Marriage and Messages

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If I've asked it once I've asked it a hundred times: how does marriage equality hurt heterosexuals?

Recently I posed the question yet again to Maggie Gallagher, outgoing president of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), as she visited my ethics class at Wayne State University via audio conference.

I "get" that Gallagher wants children to have mothers and fathers, and ideally, their own biological mothers and fathers. What I've never quite gotten is why extending marriage to gays and lesbians undermines that goal. One can be married without having children, one can have children without being married; and (most important) same-sex marriage is not about gay couples' snatching children away from their loving heterosexual parents. No sane person thinks otherwise.

Maggie Gallagher is a sane person. (Wrong, but sane.) For the record, she is not worried that marriage equality would give gays license to kidnap children. Nor does she oppose adoption by gay individuals or couples, although she thinks heterosexual married couples should be preferred. So what's the problem?

At the risk of oversimplifying, one could describe her concern-which she graciously explained to my class-as The Message Argument. The idea is this. The core reason society promotes marriage is to bind mothers and fathers together for the long-term welfare of their offspring. In doing so we send a message: "Children need their mothers and fathers."

But on Gallagher's view, extending marriage to gays and lesbians makes it virtually impossible to sustain that message. The central premise of the marriage-equality movement is that Jack and Bob's marriage is just as valid, qua marriage, as Jack and Jill's. (That's the whole point of calling it "marriage equality.") And if we make that equivalence, we cannot also say that children-some of whom Jack and Bob may be raising-need their mothers and fathers. Indeed, the latter claim would now seem offensive, even bigoted.

So Gallagher's argument poses a dilemma: either maintain the message that children need their mothers and fathers, and thus oppose marriage equality; or else embrace marriage equality, and thus relinquish the message. You can't have both.

Whatever else you want to say about this argument, it's not crazy. It's about how to maintain a message that seems well motivated, at least on the surface: children need their mothers and fathers.

Elsewhere I've argued that the claim "Children need their mothers and fathers" is ambiguous. On one reading it's obviously false. On another, it's more plausible, but it doesn't support the conclusion against marriage equality. For even if we were to grant for the sake of argument that the "ideal" situation for children is, on average, with their own biological mother and father, we ought not to discourage-and deny marriage to-other arrangements: stepfamilies, adoptive families, and same-sex households. It's a non-sequitur.

But that (familiar and ongoing) argument is somewhat beside the point. The Message Argument does not say that promoting children's welfare logically entails denying marriage to gays and lesbians. It says that, in practice, it is virtually impossible to maintain the message "Children need their mothers and fathers" while also promoting the message that "Gay families are just as good as straight ones." And given a choice between the two messages, Gallagher favors the former.

I think urging parents-especially fathers-to stick around for their offspring is an admirable and important goal. It's also one that has personal resonance for Gallagher, who has spoken candidly of her experience as a young single mother left behind by her child's father.

I also think that there are 1001 better ways to achieve this goal than fighting marriage equality. The fact that NOM targets gays and gays alone makes it hard to believe that we are merely collateral damage in their battle to promote children's welfare.

That said, I want to thank Gallagher for clarifying her position. I want to assure her that I'll take The Message dilemma seriously. I plan to grapple with it in future columns (and our forthcoming book).

But I also want to pose for her a counter-dilemma, which I hope she'll take equally seriously.

For it seems to me that, in practice, it is impossible to tell gay couples and families that they are full-fledged members of our society, deserving of equal respect and dignity, while also denying them the legal and social status of marriage.

Yes, marriage sends messages, but "children need their mothers and fathers" is scarcely the only one. Marriage sends the message that it's good for people to have someone special to take care of them, and vice-versa-to have and to hold, for better or worse, till death do they part.

Marriage sends a message about the importance of forming family, even when those families don't include children; about making the transition from being a child in one's family of origin to being an adult in one's family of choice.

Gallagher claims that she loves and respects gay people, and I want to believe her. But how can she sustain that message while also opposing marriage equality? How does her own preferred message not tell gay families-not to mention stepfamilies, adoptive families, and single-parent households-that "Your family isn't real"?

