IGF CultureWatch

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell could maybe, as Jon Stewart says, “Take it down a notch for America,” but he makes a sound enough point; anyone who refers to America’s “Catholic vote” is not saying anything coherent.

But I think O’Donnell misses the most important comparative statistic.  He overemotes the fact that 56% of American Catholics don’t believe same gender sexual relations are a sin, which is ten points higher than the general population.

True enough.  But far more important is the fact that this number is a full 56% higher than the figure for Catholic leadership on that supposedly doctrinal issue.

This is unsurprising to anyone who knows or loves an American Catholic.  But it’s importance goes much further than religion.  It’s not out of the question that the Catholic hierarchy is viewed favorably — at least on sexual morality — by about the same percentage of American Catholics as Muammar Gaddafi is, on any issue, by the Libyan people.

The difference, of course, is that Gaddafi has arms and the Vatican doesn’t — any more, at least.  But the larger point remains.  When leaders get too far out of touch with the people they’re supposed to lead, they lose their credibility.  The Vatican has credibility on many other, real moral issues, but its positions on sexuality have become bizarre through neglect or just stubbornness.  Catholics can freely ignore the Vatican since it has no real enforcement authority.  They can go to church (or not) for the good things the church stands for, and shake their heads at the more ludicrous positions.

With luck, we’ll be able to help a coalition deprive Gaddafi of his enforcement authority, and help the Libyan people enact the revolution of disregard for incompetence and malfeasance that this country’s Catholics have successfully fought and so happily won.

A sign of what’s wrong with today’s LGBT activism. Jeff Epperly explains how the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation is attempting to silence non-PC openly gay writers.

As the American Family Association continues in its quest to become the most annoying of the conservative gadfly organizations, they couldn’t have come up with a better pick for patron saint than Newt Gingrich.  Last year, Gingrich provided them with $350,000, more than a third of their funding to “defend traditional marriage” in Iowa by recalling judges whose marriage ruling they disagreed with.

The cheap shots at Gingrich’s own troubled marital traditions are too easy and numerous, and frankly they distract from a more important criticism.  To court the right wing, Gingrich has to feign for them the same obsession with same-sex marriage that blinds them to issues of real importance.  I don’t think Gingrich is, in fact, so blinded, but his generosity certainly won their admiration, and bought them success.  Iowa’s voters did throw out the three targeted Iowa Supreme Court justices, and they’re gunning for more.

This offense is a dangerous kind of defense – of marriage or anything else.  The justices were not accused of misconduct, of incompetence, of corruption, or any kind of scandal, defect or misbehavior.  They were accused, and found guilty, of a result.

Far more than that, they were found guilty of only a single result.  No other cases in their long careers, no positions they had taken, no opinions they had joined, but that one, were at issue.

This is politics in full fury, the very thing the founders wanted to protect the third branch of government from.  Every day, judges across the country deal with an infinite number of problems, and do their best to solve conflicts that seem to have no other solution.  Appellate courts, in particular, get only the most developed of these cases, and the time to consider them fully.  Multiplicity is what makes reviewing courts work: multiplicity of judges, multiplicity of cases, multiplicity of parties.

A recall election like this is not without precedent, but there are damn few others.  That’s because of their inherent nihilism.  This is political vindictiveness of a special kind, a frenzy of unconcern.  No possible opinion on this one matter, not even a unanimous one, could be persuasive or correct if it comes to the disfavored conclusion.

This isn’t, perhaps, a definition of bias or prejudice, but it’s awfully close.  It cannot exist without a necessary prior assumption that any justice joining the opinion is somehow acting in bad faith.  There is only one correct answer here, and judges had better get it right.

That undermines the entire role of the judiciary as an institution.  We need our courts to resolve conflicts, both personal and political.  Few cases have split the nation like Bush v. Gore, but after all the political poison was aired, we accepted the result.  That respect for the institution, however grudging, is one of the things that holds this nation together.

