Will Opposing Civil Unions Advance Gay Marriage?

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In Connecticut, the Hartford Courant reports in "Tactic May Stall Bid For Civil Unions" that:

Connecticut appeared poised this year to become the first state to approve civil unions for same-sex couples without the threat of court intervention. But now the chances of passage have greatly dimmed as the result of a controversial decision by an influential gay rights group. Love Makes a Family began telling legislative allies Wednesday it is launching an all-or-nothing campaign for a same-sex marriage law.

It is a decision that puts the group at odds with legislative supporters, some of whom see Connecticut on the threshold of extending an important civil right.

Are gay-marriage activists right to oppose civil unions, even if they confer all the state benefits of marriage? How about statewide domestic partnership bills, as in California, that might offer many but not all spousal rights?

The Courant story also reports:

Rep. Cameron Staples, D-New Haven, said civil unions have picked up significant bipartisan support in the last two years, including an unexpected endorsement from one of the legislature's leading conservatives, House Minority Leader Robert Ward, R-North Branford. "We have a real opportunity to pass a civil union bill this year with all the rights of marriage. The position taken by Love Makes a Family puts that at risk," Staples said. "I was disappointed."

Love Makes a Family, a coalition of groups backing equal marriage rights for same-sex couples, always set marriage as its goal. What's new, legislators said, is the all-or-nothing strategy....

In a sense, this debate could be looked at as Vermont vs. Massachusetts. In the former, a comprehensive civil unions law was passed following a court order that gays be given equivalent rights; in the latter, the state's highest court ordered that gays be granted full marriage equality. The Massachusetts' ruling, however, unleashed a backlash that led many states to pass constitutional amendments barring both same-sex marriage and (in many instances) civil unions, and gave momentum to a federal constitutional amendment that would do the same.

In neither Vermont nor Massachusetts, let's note, do same-sex couples receive federal recognition or spousal rights. However, in an interesting development, this week Wal-Mart (one of the nation's largest employers) expanded its definition of "immediate family" to include an employee's same-sex partner in states that recognize either domestic partnerships and civil unions. Once again, private employers go where government fears to tread.

Given how deeply conservative and fearful the nation is on the issue of marriage - even Kerry-voting Oregon voted overwhelmingly to ban gay marriage - supporting civil unions as an initial step doesn't seem imprudent (how's that for a definitive position!). As noted before, the Netherlands and Belgium both began with civil-union-like partnerships; after people became comfortable with them, it was easier to then grant gays full marriage access.

(Newly posted on this site, John Corvino further makes a case for civil unions.)

Canada, of course, looks like it may skip the civil unions phase and go straight (so to speak) to same-sex marriage. But the U.S. is most certainly not Canada, and one reason Canada may grant marriage rights is to further poke its nose at the U.S.

In Connecticut, if it turns out that the civil unions bill on the verge of passing is pulled for lack of gay activists' support, and if no marriage bill is subsequently passed (and I believe it very unlikely one would be), it will stand as a lesson for others facing the same choice elsewhere.

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Social Conservatives’ Misplaced Priorities.

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"A coalition of major conservative Christian groups is threatening to withhold support for President Bush's plans to remake Social Security unless Mr. Bush vigorously champions a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage," reports the New York Times.

The letter, dated Jan. 18 and addressed to the administration's lead political strategist, Karl Rove, was sent by a coalition known as the Arlington Group. Last November, MSNBC reported that the Arlington Group "unites the heads of almost every major political advocacy organization on the Christian right, including James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Gary Bauer of American Values, Bill Bennett of Empower America, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Sandy Rios of Concerned Women for America and Paul Weyrich of the Free Congress Foundation."

The Arlington Group expressed disappointment with the White House's decision to put Social Security and other economic issues ahead of its paramount interest: opposition to same-sex marriage. Referencing President Bush's recent statement that "nothing will happen" on the marriage amendment for now because many senators did not see the need for it, the group's letter threatens:

When the administration adopts a defeatist attitude on an issue that is at the top of our agenda [banning same-sex marriage], it becomes impossible for us to unite our movement on an issue such as Social Security privatization where there are already deep misgivings.

The letter also whined that in an interview before the election President Bush "appeared to endorse civil unions" for same-sex couples, something the left-gays at the Human Rights Campaign have still not acknowledged.

In response to the letter, the Log Cabin Republicans issued a statement saying:

The Arlington Group should stop using political blackmail to push a divisive Constitutional amendment that failed by wide margins last year in both houses of Congress. Instead they should join with other conservative and Republican groups in supporting the GOP's reform agenda.

