IGF CultureWatch

A new study by the Pew Research Center shows that four out of 10 Americans believed marriage is becoming obsolete. In 1978, just 28 percent felt that way.

Although the push by gay people for marriage equality goes against this trend, expect social conservatives to blame us for the decline in marriage.

The real reason marriage is on the ropes: about 29 percent of children under 18 currently live with a parent or parents who are unwed or no longer married, that’s five times more than the number from 1960.

Then there’s the class angle. In 1960, people with a college degree were only 4 percentage points more likely to be married than people with just a high school education or less. By 2008, that gap widened to 16 percentage points.

The rise of the welfare state has much to do with the decline of marriage and coherent families as support systems. On this as on other matters, limited-government conservatives and libertarians are correct, and social conservatives who scapegoat committed gay couples are wrong.

More. Maybe this will help bring marriage back into vogue.

GOPround, a gay conservative group, and representatives of leading Tea Party organizations have sent a letter to House and Senate Republican leaders urging them to keep social issues off the Republican agenda, reports Politico. The letter states:

“On behalf of limited government conservatives everywhere we write to urge you and your colleagues in Washington to put forward a legislative agenda in the next Congress that reflects the principles of the Tea Party movement. . . . This election was not a mandate for the Republican Party, nor was it a mandate to act on any social issue, nor should it be interpreted as a political blank check. . . .

We urge you to stay focused on the issues that got you and your colleagues elected and to resist the urge to run down any social issue rabbit holes in order to appease the special interests. The Tea Party movement is not going away and we intend to continue to hold Washington accountable.

“When they were out in the Boston Harbor, they weren’t arguing about who was gay or who was having an abortion,” said Ralph King, a letter signatory who is a Tea Party Patriots national leadership council member.

More. EDGEBoston, a gay paper, provides some background and analysis, concluding:

Some social conservatives. . . have decried the shift in focus from social hot button issues. . . . With American society becoming more accepting of GLBT citizens, however, the nation’s politics seem bound to change as well. For the moment, it appears as though gays wishing for less government intrusion into their lives may have made common cause with other stripes of conservatism.

Every time I think I have reached the limit of my disappointment in John McCain, he manages to push the envelope.  With this morning’s appearance on Meet the Press, he has achieved a level of disingenuousness I didn’t think was humanly possible.

David Gregory naturally asked McCain about DADT repeal.  McCain first takes a side swipe at the fact that the results of the military survey were prematurely leaked, as if that somehow affected what they show.  Perhaps what was leaked is not, in fact, accurate.  If that’s true, a lot of folks will be red-faced, and should be.  But if the results are as advertised, the fact that they came out early, and without authorization, doesn’t change the answers. The primary danger of leaking the results is to make it a bit harder for politicians, and the politically inclined military brass to spin the answers.  That’s not a dangerous matter of military strategy, it’s an unfortunate problem of political inconvenience.

But McCain’s main missing of the point is that the leaked study is flawed because it examines how to implement repeal of DADT, not what its effects on military readiness and morale would be.  Now certainly the President was clear that he was interested in a study that would help implement repeal, rather than decide whether to repeal or not.  But the survey asks every question – and then some – that anyone in authority would want to have answered if they needed a baseline assessment for dealing with the presence of openly homosexual troops in a military that, like the country at large, is overwhelmingly heterosexual.  The answers reveal how many are ready to know which of their comrades are homosexual (instead of going to all the trouble of guessing), and who is going to drag their feet, be a problem, or need special attention.  A bigger number of gay opponents would suggest a bigger problem.  And I can’t imagine a survey that would be better designed to serve that purpose; in fact, I believe it seemed almost designed to elicit anti-gay responses.

So the obvious came as a surprise to me, that our predominately young military is not unlike the general population in its positive-to-neutral sentiments about homosexuality.  McCain, along with some other top military leaders, seems to be hoping that there would be more anti-gay feeling among the troops, and is disappointed.  The 70% of the military who either support lesbians and gay men or find nothing worrisome, is almost exactly the same level of support that DADT repeal shows in surveys of the rest of the country.

