IGF CultureWatch

updated April 25, 2012

Mitt Romney’s campaign said last week that Richard Grenell, the former Bush administration spokesman at the United Nations, was joining his team as a spokesman on foreign policy issues. Although the Washington Post story doesn’t mention it, the Advocate and others have previously reported that Grenell is openly gay and, according to reports, lives in California with his long-time partner, Matthew Lashey, a media and entertainment company executive. The Advocate also noted that Grenell fought, unsuccessfully, to have his partner listed alongside the spouses of other U.N. diplomats.

Romney has distanced himself from his one-time strong support for gay legal equality and reiterated his opposition to gay marriage, the banning of which he would add to the U.S. Constitution. But Romeny has said he hasn’t, and won’t, discriminate in
hiring. Whether Grenell’s appointment, given his advocacy, becomes an issue will be interesting to watch.

More. I assumed Grenell’s appointment would be attacked by the social right (and it was), but it’s the left-liberal blogosphere (for instance here, and here) and [added: some] LGBT “progressives” who have declared war on Grenell. Whether this is character assassination for insufficient political correctness (tweets mocking Hillary! And Newt’s wives!) or not, carried out by the audience that delights in Bill Maher’s rabid attacks on GOP women, it’s further evidence that the one thing the left and Democratic Party loyalists hate most are gay Republicans, even those with a history of fighting for gay equality within the GOP.

Furthermore. Via the Washington Post: The campaign and Grenell are dealing with a backlash from left and right. You’d expect it from the right, but the behavior of “progressives” in trying to block the appointment of an openly gay, pro-gay-equality voice reveals the shamelessness of the partisan left. I’ve said it before but it remains sadly true: their worst nightmare is that the GOP should become less anti-gay and challenge the one true party for gay dollars and votes.

Why this matters: The Washington Post also reports: “Two weeks from now, North Carolina will hold a public referendum on what could become one of the toughest anti-gay measures in the country.… But President Obama did not touch the subject when he appeared in Chapel Hill on Tuesday—even though it is roiling the electorate there.” Why should he, as long as the GOP remains anti-gay, no need to spend political capital on a slavishly loyal LGBT bloc.

Long-time religious right activist Ralph Reed, who used to represent Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority and now heads the Faith and Freedom Coalition, is urging Mitt Romney to adopt Rick Santorum’s scathing brand of social conservatism in order to win the White House. It’s not enough, apparently, that Romney is pro-life and supports the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment. Writes Reed in a Washington Post op-ed titled “To Beat Obama, Mitt Romney Must Channel Rick Santorum“:

[Romney’s] immediate task is to consolidate conservative support and unify the party. The best way to do that is to appropriate the best parts of Santorum’s message. Santorum follows the trailblazing evangelical candidates Pat Robertson and Mike Huckabee, who personified the rise and the maturation of social conservatives as a critical component of the Republican coalition. …

It’s a strategy that could only be cheered in the fever swamps of the religious right and among the Democratic left, who understand what a godsend it would be for Obama.

I’m reminded of Santorum’s remarks on losing a Midwestern primary to Romney that he (Santorum) still felt he was victorious because he had won the most conservative districts—as if failing to carry anything but the most conservative districts boded well as a strategy for winning a general election. But like the socialist left, the social conservative right lives in a fantasyland where the most ideologically pure are certain to be rewarded for their lack of messy ambiguity.

More. Romney’s promise to “champion a Federal Marriage Amendment to the Constitution defining marriage as between one man and one woman” doesn’t sit well with some of his largest donors.

The New York Times Magazine looks at the political prospects of the four Republican New York State senators who voted for marriage equality and provided the necessary margin for it to pass. “The four Republican apostates now had targets on their backs,” the Times reports. However:

…if you parse public opinion, you find the acceptance of gay marriage is not just growing; it is accelerating. This is driven, of course, by the overwhelming support of young voters, but also by white Catholics, who have grown more open-minded on gay rightss. …

Opponents of gay marriage used to hold their opinion more passionately than supporters. But as more Americans have openly gay children, siblings, friends and neighbors, the supporters feel just as strongly.

