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UN-Gay. For those who think the U.N. has any relevance whatsoever, it's worth noting that when it's not acting as a megaphone for the propaganda of Jew-hating suicide-killers, or setting up "safe zones" for refugees which it then leaves utterly defenseless, the U.N. is busy bashing gays and lesbians. As reported in a Washington Times article on May 1, Muslim and Catholic countries this week (1) kept the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) from being designated as a consultant nongovernmental organization, charging that the group was soft on pedophilia, and (2) blocked a proposed redefintion of "family" in a U.N. Child Summit document that would have recognized families "in various forms," which critics charged would have opened the door to granting legitimacy to same-sex relationships.

"Altogether, it was a pretty pro-family day," gloated Austin Ruse, of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. Which I suppose shows that a rightwing Catholic spokesperson can still get away with being the voice of "pro-family" and anti-pedophile policy these days. Maybe the Catholic Church's being soft on pedophilia should keep that suspect group out of the corridors of U.N. power.

This is a bit complicated, but bear with me. Barring ILGA from participating on U.N. committees was justified, said its critics, because the Brussels-based lobby, with 300 member groups in 76 countries, did not document that it had purged pedophile groups such as the North American Man/Boy Love Association, which in years past had enjoyed some traffic with ILGA. ILGA, for its part, said that divulging all its member affiliates could put some in danger, which isn't hard to believe. But nevertheless, ILGA, which is a creature of the political and cultural left, has brought on many of its own troubles. Still, the attack against the group was infused with good, old fashioned, gay-baiting in the name of traditional religious values, both Catholic and Islamic. If those elements of the gay left that support Islamic terrorists had any brains, they could see the hellish nightmare that their new allies would create, if given half a chance.

Interestingly, the Bush administration had supported ILGA's application, arguing in January that ILGA was helpful in the fight against HIV and AIDS. While the U.S. delegation was silent this week in the debate, it voted on the losing side in a procedural vote to send the group's application back to the nongovernmental organizations committee for further investigation, which the Pakistani delegate denounced as a "delaying tactic" to buy another chance for ILGA.

For this, the Bush administration deserves some credit (which of course it won't receive). On the other hand, the U.S. delegation did an about-face and opposed broadening the U.N.'s definition of family. As noted in a previous posting, a senior official at the U.S. Mission has told the Washington Times last week that the Bush administration was backing the redefinition. However, the paper now reports that:

"pro-family and conservative groups that support the "natural" family in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- married heterosexual mother and father and their children and other blood relatives -- persuaded the administration of "dangers" in the loose, undefined language proposed by European delegations""

Given the pressure, which the conservative Washington Times helped engender, the administration caved. Hey, it's the U.N. Like it matters.

Guns 'R Us, Too. Here's an interesting article from planetout.com about some unfortunately gay-bashing rhetoric at a recent National Rifle Association confab in Reno. It seems that some of the speakers couldn't resist linking together Rosie O"Donnell's new gay advocacy with her previous anti-Second Amendment activism (how often Rosie keeps coming up, in unexpected contexts!). At the same time Tom Boyer, a representative of the Pink Pistols, the gay and lesbian gun owners group,

...noted that, at a members' forum in Reno on Saturday, he introduced himself as a Pink Pistol and urged the NRA not to mix other social issues into the agenda of the gun-rights organization. Other members supported that comment, he said. "I did have an NRA director come up and actually ask what he could do to help the Pink Pistols," Boyer said. "So there certainly is an outreach effort."

How often it seems that knee-jerk conservative homophobia is real but superficial and thus "counter-able," as opposed to die-hard fundamentalist bigotry.

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Priests, Celibacy and Youths

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Originally appeared in slightly different form May 1, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

IT HAS BEEN FASCINATING to watch the ballooning disclosures of sexual improprieties by Catholic priests and the crisis management efforts at minimization, cover-up, denial, and blame shifting by the Catholic hierarchy - as well as the attempts by various Catholic factions to promote their own agendas - from doctrinal crackdown and the expulsion of gay priests to abandoning celibacy and ordaining female priests.

