IGF CultureWatch

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.

Pim's Lessons. Here's an excellent piece by columnist Dave Kopel, in the Rocky Mountain News, about the media's bias in reporting about Pim Fortuyn. In taking to task an AP story about Fortuyn which painted him as an extremist, Kopel writes:

"the gay Dutch sociology professor offered complaints about Islam which are quite similar to complaints that some gay American sociology professors (and other American gays) offer about Christianity: anti-gay, sexist, morally imperialist, and premised on the belief that one religion is superior to all others. Now, when American gay activists make such remarks, the AP doesn't work itself into a lather and claim that the remarks reveal "demons" in the American character""

Coverage in the conservative Washington Times notes that last year Fortuyn was thrown out of a left-wing party for condemning a Rotterdam Muslim cleric who had called homosexuals "worse than pigs." Again, criticizing Islamic fundamentalism -- even for its virulent homophobia -- is deemed out of bounds, even after Sept. 11. Clearly, the liberal-left demonization of this man stemmed from his insisting that a point is reached when multiculturalism threatens the basic values of liberal Western culture. If it's true that a leftist environmentalist shot him, then at least it may reveal the extent to which the radical left has truly become a totalitarian anti-Western cult that can't countenance any deviation from its politically correct party line, and the extent to which elite liberalism backs up the leftist worldview (i.e., its willingness to sacrifice gay equality on the alter of anti-Western multiculturalism). That "queer" left groups are clamoring aboard this bandwagon is the ultimate irony -- or revelation of self-loathing.

The Death of Pim. Openly-gay Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated Monday while campaigning in the Netherlands. The BBC's website blasted out a headline that read "Dutch Far-Right Leader Shot." But Fortuyn, who was openly and proudly gay and supported the Dutch gay marriage law, was hardly a right winger as we understand the term.

In fact, the former academic seemed to support personal liberties on many fronts. But he was an adamant foe of Islamic immigration into The Netherlands. According to the Financial Times , his view was, "There are 16 million Dutch. This is enough. The country is full."

The Dutch provide immigrants (of whom about 800,000 are Muslims, I'm told) with immediate and generous welfare benefits, whether they show any inclination to become productive residents or not, which complicates the issue -- especially when many immigrants seem to devote themselves to undermining the liberal society the Dutch have created. Fortuyn, in fact, had stated strongly condemned the new immigrants for their fervent opposition to women's equality and to gay rights. Dutch Muslim clerics, for instance, have labeled homosexuality as a "shameless," "scandalous," "intolerable" "sickness" that "could destroy society."

Again, to quote the Financial Times:

"Mr Fortuyn had been campaigning on a ticket of ending immigration and reforming public services. Not only was he openly homosexual, but he made clear his sexual orientation informed his politics. He wanted to halt the arrival of immigrants from Muslim countries because he feared they were eroding the country's tolerance of diversity."

Some "right winger" indeed.

Mail Bag. I received an e-mail commenting on my April 20 posting about the big anti-globalization/anti-Israel rally in DC, which included some contingents from the campus-based "queer" left. The writer took me to task, stating:

"In your article on last weekend's protests, you referred to the demonstrators as being 'anti-American'" What is so 'anti-American' about opposing a state that denies liberties to others; wasn't America founded upon the principle that all men are created equal and ought to be free? Those protesting the occupation in Palestine are 'Pro-American', in that respect."

To that writer, I dedicate the posting below.

Trouble in the Left's Big Tent. I owe the popular blog instapundit, written by Glenn Reynolds, for this item. In his 5/3/2002 postings he links to a page of pictures from and comments about a recent pro-Palestinian rally at UC Berkley. Among those enthralled by the romanticism of suicide killers, and appalled that Israel would dare to defend itself, is a group called QUIT, for Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism. But, as instapundit notes, if you scroll down to the comments at the bottom of the page, a guy named Sallah writes:

"As a Palestinian, I must protest the inclusion of a homosexual group in this afternoon's rally. Gay people have no place in society, whether in Palestine or in the US."

