IGF CultureWatch

This seems to me a good story to sum up the year: complicated emotions, needless harm, yet in the end hope for all concerned.

I don't know anything about rugby, or Gareth Thomas, but his soon-to-be ex-wife's understanding and uplifting statement about their relationship and its end because of his homosexuality distills my own feelings throughout 2009.

It all begins and ends with the closet. But for this anachronistic social convention that is as useful today as a hitching post, Thomas would not have needed to try and convince first himself, and then someone of the opposite sex that he was straight. It is not enough, in this scheme, that we deceive ourselves; heterosexuals, too, have to be equally and everlastingly drawn into the fraud, some of them at the most intimate level.

Lies so close to the core of our human nature cannot hold for long. In earlier times, spouses like Jemma Thomas also knew the truth. Perhaps they expected less of marriage, or were equally caught up in maintaining the charade. The lies we tell ourselves are the ones we have the greatest stake in.

But each of these experiences helps us better see marriage, and better value it. That is what I hope the movement for gay marriage is adding to society as a whole: a reaffirmation of marriage's worth, of love at its best and commitment at its most forthright.

Yes, this is about the law's failure to recognize our relationships, and we have a very direct interest in that. It certainly involves our self-interest.

But who can speak more authoritatively about the value of something than those who do not have it? Of course we want marital equality because the constitution promises us the equal protection of the laws. But marriage is unlike any other constitutional right, because it involves two people, and in the real world one of them is likely to be heterosexual. Whatever heterosexuals think they are encouraging by either denying homosexuality exists, or insisting that homosexuals hide that fact, they are, in fact, doing something they surely do not intend: assuring that some of their own will be deceived, not in some general sense, but every day of their lives, until the predictable revelation. They are, in fact, using the force of law to guarantee that fate for some of their children.

The whole enterprise of gay rights has been to deconstruct this fabric of insincerity. No one is well served, gay or straight, by making us bear false witness against ourselves. In coming out, Gareth Thomas was doing no more than admitting what could no longer be denied; his regret was not for personal wrongdoing, but for the wrongdoing he felt the world demanded of him.

Jemma has the grace and the pragmatism to recognize that while coming out is hard for both of them, it's better than the closet. Like many other prominent wives during the last decade, she has had to endure the same indignity lesbians and gay men do when the truth can no longer be denied. It is these spouses who are our natural allies; who sees more clearly that heterosexuals have a very direct interest in having us be honest with ourselves and with them, and to form relationships based on that honesty?

Despite her own ordeal, she is ready to continue her own needlessly interrupted life, and expresses her continuing love and good wishes to Gareth.

That is a fine note on which to end 2009. Love and good wishes to all of our readers here at IGF as well.

(H/T to Towleroad)

One of the most oppressive burdens gays have to carry in the fight for equality is the permission some heterosexuals give themselves to talk explicitly in public about specific sexual practices some homosexuals may prefer. Any particular sexual act, described in lurid enough detail to a nonparticipant, can be made to sound repellant, particularly to someone who does not share the participants' taste. The Marquis de Sade was not even trying to disgust people in describing his catholic sexual escapades - most all of them heterosexual -- yet remains to this day the brand name for sexual disgust.

Which is why heterosexuals nearly always leave one another's sexual proclivities at the bedroom door. With the exception of frat-boy braggadocio (usually among single men, and usually in private) it is rare to hear public discussion of specific heterosexual acts, from the mundane to the exotic.

But anti-gay heterosexuals (and even some who are neutral) exercise something close to voyeuristic exuberance in peppering discussion of gay civil rights with vulgar and extreme descriptions of sexual acts. In 1991, California's state senator David Knowles set the standard, in an obscene tirade on the Senate floor during debate on a bill that would have done no more than prohibit employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. Knowles insisted on describing "the specifics of the lifestyle" in shocking terms that left members speechless, and fearful about whether the publicly broadcast debate would violate obscenity laws. After an uproar in the chamber, Knowles's fellow conservative Republicans had to shout him down.

