IGF CultureWatch

In response to a campaign asking PBS to let long-time “Sesame Street” roommates Bert and Ernie get married, the taxpayer-funded producers announced that:

“Bert and Ernie are best friends … Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics …they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.”

Which came as news to blogger Julian Sanchez, who points out that many muppets of the opposite-sex variety often romantically date or pine for one another, and the Twiddlebugs muppets are a standard nuclear family. As Sanchez notes:

What all of these have in common is that they’re heterosexual couples. Because it’s regarded as the default, that “sexual orientation” is invisible. But, of course, it’s still there—and nobody imagines that simply depicting all these straight couples and families somehow counts as injecting inappropriate “adult” or sexualized material into a children’s show.

I doubt this is news to the clever producers at “Sesame Street,” however. More likely they’re dancing around the issue. To be fair, if Bert and Ernie got married there would be a huge brouhahah from the traditional values right, since PBS is a taxpayer-funded enterprise (that is, social conservatives have their money taken by the federal government and given to the producers, whether they like it or not). Since PBS has been long under fire for biased reporting favoring big government liberalism, a same-sex wedding could be the final straw.

Which is the problem with taxpayer-funded media; gay characters have proliferated on commercial and pay cable networks, including TV Land sitcoms, while children’s programming at liberal taxpayer-funded PBS remains in the 60s – big government is just dandy, but gays are in the closet.

What’s to say about the GOP debate last night? Romney further disgraced himself demanding that marriage be federalized; Huntsman defended civil unions and the rights of states to decide the issue but overall gave a lackluster performance. Paul was rambling. Santorum and Bachmann were evil. More from The Advocate.

Shifting gears but showing why the “progressive left,” despite its support for marriage equality, is a dreadful alternative, Barton Hinkle has a neat look at liberal apologists for the rioters in Britain.

Here in the U.S. we’ve just been through a budget showdown in which the side that wanted government spending to grow at a slightly less rapid pace than the other side wanted was denounced as terrorists in the literal sense. So far, none of those who called peaceful tea-party activists terrorists have flung the same accusation at the British rioters who have inflicted genuine terror. Interesting.

To be sure, those progressives seeking to understand what motivates the rioters in London do not actually endorse their behavior. They do not think individuals — no matter how aggrieved — should take it upon themselves to storm into other people’s shops and homes and “redistribute the wealth” as they see fit. After all: That, such progressives say, is government’s job.

More. Commenter “another steve” gets the point I was trying to make with this juxtaposition: “We have a choice of warmed over social democracy which has already crashed and burned in Europe, and social intolerance. We need to forge a new mainstream.”

From the Washington Blade: Debt Deal Could Jeopardize HIV/AIDS Funding. Yes, when it comes to the ballooning U.S. budget deficit, if you take entitlements off the table, as the Democrats demand, and rule out tax increases, per the GOP, then defense and so-called discretionary spending are going to take the hit.

In my view, big tax hikes would choke off what little recovery there is, draining money away from private sector investments where permanent, meaningful (not “make work”) jobs are created. That leaves entitlements, where the lion’s share of the unfunded deficit lives, and which keeps growing at an unsustainable rate. Medicare and Social Security will eventually have to be restructured and, to some extent, scaled back. But if Democrats run on “Mediscare” and dig in their heels, as it looks like they’ll do, the day of reckoning will only be delayed, and made worse. And discretionary funding, including HIV/AIDs and everything else, will by necessity suffer.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney has joined fellow Republican social right-wingers and presidential aspirants Michele Bachmann and Rick Santorum in signing a pledge to oppose same-sex marriage and defend the indefensible Defense of Marriage Act. The pledge is sponsored by anti-gay activist Maggie Gallagher’s National Organization for Marriage.

As CBSNews.com notes, Romney once upon a time made a very different pledge, promising he would be a stronger advocate for gay rights than his Massachusetts Senate opponent, Ted Kennedy. “We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern,” wrote Romney, then.

Turner Classic Movies last night showed “Random Harvest,” the old Ronald Colman/Greer Garson classic about a man who, due to trauma, suffers amnesia and forgets who he was, and then years later bumps his head, remembers his former life, and forgets everything that happened in between (including marrying Ms. Garson).

