IGF CultureWatch

Finding “a new balance” between its obsession with gays and contraception and everything else would be better than not. But at some point (and it’s way, way past due), the Roman Church is going to have reform its dogma or risk increasing irrelevancy outside of the most hidebound jurisdictions. If the Latter-Day Saints can change course on formerly racist doctrine, then the Roman Church should be able to do so on its unchristian, non-Gospel-centered anti-gay doctrine, as it (mostly) has done on its past, 2,000 year history of virulent and bloody anti-Semitism. But will it?

More. A related controversy involving occasional IGF contributing author John Corvino: Catholic College Rescinds Invitation to Speaker Defending Same-Sex Marriage. John’s response is posted on his website, here.

Dale Carpenter blogs at the Volokh Conspiracy that federal recognition of same-sex marriages could put the kibosh on civil unions and domestic partnerships:

There is also, it should be noted, an effect for unmarried gay couples currently getting benefits from private employers who have recognized domestic partnerships…. Since federal benefits will now be available to same-sex spouses wherever they live, many companies across the country will likely end their domestic-partnership programs. Three decades of experimentation with alternative family statuses like civil unions and domestic partnerships is coming to an end.

That sounds reasonable, except that Wal-mart, the largest retail employer in the U.S., just announced it’s launching domestic partner benefits for employees and their (unmarried) same-sex and opposite-sex partners.

Given the decline in straight marriage, particularly among those with lower incomes, there may yet be a future for partner status, confirmed by employers if not by the state.

Eforts by Equal Marriage Arizona—a coalition of Log Cabin Arizona, local libertarians, and their allies seeking a 2014 referendum to overturn that state’s constitutional prohibition on same-sex marriage—have been scuttled by opposition from LGBT Democratic-party aligned activists. I can’t say for certain that the progressive LGBTers are wrong (they claim it’s not the right time), but I can attest, from personal experience, that they can be rejectionists about efforts that they themselves don’t initiate and control.

More from the co-chair of Equal Marriage Arizona:

We honestly thought that an effort initiated and led by Republicans and libertarians was the right choice for a heavily red state like Arizona, and I am still convinced of that. In fact, I think we knocked some of the Conservative opposition on their heels, and several Conservative commentators publicly stated that ours was a dangerously (for them) effective approach. In addition, a number of prominent Republicans took me aside and thanked me— they felt that getting this passed would help save the party from its worst impulses.

But how would that have served the one, true, Democratic Party?

Michael Barone makes some sensible observations about Obama’s fumbling foreign policy over Syria, which began with ill-conceived bombast and would-be military adventurism, and ends by making Russia’s Putin more powerful than ever:

It can be argued that Obama’s decision to hold off on air strikes and negotiate with the Russians is better for the United States in the short run than the other two alternatives on offer—ineffective air strikes or a landslide repudiation of the commander-in-chief by Congress. But in the long run it’s a terrible setback for America.

Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger muscled the Soviet Union out of Middle East diplomacy back in 1973. In the 40 years since, American presidents have kept the Russians out. Now they’re back in. A nation with a declining population, a weakened military and an economy propped up only by oil and gas exports has suddenly made itself the key interlocutor in the region. Obama has allowed this even though it’s obvious that effective disarmament is impossible in a nation riven by civil war and ruled by a regime with every incentive and inclination to lie and conceal.

At a time when Putin’s fascistic “managed democracy,” complete with anti-gay laws and thuggish street violence, should render him an international pariah, Obama has managed to make Putin the big political kahuna over the hide-saving fig leaf that Syria is going to turn over its chemical weapons (which even now it’s scattering and hiding) thanks to Putin’s benevolent intercession. Ah well, at least the Obama-Putin pact is sure to give us peace in our time.

More. How the world now sees Putin.

In New York City’s Democratic primary, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio easily bested City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. What’s worth noting is that exit polls show de Blasio, the most left-leaning candidate in the Democratic field, won handily over Quinn, who is openly lesbian and a long-time advocate for LGBT rights, among self-identified LGB voters (no polling of Ts), 47% to 34%, the New York Times notes. Among African-Americans, de Blasio—who is married to an African-American and featured his Afro-bearing black son in campaign commercials—tied former city comptroller William C. Thompson Jr., who is African American.

Perhaps gay New Yorkers no longer feel the need to vote for one of their own, or maybe “identity politics” is still the rule, but most LGB New Yorkers (or at least the Democrats) see their main identifier as being “progressives.”

Australia’s [now ex] prime minister, Kevin Rudd, provides as good a Christian response to the corrupters of the gospel as you’re likely to hear.

He follows up here.

Update. Tony Abbott’s Liberal-National Party coalition (that is, the political conservatives) has just scored a decisive win over Labour’s Rudd in Saturday’s Australian general election. Abbott is an opponent of marriage equality.

Alas, it’s the same old story: In terms of policy, Rudd is a big tax, big spending, big government (put pro gay marriage) guy; Abbott is much more fiscally responsible but bad on equality for gay Australians.

