IGF CultureWatch

Will everyone in California and around the country please take a deep breath? It appears gay groups and leaders, especially in California, badly misjudged the recent election recalling Democratic Governor Gray Davis and stridently overstated their case against his replacement, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. The recall was not about gay issues, it was about economics. And Schwarzenegger is in no sense "anti-gay," he's the kind of Republican who could help change the GOP for the better.

There were sensible reasons why a good citizen might have opposed the recall and might have been dubious about Schwarzenegger. The recall process undermines representative democracy, the basic design of our political system. There were also good reasons to be nervous about Schwarzenegger, a novice who offered generalizations as a platform.

But the fear that Schwarzenegger would bring a right-wing Black Death to gays, a fear expressed by some gay politicos during the campaign, was not sensible.

There were, first, the attempts by gay groups to use guilt-by-association arguments to dismiss the election as a "right-wing recall" because it was initially funded by a politician with anti-gay views. It was not that. In the end, the recall was supported by a strong majority of the state's voters in a high-turnout election. Solid blocs of Latinos, union members, the poor, and women supported it.

Even 42 percent of gay voters backed it in a state where they are probably even more liberal than elsewhere in the country. No wonder. The recall had nothing to do with voter resentment over social issues like domestic partnerships or gay rights generally. Not every election is about us.

There were, second, the hysterical denunciations of Schwarzenegger as some kind of crypto-fascist out to repeal all gay-rights laws and then perhaps to exterminate us. Openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano predicted that gay-friendly state laws "would be jeopardized." Geoff Kors, the leader of Equality California, the state-wide gay lobbying group, cautioned that a win for Schwarzenegger would "empower" the "right wing" to recall "not just the governor, but the gains we have made for LGBT civil rights during his administration." In a front-page story on the eve of the election, one gay newspaper published completely unsubstantiated, last-minute "rumors" by anonymous sources that Schwarzenegger "supported apartheid."

Hyperventilating harder than anyone else, however, was openly gay state assemblyman Mark Leno, who knows better. "Our community needs to come out and vote as if our lives depended on it," he warned, "because they do." Get that? Schwarzenegger is out to kill you.

All of this was at stark variance with the facts. Schwarzenegger is a moderate, even liberal, Republican on social issues like abortion and gay rights. A statement on his official campaign website affirmed this: "I am for equal rights for all," said the supposed Hitler wannabe. "I do believe that gay couples are entitled to full protection under the law and should not be discriminated against based on their relationship."

Sounds like support for anti-discrimination laws and for domestic partnerships to me, views Schwarzenegger repeated in live television interviews. It's no surprise that fully one-third of gays voted for Schwarzenegger. And even that number, relying on an exit survey of self-identified gays, is probably an undercount of the gay vote for Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger opposes gay marriage, true, but so do the leading Democratic contenders for president and so does Davis himself. It's also true that, again on the eve of the election, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Schwarzenegger "would not have signed" the comprehensive domestic-partners legislation recently enacted in California. But the story gave no source or rationale for this purported policy view, and I have seen no confirmation of it from Schwarzenegger's camp.

What counts now is whether Schwarzenegger would support a repeal of the new domestic-partners law, something being pushed by one of California's genuine far-right-wingers, State Sen. Pete Knight.

As of now, there is no reason to believe Schwarzenegger will back a repeal. He has publicly supported domestic partnerships. Further, he does not owe the far right anything; their candidate was social-conservative State Sen. Tom McClintock, who finished with just 13 percent of the vote compared to Schwarzenegger's 49 percent.

Many gay leaders and organizations in California and around the country seem to lack any understanding of the GOP, particularly the active struggle between those in the party who see no reason to hound gays and those who think they are commanded by God to do so. They have no appreciation of the significance of electing a gay-friendly Republican governor in the nation's most populous state. Schwarzenegger's election demonstrates how much the national party can gain by embracing a big-tent strategy.

