The Shame Game

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There is a good battle brewing in Washington state, where signatures are being gathered to repeal that state's recent domestic partnership law. A website called WhoSigned.org will make available the (statutorily public) information of who signed the petitions to repeal the law.

This is part of a larger movement in recent years to disclose the public information about who opposes legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Larry Stickney of the political-action committee Protect Marriage Washington, makes the case against disclosure:

This seems to be a typical pattern developing around the country where the homosexual lobby employs hostile, undemocratic, intimidating tactics wherever their interests or intent are challenged. . . They take the politics of personal destruction to new levels. I am a personal recipient of dozens of obscene and threatening e-mails and phone calls since we filed this.

This is a good point, and if it sounds familiar to those of us who are gay or lesbian, that's because it's exactly the way we have been treated for centuries, in various forms; imprisonment and police harassment, for example, are certainly "hostile," if not exactly "undemocratic," and while they're worse than "obscene or threatening e-mails and phone calls," they're certainly still an "intimidating tactic."

Stickney's comments show, in fact, how the cultural history of homosexuality, based on shaming us, is still at work today with a twist. As the movie, Outrage shows, there are still gay people ashamed of their own homosexuality who cling to the decaying remains of the closet. But now it is our opponents who are most loudly shouting about the need for a right to privacy. As we've come out of our closets, they're trying to construct their own.

For the record, we'd be perfectly happy if homosexuality didn't need to be a political issue. In fact, that's exactly what we're fighting for - the equality the law denies us explicitly, as in DOMA and DADT, and marriage laws that exclude us entirely. Once those are cured, I, at least, will be happy to take gay equality off the political agenda.

But until that happens, our own self-respect is on the line. And politics is not the kind of fight you can have while hiding. If Stickney and his supporters can't stand the heat of politics, they should get out of the kitchen.

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‘That’s How I Was Raised’

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A recent New York Times Magazine article spotlighted a shocking vestige of our nation's racism: segregated proms. It focused on one school in Georgia's Montgomery County, though the practice is common across the rural South.

I say "shocking" even though I personally wasn't surprised. One of my best friends is from rural Tennessee. His alma mater still segregates superlatives: White Most Likely to Succeed, Black Most Likely to Succeed; Funniest White, Funniest Black, and so on.

The white students quoted in the Times article expressed some reservations about the practice, but generally concluded with "It's how it's always been…It's just a tradition." In the words of Harley Boone, a platinum blond girl with beauty-queen looks who co-chaired last year's white prom, "It doesn't seem like a big deal around here. It's just what we know and what our parents have done for so many years."

"It's just what we know." Miss Boone reminded me of another beauty queen, in both her appearance and her comment: Miss California USA Carrie Prejean.

Miss Prejean, you'll recall, when asked her beliefs about marriage equality, responded (in part), "I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that's how I was raised."

How I was raised. Tradition. What our parents have done. This is not, in itself, a bad reason for doing something. It explains why I set the table the way I do, for instance, or why I always put an extra unlit candle on a birthday cake ("good luck for the next year," my mom always told me). It explains, too, more substantial practices-how we gather, celebrate milestones, express joy, or mourn loss. No generation does, or should, invent everything from scratch.

And yet, sometimes "what we know"-or thought we knew-stops working, or never worked very well in the first place.

I used to load the dishwasher with the forks tines down-because that's how my parents did and still do it-until I realized they get cleaner tines up (in my dishwasher, anyway, and please don't send me irate e-mails if yours is different).

Spotty forks are one thing. Racial and sexual inequalities are quite another. When traditions cause palpable harm to people, it's time to change. At that point, rethinking tradition is not merely optional, as in the dishwasher case-it's morally mandatory.

And that's why Prejean's " how I was raised" comment struck so many of us as a dumb answer. No educated person can justifiably claim ignorance of the challenges gay individuals and couples face. We gays are deprived of a fundamental social institution, treated unequally in the eyes of the law, and told that our deep, committed, loving relationships are inferior, counterfeit, or depraved. In the face of such injustice, "that's how I was raised" sounds hollow and cowardly.

There are those who bristle at any analogy between homophobia and racial injustice. Indeed, a favorite new right-wing strategy is to claim that liberals unfairly label as "bigots" anyone who opposes same-sex marriage, even on the basis of sincere moral and religious convictions.

