IGF CultureWatch

Officials in Uganda may be responding to our rhetoric rather than our rationale. Box Turtle Bulletin notes that amendments to the anti-homosexuality bill could replace the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality" with a life sentence. That may be why BTB is now only referring to the bill as the "Anti-Gay Bill" rather than the "Kill Gays Bill."

But this is exactly why I was originally troubled by our inflammatory rhetoric that seemed to focus more on the penalty than the problem.

The death penalty is the ultimate government-sponsored punishment, and reveals the vicious and inhuman impulse behind the legislation. But even if the bill included only fixed prison terms, it is every bit as retrograde and malicious. It explicitly carves out homosexuality from the moral and legal universe. It establishes a civil world in which lesbians and gay men have no place; worse than that, it makes us criminals, and attempts to make even our supporters complicit in the crime of our mere existence. Citizens may not even speak favorably of homosexuality, or write affirmingly about equality without criminal sanction.

But to the extent America has any moral high ground on this issue, it is only a matter of degree. Both DOMA and DADT do implicitly what this bill is proud to say it does - invoke the force of the law to treat homosexuals as a different kind of being from heterosexuals, and draw specific rules that apply only to homosexuals, with entirely different rules applicable to heterosexuals. For any heterosexuals reading this, try to imagine a law that would result in your dismissal if you mentioned your spouse. Then imagine what it might be like if you could not publicly even testify before Congress about that law's unfairness, because even that would have the same result. And try to imagine what a law to allow you the qualified ability to speak might look like. Finally, imagine someone telling you this whole scheme is not a violation of your right to free speech.

To be sure, ours are only civil sanctions, not criminal ones, and the penalties are economic, psychological and social. That makes it easier for many heterosexuals to invoke a plausible deniability about the segregation the laws impose. No prison time here.

But irrespective of the kind of penalty, this is the most craven and degraded use of law. Fortunately, after many decades of work, we have the social and constitutional structure in the U.S. to minimize the damage, and fight for something better. I don't see anything like that to protect the homosexual citizens of Uganda.

While there is no shortage of anger about the result of yesterday's vote in the New York State Senate on gay marriage, there is ample praise for the civil and respectful floor debate. I would agree, except for one thing.

What debate?

A debate requires at least two sides, some exchange and (in a perfect world) maybe even a bit of ground-shifting. But what happened yesterday shows that our opponents have nothing but politics and prejudice on their side, and don't even feel the need to defend them anymore.

Only a single senator, Ruben Diaz, Sr., stood up to champion a No vote. Everyone else on his side was silent in the chamber. Diaz's oratorical contribution did not bother to include any explanation of what might be wrong with equality. The first six minutes of his speech were an appeal to Republicans. He is a Democrat, and wanted to stir up resentment among his colleagues on the other side who don't get much gay support (e.g., in Diaz's pretty naked words, money). He then launched into a lengthy recitation of the obvious fact that there are religions that oppose homosexuality, and offered a complete roll call of the 31 states that voted gay marriage down. Finally, Diaz urged his fellow popularly elected senators not to "do away with the people's will."

Amidst all of this, there was no argument against same-sex marriage (procreation, preserving the state's economic resources, supporting heterosexual families), and it is telling that Diaz felt no need to do so. As Senator Tom Libous (another No vote) said afterward, "I just don't think the majority care too much about [gay marriage] at this time. . . " If you can rely on the majority not caring much about the rights of a minority, why go out of your way to stir the pot?

Yes, Republicans should feel grieved that gays support democrats (who support them), and yes, there is a long and storied history of religious persecution of gay people, and yes, a majority of Americans still continue to oppose gay marriage. The question before the house was "Why?" Why is it good or fair, or sound public policy to favor heterosexuals over homosexual couples?

Compare that to the speeches - pretty much all of them - in support of equal marriage rights. While some of them did invoke political tropes, they all actually engaged the issue before them: should gay people be treated differently under the law than straight people? If not, why not? They came at the question in different ways, but all of them actually addressed the public policy issue. I loved the speeches of Diane Savino and Ruth Hassell-Thompson, myself, but there are a lot of fine, substantive speeches to choose from.

The silence in the senate reaffirms how the tide is shifting. It used to be us who had to remain in the shadows. Now, we and our supporters can take pride in publicly articulating our arguments, while the other side - whether it's in the New York Senate or the precincts of Washington state - seem a little bit embarrassed at their lack of real, civic, credible arguments, and just want to be left alone.

