IGF CultureWatch

When the rumor first surfaced that President-elect Barack Obama's transition team was strongly considering union activist Mary Beth Maxwell for secretary of Labor, gay ears perked up. Gay news outlets across the country and around the world covered the story with marked interest. Gay blogs covered every hint and rumor about the selection process. The Human Rights Campaign, which had already endorsed Rep. Linda Sanchez for the job, announced that it would simultaneously endorse Maxwell. Why such fascination? Maxwell, you see, is a lesbian, which is apparently a very important qualification when it comes to the study of ergonomics, implementation of the Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act, and compliance with the Office of Labor-Management Standards.

My reaction to the news that Maxwell was under serious consideration was less enthusiastic. Whereas the gay press focused almost entirely on Maxwell's attraction to women, the mainstream media was more interested in her ardent support for a deceptively titled bill called the Employee Free Choice Act. Under current labor law, if a union wishes to organize a workplace, it must first win the consent of a simple majority of workers who vote the same way the rest of Americans do biennially on the first Tuesday of November - by secret ballot.

The Employee Free Choice Act would change this. Instead, all a union would need to secure the right of representation is collect cards signed by a bare majority of employees. Armed with a list of workers' names, union organizers would know who has - and who has not - publicly indicated their support for the union. Such a system clearly lends itself to abuse, as union bosses can pressure and intimidate workers into supporting unionization. Maxwell, a longtime union activist, has been one of the most outspoken supporters of the measure.

That Maxwell is sexually attracted to women is all well and good, but her support for the Employee Free Choice Act ought to be more significant. And while it would be nice to have an openly gay cabinet secretary, I'd rather have a straight one who doesn't support this legislation - barring that, anyone who isn't as zealous a proponent of it as Maxwell. Should this opposition to the appointment of an openly gay person - opposition based not a whit on said person's sexuality but rather my sincere beliefs about the damage she could inflict upon the nation's economy - make me a pariah among gays?

Ultimately, Obama passed over Maxwell in favor of Rep. Hilda Solis, who is no less devoted to the Employee Free Choice Act. But in the weeks since this decision was made, gays have grown more vocal in their demand that someone, anyone, gay get a high-level cabinet appointment.

Attention soon turned to Fred Hochberg, a gay man who served in the Small Business Administration under President Clinton, whom gay activists favored for Commerce secretary after the scandal-plagued Bill Richardson withdrew himself from consideration.

"We're not pushing his name just because he's gay," insisted Phil Sousa, the creator of the website EqualRep, which is pressuring the Obama administration into appointing the first openly gay cabinet secretary. "We're pushing his name because he's highly qualified and the fact that he's openly gay is kind of icing on the cake there."

In other words, they're pushing Hochberg because he's gay. Were he not, they wouldn't be pushing him.

While it's important to have openly gay public figures as advocates for equality, role models for the young, and living proof that we are not the depraved perverts our adversaries portray us as, the near-singular focus on obtaining an openly gay cabinet nominee comes at the expense of more important gay rights causes. It essentializes gay people down to their sexual preference.

Inaugurated in 1993 after the nostrums of identity politics had successfully pervaded the media, universities, and popular culture, Bill Clinton was the first president to appoint cabinet secretaries under the rubric of a racial and gender spoils system. Soon after his election, for instance, it was revealed that Clinton would consider only women for the job of attorney general. This poisoned the opening months of his presidency, as insufficient vetting resulted in the scotching of several nominees over a variety of damaging revelations.

It's understandable that gay activists would want openly gay people in high levels of government, and I stand with them. But there's something a bit pathetic in the way gay organizations and the gay media have fixated on the appointment of openly gay individuals. By focusing so heavily on the sexual orientations of the people under consideration, it seems like we're fighting for scraps off the table of the incoming Obama administration. We're looking for a singular trophy when we ought to be fighting for a turkey in every pot, and it reeks of desperation.

According to a recent Advocate.com report by Kerry Eleveld, the leaders of the nation's major gay organizations spent the "bulk of a two-hour meeting" with transition officials last month pressing for the appointment of an openly gay cabinet secretary. Wouldn't their time have been better spent talking about how to pass pro-gay legislation in the upcoming congressional term?