Gingrich is aiding and abetting the AFA, and many others, in a rancid enterprise.  Maybe right now, the only judges who need to worry are those who think the constitution’s specific enumeration of equality applies to same-sex couples.  But it’s short-term victories like that that can lead to the next single-issue recall, and the one after that.  Perhaps that sort of judiciary, driven by the politics of the moment, is the one a President Gingrich would want.  But it’s nothing like the judiciary the constitution gave us, or the one this country needs.

The Washington Blade reports:

Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisc.) maintained this week that pro-LGBT legislation could see progress in the Democratic-controlled Senate during the 112th Congress as prospects of movement are unlikely in the Republican-controlled House.

Well, yes. So, why weren’t these measures brought forward during the 111th Congress, when Democrats enjoyed large majorities in the House and Senate (with a filibuster-proof party majority in the latter for a year and a half, lost only with the election of moderate Republican Scott Brown)? It’s only now, when these bills are certain to die in the GOP House that the Democrats are making them an issue with an eye on rousing LGBT donors and support for 2012.

It’s the same old, same old. As I’ve previously argued, even repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell (DADT) was shoved off to the last possible moment last year, and then initially brought to the floor by Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid in a way that ensured maximum GOP opposition (i.e., with no debate allowed on amendments to the military appropriations bill). It was only when left-wing bloggers and activists began to turn on the Democrats over these shenanigans that a clean DADT repeal bill was brought to the floor and then passed with the support of six GOP Senators (including Scott Brown).

Anyone remember Bill Clinton’s first two years, with majorities in both Houses?

Gay voters are like Charlie Brown and congressional Democrats are Lucy, jerking the football away so that Charlie Brown trips and falls as he runs up and is just about to kick it. Again, and again, and again.

John Boehner and his House of Representatives will defend Section 3 of DOMA, no surprise to anyone.

In his statement, Boehner says, “This action by the House will ensure that this law’s constitutionality is decided by the courts, rather than by the President unilaterally.”  The cheap shot at the President is to be expected from a fellow politician.  Certainly, Boehner knows perfectly well that no president could finally decide unilaterally whether a law is or is not unconstitutional, and Obama hasn’t made any claim like that.  The President can offer the court his opinion, just as Boehner and his lawyers will, but in our constitutional system it’s up to the courts to make the final call about such things.

Interestingly, Boehner does mention that ultimate authority of the judicial branch, which is strange because that authority is, to the most conservative members of his party, a one-way ratchet.  To their way of thinking, courts have authority to declare DOMA constitutional, but if they declare it unconstitutional, they will be judicial activists, defying the elected branches.  That charge is as predictable as the sun rising in the east.

So now we have a situation where the Speaker of the House differs with the President about a law’s constitutionality.  If the courts rule Section 3 unconstitutional, then, how would anyone determine whether the court got it right?  The president who signed the bill isn’t in office any more, and the one who is says that, in his opinion, Section 3 is unconstitutional.  The current leader of the House says it isn’t.  How do you determine whether a court is activist or not if different political branches are of divided opinion?

This is exactly the reason making the judicial branch independent of the political branches was so profoundly important to America’s success.  Politicians always disagree, sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons, and sometimes for no reason at all.  When it comes to the law, someone has to resolve differences of opinion, even if those differences arise over time.  Courts are, above all, an institution that needs to transcend politics, as best they can, being composed of fallible human beings.

The constitutionality of Section 3 will now be both properly defended and properly challenged in the judicial branch, and it will be properly decided there.  Boehner is right that the courts are the correct place for such a ruling, and I think we have a right to expect him to be consistent about that when the courts do make their final decision.

I certainly don’t think libertarian-leaning Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) should be exempt from criticism, but the reporting shouldn’t be as misleading as in the Advocate story, Ron Paul Supports DOMA.

There is much confusion both by politicians and throughout the media over the fact that the Defense of Marriage Act that Bill Clinton signed into law has two aspects: Section Two holds that states do not have to recognize same-sex marriages that are authorized by other states. Section Three holds that the federal government may not recognize any state-sanctioned same-sex marriage for purposes of federal law, which includes matters such as joint income tax filing, spousal immigration, Social Security inheritance, etc.