Yes, marriage sends messages. So does its denial.

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If Only Obama Knew!

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Defense Secretary Robert Gates has sent Congress a letter stating that that ending the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy before the military conducts a thorough review (translation: not this year) "would send a very damaging message to our men and women in uniform that in essence their views, concerns and perspectives do not matter." After all, those serving in the military expect to make political policy and dislike taking orders, right?

A release from the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network states:

Gay rights advocates are furious after Defense Secretary Robert Gates, speaking for the Administration in a letter to the Hill, effectively killed the chances of a vote on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" before the Midterms. And if the Democrats lose the House, repeal-a firm Obama campaign promise-may be deferred indefinitely.

Uh, oh, guess who's been thrown under the bus.

Not surprisingly, the Obama fundraisers at the Human Rights Campaign are spinning the Gates letter as if the Defense Secretary had operated independently, like some sort of loose cannon (reminds me of how in Russia during the '30s Gulag prisoners used to lament, "if only Stalin knew!"). States an HRC release:

Today's letter from Secretary Gates and Admiral Mullen to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton flies in the face of the President's commitment in the State of the Union address to work with Congress to repeal the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law this year.... It is inconceivable that the Secretary of Defense would so blatantly undermine the Commander-in-Chief's policy commitment.

But as scholars at the Palm Center at the University of California, Santa Barbara, point out in a release titled Experts: Obama Administration Defers "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" Repeal Two Years:

Christopher Neff, Deputy Executive Director of the Palm Center, believes that Secretary Gates' letter is a signal from the White House, not just the Pentagon. "Today's letter represents a public effort by the Obama Administration to put a stop to Congressional repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' in 2010. Clearly, the Department of Defense is not its own branch of government. The Secretary of Defense serves the President."

Somebody tell the Human Rights Campaign.

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Tolerant Conservatives: The Left’s Worst Nightmare

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A diatribe at The Clyde Fitch Report blogsite tears into Kelsey Grammer, formerly of "Frasier" fame and currently co-starring in a Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles. Grammer, a Republican who supported Rudy Giuliani for president in 2008, is promoting the soon-to-be-launched RightNetwork with a video riffing on big government, more taxes, and trillion dollar deficits. For this, the Fitch Report howls that Grammer is "a radical right-winger...putting his reactionary maw behind the RightNetwork, a new multiplatform venture that presumably aims to hurl the LGBT community all the back to the closet, stripped of whatever rights they may have won, and, for all we know, marked with ass tattoos just the way that William F. Buckley, Jr., wanted."

Nothing on the site, or in Grammer's video, warrants that assessment or suggests that the new "network" will be anti-gay. But like those who make up racist slurs to attack everyone who joins Tea Party protests against gargantuan government, truth has very little to do with it.

Everything we know about Grammer suggests he's gay-supportive (this Wall Street Journal profile calls him an "outspoken Republican" and "a supporter of same-sex marriage"). But I suspect the left's biggest fear is a limited government movement that is not socially reactionary.

Yet if only the intolerant get involved in the GOP, the Tea Parties, and conservative politics in general, it's clear that the right will stay predominantly intolerant forever, giving many on the left what they seem to want-a boogeyman party to fundraise against. That may be in their partisan interest, but it's not a strategy that bodes well for the expansion of our rights, especially given likely Republican gains in Congress come November.

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Karen and Kerry

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Isn't it about time someone did a little shout-out for lesbian triumphalism in journalism? Over the last year or so, I've found myself relying on Kerry Eleveld's coverage of goings-on in the nation's capitol, and Karen Ocamb's excellent attention to the important stories in California and the West. Eleveld is getting increasing national attention, and is a well-recognized part of the Washington press corps. And while Ocamb is handicapped by not suffocating herself in the politically incestuous world of DC, her site is invaluable for anyone who acknowledges that there is life - including political life - in the far away lands beyond the beltway.

