IGF CultureWatch

Josh DuBois might be called a New Evangelical. He is a Pentecostal pastor (with a master's degree in public affairs from Princeton) who believes Jesus is his personal savior.

But he also seems to put more weight on the social gospel (that is, that Christians should take care of the poor and the disenfranchised) than on the old Evangelical hammers of gays and abortion.

Now the 26-year-old has a new position: head of the new President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Under Bush, this was called the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives, and it spent a lot of money pushing abstinence-only programs.

Obama's idea is different. The office will go beyond grant giving to find ways to partner with religious organizations to find solutions to social problems. Most notably, at least for gays and lesbians, the Faith-Based Council will forbid religious organizations from discriminating against gays and lesbians when they hire for programs that are taxpayer supported.

That means if a church applies for a grant to fund a program that feeds the needy, the organization can't refuse to hire chefs or program directors or secretaries for the program just because they're gay.

And yet - it's not enough just to prove fairness in hiring. Gays and lesbians are rightly suspicious of federal programs that purport to be "faith based." For too long, faith has been a tool of exclusion for us. We've gotten used to hearing political leaders tell us they want to take our rights away because of their own superior "family values."

We might also be suspicious of Josh DuBois. DuBois has been silent about his personal beliefs on religious right touchstones like homosexuality and abortion, but I suspect he's not a religious centrist, despite being a Democrat. Columnist Sally Quinn notes that DuBois was the person who first floated Rick Warren's name as a possibly inaugural speaker.

DuBois, who was in charge of faith-based outreach for the Obama campaign as well, also put together the program that featured Donnie McClurkin, an "ex-gay" gospel singer who has said that "homosexuality is a curse."

Yet I'm going to give DuBois - and Obama - the benefit of the doubt here. DuBois is young. I don't think he did these things to send a message to gays and lesbians - I think he did these things because he doesn't figure us in at all.

And maybe that's partly our fault.

Gays and lesbians have given religion over to the right. This is not good. There are many religions that have denied us our personhood; there are many of us who have been hurt by the religious traditions we grew up in. But gays are a diverse people, and there are many of us who are religious or spiritual - and we should not be ignored by a national program that should serve the whole country.

My hope is that gay religious organizations will approach DuBois's office about funding their valuable social service programs that assist homeless queer youth, people with AIDS, and other disenfranchised LGBT communities. And that we will all make noise about it until we know that our programs are being treated equally.

There are plenty of gays and lesbians who will disagree with me here. They think that religion is poison, and we are fools to drink it. We shouldn't want to be part of a club that doesn't want to grant us membership. They think we should fight the existence of a faith-based anything in the West Wing.

That is a battle we won't win, not this time around, not with a president who was partly elected through the voter turnout strength of the black church.

But in any case, seeking equity when it comes to this new President's Council isn't a referendum on religion. It's about fairness. Take the military as an example. I'm not too keen on the whole military-industrial complex. But if there are gay people who want to fight in the military, then I support their right of equal access. It is not for me - but I will not deny my gay brothers and sisters their own choice.

If there is a federal conduit for getting funds to religious organizations, then gay religious organizations should be getting equal access to those funds. Any President's Council for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships should not only be reaching out to Evangelicals - it should also be reaching out to us.

Of all the slogans chanted and displayed at anti-Israel rallies over the past month, surely "Queers for Palestine" ranks as the most oxymoronic. It is the motto of the San Francisco-based Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT), a group advocating financial divestment from the Jewish State. QUIT contends that Zionism is racism, regularly demonstrates at gay pride marches, organizes with far-right Muslim organizations, and successfully lobbied the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission to boycott the 2006 World Pride Conference due to its location that year in Jerusalem.

What makes QUIT oxymoronic is that their affinity for Palestine isn't reciprocated. There may be queers for Palestine, but Palestine certainly isn't for queers, either in the livable or empathetic sense. Like all Islamic polities, the Palestinian Authority systematically harasses gay people. Under the cloak of rooting out Israeli "collaborators," P.A. officials extort, imprison, and torture gays. But Palestinian oppression of homosexuality isn't merely a matter of state policy, it's one firmly rooted in Palestinian society, where hatred of gays surpasses even that of Jews. Last October, a gay Palestinian man with an Israeli lover petitioned Israel's high court of justice for asylum, claiming that his family threatened to kill him if he did not "reform." He's one of the few lucky Palestinians to be able to challenge his plight.

