Switcheroo Times Two

Last week Michigan's state supreme court, upholding lower-court rulings, held that a 2004 constitutional ban on gay marriage means that state employers can't offer health insurance and other partner benefits to gay employees.

You may recall that conservatives insisted that their broadly written amendment was aimed only at same-sex marriage, not at taking away employment benefits. And that, as soon as the amendment passed, they set about taking away employment benefits. "A classic bait and switch."

But to what end? Turns out that Michigan's public universities preemptively circumvented the ruling not by shutting down partner benefits but by extending them even more broadly, to spouses and "other qualified adults"-i.e., financially interdependent cohabitants.

It's one more example of a fact that same-sex marriage opponents will not address, or even acknowledge: The real-world alternative to recognizing gay unions isn't recognizing nothing, it's recognizing everything.

Victory Fund Responds…

Replying to CultureWatch's criticism of the Victory Fund's decision not to endorse an openly gay Democratic Senate candidate, the Fund's Denis Dison writes:

The Victory Fund's endorsement decisions have absolutely nothing to do with the desires of any political party. We endorse against party picks all the time...

Our endorsement decisions are necessarily private because it is not fair to applicants to publicly air our evaluations of their campaigns, particularly when we decide not to endorse. The decision not to endorse any particular candidate is the result of the same application and evaluation process every candidate goes through, and our endorsement criteria are public.

Read the full text here.

-- by Jonathan Rauch

------------------------

More. Reader "avee" comments:

although it didn't come into play in this primary race between two Democratic liberals, the Victory Fund has a firm litmus-test policy of only endorsing candidates who strongly favor abortion rights. That's an easy way to rule out many gay Republican moderates who show less than all-out enthusiasm for abortion on demand without parental consent (and preferably at taxpayer expense).

Maybe they should call themselves the Gay & Lesbian Abortion Rights Victory Fund.

-- by Stephen H. Miller

--------------------------

Reminder: comments that consists of personal insults will be deleted.

Not That They Care That They Don’t Make Sense

At Positive Liberty, Jon Rowe looks at the religious right's arguing that gays are both (1) successful high earners who lead privledged lives and (2) promiscuous, drug addicted alcoholics. Writes Rowe:

I'm sorry but common sense dictates that a social group cannot at once both be that dysfunctional and so successful that their household incomes are almost 80% above the median. That would take hyper functionality. Gays would have to be arguably the most socially functional social group to be that successful.

Of course, the Nazis accused the Jews of being both the bankers and communists.

Ordinary, Like Us

Young gays and lesbians want to be married. And have kids.

That's what the first survey of the aspirations of gay and lesbian youth discovered.

Rockway Institute reported that more than 90 percent of the lesbians and more than 80 percent of the gay males they surveyed "expect to be partnered in a monogamous relationship after age 30."

About two-thirds of the males and just over half of the females said they thought it was very likely they'd have children.

What's extraordinary about this is just how very ordinary it is.

Ordinary for mainstream society, I mean. When we think of straight young people, we assume they want to get married and have children. There are always those who don't, of course, but they tend to be eccentric outliers.

The gay community, though, has long assumed the opposite of itself (especially gay men), and the mainstream world has assumed the same. Gays were thought to be promiscuous. Gays were artists, not parents. Gays were the outrageous life of the party, not couples who were in bed by 10 p.m.

But maybe the ordinariness of the survey results should not be such a surprise.

The survey participants were 16- to 22-year-olds in urban areas; they've grown up in a world where there are out gay members of Congress, out celebrities and rock stars, out mayors and athletes and CEOs and writers.

They've grown up with gay-straight alliances in their schools, with classmates who had out and happy gay parents, with discussions about whether saying "That's so gay" constitutes prejudice.

Gay and lesbian youth want stable marriages and children?

Of course they do.

Because they have grown up in an America where being gay is starting to seem unremarkable. Where being gay doesn't need to mean living a particular way. Where being gay doesn't have to mean putting limits on your future.