The statement also quoted LCR President Patrick Guerriero saying:

The creation of personal savings accounts is a tremendous opportunity for the Republican Party to build an ownership society. I hope the Arlington Group joins Log Cabin and dozens of other grassroots conservative organizations in fully supporting Republican efforts to save Social Security.

I'm glad that, at least this time, it's Log Cabin that's standing by the administration and building bridges while the one-issue focused social conservatives are refusing to play if they don't get their way.

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Civil Rights in Black and Tan

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First published January 27, 2005, in Bay Windows.

Back in the days of racial segregation, clubs known as "black-and-tan clubs" arose in many cities, where black and white people intermingled despite the taboos of the day. Gay people of different colors often frequented those clubs because they felt at home. The proprietor of one such club was Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion, who openly consorted with white women despite frequent death threats.

Johnson and those clubs came to mind as I read the recent essay "How To Survive In 2005: A Message to the LGBT Leadership" by Jasmyne Cannick. Ms. Cannick is a board member of the National Black Justice Coalition, a black gay rights group organized in 2003. I was reminded of the black-and-tan clubs because of how far away they seem amid the racial mistrust reflected by Cannick. (For a different take on Cannick's essay, see "Black Voices Needed In Gay Rights Movement.")

Don't get me wrong. Cannick's essay has much to recommend it. In 2004, she notes, "Black pastors were being used by right-wing conservatives" in the fight against same-sex marriage. I call this their search for camouflage in the culture war. As Cannick correctly states, "The LGBT community cannot push forward without gays of color and together we need to develop a strategy that works towards addressing LGBT issues in all communities."

One jarring note in Cannick's essay is the essential otherness she conveys about black gay people, such as by using "same-gender-loving" instead of "gay," which is now treated in some circles as a white cultural construct rather than simply a word for same-sex orientation. More troubling is the sweeping generalization displayed by her statement, "I don't ever want to see a white gay man stand before a camera again and equate his struggle to the Black civil-rights movement."

Since Cannick is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists, she must be familiar with journalism's five Ws: Who, What, When, Where, and Why - unless these too represent a white standard that does not apply to black people. Who exactly among the population of white gay men has equated (not just compared) gay rights with the black civil rights movement? When did they do so, and with what exact words? Doesn't the legacy of the civil rights movement belong to everyone, and isn't some comparison legitimate despite the differences between the two movements? What specific organizations have denied what specific black people "the same salary, benefits and support" as white employees, as Cannick claims? What complaints or lawsuits were filed in response to this illegal discrimination? The devil is in the details.

Is there no white person in the entire gay movement that Cannick is willing to give any credit? If not, that suggests we have made no progress despite discussing racism in the gay community for decades. If the situation is as hopeless as that, why keep bothering? In fact, however, this tactic of blaming white people works all too well. Race-baiting, and in general using the language of designated victims and designated oppressors, is effective in putting people on the defensive. But lumping all white people in the same category hardly seems conducive to racial justice.

The voices of Cannick and her same-gender-loving colleagues are very much needed in the fight against the theocratic Christian Right, particularly given the Right's attempt to hijack, in the cause of intolerance, the very churches in which the civil rights movement was organized. But the raising of those voices does not require the silencing of white ones. The national conversation that we need on gay rights is a multifaceted one crossing all of the cultural fault lines in our nation - lines that also cut across the gay community. Our inevitable mistakes can be pointed out without injecting the poison of a generalized racial suspicion that discourages conversations rather than encouraging them.

Jack Johnson's confident, taunting smile in the boxing ring, preserved on film in 1910 and featured in the new Ken Burns documentary Unforgivable Blackness, outshines all his persecutors who correctly saw his defiant excellence as a threat to white supremacy. It is that excellence, not grievances and demands, that marks the path toward overcoming racial injustice. A true leader does not merely demand respect, but commands it. When the negative and lecturing tone addressed to the demonized specter of "white gay men" - so popular with Cannick and others and so unproductive - is replaced by the assertive and confident smile of a champion, then we will know that Jack Johnson's ghost is once again in the house. And the black-and-tan club will be back in business.

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Lincoln May Well Have Been Gay…

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First published January 26, 2005, in the Chicago Free Press.

C. A. Tripp's posthumously published book The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln has caused considerable controversy for its presentation of extensive historical and psychologically penetrating evidence that Lincoln was bisexual and probably predominantly homosexual.

Tripp argues: that Lincoln did not want to marry, married only for political purposes and the marriage was a disaster, that he far preferred the company of men to women, that early puberty like Lincoln's correlates with greater homosexuality, that Lincoln's known sleeping arrangements with at last three men (Greene, Speed and Derickson) and perhaps a fourth (Ellis) strongly suggest sexual intimacy and that he was infatuated with a fifth man (Ellsworth).