On the other hand:

African-American support for gay marriage has remained stubborn, hovering around 30 percent for years, for reasons of class and education and because of the centrality of church in their lives. According to internal memos of the National Organization for Marriage, the anti-gay-marriage lobby sees an opportunity to play on the fact that some blacks resent hearing gay marriage likened to their own civil rights struggle.

Interestingly, the article notes that the four senators:

are upstate guys, from struggling former mill towns and diminished Rust Belt cities. So while the senators’ political calculus differs from district to district, their experiences give us a glimpse into how this issue is likely to play out in “real America,” as conservatives are fond of calling it, and not just in the coastal metropolises. Which is why the fates of these four are being watched intently by national lobbies and wavering politicians across the country.

Their re-election would be a welcome sign of progress.

Bill Donohue’s Catholic League, long known for its hostility toward gays, on Wednesday found a new group to antagonize when it Tweeted the following:

Lesbian Dem Hilary Rosen tells Ann Romney she never worked a day in her life. Unlike Rosen, who had to adopt kids, Ann raised 5 of her own.

Outraged reactions from adoptive parents lit up the web. Writes blogger Eric Kirk, “I guess adoptive parenting isn’t real parenting and our kids aren’t ‘our own.'” Notes Malinda at China AdoptionTalk, “This tweet certainly shows that adoption stigma is alive and well.”

The League’s sentiments were also roundly and promptly condemned by a long list of conservative, Republican and traditionalist commentators, including RNC communications director Sean Spicer (“The @CatholicLeague should be encouraging adoption, not demeaning the parents who are blessed to raise these children”); blogger Elizabeth Scalia; The American Conservative contributing editor Michael Brendan Dougherty; and Michael Potemra at National Review (“thuggishness…hateful”).

Dougherty says of Donohue “I just wish people would stop funding him,” which is certainly an understandable sentiment. But if people do keep sending Donohue checks to keep enabling his garish and contentious presence in American public life, perhaps it’s because they’re reading the signals given by respectable figures in his Church. As Commonweal points out, “Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who surely ought to know better, gives Donohue friendly cover on a regular basis,” as do many other top churchmen. For confirmation, take a look at the League’s “About Us” page, which includes, along with a string of endorsements by leading archbishops, a “Board of Advisers” that lists pretty much every prominent traditionalist Catholic intellectual: Hadley Arkes, Gerard Bradley, Robert George, Michael Novak, George Weigel and so forth. The support of these big names is a crucial reason Donohue is taken seriously, and makes it idle to try to dismiss his League as some sort of fringe group with no real constituency. If his group indulges in schoolyard taunting, it is a schoolyard just one jump away from Notre Dame, Amherst, and Princeton.

There are lessons for gays, I think, in the long and heartening story of how adoption came to lose the social stigma once attached to it. Before “love makes a family” was ever a gay-rights slogan, it was a truth to which adoptive families had been given special access. Lurking behind both disapproval of adoptive families and disapproval of gays is the prejudice that in the final analysis only biological, “natural” ways of forging family connections really count. Only a generation or two ago, during the same general period that most gays were constrained to lead lives of deep concealment, it was common for adoptive parents to conceal the fact of adoption, not only from neighbors and teachers, but even from children themselves. We now realize that an obligation to keep big secrets, especially secrets about love and commitment and the supposed shame that should attach to family structure, is too great a burden to carry around without good reason.

We do not need the Catholic League’s offensive tweets to remind us that anti-adoption attitudes are still with us. In many parts of the world, especially those where a more tribal approach to family life has not yet yielded to modernity, adoption is culturally or even legally disapproved and raw biology does rule the day, to the great detriment of stray children who languish on the streets or in institutions. When modernist views of adoption advance, and likewise when same-sex marriage advances, more people find “forever families” to love and to commit to their care. That is why both march alongside in the genuine pro-family cause.

It seems that knowing gay couples had a lot to do with it:

Andrew Sullivan has more.

So reports the New York Times News Service. Yes, I know, it’s pressure from the anti-gay social conservatives that dominate the GOP that keeps Obama from banning anti-gay discrimination or supporting marriage equality—and it’s the reason why the Democrats failed to move forward with the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, which never left committee when they controlled both houses of Congress for the first two years of Obama’s presidency, and why the Democratic leadership dragged its feet on repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell” until the Log Cabin Republicans’ lawsuit (and an uproar from LGBT bloggers) forced a last-minute move.