Young gays and lesbians don't want to destroy "traditional marriage" the way social conservatives fear. They want to be traditional - and one state, Massachusetts, allows them to do that. Hopefully others will follow.

These young gay people want what many heterosexuals want: a home, a family, a purposeful life, a job they can pursue with passion. They want to work without fretting they'll be fired for being gay; they want to marry their sweetheart without having to hire a lawyer to make sure they can visit each other in the hospital; they want to raise kids without worrying that their child will be beaten up for having gay parents.

It is my theory - but I don't know this to be true - that as gay and lesbian role models diversify, as we have images of lesbians who drive trucks and lesbians who are fashion models, images of gay men who style hair and images of gay men who are dedicated dads, more people will feel comfortable (and have felt comfortable) coming out.

As it becomes clear that gay people are not all one thing, more people will realize that it is not fitting into the "lifestyle" that proves you are gay - it is not the "gay accent," or the lesbian's comfortable shoes, or the love of club music, or being a Democrat - it is simply loving and being attracted sexually to people of the same gender.

There have always been gays and lesbians who wanted monogamous partners and children, but until the past couple of years, they've been hidden from mainstream society by the gays and lesbians who get more attention - the promiscuous, the party-goers, the style tastemakers.

We love that part of our community. The absolutely fabulous gays are the ones that help define us as being creative, artistic, fun. They're the ones who help us feel special. Different.

But we're also the same.

And that basic similarity is what young gays and lesbians see right away. They have access to it. They know - already! at their age! - that they can have the life they want, whatever that life is.

They can do the party circuit. They can be successful government officials, or artists, or business owners. They can be parents.

Being gay doesn't limit them, because being gay is only one part of who they are. Or perhaps it's that the definition of being gay has expanded. It no longer means only eternal singlehood and a furtive life lived in gay bars and dark city parks. If a lesbian wants to be married, she doesn't have to pretend that she's living with her "best friend." If a gay man wants to be married, he doesn't have to marry a woman and then seek sex in public restrooms.

Now she can marry a woman, and he can marry a man.

And our gay and lesbian youth are planning to do exactly that.

The Pope, Gays, and World Peace

The recent visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the United States is cause to reflect on what his papacy has meant so far for gay people. There is some good, but much bad and ugly, to report.

The largest and most pressing public-relations problem confronting the Catholic Church in the United States today is the fallout from the priest sex scandal. Some conservative Catholics have blamed "homosexuals" for the sexual abuse of children by priests, since most of it involved male priests and boys under their supervision. Some suggested that the Church purge all gays from the priesthood.

But an anti-homosexual purge presents both practical and theological problems for the Vatican. As a practical matter, homosexuals are probably disproportionately drawn to the priesthood. It offers young gay Catholics some palliative for the guilt and shame they may feel for being homosexual. It also shields them from embarrassing questions about why they aren't married.

Theologically, the Church distinguishes between innate homosexual orientation, which is not a sin, and homosexual acts, which are. For Catholicism the orientation itself is blameless, so expelling someone from the priesthood for that alone is hard to justify.

Under Benedict, the Vatican's response to the priest scandal has been a mixed bag. On the one hand, current homosexual priests have not been purged, though like all priests they must remain celibate.

On the other hand, in late 2005 the Vatican declared that those who "show profoundly deep-rooted homosexual tendencies" are not suitable candidates for the priesthood. If, however, these "homosexual tendencies" are "simply the expression of a transitory problem" then the person can be ordained if the tendencies are "overcome at least three years before ordination."

That's a bit convoluted, and the details will have to be worked out over time, but it suggests that mere homosexual orientation unaccompanied by any homosexual acts now justifies forbidding a man to enter the priesthood. In practice, of course, this will not prevent all homosexuals from becoming priests. But it will bar those who understand and openly acknowledge their homosexuality.

