IGF CultureWatch

As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, "Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter Mary is a lesbian, drew criticism from both proponents and foes of gay marriage Tuesday after he distanced himself from President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage." Cheney said:

"Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it's an issue our family is very familiar with. With respect to the question of relationships, my general view is freedom means freedom for everyone ... People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to.

"The question that comes up with the issue of marriage is what kind of official sanction or approval is going to be granted by government? Historically, that's been a relationship that has been handled by the states. The states have made that fundamental decision of what constitutes a marriage."

Having made it clear he, personally, doesn't support federalizing marriage, as the failed anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA) sought to do, Cheney went on to provide some cover to President Bush, a strong FMA supporter, remarking:

"I think his [Bush's] perception was that the courts, in effect, were beginning to change, without allowing the people to be involved. The courts were making the judgment for the entire country."

As the Chronicle notes, Cheney's comments drew a rebuke from the religious right's Family Research Council, while doing little to mollify anti-Bush activists, such as the Human Rights Campaign.

But it's significant, I think, that Cheney's remarks follow on the heels of Bush's own, under-reported statement earlier this month that regarding civil unions, "That's up to states. If they want to provide legal protections for gays, that's great. That's fine. But I do not want to change the definition of marriage."

It sure looks like the administration is moderating its stance, trying to recapture some of the gay/gay friendly votes in the all-important swing states. And while it doesn't, and can't, make up for unleashing the FMA in the first place, it's certainly a welcome change of tone -- especially as the Kerry camp moves in the other direction, denouncing gay marriage and backtracking on gays in the military.

The fight over same-sex marriage has so overwhelmed other gay issues that neither the gay activists' surrender over ENDA nor John Kerry's retreat on gays in the military has gotten much attention. On the latter, the Washington Blade takes a closer look in a report headlined "Kerry hedges on ending 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell': Senator expresses concerns over 'unit cohesion' -- This puts into context the Kerry campaign's decision earlier this month to delete any reference to ending the gay ban from the candidate's website, wherein all manner of promises are made to groups that Kerry actually thinks he needs to bother with.

The "gay votes for free" card that LGBT politicos and activists gave Kerry will come back to haunt them.

While LGBT activists continue to praise James McGreevey, New Jersey's embattled Democratic governor, despite the mounting evidence of political corruption and charges of sexual harassment, another newly out Garden State official explains why he's ashamed of the state's highest official "gay American." Reports the New Jersey Journal:

Hudson County Freeholder Ray Velazquez is so offended by the governor's handling of his legal troubles and so worried that the gay community will be hurt by the scandal that he is publicly acknowledging that he, too, is a gay elected official. Most troubling, he said, is the allegation that Gov. James E. McGreevey put his lover on the public payroll.

"It's not enough to say, 'I'm sorry, I'm a gay man,' to cover up those things," Velazquez said this week at his Downtown law office. "It sends the wrong message, and as a gay man who has worked his entire life and who feels an obligation to the gay community, I think it's best that he resign his office immediately. Being gay does not give you the right to abuse your public office.

And, writing in the Washington Post, novelist Francine Prose observes:

I keep finding myself more concerned about the $110,000 annual salary that McGreevey paid his lover for a job as a homeland security adviser -- a position for which the aspiring Israeli poet apparently had few qualifications -- than I am about the governor's sexuality, or the fate of his marriage.

And I am left wondering whether the governor may have been trying to use the American obsession with sex and celebrity gossip to his own advantage, hoping perhaps that the sympathy he would gain by declaring his lifelong identity crisis might outweigh the censure over the financial irregularities that were already beginning to blight his record.

No kidding. On the other hand, a letter published in our mailbag takes on McGreevey's critics.

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8/15/04 - 8/21/04

The Cherokee National Tribal Council voted to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, reports the AP. "If we don't address this, we'll have a flood of same-sex marriages," an advocate of the ban asserted, adding that same-sex matrimony would otherwise "be a black eye on the Cherokee Nation. Even the state of Oklahoma doesn't allow same-sex marriage."

