IGF CultureWatch

A Supreme Injustice Remembered. It's said we should remember those who have died with a certain amount of charity. But that doesn't mean excusing the wrong that they did, especially when their actions have caused pain and suffering. And so let us note that death came this week for Byron R. "Whizzer" White, the former U.S. Supreme Court justice who died Monday at the age of 84. Most of the obits remembered him as the former award-wining college football hero who enjoyed a colorful career on the bench. Lesbian and gay Americans, however, will recall him as the author of the horrific 1986 Bowers vs. Hardwick ruling that upheld state laws criminalizing homosexual sex between consenting adults. On behalf of the High Court's 5-to-4 majority, White wrote that it was appropriate to find Michael Hardwick guilty of having consensual adult homosexual relations in the privacy of his own bedroom because:

"To claim that a right to engage in such conduct is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" is, at best, facetious. -- .The fact that homosexual conduct occurs in the privacy of the home does not affect the result. -- [The defendant] insists that majority sentiments about the morality of homosexuality should be declared inadequate. We do not agree, and are unpersuaded that the sodomy laws of some 25 States should be invalidated on this basis."

It's worth noting that White was not appointed by a right-wing Republican, but by liberal Democrat John F. Kennedy, who praised his nominee as "the ideal New Frontier judge."

One can only imagine what the impact might have been if these so-called "sodomy laws" had been thrown out. Certainly, the fact that several states still have these statutes on their books to this day has aided those who oppose same-sex marriage and support the military's gay ban. The laws also work to deny lesbian or gay parents custody of their children -- or even, in some cases, visitation rights.

Fortunately, a 1996 Supreme Court decision by another Kennedy (unrelated to John and his clan) helped lay the foundation to eventually overturn "Hardwick." In Romer v. Evans, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion that found Colorado's constitutional amendment prohibiting gays and lesbians from ever being covered by anti-discrimination laws was unconstitutional. He declared:

"The amendment withdraws from homosexuals, but no others, specific legal protection from the injuries caused by discrimination, and it forbids reinstatement of these laws and policies. -- The resulting disqualification of a class of persons from the right to seek specific protection from the law is unprecedented in our jurisprudence" Central both to the idea of the rule of law and to our own Constitution's guarantee of equal protection is the principle that government and each of its parts remain open on impartial terms to all who seek its assistance". We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. This Colorado cannot do. A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws. Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause""

Did I mention that Justice Kennedy was a 1987 Reagan appointee?

A question: Just how many hundreds of thousands of dollars will the Human Rights Campaign raise for liberal and left-leaning Democrats, using the specter of the vast danger posed by future Republican Supreme Court nominees (like Anthony Kennedy, or Bush the First appointee David Souter)?

That's not to say I'd support any nominee that Bush the Second might put forward (and I'm very grateful that Robert Bork was Borked, back in Reagan's day). However, it is to argue that nominees should be judged fairly, on their own merits, and that the scare campaign underway over the very idea of a GOP Supreme Court nominee is mostly partisan hyperbole, like so much in Washington these days.

Hate Crimes Conundrums. Both the liberal Human Rights Campaign and the leftwing National Gay and Lesbian Task Force " the two big Washington-based lesbigay lobbies -- issued press releases on Thursday applauding (yes, applauding!) U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, one of their favorite nemeses. The occasion was Ashcroft's invoking of the federal Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act in the indictment of Darrell David Rice for the 1996 slaying of two lesbian hikers in Shenandoah National Park, in Virginia. The Act mandates sentencing enhancements for crimes motivated by hate that occur on federal land. According to the indictment, "The United States maintains that the defendant hated women and lesbians and that hatred was a motive for his killing""

According to HRC Political Director Winnie Stachelberg, "With this indictment, the federal government has recognized the horrendous nature of this hate crime and that it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law".We are grateful that federal jurisdiction could be exercised in this case." But the HRC release also declares that "If these murders had occurred almost any other place in America, this statute could not have been used." Both HRC and NGLTF have used the indictment to call for passage of a proposed law that would federalize violent hate crimes committed anywhere in the U.S. Without such a law, "many hate crime victims and their families may not receive the justice they deserve," says Stachelberg.

