Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: The “Worst Insult”?

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The Washington Blade has one of the better roundups on Iraqi prisoner abuse. A recent letter chides us for not doing more about the scandal, and I hope our IGF writers will give it the sort of thoughtful analysis this story calls for. In the meantime, I'll just say that the events at Abu Ghraib prison -- where Iraqi prisoners were photographed naked, forced to simulate gay sex, and otherwise humiliated and abused -- exposes many levels of sexual twistedness all round: The U.S. military, whose guards (and possibly prison administrators) consider gay sex the ultimate in humiliation/emasculation, and the Iraqi insurgents/terrorists, who consider gay sex the ultimate in humiliation/emasculation. As one prisoner who was stripped told the Associated Press (this from the Blade account), "They wanted us to feel as though we were women, the way women feel, and this is the worst insult, to feel like a woman."

At this point, we have pictures (and admissions by the U.S. military) of such things as prisoners being striped, posed as if having gay sex, forced to form a naked pyramid, being tied up and pulled on a leash, and being forced to crawl naked along the floor. This is abuse and mistreatment, to be sure, but is it "torture," as some in the media and the anti-war camp have labeled it (e.g., Seymour Hersh's "Torture at Abu Ghraib" in The New Yorker)?

Well, if some of the accusations, to date unsubstantiated, about actual sodomy/rape or even murder prove true, then yes, it's torture. But if it's being stripped and posed and forced to crawl, then I think the use of the word "torture" also signifies on the part of the media (and some war critics) the view that being forced to simulate gay sex is the very worst than can be done to a man -- apparently equivalent to the actual physical torture that Saddam inflicted year after blood-curdling year on innocent dissidents in the same prison. (Again, I say this about the events we have proof of -- not the as of now unproved allegations).

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5/02/04 - 5/08/04

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With Friends Like These…

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The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) this week issued a statement criticizing Democrats for their lukewarm opposition to the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment. That's good, but the NGLTF statement, titled "That's What Friends Are For - Where are Democrats on the Federal Marriage Amendment?," starts off in typical fashion with a laundry lists of complaints against the Bush administration that has nothing to do with gays. Instead, NGLTF's Matt Foreman writes:

"You've got to hand it to the Bush administration: they take care of their own. Wealthy folks have received tax breaks; Star Wars defense contractors are reaping billions; pollution controls on business are being eased; national forests have been opened to logging."

Thus having shown the GOP that there's no way short of hell freezing over that gays (on behalf of whom NGLTF claims to speak) would ever support their party, regardless of the Republicans' stance on gay rights, NGLTF then criticizes the Democrats for not scuttling the Federal Marriage Amendment despite overwhelming gay support for their party:

"[K]illing the amendment requires only 34 votes, and there are 48 Democrats, five of whom are retiring at the end of this year. In other words, every single Democratic Senator considered "at risk" this fall could be "let off the hook" on this vote, if necessary, and the amendment would still be defeated. ...

" I don't understand why our community should have to spend one more hour, one more dime, make one more phone call or write one more letter to make sure an anti-gay, anti-marriage constitutional amendment is dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate. ...

"We thought we could help head this off and give some cover to those now getting squishy on us by getting a few senators from safe (let me say SAFE) seats not up for election this year to say unambiguously that they would oppose any amendment seeking to restrict marriage rights. ... Turns out not even THEY would come through."

But here's a point worth noting: no Democrat reading the NGLTF statement, which equates gay interests with the whole left-wing political agenda, would ever fear that gays would abandon the party that stands against Bush's tax cuts, military spending, and attempts to loosen excessive business and environmental regulation, no matter what the Democrats do or don't do as regards the Federal Marriage Amendment. Thus does NGLTF undercut its own efforts.

[Addendum]: It occurs to me on re-reading this piece that NGLTF's statement is an excellent example of a near-total lack of understanding about market economics. Metaphorically, in a town with just two grocery stores, Foreman is telling the managers of the Red Supermarket that we will never shop with you (and cursed be anyone who does), while complaining to the managers of the Blue Supermarket that their customer service stinks.

