IGF CultureWatch

There’s an important essay defending gay marriage in, of all places, The American Conservative. And its placement there, making the conservative case in conservative terms, is significant.

Noah Millman critiques in “Gay Marriage and the Limits of Consequentialism” the “consequentialist” case against marriage equality, “a case which says, basically, that since you don’t know what the outcome will be you should move very slowly and incrementally in implementing any change.”

He concludes:

The case for gay marriage–the Burkean case, you might say–is simply that what amount to common-law gay marriages already exist. Numerous gay couples settle down for long-term, even life-long relationships of mutual support. They jointly own property. They bear, adopt, and rear children. These are already existing realities, not hypotheticals. They are not the product of state diktats; they are the product of organic cultural change which, in turn, has shaped changes in the law.

And that:

The question before the people is whether to recognize these realities, and, if so, as what. “As marriage” is one answer–the answer favored by those who want to secure those already-existing arrangements, for families already in them and for future generations who might want to form similar arrangements. And it’s the answer that seems to be getting intuitively more persuasive to more and more people as they look at these couples and at straight marriages and don’t see any fundamental differences that the law should be cognizant of.

It won’t sway the religious right. Still, there are a lot of conservatives who are not religious fundamentalists but who look at the unintended consequences of well-meant liberal social initiatives, including the role of economic redistribution in promoting government dependency and family breakdown, and say “Enough!” Those are the conservatives who can be, and must be, reached, using arguments and language that resonates with their deeply held convictions.

Mark Regnerus gets props for being candid about his new study on parenting, but doesn’t seem to understand what he’s actually being candid about.

The study is another attempt to compare the effects on children of same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents — well, kind of.  Regnerus just asked adults if, as children, either of their parents had ever had a same-sex relationship, and if so, whether they’d lived with that parent during that period.  That approach obviously has some real problems, as John Corvino so aptly argues at TNR.

In describing the methodology of his research, Regnerus says, “I realize that one same-sex relationship does not a lesbian make, necessarily. But our research team was less concerned with the complicated politics of sexual identity than with same-sex behavior.”

I can’t think of a statement that more clearly reveals the chasm between the way the extreme right views sexual orientation and the way most everyone else does today.  Not knowing much about Regnerus, I have no idea what his political proclivities might be; all I can say is that his statement incorporates a view of homosexuality that is widely accepted only among the political and religious right today.

No one would argue that heterosexuality is synonymous with sexual behavior — or at least no one would who expected to be taken seriously.  Sexual orientation — gay or straight — involves sexual behavior, but also an enormous spectrum of other factors, psychological, emotional, relational and both public and private.  I doubt many heterosexual couples would stand for having their sexual behavior isolated and then used as the measure against their parenting skills.

But Regnerus is happy to do that for homosexuals.  He thinks it will actually be helpful to society to compare people who have engaged in homosexual behavior and had some experience parenting (for as little as four months), with heterosexual parents who have married and devoted a lifetime to raising children.

That is a comparison that is simply untenable.  When many of the children he surveyed were growing up, of course, homosexuality was more widely stigmatized as sexual behavior — or, more accurately, sexual misbehavior, since it could also be criminalized.  That view of homosexuality as conduct rather than as something more integrated into a human character is something most of the culture has moved on from.  But the right continues its obsessive focus on sex, to the exclusion of anything else.  And Regnerus places that view of homosexuality at the very heart of his study.

In addition, Regnerus makes the same mistake that Dr. Robert Spitzer made in his early study of homosexuality, and has both regretted and apologized for: taking the word of people about their experiences, without any further delving.

It would be good to hear Regnerus respond to both of these criticisms.  I don’t think either one has a responsible answer.  Whatever his study shows, it does not answer the question that the right poses: whether there is any scientific proof that the children of stable homosexual couples do any better or worse than the children of stable heterosexual couples.

The New York Times reports that hedge fund manager Paul E. Singer is

providing $1 million to start a new “super PAC” with several Republican compatriots. Named American Unity PAC, its sole mission will be to encourage Republican candidates to support same-sex marriage, in part by helping them to feel financially shielded from any blowback from well-funded groups that oppose it. …

In an interview [Singer said] he’s confident that in Congressional races, which would most likely be the super PAC’s initial focus, there are more than a few Republicans “who could be on the verge of support” or are “harboring and hiding their views.”

In politics, money talks. Change won’t come quickly, but over time promoting pro-gay Republicans, which remains anathema to certain LGBT Democratic operatives, is essential to changing the dynamics for gay legal equality.

I seem to have gotten past my schaudenfreude over politicians who torture themselves responding to simple questions about whether they support same-sex marriage.  Watching Jeb Bush squirm at Charlie Roses’s straightforward inquiry (at about the 50 minute mark of this video), I found myself feeling some real sympathy for him.

I think it’s because Jeb appears to want to give the simple, right answer.  He’s smart, very well respected in his state, and knows how to answer even the hardest questions.  Watch him field Rose’s very first one about whether Jeb will be Mitt Romney’s running mate.  That is a tough question, but watch how easy it is to give a clear answer, if you have one.

Contrast that ease to what happens to Jeb when Rose gets around to same-sex marriage.  Jeb’s detours, platitudes, bromides and banality not only don’t answer the question, they don’t even seem to convince Jeb himself.