But this "hate crime" was, in fact, a horrendously brutal premeditated MURDER. And had it occurred outside the park, Murder One charges would have been brought in Virginia, and state prosecutors would have sought the death penalty -- regardless of the absence of either a wider federal or statewide hate crimes law. While the symbolism of a broad federal statute that lists gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered in the laundry list of victim categories may have understandable appeal to activists, it's bogus to suggest that violent crimes such as the Shenandoah killings would go unprosecuted without federal intervention. Moreover, hate crime laws that list selected groups as special victims, but not others (conservative Republicans?) are likely to be, like affirmative action's group-based preferences, an ongoing source of conflict regarding whether they guarantee -- or mandate against -- equal treatment for all. And then there's the persistent issue of whether the government should be prosecuting "hate" (what the perpetrator is thinking and feeling) as opposed to the criminal act itself -- a slippery slope, indeed.

And there's another contradiction involved. If a hate crime statute bumps up the penalties for premeditated murder, the only place to go is the death penalty. But NGLTF is on record as opposing the death penalty, as do many other activists. This is what led to a series of bizarre arguments during the Matthew Shepard trial, in which some activists used the slaying to urge passage of a federal statute that would enhance hate crime penalties, but at the same time opposed the death penalty for Shepard's killers. Just what did they think enhanced penalties mean (no workout privileges? going without cable?). Eventually, Shepard's parents asked that the death penalty not be invoked, and their son's killers received multiple life sentences.

At least the Log Cabin Republicans, who also issued a release praising the federal indictment, have the courage of their convictions and are pro death penalty.

I leave aside a wider analysis on the general merits of hate crimes statutes (or the death penalty, for that matter) for another day.

Whose False Consciousness? As the AP reported earlier this month, the Florida Supreme Court has allowed convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos to fire her attorneys and drop all appeals to her upcoming execution. Wuornos, a lesbian who received multiple death sentences for fatally shooting six middle-aged men along a central Florida highway in 1989 and 1990, last year admitted the truth about her motives. Writing to the Florida Supreme Court and expressing her desire to drop all appeals and be executed, Wuornos said, ""I am a serial killer. I would kill again," and "I"ve come clean. All were"murder to rob." Wuornos had previously claimed that her victims had tried to rape or kill her. And a host of national feminist and lesbian rights groups affiliated with the Aileen Wuornos Defense Committee had come to her aid, claiming the murders were ALL self defense (theory one), or else justifiably triggered by her years of abuse by men (theory two). Now that Wuornos has dropped her appeals, accepted her sentence, and admitted her guilt, don't expect her activist supporters to have the grace to apologize (they"ll probably claim the patriarchy has brainwashed Wuronos into falsely blaming herself!).

Notes from the Culture Wars. The school board in Torrance, California, has voted to ban a gay rights group for speaking at an annual high school event intended to promote understanding and fight bigotry. As reported in the local Daily Breeze, the board voted 3-2 to ban Gays and Lesbians Initiating Dialogue for Equality (GLIDE) from, well, initiating dialogue for equality, at least at the annual North High Human Relations Convention. A staff attorney for the Anti-Defamation League called the decision an "abomination" and said she would urge the ADL not participate in order to protest the gay group's exclusion. To which one anti-gay school board member, Joseph Bonano, responded, "If they [the ADL] want to pull out and make one less presenter, that's fine. They showed their true colors." Sounds like this will be some anti-bigotry lesson for the kids.

The article reports that an anti-gay group called Parents United to Stop Homosexual Education on our Schools (PUSHES) has been agitating against gay inclusion. Please note this is not a parody. Another interesting tidbit: the gay group, GLIDE, is a Beverly Hills-based nonprofit that makes 200 presentations each year on homophobia. It says the school board's decision has denied them their rights. But I wonder if a local gay group might not have been able to make its case more effectively than professional activists visiting from Beverly Hills.

