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Corvino v. Douthat

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Ross Douthat tries a new(ish) argument against gay marriage. John Corvino takes it apart. Same problem as always (sigh). Just saying marriage is good for this or that straight need doesn’t show it can’t accommodate gays as well.

Look, guys. Let’s say it’s a given that shirts were designed for people with two arms. Great! So does that mean one-armed people should be forbidden to wear shirts? That one-armed shirt-wearers will somehow wreck the ideal of shirtiness, and we’ll lose the very concept of the shirt?

Let’s say mouths were invented for eating. If not for eating, there would be no mouths. Great! So should we forbid the use of mouths for talking, lest everyone get too confused about what mouths are really for?

That kind of argumentation wouldn’t get past a high-school logic teacher. Yet it remains a commonplace in the gay-marriage debate. Sometimes I wonder whether SSM opponents would have anything left to say without it.

Corvino puts it well (but read the whole thing):

In order to make his position plausible, Douthat would need to show that the stakes are so radically different for gays or lesbians that any form of marriage that includes this small minority can no longer do the requisite work for (fertile) heterosexuals.

But at this crucial point Douthat’s argument becomes hopelessly vague. He simply asserts that extending marriage to same-sex couples would weaken its ability to address the thick “interplay of fertility, reproductive impulses and gender differences in heterosexual relationships,” but he never explains why or how this would happen.

This is not an argument: this is a panic.

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Straight Men Are Trying

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I obviously disagree with Ross Douthat’s conclusion that homosexuals should not be allowed to marry one another. He is responding to Andrew Sullivan on this point, and unfortunately published the first part of his argument while Andrew is incommunicado, on a spousally-imposed break from blogging. Gay marriage really does have some of the same downsides as straight marriage . . . .

But Andrew will certainly be back, and in the interim I want to make a non-obvious point. Twenty-five years ago when I first began working on the rights of same-sex couples, it was virtually impossible to find a heterosexual – and particularly a heterosexual male – who would so much as engage the conversation, much less take the time to write thoughtfully and publicly about it. There were a few (mostly very liberal) politicians who would uncomfortably express support, maybe shake my hand, and then hurry off to attend to some other very important matter. Trying to get conservatives to exchange views was pretty much impossible.

Today, Douthat is only one of the many conservatives who are now quite comfortable giving their time and attention to this issue – one of the thousands of issues available for writers to address – and sharing his thinking.

It’s easy for those of us who have been working on this issue nonstop for decades (i.e., lesbians and gay men, to whom it is of enormous if not transcendent importance) to find obvious flaws in the reasoning of people who are only recently coming to the discussion. Douthat proposes a long-discredited approach to recognizing same-sex couples, which requires not recognizing them as homosexual couples – we would be entitled to relationship rights by categorizing us with elderly sisters and good friends and anyone else who can’t get married but wants some government benefit or another.

Over the years, both Andrew and Jonathan Rauch have explained the serious problems to marriage that this kind of “marriage lite” causes. Dale Carpenter, John Corvino, David Boaz and hundreds of other gay writers, academics and backseat drivers like myself have also had a thought or two to contribute over time. This supposedly non-discriminatory status is not a new idea. I’m sure Douthat does not mean to be condescending to same-sex couples in offering it, but it is a condescending notion all the same.

Still, he is wrestling with the issue of equality openly and in good faith. I would like to see if he believes his position stands up to the existing criticisms of it, and perhaps he will engage that debate. If he has new responses to Rauch and others, that would be welcome.

In the end, though, I think it is Peter Suderman among conservatives who has it right. What underlies opposition to same-sex marriage is an intuition, and ultimately nothing more. It is a powerful intuition, but in America, our laws have to be based on something more tangible. Suderman looked behind the intuition, tested it against the arguments offered against it, and concluded that the arguments for equality were more persuasive than the intimations and fears against it.

I hope that is where Douthat is able to come to some day as well. I think, in the end, it is the right, just and moral conclusion. But wherever Douthat winds up, he deserves our thanks for trying, with an open mind (I believe) to understand what it is we are saying.

