enough for us" screed.

Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge. An interesting Cathy Young op-ed in the Boston Globe, "The Bias Against Male Victims," argues that too little is being made about the psychological harm inflicted on adolescent boys who are seduced by older women. I can't really buy that all, or even most, of these "Tea & Sympathy" / "Summer of "42" type cases necessarily constitute "abuse" (much depends on the age of the "boy" and his eagerness), but Young does score a few points on the equal treatment front when she notes:

In 1993 in Virginia, a male teacher who had sex with three teenage female students was sentenced to 26 years in prison -- while the next day, a female swimming coach who had an "affair" with an 11-year-old boy and sexual encounters with two others got 30 days.

To many men's rights advocates, this double standard reflects an egregious form of political correctness: the refusal to take seriously the victimization of a male by a female perpetrator. (Sexual abuse of boys by adult men is seen very differently.)

Your FBI at Work. A Washington Post report on how the FBI devoted major resources to keeping a New Orleans (hetero) brothel under surveillance is well worth pondering. Using wire taps, "month after month, 10 agents recorded the men's demands, the brothel keepers' deals and the prostitutes' complaints." No mob ties were found, but federal prosecution is being applied because the prostitutes flew in and out of New Orleans and were part of a "national prostitution ring," according to the local U.S. attorney. Oh, and by the way, the FBI was listening on Sept. 11, in the days before and in the days after. Good to know that federal law enforcement has its priorities straight.

He Could Use a Hug. The AP reports on an unusual encounter between troubled former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson and a gay rights demonstrator, who apparently was protesting anti-gay language on Tyson's part:

Mike Tyson hugged a demonstrator Sunday who shouted 'stop homophobia' at him. Tyson, in town to fight heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis next Saturday night, got out of a sport utility vehicle outside a fitness center and walked over to nearby gay rights activists. "I was shouting stop homophobia and holding up my sign, and then he just came up and hugged me and said he wasn't homophobic," said Jim Maynard, vice-chair of Equality Tennessee and one of three demonstrators. "I was totally shocked," Maynard told The Commercial Appeal. "I didn't really know what to do. So I just posed with him and smiled for the cameras."

Odd, but kinda touching.

Subverting from Within. The Log Cabin Republicans sent out a link to an intriguing column by Steve Sebelius at the Las Vegas Review-Journal, about Nevada's Chuck Muth, newly appointed head of the Washington-based American Conservative Union. Muth, a conservative/libertarian, is being attacked by the hard right. Sebelius writes that the anti-gay crowd is upset because, for instance, "as the Clark County [Nevada] Republican Party put the anti-gay marriage Question 2 at the top of its agenda, Muth wondered in vain if any candidate would swear off taxes instead."

One local anti-gay blowhard declared that "The big worry about Muth taking that position is that (the ACU) is going to start abandoning their pro-family positions"He is entrenched within the gay agenda ... he sympathizes with that agenda." But Muth, columnist Sebelius notes, has not come out in favor of gay marriage, "he simply has said there are plenty more important issues that should top the conservative agenda. And, contrary to the good Rev. Jerry Falwell, Muth has scoffed at the notion that the nation was left vulnerable to terrorism because two gay gentlemen tied the knot in Vermont." Concludes Sebelius, with tongue in cheek, "Clearly, Muth is a subversive. But the addled folks at the ACU don't seem to see it; Muth still has his job. (Maybe the entire ACU has been infiltrated by gay-friendly fifth columnists?)"

All told, Muth's ascendancy at the ACU is one more small but undeniably positive development.

Kiddie Porn? Below is a message, in full, from Mrs. Andrea Lafferty, Executive Director of the Traditional Values Coalition:

Dear Friend,
Nickelodeon will be airing a show this summer that will promote homosexual sodomy as a normal lifestyle to our nation's children! I have just signed a petition urging Nickelodeon to cancel production of this pro-homosexual show. I am urging you to sign this petition to protest this effort to normalize homosexuality. Nickelodeon leaders must get the message that they should not be promoting sodomy to children! Please join with more than 43,000 concerned citizens who have already signed this petition! To sign this petition, go to: Stop Nickelodeon.

Just imagine, the premier children's cable network, in between re-runs of "The Andy Griffith Show" and "The Beverly Hillbillies," will be instructing the tikes on the intricacies of anal penetration. My, this world is truly a den of sin. Lottie, get the checkbook!

The show, by the way, is one of a series of "Nick News" reports, produced by veteran journalist Linda Ellerbee, examining topics in the news -- this time on gay rights.

