IGF CultureWatch

IGF contributor Dale Carpenter has penned this column on the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force joining the coalition against U.S. military action in Iraq. Writes Carpenter:

If there's a gay interest at all, it's in removing an anti-gay regime to make the lives of gay Iraqis at least marginally tolerable. But that would counsel gay support for a war, and NGLTF opposes it. -- NGLTF has completed its transformation from an organization concerned about gay rights to an organization concerned about all the world's problems. It is no longer a gay organization, and barely pretends to be.

Service-minded.

As reported in this Texas Triangle story, members of the Gay and Lesbian Service Members for Equality (GLSME) are asking that gays not be excluded from any future military draft (though I'd note restoring conscription is highly unlikely). "In this time of shared sacrifice, we believe that the military cannot afford to waste the talent of any American who is able to serve," says the group's letter to congressional leaders, which compellingly argues that "The Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy is harming the military by wasting precious talent and resources."

Elsewhere in the same story (and more extensively in the online Washington Blade), we learn that Northwestern University Professor Charles Moskos, the primary architect of the military policy on gay and lesbian soldiers, now says the ban should be scrapped if the draft returns. As he put it:

"You can't use a gay ban with a draft because that would make it too easy for people to get out. -- If an open gay said, "I want to go into the army," it would be his prerogative. -- Of course, there would be problems with that, there would be hassles, but they probably could be overcome."

So suddenly the bogeyman of "unit cohesion," the great threat to morale used to justify the whole "don't ask, don't tell" debacle (which I prefer to call "lie and hide"), doesn't really amount to so much after all. Who'd have thought? And by the way, what kind of person says gays shouldn't be allowed to volunteer for the army, but should be forced to join if a draft is instituted?

Clashing Colors.

The Texas Triangle story referenced above also notes that:

the Lavender Green Caucus, representing lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex people in the Green Party of the United States, released a position statement opposing President Bush's planned invasion of Iraq, saying "Make no mistake -- American soldiers, gay and straight alike, will serve as cannon fodder in George W. Bush's bid to topple Saddam Hussein and gain control over Iraqi oil reserves""

Yes, the twin evils of capitalism and imperialism are always Why We Fight. The lavender greens, by the way, also oppose the military gay ban, so their position seems to be a demand to let gays serve as long as we never actually go to war.

Not the Same.

This Jan. 9 Philadelphia Inquirer story isn't the first time I've come across a report of a heterosexual wife deciding to remain with her husband after he undergoes male-to-female sexual surgery. "Their love survived great changes," reads the subhead. Clearly. On the legal side, some states allow these couples to remain married, though they appear to be a same-sex union -- just as some states, for instance, refuse to recognize marriages between a male-to-female transgendered person and a male (born male). Expect more litigation on this front, though the issue being judged may be the legal determination of gender identity rather than the rights of same-sex couples to wed.

Taking Aim.

The Jan. 10-16 issue of the Orange County Weekly features a big report on the Pink Pistols, the gay gun training / self-protection groups that are attracting the attention of the conservative National Rifle Assocation (NRA), but making some gay groups queasy. IGF's own Jonathan Rauch, a long-time Pink Pistols booster, is quoted at some length:

Rauch [wrote] that the appearance of strength was as important as strength itself. Consider straight America's response to the 1998 Shepard killing. "Shepard was small, helpless and childlike. He never had a chance. This made him a sympathetic figure of a sort that is comfortingly familiar to straight Americans: the weak homosexual."

Good intentions and hate-crime laws did nothing to help gays and lesbians because, Rauch wrote, they "do nothing to challenge the stereotype of the pathetic faggot. Indeed, they confirm it. By running to the heterosexual majority for protection, homosexuals reaffirm their vulnerability and victimhood."

The OC Weekly story goes on to note that:

The rise of the Pistols has proved a flinty issue for national gay organizations.... "This movement puts gay groups between a rock and hard place," Rauch says. "I think they"re uncomfortable with the premise, especially with how it makes their straight, liberal supporters feel. On the other hand, this is a true grassroots movement, which is all about self-empowerment, which is what the gay movement has been about. These groups don't know what to say."

Some Pink Pistol members who are quoted say they've felt more at home at NRA meetings when introducing themselves as Pistols than they have at certain gay organizations. Says one:

"I think the NRA sees the great possibilities. -- I"ve sat down with them, and some of them have had questions about gays and sex. Yeah, it was a little weird, but I could see they were genuinely interested. For many of them, it was probably their first contact with a gay man, and I was happy I was able to provide information so they could see I was a human being."

