IGF CultureWatch

Well, here we are again. It's Gay Pride month. If you are old and jaded, or for that matter young and jaded, your reaction is probably a sardonic "Oh, Whoopee-do." That is usually my first reaction too. But then I think about it for a while and end up deciding that gay pride is a pretty good idea.

Think back half a century. "When our American movement for full civil rights and equality for homosexuals got launched fifty-six years ago, we had a huge range of basic problems to tackle. We were denounced as immoral and sinful. We were punished as criminals and lawbreakers. We were labeled 'sick' and needing a 'cure.' We were mostly invisible as gay, which made it hard for gay men and lesbians to develop good social lives and to create a movement to battle injustice and prejudice." That's the late pioneer gay activist Barbara Gittings.

And now? Although we have not yet achieved social, legal, and political equality, there are ample grounds for feeling pleased, proud even, about the progress we have made.

In the 1950s barely a handful of gays and lesbians were out of the closet. Most were closeted not out of shame, I suspect, but because of a very real fear of discrimination and hostility and that people would automatically think less of them if they were known to be gay. Now there are millions of gays and lesbians, perhaps including you, who are confidently open about their orientation and think that if other people disapprove of homosexuality, so much the worse for them: they are simply ignorant. What a remarkable change!

Today many young people have the same fears that all gays did fifty years ago. But now we have created resources--books, websites, gay clubs in schools and colleges--that they can access to help them through those fears as a phase and not a life-long condition.

Partly because more people have gotten to know us personally, we have moved public opinion from almost universal disapproval of homosexuals to a kind of split decision. A 2004 Pew Center survey found that 49 percent of the public said homosexuality should be accepted by society, while only 44 percent said it should be discouraged. And the momentum is on our side as each generation expresses more gay-positive attitudes than the one preceding it.

In most cities we have formed numerous community groups to help promote gay economic, cultural, and political progress and to help other gay people with their quality of life--old gays, young gays, deaf gays, people with AIDS, parents of gays, etc. Large numbers of gay and lesbian volunteers help these organizations function effectively. Fifty years ago there was--nothing.

A friend remarked the other day that every time he passes by Chicago's new gay community center he sees people going in and out whom he has never seen before. It made him realize, he said, how many more people are actively involved in gay community programs than he had thought.

These are volunteers who could be doing something else with their time but who obviously find it rewarding, even self-actualizing, to contribute to the community. No doubt it is also an important way publicly to affirm the value of their identity by involving it in a contribution to society.

Fifty years ago, some employers fired gays and lesbians. By contrast, we are now an identifiable and quantifiably large market. That has helped persuade numerous companies to adopt non-discrimination and partner benefits programs for their gay employees. More than most social and political activists admit, economic behavior is the fundamental social force in society. Economic change brings other change in its wake, sometimes kicking and screaming but ineluctably. Businesses that want to maximize their income need to maximize our patronage.

The social and economic progress we have made in the last 50 years has been partly obscured because it has not been fully reflected in the political realm. But beneath the notice of hostile presidents and congresses we have won increasing social acceptance. The election of more supportive national officials from either party should help political progress catch up with our social and economic progress.

Finally, keep in mind that what the first gay activists undertook was a moral revolution. Fifty years ago, few prominent people challenged the idea that homosexuality was morally wrong or "sinful." It must feel very odd for recent Catholic popes to see within their lifetimes the rise of a mass movement of people who utterly reject 2000 years of tradition on a fundamental moral issue like homosexuality and say, in effect, "I reject what you preach. I'm moral; you're not." Popes hate that!

The day after Jerry Falwell's funeral, Mary Cheney-who is a LESBIAN, in case you've forgotten the Bush-Kerry debates-gave birth to a baby boy.

If I were the world's scriptwriter, I would have reversed the order: Cheney gives birth, then Falwell keels over. No matter: just as nature abhors a vacuum, so does right-wing foolishness. With Falwell gone, someone else will step up to blame the world's problems on Tinky Winky, environmentalists, and lesbian moms.

