IGF CultureWatch

Jonathan Rauch, who in his spare time volunteers as IGF's co-managing editor, focuses his column in National Journal on why Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), one of the senate's leading advocates against gay marriage (and against sodomy law repeal, for that matter) is "the anti-Reagan" at odds with his party's Barry Goldwater/conservative legacy (note to our left-liberal readers: that's meant as a critique). Writes Rauch of Santorum's new book, It Takes a Family:

Where Goldwater denounced collectivism as the enemy of the individual, Santorum denounces individualism as the enemy of family. . . .

In an interview with National Public Radio last month, he acknowledged his quarrel with "what I refer to as more of a libertarianish Right" and "this whole idea of personal autonomy." In his book he comments, seemingly with a shrug, "Some will reject what I have to say as a kind of 'Big Government' conservatism."

Which, as Rauch points out, is exactly what it is.

Also taking a look at Santorum's new opus, blogger Tim Hulsey comments that Santorum uses Reagan's rhetoric to destroy Reagan's smaller-government legacy, and that:

Reagan in his prime would have had the perfect four-word review of Santorum's book: There you go again."

More Recent Postings
8/21/05 - 8/27/05

Ideological activists on both the left and right aren't shy about using gut-wrenching human tragedy to advance their zealotry. Witness those on the anti-gay religious right who blame gays for the destruction of New Orleans, and those on the climate-alarmist left who blame "global warming," which even the New York Times initially couldn't swallow, although its anti-Bush-at-all-costs editorialists seemly could. (Hat tip: James Taranto's Best of the Web -- take a look.)

Back after a week's vacation, so I'm a bit late commenting on this story - about a gay Iraqi lamenting that life was better under Saddam's absolute dictatorship. But I think it raises an interesting point. Iraq has its first democratically elected governing assembly, which may enact a constitution that, by recognizing Islamic law, leads to persecutions of gays. (Of course, under Saddam, if you were a Kurd or Marsh Arab, you were subject to organized genocide, and any dissidence, even among the favored Sunni, would get you and your family - small children included - imprisoned, tortured and executed, but that's another story).

Here in the U.S., too, some gays may worship at the altar of the Democratic Party, but fear and loathe democratically elected governments that are against expanding legal equality for gays (and hence, they favor a strategy focused on achieving judicial decrees from left-leaning judges that can be enforced against the intransigent electorate).

So, is democracy good for gays?

More Recent Postings
8/14/05 - 8/20/05

Four leading Democratic Party front groups that specialize in targeting gay donors have come out against a Supreme Court nominee who helped gays achieve one of our seminal victories of the last decade.

If Roberts is sunk, one thing I can assure you, the next nominee won't be as good on gay issues -- but then again, do you honestly think that matters one bit to groups that see their real mission as advancing a broad-based, big-government "progressive" left-liberal agenda via the Democratic Party?

Updates: The Washington Post's account. John and Jane Q. Moderate must be scratching their heads, wondering why "the gays" are against a judge who volunteered his efforts on behalf of their cause. Or maybe the public is more savvy and understands what most (not all) "gay" activists actually are.

I note that Lambda Legal Defense did not sign the anti-Roberts statement, and neither did GLAAD, which has a new moderate-Republican executive director.

A good letter on abortion and activists' hypocrisy, in our mailbag.

And some thoughtful comments (and others less so) in the comments zone.

In our mailbag it's suggested that the religious right is beyond the pale of debate because "bigots [aren't] capable of dialogue." I respond that "to refuse to confront the ideas of your opponents is a great, big cop-out," and that "The religious right is not some splinter, Nazi sect; millions of hard-working, salt-of-the-Earth Americans find spiritual solace in its rituals and worldview. I don't believe we should simply give up on trying to reach them (the religious right's adherents, if not its leadership)."

Yes, we were down for nearly a full day, starting Thursday evening, after our server was attacked - again. Our team of wonderful unpaid volunteers took many, many hours away from their lives to get things up and running. We owe them a great, big THANKS.