But that's one reason why the analogy is so powerful, and so revealing. It shows that citing "sincere moral and religious convictions" doesn't get one a free pass for maintaining unjust institutions.

No analogy compares two things that are exactly the same. (That would not be an analogy, but an identity.) Analogies compare two or more things that are similar in some relevant respect(s). The similarities can be instructive.

The white citizens of Montgomery County, Georgia, seem like a nice enough bunch. They don't carry pitchforks or wear hooded robes. I doubt that Miss Boone ever uses the n-word, although her grandparents probably do. (Mine did, too, until we grandchildren protested loudly enough.) They are otherwise decent folk misled by powerful tradition.

I'm sure that, pressed for further explanation, many of these folks could make the right noises about doing what's best for their children and eventual grandchildren. And much like "that's just what we know," that response would sound familiar. Opponents of marriage equality use it constantly.

But don't marriage-equality opponents have social-science data backing them up? They don't. Yes, they have data about how children fare in fatherless households, for example, and then they extrapolate from that data to draw conclusions about lesbian households. The problem is that there are too many confounding variables. So then they fall back on their "vast untested social experiment" argument: we just don't know how this is going to turn out. Which, again, is precisely the sort of thing we might expect the Montgomery parents to say to justify their "tradition."

From the fact that two groups of people use the same forms of argument, it doesn't follow that their conclusions are equally good or bad. It depends on the truth of their premises.

Still, the tendency of both segregationists and marriage-equality opponents to hide behind "that's how I was raised" provides a powerful analogy-in moral laziness.

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Party First, Again (and Again)

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The Washington Post's "God in Government" blog takes note of the dismissive response from LGBT activists to former VP Dick Cheney's recently voiced support for same-sex marriage:

The Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights group, welcomed Cheney's comments through gritted teeth.

"It is unfortunate that it took the former vice president two terms in office, two terms that were the most anti-LGBT in history, before he decided to stand up for equality," said Joe Solmonese, president of the HRC. "That being said, we welcome his voice to the table on this issue and hope the remaining right-wing opponents of marriage equality see how completely out of touch they have become."

Of course, it might have been a more effective response in terms of swaying "remaining right-wing opponents" if Solmonese had been able to restrain himself from denigrating Cheney while welcoming his support.

And by the way, was the Bush-Cheney administration really the "most anti-LGBT in history?" Bush supported a federal amendment against gay marriage that failed to pass (Cheney broke with Bush and didn't support the amendment). But Bill Clinton signed the odious Defense of Marriage Act and bragged about it in campaign ads that ran in the South. Clinton also signed legislation to ban gays from openly serving in the military ("don't ask, don't tell"); previously, the ban on homosexuals had been military policy but not federal law.

More. Reader "Bobby" comments on whether Bush/Cheney was the most anti-gay administration ever, as Solmonese claims:

Here's what Concerned Women of America (an anti-gay group) has to say:
"In his first 100 days as President, Mr. Bush:
* appointed a homosexual activist to head the White House office on AIDS;
* failed to overturn a single Clinton executive order dealing with homosexuality;
* continued the Clinton policy of issuing U.S. Department of Defense regulations to combat "anti-gay harassment" in a military that is required by law to keep homosexuals out of the armed forces;
* presided over the appointment of a liberal homosexual activist and "gays"-in the-military crusader to oversee the choice of civilian personnel at the Pentagon. ...

Is there any doubt that Solmonese is engaging in Big Lie partisanship at the expense of creating a greater bi-partisan constituency for gay legal equality? And why is the "LGBT community" generously funding him in order to do so?

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Family Law

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San Jose (CA) Representative Mike Honda has introduced the Reuniting Families Act to allow the permanent partners of same-sex couples the same naturalization rights current law gives to married couples of the opposite sex - and it's about time. But he is running into the traditional circular reasoning that characterizes the debate over same-sex couples: some people just don't believe they're part of one another's family, and then ignore laws that recognize their relationships.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, states the public policy difficulty: "Our whole immigration system is based on documents," she said -- documents like a marriage certificate. Without that, how can immigration officials know who is or is not a member of someone's family and who is trying to defraud the government?

