IGF CultureWatch

Compare Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz's pro-family reasoning, quoted by Jon below, to that of Sen. Jeff Sessions. Chaffetz can't abide giving committed same-sex couples who work for the federal government equal employment benefits because the proposal doesn't include unmarried straight couples. In contrast, Sen. Sessions predicts the demise of Rep. Mike Honda's bill to provide recognition to the noncitizen partner in committed same-sex relationships (the recognition immigration law now automatically grants to a heterosexual spouse) because it "would be creating a special preference and benefit for a category of immigrants based on a relationship that's not recognized by federal law and overwhelmingly by most states."

So Sen. Sessions views gay equality as a "special preference" while Chaffetz doesn't see gay equality at all, only straight equality.

Let's review the bidding, then. Same-sex couples can't have their relationships recognized by the federal government because of DOMA, and shouldn't be asking for any "special" rights, such as treatment equal (or even roughly equal) to what heterosexuals expect. And if gays do ask for any benefits for their relationships, heterosexuals should expect, not only the benefits they now recieve for being married, but benefits for not being married, so that they'll be treated equally to a group that any reasonable person can see are now treated unequally.

All of this arises because of the GOP's fundamental inability to aknowledge that same-sex couples are not treated equally, or fairly, under current federal law. That increasingly obvious blind spot leads to all of their incoherence.

National Journal has a story (online for subscribers only) on legislation, now moving in Congress and supported by the Obama Administration, "that would give gay and lesbian federal employees the same benefits now offered to married heterosexual workers"-a bill which Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah opposes.

Why? Well, partly "because it excludes unmarried heterosexual couples.... Chaffetz said in an interview that if unmarried heterosexual couples were included in the legislation, 'I'd look at it very differently.' "

Right. If the bill included heterosexual couples, it would be using federal dollars and prestige to encourage straight couples to cohabit. Which apparently is better than encouraging gay couples to form stable and committed unions.

There is nothing pro-family about being anti-gay. Thanks, of a sort, to Rep. Chaffetz for helping prove the point.

I don't exactly disagree with Dale's conclusion in his post below on when California should move to repeal Prop. 8. I'm still not convinced one way or the other.

But one of the arguments being articulated misstates a very important point. Prepare to Prevail says this:

Any successful "vote-yes" campaign will require generous support from pro-LGBT institutional donors. These donors give based on evidence of likely success, which for 2010 is filled with grave doubts. It is unlikely that we will be able to raise the necessary funds to undertake an effective electoral campaign until after 2010. . . .

Remember, the original estimates for Prop. 8 spending, in total, were in the range of about $40 million -- for both sides combined. Particularly during extremely heated and close campaigns, people and institutions find resources they wouldn't otherwise have identified. That happened far beyond anyone's expectations during Prop. 8.

It may or may not happen again, whether it's in 2010 or 2012 (I am not waiting for 2014). But whenever it does happen, the campaign will be an extraordinary event. Unless something momentous happens in another state, I expect California will be the first to actually have the voters repeal a constitutional amendment they, themselves, passed banning same-sex marriage. That will certainly draw resources from a lot of places. But I don't think anybody could reasonably be putting that funding into place prior to the election itself -- at least not in the amounts spent during Prop. 8.

Prepare to Prevail's argument strikes me more as an excuse to delay, rather than a sound argument. There are some good reasons to wait until 2012. This isn't one of them.

It appears that some gay activists in California are starting to doubt the wisdom of pushing to repeal Prop 8 in 2010. One group outlines some considerations that make a lot of sense, including these:

Over $81 million was raised and spent by both sides in the Proposition 8 campaign, more than in any previous anti-gay ballot initiative. Many of the LGBT nonprofit organizations doing critical work for our communities have suffered layoffs and cutbacks in services. . . . Major donors, including foundations that provided funding for critical educational campaigns, have endured hits to their portfolios, and many are exercising caution. Any successful "vote-yes" campaign will require generous support from pro-LGBT institutional donors. These donors give based on evidence of likely success, which for 2010 is filled with grave doubts. It is unlikely that we will be able to raise the necessary funds to undertake an effective electoral campaign until after 2010. . . .

The demographics of opinion on marriage equality indicate that natural changes in the state electorate, with new and younger voters replacing older voters, contributes over time to increased support for marriage equality. In weighing the options of presenting a ballot measure on statewide ballots either next year, in 2010, or in a future year, the latter portends a much greater capacity by marriage equality supporters to leverage and benefit from the natural shift in voter opinion.

Some ACLU leaders, including Matt Coles, think even 2012 is too soon (and they may be right). Equality California, which indicated preliminary support for 2010 back in May, is now (re)considering the issue.

The reality of having to get our act together -- in raising money, strategizing, volunteering, campaigning, and winning -- for an election less than a year and a half away is starting to settle in. At least, that's what I'm hoping.

Plenty of people have weighed in on former President Bill Clinton's newfound support for same-sex marriage, but little can be added to Jamie Kirchick's piece in the Advocate, ripping Clinton a new one -- not that Clinton needs a new one.

In response to Clinton's stirring reply to the question of whether he personally believed in equal marriage rights for same-sex couples: ""Yeah. I personally support people doing what they want to do. I think it's wrong for someone to stop someone else from doing that," Jamie is in fine form:

What eloquence! What moral conviction! Remember that these stirring words come from a man who, prior to the emergence of Barack Obama, was widely considered to be the greatest political communicator alive.

