IGF CultureWatch

Two generals and an admiral, all retired, are among the most senior uniformed officers to criticize the "don't ask, don't tell" policy for gays serving their country in the military, the New York Times reports. In a joint statement, they called the policy ineffective and charged it "undermines the military's core values: truth, honor, dignity, respect and integrity."

Oh, and by the way, all three are now openly gay.

In terms of politics, Bush clearly won't touch the "gays in the military" issue before the election. But in a second term, he'd have the clout to change the policy if he were of a mind to do so, and Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney have given indications in the past that they'd be supportive (while Colin Powell, who favors the ban, may be gone). However, it's certain that Howard Dean would have even less clout than Clinton had with the military (and not just over capitulation in Iraq, but the whole "how I spent months skiing while enjoying my bad-back draft deferment" thing), and would ignite a firestorm if he tried to alter the ban.

As publicity over Tony Kushner's play peaks with this week's HBO broadcast, readers might want to take a look back at a review, written by IGF contributing author and editor Walter Olson, of the original Broadway production. The cast may be different, but the observations are still pertinent.

Protecting the Constitution - A True 'Conservative' Agenda.

Here's a new website dedicated to the proposition that conservatives ought to oppose the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment now before Congress. It's full of interesting opinion pieces. Check it out.

Andrew Sullivan's Sunday Washington Post op-ed, "The GOP Divide On Gay Marriage," makes some of the points we've been noting (see Discord on the Right) about how the debate over banning gay marriage is dividing conservatives while uniting liberals -- the opposite of what some conservative strategists (and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist) had expected. Warns Sullivan:

If the president were to endorse the [anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment], the Republican splits would widen. It would make the position of gay Republicans essentially untenable, and Bush would lose almost all the million gay votes he won in 2000. The Republican Unity Coalition, founded to make sexual orientation a non-issue in the GOP, would fold. The Log Cabin Republicans would refuse to endorse the president. And such a position would be an enormous gift to the Democrats, as gay money, enthusiasm and anger rallied behind their candidate. The amendment would do to the gay community what Proposition 187 did to Latinos in California: alienate them from the GOP for a generation. And it would send a signal to other minorities: The Republicans, at heart, are the party of exclusion, not inclusion.

The Real Reagan.

Columnist Deroy Murdock provides some needed perspective on Ronald Reagan's real AIDS record and views about gays. One mistruth often repeated, that Reagan didn't even mention AIDS until 1987, is firmly put to rest. Another positive sign -- this piece is from the conservative National Review, which apparently feels it's necessary to defend Reagan against "anti-gay" allegations.

Time Warp.

A 7-year-old boy in rural Lafayette, Louisiana, was disciplined by his public school for telling a friend he has two mothers who are gay. It must have come as a shock to the school that the incident triggered national coverage, as in this frontpage Washington Post article, as well as an ACLU lawsuit. Yes, the times are changing -- even in places that time seems to have forgotten.

More Recent Postings

11/30/03 - 12/03/03

The Jewish World Review reports on an unholy alliance between religious-right supporters of the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, and an Islamic group that sympathizes with terrorists -- when it's not opposing gay marriage. (This story was originally noted on Andrewsullivan.com)

Gay Marriage Debate Down Under.

A report from Australia, where straight marriage is in decline due to divorce and cohabitiation (not unlike elsewhere), but religious conservatives rail against gays who could actually strengthen the institution if they were allowed to wed.

A Better GOP Strategy.

Former Log Cabin Republican top-guy Rich Tafel provides his take on next year's elections, making the case that the GOP should stay away from social issues and focus on defense and the economy. It seems like a common sense recommendation, but political parties too often seem to act in uncommonly stupid ways!

And speaking of "uncommonly stupid," the Washington Post reports that much-needed Arabic-speaking linguists are still being kicked out of the military's Defense Language Institute because they're gay.

Confronted with a shortage of Arabic interpreters and its policy banning openly gay service members, the Pentagon had a choice to make.

No surprise regarding the outcome of that choice. It's hard to imagine a more self-defeating defense policy than the "lie and hide" gay ban.

The New York Times' William Safire weighs in On Same Sex Marriage. It's sort of a "coming to terms" piece, but he's getting there.

Meanwhile, over at the Washington Post, William Raspberry is prepared to embrace same-sex marriage, then reads "queer" leftwing polemicist Michael Warner's screed against Andrew Sullivan, marriage, and the danger of gay life becoming "normal":

"As long as people marry," [Warner] says, "the state will continue to regulate the sexual lives of those who do not marry. It will continue to refuse to recognize our intimate relations -- including cohabiting partnerships -- as having the same rights or validity as a married couple. It will criminalize our consensual sex."

Fortunately, Raspberry maintains his composure and winds up still favoring same-sex marriage. The queer left -- if it didn't exist, the religious right would have to invent it!