And that"s only in the relatively benign West Bank. The Gaza Strip, which has stagnated under the heel of Hamas"s Islamofascist rule since 2007, is an even more dangerous place for gays, 'a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick,' in the words of a senior Hamas leader. As in Iran, Hamas"s patron and the chief sponsor of international terrorism, even the mere suspicion of homosexuality will get one killed in Gaza, being hurled from the roof of a tall building the method of choice.

It's these facts that make the notion of "Queers for Palestine" so bizarre. Contrary to what some gay activists might have you believe, there really are not that many political subjects where one's sexuality ought influence an opinion. Aside from the obvious issues related to civic equality (recognition of partnerships, open service in the military, etc.), how does homosexuality imply a particular viewpoint on complicated matters like Social Security Reform, health care policy, or the war in Iraq?

The answer, at least for some of those on the left side of the spectrum, is one found in the early rhetoric of the Gay Liberation Front, the leading gay rights organization to emerge after the Stonewall riots. The GLF was, in the words of historian Paul Berman, the "gay wing of the revolutionary alliance" that in the 1970s challenged the liberal consensus and came to be known as the "New Left."

GLF leaders, for instance, played an instrumental role in the creation of the Venceremos Brigade, which dispatched starry-eyed American radicals to pick sugar cane in Cuba as a show of solidarity with the regime of Fidel Castro. (Like the Palestinian Authority, Communist Cuba didn't exactly return the kindness of its gay sympathizers; for decades it interned gays and HIV-positive individuals in prison labor camps). The GLF allied itself with a whole host of radical organizations (like the murderous Black Panthers) whose role in the struggle for gay equality was tenuous at best. And the very name of the GLF was adopted from the National Liberation Front, the moniker of the Vietnamese Communists.

Why does this history matter now? Although you will find few out-and-out Marxists in the leadership of gay organizations today, most gay activists still view the world with the same sort of "oppression" complex epitomized by the early radicals who led the GLF. They believe gay people to be "oppressed," and hold that any other group claiming the same victim status should earn the support of gays.

It's for this reason that every major gay organization was so hesitant to talk about the overwhelming support among African-Americans to ban gay marriage in California, and why the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force went so far as to commission a bogus study ostensibly refuting that disturbing statistic itself. In the estimation of the gay rights establishment, African-Americans, like gays, are "oppressed," and there is no room for enemies on the left.

But gays will never get anywhere as long as they view the world in this constrictive and counterproductive way. Indeed, if one wanted to construe a "gay" position on the Arab-Israeli conflict - that is, examine the issue purely through the prism of the welfare of gay people - the inescapable stance is nothing less than partiality for Israel. Israel, after all, is the only state in the Middle East that legally enshrines the rights of gay people. Gays serve openly in the military and occupy high-profile positions in business and public life, and Tel Aviv is an international gay mecca. As cliched as it may sound, Israel is an oasis of liberal tolerance in a reactionary religious backwater, and if gay people want to stand with the "oppressed" of the region, it is the Palestinians seeking a peaceful, two-state solution, not the murderers of Hamas or their backers in Tehran, who merit support.

None of this is to say that gay people are wrong for sympathizing with the downtrodden and genuinely oppressed; on the contrary, it's an admirable quality. But all too often, ideologues with ulterior motives and radical agendas pervert this worthy instinct.

It's one thing to express concern about the humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian territories. But to stand alongside the enthusiasts of religious fascism isn't "progressive." It's obscene.

Female desire is complicated.

Lesbians know this. We know it because of "lesbian bed death" - that pervasive phenomenon that makes long-term couples sink into acting like roommates instead of lovers.

And we know it because all of us have friends who have come out late in life, or who have gone back to men after being lesbians forever, or who say that they're "attracted to a person, not to a gender."

Now we have research that - well, if it doesn't quite explain what's going on, at least confirms our intuition that female desire is messier and perhaps more expansive than men's.

Men, say researchers, are easy. A New York Times story on female desire looks at the studies of Meredith Chivers at Queen's University in Ontario.

When gay men are shown film of gay sex or a man masturbating, they get aroused. And they know they are. With straight men, it's similar - show them film of heterosexual sex or female masturbation, and they get excited and know it.

But women are different. Show women film of heterosexual sex, gay male sex, lesbian sex, or monkey sex (really) and women, lesbian or straight, get hot.

What is interesting, however, is that even though their bodies are responsive, women don't always know they are feeling desire - so, a woman who calls herself straight will say that she is only responding to the heterosexual sex videos, even though she is actually responding in the same degree to everything; and a lesbian will think that she is only responding to lesbian sex, even though she has the same degree of physical arousal when it comes to films of gay male sex or heterosexual sex.

