Marriage versus Civil Unions.

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No less a conservative than Attorney General John Ashcroft appears to be leaving open the prospect of a system of civil unions for same-sex couples as an alternative to same-sex marriage. As the right-leaning Washington Times reports:

Mr. Ashcroft said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday" that he supported President Bush's call to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman. But he declined to comment on the Bush administration's stance on civil unions, which would grant same-sex couples many of the same rights enjoyed by married couples.

"That's a very complex question that I'm not going to make a recommendation on. We're doing research on that now," Mr. Ashcroft told the television program.

This is an interesting development, as a clear distinction could emerge between conservatives who oppose any legal recognition of same-sex relationships and those who would accept civil unions in which states grant couples the same (state) benefits as under marriage, though other states needn't recognize such arrangements, and no federal benefits are conferred.

The public also seems more open to a "marriage lite" approach:

A poll released Friday by the Human Rights Campaign conducted by the Democratic polling firm of Peter D. Hart Research Associates and Republican firm American Viewpoint showed that 63% of respondents who are registered voters support or would accept gay and lesbians receiving the same rights and protections as heterosexual Americans.

The Hart/American Viewpoint poll also showed that 50% of respondents support or accept granting civil marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples with the same rights, responsibilities and protections given to other married couples, as long as religious institutions do not have to recognize or perform these marriages. 47% of respondents opposed.

Other polls, however, find much higher numbers opposing "gay marriage." Lesbigay activists will have to weigh whether they should settle for anything less than full marriage -- and the risk that such a strategy could trigger passage of the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which would obliterate any hope for gay marriage in our lifetimes.

Personally, I"m becoming more inclined to go for civil unions. As Americans become more familiar with legally recognized gay relationships, I think their resistance will weaken. The go-slow state by state approach also would mitigate the worst reactions from the most conservative regions, which fear being forced to recognize gay marriages performed in Massachusetts or Canada.

Others argue that if we demand marriage, we will be more likely to at least get civil unions in the near term as a compromise. They may be right; or we could find ourselves trapped by a Federal Marriage Amendment juggernaut. It's a tough call, but I increasing hope the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court goes with the Vermont civil union approach in its upcoming ruling.

Let the Schism Begin.

The AP reports that Election of Gay Bishop Prompts Walkout. And here's the British take, from The Guardian.

And, from the NY Times, Anglican Leaders Warn of Global Schism Over Gay Bishop, which reveals the depth of homo-hatred by the good Anglican Church leaders of Africa, as well as Asia and South America. But why would giving in to their bigotry by good for Christianity?

addendum: As to Bishop-elect Robinson's alleged ties to porn links on a youth website -- allegations publicized by conservative pundit Fred Barnes on the Weekly Standard website -- here's the lowdown from Tony Adragna's blog "Shouting 'Cross the Potomac."

By the way, wasn't Barnes among those conservatives who criticized the last-minute sex charges leveled at then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas? What hypocrites these ideologues of the right (and left) can be!

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Episcopalians’ Fight Turns Ugly.

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Here's the Washington Post"s lead:

On the verge of a historic vote, a convention of Episcopalian leaders was thrown into sudden disarray today when opponents raised allegations involving inappropriate touching and pornography against the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, who is awaiting confirmation as the first openly gay bishop in the worldwide Anglican Communion.

Well, it certainly sounds like an 11th hour smear. In any event, it reinforces my view that a schism among Episcopalians wouldn't be such a bad idea. You may recall that in the mid-1800s many American protestant denominations split into anti- and pro-slavery bodies (the genesis of today's Northern and Southern Baptists, for instance). Given the tactics of the anti-gay Episcopal faction, let them follow the example of the pro-slavery churches -- and let history stand in judgment.

Update: Robinson is confirmed. And yes, it was a last-ditch smear:

David Lewis of Vermont accused Robinson of touching him inappropriately at a convocation. -- Investigators questioned Lewis and determined Robinson touched his arm and back momentarily during conversation in a public room with more than 300 people present.

As for Robinson's opponents, thus by their actions shall you know them.

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Church and State.

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The Vatican last week labeled support for gay marriage (and even lesser types of same-sex unions) as "gravely immoral":

"There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law," the Vatican declared.