Fortuyn's legacy. IGF stalwart Jonathan Rauch forwarded these off-the-cuff comments, recommending a piece in the usually gay-unfriendly National Review about Pim Fortuyn, the recently assassinated Dutch conservative/libertarian political leader who might well have become his nation's first openly gay prime minister. Writes Jon:

Here's a piece that might be worth recommending to blog readers, a very astute article by John O'Sullivan arguing that Fortuyn may have been the start of something big. He picks up on the fact that gays -- appalled by the virulent homophobia of many Muslim fundamentalists and disappointed by the establishment's indulgence of said attitudes -- are fast moving into the orbit of Europe's growing conservative/libertarian coalition. Joining them are many feminists, Jews, and blue collars. Could be, he notes, the beginning of a European political realignment that both broadens the right's base and softens its edges.

Yes indeed. Told that it's "extremist" or "fascistic" to question immigration or criticize Muslim intolerance, that Israel is a brute and Al-Fatah is on the side of the angels, and that nationalism and patriotism are outdated in the age of the EU, gays and Jews and blue collars and others are naturally going to say: Stuff it. And the European establishment seems eager to drive away all these voters -- epitomized by Fortuyn himself -- by pooh-poohing them as neanderthals. In fact, the left had more problems with Fortuyn's politics than the right did with his homosexuality.

One other interesting aspect: O'Sullivan is utterly matter-of-fact about the prospect of gays joining a European conservative coalition. He even seems to welcome it. You'd never have seen that in National Review a few years ago, when failure to write snidely about homosexuals cost conservatives their union card.

Is this truly a shift in the political tides? We shall see.

Polling Priorities that Perplex Purists. Gays and lesbians overwhelmingly say the right to marry should now be the number-one priority of the gay rights movement, dwarfing those who identify equal employment opportunities and hate crimes legislation, according to a new poll by Zogby International (the highly regarded national polling outfit) and GLCensus Parnters (a "GLBT Consumer Research" firm associated with the S.I. Newhouse School at Syracuse University). Here are the percentages of lesbian and gay (and bisexual and transgendered) respondents identifying the "top priority":

Marriage rights: 47%
Equal employment opportunities: 16%
Hate crimes legislation: 9%
Increased gay representation in government: 7%

While nearly half of gays and lesbians call marriage the top priority, the percentage was even more pronounced among younger respondents (51% of those aged 18 to 24). So why is ENDA (the proposed federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act) the number-one priority of Washington-based lesbigay lobbies? And why was the leadership of the Log Cabin Republicans pilloried by ENDA supporters for daring to raise the issue of re-accessing movement priorities?

Another nifty finding: 48% of those polled would like the media to refer to our community as "gay" or "gay and lesbian" or "lesbian and gay"; 39% favor GLBT (that's gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender) or LGBT (lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender). So, naturally, a growing number of activist groups have gone with GLBT or LGBT. Even the press release accompanying the poll results stated at top that "most prefer media to use "GLBT" vs. "LGBT" -- -- as if that was the most important finding from the naming question. It figures.

All-Male Social Clubs Verboten. A Senate panel has approved the nomination of Circuit Court nominee Judge D. Brooks Smith, with three Democrats defying their colleagues" contention that the candidate be defeated because he was a member of an all-male rod-and-gun club. I don't know a thing about Judge Smith, although he did receive the highest rating -- "well qualified" -- from the liberal American Bar Association, but reading the attacks on him for belonging to a men's club makes me red with anger. The club in question, it should be noted, was not some fancy country club with swimming pool or golf course or tennis courts. No, just a club house. And a group of guys who wanted to associate together in an all-male environment.

But no, that's too much freedom of association for the ever-more revolting Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and committee chairperson. Turns out Judge Smith actually resigned from the odious all-male association, just not fast enough for inquisitor Leahy, who declared Smith "should have resigned from the "country club" -- when he first told the committee of his membership. Judge Smith also said he would resign but did not do so until 1999." For shame! Bellowed Sen. Edward Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, "No one should be on the court if they give the slightest [hint] of discrimination." Chimed in Sen. Russell Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, Judge Smith "has not demonstrated good judgment on certain ethical issues" and is "plagued by an ethical cloud."

Sen. Orrin Hatch, Utah Republican, responded:

Given the bipartisan support Judge Smith enjoys from the people who know him best, and his stellar record, I find it most difficult to accept that the opposition to him has centered on his belonging to an all-male, family-oriented fishing club where his father first taught him to fly fish."

