IGF CultureWatch

This account in D.C.'s City Paper is about a burning issue facing our community: making sure that we all use LGBT (or LGBTQ, or LGBTQIT, or...) and not the no longer correct GLBT. For those not consumed with politically correction nomenclature, the only truly progressive stance is to put lesbians before gays, bisexuals and the transgendered in the ubiquitous if ungainly (and mystifying to the uninitiated) acronym. But see, we're striking a blow against male privilege, and after all, isn't that what matters?

And if you ever wondered why after two years of Democratic majorities we will not be seeing an end to "don't ask, don't tell" or movement on the anti-discrimination law that activists say is their top priority, this sort of nonsense may give you a clue.

We get some substantive and excellent comments at IGF, but Tom's essay in response to Steve's post on Rand Paul stands out. Tom's essential point is this: It is all well and good for a libertarian (or anyone else) to stand on principle. But once others have compromised your principle, what do you do?

Specifically in the case of same-sex marriage, Paul The Younger has said that he doesn't think the government should be in the marriage business at all. I'm not sure, myself, and can see the arguments on both sides. But he's acting on this principle only to protect same-sex couples from this governmental intrusion into liberty, while resting comfortably in the reality that opposite-sex couples are suffering daily with no end in sight. He has a similar position on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which he doesn't think was good libertarian policy to begin with; but apparently he can live with it now. However, I'm sure he'd continue to protect the privilege of lesbians and gay men to be free of this overbearing encroachment on their rights.

The greatness of libertarianism, in my view, is that it has the proper respect for the constitution, which after all is a limitation on government. One of its principal limitations is that, when the government acts, it must do so equally with respect to all groups, and may not pick and choose among them without very good reason. Perhaps the constitution really does prohibit the government from entering into the marriage business. Or perhaps that's just a better understanding of government's proper role, irrespective of the constitution. But no court has ever ruled that this is an illegitimate function of our government, and I'm not expecting one to any time soon.

As long as that is true, then, a libertarian -- if he or she is truly principled -- must take one of two positions: either take a stand to challenge the entire misbegotten exercise of unauthorized and/or immoral authority for everyone, or else make sure that this power, as it is being exercised, is exercised without illegitimate discrimination among groups.

That constitutional libertarianism is how we should measure Rand Paul's brand. So far, his principles seem a bit more politically convenient than constitutionally defensible. Or principled.

American libertarians, including Barry Goldwater back in the day, have opposed racial discrimination but been wary of using the federal government to make discrimination by private employers against "protected classes" illegal, as Reason' hit & run blog notes.

Which brings us to the current Rand Paul brouhaha. This erupted after the Kentucky GOP Senate primary winner, a favorite of Tea Party patriots, told MSNBC's Rachel Maddow (when asked) that he would not have voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act barring discrimination in hiring by private employers. Predictably, Paul was branded a "racist" and has come under enormous political fire by the mainstream media.

But libertarians' opposition to the Civil Rights Act no more makes them "racists" than their opposition to outlawing anti-gay hiring discrimination in the private sector makes them homophobes (as Nigel Ashford addressed here back in 1999).

Whether you agree or not, it's a principled view based on assumptions about, and in defense of, individual liberty. But as a society we've become unable to discuss and debate serious positions regarding political philosophy, and instead have only demagoguery and partisan grandstanding.

What I find interesting is the fact that the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, which would make sexual orientation and gender identity into classes protected from employment discrimination, is going nowhere fast (as Dale Carpenter makes clear), despite two years of a liberal Democratic president with sweeping majorities in both houses of Congress.

But in this case, it's not because Democrats are closet libertarians; they just don't see the advantage in using political capital on our behalf. And their inaction seems perfectly fine with the liberal grandees of the mainstream media, given their silence on the issue. For them, at least, some forms of private-sector discrimination are more tolerable than others. And that is not a principled position; it's just a political calculation.

Following protests by LGBT activists, the Energy Department removed Washington University physics professor Jonathan Katz from a select group of five top scientists asked to pursue a solution to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The reason had nothing to do with the physics of stopping oil from pouring into the sea. It centered on Katz's postings on his website regarding his adamant disapproval of homosexuality.

