IGF CultureWatch

Groups on the religious right have gone on the offensive against one of the leading lights in the campaign for limited government and lower taxes-Grover Norquist, the influential president of Americans for Tax Reform. Norquist's crime: speaking at a Log Cabin fundraiser. Reports the Christian right's CNSnews.com, Norquist

was the featured speaker at a fund-raising event for a group of homosexual Republicans last weekend. One pro-family leader called Norquist's appearance "an act of utter betrayal."

More than one religious right group is now demanding that he cease such activity across the board or risk their ongoing wrath (and a campaign to stymie his fundraising efforts).

This isn't the first LCR event Norquist has spoken at, and he has been explicit about saying that LCR and gay conservatives have a place in the large "leave us alone coalition" that he has been working to bring together. Which makes sense, since Norquist's single-minded focus is to achieve smaller government and lower taxes-a goal his group ostensibly shares with LCR.

Many Christian conservatives, however, don't seem to have a problem with big government, as long as it's used to force their moral code on the rest of the citizenry while channeling them large chunks of cash for their "faith based" social-welfare projects.

How all this plays out in Washington, where a group of Republican senators has risen in revolt over out-of-control spending, remains to be seen. But I believe the next presidential election cycle will be a real test: If Rudy Giuliani or John McCain (both of whom handily defeat Hillary in recent polls) do well running as gay-inclusive fiscal conservatives, it could be the first real opening to reclaim the GOP from the religious right in years.

McCain's unfortunate support for draconian limits on political speech/campaign financing makes him anathema to many libertarians and conservatives, but Rudy could be the man.

Dig down deep enough at Advocate.com and you can occasionally find something that's not totally lockstep lefty (ok, the ethnic discrimination angle probably did get this commentary in). It's by a gay Cuban-American deemed by some gay establishmentarians as "too butch" for the International Mr. Leather competition (which, foolish me, I had thought was all about "butchness").

Will Castillo, who won the title of Mr. Florida Leather 2005, calls himself a "passionate, masculine gay man" and notes that he has been "addressing gay male audiences who feel disenfranchised from the gay world due to not identifying with the dominant gay culture: feminized gay men." He says he was advised, when competing for the International Mr. Leather (IML) title, to be "less Fidel Castro and more Carmen Miranda" if he wanted to win, and that experienced IML hands:

cajoled me into swinging my hips, moving my arms, exaggerating my walk, and beaming a huge smile while waving wildly. I thought I was losing my mind. They told me, "It's a fag contest, honey! Queen it up!"

Castillo, who placed fourth in the IML contest, concludes, "Carmen Miranda can have her basket of fruit back to place firmly on her head. She looks better with it in high heels than I do."

While Castillo sees the criticism of his "machismo" as anti-Hispanic, it actually points to something far broader - the internalization of the feminist critique of masculinity to the point that even leather contests, apparently, aren't safe.

Look Back: My article "Masculinity Under Siege," although a bit dated (it was written in 1993), explores "the feminist critique of manhood" and its embrace by certain gay theorists on the cultural left.

The oh-so politically correct (in print) Village Voice is being sued by Richard Goldstein, defamer of gay nonlefties everywhere. Goldstein, who was fired last year, alleges sexual harassment and age discrimination, reports The Smoking Gun. Among his charges, the VV editor "forced plaintiff to sit in on private meetings held with another male manager while they made salacious comments concerning the heterosexual prostitution ads in the paper." Oh, the humanity.

Regarding last weekend's "Millions More Movement" event on the National Mall, the Washington Post reports:

Gay leaders have felt shut out of the organizing of events led by Louis Farrakhan, head of the Nation of Islam, but there was an indication earlier this week that [gay black activist] Keith Boykin, president of the National Black Justice Coalition, would speak today. However, gay black leaders said Boykin had been rebuffed yesterday and that he would give his speech, instead, to a gathering of gay blacks elsewhere.

Although Farrakhan is a racist demagogue and anti-semite, most mainstream black civil rights and "social justice" groups eagerly participated and granted credibility to Farrakan's efforts. As would Boykin, if he'd been allowed to.

Update: The Washington Blade has more.

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The Houston Chronicle reports that lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is involved in the Tom DeLay mess,

quietly arranged for eLottery to pay conservative, anti-gambling activists to help in the firm's $2 million pro-gambling campaign, including Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition, and the Rev. Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition. ...