While a cabinet appointment would be a breakthrough, it's hardly the impressive accomplishment that gay groups are portraying it as. Openly gay elected officials like Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin had to fight their way up the congressional food chain to earn national prominence; they didn't get their jobs thanks to a well-moneyed gay lobby pressuring for their selection.

Indeed, a cabinet appointment is not always a sign of merit; it's often as much, if not more, a result of political favors, a desire to please an important political constituency or a mixture of the two.

But at this point, thanks to the blatant way gay rights groups have gone about campaigning for it, such a selection would be perceived as cynical tokenism. And given all the public pressure directed at Obama to appoint a gay person to a high-profile job, the appointee would automatically be viewed as the recipient of preferential treatment. With so much attention devoted to that appointee's sexuality - as opposed to their actual qualifications - the first openly gay cabinet secretary would be robbed of their individuality, and their accomplishments in office would come second to their sexual orientation.

Like everyone else, gays should be judged by their abilities. This quest for homosexual affirmative action is a throwback to the mau-mauing of women's and ethnic groups during the Clinton administration. As with racial and gender preferences, when important positions are "set aside" for a certain class rather than the most qualified individuals, everyone loses out, not least of which the intended beneficiaries. The obsessive focus on openly gay cabinet appointees risks further ghettoization of gays, as we are compelled to "support" whatever gay figure is foisted upon us by gay organizations irrespective of whether or not we agree with that person's political views.

Gay people have every right to lobby the government to address their concerns. But by demanding that Obama prioritize sexual orientation in the hiring of employees, we diminish ourselves, not just collectively but as individuals.

In terms of gay-rights progress, brace yourself for a difficult year.

This is not because things are getting worse. It's because the national conversation on gay-rights issues is getting harder.

One reason is that, as cliche as it sounds, we are more polarized than ever. Gone are the days when House Speaker Tip O' Neill could lambaste President Reagan by day and play cards with him after 6 p.m.

It has become too easy to surround oneself solely with like-minded people. (The internet is one key factor.) The result is a bunch of echo chambers, where opponents seem not just wrong, but borderline-insane.

The second reason is that the gay community's specific goals have shifted. We are no longer asking merely to be left alone, as when we were fighting sodomy laws and police harassment. Our central political goal, for better or for worse, has become marriage.

Marriage is not merely a private contract between two individuals. It is also an agreement between those individuals and the larger community. It requires, both legally and socially, that community's support. And so the old "leave me alone" script no longer quite works.

A third reason the conversation is getting harder is that the gay community is at a crossroads regarding how we treat our opponents.

On the one hand we talk about reaching out, promoting dialogue, emphasizing common ground. On the other hand we are quick to label our opponents as hate-filled bigots.

This combination obviously won't work. A bigot is someone whose views, virtually by definition, are beyond the pale of polite discussion.

One sees this contrast in the fracas over Obama's choice of Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.

Compared to most evangelical pastors, Warren is a moderate, who focuses on common-ground issues such as poverty over the usual culture-war stuff.

But Warren supported Prop. 8, the California initiative that stripped marriage rights from gays and lesbians. (He has since suggested some possible support for civil unions.)

Obama's camp is taking the "big tent" approach, acknowledging differences but emphasizing shared values. In a similar vein, Melissa Etheridge has opened a dialogue with Warren.

Most gay-rights leaders, by contrast, have decried Obama's choice of Warren. As one friend put it, "it's like inviting a segregationist to lead the invocation-I don't care what other good things the guy has done."

And there's the rub: Warren does indeed espouse a "separate but equal" legal status for gays and lesbians (at best). Should we treat him the way we treat segregationists?

Before answering, remember that the majority of Californians, and a larger majority of the rest of the country, hold the same position as Warren on marriage. So does Obama himself (though he did oppose Prop. 8).

So in asking whether inviting Warren to lead the invocation is akin to inviting a segregationist to do so, we are also asking whether the vast majority of Americans are akin to segregationists.

It's a painful question to confront. And the only fair answer is "yes and no."

On the merits, yes. For practical purposes, no.

From where I stand, the arguments against marriage equality look about as bad as the arguments for segregation. They commit the same fallacies; they hide behind the same (selective reading of) scripture; they are often motivated by the same fears.