Those of us who are not Catholic have no vested interest in how all this turns out but perhaps it is worthwhile offering some speculations about why this situation arises, if only to stimulate others to offer better speculations.

1. Celibacy is contrary to human nature - that is, the nature of "the human person."

Sex is built into us: It is how we evolved and it is why we evolved. Our ancestors are the early humans who felt the most sexual desire and so had the most sex, passing their genes down to us. No doubt there are some people who because of low sexual desire or superhuman effort can achieve celibacy, but we should not be surprised when many do not.

Accordingly, there are limits to any institution's ability to regulate sex by laws, rules, injunctions, threats, bribes, etc. Churches that try the hardest to regulate sex, channeling it or forbidding it, have more problems with sex than other churches, not just because they are fighting against an intrinsic part of "the human person," but also because they keep people's mind focused on whatever they are supposed to avoid.

2. The Catholic church presumably expects priests to have a healthy, mature attitude toward sex so they can manage their celibacy intelligently.

But it is difficult to know how anyone who has not experienced something significant, such as sex, can know what they are giving up, be sure it was a wise decision, or have a genuinely healthy attitude toward it. It seems possible that they will develop an unhealthy aversion or unhealthy curiosity, or a distorted understanding of its role in the human psyche, including their own.

And maturity is a process that is based on experience and reflection on that experience. How can a sexually inexperienced seminarian acquire the necessary experience to develop this mature attitude? Or if a priest only had sex only as a youth, how can his understanding develop beyond the understanding he had at that point? Isn't it just as likely to be halted, fixated at that age of understanding - and possibly at that age of attraction?

3. If bright, sensitive Catholic youths feel little interest in dating and find they are not strongly attracted to women, they - or their parents - may mistake that response for a call to the priesthood and celibacy. But as many of us know from our own experience, a lack of strong interest in girls and dating was simply a function of being gay but not being fully aware of it yet.

In a religious culture that remains lingeringly repressive and officially homophobic, it may be especially difficult for gay youths to come to the realization they are gay. They may suppress that self-understanding and adopt a false consciousness of "having a vocation," only to realize years later that they were deceiving themselves. Worse yet, many parents and relatives, for their own selfish reasons, may support and encourage the youth's self-deception.

However odd it seems to say so, it may be best to acknowledge that pushing any youth into the priesthood track before he fully understands himself constitutes a particularly offensive kind of child abuse. Yet, an international Catholic organization called the Legion of Christ reportedly recruits boys as young as 10 to leave their families and follow a course of study to become priests.

4. Attempting to expel gay priests, even if one could find them, might have less effect than many conservative Catholics seem to assume.

Some, many of the priests who perpetrate sexual contacts with young males may not be homosexual at all. Sexual desire is sexual desire, and under pressure the usual direction of preference may break down. This is facilitated by the fact that underage teenage youths may be slender and slightly androgynous, lacking some of the distinguishing physical features of adult masculinity.

We have the readily available parallel of heterosexual men in prisons. Deprived of their preferred outlets for sex, a large proportion make do with what is available; then when they return to civil society they resume their preferred behavior.

5. The Catholic church uniquely provides prolonged clerical contact with young males in large numbers through the structure of the Catholic educational system and religious practice - from clerical involvement in Catholic high schools and seminaries to all-male retreats and the institution of altar boys.

Above all, the institution of private confession produces an unusual degree of emotional and psychological vulnerability, repeatedly stirring up a heady mix of sex, guilt, and defenselessness, and provides regular occasions when youths may reveal themselves as confused, vulnerable, or manipulatable.

No doubt much more is involved than I have suggested here. But so far I have seen too little serious discussion of how the Catholic church itself brings about the very situation it claims to deplore.

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Anything but Marriage?