Both women are accomplished, aggressive and smart. Ocamb has worked long and hard to get where she is, and it shows in her work. Her piece on the passing of former LA Police Chief Daryl Gates demonstrated the depth of her experience and understanding of the gay rights movement in Los Angeles. Eleveld is newer to journalism, but clearly has the natural skills to thrive in Washington's hothouse.

The only news in this observation is that there's no news. Two women who happen to be lesbians, one on each coast, developed their journalistic talents and are now flourishing. And we're all better off for it.

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The New Bisexuals

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An article in Psychology Today online said something startling: girls now are three times more likely to be "non-heterosexual" than boys.

Where once lesbians and bisexual women were thought to number one percent of the population - while gay and bisexual men were five percent - the article said that now 15 percent of young women and girls identify as lesbian or bisexual.

Fifteen percent. A 14 percent jump like that is a giant and significant leap in our numbers, which could affect everything from political power to social approval.

The writer, Dr. Leonard Sax, wonders why there are "suddenly" so many queer girls.

And I do, too.

First, I wonder if those self-identifying girls call themselves bisexual because they're actually attracted to women or because they think it's sexier - and cooler - to call themselves bisexual and occasionally kiss girls for show.

After all, a label in our more understanding era is an easy thing to take on. Labels are important, but they don't necessarily lead to political action or even respect for equal rights (in fact, quite the opposite. A recent email I received was from a woman who said, "I'm bisexual, but I don't think they should have gay marriage." Basically her argument was that women should be free to sleep with whomever they want, but they should marry men.)

And if this new 14 percent is actually gay or bisexual (that is, having or seeking sexual and romantic relationships with women) - is it simply because America is more tolerant of lesbians now and so they feel able to come out, is it because bisexuality no longer carries the stigma in the gay and straight world that it used to, or is it something else (or some combination)?

Women have always expressed their sexuality more fluidly - hence all those "Lesbians Until Graduation" (or LUGS) I went to school with at Wellesley (and a long history at women's colleges of women "spooning" and writing romantic letters to each other). I've known women to come out in their 40s and 50s after long happy marriages to men. And I've known self-identified lesbians who married men in their 30s and had happy, successful marriages. This is lifelong bisexuality in fact, if not necessarily in self-identification.

Dr. Sax says - and I find this very interesting - that "female sexuality is different from male sexuality…sexual attraction seems to be more malleable. If a teenage girl kisses another teenage girl, for whatever reason, and she finds that she likes it - then things can happen and things can change. If a young woman finds her soul mate, and her soul mate happens to be female then she may begin to experience feelings she's never felt before."

Dr. Sax's conclusion - which is ridiculous on its face - is that girls are more interested in other girls because boys are "losers" who watch too much porn. Come on.

But girls do tend to have strong, deeply emotional attachments to each other. And it's interesting to think that those attachments - which may have previously just been labeled "girl crushes" and thought childish and insignificant - may now be socially considered lesbian feelings, and thus prod a girl to label herself differently, which leads to permanent changes in her brain.

Dr. Sax didn't break down the numbers; I don't know what part of that new 14 percent is lesbian and what part bisexual.

But what I do know is this: the LGBT community hasn't always been great about welcoming and reaching out to and understanding and supporting bisexuals. But if we want this flood of young women to support us, that has got to change.

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Freedom and Tax Dollars: Is There Still a Public/Private Distinction?

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Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn pens a column (for WSJ subscribers only) on the Supreme Court case involving whether a conservative Christian student group at Hastings College can be treated equally with other student groups regarding university recognition and funding, when the university itself receives taxpayer funding, and still exclude non-believers and gays from its membership and leadership.

McGurn notes that with bigger and bigger government spreading taxpayers' money more widely in all directions, it becomes harder for any institution to not receive public funding. That leads to contortions such as this:

The dean is Leo Martinez of the University of California Hastings College of the Law. Here he is defending the school policy at issue, which requires the Christian Legal Society (CLS) to admit non-Christians and gays if it wants to be an official student group:

Question: "Would a student chapter of, say, B'nai B'rith, a Jewish Anti-Defamation League, have to admit Muslims?"
Mr. Martinez: "The short answer is 'yes.'"
Question: "A black group would have to admit white supremacists?"
Mr. Martinez: "It would."
Question: "Even if it means a black student organization is going to have to admit members of the Ku Klux Klan?"
Mr. Martinez: "Yes."
Question: "You can see where that might cause some consternation?"