Other researchers say that although men with the highest sex drives have a "more polarized attraction than most males" - meaning if they're gay they're REALLY only attracted to men, with women, "the higher the drive, the greater the attraction to both sexes." The article, though, adds the confusing caveat "this may not be so for lesbians."

So - straight women are more likely to be bi if they're more sexual, but lesbians are more likely to be lesbian?

Female desire is complicated indeed.

Researchers are divided over whether this male/female difference is due to biology, hormones, culture, or a confluence of the three.

What they do know is that women feel desire in the mind, no matter what is happening in the body. Some women can think themselves into orgasm (lucky women!) Some women are more turned on by the idea of unfamiliarity, of sex with strangers (thus lesbian bed death); others find their desire dictated by intimacy and emotional connection (hence the women who are "heteroflexible.")

These things are independent of physical arousal, since physical arousal for women happens all the time.

"Fluidity is not a fluke," sexologist Lisa Diamond told the Times. Of the women who told Diamond that they were lesbian, only one-third reported attraction solely to women. The other two-thirds felt genuine, periodic attraction to men.

This means that, if we were all honest in our labeling, the majority of women would need to call ourselves "bisexual" or "queer," instead of "straight" or "gay," as we do. The research says that there are far more women attracted to people of both sexes than there are women who are attracted to only one sex. If only one-third of lesbians are completely women-centered when it comes to desire - and only two percent of the country is lesbian - then that is a tiny number, about 2 million.

Of course, being a lesbian is about more than desiring other women. It is also about a female-centered culture, about consensus building, about emotional bonds with other women. That is what we mean, usually, when we talk about a lesbian "community" - and why lesbian communities often have such a different feel than gay male ones.

Yet despite all our focus on processing and intimacy, we need to remember that lesbians - and all women - also have an expansive sexuality. We underrate ourselves by focusing on "lesbian bed death" instead of all the ways we are sexual. Thank goodness for the surge in queer burlesque shows, sexy lesbian club nights and the last season of "The 'L' Word," all of which remind us that lesbians are sexy, and sexy is fun.

Female desire is complicated; how we experience lust is complex. Here's to more sex for women however we label ourselves.

The latest political struggle in California is over whether the names of contributors to the campaign to bar gay marriage should be publicly disclosed.

Current California law, approved by the voters in 1974, mandates that all political contributions of $100 or more must be reported to the state government along with the contributor's address, occupation and other information. But attorneys for the anti-gay marriage side have filed suit in federal district court to have the information not already revealed to be shielded from public view.

Right at the start, there is something odd about this. You would think that stalwart self-righteous defenders of exclusively opposite-sex marriage-that Core Institution of Western Civilization, etc., etc.,-would be proud to be publicly identified as among its supporters.

Apparently not. The lawsuit claims that supporters have been plagued with a variety of harassment behavior. Among the items listed are harassing phone calls and e-mails, death threats, physical violence, destruction of private property, boycotts, mailed envelopes containing a "suspicious" white powder, and otherwise unspecified "domestic terrorism." In addition, "No on 8" supporters have created convenient Google maps with arrows pointing to where "Protect Marriage" contributors live and work.

But from what anyone can learn from published reports, these incidents are extremely rare-which is surprising given the passions the issue engendered. Destruction of property? A few churches were spray-painted with "No on 8" graffiti and one person had a window broken. Physical violence? Apparently, a few counter-protesters at "No on 8" demonstrations were hit. But, frankly, that's a risk you take as a counter-protester. Harassing telephone calls? Get Caller ID and report the threats to the police.

A "suspicious" white powder sent to a church and a Knights of Columbus office? As if you can just walk down to the corner drugstore and buy a box of anthrax? And we might ask, How well documented are these incidents? At most, they sound like a law enforcement matter, not a free speech matter. Were they reported to the police? There is no information to that effect.

James Bopp, Jr., an attorney representing "Protect Marriage," said, "The highest value in the First Amendment is free speech and some amorphous idea about transparency cannot be used to subvert those rights." No doubt the Constitution guarantees speech to be free of government interference. But free speech applies to our side too. Nothing in the Constitution mentions that it is without social, economic or political consequences.

All of one woman was "threatened" by a man who said if he had a gun he would shoot Prop 8 supporters. That doesn't sound very threatening: He didn't have a gun. Boycotts? The business where one supporter worked was subject to a gay boycott. But boycotts are entirely legal and a legitimate means of protest. Why should I support a business whose owner's or employees' paychecks are used to oppose my legal rights? One man said a flier was distributed calling him a bigot. But he had published advertisements calling gays a menace. That's free speech too, but when he was the target of free speech was he unhappy.