Conservatives embraced the Vatican statement, somehow ignoring the complicating fact that the Vatican also considers divorce to be highly immoral, and Catholics who divorce and remarry to have entered a permanent state of adultery (i.e., hello hellfire). But we don't see headlines about that. And let's not even get into the grave sin of artificial birth control!

Meanwhile, there's the impending schism in the Episcopal Church over the election of an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire. Rev. V. Gene Robinson told delegates to a church convention this weekend that his relationship with another man is "sacramental," just like marriage.

I'm not an Episcopalian, but as on outsider it does appear that the opposing views of the gay-affirming and gay-hostile wings of their church, and the same but larger conflict within the worldwide Anglican Communion, means an unavoidable split. And maybe that's not a bad thing. If conservatives are going to block equality for gay people within their respective denominations, then let them have their own churches of prejudice, while other congregations joint together and show that confirming gay pastors and blessing gay unions is spiritually affirming, rather than spiritually destructive.

This is, of course, aside from the issue of civil marriage, which concerns the state's treating all citizens as equal under the law. The fight for equal civil marriage takes place in the public polity, but the fight within each denomination against homophobic policies should not involve the government.

It's important to keep this distinction in mind, as anti-gays try to suggest that legal civil marriage for gays would somehow force churches to change their dogma. Thus is fear and ignorance spread.

Recent Postings

07/27/03 - 08/03/03

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Gay Marriage Does Not Threaten Straight Matrimony

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First published August 2, 2003, in the New York Post. Republished courtesy of Scripps Howard News Service.

Husbands and wives have less to fear from gay marriage than Southern whites did from the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Mississippi's 478,000 registered white voters, for instance, must have been shocked and awed to see the number of registered black voters in the Magnolia State blossom from 22,000 in 1960 to 175,000 in 1966, the year after President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed that landmark federal poll-access bill. While the Census Bureau found one black Mississippi voter for every 21 white electors in 1960, six years later, that ratio had withered to one black registrant for every 2.7 enrolled whites.

Mississippi's whites, like those elsewhere in the South, certainly could complain that their proportion of the total electorate had waned, as had their collective claim on the attention of anyone they elected. Their concerns obviously paled in comparison to the deliberate political exclusion blacks endured. Thus, extending voting rights to blacks was correct and long overdue.

If black enfranchisement meant the dilution of Caucasian suffrage, whites just had to get over it. And apparently they did. Rather than abandon politics, they kept voting, and do so today.

When it comes to an analogous expansion of marriage to include same-sex spouses, straight couples have less to fret about than did Dixie's white voters four decades ago. Jack and Jill's marriage would not be diluted by letting Bill and Ted wed. There is no reason why Jack and Jill should love each other any less, 'til death do them part, just because Bill and Ted want the same level of commitment for themselves.

If marriage were a zero-sum game in which every gay wedding yielded a straight divorce, the opponents of gay nuptials would wield a mighty powerful argument. However, this worry has all the weight of a handful of airborne rice.

Indeed, the arguments of gay-marriage critics increasingly oscillate between the overblown and the hysterical.

Conservative commentator Steve Sailer contends that gay weddings will cause straight grooms -- already spooked by seating charts and floral arrangements -- to throw up their arms and head for the hills.

"It wouldn't take much to get the average young man to turn even more against participating in an arduous process that seems alien and hostile to him already," Sailer recently wrote. "If some of the most enthusiastic participants [in weddings] become gays, then his aversion will grow even more."

What, then? Will young men stop getting on bended knees to ask their sweethearts for their hands in matrimony?

Meanwhile, columnist Maggie Gallagher has concluded that "polygamy is not worse than gay marriage, it is better." As she explained in the July 14 National Review Online, "At least polygamy, for all its ugly defects, is an attempt to secure stable mother-father families for children." Perhaps Gallagher meant "mothers-father families." What could be more stable than that?

