IGF CultureWatch

Opponents of marriage equality for gays often claim that the people most vulnerable in this debate are the children. They're right.

No, it's not because gays are snatching children out of good heterosexual homes and subjecting them to the "untested social experiment" of same-sex parenting, which "deprives" them of a mother or father. I've observed enough actual lesbian or gay parents to know how vacuous and insulting a description this is.

It's because in every walk of life, in every religious denomination, in every political party, and in every part of the country (and the world), some children grow up gay or lesbian. These kids deserve the hope of marriage, just like every other citizen.

And these kids are the main reason I continue to travel the country, debating same-sex marriage with Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family, a man some readers-who think they know him much better than I do, despite the fact that they've never met him-have variously labeled a "bigot," a "hater," and an "idiot" (and those are the nicer letters I receive).

Me, they call na�ve, an "Uncle Tom," and a "self-loathing homophobe" for my "complicity" with "the enemy."

I understand their anger and frustration. I understand the desire to tell one's opponents to go f*ck themselves. I've gotten close to it myself, some days.

And yet, some days, I want to tell the same thing to my letter-writers. Mainly, because of what they do to the children.

You see, even if you don't give a damn about Glenn Stanton, Focus on the Family, or any other arm of the religious right, please remember: these people have children, and some of those children grow up to be gay or lesbian.

You are not helping such children by telling their parents to screw themselves every time they raise an objection to homosexuality, no matter how sincere the objection.

Sure, it feels good to vent. Sure, it's satisfying to mount a moral high horse and shout, "I'm right and you're wrong!!!" But how much does it usually accomplish?

I'm not suggesting that we be timid in pursuing our goals. I'm not denying that anger has its place. And I'm certainly not saying that we should pretend that our opponents' arguments are reasonable when they're not. Anyone who knows my work knows that I don't pull punches in the face of fallacies.

I am saying that everyone ought to shut up and listen every once in a while. When we do, we learn that (surprise!) our opponents love their kids, too. Their opposition to homosexuality is partly motivated by that love, no matter how misguided it might otherwise be.

That doesn't make their position "okay," but it does make it more comprehensible, and ultimately a bit more tractable.

Recently in this column I've lamented the fact that my opponents are either not showing up or not speaking up at my public forums. I'm not sure how to fix this problem-or even if it can be fixed-but I continue to regret it, since it robs us all of the opportunity for dialogue. Their absence or silence does not mean their acceptance. (You may not give a damn about their acceptance, but their kids do.)

My critics might worry that I've proven too much here. After all, white supremacists have kids, too. So do the Phelpses. Would I engage in dialogue with them?

It's a good question. A few thoughts:

First, anyone who can honestly look at the current political and social landscape and think we're at the same place in fighting homophobia as we are in fighting white supremacy (or the Phelpses) needs to get a reality check. I wish our opponents' errors were obvious to virtually everyone, but apparently, they're not. Just check the polls.

Second, I have never observed a productive dialogue with a white supremacist or the Phelpses. Maybe more talented and patient people than I could achieve one. By contrast, I have both observed and engaged in productive dialogues on same-sex marriage-dialogues that move audience members, some of whom write to me. (Many of those audience members are students, who appreciate the fact that I challenge their parents without demonizing them.)

But to tackle the question directly: yes, white supremacists and the Phelpses have kids, too. And if I thought that I could save just one of those kids by patiently engaging his or her parents, I would. You may call me whatever names you'd like.

Of the many arguments against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) - the version that doesn't protect "gender identity" - the most puzzling and counterintuitive one is that it doesn't even protect gay people. This appeal to gays' self-interest is unpersuasive. Not only does a gay-only ENDA protect gays, it offers limited protection to transgendered people as well.

Congressional vote-counters have argued that ENDA cannot pass Congress this session if it includes protection for both "sexual orientation" and "gender identity." Thus, in an effort to pass the first-ever federal gay civil rights bill, they restored ENDA to the sexual-orientation-only version that characterized gay civil rights bills pending in Congress for more than 30 years until last April, when "gender identity" was first inserted in the bill.

The restored version of ENDA prohibits employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of "actual or perceived sexual orientation," which is defined to include homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality.

In 31 states, covering about half of all gay Americans, there is currently no such job protection. Most of these states, in the South, Midwest, and West, are unlikely to protect gay employees anytime soon. Nobody knows how long it might take to persuade Congress to protect gender identity, so insisting on its inclusion means that about five million gay Americans will have to wait indefinitely for some job security.

In an effort to defeat ENDA, a number of gay legal advocacy groups, most notably Lambda Legal, have argued that a gay-only ENDA doesn't adequately protect homosexuals. Gays, they say, need the supplemental protection provided by adding gender identity.

Lambda explains this by noting that gay people often face discrimination because of their gender nonconformity. Effeminate gay men face discrimination because they are feminine in appearance or manner. Butch lesbians similarly face discrimination because they are masculine.