Which shifts the focus to the 30% in both the general and military populations who continue to oppose homosexuality and homosexuals.  Since they are not a majority – not even close — the question is whether (and how) to deal with them.  Up until now, as a large majority, they’ve had their way with a policy that makes homosexuals, not them, the problem.  Now that’s turning around, and I’m sure it’s hard for them.  Fortunately, they have friends in high places.

McCain is providing his small band of resisters with aid and comfort.  Those of us who used to believe he was a moderate, rational Republican have seen him becoming nearly maddened by DADT repeal, to the point of declaring that he would stand alone to filibuster against it.  Watch his cold, cheerless laugh on Meet the Press.

Closer to home, the horrifying evidence of fairness among the troops has caused him to pull in the reins on his wife, who doesn’t strike many people as a woman who would take naturally to that.  Cindy McCain’s participation in the NOH8 campaign has been a small political miracle of open tolerance in a world of political spouses who find it more amenable to toe the party line — at least until it’s safe, as with Laura Bush, whose gentle common sense on gay rights was never allowed to surface during her husband’s presidency.

John McCain cannot make his thirty percent into fifty, but the magic of politics is that they might be just enough to continue to hold back an inevitable change a bit longer. That is why his wife’s silence is valuable.  She has been helping gain supporters for equality, while her husband is dedicating himself to not losing more of his misguided followers.  He’s only got one more victory in front of him, while all of hers are in the future.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Modern Family,” a sitcom that includes a gay couple with an adopted child, is the third most popular show among self-identified Republicans but doesn’t break into the top 15 among Democrats. Surprised?

“Desperate Housewives,” a comedy about families and friends with gay characters, ranks tenth among Republicans and doesn’t crack the Democrats’ top 15 (the show, by the way, is created, written and produced by Marc Cherry, described on his Facebook page as a “somewhat conservative, gay Republican” and winner of Log Cabin Republicans’ American Visibility Award.) However, “Brothers & Sisters,” a large family drama with a gay couple (and a more didactic liberal line) ranks sixth among Democrats but doesn’t break the GOP’s top 15.

And then there’s this to ponder:

“Mad Men”… scores through the roof with Democrats (does anyone in Santa Monica or on Manhattan’s Upper West Side not watch it?), but it has one of the weakest scores among Republicans. The same is true for FX’s “Damages,” Showtime’s “Dexter,” HBO’s “Entourage” and AMC’s “Breaking Bad.” . . .

“The big shows with mass appeal tend to have above-average scores from Democrats and Republicans but with higher concentrations of Republicans,” says John Fetto, senior marketing manager at Experian Simmons. “Looking at the Democrats side, I don’t mean to make light of it, but they seem to like shows about damaged people. Those are the kind of shows Republicans just stay away from.”

The openly gay and lesbian members of Congress, all Democrats, have endorsed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to remain as soon-to-be minority leader in the new Congress, the Washington Blade reports. Her tenure was also praised this week by the Human Rights Campaign, which operates as a Democratic party fundraising machine. But some moderate Democrats and remaining “blue dogs” from swing districts don’t think the ultra-liberal San Franciscan is the best choice going forward, pointing out that she’s “politically toxic” outside of liberal enclaves. That’s probably right.

On gay issues, Pelosi’s achievements were limited to (in my view) a bad federal hate crimes bill and passage of legislation that would have allowed the president to end don’t ask, don’t tell, but which died in the Senate. The Pelosi House never moved on modifying the Defense of Marriage Act (which bars the federal government from recognizing state-sanctioned same-sex unions), or even the liberal-championed Employee Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA).

From the Blade story:

“Speaker Pelosi has been a consistent ally and advocate not just for LGBT people but for all fair-minded Americans throughout her congressional career,” [Fred Sainz, the Human Rights Campaign’s vice president of communications] said. “She has vigorously supported full and equal rights for LGBT people long before it was politically acceptable to do so.”