A little further below, responding to a post taking issue with his comments, Sallah replies,

"We are fighting for self-determination. That means that we wish to live according to our own societal values, not your Western ones. You are a cultural imperialist. I appreciate your concern for our struggle, but WE will decide for ourselves."

Could the blindness of the pro-Palestinian gay left be made any clearer?

Israel, if it needs pointing out, is the only Middle East country that protects by law the civil rights of gays and lesbians. Come to think of it, it's the only Middle East country that protects by law the civil rights of its citizens, period.

Anita Orange Juice's Hard Times. On a lighter note, the St. Petersburg Times ran this April 28 story about Anita Bryant's filing for bankruptcy, for the second time in five years. Apparently, the anti-gay doyenne has acquired quite a reputation for cheating the employees at her theater in the Tennessee Bible Belt, as well as for not paying her taxes. The story notes that: "In Florida, meanwhile, her name is surfacing once more as lawyers and gay activists try to repeal the state's ban on gay adoptions, blaming Bryant for its passage in 1977." The evil that some people do can have a very long life indeed, but eventually the light must overwhelm the darkness.

UN-Gay. For those who think the U.N. has any relevance whatsoever, it's worth noting that when it's not acting as a megaphone for the propaganda of Jew-hating suicide-killers, or setting up "safe zones" for refugees which it then leaves utterly defenseless, the U.N. is busy bashing gays and lesbians. As reported in a Washington Times article on May 1, Muslim and Catholic countries this week (1) kept the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) from being designated as a consultant nongovernmental organization, charging that the group was soft on pedophilia, and (2) blocked a proposed redefintion of "family" in a U.N. Child Summit document that would have recognized families "in various forms," which critics charged would have opened the door to granting legitimacy to same-sex relationships.

"Altogether, it was a pretty pro-family day," gloated Austin Ruse, of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. Which I suppose shows that a rightwing Catholic spokesperson can still get away with being the voice of "pro-family" and anti-pedophile policy these days. Maybe the Catholic Church's being soft on pedophilia should keep that suspect group out of the corridors of U.N. power.

This is a bit complicated, but bear with me. Barring ILGA from participating on U.N. committees was justified, said its critics, because the Brussels-based lobby, with 300 member groups in 76 countries, did not document that it had purged pedophile groups such as the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which in years past had enjoyed some traffic with ILGA. ILGA, for its part, said that divulging all its member affiliates could put some in danger, which isn't hard to believe. But nevertheless, ILGA, which is a creature of the political and cultural left, has brought on many of its own troubles. Still, the attack against the group was infused with good, old fashioned, gay-baiting in the name of traditional religious values, both Catholic and Islamic. If those elements of the gay left that support Islamic terrorists had any brains, they could see the hellish nightmare that their new allies would create, if given half a chance.

Interestingly, the Bush administration had supported ILGA's application, arguing in January that ILGA was helpful in the fight against HIV and AIDS. While the U.S. delegation was silent this week in the debate, it voted on the losing side in a procedural vote to send the group's application back to the nongovernmental organizations committee for further investigation, which the Pakistani delegate denounced as a "delaying tactic" to buy another chance for ILGA.

For this, the Bush administration deserves some credit (which of course it won't receive). On the other hand, the U.S. delegation did an about-face and opposed broadening the U.N.'s definition of family. As noted in a previous posting, a senior official at the U.S. Mission has told the Washington Times last week that the Bush administration was backing the redefinition. However, the paper now reports that:

"pro-family and conservative groups that support the "natural" family in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- married heterosexual mother and father and their children and other blood relatives -- persuaded the administration of "dangers" in the loose, undefined language proposed by European delegations""

Given the pressure, which the conservative Washington Times helped engender, the administration caved. Hey, it's the U.N. Like it matters.

