IGF CultureWatch

James Driscoll writes, in an op-ed running in the conservative Washington Times titled New Gay Political Strategies:

[W]hy was it necessary to wave a red flag before religious conservatives and give ammunition to the far right by backing a sensational split decision from one of our most liberal state courts? Timing is everything in politics: In America in 2004, gay marriage was not an idea whose time had come.

The gay movement's haphazard embrace of gay marriage seems reactive and media driven. Too often gay-rights groups measure their success in volume of newsprint and minutes on prime time, rather than in numbers of openly gay people at the tables where decisions are made.

Instead of gay marriage, our strategic priorities for 2004 should have been: 1) allowing gays to serve in the military without hiding who they are; 2) eliminating employment glass ceilings for gay people; 3) getting our place at the table, which means openly gay representation in government and both parties in rough proportion to our numbers and talents; 4) civil unions.

While our strategy has been adrift and ill-timed, our ham-handed tactics have frequently played into our enemies hands.

More Recent Postings
11/217/04 - 11/27/04

I'm with those who believe court-ordered gay marriage in Massachusetts ignited the backlash that led 13 states to pass constitutional amendments this year banning same-sex marriage, 11 having done so on Nov. 2. But blogger Steve Sanders' Reason & Liberty site makes the argument that courts should order marriage equality. I still don't agree with him, but I like having my ideas challenged and found it worth a visit.

More Recent Postings
11/14/04 - 11/20/04

I've been out of town, so here are a few catch-up items.

The Washington Blade article Bridges burning, gay groups cope with GOP dominance, reports (at long last) some big donors to the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest lesbigay lobby, are questioning the group's strategy. The main issue: the decision by HRC leader Cheryl Jacques, a former Democratic state legislator for Massachusetts, to direct the lion's share of the group's resources to a defeat-Bush campaign. Said Randy Foster, a member of HRC's Federal Club (for large donors):

"Until we create a new strategy knowing we live in a conservative environment, as a community, we will be ineffective ...

If HRC, by its nature, should be bipartisan why have posters that say, 'George W. Bush, you're fired' ... Little or no conservatives will reach out to us. The strategy to date has failed."

Jacques responded that "working with this administration is going to be hard" but that HRC officials were working on a long-range plan for the next year, though she declined to elaborate, says the Blade. No kidding.

Michael at Gay Orbit shares a letter he sent to HRC on their campaign against Arlen Specter:

You've sure put Arlen in his place... even though I distinctly remember him saying he was absolutely going to vote against the [Federal Marriage Amendment] if it came to a floor vote.

Thank you for doing everything you can to make sure that gay and lesbian Americans aren't taken seriously by the majority of Americans who did not vote for the presidential candidate you so desperately wanted to win. By taking this stand against our best Republican friend in the Senate, you sure showed them, didn't you? I know, as you do, that it's not about advancing gay issues. ... I know it's not your job to fight for my equality, but rather, to cement your position as a supporter of the Democratic Party, because you know, it's not like they'd ever take us for granted or anything...

Elsewhere in the Blade, editor Chris Crain has penned another worthy editorial which, after taking some well deserved shots at the GOP, notes:

The Democrats aren't much better. They ran fast and furious away from our issues in the 2004 election and somehow still managed to blame us for their defeat. It still confuses me how a party can refuse to defend us before the general public and still claim their loss is our fault. ...

In an appearance Monday on National Public Radio, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a longtime gay rights supporter, went so far as to complain that Kerry's failure on gay marriage was one of communication, not substance. She argued, incredibly enough, that the Bush and Kerry positions on gay marriage were indistinguishable, since both were opposed to legalizing it. ...

Remember that the same infamous exit polls that supposedly signaled the triumphant rise of "values voters" also indicated that a substantial majority - 61 percent - support [either] gay marriage or civil unions. If gay rights groups and their allies in both parties would only find their backbone and actually make the case for our equality, we can win this mighty battle. But if we are afraid to try, we are surely doomed to fail.