To reach the House conservatives, Abramoff turned to Sheldon, leader of the Orange County, Calif.-based Traditional Values Coalition, a politically potent group that publicly opposed gambling and said it represented 43,000 churches. Abramoff had teamed up with Sheldon before on issues affecting his clients. Because of their previous success, Abramoff called Sheldon "Lucky Louie," former associates said. ...

Abramoff asked eLottery to write a check in June 2000 to Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition (TVC). He also routed eLottery money to a Reed company, using two intermediaries, which had the effect of obscuring the source.

Simply delicious, and a testament to the corruption that ensues when religious leaders enmesh themselves in politics.

And while the old-guard's hypocrisy is revealed, there may be positive movement on another front. According to this report in the Boston Globe, evangelical pastor Rick Warren, author of the best-selling The Purpose Driven Life, is considered a new breed of evangelical leader who rejects attempts to legislate the change he preaches about. "If I thought that legislation could change the culture, I'd become a politician. But I don't believe it can," Warren said.

He may not support gay equality, but this is still a hopeful trend within evangelicalism. Here's to him.

Dale Carpenter takes a look at attempts to defeat the anti-gay marriage amendment in Texas, and finds that activists are making the same strategic mistakes that lead to amendment victories in 13 states last year (including 11 ballot initiatives on Nov. 2). For instance:

In a conservative Republican state, here's the coalition [activists] have put together to defeat the amendment: Among the eight "featured sponsors" of the anti-amendment campaign are three partisan Democratic groups, two leftist groups that promote "social justice," one statewide gay group that barely pretends to work with Republicans, and another that was founded by the daughter of former Democratic governor Ann Richards. This is, to be sure, a "coalition." It is a coalition of losers.

Critics will demand to know who else you could get to join forces in the anti-amendment effort. I dunno. But my gut tells me that allying with liberal to left-wing activists in a conservative state does more harm than good. By far.

By the way, there's a huge difference between "justice" (government acts to ensure equal treatment before the law) and "social justice" (government acts to redistribute resources to those it feels are more deserving-and more likely to vote for said government). Conservatives view the latter as distorting market incentives that drive growth and prosperity, and fostering dependency that produces social dysfunction. Maybe they'd vote to ban gay marriage anyway, but joining equal treatment for gays to such a wider agenda isn't smart politics.

Furter: Dale debates an amendment supporter, as recounted by the Houston Chronicle. His comments, I'm sure, were more persuasive than those of Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, also quoted in the article, who labels the amendment "a proposition of hate." We may think it is, among some supporters, but that rhetoric is not going to win over moderates who might be leaning in favor of the amendment out of fear that gay marriage will radically fray the social fabric. They know that hate isn't their motivation, and when we lob the "H" word instead of addressing their concerns, we guarantee we'll lose.

Still More: In California, the group spearheading that state's anti-amendment fight, Equality California, has posted on its website a big "Payback for Arnold" banner. I guess they think they only need votes from liberal Democrats. Bye-bye moderate Republicans and independents; hello, defeat.

Some people went all out to try to stop Log Cabin Republican head Patrick Guerriero from speaking to between 100 to 200 students at UNC-Chapel Hill for National Coming Out Day. First a pie was thrown at him (Guerriero took off his coat and continued with his speech) but a few minutes later someone pulled the fire alarm, forcing the lecture hall to be evacuated (Guerriero finished his talk on the front steps).

As reported by the News & Observer, both gay liberals and anti-gay conservatives often find Guerriero controversial, but

in this case, Bernard Holloway, one of the organizers of Monday's speech, said some people think the assailant came from the left. "I think there was a lot more unease amongst queer-identified people on campus just seeing Patrick come than amongst conservative-minded people on campus," Holloway said.

Guerriero said he was impressed that the students who attended the talk stayed on despite the interruptions.

I can't speak to this particular incident, but I have personally witnessed young gay leftists shouting down non-leftist speakers, so great is their fear that incorrect views might mislead those who lack the proper ideological rigor.