But I'm mindful of the fact that "from where I stand" includes decades of hindsight regarding segregation. The nation isn't there yet on gay equality.

Today, nearly everyone finds the following sentiments repugnant:

"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with White people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the White and black races which will ever FORBID the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."

The segregationist who wrote that? Abraham Lincoln.

It is easy now to paint all segregationists as hatemongers, waving pitchforks and frothing at the mouth. Easy, but quite wrong.

The fact is that most segregationists were people not unlike, say, my grandmothers, both of whom were wonderful, loving, decent human beings, and both of whom-much to my embarrassment-opposed interracial marriage.

Their reasons had to do with tradition and the well-being of children. Sound familiar?

My grandmothers were not hatemongers. They were products of their time. So was Lincoln, so is Rick Warren, and so are you and I, more or less.

I don't mean for a moment to let Rick Warren off the hook. He ought to know better. Maybe someday he will.

In the meantime, prepare yourself for a challenging 2009.

For months, Rick Garcia has been dealing with people who portray President-elect Barack Obama as "at best half-hearted" on GLBT issues. "These are generally gay Republicans and bitter Hillary supporters," he tells me. "And none of them know Obama or have worked with him. I've known him for years and have always counted on him as a strong supporter of our issues."

Garcia, Director of Public Policy for Equality Illinois, does call Obama's invitation to Rev. Rick Warren to give the inaugural invocation a "stupid choice," and has publicly criticized Obama's opposition to civil marriage equality. He nonetheless praises Obama's legislative record in Springfield:

"One of the first things Illinois State Senator Obama did was to be a co-sponsor of a bill that amended the Illinois Human Rights Act to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. And he worked closely with us to bring votes to the bill which passed January 12, 2005-after he was sworn in as a United States Senator so of course he did not personally vote for it but his replacement did and he spoke with other senators whose votes we needed.

"Many times he would stop me at the State House to get an update on where we were and what he could do to help. I always counted on him and he was always available to me and Equality Illinois lobbyists."

Garcia adds that the help did not end after Obama moved to Washington. "Illinois is poised to pass a civil union bill.... We approached Obama for help. [Obama adviser] Valerie Jarrett made calls to key legislators asking for their support of the bill."

In fact, Obama takes office with a stronger pro-gay record than any previous president. As a United States senator, he earned Human Rights Campaign scores of 89 for the 109th Congress (the same as Hillary Clinton) and 94 for the 110th (to Clinton's 95). On the other hand, Garcia cautions, "Rahm Emmanuel and David Axelrod still believe that being pro-gay is politically bad and anti-gay plays to the middle. These boys should give us pause and we have to keep an eye on them." Duly noted.

Obama's invitation to Warren, however disagreeable, is in keeping with his oft-stated commitment to reach across social and political divides. Garcia says, "I have personally seen Obama address the issue of gay rights with individuals and groups that are not receptive to us. I've never had to do a 'Gay 101' with him."

Here I diverge from Rep. Barney Frank, who said of Obama, "I believe that he overestimates his ability to get people to put aside fundamental differences." Someone who overcame character assassination to win a landmark election can hardly be naïve enough to think he can take people on the right and "charm them into being nice," as Frank puts it. Look at it another way: Warren will be blessing the presidency of a pro-choice, pro-gay liberal. Indeed, he has taken heat from fellow evangelicals for precisely that reason. It's not so clear who is being played here.

Obama brings the prospect of nominating more moderate federal judges, repairing America's standing in the world, reversing the assaults on the Constitution, reforming health care policy, and responding to critics without saying "So what?" or imputing disloyalty. Let's also keep in mind that even a gay-friendly president cannot change things by himself. Each of us has a role to play, which should include encouraging the difficult conversations that we need instead of shutting them down.

Reality-based activism is about people with all their flaws and gifts, not saints and villains. There is nothing smart or empowering in rejecting a proven ally, or refusing to celebrate with him, because he is imperfect. Obama is a world-class talent, vastly better suited to the presidency than the smug, smirking scion of squandered privilege he replaces. Of course we must be vigilant and keep up the pressure, but that is done more effectively from the governing center than from an outpost of victimhood.