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Originally appeared in the May 2002 edition of The Atlantic Monthly.

LAST YEAR the Census Bureau reported a statistic that deserved wider notice than it received: during the 1990s the number of unmarried-partner households in the United States increased by 72 percent. Cohabitation has actually been on the rise for decades, but it started from a small base. Now the numbers (more than five million cohabiting couples) are beginning to look impressive.

Marriage, meanwhile, is headed in the other direction. The annual number of weddings per 1,000 eligible women fell by more than a third from 1970 to 1996. A lot of factors are at work here - for example, people are marrying later - but it seems clear that one of them is the rise in cohabitation. Couples are simply more willing to live together without tying the knot.

Whether this is a bad thing is a contentious question, but it is almost certainly not a good thing. Cohabitation tends to be both less stable and less happy than marriage, and this appears to be true even after accounting for the possibility that the cohabiting type of person may often be different from the marrying type. Research suggests that marriage itself brings something beneficial to the table. Add the fact that a growing share of cohabiting households - now more than a third of them - contain children, and it is hard to be enthusiastic about the trend.

Whom to blame? In part, homosexual couples like me and my partner. Cohabitation used to be stigmatized. "Living in sin" it has been called in recent memory, even among the educated classes. Today cohabitation is often viewed as a different-but-equal alternative to wedlock. Although the drift toward cohabitation would no doubt have happened anyway, the growing visibility and acceptance of same-sex couples probably speeded the change. As one gay activist told the Los Angeles Times last year, "Just the term 'unmarried partner' gave it a dignity and social category."

So (conservatives say) it's true! Homosexuals undermine marriage! To the contrary. The culprit is not the presence of same-sex couples; it is the absence of same-sex marriage.

The emergence into the open of same-sex relationships is an irreversible fact in this country. Traditionalists may not like it, but they cannot change it, so they will have to decide how to deal with it. The far right's plan - try to push homosexuals back into the closet - is not going to work; the majority of Americans are too openhearted for that. Indeed, the currents of public opinion are running the other way. An annual survey of college freshmen found that last year 58 percent - a record high, and up from 51 percent in 1997 - thought that same-sex couples should be able to marry.

Seeing those numbers and others like them, conservatives are desperate to stave off same-sex marriage. For that matter, many moderates remain queasy about legalizing gay marriage; they are sympathetic to homosexuals, but not that sympathetic. Liberation-minded leftists, who spent the 1970s telling us that our parents' marriages were outdated and stuffy, were never crazy about matrimony to begin with. As for gays, the vast majority want the right to marry, but most agree that domestic-partner benefits and other "marriage-lite" arrangements are a lot better than nothing.

The result is the ABM Pact: Anything But Marriage. Enroll same-sex partners in the company health plan, give them some of the legal prerogatives of spousehood, attend their commitment ceremonies, let them register at city hall as partners - just DON'T CALL IT MARRIAGE. In America, and in Europe, too, ABM is rapidly establishing itself as the compromise of choice. Gay partnerships get some social and legal recognition, marriage remains the union of man and woman, and everybody moves on. A shrewd social bargain, no?

No. The last thing supporters of marriage should be doing is setting up an assortment of alternatives, but that is exactly what the ABM Pact does, and not only for gays. Every year more companies and governments (at the state and local level) grant marriagelike benefits to cohabiting partners: "concessions fought for and won mostly by gay groups," as the Los Angeles Times notes, "but enjoyed as well by the much larger population of heterosexual unmarried couples." To which might be added what I think of as the Will & Grace effect: homosexuals are here, we're queer, and nowadays we're kind of cool. ABM, perversely, turns one of the country's more culturally visible minorities into an advertisement for just how cool and successful life outside of wedlock can be.

