IGF CultureWatch

George Will takes a look at the Republican coalition's internal contradictions in Grand Old Spenders. He writes:

The conservative coalition...will rapidly disintegrate if limited-government conservatives become convinced that social conservatives are unwilling to concentrate their character-building and soul-saving energies on the private institutions that mediate between individuals and government, and instead try to conscript government into sectarian crusades.

And he explains why, once in office, conservatives start to spend like liberals, owing to "Washington's single-minded devotion to rent-seeking-to bending government for the advantage of private factions" (which, of course, amply stuff politicians' pockets, whether the factions/special interests/professional fear-mongers are on the left or the right).

Will also quotes Gerard Alexander of the University of Virginia, who says:

Perhaps conservatives were naive to expect any party, ever, to resist rent-seeking temptations when in power. Just as there always was something fatally unserious about socialism-its flawed understanding of human nature-is it possible that there has also been something profoundly unserious about the limited-government agenda? Should we now be prepared for the national electoral wing of the conservative movement...to identify with legislation like the pork-laden energy and transportation bills, in the same way that liberals came to ground their identities in programs like Social Security?

Then Will warns of the possibility that "limited-government conservatives will dissociate from a Republican Party more congenial to overreaching social conservatives."

I think the social conservatives have crested (intelligent design and stem-cell research have done far more harm to their cause then attacks by the big-spending, bureaucracy-loving left). But then liberals do have a knack for scaring the country back to the right when a moderate course could deliver them victory. (hat tip: Right Side of the Rainbow)

Update: Andrew Sullivan has more on the GOP's lack of limited-government consistency, noting that not a single Republican Senator who voted against the federal anti-gay marriage amendment also voted for a recent spending-cut bill. [Correction: Sullivan was mistaken - one GOP Senator did vote for lower spending and against banning gay marriage: New Hampshire's John Sununu.]

So while there are plenty of social conservatives in the party who expect the federal government to enforce their moral codes, and a dollop of "moderates" who are socially liberal big spenders, there seem to be few real "social inclusives and fiscal conservatives" willing to step forward. But when one does, he or she might find more support then they imagine.

Jonathan Rauch, IGF's co-managing editor, made the conservative case for gay marriage to students at Princeton, the Daily Princetonian reports:

Rauch said gay marriage would make people take the institution of marriage more seriously and encourage single parents to remarry. "My belief is that the cultural message that same-sex marriage will send is not that 'anything goes,' but that marriage goes," he said. . . . As a result, he said, fewer children would be born out of wedlock and more would be raised in two-parent homes.

Of course, the next day Maggie Gallagher, president of the Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, argued that changing the legal boundaries of marriage will destroy Western civilization.

Still, it's good that conservatively minded students heard that there's another view of gay marriage beyond the social right's fear-mongering and the gay left's focus on "rights" and "equality" (which sound good to liberal ears but won't win arguements with conservatives who've been told gay matriomy will destroy the institution).
--Stephen H. Miller

The left teaches that the impoverished are victims of an unjust economic system that the government should mitigate through confiscatory taxation and economic redistribution. The right believes that the poor remain mired in inter-generational poverty owing to dysfunctional individual and family behavior, made worse by a culture of welfare entitlement.

This story of a Minnesota lesbian couple that tried to help a displaced Louisiana family seems to make the case that culture counts.

Newsweek has a glowing pre-release story about Ang Lee's gay love movie "Brokeback Mountain," starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger. Writes Sean Smith:

"Brokeback" feels like a landmark film. No American film before has portrayed love between two men as something this pure and sacred. As such, it has the potential to change the national conversation and to challenge people's ideas about the value and validity of same-sex relationships.

Yet he also quotes James Schamus, co-president of Focus Features, which is releasing "Brokeback":

"When the trailer plays in theaters where there are a lot of young men in the audience, it's often met with snickers or outright laughter. How do you get those guys to see the movie? You don't."

Instead, along with gays, the marketing is being directed at women.

Sight unseen, the buzz is that the film represents a significant step for mainstream American movies. Yet so, too, were earlier films such as the independently produced "Longtime Companion" and (in my view less convincingly, but with big studiio backing) "Philadelphia." Many, however, will simply dismiss "Brokeback" as Hollywood again thumbing its nose at conventional values. So I don't expect it to significantly alter the cultural/political landscape.

Still, it may very well alter the lives of some who see it, and that is no small thing.

If more gays were armed and fought back against gay bashers, might there be fewer gay bashings? This account of a repeat victim who fought back and killed a basher is a tragedy for the family of the basher, but a gay man is alive because he was carrying a weapon (in this case, a knife). He's now thinking about getting a gun permit.

The Nov. 14 edition of the "New Yorker" provides more evidence of the growing Democratic strategy of running closer to Republicans on social issues such as abortion. It's not online, but the article "The Right to Choose: The Democrats Compromise on a Core Issue," covers the Pennsylvania senate race, in which Republican Rick Santorum faces pro-life Democrat Robert Casey, Jr.

I've noted before how Democrat Tim Kaine, newly elected as Virginia's next governor, opposes changing that state's law in order to allow gays to adopt, and now favors adding an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state's constitution. His mentor, outgoing Democratic Gov. Mark Warner, signed a bill outlawing civil unions. Democrats are heralding Kaine's victory as a sign of the party's renewal.