There will be plenty of battles ahead, as change does not come easily or all at once. Right now a political era is beginning, and with it will come new challenges and opportunities. This is a poor time to let one ceremonial sour note provoke us into sitting out the dance.

Reactions to Barack Obama's choice of a prominent pro-Prop 8 preacher to deliver the invocation at his inauguration have fallen along some familiar lines. On the basic question whether Obama will be a good president for gay rights or another huge disappointment, like Bill Clinton, we still don't have even a preliminary answer. Choosing Rick Warren may be an early warning sign, but it might also reflect Obama's transformative potential.

Warren goes lighter on the sexual sins, and heavier on helping the poor and sick, than most prominent religious-conservative leaders. But like them, he thinks homosexual acts are immoral and that gays should become heterosexual. He opposes gay marriage, which he says is as wrong as incestuous and pedophilic marriage.

Warren is undeniably influential, and not just with his large Southern California congregation. He's the best-selling author of The Purpose-Driven Life, a religious species of motivational and self-help book that attaches special significance to the number 40. In August, John McCain and Barack Obama trekked to a presidential "forum" that Warren hosted, at which they took turns affirming how religious they are.

For a certain class of gay Obama supporters, mostly pundits and bloggers, the choice of Warren was a shocking betrayal. For them, Warren is just a Jerry Falwell who tithes more. You don't befriend or co-opt people like that. You "crush" them, as one commentator wrote.

These particular Obama supporters really believed that he cared so much about gay rights that he would devote himself to it to the exclusion of mere politics, which he was thought to rise above. During the campaign, they ignored Obama's consorting with anti-gay ministers, paid no heed to Obama's lack of actual accomplishments for gay equality, and caricatured his opponent as a standard Republican ogre.

Politics for them is a continual triumph of hope over experience, especially when it comes to the Democratic Party. Now they imagine they will hold Obama's feet to the fire, to use one metaphor I've read recently, as if Obama has anything to fear from people who told us we had no respectable choice but to support him. For them, the Obama presidency is going to be a corduroy road to disenchantment.

Many gay conservatives pounced on Obama's choice as proof that he's Clinton redux, totally uncommitted and ready to ditch gays to serve his own interests. That could be correct. But another interpretation is also plausible: Obama is doing exactly what many gay conservatives have been urging gay-rights advocates to do. Without actually giving any ground on policy, he's reaching out to people who disagree with him.

A third group of commentators regarded the selection of Warren as unimportant, purely a matter of symbolism, not substance. It'll be a few minutes of platitudes and pieties about racial progress and helping the poor, during which Warren is unlikely to hold forth on specific policy issues. Who remembers a single word from a past inaugural invocation except "amen"? What matters, they say, is what Obama does on policy.

They have a point. Policy matters more, and for this we will have to await some actual results. But symbolism sets a tone. It defines what is acceptable and what is not. Everything about an inauguration, especially this one, is symbolic. Obama will swear to uphold the Constitution as his left hand rests on the Bible that Abraham Lincoln used for that purpose. The choice of Warren has symbolic potency precisely because it's so seemingly discordant at the inauguration of a president many gay-rights supporters thought they could trust.

The question then is, what kind of symbolic message is Obama sending and is it inconsistent with gay equality?

Choosing Warren was certainly smart politics since it appeals to a group of religious voters who mostly distrust Democrats. That may be all it was. But I take Obama at his word that he's actually promoting a different kind of politics. Call it a politics of "anti-demonization" or, as Lincoln put it, "charity for all." The idea is that there can be some good in those we disagree with. There may even be merit in their disagreement.

Gay-rights supporters must become masters of anti-demonization, of charity for all, both because it is right and because it is effective. A majority of this country subscribes to roughly the moral dogma of Rick Warren, including his views on homosexuality. Religious doctrine, along with visceral disgust, is still the greatest barrier to achieving things like gay marriage.

We are not going to crush 200 million Americans. We are not going to circumvent them through courts. They must become comfortable with the notion that equal dignity and regard for gay Americans is no threat to them or their families. They must see the connections, the similarities, between gay lives and their own.

That happens through familiarity, which promotes understanding. And understanding has always been pro-gay. It doesn't happen overnight, but by imperceptible degrees. You arrive at the destination before you realize you've been on a journey.

