IGF CultureWatch

More Gay Political Rashomon. Here's another example of how different sides have very different views of the same gay political development. Last week, the Bush administration announced that Scott Evertz, the openly gay director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (i.e., the "AIDS Czar"), was moving to the Department of Heath & Human Services, where he will coordinate the government's global AIDS program. The new domestic "AIDS Czar" is Dr. Joseph O"Neill, an openly gay physician who treated AIDS patients before entering public service. He is currently chief of the AIDS policy office at HHS.

According to a statement from Rich Tafel, leader of the Log Cabin Republicans (the gay GOPers), this is a welcome expansion of the AIDS policy team, with the addition of another high-level openly gay appointee. "With Scott Evertz and Joe O'Neill, we have two of the best qualified people in the nation on the President's team fighting the AIDS epidemic both at home and abroad," writes Tafel.

On the other hand, the liberal/progressive Human Rights Campaign views the action with some suspicion, as they do with all administration moves. Says HRC Political Director Winnie Stachelberg:

"While this shake-up has caused much speculation and uncertainty, we are cautiously hoping that these moves will reinvigorate the Bush administration's efforts".This is an opportunity for the administration to reverse course, take this life-and-death issue off the backburner and reassert American leadership. We hope they are up to the daunting task at hand."

The HRC release goes on to say that "There has been speculation that Evertz may have been forced out of his position by conservatives upset with Evertz's close association with gay groups and his support of condom usage as an effective means to stop transmission of HIV."

Meanwhile, the anti-gay Family Research Counsel weighs in with a statement of concern:

"FRC opposed the appointment of Scott Evertz last year because he had no public health qualifications and as a gay political activist had espoused policies at odds with the president's position, such as needle exchanges to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.... It remains to be seen whether the new appointee will pursue policies more closely aligned with the President."

Finally, the Juy 24 issue of LCR's e-newsletter, "Inclusion Wins" (not yet online), took aim at both the HRC and FRC responses, saying:

"This past week the gay left and the far right once again joined forces in spinning a story -- and both sides got it wrong. -- Leaders of the Family Research Council"claimed that [Scott Evertz] was pushed out of his position because he was too liberal, "too gay." -- Within a few hours, HRC put out their press release giving the far right exactly what they needed. HRC and FRC put out identical stories that Scott was "shoved" and it was a victory for the anti-gay right. Both organizations -- FRC and HRC -- have been looking for every chance to attack the Bush administration and make the same case to each of their donor bases -- the far right has influence in the White House. HRC wants to scare people into giving. FRC wants to appear powerful. They were a perfect match.

The LCR newsletter continues:

"The AIDS establishment has been schizophrenic.... They've attacked the Bush Administration for not doing enough on global AIDS, attacking [HHS Secretary Tommy] Thompson and hounding him off the stage at the recent Barcelona AIDS conference. But then Secretary Thompson stated he was working to address these concerns, and the same AIDS activists criticized him for not doing enough at home and focusing too much on the global problem."

Looks like you just can't win with some people, I guess.

Whatever the truth may be, the fact is that the administration has now appointed openly gay men to oversee both its domestic and global AIDS policy. That's the real story here -- and one that both the gay left AND the anti-gay right thought could never, and would never, happen.

Joined for Life? Here's a good example of the trouble with civil unions as "marriage lite." According to this AP report, Gary Roengarten and Peter Downes entered into a civil union in Vermont, but their relationship has since soured. Now, they find that they can't legally dissolve their union via a court in Connecticut, where they reside, because that state (like the other 49 outside of Vermont) doesn't recognize civil unions in the first place. A Vermont court could dissolve their legal union (the equivalent of granting a divorce), but only if one of the men were a Vermont resident.

Rosengarten's attorney said his client wants a formal dissolution to protect the inheritance of his three adult children. "These are two very private people who want to have this resolved with dignity and discretion," he explained.

Opinion Journal, on the Wall Street Journal website, has some fun with this (scroll all the way down to the item titled Marriage Plus), opining:

"Unlike today's marriages, a civil union is really for life."Though anyone can get a civil union license in Vermont, state law requires at least one party be a legal resident before the family courts will rule on a dissolution. Oh well, maybe this will provide Rosengarten and Downes with the impetus to patch things up."