If the Vatican under Benedict has blurred the distinction between homosexual acts and orientation, the Pope himself has at least maintained another distinction of importance to gay people.

During his U.S. visit, Benedict spoke of the priest scandal in a way that differentiated between homosexuals and pedophiles. "I would not speak in this moment about homosexuality but pedophilia, which is another thing," he said. "We would absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry."

This statement accomplished two important things. First, it reaffirmed that while pedophiles would be expelled from the priesthood, homosexual priests would not be. Second, it repudiated the association of homosexuality with pedophilia, an old and harmful defamation against gay people that has been used to justify much discrimination.

It is significant that a man of Benedict's standing would separate the two, while so many who admire him do not. Despite his religious objection to homosexual acts, Benedict has not ignored all we have learned from the study of homosexuality. He recognizes that homosexual orientation and pedophilia are distinct phenomena. He deserves credit for his willingness to say so publicly.

That's what makes his implied, but extravagant, criticism of gay marriage so disappointing. According to the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, a conservative think tank opposed to gay marriage, Benedict has spoken publicly about marriage 111 times. In these speeches, he has connected the traditional definition of marriage to preventing violence, maintaining legal order, and even preserving world peace.

In his January 1 World Day of Peace message, Benedict said: "Everything that serves to weaken the family based on the marriage of a man and a woman . . . constitutes an objective obstacle on the path to peace."

Elsewhere he has bemoaned the "growing crisis of the family, which is based on the indissoluble bond of marriage between a man and a woman." When this "truth about man is subverted or the foundation of the family is undermined, peace itself is threatened and the rule of law is compromised, leading inevitably to forms of injustice and violence."

The implication is that gay marriage, along with many other modern developments, will contribute to human catastrophe.

Throughout history, gay people have been blamed for everything from the fall of the Roman Empire, to the Black Plague, to every hurricane, tornado, and earthquake that has ever struck civilization. Add global destabilization to the list.

Benedict is correct that weakening families undermines social stability, with many potential harmful consequences. But to accept Benedict's conclusion, we would have to believe that gay marriage will somehow hurt heterosexual families. Like many others, he seems to bundle gay marriage with a miasma of genuinely harmful trends like illegitimacy and rampant divorce.

The problem is that there is no good reason to indulge that fear. There is no evidence yet that gay marriage has undermined traditional families or contributed to violence, lawlessness, and war in countries like Canada, the Netherlands, and Spain. It is no more plausible to think gay marriage will produce cataclysms than to believe (as expressed by the late Jerry Falwell) that accepting "the gays and the lesbians" contributed to 9/11.

Benedict's concerns about gay marriage are not strictly theological ones. They are empirical, testable by evidence and experience, and thus subject to reasonable criticism outside his faith tradition. Day by day, year by year, they become harder to take seriously.

Gays and Global Culture War

An Iranian feminist artist who goes by the alias Sooreh Hera, living in exile in the Netherlands, said she received death threats after attempting to show her series of homoerotic photographs that include models depicted wearing masks of the Prophet Muhammad and his son-in-law Ali, reports Fox News.

Hera said the photo exhibit is meant as a statement regarding Islam's stance on homosexuality.

A couple of thoughts: (1) It's counter-productive to think that provocative homoerotic depictions of Mohammed are going to accomplish anything but inflame the vehemence of conservative Islamic believers, just as homoerotic portrayals of Jesus and "the beloved disciple" only inflame the anger of conservative Christians. (2) However, if taxpayers' money isn't directly involved, artists most certainly have a right to create whatever depictions of religious figures they wish. And others have a right to criticize them for it. (3) It may well be true that in the West artists have an easier time with depictions that conservative Christians consider blasphemous than with the real risk of murder they face if they depict Mohammed in a way that conservative Muslims consider blasphemous. (4) Would Fox News have covered this story in the same way ("Iranian Artist Fights to Have Muhammad Art Displayed in Dutch Museums") if it had involved homoerotic portrayals of Jesus and John?