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Our New Design

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Yes, we’ve redesigned the site! Sorry if some comments were lost in the changeover. We’re still learning the new interface, so blogging may be slow for awhile. Hope you like the new look.

(We know that author names have been jumbled and that many of the posts below do not have a correct byline. We’ll try to fix these glitches ove the weekend). Update: bylines are fixed.

More. Some comments that the system thinks might be spam are not posted. These are manually reviewed, but may explain why comments don’t appear. This is,  however, necessary to avoid spam. I’m told we may have to put back the “enter these letters” box in order to avoid spam as well. We’ll monitor and see. Likewise, the request to enter your email is to foil spammers.

All artice content is still on the site and searchable. We took off the “search by category” buttons because we figured most people are comfortable just searching by key words. We may look into putting it back, however.

We decided to treat content as content, and move away from article vs. blog distinction.  Actually, we decided to stop posting articles in whole because it was labor intensive, and the articles are online elsewhere. Instead, we’ll be linking to articles of interest using shorter blog posts, along with longer and more substantive blog post.

The new interface has a few glitches that we’ll try to iron out. But all told,we’re very happy with it. We hope you’ll warm to it as well.

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Manhattan’s Meaning

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It seems to me that the import of the "Manhattan Declaration" is political, because there is nothing new in it substantively. The Declaration is a statement of principles written by Robert George, Timothy George, and Charles Colson and issued over the names of about 150 Christian social conservatives, including Tony Perkins (prez of the Family Research Council), James Dobson (prez of Focus on the Family), and Maggie Gallagher (prez of the National Organization for Marriage). I interpret the release of this document, at this moment, as a warning shot directed at the conservative movement and, less directly, the Republican Party. The gist, in my own translation:
1) "Opposition to abortion and gay marriage will be the two issues for the social right. Forget about diversifying the portfolio or changing the emphasis. Not gonna happen on our watch." 2) "Never mind polls showing gradually increasing acceptance of gay marriage. Never mind the country's now-majority support for some form of publicly recognized same-sex partnership, even among younger evangelicals. Homosexuality is 'sexual immorality,' now and forever, and public sanction of same-sex sexual unions is unacceptable. Period." 3) "Don't even think about going squishy on either of these issues, because, if you do, we will split the movement. You have been warned. It's opposition to gay marriage to the bitter end...or civil war."
I see the Declaration as part of the Republican/conservative drive toward a smaller, purer party/movement. I suspect it will help deliver the "smaller" part, anyway.

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Involuntary Servitude in the Name of ‘Equalty’?

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Does "gay rights" mean denying a commercial photographer the freedom to choose what she will photograph? The Volokh Conspiracy reports that after Elaine Huguenin refused a lesbian couple's attempt to hire her to photograph their commitment ceremony, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission held that this violated state antidiscrimination law covering sexual orientation.

Huguenin says she exercises political judgment-hers-in deciding what to photograph (for instance, she also won't accept assignments to take photographs that positively portray abortion, pornography or nudity).

Writes law professor Eugene Volokh,

"…the New Mexico government is now telling Huguenin that she must create art works that she does not choose to create. There's no First Amendment case squarely on point, but this does seem pretty close to the cases in which the Court held that the government may not compel people to express views that they do not endorse."

Aside from the legal merits of violating Huguenin's liberty, just what do the offended lesbians who brought this action hope to accomplish by forcing Huguenin to work for them? It's the kind of totalitarian-leaning nastiness in the name of the self-righteous promotion of "equality" that would make Robespierre proud.