Wouldn’t it be nice if Romney would bump his head and announce he hadn’t a clue who Maggie Gallagher is, and was again dedicated to ensuring equality for gay Americans.

It won’t happen, of course. And there is a decent possibility that Romney will be president in 2013, with a Republican House and Senate. That’s why making all possible inroads with libertarian-minded GOP congressmembers is crucial.

The AP reports, Gay Marriage: Awkward Issue for Some GOP Hopefuls:

“They see the polling — more and more Republicans are supporting gay marriage,” said David Welch, a former research director for the Republican National Committee. “It puts them in an awkward position with the younger members of the party and also with independents whose votes you need to win.”

Yes, it does. And it’s not going to get any easier (as evidenced by Gov. Rick Perry’s Texas two-step flip-flop, discussed by Jon in the previous post). Eventually, the cost of placating the hardcore socially reactionary base will outweigh the advantages of appealing to libertarian-minded young voters and independents.

Below is a hopeful sign, despite the frenzied demonization of Tea Party activists by the hardcore, spendaholic left:

Sal Russo, a strategist for the Tea Party Express, said the movement’s followers are primarily concerned about the size and cost of government and have diverse views about social issues.

“We have libertarians who support same-sex marriage, and Christian activists who adamantly oppose it,” he said.

For about ten minutes, I thought Rick Perry, the governor of Texas, was going to be a surprisingly principled candidate for president, thus upending my impression that, these days, conservative Republicans’ idea of a public philosophy is to say whatever the base wants to hear.

Perry raised my eyebrows by sticking up for New York state’s right to adopt gay marriage, even though he and Texans might not like it. In July, Perry said this in a speech to Republican donors:

Our friends in New York six weeks ago passed a statute that said marriage can be between two people of the same sex. And you know what? That’s New York, and that’s their business, and that’s fine with me.

“Wow,” I thought: “Could it be? A pro-federalism Republican who actually means it?”

Nah. As Mike Riggs nicely points out in Reason.com, the governor did a backflip on July 28, landing himself firmly in the camp of fair-weather federalism. Pressed by Tony Perkins of the anti-gay Family Research Council, he lent his support to a federal constitutional ban on same-sex marriage—which would, of course, prevent New York or any other state from adopting it.

Reading the transcript brings no clarity. Perry is right to say that a federal constitutional amendment must be approved by three-quarters of the states, and therefore “respects the rights of the states” as a matter of procedure. But there’s no way to square his support for the amendment as a matter of policy with his statement elsewhere in the same interview that states should compete with each other, or with his statement in Aspen that Texas and New York should be allowed to go their separate ways.

Even more bizarrely, he claims in virtually the same breath that “to not pass the federal marriage amendment would impinge on Texas” by having “marriage forced upon us by these activist judges and special interest groups.” Got that? States should be allowed to compete. Except when they don’t all make the same choices.

It’s impossible to make any sense at all of this hash. But Perry’s point isn’t to be sensible; it’s to sound like a true-blue federalist without actually being one. And that, indeed, has been the strategy of supporters of the anti-gay-marriage constitutional amendment since literally Day One, when they announced that their amendment would strip authority from activist judges, even though, quite obviously, its real effect was to strip power from the states.

It’s quite easy to write an amendment telling federal judges to stay away from gay marriage. (“Nothing in this Constitution requires any state or the federal government to recognize anything but a union of one man and one woman as a marriage.” QED.) But, as Perry’s tail-chasing makes clear, the real goal here is to exploit the label of federalism, not to respect its meaning.

Last week, Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law SB 48, which requires that social science instruction in California schools include the contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons to the history of the state and nation. The bill had been strongly opposed by California’s Catholic bishops and the religious right. But that doesn’t automatically mean its passage was wise or that it was the right battle to pick at this time.

Immediately after the bill was signed (it’s set to take effect in the 2013-14 school year), opponents launched an effort to collect signatures for a ballot referendum to overturn it. That means another protracted and expensive battle that could very well, at the polls, result in a setback for gay rights advocates. A big reason why is that a lot of parents are likely to see the new mandate as a politically correct effort by Sacramento to placate activists representing a favored Democratic constituency, at a time when the state’s schools are having difficulty teaching the basics of reading, writing, math and history. That’s a persuasive argument to have to defend against.

