IGF CultureWatch

An article in this week's New York Times Magazine called "The Young Hipublicans," by John Colapinto, looks at young college conservatives -- and finds that unlike earlier generations they're pretty cool when it comes to gays. An excerpt:

But the difference between the college conservatives of 20 years ago and today goes deeper than dress. Many members of the Bucknell conservatives club, for instance, endorse same-sex unions. Corey Langer recently wrote a Counterweight article supporting gay marriages. This is a far cry from -- when gay males were termed ''sodomites'' in The Dartmouth Review.

In part, the Bucknellians' openness to gays and lesbians can be attributed to the strong streak of libertarianism that runs through the club -- a conviction that the government should stay out of any and all aspects of life, including the bedroom. But you can't hang out long with the Bucknell Conservatives and not form the opinion that their tolerance on issues like homosexuality goes beyond libertarianism.

Like the rest of their generation, they've been trained, from preschool onward, in the tenets of cooperation, politeness and racial and gender sensitivity. As much as they would hate to admit it -- as hard as they try to fight it -- these quintessential values have suffused their consciousness and tempered their messages. "

Though they don't necessarily think of themselves as Republican, the stance they take on individual issues -- taxes, abortion, affirmative action -- gives them a conservative identity. And being a conservative can be cool and, as Mitchell puts it, not ''just something that wacko people in Alabama do.

Those in the conservative/libertarian camp are taking on the reactionary bigotry of their forebears, so in the not too distant future both the mainstream right and left will offer welcoming alternatives to gay people, as the preachers of prejudice find themselves increasingly marginalized.

Public or Private?

Responding to published accounts "outing" Rep. Mark Foley (R-Florida), who is running for the U.S. Senate, the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund -- which works to elect openly gay candidates -- issued this statement. Says Victory Fund Executive Director Chuck Wolfe:

We believe that openly gay and lesbian public servants are part of a healthy democracy and a representative government. -- At the same time, we believe that all Americans have a fundamental right to privacy, and therefore, a right to choose not to discuss their personal lives. --

It is reported that Congressman Foley, in his conversation today with select reporters, asserted his choice not to discuss his private life, which we respect. At those junctures where Congressman Foley does reference either his personal life or homosexuality, we call on him to be factual and truthful, so as to respect the decision of millions of gay Americans to live open, honest lives.

We also call on Congressman Foley, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican Party under his leadership to make no statements that suggest that openly gay Americans are unfit for public service or incapable of embracing conservative principles, if they so choose. We believe that voters will choose their elected representatives based on the issues, not speculation.

That seems like a reasoned -- and reasonable -- response. As much as I'd like more gay Republicans to come out, the bar should be set high when it comes to claiming a "right" to label anyone's sexuality against their wishes.

Recent Postings

05/18/03 - 05/24/03

What's fascinating and disturbing about Florida GOP congressman (and senate hopeful) Mark Foley's attempt to avoid discussing "topic G" is the way that, at least for now, anti-gay colleagues like Tom Delay are backing him up. Memo to Mark: Something's got to give, one way or the other -- it's 2003, not 1953 (or even 1993)!

At Least Someone's Having a Good Time.

Popular blogger Eugene Volokh, who teaches at UCLA Law School and clerked for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, presents some interesting findings on what he terms "the myth of the median hyper-promiscuous gay male." Volokh writes:

the claim that the median American gay male (not just a minority of gays) is hyper-promiscuous (not just a bit more promiscuous than heterosexuals) appears to be false -- and politically quite important. --

" claims that, say, the median gay man has over 250 sexual partners in a lifetime makes gays seem in a way freakish and deviant, and makes it much harder for people to see gay sexual relationships as emotionally comparable to straight sexual relationships. --

All the data I've seen supporting the hyper-promiscuous median gay male claim has been junk science. It often refers to real studies -- but to studies of groups that we have no reason to think are representative of the median gay male.

In other words, a small minority of the gay male minority is skewing the results for the rest of us -- quell surprise!

Conservatives vs. Religious Right,
Round 2.