But it's no joke to those who discover themselves legally bound together with no way out. Consigned to the realm of halfway measures and semi-equality, same-sex couples may find this sort of legal limbo becoming more familiar. Sooner or later, the other 49 and their courts, and eventually the U.S. Supreme Court, will have to come to terms with what has happened in Vermont. Or, much better still, realize that barring gay and lesbian couples from marrying in the standard manner is not a tenable situation.

A Blog to Check Out. IGF fellow traveler Tom Brennan has started his own daily blog. Here's a link to his postings from last Friday, with a scathingly on-target critique of Richard Goldstein (who thinks all gays must march in leftwing lockstep), followed by a priceless self-description of lesbigay radicals on parade:

Large banners proclaimed, "Defend Civil Rights at Home, No 'Collateral Damage' Abroad, Stop This War!" and "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered People & Allies In SOLIDARITY with Arabs, Muslims, South Asians Against Racial Profiling." Three other banners carried by allied activists defended Mumia abu-Jamal, slammed patriarchy and war. Chants rang out: "Stop the Hate, Stop the Fear, Immigrants Are Welcome Here," and "Arabs and Muslims Under Attack, What Do We Do? Act Up, Fight Back," were among them.

Comments Brennan, "I'm looking forward to reports of the "No Racist War" and "Solidarity with the Muslim World" dummies taking their message to the gay pride parades in Mecca, Tehran, Cairo, Baghdad etc etc etc etc." Me too.

Praise Where It's Due. Howard Dean, Vermont's governor and a Democratic presidential hopeful, was questioned by NBC's Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" last Sunday. To his credit, Dean gave an unflinching defense of his support for civil unions, and said signing the bill was one of the most important events of his political life. Moreover, he said that he, like many other straight Americans, had spent a lifetime listening to misinformation about homosexuality, and that every state needs to go through the kind of discussion that Vermont went through in order for that misinformation to be shown up for what it is. Russert asked him rhetorically how many of the others running for president would have signed the civil unions bill, which pretty much makes the point.

While Dean should be commended for his support for civil unions and gay equality, at no small political cost, he took other stands that were less praiseworthy. He denounced tax cuts as "voodoo economics," saying "Supply-side economics doesn't work, and what's happening on Wall Street day is a perfect example of that." (Actually, without the tax cuts and the consumer spending they"ve fueled, economic growth would likely be negative and the stock crash much, much worse.) Dean also defended his support for the pork-barrel spending of the recent farm subsidies giveaway-to-agribusiness bill (sadly passed with support from both Democrats and Republicans).

So see, I"m willing to praise liberals when they are in their civil libertarian mode, but remain staunchly critical of their ever-bigger government, tax-and-spend mania. Support for our equality must expand beyond the most liberal wing of the liberal party if we are to achieve success outside of the country's "progressive" bastions.

More on What Ails the Catholic Church. A very fine piece in Sunday's Washington Post looks at Roman Catholic seminaries in the U.S. Not unexpectedly, a large number of those studying to be priests are gay and they tend to socialize together, which sometimes leads to sexual tensions that are readily apparent. But the topic is not allowed to be openly discussed. The result is a "weird" atmosphere that is driving both straight and gay seminarians to abandon their dreams of becoming priests. Says one straight former priest-to-be about "the atmosphere of suffocating sexual repression" at his seminary:

"You need to create a space where people can be who they are. Being gay is not the problem, but when it's all underground it's no good."

Indeed, clearly it's not.

On German "Marriage". Readers have written to chide me for the recent item in which I wrote, "Meanwhile, Germany (of all places) joins France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden in granting same-sex couples the benefits of matrimony." Wrote one reader:

"Despite the impression you might get from watching the History Channel, the second world war ended a long time ago and fortunately LOTS of things have changed since then. Modern Germany is far from being a perfect place, but general attitudes towards homosexuality in Germany are far ahead of the U.S. and have been for a long time."

Another reader pointed out that Germany's law does not grant the full rights of marriage:

"The German Eingetragene Partnerschaft (registered partnership)--the so-called 'Homo-Ehe' (gay marriage)--in fact does not grant same-sex couples all of the benefits that verheiratete (married) opposite sex couples get. Most notably, they do not get the same benefits as regards taxation--income and inheritance"."

