IGF CultureWatch

Paul Ryan is a great choice for Vice President.  As his running mate said, he is an intellectual leader of the GOP, one of the few practicing politicians who even seems to aspire to that crown.

As Rich Lowry observed, Ryan is an idealogue in the best sense of that term – a man who is motivated by ideas.  As a politician, he has to work within the framework of his party’s orthodoxies (as Ryan Lizza’s must-read profile in The New Yorker shows) but what politician doesn’t?  Ryan has been successful in doing the one thing a true leader can do – bend those orthodoxies in his direction.  He was forced to bow to the GOP jingoism on bloated military spending — though even his too-fat proposal for the military budget is below the obese 4% that Romney has committed to.  But in exchange, he was allowed to place some genuine ideas on the table to deal with our gross federal budget, including some issues like Medicare and Medicaid that were considered politically untouchable.  He had to struggle with his own party, and he moved the bar.

That is how he differs from his running mate.  Romney doesn’t challenge orthodoxy, he embraces it.  If Massachusetts believes in an individual health insurance mandate, a mandate they shall have.  If they’re for gay rights, he’s for gay rights.  But like Zelig, when he shows up in front of Texas voters, he looks just like one of them, too.

This obviously makes it hard for him to run as a national candidate, since he doesn’t have the good fortune of being able to take pride in any of his individually orthodox accomplishments.  And when it comes to taking a stand on any issue, his greasiness is risible, a circus act.

So I have come to take for granted Romney’s multiple shades of support and opposition to gay equality.  On what issue hasn’t he changed his spots?  For this election, it’s heterosexual marriage only, and what are the gays complaining about?  His party’s obtuse orthodoxy on gay rights is the natural spawn of Nixon’s southern strategy, exploiting the south’s prejudices to the nation’s detriment and the GOP’s short-term, but nowadays more difficult tactical victories.

Gay equality clearly isn’t one of the ideas that animates Ryan, of course.  But the small mindedness of the GOP right doesn’t seem to suit his style.  Romney has characteristically adapted to the biased impulses of his party, but Ryan seems to be made of different stuff.  He had a brief flirtation with a vote on gay rights (ENDA), but it arose like Brigadoon and then disappeared.  He now more demurely conforms to the party’s small religion on unequal rights.

That has allowed Ryan to pursue his much larger project, and his formidable abilities can benefit us all.  But now that he is a formal national presence, the pressure to conform to this undignified prejudice cheapens him.  What civilized person in today’s world can simply ignore the fact that lesbians and gay men do not have the same, fundamental right to marry the person of their choosing that heterosexuals take for granted, and pretend that it makes no difference to the group, or to our own national identity?

By subjugating himself to the worst impulses of his party, Ryan undermines his own character for thoughtfulness and reason.  Romney has no identifiable character, and loses nothing by being a chameleon, but Ryan has demonstrated both commitment and as much integrity as party politics will admit.  On some issues, like the military budget, there is room for fudged compromise.  And even on the absolute issue of equal marriage rights, there is room, at least, to breathe – domestic partnership or civil unions — for those politicians who lack the courage to vote for full equality.

Ryan does not seem to lack courage in general.  On the national stage, he will have a lot to do.  But when he is asked about same-sex marriage – and he will be – the intelligence he should be so proud of will be put to a real test.

Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney’s veep pick, while not a social conservative fire-breather, supported the anti-gay (and anti-federalist) federal marriage amendment and opposed repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But he is one of the few politicos to have shown any sanity and courage about the entitlement and deficit crises, which liberal Democrats continue to shamefully demagogue for political advantage.

The political challenge of our time is to push the Democratic party back toward relative Clintonian fiscal moderation (imposed on Bill Clinton by a Republican congress), while continuing the struggle within the GOP to counter the pernicious control of hidebound social conservatives who will otherwise doom the party’s prospects among the next generation of voters.

More. From the Log Cabin Republicans, “Congressman Ryan’s 2007 vote in favor of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act and his consistent willingness to engage with Log Cabin on a range of issues speaks to his record as a fair-minded policymaker.” From GOProud, “Paul Ryan is one of the few political leaders anywhere in the country willing to tell the American people the truth about the unprecedented budget crisis we are facing, and – more importantly – willing to put forward bold plans to put this country back on the road to fiscal solvency.”