That is a legitimate question - but it has an answer today for same-sex couples that it used to lack: getting married. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, and this key part of the debate over Honda's bill is not a new one.

The fight over including same-sex couples within the definition of "family" got its national debut when the Carter administration convened its White House Conference on the Family in 1978. Carter soon found himself in the middle of a fight because gay rights advocates joined with others to rename it the White House Conference on Families. At the time, the formal definition of "family" was people related to one another by blood, marriage or adoption, none of which included, or reasonably could include same-sex couples. Use of the plural would avoid a complete exclusion of same-sex couples from the discussion. But the emerging religious right fought the proposed nomenclature. . . and lost. It is a loss they never got over.

Today, there are plenty of same-sex couples who have a marriage certificate. Many more have documentation from their states showing they are domestic partners or have a civil union. And that's not counting the ones whose employers provide them with domestic partner benefits and have the documentation to prove it. And some of them include a partner who could take advantage of U.S. law that applies to spouses -- but for DOMA.

It is clear that some religious groups oppose Honda's bill for its inclusion of same-sex couples. Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, calls the gay issue "a death knell" for the bill, definitively adding, "We won't support legislation - period - that includes the Honda same-sex component." But that's no longer because people aren't sure same-sex couples are one another's family, it's because folks like Rev. Rodriguez would rather have no legislation at all than a bill that treats same-sex couples like human beings.

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God Looks at a Piece of Paper and Finds it Wanting

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The vestry at All Saints Episcopal church in Pasadena has just announced that its clergy will no longer sign California marriage certificates for any couples that it marries in a religious ceremony. They are doing this as a response to the discrimination Prop. 8 added to California's constitution. According to the vestry resolution, they wish to avoid "active participation in the discriminatory system of civil marriage," which they believe 'is inconsistent with Jesus' call to strive for justice and peace among all people."

For over twenty years now, All Saints has been a national leader in the struggle for inclusion of lesbians and gay men, and particularly same-sex couples in church life. A church like All Saints has both a sacramental obligation and a moral imperative to treat homosexuals and heterosexuals equally, even if the law does not.

And this action illustrates how churches benefit by keeping church and state separate. As Timothy Hulsey once told me with the common sense that is so obvious it is often missed, same-sex marriage is, in fact, available today in all fifty states. No state does, or could, prohibit any church from marrying any two people in a religious ceremony that falls within its belief system. Whether a particular state views that marriage as legal is a matter for the state to determine. If the marriage violates criminal law related to, for example, the age of consent, the state can prosecute the crime; but criminal sanctions no longer apply to voluntary adult homosexual relationships. If a church in Virginia wishes to marry a same-sex couple, Virginia can constitutionally do nothing to stop it. Virginia can pass all the laws it wants to ignore or discourage that relationship in the civil society, but in the church's eyes that couple is as holy as any opposite-sex couple it chooses to bless.

Heterosexual couples married at All Saints will have to suffer the inconvenience of getting a secular signature on their California marriage certificate. But in return, they will have the assurance that, in the eyes of God, their marriage is on the same moral foundation as their homosexual brothers and sisters.

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The GOP’s Vocabulary Closet

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Republicans are getting better at talking about gay rights rather than talking around them. But you can still see a deep-seated discomfort in their stilted vocabulary.

Michael Steele, chair of the Republican National Committee, had this to say about Dick Cheney's recent sort-of comments about gay marriage, or same-sex relationships, or something along those lines:

Well, I think the vice president brings a very personal perspective to this issue and to the question of gay marriage and gay unions. And I think his comments are appropriate reflection of his family and a situation with his daughter.

You know? My view, personal view is, you know, marriage is between a man and a woman, very much in line with what the president has said. And I think that this battle should be appropriately worked out at the state level.

The states are the ones that are defining the question of marriage, and so they will be the ultimate arbiters, I think, of what constitutes marriage in a given state. So it is the appropriate reflection of the attitude and the culture of a particular community for that debate to take place. And I think the vice president has a legitimate point there.

The "legitimate point" seems to be that the GOP doesn't need to directly oppose state efforts to recognize same-sex relationships, and that is a huge step forward.

