IGF CultureWatch

I don't mean to be flippant about the possibility of 14-year-old girls being forced into arranged marriages, but it increasingly seems that what's going on with the state seizure of all the children from a fundamentalist Mormon compound in Texas is producing scant evidence (to date) of actual abuse. Scott Henson, in the Dallas News, asks Where's the evidence of abuse?, while blogger Katie Granju queries where is the ACLU? (hat tip: instapundit). She writes:

I cannot express strongly enough how much I believe the state needs to take a strong, unequivocal stance in going after any of these individual adults in this group who have committed crimes against children in the name of religion. However, I am increasingly disturbed by the way the state of Texas is handling this matter. The wholesale rounding up and de facto incarceration of hundreds of women and children-none of whom have been individually accused of any crime-is very troublesome.

Also, David Bernstein at the Volokh Conspiracy and Tim Lynch of the Cato Institute raise similar concerns about a disturbing overreaction by state authorities.

If the breakup of these families is based on the prejudice/contempt that both left-liberals and religious conservatives feel toward fundamentalist Mormons who practice polygamy, it raises issues of basic liberty in America that even those who oppose state-recognition of polygamy should take seriously.

More. Social conservative Rick Lowry may quote our own Jonathan Rauch, but his attempt to blame fundamentalist polygamy on "the liberal wave of nonjudgmentalism and of hostility to traditional marriage" is a stretch.

I did like the commenter to Lowry who suggests if polygamy is a risk factor for child abuse and so we take children away from polygamous homes, should we also not take children away if their single mom moves in with her boyfriend, as that's also known to greatly raise the risk of abuse?

GOP Congressman Cites Lawrence in Defending Polygamous Families . Said Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), as quoted in the Salt Lake Tribune:

"I don't think it's the place of society to prosecute people who choose to cohabitate responsibly and are responsible for their children as opposed to men who are licentious or women who are licentious who are producing children that don't have place or context or male authority in their lives."

As Jonathan Rauch has pointed out, the criminalization and prosecution of polygamous behavior, as opposed to the state's refusal to license polygamous marriage, is unsustainable. It's important to make and sustain this distinction.

Furthermore. The AP reports: Sweep of polygamists' kids raises legal questions. Do tell.

Out Magazine published a hatchet job on gay Republicans ("Washington's Gay War") by Charles Kaiser, who interviews Barney Frank and other gay Democrats (on how awful gay Republicans are) without speaking with a single gay Republican.

As Rick Sincere blogs, Kaiser's number one example of gay Republicans is closet-case conservative Terry Dolan, who's been dead for nearly a quarter-century. Sincere also notes:

If, like Kaiser and others cited in his article, you are still mystified as to why there might be gay Republicans in Washington or any other part of the country, take a look at the principles of the Contract with America and other published Republican documents. Read Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative . Listen to Ronald Reagan's speech, "A Time for Choosing."

As John Corvino writes, religious right universities are fearful of allowing their students to hear thoughtful arguments for gay equality. But it is also true that the liberal left's academic hothouses have worked diligently to snuff out any hint of an encounter with ideological diversity. So perhaps it's of little wonder that LGBT "progressives" like Kaiser no longer know how to confront opposing ideas through argument that is both reasoned and passionate. Instead, mockery of non-liberals, aimed at fellow true believers in big government social engineering through an increasingly regulatory, redistributionist state, holds sway.

Headline, front page, Washington Post: "Military Waivers for Ex-Convicts Increase." Story sez:

the Army accepted more than double the number of applicants with convictions for felony crimes such as burglary, grand larceny and aggravated assault, rising from 249 to 511, while the corresponding number for the Marines increased by two-thirds, from 208 to 350.

At least our country can be grateful the Pentagon isn't desperate enough to consider ending the ban on service by open (i.e., truthful) homosexuals. Whether or not ex-felons can protect Iraqis from insurgents, they'll do their part by protecting the showers from sissies. Whew.

American Public Media's "Speaking of Faith" has a must-listen panel discussion between evangelicals of three generations (Chuck Colson, Greg Boyd, Shane Claiborne). Go to minute 36:45, where homosexuality comes up, and stay tuned for a striking contrast between Colson and the younger men.