Hatch warned that "if this is the kind of thing that this committee uses as an excuse for thwarting the president's judicial nominations, then the American people will have a big laugh at our expense, and rightly so." If only it were so. But the right of men to associate socially with men has now been cast as an offense akin to racial exclusion (women's clubs, on the other hand, get a free pass). Any gay man who supports these smug political clowns should be forced to cruise a co-gender sex club!

Scholarly Fundies? The Regent University Law Review (yes, Pat Robertson's own Regent University publishes a law review!) has devoted its Spring 2002 issue to what it calls "a series of scholarly discussions of homosexuality." According to comments by Lou Sheldon posted on the Web site of the Traditional Values Coalition (kindred spirits of Robertson), one article looks at "The Selling of Homosexuality to America," by a Regent University doctoral student (yes, Regent University has doctoral students!). It describes:

a carefully designed marketing strategy developed by homosexual activists more than 15 years ago. The key marketers in this campaign to normalize homosexuality are Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, authors of the 1989 book "After the Ball: How America will conquer its fear & hatred of Gays in the "90s."

"After the Ball" has been the marketing strategy book used by homosexual activists in government, in the media, and in other power centers.

I vaguely remember this book from my years as a GLAAD committee chair in New York (before being pushed out for raising objections to the group's unctuous political correctness). I recall that "After the Ball" did make a good case for a mainstream gay rights movement that focused on placing the normality of our lives before the American public -- and using professional PR strategies to accomplish this. But the book didn't generate much buzz among the lefty lesbigay activists at the helm of "the movement" and certainly was never adopted as any kind of a blueprint. Today it's all but forgotten. To suggest that this book is and has been driving a "gay agenda" is bizarre to say the least. How gullible are these people?

Follow Up. F. Brian Chase, an attorney and friend of IGF, writes:

I used to work for a group in Florida that followed Hunter & Madsen and even published some of their proposed ads. The group was uniformly criticized by the other gay rights groups in the area for not being inclusive enough and for trying to sanitize gay life to suit hetero tastes. As I recall, Hunter & Madsen were viewed as sell-outs by most of the GLBT etc. groups of the day.

Oh well it's still worth reading that press release thing just for the laugh value of seeing "scholarly" and "Regent University" used in the same sentence.

Yes, indeed!

No Generalization Intended? In my last posting, I commented on a Stanley Kurtz column in National Review Online that managed to blame the Catholic Church's escalating sexual-abuse scandal on efforts to allow gays to marry! In the days following, IGF contributor Andrew Sullivan, whose advocacy of same-sex marriage and the right to serve in the military were noted by Kurtz, responded on his blog (www.andrewsullivan.com -- scroll down to the May 21 posting). Responding to Sullivan's response on May 22, Kurtz protested in a posting titled "Contradictory Desires":

"Sullivan mischaracterizes my fundamental premise. I do not believe that 'all homosexuals are alike,' nor do I believe that all, or even most, homosexuals are child abusers."

He then goes on to state:

"Gays take vows of priestly celibacy, yet also discard those vows, and call for the overthrow of the Church's teaching on sexuality." ...

"So one lesson of this scandal is that the integration of homosexual and heterosexual men in the same living areas can in fact break down 'unit cohesion,' thereby causing institutional disruption -- military take note." ...

"...Homosexuals will always feel like outsiders, no matter how much approval society offers.... Because of this inevitable alienation, homosexuals will always be disproportionately rebellious on sexual issues."

What would Kurtz have concluded if he DID believe "all homosexuals are alike"? And do lesbians fit into his worldview of gays and societal subversion at all?

Gay "Subversives." A perfectly ridiculous piece by anti-gay writer Stanley Kurtz titled Gay Priests and Gay Marriage, at nationalreview.com, blames the Catholic Church's sex-abuse scandals on, well, us. Announcing ominously that "the greatest lesson of this scandal has yet to be drawn," Kurtz declares the uproar over priestly sexual abuse "offers spectacular confirmation of nearly every warning ever issued by the opponents of gay marriage." It seems that in battling for the right to wed, gays are managing to "subvert the monogamous ethos of traditional marriage." Yes, it's our "subversive subculture" at work, just as allowing gays to serve in the priesthood resulted in weakening the moral fiber of Holy Mother Church.

IGF's own Jonathan Rauch and Andrew Sullivan bear their share of them blame for this tragic situation, it seems. For as Kurtz explains:

"Although both Sullivan and Rauch have honorably and ably defended same-sex marriage as the best way to "domesticate" sexually promiscuous gays, the priesthood scandal is powerful proof that just about every one of their fundamental assumptions is mistaken."