For the record, my condolences go out to the Falwell family. That the man said profoundly stupid things about gays and lesbians (among other subjects) does not alter the fact that he was also a husband, father, and friend.

If only Falwell and his followers could muster up similar empathy. Whatever one might think about lesbian parenting, Mary Cheney is a mother, and Samuel David Cheney is her son. None of this will stop the so-called "family values" crowd from accusing her of child abuse simply for bringing him into the world. It's a nasty accusation, and it needs to be countered forcefully.

Vice President Cheney seems to understand this point. Some months ago, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked him to comment on criticisms of Mary, and the vice president responded with harsh verbal smack-down. Blitzer didn't deserve it (don't shoot the messenger-or in this case, the interviewer). But it was hard not to admire Cheney's exceedingly effective "Don't fuck with my family" attitude, or to be grateful that for once his belligerence was (almost) well-aimed.

When gay or lesbian couples decide to have children, they obtain them one of two ways. First, they may adopt, thus giving a home to a child who has none. Parenting is an act of loving sacrifice, and those who adopt children ought to be applauded and supported. To treat them otherwise not only insults them, it also harms their children-not to mention other needy children who may be deprived loving homes because of misguided "family values." Shame on those who stand in their way.

The other way-the one used by Mary Cheney and Heather Poe-is pregnancy, either by insemination or implantation of an embryo. I do not wish to minimize the moral questions raised by reproductive technology. Most of these questions, however, are not unique to lesbian and gay parents, who constitute a minority of its users.

But aren't same-sex families "suboptimal" for children? The research says otherwise. So does every mainstream health organization that has commented on the issue: the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology, the American Psychiatric Association, and so on.

Jerry Falwell's crowd would have us believe that these organizations have all been hijacked by the vast "Homosexual Agenda." Trust me: if we had such power, we wouldn't be having this debate.

Forget the research for a moment and consider the following: if Mary Cheney had not chosen to become pregnant-by whatever means she used-Samuel David Cheney would not exist. After all, he is a genetically unique individual, as pro-lifers frequently remind us. The practical alternative to Samuel's existing in this lesbian household is his not existing at all, and it is hard to argue that he'd be better off that way. So the claim that they harm him, simply by bringing him into this situation, rings hollow.

Metaphysical subtleties aside, the fact is that Mary and Heather will provide this child with a loving home, not to mention many material advantages. The more people see that, the more ridiculous charges of "child abuse" sound.

And that last point gives me great cause for optimism. When I came out of the closet nearly twenty years ago, myths about gay and lesbian people abounded: we were sick, we were predators, we were miserable, we were amoral. Such myths still exist, of course, but they are far more difficult to float (and thus, far less common). The main reason is that we are much more visible now, and so people know firsthand that the myths simply aren't true.

While many people know openly gay or lesbian people, relatively fewer know gay or lesbian parents. That's changing, and as it does, so too will the ability of the right wing to float nasty myths about them. Their influence will wane in the face of simple evidence.

Samuel David Cheney begins his life in an America with fewer Jerry Falwells and more Mel Whites; fewer Pat Buchanans and more Andrew Sullivans; fewer Dr. Lauras and more Ellens. Good for him (and the rest of us).

Conservative opposition to gay marriage is having unconservative effects, helping to push the boundaries of family law into new territory that challenges the primacy of marriage itself. By opposing gay marriage, conservatives are forcing gay families to seek refuge through untraditional means that could undermine marriage or destabilize family concepts in ways that gay marriage itself would not.

Here are four examples:

Second-parent adoptions. When married couples adopt, both become the legal parents of the child. Traditionally, however, only one member of an unmarried couple could adopt a child. Among other things, this rule has encouraged the couple to get married because it would provide the child with two parents.

Gay couples, who can't marry, must find other ways to protect their children. Starting in the early 1980s, the National Center for Lesbian Rights pioneered the concept of "second-parent" adoptions by which two unmarried people could both be a child's legal parents. Over time, the concept has been embraced by courts or by statute in about half the states.

