IGF CultureWatch

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, no friend of gay equality, was quoted in the Washington Times on congressional action to save Terri Schiavo from forced starvation at the hands of her husband:

"The sanctity of life overshadows the sanctity of marriage," Mr. DeLay said. He said that unless Mrs. Schiavo had previous written instructions, "I don't care what her husband said."

This led blogger Paul at "Right Side of the Rainbow," who opposes saving the life of Terri Schiavo, to write:

Is the manner in which [Delay] dismisses Mrs. Schiavo's husband distinguishable from the manner in which he would dismiss a gay man's partner? I doubt gay relationships have risen in Rep. DeLay's estimation; rather, the significance of heterosexual ones have fallen.

Blogger Paul comes out in favor of "the traditional right of spouses" and accuses the Republicans of attempting "to substitute their own judgment for that of Mrs. Schiavo's legal husband."

But as James Taranto writes in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Journal:

Supporters of Michael Schiavo's effort to end his wife's life have asked how conservatives, who claim to believe in the sanctity of marriage, can fail to respect his husbandly authority. The most obvious answer is that a man's authority as a husband does not supersede his wife's rights as a human being - a principle we never thought we'd see liberals question.

On one hand, you'd think there'd be pleasure in the fact that conservative Republicans are placing some value (i.e., saving a woman's life at the pleading request of her frantic parents) above "the sanctity of marriage," while gay activists - and even some gay Republicans - suddenly are in support of the full rights of traditional marriage and patriarchy, reducing a woman to the disposable property of her spouse.

Addendum - the anti-federalist contention. While in most respects I find arguments against increasing federal encroachment to be persuasive, sometimes rigid adherence to principle must give way to simple decency. And I remain unmoved by liberals who are eager to offer up Terri Schiavo as a human sacrifice in honor of their newly feigned fealty to state judicial autonomy.

More Recent Postings
3/20/05 - 3/26/05

IGF's Dale Carpenter points to a statement in the Washington Post by new Human Rights Campaign honcho Joe Solmonese, who opines:

"This struggle that we're in in this country right now is not just for GLBT Americans but for all progressives," [Solmonese] said. "All of us are redirecting our energy and adapting to a considerable shift in the political landscape, not just in the GLBT world."

I agree with Dale that this takes the lid off what Solmonese sees as his prime objective: to advance the liberal-left political agenda, of which "GLBT" issues are just one aspect.

The same Post story reported:

Just weeks ago, the NGLTF [National Gay & Lesbian Task Force], while stressing that it was not treading on the HRC's lobbying turf, announced that it was forming a committee to lobby Congress for GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) issues.

NGLTF, from its beginnings, has been politically even further to the left than HRC. So along with Solmonese's appointment, the Task Force's new Washington effort means that in the nation's capital the dominant gay strategy will be to hunker down with the Democrats' liberal wing rather than pursuing any kind of bipartisan effort.

As I wrote in response to a letter posted in our mailbag saying that gay groups should reflect most gay voters' left-leaning views:

It's fine to be insular within the liberal cocoon, just don't expect any pragmatic political victories. All 11 anti-gay state ballot initiatives passed on Nov. 2, while HRC focused on defeating George W. Bush in concert with its liberal allies rather than on addressing Americans' fears about gay marriage.

Former Log Cabin Republican head Rich Tafel on his blog offers this take:

[W]ith NGLTF on the scene HRC has to worry again about its left flank. That might explain why as a group the highly partisan HRC decided to move left, not to the middle, with its latest hire. It is all about fundraising and market share. It has nothing to do with the mission of the group, which was to make progress in the halls of Congress and the corridors of the White House for gay people. But as long as wealthy gay Democrats keep feeding this beast, we can expect more of the same.