But can we stop for a second and ponder what Steele refers to as Dick Cheney's "situation with his daughter"? The situation, for those not in the know, is that Cheney's daughter is a lesbian. She has a similarly lesbian partner, and they live together, as people who have long-term relationships tend to do. My bet is they have sex sometimes. This is not "a situation," it's their life.

This is not as bad as Jeff Sessions talking about people with homosexual "tendencies," nor Cheney's inability to publicly mention gay marriage or civil unions when he intends everyone to understand those are what he is talking about. And all of these are better than George W. Bush's eight years as president -- during the 21st Century -- barely uttering the words "gay" or "lesbian," most notably absent as he was promoting an anti-gay marriage amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The GOP is ever-so-slowly coming out of the vocabulary closet, and I wish them well. Perhaps they'll finally see how antique their arguments look when they finally phrase them in the actual words everyone else is using.

ADDENDUM: A commenter has raised the very good point about how Log Cabin Republicans fit into this. I think Steele's comments show both the magnitude of the problem Log Cabin has long faced, and the success they have had over the years. They are, in the end, trying to get better results from Republicans on gay issues, and that effort is now bearing fruit. It is, I admit, a bit churlish to criticize Republicans too much for the awkwardness with which they are -- grudgingly -- beginning to support gay equality. But that's kind of my point: the failure to use the ordinary vocubulary that the rest of the nation uses regularly to discuss gay equality -- including the word "equality" -- is what makes the GOP look so pitiful on this issue. I admire and respect Log Cabin for getting some GOPers to move away from direct opposition of state efforts toward equal rights. That's why I think these linguistic swerves and curlicues are less threatening than they have been in the past, and should be subject to a bit of ribbing.

And, to be fair, there are still enough Democrats (I'm looking at you, New York) who have the desire and the power to prevent equality in words that are pretty straightforward.

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6 1/2!

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With New Hampshire now on board, there are 6 1/2 states that have (or will have by fall) lawful gay marriage. Of course I include California, where same-sex marriage is unconstitutional except for the 18,000 marriages that were entered into between the time of the Supreme Court's opinion in In Re Marriage Cases and the passage of Proposition 8.

In fact, we probably have more same-sex marriages in a state that prohibits them than even the reigning champion, Massachusetts -- and that's true even if you assume that a full 25% of our marriages were of out-of-state couples, an extremely generous margin.

To quote Shakespeare, "The course of true love never did run smooth," and the legal recognition of same-sex partners is following as erratic and meandering a path as any comic plot Shakespeare could have devised or stolen. The blessing is that we now have good reason to believe these preposterous incongruities are worth laughing about, rather than crying over.

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The Spark We Needed

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Years from now, Proposition 8 is going to be thought of as the tragedy that sparked a revolution.

We've seen it before. Stonewall, 40 years ago this month. AIDS 25 years ago. It has always been the case that our greatest community successes were built on the backs of what at first seemed like disasters.

Our strength is that setbacks prod us to work together even more closely.

Before last November, most gays and lesbians who wanted equal marriage weren't very active about it. We might talk to each other about inequality, but except for our activist wing, we weren't taking to the streets.

Marriage across the United States seemed like a pipe dream. When New England's Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders launched their 6 X '12 campaign - pressing for gay marriage in all New England states by 2012 - I almost laughed. No way, I thought.

At the time, only Connecticut and Massachusetts had equal marriage. California was taking it away. And New York, while it recognized marriages performed elsewhere, looked blockaded by religious Democrats in the state senate.

But after the November vote for Proposition 8, gays, lesbians and our allies started marching in the street. We started boycotting. We started writing letters. We started telling our stories. And it became clear: there are ramifications if citizens and legislators vote against us. We are paying attention. And we will act.

Then we started to see states jump forward with equal marriage. Iowa. Maine. Vermont. Soon New Hampshire. The District of Columbia started recognizing marriages performed elsewhere - and Maryland might go the same way in a few weeks. The Nevada state legislature overturned the governor's veto of domestic partnership rights. Pennsylvania is taking up a marriage bill.

Some insiders are even predicting that New York may vote for equal marriage before Pride.

What felt like a Sisyphean struggle a year ago now feels like a landslide. Even last week's California state Supreme Court decision felt something like a victory. The judges, in upholding Prop 8, ruled as narrowly as they could. Minority rights can't be taken away, they said. They can only be called something else.

