Good News for Gay Teamsters in the Garden State

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No, seriously. UPS says it will offer health care benefits to all civil union partners of its Teamster-represented hourly workers in New Jersey. According to a statement from UPS:

We are taking this step based on discussions and input over the last few days from several state officials, including the attorney general and governor."

Our policy in this regard has been clear from the start: UPS offers same-sex benefits to all non-union employees now and our intent is to offer these same benefits to all unionized workers. In the case of union workers, however, we cannot unilaterally extend these benefits without going through the collective bargaining process.

The only exception to collective bargaining is when an individual state recognizes same-sex partners as married spouses. New Jersey has enacted a law recognizing the right of same-sex partners to join in civil unions. Based on an initial legal review when this law was enacted, it did not appear that a "civil union" and "marriage" were equivalent.

Over the past week, however, we received clear guidance that at least in New Jersey, the state truly views civil union partners as married. We've heard that loud and clear from state officials and we're happy to make this change.

In other words, state officials put the screws on UPS to treat civil unions like marriage when it comes to benefits for employees' spousal-equivalents. Fine for UPS's gay and coupled Teamsters (an unknown number, apparently). But many other Garden State employers still don't see the equivalence, or at least choose not to.

More. The New York Times chimes in:

The couples now eligible for benefits may celebrate, but their success is seen in some circles as evidence that the civil union law can be leveraged to force equality, undercutting at least some of the argument that nothing short of marriage is adequate.

But it looks like a confusing hodge-podge among employers, many of whom are not offering spousal benefits to their civil unionized employees.

In our comments, questions are raised about why, if UPS was offering partner benefits to nonunionized workers, the Teamsters failed to press for the same treatment for their dues-payers during contract negotiations (and why pro-union gay activists aren't mentioning this).

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Targeting Divorce

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If anti-gay "family values" groups actually do start to focus on curbing heterosexual divorce, as the Washington Post reports, might it limit their support? Probably only if they move beyond rhetoric and support for voluntary options such as less easy to dissolve "covenant marriage," and instead work for actual legal barriers to marriage dissolution-which isn't all that likely (don't expect any proposed state or federal constitutional amendments!).

Not surprisingly, as the Post story indicates, you can leave it to liberal Democrats (in this case, openly gay Virginia house delegate Adam Ebbin) to suggest, in response, that what's really needed to discourage divorce is for the government to force employers to pay higher wages and to further nationalized health care.

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Gay President Is OK…If Unwed

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Most Americans believe their fellow citizens hold strong biases against minorities, according to a new poll by Zogby International, one of the most comprehensive ever conducted on prejudice. On sexual orientation, it found:

62% said they believe Americans oppose same-sex marriages. Yet 58% would elect a gay person for President-about the same as for an Arab-American (57%), and more than for a person over age 70 (51%) or for an atheist (51%).

Meanwhile, a plurality (47%) believe gays and lesbians should be allowed to adopt children.

Pollster John Zogby said:

Over my years of polling, I've learned that Americans tend to offer socially acceptable responses when questioned on their own views about race and prejudice. That's why in this poll we predominantly asked people about "most Americans'" views on race and prejudice. We believe this provides a far more accurate window into how people really think about these issues. Americans are more forthcoming when discussing the problem in the context of their neighbors' lives than in the context of their own lives.

The upshot: Popular opposition to same-sex marriage remains the prime hurdle to full legal equality for gay Americans.

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Helping Gays Abroad

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It is important to keep our main focus on the struggle for gay freedom and equality here in the United States where the forces of anti-gay repression are constantly looking for ways to undermine and reverse our progress.

But it is also worth paying some attention to the abusive treatment of gays and lesbians elsewhere in the world. In many countries outside Western Europe, their situation is much more vulnerable than our own, in some cases dire. Gay progress in the U.S. has been aided by a growing social liberalization during the last 40 years; but in many countries those conditions do not prevail and the struggle of gays is much more difficult. Their advocacy movements are much smaller, ill-funded and more recent than our own, their governments much more repressive, and fundamentalist religion (Catholic, Protestant, Muslim) far more powerful than here.