As it has done in Britain (and, to some extent, Canada), the fight for gay legal equality has got to break free of the left and find a home within conservatism. The U.S. and Australia lag far behind in this regard. And yes, to a large extent this is because of the strength of anti-gay religious rightists in America and Down Under; but it’s also a fact that the LGBT activist movement here is run by those whose self-identity is innately bound up with being on the left and supporting the expansion of the regulatory state.

Mary Cheney has quite rightly blasted her sister Liz (who is challenging incumbent Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi in a GOP primary) for attacking same-sex marriages, such as Mary’s.

Liz declared “I am not pro-gay marriage,” and that even same-sex marriage approved by state legislatures would not be valid in her eyes. Only if voters approve marriage equality by referendum would she concede that a state could recognize the marriages of gay couples (which she would still oppose).

Liz’s stance would invalidate the marriage of her sister Mary, who was wed in the District of Columbia (where same-sex marriage was passed by the city council and signed into law by the mayor), and make illegitimate the two children of Mary and her wife, Heather Poe. Which makes Liz a very bad aunt.

This sort of bigotry is increasingly going to be hard for GOP candidates to defend. But that won’t stop them from trying. And LGBT activists will continue to oppose those Republicans who do support same-marriage, as I’ve frequently pointed out (because it’s important to note their hypocrisy as well).

A lot has already been written about Joseph Bottum’s essay, “The Things We Share,” and it’s worth the attention it’s received from all sides.  I won’t try to intuit Bottum’s intent, or explicate his reasoning.  The piece speaks for itself, and has a lot to say.

One thread of his thought in particular sticks with me.  He takes time that many people do not to consider the “perceived offense” lesbians and gay men take to the arguments in favor of heterosexual-only marriage, and mentions Bruce Bawer and David Boaz among many who have taken umbrage at things he has written.  The essay was prompted by the deteriorated relationship he had with a gay friend.

Bottum is troubled by this unintended response.  He does not mean to give offense, and I see little reason to doubt that.  He will never be a champion of same-sex marriage, but he doesn’t seem to have a homophobic bone in his body.

So is the offense strictly on us?  Are we being overly sensitive?

I think this question marks the primary disconnect between those who genuinely dislike or fear homosexuality and those who are struggling in good faith with a hard social and moral issue.

And I’d pose the answer as a further question: When it comes to marriage, how could we not take our exclusion personally?  What kind of human beings would we have to be to not experience some level of offense?

You don’t have to have read Jonathan Rauch’s “Denial: My 25 Years Without a Soul” (though you should) to understand how important this is.  Lesbians and gay men are, first of all, human, with all that entails.  Our sexual orientation is fully bound up in our humanity.  When we are treated – or treat ourselves – as if we are heterosexual, one of the most fundamental parts of our entire humanity is distorted, and the corrosive effects compound from that.

If you reduce sex to a biological minimum, then gender is all, and an orientation toward one gender or another is surplussage.  That is the premise upon which our notions of sexual morality have proceeded.  From that foundation, philosophers and theologians have built a structure that assumes a rationale for sex – reproduction – and works backward.  Marriage is not, itself, biological, something we know from observing animals who generally lack our sophisticated rituals and relationships, but have been able to reproduce successfully for all of recorded time.

Animals are not moral creatures, though.  The beneficial effects of biological parents raising their own children are undeniable.  But even the most charitable view of parent-child relationships through history shows that this biological-marital ideal has been erratic and unconstant.  At the very least it has always admitted exceptions.

A morality that does not allow for human inconsistency is no morality at all, it is a command.  The debate over same-sex marriage has often tortured morality into the worst kind of science, where exceptions cannot be tolerated.

This is the moral universe lesbians and gay men find ourselves inhabiting.  Opponents who are the least thoughtful assume that we are heterosexuals gone wrong, are violating a dictate of nature either to be attracted only to members of the opposite sex, or at least to act that way.

Bottum seems to accept that some people truly are homosexual in orientation, a profoundly important position the Catholic Church acknowledges.  And the dilemma he faces is that the only choices offered to us in the current moral map that the church navigates from are ones no heterosexual would find tolerable: a lifetime of chastity, or marriage to someone who holds no sexual attraction.

So what kind of humans would we be if we did not, at a minimum, say that this view of morality is incomplete?  It is a moral vision designed for only one group, assigning homosexuals to a lifetime of immorality by definition, or without any possibility of intimacy, connection, love.  Is this the way morality, or any kind of god, should work?

If we are human at all, of course we would object, even take offense when these are the only options we are offered.  But more to the point, as Americans, our moral universe is also shaped by our nation’s ideals.  The promise of equality is no small part of the things we take for granted – a fact borne out by the strong support of American Catholics who, at a healthy 54%, are among the most accepting of all religious groups of same-sex marriage.