Nope, not even gonna attempt to parse those comments. But I did refrain from heading this item "Anti-Gay Cherokees on the Warpath."
--Stephen H. Miller

The lover's gay; no, he's straight; no, he's gay...It was a feather-bedding quid pro quo; no, it was sexual harassment. What it is, indisputably, is a big juicy mass media sex scandal, generating lots of cheap copy and, here and there, some thoughtful analysis about gays, marriage, and the closet. In addition to Jonathan Rauch's valuable insights, posted herein, Salon has run a clever piece by Dan Savage, who writes:

If it does nothing else, the McGreevey marriage highlights the chief absurdity of the anti-gay-marriage argument: Gay men can, in point of fact, get married - provided we marry women, duped or otherwise. The porousness of the sacred institution is remarkable: Gay people are a threat to marriage, but gay people are encouraged to marry - indeed, we have married, under duress, for centuries, and the religious right would like us to continue to do so today - as long as our marriages are a sham. ...

But how does this state of affairs protect marriage from the homos, I wonder? If an openly gay man can get married as long as his marriage makes a mockery of what is the defining characteristic of modern marriage - romantic love - or if he marries simply because he despairs of finding a same-sex partner, what harm could possibly be done by opening marriage to the gay men who don't want to make a mockery of marriage or who can find a same-sex partner?

Despite the sensationalism, it's possible the McGreevey affair will lead more straight people to think the issue through, and then come to the right conclusion.

Jenna and Barbara Get an Invite.

A New York Daily News gossip item has it that "Bush Gals to See Gay Vows." In other words, the first daughters have reportedly been invited to the same-sex wedding of their beautician and his long time partner (though the marriage won't be recognized by the state, or their father). The item says Jenna and Barbara are ethusiastic about attending, but whether they go or not (and I'm betting NOT, even if the story is legit), it points out how stark the generational contrast is on the issue of gay marriage. The future is ours, but it's not here yet.

Washington Blade editor Chris Crain takes aim at the Human Rights Campaign and its allies over their decision to oppose any version of the proposed federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that doesn't also bar private employers from discriminating against the transgendered as well as gays and lesbians. As Crain notes, "Courts have already ruled that existing federal and state laws that protect against gender bias protect transgendered people. Those rulings aren't universal, but they offer more federal protection than gays currently enjoy."

I'd add that a sweeping federal prohibition against "gender identity and expression" workplace discrimination arguably forces employers to alter dress codes to allow any manner of gender discordant attire (i.e., a bearded man wearing a dress to work). Anyway, that's how it will be perceived, and it will make ENDA unpassable.

I'm no fan of ENDA -- federal anti-discrimination laws have opened the gates to a flood of frivolous lawsuits, forcing employers to pay off plaintiffs because defending themselves is prohibitively expensive. But HRC and liberal-left gays do think ENDA is significant, and they've just made sure they'll never get it.

Jonathan Rauch weighs in on the McGreevey affair and what it says about the marriage fight in a Sunday New York Times Op-Ed, no less. He writes:

The gay-marriage debate is often conducted as if the whole issue were providing spousal health insurance and Social Security survivors' benefits for existing same-sex couples. All of that matters, but more important, and often overlooked, is the way in which alienation from marriage twists and damages gay souls. ...

Opponents of same-sex marriage sometimes insist that gays can marry. Marriage, they say, isn't all about sex. It can be about an abstinent, selfless love. Well, as Benjamin Franklin said, where there is marriage without love there will be love without marriage. I'm always startled when some of the same people who say that gays are too promiscuous and irresponsible to marry turn around and urge us into marriages that practically beg to end in adultery and recklessness.