Because existing law already incorporates anti-gay discrimination, our opponents have the considerable force of inertia on their side. But just because you have a majority doesn't mean you have an argument.

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And I have to add this (kind of) snarky note: Washington's comprehensive domestic partnership law goes into effect today.

Equality lost in the New York Senate 38-24. It wasn't even close.

Again, I hope our folks back there know what they're doing. Perhaps the Senate would reject even domestic partnership rights. But we don't know because, here on the verge of 2010, they've never even tried.

And in the meantime, New York state's same-sex couples have pretty much nothing.

James Oaksun, a Maine-based libertarian activist and analyst, has published what strikes me as an astute analysis of what went wrong for same-sex marriage advocates in Maine. It's available, in PDF format, here.

Like me and others, he argues that the pro-gay-marriage side must get beyond defensiveness and evasion on the schools issue, and he offers an interesting suggestion for taking the bull by the horns."Perhaps the framing is to talk about what modern society asks the schools to do. Educate, yes. But also prepare the leaders of tomorrow to function collaboratively in a diverse society. The reality of life is, yes, there are gay people and they are not going away."

Not bad. My own first-cut thought about a non-defensive message was "teaching kids that discrimination is wrong and that everyone deserves a family."

Time for some focus-group research?

In any case, it's good to see recognition spreading that, like it or not, we can't talk about same-sex marriage without also talking about teaching same-sex marriage.

Memo to the anti-SSM right: having picked this fight on education, be prepared to lose it. Sooner or later, teaching about gay marriage won't seem so scary. Your ads may even help normalize it.

I mean, if Californians are serious about protecting marriage, why stop at banning gay marriage?

An activist calls their bluff with a satirical initiative campaign that just might get on the ballot.

And the ad is funny.

Lots of gay news sites and blogs, and not just the skanky ones, have recently been repeating rumors that a certain seventeen-year-old movie hunk is gay. Rolling Stone Magazine practically badgered the kid about his sexual orientation in an interview.

Am I the only person who thinks this is reprehensible? This is a kid we are talking about. Yes, he looks like he just stepped out of an Abercrombie and Fitch campaign, but he is still a kid. He is probably living with his parents, he is dealing all of the drama that comes with being a star, and I am fairly certain he would rather not have to deal with this.

We are not talking about the famous middle-aged socialite son of a renowned designer who invites the press to cover every element of his life but inexplicably refuses to answer simple straightforward questions about whether or not he is gay, giving rise to the implication that being gay is a deep, dark, shameful thing (as a purely hypothetical example). We are talking about a seventeen-year-old.

To the actor's credit, he dealt with Rolling Stone's obnoxious inquires really well. There were no freaked-out denials or feigned indignation. He pretty much just ignored the questioner, which was a classier response than was deserved.

Gay people should know better than to indulge in this sort of thing. We all had to deal with coming out. We know how traumatic it is. If the actor is gay, this is just the kind of thing that makes coming out more difficult. Any gay blogger or journalist who tries to drive up traffic with this "story" should be ashamed.

I feel a bit guilty about focusing on Adam Lambert and music and marriage and other local issues when there is a real threat to gay rights in Uganda. "Gay rights" sounds almost quaint in this context, given that the proposed law is the closest thing I've seen in my lifetime to the Nuremberg Laws.

American bloggers seem to have coalesced around calling it the "Kill Gays" bill, and I obviously agree that if it were enacted, it would ultimately lead to that. In its present version, the death penalty would apply to "aggravated homosexuality," which includes sex with a minor or a disability, or someone with AIDS.

This is bad enough. But by focusing on the limited circumstances in which the law would impose state-sanctioned death, I think we run the risk of missing the far broader and more dangerous part of the text: the part that establishes "The offence of homosexuality."

That was implicit in America's ancient sodomy laws, which were sometimes no more specific than prohibiting "the crime against nature." That could be any of a million things, but most people understood it to be homosexuality in some form. Those laws are now a thing of the past, both here and in other civilized nations.

Uganda is determined to uncivilize itself and head straight into a new Dark Age by formally and explicitly criminalizing an offense they call homosexuality. In fact, the bill, itself, says that current law is defective because it ". . .has no comprehensive provision catering for [sic] anti homosexuality."