Bottum ultimately accepts that same-sex marriage is succeeding in the public mind (and not just in the U.S.), and worries about the damage the church’s increasingly hostile arguments about civil marriage are doing to its reputation.  That is certainly a matter between him and his church’s leaders.  All I can add, as one of the many who left the church of my birth over exactly this issue, is that I would be less human, and less Catholic if I did not object – sometimes strenuously – to their moral vision of a world that has no place in it for both me and my soul.

On a positive note, libertarian-minded Republican Joe Lhota sounds like he would make an excellent mayor of New York. Via the New York Post:

Joe Lhota calls himself a “new brand of Republican” — in favor of “fiscal discipline” but progressive on social issues: He’s pro-choice on abortion, is fine with same-sex marriage, and is in favor of legalizing marijuana.

Asked when he last smoked pot, he said, “It’s been 40 years. It’s so long ago I can’t remember. I probably had a full head of hair.” But Lhota does recall holding libertarian views when he was just 10 years old. “In 1964, I tried to convince my grandfather, who was active in the New York City firefighters union, to vote for Barry Goldwater over Lyndon Johnson because at the time I thought his approach to limited government was right on,” he recalled.

Lhota is not anti-government—after all, he served as a deputy mayor and also ran the MTA. But, he says, “it’s not the role of government to tell us what to do and what not to do. There’s nothing more offensive to Americans—or New Yorkers in particular.”

He’s the kind of Republican many of us hoped Chris Christie would be, but isn’t.

Lhota is now the GOP frontrunner in the upcoming primaries. It increasingly looks like the Democrats will nominated the most left-leaning candidate in their “colorful” field, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio. The candidacy of openly lesbian City Council Speaker Christine Quinn seems to be fading.

More. Speaking of New Jersey and bad Republicans, GOP Senate candidate Steve Lonegan hits a new low.

Conservative Christians have constitutional rights, too. But not in New Mexico.

A truly appalling, if unanimous, decision by the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled it is illegal for a Taos event photographer to refuse on religious grounds to shoot the commitment ceremony of a same-sex couple.

Elaine Huguenin and her husband, Jonathan, argued they had a free speech and religious right not to shoot the ceremony, which conflicted with their fundamental religious tenets. As the Wall Street Journal‘s Law Blog notes,

The case dates back to 2006 when Vanessa Willock asked the Huguenins to photograph a commitment ceremony that she and her partner were planning to hold in the town of Taos. After getting turned down, the couple accused the company of discrimination in a complaint to the New Mexico Human Rights Commission.

An amicus brief filed on behalf of the Huguenins by the Cato Institute, Prof. Dale Carpenter and Prof. Eugene Volokh had argued that constitutional protections for free speech apply to creative endeavors such as photography, and that:

the taking of wedding photographs, like the writing of a press release or the creation of a dramatic or musical performance, involves many hours of effort and a large range of expressive decisions.

Therefore, requiring a commercial photographer to provide services is different from requiring other services be provided on a nondiscriminatory basis. But to no avail. In New Mexico and increasingly elsewhere, once progressives are empowered, anyone can and will be ordered to dance to their tune.

Back in 2008, I noted of this case:

Aside from the legal merits of violating [Elaine] Huguenin’s liberty, just what do the offended lesbians who brought this action hope to accomplish by forcing Huguenin to work for them? It’s the kind of totalitarian-leaning nastiness in the name of the self-righteous promotion of “equality” that would make Robespierre proud.

I again discussed this case last September, noting George Will’s observation that Vanessa Willock, the lesbian bringing the suit,

could then have said regarding Elane Photography what many same-sex couples have long hoped a tolerant society would say regarding them—“live and let live.” Willock could have hired a photographer with no objections to such events. Instead, Willock and her partner set out to break the Huguenins to the state’s saddle.

I’d now put it this way: Why a gay couple would want to force a photographer to cover their ceremony against his or her will can be explained in one word: animus. Now the bigots will pay!

And thus does a just cause for expanding liberty fall prey to the nasty zealots of forced coercion, smugly congratulating themselves on their triumph.

More. The AP (via NPR’s website) on the “Divide Over Religious Exemptions on Gay Marriage.” Jonathan Rauch is quoted on why moderation should prevail.

Furthermore. I think this comment gets it right. For all those declaring the supremacy of the state over an individual’s religious convictions, and its authority to force behavior that violates religious convictions, shame on you.

And worth repeating. From The Communist Roots of Russian Homophobia:

While it is among the most evil manifestations, Russia’s homophobia is just one symptom of its collectivist and tyrannous history. It acts as a reminder that tolerance does not require secularity so much as a free society where all individuals, regardless of their religion, political beliefs, gender identity or sexual orientation, are allowed to live their lives in peace without state interference.

How many of the LGBT progressives who are (rightly) condemning Putin’s tactics in Russia support, here at home, using the iron fist of the state to force Americans to engage in conduct that violates their religious beliefs?