IGF CultureWatch

Columnist George Will scores some points in his column “Conformity for diversity’s sake,” but his argument gets marred by conservative tics such as conflating sexual orientation with “sexual practices,” as when he writes:

Last year, after a Christian fraternity allegedly expelled a gay undergraduate because of his sexual practices, Vanderbilt redoubled its efforts to make the more than 300 student organizations comply with its “long-standing nondiscrimination policy.” That policy, says a university official, does not allow the Christian Legal Society “to preclude someone from a leadership position based on religious belief.” So an organization formed to express religious beliefs, including the belief that homosexual activity is biblically forbidden, is itself effectively forbidden.

Still, liberals (in the classical sense, at least) should be wary of efforts to limit freedom of association, as Will points out when he quotes former U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, “the court’s leading liberal of the last half-century,” who said:

“There can be no clearer example of an intrusion into the internal structure or affairs of an association than a regulation that forces the group to accept members it does not desire. Such a regulation may impair the ability of the original members to express only those views that brought them together. Freedom of association therefore plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate.”

Put another way, if gay groups, say, on university campuses, don’t want to have to allow religious conservatives to attend their meetings and selectively quote Scripture at them, they shouldn’t insist that religious conservatives be forced to allow openly gay students to join their clubs. Of course, on today’s campuses, the former would never be tolerated, but demanding the latter reveals the ideological conformism that, as Will points out, underlies much of “diversity” orthodoxy.

Here’s an interesting look at Race, Religion and Same-Sex Marriage, via the New York Times. Writes openly gay columnist Frank Bruni, “the quest to legalize same-sex marriage — now permitted in six states and Washington, D.C. — has met particular resistance from African-Americans.” He notes that black oppositon played a major role in passing the anti-gay-marriage Prop. 8 in California and defeating an attempt to pass marriage equality legislatively in Maryland.

Bruni points out that the Human Rights Campaign has launched a media campaign using video testimonials by black celebrities and civil rights leaders to speak up for marriage equality. That’s certainly fine. Since HRC can’t/won’t work to make inroads among non-Democrats, at least focusing on winning over a large but recalcitrant part of the Democratic coalition makes sense.

Gay troops and veterans are challenging the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in a federal lawsuit. The federal law prohibits the U.S. government from providing numerous benefits to the spouses of gay troops, including health insurance coverage, surviving spouse benefits and the financial stipend for off-base housing. Pentagon policy also prevents gay couples from being allowed to live in on-base military family housing, which gay couples can do in Great Britain and Australia.

This seems like a savvy suit that hits the right cultural buttons, so I hope it goes somewhere.

Marriage equity, of course, remains a political fault line in America, with religious conservatives placing a stranglehold on GOP candidates who know (or should know) that support for a constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage throughout the U.S. hurts them with independents and socially moderate Republicans. But for the religious right, it’s a litmus test.

Witness the ordeal of Herman Cain. Last week the Washington Blade reported that Cain remarked on “Meet the Press” that “I wouldn’t seek a constitutional ban for same sex marriage, but I am pro-traditional marriage,” and that “Pressed by host David Gregory on whether states should decide the issue for themselves, Cain replied, ‘They would make up their own minds, yes.’”

The Blade also noted that “Earlier this month, Cain told the Huffington Post’s Sam Stein he has no problems with openly gay people serving in the military and wouldn’t seek to reinstate ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ if elected president.”

But just one week after the Blade ran that story, it reported that, after sharp criticism from the right, Cain indicated to the conservative Christian Broadcasting Network that he’d support the amendment because of efforts to undo the Defense of Marriage Act. “I think marriage should be protected at the federal level also,” Cain now said. “I used to believe that it could be just handled by the states…”—apparently just a week earlier.

Via the Los Angeles Times, a column about two lesbian moms pondering whether to allow their 4-year-old son to go “treat or treating” dressed as a princess. The moms seemingly are concerened about imposing gender stereotypes on their son by telling him girls become princesses and boys become princes (or wizards)—and they’ve “posted pictures on Facebook of Luc in a princess dress with a tiara.” But they’re fearful that unenlightened neighbors may say something hurtful:

after all the soul-searching is the very simple message [one of the moms] wants me to share: Remember the tenderness of children’s feelings if you open that door on Halloween and find a boy in a princess dress among the innocent trick-or-treaters.

Sexual orientation and gender identity may be hard wired, but this story raises all sorts of issues (including unanswered questions about whether the boy has any male role-modeling, and whether this is a 4-year-old transgendered person—or a case of gender-studies ideology run amok).

Alas, I tend to agree with the Times commenters who felt airing this “dilemma” in the paper, to be archived (and searchable under the kid’s name) forever, doesn’t seem like responsible parenting, aside from the expected responses charging that this is evidence of what happens without a mom and a dad.

Is it wrong for Democratic volunteers in a local Virginia legislative race to point out to Republican voters that the GOP candidate is openly gay (when his orientation isn’t stated in his campaign bio)? Patrick Forrest is running for the Virginia senate and (as reported in the Washington Blade) is “accusing his Democratic incumbent opponent of engaging in gay-baiting tactics, an assertion supported by an audio recording obtained by the Washington Blade of inflammatory remarks made by a Democratic volunteer.”