So it's partisanship triumphant. And of course, that pretty much sums up American political culture at the moment. New York Times columnist David Brooks writes of "the ever-increasing polarization of the political class," and predicts:

At the same time, Americans will grow even more disenchanted with the political status quo. Not only will there be a general distaste for the hyperpartisan style, but people will also begin to see how partisan brawling threatens the nation's prosperity.... I wouldn't be surprised if some anti-politician emerged - of the Schwarzenegger or Perot varieties - to crash through the current alignments and bust heads.

One thing is for sure, a body politic with no center could be in for some wild swings. Be prepared.

More Recent Postings
3/13/05 - 3/19/05

A letter in our mailbag supports Terri Schiavo's right to life. As widely reported, Terri has been in a vegetative state and kept alive by a feeding tube, now removed at her husband's insistence, backed by a court order. Terri's parents consider this murder by starvation, and Congress has stepped in.

Gay couples have often been in a situation where, after a terrible accident or illness leaves one partner incapacitated, the healthy partner and the victim's parents disagree about care. But this, it seems to me, is different - a husband wants to terminate the life of his spouse when there is no clear indication that this is what Terri Schiavo herself would have wanted. In such a situation, I'm not opposed to the state stepping in to protect the life of someone who can't speak for herself.

Passing an amendment to Michigan's constitution that defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman "also signals the end of health care and other benefits for the same-sex partners of public employees in the state, according to an opinion issued Wednesday by Attorney General Mike Cox," the Detroit Free Press reports. Polls prior to last November's election suggest that banning partner benefits for state employees wasn't what a majority in Michigan thought they were voting for, but that's what they got.

As reader "Guy" commented on my previous posting:

In Michigan and Ohio, polls also showed majority support for DPs [domestic partnerships] or CUs [civil unions] with majority opposition to marriage, but when marriage and CUs were put together in a ballot initiative, the whole thing won. That's the danger of opening the door.

I read on another site the question, why not just let Massachusetts sit for a couple years so the country can see it's no big deal? I don't have an answer, except that Lambda (which I in all other respects support) see this as a big fundraising/visibility issue. But is it good politics? Dubious.

Alas, the "class interests" of activists (as a lefty might put it) are not necessarily the same as the class interests of the rest of us.

Meanwhile, on the federal front, when asked at Wednesday's press conference about the California same-sex marriage decision and whether it would add fire to the proposed "marriage protection amendment" to the U.S. Constitution, President Bush said:

"the court rulings are verifying why I took the position I took, and that is I don't believe judges ought to be deciding this issue. I believe this is an issue of particular importance to the American people and should be decided by the people. And I think the best way to do so is through the constitutional process.... As a matter of fact, court rulings such as this strengthen my position.... People now understand why I laid out the position I did....

And no matter what your position is on the issue, this is an issue that should be decided by the people, not by judges.... This is a very important issue for the country and one that obviously needs to be conducted with a great deal of sensitivity and concern about other people's feelings.

In other words, "Yes."

No surprise here: In California, gay marriage opponents are pledging to launch a statewide ballot initiative to amend their constitution to ban same-sex marriage. Some fear that the language might extend so far as to undo the spousal rights granted under the state's sweeping domestic partner law, which was legislatively approved. Marriage opponents, of course, could overreach to their detriment; but if there's a genuine backlash against a judicial ruling that goes against the majority's expressed will on marriage, all bets are off.

Yesterday, I called amending the state constitution through referendum a burdensome process, but I stand corrected. Some states require a second vote along with legislative approval; not CA, where it just takes enough signatures to hold a single election to amend the constution.

Meanwhile, a positive sign. AP reports that while Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't "believe in gay marriage" he would not favor amending the state constitution if the high court upholds the gay marriage decision. "I think that this will be now going eventually to the Supreme Court in California, and we will see what the decision is," he said in a televised interview. "And whatever that decision is, we will stay by that, because I believe in abiding by the law and sticking with the law." Which is a good deal better than the Kerry/Edwards position during last year's campaign.