LGBT activists and much of the gay community are opposing the Christian Legal Society, but as McGurn further writes:

That's a much more serious proposition than a simple disagreement with some private organization. That public/private distinction helps explain why CLS has also found allies in the libertarian Cato Institute and Gays & Lesbians for Individual Liberty. In their own brief, this latter group stresses that it was the ability of gay Americans to form gay associations-whose membership rules they defined for themselves-that gave them a collective voice in the face of an often hostile majority.

Presumably Gays & Lesbians for Individual Liberty do not share the CLS view of human sexuality. But they understand exactly where Dean Martinez's logic is taking us.

Update. And expect to see more of this:

"Three bisexual men are suing a national gay-athletic organization, saying they were discriminated against during the Gay Softball World Series held in the Seattle area two years ago. The three Bay Area men say the North American Gay Amateur Athletic Alliance in essence deemed them not gay enough to participate in the series.

An alliance attorney says the group is a private organization and, as such, can determine its membership based on its goals. Good luck with that!

Update. The San Diego Gay & Lesbian News reports:

The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) last week filed suit against NAGAAA for enforcing its policy of no more than two heterosexual players for each team competing in the GSWS against three players who now purport to be bisexual. Melanie Rowen, the NCLR attorney representing the plaintiffs, told SDGLN the orientation of five players from the San Francisco-based team "D2" was protested by an opposing team at the GSWS in Seattle two years ago. The protesting team claimed D2 had perhaps as many as five straight players. NAGAAA's tournament rules allow for no more than two per team.

According to Rowen, after being asked what their sexual preferences were, one said he was gay, two refused to answer and two more said they enjoyed both men and women and one of those was married to a woman.

Apparently, the National Center for Lesbian Rights has nothing better to do than sue gay organizations for trying to maintain a gay identity. Of course, when it comes to defending the rights of women to mantaining "safe" and "affirming" women-only spaces, that's apparenlty an entirely different matter.

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Is the “Charge” of Being Gay a Slur? Ask Obama

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Columnist and IGF contributing author Jennifer Vanasco recently wrote in the Seattle Gay News a piece titled "A Lesbian on the Supreme Court?," stating:

Suddenly, it seems possible that the next Supreme Court pick might be a lesbian.... Solicitor General Elena Kagan is not openly gay at the moment-which, of course, may mean she's not gay at all. But persistent rumors, an absence of denial, and some assurances from people I trust make me think that, yeah, she probably is. And she's right now on the short list of potential Supreme Court nominees to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on his retirement this summer.

Fair enough. So why have the Obama administration and it's lefty-liberal blogger-henchmen, not to mention its Human Rights Campaign fundraising lapdog, gone ballistic over speculation about Kagan's personal life and relationships? Here's Sam Stein blogging at the Huffington Post:

Leading gay rights group are accusing Republicans of trying to rile up their conservative base by launching a whisper campaign against potential Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan-suggesting the current Solicitor General is a closeted lesbian even though she's not. In its first entree into the upcoming Supreme Court nomination process, the group Human Rights Campaign blasted the increasingly public discussion of Kagan's sexuality, calling it a play "straight out the right-wing playbook....

The comments come a day after CBS published a blog by Ben Domenech, a former Bush administration aide and Republican Senate staffer, in which he asserted that choosing Kagan would help Obama "please" much of his base, because she would be the "first openly gay justice."

Here's Domenech in his own words. Doesn't seem too different from what Vanasco wrote, but it got Domenech labeled "a lying scumbag" by blogger "digby." Domenech later explained that he wrongly assumed Kagan was out of the closet, triggering further lefty attacks against him.