But John Aravosis, the gay editor of AMERICAblog, said Pelosi is responsible in part for the lack of progress on pro-LGBT legislation during the first two years of President Obama’s administration. Still, while he said he’s not completely satisfied with Pelosi, Aravosis said other LGBT advocates in power deserve worse job evaluations.

“All of our leaders let us down: HRC, Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi,” Aravosis said. “Having said that, Nancy Pelosi strikes me as the least culpable of the four. I’m not happy that she wasn’t able to even get ENDA through committee, but I’m a lot less happy at the moment with HRC, President Obama and Harry Reid. Pelosi at least came through for us part-way, the others have been MIA the last two years.”

Solely looking at Pelosi from the angle of gay rights advocacy, that view may make sense. But from a larger perspective, she has done a great disservice to the cause of gay equality by helping to cement the perception that pro-gay legislation is part of a broader mega-government, regulatory-state agenda that stems from the left flank of the Democratic party. That perception is not helping to advance our cause, to say the least.

Assistant Michigan Attorney General Andrew Shirvell has been fired by AG Mike Cox. Shirvell, as you may have read, blogged obsessively to condemn homosexuals in general and in particular Chris Armstrong, the openly gay student body president at the University of Michigan (Shirvell’s alma mater). Shirvell even showed up outside Armstrong’s building on the U of M campus late at night to protest the goings on he supposed were going on inside. Anyhow, here’s a very snarky parody about it all, via Popehat.

If you have any lingering doubt that anti-gay sentiment is becoming isolated in the Republican Party—and that the GOP is drifting toward cultural isolation as a result—check out this new election post-mortem from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and Democracy Corps (PDF). Go to page 39, a chart titled “Opposition to homosexuality drops sharply,” and you see that the share of Americans saying homosexuality “should be accepted by society” has risen from only half in 2004 to a solid 56 percent majority this year. (Gallup confirms the trend.) Only a third of respondents—just one in three!—say homosexuality “should be discouraged.”

And just where is this opposition to homosexuality concentrated? Turn the page (to page 40) for the answer. Among Democrats, independents, and swing voters, majorities all agree on the acceptability of homosexuality, by whopping margins of 39 percent, 31 percent, and 27 percent, respectively. Republicans, however, stand strikingly apart from the consensus, with 55 percent of them frowning on homosexuality. In other words, if being anti-gay is your thing, there is only one place you can go to find a like-minded majority. (And, even there, 44 percent say homosexuality should be accepted.)

In the future that is coming right now, it is disapproval of homosexuality, not homosexuality itself, that mainstream culture regards as morally deviant. To the extent that Republicans cling to anti-gay postures (hat tip to Prez O for the piquant verb), they will turn off the independent and swing voters without whose support they cannot win national elections. On the other hand, with nowhere else to go, anti-gay social conservatives will fight all the harder to preserve their veto over GOP acceptance of gay equality. That’s why they’re going to block repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in the Senate: to show they can.

I’m tempted to say, “Be my guest, guys.” The best they can do is delay DADT repeal, probably not for long, and that will come at a cost to their party’s cultural credibility. Anti-gay conservatives are becoming to the GOP as McGovernite liberals once were to the Democrats: an albatross.

Updated 11/7/10

Blogs B. Daniel Blatt at GayPatriot, it’s high time for the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest and best funded LGBT lobby, to review its strategy and leadership:

if [HRC] is serious about advocating for gay and lesbian Americans in our nation’s capital, it needs new leadership. Its leaders just don’t get the issues which helped elect Republicans across the country. It is time for Joe Solmonese to step down and to be replaced by someone who knows how to “talk Republican”, given that Republicans will soon control one house of Congress.

Solmonese’s background is in left-wing partisan (Democratic) advocacy. Before coming to HRC, he worked for EMILY’s List, an outfit which defines itself as “a community of progressive Americans dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women“. . . .