Heritage Relents.

The Heritage Foundation has, apparently, removed Paul Cameron's pseudo-scientific studies from its research database (see Wednesday's item, "Shameful Heritage'). Andrew Sullivan and others had also called Heritage to task over its inclusion of Cameron's crank polemics as if they represented legitimate social science research on homosexuality. Sometimes, embarassment works.

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Guns, Gays, and Propaganda

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First published on May 7, 2004, in the Chicago Free Press.

In the middle of April, Vice President Dick Cheney addressed the National Rifle Association to endorse preservation of the Second Amendment, which asserts - in case you've forgotten - "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."

Even before Cheney had spoken a word, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation rushed to issue a press release pointing to what it said was an inconsistency in the Bush administration's position: "As the administration appears to support the Second Amendment, on the one hand, it is attempting to deface the Constitution by promoting an anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment on the other hand, forever enshrining second-class citizen status for LGBT people."

Fair enough. Wanting to preserve a constitutional right does not seem quite consistent with wanting to add an amendment to inhibit a right. But GLAAD did not stop there. It went on to quote spokespeople for various gay groups attacking the NRA, firearms, and firearm ownership. For instance:

  • Gay Men of African Descent: "The NRA and its members represent the devaluation of human life on a number of levels. The organization perpetuates a culture of violence that in no small way affects vulnerable communities (i.e., communities of color and the LGBT community)."
  • Mano A Mano: "It sends a very clear message to those that would suffer under the policies that the NRA advocates that this administration does not care about us or the issues that daily (affect) our lives."
  • The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs: "Firearms are America's true 'weapons of mass destruction.'...Firearms are increasingly used in anti-LGBT hate crimes and have long been the scourge of urban and other communities."

GLAAD itself does not argue that guns and gun-ownership are bad. But by quoting exclusively and extensively the anti-gun positions of other groups, GLAAD clearly indicates which side it is on. And thereby it also demonstrates that it is not really worried about inconsistencies.

Each of the groups GLAAD quotes seem to believe personal gun ownership should be banned or regulated into meaninglessness - negating the Second Amendment - but the Constitution should not ban gays from marrying. In other words, they are saying that it is right to be inconsistent but the administration has the wrong inconsistency.

So GLAAD is not being honest here. If it were really concerned about inconsistency, the way to remove the inconsistency is to say, "Yes, we fully support people's right to own guns and we support the right of gays to marry. We don't want to take away rights from anybody and neither should the administration." Did GLAAD breathe a word of that? Not a peep.

But there are quite a number of gays and lesbians who hold exactly that view. Among them, the libertarian Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberty, most Log Cabin Republican clubs, and, most conspicuously, the members of the more than 40 Pink Pistols clubs - gays and lesbians who meet regularly to train in firearm use and practice target shooting. Did GLAAD quote any of them? Don't be silly.

Since its inception GLAAD has demanded "fair, accurate and inclusive" coverage of gays from the mainstream media. But GLAAD seems to feel itself under no obligation to be "fair, accurate and inclusive." It is perfectly willing to promote a highly distorted impression of the range of opinion in the gay community, perfectly willing to include and exclude according to its preference. How convenient.

When I asked GLAAD about their one-sided approach their reply was, more or less, that they included the groups they wanted to include and they can do whatever they want, thank you very much, good-bye.

But it is a great shame that GLAAD rejected an excellent opportunity to show the large number of Americans who support personal gun ownership that gays are not their enemy, that we share their concern for personal rights, and that just as our regard for consistency leads us to support their rights the same regard for consistency could lead them to support ours as well as their own.

And, of course, GLAAD could also have made the excellent point that some gays not only support gun ownership out of a regard for philosophical consistency but own guns themselves out of a concern for personal safety or because, like other gun owners, they find target shooting enjoyable recreation.

But no. GLAAD knows how to create and reinforce divisions, not break them down. It knows how to make enemies. It does not know how to reach out and make new friends, though we certainly need some at this point.