I doubt that most homosexuals would take their marital vows less seriously than heterosexuals do, as some conservatives insist. Even if I'm wrong, however, surely the exemplary power of failed or unfaithful gay marriages would pale next to the example currently being set by a whole group - an increasingly fashionable group - among whom love and romance and sex and commitment flourish entirely outside of marriage. And can you imagine social conservatives telling any other group to cohabit rather than marry? Can you imagine them saying, "The young men of America's inner cities won't take marriage as seriously as they should, so let's encourage them to shack up with their girlfriends"?

Those who worry about the example gays would set by marrying should be much more worried about the example gays are already setting by not marrying. In getting this backward the advocates of ABM make a mistake that is both ironic and sad. At a time when marriage needs all the support and participation it can get, homosexuals are pleading to move beyond cohabitation. We want the licenses, the vows, the rings, the honeymoons, the anniversaries, the benefits, and, yes, the responsibilities and the routines. And who is telling us to just shack up instead? Self-styled friends of matrimony. Someday conservatives will look back and wonder why they undermined marriage in an effort to keep homosexuals out.

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Not "Devalued". A solid piece by columnist Rex Wockner on planetout.com describes why he doesn't buy into gay victimhood. In defending Rosie O"Donnell's comment that she has never felt discriminated against for being (as she calls herself) a gay woman, Rex writes:

"I have a theory that people who expect to experience discrimination may encounter more of it. I have gay and transgender acquaintances who seem to get discriminated against almost weekly. On the other hand, those of us who view our homosexuality as perfectly normal, and don't make it into an hysterical elephant in the living room, maybe end up having that reality reflected back at us by most people who figure out we're gay."

In a follow-up piece, Rex responds as follows to a well-intentioned activist who was quick to point up all the legal rights that gay people are still denied:

"[W]hile I am wholly uninterested in walking around feeling "devalued" (because I don't have any feelings like that at all, especially vis-"-vis society, as opposed to the government), I promise to continue, as I always have, to argue in favor of access to plain old marriage for same-sex couples.

Seems a sensible plan to me.

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Predatory Priests, and All That. I haven't waded in much on the big gay-related (or is it?) news story dominating the media -- the exposure of the Catholic Church's years of covering up child molestation cases involving priests who repeatedly target young boys. This horror has been well reported and commented upon (see, for example, "The Catholic Pedophile Factory").

But here's my two cents. Attempts by church leaders to blame gay men in the priesthood, or the "homosexual atmosphere" created by a society tolerant of gay people, is certainly backfiring. No one is buying it. The church's refusal to take the blame for putting church PR over the safety of children is so self-evident that attempts to fire up homophobia in order to divert attention from their own sins is only making matters worse for themselves.

Here's a sidebar. The National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association (NLGJA) issued a letter to the media on April 26 criticizing a lack of quotes from gay spokespersons in stories about the Catholic hierarchy's gay-blaming. That's a good point. But the letter oddly devolves into a discussion of pedophilia versus ephebophilia. Writes NLGJA President Robert Dodge:

"Additional reporting may have revealed that the Catholic Church does not have a problem with pedophiles. Instead, it may be one of ephebophiles, or individuals exclusively attracted to adolescents. More reporting might have turned up Dr. Fred S. Berlin, associate professor of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University. In a statement that offered substantial balance and context, Dr. Berlin recently educated The New York Times readers that: "...We should make it clear that homosexuals are no more risk to children than heterosexuals. In terms of the bigger picture, there are every bit as many heterosexual men giving into sexual temptation with female adolescents.""

Perhaps pressuring 15-year-olds into sex is less horrific than pressuring pre-pubescent 8-year-olds, but I don't really see that this should be an issue to raise about media reporting. I mean, just what point is the NLGJA trying to make here? If they believe some of the teenage/priest sex was consensual, they should have the courage of their convictions and say so (although I haven't seen evidence of any teenagers having positive comments about their encounters with priestly predators). Moreover, the second part of the above quote, which claims that "as many heterosexual men" are prying on female adolescents, is surely not suggesting that there are as many homosexual abuse cases as heterosexual cases, given that under the most liberal theories gays are only 10% of the population (and, in fact, perhaps half that number)? Some advocacy!