The Democrats argue that if Republicans were not homophobic bigots (and racist, and sexist, and all things morally inferior), it wouldn’t matter. But I tend to agree with A. Barton Hinkle of the Richmond Times-Dispatch that what these Democrats are doing is more like reinforcing the hidebound attitudes of certain Republican voters for partisan advantage, and being disingenuous about it to boot.

Strategically, it’s good to have gay Republicans elected to office, where their presence serves to counter their party’s anti-gay sentiments. Democrats, of course, put the interest of their party first. But that doesn’t mean antics like this should get a free ride.

More. The president of the DC chapter of the Log Cabin Republicans weighs in.

IGF CultureWatch contributor Dale Carpenter, blogging over at The Volokh Conspiracy site, takes note of a federal district court ruling that rejected a bid by supporters of an anti-gay marriage ballot initiative in Washington state to keep secret the names of those who signed the petition to get the anti-gay initiative on the ballot. As Dale recounts, the evidence in Washington state was comprised of allegations by initiative supporters that

involved “bothersome” phone calls, and name-calling using words like “homophobe” and “fascist.” A couple of claims involved alleged physical threats, which were reported to police. There were, however, apparently no prosecutions, much less convictions, for actual threats.

As Dales surmises:

The law protects us from violence and threats of violence. But it does not protect us from criticism, even harsh criticism, when we take public positions on public matters. It does not protect us from having our feelings hurt or from having others think poorly of us.

That’s a point that gay-baiting GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum should bear in mind. As The Hill reports:

Rick Santorum criticized a Saturday Night Live skit that poked fun at his anti-gay marriage views and trailing poll numbers as “bullying” in an interview this weekend.

Santorum also said that the gay community had “gone out on a jihad” against him. His comments are not only insulting to those who have actually suffered physical threats and bullying (e.g., gay students), but to victims of actual murderous jihad. What a loser. (And it’s our right to call him one, and his right to take offense—as lame as his offense-taking is.)

Frank Kameny made my life better. He made countless gay people’s lives better. He showed us the meaning of courage. He showed us the power of standing up for ourselves. He renewed our belief in moral suasion against ignorance and hostility. And he made his country, our country, truer to the better angels of its nature.

I will always feel grateful and fortunate to have lived in his wake. And nothing gives me more joy than knowing that he lived long enough to see himself vindicated and celebrated. The long arc of the universe does indeed bend toward justice.

I can’t think of much more to say than I said in this tribute from a few years back:

He exhibits an unshakable and unmistakably American confidence that all the great and mighty, no matter their number or power, must bow to one weak man who has the Founders’ promise on his side. “We are honorable people who deal with others honorably and in good faith,” he insisted to the Un-American Activities Committee. “We expect to be dealt with in the same fashion – especially by our governmental officials.” There you hear the pipsqueak, indomitable voice of equality.

For Kameny’s papers to join Thurgood Marshall’s and Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s [in the Library of Congress], and for his signs to join Jefferson’s writing desk and Lincoln’s inkwell [in the Smithsonian], seems fitting. All of those men understood that the words of 1776 set in motion a moral engine unlike any the world had ever seen; and all understood that the logic of equality could be delayed but not denied. Kameny, like them, believed that the Declaration of Independence means exactly what it says, and like them he made its promise his purpose.

Not that I’d make too much of it, but it’s at least worth noting that the Value Voters Summit presidential straw poll was won by Rep. Ron Paul, one of the 15 GOP House members to vote for repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and a non-supporter of the anti-gay federal marriage amendment. Businessman Herman Cain, who thinks homosexuality is a choice (when asked; his website is silent on gay matters when discussing “faith & family issues“), came in second. But former Sen. Rick Santorum and Rep. Michele Bachmann, the real homophobes who are the most vocal in scapegoating gay people and calling for anti-gay legislation, came in just third and fourth respectively (Gov. Rick Perry tied with Bachmann in the fourth spot).

Straw polls are won by the candidate with the best organization, but the Values Voters Summit is sponsored, and tightly controlled, by the vehemently anti-gay Family Research Council. That they couldn’t arrange for an anti-gay fire-breather to win is an encouraging sign of the times.

More. Per the comments, Rep. Paul made a conservative constitutional case against a constitutional amendment in “The Federal Marriage Amendment Is a Very Bad Idea” and in this interview with John Stossel.

In Britain, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron endorses marriage equality:

while the Conservatives were once opposed to same-sex marriage and LGBT rights as a whole, the party has in recent years attempt to shrug off its past and reform itself as a party of fiscal conservatism and responsibility while cultivating a more progressive social agenda.

The problem in the U.S., not surprisingly, is religious right social conservatism that has deformed both religion and politics. The goal is to move American conservatism away from where it is today—beholden to the religious right, much as the Democrats, to their detriment, are beholden to public sector unions. So far, no truly transformative path has been proposed, and a singular focus on electing Democrats, no matter how lame, because they’re not as awful as Republicans, isn’t getting us there.

Democracy isn’t easy, as this New York Times story about the fight for partner benefits in El Paso shows. But ultimately it’s what it takes to bring the public onboard.

As easy as it would be to characterized the minister fighting against partner benefits as “evil,” it would be more accurate, and useful, to see him as deeply misguided. Screaming denounciations at him and his followers, for instance, wouldn’t be particularly useful. Engaging the system to educate the public, as is being done, is the way to go.