Let's be clear: Katz is a homophobe, and proud of it. As the Washington Times reported, in Katz's website posting titled "In Defense of Homophobia," he opined that "the human body was not designed...to engage in homosexual acts," and that "Engaging in such behavior is like riding a motorcycle on an icy road without a helmet...sooner or later (probably sooner) the consequences will be catastrophic. Lethal diseases spread rapidly among people who do such things."

Pretty offensive stuff. But should opinion written on a personal website get you booted from a government assignment? What about from your job? Where does the line get drawn?

According to the newspaper's account, A.J. Bockelman, director of the St. Louis LGBT advocacy group PROMO, applaued the decision to remove Katz, saying, "It's disappointing at a time like this that when all Americans need to come together and focus on relief efforts and recovery efforts in the Gulf, someone divisive was placed in a position of power." But obviously it's not "all Americans" that Bockelman thinks should come together to solve the Gulf spill, since Katz, too, is an American, and one (unlike Bockelman) with expertise that the Obama administration felt would be valuable to the mission at hand.

Rather than demanding that Katz not be allowed to help solve the spill, in an effort, more or less, to punish him for his wrong-headed advocacy, it would be far more productive to engage him (and the many who think like him) in open and vigorous debate. But that is no longer the progressive way, and hasn't been for many years. Bad speech is to be punished, otherwise some may be misled. End of story.

I might be more sympathetic to the argument that Katz's personal advocacy placed him beyond the pale if it weren't for the hypocrisy of so many on the left, who believe one of the great crimes of the 20th century was that certain American Communist Party members (and yes, they were), who during the time of Stalin worked to advance the cause of communist tyranny, suffered grievously by being denied movie industry work in Hollywood.

I haven't been following much of the continuing debate over Elena Kagan, which seems (mercifully) to be petering out. It'll come back to life when her hearings begin, but if we're lucky, the worst is over.

Still, I have to get two final points on the record. First, the rumors about her sexual orientation demonstrate one thing above all else: how utterly reliant the speculation is on stereotypes. Softball. Cigars. Haircut. Build. Yes, some women who look and act like Elena Kagan are lesbians. And some women aren't. We should all be very proud of our keen senses of intuition in so definitively being able to sort out, in public, this most personal of matters.

The biggest factor in the speculation, though, is that Kagan is single. Or, as Maureen Dowd astutely notes this morning, less flatteringly "unmarried." I confess I was a little miffed that her editors stole the headline I'd planned to use, "All the Single Ladies," but the point is rich enough to warrant a bit of elaboration.

The debate over Kagan's sexual orientation may say more about the importance of marriage in our culture than homosexuality. This foolish skirmish is exactly what drives closeted lesbians and gay men into sham marriages with someone of the opposite sex -- and is exactly why heterosexuals have such a direct and personal interest in ridding the culture of homophobia, including the internalized kind that fuels the closet. As long as marriage is viewed as a marker - in fact the marker - for heterosexuality, lesbians and gay men who are ashamed or even just nervous about being homosexual will have an incentive to marry defensively. Whatever the many social advantages of marriage, it is ultimately between two individuals, and the cultural interference of homophobia has taken an enormous toll on far too many of those personal relationships.

More to the point, even heterosexuals who are cognizant of anti-gay sentiment in their environment will feel the pressure to marry, whether they want to or are inclined to, or not. Maybe Elena Kagan has been unfortunate in love. Or maybe she doesn't want to get married, or feel the need to. Yet the spectacle of this debate over her sexual orientation must be at least an embarrassment for her, if not a full measure of sheer emotional torture.

And all because she is not married.

In an ideal world without homophobia, we might have been able to have a discussion about the importance of marriage and the equal importance of individual liberty in making that choice. But we don't live in that world, and Elena Kagan has had to suffer the needless indignity of our salacious speculations about a subject that is alluring to us, but about which we know absolutely nothing.

John Aravosis has a nice timeline of the stonewalling -- an apt term here in multiple ways -- from the heavily Democratic Congress on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. First, there was going to be a vote in the House last fall. Then there was going to be a vote in January or February. Then there would be a vote in April. Now there will be a vote sometime before January. Maybe. Nobody's even talking about the Senate. Let's just say that time is not on ENDA's side. If it does not pass this year, it is unlikely to pass before 2013.

