IGF CultureWatch

Rep. Christopher Shays has an odd reason for supporting a proposal designed to eliminate employment discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation.

"I want a gentler world," the Connecticut Republican told The Associated Press in a recent interview about the proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2007. "I want a world where people are nicer to each other and more respectful. I want a more moral world and this legislation meets all those needs."

Shays is a co-sponsor of the bill, along with Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., and Rep. Deborah Pryce, R-Ohio.

This was a curious statement, even for a moderate Republican like Shays. The essence of traditional conservatism, at least philosophically, acknowledges the world as it is, not the way supposedly starry-eyed liberals would like it to be.

Attempting to change people's deep-seated beliefs through the act of the legislative pen seems like something that Republicans make fun of Democrats for doing.

This is not to say that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act is unworthy of bipartisan support. The bill is one of the most important pieces of legislation in the modern-day civil rights agenda. It would make it illegal for employers to determine hiring, firing, promotion or salary decisions on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Discriminating upon the basis of race, gender, national origin, age or disability has long been illegal, and if one accepts that homosexuality is as intrinsic a factor in someone's personhood as these other traits, and agrees that private employers ought not be allowed to discriminate based upon innate characteristics, then the bill should merit support.

Religious institutions and the military (which actively discriminates against open homosexuals already and is permitted to do so under the auspices of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy) would be exempt from the law.

It is currently legal to fire someone because of sexual orientation in 33 states, which the passage of a federal anti-discrimination bill like the Employment Non-Discrimination Act would end.

This injustice of not being able to get a job or being fired simply for what one does in the bedroom, or because of one's gender identity, is as pressing for gay-rights advocates as the denial of marriage rights. Unfortunately, there is little credible statistical evidence of such discrimination, but gay-rights advocates are convinced the abundant anecdotal illustrations support their case for passage.

But at the end of the day, there is only so little that government action can do to make people "more moral," in spite of Shays' sanguine forecast. Understanding the confines of government power over the consciences of individuals is something that those on both the left and right would do well to appreciate. Anti-sodomy laws, overturned in 2003, did nothing to stop people from engaging in certain sex acts that some Americans view as immoral.

The prohibition of alcohol - which was mandated by constitutional fiat - did not stop people from drinking booze. Likewise, penalizing private employers for discriminating against homosexuals will not suddenly convert them into full-fledged supporters of gay equality.

There is an important distinction, however, between what people believe and how they act. Slavery was officially abolished in the United States in 1865, but any student of American history knows that active, government discrimination against blacks hardly ended with the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution.

It was not until nearly 100 years later, with passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, that blacks-at least in law-were accorded full equality with other citizens. Prior to the passage of this bill, the federal government was repeatedly required, sometimes by physical might, to enforce equal treatment under the law.

It would be nice if we lived in a world where people did not discriminate against those of a different color, gender identity or sexual orientation. Perhaps if people just stopped and listened to the sternly worded resolutions that the United Nations issues every day, then maybe the genocide in Darfur would cease, Robert Mugabe would stop oppressing his starving people, and Muslim countries would mandate that women not be treated as property.

Would all this be so. But mere legislation won't make bigotry go away.

Opponents of gay marriage have tried a number of arguments, all of which have failed to end the progress toward the recognition of gay relationships. Now they're trying out a new one that ties gay marriage to a miasma of marital and familial decline.

Gay-marriage opponents first argued that same-sex couples could not be married because the definition of marriage is the union of a man and a woman. This worked as long as nobody thought very hard about the issue, but it fails as soon as you realize the whole argument is over what the definition should include.

Some gay-marriage opponents tried to frighten the public with negative stereotypes of gays. The problem is that too many Americans know actual gay people for this to have much effect anymore.

Next they warned that gay marriage would be the first step down a slippery slope toward things like polygamy. But this failed to catch on because there just aren't that many people clamoring for ten-person marriages. Two is hard enough.

They moved on to children after that, warning that gay couples couldn't do as good a job as a biological mother and father. This argument still has some life, but its power wanes when people realize that gay marriage won't take children away from biological parents who want to raise them. And marriage would help the more than one million children now being raised by gay people.

Now, in a new book entitled The Future of Marriage, family and marriage scholar David Blankenhorn tries a new argument. He argues that support for gay marriage is part of a destructive "cluster" of "mutually reinforcing" beliefs about family life. He cites international surveys of attitudes about families and marriage showing that the presence of gay marriage in a country correlates with a series of beliefs that he describes as, roughly speaking, anti-marriage.

For example, people in countries with gay marriage are more likely to agree with statements like, "One parent can bring up a child as well as two parents together," or, "It is alright for a couple to live together without intending to get married."

