IGF CultureWatch

So reports the New York Times News Service. Yes, I know, it’s pressure from the anti-gay social conservatives that dominate the GOP that keeps Obama from banning anti-gay discrimination or supporting marriage equality—and it’s the reason why the Democrats failed to move forward with the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, which never left committee when they controlled both houses of Congress for the first two years of Obama’s presidency, and why the Democratic leadership dragged its feet on repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” until the Log Cabin Republicans’ lawsuit (and an uproar from LGBT bloggers) forced a last-minute move.

But if that is the case, then really, wouldn’t it make sense to shift the focus to supporting, and electing, pro-gay Republicans, whereas the national strategy of making the major LGBT lobbies into fundraising arms of the Democratic Party is likely to produce just more of the same?

More. From the Washington Blade: “U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) expressed little interest Wednesday in advancing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in the wake of an announcement from the White House last week that the Obama administration won’t take action against LGBT workplace discrimination at this time.” And why would he?

The anti-gay right knows how to play the victim card, complaining of bigotry against them at every turn.  And the left knows how to make them feel that way.

It is possible to oppose same-sex marriage without holding homosexuals in disdain, but that’s a very fine line.  David Blankenhorn manages to stick the landing.  His opposition to the North Carolina amendment to ban any relationship rights for same-sex couples is the model of how to oppose marriage equality, yet show some respect for the problem that same-sex couples have under the law.

I, of course, disagree with his opposition to equal marriage rights.  But Blankenhorn has shown what bigotry isn’t.

Longtime friend of this site Milan Vydareny writes about this upcoming event remembering IGF founder Paul Varnell:

Plans near completion for Paul Varnell memorial event

“Programming for the Paul Varnell Memorial Event has achieved critical mass,” announced event Programming Chair Greg Nigosian. “We have received solid confirmations from several speakers recently and we are confident of presenting a meaningful and memorable event for those in attendance.” Additionally, several other individuals have indicated a willingness to contribute but are in the process of clearing schedules to enable their participation.

Included in the afternoon lineup of confirmed speakers are Jack Rinella, a sought-after lecturer and author who will recount Varnell’s mentorship and encouragement; conservative gay leader Tim Drake will speak on their early conservative/ libertarian political activities; Dr. David Ostrow is expected to address his and Paul’s early AIDS activism; Milan Vydareny had a number of projects with Varnell and remembers Paul as a “connector and early adopter.”

The final portion of the afternoon will be reserved for a moderated open discussion and extemporaneous presentations by attendees.

The Event will take place at 2:00 PM on Sunday, April 15, 2012 in the Etienne Auditorium of the Leather Archives & Museum at 6418 N. Greenview Ave. on Chicago’s North side. Doors will open at 1:30 PM.

The event website, http://varnell.lionwood.com, has complete information. Interested persons can also sign up for the event mailing list to receive timely notices about the event as planning is finalized.

Varnell, who died December 9, 2011 at the age of 70, has been variously described as a Renaissance Man, a curmudgeon, brusque, one of the kindest and most compassionate men alive, conservative, libertarian, a gay activist and advocate, a journalist, social commentator, art critic and enormously multifaceted. In fact, he was all of these things and much more. The event will provide the opportunity to recount and share in some the eclectic experiences that distinguished the life of Paul Varnell.

The event organizers, Milan Vydareny and Greg Nigosian were long-time friends of Varnell and have participated with him over the years in various projects and activities related to activism and the advancement of gay rights.

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“Homophobia is more pronounced in individuals with an unacknowledged attraction to the same sex and who grew up with authoritarian parents who forbade such desires,” a series of psychology studies at the University of Rochester demonstrates. You’ll never get the homophobes to admit it, but as anti-gay paranoia wanes throughout culture and society, we should see a decrease in this kind of reaction formation.

James Kirchick takes note that the Seattle LGBT Commission had planned to meet with a group of Israeli students touring the U.S. under the auspices of the Alliance of Israeli LGBT Educational Organizations. “It would be hard for anyone, outside the confines of the gay-hating religious right, to find anything pernicious about such an endeavor,” Kirchick writes. Yet the Seattle commission canceled the meeting after a protest by an anti-Israeli “progressive” academic at Seattle University. “We weren’t prepared to handle the Palestinian question,” said the commission’s co-chair.

Kirchick points out “the not-insignificant point that Israeli society doesn’t sanction the torture and murder of homosexuals, whereas Palestinian society—like the vast majority of Arab and Muslim societies—does.”