An alternative conference may be held by organizers in a facility not under the jurisdiction of the Torrance school board.

Say What? The Washington Post ran a feature last week about a deaf lesbian couple that is hoping their newly born baby will also be deaf. One of the lesbians was inseminated with the sperm of a deaf male friend to make this outcome more likely. According to the article, the two mothers

"see deafness as an identity, not a medical affliction that needs to be fixed. Their effort -- to have a baby who belongs to what they see as their minority group -- is a natural outcome of the pride and self-acceptance the Deaf movement has brought to so many."

Reading this, you begin to understand why so many Americans are in backlash against anything that smacks of identity politics. But having said that, there is something fascinating about the radical deaf subculture that's emerged in recent years, and the parallels between deaf culture and gay culture as responses to alienation would be interesting to explore.

Look Who's Talking. "The Log Cabin Republicans' ... primary emotional commitment is to the conservative-dominated Republican Party, rather than to the fight against homophobia." So said gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in an April 1 press release. Frank, who never misses an opportunity to promote his "one party only" view of gay politics, condemned the moderate Republican Log Cabiners because their latest newsletter ran a toss-away item which, as the Washington Post reports, was titled "Rhymes with Abercrombie and . . . -- Cutting to the chase, it expressed support for a Los Angeles police official who called U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., a "bitch." Waters, of course, is one of the most far left members of the House and has shown no hesitancy to condemn the police, the U.S. military, and anyone else to the right of Fidel. Nevertheless, Log Cabin spokesman Kevin Ivers said that "the staff has been told that in the future they need more careful about what is written in the newsletter," and that the comment on Waters is not the official position of LCR.

This, however, did not appease Barney Frank, who wrote that "Log Cabin's smarmy encouragement of this sort of attack stands in drastic contrast to the National Stonewall Democrats, which at its most recent event honored the Congressional Black Caucus".The distinction between Stonewall's expression of gratitude to a group of members who have been our strongest allies and Log Cabin's endorsement of a nasty personal attack on one of the most important members of that group says a great deal about the role the two organizations play." Ah, there it is -- the always useful race card, which is clearly something that Barney Frank and other liberals love to play.

Memo to Barney: it's not ONLY about gay issues, which is a fact to bear in mind given that Frank supported legislation in 1995, 1996, and 1997 to cut back the funding of U.S. intelligence agencies during a period in which attacks against the US were increasing, and also moves to cut the military's budget as well.

A Vast Gay Rightwing Conspiracy? The April 16 issue of The Advocate has a good cover story on "The Gay Right" that prominently features out-and-proud GOP officeholders and powerbrokers, though in the Advocate's eyes even liberal Republicans are "conservative" and part of "the Right." And wouldn't you just know it, for the sake of "balance" the magazine features a full-page opinion piece (not available online) by gay leftist and self-proclaimed "anarcho-syndicalist" Urvashi Vaid attacking (yep) welfare reform, which, we"re told, has "ideological roots [that] lay deep within the antigay, racially bigoted far right." Yawn. Ms. Vaid also argues that not making opposition to welfare reform a priority for the GLBT community "is a huge mistake." Of course, when you believe that the goal of progressive politics is to redistribute wealth from those who worked for it to those who simply want it, her perspective becomes clearer.

Disheartened Reactionaries. A story from the Baptist Press News recounts that religious conservatives are lamenting that "Christians" are no longer protesting gay characters on TV. "Christians voiced their outrage when ABC's "Ellen" featured a lead lesbian character in 1997," said Focus on the Family's Mike Haley, who continues, "That outrage, five years later, has dissipated -- even though there are now more than 20 homosexual characters on television." Guess who's winning the culture war!