Unless protection for gender nonconformity is included in ENDA, Lambda asserts, effeminate gay men and butch lesbians would not be adequately protected. For example, an employer could argue that it fired the butch lesbian because she's butch, not because she's lesbian.

This argument is flawed as a matter of experience, logic, and law.

As a matter of common experience, discrimination based on gender nonconformity and sexual orientation almost always go together. It would be rare to see an employer fire a man for being effeminate without also seeing evidence of anti-gay discrimination. Common statements like, "that fag walks like a girl," indicate that these two forms of discrimination significantly overlap.

As a matter of logic, if there is evidence of both forms of discrimination, then even if ENDA doesn't include gender identity the evidence of sexual-orientation discrimination alone will sustain the employee's lawsuit.

Lambda and other opponents of ENDA have been challenged to come up with cases in which a law covering only sexual orientation was used successfully by an employer to defeat a gay employee's legal claims because the law did not include gender identity as well.

We have three decades of experience with sexual-orientation-only laws. If such laws were inadequate on the grounds Lambda claims, there should be many cases demonstrating this fact. So far, the gay and trans opponents of ENDA have come up with nothing.

Thus, as a matter of experience and logic, the employer who loves gays but hates gender nonconformists is a legal Unicorn: you can imagine it, you can describe it, and nobody can absolutely prove it doesn't exist. But nobody has actually seen one.

The legal argument against ENDA is even worse. Gender nonconformity is already protected under existing federal law because it is considered a form of sex discrimination. Thus, the macho woman and the effeminate man already have legal claims if fired for their gender nonconformity.

ENDA closes a loophole under which gay men and lesbians have been forbidden by some courts to make these gender-nonconformity claims because of their sexual orientation. And it adds protection for masculine gay men and feminine lesbians who so far have no protection under federal law.

Further, even a gay-only ENDA offers some limited protection to transgendered people. Because it prohibits discrimination based on actual "or perceived" sexual orientation ENDA protects the cross-dresser or transsexual whose gender nonconformity leads her employer to "perceive" that she's homosexual and then fires her for her perceived homosexuality. It doesn't protect transsexuals from discrimination based on their transsexuality, as adding "gender identity" to the bill would, but it moves in that direction.

Lambda and the other groups spending gay donors' money to fight ENDA acknowledge that their main reason for doing so is that, as a matter of principle, they believe gay civil-rights bills must explicitly protect transgendered people as well. They don't care how long five million gays are made to wait for this idea to be accepted by Congress.

I think this principle overstates the relationship between sexual orientation and gender identity. It is also oblivious to the history of incremental progress in civil rights. However, it's at least a coherent and consistent principle to stand on.

But ENDA's gay and trans opponents should stop trying to claim that laws protecting gay people from discrimination don't really protect gay people from discrimination. That's a makeweight argument. ENDA, if enacted, will be a historic victory for the basic civil rights of gay Americans and will presage broader protection in the future.

In 1968, his second campaign for the White House, Richard Nixon rode into office on what later became known as the "Southern Strategy." While running as a moderate in most states, Nixon used code words like "states' rights" and "busing" to appeal to the racist tendencies of southern whites. This was the nail in the coffin of black support for the GOP, which, since the days of Abraham Lincoln, had traditionally been the party of civil rights. Two years ago, former Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman officially apologized for his party's attempt to "benefit politically from racial polarization."

How ironic that Barack Obama - the first, serious black presidential candidate in the history of the United States - would resurrect one of the most disreputable features of the Republican Party's campaign playbook.

Obama is the candidate of the same liberal elites who supported Howard Dean, ecstatic about the opportunity to challenge the old guard represented by Hillary Clinton. He's promising to end the cynicism embodied by Clinton, the sort that "triangulates," as he put it in a thinly veiled attack several weeks ago. He is also hungry, however, for black southern voters, many of whom are social conservatives on the subjects of homosexuality and the separation of church and state. So Obama decided to sign Donnie McClurkin, a Grammy-winning, African-American, "ex-gay" singer, onto his campaign as part of a gospel tour of the important primary state of South Carolina.

McClurkin denies being homophobic (explaining away his views with the usual "Christian" apologetics, loving the sinner but hating the sin), yet his message about gay people is egregious. He states that he was drawn into homosexuality by the rape and abuse he suffered as a child. Homosexuality, he says, is an affliction that its victims can overcome.

This sort of bigotry would be bad enough coming from a Pat Robertson or a Lou Sheldon - men far removed from the "gay lifestyle" - but it is especially harmful when spoken by someone who identifies as "ex-gay." Such individuals can at least claim to have a personal experience, and sympathy toward, homosexuality and their "past" thus gives them bogus credibility.

Would any major presidential candidate associate with a black pastor who spoke of Jews or black people in the denigrating way that McClurkin talks about gays? It's inconceivable. But gays are the one minority group that it's still acceptable to ridicule, and Obama - despite his preachy talk of "hope" - is perpetuating this phenomenon. The Obama campaign's continued advertising of its endorsement by McClurkin once again signifies that the Democrats are perfectly willing to use homophobia for their electoral advantage.

