IGF CultureWatch

A decade ago, Jonathan Rauch wrote in "What's Wrong with 'Marriage LIte'?" that denying gays access to marriage was resulting in domestic partnerships and civil unions that were less than full marriage but often open to heterosexuals (so as not to be seen by the left as "discriminatory" and by the right as "legitimatizing homosexuality"). That worked to weaken, not strengthen, marriage as an institution. As Jon put it, "Being against gay marriage and being pro-marriage are not, as it turns out, the same thing."

Now the Washington Post reports that, in France, Straight Couples Are Choosing Civil Unions Meant for Gays, in large numbers. "The brief procedure of the Civil Solidarity Pact, or PACS in its French-language abbreviation" are being chosen over marriage by a growing number of French men and women as "a legal and social status, halfway between living together and marriage."

PACS offer the tax and many legal benefits of marriage but:

"If one or both of the partners declares in writing to the court that he or she wants out, the PACS is ended, with neither partner having claim to the other's property or to alimony."

In other words, the couple never become a single legal and economic unit, and are far less bound than business partners.

Yet today, heterosexual couples entering into a PACS agreement has grown from 42 percent of the total initially to 92 percent last year. For every two marriages in France, a PACS is celebrated, and the number is rising steadily.

At the same time, the Post reports, "The social stigma once associated with having children outside marriage has largely disappeared.... More than half the babies in France, including those of PACSed couples, are born out of wedlock." Overall, "The relaxation of marriage-related social strictures marks a significant departure from long-established French family traditions."

Some would celebrate, declaring that marriage is an oppressive bourgeois institution. I think a more effective message is that gays want to strengthen marriage by joining it, not help to weaken it.

"Less than marriage" should, at most, be a way station for same-sex couples until society is ready to grant us marriage equality, not a permanent alternative used mostly by shacked-up straights to gain the benefits of marriage with few of the mutual responsibilities, and with no assumption of permanence.

It might be useful to revisit the issue of Prop. 8 boycotts, now that the post-election fever has died down a bit. At least two boycotts are still in effect and in the news. The Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Diego is the subject of a boycott because its owner, Doug Manchester, gave $125,000 in seed money to get the initiative off the ground. But for Manchester's very generous donation early on, when it counted most, Prop. 8 might have gone nowhere. Bill Clinton spoke there on Sunday while protesters complained outside.

In Sacramento, Leatherby's Family Creamery, a well-established ice cream shop, is also still subject to a boycott because the family gave $20,000 to support Prop. 8. The owner, Alan Leatherby, says that while the emotions have faded, he still sees effects of the boycott more than three months after the election.

The first thing to note is that neither of these is a case of a donor giving a small amount to Prop. 8. The furor after Prop. 8 centered on people who had given tiny amounts of money and experienced consequences out of proportion to their contribution. But that legitimate concern overshadowed the issue of taking action against larger donors. Yes, there is unfairness in targeting $100 and $250 donors. But is it also unfair to boycott donors of $20,000 and $125,000? That question got lost, and shouldn't have.

The second point is that there is a difference between Leatherby and Manchester. Alan Leatherby is comfortable defending his donation publicly, and says he answers emails and phone calls about his donation. He had lunch with a 70-year old gay man who contacted him. In contrast, Manchester, like many other large donors, seems to have disappeared into an undisclosed secure location.

I can respect Leatherby. I won't be patronizing his shop, since I believe he is wrong and misunderstands the religious text we share. But he is willing to discuss his beliefs, and that is both honorable and civic-minded. Manchester, and those who won't personally engage the debate at all, are the real danger, not only to gay rights, but to democracy. No one is obliged to articulate their reasoning, but given the size of his donation, Manchester's silence suggests either that he does not have a defense or, more disturbingly, does not care about the consequences of his donation.