Stupid Bigot Tricks. An AP story reports that a California father doesn't want his daughter sharing high school restrooms with lesbian students. To protect his daughter's modesty, he filed a discrimination complaint against the local school district, alleging

""discrimination and intolerance [by] not addressing a very clear right of privacy violation that requires my child to share restrooms, dressing rooms and showering facilities with those who by their own, and societies (sic) definition, are attracted to the same gender (homosexual students and staff)."

After receiving this complaint, the school district conducted an investigation (yes, money was spent!) but, shockingly, found no discrimination. Moreover, there was no evidence that any lesbian student or staff member had ever made sexual advances toward students in the restrooms.

End of story, though I can't really blame both the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) for trying to make some hay out of it. It's not like this crazy suit was going to actually lead to segregating gay/lesbian students from their straight peers in school restrooms and locker rooms (would all gay students mind?), but it's such a lunatic demand that the urge to draw attention to it is too much to resist (hence this item).

Surprise! Black Gay Republicans Exist! NGLTF has released a national study of black gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people. Titled "Say It Loud: I'm Black and I'm Proud," the report found half of the respondents say racism is a problem in "the White GLBT community" while two-thirds report that homophobia is a problem within the black community. That's not unexpected, but this is: the respondents' political affiliations were "slightly less Democratic, and more Republican, than the Black population as a whole."

To get specific, on p.45 of the Black Pride Sample (of black GLBT respondents), it states that 65% are Democrats, 10% Republicans, 8% independent, and 7% other (although, we're told, "only 6% of transgender respondents were Republican"). The report compares these figures with the findings of the 1996 National Black Election Study, which found that 72% of overall black respondents were Democrats and only 5% were Republicans (half as many, percentage-wise, as in the GLBT survey). Talk about shattering a stereotype!

Now, to be fair, the Black Pride sample did find that 85% of GLBT blacks identified as "liberal or moderate" and 15% as "conservative," as compared with overall black respondents in the 1996 National Black Election Study who were 59% "liberal or moderate." But given the party affiliation finding, it's not unlikely that the reason they're more "liberal" is that they're pro-gay and anti-homophobia.

In any event, don't expect NGTLF to shift to the right to better represent this under-represented black GOP demographic. After all, a previous NGLTF report, titled "Leaving Our Children Behind: Welfare Reform and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community," examined the effects of welfare reform on GLBT families and concluded that the push away from dependency and toward self-sufficiency was a bad, bad thing.

You Go, Girl. Rosie O"Donnell is proving impressive on some unexpected fronts. Not only is she spearheading the fight to overturn Florida's noxious ban on gay adoptions, but she's taking on some of the most bile-filled luminaries of self-righteously mean-spirited gay Left as well. In an interview with the gay website PlanetOut, she was asked, "What do you make of gay journalist Michelangelo Signorile's assertion that it was your desire to silence your gay critics that made you come out?" Responded Rosie:

But as good as she was on the viciousness of the Left, she also knows how to win hearts and minds on the Right (where the struggle MUST be won). Last Monday, O"Donnell appeared on Bill O"Reilly's Fox News Channel talkshow, and -- rather than shouting propaganda points, as many professional activists would have done -- she actually engaged in real dialogue. According to an AP story on their encounter, O"Donnell, who "went on the show against the advice of everyone close to her," began by voicing "qualified support for O'Reilly's crusade against celebrities for not making sure that donations to Sept. 11 relief funds that they pitched for quickly found their way to the intended hands." Imagine, finding something to compliment a conservative about! The AP story continues:

During the interview, O"Reilly expressed views such as "Nature dictates that it's better for a child to be in a heterosexual home, again, with good, loving, responsible parents, than a homosexual home, because nature says the best way for a child to be raised is with a mommy and a daddy. That's nature." O"Donnell stood her ground, but she also said, repeatedly, "I can understand your opinion". You grew up around the block. I know where you're coming from. I don't think you are a mean-spirited guy." That let her connect with O"Reilly (and his conservative audience), even as she disputed his views. I can't recall ever seeing a professional activist be as sincere -- and as savvy.

