IGF CultureWatch

It could be we've just seen the first head-to-head battle of the 2008 GOP primary, and John McCain has bested Bill Frist. An analysis by the AP:

A bipartisan deal could undercut Frist's political standing and his remaining months as Senate leader.... Among the Republicans seeking a compromise on the judicial nominees is a potential 2008 rival to Frist - Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Last week, it was McCain who appealed to his Republican colleagues at a closed-door meeting to compromise with the Democrats, a notion Frist rejected.

I know, the conventional wisdom is that McCain is seen as too moderate to get the GOP nod (though he'd easily win the general election if he did). But the CW has often been surprisingly, stunningly wrong.

By the way, did you notice that the judicial compromise left the Democrats with the right to squelch two of Bush's judicial nominees, and who got squelched? It was not the most anti-gay of the group, William H. Pryor Jr., nominated for the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who now is on his way to confirmation. Says planetout.com:

As Alabama attorney general in 2003, Pryor urged the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the rights of states to outlaw consensual gay sex, comparing laws against gay sex to laws against pedophilia and bestiality in a friend-of-the-court brief.

Instead, the two deemed beyond the pale are, first, former Interior Department solicitor William Myers, nominated for the 9th U.S. Circuit of Appeals, who, Newsday reports, is vigorously opposed by environmentalists for what they say was an anti-environment agenda at Interior and as a private lawyer and lobbyist for cattle and mining interests. And second, Henry Saad, nominated for the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, who has invoked the ire of Senate minority leader Harry Reid for reasons not all that clear, other than Reid's insinuations about "a problem" he said is in the nominee's "confidential report from the FBI" (it may be that Reid's pseudo-McCarthyite tactics against Saad boxed him into a corner he couldn't get out of).

I guess when it comes to beltway clout, the Sierra Club beats out the Human Rights Campaign. Maybe HRC should demand a refund from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee!

Update: The Christian Science Monitor analyzes what the filibuster deal means for the 2008 presidential race:

Among those who appear to be actively considering a run, Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona emerges a winner, analysts say.... The agreement on judges "certainly burnished his credentials as an independent thinker and someone who's a problem-solver," says John Green, a political scientist at the University of Akron.

McCain's biggest drawback is that his shoot-from-the-hip style makes him unpopular with religious conservatives. But he opposes abortion, and could become palatable to that GOP bloc if he appeared the strongest Republican to face the Democratic nominee, analysts say.

More Recent Postings
5/15/05 - 5/21/05

As the Washington Post headline puts it: Business Groups Tire of GOP Focus On Social Issues:

From Wall Street to Main Street, the small-government, pro-business mainstay of the Republican Party appears to be growing disaffected with a party it sees as focused on social issues at its expense.... Mark A. Bloomfield, whose business-backed American Council for Capital Formation pushes for lower taxes on savings, investment and inheritances, said the business community is no longer the GOP's base.

And neo-libertarian John Henke says that the administration's catering to the religious right while ignoring the "libertarian center" could cost it dearly, if true small-government conservatives decide sit out the next election. He writes:

maybe this'd be a good time for Republicans to notice that their constituency consists of more than evangelicals. They might even consider trying to actually appeal to that "libertarian center." Otherwise, '06 looks like it might be ugly for the GOP. (Hat tip: instapundit)

All of which might leave the middle up for grabs - if the Democrats weren't blindly swerving to the left.

More Recent Postings
5/22/05 - 5/28/05

This week, a "moderate" Republican governor with national aspirations, Maryland's Robert Ehrlich, vetoed a modest domestic partnership bill and mouthed drivel about protecting the "sanctity of marriage," in an attempt to curry favor with religious conservatives. Meanwhile, the supposed "moderate" bloc of congressional "New Democrats" pledged to oppose a modest free trade expansion with Central America, in deference to big-labor contributors who think the U.S. government can freeze the present manufacturing sector in place by forfeiting the prosperity and growth that freer trade invariable brings.

One party thinks its purpose is to stifle personal liberty and the familial relationships two life partners can enter into, and the other thinks its purpose is to stifle economic liberty and the business relationships that trading partners can enter into. That's politics, I guess.