We're hopeful things are now stabilized (if not, I guess you won't be reading this). For those who saw the message "Access Denied," it was nothing personal.

I'll be traveling for the next week out of country, but will try to post if the laptop can manage it. If not, see you next week!
--Stephen H. Miller

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has just selected a Republican to lead the organization, Neil G. Giuliano, the four-term mayor of Tempe, Ariz. I wish him luck; he'll need it. The organization has spent the last decade not constructively engaging the religious right (which merely served as "the enemy" in fundraising letters), and instead mainly cavorting with Hollywood celebs and issuing mindlessly politically correct denunciations (see below).

As an early GLAAD supporter, volunteer and board member of what was then GLAAD/New York, I wish Neil well. My suggestion: a thorough housecleaner, if the board allows it, of staffers who think GLAAD's mission is to advance the "progressive" agenda.

Update: In response to those who criticized me for criticizing GLAAD, in the comments zone reader "J.P." observes:

GLAAD was not formed as a Hollywood lobby; it was modeled on the Anti-Defamation League, and its mission was to counter far-right homophobia the way the ADL counters far-right anti-Semitism.

Over recent years, GLAAD went soft and found it easier to party with Hollywood liberals than to take on the religious right. Steve is absolutely correct in this, as anyone who remembers what GLAAD once was can attest.

The latest anti John Roberts missive from HRC, the abortion rights lobby that targets gay and lesbian donors, manages to sidestep abortion. This isn't so surprising, given that the Washington Post reports that, in the wake of the NARAL ad fiasco, the plan of Roberts' opponents "calls for emphasizing rights beyond abortion in an effort to appeal to a broader swath of the electorate."

HRC head Joe Solmonese dismisses Roberts aid to gay lawyers in the Romer case (although those same lawyers said Roberts help was conceptually very important). Instead, he focuses on decisions he believes indicate Roberts would not extend constitutional protections - such as his finding no constitutional violation in a teenager's arrest for eating french fries on the Washington subway (in violation of a local ordinance).

The arrest may well be seen as unreasonable, but not everything that's good or reasonable is premised on a constitutionally guaranteed right. And in the french fry case, as Eugene Volokh noted, Roberts was bound to follow a Supreme Court precedent - the Atwater v. Lago Vista decision, written by Justice David Souter, that ruled the disproportionality of arrest to offense was not unconstitutional (after a mother was taken into custody for violating the seatbelt law).

HRC's anti-Roberts release, by the way, was sent out the same day that the upper left page-one headline in the Washington Post was "Roberts Unlikely To Face Big Fight: Many Democrats See Battle as Futile." But HRC soldiers on, against a nominee whose history suggests an open-mindedness on gay matters that few expected.

Dale Carpenter makes a strong argument against the conventional wisdom that abortion rights underlie the struggle for gay legal equality. The issue couldn't be more timely, with some gay activists placing fealty to NARAL as a political litmus test superseding all others.

You don't need me to summarize, so just read it for yourselves.

Update: A nice link to us from Gay Patriot.

Remember last June when the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation joined with racial sensitivity groups and pressured ABC to cancel broadcast of its already-filmed reality show "Welcome to the Neighborhood"? (See A Victory for the Self-Appointed Thought Police.) The show explored changing attitudes among suburbanites as a diverse group of families, including a gay couple, competed to win a $400,000 house by overcoming their neighbors' prejudices. GLAAD declared that the episodic format "created serious issues in terms of depicting the neighbors' journey from intolerance to acceptance," and that viewers of the earliest episodes might be misled into thinking prejudice was acceptable.

Well, the Washington Blade has now reported that the gay couple, Steve and John Wright, who have an adopted son, won the house! Can you imagine a more convincing, uplifting, pro-gay message to have sent America? Good thing our media watchdogs kept that from happening, huh?