IGF CultureWatch

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.

Too Much Choice! There are those PC types who feel it's wrong to let McDonald's set up outlets in developing nations because "the people" might be seduced into eating there, and thus become victims of globalized exploitation. Similarly, some of the arguments those on the Left are making against the proposed new 24-hour gay cable channel (a joint venture between Showtime and MTV) seem to imply with trepidation that gay people might, well, choose to watch it. Take Rick Whitaker's opinion piece, We've Come to Far to Be Reduced to the Small Screen, in the March 17 Washington Post. Of the new channel, and television in general, he writes: -- "the words 'lowest common denominator' come to mind -- along with 'corporate exploitation' and 'crass commercialism'." Want more? How about this bit of history:

But here's the gist of his opposition:

Whew. It seems those conniving capitalists are (shudder) out to MAKE MONEY, and not to advance the Left's political agenda. And they've come up with yet another evil scheme -- creating a gay cable channel that gay folks might watch and enjoy, thus feeding the greed machine. Why, it's the new opium of the people!

Now there are, in fact, some reasonable arguments for questioning whether an all-gay channel would promote cultural integration or be a new sort of media ghetto. But can't this be debated without resulting to knee-jerk attacks against the very free market/consumer choice system that's been the engine not only of Western prosperity, but of our open and, yes, increasingly tolerant society to boot?

Everything's Coming Up Rosie. No question, Rosie O"Donnell is the Next Big [Gay] Thing, following her much publicized, nationally televised coming out last Thursday in a mega-interview with ABC-TV's Diane Sawyer. As I wrote previously ("Really Rosie", March 4), I"ve had issues with O"Donnell, but her current crusade on behalf of overturning Florida's odious ban on gay-parent adoptions is a noble crusade. As ACLU rep Eric Ferrero told the Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, "Twenty-five years ago, celebrity helped get support for the gay adoption ban," referring to singer/anti-gay rights activist Anita Bryant's push to pass the law in 1977. "If the power of celebrity can now help turn that around, that's fine."

When a spokeswoman for Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was asked for a comment, she would only say that "the state of Florida is complying with current law." Jeb's gonna have to do better than that -- either he"ll be forced to defend a hateful and hurtful law that nevertheless may be supported by most of the state's GOP establishment, or he'll rise to the occasion and take a principled stand -- for the controversial position that gays and lesbians deserve equality under the state's laws.

Frozen in Time? My partner just received a mailing from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force inviting him to become a new member. What's interesting is that this could have been mailed 10 years ago. The big draw is a photo and quote from Jerry Falwell. Sure, he's still saying nasty things, but get real -- he no longer has any measurable political influence. The mailing dredges up Lou Sheldon as well, as if the RADICAL RIGHT were about to storm the gates, take over the nation, and send us all to the camps.

Also of interest: I didn't see the word "gay" used anywhere in the 4 pager other than in the organization's own name. It's all "GLBT people." That may be standard activistspeak these days, but what do Gary Gay Guy and Laurie Lesbian make of it?

Changing Times. Last week, the White House's Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS held a wine-and-cheese reception in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and invited members of AIDS Action, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), and other AIDS advocacy groups so that, according to an official memo, "members of the community might meet members of the Council and so that members of the Council might get better acquainted with each other." Scott Evertz, head of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (and the former head of the Wisconsin chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans) was also at the meeting. OK, no big deal. Except that this is the sort of routine interaction that we were told would NEVER, EVER happen if George W. were elected -- a sentiment expressed during the campaign by many of those relaxing and shmoozing with top Administration AIDS-policy officials last week.

A Measure of Progress. The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Wisconsin public school teacher, Tommy Schroeder, who claimed he suffered years of crude anti-gay heckling by elementary and middle-school students. Schroeder sued the school board, charging it had refused to require sensitivity training and did not adequately punish harassers (the board claimed it did punish students who could be identified, and that Schroeder exaggerated the problem).
I don't necessarily agree that the suit lacked merit, but I found it significant that one of the judges who ruled with the majority opinion to dismiss, Reagan appointee Richard A. Posner, wrote the following:

For a conservative federal judge to be moved to affirm that the law protects gays -- even if finding that in this instance a gay claimant had no case -- is a sign that, despite a few neanderthal state judges, we"re making irrefutable progress toward achieving equality under the law.

Unqueer. Keith Boykin is a black gay writer/activist and a man "of the left." Still, I enjoyed reading his recent article "Queer as White Folk" in which he takes on the use of the Q word. "Despite the claim that "queer" is more inclusive than "gay" and simpler than "LGBT," the word "queer" is just as white as the television show that bears its name," Boykin writes. "It does not represent the vast majority of black homosexuals and bisexuals." He concludes, ""progressive activists should think twice before promoting the term "queer" as inclusive language, especially to blacks." I hope that ruffles a few feathers on the "more correct than thou" gay academic left, and helps derail once and for all the "call us queer" bandwagon.