The reason, I"m informed, is that portions of the partnership bill equalizing taxation were rejected by the Bundesrat (the upper house), which is controlled by the CDU/CSU (Christian Democrat Union/Christian Social Union). Moreover, the partnerships, unlike marriage, are not recognized outside of Germany. Hope that helps clarify matters.

Pandering to the Right. Here's another sign of how backward we remain on the subject of legal marriage for gays and lesbians. Just as Canada embarks on a path that's expected to lead to legal same-sex matrimony, Congress members who represent the GOP's anti-gay wing, led this time by Louisiana's David Vitter, are again trying to block funding for Washington, D.C.'s domestic partners law (Congress has the final say so over the district's appropriations). This attempt to mobilize the religious right before November's elections isn't expected to prevail, and openly gay Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz), who previously succeeded in getting the appropriations committee to remove language against the D.C. partners law, is again working to ensure that this latest bit of anti-gay pandering comes to naught.

The sooner this mischief bites the dust, the better for the GOP all round. For what does it profit a party to appeal to the religious right and lose the moderate suburbanites who would like to vote Republican, but fear joining a party that
countenances bigotry?

Paglia Takes Aim. Author Camille Paglia is a free-thinking socially libertarian lesbian and longtime critic of the lesbigay left's rigid orthodoxy (which she terms "gay Stalinism"). In a new FrontPage Magazine piece titled The Gay Inquisition, she responds to attacks against her and other non-leftists by the Village Voice's Richard Goldstein.

Paglia, who sometimes falls into the same kind of overly personalized sneering that her leftwing nemeses specialize in, nevertheless hits the nail on the head when she writes:

"There have been seismic shifts in feminism and gay politics over the past decade. My wing of pro-sex feminism has triumphed, and gay life in general has become more integrated with mainstream America. The fire has gone out of activism, since we are in a period of negotiation rather than confrontationalism in social-policy issues. Communication lines between gay and straight have opened dramatically, except in the most retrograde patches of religious fundamentalism. Hence the small cells still stoking their fury in feminism and gay activism are mostly fanatics--those who are still nursing childhood wounds and who cling to "the movement" as a consoling foster family. They are harmless, except when impressionable young people fall under their spell: their parochial jargon and unresolved resentments stunt the mind."

If only we could put all the leftwing "queer theorists" and all the rightwing family values moralists in a room together and let them luxuriate in their mutual fanaticism while the rest of us get on with our lives.

Can Marriage Ever Be De-politicized? Legislators in Massachusetts this week used a procedural maneuver to kill a proposed statewide ballot initiative to ban gay marriage. The anti-gay Massachusetts Citizens for Marriage had gathered twice the required number of signatures to put the question on the 2004 election ballot, but legislative support was also required. While opponents of the measure needed the votes of more than 75 percent of legislators to defeat it outright, which they lacked, they only needed a simple majority to approve a motion to adjourn without taking it up, which they had. The measure is now effectively dead.

According to the Boston Globe report:

After the vote, the amendment's supporters' frustration boiled over in State House corridors. One woman interrupted a television interview with a legislator to shout ''The people have lost their voice!'' repeatedly, and ''We all know he's gay!'' as she pointed to an activist. She was escorted from the building.

Meanwhile, in the U.S. Congress, anti-gay supporters of a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage are continuing their efforts, which thankfully don't appear to be gaining much traction.

The gay marriage issue is likely to continue as a socio-cultural flashpoint. If any additional states decide to follow Vermont and legalize de facto marriage for same-sex couples, then efforts to ban such unions by amending the U.S. and/or state constitutions will likely pick up steam.

Given this situation, Wendy McElroy has a particularly timely column titled It's Time to Privatize Marriage, on the Fox News website. She even quotes IGF contributor David Boaz, a proponent of getting government out of the marriage-sanctioning business. Unfortunately, in the world we live in the government is deeply embedded in defining what marriage means and who may wed. And the country doesn't appear to be in any kind of a mood to get rid of the myriad legal and financial benefits the state bestows on married couples.

But the tide outside the U.S. is definitely flowing in the direction of granting gays and lesbians the right to marry, whether the term is used or not. A major court decision in Canada is likely to bring about government recognition of same-sex unions north of our border, and there's even some mainstream recognition that this might just strengthen, rather than weaken, the institution, as demonstrated by this supportive piece by Andrew Coyne in the National Post.