Glass Half Full? According to a new study, the number of anti-gay hate crimes reported to a coalition of organizations around the country dropped 12% in 2001. Good news, right? But the gay and lesbian (and bisexual and transgender) anti-violence activists who issued the study were quick to say that the numbers meant only a decline in tracking, not violence. "Absolutely, unequivocally, it does not reflect that violence is down," Richard Haymes, executive director of the New York Gay & Lesbian Anti-Violence Project and a board member of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), told the Washington Blade. Haymes and Clarence Patton, author of the NCAVP report, emphasized repeatedly that the decrease was certainly due to a lack of participation in reporting, not to a lack of crimes to report.

And what is the cause for this drop in crime reporting? Insufficient funding for NCAVP member projects, the activists say. Well, maybe. But it couldn't be that a flat-out positive report just wouldn't be in the interest of those who specialize in raising funds to counter bias-related crime, could it?

Despite the overall drop in reports of anti-gay hate crimes, the activists note that their study does show a rise in crimes targeting transgendered people and gay Latinos.

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Cabin Fire. An anti Log Cabin Republican screed by Sarah Wildman in the New Republic's April 29 issue, titled "The Log Cabin Republicans Collapse," forgoes credible criticism for knee-jerk bashing. She's appalled that the LCR is "cheering blatantly anti-gay policies and appointees" of the Bush administration. An example? "[W]hen Bush nominated John Ashcroft, one of the Senate's most consistently anti-gay members, to be attorney general, LCR supported the appointment." Five paragraphs later she tosses aside LCR's explanation that the group had "exacted statements of support from Ashcroft during his nomination process."

In fact, thanks to lobbying by LCR and others, during his confirmation testimony Ashcroft stated repeatedly that sexual orientation would not be a consideration in Justice Department employment or appointments, that he would enforce all laws and regulations protecting gay and lesbian federal workers from employment discrimination, that the gay and lesbian DOJ Pride employee organization would continue to meet and organize in the Department under his leadership, and that federal civil rights laws will be vigorously enforced. Shortly after his confirmation, LCR's leadership 's secured an unprecedented meeting with the new attorney general at his office in the Department of Justice, where he pledged, according to LCR, that he would "enforce the law equally for all Americans, and that equal protection under the law means that no one will be left out."

As I previously noted, to the surprise of many liberals, Ashcroft recently invoked the federal Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act in an indictment for the slaying of two lesbian hikers in Shenandoah National Park, in Virginia. According to the Justice Department, "The United States maintains that the defendant hated women and lesbians and that hatred was a motive for his killing""

Isn't this the way it's supposed to work? Or would liberals simply prefer shouting "Bigot, bigot go away" to actually working with conservatives and advancing their attitudes on gay and lesbian issues? Of course, the answer is the former.

Bush the homophobe? More evidence that the charge that the Bush administration is anti-gay is ludicrous. As the conservative Washington Times reported this week, the administration "has joined European delegates to the upcoming U.N. summit on children in moving to recognize families 'in various forms,' including unmarried cohabitating couples and homosexual partners." This is in opposition to a coalition of Catholic and Muslim countries that has formed to block the proposed change to the tradition U.N. definition of the family -- married heterosexual parents and children -- that the General Assembly's Special Session on Children will take up next next month. The article quoted an unnamed official who explained the U.S. supports the proposal to recognize families "in various forms" because "obviously we feel this more reflects the families of today, which are headed by single parents and extended families."

Now that the news is out, the rightwing can be expected to mobilize against the administration's position. Which is why we need gay Republican's with some clout to lobby the other way. Shouldn't this be obvious to liberals? (Sorry, another dumb question.)