P.S. I'll be away for a few days. Catch you later. (Also, new letters in the mailbag)

A new Pew Research Center study makes clear that Republicans are no longer the party just of the wealthy, nor are Democrats the party of the working class. And both have constituencies of anti-gay conservatives (though a bigger percentage of the GOP base). As the Washington Post's report on the study puts it:

Both parties now are coalitions of the wealthy and not-so-wealthy, and of well-educated and less-educated voters. Taken together, the findings show why neither party can take its coalition for granted in future campaigns.

Republicans can be pro-business Enterprisers, Social Conservatives or Pro-Government Conservatives, while Democrats can be Liberals, Disadvantaged Democrats and Conservative Democrats. According to the study:

While agreeing with the conservative position on most key issues, Enterprisers [9% of the general population, 11% of registered voters] are distinguished from other Republican-leaning groups by their relative lack of intensity with respect to individual or social moral beliefs. . . .

Overall, divisions over social and religious issues continue to be far more intense on the left than on the right. Conservative Democrats - who represent 14% of the general public [15% of registered voters] and a quarter of John Kerry's voting base in 2004 - tend to agree with Republican groups more than other Democratic groups when it comes to key social issues such as gay marriage and abortion.

Which may be why, despite all the gay money Democrats receive, their pro-gay actions at the national level have been mostly rhetorical, and often their record has been scarcely better than that of the Republicans (the Defense of Marriage Act, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, etc.).

Want to know what category you fit into? Take the test. (Not surprisingly, I'm an Enterpriser).

Cathy Young takes on the cultural relativists. She writes:

Welcome to Politically Correct World, where acts that would merit unequivocal condemnation if committed by white males are viewed in a very different light when the offenders belong to an "oppressed group."

It's worth the 10 seconds it will take to register with the Boston Globe.

Update: The bashing made the Times of London, which reports:

For the first time, the Amsterdam Tourist Board has issued a warning to gay visitors to be careful in the city. In the first country to legalise homosexual marriage, gays are increasingly fearful of holding hands in public. Some have been chased out of their houses and middle-class gays are moving to rural areas for safety.

Perhaps all the negative international publicity will embolden the Dutch to stand up and defend their way of life.

Human Rights Campaign head honcho Joe Solmonese tells D.C.'s Metro Weekly (in the May 12th issue) that "there are a lot of people out there who are advancing this [anti-gay agenda] because it makes rich people richer and poor people poorer."

Yeah, that's it, Joe. Fall back on hackneyed, leftist dogma to explain the culture wars. But thanks for making it clear how you intend to address the fears of middle Americans that gay marriage is too great a change to bedrock social institutions. Just explain that they're being manipulated by the forces of capitalist exploitation. I'm sure they'll jump right up to support your oh-so appealing redistributionist political agenda!

By the way, Solmonese's remark could have come right out of What's the Matter with Kansas, the best-seller by liberal strategist Thomas Frank, alleging that the rightwing uses hot-button social issues (gays, abortion) to fool the "working class" into voting against its economic self-interests. The problem with this thesis is that higher taxes and more business regulation are not in the interest of working Americans, since such policies slow the very economic growth that creates jobs and raises incomes.

But to Thomas, Solmonese and many on the left, working Americans vote Republican because of "false consciousness." It's exactly the sort of paternalistic, patronizing thinking that ensures Democrats will keep losing national elections for years to come.

Update 1: I disagree with the Wall Street Journal's James Taranto regarding his embrace of social conservatives, but I think his critique of liberal condescension toward the "working class" hits the nail on the head. Those on the liberal-left would help themselves if they listened - but they won't.

Update 2: Reader "Remy" comments:

Steve may have let his reflexive opposition to leftwing ideologues like Matt Foreman of NGLTF color his critique of Joe Solmonese somewhat. Foreman is a redistributionist; Solmonese is just an abortion rights advocate.

Still, even if Solmonese's remark was not some major declaration, I think it does reveal a worldview that refuses to see that the values fight is about, well, "values" (rather than economics). And given Solmonese's background as an abortion activist, maybe he'd prefer not to face that truth (i.e., associating abortion and gay rights doesn't win support for gay rights among so-called "red state" voters).