Social conservatives have pushed both Romney and Ryan to the right on gay issues. Should the ticket win, we’d have to see where they situate themselves.

However, if the issue of gay equality dominates all others, you won’t be voting for the GOP ticket. But those who believe the economic well-being of future generations of Americans is at severe risk given another four years of the present administration, support for the GOP is not an indication of self-loathing, as LGBT Democratic operatives would have it.

Another option: lodging a protest against both parties by voting for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, who strongly favors both marriage equality and deficit reduction with real entitlement reform. Third-party candidates don’t get elected nationally, but their forward-looking agendas can, in time, change the terms of the debate.

Furthermore. Reader JamesR comments:

“Both Ryan and Romney once supported ENDA. They were, of course, pushed to the right — politicians respond to the prevailing political winds. Neither is hardcore anti-gay — it’s not what they want to talk about, and never has been. They are not Santorum or Huckabee.

So, if the winds can be changed — yes, probably in the GOP they can’t be, but IF they could — I don’t doubt that Romney and Ryan would again be supportive on gay issues.

And that remains the challenge.

Everything is relative. Social rightists are incensed that Romney hasn’t taken a rhetorically harder anti-gay line. This, in short, is what we’re up against within the GOP.

Which is not to say, as some LGBT Democratic operatives/activists imply, that we should give up and all embrace the party of bigger, more intrusive and redistributionist government that has brought us four years of such prosperity (and, at the same time, let us know it’s all George Bush’s fault and forever will be). The battle must be joined on both fronts.

Maybe Dan Cathy isn’t a bigot.  And maybe Mitt Romney didn’t mean to insult the Palestinians.  Maybe.

All Cathy said was that he supports what he thinks is the biblical definition of marriage.  He didn’t even use the words “gay,” “lesbian” or “homosexual,” none of which would seem to come easily to his lips.  How could that be bigoted?

There was that aside about “God’s judgment” raining down on us for our “arrogance” in thinking we can define words that are His to delimit.  That was kind of taking sides.

But as Doug Mataconis notes, a fair definition of “bigotry” includes “. . . obstinately or intolerantly” holding to opinions and prejudices, particularly when that involves hatred or intolerance of some group.  I’m assuming Cathy thinks this is a God-approved definition, though Cathy hasn’t weighed in on that.

As Mataconis argues, some people who oppose gay marriage are bigots under this definition, some are not.  Responsible people can and do draw that kind of distinction before labeling someone with such a severe word.

Mataconis applies the test to Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, and concludes Fischer is a bigot, which is a fairly easy case.  But he lets Cathy off the analytical hook.  I think he deserves the hot seat.

A fair test of the intolerance that properly characterizes bigotry should involve a look at whether the individual holds a humane and thoughtful view of the group (usually a minority), or really does seem to be intolerant toward them.

I can’t find any statements from Cathy about how he feels about homosexuals in particular, but I think it’s fair to say the view he holds of the bible’s position is obvious enough.  He doesn’t mention Leviticus or abominations or death, but those are all common enough citations.  If he thinks God is judging those of us harshly who support same-sex marriage, it’s probably not unreasonable to think he believes the bible supports a harsh judgment for such positions.  Perhaps he tempers his judgment with a more Christ-like understanding, but so far, Cathy hasn’t suggested he might think homosexuals, too, deserve love and family.  So he seems to think those who support gay equality deserve the judgment of an angry God.

Does the fact he has not explicitly said that get him off the hook?  That’s where Mitt Romney comes in.

Romney’s statement in Israel did not explicitly damn Palestinians.  Rather, he was praising Israelis.  In his inevitable walk back, Romney protested that he “did not speak about the Palestinian culture or the decisions made in their economy . . . . That is an interesting topic that perhaps can deserve scholarly analysis but I actually didn’t address that.”

There’s just enough truth in that to pass political muster.  Romney, like Cathy, intended to compliment the side he preferred, but that compliment is pregnant with an insult to the group not being addressed directly.  Sometimes, a speaker can honestly say he was not aware of the implicit insult.  Such people apologize.

The apology is an acknowledgement of wrongdoing, often unintentional.  It aligns the speaker with the insulted group, and demonstrates awareness of having caused some harm.  We have obviously defined offense down in our culture, lowering the bar to a Princess and the Pea level of hypersensitivity.  But some things really are offensive, and are meant to be.  And in our ever vigilant environment, where scouts are always on the lookout for possible offense, burying an insult inside a compliment is becoming a preferred strategy.