Here's the kicker. Second-parent adoptions have also become available to unmarried heterosexual couples. Thus, a legal reform intended to compensate for the unavailability of same-sex marriage has been seized by those who can marry but choose not to. It reduces the incentive to marry and means more children will be raised out-of-wedlock.

Triple parenting. Another unconservative consequence of the ban on gay marriage is illustrated by a recent case in Pennsylvania. The case involved a lesbian couple who enlisted a male friend to act as a sperm donor, resulting in the births of two children to one of the women. When the lesbian couple split, the state courts decided that the women should share custody and that the sperm donor should be allowed monthly visits and be ordered to pay child support. Thus, the children would in effect have three parents shuttling them back and forth among three different homes.

Marriage exists in part to clarify legal responsibility for children. If gay couples could marry, as straight couples using sperm donors or surrogate mothers can, they would be more likely to seek exclusive parental rights at the outset (as married straight couples do) because they could adopt as a couple and because of the additional security marriage would give their relationship and their children. Sperm donors and surrogate mothers, for their part, would be more likely to surrender any parental rights since they would be reassured the child would live in a two-parent family fully protected in the law.

Triple-parenting arrangements don't lead to polygamy, as some conservatives claim. Lesbian mothers aren't usually keen on marrying sperm donors, after all. But these arrangements do undermine the traditional idea that, when it comes to children, two are parents and more is a crowd.

While gay marriage alone won't eliminate the many scenarios in which multiple adults vie for children, just as marriage hasn't eliminated them for straight couples, it would make them somewhat rarer. The absence of gay marriage is opening the door wider to the very trends conservatives believe are destabilizing to families.

Parental visitation. In Minnesota, the state supreme court recently upheld an order allowing a woman parent-like visitation with the two adopted children she raised with her lesbian partner of 22 years. Because the women weren't married, only one of them formally adopted the kids. When they split, the legal parent barred her ex from seeing them. If they'd been married, both parents would have been entitled to see the children.

The non-parent sued to get some access to the children based on a Minnesota statute allowing a person "reasonable" visitation if the person lived with the children at least two years. The court ordered that the non-parent be given the right to visit the children on a schedule exactly like what a divorced parent would get (weekends, alternate holidays, long summer vacations) - all without having to pay child support.

The Minnesota decision was correct under state law and was perfectly justified given that the lesbian couple could not marry and that both women raised the children. But it does set a precedent by which an unmarried heterosexual partner could likewise claim full parental visitation rights without accompanying support obligations. Another incentive to marry is eroded.

Adult-adult adoptions. Adoption means the two people - the parent and the child - are not strangers in the eyes of the law. It makes them kin.

Not all states set age restrictions on adoptions, so in theory an adult could adopt another adult as his "child." Barred from marriage, that is exactly what some gay couples have done. One partner adopts the other, giving the two adults some degree of the legal protection marriage would have given - like the rights to visit each other in the hospital, to inherit property without taxation, and so on. This is a perversion of traditional adoption law, to say the least, made attractive only because the partners can't marry.

Gay families are of course just one part of much larger developments changing family life in the U.S. Those living outside marriage - gay or straight - will understandably find creative ways to protect their loved ones. Left-leaning reformers would regard many or all of these innovations as good; in fact, they are championing them. Conservatives eye them suspiciously because they bring with them the potential to undermine marriage and traditional parental forms and presumptions. Gay marriage would relieve some of the pressure to concoct alternatives.

Think of it this way: Gay families are a rising river stretching across the country. Conservative opposition to gay marriage is a dam blocking the way. Impeded in its natural course, the river does not dry up; its flow is simply deflected into a hundred rivulets and low pastures.

Many conservatives may conclude in the end that the collateral damage being done to stability and tradition is worth it to keep gay couples from marrying. But before family policy is further inundated, they should at least weigh the unconservative consequences.