IGF CultureWatch

LGBT Democratic activists are never at a loss to point out GOP nastiness toward gay legal equality and social inclusion. But when they claim that nothing has—or it’s implied, can—change in the Republican party, they are being willfully disingenuous.

This past week saw Dr. Ben Carson, popular on the GOP social conservative right, come out with some asinine claims that being gay is “absolutely” a choice — and prison proves it, “Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight — and when they come out, they’re gay.” Carson’s remarks were so over the top that even he had to backtrack and issue an apology, sort of.

This same week saw GOP mega-donor David Koch, one half of the brother duo that’s a bête noire of progressive Democrats, join with other conservatives in filing an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to rule against bans on same-sex marriage. LGBT Democrats will reply that this hardly makes up for the Koch brothers supporting anti-gay candidates through the years (the Kochs give their dollars to conservatives who favor less government intrusion in business and the economy, and many but not all of these candidates are also social conservatives).

But once freedom to marry is the law of the land from sea to sea, and with gay servicemembers now serving openly in the military, the political calculus is going to shift markedly as regards gay issues. There will be an intransigent religious right, but mainstream conservatives will embrace the new consensus that gay marriage, like gays in the military, is a done deal and so let’s move on.

The GOP may, more broadly, defend religious liberty from those who feel wounded that everyone doesn’t share and express their progressive views, and I believe there is merit in the party’s doing so. That will incite LGBT Democrats, but it’s a side skirmish. The war will have been won.

More. Via National Journal:

Any Republican who says something incendiary about gay people will surely get media play. But with public rebuttals, political counsel and money, gay conservative groups are working to build a wall of defense to keep these comments on the fringe—and out of the 2016 conversation.

Furthermore. Some LGBT progressive have in the past accused David Koch of “pinkwashing” the Koch brother’s record by embracing legal equality for same-sex couples. But in the days since Koch signed the amicus supporting same-sex marriage, it’s becoming clearer that the media response around the announcement (fueled to no small extent by the willingness of Koch’s publicists to cooperate) is meant to send a signal to candidates who receive (or will receive) Koch support. Which is, opposition to same-sex marriage is not going to be a winning position going forward, so get over it.

If so, not everyone is getting the message, however. The desire to run on Jeb Bush’s right is a contravening force that will be a political dead end, but it may take at least another election cycle to make that clear to the intransigents.

Jonathan Rauch and others across the liberal/conservative spectrum ask Can Gay Wedlock Break Political Gridlock?: Some excerpts from their manifesto:

Suddenly, it’s in both parties’ interests to fight the broader decline of marriage. Here’s the case for a “marriage opportunity” agenda. …

But now, particularly as the legal and social barriers to gay marriage come down, we have reached a moment when we may finally be able to change course. Today we have a remarkable and perhaps even unique opportunity to think anew about the meaning and role of marriage and to come together as a nation to address the growing class divide in American marriage. …

Conservatives fighting for social stability and stronger families can now, based on the logic of their deepest values, recognize gays and lesbians who seek the same family values.

As I’ve said before, you won’t convert the hardcore traditionalist religious right, but other conservatives are starting to break ranks (witness the number of GOP governors in states where courts have ordered equal access to marriage, who have stated that same-sex marriage is now the law and it’s time to move on).

Other examples in today’s news: In New Hampshire “Dan Innis, the married gay man who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in New Hampshire, was confirmed to be a member of the state Republican Party’s leadership,” reports BuzzFeed. And Politico reports “The head of the Log Cabin Republicans has been invited to speak on a panel at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference, the pro-gay rights group announced Monday.” (The Washington Blade’s coverage is here.)

Small moves, perhaps, but signs of the times.

More. Via the Wall Street Journal:

After a court struck down Florida’s ban on same-sex marriage last month, [Jeb] Bush called for “respect for the rule of law.” The softer tone from Mr. Bush contrasts with the positions of other Republicans weighing presidential campaigns. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee recently said that expecting Christians to accept gay marriage is like “asking someone who’s Jewish to start serving bacon-wrapped shrimp in their deli.” Other likely GOP candidates have taken stances akin to Mr. Bush’s. …

While socially conservative voters, who typically dominate several of the earliest presidential nominating contests, tend to oppose gay marriage, other Republicans see it as a wedge issue that would inhibit the nominee’s appeal in the general election. “I don’t know how you can be a conservative and want less government and yet want government to tell you what to do in your personal life,” said Julie Finley, who co-hosted a northern Virginia fundraiser for Mr. Bush earlier this month.

