IGF CultureWatch

David Knight, the gay son of State Sen. William "Pete" Knight, California's leading opponent of same-sex marriage, wed his longtime partner in San Francisco on Tuesday. The LA Times reports:

The middle son of the conservative author of [California's] Proposition 22, which defined marriage as being solely between a man and a woman, David Knight, now a 43-year-old woodworker, and Joseph Lazzaro, a 39-year-old specialist in interior architecture, kissed and held hands as they were pronounced "spouses for life" under the landmark rotunda where more than 3,600 gay and lesbian couples have married since Feb. 12. "

In a wave of civil disobedience that the elder Knight has denounced as a "sham" and a "sideshow," gays and lesbians have been married in New Mexico, New York and Oregon, in addition to the ceremonies here that have been solemnized in defiance of state law.

David Knight said that after Prop. 22 passed, "communication effectively ended" between father and son, although six months ago he called his father "just out of the blue, to see if we couldn't slowly try to mend, but it was futile." Another example of how brazenly anti-family the "family values" crowd truly is.

The NY Times takes a look at gay GOPers in this frontpage article. Interestingly, the Log Cabin Republicans "worried last month that the president's backing of an [anti-gay marriage] amendment might demoralize or cripple" the group, but instead they've received a sudden increase in memberships and financial support. So the amendment has stoked the coffers of the anti-gay religious rightists, gay Democrats, and gay Republicans. It's like a full employment act for pro- and anti-gay activists.

Update: The Washington Post reports that LCR is launching a $1 million advertising campaign today attacking the administration for trying to ban same-sex marriage. Log Cabin leader Patrick Guerriero says that "his organization had received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations in the last two weeks and that the ad campaign could be expanded if fundraising continues to surge." The ads, running in seven "swing" states, can be viewed through this link.

Coast to Coast: It Just Grows.

Meanwhile, a Portland, Oregon judge rules that the state's most populous county can continue to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Seattle's mayor vows to recognize the marriages of gay city employees who tie the knot elsewhere. And in Asbury Park, NJ, a gay couple exchange wedding vows in City Hall after being issued a license by city officials,who claim New Jersey law does not explicitly ban such unions. Coming soon: the first state-recognized same-sex marriages in Massachusetts.

The Washington Post takes a look at fast-moving recent events in "Same-Sex Marriage Vaulted Into Spotlight." From backlash to counter-backlash (or "frontlash"?), these are the benchmarks that are defining what some contend is "the fastest-growing civil rights movement we've seen in a generation."

A tangent: In the Post story, proponents and opponents of gay marriage both have their say, but this stood out:

Rick Garcia, political director for Equality Illinois, worries that too much focus on the marriage issue could jeopardize legislation outlawing discrimination against gays. "Sometimes, it makes our job harder," he said.

In other words, he thinks that adding more government directives on the hiring and promotion policies made by private employers trumps equality before the law and the ability to partake in society's most fundamental institution.

Giving priority to employment discrimination laws was the great hoax sold to the gay community, since (a) it's easy for companies to discriminate without formally announcing that they're doing so, and (b) the only way around (a) is through quotas/preferences tied to "disparate impact" studies showing the proportion of a minority in a given jurisdiction is under-represented in terms of a company's hiring/promotion numbers. That's just not going to happen with gays, so anti-discrimination laws are at best symbolic -- nice to have as a sign government doesn't countenance discrimination, but of little, if any, additional value.

Right and Left, Transposed.

Ok, back to marriage. In the National Journal's Feb. 28 issue (not available online), William Powers writes that gay and lesbian couples

are begging to embrace the very institution that President Bush and his supporters consider "the most fundamental institution of civilization," as Bush himself put it this week. In short, the Lefties want to do something so traditional it's downright conservative, and the Righties won't hear of it.

Pretty ironic, huh?

The New Mainstream.

And speaking of history in the making, conservative columnist George Will writes:

More telling was Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's casual statement that he would have "no problem" with Cook County issuing such licenses. Daley, whom you might send to Mars to show Martians what a typical American is like, is about as radical as a grilled cheese sandwich. His reaction to same-sex marriage is evidence that the American center has no stomach for what looks increasingly like a struggle over mere custody of the word "marriage."

Will goes on to note that "At this point it seems probable that the president's proposal to amend the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman would not be ratified by three-quarters of the states even if it could -- which seems unlikely -- muster two-thirds support in both houses of Congress."

I think the social right is beginning to experience shock that their constitutional gambit has no traction, which may just drive them to push all the harder for it up to and at the GOP convention. At which point the public backlash to their anti-gay backlash just might give them whiplash.

Even John Kerry's liberal supporters are growing increasingly worried over their candidates wishy-washy, both-sides-now stance on a range of issues, including gay marriage. Washington Post columnist Marjorie Williams describes herself as "a charter member of the ABB Society -- Anybody But Bush." But, she writes in a column titled "Win One for the Flipper," of increasing disillusionment with Kerry. "I finally lost my grip, though, when I opened my newspaper a few days ago to read of Kerry's latest lunge in the direction of some politically feasible position on gay marriage," she writes. In particular, when the Supreme Court of Massachusetts interpreted the state's constitution to require the option of gay marriage:

Kerry responded by endorsing an amendment to the state's constitution that would forbid gay marriage but allow civil union. He was the only member of his congressional delegation to take this stance, for good reason: Endorsing a constitutional amendment at the state level seriously undermines the arguments for fighting an amendment at the federal level.