In February, a New York State judge in Manhattan ordered her state to recognize same-sex marriages, and the issue (currently stayed) is headed on appeal to New York's highest court. Now, a California State judge in San Francisco has ruled that his state, too, must recognize same-sex marriage, striking down Prop. 22, a statewide ban on gay marriage passed by voters (note: Prop. 22 changed the state's family code, but was not a state constitutional amendment. California's requirements to amend the constitution by initiative are more stringent than the requirements to amend a statute by initiative).

As in New York, there's a strong likelihood this latest lower-court decision will be overturned on appeal, so the celebrating may be premature. But there's also the possiblity that one or both decisions will hold.

A worst-case scenario: In response to the courts ordering gay marriage against the expressed wishes of the electorate, the electorate will pass statewide constitutional amendments (as 13 other states did last year alone). Even worse scenario: Given California's (and New York's) prominence, court-ordered gay marriage breaths new life into the efforts to pass a federal constitutional amendment.

Best-case scenario: California and New York are ordered to establish same-sex marriage, the backlash is successfully countered and efforts to pass statewide constitutional amendments go down in flames. The states' electorates may not have voted for same-sex marriage, but they eventually come to accept it. And all this happens before a federal amendment winds its way into enactment. It could happen (hey, the Berlin Wall fell), but I wish there was at least some acknowledgement that this is a high-risk gamble and that every lower-court victory is not simply a linear advance toward the inevitable goal of marriage equality.

One thing is clear: the leading gay legal rights advocates have adopted a strategy of going to the nation's most ultraliberal state judicial districts to seek favorable marriage rulings, and they will not be dissuaded from that path. The alternative - seeking legislatively approval for granting gay couples all the rights and benefits of marriage - is now viewed with disdain, although real gains for gay families have been achieved through legislative victories in New Jersey, California and (soon) Connecticut.

So it's go for broke, folks. And before too long we'll know if it's the Berlin Wall falling - or Prague Spring.

From an op-ed by Andrew Lee in the San Francisco Chronicle:

If allowed to go forth, Social Security privatization will limit the ability of the government to act as arbiter of Social Security survivor benefits, and therefore recognition of beneficiaries.... Without sweeping federal redefinition, gays and lesbians will continue to receive unequal benefits. If they are to make the best of the situation, they should support private accounts, forming alliances with Republicans who support limited government.

Hat tip: Right Side of the Rainbow, which comments:

Personal accounts are so obviously in the financial interests of gay and lesbian Americans, who get massively ripped-off by Social Security when their partners die, that only one thing can explain the failure of gay political groups to embrace the president's call for reform: politics over progress.

Of course, when you see your mission as advancing a broad-based left-liberal agenda of bigger, more "caring" (i.e., intrusive and redistributionist) government, with more authority centralized with federal bureaucrats (who, after all, know best - at least when appointed by Democrats), then of course you'll use your perch to lobby against personal accounts. Which is what the National Gay & Lesbian Task force did when (as reported here last December) it organized more than 70 prominent gay rights "leaders" to sign a joint letter to Congress opposing personal Social Security accounts.

More Recent Postings
3/06/05 - 3/12/05

A Special Report titled "Homosexual Civil Unions," on the website of Lou Sheldon's archly anti-gay Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), takes aim at the Independent Gay Forum (it's a slow-loading PDF so give it a minute or two - nothing about the TVC is up to date, it seems). According to the report:

Dale Carpenter, a homosexual writer for the Independent Gay Forum (11/25/2004), for example, has described the "California Model" to gain the legal status of marriage - without calling it marriage under state laws. The objective is to gain marriage status through incrementalism....

Carpenter says this incremental strategy makes it difficult for opponents to oppose "any single one of the benefits and responsibilities that comprise the legal status of marriage."Incrementalism "also gives the public time to adjust to each advance." (bold emphasis in original)

The report also targets John Corvino for advocating civil unions, as well as Andrew Sullivan and others (for trying to undermine marriage), citing work that's appeared in various venues, but I take pride in the fact that a graphic from our site accompanies the report's lead item. (Links to Dale and John's articles can be found by scrolling down on your right.)