Conversely, people in countries with no recognition of gay relationships are more likely to agree with statements like, "Married people are generally happier than unmarried people," or, "The main purpose of marriage these days is to have children."

In other words, Blankenhorn notes that there is a correlation between non-traditional beliefs about marriage and support for gay marriage. He claims this allows us to "infer" a "likely causal relation" between gay marriage and anti-marriage views.

What do we make of this latest anti-gay marriage argument? A correlation might indicate something important is going on. It's a clue that two seemingly unrelated phenomena may be related.

But by itself a correlation doesn't prove that one thing caused another. People who buy ashtrays are more likely to get lung cancer -- but this doesn't prove that buying ashtrays causes lung cancer. If we relied on correlation alone, we'd think all sorts of crazy things were causally related.

Consider what can be done with a correlation used to "infer" a "likely causal relation." People in countries without same-sex marriage are more likely to believe women should stay at home and not work, that men should be masters of their households, that there should be no separation of church and state, that people should not use contraception when they have sex, and that divorce should never be permitted. If these correlations exist, have I demonstrated the existence of a "cluster of beliefs" that reinforce one another, undermining the argument against gay marriage?

Or consider the more sympathetic correlations to gay marriage that Blankenhorn ignores. Countries with SSM are richer, healthier, more democratic, more educated, and more respectful of individual rights. Have I shown that the absence of gay marriage is likely causing harm in those benighted countries that refuse to recognize it?

Here's another correlation helpful to the case for gay marriage: countries with gay marriage are enjoying higher marriage rates since they recognized it. Have I shown that gay marriage likely caused this?

Even Blankenhorn's correlation is suspect. Non-traditional attitudes about marriage preceded the recognition of gay marriage in the countries that have it. How could gay marriage have caused a decline in traditional marital attitudes before it even existed?

Of course, Blankenhorn is still free to argue that non-traditional attitudes greased the way for gay marriage, but this doesn't show that it caused or even reinforced non-traditional attitudes. What Blankenhorn needs, even as a starting point, is some evidence that non-traditionalist views increased after gay marriage began. He doesn't have that. Even if he did, such a rise might well only be a continuation of pre-existing trends.

And even if he had the sequence right, Blankenhorn would still have the problem of trying to deal with the existence of multiple other factors that have plausibly fueled non-traditionalist attitudes. We can plausibly surmise that things like increased income, longer life spans, more education, and women's equality - rather than gay marriage - have led to non-traditionalist attitudes about marriage.

Intellectual guilt-by-association has an easy appeal that may make Blankenhorn's argument an anti-gay marriage mantra in the future. His superficially frightening correlations have to be carefully unpacked to show how misleading they are.

Old Age too creeps up on little cat feet. It happens while you are busy doing something else, usually something far more interesting. And it happens so gradually that you don't realize it is happening to you. Which is fine because it really isn't a big deal.

When we were young we all expected being old to feel very different from being young, but it doesn't, at least not enough to be a qualitative change. More often, getting older is something that you notice in other people, not in yourself.

But once in a while you get clues from the way other people behave toward you. More people call you "Sir" or "Mister." Nobody calls you "Dude" or "Guy." Once I was called "Grandpa." A few weeks ago I was carrying some groceries onto a bus and a young woman offered me her seat. Sales clerks seem more willing to offer assistance, I suppose thinking I am more likely to need it. A casual acquaintance at a bar recently asked how old I was and let out a little gasp when I told him, as if to say, "What? And not dead yet?"

Another clue is that most of your old college professors, all the major modern thinkers you learned from, most of the modern authors whose books you enjoyed are now dead--even the long-lived ones. Just to take a few recent examples, Milton Friedman, Kurt Vonnegut, Barbara Gittings. Many others died further back--in the 1970s and 1980s. You get the disconcerting feeling that it all depends on your generation now. I sure hope the others are doing their part because I can't do it alone.

You become vaguely aware that time grows shorter, that there are a lot of things you've been meaning to do "someday" and that if you don't do them pretty soon you won't get them done ever. As of my birthday a few days ago, the actuarial tables give me several more years, which isn't so bad, really. You can do a lot in several years.

But the point is that somewhere along in the aging process you begin to take seriously the idea that life has a terminus and that--surprisingly--this actually applies to you too. This is nothing as big and gloomy as the Existentialists' "sense of one's own mortality," just a kind of "Oh, if not now (or soon), then never."

So you have to begin a kind of triage among your various goals, casting aside the less important and never-very-heartfelt ones (e.g., reading Proust), and resolve at least to begin working on the others. In the last few years, for instance, I've been spending some of my free time learning more about art to make up for a deficiency in my education. It turned out to be enjoyable as well as interesting.