Blind to this, gay organizations know only one rule: all Democrats good, all Republicans really bad.

This cartoonish world-view reminds me of what historian Richard Hofstadter had to say about the excesses of the far right in his 1964 book, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Extreme conservatives, he argued, took sound positions - like anti-Communism - and warped them into conspiratorial lunacy. The extremists lacked any sense of proportion.

When it comes to the GOP, gay activists often exhibit their own paranoid style. Reasonable concern about the party is morphed into take-no-prisoners rage. Where there is nuance, they see stealth. Where there is clear support, they see outright opposition. Where there are potential friends, they see bigots. Their paranoia is discrediting them, burning bridges, and hurting us.

First published October 15, 2003 in the Chicago Free Press.

The recall of California's Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and the election of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger as his replacement has a number of encouraging implications for the future of gay liberty and equality.

First off how did California gays and lesbians view the race? Based on 3,772 exit poll and 400 absentee voter interviews (4,172 total), 4 percent of voters were gay, lesbian or bisexual. We can assume this is an undercount since people in suburban, rural or conservative areas are more reluctant to disclose their orientation. So the gay vote was probably closer to 5 or 6 percent.

Of the 4 percent who said they were GLB, 58 percent opposed the recall of Davis. In their choice for a replacement candidate, a bare majority (52 percent) voted for Democrat Cruz Bustamante, 31 percent voted for Schwarzenegger, 9 percent for Arianna Huffington, and 4 percent for the conservative Republican Tom McClintock. That means 35 percent (technically, closer to 36 percent) voted for a GOP candidate. And (including Huffington) 60 percent voted for a Democrat.

If the actual gay vote was more than 4 percent it is plausible that people who were comfortable disclosing their orientation (living in big cities, having ample social support, etc.) were also more politically liberal and those less likely to disclose were more conservative. If so, then the actual gay vote for Schwarzenegger was indeterminately higher than 31 percent.

Schwarzenegger's position on gay issues is unknown. He is viewed as a social moderate/liberal given his support for abortion, limitations on guns, quasi-environmentalism, his dismissive comments about "religious fanatics" and vague statements that gays should be treated equally.

But how much equality he thinks gays should have is open to question. Whether he would have signed the state's new domestic partners law is doubtful. That he would support its repeal seems unlikely, however. For the moment, that is sufficient. The standard model is this: The Democrats advance gay equality, the Republicans confirm the advances when they do not repeal them.

That said, as with so many things affecting gays, we have to look beyond specifically gay issues to see how events such as Schwarzenegger's election affect gays indirectly, for instance, by tamping down anti-gay passions and promoting general tolerance and social moderation. While the defeat of a pro-gay Democrat is no doubt a loss for gay Californians, it seems outweighed by the sudden ascendancy of a social liberal Republican like Schwarzenegger in the nation's largest state.

One might even question whether Davis would have signed the comprehensive domestic partners bill had he not been desperately trying to hold onto his voter base among gays and liberals generally in the face of declining public support. It would be ironic if gay Californians owe their new partnership benefits largely to Schwarzenegger's rise in the pre-election polls.

However that may be, Schwarzenegger's election is a defeat for the conservative wing of California GOP. For years they rejected moderate Republicans and nominated socially conservative, anti-gay candidates who went on to lose.

Schwarzenegger proved that a social moderate Republican can win election. The conservative McClintock got only 13 percent of the total vote - and probably less than one-third of the GOP vote - so perhaps California Republicans have learned a useful lesson.

By the same token, Schwarzenegger's election weakens, perhaps fatally, the hold of anti-gay religious fanatics on their powerful institutional base in the California GOP. Lacking that amplifier, their legitimacy is diminished and their voice and cultural impact will be markedly reduced.

National GOP leaders are already trying to size up the message of Schwarzenegger's election. The New York Times quoted a conservative former GOP congressman and political commentator Joe Scarborough as approving a GOP strategy of moving toward the political center on social issues.