Furthermore. I didn’t intend for this to be a post about Jeb Bush, but here’s BuzzFeed on how things are changing in the GOP, which is the point of the original post:

When Bush officially launches his presidential bid later this year, he will likely do so with a campaign manager who has urged the Republican Party to adopt a pro-gay agenda; a chief strategist who signed a Supreme Court amicus brief arguing for marriage equality in California; a longtime adviser who once encouraged her minister to stick to his guns in preaching equality for same-sex couples; and a communications director who is openly gay.

Social conservative Rod Dreher laments:

To an extent that would have been unthinkable in past elections, one of the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination has stocked his inner circle with advisers who are vocal proponents of gay rights. … [Bush’s actions] ought to bring home to social conservatives how profoundly we have lost this thing. … Besides, we all know that the Supreme Court is going to constitutionalize same-sex marriage later this year, so there’s a political advantage to getting on the SSM bandwagon before SCOTUS leaves socially conservative Republicans behind.

Final word. Yes, Bush also says, when asked, “I believe in traditional marriage.” As do the GOP governors that are now enforcing marriage equality because it’s the law in their states. This, too, is politics, and there will still be attempts to placate the social conservative faction of the Republican base. But pretending that nothing is changing in the GOP is partisan hackery.

At CPAC, Ted Cruz was noticeably an outlier. That, too, is a sign of change.

The New York Times reports:

Speaker John A. Boehner said on Thursday that he expected House Republicans to accept the decision on same-sex marriage that the Supreme Court is scheduled to issue later this year.

“I don’t expect that we’re going to weigh in on this,” Mr. Boehner said. “The court will make its decision, and that’s why they’re there, to be the highest court in the land.”

The statement comes as a bit of a surprise, given the House Republicans’ expensive defense of the Defense of Marriage Act in 2013.

A commenter posted on an earlier item that he was afraid predicting that once the freedom to marry was secured, “rich gay men” would “vote their wallets.” To which I can only say, I hope so. Not because greed is good, but because a prosperous, growing economy that creates real jobs relies on private sector investment and modest, targeted regulation, not higher taxes on investments with ever-expanding regulatory burdens, uncertainties and liabilities.

More. The progressives sound worried. Jonathan Capehart writes:

Finally, the LGBT community must do a better job of making common cause with others seeking equality and freedom from discrimination. Where is the community on immigration? On economic inequality? On racial justice? …

There are poor LGBT Americans. There are millions of people who would benefit from an increase in the national minimum wage who are also LGBT.

By the way, the next time you’re faced with self-checkout at the grocery or drugstore, or an automatic parking garage, or, increasingly, automated self-ordering at fast food restaurants, you can thank those increases in the minimum wage intended to help lower-income Americans but which often end up cutting back their hours and opportunities—or eliminating their employment prospects altogether, especially for the young seeking entry into the workforce.

Furthermore. It’s not just LGBT voters who are feeling more at ease with the GOP. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are being wooed by Republicans with increasing success, for example. As the Los Angeles Times reports:

Republicans, after musing about the possibility for more than a decade, have finally found a footing in Silicon Valley, ingratiating themselves with tech entrepreneurs who had long eschewed politics in general, conservative politics in particular.

Democrats haven’t yet lost their advantage, but Bay Area techies are writing increasingly sizable checks to GOP candidates and causes.

You betcha that the waning of the marriage issue is making this much easier for them.

Allum Bokhari, a British political consultant and Liberal Democrat, has penned an interesting column in which he finds a growing gulf between the views of moderate liberals and radical progressives on a number of key social issues. He writes:

The coalition of moderate liberals, skeptical intellectuals, and radical progressives that once stood together against the conservative “moral majority” is beginning to fracture. … [A] number of serious divisions have emerged on the cultural left. And they are becoming increasingly bitter. …

On Islamism:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a female genital mutilation survivor…was disinvited from a planned speaking engagement at Brandeis University for her criticism of Islam, and was stripped of her honorary degree. Salon.com immediately applauded the decision. … Students at UC Berkeley attempted to do the same to Bill Maher over his alleged islamophobia. … One of their [progressives] core beliefs is that you do not “punch down”—that is, attack vulnerable or marginalized communities. Islam, despite being the dominant religion of dozens of nation-states, is said by progressives to fall into this category. …

On due process:

These days…defenders of due process are more likely to be at loggerheads with radical progressives than Bush-era neocons. Nowadays, it is progressives, not conservatives, who championed the use of campus tribunals to deal with sexual assault on US campuses. These tribunals, conducted by untrained faculty members, with no requirement for defendants to have access to legal representation, have attracted a growing tide of criticism. …