President Barack Obama has now shared with us his view of the Supreme Court’s role, which is to uphold laws that are passed democratically by Congress, and that for the court to overturn such a law would be “unprecedented” and “judicial activism.”

As the Washington Post reports:

President Obama challenged the Supreme Court on Monday to uphold his administration’s sweeping health-care reform legislation, arguing that overturning the law would amount to an “unprecedented, extraordinary step” of judicial activism. …

Obama questioned the authority of the nine-member panel of unelected justices to reverse legislation that was approved by a majority vote in Congress. … “I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years what we’ve heard is, the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint—that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law,” Obama said during a Rose Garden news conference. “Well, this is a good example. And I’m pretty confident that this court will recognize that and not take that step.”

Obama added:

“Ultimately, I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

In reality, the bill was pushed through the House by Democratic leaders on a narrow vote of 219-212, not winning any Republican support. Even if it were relevant, “strong majority” is not only a lie, it’s a stupid lie.

Of course, he’s being mendacious and hypocritical (evidently, our great Constitutional scholar-in-chief has never heard of Marbury v. Madison, or so you might think). But even so, putting forth this argument will come back to bite “progressives” — such as when the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that prohibits the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriage, which actually was passed by Congress with big (and bipartisan) majorities and signed into law by President Clinton, comes before the High Court.

More. David Boaz blogs at Politico:

It’s striking to me how the liberals and Democrats on this panel are bending over backward to defend the president’s strikingly inaccurate statement. … Everyone who observes the Supreme Court – every constitutional law professor, every reader of newspapers – knows that it’s just nonsense to say that it would be “an unprecedented, extraordinary step” to “overturn a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

More. Conor Friedersdorf writes at The Atlantic:

President Obama’s recent remarks notwithstanding, it isn’t as if the left wants a Supreme Court that consistently respects legislative majorities. The iconic decisions of the Warren Court, Roe vs. Wade, and efforts to extend marriage rights to gays are all premised on the notion that striking down popular laws is sometimes a worthy enterprise. Nor is the left going to champion fidelity to the text of the Constitution as it was understood at the time of the country’s Founding. And as Lawrence v. Texas shows, liberals are comfortable celebrating when longstanding precedents are overturned ….

Except when they’re not.

And from conservative columnist Byron York:

A decision on DOMA, which has not yet arrived at the Supreme Court, lies in the future. But if those arguments come when Barack Obama is president, perhaps DOMA’s defenders will remind the administration of the president’s respect for duly constituted and passed laws.

Furthermore. In the comments, “another steve” responds to criticism of this post from our loyal left-liberal readers:

It’s just nonsense to say the president’s remarks were taken “out of context.” They weren’t very long, you can read them in all the major papers. And many liberals immediately defended them, until the party’s talking points changed.

Finally, from the Washington Post fact checker: “It’s clear that Obama’s ‘unprecedented’ comment was dead wrong, because the Supreme Court’s very purpose is to review laws that are passed by the nation’s democratically elected Congress — regardless of how popular or well-intentioned those laws may be…. “

Via Real Clear Politics.

I think if President Obama came out as gay, he wouldn’t lose the black vote,” a cheerful Van Jones told MSNBC this afternoon. “President Obama is not going to lose the black vote no matter what he does,” he added.

Jones seems to recognize that homophobia is a factor in the black community, but goes on to dismiss its impact (and then, to be fair, he defends marriage equality, which few Republicans would do). Still, the linkage of “coming out as gay” and “no matter what he does,” with all that chortling between Jones and the MSNBC gang, is more than a little unsettling.

In the 1980s, Larry Kramer was the best Cassandra a movement – and a nation – could have asked for.  Caustic, relentless and loud, Kramer gave us all a kick in the butt and ACT UP, both badly needed, and both successful beyond anyone’s imagining.

More than a quarter century later, he’s finding it hard to accept victory.  His sour screed at the Huffington Post is unnecessary, overheated and wrong.  In typical Kramer fashion, he overargues his case, but what once was passion now just comes across as melodrama:

During World War II, when Jews were being gassed to death by the trainload, the great Jewish scholar of political theory Hannah Arendt told her people they should form an army to fight back, and that they only had themselves to blame if they didn’t. We had that army for a while. It was called ACT UP. What happened to it?