Update: A somewhat related story on efforts by (ok, some) left-liberals to stop campus speakers whom they deem ideologically wayward.
--Stephen H. Miller

In a major article for the New Republic, Andrew Sullivan writes:

It is beginning to dawn on many that the very concept of gay culture may one day disappear altogether. By that, I do not mean that homosexual men and lesbians will not exist-or that they won't create a community of sorts and a culture that sets them in some ways apart. I mean simply that what encompasses gay culture itself will expand into such a diverse set of subcultures that "gayness" alone will cease to tell you very much about any individual. The distinction between gay and straight culture will become so blurred, so fractured, and so intermingled that it may become more helpful not to examine them separately at all.

Gay marriage will be a main driver of this, and Sullivan comments that while watching a gay couple get married on the beach,

The heterosexuals in the crowd knew exactly what to do. They waved and cheered and smiled. Then, suddenly, as if learning the habits of a new era, gay bystanders joined in. In an instant, the difference between gay and straight receded again a little.

I don't want to oversimplify; Sullivan sees gay culture as undergoing "integration," not "assimilation," with a multiplicity of roles and identities now availalbe.

But it's clear that this radical but evolutionary reconfiguring toward the mainstream of American life won't please those whose brand of radicalism is based on perpetuating marginalization, or who would strap all gays into their "queer" identity straitjacket.

A Lambda Legal attorney is suing two fundamentalist doctors in California who refused to artificially inseminate lesbian Guadalupe Benitez. The doctors said to have done so would have violated their religious beliefs, and that they also would have refused to inseminate an unmarried heterosexual women.

So, Ms. Benitez couldn't go to another doctor? The idea, it seems, is now prevalent in the gay legal world that no matter of personal conscience or religious conviction should permit a private business or practitioner to discriminate against a gay client.

I believe discriminating against gays is morally wrong. I also believe that there are limits in the ability of the state to force people to go against their personal convictions, especially in matters of abortion or procreation. There are other doctors in Southern California.

The matter has parallels with attempts to force all pharmacists to dispense birth control.

By the way, I also oppose attempts by religious conservatives to pass laws that forbid gays or unmarried heteros from procreating through artificial insemination, and which sought to criminalize doctors' participation in assisted reproduction in those cases. The state should not be involved in either forcing or forbidding doctors from making such personal decisions.

If Hamas were to win control of the Palestinian Authority in coming elections, expect to see homophobic and misogynistic laws as part of its "liberation." The London Times reports that Mahmoud Zahar, the faction's leader in Gaza who is now extremely popular among Palestinians, said there would be no rights given to "homosexuals and to lesbians, a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick." Israel, by the way, protects gays from discrimination and provides certain spousal rights to same-sex couples, which is why gay Palestinians try to flee there.

In The New Republic, Rob Anderson takes gay groups to task in How America's Gay Rights Establishment Is Failing Gay Iranians (free registration required), noting that in the view of some leading gay activists:

The moral argument is that Americans are in no position to criticize Iranians on human rights-that it would be wrong to campaign too loudly against Iranian abuses when the United States has so many problems of its own. ...

Activists are more than willing to condemn the homophobic leaders of the Christian right for campaigning against gay marriage; but they are wary of condemning Islamist regimes that execute citizens for being gay. Something has gone terribly awry.

By way of example, he quotes Matt Foreman of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, who described Iran's executions of gays as the moral equivalent of George Bush's America, saying:

If we think that psychological torture and physical torture and rape and inhumane conditions are not part of our own criminal justice system, than people don't have a clue about the reality of our nation, let alone the conditions of Guantanamo, let alone the sanctions to keep prisoners in Afghanistan.

Compare this, Anderson notes, with anti-apartheid activism of the 1970s and '80s (no one said we shouldn't organize international condemnation against South Africa because America was just as racist!), and you can see how great this failure is.

Anderson also writes that Paula Ettelbrick, head of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC ), "wasn't willing to discuss what progress the organization has made [on Iran]; so it is hard to know whether whatever the IGLHRC is doing is effective or not." Well, in the wake of the article's appearance, Ettelbrick has responded with a column in the Washington Blade on standing up for Iranian gays. That's something, at least.

Update: Gay Patriot writes: "The problem for the American gay community is that our 'establishment' no longer recognizes right from wrong. Only Red from Blue." That about sums it up.

Further: A commenter notes that in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taliban, the traditional if covert acceptance of same-sex relations has returned, as reported here.

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