Those who are familiar with Maggie Gallagher know exactly how this works.  She perfected the art of a laser-like focus on the value of heterosexual marriage, and a polite but insistent obliviousness to what that might mean for the very people who are excluded from her thinking.  “I’m not insulting anyone,” her demeanor pleads.  “How could anyone think I’m a bigot?”

That is one way that bigotry hides behind the façade of the status quo in a debate that is about nothing else but changing the status quo.  It is the easiest way of avoiding the entire substance of the debate, claiming there is no debate to be had.

Unless Romney is an entirely unserious candidate, he cannot possibly have been ignorant of the fact that his comments praising Israeli culture necessarily involved insulting Palestinians.  And unless Dan Cathy has been utterly absent from the world his restaurants serve, he cannot plausibly claim that his comments supporting the “biblical family” were not plainly and quite naturally going to demean lesbians and gay men and their supporters.

If either man truly did not intend the silent insult, they can very easily correct the misimpressions.  They can acknowledge that the insult was there, hiding in plain sight, and they missed it.

Neither has shown even the remotest sign that they are interested in doing that.  And in both cases, maybe it’s time to conclude that the bigotry they shirk from really does have some substance.

updated from bottom, Aug. 6, 2012

Aug. 1 was Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, even in Massachusetts.

As Instapundit Glenn Reynolds blogs:

I don’t think this can be interpreted as opposition to gay marriage, so much as a response to bullying. But I do think that the bullying has probably tainted the gay-marriage brand, which is too bad. The gay-marriage argument is already winning — there’s no need to engage in Rahm Emanuel-style attacks, and doing so merely invites pushback.

But I think that’s far too optimistic, given the reported comments by the lined-up out-the-door patrons of the fast food chain, which donates millions to anti-gay groups. And it’s not so good for gay employees at the outlets these days, either.

On a more hopeful note, David Boaz blogs at Politico:

As Timothy Kincaid writes at Box Turtle Bulletin, “The company has a new label: ‘the brand of choice for anti-gay people.’”

That was good for the company on Wednesday. But I can’t believe it will be a good brand in the long run. Watch for an increase in sales of McDonald’s chicken sandwiches this week.

Let’s hope.

Further thoughts. I’ve reflected a bit more on what the Chick-fil-A eruption signifies, and I think it points to some gaping problems for us. As I’ve argued for many years, the fight for gay legal equality and liberty, while in obvious ways advanced by support from liberal Democrats, is also undermined by the close identification of our struggle with those who advocate ever-larger, more intrusive government and more control over the lives of America’s citizens by liberal government elites. The Obama mandate requiring employers, including those with religious affiliations, to provide contraceptive coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs is an example of left-liberal arrogance and over-reach. The efforts by Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanual and a handful of other Democratic officeholders in various liberal jurisdictions to use zoning laws against Chick-fil-A is now being seen as part of the ongoing “attack on religious liberty.” The anti-gay bigots are lined up at Chick-fil-A, but so are large numbers of conservative leaners who don’t want liberal government dictating what people can say and think (lost in all this, of course, is the fact that Chick-fil-A, as a corporation, gives millions of dollars to anti-gay organizations).

The efforts by just a handful of our erstwhile friends (or, less charitably, pandering politicians), has cost us dearly and could very well undermine efforts in Maryland, Minnesota and elsewhere to fight anti-gay-marriage initiatives. We know who are enemies are; but with friends like these, we could be sunk.

Furthermore. Josh Barro writes in the Boston Globe How Boston Mayor Tom Menino turned bullies into martyrs with his Chick-fil-A stance. Along with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Washington Mayor Vincent Gray, and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn:

these city officials changed the subject, and not in a good way for advocates of gay marriage. Chick-fil-A no longer has to answer for its CEO’s position on gay marriage and its owners’ support of organizations that oppose gay rights. Instead, the company is on the much more comfortable ground of simply defending its CEO’s right to express a constitutionally protected opinion without reprisal from the government.