An argument can be made that Section Two upholds federalism and, even if disagreeable, allows for a slow but steady progression of state-recognition for same-sex marriage without forcing Utah and Alabama to recognize marriages performed in Vermont and Massachusetts. That could have the positive benefit of taking some of the heat off of a push by social conservatives for a federal constitutional amendment that would bar all states from recognizing same-sex marriage.

But there is no justifiable federal argument on behalf of Section Three. It’s anti-federalist, imposing one doctrine (non-recognition) on all states. It’s also ahistorical, in that the federal government has always allowed states to define their own marriage laws and to then recognize those unions.

So what’s wrong with the Advocate piece? Here’s an excerpt:

Speaking to the group Family Leader in Pella, Paul said of DOMA, “I see that as an act that was prohibiting the move to nationalize [same-sex marriage] and force Iowa to accept the rules of Massachusetts or whatever,” The Des Moines Register reports. DOMA, which President Obama and the Justice Department said they will no longer defend in court, allows states to deny recognition to same-sex marriages performed in other states, and also prevents federal recognition of such unions.

Rep. Paul states his support for Section Two of DOMA. He doesn’t mention Section Three. But the Advocate then defines DOMA via non-federal recognition.

Maybe Rep. Paul is bad on that, too. But it’s not what he is quoted as saying and doesn’t jive with his opposition to a federal anti-gay marriage amendment. The magazine says, with some justification, that Paul “seemed unclear” and showed “confusion” about DOMA, which is true to the extent he didn’t mention the anti-federalist Section Three in making his federalist argument. But the Advocate itself further muddies the water by confusing support for Section Two with Section Three; they are different, and reporting should clarify, not confuse, that point.

It’s very possible that when DOMA reaches the U.S. Supreme Court, Section Two will be upheld but Section Three ruled unconstitutional. Our efforts should be concentrated on getting rid of Section Three, even if it means living with (or even embracing) Section Two. That will require a bit more sophistication than the Advocate and other media seem willing to muster.

In addition to the studies showing growing support for marriage equality that Jonathan Rauch notes below, according to the latest polling by the highly regarded and nonpartisan Pew Research Center, about as many adults now favor (45%) as oppose (46%) allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally. Last year opponents outnumbered supporters 48% to 42%. Opposition to same-sex marriage has declined by 19 percentage points since 1996, when 65% opposed gay marriage and only 27% were in favor.

But GOP leaders, with the marked exception of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, continue to place their bets on wooing the anti-gay right. As for Daniels, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll “appears to vindicate his repeated insistence that the country needs a ‘truce’ on fights over social issues while it grapples with its mounting economic challenges.” The Journal adds:

Nearly two thirds of Republican primary voters said they would be “more likely” to vote for a GOP primary candidate who says the party should focus more on the economy and the deficit and less on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion. Only 8% said they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate. The rest said they were unsure.

Yet this week House Speaker John Boehner announced he will be spearheading a congressional effort to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing state-sanctioned same-sex marriages. Once again, the GOP ensures it doesn’t miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

It was only two years ago that, for the first time, the share of Americans who think same-sex relations are morally acceptable grew larger than the share who condemned them—a first, and a breakthrough. Is same-sex marriage now at that point?

Maybe. Or, anyway, close. A unique data set going all the way back to 1988 finds that now, for the first time, more Americans support than oppose same-sex marriage.

I don’t actually think we’re there yet. Polls showing plurality support for SSM remain outliers. Most show the larger number are opposed: for example, this one shows 48-42 against.

Perhaps more significant: when you ask the question in what I think is the best way, offering the third option of civil unions, a lot of gay-marriage support shifts to CUs, with about a third of the public supporting each option. But that, too, represents a change. As recently as 2004, those opposing any legal recognition for gay couples outnumbered SSM supporters by two to one in many polls. (In 2008, Karlyn Bowman of the American Enterprise Institute published an excellent roundup.)

So, no, I don’t think gay marriage has attained true majority support. But gay relationships are there already. And, any way you slice it, the progress has been remarkable.

More: Here are two excellent scatterplots summarizing opinion on gay marriage. H/T Charles Franklin and HuffPo.