Said the opinion:

"Instead, the measure carves out a narrow and limited exception to these state constitutional rights, reserving the official designation of the term marriage for the union of opposite-sex couples as a matter of state constitutional law, but leaving undisturbed all of the other extremely significant substantive aspects of a same-sex couple's state constitutional right to establish an officially recognized and protected family relationship and the guarantee of equal protection of the laws.

"Among the various constitutional protections recognized in the Marriage Cases as available to same-sex couples, it is only the designation of marriage - albeit significant - that has been removed by this initiative measure."

They didn't overturn the 18,000 marriages. And they didn't overturn gay rights. Gays and lesbians have all the rights of married couples, they said. Just not the word "marriage."

And yes, that's "separate but equal." But - good news! - that's SEPARATE BUT EQUAL. And in our country we have a 50-year understanding that separate but equal is not equal at all. Which means that the decision is even more likely to be overturned the next time voters head to the polls.

June is Pride month, and we have a lot to celebrate. We still have to fight. We still have to do the difficult personal and political work of reaching our to communities of faith and of color to reassure them that by supporting us, they don't lose anything.

Forty years ago this month, we had Stonewall. Now we have Prop H8. It is exactly what our movement needed.

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The Upside of 8

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No sooner had the supreme court of California issued its 6-1 ruling last week upholding the constitutionality of the voter-approved Proposition 8 than gay activists called for mass protests across the country. As legal experts pored over the decision on the courthouse steps, hundreds of demonstrators directed chants of "Shame on you, Shame on you" at the court's justices, four of whom, it should be remembered, ruled last May that the state's constitution obligated the government to allow same-sex couples to marry. That the legal reasoning for the court's decision to uphold Proposition 8 might have been sound - as the limiting of marriage rights to opposite-sex couples constitutes an "amendment" rather than a "revision" to the state's constitution and is thus subject to popular approval - did not factor into these preplanned rallies.

Emotion ruled triumphant.

This is not to downplay the legitimate frustration and sorrow of last Tuesday. The anger of gays nationwide - especially those in California, who saw their rights ripped away before their very eyes - is understandable. And publicly expressing that anger, albeit peacefully and with respect for those with opposing views, serves as a useful reminder to the country's straight majority that gay people face serious burdens due to the lack of equal protection under the law. For too many heterosexuals - especially those who do not count openly gay people among their family, friends, or coworkers - gay rights are an abstract subject, something to vote on once every four years.

But at this point, gay rights advocates in California have the opportunity to fulfill the inevitable promise of their movement: Convince the majority of their fellow citizens that their cause is just and win equality with a resounding - and democratic - victory.

To see the silver lining in last week's court decision, it's instructive to weigh the costs of the ruling against its (perhaps, to some, utterly inconceivable) benefits. Let's start with the bad news: Gay Californians have lost the right to marry. That's disappointing, but there is an even chance that Proposition 8 will be repealed by 2010, and if not then, 2012. For a variety of reasons - the increasing number of young people becoming part of the electorate, the slow acclimation of heterosexuals to gay people living normal lives - the inexorable trend of gay rights issues is progress toward the equality position.

But the best case for why equal marriage will soon become reality in the Golden State has nothing to do with changing voter demographics, sociology, or better organizing: It is the 18,000 gay couples whose marriages remain legally valid (some of these 18,000 are out-of-state, though just how many is unclear). Their loving commitments to one another, rearing of healthy children, and enriched involvement in their communities will be the best case for preserving and extending marriage equality to all of California's gays and will put to rest fears that allowing same-sex couples to marry will somehow bring the sky crashing down.

So let's keep things in perspective: The worst that gay Californians will suffer as a result of this ruling is the inability to marry for the next year and a half to three years, at most. Meanwhile, gays in California can still enter into domestic partnerships (as they have been able to since 2004), which afford "the same rights, protections, and benefits, and shall be subject to the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law" as marriage, excepting, of course, the voluminous federal benefits. The inevitable bestowal of marriage rights to same-sex couples in California will be only a change in name, at least until the federal government repeals the Defense of Marriage Act or decides to recognize state-sanctioned legal partnerships.