For the same reason, I've started occasionally reading some books generally regarded as a "classic," many of which turned out to be pretty good. Other people will have different goals: travel to a foreign country they have never seen, taking up a hobby or craft, getting involved in local politics. Whatever it is, it is time to do it.

One of the most common beliefs about growing older is that aging is accompanied by a decline in energy level. No doubt that is true. But the decline is so gradual that you hardly notice it and scarcely feel the loss as it is occurring. Don't worry about it. Just accept it as part of the gift of a long life. A lot of gay men never got that gift.

One of the great benefits of growing older is the natural ability to act mature. Most of us who are older have, I think, developed a kind of reserve and restraint, a degree of emotional stability, a bemused attitude toward life, a greater degree of empathy in our relationships, and a broader perspective. Those are gains not to be disguised or abandoned.

Once in a while you see some older gay man acting as if he were in his 20s, as if he thinks that is a great age to be. It doesn't work. In fact, it only highlights how old he really is by drawing attention to his failure to be what he is trying for. People, including the young, will respect you more for being a good example of whatever age you really are.

And frankly, young gays need older gay people as exemplars of how they themselves can grow up rather than remaining, for lack of visible alternatives, in the state of perpetual adolescence we sometimes see in younger gays at the bars. Our "culture," such as it is, must get over the excessive focus on youth and youthfulness. Even if it is only a stereotype, it is one that we help perpetuate by not challenging it directly.

In a recent column I wrote about a Christian couple who invited me to dinner during one of my lecture tours. I first met the husband when he stood up during a Q&A session after one of my talks. He described himself as theologically conservative but politically liberal, opposed to same-sex religious unions but supportive of civil marriage and adoption for gays, skeptical of reconciling biblical faith with homosexuality but open to arguments for doing so. We met for coffee later, and then he and his wife-who had previously been complete strangers to me-invited me to their home for dinner.

There we had a delightful evening discussing many subjects, including the impending wedding of my partner Mark's sister, an event which would bring me together with my in-laws, who despise me for "corrupting" their son. That story prompted the wife, during grace before the meal, to call God's blessing on me, my relationship, and the impending family gathering. Though I am not a religious believer, I was deeply touched by this act of kindness, and so I wrote about it. I had hoped that my account of the evening might show what people of good will can accomplish when they focus more on their shared values than on their differences; more on listening and learning than on winning.

It should have come as no surprise to me that Peter LaBarbera completely missed that point, instead using the column as an occasion for his usual anti-gay drivel. LaBarbera, who operates the website "Americans For Truth (About Homosexuality)," posted a response at the Independent Gay Forum which read in part:

"[The wife] erred in asking a holy God to bless a relationship based on sexual misbehavior clearly condemned by the same "God-breathed" Scripture that [she] surely regards as inerrant. [She] may and probably did have some secret prayer regarding your relationship-say, that it become non-sexual-but by asking God, before you, to "bless" it wrongly implied God's acceptance, and thereby misled you about the Christian faith."

For the record, I did not take the wife's blessing to imply approval of the sexual aspect of my relationship. As I wrote in the original column, the husband had voiced his theological misgivings about homosexuality, and I had no reason to think his wife's views differed on this point. Rather, I assumed that she was simply calling God's love upon us-no more, no less. As another respondent, "Casey", wrote eloquently:

"By praying that your partnership be blessed-that God's hand would be upon it, and His Spirit would open the eyes of Mark's family that their cruelty was wrong-this couple was behaving in a most Christian manner…. For somebody who is deeply skeptical of homosexuality, yet sees the humanity and suffering of the way Mark's parents treat you, the ultimate sacrifice possible, the act of radical love, was to give up their certainty of what is right and wrong and just love you by offering that prayer and accepting you into their home...and letting God sort it out."

Unlike Casey, I wouldn't say that this couple "gave up their certainty of what is right and wrong" that evening, any more than I gave up mine. Rather, we distinguished: there are times to moralize, and then there are times to listen to people, to welcome people, to love people.

I would even agree with LaBarbera that loving people sometimes means telling them that they're wrong. Sometimes, but not every moment. Sometimes it means telling them that they're right about certain things (as I did with LaBarbera in the first sentence of this paragraph). Sometimes it means enjoying a meal with them while exploring shared interests. And sometimes it means just shutting up and listening.

The reason Peter LaBarbera's "Americans for Truth" website contains so little truth is that LaBarbera is incapable of listening when it comes to the topic of homosexuality. He believes himself to have the Truth-capital T-and so he arrogantly proclaims what a "holy God" can and cannot do. He reads a tale of Christian charity in an uncharitable light, causing him to make false assumptions about both the couple's intentions and my reactions. He reduces a complex human relationship to "sexual misbehavior," then wonders at how his fellow Christians might imagine God there. Like the Pharisees who merit Jesus' wrath in the Gospels, he forgets that belief in an infallible God does not render one infallible.