Cheney Joins Pro-Gay Group's Board. That's Mary Cheney, the veep's out-lesbian daughter (what will those homophobic Republicans think of next?). As reported on andrewsullivan.com on April 22, she's joined the board of the Republican Unity Coalition, sort of a gay-straight alliance within the GOP to advance gay inclusion and participation within the Grand Old Party. According to Sullivan's report, Mary Cheney stated, "Working together we can expand the Republican Party's outreach to non-traditional Republicans; we can make sexual orientation a non-issue for the Republican Party; and we can help achieve equality for all gay and lesbian Americans." Now that"s sure to make the "no enemies on the left; no friends on the right" branch of the gay movement go absolutely ballistic.

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The "Anti"s" Take to the Streets. Washington, D.C. is besieged this weekend with "anti-globalization" protesters. They"re anti-American, anti-Israeli, anti-Bush, anti-War on Terrorism, and, first and foremost, anti-free markets and free trade. What are they for? As one frequently seen sign demands, "Construct the Alternative!" Or, to quote a Web posting by Queers for Racial & Economic Justice:

"With the Log Cabin Republicans, Pro-'Life' Lesbians & Gays (anti-choice) and the continued right-wing drift of the Democratic Party, don't you think we need a progressive/radical alternative?"

Other than support for abortion rights (already the law of the land, and under no real threat) and for maintaining race-based preferences, and opposition to "police brutality" and "economic injustice," the contentless "progressive/radical alternative" is hardly an inspiring vision for mobilizing the masses. The question is why a movement that's pretty much just "anti" has attracted as much youthful support as the anti-globalizers have. No, they're not all would-be John Walker Lindhs, but they"re drawn from the same well -- that is, from what I"ve observed, the pampered children of the upper middle classes, in revolt against the very system that spoiled them rotten by fostering economic growth and prosperity.

Of course, the gay left -- especially its campus contingents -- have gone full throttle into the "anti" movement. Queers for Racial & Economic Justice was out marching to overthrow the very freedoms that allowed a gay movement to emerge in the first place -- a civil society based on respect for private property and the rights of individuals to create and own wealth, with only limited government interference.

It's interesting to note that the gay left "anti"s" have already created front organizations. Michael Buchanan, the organizer of the group QAQAF (Queers Against "Queer as Folk"), referred to in the previous posting (below), made this comment in a letter published recently in The Advocate:

"We truly wanted our queer brothers and sisters to know that what is taking place on QAF is not good for the queer community. (One quickie example: The cast picture in the evening's program has a huge American flag as a backdrop. Puke! -- The queer movement, if looked at in context of a bigger global picture, could be the issue that unites minorities against Republican and Democratic corporate globalization."

That's quite a leap from going ballistic because you don't like the non-PC plotline of a gay soap opera to trying to overthrow "corporate globalization" (which is, of course, leftwing blather for shareholder-owned companies doing business around the world with consumers who choose to buy their products). Didn't someone once write a book titled "Revolt Against Freedom"?

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Good for Me, But Not for Thee? Paula Martinac, who writes a syndicated column appearing in a number of lesbigay newspapers, may be a writer whose generally on the left, but she scores some excellent points in her Apirl 17 offering, which (in it's Planet Out incarnation) is titled Changing Channels on GLAAD. Taking aim at some of more doctrinaire lockstep thinking on the part of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and others, she declares that "there's sometimes a creepy, doctrinaire undercurrent in the lesbian and gay movement of which GLAAD is only one example." How so? Well, there was GLAAD's attempt to get sponsors to boycott gay-unfriendly radio (and, briefly, TV) personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger, while at the same time criticizing the religious right's efforts to pressure sponsors to stop supporting gay-positive shows. Martinac suggests, not unreasonably, that if you practice the tactic of turing up the heat on sponsors so they'll drop their ads from shows you don't like, then you lose the moral authority to criticize the same tactic when used against gay-themed programming. Better to argue, rather than attempt to silence. Now there's a novel thought.