Libertarian author David Boaz points to the exit from this growing mess. He wonders: Why do either Jack or Jill or Bill and Ted need government's permission to marry or its blessing once they have done so? The state should extract itself from the marriage-license business. Two people who wish to marry should find a minister, rabbi or, say, a Rotary Club president to grace their union. Americans then can withdraw this debate from Washington, D.C. and their state capitols and instead decide in their own churches, synagogues and civic associations which couples do and do not deserve their approval.

For now, gay-marriage critics should admit that heterosexuals pose the biggest risks to straight marriage. Adultery is now sufficiently rampant that websites such as Chatcheaters.com and InfidelityCheck.org troll cyberspace for extramarital e-mail and chatroom liaisons. Divorce, of course, threatens matrimony, as do "marriage lite" arrangements such as domestic partnerships that taste great, but are less filling than actual marriage. If couples can enjoy the benefits of matrimony without pledging mutual fealty before God and family, why not just shack up?

These practices weaken straight matrimony far more than would watching Bill and Ted drive off to Niagara Falls with a "Just Married" sign pinned to their Bronco. Alas, raising the bar for heterosexuals is much more work and much less fun than ranting about homosexuals.

Republished courtesy of Scripps Howard News Service.

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Gay Unions in New Zealand: It?s Not About Telling People What to Think

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First published August 1, 2003, in the New Zealand Herald.

If Peter Dunne (a New Zealand Member of Parliament) is to be believed, the Labor government "wants to tell us what to think." He uses about half his column of July 30 to condemn a proposed bill that would legalize gay civil unions. He also mentions the legalization of brothels and a possible measure on cannabis.

All this, he thinks, is tantamount to the government telling him how he is supposed to think about these issues. He asks: "Since when did a Government have a mandate to change the way we think?"

It?s a good question, but one that seems inappropriate for the issues about which he writes. Mr. Dunne is free to think anything he wants about gay relationships. The law can't change his views or the views of anyone who agrees with him. His thinking is left free from State interference.

But it appears that what bothers Mr. Dunne is that he fears the law diminishes his ability to control what other people think. Note what he said about the matter: "It may be called a civil union, but does anyone believe for one moment that gay couples who 'unite' under this law won't consider themselves to be married?"

No doubt that gay couples so united will consider themselves married. That is what he finds troubling. Other people will think differently from himself. In this case he's worried what gay couples will consider, or think, about their relationship. I suspect this is the crux of the matter for him. The legislation will not, and cannot, change his views but it may mean that other people will think differently. While claiming the right to think as he wishes Mr. Dunne wants to prevent gay couples from thinking differently about the matter.

The United Future* leader says that government expansion of social freedom is "pink-think of the worst kind." Well, not quite. Anti-gay legislation was common throughout the socialist world. Castro might even think Mr. Dunne a bit soft on the matter. The Communist Chinese used to execute homosexuals. The Soviet regime was not infected by such "pink-think" either. The extreme Left would have looked favorably on the views of Mr. Dunne in regards to gay civil unions. Marxists the world over were frequently social conservatives. It fit their big government agenda quite nicely.

In the few cases Dunne mentioned the Labor government has things right. They are expanding individual freedom, albeit not as much as they?d like to pretend.

Freedom is freedom. It is exhibited in issues that we consider social and others that we consider economic. A consistent application of the freedom principle would support both economic liberty and social liberty. It's exhibited in the slogan: Free Minds, Free Markets.

Government is not the final arbitrator of what is or is not moral any more than it should determine what goods a shop offers to consumers. Its primary function is the protection of the life, liberty and property of individuals. Gay civil unions, or prostitution for that matter, do not infringe Mr. Dunne?s rights. He is left free to think as he wishes even if some of us believe his thinking more indicative of the Dark Ages.

The virtue of a free society is that it allows for diversity of opinion. Mr. Dunne should be free to enter into the relationships he values but not prevent others from doing the same. He?s free to associate with those of his own choosing and the same is true for the rest of us.

Far from exhibiting "pink-think" on these matters the government is, for a change, more liberal than socialist. For that they should be applauded. It does, I think, behoove us to try and persuade them to apply these same liberal principles across the board. There is "pink-think" in Wellington but it is exhibited in issues like higher taxes, more welfare, and more regulation. About the only area where Labor is not exhibiting this "pink-think" revolve around the issues that upset Mr. Dunne.