Peter LaBarbera claims to be "for truth" about gays and lesbians. He should try listening to some.

National gay groups are pushing Congress to pass a new and dramatically expanded federal hate crimes law. While the effort has strong emotional and symbolic appeal, it probably has little practical value and may forestall legislation that really can make a difference in the lives of gay Americans.

The current federal hate-crimes law was passed in 1968. It covers crimes motivated by bias against a person's race, ethnicity, national origin, or religion. It allows federal prosecution only where the victim is engaged in a federally protected activity (like a civil-rights demonstration). A separate federal law requires the FBI to report the incidence of hate crimes, including anti-gay crimes.

The proposed law would add sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, and disability to the already protected categories. But it would do more than simply add these new categories to a pre-existing law. It would also allow federal investigation and prosecution of hate crimes regardless of the victim's involvement in a federally protected activity. Thus while it adds more categories it also enlarges the scope of the existing federal hate crimes law.

Having myself been a victim of such an attack 17 years ago, I know anti-gay violence tends to be especially vicious. Hate crimes put a whole group of people under fear of attack.

Some opponents of hate-crimes laws have worried that they will be used to punish speech or thought because they focus on a person's motivation in committing a crime. This isn't a very strong objection. Law constantly inquires into motive and these laws have not been used to punish "hate speech." Law legitimately gives special protection to especially vulnerable victims.

But will a new federal law do anything to stop hate crimes? Supporters argue it will do two things. First, it allows federal prosecution of anti-gay crimes -- something that until now has been left to the states. Second, it gives resources to local authorities to investigate and prosecute anti-gay crimes on their own.

I am skeptical about the practical value of hate-crimes laws. All but seven states already have them, and 24 of these state laws include anti-gay crimes. Passage of a federal bill will improve by some degree the likelihood of punishing offenders for attacks that have already occurred, but that could be done without creating special categories of protection.

We now have almost 40 years of experience with these laws, yet there's no evidence they have actually reduced hate crimes. A new federal law will not likely deter future violence.

Here's why. Bias crimes are especially irrational, welling up from deep hatreds, resentments, and fears that law can hardly touch. They're often committed by young males in their teens and early 20s who don't know the nuances in criminal law and whose animalistic behavior is probably not very responsive to nice legal incentives. Neither the prospect of federal (as opposed to state) prosecution nor the threat of additional time in prison (beyond what the offender would get anyway) will deter bias attacks.

Supporters also argue that local authorities need federal help to prosecute hate crimes, citing the Matthew Shepard case as an example of the high cost involved. But that crime was prosecuted without federal help and supporters cite no hate crimes that have gone unpunished because of expense.

Besides, lack of resources is a common complaint of police and prosecutors. They'd always love more money, but there is no evidence that this is a problem unique to hate crimes. Perhaps the federal government should help, but why give special assistance to the prosecution of one class of crimes that seems no more costly than another?

Further, the investigation and prosecution of violent crime, with a few exceptions, has traditionally been the job of the states. There is no evidence that local and state authorities are systematically ignoring hate crimes under existing laws.

Sure, some law enforcement authorities in isolated jurisdictions have occasionally seemed insufficiently concerned about anti-gay crimes. But where is the evidence of widespread, systematic underenforcement to justify a federal law covering every jurisdiction in all 50 states? We should have such evidence before the federal government intrudes on yet another area of traditional state authority.

Aside from these dubious instrumental rationales for hate-crimes laws, the purpose of them seems entirely symbolic. Like much other legislation, they are primarily mechanisms for groups to raise morale and achieve recognition. That's not unimportant.

But while law can properly send messages about tolerance and inclusion in a variety of ways, purely symbolic criminal laws are a bad idea. They allow authorities to posture morally at the cost of threatening people with loss of liberty and increasing opportunities for prosecutorial abuse. This was one of many problems with sodomy laws.

No doubt national gay-rights groups, especially the Human Rights Campaign, are looking for a victory early in the new Congress to show long-suffering donors and skeptical bloggers they can be effective. Winning on hate crimes may also reassure members of Congress that they can vote for a pro-gay bill without serious repercussions. Other important issues, like employment protection and DADT, are on the horizon. An "anti-crime" measure is the easiest first step and may actually get President Bush's signature, leading to more progress later.

But passing this seemingly symbolic bill may have the opposite effect. It may give the new Congress a "pass" -- allowing Democrats to say they have done something "pro-gay" and freeing them to avoid the harder and far more consequential questions of military service and protecting gay families in the law. These are issues, unlike hate crimes, about which Congress really can do something of practical value.