Religious militia death squads kill gays in Iraq; gays are arrested and sometimes executed on arguably trumped-up charges of rape or pederasty in Iran; vigilante groups kill gays in Brazil; Nigeria is in the grip of contending Muslim and Christian sects competing to be more anti-gay; gays in Eastern Europe (Russia, Poland, some Baltic states) are barred from public advocacy and beaten up by skinhead hooligans while police watch complacently. And meanwhile His Holiness inveighs against gays from his Vatican throne while both Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran export homophobic religion.

Little of this makes it into most mainstream newspapers, and none of it is reported it on the early evening television newscasts. It lacks the general appeal of the mindless antics of starlets and hotel heiresses. To follow most of this homophobic zealotry, you have to read the gay press, get on international list-servs, read a few blogs, and hunt out gay columnist Doug Ireland's valuable reporting.

The depressing part is that there are few ways we can help in any direct fashion. It is possible to hold demonstrations and vigils outside foreign embassies and legations, but while that may help raise the profile of the issue a bit in this country, it seems doubtful that they would influence foreign governments, religious fanatics, or militia death squads.

There are a few non-government groups that attempt to work on these issues, but it is hard to find out what they are doing or how effective they are. Several years ago Amnesty International adopted a gay-friendly policy, but they can always use more money and staff.

Following the example of the Soros Foundation which provided photocopiers, fax machines, and computers to dissident groups in Eastern Europe, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission under former director Julie Dorf did valuable service in providing similar aid to Russian gays during the final years of the Soviet Union. But under present management it is not clear what they do-besides boycott Israel, a rare democracy in the region and the only haven for "Palestinian" gays, and issue press releases about harassment of cross-dressers in Latin American.

The small gay section of Human Rights Watch is supposed to monitor the condition of gays in many countries and is clearly overtaxed. Yet they criticize and seem to resent any outside attempts (and even some internal efforts) to support gay activism in those countries; seem insufficiently skeptical of charges religious authoritarian governments lodge against gays who are arrested, and seem infected with a kind of relativist multiculturalism that inhibits claims to natural human rights.

The American government could send letters of protest to foreign governments, but other issues obsess the current administration and its State Department. Their strenuous efforts to retain supporters and mollify opponents of the Iraqi war give them little clout to pressure foreign governments on other issues. In any case, it is hard to imagine the current president feeling much pain on behalf of foreign gays or alienating his domestic supporters by making efforts on their behalf.

We have a better chance of getting positive action from a Democratic president, so I hope gay Democratic contributors and supporters begin raising this issue with their candidates. Ask them what steps they will take to counter the repression of fellow gays and lesbians in other countries. Force them to ask their research staffs to look into the matter, get them on record, make them realize that this is a significant issue. The time to raise the issue is now while they are still soliciting gay votes and money, before they go all centrist after the primaries are over.

Several years ago I wrote a piece titled "Toward a Gay Foreign Policy," posted at the Independent Gay Forum. I still advocate the suggestions I made there. But we need to go further and plan what we want a Democratic administration to do and how we can press them to do it.

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What Happens When the Party of Your “One Party Strategy” Takes You for Granted

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I'm not a supporter of the proposed federal hate crimes bill, but gay activists tied at the waist to the Democratic Party are, so it's interesting to watch how the congressional Democrats are treating this supposed high priority item-burying it within an attempt at Iraqi war defunding-a measure which, even if passed, Bush has pledged to veto-and how gay "progressives" are providing them cover. Gay Patriot has the run down in his own highly partisan (going the other direction) style. Still, a valid critique on the Democrats' "throw the gays a meaningless bone" tactics. His money quote:

Democrats controlled the U.S. House for 40 years before 1995, and the Senate many times throughout. The only major gay rights legislation or mandate to come from the Democrats when they had the chance in power: Defense of Marriage Act and Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Great record, eh?

More. For those who reflexively dismiss anything from Gay Patriot, here's the independent-minded Chris Crain, a former Washington Blade editor and a hate-crimes bill supporter, weighing in, too. And in a follow-up, Crain takes further issue with "HRC and the Democrats...claiming that the DOD authorization was a good strategic vehicle." Right.

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More from Planet Paul

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Jamie Kirchick says Ron Paul is a homophobe. Andrew Sullivan says he's just ignorant. I was going with confused and evasive until I saw Paul's latest, from a google.com interview:

'Don't ask, don't tell' doesn't sound all that bad to me because as an employer, I've never asked them [employees] anything and I don't want them to tell me anything. ... So I would say that everyone should be treated equally, and they [gays] shouldn't be discriminated against because of that alone. Which means that even though those words aren't offensive to me, that 'Don't ask, don't tell' don't sound so bad to me, I think the way it's enforced is bad. Because, literally, if somebody is a very, very good individual working for our military - and I met one just the other day in my office, who was a translator - and he was kicked out for really no good reason at all. I would want to change that, I don't support that interpretation.