I fully agree with Mr. Dunne when he says: "It is not the role of government to change the way we think. That is a prerogative that can only be exercised by ourselves."

I anxiously anticipate United Future proposals to abolish the censorship board and all such legislation. Or is this an area where "pink-think" appeals to him?

* United Future (UF) is a political party and represents what most people would call the Religious Right. They currently are part of the ruling coalition along with the leftwing Labor Party.

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The Mote in Their Eye.

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It's fair enough to criticize the president for, like Bill Clinton before him, supporting efforts to outlaw government recognition of gay marriage. But the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force missed the boat with their latest press release. "It is unbecoming of the President of the United States to characterize same-sex couples as 'sinners,' -- said Matt Foreman, Task Force executive director. But what Bush actually said was this:

"I am mindful that we're all sinners. And I caution those who may try to take a speck out of their neighbor's eye when they've got a log in their own. I think it's important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts, to be a welcoming country. On the other hand, that does not mean that somebody like me needs to compromise on the issue of marriage."

So Bush says we're ALL sinners, and then castigates critics of gays for not focusing on their own sinfulness and for their lack of respect toward others.

Foreman's conclusion that Bush is "obviously desperate to keep the country's focus off the war in Iraq and the dismal state of the economy, and he's willing to do it on the backs of gay men and lesbians, even if it means proposing legislation that already exists as law" is overwrought. NGLTF hates Bush so much they just couldn't hear the criticism of the religious right in Bush's remarks!

Meanwhile, says the GOP's lone openly gay congressman, Jim Kolbe, "The vast majority of the Republican Party is going to try very hard not to get into this [gay marriage]
debate." I hope he's right.

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With Us, and Against Us.

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Some interesting demographic findings were reported by the New York Times in "Opposition to Gay Marriage Is Declining, Study Finds" by Robin Toner. According to the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:

53% of respondents said they opposed gay marriages, while 38% said they backed them. In 1996 65% said they opposed such marriages, while 27% favored the idea.

That reveals surprisingly rapid progress. But the research also showed "a growing gap in opinion -- along racial and religious lines." Specifically:

White evangelical Protestants were the most firmly opposed to the idea of gay marriage: 83% said they opposed it; 84% opposed it in 1996. Opposition among blacks also remained essentially unchanged, with 64% opposing gay marriages today, and 65% opposing the idea in 1996.

In contrast, white Roman Catholics and white mainline Protestants have become increasingly open to the idea, according to the poll" .

The evangelical finding isn't surprising. But the unchanged opposition among blacks suggest that the efforts of gay progressive activists to build a united coalition of the left, fighting homophobia and racism and promoting big government social programs, hasn't quite moved the masses. Gay activists may be obsessed with "building an anti-racist GLBT movement" (as the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force puts it) and lamenting that "The GLBT movement is"disproportionately led by white people and lacks a consciousness of the intersections of racism and homophobia"", but there has been no corresponding commitment within the African-American community to combat homophobia.

Not Helpful.

"Critics of gay marriage say we"ll destroy the entire institution. Maybe they"re right, and maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing," is the subhead the Washington Blade gave to an op-ed by lesbian law professor Nancy D. Polikoff. To be fair, Polikoff herself never uses those exact words, but she does argue
that "Gay marriage will move us in the wrong direction if it limits legal recognition to married couples only."

Polikoff wants state benefits for a variety of unmarried partners, including siblings or friends that care for each other, or even a son who takes care of his mother. But that misses the point. Marriage is much more than just a domestic partnership, which is why the anti-gays want to keep us out. The lesbigay left just doesn't get that marriage is important.

School Days


New York City is opening a full-fledged high school for gay and lesbian (and bisexual and transgender) students.
Which, of course, has the anti-gays hopping mad.

I'm for school choice and support a safe environment for those gay kids who might need it. But I suppose I'd prefer a privately run school, with the state using its education taxes to provide students with tuition vouchers. I just don't trust the state educrats.

Recent Postings

07/20/03 - 07/26/03

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The Supreme Court Ruled for Privacy — Not for Gay Marriage

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First published in National Journal, July 26, 2003. Copyright © 2003 National Journal.