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Communism Isn’t Cool

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With the announced retirement of Fidel Castro, totalitarian dictator extraordinaire but glorious hero to many on the hard left-including not a few gay bourgeois bolsheviks despite his fierce persecution of gay Cubans-some reflection is in order. Rick Rosendall in Marxism's Queer Harvest tells the tale of gays who think capitalism oppresses and state collectivism liberates, despite all evidence that the opposite is true:
As a gay political activist, I find myself in some strange places, and every once in a while I encounter someone who loves Fidel Castro so much, you'd think he was the guy they named the San Francisco neighborhood after. In fact, many leading voices in America's gay community talk as if capitalism is the special province of oppressive white males. This, of course, does not stop them from enjoying capitalist comforts. Among these latter-day purveyors of radical chic, it is unfashionable to notice that the greatest advances for gay and lesbian rights have been in free-market Western democracies like the one they themselves are living in.
While Citizen Crain's Kevin Ivers in Adios, Dictator focuses on Castro oppressive legacy:
There has not been a single believable tome, study, film or book that has come out in the half-century of Castro's dictatorship that credibly challenged the fundamental evidence underlining the fact that gay life under a dictatorship like Castro's is an experience that ranges from brief spates of hedonistic, secret joy, to dull agony and generalized daily anxiety, to outright terror-with no hope or possibility of civic redress.
Just something to keep in mind the next time you see a gay guy working out in his Che Guevara t-shirt, celebrating Fidel's comrade and the designer of Cuba's concentration camps for homosexuals and other decadent, anti-social elements. (No doubt, he's also preparing to meet up with his buddies to march in the LGBT contingent of the anti-globalization rally.)

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Foley’s Folly: A Lesson

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It is early yet to talk about "the moral of the story" with respect to Mark Foley. Foley, a Republican congressman from Florida, resigned last week after it was revealed that he had been sending sexually explicit e-mails and instant messages to underage congressional pages. Here's a sample (the spelling is left uncorrected):

Foley: what you wearing
Teen: normal clothes
Teen: tshirt and shorts
Foley: um so a big buldge….
Foley: love to slip them off of you
Teen: haha
Foley: and [grab] the one eyed snake….
Teen: not tonight...dont get to excited
Foley: well your hard
Teen: that is true
Foley: and a little horny
Teen: and also tru
Foley: get a ruler and measure it for me

The FBI is investigating, and criminal charges appear likely. Though initial reports involved relatively tame e-mails to a sixteen-year-old former page, the IM's (such as the one cited above) appear to involve a different youth about whom little has been reported. The age-of-consent is 16 in D.C., but it's 18 in Florida, unless the accused is under 24 (Foley is 52).

Foley was long rumored to be gay. Nonetheless, he was a popular Republican congressman who prior to the scandal was considered a shoo-in for re-election. He was also the co-chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, an outspoken foe of sexual predators on the Internet, and a vocal supporter of President Clinton's impeachment.

Hypocrite? Almost certainly. Child molester? Probably not. Sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds are not quite children (they're not quite adults, either), and there is no evidence yet that Foley actually made or attempted to make physical contact with the objects of his Internet dalliance. Still, as the congressman surely knew, Florida law makes it a third-degree felony to transmit "material harmful to minors by electronic device" and defines such material to include descriptions of "nudity, sexual conduct, or sexual excitement."

There's also the issue of sexual harassment and abuse of power. Even former pages have strong incentive to stay in the good graces of the congressmen who employed them. While the youth in the above exchange does not seem (judging from the text) to be terribly troubled by the banter, at least one other complained that Foley's advances were "sick sick sick sick sick…"

Without a doubt, Foley did some stupid, inappropriate, and unethical things. Granted, sexual desire causes many of us to do stupid (though not necessarily inappropriate or unethical) things from time to time. Granted, the case would garner a somewhat (though not completely) different reaction if Foley were female--and particularly, if he were an attractive female. If Foley looked like Demi Moore, the pages would be telling one another "Dude, yeah!!!" instead of "sick sick sick sick sick."

But the "gay angle" on this contains an important lesson, one that is unfortunately likely to be either distorted or missed entirely amidst the partisan political drama. It is that gay people, like everyone else, need healthy outlets for sexual expression. When those are blocked--because of political ambition or a repressive church or a right wing bent on ignoring basic science--cases like Foley's (or former Spokane mayor Jim West's or former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey's) become more likely, as do far greater tragedies like the Catholic Church's sex-abuse scandal.