He seems to be opposing the military's DADT policy and anti-gay discrimination. In fact, he seems to favor the closet for everyone in the workplace, not just gays. Maybe he's just weird.

Given his age (72, almost) and party (Republican, sort of), give him some credit for maybe opposing DADT and definitely opposing the Federal Marriage Amendment. But rather than psychoanalyzing him, we need to get this guy to be specific. As president, would he support and sign repeal of DADT? Civil unions or federal domestic-partner recognition? Immigration rights for gay couples?

I doubt he's given it much thought. Let's change that.

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Remembering Tammy Faye

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The sophisticated (or merely pretentious) among us loved to mercilessly mock Tammy Faye Messner (formerly Baker), who died this weekend after a long battle with cancer. But as the Washington Post obit notes, she grew up in a house with no indoor plumbing and where makeup was considered a sin-and in a life marked by scandal and renewal, ended up something of a gay icon and a speaker at gay pride rallies.

And it wasn't only drag queens that seemed to take her to heart.

Scoff all you want, but it's Tammy Faye's audience that we need to reach out to and convince if we are to secure gay equality outside the bluest precincts. And she, in her waning years, tried to help do just that.

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Who Is the Bigot?

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Think what you will about Scientology (and I don't think about it too much), it hasn't by any stretch been in the forefront of the religious right's political anti-gay campaign. So what to make of the call to boycott Hollywood's latest version of "Hairspray" because it stars John Travolta, a prominent Scientologist? What's next, calls to boycott movies with devout Southern Baptists, Mormons or Catholics (which, if you buy the "logic" of this campaign, would actually make more sense)? In fact, the whole thing smacks of a cheap stunt, or at least narrow-mindedness-which, ironically, is what "Hairspray" is dissing.

Travolta, for his part, vehemently denies he (or Scientology) is anti-gay. And John Walters, gay-camp auteur of the original film, is backing him up.

A more legitimate critique of the newest "Hairspray," made by some critics, is that the original 1988 indie film starring the late, famed transvestite "Divine," and the subsequent Broadway incarnation starring Harvey Fierstein (who also cut his performance teeth as a cross-dresser) were in-your-face transgressive. You never doubted that Divine or Fierstein were drag queens playing big mama Edna Turnblad, which expanded the theme of prejudice against those outside the mainstream. Whereas Travolta, the AP's Christy Lemire writes, plays Edna as a woman, not as a drag queen pretending to be a women. "He plays it straight, for lack of a better word, and with a touch of pathos. The joke is completely lost," she laments.

That may or may not be a legitimate critique, but if gay activists and activist-editors feel that way, their beef is with the film's openly gay producers, Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, and not with Travolta-or Scientology.

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Health Care, Part 1: A “Sicko” System?

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Michael Moore's documentary, "Sicko", has started a new round of thinking about reforming America's healthcare system. For gay Americans, especially gay men, the stakes in this debate are unusually high and the answers are not obvious.

"Sicko" has two basic messages. The first is that America's system of privately run healthcare is broken, leaving millions without insurance and many of the rest frustrated by inadequate and expensive coverage. The result is a country that, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), ranks 37th in healthcare.

The second message of "Sicko" is that other countries - like Canada, Britain, and France - do a much better job of giving all citizens quality healthcare through government-run programs.

Along the way, Moore tells us horror stories about Americans whose insurance companies would not cover some life-saving treatment they need, about elderly and sick people dumped by the side of the road, and about 9/11 rescue workers who have to go to Cuba to get medical care.

These anecdotes are compared to happy tales from countries like France, where doctors make house-calls (!) free of charge, new mothers are given a state-paid assistant to do the laundry, and life expectancy soars.

All of it is punctuated by Moore's trademark humor, sarcastic and sardonic, which alone makes the film worth seeing. He is the funniest propagandist in the country.

Funny, but not terribly effective. A really good propagandist would give one the sense that the other side has been given a hearing, been considered, and been found wanting. With Moore, you get beaten over the head by clear good and evil. While Moore just wants cancer patients to get the treatment they need, the other side is all rapacious plutocrats putting profits ahead of lives.