In this, Manchester is like Bill Clinton, who hid behind a spokesman and, himself, remained silent in his speech at the hotel about why there were protesters outside. I was a strong supporter of Clinton, and truly believed he understood gay equality, but was confounded by the high-wire of this issue's politics. But now it increasingly appears he really does not care very much, like Doug Manchester, about the damage he causes. I'm not sure how you boycott an ex-president, but I'm wondering if that might be possible.

Read to the bottom of this New York Times story for a revealing tidbit. The Brits bar entry of a Dutch politician and provocateur on grounds that he offends Muslims. Yet they have admitted "several Muslim clerics from Arab countries with a history of inflammatory statements on terrorism, women's rights and homosexuality." Increasingly this seems to be the pattern in Europe. Fear, rather than principle, appears to be at work, and apparently homosexuals aren't scary. But then, that's how it always is with speech restrictions.

One of the most interesting and, I think, positive developments in the gay rights movement is the current evolution of our national holiday from Halloween to Valentine's Day.

Gays helped change Halloween from its tame, American children's incarnation into a street festival for gay and straight adults. The celebrations grew so large in West Hollywood and the Castro that local government had to step in to enforce some limits. This adult Halloween is a party where people can play with individual identity, not to mention with each other.

Valentine's Day is about relationships - specifically romantic relationships. From kiss-ins in Boulder, to marriage license requests (denied) at county offices across the nation, we're storming Valentine's Day.

And how could we not? There is no more obvious example of our exclusion from the central organizing principle of most people's lives than this celebration of the fundamental love our society elevates for heterosexuals, but ignores the existence of among homosexuals.

Halloween is the context in which most heterosexuals have traditionally viewed us. But they have to see us on Valentine's Day as well, celebrating not just our identities but our loves. Valentine's Day is (you should pardon the necessary pun) the very heart of our movement.

That's the question posed by the Portland-based writer Taylor Clark over at Slate. The sex scandal currently roiling the Pacific Coast city has all the makings of a steamy soap opera (and then some -- I mean, really, Beau Breedlove?). It's attracted an inordinate amount of attention not only because of the dramatic nature of the charges (kissing in the City Hall bathroom!) but because the individuals involved happen to be gay.

Clark argues that were Adams straight, he would have resigned long ago. She makes the extra special effort to make clear that she's not the sort of person who believes that one's sexuality should affect the way we view these matters. Rather, in liberal Portland, "When you look out on the pro-Adams crowds," you don't just see gays and political hacks dependent upon the mayor's patronage championing his cause. The bulk of the people coming to his public defense are "young, educated liberals who feel unqualified to spit venom about Adams' sex life-despite the fact that they'd be far less restrained with a straight politician." That liberals would hold gays to a favorable double-standard when it comes to sexual behavior is probably true and troublesome. But it's the topic of another column. Yet as far as explaining why Adams hasn't yet departed office, I'd say it's logically sound. L'affair Adams could only play out in a handful of cities across America, Portland being near the top of the list. But Clark leaves unexplored another angle to the world of gay sex scandals that might explain why Adams is still in office.

A look at past sex scandals involving gay politicians would be instructive. Barney Frank, who was censured by his colleagues in the House of Representatives for fixing an the parking tickets of an erstwhile lover who was simultaneously running a brothel out of Frank's home, ultimately survived, in spite of many calls for his resignation. The scandal had little effect on Frank's political fortunes; he's since risen to become one of the most visible and powerful Democrats in the House. Perhaps were it not for his scandal Frank would be speaker by now, but there's really no way of knowing. After all, Frank's prostitute/parking ticket problems didn't stop him from becoming Chairman of the House Financial Services Committee nor the most visible (and eloquent) defender of Bill Clinton during the impeachment process.

The other prominent gay political scandal in recent memory was that of Mark Foley. Unlike Adams, Foley never touched the objects of his illicit affection, never mind carry on an affair with them and then lie about it to the media.Yet literally within minutes of the dirty instant messages hitting headlines, Foley had already resigned, hitched a flight out of DC, and announced he was entering rehab. It wasn't until last year that Florida and federal officials announced that Foley hadn't broken any law. What can explain the different ways in which Adams, Frank and Foley were treated?