This is still a preferred tactic in opposing gay equality, both at home and abroad. In our own country, Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber has been quoted (by his anti-gay supporters) reducing homosexual sexual orientation to "one man violently cramming his penis into another man's lower intestine and calling it 'love' " In Uganda, a full-page newspaper ad, headlined "Top Homos In Uganda Named" provides a Sadistic catalogue of the sexual preferences of various homosexuals there.

Of all the inequalities lesbians and gay men have to endure, this one is among the most degrading. No heterosexual would stand for being diminished to the sum of his or her sexual activities, and homosexuals should not be held to a different standard. Without sex, we would all be less than human, but not even a beast is composed only of its carnality.

This obsession among some heterosexuals is more than disrespectful; it is really the only distraction they can come up with to keep us off the subject, which is equal rights under the law. We are having a civil discussion, here, and I don't think it's out of line for us to expect heterosexuals to show us the same courtesy about private matters they enforce and expect among themselves.

The debate over whether AOUSC or OPM should adminster the FEHBP for judicial employees is actually a deep and important one, whether or not we have a DPBOA.

And did I mention this is related to DOMA?

It should be obvious from the profusion of acronyms that I'm talking about federal law. Last January, Ninth Circuit Chief Judge Alex Kozinski ruled, in his capacity as an administrator of the federal courts, that the Administrative Office of the United States Courts would violate its own equal employment rules if it denied Karen Golinski, a court employee, health benefits for her lawful same-sex spouse, and directed the AO to provide the benefits. That decision was never appealed to any court or other reviewing body. After the AO processed Golinksi's paperwork under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, the Obama administration's Office of Personnel Management stepped in to put a stop to this blatant disregard of DOMA's unambiguous demand that the federal government must discriminate against same-sex couples.

The statement from Elaine Kaplan, OPM's General Counsel is reasoned and explicitly recognizes that DOMA is both unfair in general, and is even "painful" to court employees like Golinski. That is why (the statement notes) the President supports DOMA's legislative repeal, and in the interim, the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act. Nevertheless, DOMA is the law.

The administration's stated reluctance to enforce a law it opposes makes it a little harder to view this as a political fight over gay rights; this is a battle over whether the courts are truly independent of the administration when it comes to their own employees, or whether the employees of our constitutionally separate court system are subject to the employment rules applicable to the Executive branch. That is actually a profound argument about the structure of our government, and one whose outcome isn't entirely clear.

But what is clear is that the administration did not need to pick this fight. An uncountable number of administrative issues like this are ignored or neglected or simply never noticed every day. Given government's enormous size and scope in the modern world, administrators have to prioritize their time and efforts.

Consequently, it is no compliment to this administration (and I would single out the Department of Justice, whose judgment the administration is following) that this is the ground they chose to fight on. No one views this as a battle over executive power, and after the Bush administration, it's pretty pathetic that this is the best characterization the administration could hope for. Obama's folks are politically conflicted over how to handle DOMA and gay rights in general, and that weakness is highlighted by the fact that the head of OPM, John Berry, is the highest-ranking openly gay official in the administration.

He is now being held in an undisclosed closet.

UPDATE: It's worse than I'd thought. I assumed Berry was hiding behind the skirts of a heterosexual Elaine Kaplan, but it seems she's openly gay as well. I suppose it's progress that we're in the position where the governmental insults and slights come from our own people, but, as Seth Meyers says so eloquently, "Really?"

You don't have to go far to find examples of our opponents subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) invoking pedophilia and child molestation when they're asked about homosexuality. But you'd be hard pressed to find a more explicit, concise and complete conflation of the two distinct subjects than in this letter from Uganda's Martin Ssempa to Rick Warren about Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill. There are precious few paragraphs that do not explicitly misdescribe the bill's goal in terms of protecting children from rape, and those few fill the gap by repeated use of the word "evil" to describe gays.