Stereotypes, after all, are best overcome when we, as gay people, actually make human connections with those who don't know us (or don't know they know us).

IGF contributor Rick Rosendall has given me permission to relay this account of how the highly conservative and often gay-hostile Washington Times treated his recent letter to the editor. Here's the story (hang in here): The paper has recently started carrying a weekly column by another IGF contributor, Andrew Sullivan of the oft-quoted andrewsullivan.com. In his Dec. 20 column (no longer available on the paper's website without paying), Andrew took to task the anti-gay group Accuracy in Media for promoting the idea that homosexuality is linked to pedophilia. In response, a letter to the editor penned by Accuracy in Media's Reed Irvine ran in the paper. In answer to Irvine's letter (keeping hanging in there), Rick Rosendall wrote this response, which then subsequently ran in the paper.

Except that the way Rick's letter appeared in print wasn't the way he wrote it: the letters editor changed Rick's use of the word "gay(s)" to "homosexual(s)" throughout. Rick, feeling his point of view had been skewed, fired off the following missive to the letters editor:

I strongly object to your changing "gay" to "homosexual" throughout my letter as printed in today's letters page. Regardless of your own style sheet, this sort of editorial policy makes no sense, as it is my name below the letter and not yours, and that is not what I wrote. Virtually no one talks that way any more, including Times readers. This is such a relic, I cannot believe you would insist on doing this. Why can't you let people speak in their own voices, short of obscenity? In fact, why don't you insist on it?

In response, Rick received the following note:

Dear Mr. Rosendall,
Per The Times' policy against Orwellian abuse of the English language, the euphemism "gay" is not used to describe the homosexual lifestyle.
Cordially,
Matthew A. Rarey, Letters Editor

What's interesting is not so much that a right-leaning paper has a thoroughly, even laughably, reactionary letters editor (even the title he gave Rick's original published letter, "Homosexuals pooh-pooh pedophilia," is belittling and misleading), but that this very conservative paper also is running Andrew Sullivan's "Weekly Dish" column and not editing its pro-gay content, much less its use of the "G" word instead of the "H" word. Institutions, I believe, don't change all at once, and even the most right-wing often have, at any point in time, people who are to varying degrees in our corner or against us. Maximizing the forward-thinkers and standing up to the backward-lookers is what it's all about.

On a happier media note, following the lead of its flagship paper, The Orange County Register, Freedom Communications Inc. has become the first national newspaper chain to enact a policy for all its papers to print same-sex union announcements, as noted in this press release. The Orange County Register is usually characterized as a conservative paper, but one that leans toward libertarian conservatism. Which just goes to show what a truly ideologically diverse world we live in!
--Stephen H. Miller

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in Lawrence v. State of Texas, a case that could overturn all remaining state "sodomy laws" through the U.S. -- or, perhaps, just overturn same-sex sodomy laws, or in the worse case scenario, wind up upholding these hideous relics. Amicus (or "friend of the court") briefs in support of one side or the other are being filed by numerous organizations; the deadline is January 16.

The liberal Justices on the court (Ginsburg, Breyer, Souter, and Stevens) are all expected to vote to overturn the sodomy statutes. The moderate-conservatives (O"Connor and Kennedy) are the swing votes that could go either way, though Kennedy wrote the Evans v. Romer ruling that barred Colorado and other states from blocking gay rights laws. O"Connor signed onto Romer, but also voted to keep sodomy laws 17 years ago when the court last visited the issue, in Bowers v. Hardwick. The hard conservatives (Scalia and Rehnquist) will vote to uphold the laws. I didn't include Thomas among them because, believe it or not, some court watchers think he might actually be reachable with the right limited-government arguments. It's doubtful, I admit, but possible.

The briefs with the best chance to sway the non-liberals will be filed by groups such as the libertarian Cato Institute (see my earlier posting on a Cato letter in the Wall Street Journal arguing for repeal based on equal liberty/equal protection arguments under the 14th Amendment); by the Log Cabin Republicans and its sister group, the Liberty Education Forum (which will also, in part, be making equal protection arguments); and by the Republican Unity Coalition.

Of real concern, however, are the briefs to be filed by groups such as the National Organization for Women, and perhaps the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, among others. It's quite possible that their arguments will be based not on conservative constitutional principles, but on the greatly disputed "privacy right" behind Roe v. Wade, under which a far more liberal court found abortion rights in the Constitution. Even more problematic, they may reach to include arguments in favor of gay marriage -- certainly a worthy and important cause, but one that should be taken to the court only after sodomy repeal is the law of the land. Arguments of this nature may appeal to the left-liberal base of thes groups. But while not needed to achieve the votes of the liberals, they could well scare off the centrist and conservative swing votes. In any event, we"ll know soon enough.