The Clintons perfected the art of speaking out of both sides of their mouths on gay rights - passing the Defense of Marriage Act along with "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," all the while scooping up massive amounts of campaign contributions from gay bigwigs - and it appears that Obama is learning from his party's most skilled set of campaigners. So much for his recent promise to part ways with the cynics who "tout their experience working the system in Washington." Obama's starting to "work the system" just fine himself.

Atlantic Monthly blogger and Obama fan Andrew Sullivan has suggested that the benighted one should fire the staffer who invited McClurkin onto the campaign. This is wise counsel, but how can Obama fire the person who welcomed McClurkin onto the "gospel tour" while keeping McClurkin onboard? In a presidential campaign, the buck stops with the candidate and unless Obama is willing to dump McClurkin he cannot, in good faith, dump some hapless staffer.

Singling out a class of Americans as a basis for that fear - as Nixon did 1968 - is reprehensible and destroyed Bush's pledge to be a "uniter, not a divider." For many years, the Human Rights Campaign and the Democratic presidential candidates have promised to offer us something different.

But the events of the past week have shown that even the most platitudinous of liberals is not immune from utilizing the cynical election tactics concocted by the right.

It wasn't the first time an audience defied expectations. This time it was in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. I was there with Glenn Stanton, my "debate buddy" from Focus on the Family, to discuss same-sex marriage. The only thing we knew about Rhinelander before arriving was that its number one cause of death is bar-room brawls-or so we had been told by several Wisconsinites, who warned us of the small town's "redneck" reputation.

"Bar-room brawls?" Glenn joked. "I suppose that has heterosexuality written all over it."

"Oh, we gays have them too," I responded. "We just call them 'hissy-fits.'"

Unlike most of our university debates, the Rhinelander event was advertised primarily to local residents, rather than students, and when we arrived we noticed lots of gray hair in the audience. An older crowd in a redneck town-Glenn's territory. I braced myself.

Then the Q&A began, and one audience member after another attacked Glenn. I kept waiting for a critical question directed at me. Nothing.

After about an hour of Glenn's getting grilled while I fielded softballs, I turned to him and announced, "Well, Glenn, this has been exactly the right-wing audience we expected in rural Wisconsin!" The audience howled with laughter.

"Are you sure they didn't bus you guys in from Madison?" Glenn quipped back. I could tell that he was weary and that he appreciated the lighthearted moment.

The following week we debated again in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and the same thing happened. I found myself wanting to stand up and shout, "This is the deep South, people. You're supposed to be on HIS SIDE!"

It's not that I'm complaining. I do these debates to convince people. Not to convince Glenn (although I'd like to think my time with him has had a positive effect). And not to convince ideologues, who have made up their minds and won't budge no matter what. I do them to convince the fence sitters-folks who show up curious about the issue, eager to listen, willing to engage arguments. So when people agree with me, I should be happy, and I am.

But…

But there are plenty of people who don't agree with me. One merely has to look at voting patterns to realize this. Last November, Wisconsin voters passed an anti-gay marriage amendment 59-41%-and much of that majority came from more liberal towns than Rhinelander. Even college students are far from unanimous in supporting marriage equality. Which means that opponents are either not showing up, or not speaking up, at our debate events. Either way, I miss the opportunity to engage them.

Such engagement would have two potential benefits. First, it might help convince the opponents themselves-even if slowly and gradually. Second, it might help convince the fence-sitters who are watching, since they would receive "the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error" (in the words of the great liberal theorist John Stuart Mill). The more we confront the opposition head-on, the more obvious their fallacies become. That's why I'm willing to travel the country with someone from Focus on the Family addressing the same bad arguments over and over again.

It was the hope for such engagement that led me to interrupt the Q&A in Baton Rouge to plead for some audience opposition. "Any critical questions for me? Please?" I asked no fewer than three times. It felt like announcing "last call" at the bar: "Last call…last call for traditionalists…" Finally, a woman took me up on my challenge-sort of:

"I'm a religious conservative," she began gently. "And I appreciate your kindness to Glenn and to us. But I haven't spoken up because I feel a lot of hostility from the audience. I think more of us would show up and speak up if we didn't feel like we would automatically be shouted down." She didn't offer any question-just that observation.

I was both impressed and surprised-impressed by her courage in speaking against the (immediate) tide, and surprised that she found the audience hostile. I could recall no anger or viciousness from the various questioners. But since they were on my side, perhaps I simply failed to notice.

Her remarks spotlighted an important distinction: it's one thing to silence your opponents; it's quite another to convince them. And sometimes-perhaps often-silencing is done at the expense of convincing.

The social pressure that makes certain views "taboo" has its uses. But political reality indicates that it's not yet time to halt the conversation over same-sex marriage-certainly not in Rhinelander or Baton Rouge. Strange as it sounds, we may sometimes need to work at making people more comfortable-not less-in voicing their opposition to us.