Colson answers a question about homosexuality with a doctrinaire natural-law exegisis of Paul. The younger men warn against Colson's hard-edged judgmentalism. Boyd agrees that homosexuality is wrong but can't understand why evangelicals pick on this one moral failing as a "deal breaker" while downplaying so many sins of their own (divorce, e.g.). He argues that evangelicals' reputation for "homophobia" (his word) is well earned and that Jesus ministered to prostitutes, rather than trying to pass laws against them. (Subtext here: the tension between the churches of Paul and Jesus.) Claiborne asks what sort of place the Church has become if it can't minister lovingly to a young gay man who feels like he is one of "God's mistakes" and wants to kill himself. "If that 'mistake' can't find a home in the church, who have we become?" He goes on to condemn the "meanness" of evangelical political style and speaks intriguingly of "post-Religious Right America."

More evidence here that homosexuality has become a major point of generational cleavage among evangelicals. Call me Pollyanna, but I think there's a new awakening of conscience happening among evangelicals and that homosexuality is at the heart of it.

More: Gay evangelical commenter Casey offers more evidence that change is afoot.

I agree with other commenters that the teachings, not just the tone, ultimately need to change. But I think the tone will tend to lead the teachings. And, as Greg Boyd implies in the panel discussion, no theological change is required for evangelicals to stop blowing homosexuality out of all proportion to its very minor role in the Bible. Proportionality alone would be major progress.

Updated April 22.

(I'm bumping this up because it deserves more attention.) Can you imagine the uproar from LGBT activists and the banner headlines in LGBT media if Republicans did this: Clinton and Obama Appear at Religious College that Categorizes Homosexuality with Stealing, Adultery & Sexual Abuse. This self-describe "Compassion Forum" was held at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. Messiah is a Christian college that urges gay students to seek reparative therapy immediately. Neither candidate mentioned their support for gay nondiscrimination-except-as-regards-marriage.

Clinton and Obama's appearance at this venue was largely ignored by LGBT media and by LBGT activists, and this Friday's LGBT papers seem to have ignored it too. Yet John McCain's speech at Liberty University year's ago still is raised as a supposed indication that any gay person who supports him is a traitor to the cause.

Added: Here's a quote from Chris Crain that makes my point:

It's true that McCain doesn't pander to the right with rhetoric about "traditional family values," even last week when he was trying to win over conservatives as the presumptive GOP nominee. Many moderates and libertarians still love McCain for calling out Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell as "agents of intolerance" back in 2000. But let's not forget how McCain sucked up to both of them in advance of this presidential run, even speaking at Falwell's Liberty University, which routinely expels gay students. (emphasis added)

The ramifications of the fact that so many LGBT activists and so much of LGBT media have been so thoroughly co-opted by a party that sees gay people as votes to collect and pockets to pick, giving back the absolute minimum in return, haunts our cause and will continue to do so for many years to come.

Semi-related, sort of. Are gay voters a cheap political date?

Furthermore. The latest anti-McCain attack ad?

Another progress marker, culture-wise. Azariah Southworth, host of the popular syndicated Christian youth show "The Remix," has publicly announced he is gay. He explained:

"This has been a long time coming. I'm in a place where I'm at peace with my faith, friends, family and more importantly myself. I know this will end my career in Christian television, but I must now live my life openly and honestly with everyone. This is my reason for doing this."

We know that gay and Christian (or otherwise religiously devout) often go hand in glove, but many religious conservatives don't. They see gay people as hedonistic self-gratifiers intent on rending the moral order. Many of these folks are too comfortable with their prejudices to ever change, which is why reaching out to devout young people the way Southworth has is so very important. Here's hoping his good news doesn't, in fact, end his Christain television career-or that he finds another way to remain both successful and an inspiration to others.

No, this isn't about Obama and his latest gaffe (defined as when a politician accidentally reveals what he truly believes). But somewhat relatedly, James Kirchick takes aim at liberal homophobia. He covers a lot of ground, but here's part of his take on the free pass given to Bill Clinton:

In 1996, Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which allows states (and the federal government) not to recognize same-sex marriages of other states, and then touted his support of the measure on Christian radio stations. The Clinton Justice Department refused to offer an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case of Romer v. Evans, which challenged a Colorado constitutional amendment seeking to ban cities and towns from instituting antidiscrimination laws protecting gays. Clinton also signed a bill barring HIV-positive people from entering the country and one that discharged HIV-positive soldiers from the military. "It's really outrageous the pass that Clinton has gotten from gay and lesbian people considering the harm he did to the gay rights movement," [the Log Cabin Republican's Patrick] Sammon says.