In the Pennsylvania race running against vile homophobe Santorum, Democrat Casey explicitly favors abortion restrictions. On gay marriage, National Review Online reports "he's also against gay marriage but doesn't want a constitutional debate over it," which is certainly preferable to Santorum's anti-gay demogoging. Unfortunately, Casey has himself been demagoging against Social Security reform (which he characterizes as a "scheme" to undermine, rather than save, the program) and against Bush's lowered tax rates (which probably headed off a depression, following the bursting of the worst stock market bubble since the Great Depression). In all of this, Casey, while a social conservative, is lamentably acting in traditional Democratic fashion.

I'm not sure what to make of this new Democratic trend of trying to woo Red state voters on the "moral" issues. A Casey victory (and yes, against Santorum, he's clearly the better of two evils) would further the push for Democrats to hew closer to social conservatism. It will be interesting to see how far they feel they can go with this.

More Recent Postings
11/6/05 - 11/12/05

From Friday's New York Times, on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito:

David J. Stoll, the former Alito clerk who now works with Lambda Legal, said that like Justice O'Connor, Judge Alito would not bring any ideological agenda to cases. "I think he is fantastic," Mr. Stoll said.

I was skeptical at first, but the more I learn about him, the more I like him.

Update: Oh, never mind. Foolish me, actually believing something I read in the Times!

The victory of the Democrat in Virginia's governor's race will be seen as aiding moderate Southerners within the party, including that state's outgoing governor, presidential hopeful Mark Warner. Unfortunately, these Democrats are "moderates" not in terms of taxes and spending, but with regards to opposing civil unions and gay adoption. But the Washington Post misses that angle.

In California, moderate Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (who opposes gay marriage unless voter-approved but supports civil unions and gay adoption) was further weakened by his state's rejection of measures he backed to cap state spending and strip partisan lawmakers of their redistricting powers. Too bad.

As expected, Texas voters overwhelmingly approved, 76% to 24%, one of the nation's most sweeping constitutional bans on same-sex marriage (or anything remotely similar). That makes the Lone Star State the 19th to write anti-gay marriage prohibitions into its constitution. No anti-gay marriage initiative has yet failed to easily pass in a popular vote. In Maine, however, voters did reject a proposal to repeal the state's new gay-anti-discrimination law.

More: Tim Hulsey blogs on the Virginia governor's election, noting that winning Democrat Tim Kaine:

wore his Catholic religion on his sleeve, making sure to "out-Jesus" [Republican Jerry] Kilgore at every opportunity. He made a point of supporting an anti-Gay marriage amendment pending in next year's Virginia General Assembly (even though he has voiced his support for Gay-rights issues in the past). His campaign even engaged in some not-too-subtle Gay-baiting of the noticeably effeminate Kilgore.

On that last matter, there's more here.

So, is this the winning Democratic strategy? If Kaine's mentor, outgoing Gov. Mark Warner, bests Hillary for the Democratic presidential nod, will gay groups give him the same unconditional support they lavished on Kerry/Edwards even as the latter supported state amendments banning gay marriage?

You know the answer.

Recently I was given a copy of Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy by Peter Schweizer. It's a swift read that exposes many accounts of liberal arrogance. In one chapter Schweizer looks at left-wing talk show host (and former Saturday Night Live head writer) Al Franken, who in the past didn't shy away from expressing his contempt toward gays.

Schweizer notes that Franken, while attending Harvard, had a skit rejected by that school's famed Hasting Pudding Club. Later, while writing for SNL in 1976, Franken was interviewed by the Harvard Crimson, which related the following:

He recalled writing a skit called "Seamen on Broadway" that was rejected from the Hasty Pudding show "by some preppie so they could take some other preppie's skit." Franken started to smile again, but his tone was serious, too serious. "It's not preppies, cause I'm a preppie myself. I just don't like homosexuals. If you ask me, they're all homosexuals in the Pudding. Hey, I was glad when that Pudding homosexual got killed in Philadelphia." The smile became so broad it pushed his eyes shut. He couldn't stand it any longer. "Put that in, put that in," Franken laughed, leaning over the desk. "I'd love to see that in The Crimson."

Gay Patriot has already picked up on this. I'll add that it was always pretty clear that Franken's SNL Stuart Smalley character (based on the real host of a New York City public access show) was brimming with contempt for effeminate gays. Franken has always, it now seems, been a hater.

More: Reader Curtis comments: "I don't know how anyone could read Franken's words and then defend his joking gleefully about a gay-bashing death (or so it certainly seems) as just his being 'ironic.' I was in college in 1976, and the campus leftists were very hostile toward gays. It wasn't until the '80s that gay leftists ingratiated themselves with the larger left, which decided all those gay foot soldiers could be useful."

That rings true to me, too.

And while I'm linking to Gay Patriot, he also has a nice posting on the foolish politics of gay activists who portray (literally!) George Bush as Adolf Hitler.

Dale Carpenter's guest blogging on same-sex marriage at volokh.com is done. Here are his concluding thoughts.

Jamie Kirchick has a column in this week's InNewsweekly that calls on American (and gay) supporters of the Palestinian cause to press for a rejection of extreme homophobia.