Ramesh Ponnuru, a senior editor at the conservative National Review, had this to say at National Review Online about threats being made by religious right leaders that their minions might bolt the GOP if President Bush doesn't toe their anti-gay line:

Social-conservative leaders have the bad habits of not setting priorities and of threatening more than they can deliver. The average social conservative likes President Bush. -- If the administration continues its current course -- and does not nominate a squish to the Supreme Court -- are social conservatives really going to stay home because Marc Racicot [head of the Republican National Committee] met with gay groups and the president didn't support Rick Santorum more forcefully?

To which Ken Connor, the head of the Family Research Council, replied. And to which Ponnuru then replied back (scroll down past the tax-cut story).
--Stephen H. Miller

There's an important new piece by influential conservative David Horowitz on his frontpagemagazine.com website. Titled Pride Before a Fall, Horowitz takes to task the homophobia of the religious right, finding it both intolerant and divisive. He writes:

In four Gospels - including the Sermon on the Mount - Jesus neglected to mention the subject of homosexuality. But that hasn't stopped a handful of self-appointed leaders of the so-called Religious Right from deciding that it is an issue worth the presidency of the United States. In what the Washington Times described as a "stormy session" last week, the Rev. Lou Sheldon, Paul Weyrich, Gary Bauer and eight other "social conservatives" read the riot act to RNC chairman Marc Racicot for meeting with the "Human Rights Campaign," a group promoting legal protections for homosexuals. This indiscretion, they said, "could put Bush's entire re-election campaign in jeopardy."

According to the Times" report by Ralph Hallow, the RNC chairman defended himself by saying, "You people don't want me to meet with other folks, but I meet with anybody and everybody." To this Gary Bauer retorted, "That can't be true because you surely would not meet with the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan."

Nice analogy Gary. Way to love thy neighbor.

There are a growing number of important conservative figures who are not happy with the religious right's anti-gay antics, especially their threats against the Bush administration over its outreach toward gays. Increasingly, the religious right is being marginalized by mainstream conservatives who know that the future is an inclusive one, based on the core values of indivdiual liberty and responsiblity, as opposed to the left's bureaucratic collectivism and the religious right's bigotry (and big-goverment support for bedroom police enforcing sodomy laws). This is a very good sign.
--Stephen H. Miller

Recent Postings

05/11/03 - 05/17/03

Here's the Christian right's view of the 2004 presidential election, via their worldnetdaily website, which laments:

The 2004 election mantra for politicos may well be "It's homosexuality, stupid," as Democratic candidates openly court the "gay" vote, and Republicans make quiet incursions into the traditionally Democratic territory -- all to the distress of conservative, pro-family groups.

One suspects their distress will only grow more acute over time, as a new Gallup poll suggests that supporting gay equality is no longer a losing issue. Among the findings:

"almost 9 out of 10 Americans agree that homosexuals should have equal rights in terms of job opportunities, although opinions on allowing homosexual couples to legally form civil unions, giving them some of the legal rights of married couples, are evenly divided."

Taking the 'Culture War' Home.

Tammy Bruce, an openly lesbian critic of politically correct feminism, has a column on the conservative (but NOT religious right) frontpagemagazine.com site explaining why supporters of limited government should oppose sodomy laws.

Making this argument to mainstream conservatives on their own terms is far more productive than the usual gay protests, which too often seem to consists of little more than chanting "bigot, bigot go away" in the gay left's echo chamber. A similar point is made by Carl Schmid, a former head of DC's Log Cabin chapter, who writes in the Washington Blade:

America is still being educated about gays, and the battle over our equal rights and responsibilities is basically being fought in the Republican Party. This makes sense since the more conservative voters are in the Republican Party.

Given where the remaining minds that need to be convinced are, isn't it incumbent upon all gay and lesbian advocacy organizations, both at the national and local level, to focus more of their attention on conservative-leaning voters and their elected officials?

Since the White House and Congress are controlled by Republicans, and likely will be in at least the near future, there is even more of a reason for the gay rights movement to change its course of action and focus more on Republican voters and officials.

That means our advocacy groups need more Republican voices, both gay and straight; they need more Republican leaders within their ranks; they need to make Republicans feel welcome into their organizations; they need to speak the language and style of Republicans; they need to spend less time in the offices of their friends and more with Republican elected officials, Republican voters in swing districts and conservative media outlets; and they need to learn to criticize in a constructive manner and praise when appropriate.