"I think the country right now continues to get more conservative on economic issues and more progressive on social issues, " Scarborough said. "I think Schwarzenegger is ahead of the curve. "

The political message for President George W. Bush is to emphasize the "compassion" - although that term reeks of condescension - in his conservatism. Anti-gay policies and rhetoric may solidify votes in the South, but those are states he can win anyway even if evangelicals stay home. In the rest of the country, especially California, an overtly anti-gay message is going to lose Bush many moderate and libertarian voters. If he wants to win in 2004, Bush will have to listen to what Schwarzenegger tells him.

In addition, Schwarzenegger's mere existence will probably reduce expressions of homophobia within the GOP. Every time some southern GOP Senate or House leader says something anti-gay, Schwarzenegger, as head of the nation's most populous state, will be able to remind them, "This is not going to fly in my state. " He may not even need to say anything. The mere knowledge that he was elected as a moderate may incline GOP leaders to weigh their words more carefully.

And that, of course, affects the national tone on homosexuality. Once politicians cease or curb their homophobia, zealot bishops and preachers are on their own, without further support or legitimization.

In October, the Yale Daily News reported that nearly half of the Yale Law School's professors plan to sue the Department of Defense over its campus recruiting policies. In their haste, they ought to heed the words of former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, a free speech champion. In the 1927 case Whitney v. California, Brandeis expressed in his concurring opinion what has emerged as an essential condition in First Amendment legal thinking: in heated disputes, "the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence." Unfortunately, certain members of the faculty are pursuing an illiberal agenda by attempting to prevent Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps recruiters from meeting with students on campus.

The military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy has inflamed a national controversy in which an anonymous group of law schools sued the Defense Department over the Solomon Amendment. They plan to argue that the 1995 federal statute, which requires universities receiving federal funds to allow military recruiters on campus, violates the free-speech principles of the Constitution. Liberals have embraced the issue of gays in the military as one of civil rights. With a pervasive distaste for the armed forces, it is easy for the Left to attack the military's policy on gays.

But what if the military's decision to prohibit open gays from serving, aside from its unseemly un-American quality, is detrimental to our national security? Last November, the military discharged seven Arab-speaking linguists because of their homosexuality. At a time when we are fighting an Arabic-speaking enemy and when the need for trained Arabic speakers is dire, the stupidity of this policy could not be clearer. It is not the military's concern who its translators sleep with, just that they speak their respective languages proficiently.

Frank Kameny, one of the first gay rights advocates and a veteran of World War II, offered a tongue-in-cheek yet logically argued response. "To lower the quality of our armed services is to give aid and comfort to our enemies. But under Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution. giving aid and comfort to the enemy is a definition of Treason - anyone who supports, administers, or is involved in the exclusion of gays from our armed services "is a traitor who should be indicted, prosecuted, tried, convicted, and hanged for Treason."

Conservatives trumpet their toughness on national security but most of them (with notable exceptions like the late Barry Goldwater) oppose allowing gays to serve openly, placing their anathema to gay people over the national interest. But militaries throughout the Western world allow gays to serve openly. Britain, Canada, France and Israel, a country that by necessity has one of the most effective fighting forces on earth, allow open homosexuals to serve. What makes gays in the military such a political hot potato here is the influence of the religious right, a phenomenon unique to America and a major factor contributing to the military's anti-gay policy.

But here at Yale, liberals are guilty of a similar ideological sin as their conservative opponents, for they, too, place dogma over the national interest. And by impeding students from seeking information on joining the JAG Corps, not only do they prevent our nation's military from attracting the best and brightest minds, they are also undermining the principles of the First Amendment.