But if that is the case, then really, wouldn’t it make sense to shift the focus to supporting, and electing, pro-gay Republicans, whereas the national strategy of making the major LGBT lobbies into fundraising arms of the Democratic Party is likely to produce just more of the same?

More. From the Washington Blade: “U.S. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) expressed little interest Wednesday in advancing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in the wake of an announcement from the White House last week that the Obama administration won’t take action against LGBT workplace discrimination at this time.” And why would he?

The anti-gay right knows how to play the victim card, complaining of bigotry against them at every turn.  And the left knows how to make them feel that way.

It is possible to oppose same-sex marriage without holding homosexuals in disdain, but that’s a very fine line.  David Blankenhorn manages to stick the landing.  His opposition to the North Carolina amendment to ban any relationship rights for same-sex couples is the model of how to oppose marriage equality, yet show some respect for the problem that same-sex couples have under the law.

I, of course, disagree with his opposition to equal marriage rights.  But Blankenhorn has shown what bigotry isn’t.

Longtime friend of this site Milan Vydareny writes about this upcoming event remembering IGF founder Paul Varnell:

Plans near completion for Paul Varnell memorial event

“Programming for the Paul Varnell Memorial Event has achieved critical mass,” announced event Programming Chair Greg Nigosian. “We have received solid confirmations from several speakers recently and we are confident of presenting a meaningful and memorable event for those in attendance.” Additionally, several other individuals have indicated a willingness to contribute but are in the process of clearing schedules to enable their participation.

Included in the afternoon lineup of confirmed speakers are Jack Rinella, a sought-after lecturer and author who will recount Varnell’s mentorship and encouragement; conservative gay leader Tim Drake will speak on their early conservative/ libertarian political activities; Dr. David Ostrow is expected to address his and Paul’s early AIDS activism; Milan Vydareny had a number of projects with Varnell and remembers Paul as a “connector and early adopter.”

The final portion of the afternoon will be reserved for a moderated open discussion and extemporaneous presentations by attendees.

The Event will take place at 2:00 PM on Sunday, April 15, 2012 in the Etienne Auditorium of the Leather Archives & Museum at 6418 N. Greenview Ave. on Chicago’s North side. Doors will open at 1:30 PM.

The event website, http://varnell.lionwood.com, has complete information. Interested persons can also sign up for the event mailing list to receive timely notices about the event as planning is finalized.

Varnell, who died December 9, 2011 at the age of 70, has been variously described as a Renaissance Man, a curmudgeon, brusque, one of the kindest and most compassionate men alive, conservative, libertarian, a gay activist and advocate, a journalist, social commentator, art critic and enormously multifaceted. In fact, he was all of these things and much more. The event will provide the opportunity to recount and share in some the eclectic experiences that distinguished the life of Paul Varnell.

The event organizers, Milan Vydareny and Greg Nigosian were long-time friends of Varnell and have participated with him over the years in various projects and activities related to activism and the advancement of gay rights.

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“Homophobia is more pronounced in individuals with an unacknowledged attraction to the same sex and who grew up with authoritarian parents who forbade such desires,” a series of psychology studies at the University of Rochester demonstrates. You’ll never get the homophobes to admit it, but as anti-gay paranoia wanes throughout culture and society, we should see a decrease in this kind of reaction formation.

James Kirchick takes note that the Seattle LGBT Commission had planned to meet with a group of Israeli students touring the U.S. under the auspices of the Alliance of Israeli LGBT Educational Organizations. “It would be hard for anyone, outside the confines of the gay-hating religious right, to find anything pernicious about such an endeavor,” Kirchick writes. Yet the Seattle commission canceled the meeting after a protest by an anti-Israeli “progressive” academic at Seattle University. “We weren’t prepared to handle the Palestinian question,” said the commission’s co-chair.

Kirchick points out “the not-insignificant point that Israeli society doesn’t sanction the torture and murder of homosexuals, whereas Palestinian society—like the vast majority of Arab and Muslim societies—does.”