Anti-gay social and religious conservatives are now split between those who favor amending the U.S. Constitution to forbid same-sex marriage while allowing states to grant lesser civil unions and domestic partnerships, and those who seek to bar any recognition of same-sex couples, even if it makes it much harder to pass an amendment. Writes the Washington Post's Alan Coooperman ("Opponents of Gay Marriage Divided"):

Although they are early in the process of trying to win a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, some conservatives worry that the political clock is ticking and the drive to amend the Constitution will be doomed unless they can reach consensus.

This isn't what was suppose to happen. A few months ago when Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist came out in favor of the proposed anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, it was assumed that the move would unite the GOP in support while dividing Democrats -- with the Demo's liberal base opposing an amendment but more moderate factions favoring it. That hasn't happened (aside from support for the amendment from some African-American ministers). All of the Democratic candidates for president have taken positions against an amendment. Meanwhile, conservatives have split over whether there even should be an amendment, and if so how far it should go. Writes popular conservative pundit George Will in his Nov. 30 column:

Amending the Constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman would be unwise for two reasons. Constitutionalizing social policy is generally a misuse of fundamental law. And it would be especially imprudent to end state responsibility for marriage law at a moment when we require evidence of the sort that can be generated by allowing the states to be laboratories of social policy.

The same day, conservative Jonah Goldberg writes in his column:

The FMA [Federal Marriage Amendment] would ban same-sex marriage "or the legal incidents thereof" -- which many take to mean civil unions as well -- in all 50 states for all time.

That may sound like a good idea if you're against same-sex marriage, civil unions, and all the rest. But to me it sounds an awful lot like a replay of Prohibition. "[T]he FMA will not make this issue go away. Rather, it will more likely serve to radicalize the anti-FMA forces in much the same way Roe v. Wade radicalized antiabortion forces.

So the push to rewrite the Constitution is turning out to be a divisive issue in the Republican camp -- not at all what party leaders expected.

More Recent Postings

11/23/03 - 11/29/03

Little noted outside of the San Francisco Bay Area, this week marked the 25th anniversary of the assassination of Harvey Milk. The San Francisco supervisor and gay rights pioneer was gunned down in his office on November 27, 1978. I suspect Milk would be amazed if he were to return today and witness the advances in the struggle for gay equality and dignity achieved in the quarter century since his death.

The Perils of One-Party Partisanship.

Former Massachusetts governor William Weld, a fiscally conservative/socially inclusive Republican, says he'd like to officiate at a gay wedding, the Boston Globe reports. Meanwhile, the state's current GOP governor, Mitt Romney, and Democratic attorney general, Tom Reilly, oppose the ruling by their state's Supreme Judicial Court that the commonwealth may not "deny the protections, benefits and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry."

Without Weld's appointments to Massachusetts' highest court, it's unlikely the ruling would have come down in favor of the gay plaintiffs. In 1990, Weld beat homophobic Democrat John Silber in the governor's race. Had Silber won, he would not have appointed gay-supportive judges. Interestingly, despite his strong opposition to gay rights (which is still ongoing), gay establishment groups and liberal Congressman Barney Frank supported Silber in 1990 for the sake of partisan unity.

The Queen Speaks.

From last week's address by Queen Elizabeth to parliament, outlining Tony Blair's agenda for the coming session:

My government will maintain its commitment to increased equality and social justice by bringing forward legislation on the registration of civil partnerships between same sex couples.

The Labour government's proposal, which enjoys support from the opposition Conservatives (Tories) and will become law within two years, allows gay and lesbian couples to register their unions as civil partnerships, granting virtually all the rights enjoyed by married couples in the United Kingdom.

(A pdf of the Labour government's report on the proposal is available online, but may take several minutes to download.)

Hypocrisy Watch.

Froma Harrop, writing in the Providence Journal (free, fast registration required), notes that if conservatives really wanted to shore up marriage, they'd tackle the culture of divorce. But of course, since so many are themselves divorced, that might not be so appealing. Harrop writes:

Georgia ("the buckle of the Bible Belt") sent twice-divorced, thrice-married Bob Barr [author of the Defense of Marriage Act] to Congress -- and as a sermonizing conservative. Another divorced Georgia Republican, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, was plotting to dump his second wife while lecturing on the decline of American civilization. The late Sonny Bono, a rock star turned GOP conservative, had fathered four children by three of his four wives. He also condemned gay marriage as a threat to the family.

And it's not all Republicans. Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat, had broken up his own marriage, then accused Bill Clinton of setting a bad example for his children.

As President Bush has said, "I caution those who may try to take the speck out of their neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own."

As I noted earlier,
New York Times columnist David Brooks supports gay marriage but takes liberals to task for too-often framing their argument in terms of opening up access to "a really good employee benefits plan." The problem with that approach is demonstrated by social conservative Maggie Gallagher, a strong opponent of same-sex matrimony, who argues in the Weekly Standard ("Massachusetts vs. Marriage"):

For many same-sex-marriage advocates, marriage is basically a legal ceremony that confers legal benefits, a rite that gives rise to rights.