As Byron York writes in the Washington Examiner, “GOP Sees Opportunity in Dems’ Support of Gay Marriage“:

On Monday, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., told the Washington Blade that the Democratic Party’s 15-member platform drafting committee has approved a plank supporting gay marriage for the party’s upcoming convention. … It didn’t take Republicans long to see opportunity in the Democrats’ decision. Shortly after the news came out, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee sent a press email highlighting a recent Wall Street Journal article that listed some Democratic senators running for re-election who have publicly distanced themselves from President Obama’s support of gay marriage. Missouri’s Claire McCaskill, Pennsylvania’s Bob Casey, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, Florida’s Bill Nelson — all have laid low on the issue. Now that will be harder to do.

Republicans were perfectly happy to watch Democrats raise the profile of gay marriage…

At some point, the culture shifts and parties can find themselves on the wrong side of history. That may not be true in 2012—we’ll see how this one plays out—but it will be in the not too far future.

Incidently, York mischaracterizes the Democrats’ likely position on the Defense of Marriage Act, stating they want to force recognition of “gay marriage everywhere, now.” In fact, the challenges to DOMA currently consists of repealing the section that bars the federal government from recognizing same-sex marriages that are already recognized by individual states. This widespread misrepresentation is also certain to be ubiquitous on the right.

Much blogosphere discussion on suggestions (now somewhat walked back) by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and other Democratic politicos on using the zoning laws against Chick-fil-A due to the company’s anti-gay-marriage views (the company says it does not discriminate against gay customers or employees). Writes James Peron at the Huffington Post:

Boycott the hell out of them; even drive them into liquidation by popular refusal to support the company, if you wish, but when the law is used selectively to punish a business because of the owner’s opinions and donations, then the law is overstepping its bounds. If anything, the moral case against Chick-fil-A is tainted by such actions.

More from Glen Greenwald at Salon:

You can’t cheer when political officials punish the expression of views you dislike and then expect to be taken seriously when you wrap yourself in the banner of free speech in order to protest state punishment of views you like and share.

James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal:

The mayors were playing something of a game of chicken: making a threat they lacked the authority to back up in the hope of both scoring political points and intimidating Chick-fil-A into backing down. The latter might well have succeeded if public reaction had been favorable to the mayors’ efforts.

And Eugene Volokh at The Volokh Conspiracy:

A government official [Chicago Alderman Proco “Joe” Moreno] thinks that the proper “consequence” for a business owner’s “statements and beliefs” is the denial of the ability to do business.

A story in the Advocate asserts that Right Wing Uses Colo. Tragedy to Vilify Gays, Secularism.

However, it’s not clear that the examples given are blaming gay people for the tragedy. What’s reported is that:

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association is apparently the first to play the gay card this time. Reacting to news that the Aurora Chick-fil-A was providing free food to police and other emergency personnel on the scene, Fischer tweeted, “Chick-fil-A provides free meals to first responders in CO. Let’s see Big Gay demonize that.”

A thoroughly churlish comment, but more about the LGBT boycott of the anti-gay rights fast food chain (see posting below) than about culpability for the shooting.

The Advocate further reports that:

Without mentioning LGBT people specifically, Fischer cites these phenomena as among the consequences [of ending school prayer]: “The nuclear family is breaking apart at culture-destroying rates. One of out every five adults in America has a lifelong, incurable sexually transmitted disease.”

Blaming the end of mandatory school prayer may be reactionary and theocratic, but I’m still not seeing the “vilify gays” part here. But the piece continues:

Also blaming the tragedy on “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” was Texas congressman Louie Gohmert, who appeared on a Heritage Foundation radio show hosted by former congressman Ernest Istook of Oklahoma. “We have been at war with the very pillars, the very foundation of this country,” Gohmert said.

That’s closer to, but not quite saying, that same-sex marriage (for example) has degraded society and is thus responsible for the shooting. But less than “vilify gays” in my book. In addition, I’m open to the argument that a general move away from a widely shared focus on the importance of teaching ethics and morality, in their true sense, has, in fact, degraded our culture.

Even if the above veers on scapegoating, let’s note that it’s not just the rightwing that can be accused of making spurious accusations. Moments after the suspect’s name became known, Brian Ross of ABC News drew a possible, but ultimately specious, Tea Party connection with the shooter. And in fact, leftwing activists have been quick to accuse tea party activists of all manner of hate-incitement, with little or no evidence.

In a highly polarized political world, everything is seen as fodder for political gain.