Seeing one of their own leaders on the podium at the inauguration of a president who publicly calls himself a "fierce advocate" for gay Americans might help make it a little bit easier for religious conservatives to envision our cause literally side by side with theirs. To the extent Obama's choice elevates further among them a voice that de-emphasizes the condemnation of homosexuality, that's not a bad day's work.

Betrayals may yet come from this administration, but this was not one of them.

Marjorie Christoffersen seems like a nice enough person by all reports, including those of gay friends and acquaintances.

But Christoffersen made a $100 donation to Prop. 8, which stripped marriage rights from gays and lesbians in California. Now some customers of El Coyote, the landmark Los Angeles restaurant where she worked for two decades, are boycotting.

After angry protests, Christoffersen has tearfully resigned. Meanwhile, some of the other 88 employees have had their hours cut, and business is down about 30%.

Is this outcome the predictable result of taking rights away from a community that has been burned once too often? Collateral damage in an ugly culture war?

Or is it a step too far-punishing an entire business (and a gay-friendly one at that) for the private act of one employee, a generally decent person who can't quite yet wrap her mind around gay marriage?

A few facts are worth noting as we ponder these questions.

Christoffersen's small contribution was a personal one, not supported by the restaurant (except rather indirectly, insofar as it pays her salary).

True, she is the owner's daughter and a familiar fixture there, but at El Coyote she kept her Prop. 8 support to herself (unsurprisingly, given the sympathies of her coworkers and patrons). It became known only as activists scoured donation rolls for "hypocritical" Yes-on-8 donors.

Indeed, in the wake of the controversy over Christoffersen, El Coyote has given $10,000 to the efforts to repeal Prop. 8-a substantial public penance for their employee's private $100 "sin."

El Coyote has many gay employees, including managers. While they were aware of Christoffersen's Mormonism and her conservative political beliefs, they got along well with her. They report that (apart from the marriage issue) she was supportive of her gay friends and coworkers.

Some of those gay coworkers are now hurting. And it's not just because they miss Christoffersen or hate seeing her so upset-she can't discuss the incident without crying-but also because, with business slowing down, they fear for their jobs.

Meanwhile, opponents of marriage equality have begun to use Christoffersen as an example of how gay-rights advocates want to destroy freedom of religion, speech, and conscience.

What do I think?

I think Margie Christoffersen sounds like a basically good person, someone who is wrong on marriage equality but is (or at least was) possibly winnable on that point someday.

I also think the simplistic black-and-white approach that suggests "You're either with us or against us" works even less at the level of day-to-day life than it does for, say, George Bush's foreign policy.

I think punishing El Coyote for the contributions of a single employee-one whose views on this subject hardly seem representative of its management or staff-is certainly overbroad and probably counterproductive.

And yet I also appreciate the outrage of those who want nothing to do with anyone and anything even remotely associated with "Yes on 8"-a campaign which not only took away marriage rights, but did so by despicably portraying gays as a threat to children.

Against that ugly backdrop, it's hard to get worked up about a diner's business slowing down.

What concerns me most, however, is not misdirected punishment of El Coyote, or the occasionally harsh words for Christoffersen.

What concerns me most is the right wing's misusing this case as Exhibit N in their ever-growing catalog of alleged threats to their freedom.

For example, in the National Review Online, Maggie Gallagher refers to the protests and boycott as "extraordinary public acts of hatred" and criticizes "the use of power to silence moral opposition."

But nobody "silenced" Margie Christoffersen. She expressed her viewpoint by contributing; others expressed theirs by boycotting. That's how free expression works.

So call the boycott counterproductive if you like, or reckless, or even mean-spirited. I might quibble with some of your characterizations, but I see your point.

But please don't call it a violation of anyone's rights. Neither Christoffersen nor El Coyote has a pre-existing right to anyone's patronage.

Don't call it a violation of her religious freedom, unless religious freedom means the freedom to strip away others' legal rights without their being free to walk away from you.

And for heaven's sake, don't call it a violation of her freedom of conscience.

Christoffersen is free to think, speak, or vote however she likes. Others are free to avoid her.

In the culture war, as elsewhere, freedom is a sword that cuts both ways.