Well said! The Blade, by the way, also deserves credit this week for covering the attacks by religious rightists on the Bush administration over its outreach to gays -- an invisible story in most of the media. The report is titled Racicot's HRC meeting outrages "pro-family" groups.
--Stephen H. Miller

The religious rightists have caught on to the meeting last week between administration officials and Log Cabin Republicans, and they're hopping mad. Here's a posting from the anti-gay Family Research Council's website:

Despite repeated assurances, both public and private, that the party has no intention of abandoning its commitment to the sanctity of marriage and the family, the White House and the GOP continue to court radical homosexual groups that agitate for policies that would destroy both of these indispensable social institutions. ... This incessant pandering to the homosexual lobby is deeply troubling.

Again, it's amazing that the gay and mainstream media are ignoring the fulminations of the religious right over the administration's tepid outreach efforts.
--Stephen H. Miller

It's interesting that Deroy Murdock's column criticizing sodomy laws, which I first referred to on May 11 (below), has now been printed in the Sunday New York Post and today on National Review Online. That's really taking the argument to the conservatives!
--Stephen H. Miller

Deroy Murdock, a libertarian-minded syndicated columnist, takes a look at the arguments used to defend sodomy laws in Freedom and Sex. This is one of the few critiques of the conservative "slippery slope" theory that goes out on a limb and describes the libertarian viewpoint:

Should laws against adult homosexuality, adultery and incest potentially place taxpaying Americans over 18 behind bars for such behavior? Priests, ministers, rabbis and other moral leaders may decry these activities. But no matter how much people may frown upon these sexual appetites, consenting American adults should not face incarceration for yielding to such temptations.

Well, that's one way to respond to conservatives who believe if you get rid of sodomy laws you won't have a legal principle left to outlaw incest between consenting adults. But of course, the conservatives have always obscured the fact that abuse of minor children, whether theoretically "consensual" or not, could and would remain illegal despite any Supreme Court ruling regarding the privacy rights of adults exercising free choice in their own bedrooms.

More Balancing by Bushies.

The New York Times reports that White House aides conferred with 200 gay Republicans in D.C. for the annual Log Cabin Republican convention and associated lobbying push:

Among the White House officials briefing the Log Cabin Republicans today was Dr. Joe O'Neill, the administration's AIDS czar, who is openly gay. Bobby Bottoms, a Log Cabin Republican from San Diego, said he was struck by photographs in Dr. O'Neill's office, taken during the White House Christmas party, of Dr. O'Neill and his partner with the president and Laura Bush.

Mr. Bottoms said Dr. O'Neill told the group that the White House was "the most wonderful working environment that he had ever worked in."

"He spoke from the heart and you could tell in his tone, and in his words," Mr. Bottoms said, "he was very passionate that there was absolutely no issue with him and his sexuality."

(I'll refrain from any pun about "Mr. Bottoms," who has probably heard them all.)

Even if overstated by GOP loyalists, this is a BIG change from earlier Republican administrations, and a far cry from what liberals predicted. But of course meeting with gays is just one half of the balancing act. The chairman of the Republican National Committee, former Montana Governor Mark Racicot, recently met with a group of anti-gay conservatives who are enraged over an earlier Racicot get-together with the leadership of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the big Washington-based gay rights lobby.

An account of Racicot's one-hour meeting with the anti-gay activists by one of the attendees, arch-conservative Paul M. Weyrich, is posted on the Free Congress Foundation's Web site under the title A Fatal Flirtation: The GOP and the Homosexual Movement). Writes Weyrich:

In many different ways the [conservative activists] group stressed that if the Republican Party drifts toward the homosexual agenda, it will alienate the millions in the religious right while gaining very few from the homosexual community. "

Chairman Racicot defended his meeting with the Human Rights Campaign by saying "I meet with anyone and everyone." Gary Bauer said that certainly was not true because surely he would not meet with the Ku Klux Klan. Rev. Wildmon asked if he would meet with NAMBLA (The North American Man Boy Love Association). The chairman was not familiar with this group, which advocates sex between men and young boys. The chairman said he would not meet with such an "aberrant" group. He was also asked about GLSEN, the group that is pushing pro-homosexual and pro-transgender education programs in the schools, including elementary schools. Again, the chairman professed ignorance.