It is striking that GLAAD, here as so often, portrays gays only as victims, unable or unwilling to take measures to prevent physical assaults, instead of men and women capable of taking responsibility for their own safety and doing something proactive to protect themselves. So GLAAD certainly knows how to promote outdated stereotypes about gays.

And, of course, send welcome news to gay bashers.

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Shameful Heritage.

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The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that's more or less in the mainstream rather than on the far edges of the right, and which enjoys close ties to the Bush administration, has launched a research database for conservative policy wonks. Naturally, they devote an entire section to "homosexuality." And what passes for solid social science research at Heritage these days? How about at least two pieces by the king of social science falsification, Paul Cameron.

As you may recall, we have posted a few pieces revealing what a scurrilous creature Cameron is, including "Queer Science" by Mark E. Pietrzyk (originally published in the New Republic). Excerpt:

Cameron himself is also a demonizer of gays: several times he has proposed the tattooing and quarantining of AIDS patients and raised the possibility of exterminating male homosexuals. Most important, he is the architect of unreliable "surveys" that purport to show strains of violence and depravity in gay life.

And Walter Olson, writing on "Phony Statistics," notes:

Cameron resigned under fire from the American Psychological Association and was later formally terminated from membership following complaints about his research methods. He has had run-ins with other professional groups, including the Nebraska Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association.

So maybe Heritage isn't so mainstream after all.

Informed Chat.

Our own Jon Rauch had an online chat this week with readers of the Washington Post. An excerpt:

I favor going a state at a time with gay marriage. Let it start out where it has social support. Then it has the best shot at working. And as the rest of the country sees that the sky doesn't fall and in fact marriage is strengthened, GM will win not just legal but also social acceptance.

Which is like getting a bicycle instead of a unicycle.

Click here to read more.

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Just Another Week.

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Take a look at some of the family developments so far week (via links to 365gay.com):

  • In Idaho, the state Supreme Court heard the case of a father who lost custody of his two children because he's gay, and who was then denied visitation rights with his kids as long as he lived with his same-sex partner.
  • In Washington state, an appeals court ordered a new trial for a woman denied co-parental rights for the little girl she helped raise.
  • In Kansas, legislators rejected a proposed amendment to the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage. The state, however, already has a Defense of Marriage Act that limits marriage to a man and a woman.
  • In Oklahoma, the governor signed legislation barring state recognition of adoptions by gay couples from out of state. Same-sex Oklahoma couples were already prevented from adopting. Apparently, this law could nullify parental rights and obligations if same-sex couples who jointly adopted a child move to the OK state, turning the child into an orphan.

All this while Massachusetts prepares, against its governor's will, to officially recognize same-sex marriages at the state level. It's quite a crazy quilt, but not too long ago some states allowed women's suffrage while others didn't. And, for that matter, slave and abolition states uncomfortably existed for nearly a century in the same federal union. Which is simply to say that justice is going to come at different times to different parts of the nation, mixed with hefty doses of imbecilic, family-nullifying reaction delivered by hypocritically "pro-family" demagogues. Get used to it.

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A Certificate — Not a Ceremony

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First published on May 4, 2004, in the Rutland Herald.

The challenge for supporters of same-sex marriage is much greater than obtaining access to civil marriage for gay Americans. Supporters must help all Americans distinguish between marriage and a marriage ceremony. And the way to do this is to ensure that the civil certification of marriage looks radically different than the ceremonial celebration of marriage.

I recall a former ministerial colleague's pithy words about the role a pastor plays in the life of a church member. The minister is there when a person is hatched, matched and dispatched. People turn to religion, he was telling me, in order to mark births, marriages and deaths. The state, as it happens, is also present at each of those moments. But what the state does is quite different from what the church does.

Consider what happens when a person is hatched. There was a time when churches provided the sole record of a child's birth. In places where those records are incomplete or lost, we are left to conjecture when people from past centuries were born. If people didn't go to church at all, their births could go unrecorded. The state took over this bookkeeping function from the church in order to keep track of people (likely for tax purposes) and has never looked back.