If you're thinking at all during a Moore documentary, you're constantly wondering, what is he not telling me? I'm no healthcare expert, but I know enough to be wary of the direction Moore suggests.

His comparison of the U.S. to other countries is misleading, to say the least. The WHO report that ranks the U.S. just above Cuba looks at five factors: overall population health, including life expectancy; responsiveness of the system to patient needs; "inequality" of health within the population; "distribution" of responsiveness within the population (how people of varying economic status are served); and the "fairness" of the system's financial burden (who pays).

The first two factors can be measured objectively, and on these the U.S. does very well. Americans live longer on average than almost all other people. We're just a half year behind the British and 1.5 years behind the French in life expectancy. It's hard to say how much of even this modest gap is attributable to the countries' healthcare systems, as opposed to diet and exercise habits.

The U.S. ranks first - first - according to the WHO in healthcare responsiveness. Responsiveness means things like "respect for the dignity, confidentiality and autonomy of individuals and families to decide about their own health," and "prompt attention, access to social support networks during care, quality of basic amenities and choice of provider." Even with all the problems in their healthcare system, Americans report higher levels of patient satisfaction than citizens of any other country.

Of course, the U.S. loses out on the remaining three egalitarian and more subjective factors weighed by the WHO's international staff. Nations with government-run healthcare systems like France - and oil-rich Oman and socialist Cuba - do much better providing everyone healthcare and spreading the costs to those who can afford it. That's why the overall U.S. score is comparatively low.

It's a point Moore stresses. Everybody in those countries gets "free" healthcare, regardless of ability to pay, while some 47 million Americans have no health insurance and many receive needed care only when they go to the emergency room.

But this indictment by itself suggests no obvious reform. There is no such thing as free healthcare. Consider the example of Moore's favorite country.

France, which ranks first in healthcare according to the WHO, pays for its generous system with very high tax rates that absorb large portions of household income. That limits the freedom to spend on other things - like education or housing or travel - that some people value more highly.

High taxes and heavy regulation of business and labor markets, requiring extended paid leave for things like convalescence, produce anemic growth rates and chronically high unemployment. France is now having one of its periodic existential crises about falling behind more market-oriented countries.

The WHO report does not even consider a country's contribution to advanced medical education, new technology, innovative treatments, and drug research - all areas in which the U.S. unquestionably leads the world. The 36 countries ranked ahead of the U.S. enjoy such good health in part because of American creativity and profit-seeking American companies.

The tradeoff - more evenly distributed healthcare in exchange for some sacrifice of individual liberty and economic dynamism - might be worth it. But we at least must recognize the tradeoff exists.

Given the heavy need for healthcare among those with HIV infection, an expensive, chronic and potentially fatal illness, a question for gay readers is this: are there any special reasons to be concerned about reform? And given that the gay experience with government has not been happy, should we worry about state-run healthcare? That's the subject of the next column.

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A Tale of Two Scandals

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I suppose it should come as no surprise that, despite the abolition of sodomy laws, lives are still being destroyed by arrests for soliciting gay sex, as in this sad story about Florida State Rep. Bob Allen. The seven-year legislator is (was?) a Florida co-chairman of U.S. Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign.

A big difference between incidents like Allen's and, say, the exposure that Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) used an escort/prostitution service, is the fact that Vitter wasn't arrested and no one is even remotely considering charging him for soliciting heterosexual sex. Also, Vitter is a married, family-valued promoting hetero seeking hetero sex on the side. Allen, too, is married, but seeking gay sex in a park reeks of the closet, and the closet reeks of internalized homophobia.

Some stories have mentioned that Allen is a former Little League volunteer and has donated time to the Girls and Boys Town of Central Florida. Get the drift. The thinly veiled suggestion that his kind shouldn't be near innocent kiddies is also something never suggested in reporting on hetero transgressors like Vitter.

More. David Boaz blogs:

Vitter's hostility to gay marriage while cheating on his own is a matter of simple political hypocrisy. The more specific issue...is that Vitter (presumably) supports the laws against prostitution. Yet he himself, while a member of the United States Congress, has broken those laws and solicited other people to break them.

Vitter should be asked: Do you think prostitution should be illegal? If so, will you turn yourself in?

The answer, of course, is yes he does, and no he won't.

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