And it's not just crazy leftwing bloggers. As the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz reported:

CBS initially refused to pull the posting, prompting Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director who is working with the administration on the high court vacancy, to say: "The fact that they've chosen to become enablers of people posting lies on their site tells us where the journalistic standards of CBS are in 2010." She said the network was giving a platform to a blogger "with a history of plagiarism" who was "applying old stereotypes to single women with successful careers." The network deleted the posting....

As William A Jacobson blogs at Legal Insurrection

"it is curious that those objecting to the Kagan rumor seem to treat an accusation of being gay as a slur.... I don't know if I would support Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court. I'll wait to learn more about her. If she's gay, so be it, but I will not treat that fact or rumor as a slur. And I'll hold her to the same level of disclosure of personal relationships that we would expect of any other nominee."

Finally, IGF contributing author David Boaz blogs at the Politico:

a White House spokesman, Ben LaBolt, said he complained to CBS because the column "made false charges." I would have hoped that in 2010, in a liberal White House, the statement that someone is gay would not be considered a "charge." The American Heritage Dictionary defines "charge" as "a claim of wrongdoing; an accusation." For many decades it was indeed a "charge," and a career-ending one, to be identified as gay. I would hope that's no longer true, and I'm disappointed in the White House's language.

Let's just add it to the list of our disappointments.

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Sweet Nothings

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The rigid conventions of mainstream press reporting are nowhere more agonizingly evident than in the reports of President Obama's presidential memorandum on hospital visitation. You can watch the pseudostory deconstruct before your eyes in the LA Times report, which starts out by saying the directive gave same-sex couples a "victory" without having to pick a fight, then accurately but inconsistently reports that it grants no one any new rights or benefits, and goes on to state the truthful fact that even the Catholic Health Association "applauded the move."

This is all there is to the story: The President told hospitals that take Medicare and Medicaid dollars from the federal government (pretty much all of them) that they have to (1) follow existing federal rules that allow patients to designate visitors; and (2) comply with existing regulations that require hospitals to obey state laws about a patient's advance directives and any other legally binding documents the patient might have signed concerning health care matters. In addition, the memorandum (3) solicits "additional recommendations" about what the Department of Health and Human Services can do to respect the rights of gay and lesbian patients and their families. There's no need here to do any more than shoo you over to William Dyer's blog, which does a brilliant job of diagramming the play, doing everything but showing it to you on slow-motion film.

The only thing I'd disagree with Dyer about is his description of the President as a charlatan. Certainly this little saga shows how lazy and credulous the press is - no surprise to any of us who watch Jon Stewart. And it also shows how little it takes to constitute a "victory" for gay rights at the national level.

Nevertheless, there is something here, however minuscule. In fact, there have been cases where hospitals have ignored the legally binding documents that same-sex couples have entered into. I don't imagine this happens a lot any more, but every time it does, it is the most sickening, tangible kind of bigotry.

In a hospital, heterosexual relationships can be, and usually are taken on faith. In an emergency room, the statement, "I am her husband," will not require much, if any, proof. In less extreme settings, the relationship will almost certainly be part of the patient's ordinary medical records. A glance at the computer is all the confirmation anyone needs.

But while heterosexual couples can opt-in to the legal netherworld of the unmarried, same-sex couples get that as their default. The modern movement to allow a non-spouse legally binding power of medical decisionmaking disproportionately helps same-sex couples, but only to the extent they (a) have taken the appropriate steps, and (b) find themselves in a setting where someone will bother to acknowledge that legal power. None of this would be necessary if they were simply allowed the right any other couple has to get married in the first place.

The President's memorandum says that, yes, the federal government does mean it when it says that hospitals accepting government money must obey the law, both state and federal - and that includes giving proper effect to legal documents. That is one of the things a President can do. Among the hundreds of thousands, or millions of laws on the books that go unenforced or even unnoticed every blessed day, a President can focus in on a few that he views as significant in their invisibility.

The President's memorandum doesn't do much more than that. But it says a great deal that such a routine and bloodless action warrants headlines.