Guns 'R Us, Too. Here's an interesting article from planetout.com about some unfortunately gay-bashing rhetoric at a recent National Rifle Association confab in Reno. It seems that some of the speakers couldn't resist linking together Rosie O"Donnell's new gay advocacy with her previous anti-Second Amendment activism (how often Rosie keeps coming up, in unexpected contexts!). At the same time Tom Boyer, a representative of the Pink Pistols, the gay and lesbian gun owners group,

...noted that, at a members' forum in Reno on Saturday, he introduced himself as a Pink Pistol and urged the NRA not to mix other social issues into the agenda of the gun-rights organization. Other members supported that comment, he said. "I did have an NRA director come up and actually ask what he could do to help the Pink Pistols," Boyer said. "So there certainly is an outreach effort."

How often it seems that knee-jerk conservative homophobia is real but superficial and thus "counter-able," as opposed to die-hard fundamentalist bigotry.

Not "Devalued". A solid piece by columnist Rex Wockner on planetout.com describes why he doesn't buy into gay victimhood. In defending Rosie O"Donnell's comment that she has never felt discriminated against for being (as she calls herself) a gay woman, Rex writes:

"I have a theory that people who expect to experience discrimination may encounter more of it. I have gay and transgender acquaintances who seem to get discriminated against almost weekly. On the other hand, those of us who view our homosexuality as perfectly normal, and don't make it into an hysterical elephant in the living room, maybe end up having that reality reflected back at us by most people who figure out we're gay."

In a follow-up piece, Rex responds as follows to a well-intentioned activist who was quick to point up all the legal rights that gay people are still denied:

"[W]hile I am wholly uninterested in walking around feeling "devalued" (because I don't have any feelings like that at all, especially vis-"-vis society, as opposed to the government), I promise to continue, as I always have, to argue in favor of access to plain old marriage for same-sex couples.

Seems a sensible plan to me.

Predatory Priests, and All That. I haven't waded in much on the big gay-related (or is it?) news story dominating the media -- the exposure of the Catholic Church's years of covering up child molestation cases involving priests who repeatedly target young boys. This horror has been well reported and commented upon (see, for example, "The Catholic Pedophile Factory").

But here's my two cents. Attempts by church leaders to blame gay men in the priesthood, or the "homosexual atmosphere" created by a society tolerant of gay people, is certainly backfiring. No one is buying it. The church's refusal to take the blame for putting church PR over the safety of children is so self-evident that attempts to fire up homophobia in order to divert attention from their own sins is only making matters worse for themselves.

Here's a sidebar. The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) issued a letter to the media on April 26 criticizing a lack of quotes from gay spokespersons in stories about the Catholic hierarchy's gay-blaming. That's a good point. But the letter oddly devolves into a discussion of pedophilia versus ephebophilia. Writes NLGJA President Robert Dodge:

"Additional reporting may have revealed that the Catholic Church does not have a problem with pedophiles. Instead, it may be one of ephebophiles, or individuals exclusively attracted to adolescents. More reporting might have turned up Dr. Fred S. Berlin, associate professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University. In a statement that offered substantial balance and context, Dr. Berlin recently educated The New York Times readers that: "...We should make it clear that homosexuals are no more risk to children than heterosexuals. In terms of the bigger picture, there are every bit as many heterosexual men giving into sexual temptation with female adolescents.""

Perhaps pressuring 15-year-olds into sex is less horrific than pressuring pre-pubescent 8-year-olds, but I don't really see that this should be an issue to raise about media reporting. I mean, just what point is the NLGJA trying to make here? If they believe some of the teenage/priest sex was consensual, they should have the courage of their convictions and say so (although I haven't seen evidence of any teenagers having positive comments about their encounters with priestly predators). Moreover, the second part of the above quote, which claims that "as many heterosexual men" are prying on female adolescents, is surely not suggesting that there are as many homosexual abuse cases as heterosexual cases, given that under the most liberal theories gays are only 10% of the population (and, in fact, perhaps half that number)? Some advocacy!