The TVC crowd is as adamantly opposed to civil unions as they are to gay marriage. But it's interesting that they portray the "incrementalist" approach as a particular threat. They know that the American people are more open to supporting civil unions, and that once civil unions are institutionalized, providing same-sex couples with the same state-level rights as heterosexual spouses, the game (from their perspective) is lost. Now, if only the "we want courts to order full marriage everywhere today; who cares about the backlash" crowd also understood this.

The Harvard Crimson has published a column by the former public relations chair of the Harvard Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA), the subject of March 6th's "Not a Parody." Adam P. Schneider writes:

The recent controversy surrounding the "heteronormative" speech by [Jada] Pinkett Smith at this year's Cultural Rhythms indicates once again that the BGLTSA is more dedicated to pointless rhetoric than substantive change....

The reactionary politics of the BGLTSA also represent a more systemic problem in LGBT politics: radical isolation. By advancing fringe agendas, which have a negligible impact on the lives of LBGT people as compared to larger more pressing problems, LGBT activists alienate even would-be supporters of their cause....

People who have dedicated a significant amount of time and effort to advancing LBGT equality will become increasingly frustrated with the institutions that purport to represent and argue on their behalf such as the BGLTSA.... Sorry, Jada, but you're caught in the crossfire.

Many, many years ago I was the media chair for the NYC chapter of GLAAD; I'm still recovering from the mindlessly numbing leftist groupthink (sort of institutionalized infantilism). Welcome to the club, Adam! Now, your next step is to jettison the "LGBT" mantra, because (gasp) there is no "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender" community outside the politically correct fantasy of "progressive" activists! You can do it, just breath deep and let go.

A libertarian critiques a conservative's critique of libertarianism - from Tech Central Station (and, if you haven't guessed, TCS is one of my favorite web lounges).

In the anti-libertarian article published in the March 14 issue of The American Conservative, Robert Locke wrote: "Libertarians are also naive about the range and perversity of human desires they propose to unleash. They can imagine nothing more threatening than a bit of Sunday-afternoon sadomasochism, followed by some recreational drug use and work on Monday." Gee, where have we heard that stereotype before? At TCS, Max Borders answers:

In a truly free society, people will be just as able to enter into collective arrangements with people who have also chosen to forego so-called "absolute freedom." Mr. Locke and I can start a Hutterite commune where everybody shares the work and bows hourly to a statue of Edmund Burke as a condition of residing there.... [As for] Mr. Locke's visions of how libertarianism in practice would unleash "sadomasochism" and other caligulan horrors....

Suffice it to say that libertarians know that we are able to exercise self-restraint not because the Great Nanny in Washington threatens us with chastening, but because we belong to communities, families, and relationships in which the values of healthy living are naturally grown orders.

Another rebuttal runs (to its credit) in the same March 14 issue of The American Conservative, this time by Daniel McCarthy, who writes "Sadly, a few conservatives seem to have learned nothing from their experience at the hands of the Left and are no less quick to present an ill-informed and malicious caricature of libertarians than leftists are to give a similarly distorted interpretation of conservatism." He continues:

There is something rather counterintuitive - or just plain nonsensical - to the belief that bureaucrats and politicians care more about the elderly than families and communities do. The same holds true for the notion that the state upholds the interests of children....

The free market sometimes involves things that conservatives dislike, such as pornography. Playboy may be bad, but one is not forced to subsidize it....

The libertarian rests content to let Utah be Utah and San Francisco be San Francisco.... If the property owners of a neighborhood wanted to establish a certain set of common moral standards, they could do so. Other places could do differently. Libertarianism thus responds to the reality of difference, including profound cultural and religious difference, much better than other political philosophies, which are left trying to smash square pegs into round holes.

And as to that possibility, rest assured, both the social right and the angry left join together to declare, "It's our way, or no way!"