The bill's single-minded focus on punishing homosexuality is breathtaking. The mere intention to commit homosexuality will expose the offender to life imprisonment. The law also prohibits and punishes speaking publicly in favor of gay rights in any form. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a progressive dream by comparison.

But even that is not enough for this thuggish piece of aggression. Anyone who even knows about someone who is gay has an obligation to turn them in - whether it's a family member, a dear friend or a stranger. Failure to do that is also a punishable offense.

All of this arises from the premise that homosexuality, by itself, is an "offence." Once that is established in the law, everything else flows from it. The power of the state to protect citizens from danger is called into play in all its majesty and force, up to and including making sure that citizens who are not themselves homosexual must report to the authorities any real or suspected violations. This is how genocides start.

Calling the bill "retrograde" seems wildly inadequate. The modern world has come so far on gay equality, and this detestable and gruesome scheme looks like a sick joke.

But it is not. Its proponents have put it forward in all seriousness. Its vile assumptions and loathsome, inevitable consequences deserve to be condemned explicitly. Box Turtle Bulletin has done a thorough and excellent job of covering this story, and its archives are a primary source for anyone who is interested.

Let's get this straight, errr correct. Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals, a libertarian-leaning Reagan-appointee, orders health benefits for a lesbian spouse of a federal employee, and the Obama White House, through its highest ranking openly gay appointee (John Berry, head of the Office of Personnel Management), attempts to thwart the judge's order? Get ready for calls to protest. Oh, sorry, make that write more checks to Democrats.

More. The Obama Administration is opposing DOMA as "unfair" but defending it (separate and unequal treatment of gays) as "constitutional" at the same time. It appears that gay legal equality may be the sole area of U.S. law where Eric Holder's Justice Department is not leaning over backwards to take the liberal-left judicial line.

Should people be able to vote on the rights of minorities like this? I know I'd be mad -- and probably file a lawsuit -- if anyone tried something like it in my country.

I've been thinking about Adam Lambert from a different direction, which I hope provides context that has been missing from this discussion. In a nutshell, we need to consider that Lambert grew up in a generation that wasn't sufficiently schooled in the double standard he is now struggling with.

He was born in 1982. When he was 11, the nation was having its tortured conversation about gay equality with Don't Ask, Don't Tell, followed by the even worse spectacle of the Defense of Marriage Act. While each was a slap in the face to equal rights, the simple fact that kids - that everyone - could hear this very public political discussion reveals how little was left of the closet during Lambert's youth.

Those of us who came of age in the 1960s and 70s (and, it goes without saying, earlier) took the closet for granted - which is why so many of us fought so hard to dismantle it. As a boy growing up in California - and in the theater - Lambert may have simply accepted his sexual orientation, irrespective of public misunderstandings of homosexuality. I certainly don't know this, but Lambert's interview on the CBS Early Show gave me the impression that he truly doesn't see what the fuss is about.

That seems to be characteristic of younger people, and it's an important point of reference. They take it for granted that kissing is an acceptable (and sometimes thrilling) behavior, and don't have a different rule for gays. Those who are agitated by a same-sex kiss, from the Mormon authorities in Salt Lake City to the ABC censors, look as puritan and quaint to them as the folks who put Lucy and Ricky in two different beds.

Grabbing a dancer and shoving him into your crotch is a different matter. Lambert made a game attempt to argue it was spontaneous, and that might be true. Or it might not. But whether that instantaneous move was more like Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" during the Super Bowl or her crotch-grabbing move on the same show Lambert was on, the bottom line is that this kind of thing is a given in popular music and dancing today, across the board. Whether it's local officials trying to prevent kids at school dances from pretty explicit and unambiguous sexual gyrations, or graphic lyrics, or choreography that may be inspired by the Kama Sutra, we live in a world, and at a time, when popular music is a sexual playpen.

Whether that's good or bad, ABC censors and CBS interviewers and all the other fretters and worrywarts who are aflutter (if not a-Twitter) over Lambert give the appearance of inhabiting a nearly vanished world where gay people could be chastised for things straight people do all the time.

Lambert and his generation are reacting rationally to the hallucinations about homosexuality that older generations grew up with and still cling to. Their view is naturally egalitarian; gay people are part of the world. The closet is another risible relic to them, like commercials for cigarettes. They see the double standard for what it is: unnecessary.