Who's Being Helped?

Michael Bronski, a writer on the gay left, scores a number of good points in this critique of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, a group I was affiliated with several years ago. Bronski, writing in Boston's The Phoenix, looks at some of GLAAD's recent actions and observes:

The bottom line is that GLAAD has more in common than not with right-wing, religion-based groups that have railed against such works as Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi and Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. -- [GLAAD] is claiming that there is only one correct way to represent homosexuality through art. If the former is religious fundamentalism, the latter is sexual-identity fundamentalism. And if enforcing that is what GLAAD sees as its job, it's fair to ask whether the organization has lost its way -- and its relevance.

Although Bronski doesn't say it, GLAAD's recent habit of shaking contributions out of producers, in order to avoid trouble over works that GLAAD may otherwise find insufficiently positive as representations of lesbian and gay (and bisexual and transgender) lives, comes right out of the Jesse Jackson playbook.

Late Addendum: Whoops! Bronski's critique is actually more than a year old - the fact that the Phoenix puts today's date on top of its web pages, even for archived material, threw me a curve. Oh, well, it's still worth noting.

An item I posted on Dec. 30 dealt with the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force's endorsement of a statement issued by left-wing groups that oppose U.S. military action against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Elsewhere on this site, you can find Rick Rosendall's column taking the Task Force to task (so to speak) for past positions against U.S. foreign policy. But in case you think that NGLTF is alone on the movement's left flank, consider an article in the Jan. 3 issue of New York's Gay City News titled "Queer Anti-War Sentiment Grows." It reports:

Queer anti-war activists had pressed NGLTF to oppose the war -- One group threatened to boycott NGLTF if it did not oppose the war. Others simply urged the Task Force to take a stand against the war....

"I think it's great," said Joseph N. DeFilippis, coordinator of the Queer Economic Justice Network. "The statement looks fine. It was shrewd of them to do it as part of a coalition so they don't have to stand up and get attacked by the conservative elements in our community."

There has been some criticism from left-leaning activists who see the "Keep America Safe" statement as insufficiently tough. A commentary on the web site blackcommentator.com described it as "anti-war lite." Mandy Carter, a long-time black, lesbian activist, offered a similar critique. "When I hear the line about patriotism -- this is why we have wars in the first place," she said. "We continue to have wars because we are guarding the flag and the nation states." Still Carter approved of NGLTF's position seeing it as part of a spectrum of positions that groups are taking against any U.S. war with Iraq.

You don't have to be in favor of eliminating the butcher of Baghdad before he acquires the bomb to believe that the possible war isn't a "gay" issue. While NGLTF seeks to ingratiate itself within the increasingly marginal political left (which seems more and more fixated on trying to re-enact Vietnam-era protests), such an identification doesn't help gays and lesbians achieve our long-term objectives, which have all to do with full equality under the law, rather than dreams of forced economic redistribution, de-militarizing America, undermining the nation state, or whatever contradictory panaceas are being ballyhooed at the moment.

Diverse Agendas. While on the topic of prominent national gay groups entering into (or becoming captives of) coalition politics, let's take a look at the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest GLBT lobby -- leaving aside the matter of whether the regrettably now ubiquitous GLBT (or LGBT) tag, for "gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender," is itself a union of causes. HRC is considered politically more moderate than NGLTF, and it won't be taking a position on the Iraqi conflict. But it hasn't exactly rejected broader alliances of its own, either.

HRC serves on the executive committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and participated on the conference's Task Force on Affirmative Action, which lobbies Congress to maintain race-based preferences. Their support for preferential treatment based on race serves to confuses the claim that gays only want equal rights, not special rights, for ourselves. Conservatives, not irrationally, fear that federal non-discrimination legislation inevitably leads to government-mandated preferential treatment.

In the past, HRC has also included non-gay specific issues such as support for government funded abortions among the key votes it has used to rate congressional candidates. Among the measures used on its "congressional scorecards" over the years have been federal bills dealing with funding for abortion services, overseas abortion services, and restricting protests outside of abortion clinics. Bv taking into consideration votes on bills such as these, HRC ensures that moderate GOP legislators who have reached out to gays, but are pro-life to some degree, receive only mediocre to poor ratings -- which are then ballyhooed throughout the gay press as a definitive sign of how "pro-gay" someone is, or isn"t.