New York Times reviewer Richard Brookhiser cautiously accepted Tripp's view, as did historical novelist Gore Vidal writing in Vanity Fair Online. But in a 13-page "Respectful Dissent" at the end of Tripp's book, Lincoln scholar Michael Burlingame asserts that Tripp "does a disservice to history for the evidence Dr. Tripp adduced fails to support his case."

And in a vengeful 6,500-word attack published in the anti-gay Weekly Standard, Tripp's former editorial assistant Philip Nobile called the book "a hoax and a fraud," claiming that Tripp "massaged favorable indicators, buried negative ones, and papered over holes in his story with inventions."

Although not all of Tripp's interpretations are equally convincing, and critics have pointed to some apparent errors, the critics seem to make mistakes of their own, misread what Tripp wrote, pick on insubstantial disagreements and demonstrate strong resistance to the idea that male intimacy might involve anything like homosexuality.

But what would convince doubters like the Lincoln expert who told Tripp he would not believe Lincoln were gay even if Lincoln himself told him so? There are no photographs of Lincoln in bed with a man, no surviving letters discussing sexual episodes. So we have to search for previously overlooked indications in contemporary records and recollections.

But most of us are not scholars of the vast and contradictory literature about Lincoln so all we can do is see how well the objections of Tripp's critics hold up under careful scrutiny. So far, not well. Some examples: Tripp notes that immediately upon meeting Lincoln Joshua Speed invited him to sleep in the same bed with him, which Lincoln then did for four years. Critics object that it was common for men to sleep in the same bed for short periods or when traveling. Tripp himself explicitly acknowledges just that fully four times (pp. xxix, 30, 47, 128), but Tripp adds, "though to stay on for years was not."

Tripp says that Speed was the only person on whom Lincoln "repeatedly lavished his most personal and most endearing 'Yours forever' " in his letters. Critics countered that Lincoln used the closing in letters to six other men. But Tripp's point is that Lincoln used it "repeatedly" with Speed but rarely with others - and never with women.

Citing a comment about Lincoln's lanky frame by a man who met him when Lincoln was 10, Tripp places Lincoln's puberty at a remarkably early 9 or 10, and points out that Kinsey's found that men with very earlier puberty had higher rates of homosexuality.

Nobile complains that Tripp's source is unclear about the age for Lincoln's sudden growth. But the chart on page 35 shows little difference in the incidence of homosexuality between men who reached puberty at ages of 10 or 12, so even if Tripp misread his source, his point remains valid.

Billy Greene told an early Lincoln biographer that he thought Lincoln was "well and firmly built: his thighs were as perfect as a human being could be." The two men regularly shared a cot "so narrow that when one turned over the other had to do likewise," Greene said.

As the critics argue, Tripp may over-interpret Greene comment about Lincoln's thighs as indicating a preference for femoral intercourse. But the sleeping arrangement itself implies close intimacy. And how often do heterosexual men comment on another man's "perfect thighs"?

Contrary to the critics, Tripp makes no claim that Lincoln had sexual contact with the "definitely and explicitly heterosexual" Elmer Ellsworth. But Lincoln was clearly infatuated, probably in love with him. That is as significant in assessing Lincoln's orientation as sexual contact.

Lincoln had "a special interest" in Ellsworth, one friend wrote, intrigued to lure him to Springfield and called him "the greatest little man I ever met." On becoming President, Lincoln obtained preferential assignments for him and when Ellsworth was killed early in the Civil War Lincoln was inconsolable. Finally, it is reliably reported that Lincoln particularly befriended one of his security detail, David Derickson, and often invited him to share his bed - when Mary was out of town. But Lincoln and his wife slept in separate bedrooms, so Lincoln cannot have just wanted to remedy an unaccustomed solitude in bed. He must have wanted Mary not to notice.

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Welfare on Demand/Good;Marriage & Fatherhood/Bad.

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An e-mailed press release from the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force hypes "Why Welfare Reform Is a Queer Issue," a panel and "speak out" to be held at NYC's LGBT Community Center on Jan. 26. On the agenda, NGLTF's Jason Cianciotto will explain the "overt homophobia in welfare - abstinence promotion, marriage promotion, fatherhood initiatives." Also according to the press release:

Policy experts will address the harmful impact of the 1996 welfare reform laws on the LGBT community and what's in store for the LGBT community with reauthorization.... Discussion will include how new welfare proposals increase funding for homophobic policies like marriage promotion and fatherhood initiatives.