Recall that in 2007 the House voted in favor of ENDA but the Senate never scheduled a vote because, among other things, Democrats told us the mean Republican president would veto it. So there was no point in passing it. Now with stronger Democratic majorities in the House and in the Senate, and with a Democratic president in the White House, we still aren't even getting a vote on the bill.

But something besides the usual political timidity is involved here, as the Washington Post reports. Gay-rights advocates are once again insisting, this time with the support of every gay group and the openly gay House members, on including protection for transgendered workers in the bill. After a furor over expanding ENDA, such protection was deleted from the House version last time to guarantee passage.

Almost nobody wants to talk about it now, but the renewed insistence on including "gender identity" is killing any prospects the bill might have. Says the Post:

The legislation is unnerving moderate and conservative Democrats who face brutal reelection battles this fall, and its prospects of passing the Senate are somewhere between slim and none. . . .

[Rep. Barney] Frank has lost at least a few supporters this time around. Rep. John Campbell (R-Calif.), for one, feels that "if the transgender language is included, that's just too far," according to his spokesman.

Frank says he understands why moderate Republicans and politically vulnerable Democrats have "some uneasiness" about the issue. He has addressed two of the bigger concerns: workplace bathroom use and the appearance of transgender employees. . . .

None of these efforts seem to be swaying Blue Dogs [Democrats who are moderate and conservative, especially on fiscal issues].

[Rep. Heath] Shuler (D-NC), who serves as chief whip for the Blue Dog Coalition, said moderates have "walked the plank a lot around here on things that never go anywhere in the Senate" and that asking them to vote on a transgender bill in this year's political climate would be "a mistake." Asked whether he thought the bill would ever reach the floor, he said, "I can't imagine that it would."

We can protect gay employees from private employment discrimination now, this year, 2010. Or we can insist on also protecting transgender employees, who already have some protection under other federal law, and wait indefinitely for any protection. We cannot both insist on transgender-inclusion and get a bill passed for the foreseeable future. Maybe that's a price gay-rights leaders are willing to pay, but we should at least be honest about the cost.

ENDA was one of the two things (the other was the symbolic hate crimes law) that even skeptics like me believed Democrats would achieve. Now half of even that modest expectation is slipping away.

Andrew Sullivan and Glenn Greenwald want to know more about Elena Kagan. For my purposes, I think I've got most of what I need. I'll wait for the hearings, of course, and there's no telling what the opposition researchers, tabloid gold diggers and data miners will turn up, but what we already know about Kagan suggests to me she has what it takes to be a fine Supreme Court Justice.

Because the process is at its political zenith, the discussion right now is political. But the glaringly obvious fact very few among the commentariat bring up is that the most important characteristic of a judge - and particularly a Supreme Court justice - is their judgment. And chief among the issues they must exercise judgment upon is the question of what is a political issue and what is a constitutional one.

That distinction has become so muddied in recent decades - by politics - that it is hard to recognize any line at all.

But in my opinion, Kagan has done a fine job of understanding the difference with respect to DADT. At Harvard, she was required to obey the law, which in this case included the Solomon amendment withholding federal funds from any college that tried to frustrate the anti-gay policy of DADT. When an appeals court ruled that the amendment was invalid, Harvard followed the law as it was then interpreted, and when that opinion was appealed, Kagan signed an amicus brief challenging the law's validity - which was well within her rights, along with those of every American on any issue. And when the Supreme Court ruled the amendment was valid, she enforced the law as it was finally adjuged. She stated her personal opinion that it was an unfair and unjust law (which it is), but she implemented it.

It is easy to characterize this as flip-flopping, or in any number of other politically unpalatable ways, and it will be. But it shows that Kagan respects the rule of law while also holding her own moral opinions about laws she views as unjust - and knows the difference. In this, she has shown an understanding of politics that is rare among the political classes who will be judging her.

As a Supreme Court justice, of course, she will have the ability to decide which laws should be subject to the ordinary rules of politics and which to the constitution's more rigorous limitations set out to manage politics. That is an eternal question judges must face, and even the most rigidly conservative among them do enforce the constitution's limits on politics when, in their judgment, that is necessary.

But every constitutional question comes up in a specific case with its own unique facts. That is where judgment comes in, and where nominated judges should not be required to put themselves on the political record in advance. Kagan may or may not know how she would rule on the constitutionality of DADT or DOMA, just as Clarence Thomas may or may not have known how he would rule on the continuing validity of Roe v. Wade. But those questions do not come to the court without complicating facts, and those facts may make all the difference. Nor is "the law" - especially constitutional law -- something that is always self-evident. There is an absolute constitutional right to free speech that Congress may not abridge. Except in some cases. . .