Meanwhile, Germany (of all places) joins France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden in granting same-sex couples the benefits of matrimony.

Yes, things could eventually change here as well, but it will take a sustained effort. Nowhere else in the world do the opponents of gay marriage seem as fanatic to their cause as they do on our shores.

The Other Bush Haters. Here's a rabidly anti-gay webpage that contains numerous items intended to document the charge that George W. Bush and the GOP are actively pushing the "gay agenda." It made me feel truly good about how things are going.

You Can't Fool All of the People All of the Time. More evidence that the anti-gay right has reason to be concerned about their loss of influence. Check out this editorial, "Gay Chicken Littles Wrong on Bush," by Chris Crain, editor of the Washington Blade and New York Blade News -- two of the nation's most important gay newspapers. Crain is a Democrat who conlcudes "George W. Bush is no Bill Clinton, but his record so far has been surprisingly neutral and even positive on the gay issues to come before his administration."

Crain makes a persuasive argument, but don't expect most lesbigay political groups to pay attention. Their fundraising is firmly based on scare tactics -- just like the religious right's. In fact, reading fundraising letters from the religious right and the gay left would convince you that American society truly IS on the verge of destruction -- it's just the face of the enemy being blamed that's different.

Another Gay Left Lament. Many of you caught C-SPAN/2's broadcast of the great gay debate between Andrew Sullivan and left-firebrand Richard Goldstein. I agree with the e-mailer who said his favorite moment was when Goldstein demeaned Sullivan as another Roy Cohn (the self-loathing aid to arch-homophobe Joseph McCarthey). Sullivan's immediate and passionate rejoinder, pointing out that he is an openly gay man who argues on behalf of gay marriage in front of religious conservatives, should have put Goldstein to shame (but of course, nothing could do that).

For those who want another example of the gay left's myopia -- although without the personal bile that Goldstein and his cohorts specialize in -- here's an interesting piece from The Independent (U.K.) by Britain's gay left leader, Peter Tatchell, titled "Gay Pride is Now Respectable, and the Worse for It." Tatchell writes:

"We had a beautiful dream, but it's fading fast. In the 30 years since the first Gay Pride march, there has been a massive retreat from the ideals and vision of the early gay liberation pioneers. Most gay people no longer question the values, laws and institutions of mainstream society. They are content to settle for equal rights within the status quo."

Yes, settling for equal rights is just such a bloody shame.

Sullivan versus Goldstein on C-SPAN. This weekend you can catch a tape of the recent debate between IGF contributor Andrew Sullivan and gay left polemicist Richard Goldstein on C-SPAN/2 (see my July 1 posting and Dale Carpenter's column, at right, for more on Goldstein). IGF contributor Norah Vincent and lesbian Marxist Carmen Vasquez also participated in the panel discussion.

The C-SPAN/2 broadcast is scheduled for Saturday July 13th at 3.50pm and Sunday July 14 at 1.35am.

There's an official C-SPAN/Book TV listing which notes that Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), moderates the event. It also says that Goldstein is the winner of GLAAD's 2001 columnist of the year award. In his book vilifying non-socialist gays, titled "The Attack Queers: Liberal Society and the Gay Right," Goldstein thanks GLAAD for its assistance. While I'm told Garry does a decent job as moderator, can you imagine GLAAD ever giving an award to Sullivan, Vincent, or any other gay moderate, conservative, or libertarian?

Republican Conspiracies Everywhere! I usually don't like to waste ink, or bytes, on gay lefty columnist Michelangelo Signorile, one of the more hysterical voices among the "queer" Bush haters. But his latest ranting in the New York Press is so emblematic of the paranoia that passes as argument among his crowd that it deserves comment.

In a piece titled "Fundie Eruptions," Signorile first turns to the United Nations, where he takes note of a Washington Post story suggesting that Islamic governments and conservative Christians were on the same side in opposing "progressive" family policy issues. Both, for instance, are against gay inclusion in U.N. family policy documents, and oppose abortion as part of U.N.-funded family planning programs. From this account, Signorile feels vindicated in re-affirming his view that Christian conservatives are "the real American Taliban," as Christian and Islamic fundamentalists are "actually down on the killing fields of the culture wars together, battling side by side against the rest of the world."