People want government to leave us alone so we can solve our problems on our own. And that’s a message which should be welcome to gay and lesbian individuals and should certainly not be anathema to the gay community. . . . Just as government shouldn’t interfere in the marketplace, so it shouldn’t meddle in our homes. If it wants to have any influence in the 112th Congress, HRC’s leadership needs to tap into the freedom rhetoric that so resonated with the American people in yesterday’s balloting and lobby Congress not to enact laws which limit our liberty.

And to do that, they don’t necessarily need a Republican leader or one from the Tea Party movement, but one familiar with and respectful of the ideas which undergird it. Joe Solmonese is not such a man.

Too often, Solmonese has seemed more interested in defending the Obama administration to HRC’s gay donors rather than in playing hardball. As for lines of communication with the GOP, they appear to be nil. Even leaving aside the group’s failed one-party strategy, the people running HRC, as Blatt notes, don’t speak the language of “liberty” (from an intrusive government); their template for politics is one of “rights” (granted by a progressive government). They live in a different world from the party that now controls the House.

[Added: The arguments for marriage equality and open military service could be framed through either lens. But liberty talk just doesn’t come naturally to left-leaning progressives.]

[Added: Considering Joe Solmonese’s $300,000+ salary, he isn’t exactly being paid for performance.]

More. From the comments: “Don” observes, perceptively:

The point is not that LCR and GOProud don’t have their own jobs to do. The point is that HRC, as an organization that relies primarily on lobbying to advance gay rights, should act like a smart, professional lobbying team.

Every industry of importance uses lobbyists and every industry makes regular adjustments to its lobbying team in reaction to the political climate and which party is in control on the Hill. In 1992, Dem lobbyists were fully employed and GOP lobbyists were looking for work. In 1994, that situation flipped. In 2006, it flipped again and it will yet again in reaction to this week’s results.

Only at the HRC does nothing change. It is the same ineffectual in-house team year after year after year, regardless of who is in control. And to make matters worse, none of HRC’s people are former senior staffers or are otherwise personally connected to anyone of importance on the Hill. The result: this group takes in nearly $40 million per year (as opposed to about 600K for LCR) and even with Democratic super-majorities, is unable to achieve legislative goals that have been pending for more than 3 decades.

[Added: I’m told that it’s not that HRC won’t hire Republican lobbyists, it’s more that they would be expected to sign on to the organization’s broad progressive agenda—abortion rights, race-based affirmative action, etc. You’d have to be pretty RINO (Republican in name only) to make it through HRC’s screening.]

Furthermore. From GOProud: “According to CNN, 31% of self-identified gay voters supported Republican candidates for the U.S. House. This number is a dramatic increase from the 19% GOP House candidates won among gay voters in 2008.”

Is HRC listening?

From the Washington Post last month: “The most common responses were concerns about spending and limiting the size of government, but together those were named by less than half the groups. Social issues, such as same-sex marriage and abortion rights, did not register as concerns.”

Is the GOP listening?

America remains a center-right nation. In 2008, many voted for Obama because they believed he’d be a smart, post-partisan leader, and instead got a smooth-talking mega-spender who only grows jobs in the government sector. Yes, there are certainly hard-core left-liberal and hard-core right-conservative states and districts, but the margin that makes for a national majority is not on the extremes.

In several states/districts, Democrats who rubber-stamped the Obama/Pelosi/Reid big liberal agenda lost. But in several states/districts, Republicans who were viewed as flakey Tea Party extremists also lost. In many cases, Republican primary voters sabotaged their own party’s chances. In Delaware, in particular, where GOP Rep. Mike Castle would have easily won the Senate race if he hadn’t lost the primary to Christine O’Donnell. Also in Nevada, where Harry Reid, despite his low approval ratings, beat out Sharon Angle, who was viewed as a wingnut. It looks like in Alaska, Palin-backed Joe Miller will lose to the GOP incumbent, Lisa Murkowski, running as a write-in candidate.