I remember how when Clinton signed the GOP welfare reform bill requiring able-bodied, long-term welfare recipients to take available jobs, left-liberals predicted our nation would again be filled with Hoovervilles (i.e., homeless tent cities). Instead, a record number of long-term welfare recipients actually (gasp) took jobs.

As for welfare reform being anti-LGBT because it promotes marriage and fatherhood, one could certainly argue that not allowing gays to marry increases the liklihood that poor gays would need welfare, since studies show married couples are better able to lift themselves out of poverty. But I suspect we're actually seeing a hint of what the activists at NGLTF actually feel - marriage itself is an oppressive institution, so encouraging folks to marry (and, especially, encouraging single mothers to marry one of their children's fathers) simply reinforces the evils of patriarchy.

Update: If you haven't done so, click below and read the comments posted on this item. We don't always get intelligent debate; this time we did.

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Mormon Non-Marriage.

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No, not polygamy. But a bill granting some marriage-like rights passed Utah's state senate, reports the Salt Lake Tribune. The bill, for example, would

...allow two adults - be it a same-sex couple or a grandmother and granddaughter - to register with the state Health Department and check which benefits they want, including hospital visitation privileges and inheritance....

In addition to granting hospital-visitation rights and inheritance benefits to those who register for reciprocal rights, the bill would allow them to make organ-donation decisions, make funeral arrangements and also make emergency medical choices for the other person.

The bill comes less than three months after voters overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and restrict benefits in any "domestic union" outside marriage.

Now, one could argue that allowing a man to "reciprocal partner" with his grandmother is far more likely to weaken traditional marriage than letting two unrelated gay adults wed. But being optimistic, maybe if people get used to same-sex couples "reciprocal partnering," it would make them less fearful of same-sex marriage (or at least civil unons!) - even in Utah.

Update: Well, so much for that, as Utah lawmakers kill partners bill.

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More on the Media and ‘Gay Lincoln.’

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A follow-up on responses from left and right to the controversial "gay Lincoln" theory. Columnist Doug Ireland, gay and of the left, writes that a grotesque Lincoln cartoon in The Nation, the leading leftwing political magazine, "showing Lincoln's head on a woman's body with an ample, protruding bosom and dressed scantily in 19th century women's lingerie," is much worse than even the rightwing Weekly Standard's gay-stereotype Lincoln cover. And it is. Scroll down Ireland's blog and take a look.

More Recent Postings
1/16/05 - 1/22/05

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On Freedom.

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I've been out of town with limited computer access these past few days, which explains the lack of postings. I hope to get caught up next week. But I did want to check in and note a few passing thoughts.

On Bush's inaugural theme of freedom and liberty: It's easy to point out the obvious - he wants to deny gay couples the freedom to marry. True enough, but endorsing individual freedom as the foundation for social advancement is still worth celebrating, and Bush's rhetoric can be used to hold the GOP accountable when it attempts to use the power of the state to elevate the prejudices of the majority over the rights of all to equal treatment under the law (including the right to equal participation in the institutions created or regulated by the state). Remember, Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder but his proclamation that "all men are created equal" nevertheless provided the inspiration to abolish slavery.

But by the same token, freedom also means free individuals may choose with whom they wish to affiliate and associate in the private sphere, and the state should not intervene even if private country clubs choose to discriminate against gays and not recognize gay families. That is simply one of the tradeoffs of freedom.

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A Path Ahead?

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Rich Tafel's blog reports on a local GOP event where Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie was asked, by Republican Unity Coalition founder Charles Francis, about the place of gays in an inclusive GOP. Rich writes:

Gillespie went on to explain that the GOP needed to reach out to all groups if the party is to become a majority party....My impression is that the Republican leaders are looking for opportunities to mend fences with gays in the party....For gays to move forward they'll need to educate those who don't understand us in the same way the Gillespie's father educated him about the immigration issue. It looks like there are opportunities now to build bridges between gay Republicans and the GOP.

That's a hopeful message for inauguration week, but time will tell whether the GOP's leadership is intent on becoming a big tent, or just blowing smoke.

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Oprah Nation.

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On Martin Luther King Day, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" focused on Nate Berkus, a regular guest who talks about interior design, and who just survived the tsunami disaster in Sri Lanka. Sadly, his partner, photographer Fernando Bengoechea, was lost in the waves. Berkus told a very moving story of fighting to stay together and cling to one another as they were both swept into the ocean, and then being pulled apart by the water's force. Many in the audience wept. It was Oprah's highest rated show of the season, and another example of how Americans from all walks are getting to know gay people and our lives.

Update: Writing in Salon, Jennifer Buckendorff's "The Oprah Way" explains why "to change people's minds on issues like gay marriage, liberals [I'd say supporters of gay equality] need to learn to tug at their heartstrings."

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