This is not to deny that Foley is responsible for his actions. There is no contradiction in holding a person fully responsible for wrongdoing and holding others responsible for enhancing the conditions that make such wrongdoing likely.

The right wing is doing just that by refusing to face some simple facts: There are gay people in the world. Gay people need love and affection like everyone else. When people repress that need in themselves or others, it tends to assert itself in unfortunate and sometimes tragic ways.

Like most people, I want to shake Mark Foley and yell: What the hell were you thinking? But I also want to add the following: It didn't have to be this way. There are young men of legal age who are not your subordinates who would have been happy to remove their shorts for you. And there would have been nothing wrong with that per se. An open, honest, consensual sex life is not only possible for gay men; it's healthy. The alternatives can be disastrous.

Yes, it is early to talk about the moral of the story. But there are lessons to be learned, and we ignore them at our peril.

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With Marriage an Option, Who Needs DP Benefits?

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Now that it's about to be legal for same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts, some employers in the Bay State are eliminating domestic-partner benefits, requiring employees to say "I do" to their significant others if they want them to share their employer-provided family benefits such as health care coverage, reports the AP.

This, I believe, is appropriate. As I wrote a decade ago in a column title "Honey, Did You Raise the Kids?":

"Domestic partnership benefits should be a stopgap measure for gays and lesbians until we achieve full marriage rights (based on legally recognized commitments)."

I also argued that:

"Offering benefits to unmarried heterosexuals might in fact contribute to family breakdown by discouraging committed relationships."

I'd now change that, in Massachusetts at least, to read "unmarried heterosexuals and homosexuals.

The AP story says that Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, one of the state's largest employers, will drop domestic-partner benefits for Massachusetts residents at the end of this year:

"The original reason for domestic-partner benefits was to recognize that same-sex couples could not marry," Beth Israel spokesman Jerry Berger said. "Now that they can, they are essentially on the same footing as heterosexual couples."

That's about right (though gay couples will still lack the important federal benefits associated with marriage, from social security inheritance to naturalization of a foreign-born spouses). Still, there's no need for employers to continue paying for benefits to partners who shack up but can't quite make the commitment to the emotional, financial, and legal intermingling that full marriage entails.

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Welcome.

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Welcome to “Steve Miller’s Culture Watch,” the new web log (i.e., “blog”) from the Independent Gay Forum. Steve Miller would be me (or, according to my formal byline, “Stephen H. Miller). I’ve been writing about gay politics and culture for a number of years, with a column that’s appeared off and on in several gay publications. Now IGF is giving me a chance to host their blog and to present not only my thoughts about the latest developments, but to pass along those of other IGFers as well — with the hope of getting more of you into the habit of surfing over here more often.

Briefly, I’d like to thank Mike Airhart for doing a tremendous job of redesigning the homepage to accommodate the blog, Jon Rauch for proposing the idea and moving it forward, IGF’s webmaster Walter Olson and editor Paul Varnell for their constructive suggestions, and the many others who”ve provided feedback. And David Boaz, for his ongoing support. Official disclaimer: The views and opinions to be expressed herein should not be taken as representing the “official” IGF party line. Actually, IGF wouldn’t know what to do with a party line; we’re not “party” animals, and instead prefer to question the received orthodoxy of the moment. So here goes:

Frightening stuff: The AP reported on Feb. 15 that, in awarding custody of three teen-agers to their father over their lesbian mother, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court wrote that homosexuality is “an inherent evil” and shouldn’t be tolerated. The case involved a Birmingham man and his ex-wife, who now lives with her same-sex partner in southern California.

Just to be sure he was making himself clear, Chief Justice Roy Moore wrote that the mother’s relationship made her an unfit parent and that homosexuality is “abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature.”

You may recall, this is the same Judge Roy Moore who’s now the target of two federal lawsuits over his installation of a 4-foot monument of the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the state judicial building in Montgomery, and who defends his actions by proclaiming “This is a Christian nation.”