But the church has not ceased to celebrate births just because the state issues birth certificates. Rather, there is the infant dedication or baptism (or, in the case of Jewish male infants, the bris), where the newborn is brought into the faith community. There is no competition between church and state, because we accept the bookkeeping function of the state as independent from the ceremonial life of the faithful.

The same distinction happens when a person is dispatched. The coroner expedites the paperwork for a death certificate, and the funeral director secures a burial license. Once again, these are bookkeeping tasks that the state has assumed from the church, whose bookkeeping was spotty. But the state's role does not supersede the work of the fait+hful. There is no state requirement that a family sit shiva for the departed; death certificates do not require funeral or memorial services in order to make them valid. The faith community marks death with its own distinct set of rituals. And most of us would revolt if the state dictated what our rituals should look like.

Here is where marriage runs afoul of both church and state. In Vermont, the law requires that a marriage be solemnized in order to validate a marriage. While there is no specification of what constitutes an acceptable solemnization, the language is clear: The state requires a marriage ceremony in order for a marriage to have legal force.

There are many good reasons to have a marriage ceremony. It allows the couple to share their joy and love with us. It allows us to show our support for the couple. It even provides an opportunity, if we take our responsibility seriously, to express our concerns and tell the couple we think they're making a terrible mistake ("speak now or forever hold your peace"). It turns a marriage into a communal event.

This would all be well and good if the law held the community accountable for a marriage. But the law does not. When a marriage ends, the community usually does not gather before the magistrate (unless it's a celebrity divorce). This is because marriage gives two individuals rights and responsibilities and obligations.

This would also be well and good if the marriage ceremony had no religious connotations. But with all the talk about the sanctity of marriage and its status as a sacred institution, it is obvious that a great number of Americans fail to distinguish between the marriage ceremony and marriage.

Thus, there ought to be a sharper line between the two. If the state wishes to retain the requirement of solemnization, the state, not the church, should do the solemnizing. Couples who want to marry should be required to retain the services of a public official, who will certify the marriage. If there is concern that marriages may be contracted in haste, the state can institute a waiting period or require proof of pre-marital counseling. But the larger point is: Legally speaking, the couple should be married by the state, separate from whatever marriage ceremony the couple may also choose to have, either before or after the legal certification of marriage by public officials.

As we debate same-sex marriage in America, the issue should not be whether gay men and lesbians will redefine marriage as we know it. The issue should be whether we are willing to redefine the certification of marriage. The separation of the marriage certificate from the marriage ceremony parallels the separation of the birth certificate from infant baptism and the separation of the death certificate from the funeral service. This is the direction we should take when two individuals are matched, and the proponents of same-sex marriage need to lead the way.

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Marriage Day: A Few Weeks Away

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"May 17 will change the world for lesbians and gays, for better, or for worse," reports the San Francisco Chronicle in this comprehensive wrap-up on Massachusetts, where the upcoming, first ever, state-sanctioned gay marriages in the United States will take place:

The Massachusetts marriages are clearly a turning point. Unlike San Francisco's February flurry of issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, which are on hold until the courts resolve their legality, these will be fully legal and may be accepted in a handful of other states such as New York.

Further notes the Chron, however:

Gay activists said that while publicly they will attempt to play up the celebrations, they are also watching what one called an "intense backlash" not witnessed even when women sought the right to vote or African Americans pushed for the end of Jim Crow.

There's no attribution for who actually offered this position, but it's clearly wrong-headed. Neither women's suffrage nor civil rights were won without years of intense struggle against a brutally hostile populace that was eventually won over. Life's just not that easy.

I like, however, that the article reports that:

The state's Republican governor, Mitt Romney, promises to enforce a 1913 miscegenation statute that voids marriages conducted in Massachusetts for out-of-state same-sex couples if that marriage would not be accepted in their home state. Several county clerks have said they will refuse to enforce the 1913 law.