The 2011 Education Week/Pew Center on the States’ Report Card on School Performance gives California schools a grade of “D-” for K-12 achievement, ranking the state 46 out of 51 states plus D.C. (The state’s overall grade, taking into account factors such as school financing and teacher credentials, is a “C,” for a somewhat better but still mediocre rank of 30.) Given this record, it’s likely the Golden State’s public schools will be as unsuccessful teaching gay history as they have been at teaching everything else, so the upside is rather minimal. The downside is to give the gay struggle for legal equality another distracting and unnecessary sideshow.

Here’s an interesting article from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, which holds that “There’s no need to sacrifice free speech for a campus to be accepting of LGBT students.” Prohibiting speech deemed to be “unwelcoming” of LGBT students really isn’t a good idea.

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal writes of the bluster against marriage equality in New York by the anti-gay National Coalition for Marriage (NOM) that:

the language [on a NOM-affiliated website] implies that the Legislature acted illegitimately when it “imposed same-sex marriage on New York with no vote of the people.” Such a vote is not part of the ordinary procedure for enacting legislation in New York, and it is misleading to pretend otherwise.

Taranto also describes a NOM demonstration he observed in New York:

Most interesting, it was a very diverse crowd–we’d say a quarter to a third black, with lots of Hispanics. That’s not really surprising. Notwithstanding their tendency to vote for Democrats, blacks and Hispanics tend to hold conservative views on so-called social issues. As we noted in November 2008, exit polls showed that black Californians backed Proposition 8 by 70% to 30%. . . .

It may turn out that yesterday’s diverse crowd represented the religious right of the future. If so, it will be interesting to see how the left tries to counter it. Maybe Thomas Frank can publish a book called “What’s the Matter with Harlem?” or Barack Obama can deliver a disquisition on African-American bitter clingers. We suspect minorities would find such condescension as off-putting as whites do.

No doubt they would.

More. NOM blogs in response to Taranto that “There will be an election in 2012, in which we will find out if Republican elites are right they can pass a gay marriage bill in NY without consequences.”

To which Taranto replies:

Imposing “consequences” on “Republican elites” is a perfectly legitimate goal. But to the extent that that is the objective of the “Let the People Vote” effort, it reinforces our view that the effort is deceptive.

I am as happy about New York’s marriage equality as anyone.  But as with so many other things, the headlines are disproportionate to New York’s actual contribution.  As with the Stonewall uprising, New York is more fortunate in having a large media megaphone than in having any national leadership role.  This is certainly not a bad thing, since attention to goings-on in New York helps to validate the work so many people across the country have been doing.  But New York is like Microsoft: It’s very good at taking (and being given) credit for the original ideas and labor of others.

And there is a very deep irony in this victory.  Governor Andrew Cuomo cannot receive enough credit for taking the lead in making this happen.  After years of feints and dodges by New York’s unfathomable legislature, Cuomo showed what political leadership looks like.

But in his statement after the vote, Cuomo said:

“This state, when it’s at its finest, is a beacon of social justice. . . .  [T]he legacy is that we are the progressive capital of this nation. . . . the other states look to New York for the progressive direction.”

But it is exactly because New York did not adopt key elements of the progressive era that this law cannot be challenged.  The referendum and initiative, in particular, were landmark progressive reforms, first adopted by Oregon voters in 1902 and then by California in 1911 at the urging of Governor Hiram Johnson.  The referendum allows people to vote directly to keep or abandon any legislation signed by the governor, and the initiative gives voters the power to pass laws directly.

The fact that New York has never adopted either of these iconic progressive reforms is what drives the National Organization for Marriage apoplectic.  Their window for appealing to the ebbing popular prejudice against lesbians and gay men is closing rapidly, and they still have a few states where they haven’t yet been able to leverage that to amend state constitutions and cement the status quo in place.

I can’t say I feel sorry for NOM.  But if I were Governor Cuomo, I’d be a little less cocky about how progressive my state is.