Martinac also lights into the group "Queers Against 'Queer as Folk,'" which is seeking the cancellation of the popular Showtime series. The group's leader says "We want this show to go away because its portrayals of gay people are 'dangerous.'" Funny, but I think the religious rightists over at the American Family Association are on the same team. Now there's an alliance!

The Case to Overturn "Hardwick"? Just days after the death of Byron "Whizzer" White, the former U.S. Supreme Court justice who penned the infamous "Hardwick" decision upholding laws criminalizing same-sex relations (see item below), Lambda Legal Defense announced it is taking a new "sodomy law" case back to the Supremes, in an attempt to make right what was once done wrong. The new case, "Lawrence and Garner v. Texas," involves two Houston men convicted of violating the Texas "Homosexual Conduct" Law by having consensual sex in the privacy of one man's home. Just as "Plessy v. Ferguson," which upheld segregated public schools, was upturned by "Brown v. Board of Education," it's high time the High Court recognized its error and mended its ways. Hears hoping this is the case to do it.

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A Supreme Injustice Remembered. It's said we should remember those who have died with a certain amount of charity. But that doesn't mean excusing the wrong that they did, especially when their actions have caused pain and suffering. And so let us note that death came this week for Byron R. "Whizzer" White, the former U.S. Supreme Court justice who died Monday at the age of 84. Most of the obits remembered him as the former award-wining college football hero who enjoyed a colorful career on the bench. Lesbian and gay Americans, however, will recall him as the author of the horrific 1986 Bowers vs. Hardwick ruling that upheld state laws criminalizing homosexual sex between consenting adults. On behalf of the High Court's 5-to-4 majority, White wrote that it was appropriate to find Michael Hardwick guilty of having consensual adult homosexual relations in the privacy of his own bedroom because:

"To claim that a right to engage in such conduct is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" is, at best, facetious. -- .The fact that homosexual conduct occurs in the privacy of the home does not affect the result. -- [The defendant] insists that majority sentiments about the morality of homosexuality should be declared inadequate. We do not agree, and are unpersuaded that the sodomy laws of some 25 States should be invalidated on this basis."

It's worth noting that White was not appointed by a right-wing Republican, but by liberal Democrat John F. Kennedy, who praised his nominee as "the ideal New Frontier judge."

One can only imagine what the impact might have been if these so-called "sodomy laws" had been thrown out. Certainly, the fact that several states still have these statutes on their books to this day has aided those who oppose same-sex marriage and support the military's gay ban. The laws also work to deny lesbian or gay parents custody of their children -- or even, in some cases, visitation rights.

Fortunately, a 1996 Supreme Court decision by another Kennedy (unrelated to John and his clan) helped lay the foundation to eventually overturn "Hardwick." In Romer v. Evans, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion that found Colorado's constitutional amendment prohibiting gays and lesbians from ever being covered by anti-discrimination laws was unconstitutional. He declared:

"The amendment withdraws from homosexuals, but no others, specific legal protection from the injuries caused by discrimination, and it forbids reinstatement of these laws and policies. -- The resulting disqualification of a class of persons from the right to seek specific protection from the law is unprecedented in our jurisprudence" Central both to the idea of the rule of law and to our own Constitution's guarantee of equal protection is the principle that government and each of its parts remain open on impartial terms to all who seek its assistance". We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. This Colorado cannot do. A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws. Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause""

Did I mention that Justice Kennedy was a 1987 Reagan appointee?

A question: Just how many hundreds of thousands of dollars will the Human Rights Campaign raise for liberal and left-leaning Democrats, using the specter of the vast danger posed by future Republican Supreme Court nominees (like Anthony Kennedy, or Bush the First appointee David Souter)?

That's not to say I'd support any nominee that Bush the Second might put forward (and I'm very grateful that Robert Bork was Borked, back in Reagan's day). However, it is to argue that nominees should be judged fairly, on their own merits, and that the scare campaign underway over the very idea of a GOP Supreme Court nominee is mostly partisan hyperbole, like so much in Washington these days.