And then there’s California, where Carly Fiorini, an opponent of gay marriage, lost to the very left-liberal Barbara Boxer. In the GOP primary, Fiorini beat former GOP Congressman Tom Campbell, a deficit hawk who supported marriage equality. At the time, polls showed Campbell would beat Boxer and Fiorini would lose to her (as I discussed here). GOP primary votes went with Fiorini and paid the price.

More. Had Harry Reid lost, New York’s Chuck Schumer would probably have become Senate Majority Leader. Although Schumer can be insufferable, he would have been better for advancing gay equality. It’s becoming clearer that Reid all but sabotaged the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal vote. By not allowing any GOP amendments to be brought up, and not trying to strike any deals with GOP moderates (especially Maine’s Olympia Snow and Susan Collins, who had been supporters of repeal), he all but ensured a united GOP would filibuster. His continued tenure doesn’t bode well for us.

Furthermore. David Boaz offers advice to the winners, writing in Politico, GOP won on economy, so focus on it:

Avoid social issues. When the Bush Republicans spent too much time on issues like the gay marriage ban and the Terri Schiavo intervention, they alienated suburban and professional women, college graduates, young people, libertarians and independents — overlapping groups, of course. And they lost two elections. After 2008, they seem to have learned their lesson. Even in the face of several states instituting marriage equality, Republicans kept their focus squarely on overspending, health care and big-government overreach — issues that united opponents of the Obama agenda.

They shouldn’t blow it now. They should stick to the economic issues that won them this election and avoid the divisive social issues that cost them 2006 and 2008.

Washington Blade Editor Kevin Naff, a liberal, editorializes The Democrats Earned Their Drubbing:

Given the history of midterm elections being hostile to the party in power, we knew Obama and the Democrats had just two years to deliver on some key LGBT initiatives, most notably repeal of “Don’t Ask Don’t’ Tell” and passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. But hopes were far higher than just those two issues. In September 2009, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) introduced the Respect for Marriage Act, which would overturn the Defense of Marriage Act. . . . Obama campaigned on supporting a full repeal of DOMA, which bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages. One year later, the bill is nowhere and repealing DOMA has vanished from the radar. . . .

In typically sloppy Democratic fashion, the party has managed to alienate its most ardent supporters — gays — by half-stepping on repeal and appealing a federal judge’s ruling that the military’s gay ban is unconstitutional. Leave it to the Democrats to piss off a constituency that has nowhere else to go.. . . After next week, LGBT rights advocates return to playing defense on the Hill after failing to capitalize on the incredible and short-lived opportunities of 2009 and 2010.

For all the legitimate complaints about the Democrats’ out-of-control spending and fetish for rule by regulatory bureaucracy, one would hope that the near-trillion-dollar stimulus-to-nowhere and the trillion-dollar healthcare mashup would at least be offset by advances in gay legal equality. But gay voters gave millions and worked endlessly for this president and his party, and all we got was a lousy hate crimes bill (and please, the GOP didn’t have a Senate filibuster until mid-2010, so don’t try that lame party defense).

I have no illusions about the GOP Congress, although I hope some sanity can be restored to the federal budget. The judicial branch may well be where gay liberty is advanced. Too bad Obama is appealing the pro-gay rulings on “don’t ask” and DOMA. The price of making the once-independent gay movement into a fundraising lapdog of the Democratic party (which takes us for granted as a captive constituency easily bought off with cheap rhetoric) will be long and painful.

More. Here’s how Democrats respond to favored constituencies—when they feel they need to. In January 2009, the Democratic congress passed and President Obama signed into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, a top priority for NOW and other women’s groups, over strong GOP opposition. The Democrats felt they had to make good on this campaign promise and do so fast. They don’t fear that gay voters/contributors/PACs aren’t going to support them, no matter how little they do on our behalf. This is what comes when groups such as the Human Rights Campaign see themselves as part of the Democratic party machine, rather than fighting on behalf of an independent constituency.