AS MY 3-YEAR-OLD NIECE likes to say: Calm down, everyone! On June 26, in Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court ruled state sodomy laws unconstitutional. Only a few days earlier, Canada had effectively legalized same-sex marriage, and there were rumblings that the Massachusetts Supreme Court might do the same in that state. So, when the U.S. Supreme Court planted itself on the side of gay rights, something like hysteria ensued in the conservative commentariat.

In an inflammatory dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia accused the Court of undercutting not just sodomy laws but all morals legislation, including the ban on same-sex marriage. The Family Research Council, a prominent anti-gay lobby, said that Lawrence would cover not only choice of sexual partner but "choice of marital partner as well."

Within a few days, conservatives were saying not just that same-sex marriage might happen but that it was practically a done deal. Gay marriage, wrote Ramesh Ponnuru in National Review, is "not quite inevitable." In the same magazine's online edition, Maggie Gallagher, a conservative columnist, gave notice of the apocalypse. "We are poised to lose the gay-marriage battle badly," she said. "It means losing the marriage debate. It means losing limited government. It means losing American civilization."

As Scalia said in his Lawrence dissent: Do not believe it.

I support gay marriage. It would be good for homosexuals, good for heterosexuals, and good for the institution of marriage -- especially as compared with the alternative, which is the proliferation of "marriage lite" arrangements. If I could wave a magic wand and summon same-sex marriage into existence, I would do it. But I do not have a magic wand, and neither does the Supreme Court. Herewith, a reality check.

- The Supreme Court has not undercut all morals legislation. All it said is that if a legislature wants to intrude in a fundamental way on a core right, lawmakers have to give at least one better reason than just, "Because we disapprove."

All laws are built on morality, and should be. Murder and rape are illegal because they are wrong. But murder and rape are illegal not only because they are wrong. They violate the rights of others and cause personal and social harm. By contrast, there are lots of things I could do that are immoral but not illegal.

Texas, in Lawrence, offered no plausible rationale for arresting gay people other than the fact that the Legislature disapproved of gay sex. Well, West Hollywood, a heavily gay jurisdiction, could not arrest people for having heterosexual intercourse merely because a majority of the city council disapproved of heterosexual intercourse.

Gambling, prostitution, and pornography are economic transactions, with all kinds of implications for neighborhoods and communities. Incest opens the door to sexual predation within families. Polygamy undermines marriage by leaving less-desirable men short of partners. These days, criminal laws based solely on moral disapprobation are few. Sodomy laws happen to be among them.

Limits on the government's power to ban anything that it happens to deem immoral are not new. They go all the way back to John Locke. There are many ways to express disapproval without threatening people with arrest. The Supreme Court merely told Texas to go find one of them.

- The Court did not create a sweeping new right to privacy or anything else. All it said was, if the law already gives you the right to have an abortion in a hospital, then it certainly gives you the right to have sex in your own home.

In the 1986 case of Bowers v. Hardwick, the Court famously said that any claim of a constitutional right to sodomy must be "facetious." But that ruling, inasmuch as it allowed the arrest of people just for having sex at home, was at odds with more than 20 years of precedent. In Griswold v. Connecticut (1965), the Court said that banning contraception violated "the right of marital privacy." In Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972), it extended the same privacy rights to unmarried people. By letting single people use contraception, the Court gave them a constitutional right to have non-procreative sex -- which is exactly what Texas arrested John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner for doing. Roe v. Wade, legalizing abortion, extended the privacy right still further.

Note the Court's language in Lawrence: "The Texas statute furthers no legitimate state interest which can justify its intrusion into the personal and private life of the individual" (italics added). Texas can restrict private conduct with a good reason, and it can unreasonably restrict conduct that isn't private. It just can't unreasonably restrict private conduct. The Court is not creating a new right; it is merely saying it wasn't kidding about an old one.

- The sodomy ruling won't lead to same-sex marriage. Despite what Scalia says, it's hard to see how it could.

The whole point of Lawrence is to curtail an unwarranted state intrusion into private conduct. You don't need a blood test and a government license to have sex at home. By contrast, the whole point of state-sanctioned marriage is that it is public. I can hold a private commitment ceremony without any fear of arrest, but of course what I won't have is a marriage license.