As Kurtz spells it out, just as gay priests (which he simply equates with pedophile priests) undermined clerical celibacy in the worst possible way, so will allowing gays to marry subvert and destroy marital fidelity.

I believe strongly in engaging the anti-gay right (and the illiberal gay left) in open and forthright debate, so I generally don't favor a dismissive response to arguments against gay equality. But honestly, could anyone read Kurtz and be persuaded by his fatuous and circular reasoning? If this is what's passing as vanguard thought by our opponents, then without doubt they"re in pretty serious trouble.

A New World? Congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.) was the lead sponsor of the Defense of Marriage Act, which bars the federal government from recognizing gay unions (and which, after obtaining Bill Clinton's support, was signed into law by gay Democrats" favorite president). Now, Barr has done something surprising. He has come out against a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. According to a report in the Washington Blade, Barr said during an appearance on MS-NBC that the proposed amendment would infringe on the right of states to decide whether to allow same-sex couples legal recognition, and that states should have the right to legalize gay marriage if they choose to do so through the legislative process. This isn't exactly repudiating the Defense of Marriage Act (which didn't ban states from passing gay marriage, just federal recognition of those unions), but it is still a marked departure for the old anti-gay warrior.

What gives? It seems Barr, finding himself in a tough primary fight against another, more temperate incumbent GOP congressman, in a redrawn suburban Atlanta district, is moving to the center. Whatever the reason, if Bob Barr can reinvent himself as a relative moderate on gay issues, than, once again, the times they are a"changing.

In the News. Here's a roundup of some interesting pieces.

From Reuters:

Murdered populist Pim Fortuyn's upstart party stormed to second place in Dutch elections as the ruling center-left was routed in the latest example of Europe's dramatic shift to the right."Formed in March by the openly gay, shaven-headed former academic, Fortuyn's anti-immigrant party gasped at its own success in the most astonishing Dutch election in living memory. "It's a wonderful result but there is no real joy. Today we feel like orphans. We've lost our teacher," LPF [List Pim Fortyn] spokesman Mat Herben told supporters in a chic hotel in The Hague, standing by a framed portrait of Fortuyn and his two pet spaniels. "If Pim had lived, we would have been the biggest party."" An animal rights activist has been charged with killing Fortuyn".

Viva Pim! But much of the press is still characterizing Fortuyn as a right-wing extremist who is "anti-immigrant" (rather than anti-immigration). His murderer, a vegan eco-radical animal rights zealot, is simply "an activist." Of course.

From the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force:

Action Alert: Oppose HR 4700, Bush Welfare Reauthorization Bill

TELL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE TO VOTE NO ON HR 470, THE WELFARE REAUTHORIZATION BILL!! The House is expected to vote on welfare reauthorization this week. ... The problems with this bill are numerous. Specifically for GLBT people, it would provide funds for "healthy marriage promotion activities" and "fatherhood programs." It would continue to provide funding for abstinence-only education.

What really goads the lesbigay left is that welfare reform, which ended the permanent dole for those able to work, has been such a success. Supporting marriage is the new sin. It either takes two paychecks to raise a child, or generous taxpayer-funded subsidies. Guess which NGLTF prefers.

From the Log Cabin Republicans:

A coalition of largely African American leaders joined a Mississippi Democratic Member of Congress today to announce the introduction of a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
Congressman Ronnie Shows (D-MS) joined leaders of the "Alliance for Marriage" at a Capitol Hill press conference to announce the introduction as its lead sponsor. The group boasted of "strong bipartisan support" for the measure, however it was announced that the measure has six co-sponsors -- three Democrats and three Republicans.

The anti-gays want a constitutional amendment to forbid same-sex couples from marrying, even though same-sex marriage is not legal in any state, and the Defense of Marriage Act that Bill Clinton signed already bars federal recognition of gay unions. Let's see, NGLTF opposes supporting straight marriages, while the Alliance for Marriage opposed gay marriages. Hmmm.

I'd wager that those who oppose gay marriage also favor the Bush administration's initiative to champion marriage (for heterosexuals). So they"d have the government working to both promote and forbid couples from marrying. Very confusing, indeed.

IGF's Mike Airhart shares this item from zwire.com:

A plumber with a grudge against the local newspaper smashed his van into the lobby of the Kernersville News in North Carolina. Publisher John Owensby said the attack could serve as a wake-up call for journalists. "This could be called terrorism or a hate crime, but there is no law to protect us," he said.

