IGF CultureWatch

This Wall Street Journal editorial hits the nail on the head in its analysis of the Democratic Party's current leadership, "which has arguably never been more overtly hostile to free markets, deregulation, tax reform and free trade than it is today."

And let's not forget, the party's current leadership "has made Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo its main policy touchstones for the war on terror." This week's outburst by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., comparing U.S. military terror-prison guards with Nazis is only the latest incident.

Which is a very bad thing, given that this is also the party that - at least rhetorically - favors gay rights. Unless the Democrats can be drawn back toward the center and away from reflexive obstructionism, they will become increasingly marginalized - with their support for gay rights being seen as just more evidence of their capture by the left.

A Republican Party dominated by cultural reactionaries, and a Democratic Party dominated by appeasement-minded, anti-market reactionaries does not bode well for anyone's future.

Update: This isn't new, but political columnist Michael Barone (of U.S. News & World Report) makes some good points on how blogosphere politics have driven the Democrats to the left - and into an electoral cul de sac. He writes:

Now the big money comes from the left blogosphere and Bush-hating billionaires like George Soros. Dean gives them what they want. As Dean says, "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for." Hate. But Bush hatred was not enough to beat Bush in 2004-while Democratic turnout was up, Republican turnout was up more-and doesn't seem likely to beat Republicans in 2006 and 2008.

An op-ed in Friday's New York Times, Onward, Moderate Christian Soldiers, is by John Danforth, an Episcopal minister and former Republican senator from Missouri - and recent addition to the Republican Unity Coalition's advisory board. He writes that "People of faith have the right, and perhaps the obligation, to bring their values to bear in politics, but:

Moderate Christians are less certain about when and how our beliefs can be translated into statutory form, not because of a lack of faith in God but because of a healthy acknowledgement of the limitations of human beings....

For us, religion should be inclusive, and it should seek to bridge the differences that separate people. . . . Christians who hold these convictions ought to add their clear voice of moderation to the debate on religion in politics.

It's a nice sentiment, but really, given the decline in the mainstream Protestant churches (due to, in large measure, a too-frequent celebration of secular leftism over spiritual substance), it's unclear how many moderate Christian soldier there actually are.

The original "Gay Patriot" has returned -- feisty as ever.

I envy the wide-ranging comments the GP site gets (helmed solo these past few months by "GP West"). This blog's comments zone is dominated by vitriol-spewers, and more than a few readers tell me they now avoid commenting because of it. I don't blame them, but I'm not sure what to do about it. As reader "Remy" said in explaining why he will no longer comment, "it's the tragedy of the commons" -- the destroyers ruining what's publicly accessible.

I guess one reasons our comments are so disparaging is that the GP site is clearly branded as a home for conservative gay thought, whereas many find their way here hoping for some kind of "independent" leftwing analysis, and are shocked, shocked to find a site that gives voice to center-right, conservative, and libertarian viewpoints. But it's the blog that truly sets them off - some visit every day to denounce whatever I write, often in multiple comment postings. Often, I don't even bother to read their latest round of insults, and I sympathize with those of you who don't, either.

IGF author and Yalie James Kirchick passed along an interesting (if long) analysis by Yale junior Daniel Koffler in the leftwing publication Dissent, titled "On the New Student Politics."

Koffler wants to save the left from its excesses (campus speech codes, for example, and "The transformation of the left into a mouthpiece for every sort of cultural grievance, whether legitimate or not"). But it's worth noting that he finds among today's students (or perhaps it's mainly Ivy Leaguers) that:

Though there are important differences, the struggle for gay rights is something like my generation's version of the civil rights struggle. Left, center, and yes, right as well, the prevailing consensus among college students, if vague and only half-articulated, is the idea that powerful people older than we have perpetuated a gross injustice, and that of the two major political parties, one is contemptible in its cowardice while the other endorses a constitutional validation of second-class citizenship.