That, I think (and hope) is the tragedy of politicians of good faith.  They know they are giving the wrong answer and hate themselves for it.  Can Jeb Bush really believe that when he says same-sex marriage is a “diversion,” he is not insulting every lesbian and gay man, to whom marriage is not some triviality or stratagem, but a central fact of their daily life?

That is how a politician can view the issue — in tactical terms.  More important, it is a luxury that only heterosexuals have, to view same-sex marriage as not that important.  How nice that must be, to see an issue that is so important to the lives of others, and not have to worry about it because it doesn’t much affect you.

But that is the problem all minorities potentially face in a democracy.  Empathy is not feeling sorry for someone (that’s sympathy), it is the ability to actually see the world through someone else’s eyes.  The equal protection clause doesn’t guarantee majorities will have empathy but it does assure that the laws cannot allow this luxury of the majority to prevail.

I don’t know why I think Jeb is smart enough to understand that he is only feigning this kind of ignorance and entitlement.  It’s very possible I’m wrong and he really is that ignorant and entitled.  But in this interview, he really did strike me as troubled by the words coming out of his own mouth.

Worse for him, after watching how much easier it is now for the President to answer this simple question with a simple answer, I think (and again, hope) Jeb knows that his own political  life would be so much easier if he, too, could give the easy and right response.

Last month, North Carolinians voted 61-39 percent to amend their state constitution to ban same-sex marriages and civil unions. That’s led to debate over whether the campaign against the amendment used effective messages in TV ads and other media. As the Washington Blade reports, some have expressed concerns that:

messages in TV ads [stressed] the harms the amendment would have on straight unmarried couples. … Campaign officials said they believe the ad was effective in showing how the amendment would have serious consequences for unmarried couples, gay or straight, and it likely persuaded some voters to oppose the amendment. …

Leaders of the Coalition to Protect All North Carolina Families said they chose [a] message focused on how Amendment One goes far beyond banning same-sex marriage and, among other things, would ban civil unions for gay and straight couples. It could also lead to a wide range of harmful effects on all unmarried couples, gay and straight, and their children, the group stressed in its “messaging” campaign.

Monday-morning quarterbacking tends to be easy, but given the degree of the campaign’s failure it’s a necessary exercise. And it seems kind of obvious that focusing on the harm that banning civil unions would have on heterosexuals who choose not to marry is the sort of message that resonates well within the progressive echo chamber, but which in conservative, highly religious North Carolina was likely to play into the hands of those arguing that gays are attacking marriage and must be stopped.

More. Reader “pauly” makes a point in his comment that I should have noted. He writes:

The campaign was both too “politically correct” and, at the same time, too “de-gayed” — the worst of both worlds, in my opinion.

Too politically correct because a segment of the left has long advocated that civil unions and domestic partner benefits be granted not only to same-sex couples as a stop-gap until we have marriage equality, but to all couples, gay or straight, because marriage should not be necessary to get spousal benefits from government or employers. Gay “conservatives” have tended to argue that civil unions and partner benefits should be restricted to same-sex couples, and should go away once we get the right to marry.

As for too “de-gayed,” that seems obvious and was reported on in the Blade article.

Years ago, I wrote about the problem of including heterosexuals who choose not to marry under domestic partnerships, here: “…linking benefits for gay partners who are not allowed to be married with benefits for heterosexuals who don’t want to make a commitment… plays directly into the hands of the religious right…”

But ideologues won’t learn from past mistakes; they just double down on failed strategies (another trillion dollars in “stimulus,” anyone?).

A federal appeals court in Boston decided that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. The court didn’t rule that any state must change its definition of marriage to include same-sex couples, but said if a state allows same-sex marriage then the federal government should recognize those unions—a traditional federalist view.

I believe this is the correct approach. A popular backlash would follow any Supreme Court ruling that tried to force conservative states that voted overwhelmingly to ban gay marriage to now recognize them, and an anti-gay-marriage Constitutional amendment remains possible. Just about half of the populace favors marriage equality, meaning we are still a long way from the national consensus against banning interracial marriages that was achieved prior to the Supreme Court’s overturning state laws that forbid those unions.

It’s worth noting that this case was decided by a three-judge panel, and that two of the judges were appointed by Republican presidents. Judge Michael Boudin, who wrote the unanimous decision, was appointed by President George H.W. Bush and Judge Juan R. Torruella was appointed by Ronald Reagan. That’s no guarantee that Romney-appointed judges won’t be hard-core social conservatives, but it points to the value of a pursuing a bipartisan approach to achieving legal equality.

A busy summer is limiting my blogging. But this “Queers Against NATO” story caught my eye. They certainly have a right to protest, and they give this rationale: “The anti-war movement and the queer movement are allied, according to the queer protestors, because queer people are affected by militarization.” Well, that explains things.

Gays are also affected by higher taxes and excessive regulation, of course. So if we can have Queers Against NATO, why not Gays for the Tea Party? At least that would serve to publicize that gay people aren’t all on the left and might help build support in the long run. Right now, for instance, there’s an effort by anti-gay social conservatives to use the Tea Party as part of their anti-gay agenda, although others are fighting against it and want the Tea Party to remain focused on limited government and liberty. The fight within the Tea Party for a true liberty agenda would seem more important than still more showings of solidarity with the radical left.