Glass Half Full? According to a new study, the number of anti-gay hate crimes reported to a coalition of organizations around the country dropped 12% in 2001. Good news, right? But the gay and lesbian (and bisexual and transgender) anti-violence activists who issued the study were quick to say that the numbers meant only a decline in tracking, not violence. "Absolutely, unequivocally, it does not reflect that violence is down," Richard Haymes, executive director of the New York Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project and a board member of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), told the Washington Blade. Haymes and Clarence Patton, author of the NCAVP report, emphasized repeatedly that the decrease was certainly due to a lack of participation in reporting, not to a lack of crimes to report.

And what is the cause for this drop in crime reporting? Insufficient funding for NCAVP member projects, the activists say. Well, maybe. But it couldn't be that a flat-out positive report just wouldn't be in the interest of those who specialize in raising funds to counter bias-related crime, could it?

Despite the overall drop in reports of anti-gay hate crimes, the activists note that their study does show a rise in crimes targeting transgendered people and gay Latinos.

Cabin Fire. An anti Log Cabin Republican screed by Sarah Wildman in the New Republic's April 29 issue, titled "The Log Cabin Republicans Collapse," forgoes credible criticism for knee-jerk bashing. She's appalled that the LCR is "cheering blatantly anti-gay policies and appointees" of the Bush administration. An example? "[W]hen Bush nominated John Ashcroft, one of the Senate's most consistently anti-gay members, to be attorney general, LCR supported the appointment." Five paragraphs later she tosses aside LCR's explanation that the group had "exacted statements of support from Ashcroft during his nomination process."

In fact, thanks to lobbying by LCR and others, during his confirmation testimony Ashcroft stated repeatedly that sexual orientation would not be a consideration in Justice Department employment or appointments, that he would enforce all laws and regulations protecting gay and lesbian federal workers from employment discrimination, that the gay and lesbian DOJ Pride employee organization would continue to meet and organize in the Department under his leadership, and that federal civil rights laws will be vigorously enforced. Shortly after his confirmation, LCR's leadership 's secured an unprecedented meeting with the new attorney general at his office in the Department of Justice, where he pledged, according to LCR, that he would "enforce the law equally for all Americans, and that equal protection under the law means that no one will be left out."

As I previously noted, to the surprise of many liberals, Ashcroft recently invoked the federal Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act in an indictment for the slaying of two lesbian hikers in Shenandoah National Park, in Virginia. According to the Justice Department, "The United States maintains that the defendant hated women and lesbians and that hatred was a motive for his killing""

Isn't this the way it's supposed to work? Or would liberals simply prefer shouting "Bigot, bigot go away" to actually working with conservatives and advancing their attitudes on gay and lesbian issues? Of course, the answer is the former.

Bush the homophobe? More evidence that the charge that the Bush administration is anti-gay is ludicrous. As the conservative Washington Times reported this week, the administration "has joined European delegates to the upcoming U.N. summit on children in moving to recognize families 'in various forms,' including unmarried cohabitating couples and homosexual partners." This is in opposition to a coalition of Catholic and Muslim countries that has formed to block the proposed change to the tradition U.N. definition of the family -- married heterosexual parents and children -- that the General Assembly's Special Session on Children will take up next next month. The article quoted an unnamed official who explained the U.S. supports the proposal to recognize families "in various forms" because "obviously we feel this more reflects the families of today, which are headed by single parents and extended families."

Now that the news is out, the rightwing can be expected to mobilize against the administration's position. Which is why we need gay Republican's with some clout to lobby the other way. Shouldn't this be obvious to liberals? (Sorry, another dumb question.)

Cheney Joins Pro-Gay Group's Board. That's Mary Cheney, the veep's out-lesbian daughter (what will those homophobic Republicans think of next?). As reported on andrewsullivan.com on April 22, she's joined the board of the Republican Unity Coalition, sort of a gay-straight alliance within the GOP to advance gay inclusion and participation within the Grand Old Party. According to Sullivan's report, Mary Cheney stated, "Working together we can expand the Republican Party's outreach to non-traditional Republicans; we can make sexual orientation a non-issue for the Republican Party; and we can help achieve equality for all gay and lesbian Americans." Now that"s sure to make the "no enemies on the left; no friends on the right" branch of the gay movement go absolutely ballistic.