IGF CultureWatch

Last night I caught on cable TV's Bravo a special called "Great Things About Being Queer." I'd describe it as an hour-long spectacle of parade exhibitionism, sophomoric camp attitudes, silly drag queens, and, well, you get the picture. If I were a gay teen and this was how the gay adult world was presented, I wouldn't want any part of it, either!

So, who is responsible for promoting this view of gay life and giving it such high media visibility? It's not the 25% of gays who vote Republican! Rather, it's the same fashionably leftish urban gay elite that dominates our "community" institutions. Thanks, guys.

The Oct. 3 Time magazine cover story, The Battle Over Gay Teens (sorry, must be a Time subscriber to read it all) has some interesting observations. Among them:

[Ritch Savin-Williams, who chairs Cornell's human-development department] recalls counseling a kid who, after the third session, referred to his "partner." "And I said, 'Oh, you're gay.' And he said, 'No. I only fall in love with guys, but I'm not "gay." It doesn't have anything to do with me.' He saw being gay as leftist, radical. ...

The political part is what worries [Michael Glatze, editor of YGA Magazine]. "I don't think the gay movement understands the extent to which the next generation just wants to be normal kids. The people who are getting that are the Christian right," he says. Indeed, several of those I met at the Exodus event had come not because they thought it would make them straight or even because they are particularly fervent Christians. Instead, they were there because they find something empty about gay culture-a feeling that Exodus exploits with frequent declamations about gays' supposed promiscuity and intemperance. ...

On the first day of the Point Foundation's [scholarships for gay youth] retreat...the 38 students who made the trip were given gift bags that contained, among other items: ...a DVD of the 2001 film Hedwig and the Angry Inch, in which a teenage boy is masturbated by an adult. ... The Aug. 16 issue of the gay magazine the Advocate, whose cover featured a shirtless man and blared, summer sex issue. ...

Point executive director Vance Lancaster says the film, a cult musical about the relationship between a drag queen and a young singer, was already a favorite for many scholars. He also says it "reflects reality". ...

Point scholar and Emory College junior Bryan Olsen, who turned 21 in August and has been out since he was 15, told me during the retreat, "It probably sounds anti-gay, but I think there are very few age-appropriate gay activities for a 14-, 15-year-old. There's no roller skating, bowling or any of that kind of thing. It's Internet, gay porn, gay chats."

Food for thought.

Update: My current take-if she's against excessive business regulation (and she appears to be) and has no anti-gay record (despite her sodomy law stance, she wasn't anti-gay on the Dallas council), then she may be the best we're likely to get. Sure, I'd prefer a libertarian like Judge Janice Rogers Brown, but she'd never get through the senate - social conservatives would be lukewarm, and the left would demonize her like nothing you've ever seen. So we have Miers. And the fact that the anti-gay social conservative pundits like Bill Kristol are up in arms doesn't exactly bother me. Another positive: James Dobson is pulling back on his initial support.
--Stephen H. Miller

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An AP account takes a thorough look at the available evidence regarding Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' views on gays, including her support (in 1989, while running for the Dallas city council) for maintaining the Texas sodomy law. It also recounts the view of a Dallas gay activist who says that when Miers served on the council, "She wasn't what we call a right-wing nut. My impression was that she was not one to be rabid against us."

Time.com has a pdf of the questionnaire she filled out for the Lesbian/Gay Political Coalition of Dallas, a group she agreed to meet with while making clear she wasn't seeking their endorsement.

The Blade has more:

In Miers' meeting with members of the gay group...she opposed abortion, a response that prompted the group to eliminate her from contention for obtaining the group's endorsement.

Note: it was not her support for the sodomy law!

Blogger Tom Scharbach gives his take.

It will be interesting to hear her testimony at the confirmation hearings.

Further: For what it's worth, from D Magazine (Dallas)'s FrontBurner blog, elucidating on Miers' one-word response ("No") when asked if she supported sodomy law repeal.
--Stephen H. Miller

My only reaction to the Harriet Miers nomination is to be underwhelmed but not to see any obvious red flags. But I was amused by the Exodus Ministries flap. When President Bush mentioned the voluntary organizations that Miers is affiliated with, one was Exodus Ministries, which caused some blogosphere commotion until it was clarified that Exodus Ministries is a Christian outreach program that helps prisoners get their lives together, and has no relationship with Exodus International, the so-called "ex-gay" group. The other interesting factoid is that because she is middle-aged and unmarried, she is already, without any evidence, being labeled a closet case by some "liberals."

Update: Andrewsullivan.com passes along a tidbit from the online New Republic that Meirs apparently submitted a report to the American Bar Association's House of Delegates that including this recommendation:

Supports the enactment of laws and public policy which provide that sexual orientation shall not be a bar to adoption when the adoption is determined to be in the best interest of the child....

