IGF CultureWatch

As best I can from this distance, I try to follow the progress of gay rights movements abroad. And I feel great admiration and sympathy for the brave men and women who are trying to promote gay legal and social equality in many countries of Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.

But most of them face a much harder time than we did in North America and Western Europe. They face very different social situations from the ones we did so I am not sure if the activist model they have adopted in part from us can work as well for them as it did for us.

An effective gay rights movement in America followed, it did not precede, the sexual revolution of the 1960s which liberated heterosexual sexuality. In addition, the late 1960s and 1970s were a time of growing economic prosperity and the growing autonomy for individuals that that prosperity facilitated. There was-if not exactly a growing secularization-at least a gradual decline in the Cold War-inspired Christian religiosity that gripped the country in the 1950s. And finally, prestigious reports-the Wolfenden Report (1957) in England, and the American Law Institute's Model Penal Code (draft c. 1954; final version, 1962))-both recommended decriminalizing homosexuality.

Most countries outside North America and Western Europe have few or none of these things to aid their efforts. After decades of official homophobia by atheist Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe, once Communist oppression was removed, people returned to religion with the attendant hostility to homosexuality of both Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. How gays can find any institutional support, lessening of hostility, any wedge point at which they can begin to build power and influence is far from clear.

Contrast this with Spain, where the Franco regime's military authoritarianism tied itself to a conservative Catholicism. A growing economic and religious liberalization began in the last years of Franco's reign and now Spain is one of the most gay-friendly nations, even allowing gay marriage. You have to wonder if there is some general law that people react against whatever supported that oppression.

In China, there has been a gradual reduction of economic controls and, resulting from that, some social controls so long as there is no organized opposition to the government. The official psychiatric organization, influenced by international psychiatric groups, declared gays no longer sick. This has allowed gays to meet unobtrusively in public places with only sporadic harassment prompted by officials at the local level.

It will be interesting to see if, with China's growing capitalism and economic liberalization, a kind of gay liberation can occur without organization and leadership, or if, alternatively, a cautious, non-political gay movement can manage to work within the government strictures. We can view with concern the rise of Christianity and Falun Gong spiritual exercises in China since both are hostile to gays, but on the other hand perhaps their growth will pressure the government to further reduce social controls-which would also benefit gays.

Africa presents a dismal spectacle except for South Africa. There the country has recoiled from the conservative, segregationist regime with its Dutch Reformed religious support and embraced gay equality in its constitution-another example of the rebound thesis. This has been aided by prominent pro-gay spokespersons within the Anglican Church and the government itself.

But in most of the rest of Africa gays are officially harassed and threatened, their sexuality and organizations criminalized. Religious leaders of both an aggressive, ignorant Christianity and an equally aggressive, ignorant Islam compete for legitimacy and followers by loudly promoting their hostility to homosexuality.

South America presents a mixed picture. Chile remains sexually conservative, while Brazil's Sao Paulo has the largest Gay Pride parade in the world. With its pervasive Catholicism, South America should be socially conservative, but its Catholicism seems to have more to do with ritual and festivity and a worship of saints and the "Blessed Virgin" than with sexual morality. Growing evangelical Protestantism should be a concern except that so far its social agenda has focused on literacy and economic self-help. Neither seems to pose a threat to gays.

One major obstacle to gay progress seems to come from South America's obsessively macho concern with gender roles and the social construction of gays as feminine. There is harassment and even murder of gays by youth gangs in several countries. But the targets seem often to be transvestites, often transvestite prostitutes. It seems doubtful that most of these are genuinely transgendered males. Instead many seem to be gay men dressing to signal their sexual availability to other, ostensibly heterosexual males.

I offer these perceptions and analyses only tentatively and welcome better-informed thoughts by others.

First published at 365gay.com on July 21, 2008

Here's the latest for the "politicians trying to have it both ways" file: John McCain on gay adoption.

Asked about the subject by the New York Times, McCain made clear that he opposes it. Here's the relevant portion of the interview in full:

Q: "President Bush believes that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt children. Do you agree with that?"

McCain: "I think that we've proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no I don't believe in gay adoption."

Q: "Even if the alternative is the kid staying in an orphanage, or not having parents?"

McCain: "I encourage adoption and I encourage the opportunities for people to adopt children; I encourage the process being less complicated so they can adopt as quickly as possible. And Cindy and I are proud of being adoptive parents."

Q: "But your concern would be that the couple should be a traditional couple?"

McCain: "Yes."

A few days later, after considerable criticism, McCain's director of communications issued the following "clarification."

"McCain expressed his personal preference for children to be raised by a mother and a father wherever possible. However, as an adoptive father himself, McCain believes children deserve loving and caring home environments, and he recognizes that there are many abandoned children who have yet to find homes. McCain believes that in those situations that caring parental figures are better for the child than the alternative."

Let's start by making something clear: nobody gives a flying wallenda what McCain's (or any other candidate's) "personal preferences" are. My personal preference is that children be raised by parents who dress them in tasteful Ralph Lauren sweater sets, but I'm not about to translate that into public policy.