Guess we"ll now be called on to support a federal hate crimes bill to protect journalists!

Finally, IGF's Jonathan Rauch recommends an article from the Washington Monthly, on "The Rise of the Creative Class: Why cities without gays and rock bands are losing the economic development race." It notes:

The key to economic growth lies not just in the ability to attract the creative class, but to translate that underlying advantage into creative economic outcomes in the form of new ideas, new high-tech businesses and regional growth.... Talented people seek an environment open to differences. Many highly creative people, regardless of ethnic background or sexual orientation, grew up feeling like outsiders, different in some way from most of their schoolmates. When they are sizing up a new company and community, acceptance of diversity and of gays in particular is a sign that reads "non-standard people welcome here."

Gays aren't only hip, but we"re a key economic driver as well. Cool.

Roomies. Gay college students are demanding that opposite-sex students be allowed to share dorm rooms, according to an article by Tamar Lewin in last Saturday's New York Times.

"The policy here is less about sex than about sexual politics -- and the increasingly powerful presence of gay and lesbian groups on campus," writes Lewin. "At Swarthmore, where coeducational rooming began in a few housing units last fall, and nearby Haverford College, where it started the previous year, the push came not from dating couples wanting to live together, but from gay groups that said it was "heterosexist" to require roommates to be of the same sex."

Although the article says that the new policy is being used mostly by heterosexual students who, allegedly, are not engaging in hanky panky, there may in fact reasons why gay students (all guys, apparently) would favor this option. Lewin notes that some gay males, for instance, don't want to deal with the "sexual tension" of having a gay same-sex roommate, and are also against sharing quarters a heterosexual male. She reports:

"Straight men who live together often have a kind of locker-room mentality, with a lot of discussion about dating girls, having sex with girls, saying which girls are attractive," said Josh Andrix, a 2000 Haverford graduate who started the campaign for coeducational housing there. "Introducing a homosexual into that environment is uncomfortable. When I looked for housing, all the people it made sense for me to live with were women."

One is tempted to say, "Get over it; this is the world and you"d better learn to handle the straight guys, "cause there are a whole lot of "em out there." Or, alternatively, it's time to discover that there are gay men with whom you won't have any desire to have sex (there are a whole lot of those guys out there, too).

Be that as it may, there could be Will & Grace situations that make sense for gay youth ensconced in our institutions of higher learning. What rankles is the language, the knee-jerk denunciation of "heterosexism" as if the argument for such arrangements is only legitimate if it can be premised on an "ism" to be condemned. This, sadly, is the level of discourse that our elite colleges have bequeathed to the up and coming generation, straight and gay.

Couldn't You Guess. Alas, the Wall Street Journal's May 13 opinionjournal.com picked up on Lewin's New York Times report. Referencing, in particular, the blockquote presented above, the Journal comments: "This seems reasonable. It also seems like a pretty good argument against homosexuals in the military." Unfair, of course, because gay men who want to serve in the military are a far cry from the Ivy Leaguers who blanch at "locker room talk" about dating gals. But you can see how the nature of the activists" argument gave the anti-gay right an opening.

Condemnation, Yes! Debate, No! The Log Cabin Republicans have come under fire from the mainstream (read: Democratic) gay movement types for raising concerns about ENDA -- the proposed Employee Non-Discrimination Act to prohibit private business from discriminating against gays in hiring and promotion -- or at least suggesting that there be an open dialog about legislative priorities. The Washington Blade ran a scathing article and editorial taking aim at the group. In response, LCR leader Rich Tafel asserts on the lcr.org website that:

"Challenging the status quo and questioning strategy are crucial to the success of any movement. Our community needs more, not less discussion and questioning of our strategies and goals. The Liberty Education Forum (LCR's nonprofit arm) hosts such a discussion every year, and held one again in April here in Washington. Elizabeth Birch of [the Human Rights Campaign] and Chris Crain [the editor] of the Blade were both invited to it. HRC refused to participate. Crain never responded until hours before the event. Despite this, it was a diverse and fascinating discussion, including a variety of different voices and topics from the left, right and center, including about the purpose of civil rights laws. The transcript of this discussion is available online at http://www.libertyeducationforum.org.

"So I'll try again. I'd like to invite Elizabeth Birch and Chris Crain join me and other community leaders in a town hall meeting to discuss our community's priorities. ... Not a stage show or a 'gotcha' fest, but a real give and take."