The Washington Blade reports that Kerry's recent statements reverse a position he took two years ago when he signed a letter beseeching the Massachusetts legislature to terminate a similar amendment. Also noted by the Blade: After Julia Thorne, Kerry's wife of 18 years and mother of his two daughters,

requested an increase in alimony in 1995, Kerry sought an annulment of their marriage from the Catholic Church, a move observers saw as retaliatory. Kerry eventually received the annulment from the Boston diocese despite Thorne's vehement objections.

The Blade also recounts that in a Washington Post interview last year, Kerry said, "I have a belief that marriage is for the purpose of procreation and it's between men and women." Kerry's current marriage to heiress Teresa Heinz Kerry is childless.
Yes, just another defender of the sanctity of traditional marriage. Bush may be dead wrong and politically unsupportable, but at least he believes what he believes. You just can't say the same for Kerry.

A House Divided.

If you haven't read Andrew Sullivan's column on the Culture War, Reloaded, written for the Sunday Times of London and now posted on Sullivan's website, take a look. He writes:

There is no more drastic action available in America than amending the Constitution itself. Banning civil marriage for gays in the founding document itself therefore represented a huge and risky upping of the ante in the strife over marital rights.
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President Bush came to office pledging to be a "uniter not a divider." But the nation under his leadership has rarely been more polarized. The war is upon us. And this election will be its battleground.

And as some of us see it, neither side, sadly, is worth cheering for.

More Recent Postings

2/29/04 - 3/06/04

An excellent piece in Sunday's NY Times magazine by IGF's co-managing editor Jon Rauch, laying bear the vacuousness of the anti-marriage arguments, one by one. Surely many of the anti-gay activists and intellectuals making these empty assertions know they lack substance but figure they'll still inflame their followers.

It also must be said that too many of our purported gay "leaders" seem unable or unwilling to engage in hard argument with the right. An example: Julian Sanchez writes on Reason magazine's blog:

I tend to watch Crossfire for laughs, but right now I'm livid. Tucker Carlson just asked Human Rights Campaign president Cheryl Jacques why, for all the reasons she advances to support gay marriage, polyamorous groupings of three or more men or women shouldn't be recognized. Her brilliant, principled answer? "Because I don't approve of that."

I've also heard activists dismiss the polygamy charge by saying "that's ridiculous" and then moving on. Yes, we know it's ridiculous, but that canard sways many who may be good-hearted but not well-informed. There's more to gay activism than just asserting moral superiority. We need fewer "professional activists" who excel at preaching to the choir and more astute arguers like Jonathan Rauch and our other contributing authors. Check out some of their latest columns posted to your right (including anther piece by Jon, this time for the National Journal).

The Mayor's On Board -- or So They Say.

Here's an odd piece from the Saturday NY Times about Mayor Mike Bloomberg addressing a meeting of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association, headlined Bloomberg Said to Want State to Legalize Same-Sex Marriages. Or does he? Despite the fact that he was speaking to a journalists' association, the Times says that:

No tape recordings were rolling, and various auditors were somewhat fuzzy trying to remember his exact words. --

He did say in certain terms that 'I think the law should be changed,' -- Eric Hegedus, vice president of the journalists association, recalled yesterday. Pamela Strother, president of the association, remembered it all as less assertive. "My recollection is that he said something like he wished the law were different," she said.

Did I mention this was a meeting of journalists?

Dan Barry, writing in the "About New York" column in the NY Times, reflects:

In recent weeks, the struggle to define our nation has included a debate over the legality of gay marriage. Often lost in the hubbub, though, is any recognition of how hard it is to find a partner for life in the first place. For some, the debate is important, compelling - and theoretical.

The column's title: "Gay Marriage? First You Need to Fall in Love."

Of course, not everyone is the marrying kind. Marriage can be a great institution, but who wants to live in an institution? Yuk, yuk.

Gay and lesbian couples started tying the knot in Portland, Oregon, this week after the county issued same-sex marriage licenses, joining the rapidly spreading national movement, the AP reports. On Wednesday, Nyack, N.Y., Mayor John Shields said he would also start marrying gay couples and planned to seek a license himself to marry his same-sex partner. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said in a statement, "I personally would like to see the law changed, but must respect the law as it now stands." Spitzer said New York's law contains references to "bride and groom" and "husband and wife" and does not authorize same-sex marriage, and that "the local district attorney has the authority and responsibility to enforce the law."

As in San Francisco, New Paltz and elsewhere, marrying same-sex couples is being seen as an act of justified civil disobedience (by supporters) and wanton law-breaking (by opponents).