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The Legitimacy Lie

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March was a heady month in the District of Columbia. The influx of same-sex couples at the marriage bureau boosted applications to six times their normal rate. Activists have cause to celebrate.

Opponents, however, vow to defeat every incumbent who supported the new law. Bishop Harry Jackson, Ward 5 advisory neighborhood commissioner Bob King, and the National Organization for Marriage have organized a political action committee for that purpose. Mayor Adrian Fenty and seven pro-equality Council members are up for election this year.

The new PAC will back same-sex marriage opponents like mayoral candidate Leo Alexander, who says, "I think it was arrogant on the mayor's part and the council, just 14 individuals deciding how 600,000 should live." This is not mere opposition. Alexander describes representative government as if it were villainy. On this issue, we are told, only a direct vote by the people is legitimate. The most vulnerable incumbent, Ward 5 Council member Harry Thomas, Jr., says, "I think people who push that message have a message of intolerance for other people's rights."

The cries of illegitimacy echo rhetoric at the national level. Unlike the 2000 election, in which George W. Bush won fewer popular votes than Al Gore and was installed after the U.S. Supreme Court halted the Florida vote recount, the 2008 election saw Barack Obama win 53 percent of the popular vote and 365 electoral votes. Yet Rush Limbaugh refers to the Obama "regime" as if there was a coup, and is reinforced by Sarah Palin's know-nothing mockery and Glenn Beck's deranged conspiracy mongering. Newt Gingrich calls the centrist Obama the most radical president ever.

The right wing is in court hoping to force a ballot measure in D.C. so they can use this Big Lie technique to overturn marriage equality. Polls suggest voters would uphold equality, but such a campaign would be expensive and rancorous. In fact, though, voters have spoken many times through their representatives. In 1979, the D.C. Council under Arrington Dixon prohibited ballot measures that would infringe people's rights. Congress has never challenged that prohibition, which is backed by local civil rights veterans like Lawrence Guyot and Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who support equal protection for all the families in our city. No anti-gay candidate has won election here in decades.

Bishop Jackson and Commissioner King talk as if the resounding passage of the marriage-equality bill happened while voters weren't looking. In fact, our victory was won not by deception but by decades of working within the system and building relationships from the neighborhoods to city hall. We won despite endless fear-mongering from Jackson's coalition, thanks in part to the voices of 200 gay-affirming clergy. Those who continue to demonize us for political gain have badly underestimated both gay rights advocates and Washington voters.

Opponents had the opportunity to lobby on the marriage bill, testify against it during two days of hearings, and testify at several hearings before the Board of Elections and Ethics. Those registered to vote in D.C. (as many opponents are not) can also vote in this year's election.

The opposition's electoral threats face the inconvenient fact that the leading contenders for Mayor, Council Chair, and Democratic At-Large Council member all support marriage equality. Black gay Republicans Marc Morgan and Timothy Day are running in Wards 1 and 5, respectively. The anti-gay bench looks thin.

We nonetheless have work ahead of us to ensure that supportive incumbents are rewarded for doing the right thing. In races where our friends are running against each other, we have an embarrassment of riches that would make GLBT people in most jurisdictions envious. If, as many of us believe, our opponents are on the wrong side of both history and the D.C. electorate, we need to keep proving it at the polls.

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An Inconvenient Truth

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James Kirchick writes in The Advocate:

It's not just gays on the right who should want to find a comfortable space in the conservative movement-gay liberals had better hope there's room for gays there too. That's because we continue to live in a center-right country, and with a Republican takeover of Congress in November becoming more likely with each passing day, the importance of achieving bipartisan support for gay rights legislation becomes all the more clear.

Meanwhile, the past year and a half of legislative stalling-all while the Democrats had the White House and supermajorities in Congress-ought to put a dent in the claim that gays have no choice but to invest all of their political energies in the Democratic Party. If liberal gays truly value legal equality over political partisanship, they will wish groups like the Log Cabin Republicans and GOProud tactical success in changing the GOP from within.

But how would that advance the careers of LGBT activists in the Democratic party?

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