IGF CultureWatch

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?

Last week, the Washington Blade reported that 16-year-old blogger Zach Stark, forced to attend an ex-gay camp/"treatment" facility by his parents, now criticized the worldwide response on his behalf by those with "one-sided (biased) agendas" and, using more ex-gay buzzwords, says that while homosexuality is still a "factor" for him but he won't let it "run my life." (See my original posting on Zach, here.)

We've published a letter in our mailbag which, assuming it's not someone's idea of a literary exercise, presents another very sad gay teen story.

Blogger Boi From Troy takes aim at CNN's double standard - last year refusing as "too controversial" a hard-hitting ad from the Log Cabin Republicans that linked images of Jerry Falwell, Rick Santorum and Rev. Fred Phelps, but now accepting a NARAL ad linking John Roberts to "violent fringe groups" that bomb abortion clinics.

According to the AP, "other abortion rights groups including the National Organization for Women, the National Abortion Federation and the Feminist Majority all have announced their opposition to Roberts." They should have added the Human Rights Campaign, the abortion rights lobby that targets gay and lesbian donors.

Here's the New York Times' report; even the liberal Times can't defend the ad.

Meanwhile, social conservatives may be turning against Roberts for being pro-gay. And right-wing firebrand Ann Coulter has been leading the anti-Roberts charge.

Press release headline: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force study finds that Social Security privatization will disproportionately harm lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans . Yes, allowing gay people to bequeath their life-long retirement savings to a partner (or anyone else they choose) sure would be a bad thing, and allowing all people of modest means to access the wealth-generating power of the equity markets, if they so choose, is a sure threat to gay equality.

Oh, and the study also finds that "LGBT people of color, in particular, face an income disadvantage that leads to lower Social Security benefits." Well, yes, which is why capital accumulation via low-expense asset-class index funds would give them a fighting chance at a comfortable retirement.

Update: Reader "David" comments:

This is a dishonest study, done by leftists to advance the left's agenda rather than by actual gay activists with an interest in the actual lives of gay people.

Social Security choice is inherently pro-gay. If people put their retirement in private accounts, those accounts belong to them. They can leave their assets to their partner or to anyone else. If gays could get married, then this provision would not matter to us more than to anyone else - but we can't.

The study says: "If we earn less, we receive a lower Social Security payment in retirement." Well, duh. But that's a fact - or a complaint - about the current system. A large-accounts privatization plan would allow lower-income people to accumulate assets the way upper-middle-class people now do. If indeed gays are more likely to have lower incomes, then they would be disproportionately benefited by privatization.

I think the study notes, for instance, that money you leave to your partner is taxable, while assets left to your spouse are not. That's discrimination, and we should support ending it - but it's a comment on current law, not Social Security reform. In fact, we might even be able to quietly get a provision into the reform law that says that private Social Security benefits could be inherited tax-free. (And besides, left-liberals are always telling us that only the very rich pay the estate tax, so the taxability of retirement assets is hardly an issue for "low-income LGBTs.")

If you'd like to leave the money you've saved all your life to your partner - or to HRC - you should support Social Security choice.

Mainstream Christianity long ago become profoundly alienated from human sexuality - and, it goes without saying, especially gay sexuality. Could anything be more absurd than a directive issued by the Anglican Church of England (cousins of U.S. Episcopalians) allowing gay clergy to form civil partnerships but requiring that they pledge to be celibate?

If this was an attempt to placate the virulently homophobic Africans in the Anglican Communion, it apparently didn't work - they're furious at the mere idea of gay priests, anyway.

Update: Gay priests are set to defy their bishops over the no-sex-despite-partnerhips order, reports the U.K.'s Telegraph.

More Recent Postings
7/31/05 - 8/6/05

News that Supreme Court nominee John Roberts performed pro bono work on behalf of gay rights attorneys in the landmark Supreme Court Romer v. Evans case, originally reported by the Los Angeles Times ("Roberts Donated Help to Gay Rights Cause"), has ignited concern among social conservatives. While the pro bono work was at his firm's request, Roberts showed no hesitation, and the gay-rights attorneys praised his efforts in preparing them to go before the Court and successfully argue their case. All of which led right-wing radio host Sean Hannity to opine for several hours on Thursday that the disclosure seems to indicate Roberts does not share the judicial philosophy of Scalia, Rehnquist and Thomas.

The revelations could cause a number of social conservatives to turn on Roberts. A more interesting question is what gay political lobbies such as the Human Rights Campaign, which opposes Roberts over abortion, will do.

If left-liberals continue to work against Roberts, it's doubtful they'll actually get a nominee better on abortion, but now it's certain they won't get a nominee better on gay issues.

Update: The New York Times reports that "Liberal critics of Judge Roberts, however, continued to assail him on Thursday as a foe of civil rights," but that "James C. Dobson, chairman of the evangelical group Focus on the Family, said Judge Roberts's work in the case was 'not welcome news to those of us who advocate for traditional values.' "

From 365gay.com: "Conservatives 'Concerned' Over Judge Roberts Gay Past" (how's that for a bit of innuendo!).

The HRC website still has a banner saying Roberts "threatens to tip the Supreme Court to the far right," and a hit piece charging he would "undermine a woman's right to choose" and lacks "commitment to environmental and other vital protections," as well as a quickie response downplaying Thursday's news, saying it merely "re-emphasizing the need for full examination" of Roberts, especially regarding his views on abortion.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center shows that while only 36% of Americans favor allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally (slightly higher than in previous studies), for the first time a majority (53%) favors permitting gays and lesbians to enter into legal arrangements that would give them many of the same rights as married couples.

According to the survey, there has also been a slight decline (down to 29%) in the number of Americans expressing support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

There is no reason that state ballot initiatives that ban both gay marriage and same-sex civil unions are passing with such high numbers, given public sentiment on civil unions. If national gay groups choose not to devote enough time, money and resources on these referenda (in favor of throwing money at national Democratic candidates with broad-based left-liberal agendas), then pressure should be brought to bear.

The monstrous Rev. Fred Phelps and cult/clan is now protesting at the stateside funerals of American soldiers who fell in Iraq. I'm surprised that gay activists aren't making more of the fact that the Phelps crew is not just virulently anti-gay, but also anti the U.S. military - an opportunity missed, it would seem.

A friendly reminder: Discussions and debates among readers are welcome in the comments zone, but if you use obscenity to voice your disagreements with one another, we'll delete the comment. Thems the rules.

I'm off for a week's vacation. If the gods of wi-fi are with me, I'll post during that time; if not, see you next week.

Finally, on the topic of being provocative, and just to make the left-liberals apoplectic, here's a link to an opinion column by gay conservative bete noire Jeff Gannon, in this week's Washington Blade. While I'm more of a libertarian than Gannon, kudos to the Blade for embracing real "diversity" rather than the p.c. variant (i.e., everyone who agrees with us from a variety of ethnicities) and running a gay conservative voice. Expect the anti-heretics to go berserk.

More Recent Postings
7/24/05 - 7/30/05

For thoughtful responses to recently posted articles by IGF's contributing authors, including how to respond to the religious right on the marriage issue, check out our mailbag.

As letter writer John Stamper puts it:

[A]ctivists need to understand why people are rightly skeptical about their arguments. Understanding that skepticism, and not attributing it in reflexive rainbow robothink to "homophobia," is critical....