IGF CultureWatch

As far as we've come since the sexually repressed America portrayed in the movie "Kinsey," ignorance about sexuality continues to fuel much of the antipathy towards gays in this country. Evidence: Rick Sincere (who recently launched his own blog), alerts me to an item defending gay unions on the blog of a straight Republican, Tony Iovino, who observes:

When we see a heterosexual couple, we see them as Dick and Lynn, individual adults who are a couple. We don't think of them as a couple engaging in sex. Think about it -- what if the first thing you thought of when you saw the Cheneys holding hands on a stage was their sexual activities? You'd gag. As you would with just about any couple, other than Jennifer Aniston & Brad Pitt. But when we see gay couples, we are immediately focused on their sexuality, like you would be drawn to the hair of someone wearing a giant orange Afro wig. And it freaks us out.

That is, I think, the crux of the matter -- the deep sense of unease associated with gay sexuality, seen as legitimatized and promoted by legal recognition of gay unions, along with the strong fear of unleashing sexual anarchy if traditional is altered too rapidly. In any event, chanting "bigots" and "haters" and feeling smugly superior won't make the problem go away.

More Recent Postings
12/26/04 - 1/01/05

Joe Perez's Gay Culture and Spirituality blog looks at the dangers of criminalizing hate speech (or even "hate thoughts"), explaining why "the mainstream gay movement in the US needs to be more vocal in our opposition to hate-crime laws that include the 'crime' of offensive speech." But don't expect the movement LGBTers to embrace that idea anytime soon.

Long-time anti-gay neo-con Midge Decter shows she's still full of venom in "Civil Unions: Compromise or Surrender?", in the newsletter Imprimis. Decter fumes:

The term "civil marriage" or "civil union" has become a euphemism for both the legal and social legitimation of homosexuality....

The right to legal marriage that they are demanding is not about them - it is about the rest of us. It is, and is meant to be, a spit in the eye of the way we live. And whatever the variety of efforts to oppose it - another law or even a whole set of laws, let's say, or a constitutional amendment - none of it will matter unless and until all the nice and decent people in America begin to understand that we are in a crisis, and it must be up to them to sustain, and with all good cheer defend, the way they lead their lives....

For it is not compromise that the homosexual rights movement is after. Nor do they even want the standing in the community that heterosexuals have. They are radicals. What they want is not a room of their own; they want to bring the whole damned house down.

As nice as it would be to simply dismiss such vitriol, it's important to realize that this is what a lot of folks actually think, and not just members of the fundamentalist Christian "religious right."

Lesbian writer and columnist Beth Elliott, on her webpage, shares some sharp observations about being a nonlefty lesbian in the San Franscisco Bay Area. For example, she writes:

A young friend doing the standard turning-up of her nose and saying she hoped Bush couldn't get anything done. I retorted that, for her sake, she should hope he succeeded at giving her a shot at a private retirement account. She immediately launched into a tirade about how she, working McJobs while going up against unemployed dot-com transplants with only her fresh bachelor's degree, really needed the money she was being taxed to pay for other people's Social Security benefits. My point exactly, I confirmed.

Bitingly, she also notes of the recent death of anti-gay footballer Reggie White, at age 43, that:

A lot of Reggie White's bigot friends have been trying to pass of as scientific research the notion that "the homosexual lifestyle" is so destructive that our average life span is...43. Far be it from me to make sweeping statements about anybody else's karma . . .

Worth bookmarking.
--Stephen H. Miller

Our own Jonathan Rauch scores with an important Wall Street Journal op-ed today, "Saying No to 'I Do'." He writes:

Gay couples and their children (more than a fourth of households headed by same-sex couples have kids, according to the 2000 census) need the legal protections and the caregiving tools - not, mostly, "benefits" - that marriage uniquely provides. Gay individuals, coupled or not, need the prospect of marriage, with its sustaining promise of a destination for love and of a stable home in a welcoming community. In 13 states the dream of marriage has, for gay Americans, receded far over the horizon.

So, what is to be done? Rauch continues:

This year may be remembered as the time when civil unions established themselves as the compromise of choice. For an indicator, watch whether there is an outcry if state courts narrow the scope of the new amendments to allow civil unions and other partner programs. My guess is that few people will fuss.

One reason is the long-term trajectory of public opinion. The fact that 60% of voters support some legal provision for same-sex unions represents a sea-change. Still more significant are the issue's demographics. Americans of middle age or older overwhelmingly oppose same-sex marriage, which they view as a contradiction, if not an abomination. Among people under 30, the situation is reversed....