A postscript: The following night, O"Reilly praised O"Donnell for having the gumption to come on the show (which many liberals refuse, flatout, to do). Better yet, he noted she had no doubt changed a great many minds with her appearance, and predicted that Florida's gay adoption ban will end, that "it's only a matter of time."

The Grand Alliance. On April 20, a broad assortment of self-styled progressive groups (i.e., the hard Left) will gather in Washington to protest the war on terrorism, and to demand that "the needs of people and the planet are given top priority." Among the participating organizations are the Communist Party USA, the International Socialist Organization, the Young Communist League, and Queers for Racial & Economic Justice. Isn't inclusion grand?

And She's Not Even a Lesbian. According to an AP story, a judge in upstate New York has "ordered a smoker to stop lighting up at home or in her car if she wants continued visitation rights with her 13-year-old son." The judge's 22-page decision said the mother's puffing was not in the boy's "best interests." The father's attorney said the boy "was ashamed that his mother was a smoker," while the mother's attorney claims the boy's father and paternal granparents are behind his smoking complaints.

Dysfunctional family dynamics aside, is this the Northern PC reflection of those Southern judges who won't allow visits by gay or lesbian parents who refuse to hide their sexual orientation from the child? Or, to put it another way, has control over visitation by noncustodial parents become the latest manifestation of the cultural war between Left authoritarians and Right authoritarians?

Nash re-gayed. Advocate.com does a nifty job of going through Sylvia Naser's A Beautiful Mind, the biography of John Forbes Nash Jr. on which the Oscar winning film was based, and showing just how gay he really was -- despite recent protestations by both Nash and Naser.

O'Reilly's Two Faces. In his March 20 syndicated column, conservative talkmaster Bill O"Reilly, host of Fox News's top-rated "The O"Reilly Factor," came out in favor of gay adoptions ("Good Bill"), but also in favor of the closet ("Bad Bill"). This reveals a great deal about the muddle in the minds of many who dislike bigotry (and thus oppose outright discrimination against gays and lesbians), but still don't GET IT. For example, "Good Bill" writes:

Not bad, eh, for a darling of the right? Unfortunately, "Bad Bill" later opines:

This is obviously unfair. Madonna does make blatantly sexual presentations. But of course Rosie has not. People like "Bad Bill" think that mentioning your partner is talking about your sex life, but heterosexuals have to actually talk about their sex lives to be accused of the same thing. Mentioning your wife -- or your children -- doesn't count.

O"Reilly is not a clod. Opposing discrimination AND urging gays to keep silent about our lives is common among Americans in the middle to center-right -- a huge demographic whose support we vitally need. The good news is that if a Bill O"Reilly can come as far as he has, taking the next leap and GETTING OVER a sense of queasiness over gays having actual relationships is probably not an insurmountable hurdle.

Note: Shouting "Bigot, bigot, go away," as the gay Left tends to do over expressions such as "Bad Bill" O"Reilly"s, achieves nothing.

Not So Beautiful. As for not talking about IT... Just in time for the Oscars, John Forbes Nash Jr. and his wife, Alicia, gave a joint interview to 60 Minutes in which the facts of John's past were, to say the least, subject to obfuscation. The man whose life was the basis for the award-winning film "A Beautiful Mind" has now been thoroughly de-gayed, at his own (and his wife"s) instigation . As I wrote in my Feb. 23 posting, Ron Howard's film came in for much criticism for omitting some of the same-sex escapades that were document in Sylvia Naser's biography (also titled "A Beautiful Mind"). In her book, Naser wrote of how Nash was arrested for a same-sex restroom come-on (thus losing his security clearance). Among several other incidents, she noted that Nash climbed into a fellow mathematician's bed and made a pass at him, and that Nash had commented about his long awaited 'gay liberation".