More Recent Postings
11/21/04 - 11/27/04

Connecticut is likely to legislatively adopt civil unions next year, according to this article in the Danbury News Times:

On Election Day, voters in 11 states approved constitutional bans on gay marriage. But when the Connecticut legislature meets in January, the state may buck the national trend.... Elsewhere in the country, the Democrats might encounter fierce opposition from leading Republicans. But in Connecticut, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell and House Minority Leader Robert Ward of North Branford have said they might be willing to expand rights for gay couples, though they oppose same-sex marriage.

Rep. Robert Godfrey, D-Danbury, and other lawmakers say it is almost
inevitable that a gay union measure will become law in the 2005 session of
General Assembly. "Connecticut may be the first state in the nation where the legislature cobbles something together," said Godfrey, the chairman of the screening committee that decides which bills go to the House floor. "I have yet to meet a colleague that says it will not happen. There will be a resolution this year."

Legislatively approved civil unions that aren't mandated by split state court decisions will carry far greater legitimacy. And clearly, it's going to be civil unions, and not marriage, that will be under consideration.

More Recent Postings
11/14/04 - 11/20/04

An editorial titled Gay Lessons ran in the Monday, Nov. 15 issue of the Wall Street Journal (online for WSJ subscribers only). The Journal editorial page is a bastion of conservatism, so it is, I think, significant when the editors opine:

The lesson here for gay rights activists is to trust the democratic process, rather than use the courts to circumvent it. Public attitudes toward homosexuality are much different than they were even 20 years ago, with (for example) many companies already offering benefits to gay partners. Letting voters reach a democratic consensus on their own schedule is also a good way to avoid a repeat of the endless cultural warfare that has stemmed from that monument to judicial activism known as Roe v. Wade.

The editors then add this worthwhile suggestion:

In the meantime, if liberals really care about discriminatory legal protections and benefits, they might consider agitating for a repeal of the death tax, which puts gay couples at a disadvantage. Married couples are allowed an unlimited transfer of assets to a spouse before death, a tax benefit denied gay couples. And only heterosexual spouses can inherit each other's assets without paying estate taxes.

They might also have added that private social security accounts also serve the interest of gays, for the same reason (they'd be transferable to any designated beneficiary).

Active support for such measures would an opportunity for Log Cabin's leadership to take a stand that serves gay interests while building bridges with the GOP, if they have the foresight to do so.

More Recent Postings
11/14/04 - 11/20/04

Gay cultural critic Bruce Bawer writes in a New York Times op-ed titled Tolerant Dutch Wrestle With Tolerating Intolerance:

The Dutch had the world's most tolerant, open-minded society, with full sexual equality and same-sex marriage, as well as liberal policies on soft drugs and prostitution; but a large segment of the fast-growing Muslim population kept that society at arm's length, despising its freedoms....

Dutch officials (like their counterparts across the continent) churned out rhetoric about multicultural diversity and mutual respect. By tolerating Muslim intolerance of Western society, was the Netherlands setting itself on a path toward cataclysmic social confrontation?

Belatedly, in the wake of the murder of Theo Van Gogh for making a film critical of the treatment of women under Islam, some Dutch liberals are now discovering that perhaps Western Civilization is worth defending.

More Recent Postings
11/07/04 - 11/13/04

There are some interesting things in E.J. Graff's New Republic column on why nearly one in four gay voters chose Bush (online, but only for New Republic subscribers). She writes:

Bush winning 23 percent of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual vote isn't all that surprising. And the inclination to find it surprising rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of the gay and lesbian community.

LGBT voters aren't like any other interest group. Aside from being attracted to the same sex, we have nothing in common. And I mean nothing: not our color, religion, region, culture, community, class, educational aspirations, or politics....

The Rapid City, South Dakota, lesbian moms whose idea of a big Friday night is to get all dolled up for the greyhound races and a meal at Denny's simply do not have the same political point of view as Dupont Circle lobbyists or Berkeley activists. This becomes clear when you break down gay votes by region. In the South, for instance, 32 percent of lesbian, gay, and bisexual voters went for Bush; in the East, a far less surprising 8 percent did.

