IGF CultureWatch

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.

Barack Obama believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Yet he opposes the California ballot initiative that would write that view into the state constitution, calling it "divisive and discriminatory." What gives?

Obama's not alone in this apparent contradiction: Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state's Republican governor, holds a similar juxtaposition of beliefs: that marriage should be between a man and a woman, and that the state's supreme court did the right thing by declaring California's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. (Thanks to the court's decision, California began marrying same-sex couples on June 16-an activity the ballot initiative aims to stop.)

Meanwhile, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain disapproves of the court's decision and supports the initiative to overturn it. Yet McCain, Schwarzenegger and Obama all agree that decisions about marriage should be left to the states.

Confused yet?

For simplicity's sake, let's focus on Obama, and let's start with the last issue first: marriage should be left to the states. There's no contradiction in holding that states (as opposed to the federal government) should set marriage policy, while also holding an opinion about which policy they ought to favor.

But that still leaves the question: according to Obama, which policy should they favor? Heterosexual-only marriage, or marriage equality?

The answer depends upon what Obama means by "I personally believe that marriage is between a man and a woman." Does he mean it as a matter of personal preference, as when I say, "I personally believe that martinis should be made with gin (but by all means, have a vodka martini if you want one)"? Or does he mean it as a matter of public policy?

At first glance, Obama seems to be skating the line between the two. His endorsement of robust federal civil unions-but not marriage-for same-sex couples suggests a public-policy stance against full marriage equality. (By "full marriage equality," I mean extending marriage to gays, not creating a "separate but equal" institution under a different name.) By contrast, his remarks on California suggest a mere personal preference that he doesn't feel compelled to write into law.

There's a third option as well. Perhaps Obama's belief that "marriage is between a man and a woman" is stronger than personal preference (as in my gin martini example) but still not something he wants to codify legally. Perhaps he holds a religious or moral objection to same-sex marriage-not merely in the sense of "I don't want this for myself" but in the sense of "No one ought morally to choose this." Would he then be inconsistent for supporting the California decision?

Not necessarily. In a pluralistic free society, not every moral conviction can be-or should be-enshrined in law.

That's not just because doing so would be unwieldy and impractical. And it's not just because some laws have unintended and undesirable consequences. As important as those reasons are, they miss the key point.

That point is that securing our freedom sometimes requires giving others the freedom to behave in ways of which we disapprove. As former New York Governor Mario Cuomo once put it, discussing the relationship between his Catholic faith and his policy positions:

"The Catholic public official lives the political truth … that to assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful…. We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us."

I'm not suggesting that Obama thinks same-sex marriage is sinful-I frankly doubt that he does. I am suggesting that there's a way to believe, consistently, that marriage should be heterosexual and that it would be a mistake to stand in the way of those who hold otherwise.

Obama might also-quite reasonably-worry that the amendment would do more than stop same-sex marriage. It could also strip away domestic partnership benefits, including health care, as amendments in other states have done. That might help explain his "divisive and discriminatory" charge.

Of course, to say that these reasons would render Obama's positions consistent is not to say that they're motivating him. More likely, his positions are motivated by political reality. He can't afford to alienate gay-supportive Democrats by opposing same-sex marriage, and he can't afford to alienate mainstream voters by endorsing it. So he does both, and neither.

Obama isn't unique in trying to have it both ways. It's not about logic-it's about politics.