Well, two things.  First, after its victory, it moved on.  Yes, there still is HIV, and yes, far too many people suffer and die as a result.  But today that is more a function of poverty, ignorance and other social conditions than of homophobia and the pathological need to make gay people invisible.  While one part of the ACT UP forces became more radical, the rest saw they really had made a difference, and tried to actually enjoy the fruits of their labor. The AIDS fight did more than just save the lives of millions, and bring a generation out of the closet, it was the earthquake that uprooted in heterosexuals the refusal to acknowledge gay people even existed.

And because of that, a second thing happened to the army: It enlisted an uncountable number of heterosexuals.  Kramer may have difficulty accepting that fact, since he seems to have blinded himself to the idea that heterosexuals can be not only our allies but also our champions.  But that is the most profound change that has happened since the 1980s.

The problem of a minority in a democracy is that it cannot, by definition, succeed on its own.  It must have allies, either in the political realm or at the very least, in the courts.  And today, we have no shortage of such allies: Ted Olson and David Boies; Meghan and Cindy McCain; Andrew Cuomo and Christine Gregoire; George Clooney and Brad Pitt;  Isaiah Thomas, Antonio Cromartie and Scott Fujita; Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt. . . . It is utterly impossible to draft a complete list of heterosexuals who not only support us, but have taken public roles in fostering our equality.

But don’t tell that to Kramer:

To those still alive, just know that there’s no one out there fighting for you now. [snip] Why can’t we, once and for all, bond together to fight for our mutual needs? Where are the leaders who can lead us on this journey to our equality?

Kramer’s pessimism seems to come from his view that only gay people should or can fight for their rights:

What does that say about how much the gay population wants to fight for these rights that I speak of? I think we help to kill each other by not fighting together to get these rights, by fighting each other instead, and not fighting against all the hate that’s always out there coming non-stop from our enemies.

Yes, we still have enemies who fire non-stop hate in our direction.  Bully (you might say) for them.  But it’s hard work these days being that grim a pessimist.  With the important exception of schoolchildren, the vast majority of us can ignore the haters (or even love them, depending on your philosophy), and keep convincing the far larger group of waverers.  And in a beautiful exponential progression, each person who changes in our favor changes others.  That progression does not work in the opposite direction.

If I were in a position to give any advice to Kramer, it would be to open his gaze a little, and include heterosexual supporters in his worldview.  The glass isn’t half empty, it’s three-quarters full.

David Boaz blogs “Conservatives Shift on Gay Marriage.” Well, OK, it’s mainly about Britain’s Conservative Party, which is leading the charge for same-sex marriage in the U.K. But Boaz notes that, here in the U.S., “Republicans too know that ‘young urbanites’ are overwhelmingly supportive of marriage equality, and they don’t want to lose a whole generation.”

But when (or whether) the GOP can move forward by doing both what’s right (the principle of equal freedom under the law) and politically pragmatic (appealing to the center) in the face of intransigent opposition by the Santorum social right, whose activists still dominate GOP presidential caucuses, remains to be seen.

More. From Politico, Republicans Retreat on Gay Marriage:

Just a few years ago, House Republicans were trying to etch their opposition of gay marriage into the Constitution. Now? They’re almost silent. …

It’s not like the GOP has become a bastion of progressiveness on gay rights, but there has been an evolution in the political approach — and an acknowledgment of a cultural shift in the country.

And the article notes this:

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released earlier this month showed a 9 percent increase in support for gay marriage among Republicans to 31 percent. Support among 18-to-34-year-olds was nearly 70 percent, according to a 2011 Washington Post/ABC News poll.

And so the wind blows.

As a result of litigation the National Organization for Marriage was compelled to release some of its internal documents, which have now been published at HRC, BuzzFeed and elsewhere. One widely criticized board document proposes “fanning the hostility” between blacks and gays; that has drawn rebuke from almost every quarter, including Barry Deutsch of FamilyScholars.org. And Rob Tisinai of Box Turtle Bulletin wonders whether when NOM laid plans to fan hostility in this way, it stopped to think what the effect might be on black gay teens.

I contributed a comment at National Review Online about another of the revelations in the documents, which involves the sowing of discord and enmity at the most intimate level imaginable:

To me the most striking detail was that NOM had budgeted $120,000 for a project to locate children of gay households willing to denounce their parents on camera.

Whenever I hear NOM described as “pro-family” from now on, I will think of that fact.

I wonder whether some of these revelations might bring about a “one night he heard screams” moment for some who have backed NOM in the past.