Second, the follow-up question in the initial interview could not have been clearer - "Even if the alternative is the kid staying in an orphanage?" - and, at best, McCain punted on that question. Given the thousands of children in need of good homes - often due to heterosexual irresponsibility - and the number of gay couples selflessly stepping up to the plate to provide for them, McCain's response was nothing short of shameful.

McCain's "clarification" just added insult to injury. Through an aide, he went out on a major limb and said - are you ready? - that having "caring parental figures" is better for children than abandonment. Now there's some bold leadership for you. (Notice that the campaign couldn't even bring itself to mention gay parents- just "caring parental figures.")

Everyone knows what's really going on here. McCain is trying to impress the religious right by being against gay stuff. But in the year 2008, insulting gay parents isn't cool in the eyes of moderate voters. So he flip-flopped - but in a vague enough way that he can pretend he didn't.

Let's suppose one believes, as McCain apparently does, that all else being equal it is better for children to be raised by both a mother and a father. I think this is a defensible position, although the best available research on gay parents suggests that their children turn out just as well as those of straight parents. But let's grant the premise for the sake of argument.

What follows with respect to gay adoption? In practice, virtually nothing. That's because even if - all else being equal, which it seldom is - straight couples make better parents, gay couples clearly make very good parents, and adoption is one arena where we cannot afford to make the best the enemy of the good.

Indeed, parenting in general is such an arena. Otherwise no one would be fit to have children.

In general, children do better with more-educated parents than with less educated ones, but we don't conclude that all prospective parents must have college degrees. In general, children do better with comfortable financial resources than with meager ones, but we don't insist that prospective parents must have higher-than-average incomes. In general, children do better with grandparents around, but we don't tell orphans that they themselves should never become parents. And so on.

Here's another thing that research and common sense tell us: in general, children who are planned do better than children who are "accidental." And unlike straight couples, gay couples never say "Oops, we're pregnant." So perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that children of gay parents do as well as they do.

I'm not suggesting that children of gay parents don't face unique challenges. But the main one happens to be other people's ignorance. When such ignorance comes from an adoptive father, it's surprising. When it comes from a potential president, it's downright unacceptable.

Summer for many of us is a time to find respite, perhaps by heading to the beach to stick our toes in the sand and watch the waves roll in. The problems still facing us in the United States-new ballot initiatives to fight, constitutional liberties under assault, anti-immigrant demagoguery that hampers asylum efforts-can wait a few weeks. Vacation can also give us a fresh perspective. A quick survey of what is happening around the world reminds us that the struggle to which we will return is global.

On July 19, Russian gay activists led by Nikolai Alexeyev were planning to picket the Iranian embassy in Moscow on the third anniversary of the hanging of two gay youth in Iran, as they had done the previous two years. But on July 14, Moscow authorities banned the demonstration. Moscow's gay rights marches in recent years have been met with violence by skinhead gangs under the placid gaze of police.

On May 29, a Turkish court ordered the GLBT group Lambda Istanbul shut down, claiming that it violated penal code and constitutional provisions on morals and the family. On June 4, three gay activists from Sexual Minorities Uganda were arrested in Kampala for staging a peaceful protest at an AIDS conference. On July 5 in Hungary, hundreds of right-wing counter-demonstrators attacked the Budapest gay pride parade, throwing rocks, eggs, feces and Molotov cocktails at marchers and the police.

Even where our rights are significantly more advanced, the struggle continues. On July 10, British human rights activist Peter Tatchell reported that a London tribunal had ruled that an Islington registrar was within her rights in refusing to perform same-sex civil partnerships as being against her religion. This contrasts with the action of some county clerks in California, who avoided performing gay wedding ceremonies by declaring they would no longer perform any weddings.

After a lengthy activist campaign, Tehran-born Seyed Madhi Kazemi, whom British authorities sought to deport to Iran despite his lover Parham having been put to death there, recently won "leave to remain." Yet gay asylum seekers from Syria and Azerbaijan still face deportation from Scotland and Wales. The group GayAsylumUK continues petitioning Prime Minister Gordon Brown to "stop deporting gays and lesbians to countries where they may be imprisoned, tortured or executed because of their sexuality." Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has been heavily criticized for saying there is no danger in Iran for gay people who are "discreet."

On July 1, after extensive lobbying by the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights, the Swedish Migration Board decided that people who live openly regarding their gayness in Iran should receive asylum. On the other hand, a woman told a Toronto forum in June that many Latin American lesbian and transgender women have been denied asylum in Canada despite having been tortured and raped in their home countries.

International solidarity efforts are hampered by the gay movement's wide variations in its stages of development from region to region. Perhaps our most powerful organizing tool is the Internet, whose power is understood by repressive regimes. A bill pending in the Iranian parliament would impose the death penalty on bloggers who "promote corruption, prostitution or apostasy." One thing we can do is press Western corporations to stop aiding and abetting such repression.