The bill's own title does not deter Ssempa from his belief that it is only about child molestation, so I won't bother to suggest that a bill drafted to solve that real problem in no uncertain terms would be unobjectionable, and would meet with almost universal support.

But amidst the comically gymnastic rhetoric, Ssempa stumbles upon something about Rick Warren's own position that is no less true for having been made by a fool. In 2008, Warren supported a Ugandan boycott of the Anglican Lambeth Conference because of the ordination of Gene Robinson as bishop. Warren says Ssempa misquotes him in saying at the time that homosexuality is not a human right; on this, all we know for sure is that both Ssempa and Warren can be disingenuous and/or flexible in stating their positions on homosexuality.

Still, the bigger point is this: Despite some current statements, Warren's personal struggle with the issue has found him saying things that give aid and comfort to the Ssempas of the world and their fellow-traveling bigots. (And yes, I am comfortable concluding that Martin Ssempa falls well within even my own narrow reading of the term "bigot"). Warren cannot be surprised that things he has said and done in the past, including his support for the Lambeth boycott and Proposition 8, could lead people to believe he has the same promiscuously anti-gay position that other prominent church leaders seem so proud to declare.

I am glad Warren has now taken a firm stand against the criminalization of adult, voluntary same-sex relations. He will find, if he takes the time to think about it, that it needs no great leap of logic to see that a love that should not be criminalized might also be worth recognizing - at least if you think committed love is a socially good thing.

But the bigger issue for Warren, I think, is to look hard at the tactics and intent of the people who cite him for his anti-gay support. Warren has distanced himself from Ssempa, but why does Ssempa believe Warren should be at his side? Can he see, in Martin Ssempa, a little bit of what it is we have to fight every day of our lives? I can only hope Warren will understand us a little better now that he, too, is the object of one of our ruthless, amoral enemies.

(H/T, as usual, to Box Turtle Bulletin)

It's not much more than a conversation in a car, but if you think about it, it says a whole lot.

Dennis Prager and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach are driving in Botswana over Thanksgiving, and while the video recorder is on, the subject of same-sex marriage comes up. They have a spirited discussion.

For those who are younger, some perspective: Fifty years ago, such a conversation would have been unthinkable. Not just hard to have, but inconceivable - and not only among heterosexual men, but even among most people who were homosexual themselves. The most visionary of our early supporters could see marriage as a possibility, but in a world where homosexuality was a crime, a sickness and a sin, there were far more important things that needed to be accomplished before marriage moved up the list.

It's hard to emphasize that enough. Fifty years ago, our sheer existence was not even acknowledgeable. Particularly because of the criminal laws, we ran enormous risks even discussing our lives with friendly heterosexuals, much less trying to change the laws that enforced our silence. And good luck, in those days, trying to find friendly heterosexuals.

Now listen to Rabbi Boteach. While we could all probably think of supplemental arguments to back him up (Prager, of course, is not supportive), he is an articulate and feisty advocate, within the strictures of his religious belief.

More important, there does not seem to be anyone in the car who is gay to bring the subject up. While it is our rights that are at stake, and while we are an infinitesimally small minority, our arguments are sound enough, and clear enough that they have penetrated into the nation's conscience. We are not the only ones who understand how fundamentally unfair current law is - or feel we have an interest in changing it.

It is conversations like this that take place out of the public eye, and out of our hearing that are the most important now. As I said earlier, we cannot ever comprise a majority; our equality entirely depends on heterosexuals now. It took us a half century to pave the way for them to have these conversations, but now they are happening everywhere. Not all of them will be well-articulated or even sympathetic. But in light of the silence of generations past, every one of them will be helpful.

(H/T to Good As You)

Two things in this New Jersey poll on same-sex marriage caught my eye.