On censorship:

Today…it is progressives who are not just standing up for the right of private censorship, but also actively demand it. It is progressives, not Christian conservatives, who now lead campaigns against sex and violence in the media. And it was progressive students, not middle-aged moral crusaders, who banned a pop song on over 20 university campuses. …

Bokhari concludes:

It increasingly appears that cultural politics, once the great strength of the left-wing movement, is rapidly turning into its Achilles heel. Once a source of unity, it has turned into perhaps the primary source of division. With moderate liberals and radical progressives sharpening their weapons on a number of fronts, a battle for the soul of the left is about to begin.

I fear that’s way too optimistic an outloook, at least when applied to the U.S. From what I can see, there aren’t many “moderate liberals” in this country who are willing to speak out against “radical progressives,” especially regarding due process protections and freedom of expression, although libertarians certainly are doing so.

More. For those who are interested, more from Allum Bokhari, via Britain’s Liberal Democratic Voice website.

Furthermore. Along somewhat similar lines, Jonathan Chait on How the language police are perverting liberalism:

But political correctness is not a rigorous commitment to social equality so much as a system of left-wing ideological repression. Not only is it not a form of liberalism; it is antithetical to liberalism. Indeed, its most frequent victims turn out to be liberals themselves. …

Liberals believe (or ought to believe) that social progress can continue while we maintain our traditional ideal of a free political marketplace where we can reason together as individuals. Political correctness challenges that bedrock liberal ideal. While politically less threatening than conservatism (the far right still commands far more power in American life), the p.c. left is actually more philosophically threatening. It is an undemocratic creed.

According to Mark Joseph Stein and J. Bryan Lowder, writing at Slate (LGBT Comes to the SOTU), Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address was historic in that it contained three references to gay rights and “marks the first time a president has used the words transgender and bisexual in a State of the Union address (in addition to the explicit use of the term lesbian rather than the generic gay).”

For many on the left, it seems, keeping count of nomenclature is exceedingly important. But I’ll grant you that inclusive rhetoric can matter. More importantly, however, let’s weigh the administration’s record.

The Employee Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA), then backed by many LGBT Democrats, never made it out of committee during the first two years of the Obama presidency when his party enjoyed large majorities in both houses of Congress—a sign of lack of administration interest in pushing it. But last year, the president belatedly fulfilled his 2008 campaign promise to issue an executive order barring government contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.

His administration sat back and would have allowed Harry Reid to scuttle a Senate vote to end “don’t ask, don’t tell” at the end of 2010, as I’ve written about before (Susan Collins and Joe Lieberman saved the day). Subsequently, however, the Defense Department moved to successfully implement the new policy of letting gays and lesbians serve openly in the military.

Obama initially ran for president opposing gay marriage, alluding to marriage’s “religious connotation” and holding that “marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.” But in office his position evolved to support for marriage equality. And while the truly historic advances for the freedom to marry were driven by lawsuits and the courts, the administration did weigh in against the Clinton-era Defense of Marriage Act. After the majority ruling penned by Justice Kennedy (a Reagan appointee) finding DOMA unconstitutional, federal agencies have moved to ensure equal treatment of same-sex spouses in the areas that they regulate.

As David Boaz sums up on The National Interest website about the speech and, more broadly, Obama’s legacy:

[W]e got a sweeping vision of a federal government that takes care of us from childhood to retirement, a verbal counterpart to the Obama campaign’s internet ad about “Julia,” the cartoon character who has no family, friends, church or community and depends on government help throughout her life. … The spirit of American independence, of free people pursuing their dreams in a free economy, was entirely absent. … The president wants more and better jobs. And yet he wants to raise taxes on the savings and investment that produce economic growth and better jobs. … President Obama’s tax-spend-and-regulate policies have given us the slowest recovery since World War II. You want to help the middle class? Lift those burdens.

But also:

I appreciate the president’s inclusiveness in his rhetoric and his policies. In 2013, he paid tribute to “Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall.” This year he cited gay marriage as “a story of freedom”—indeed, his only mention of freedom—and he touched on the deepest roots of our liberty and our civilization in this passage: “we are a people who value the dignity and worth of every citizen: man and woman, young and old, black and white, Latino and Asian, immigrant and Native American, gay and straight, Americans with mental illness or physical disability.”

All in all, the Obama administration’s record on gay rights may be its only lasting positive legacy.