But, she counters, the governmental benefits bestowed by marriage (e.g., tax breaks, social security inheritance, etc.) are being overstated by gay advocates. Moreover, she thinks that civil unions may be a compromise worth accepting, precisely because marriage confers dignity upon a relationship and civil unions don't:

What some dismiss as protecting "merely" the word marriage is actually 90 percent of the loaf. -- Capturing the word is the key to deconstructing the institution. "

Do not mistake me: In the long run, I believe that creating legal alternatives to marriage is counterproductive and wrong. But civil unions are one unwise step down a path away from a marriage culture. Gay marriage is the end of the road. "

To lose the word "marriage" is to lose the core idea any civilization needs to perpetuate itself and to protect its children. It means exposing our children to a state-endorsed and state-promoted new vision of unisex marriage. It means losing the culture of marriage. And there would be nothing noble about that at all.

IGF contributing author Andrew Sullivan, on the other hand, does "get" that dignity for gay people is what's at stake, not just legal benefits -- and that's precisely why the religious right is so intent on denying us the "m" word. His column in the current New Republic makes this clear:

If the social right wanted to shore up marriage, they could propose an amendment tightening divorce laws. They could unveil any number of proposals for ensuring that children have stable two-family homes, that marriage-lite versions of marriage are prevented or discouraged. But they haven't.

[The Federal Marriage Amendment] is simply -- and baldly -- an attempt to ostracize a minority of Americans for good. ... It is one of the most divisive amendments ever proposed -- an attempt to bring the culture war into the fabric of the very founding document, to create division where we need unity, exclusion where we need inclusion, rigidity where we need flexibility. And you only have to read it to see why.

I have expressed the view that civil unions may be an appropriate short-term goal on the way to full marriage for gays and lesbians -- a means of allowing fair-minded straight Americans to get comfortable with the idea of state-recognition for same-sex relationships. And, in fact, this is exactly what happened in The Netherlands -- separate-track civil unions were eventually followed by full marriage for gay couples. But reading Gallagher, in particular, I can see why Sullivan and others insist that any arrangement short of marriage is not acceptable.

If you have thoughts you'd like to share with other readers about civil unions or rev'd up domestic parternships versus marriage as a short- or long-term objective, feel free to drop us a letter at the IGF Mailbag.

The Next Generation.

Jamie Kirchick, a Yale undergrad, campus columnist, and IGF contributing author, has a new blog. Check it out.

Two new polls released last Sunday show just about half of Massachusetts voters agree with the ruling by their highest court that the state's ban same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, while around 38% are opposed to gay marriage. That makes it a lot more difficult for anti-gay activists to charge that gay marriage is being forced on an unwilling populace.

Still, a recent nationwide survey shows that 59% oppose gay marriage while 32% favor it. Which is why it's not surprising, just disappointing, that the proposed anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution now has over 100 bipartisan sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives, according to the very anti-gay (but extremely multicultural) Alliance For Marriage.

Some good news: A few more straight conservatives are making the case for same-sex marriage. I particularly liked this piece from the right-leaning New York Sun, by R.H. Sager, who writes: "Marriage is a contract, it's a choice, it encourages stability. Conservatives like all of those things. Why not extend the institution?"

Moreover, other prominent conservative who haven't been stellar on matters of gay equality are now touting civil unions as an acceptable compromise, including Jonah Goldberg. He gets off this sharp observation:

It's a funny stalemate. The Republicans can't afford to be seen as too "anti-gay," lest the Democrats demagogue them with tolerant suburban voters, and Democrats can't afford to be seen as too "pro-gay" lest the GOP demagogue them in Southern and rural states. So both sides stand there, circling each other like sumo wrestlers, hoping the other side will make the first move.

And still other pundits of the right have come out against the Federal Marriage Amendment, including George Will and David Horowitz. Whether such defections will be enough to stall the support for amending the Constitution during the coming election year is as yet unknown.

The Marriage Ruling &

More Recent Postings

11/16/03 - 11/22/03

David Brooks, a fair-minded conservative who's now a columnist for the New York Times, penned this op-ed on The Power of Marriage. Taking a swipe at fellow conservatives, Brooks admonishes:

The conservative course is not to banish gay people from making such commitments. It is to expect that they make such commitments. We shouldn't just allow gay marriage. We should insist on gay marriage. We should regard it as scandalous that two people could claim to love each other and not want to sanctify their love with marriage and fidelity.

And, taking a swipe at liberals, he declares:

When liberals argue for gay marriage, they make it sound like a really good employee benefits plan. Or they frame it as a civil rights issue, like extending the right to vote. Marriage is not voting.

Straight conservatives who support gay marriage -- now that's a force to be reckoned with!

Liberals for Undermining Traditional Marriage?

On the other hand, do we really benefit from arguments like Sociologist Says Gay Marriage Does Threaten Established Order, and That's Good?

Meanwhile, in a show of support for heterosexual marriage, both Menendez brothers have now gotten married while in prison for killing their parents.
--Stephen H. Miller