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Hate Crimes Conundrums. Both the liberal Human Rights Campaign and the leftwing National Gay and Lesbian Task Force " the two big Washington-based lesbigay lobbies -- issued press releases on Thursday applauding (yes, applauding!) U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, one of their favorite nemeses. The occasion was Ashcroft's invoking of the federal Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act in the indictment of Darrell David Rice for the 1996 slaying of two lesbian hikers in Shenandoah National Park, in Virginia. The Act mandates sentencing enhancements for crimes motivated by hate that occur on federal land. According to the indictment, "The United States maintains that the defendant hated women and lesbians and that hatred was a motive for his killing""

According to HRC Political Director Winnie Stachelberg, "With this indictment, the federal government has recognized the horrendous nature of this hate crime and that it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law".We are grateful that federal jurisdiction could be exercised in this case." But the HRC release also declares that "If these murders had occurred almost any other place in America, this statute could not have been used." Both HRC and NGLTF have used the indictment to call for passage of a proposed law that would federalize violent hate crimes committed anywhere in the U.S. Without such a law, "many hate crime victims and their families may not receive the justice they deserve," says Stachelberg.

But this "hate crime" was, in fact, a horrendously brutal premeditated MURDER. And had it occurred outside the park, Murder One charges would have been brought in Virginia, and state prosecutors would have sought the death penalty -- regardless of the absence of either a wider federal or statewide hate crimes law. While the symbolism of a broad federal statute that lists gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered in the laundry list of victim categories may have understandable appeal to activists, it's bogus to suggest that violent crimes such as the Shenandoah killings would go unprosecuted without federal intervention. Moreover, hate crime laws that list selected groups as special victims, but not others (conservative Republicans?) are likely to be, like affirmative action's group-based preferences, an ongoing source of conflict regarding whether they guarantee -- or mandate against -- equal treatment for all. And then there's the persistent issue of whether the government should be prosecuting "hate" (what the perpetrator is thinking and feeling) as opposed to the criminal act itself -- a slippery slope, indeed.

And there's another contradiction involved. If a hate crime statute bumps up the penalties for premeditated murder, the only place to go is the death penalty. But NGLTF is on record as opposing the death penalty, as do many other activists. This is what led to a series of bizarre arguments during the Matthew Shepard trial, in which some activists used the slaying to urge passage of a federal statute that would enhance hate crime penalties, but at the same time opposed the death penalty for Shepard's killers. Just what did they think enhanced penalties mean (no workout privileges? going without cable?). Eventually, Shepard's parents asked that the death penalty not be invoked, and their son's killers received multiple life sentences.

At least the Log Cabin Republicans, who also issued a release praising the federal indictment, have the courage of their convictions and are pro death penalty.

I leave aside a wider analysis on the general merits of hate crimes statutes (or the death penalty, for that matter) for another day.

Whose False Consciousness? As the AP reported earlier this month, the Florida Supreme Court has allowed convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos to fire her attorneys and drop all appeals to her upcoming execution. Wuornos, a lesbian who received multiple death sentences for fatally shooting six middle-aged men along a central Florida highway in 1989 and 1990, last year admitted the truth about her motives. Writing to the Florida Supreme Court and expressing her desire to drop all appeals and be executed, Wuornos said, ""I am a serial killer. I would kill again," and "I"ve come clean. All were"murder to rob." Wuornos had previously claimed that her victims had tried to rape or kill her. And a host of national feminist and lesbian rights groups affiliated with the Aileen Wuornos Defense Committee had come to her aid, claiming the murders were ALL self defense (theory one), or else justifiably triggered by her years of abuse by men (theory two). Now that Wuornos has dropped her appeals, accepted her sentence, and admitted her guilt, don't expect her activist supporters to have the grace to apologize (they"ll probably claim the patriarchy has brainwashed Wuronos into falsely blaming herself!).

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