The heart of the matter, I think, is whether being gay is your primary cultural identity or just one aspect of who you are. Or maybe gay GOP voters just felt Bush was the better choice for the nation overall, and took Kerry at his word that there was "no difference" between his opposition to gay marriage and Bush's.

More Recent Postings
11/14/04 - 11/20/04

Conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer takes issue with the view that moral values in general, and gay marriage in particular, played a major role in Bush's re-election -- the conventional wisdom now being peddled by Karl Rove and the religious right on one hand, and liberal Democrats on the other. Krauthammer focuses on liberals, characterizing their response to Bush's victory as follows: "You never lose because your ideas are sclerotic or your positions retrograde, but because your opponent appealed to the baser instincts of mankind." And he observes of the celebrated exit poll query:

The way the question was set up, moral values was sure to be ranked disproportionately high. Why? Because it was a multiple-choice question and moral values cover a group of issues, while all the other choices were individual issues.... "Moral values" encompasses abortion, gay marriage, Hollywood's influence, the general coarsening of the culture, and, for some, the morality of pre-emptive war.

The fallback is then to attribute Bush's victory to the gay marriage referendums that pushed Bush over the top, particularly in Ohio. This is more nonsense. George Bush increased his vote in 2004 over 2000 by an average of 3.1 percent nationwide. In Ohio the increase was 1 percent -- less than a third of the national average. In the 11 states in which the gay marriage referendums were held, Bush increased his vote by less than he did in the 39 states that did not have the referendum. The great anti-gay surge was pure fiction.

While Krauthammer's target is the liberal media trying to paint Bush voters as homophobes, his critique also works as a convincing rebuttal to Karl Rove's contention that the GOP owes anti-gay-marriage evangelicals mightily for Bush's victory.

More Recent Postings
11/14/04 - 11/20/04

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has "reaffirmed" its partisan decision to oppose the re-election of pro-gay Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) who, in the words of the Washington Blade, "is a co-sponsor of federal hate crimes legislation; he opposes the Federal Marriage Amendment, backs the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and has been a strong supporter of increasing HIV/AIDS funding."

One reason HRC gives for fighting Specter's re-election (and thus alienating themselves from the incoming chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee): although his office bars discrimination against gays, he failed to adopt "a voluntary, written policy adding gender identity to sexual orientation as a non-factor in employment decisions in his Senate office."

And how many millions of dollars did gay donors unload on Cheryl Jacques this year, so she could drive around in one of her "George Bush, You're Fired" trucks and pretend she wasn't completely without a clue?

More Recent Postings
11/07/04 - 11/13/04

I don't even know how to begin to parse this latest paranoid rant from playwright and gay activist luminary Larry Kramer (published on the blog of one of his fans), who believes "from here on we are going to be led even closer to the guillotine." Read it for yourself if you get off on this sort of self-victimizing and opponent-demonizing. But it made me feel all clammy, like listening to a religious fundamentalist talk about the secret and nefarious gay agenda to take over the world. An excerpt:

In 1971, Lewis Powell, a Richmond lawyer who called himself a centrist, was secretly commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Congress to write a confidential plan on how to take back America for the survival of the free enterprise system. Not democracy. Free enterprise. Barry Goldwater had lost, Nixon was about to implode, Vietnam had sucked the nation's soul dry, the cabal saw their world unraveling. They saw the women's movement, black civil rights, student war protests, the cold war. They saw the world as they knew it coming to an end. ...

This was the birth of what is now called the vast right wing conspiracy. ... Under the supervision of some of the richest families in America, that plan has been followed faithfully since 1971 and it has resulted in these past years of horror and the re-election of George Bush. Nine families and their foundations, all under the insistent goading of Joseph Coors, have financed much of this.

That's right, economic freedom is our real enemy!

More Recent Postings
11/07/04 - 11/13/04