The greatest work of changing minds and hearts is close to home, where family bonds often remain strong despite intolerance and threats of violence. Religious fundamentalisms are a significant factor, such as in Nigeria where Christian prelates justify anti-gay rhetoric by citing fear of losing adherents to Islam. Harsh anti-gay laws dating from the colonial era are another factor, spreading poison long after the countries that imposed them have reformed their own laws.

The rejection of such malign influences suggests a way of turning the tables on arguments from tradition. Gay people in former colonies can point out that, far from homosexuality being a European vice, homophobia is the malign import. European Parliament member and former Polish foreign minister and Solidarity leader Bronislaw Geremek took a similar tack when he declared, "Homophobia is not part of Polish tradition." Geremek died on July 13, but his words still echo. Thus, ironically, an enlightened nationalism may help us as we slowly build our global network of support and hope, link by link.

First published in the Bay Area Reporter on July 17, 2008

In a recent statement, Barack Obama said that he rejects "the divisive and discriminatory efforts to amend the California Constitution" and similar efforts in other states. At the same time, Obama has repeatedly said that he opposes gay marriage. While his views are perplexing as a matter of logic, this episode reminds us that Obama is, after all, a politician who's trying to get elected. It also says a lot about the progress the Democratic Party is making toward full support for gay marriage.

Obama opposes the proposed amendment because, he says, it is "discriminatory." But how is it any more discriminatory than his own position? He believes that marriage is between a man and woman; the proposed amendment says that marriage is "between a man and a woman."

Is there any way to reconcile his opposition to gay marriage with his opposition to the California amendment? I can think of three ways possibilities.

First, one could oppose writing the traditional definition of marriage into the state constitution - as opposed to state statutes. This would leave the state legislature and governor with the power to decide whether to recognize gay marriages at a later time.

The problem with that is that the state supreme court effectively wrote the new definition into the state constitution, removing this very power from the state legislature and the governor. If you oppose gay marriage on policy grounds, there is now no way to implement your view except to constitutionalize it by amendment. The state supreme court has left you no choice. And in California, because it's so easy to amend the state constitution, you're free to support a repeal at a later date if you change your mind on this issue. You don't have to worry that you are erecting a supermajority barrier.

Next, since gay marriages are a fait accompli for the next few months, even if you oppose them you might not want to undo the interim marriages (which is a possible effect of passing the amendment) or, more abstractly, "take away rights."

This would be an incredibly generous reason for a real opponent of gay marriage to oppose the California amendment. The number of interim marriages will be small in absolute terms, the marriages exist only by mandate of four judges, they are entered with notice that they may be nullified in a short time, and the cost of losing on the ban will be many more such marriages into the indefinite future. But if Obama is such an extraordinary anti-gay-marriage altruist, he does not give this as a reason for opposing the amendment.

Finally, a gay-marriage opponent who supports civil unions (like Obama) could vote against the California amendment on the ground that it might also be interpreted to eliminate the state's domestic-partnership system, which, like civil unions, grants all of the state-conferred legal rights of marriage to gay couples. This risk might be intolerable if you weakly oppose gay marriage but strongly support domestic partnerships or civil unions. I think it is unlikely that the amendment will be interpreted by the California courts to eliminate the state's domestic-partnership system, but the risk is above zero. However, once again, Obama does not offer this as his reason for opposing the amendment.

So what's really going on? There are probably two things happening. First, I don't think Obama really opposes gay marriage deep down and I suspect he does see the exclusion of gay couples as a kind of discrimination. He has never been able to explain his reasons for opposing gay marriage - which is very revealing for a man who's otherwise unusually thoughtful for a politician. He just says, basically, I oppose gay marriage "because I say so." So calling the amendment "discriminatory and divisive" may be a ray of candor cutting through the fog of a political campaign.

Second, and probably more importantly, this is an instance where politics necessitates cognitive dissonance. Gays and those who support gay equality are a critical constituency in the Democratic Party. Obama can't keep the gay-friendly base happy and support the amendment, which is rightly seen by them as involving huge stakes for the gay-marriage movement. But at the same time he figures that he can't openly support gay marriage because that might mean losing the election. He is winking and nodding to both sides.

Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for Obama's opposition to the amendment. It might actually help sway some of his socially conservative black and Latino supporters, who will vote in large numbers in California in November. But then, I support gay marriage. If I opposed it, I'd probably be either mystified or angered by Obama's words.

Obama's explanation for why he opposes gay marriage and opposes the proposed California amendment banning it can't be squared as a matter of logic. It's a matter of politics, which reminds us that for all the hype about hope Obama is still a calculating politician.

It also says something about how much things have changed in a short time. We've gone from the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004 opposing a federal amendment banning gay marriage, but also opposing gay marriage itself on policy grounds and supporting state constitutional amendments to ban it, as John Kerry did (and as John McCain now does); to a Democratic nominee in 2008 who says he opposes gay marriage, but who's uncharacteristically unable to explain why, and who opposes the only way to prevent it from becoming a permanent reality in a state of forty million people; to, I predict, a nominee in 2012 or 2016 who will say he or she personally favors gay marriage but adds that the president has no role in the decision because this is an issue that should be left to the states.