The obsession with winning court decisions obscures the reality of how civil rights struggles are ultimately won. "While Brown v. Board enunciated important values, real change came through the politically enacted Civil Rights Act of 1964," writes Yale law student and gay marriage supporter Aaron Zelinsky at The Huffington Post. He also reminds us that insidious laws like the Defense of Marriage Act and the military's ban on openly gay soldiers must be repealed legislatively, that is, by the people's elected representatives. Convincing citizens in the country's largest state of the justice behind marriage equality will make that job much easier.

How is forcing gay marriage advocates to the ballot box a boon rather than a chore? Winning equal marriage democratically in the country's largest state will help the national gay rights movement. Immediately, the attack on "activist judges" will be neutralized. Since last November the gay activist community has been awash in controversy over the manifold failures and incompetence of the No on 8 campaign. Now comes the opportunity to right those wrongs and perfect the working model of a statewide pro-gay initiative campaign, the likes of which can be replicated by activists in states across the country. And however "fatigued" voters may about the issue of gay marriage, in the words of Sacramento Bee columnist Marcos Breton, that weariness is more likely to lend itself to support for what most people realize is its inevitable passage rather than continued opposition, which only ensures that the controversy is debated more and more.

Judging by the increasingly pathetic arguments of the anti-gay-marriage right, the momentum is well behind pro-equality forces. In the short time between the passage of Proposition 8 in November and the California supreme court's decision to uphold its enactment last week, Iowa, Maine, and Vermont legalized gay marriage and the New York State assembly passed a gay marriage bill championed by Gov. David Paterson. The New Hampshire legislature passed a marriage equality bill expected to become law this week after successful haggling between the governor and representatives. On Monday the Nevada legislature overrode the gubernatorial veto of a domestic-partnership bill, making it the 17th state to recognize same-sex unions. When the injustice of the status quo is so transparent, it can seem fruitless to counsel patience in a civil rights struggle. But in this case, determined patience in the short term will produce everlasting benefits.

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Cheney on Gay Marriage — Kind Of

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I'm not sure why Dick Cheney is getting as much credit as he does for being to the left of Obama on gay marriage. I certainly appreciate the fact that he has spoken up about the subject, but after reading and listening to his words, I'm still not entirely sure what he said.

Here is his latest comment, which repeats a theme using words he has articulated for years:

"I think that freedom means freedom for everyone. As many of you know, one of my daughters is gay and it is something we have lived with for a long time in our family. I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish. Any kind of arrangement they wish. The question of whether or not there ought to be a federal statute to protect this, I don't support. I do believe that the historically the way marriage has been regulated is at the state level. It has always been a state issue and I think that is the way it ought to be handled, on a state-by-state basis. . . . But I don't have any problem with that. People ought to get a shot at that."

It's clear he means to (and does) support some kind of state recognition of same-sex marriage. Or does he? What he supports is a right for couples to "enter into any kind of union they wish." He doesn't "have any problem with that" (though he clearly does not support any federal equality for this "kind of union.") Still, "freedom means freedom for everyone."

So he won't be advocating for any state to pass a gay marriage bill, or a civil unions bill or pretty much anything. He'd be happy, it seems, if states simply enforced existing contract law that would allow his daughter and her partner to "enter into" some kind of partnership. If states want to do more than that, he wouldn't object.

The absence of opposition is certainly progress for a national, conservative Republican, but only because the bar is so impossibly low. While Cheney's statements are regularly reported as showing his support for same-sex marriage, I don't believe I've ever heard him use the phrase "same-sex marriage," much less "support for same-sex marriage." I'd be pleasantly surprised if he's ever said he supports civil unions, using the word "support" right next to "civil unions," in conjunction with some kind of first-person pronoun.

To his credit, he is able to use the word "gay," unlike some of his fellow Republicans who are still referring to people with "tendencies." And lord knows I wouldn't ask Cheney (or anyone) to get comfortable with lingo like "LGBTQ." But, given the fact that he and his family have "lived with" this issue for years, is it really too much to ask whether he can actually say whether he supports same-sex marriage or civil unions, using the terms that most high-school students today are comfortable with? Or to ask him whether he supports equality rather than just freedom? Because those are two very different things.

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