Such "grand coalition" tactics are, if anything, even more likely among local GLBT groups. I received one letter complaining that the Empire State Pride Agenda, New York's largest gay rights group, used support for legalized partial-birth abortion as a litmus test for its endorsement of candidates, but didn't ask about same-sex marriage. As a result, the letter writer relayed that in his district ESPA endorsed an anti-same-sex-marriage Democrat over a pro-same-sex-marriage Republican.

Deference to coalitions can wind up working against our own interest. At the very least, groups that want to work for liberal or even leftist agendas should make it clear that their focus is on a diverse range of causes, many of which gay moderates, conservatives, and libertarians would rather oppose than support.

Getting Better All the Time?

I received a letter taking me to task for a Dec. 24 posting that included the line that "...the intolerant religious right is no longer going to be calling the shots in the GOP." My critic asked, "What on earth did you mean by the absolutely astonishing assertion?" and added, "Were you perhaps celebrating the birth of the baby Jesus by wearing your rose-colored glasses? It is amazing to my partner and me that a grown up adult person can actually believe what you wrote."

My response: I absolutely think that something has fundamentally changed in American politics over recent years. There is a new recognition in the GOP, coming down from campaign strategist Karl Rove, but also from GOP leaders such as Rep. Tom Davis (most recently chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee) who, like incoming Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, has spoken several times at Log Cabin Republican events. Vice President Dick Cheney's input is also important, given his family's support for openly lesbian daughter (and former professional gay corporate liaison) Mary Cheney.

These are among the powerful voices within the party supportive of gay inclusion, recognizing that (1) the all-important suburban vote is lost with too much kowtowing to the religious right; (2) the religious right's political importance is waning (though not entirely disappearing), and (3) an inclusive message and image will bring in both independents and more minority voters - enough to win a majority of the electorate. This view is very different from what the national party believed in the past, and it's certainly not good news for what remains of the political religious right. Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority is gone as a political force. Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition has been floundering, with its numbers way down. Gary Bauer's exit two years ago seriously crippled the Family Research Council. Yes, James Dobson's Focus on the Family is still effective -- though its main efforts were never as political as the others.

Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition may remain a force to be countered, but when they pressed California gubernatorial candidate Bill Simon to adhere to their homophobic line last year, they cost him the election (and now it's clear that a statewide GOP candidate too closely linked to the traditional values crowd can't win in the Golden State). Robert Knight's small Culture and Family Institute (which resides within the Concerned Women for America) gets a bit of press, as do a few other groups. But the contrast with five years ago is startling.

This is a new era, and I think that needs to be pointed out -- especially since the gay left keeps implying things are getting worse. If I'm wearing rose-colored glasses, they're wearing blinders.

In the nation's capital on Jan. 2, both the Washington Post and the conservative Washington Times carried front page stories -- with photos -- announcing that the first baby of 2003 to arrive in the area was the daughter of two lesbian moms. The new parents recently moved from Virginia to Montgomery County, Maryland, because Virginia doesn't allow second-parent adoptions or recognize familial rights of same-sex partners. "I really like living in Virginia. But it's more important to be a parent," said new mom Joanna Bare, whose partner, Helen Rubin, is the baby's birth mother. Notes the Post, "The fact that a baby touted as the year's first in the Washington area was born into an 'alternative family' reflects the growing trend, some said." And perhaps gay families relocating to gay-friendlier jurisdictions does, too.

Get a Clue. Last week, the Washington Post ran a story headlined "Help Still Wanted: Arabic Linguists." The report dealt with the needs of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, and Defense Department, but somehow failed to mention that just two months ago the Army discharged 10 soldiers who were studying to become Arabic linguists because they are gay (see my Nov. 11 posting, "Bigotry Trumps Security"). Ironically, the San Francisco Chronicle reports that the Bush administration has nominated Arthur Collingsworth, who is openly gay, to a board created to interest people in pursuing careers as linguists and in other areas related to global security. Could any policy be more confused than this one?

Just Looking. Also in the Washington Post on Thursday was a story about the work of the air marshals now protecting commercial air flights. As the Post reported:

In one incident, an air marshal on a flight noticed a male passenger starring at him. He surreptitiously called and told his partner to watch to see whether the man followed him through the terminal. Sure enough, the suspicious passenger trailed the air marshal all the way to baggage claim, where the partner got a local police official to intervene. "Hey, man, it's okay," the passenger said, according to the intelligence official. "I just thought he was cute."