And there are lot of means of political participation that don't get you reported. Go door to door passing out fliers or do it at distant shopping malls. Help staff a phone bank. If you want to make a monetary contribution, give cash to a friend to include in his check to Yes on 8. What happened to political participation? Are these people really clueless as well as timid?

In many ways these people seem like political naifs, knowing little about the ways of the world. They seem unaware that "free speech" and political participation can have negative consequences. As a gay man involved in writing and speaking on behalf of gay equality over the last 35 years, I have received threatening telephone calls ("We're going to cut off your balls." Gratifyingly, that caller was arrested.) Another caller told me I was a sinner, a bad person, etc. I thanked the caller for sharing his view with me.

I have received letters calling me a snake and telling me to crawl back under the rock I came out from under. I have had a window broken by men yelling "faggot." I have had beer cans thrown at me from a passing car. This is just part of politics. As an old Chicago writer once sagely observed, "Politics ain't beanbag."

A hundred dollars doesn't buy as much these days as it did in 1974. If someone wants to raise the nondisclosure level to $200 I would not object. But I would oppose further nondisclosure. People need to take responsibility for their public behavior-and political contributions are definitely public behavior.

When Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson was invited to deliver the invocation at the inaugural kickoff event, I expected some conservative evangelicals to complain. And they did.

Forget the fact that Robinson's invitation seemed like a token gesture after the controversial choice of evangelical pastor (and Prop-8 supporter) Rick Warren for the inaugural invocation-a far more prominent platform.

Forget the fact that Warren himself praised the choice of the openly gay bishop as demonstrating the new president's "genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of goodwill together in search of common ground."

Indeed, for the moment, forget common ground. As one right-wing blogger put it, a good evangelical doesn't seek common ground with the "Bishop of Sodom."

And so they complained. Not only about Obama's choice of Robinson, but about the prayer itself.

What grieved them so? Was it the prayer's failure to mention Jesus? Its lack of scriptural references? Its line about blessing the nation with anger-"anger at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people"?

Yes, yes, and yes.

But those were not the parts that worried the evangelicals who contacted me a few days ago. They were concerned that Robinson's prayer expressed a theme that they "have been trying to warn people about for some time now," and they wanted my comment.

What is this worrisome theme? What sinister agenda had the "Bishop of Sodom" expressed in his prayer, wittingly or unwittingly?

It turns out that the troubling line was this: "Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance, replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences."

Puzzled? The line strikes most of us as innocuous, or even benign. "Genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences"-who can argue with that?

But that's not the part that bothered them. They were worried about "freedom from mere tolerance."

We will not appreciate the right-wing mindset-or for that matter, the culture wars-until we understand why that sentiment scares our opponents.

When Robinson says "Bless us with freedom mere tolerance," our opponents hear "It is not enough for you to tolerate us. You ought to embrace us. You ought to approve of who we are, which can't be easily teased apart from what we do. After all, our relationships are a deep and important fact about our lives-just like yours are. So what we are asking is for you to give up your deep conviction that these relationships are sinful and instead affirm them as good."

That is in fact precisely what we are (or should be) asking for, and precisely what Bishop Robinson is praying for.

No, we don't seek such affirmation because we need our opponents' validation. Rather, we seek it because it reflects the truth: our relationships are just as good as theirs.

We seek it for another reason as well, one that frightens them even more. Statistically speaking, some of their kids will turn out gay. I want those kids to know that there's nothing wrong with them. I want them to be able, insofar as possible, to count on their parents for affirmation and support.

And that's where the culture war really is a zero-sum game, and "common ground" is impossible without dramatic concession: we want their kids to believe something that is diametrically opposed to what they want them to believe. There's no point in sugarcoating that conflict.

If I were religious, I might pray over it, as Warren and Robinson do-although when it comes down to specifics, it seems they are praying for very different things.

Or are they? One need not be a relativist to recognize that we all have an imperfect grasp of the truth, a truth that we nevertheless seek. When we find it-or at least, firmly believe that we have-we don't want it to be merely "tolerated."

That's as true of Rick Warren as it is of Gene Robinson.

As I pointed out to my evangelical caller, I'm sure that he wants me, a skeptic, to move beyond "mere tolerance" of Christianity to embrace Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior.

No one who values truth wants it to be merely tolerated. We "tolerate" nuisances; we embrace truth.

That doesn't mean that we believe that truth ought to be forced upon people, as if that were even possible. And this is where I think our opponents' fears, while palpable, are ultimately unfounded.

We want them to move from mere tolerance to embracing the truth. They want us to do the same-although they see the truth quite differently. We will attempt to persuade each other.

But we cannot force truth-not by legislation, not by court decisions, and certainly, not by prayer.