More Recent Postings
5/8/05 - 5/14/05

A Washington Post editorial, "Gay Marriage Overreaction," is spot on. In discussing the ruling by a federal district court judge in Nebraska striking down that state's anti-gay marriage amendment, the Post notes something I had missed - the decision by judge Joseph F. Bataillon does not claim that a gay marriage ban per se would violate the U.S. Constitution, but that the broad sweep of this particular state amendment, voiding civil unions and any partnership agreement - even preventing gay couples from making organ donation decisions for one another - was the constitutional offense.

That hasn't stopped anti-gay advocates from claiming, disingenuously, that the ruling proves the case for a federal marriage amendment. But then honesty never has been their policy.

Another editorial worth noting: The latest issue of the Washington Blade offers what last week's print issue didn't - a discussion by editor Chris Crain, recently bashed by Moroccan immigrants in the Netherlands, of the cultural conflict in a country with the most inclusive gay rights laws, and the most illiberal of immigrant populations.

Crain strives to take a middle path here, criticizing those who blame the Dutch for being racists who are intolerant toward immigrants (who are thus provoked into bashing gays), while also castigating those who would limit the rights of immigrants. He writes:

The Dutch Culture Wars should not be fought by shutting down the borders or by using the law to silence those who do not share the country's tradition of tolerance. Those are the arm-twisting tactics of the cultural conservatives who control the majority party here in the U.S.

Whether a tougher stand is necessary to preserve their liberal society, however, will be for the Dutch, not American tourists, to decide.

IGF contributing author David Boaz has penned an insightful commentary taking aim at the GOP for abandoning its commitment to federalism on marriage and other issues:

Perhaps most notoriously, President Bush and conservatives are pushing for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in all 50 states. They talk about runaway judges and democratic decision-making, but their amendment would forbid the people of New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, California or any other state from deciding to allow same-sex marriage.

Democrats, on the other hand, bear some responsibility for this situation:

Liberal Democrats...spent 50 years eroding federalism and expanding the power of the federal government at every turn. ... For decades, liberals scoffed at federalist arguments that the people of Wisconsin or Wyoming understood their own needs better than a distant Congress. ... Now those chickens have come home to roost.

Reader Tom Scharbach commented (on the item below) about the GOP, "pandering out of cynical self-interest cost the party it's soul, it's reason for being, it's genius. The party no longer stands for Constitutional conservatism..." I'll add that it's certainly an opening for the opposition, which unfortunately remains frozen in time. As Boaz notes, "most liberals can't give up their addiction to centralization."

A federal district court judge has struck down Nebraska's state constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions, passed overwhelming by the voters of that state, saying it violates the U.S. Constitution.

In all likelihood, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals will reverse the decision; and if it doesn't, the U.S. Supreme Court will have its shot. And then there's the issue of whether the whole brouhaha will invigorate the now-stalled federal marriage amendment push in Congress.

I say this not to wallow in pessimism, but because it's vital to understand that actions breed reactions, and if we're not prepared to deal with the consequences, we'll continue our record of initial judicial victories followed by a tsunami of defeats.

The Log Cabin Republicans break with the Bush administration and oppose the nomination of William Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. As they note in their press statement, Pryor:

authored an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court defending Texas's discriminatory [sodomy] statute.... Mr. Pryor's brief compared same-sex relationships to pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia.... In Lawrence v. Texas, Justice Anthony Kennedy - who was appointed by President Reagan - dismissed as "demeaning" the arguments that Mr. Pryor made before the Court.

Once again, LCR (the only gay political lobby that refused to endorse a presidential candidate who supported constitutional amendments banning gay marriage) shows more independence than the slavishly partisan Democratic gay lobbies, among which I include the Human Rights Campaign.

On the other hand, one Bush judicial nominee who doesn't deserve the bad rap she's getting from "progressives" (gay and otherwise) is California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown. As I've argued before, her ruling in a gay adoption case has been so willfully distorted it's slanderous. Now, columnist Nat Hentoff (who is no Republican) takes a look at how the NAACP and others are misrepresenting her record on racial equality in the same manner.

The one thing liberal advocacy groups can't abide is a black or Latino (or gay) Republican, even those who, unlike William Pryor, are not intolerant bigots.