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist asked Congress to embrace a constitutional amendment banning these marriages. "Same sex marriage is likely to spread through all 50 states in the coming years," Frist said. "It is becoming increasingly clear that Congress must act." Well, the first sentence of his comment is true.

What Bush Has Wrought.

"President Bush's endorsement of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage could prove to be a great moment for gay rights," says a Washington Post op-ed by Steven Waldman (editor of the interfaith site Beliefnet.com ). That's because the fallback position that even Bush has said he can live with is civil unions -- a position that until very recently was considered "extreme." And the culture shifts, like a raging river in which you can never stand in the same water for more than an instant.

"So what does it mean that gay rights activists, once the standard-bearers for sexual freedom, are now preoccupied with the sober institution of marriage?" asks the New York Times' Tamar Lewin. One answer comes from David Greer, a gay Republican activist. "If you look back to the 60's, the movement was about liberation,'' he tells the Times. "Gay liberation had a lot to do with freeing people from gender roles, while marriage was seen as the oppressive male hegemonic institution, which lesbians, especially, didn't want any part of.'' Greer adds, however, that "Marriage actually should have been the goal of the movement all along."

Ah, but that would have been a very different movement, in a very different world. Suffice to say, the gay rights struggle went through a delayed and prolonged adolescence, and is now ready to settle down -- kind of like Warren Beatty.

Seriously , the outpouring of emotion as thousands of gay couples flock across country to exchange vows rivals the highpoint of grassroots AIDS protests in the '80s, and certainly makes the tame professional lobbying of late for ENDA and hate crimes laws -- the heretofore holy grails of the gay movement -- pale in comparison. Anti-discrimination statutes targeting the private sector never generated a groundswell of activism because the vast majority of gays and lesbians never encountered workplace discrimination -- or if they did, moved on to other jobs. Philosophically, too, many of us had doubts about more government mandates on the hiring and promotion decisions made by private employers, and about hate crime laws adding penalties not for actions, but for what criminals were thinking.

But the gay masses have awakened and are now demanding what they know to truly be a fundamental human right too long denied, and movement "leaders" are scrambling to catch up. (An aside: there were, of course, a few notable exceptions who showed real leadership -- Evan Wolfson, originally at Lambda Legal and now as head of Freedom to Marry, comes to mind.)

Still More on the Culture War.

"Bush's Backfire" is IGF contributing author Rick Rosendall's take on gay marriage and the culture war, at Salon.com. Rick writes:

The fundamentalist Christian right -- the constituency of Judge Roy Moore and other apocalyptic preachers -- will never be satisfied short of remaking the entire country in their own theocratic image, which is impossible in a pluralistic Western democracy. Yet continuing to let itself be held hostage to these fanatics will be ruinous to the [Republican] party's long-term mainstream appeal.

Meanwhile, Calif. Governor Schwarzenegger appeared on the Tonight Show with a different GOP message, telling Jay Leno that it would be "fine with me" if state law were changed to permit same-sex marriages, reports the LA Times. Schwarzenegger also strongly rejected President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. "I think those issues should be left to the state, so I have no use for a constitutional amendment or change in that at all," said the "Governator." (He did, however, reiterated his opposition to San Francisco's granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, saying city officials should abide by the current state law.)

Columnist Joe Klein gives the latest round of the culture wars a look over, in Time magazine . This piece from the New York Times' Sunday Week in Review does the same. Both reference Mel Gibson's bloody "Passion of the Christ" and the Superbowl half-time show's sexual crudity, along with gay marriage, as the latest touchstones of cultural discord. Gibson's film, which has both anti-Semitic and homophobic overtones, is a religious-right wet dream, from what I hear (haven't, and won't, see it). I'd say, it's the theology of Sissy Spacek's mother in "Carrie." (Here's Christopher Hitchens' take, from Slate.) But the Superbowl antics gave the country a taste of the culture left's sexual infantilism, and provoked an understandable backlash that's aided the anti-gay marriage cause (since both get lumped together as manifestations of threatening sexual anarchy).

The polarization really is stunning, but we should recall that times of harmony in the U.S. have been few and far between. From the revolution to the civil war to the sufferage, prohibition, abortion and civil rights struggles, polarization has been a long-standing theme, as the dialectics between greater liberty/equality and preserving tradition/social cohesion play themselves out. What could be more American?

Taking Count.

Oxblog finds at least 44 U.S. senators are opposed to the anti-marriage amendment, leaving the amendment's supporters far shy of the two-thirds needed. No time for complacency, but certainly a good sign.

One reason there's so much confusion over whether the language of the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment would ban civil unions, too, is that its drafters wanted to obscure the full extent of their proposal. Thus, the odd wording that would make unenforceable "marital status or the legal incidents thereof" for same-sex couples. The Washington Post has some insights into this scheme in a Sunday op-ed titled The Amendment Speaks for Itself -- which makes clear that the language now before Congress "would render civil unions -- as well as domestic partnerships -- meaningless."

In fact, what may doom this whole dark business is the religious right's insistence that any amendment either covertly or overtly nix civil unions as well -- a position that even many Republicans now find extreme.

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2/22/04 - 2/28/04