Since there's really no difference between Pat Robertson and Osama bin Ladin, Signorile further deduces that George W. Bush, having appointed abortion opponents to U.N. delegations, is just as bad as the leaders of the terror regimes of the Middle East. Or, as Signorile phrases it:

"The thought that a president who asserted that he"d liberated the women of Afghanistan -- and used his wife to herald such claims -- is secretly working to undermine women on the rest of the planet is beyond hypocritical."

Yes, the president who "asserted" he had something to do with overthrowing a regime that made women invisible chattel would also oppose making U.S. taxpayers fund abortions through the U.N. shows, I guess, that he's just as bad as Saddam Hussein

Wait, it gets better. Signorile then offers:

"it seemed almost too convenient that just a few days after the revelation about the UN scheme, our attorney general, John Ashcroft, came under attack from some Christian conservatives for not being conservative enough anymore -- specifically because he allowed a deputy to speak at a Dept. of Justice-sponsored gay pride event. How lucky can you get? Just when your administration is exposed as being profoundly intolerant for empowering groups that are working with our most dreaded enemies -- including Iraq and Iran -- your very own Mr. Intolerance is attacked for, well, not being intolerant enough, shifting the debate entirely. Lucky indeed -- unless, perhaps, you helped promote the latter story yourself so that you might look more moderate."

Yes, the religious right's attacks on the Bush administration's gay overtures are being planned in the basement of the White House, as a ploy to make Bush appear "moderate" while he goes about terrorizing the women of the world with his buds Osama and Saddam. Those nefarious Republicans"what will they think of next?

Did They Make Michael Ovitz an Offer He Couldn't Refuse? First, former Hollywood honcho Michael Ovitz, in a Vanity Fair interview, accuses a tinsel town "gay mafia" of undermining his reign as superagent and motion picture powerhouse. Next, he apologizes for statements that were "inappropriate."

Of course, Ovitz didn't mean there is a real gay "mafia"; he meant a circle of gay insiders including his nemesis, David Geffen. Still, there's nothing like a Hollywood Homosexual Hullabaloo to liven up the summer doldrums.

Proud Mary. The right-wing Christian newswire, CNS News Service, reports that while answering questions after a recent speech, the vice-presidential spouse, Lynn Cheney, "tried to dodge a question from the audience that referenced her daughter, Mary, who is rumored to be homosexual." Actually, Mary is quite out, lives openly with her partner, worked at Coors as their corporate liaison to the gay community, and is now helping the Republican Unity Coalition reach out to gays and lesbians.

Back to the CNS report:

"With an openly gay daughter, why aren't you and the vice president more supportive of gay and lesbian civil rights that could ease her burden?" one audience member asked. "If you met my daughter Mary, you wouldn't think of her as a burdened young woman," Cheney first offered. "She is a wonderful young woman who is just about to finish business school. We are very proud of our entire family." When pressed about the need for getting involved in "the issue of gay and lesbian rights," Cheney cited her husband's comments during the 2000 vice presidential debate with Democratic candidate Joseph Lieberman. "I think that Dick had exactly the right answer when he was asked about this," she said. "He really said that people in our society should have the right to live their lives as they choose."

An affirmation of tolerance, but not quite an endorsement of full equality before the law. On the other hand, I"m glad she told the activist-questioner that not all gays and lesbians go through life seeing themselves as perpetual victims.

Further Fuming by Fundies. Also from the always partial CNS News Service this week was an item headed "Bush's Choice for CDC Head Not Popular with Conservatives" It seems Dr. James Dobson, head of the anti-gay Focus on the Family, is "baffled" by President Bush's decision to name Dr. Julie Gerberding as the new head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to Dobson:

"There is nothing in the record to indicate her opposition to 'safe-sex' ideology. She has no apparent concern about the ineffectiveness of condom usage, nor any stated disagreement with the positions of the homosexual activist movement, or with the provision of free needles to drug users. -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is already the world's largest promoter of homosexuality and 'safe-sex' programs, and now the president has appointed someone whose positions indicate that the organization will continue dishing out more of the same."

Sounds like another first-class appointment by President Bush.