The AP quotes David White, state coordinator for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Alabama, who observed “It’s unfortunate Alabama is going to be embarrassed once again by a religious fanatic in a position of power.” Clearly. John Giles, state president of the Christian Coalition, had to defend this bilge, telling the AP that Moore’s decision protected the institution of marriage and strengthened the traditional family.

Forcing the anti-gay right to support unmitigated, out-of-control, foaming-at-the-mouth homophobia is actually a good thing; no “We’re just opposed to special rights” dissembling here. Naked prejudice may still play well in a few backwaters, but it’s a huge turnoff to a growing majority. Too often, gay activists accuse the right of “hate-mongering.” But when the shoe fits.

Update: On the Feb. 20 edition of his top-rated Fox News show, Bill O’Reilly grilled the Christian Coalition’s John Giles, who was there to defend Moore’s vitriol (“a good, Christian family man” is the good Judge, after all, according to Giles). O’Reilly, no friend of the politically correct left, to be sure, declared that he was “appalled” by Judge Moore’s rant, and observed that a gay person couldn’t expect to be treated fairly in his court. O’Reilly has taken on gay activists, so it was excellent to see that he can distinguish between gay people — who can and do face real discrimination — from those who would declare themselves to be our leaders, often with their own political agendas. Conservative commentators, of course, have no problem separating women, say, from professional feminists, but too often they’ve treated the loudest — and most radical — of the “progressive gay vanguard” as representative of your average Joe Gay Guy and Jill Lesbian. Good to see that this is no longer automatically true.

The other BIG news story making the wires: As first reported in the Sacramento Bee, UC Berkeley has suspended a male sexuality class. Among the allegations, it seems a group of students chose as their final project a trip to a gay strip club, where “students watched instructors strip and have sex.” To be fair, the course was offered under the university’s “democratic education” or “de-cal” program. As such, it was sponsored but not funded by the university, and run by “student instructors” (but could still be taken for credit toward graduation). So, is it another sign of academic decadence plus Left Coast debauchery, or much ado about a little class excursion that got out of hand? Probably there’s a lot less here then the lurid headlines suggest, but it will still be fodder for the religious rights fundraising efforts.

An interesting article on Feb. 12 in the New York Times about Connecticut lawmakers debating two “gay family” bills — the first to legalize same-sex marriages (call it the “full monty” version) and the second to recognize civil unions between same-sex partners (the “Vermont compromise,” as it were). I hadn’t realized it, but the Nutmeg State has an impressively gay supportive track record. It was the third in the nation to adopt a gay rights law in 1991, and in 2000 the Co-Parent Adoption Law was passed, extending adoption rights to the same-sex partner of a child’s legal parent or guardian. Naturally, those opposed to the measures argued that the result would be to — divorced marriage from morality.” In the words of Bishop Peter Rosazza (who spoke on behalf of the Connecticut Catholic Conference), same-sex unions had not passed the test of time to be deemed successful. Moreover, “The change shouldn’t only benefit individuals, but society,” he opined.

But by that line of reasoning nothing new could ever be tried, since it would by definition not have been time tested. It’s an argument for stasis. And the good bishop’s observation that changes must benefit “society” rather than “individuals” is downright collectivistic. He manages to veer both left and right in opposing the measures — and still gets it wrong on all counts.

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Honey, Did You Raise the Kids?

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First appeared January 14, 1994, in Frontiers (Los Angeles).

A HEADLINE on the coveted front page of the New York Times blared out, "County in Texas Snubs Apple Over Unwed Partner Policies." The story, which had percolated through the gay press before it was discovered by "the paper of record" and the rest of the national media, concerned the now infamous decision by Williamson County, Texas, to deny Apple Computer a tax abatement to build an $80 million office complex just north of Austin.

The deal, with the promise of 1,500 or more high-tech, high-wage jobs, was originally nixed over Apple's policy of granting unmarried partners of its employees - whether heterosexual or homosexual - the same health benefits conferred on spouses. Following intense arm-twisting by Texas Gov. Ann Richards, the county commission changed its mind - but clearly not its heart.