The Human Rights Campaign is praising Democrat McGreevey for showing "enormous courage," despite the growing allegations that the New Jersey governor gave his then-lover a high paying position for which he was unqualified. As gay historian and author Eric Marcus comments in the New York Times:

"I don't think it reflects well on gay people. Here is a man who chose to hide who he was, came out under pressure because he had engaged in an adulterous affair, had given his romantic partner a government job. It's not exactly a moment I think anybody who has been involved in the gay rights movement can take pride in."

Except if you're a Democratic Party front like HRC. The Log Cabin Republicans, while sympathetic to McGreevey's situation, called on him to resign immediately rather than wait until Nov. 15 (which is McGreevey's way of ensuring that his unelected Democrat successor needn't face voters until 2005).

Another result of the McGreevey affair is a spotlight on gay men who marry women but seek out sex with men -- a huge, but under the radar -- phenom. The Washington Post takes a look in a piece titled "Married Men with Another Life to Live".

"That's Great"?

Mostly overlooked in last week's news was President Bush's statement on CNN's Larry King show that, as regards states providing legal recognition to gay couples through civil unions, "That's up to states." Bush added:

"If they want to provide legal protections for gays, that's great. That's fine. But I do not want to change the definition of marriage. I don't think our country should."

Let's go over that one more time. A conservative Republican president just said "that's great" about states granting legal protections to gay couples. It doesn't make up for supporting the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, but it's worth some major news coverage, wouldn't you think?

Meanwhile, over at Overlawyered.com, Walter Olson provides an update on one state where the GOP legislature clearly is far to the right of President Bush. In Virginia, there are increasing ramifications from a reprehensible new law banning gays from entering into marriage-like contracts.

More Recent Postings
8/08/04 - 8/14/04

I realize there's lots of gay news, but I'm on the road through the weekend with limited computer time. On L'affaire McGreevey, I'll just allude to the old political saying, "Never get caught in bed with a dead girl or a live boy."

Blogger Eric Siddall writes in Memo to the Right: Gay Marriage Promotes Conservative Agenda:

One would think then that the Christian Right would be jumping up in joy for gay marriage. Bring these guys back to tradition and family. After all, aren't the Christian Right constantly saying hate the sin, love the sinner? Well, if the sin is the behavior surrounding the homosexual lifestyle, then what better way to stop gays from going to circuit parties and having sex outside of marriage than to allow them to get married?

Of course, that's exactly why some on the gay left are against same-sex marriage.

Conservative columnist Bob Novak is trying to stir up trouble for John Kerry in his Aug. 7 column when he writes:

John Kerry's official Web site last week deleted his advocacy of homosexuals in the military after the Orlando (Fla.) Sentinel reported on this disclosure of the Democratic presidential candidate's position.

Before the language was eliminated, the Web site said bringing gays into the military was one of Sen. Kerry's "priorities." The page on homosexual issues had gone on to say: "John Kerry opposed the Clinton administration's Don't Ask Don't Tell Policy. He was one of the few senators to testify before the Senate Armed Services Committee and call on the president to rescind the ban on gay and lesbian service members."

Kerry does not mention the issue in his speeches, and the party platform is mute on gays in the military.

Novak is no friend of gays and his motive is to embarrass the Kerry/Edwards campaign. Nevertheless, it's more evidence of Kerry's tendency to buckle under and abandon us at the first sign of opposition. No doubt, he believes he has little to fear by taking the gay vote for granted -- which is largely true, because gay political groups have given him a green light to do just that. But if Kerry doesn't make a case for revoking government discrimination now, he clearly won't be able to claim a mandate to do so once in office.

I'm not suggesting that Bush is "better." But if we want the Democrats to give us something, then gay "leaders" must stop being partisan sycophants
and at least hint that the gay vote could stay home on election day (or vote for Nader or the Libertarian candidate).

Fear of losing customers is what motivates good service. The same is true in politics. The religious right understands this, and its leaders constantly tell Karl Rove they'll stay home if Bush takes them for granted. If only gay leaders would show as much spine.

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8/01/04 - 8/07/04