Kagan's sexual orientation - or lack of one - may or may not be important in her thinking. But then, as IGF demonstrates, I hope, even being openly gay doesn't lead inevitably to any particular way of thinking, much less some specific result. The same is true of religion, which the high court illustrates for us every day. If anyone can find any commonality in reasoning among the court's six Catholic justices, I'd love to hear about it. So, in answer to Dale's question below, I'd say her sexual orientation doesn't matter a lot. He may disagree with me -- but wouldn't that make my point?

Judgment is not something that is objectively identifiable. And no biography can predict its presence or isolate it. But I think Kagan has already given us a record of sound and prudent judgment in a hard political case. That's what good judges need, and we need as many people who have it as we can possibly get.

I don't think so. But I'm curious what others think, especially those who think it does matter. If you do think it matters, how far would you take the inquiry?

(1) Should Elena Kagan or the White House disclose her sexual orientation in a public statement?

(2) If she (or the WH) doesn't, should a Senator ask about it at her confirmation hearing?

(3) If she says that is not a matter she will discuss, or says that she has no defined sexual orientation, should the Senate seek evidence (testimony of former partners, appearance at bars, magazine subscriptions, etc) to produce evidence of what it might be?

(4) Should her refusal to discuss it be a consideration in whether a Senator should vote to confirm or reject her nomination?

(5) Is sexual orientation, per se, relevant to a nominee's duties as a justice?

I'm not sure what position, if any, David or Steve would take on these questions. But their posts did get me thinking about them.

It's hard, these days, figuring out what you can and can't say about homosexuality. This is a problem I never imagined the gay rights movement would lead us to.

David Axelrod described the new world order most succinctly on behalf of the White House. Discussion of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan's sexual orientation "has no place in this process. It wasn't … an avenue of inquiry on our part and it shouldn't be on anybody else's' part." Printing an old photo of Kagan playing softball goes too far. If you think I'm overstating the case, even Andrew Sullivan has agreed to shut up about it. This is serious.

Ramin Setoodeh from Newsweek also learned -- the hard way -- the current preference for avoiding The Subject unless you're clear on the party line. His misbegotten essay about gay actors portraying heterosexual characters was not well received, but it did have a point, which Dan Savage distilled in one sentence on Joy Behar's show better than Setoodeh's whole article: American audiences still retain some powerful notions about sexual orientation that they carry with them into the theater, and that can affect their view of how convincing an actor's performance is. That is as unfortunate as it is inarguable. Setoodeh tripped over his own argument (as who among us has not), but it doesn't seem to me Newsweek needs to apologize for publishing it in the first place, as GLAAD demands. The excellent responses are well worth the provocation.

But it's not just Democrats and the gay left who want to stifle discussion of sexual orientation. George Rekers is all set (he keeps saying) to file a defamation suit because people have the nerve to infer he might be a little light in the loafers after his excellent adventure with a young man not his husband in Europe.

What all of these stories have in common is that none of the participants actually wants to fully shut off discussion about homosexuality. Axelrod, Setoodeh, GLAAD and Rekers all have track records, and with the exception of Setoodeh, leverage the subject when it suits their purposes (which, for GLAAD and Rekers is nearly all the time). What the politically inclined among them are trying to do is corral us into having only the discussion they want us to have.

I confess there are plenty of times I'd like that, too. But I try to keep a bit of humility about the limits of my own knowledge and opinions, and if I'm provably wrong, accept the correction as generously as I can, accounting for my disappointment.

This has always been the fundamental problem with Don't Ask, Don't Tell and its fountainhead, the closet. Such regimes cannot succeed unless everyone is properly coerced and follows the rules with precision. If anyone says what they're not supposed to, the whole edifice trembles. Which is to say both ideas embody human folly.

This is, and has always been, exactly the antithesis of the first amendment. Americans (and we're not the only ones) can only ignore something for so long before somebody will speak up or out. And that is true whether the White House or GLAAD or the military establishment or George Rekers is trying to enforce a narrow view - and it's true whether what's being said is good or bad for any particular party.