Now reunited with his wife and of advanced years, things are told differently. Much like Anne Heche, Nash (and wife) say he wasn't gay, that his behavior was just another symptom of his psychosis -- and he's better now. Author Naser, paid nicely for the film rights to her bio, is chiming along. She tells USA Today, "The book didn't say [Nash] was gay. I stuck to the facts I had. I don't know where people are getting all this." Maybe she should try re-reading her own work. It's another reason why you should never, ever attempt to make movies about living people.

A Wild & Crazy Guy. Richard Nixon was one of the scariest men ever to occupy 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Not widely reported, however, was his fixation with "homosexuals." According to a March 21 Washington Post story based on newly transcribed White House tapes (yes, he taped EVERYTHING -- for posterity), Tricky Dick launched into the following tirade in May of 1971, while top aides H.R. "Bob" Haldeman and John Ehrlichman laughed nervously at their bosses increasingly demented history lesson. Proclaimed Nixon:

Gosh, I guess those homos created classical civilization just so they could destroy it, huh? Nixon continues:

One gets the clear sense that Nixon actually admired the efficiency of repression in the Soviet Union, the way the commissars simply made homosexuals and other undesirables disappear. It's just those damn commie hippies in the U.S. that were the problem.

Mitt's Not Dick. Fortunately, there has been progress since the 1970s, and that includes progress within the Grand Old Party. Businessman Mitt Romney, who spearheaded the recent, very successful Winter Olympic games, is now the likely GOP candidate for governor in Massachusetts (after the hapless Jane Swift, the unelected incumbent, dropped out of the primary). Here's something positive to report, from the Log Cabin Republican's "Inclusion Wins" e-newsletter:

Sounds promising -- a hopefully non-RINO (Republican in Name Only) who also appears to be good on gays. Stay tuned.

Wedding-bell Gender Blues. Look for more legal confusion over whom a transsexual may marry, if anyone. As reported in the Kansas City Star last week, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that male-to-female transsexual J'Noel Gardiner's marriage to her late husband, Marshall Gardiner, was invalid, thereby providing a victory to her husband's son, who successfully sought to deny J'Noel's inheritance of Marshall's $2.5 million estate. Not of particular relevance, but of salacious interest, J'Noel was 45 years junior to her 85-year-old-husband, who passed away less than a year after their nuptials (oh, what a plot fit for "Dynasty"!).

The state Supreme Court's unanimous ruling said that despite her sex change surgery and body altering treatments, J'Noel remained a man for purposes of marriage. It thus overturned a decision by the Kansas Court of Appeals, which approved the marriage as valid after finding there's more to gender than "simply what the individual's chromosomes were or were not at the time of birth."

Here's the tricky part -- various courts in other states have reached different conclusions on whether transsexuals may legally wed members of their same birth sex or not. And, according to a New York Times story posted on gaylawnet, several legal experts believe if male-to-female transsexuals are barred from marrying men, they are consequently allowed to marry women -- despite the fact that their legal identification (including, in many cases, a revised birth certificate) lists their gender as female. In fact, after a Texas court invalidated a marriage similar to the Gardiner's, at least two male-to-female transsexuals have married (other) women in that state. Are these marriages, then, legal lesbian unions? It's at least debatable.

Pro and con advocates on same-sex marriages, of course, are having their say. In the gaylawnet article, Jennifer Middleton of the Lambda Legal Defense Fund asks, "How much of what we think of as appropriate for a woman or a man is biologically determined versus socially constructed?" However, I'm not sure the premise that sexuality is a social construct is going to win the day outside of the academy. On the other side, as quoted in the Kansas City Star, Bill Duncan of the Catholic University of America's Marriage Law Project declares, "We have a mission to reaffirm the legal definition of marriage as a man and a woman," noting, "but we haven't thought that much about what makes a man a man and a woman a woman." And with transsexuals, squaring that circle ain't so easy. The solution, of course, would be to allow any two consenting adults who are not incestuously related to wed -- but, apparently, that's TOO easy.