It is surprising that so many professors from a school as prestigious as Yale Law would sign onto a lawsuit that rests on such problematic legal ground. No one has forbidden law students, faculty or the administration from speaking out against "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Thus it is difficult to understand how anyone's free-speech rights are being violated. Opponents of the Solomon Amendment can stand at the law school with camouflage gags symbolically placed in their mouths and hang black sheets in its hallways, but actively preventing students from seeking information about joining the armed forces is a different action entirely. If anything, it is Yale Law School that violates the free association and speech rights of the JAG representatives and the students who wish to meet with them.

Law students should have the same opportunity to receive information about the JAG Corps as they do to receive information about joining some big corporate law firm. It is not the University's role to tell its students who they can and cannot meet with on campus. To do so prevents the free flow of information and contradicts the mission of a discursive intellectual community. Yale University has a binding agreement when it accepts federal money. If Yale breaches the contract by refusing military recruiters the right to interview students on campus, then the University should not expect the government to fund this obstruction. Unless the professors can prove that the Solomon Amendment is forcing them to violate the Constitution, which they cannot, they will have no case.

In addition to the general anti-military sentiment that is so prevalent on this campus, now one may be labeled a "homophobe" if he merely wants to discuss job opportunities with a military recruiter in a law school classroom. Case in point: only one student signed up to meet with the JAG recruiter last week and that appointment was eventually cancelled.

From a tactical perspective, preventing military recruiters from meeting with students will not change the military's anti-gay policy and those advocates who so self-righteously believe that they are having an impact on this issue greatly exaggerate their own importance.

If gay advocates ever wish to change the military's unconscionable policy, they would be well advised to encourage, and not hamper, military recruitment at a socially progressive campus such as Yale. Gay writer Paul Varnell wrote earlier this year in the Chicago Free Press that banning Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs on campus, which Professor Donald Kagan said was "a stain on our record," has forestalled the revocation of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by discouraging those very heterosexuals who oppose the policy from joining the armed forces. "In short, " he writes, "the effect of banishing ROTC and military recruiting by the most liberal, gay-accepting colleges and universities was to increase the proportion of recruits and young officers who are less accepting of gays, whose college experience was unlikely to counter negative views of gays, and who do not want gays in the military." While claiming to be leading the fight for gay equality by snubbing their noses at the military, sympathizers of the gay cause are actually harming the movement's prospects.

It pains me to no end that a country that preaches equality has not fully accepted many of its own citizens into the fold. It is maddening that one of the greatest national institutions is not open to me simply because of who I am. But it would be selfish and self-aggrandizing to let my personal disagreement with the military's unfair policies get in the way of my peers who wish to seek information about serving their country. If the University itself were to join this lawsuit, an institution that touts its duty to produce public leaders would be thwarting that very ideal.

It didn't take long for many social conservatives to ponder the long-term implications of the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down all antisodomy laws in the U.S. Moves are afoot to advance a constitutional amendment that would bar any state's legalization of same-sex marriage; next week [October 12-18] is "Marriage Protection Week," in which the alleged danger of Lawrence v. Texas will be highlighted across the country. This push toward blanket prohibition, however, sidesteps a basic point about the post-Lawrence world. Whatever you feel about the reasoning of the decision, its result is clear: Gay Americans are no longer criminals. And very few conservatives want to keep them that way. The term "gay citizen" is now simply a fact of life.

In retrospect, this might be the most significant shift on the question of homosexuality in a generation. For if homosexuals are no longer criminals for having consensual private relationships, then they cannot be dismissed as somehow alien or peripheral to our civil society. Moreover, the social transformation of the last decade cannot simply be gainsaid: A poll this week for USA Today found that 67% of the 18-29 age group believe that gay marriage would benefit society. The public as a whole is evenly split on that issue. Many of the people favoring a new tolerance are Republicans and conservatives. And this is inevitable. When the daughter of the vice president is openly gay, it's hard to treat homosexual citizens as some permanent kind of Other, as a threat to civil order and society.