What is it about our equality that reduces the likes of Clinton, and even Obama, to Bush-like grunts and circumlocutions? Even in retirement, is Clinton still so shell-shocked from the nation's last hurricane of homophobia? That was 15 years ago, which is about 45 in gay rights years. Does Obama really believe that any reaction today to his leadership on repeal of Clinton's signature achievements on gay equality, DADT and DOMA, would be worse than what he faced during the campaign over Rev. Jeremiah Wright, palling around with terrorists, or people clinging to guns and religion?

The rhetorical scraps we get from these mighty orators should be compared to the simple eloquence of Meghan McCain, who has no trouble saying, "No matter how politically charged the discussions about marriage equality may get, the question is really a simple one: Do the rights and privileges we offer citizens include everyone in our country, or only some of us?"

McCain isn't a politician, and can articulate her true feelings with more liberty than an elected official. But Rep. Patrick Murphy is sure in politics, and he, too, leaves both Clinton and Obama in the dust when it comes to us. Watch how easily and authoritatively he responds to the charge that open gays in the military would destroy unit cohesion by saying the very notion is an insult to him and to the military.

The lesson here was stated best by a president who didn't have to deal with gay equality. President Clinton, President Obama, when it comes to gay rights, the only thing you have to fear is fear itself.

The epoch of the cultural wedge issue is ending, says Democratic political analyst Ruy Teixeira, in his new report, "The Coming End of the Culture Wars" (PDF). And gay marriage will soon lose its political potency. It's baked in the demographic cake.

That's because of generational change, as culturally progressive Millennial voters surge into the electorate. It's also, more immediately, because of the decline in the number of white working-class voters. And the fastest growing religious group is not evangelicals but seculars, who tend to be very culturally progressive.

Of course, this does not mean that conflicts over gay marriage will die out overnight. There will continue to be attempts on the state level to keep gay marriage illegal through the initiative process. Such initiatives have met with considerable success, including the recent passage of Proposition 8 in the progressive state of California. Yet a simple regression model developed by Nate Silver suggests that such initiatives have been losing support at the rate of roughly 2 percentage points a year. This time trend, combined with a couple of other variables on state religiosity, indicates that California would fail to support such an initiative by next year and only a handful of Deep South states should be expected to support gay marriage bans by 2016.

Fights will continue on the gay marriage issue, but the outcome of these struggles is not really in doubt looking 10 years or so down the road. And neither is the decreasing usefulness of this issue to the conservative culture warriors.

I guess I am just a sex-negative prude, but I really do not think that soliciting more porn industry support for marriage equality efforts is a great idea. I guess it is nice that NickYoungXXX-dot-com supports the cause and all, but the Maggie Gallagher press release kind of writes itself. And I really don't think we are going to win over any moms in Sherman Oaks with a porn-funded campaign of artsy NO H8 photos.

This whole thing is kind of silly, but it does illustrate a real problem in California. It seems like just about everybody out here has his or her own "grass roots" organization dedicated to overturning Prop 8. There is a real incentive for those groups to do outrageous stuff, because the ones who do the most outrageous stuff will stand out in a crowded field. That means attention that should be focused on nice boring gay couples will be diverted to Mormon-bashing or porn-industry fundraising or Perez Hilton.

This seems to be the year of the Gay Kiss. Kiss-ins are taking place from Salt Lake City to El Paso to Paris (and not the one in Texas -- the one in France).

Talk about the personal being political. This is the most delightful possible response to the sourpusses who are trying -- today -- to deny us a peck on the cheek (the horror that set the LDS church's hair on fire) or a smooch to smooth out the spice from good Mexican food. The El Paso police were apparently ready to arrest people, and the Police Chief had to issue a public statement letting everyone in on the news that gay kissing isn't against any known law, even in Texas.

We may or may not have Katy Perry to thank for this, but I can't think of anything that more wonderfully illustrates how far we've come, and how far other people haven't since the 1950s.

Is the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation past its prime? GLAAD's reaction to the movie Bruno makes them sound like a bunch of crotchety old fussbudgets who could use a toke of medical marijuana.

Their press release on July 7 grudgingly noted the movie is "apparently intended to skewer" homophobia, but GLAAD couldn't get past the fact that gay teenagers are still "bullied, beat up and ridiculed." GLAAD's Rashad Robinson cranks that up to 11 in an op-ed for the LA Times. Straight people can laugh at the movie, then go back to their normal lives; but not gay people, who must suffer interminably:

It could come up in the form of jokes about gay parents at the office. Or gay teens taunted with the name "Bruno" in school hallways. Or in fanning the flames of anti-gay campaigns and laws, like California's Proposition 8, pushed by those who exploit discomfort, and the "ewwww" factor, for political ends. . . . For a major studio film with a massive cultural footprint to pile even more stereotypes and discomfort onto an already hostile climate -- despite what are inarguably the best of intentions -- doesn't make the work of changing and overcoming it any easier.

I think GLAAD turns Bruno on its head. They're confusing the way people might misperceive the movie with the message the movie is sending. Bruno wants to make fun of homophobic cluelessness, and GLAAD doesn't seem to want to let it. Unlike the sexless pansies in movies past, which GLAAD helped the general public contextualize, Bruno goes Full Dildo on the puritans.

Ironically, Bruno is the kind of movie GLAAD paved the way for - gleefully anti-homophobic. But now it's GLAAD who's become orthodox. If GLAAD doesn't get itself a sense of humor, they may wind up being the subject of Baron Cohen's next movie.