First, look at the breakdown of Catholics (who comprise the largest religious group in the state): 48% support same-sex marriage, 40% oppose, and 12% are undecided. The last group certainly deserves comment. Catholics aren't supposed to be undecided on issues the Vatican has pronounced upon; that's for Protestants.

But it is that supportive plurality - and near-majority - of Catholics that we have to keep focusing on. The church takes pride in sticking to its historical ignorance of human sexuality, and is doubling down on prejudice by aggressively recruiting the most anti-gay Anglicans, overlooking things like married priests and near complete acceptance of birth control. Church leadership has now gone beyond hypocrisy and is becoming obsessed with homosexuality.

And that is not going unnoticed in American pews. U.S. Catholics have long ignored the Vatican on birth control and divorce without much fuss from the berobed ones, and may be seeing that the church's position on homosexuality is part of the same continuum of museum-quality bias about sex and marriage - a trinity of sexual sanctimony from the famously (if theoretically) celibate, all-male priesthood. Given the fact that heterosexuals get a pass on their issues, many may even see the new crusade for what it is - pure bias against a minority; and a bias the church is backing up with an awful lot of financial support that is not going to other, perhaps more important church priorities.

That 48% plurality shows how many Catholics remain in their church despite, not because of its bizarre leaders. That is the kind of faith I lack, and admire in those who stay in the church I left.

But there's one other thing in the poll that shouldn't go unnoticed: 46% of all respondents said the issue of same-sex marriage was "not at all important."

This is a point I have made before, and continue to think is at the heart of the political debate we are being forced to have. I think it's fair to ask that 46% this question: Would it be important to you if you could not get legally married?

While I'm sure some would say their own marital status in the eyes of the state is equally unimportant, it is the rest - the certain majority to whom legal marriage is important - who need to know that we feel the same. The lack of marriage is a fundamental distortion in our lives, as it would be in theirs. Because we are a minority, the polling on this issue won't ever indicate how profoundly important this is to us. Their opinion is the only one that matters because they are the majority. We need heterosexuals to consider that we are not engaged in this fight for trivial or frivolous reasons - that we really do value marriage as much as they do. We need it to be important to them because it is so important to us.

I've come to accept that none of our commenters want to talk about what I want to talk about. This has been a serious blow to my ego. It's fortunate our commenters have interesting conversations among themselves, which keep me distracted from my own pain.

One of the most interesting discussions has been the one about whether homosexuality is innate. This isn't anything I was prepared to go into, but if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

I obviously think sexual orientation, itself, is innate, as does BobN. Quo, Debrah and TS seem to think otherwise - though they may only be talking about homosexual orientation, and may think heterosexuality is innate. Needless to say, they can all speak for themselves.

This is a subject fraught with political implications, and I think Debrah is right to question the bona fides of a lot of the research. On the other hand, I know that while I had to learn some things about sex, no one had to coach me into being attracted to men. On this, I am with Augustine, who noted long before our present debate that men, in particular, have an objective indicator of who they are sexually attracted to, and it is notoriously impervious to persuasion. (This may be different for women).

I think the discussion got off track with discussion of a media story (which I never saw) about some boys who were molested by their adoptive father; the boys (apparently) "became" gay. I'd like to know more about that, but I think it's wise to separate psychological traumas that may play themselves out in sexual behavior from sexual orientation, itself, which may (or may not) develop independent of environment.

So the question for everyone, gay or straight (or otherwise) is this: how did you learn your sexual orientation? Or did you simply recognize it? If you're heterosexual, do you think you could become homosexual?

Now, of course, I'm dying to see what other subject you all will want to talk about.

Some ice may be breaking in Uganda. Box Turtle Bulletin links to an essay written by John Nagenda, a senior advisor to President Museveni, opposing the anti-homosexuality bill.