Party affiliation. Sam Adams and Barney Frank are both Democrats, whereas Mark Foley is a Republican. It didn't matter that Foley had a rather sterling record on gay rights issues, the mere fact that he was a member of the GOP was enough to garner the outrage of the Gay Left. Perhaps the fact that Adams is just a mayor, whereas Foley a congressman, explains the different responses. But Barney Frank, after all, was a congressman during his own brouhaha. Moreover, in this internet-driven world, the details of the love life of Sam Adams and Beau Breedlove are available to anyone in the country and have been scrutinized by major national media.

Sure, Foley wasn't exactly open about being gay (nor was he exactly closeted), yet I see little reason why a semi-closeted, pro-gay politician mired in a pseudo-sex scandal should be the recipient of such massive levels of hostility and ridicule whereas an openly gay politician mired in a real one ought earn largely unmitigated sympathy. In other words, if every aspect of the saga of Sam Adams were the same save his party affiliation he would have flown the coop yesterday.

In response to conservative criticism, Senate Democrats dropped $400 million in HIV prevention funding from their trillion dollar "stimulus" spending bill. (I know, AIDS is not necessarily a "gay" issue, but the Washington Blade put this on their front page, so I'm going to comment on it.)

AIDS activists protested: "Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation...said critics are wrong in claiming HIV- or STD-related programs don't boost the economy."

That's an understandable response from a lobby, but it misses the point. The question isn't whether HIV prevention programs are economic stimulus; of course they're not. But then, neither is most of the spending in this monstrosity of a bill. And if it's going to provide billions to fund other non-job creating liberal-left initiatives, such as research into global warming, along with giving billions to the states to spend on whatever they please (i.e., pork), then just why not HIV prevention?

The answer is that Senate Dems felt that this was the one area they would be prudent to surrender. That's telling.

More. Yes, I realize that some relatively small, additional cuts have now been made from the original House bill, first in the Senate version and later as part of the Senate-House reconciliation . But as reader Avee comments, there remains in the bill massive amounts of funding for social initiatives that have nothing realistically to do with job creation. And the HIV funding was one of the first that was dropped (and from the original, totally larded-up House version), which is what I found to be telling.

Furthermore. Will the stimulus actually stimulate? Economists say no. And this, from Cato.

The U.S. legal system mirrors our binary culture, where the public -- and, more specifically, the press -- craves either/or decisions. It is in that frame where drama is intensified, and we do love our drama.

The case of the San Diego firefighters forced by their superiors to ride in a fire truck in a gay pride parade shows the limits of binary thinking. Here is a case where everyone is wrong - or, more charitably, where each side is only right enough that they could bring a plausible case to court.

Why on earth did the fire department need to force some unwilling employees to appear in a parade they quite clearly were not anxious to participate in? If there really were not enough firefighters who would voluntarily ride on the truck in the parade, then the department's purported message about being gay friendly would seem to have a hole or two in it.

On the other hand, is riding in a gay pride parade really sexual harassment? Under the creepingly generous interpretations that term has received over the years, that's possible. But, as SNL's Seth Meyers might say, "Really?" Can the reactions of some crowd members in a public event really amount to the kind of sexual harassment envisioned by the long-ago drafters of this law?

More broadly, the firefighters' complaint shows one of the most invidious harms homophobia causes. Many heterosexual men still find it not just unpleasant, but actionable to be viewed as attractive by other men - though this is clearly changing pretty radically. Sexual harassment law provides the only context where being viewed as attractive is something to sue over.

Is the fear of homosexuality really so powerful that heterosexual men would not want to accept this pretty common compliment -- particularly for those heterosexual men who feel free, themselves, to dish a similar compliment out to random women. Sometimes a compliment is just a compliment, guys.

The case is now before a jury for the second time, after a first jury could not come to a verdict. The original jury seems to have got it right.