And he sees something of a new "alternative politics" emerging:

This politics assumes as its foundation the inherent worth of individual rights and strives toward the maximization of individual freedom. The beliefs that define it and cluster around it - recognition of gay rights, abolition of arbitrary discrimination, the end of the drug war and the legalization of soft drugs, the curtailment of content regulation in the media..., the belief in the inherent worth of classical liberal values, and the willingness to defend them by force against real external threats &#8212 are thus analytically connected to each other as expressions of the principle of liberty-maximization.

Of course, students always think they're hatching a "new politics," but let's at least celebrate the possibility that a sort of new "liberty-maximizing" alignment might be afoot.

The Los Angeles Times has this story about a gay couple in Orange County, informed by the Catholic school their sons attend that they are forbidden to "present themselves as a couple at school functions." Part of me is glad to see gay Catholics take on their church's homophobia. But at the same time, it's a private school premised on propagating the Vatican line, and if that's what the other parents want (which seems to be the case, although given the authoritarian nature of their church, who knows?), then why not send the kids to a nice inclusive private school instead?

I'm not being flippant; freedom of association means that the homophobes get to associate amongst themselves, too.

We've posted a new letter that takes apart anti-gay ideologue David Frum's misleading analysis of same-sex marriage in Canada, which massaged the numbers to suggest gays aren't interested in getting hitched.

I haven't weighed in on the Michael Jackson spectacle, and really don't want to do so now. Cleary, the guy has got, er, "issues." Whether the prosecution proved its child molestation case wasn't so clear from my (admittedly) cursory tracking of the trial.

But in light of the controversial acquittal, you may want to revisit James Kirchick's article posted last September, Michael Jackson, Yale's 'Queer Theory' Post Boy, about how professors of "queer studies" have lauded Jackson for his "subversion" of traditional gender and sexual roles.

Republican Congressman Christopher Cox of California has been nominated by President Bush to become the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cox is a fiscal conservative and a federalist. And he not only voted "no" on the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage, but penned an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled "The Marriage Amendment Is a Terrible Idea."

Many liberals, however, are gunning for Cox, blasting him as "pro business" (which is about the worst epithet they can think of). Conservative columnist George Will, however, has come to his defense, writing:

The [Washington] Post's headline on his nomination said: "Congressman Has Taken Pro-Business Stances on Issues." Who today, one wonders, is "anti-business"? And what does that mean?

A [New York] Times columnist disapprovingly said Cox "is a big-business advocate." Leaving aside the vacuity of such labels - what might it mean to be an "advocate" against "big business" and its big numbers of employees. . .?

Here's hoping the move to the SEC is just a step for Cox toward even more prominence on the national level, and within the GOP.
-- Stephen H. Miller

The Republican Unity Coalition (RUC) looks like it may be gearing up again to take on homophobes who think the GOP ought to remain their exclusive club. The RUC just announced that former Republican Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, who cautioned his party recently about the influence of the religious right, has joined its advisory board.

Other RUC advisory board members include former President Gerald R. Ford, David Rockefeller and former Wyoming Sen. Alan K. Simpson, who serves as board chairman. The group, which describes itself as "for gay and straight 'big tent' Republicans, opposes the anti-gay constitutional amendment and seeks to make sexual orientation "a non-issue" in the GOP.

But they've certainly got their work cut out for them - for example, Danforth's own successor in the Senate, Jim Talent, joined 26 other Senate Republicans in co-sponsoring the proposed amendment to ban states from letting gays marry.

Update: The Log Cabin Republicans score a feature story in the Los Angeles Times magazine. The group's Patrick Guerriero suggests that when it comes to the battle for an inclusive GOP, "The drama is only at intermission."
-- Stephen H Miller

More Recent Postings
6/05/05 - 6/11/05

IGF contributing author Dale Carpenter shares some insights into why allowing gays to marry is a "deeply conservative idea," in an interview with columnist Craig Westover in the St. Paul Pioneer Press (take 30 seconds for the required registration, or read it on Westover's blog).

Dale's key point: "Gay marriage advocates have to do a better job explaining how gay marriage is a deeply conservative cause. And we have to do that by appealing to our fellow citizens, not by running to the courts."
- Stephen H. Miller