But if conservatives have now endorsed the notion of homosexuals as citizens, they haven't yet fully grasped the implications of that shift. Previously, social policy toward homosexuals was a function of either criminalization or avoidance. People who are either in jail or potentially subject to criminal sanction are already subject to a social policy of a sort. You may disagree with it, but it's social policy on the same lines as that toward drug users or speeders. It's a form of prohibitionism. But when all illegality is removed from gay people, as it has been, that social policy surely has to change.

So what is it? What exactly is the post-Lawrence conservative social policy toward homosexuals? Amazingly, the current answer is entirely a negative one. The majority of social conservatives oppose gay marriage; they oppose gay citizens serving their country in the military; they oppose gay citizens raising children; they oppose protecting gay citizens from workplace discrimination; they oppose including gays in hate-crime legislation, while including every other victimized group; they oppose civil unions; they oppose domestic partnerships; they oppose . . . well, they oppose, for the most part, every single practical measure that brings gay citizens into the mainstream of American life.

This is simply bizarre. Can you think of any other legal, noncriminal minority in society toward which social conservatives have nothing but a negative social policy? What other group in society do conservatives believe should be kept outside integrating social institutions? On what other issue do conservatives favor separatism over integration? We know, in short, what conservatives are against in this matter. But what exactly are they for?

Let me be practical here. If two lesbian women want to share financial responsibility for each other for life, why is it a conservative notion to prevent this? If two men who have lived together for decades want the ability to protect their joint possessions in case one of them dies, why is it a conservative notion that such property be denied the spouse in favor of others? If one member of a young gay couple is badly hurt in a car accident, why is it a conservative notion that his spouse not be allowed to visit him in the intensive-care unit? In all these cases, you have legal citizens trying to take responsibility for one another. By doing so, by setting up relationships that do the "husbanding" work of family, such couples relieve the state of the job of caring for single people without family support. Such couplings help bring emotional calm to the people involved; they educate people into the mundane tasks of social responsibility and mutual caring. When did it become a socially conservative idea that these constructive, humane instincts remain a threat to society as a whole? And how do these small acts of caring actually undermine the heterosexual marriage of the people who live next door?

Some will argue that these and many other benefits and responsibilities can be set up in an ad hoc fashion. You can create powers of attorney, legal contracts and the like, if you really need to. These arrangements can be enormously time-consuming and complex, and they don't always hold up in courts of law, of course. But even if they did, isn't it a strange conservative impulse to make taking responsibility something that the government should make harder rather than easier? One of the key benefits of marriage, after all, is that it also upholds a common ideal of mutual support and caring; it not only enables such acts of responsibility but rewards and celebrates them. In the past you could argue that such measures were inappropriate for a criminal or would-be criminal subgroup. But after Lawrence, that is no longer the case. The question is therefore an insistent one: On what grounds do conservatives believe that discouraging responsibility is a good thing for one group in society? What other legal minority do they or would they treat this way? If a group of African-Americans were to set themselves up and campaign for greater familial responsibility among black couples, do you think conservatives would be greeting them with dismay and discouragement or even a constitutional amendment to stop them?

It is one thing to oppose gay marriage (some, but not all, conservative arguments against it are reasonable, if to my mind unconvincing). But it is another thing to oppose any arrangement that might give greater security, responsibility and opportunity to gay couples. At times, the social conservative position is almost perversely inconsistent: Many oppose what they see as gay promiscuity; but even more strongly, they oppose any social measures that would encourage gay monogamy, such as marriage. What, one wonders, do they want? In this, they actually have lower standards for now-legal citizens than they do for incarcerated criminals: Even murderers on death row have the constitutional right to marry, where the institution could do no conceivable social good. But for millions of citizens currently excluded from such incentives for responsibility, conservatives are prepared even to amend the Constitution to say no.

If this debate is to move forward, a few simple questions therefore have to be answered: What is the social conservative position on civil unions? What aspects of them can conservatives get behind? What details are they less convinced by? These are basic public policy questions to which social conservatives, for the most part, have yet to provide an answer. It's well past time they did.