Rauch concludes, "I am dismayed by the [state] amendments' passage, but I can't complain about the process. Nov. 2 showed that our federalist system is working exactly as it should, and it made the case for federal intervention weaker than ever."
--Stephen H. Miller

Why did Bush do so well with the over-60 crowd? Scott Turow, writing in the Washington Post's Sunday Outlook section ("A Dominant GOP? How So?") finds gay marriage, even apart from "moral values," can't be dismissed as a significant factor. Citing analysis by Mitofsky International, he asks why men in the 60-and-over group supported Bush by 60 to 39 over Kerry:

Mitofsky looked at the issues that might have keyed those different responses. Older voters did not cite "moral values" any more often than other Americans (22 percent in general, 21 percent among the over-60s). But three other issues seemed to cut in the president's favor with this age group: gay marriage, resistance to the idea that government should do more to solve problems, and Bush's handling of the economy. Of the three, Mitofsky said, gay marriage mattered most. In short, Bush's key success was with older -- and old-fashioned -- male voters.

Today's older voters' opposition to gay relationships stems from the intense antipathy toward homosexuality that permeated society as they came of age (and among men, the belief that male homsexuality was a threat to their masculine self-identity). In other words, these voters didn't become anti-gay as they aged; they just brought their prejudices with them.

Turow notes, "Time will take a heavier toll on the older group." Indeed it will. Which is why the tactic of using gay marriage to ignite older voters will, if deployed in future years, produce diminishing returns.

Word to the GOP wise: Be wary of fighting the next war (or campaign) with the tactics of the last. But it looks like the Arnold bashers on the right, going nuts over the Governator's call for a more inclusive GOP, may have to learn this the hard way.

More Recent Postings
12/19/04 - 12/25/04

I'm not a lawyer, but it does seem that doubts are rising over the lawsuit by the national office of the Log Cabin Republicans seeking to overturn the "don't ask, don't tell" military gay ban without any named plaintiffs, when there is already a competing suit underway by the Servicemembers Legal Defense Team regarded as far more promising, on behalf of 12 gay men and women expelled from the military (see the Washington Blade's "Experts Fault Log Cabin Lawsuit").

Meanwhile, Gay Patriot West asks why the national LCR is suing the Bush administration instead of working to find ways to work with the GOP, and to promote the GOP among gays, which might help distinguish the group from all the other liberal gay advocacy lobbies.

I've been busy preparing for the holidays, but here are a few links from fellow like-minded bloggers that are worth a surf:

Rich Tafel on why Only donors can hold gay organizations accountable.

Gay Patriot on why faster "red state" population growth should factor into gay political strategies (but isn't).

Boi from Troy on Arnold's call for a more inclusive GOP.

Right Side of the Rainbow on Same-sex marriage and the "hate" canard.

"Lawpsided" - humorously - on the Alabama book-burying brouhaha, or why "Reading is for sissies!"

Check 'em out! And take a look at our own John Corvino's response to a critic, in our mailbag.

The Social Security Administration, in its zeal to deny recognizing gay couples, has rejected marriage documents issued for heterosexual couples in four communities that performed same-sex weddings earlier this year, reports the AP (citing a New York Times story).

The agency is rejecting all marriage certificates issued in New Paltz, N.Y., after Feb. 27, when the town's mayor began marrying gay couples. Certificates issued during the brief periods when Asbury Park, N.J., Multnomah County, Ore., and Sandoval County, N.M., recognized gay marriages are also being rejected.

According to the report:

Susie Kilpatrick, 30, of New Paltz, said the local Social Security office told her that no marriage documents issued after Feb. 27 could be used to establish identity because of the gay marriages that took place.... Kilpatrick said her marriage certificate was rejected when she went to get a new card earlier this month so she could take her husband's name.

"What concerns me is that the certificate is the only way to prove that we're married," [she complained]. "If something happens to us, or some other couple from New Paltz, we can't prove we're married. We would not be able to draw benefits."

Welcome to our world, Susie!
--Stephen H. Miller

Update: The Social Security Administration issues an apology - for confusing the Town of New Paltz with the Village of New Paltz!

Cathy Young, writing in the Boston Globe, takes a look at how "Antigay Bigotry Is Tainting the GOP." Of Gerald Allen, a Republican representative in Alabama's legislature who wants to ban books with gay content from his state's public libraries, suggesting "we dig a big hole and dump them in and bury them," Young comments, "If this guy didn't exist, a left-wing journalist would have to invent him as a walking stereotype of a 'red-state' bigot."

Of attempts by right-wingers to roll back domestic partner benefits, Young writes:

The attempt to legalize same-sex marriage through judicial fiat and civil disobedience was, it is increasingly clear, a bad idea. However, if conservatives want to show that it's possible to be against same-sex marriage but also against intolerance and discrimination, they're not doing a very good job so far.

Both the left and the right have their contingents of haters, and if I don't cover the rapid-right extremists in the GOP as often as some would like, it's because that's about all that most "mainstream" gay news websites do cover. The truth is, the rational right plays a vital role in this country, keeping the left from going too far with its hubris for social engineering. But trusting either the left or the right to defend the full range of individual liberties and personal freedoms is a dubious proposition, which is why gay engagement with and participation in conservative circles, even when not welcomed with opened arms, remains so necessary.
--Stephen H. Miller

Update: For a humor break, read "Lawpsided" on the Alabama brouhaha, or why "Reading is for sissies!"

More Recent Postings
12/12/04 - 12/18/04