According to the Times account, the county's straight-laced commissioners felt Apple's policy undermined "traditional family values" and should not receive taxpayer support. The country "was not founded on same-sex lovers and live-in lovers," one opponent proclaimed. "It goes to what kind of morals you want to set for your community," argued another.

The typical take on all this is that virulent anti-gay bigotry is on a roll. "It's remarkable that in these economically difficult times, this blatant prejudice would prevail over smart business decisions," concluded William Rubenstein, director of the ACLU's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. Now I wouldn't for one instant question that the good folks of Williamson County are deeply homophobic and homo-ignorant, but something else is also evident in their actions - omething that the gay movement would do well to consider if it hopes to start winning political victories outside major urban centers.

Some employers, such as Lotus Development Corp., provide benefits to gay partners but not to unmarried heterosexuals. But Apple, like most city governments that have established domestic partner benefits, grants them to unmarried straight employees as well. What's wrong with that? Nothing, say those who view marriage as a stifling, patriarchal institution that should be undermined regardless of whether children are involved. But plenty is wrong with it, in light of overwhelming evidence about the effect of family breakups that leave kids without fathers who provide financial support and act as paternal role models.

"As long as women continue to have relationships with, and continue to bear the children of men who do not marry them, men will continue to be absent fathers," William Raspberry, a black columnist, wrote last month in his syndicated column. "The breakdown of family really does... lead to a culture whose rules of behavior are established by unsocialized adolescent males."

While the situation is most familiar in terms of the underclass African-American family (two-thirds of black births are now to single women), family breakdown should not be seen as a racial issue. Scholar Charles Murray noted these facts on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal last October: At the beginning of the 1970s some 6 percent of white births were illegitimate; in 1991 the figure was 22 percent. With the current growth trend implying a 40 percent illegitimacy rate by the year 2000, the prospect for a huge white underclass is looming.

It is not only conservatives who share this view. Liberal, progay columnist Richard Cohen hailed Murray's warning, declaring a host of social pathologies - including crime, drugs, poverty and hopelessness?as "a clear consequence" of illegitimacy. "Without mature males as role models (not to mention disciplinarians)," Cohen wrote, about 1.2 million American children annually are "growing up unsocialized - prone to violence, unsuitable for employment and thus without prospect or hope." He added, "It's clear that the American taxpayer is losing patience."

Which brings us back to Apple. A corporate policy which appears to condone relationships without responsibility does threaten social stability, based on child-rearing within coherent families. Again, I don't doubt the effect of anti-gay bigotry in Williamson County, but linking benefits for gay partners who are not allowed to be married with benefits for heterosexuals who don't want to make a commitment puts the gay rights movement in the position of appearing to oppose all bedrock values -- and plays directly into the hands of the religious right, which argues that the "gay agenda" is to destroy the moral foundation of Western civilization!

Alas, an otherwise positive goal - supporting child-rearing within stable families - is now bound up with the rest of the right wing's cultural program in all its exclusionary mean-spiritedness. But instead of exposing the sophistry of lumping gay rights (which would expand the range of families) with real anti-family phenomena such as unwed teen mothers and deadbeat dads, gay activists champion partner benefits for all. When New York state's top court, in response to a suit by gay rights groups, upheld the right of gay survivors to take over rent-stabilized apartments when a lover dies, activists rushed to point out that the decision also covered unmarried men and women living together?as if that made the decision "better."

How much more constructive it would be if our movement, while pushing for full marriage rights, stopped making alliances with cultural leftists favoring benefits for unwed heteros. As David Boaz advocates in the January 1994 issue of Liberty, a libertarian journal, workers should be told "if you want the benefits of marriage, get married; but if the state won't let you get married, we'll be more progressive." Benefits, he asserts, should not be seen "as one more goodie to hand out," but "as a way of remedying an unfairness, not to mention retaining valued employees."

He's right. Domestic partnership benefits should be a stopgap measure for gays and lesbians until we achieve full marriage rights (based on legally recognized commitments). And, with legislators in Minnesota and elsewhere now introducing bills to specifically prohibit recognition of same-sex marriages (even if validated in other states), that fight is just beginning.

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