This couldn't have been a fun meeting for Racicot, who has good relations with the Log Cabiners. And it remains to be seen if the White House can continue to reach out to gays, however tepidly, without making the religious right even nuttier.

Recent Postings

05/04/03 - 05/10/03

An interesting article by sociologist Alan Wolfe concludes that the American public is growing increasingly gay tolerant, as shown by majority opposition to sodomy laws and other positive indicators of growing support for gay acceptance. Wolfe observes in Are Republicans Making a Mistake Supporting Santorum? that:

by backing Santorum, President Bush and most other Republicans have apparently concluded that, as conservative activist Gary Bauer put it, Santorum's views reflected the American mainstream.

But I don't think that's quite right. The administration most likely was blindsided by Santorum's outburst, and when confronted with it tried to find a middle ground that wouldn't seem too intolerant but wouldn't alienate the religious conservatives, either. I read an online discussion arguing that when Bush supported Santorum as "an inclusive man" he intentionally was defending the principle of inclusion as a good thing for Republicans to uphold, while deliberately ignoring the substance of Santorum's remarks about homosexuality.

Whether that's too generous toward Bush or not, it's clear that social conservatives are still fuming over the lack of administration support for the anti-gay views Santorum expressed -- a fact that both the mainstream and the gay media have ignored.

By the way, a new poll shows 7 in 10 adult Americans support the U.S. Supreme Court overturning same-sex sodomy laws. In just a few weeks, we'll have a decision which, if positive, could provide a major boost toward equal treatment for gays under the law and get us well past the debate over whether gays should be legally persecuted. At least the Santorums of the world wouldn't be able to keep claiming they're only expressing agreement with nation's highest court (in its notorious Bowers ruling upholding, though unlike Santorum not advocating, state sodomy statutes).

Sorry, but I've been busy and haven't had a chance to weigh in on the Bill Bennett brouhaha. But here are two pieces worth checking out. Michael Kinsley's Washington Post op-ed, Bad Bet By Bill Bennett, makes a strong case that, yes, the conservative virtue maven and compulsive gambler is guilty of hypocrisy. Of Bennett's defense that his gambling never hurt anyone else, Kinsley writes:

Bennett can't plead liberty now, because opposing libertarianism is what his sundry crusades are all about. He wants to put marijuana smokers in jail. He wants to make it harder to get divorced. He wants more "moral criticism of homosexuality" and "declining to accept that what they do is right."

And IGF's Walter Olson wrote a column for Slate a few years back, William Bennett, Gays, and the Truth, that took Bennett to task over his promotion of a claim that "homosexuality takes 30 years off your life." How many years is it for playing of the slots?

Let me say that I think we do need to promote "virtue" and values, especially among the young. But we've let the social conservatives mix civics with their own brand of prejudice for far too long - which has only served to give self-discipline a bad rap.
-Stephen H.Miller

Could biotechnology allow two gay men to make a baby? That question was explored recently, and not by the National Enquirer. No, it was a legit story in the Washington Post, which reports:

If the science holds true in humans as in mice -- and several scientists said they suspect it will -- then a gay male couple might, before long, be able to produce children through sexual reproduction, with one man contributing sperm and the other fresh eggs bearing his own genes.

That scenario raises difficult questions, including whether the second man would be recognized as the child's biological mother.

Frankly, I'm not sure what to make of this. But it does point out that the near future could be a very different world than the one we now inhabit. If gay couples can produce their own biological offspring together, would that hasten the full acceptance of gays into the fabric of society, or provoke a backlash over tampering with the heretofore immutable laws of nature? And if genetic engineering advances still further, will "designer babies" that are engineered to be an improvement on the traditional model be welcome or rejected as dangerous mutants (shades of X-Men!). There are no answers, but sometimes it's worth stepping back from the squabbles of today and thinking about the questions that are waiting for us tomorrow.
--Stephen H. Miller

Recent Postings

05/04/03 - 05/10/03