Sounds like a good idea, considering that many on the left also have taken pot shots an ENDA (whose sin, in their eyes, is its failure to include workplace protections for transsexuals).

Speaking for myself, I agree with those who argue that private-sector discrimination is not the number one priority for gay people. The ability to marry, and to achieve both the legitimacy and legal benefits of that institution, is far more relevant. The right to serve in the military would end the most widespread case of employment discrimination gay people face. Short of marriage, lobbying for workplace domestic partner benefits (which ENDA would not provide) is high on the list of what we need. Ending sodomy laws and the legal discrimination they foster against (one example) gay parents seeking custody, trumps ENDA. And, yes, police stings, especially those in private commercial sex establishments such as adult bookstore arcades, have caused much more suffering among far more gay men than the small number of private-sector discrimination cases that activists have managed to find and publicize.

I"d add that ENDA is currently being promoted not in a good faith effort to secure passage, but as a political tool to mobilize gay Democrats for the fall elections.

But to date, as Tafel notes, the gay establishment goes bonkers at the very thought of re-examining whether ENDA makes sense as the number one movement goal. That alone should indicate that their position, frozen in time for the last decade, is now deeply problematic.

More from the Mail Bag. I"ve gotten several letters of late. Some offer positive comments, some beg to differ, and some are resolutely critical. We"re debating whether it's practical to start posting correspondence in a special section (with author approval). But for now, here are excerpts from three recent letters, and brief responses. While this is just a sampling, thanks for all who"ve written in to share your thoughts.

"Thank you for pointing out the flaws in the radical left's anti-Israeli bias. And as for that group QUIT [Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism], yes, I think it is very queer indeed that a group of gays and lesbians (I hate the term 'queer' as a description for gay people) would support the foundation of another anti-gay Middle Eastern dictatorship, and consider a rather progressive Middle East country to be terroristic. -- Apparently the radical left's tendency to root for the underdog, even if they are NOT in the right, made them ignore that."

My, what an astute letter writer!

"Since Sept. 11th, IGF has become stupidly knee-jerk conservative. I used to be able to rely on the IGF for informed, critical opinion. Now it's just conservative blathering and thoughtless rhetoric. How sad! The point for which to take the QUIT group to task is that they insist on making their Palestinian protest a gay issue, even though I agree with them. In the past, that would be the angle that IGF would take. Why make all gay people believe, especially the closet cases, that in order to be gay they must take on a particular political stance or adopt certain moral values? How wrong, indeed."

For starters, I"m not the voice of IGF; I"m just one contributor who volunteered to write a blog a couple of times a week.

I agree with the principle that a self-identified gay group shouldn't get involved in all manner of "Gays Against..." causes. But I can't hold my criticism of QUIT to that point alone, not when I believe that its stance is immoral. I'm not going to debate the issue here, but I do want to suggest that a romanticizing of the Palestinian fighters (including the suicide killers), akin to the past romanticizing of both Fidel Castro's Cuba, and of the Vietnamese communists, has now taken hold -- especially on college campuses. Like Fidel and Uncle Ho (or Mumia, for that matter), Yasser becomes the embodiment of the freedom-seeker unjustly put down by the U.S. and its supposed puppet. It's all so predictable, and so completely wrong headed.

As for your point about conservative blathering, hey, it's my blog. You don't agree, fine. But I"m not going to temper my views so as to not possibly offend anyone.

"I, like most of the demonstrators [at the anti-globalization rally in Washington, D.C.] am not willing to ignore the effects of "free trade" in poorer nations like you and other like-minded people would. I refuse to just sit idly while our country reaps the benefits of "free-trade." Not only was there a diversity in economic background [among the protesters], but also in race, religion, political affiliation, and value systems. More importantly, I find it ironic that you attempt to lump a group of people in one category when gays and lesbians have been victims of that practice so many times themselves."

There are generalizations, and then there are generalizations. I"ve observed enough anti-globalization protesters to draw some rational conclusions. Yes, not ALL are pampered college students spouting economic nonsense; it's just that most are.

I also got the "how dare you generalize" argument when I discussed examples of the left's (including the gay left"s) penchant to try to silence opponents, rather than argue publicly with them. But hey, enough examples make a trend, and thus support a generalization. Given the preponderance of campus speech codes that label opposing points of view on issues such as affirmative action (and, yes, gay rights) as "hate speech," and the tendeancy of non-left speakers (including libertarians!) to be shouted down with bullhorns, I think my generalizations about censorious conduct are justified.