Note: The blog post on former gay activist David Benkof's defense of Orthodox Judaism's prohibition of homosexuality (among Orthodox Jews) has now moved off the home page. If you'd care to continue the discussion, to which Benkof has enthusiastically engaged, the permalink is here.

Mind the (Political) Gap

A survey of self-identifying gay, lesbian and bisexual Americans conducted by Hunter College and funded by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) shows that respondents 18-25 years old said marriage and adoption rights were the top gay issues, while those 65 years and older said laws regarding hate crimes and workplace discrimination were most important. However, altogether only 59% know there's no federal law that bars workers from being fired based on their sexual orientation. If anti-gay discrimination in the workplace were as big an issue as some activists claim, one would think that figure would be much higher.

Generally, efforts toward ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and securing rights for transgender people scored the lowest in the poll. Which points to a rather large gap between the trans-inclusive agenda of many LGBT activists and the folks they claim to represent.

It now appears likely that the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, which passed the House last fall without covering the transgendered, will not be brought up in the Senate this year. Many LGBT activists, such as the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, would rather have no law than a law that only protects gays and lesbians. Others, such as HRC, think the new Congress will be more likely to include transgender protections in the bill and that President Obama will be more likely to sign it. I personally doubt the former, and think the odds of a President Obama may currently be not much better than 50-50 given his increasingly obvious disingenuousness.

In other political news, the Washington Blade reports that HRC and the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund are not supporting openly gay Democratic Senate candidate Jim Neal of North Carolina in his primary fight (one poll puts him even with the Democrat who has the backing of the national party). I understand that the party to which HRC and the Victory Fund have pledged fealty believes that a straight Democrat has a better chance of ousting incumbent GOP Sen. Liddy Dole. But if we are not for our own, who will be for us?

More. I never said that gay Republicans should support Neal. My point is that gay Democrats and supposedly nonpartisan LGBT political groups, especially those whose mission is to promote gay equality and/or to elect out-and-proud gay candidates (as is the Victory Fund's), are putting fealty to the Democratic party above all else (so what's new?). I liked Neal's response, "Maybe I'm not gay enough. I don't know."

As for ENDA, I recently explained my view here.

Update. Down to defeat, as reports EdgeBoston:

but some gay and lesbian leaders are questioning whether a losing candidate deserved more support from GLBT equality organizations.

Neither The Human Rights Campaign nor the Victory Fund supported the campaign of openly gay candidate Jim Neal, and the Democratic Party itself, far from supporting Neal, reportedly recruited winning candidate Kay Hagan, a NC state legislator, to run against him.

Gay voters are a cheap political date for the Democrats-a little sweet talk and nothin' else required.

Keep Talking

Back in the old days, there were those who supported gay rights and those who opposed them-vocally. There was also a third group whose opposition was so deep that they objected even to discussing the issue. For them, to debate gay rights would be to dignify depravity, and depravity merits chilly silence, not invitations to dialogue.

In the last decade or so, a fourth group has appeared mirroring the third. This group's support for gay rights runs so deep that they object even to discussing the issue. For them, to debate gay rights would be to dignify bigotry, and bigotry merits chilly silence, not invitations to dialogue.

While the above sketch is somewhat simplistic, I think it captures an important shift in the gay-rights debate. Increasingly, one finds people on both sides who object not merely to their opponents' position but even to engaging that position. Why debate the obvious, they ask. Surely anyone who holds THAT position must be too stubborn, brainwashed or dumb to reason with.

The upshot is that supporters and opponents of gay rights are talking to each other less and less. This fact distresses me.

It distresses me for several reasons. First, it lulls gay-rights advocates into a complacency where we mistake others' silence for acquiescence. Then we are shocked-shocked!-when, for example, an Oklahoma state representative says that gays pose a greater threat than terrorism-and her constituents rally around her. Think Sally Kern will have a hard time getting re-elected? Think again.