No doubt someone will bring a lawsuit demanding that the Supreme Court find a constitutional right for gay people, like straight people, to wed a partner of their choice. But this would not be a privacy suit. It would be an equal-protection suit, saying that states should not discriminate in the granting of marriage licenses.

Discrimination law is not like privacy law. Because gays are not what federal law calls a "suspect class," the government is perfectly free to discriminate against them if it has a "rational basis" for doing so. After Lawrence, a state can no longer cite the illegality of gay sex as its reason to forbid gay marriage. But the "rational basis" standard is a very permissive one -- almost any public-policy rationale will do -- and states will not be short of arguments as to why same-sex marriage does not serve the public interest.

Is it possible that a conservative Supreme Court might invade the inner sanctum of states' rights (marriage law has been within the states' purview since colonial times) in order to ram same-sex marriage down the throat of an unwilling public? Yes, and monkeys might fly out of my posterior.

In any case, a lawsuit challenging marriage-license discrimination would be decided on its own merits and under its own branch of the law. The sodomy case would have little or nothing to do with it.

- Massachusetts can't impose same-sex marriage on all of America. For that matter, neither can Canada.

No state is obliged to recognize any foreign marriage. The marriage of an 11-year-old Pakistani girl will cut no ice in Michigan. Nor is any state obliged to recognize out-of-state marriages.

It is true that the Constitution's "full faith and credit" clause requires states to recognize each other's laws and judgments. "However," notes Dale Carpenter, a constitutional law professor at the University of Minnesota, "the full faith and credit clause has never been interpreted to mean that every state must recognize every marriage performed in every other state. Every state reserves the right to refuse to recognize a marriage performed in another state if that marriage would violate the state's public policy."

This "public-policy exception" is well established. Another lawyer I consulted said, "I have not found a single case where a federal court has forced another state to recognize a marriage where the state asserts that said marriage would violate the public policy of the state." Moreover, he notes that many states have "evasion statutes" that forbid going out of state to enter into a marriage that would be prohibited in state. "None of these provisions," he said, "have been struck down under full faith and credit." Moreover, Congress has passed a federal law reiterating that no state need recognize an out-of-state gay marriage.

So, might a conservative Supreme Court overturn all of those precedents and laws and trample on states' rights in order to impose Massachusetts's same-sex marriages on 49 other states? See "monkeys flying out of my posterior," above.

Stirring up a gay-marriage panic serves the interests of activists who support a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. But decisions made in a panic are seldom wise. With its federalist structure, the United States is uniquely positioned to settle gay marriage the right way: at the state level. Without either a national ban or a national mandate, each state is free to go its own way, acting as a distinct moral community. Domestic law is best left to the people who are, literally, closest to home.

Copyright © 2003 National Journal. Reproduction in whole or in part requires prior written permission.

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Thanking Those Lone Star Theocrats.

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IGF contributing author Dale Carpenter's op-ed in the Houston Chronicle thanks, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the leaders of the Texas Republican Party for remaining steadfast in their support of criminalzing gay sex. Writes Dale:

all their fundamentalist fervor has yielded the most far-reaching decision affirming the basic dignity of gay people ever issued by the Supreme Court, with more to come. We couldn't have done it without them.

Dale also recounts:

I had my own run-in with the Texas GOP on the subject of the state sodomy law. In 1996, I was president of the Log Cabin Republicans of Texas. We applied to run an information booth at the state GOP convention that year. Our application was denied because, the party's executive director told me, "Sodomy is illegal in Texas." When I offered to forbid our members to sodomize each other in the booth, state party leaders were unmoved.

Gee, you offer a fair compromise and it gets you nowhere!

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Casting Aspersions.

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During the congressional brouhaha last week, Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.) let loose with this tirade:

"You little fruitcake, you little fruitcake, I said you are a fruitcake."

According to Fox News, which is always sensitive to any hint of anti-gay prejudice (yes, that's a joke), "Stark directed the word -- considered by some to be a gay slur -- at Republican Rep. Scott McInnis, who is married and by all accounts not gay."