Clinton did not stop harming gays once he left office. In 2004 he reportedly encouraged Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry to not only support anti-same-sex marriage constitutional amendments at the state level, but the Federal Marriage Amendment as well. The Clinton administration- looked upon by liberals, gay ones especially, as a golden era in American history-proved that leading Democrats can be pro-gay by convenience, not conviction, and that when homophobia works for political advantage liberals are no less hesitant to employ it than conservatives.

In addition to those cited by Kirchick, I can think of several other instances of gay-baiting by public figures on the left. I've also personally encountered morally superior "love me I'm a liberal" types who, affronted by the expression of political heresy, have no compunction about revealing what they really think by unleashing anti-gay-tinged tirades. And I know that a great many other gay non-liberals, and especially out Republicans, routinely experience the same.

More (on topic). Can you imagine the uproar from LGBT activists and the banner headlines in LGBT media if Republicans did this? Clinton and Obama Appear at Religious College that Categorizes Homosexuality with Stealing, Adultery & Sexual Abuse. At this self-describe "Compassion Forum" held at a Christian college that urges gay students to seek reparative therapy immediately, neither candidate mentioned their support for gay nondiscrimination-except-as-regards-marriage.

Off-topic: The left's latest harvest. Advocates of big-government social engineering told us that mandating production of a five-fold increase in biofuels, and paying government subsidies so that farmers would switch from traditional crops to grow a type of corn that people can not eat, would help alleviate the apocalypse of global warming (or so St. Al of Gore has revealed unto us). The result: worldwide starvation. Liberals-and big-government conservatives-defenders of the poor and powerless.

As long as I'm off topic, should I bring up how liberals spearheaded passage of a law-the Community Reinvestment Act-forcing lenders to extend credit to those with, shall we say, poor credit histories (effectively amounting to a soft quota for such loans) ? More progress thanks to government intervention over the "mindless" market! (Okay, not the whole cause, but a contributing factor-and along with their protests that banks were unfairly denying credit to the disadvantaged, more of one than liberals will admit.)

A fascinating bit of uncovered history regarding gay playwright (and bon vivant) Noel Coward's anti-Nazi spying during World War II has some relevance for today. Via the New York Times Sunday Book Review:

[Coward] had been a spy for England, trained (with his friend Ian Fleming) in covert action in the secret headquarters of Bletchley Park. ...

Coward's spycraft had a Scarlet Pimpernel side. The idea was to use his public personality-the merry playboy, the "don't ask/don't tell" gay celebrity-as a mask for his passionate antifascism. By 1936, Coward's unchic loathing of appeasement and Neville Chamberlain ("that bloody conceited old sod") was turning him into something of a Churchill bore. In 1938, when his old friend Ivor Novello shed "tears of relief" over Chamberlain's let's-pretend peace, Coward threw a punch that nearly decked him. "We have nothing to worry about," he wrote to another friend, "but the destruction of civilization.' ...

Guided by a fellow celebrity-spy, Cary Grant (!), he was to assess pro- and anti-British opinion. On the right, a minority of stars-Errol Flynn, for example-were suspected of being pro-Nazi. On the left, Stalinists were using fronts like the Yanks Are Not Coming Committee to rationalize Stalin's alliance with Hitler and the defeat of Britain, while the American Communist Party began a campaign denouncing Coward as an agent of British warmongers.

Quite inspiring, really. As for the left, when will they ever learn?

More. On the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, remembering their heroism, and why it's important we never forget. Also, this timely observation (hat tip: instapundit).

It's Aquinas College's right to cancel a pro-gay speech by IGF contributor John Corvino, of course. And it's fair, if lamentable, for them to cancel on grounds that they don't want to hear views that conflict with Catholic moral teaching. They're a Catholic school, after all.

But it's not fair for some folks at the college to say, as they apparently are doing, that they're cancelling because Corvino is antagonistic to Catholicism and to academic standards. In fact, nothing could be further than the truth. Corvino's many writings here at IGF make clear that he writes with exceptional fairness and rigor. In fact, he provides a model of the kind of fair-mindedness and avoidance of personal attack which, apparently, some at Aquinas could stand to bone up on.