The colorfully written piece brings into focus the part of the bill that I think transcends any particular penalty: death, imprisonment or even misdemeanor fine. Its original sin is its naïve and vicious attempt to enforce purity - to create a Uganda free of "any form of sexual relations between persons of the same sex," and even "the promotion or recognition of such sexual relations," whether inside or outside the country. Its target is only a small minority, but it intends to be comprehensive. Every citizen is coerced into turning in suspected violators, or themselves facing prosecution.

To describe the bill, Nagenda invokes a word Americans will understand -- McCarthyism - and helpfully explains to his fellow Ugandans how witch-hunts occur. But he then offers an even more apt analogy: the Inquisition.

Christians of good conscience have powerful reasons to be hypersensitive about this. There should be no doubt, after the extensive investigative work Box Turtle Bulletin has done, that several American Christians had a formative role in the bill's inception. They have exported their misguided notions about homosexuality, and Ugandan politicians bought the goods, and placed them at the very heart of their new crusade.

The bill states, as a matter of law, that same-sex attraction "is not an innate and immutable characteristic." At the very least, that is a matter of controversy, and it is barely that to anyone who has seriously considered the issue. Only a fringe group of religious fanatics and deranged psychologists manqué insist, today, that homosexuals are just heterosexuals gone wrong, and should man up and marry a good opposite-sex partner.

Nevertheless, this merry band found in some Ugandan politicians the credulous audience lacking in America (at least among politicians who wish to be taken seriously), and the result is what would be expected when ignorant religious beliefs are married to political ambition. By asserting pseudoscience as an enforceable principle of law, the bill strips homosexuals of their very existence, turns them into nothing more than errant - and criminal - heterosexuals, and enlists all good citizens into the war against them.

This turns homosexuality into heresy. That is what American Christianists have been trying to do here - return us to the days when homosexuality was criminal, homosexuals were ashamed and silent, and heterosexuals could count on the police to enforce that shame and silence. Any citizen with a petty grievance or a niggling suspicion was empowered to press the levers of power. When rumors are evidence, people can destroy one another at will.

It doesn't take a lot to see how much damage that can cause, and has caused - particularly for anyone who's paid even the slightest attention to history. From the Crusades to the Inquisition to the Holocaust, the quest for purity inevitably brings out the worst in us, not the best.

Uganda can avoid learning that lesson the hard way. But they'll need to listen to better advice than America's traveling snake-oil salesmen are giving them. Nagenda's essay is a good sign that common sense may prevail.

Would a bigot help?

That's an important question in thinking about Rick Warren. He has been as harmful to gay equality as any religious figure on the right, particularly for his role in urging his parishioners - and everyone else who "believes what the Bible says" - to vote against marriage equality in California -- all the while denying he had done any such thing.

He has also played a starring role in stirring up the pot in Uganda against homosexuals. Which is why his strong and explicit statement against the anti-homosexuality bill there is so important. As Rachel Maddow says, "better late than never."

So is he a bigot? The epithet is potent enough to do to our opponents what they do to us - charge them with a fundamental lack of humanity or decency. Warren's statement is a firm assertion of both, and does him credit.

But Warren is all over the map on gay equality. On her show last night, Maddow clearly nailed Warren's incoherence, both on Prop. 8 and on his role in Uganda. But that is where I think a bit of empathy may be in order (and I know this will be controversial).

Like so many other heterosexuals of his age and older, Warren is caught in a bind. He believed the lies and misperceptions about homosexuality that history, particularly as embodied in his religion, have taught him. He relied on those distortions, and built his belief system around them.

For many years, we did too. It was hard to realize and then live out the truth about our own lives against those perversions of truth. But as the Catholic church learns daily, you cannot deny nature long without paying a price. Sex and intimacy are fundamental to human beings, and cannot be either renounced or faked. We learned that the hard way, and are trying to correct the record so it doesn't happen again.

Warren is obviously struggling with that. His conversation after Prop. 8 with Melissa Etheridge may have been a turning point. But his loyalty to the lies history taught him about us still permits him to blind himself to the lies he tells himself. And no lies are more persuasive then those.