Could there be a better, or worse, metaphor for those opposed to same-sex marriage than trying to bring back to life a miscegenation statute? Apparently, the symbolism hasn't gotten through to them, alas.

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Courts vs. Legislatures, Again

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Opining in The New Republic, Jeffrey Rosen joins those same-sex marriage supporters who argue for legislative over judicial action: He writes:

The experience in Europe suggests that, when victories for gay equality come from legislatures rather than courts, they can eventually grow into something more: The legislature in the Netherlands initially recognized civil unions and, several years later, granted gays and lesbians the full benefits of marriage. Unless they are forced by courts to recognize gay marriage before the public is ready, state legislatures may move through the same progression, recognizing first civil unions and eventually gay marriage. For the moment, the best thing for judges to do is the thing they're most likely to do, which is very little.

As I said earlier, there's a valid point here, and in many jurisdictions we're too quick to seek judicial solutions rather than striving to win popular support. On the other hand, would African-Americans still be waiting for government-decreed segregation to end in the South if the courts hadn't interceded to ensure legal equality for a minority against majority animus? (Oops, just ticked off all those black, anti-gay "civil rights leaders" again.)

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Political Support a One-Way Street?

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There's an intriguing story in the Washington Blade this week focusing on Virginia, where the state's GOP-controlled legislature passed legislation that not only bans recognition of same-sex marriage and civil unions, but also bans recognition of legal contracts between same-sex partners intended to confer marriage-like rights. Virginia's Democratic governor, Mark Warner, had sought to strip the contract-banning provisions from the anti-gay bill while supporting the civil union and marriage ban, but when the legislature added these back in he signed the bill into law anyway. Had he used his veto, chances are it would have been overridden, but he would at least have made a clear statement against bigotry and discrimination.

The Blade reports in "Lobbying Effort Faulted in Va. Fight" that Equality Virginia, the state's LGBT lobby, never asked Virginia's Democratic Party to help it work against this legislation:

"The thought of involving Virginia's Democratic Party, within walking distance from Equality Virginia, to lean on House and Senate Democrats, never occurred to [Equity Virginia's Dyana] Mason. 'I"ve contacted them in the past, but never followed up. We"ve always crossed in the night,' Mason said."

Given that Equality Virginia just about exclusively backs Democrats and enthusiastically worked for Gov. Warner's election, isn't some payback expected from the party machine? And no, I'm NOT excusing the Republican homophobes, the prime movers in this drama. But it's the Democrats that, overwhelmingly, get the gay vote and collect gay dollars. What's the point if that's just considered a freebie?

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4/25/04 - 5/01/04

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With Marriage an Option, Who Needs DP Benefits?

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Now that it's about to be legal for same-sex couples to marry in Massachusetts, some employers in the Bay State are eliminating domestic-partner benefits, requiring employees to say "I do" to their significant others if they want them to share their employer-provided family benefits such as health care coverage, reports the AP.

This, I believe, is appropriate. As I wrote a decade ago in a column title "Honey, Did You Raise the Kids?":

"Domestic partnership benefits should be a stopgap measure for gays and lesbians until we achieve full marriage rights (based on legally recognized commitments)."

I also argued that:

"Offering benefits to unmarried heterosexuals might in fact contribute to family breakdown by discouraging committed relationships."

I'd now change that, in Massachusetts at least, to read "unmarried heterosexuals and homosexuals.

The AP story says that Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, one of the state's largest employers, will drop domestic-partner benefits for Massachusetts residents at the end of this year:

"The original reason for domestic-partner benefits was to recognize that same-sex couples could not marry," Beth Israel spokesman Jerry Berger said. "Now that they can, they are essentially on the same footing as heterosexual couples."

That's about right (though gay couples will still lack the important federal benefits associated with marriage, from social security inheritance to naturalization of a foreign-born spouses). Still, there's no need for employers to continue paying for benefits to partners who shack up but can't quite make the commitment to the emotional, financial, and legal intermingling that full marriage entails.

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