Moreover:

Republican sources also claim that during the chaotic scene in the committee, Stark fired another gay slur in the direction of Chairman [Bill] Thomas. The word is too vulgar to print in full, but the last half of it is "sucker." -- Now, one Republican wants to know where is the outrage at the Democrat for his seemingly intolerant remarks. "This isn't the first time. That's the problem here. The Democrats fail to recognize this is an ongoing problem," said Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla.

Foley, of course, who would like to be Florida's GOP senate candidate next year, has been the center of much unwelcome speculation about his own alleged closeted homosexuality. Which colors the following just a bit:

Foley questioned whether Democrats get a pass when it comes to casting aspersions, and whether there is indeed a double standard. "I trust that you would understand that if a Republican said that, there would be a public lynching," Foley said.

Well, it is a good point. Especially in light of the following:

A spokesman from the gay activists group [the Human Rights Campaign], usually quick to condemn hints of slight or slur against the gay community, defended the hot-headed lawmaker [Stark], saying he probably used the word to mean McInnis was nutty.

Give me a break, as they say.

A follow-up story reports that "five sources have confirmed...that they heard Stark call Thomas that "sucker" word at Friday's meeting..." Any guesses as to how HRC's gonna spin that one?

One Sort of Inclusion.

In New Hampshire, the State Supreme Court heard arguments about whether a woman who is married to a man, but has sex with another woman, has committed adultery.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders filed a brief calling for equal treatment, saying:

"Gay and lesbian relationships are as significant as non-gay ones and therefore pose the same threat to the marital union. . . . New Hampshire courts should treat gay adultery the same no matter the gender of the person with whom a spouse engages in an extramarital relationship."

True, but perhaps the state should also let us marry (or at least be civil unionized) before allowing us equal opportunity to be parties to adultery.

July 20, 2003

Defending Gay Marriage (and the Constitution).

Out congressmembers Barney Frank, Tammy Baldwin, and Jim Kolbe are circulating a letter urging their congressional colleagues not to support the proposed anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment. Their letter, reports the Boston Globe, quotes Vice President Dick Cheney from his VP debate in 2000 against Joe Lieberman, when Cheney said that ''people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into,'' and added:

''That matter [marriage] is regulated by the states. -- I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area.''

The letter signed by Frank, Baldwin, and Kolbe argues that lawmakers should reject the constitutional amendment as an intrusion on states' rights: The Globe reports:

''While we acknowledge that we do not find ourselves in complete agreement with the Vice President on all public policy issues,'' the letter said, ''we believe that [Cheney's statement], given one month before the presidential election, makes a very strong case against a Constitutional amendment which would establish precisely 'a federal policy' of the sort that the Vice President opposed."

Of course, one could question the last time Barney Frank had a kind word for federalism, but that would be churlish.

Interestingly, the anti-gay group Focus on the Family, when denouncing the letter on its website under "Gay Lawmakers Assail Marriage Amendment," weakly asserts "Cheney's words during the debate don't lead everyone to the same conclusion."
Guess they decided it would be too much of a political hot potato to take on the VP directly.

In other marriage developments, Virginia's Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that Senator George Allen, who is reliably conservative and a member of the Senate Republican leadership, "has taken a separate tack from Majority Leader Bill Frist and has declined to endorse a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage," at least for now. A good sign.

Oh, Politics!

In other congressional news, during the brouhaha between House Democrats and Republicans over whether a) the Demos were being obstructionists over a pension reform bill by demanding a line by line reading and then leaving the room, or b) the GOPers went bonkers by calling the Capitol police to force the Demos back to the chamber, the Washington Post noted that:

one Democratic member of the panel called a Republican colleague "you little fruitcake" in the midst of the standoff.

Finally, ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman's story claiming low morale among U.S. soldiers in Iraq led, it seems,
to someone in the Bush White House (think gung-ho West Winger) to have conservative webmeister Matt Drudge link to a story about Kofman in the Advocate -- a story that reveals the ABC reporter is both openly gay and a Canadian. Drudge's link to the Advocate piece was headlined: "ABC News Reporter Who Filed Troop Complaint Story is Canadian."

Recent Postings

07/13/03 - 07/19/03

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