No one should go easy on Warren. It is the relentlessness of Maddow and Andrew Sullivan and particularly Jim Burroway at Box Turtle Bulletin that has put the pressure on him to correct the problem he was complicit in in Uganda. The fact he has done so can make an enormous difference.

But he lives here, and is accountable here. The inconsistency of his position on homosexuality is more apparent with each passing day. A bigot, I think, would refuse to face that. I'm not sure whether Warren is a bigot in that sense. But his action now should give us reason to hope. He can be a powerful ally.

The commenters on Non-bigotry made some very good arguments. Lymis is right on point that the rabbi is a textbook example of someone who is prejudiced (whether or not that is bigotry). In contrast, Pauliji has no doubt the rabbi is a bigot. Joe Perez has a lengthy post at his blog that I think John Corvino is more qualified to respond to than me. I think this topic is worth more time, and I'd like to devote a few posts over the next week to examining arguments made by some specific people who oppose marriage equality.

Senator Paul Sarlo was the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and was a No vote from the start. However, he ran the very controversial hearing well, and the explanation of his vote is respectful:

Yes, I am opposed to the bill at this point in time, but their (Garden State Equality) advocacy has come a long way, and I am quite certain some time in the near future, I believe the tide has turned a little bit, and they will win with their issue. I am still opposed personally because of my religious beliefs as a Roman Catholic, and as senator of the 36th District, which is mostly made up of Irish and Italian Catholics, and Orthodox Jews.

Two things seem important to me about this statement. First, while I can't speak for New Jersey's legislature, I have worked in and with California's for over a decade. It is rare here for any legislator voting in a public hearing to cite his or her religion as the (or even a) reason for their vote. While particular religious arguments may be made (biblical passages about charity, for example, to support public welfare programs), outside of gay rights (and the very rare bill these days in California about abortion) an individual's religious beliefs are simply not used as a political argument. That is a consistent anomaly in the debate over gay rights.

Sen. Sarlo's concern about the religious beliefs of his constituents is a slightly different matter, but actually intensifies the inherent problem. While the Orthodox Jews in his district would probably strongly support his vote, only about half of his fellow Catholics would, if they are like Catholics in the rest of the nation. And I assume he has Jewish voters in his district who are not orthodox and support same-sex marriage. Moreover, this explicit appeal to specific groups quite obviously leaves out all of his constituents who are nonreligious, or belong to other religions. This may not be a political problem in his district, but as a general public policy matter, it is certainly unfair, if not unwise.

But he says something else that is even more telling. He is sure that "they" (Garden State Equality and by extension, lesbians and gay men) will win "their" issue. Equality is certainly our issue by virtue of the fact that we don't have it and must fight for it. But the concept is a constitutional one, and as such, it does not "belong" to any minority, but to all citizens. "Equal Justice Under Law" is carved into the entrance to the United States Supreme Court, not for any particular "us," but as a guiding principle for the laws that apply to the nation we all share.

Sen. Sarlo separates himself from this foundation when he assigns the fight for equal laws to us. The stunning success of the gay rights movement has been to help heterosexuals see exactly this point. They have as much stake in honoring the constitution as we have battling not to be excluded from it.

To be fair, Sen. Sarlo does understand this. His state's supreme court ruled that same-sex couples did not have equal rights in New Jersey, and told the legislature they must resolve that discrepancy. Sarlo believes that comprehensive civil unions satisfy the command of equality. But the religion he cites as authority for opposing our equal marriage does not support laws that grant us civil unions. He does not explain how he resolves that inconsistency.

I don't think Sen. Sarlo is a bigot. Unlike some of our most vocal opponents, he is comfortable articulating that we are entitled to equality, and differs only on the means of achieving that. That seems to me an important factor in deciding whether to level a charge of bigotry. What do you think?