Left Foot First. Not surprisingly, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has joined what it terms "a coalition of progressive leaders in opposing [the] Bush War Plan." In defending their stance, a press release from the group hyperbolically states:

the Bush Administration has eviscerated many of the fundamental principles upon which this nation was founded and which are at the very core of our free and democratic society. Without the constitutional rights and protections now being gutted by this Administration, our GLBT movement would not be where it is today. All of us are endangered by the behavior of this Administration -- especially its use of the post-9/11 climate of fear to advance their broader political goals.

Sorry folks, but trying to paint opposition to the pending military action as a gay issue just won't wash (a few years back NGLTF opposed the big welfare reform bill, claiming it would harm lesbian single mothers). It's fine if NGLTF wants to be the lavender strip in a broad left-wing coalition, but I wish these people wouldn't pretend that they speak on behalf of a wider gay constituency. They don't.

Unequal Before the Law. The Chicago Tribune has an excellent overview of the sodomy law issue now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Among the vignettes:

During a raid last March in Jefferson County, [Missouri] police discovered six men and a woman having sex in a private theater behind an adult book store. The men were arrested for having sex with each other; the woman, who is married to one of the men, was released without charges because all of her sexual contacts in the theater were heterosexual.

Owing to the "logic" of same-sex sodomy laws, only the men were prosecuted, with their names and photographs displayed on the newscast of a local television station. As a result, their lives were horribly disrupted and, for some, marriages ruined and the ability to earn a livelihood seriously threatened. However, it's likely that even a ruling that finds sodomy laws unconstitutional won't end the police stings that routinely occur in commercial sex establishments -- including closed booths in adult video arcades. But at least it would take away one of the underpinnings used to jusify such abuses.

A Sea-Change. More good news about incoming Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. An e-mailed statement from the Log Cabin Republicans notes that Sen. Frist opened the 2002 LCR National Convention in April 2002. According to the LCR release:

Speaking to a packed house at the kick off reception, Frist welcomed LCR members from across the nation to Washington and challenged them to keep working in the Republican party.

Again, just try to imagine deposed Majority Leader Trent Lott doing any such thing.

I don't know why LCR can't post press releases online once they're sent out, but at least there's a photo on their site of Sen. Frist at the LCR get-together. Lott, by the way, now says :

"When you're from Mississippi and you're a conservative and you're a Christian, there are a lot of people that don't like that. I fell into their trap, and so I have only myself to blame."

A bit paranoid in a reverse Bill & Hillary sort of way, but the fact is that the intolerant religious right is no longer going to be calling the shots in the GOP. That sound you here is some gay Democratic activists gnashing their teeth.
--Stephen H. Miller

Misplaced sensitivities?

"The comparison of race and sexual orientation is a challenging thing to talk about. It is a real hot button issue. The last thing we want to do is alienate potential allies in the African-American community."

The above quote is from Cathy Renna, news media director for the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, explaining why GLAAD pursued a strategy of, as the Washington Blade put it, "quietly reminding reporters and columnists" of Sen. Trent Lott's history of anti-gay comments rather than loudly publicizing Lott's homophobia, during the recent media frenzy over the Mississippi senator's expressed nostalgia for racial segregation. For the record, the major national news outlets seem to have completely ignored Lott's homophobic history while reporting on his racist remarks (the Blade story was headlined "Lott furor obscures anti-gay comments"), suggesting the failure of a "quiet strategy" conditioned on not offending civil rights activists by drawing too explicit a parallel between racism and homophobia. But wait, aren't LGBT organizations constantly berating gays and lesbians for not doing more to fight racism as part of our agenda?
--Stephen H. Miller

What a Difference a Day Makes! Lott's toast. And it looks like Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee is poised to take his place as Senate Majority Leader. This would mean the leadership spot goes from a senator who publicly held that homosexuality is a "problem just like alcohol...or sex addiction...or kleptomaniacs" to a senator who happily embraces the Republican Unity Coalition's call for a gay-inclusive party. Here's an excerpt from Hastings Wyman's Capital Letters column from last May about a fete put on by the Republican Unity Coalition, which calls itself "A gay-straight alliance of Republican leaders, working to encourage tolerance and to address concerns of gay and lesbian Americans" :

Among the gay Republicans and their guests snapping up the crab dumplings and caviar toasts were such usual suspects as Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) and District of Columbia City Councilman David Catania (R), as well as one not so usual - Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist (R), who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee. I asked Frist how come a straight Dixie Republican felt comfortable mixing it up with a bunch of avowed homosexuals. After acknowledging with a grin that "Trent Lott (R-Miss.) wouldn't be here," he thought a minute, then said, "Maybe it's my medical background" - Frist is a cardiovascular surgeon - "It's just not an issue with me."

Keep your fingers crossed on this one!
--Stephen H. Miller