It distresses me, too, because dialogue works. Not always, and not easily, but it makes a difference. Indeed, ironically enough, healthy dialogue about our issues helped move many people from the "supportive-but-open-to-discussion" camp to the "so-supportive-I-can't-believe-we're-discussing-this" camp.

It distresses me most of all because both of the "opposed" camps include families with gay kids. How do we help those kids? How do we let them know that it's okay to be gay, despite the hurtful messages that they're hearing from their parents?

True, it is easier than ever to reach such kids directly, through MTV, the internet, and the like. But some of those messages will be blocked or distorted by their parents. And even those that reach them untrammeled will be counterbalanced by painful opposition. I feel for these kids, and I want to help them. Helping them requires acknowledging their important relationships with people whose views I find deeply wrong.

There are those who find my emphasis on dialogue naïve. As someone who has spent sixteen years traveling the country speaking and debating about homosexuality and ethics, I'm well aware of dialogue's limitations.

Yet I'm also frequently reminded of its power. Recently Aquinas College, a Catholic school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, cancelled a lecture I was scheduled to give because of concerns about my opposition to Catholic teaching on homosexuality. Students angered by the cancellation arranged to have me speak off-campus. The event drew hundreds of audience members, including some who had been critical of my initial invitation. The next day I learned that one of those critics, after hearing my talk, had begun advocating bringing me to campus next year. Over time, such conversions can have a huge impact.

Then there are those who wonder whether the silence I'm lamenting really is a problem at all. My Aquinas cancellation suggests that it is: intentionally or not, the cancellation sent students the message that this topic is literally unspeakable. But the problem is by no means limited to one side. Last year I did a same-sex marriage debate (with Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family) at another Catholic college. A week before the event, my host told me that a student was trying to organize a protest. "Because he doesn't want a gay-rights speaker on a Catholic campus?" I asked.

"No, because he doesn't want your opponent here," she answered. The student thought that opposition to same-sex marriage should not be dignified with a hearing. On a Catholic campus!

That student, like the rest of us, would do well to recall the words of John Stuart Mill. In his 1859 classic On Liberty Mill argued that those who silence opinions - even false ones - rob the world of great gifts:

"If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth; if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error."

The moral of the story? Let's keep talking.

Scriptural Idolatry?

Over at the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy website, IGF contributing author John Corvino is having an exchange with former gay activist David Benkof, who says he is practicing celibacy since embracing Orthodox Judaism. First, here's Benkof, who argues:

"We may think we've figured out why certain behaviors are moral or immoral, and even find some of G-d's moral calculus to be frankly troubling. But we are moral dwarves compared to the infinite wisdom and goodness of the creator of the universe."

And here's Corvino, who replies that:

Many people-with widely disparate views-have claimed to know God's mind, and they can't all be right. As humans, we are fallible. So this is not Corvino versus God; it's Corvino versus Benkof-each one trying to figure out what's right."

I'll add my two cents. Orthodox literalism is far from the only way to understand the Bible, a work that even on the surface is suffused with layers of allegorical richness. But going beyond biblical exegesis is the broader problem of how orthodoxy and fundamentalism confound scriptural authority with the totality of God's word.

I'm not the first to suggest that fundamentalism/literalism is a form of idolatry, worshiping scripture instead of the living spirit of the creator, whose revelation is alive and ongoing, as most certainly is our evolving ability to contemplate the fullness of his Logos.

I'll share that my favorite portions of the New Testament (the non-Paulist bits) are when Jesus calls out the crowd that castigates him for healing on the Sabbath (when the Bible demands you shall not work), saying "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." Or when he dismisses the ritualistic dietary laws by saying, "It is not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him unclean. It is what comes out of a man's mouth that makes him unclean." Or when he expresses shock that the masses actually think that the Biblical injunction of "an eye for an eye" should be (literally) followed.

Time and again, scriptural authority is cast as a means, not an end, and love trumps the law.