But no matter; she will refuse to promise to support Roe v. Wade, and so gay activists will oppose her.

More Recent Postings
9/25/05 - 10/1/05

Opines social conservative pundit Rod Dreher: "We are losing the gay marriage fight, and, in fact, have lost it already, though not all of us know it yet. When the acceptance of civil-unions protections for gay couples is the conservative position, then we have been defeated." (Hat Tip: RichTafel.com)

Further: As the Washington Post reports, the advent of civil union ceremonies in Connecticut, granting all the state (but not federal) benefits/responsibilities of matrimony, "seemed too low-key to be a milestone in a cultural fight that has divided the nation." That's in marked contrast to the protests that ensued when Vermont instituted civil unions and Massachusetts provided for same-sex marriage.

Unlike domestic partnerships elsewhere, civil unions are more akin to marriage in that the state issues licenses, and the unions are solemnized by a justice of the peace who pronounces the couple "partners in life."

The National Gay & Lesbian Task comes completely unhinged as it "deplores" John Roberts' "outrageous" confirmation. That this is one of our leading national organizations should be a deep embarrassment to anyone who is gay.

Arnold says:

I am returning Assembly Bill 849 without my signature because I do not believe the Legislature can reverse an initiative approved by the people of California.

I am proud California is a leader in recognizing and respecting domestic partnerships and the equal rights of domestic partners. I believe that lesbian and gay couples are entitled to full protection under the law and should not be discriminated against based upon their relationships. I support current domestic partnership rights and will continue to vigorously defend and enforce these rights and as such will not support any rollback.

California Family Code Section 308.5 was enacted by an initiative statute passed by the voters as Proposition 22 in 2000. Article II, section 10 of the California Constitution prohibits the Legislature from amending this initiative statute without a vote of the people. This bill does not provide for such a vote.

The ultimate issue regarding the constitutionality of section 308.5 and its prohibition against same-sex marriage is currently before the Court of Appeal in San Francisco and will likely be decided by the Supreme Court.

This bill simply adds confusion to a constitutional issue. If the ban of same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, this bill is not necessary. If the ban is constitutional, this bill is ineffective.

That certainly won't please critics, and shouldn't (Log Cabin issued a statement expressing its "deep disappointment"). But it's not the traditional Republican gay-baiting, either, and will help take the wind out of the sails of the proposed anti-gay marriage/anti-partnership constitutional amendment(s) when it/they come up for a vote.

We've posted two new pieces on the latest edict from Rome. Want more? Ex-Catholic Rick Rosendall weighs in with his insights, here.

Further: Columnist James Carroll writes in the Boston Globe on "A Catholic Moment of Truth," and that:

the coming instruction is regarded as a catastrophe in the making. With boards of Vatican-appointed investigators poised to swoop down on American schools in which new priests are trained, interrogations of candidates and loyalty tests for teachers already betray a nostalgia for the bygone era of thought-control and snitching. A formally licensed obsession with homosexuality will push the investigation into a realm, as one senior priest put it to me, more of Joseph Stalin than Jesus Christ.

--Stephen H. Miller

As recounted in this Detroit Free Press editorial:

Gay couples scored a big victory Tuesday in a judge's ruling that last fall's [Michigan] constitutional amendment barring marriage between two men or two women does not jeopardize health care benefits afforded such couples. Even though Michigan is a long way from recognizing marriage equality, it cannot outlaw equitable health coverage.

In other words, the state and local governments-as well as private-sector employers-can extend health benefits to employees' partners.

That's good; but permitting (or at least not constitutionally prohibiting!) civil unions or marriage would be much better. As often noted on this site (see here, for instance), if conservative marriage defenders really wanted to safeguard the institution, they'd realize that letting gays wed would do more to strengthen marriage than a prohibition that, by necessity, leads to providing spousal benefits to the unwed, both straight and gay.

Still, at least one of the most pernicious aspects of these overly broad anti-gay amendments (none of which, to date, has ever failed to pass when put to a popular vote) was dealt a major setback.

Al-Qaida has purportedly launched a news program via the Internet. According to the Washington Post account:

The anchorman, who said the report would appear once a week, presented news about the Gaza Strip and Iraq. . . . A copy of the Koran, the Muslim holy book, was placed by his right hand and a rifle affixed to a tripod was pointed at the camera.

Then came this weather report:

"The whole Muslim world was filled with joy" [after Katrina], the anchorman said. He went on to say that President Bush was "completely humiliated by his obvious incapacity to face the wrath of God, who battered New Orleans, city of homosexuals."

Pat Robertson, met Bin Laden.