IGF CultureWatch

Change of Heart. The ACLU Lesbian & Gay Rights Project has found several former state legislators who voted for Florida's gay adoption ban 25 years ago, and who now wish to recant. Nine former Florida legislators - including a former Speaker of the State House of Representatives and a former President of the State Senate - have signed ACLU statements saying, "In 1977, we were among the state legislators who helped pass Florida's law prohibiting gay people from adopting children. We now realize that we were wrong. This discriminatory law prevents children from being adopted into loving, supportive homes - and we hope it will be overturned." This is reminiscent of a statement made by the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis "throw in the towel" Powell, who - after retiring from the bench - publicly regretted his tie-splitting vote in favor of upholding state sodomy statutes which turn same-sex partners into criminals. If nothing else, these conversions show that, ultimately, hearts and minds can be changed - perhaps by seeing more of life than by any particular argument. Better late then never, I suppose.

No Change of Heart. One person who hasn't changed his views -- despite some misleading reports, is Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina. Last month, at a Christian conference called Prescription for Hope, he was moved to proclaim he was "so ashamed that I"ve done so little" about the AIDS pandemic, adding that "I have been too lax too long in doing something really significant about AIDS." Just what he thinks he ought to have done is a scary thought, given that the March 6 Winston-Salem (N.C.) Journal reports that, when it asked whether he was recanting his past criticism of homosexuality, Helms was adamant that he was not. "I"d make myself sick if I did such a thing, because I don't have any idea of changing my views on that kind of activity," said the senator.

Many conservatives decry the fact that for years gay activists claimed, erroneously, that heterosexuals were equally at risk from AIDS. What's forgotten is that Helms and his cohorts had made it illegal for the government to fund any AIDS educational campaign that treated gay sex as anything less than an abomination - meaning that generalized message were the only ones that could be promoted. So, if Helm's is "ashamed" he did so little, but still hasn't changed his views about gays, what does he wish he could have done for (or to) us?

California Dreamin". As I predicted in my March 4 posting, Dick Riordan went down to defeat in California's gubernatorial primary, bested by conservative Bill Simon Jr. Riordan, a strong gay rights supporter, was thwarted by his reputation as the ultimate Republican In Name Only -- with a history of contributing to and endorsing liberal Democrats like Gov. Gray Davis and Sen. Dianne Feinstein - whom he supported over Log Cabin-endorsed Tom Campbell in 2000. How anti-Republican a Republican was Riordan? Robert Novak writes in his March 7 column that when he visited him shortly after his 1994 election as L.A.'s mayor, Riordan "pointed with sardonic pride to a campaign button bearing the letters RINO. ... That attitude led to the humiliating end of Riordan's political career Tuesday."
But what to make of Bill Simon, a devout Catholic who has made several pilgrimages to Lourdes? According to the March 7 Los Angeles Times, Simon avoided discussing social issues in the days following his primary victory - with one exception. He stated he would have vetoed a bill that Davis signed last year expanding domestic partnership rights. "I don't think it's appropriate for the government to enter into legislation that has to do with sexual orientation," Simon said. Not a promising sign. To reiterate, the long-term strategy is to find (or convert) Republicans who are in tune with the party's base on a number of issues (school choice, gun ownership) but who understand that the right to live free of discrimination perpetuated by your own government - which includes the right to have your spousal relationships legal recognized - is on a par with these liberties.

Really Rosie. I have decidedly mixed feelings about Rosie O"Donnell. On the one hand, it's great that she's coming out. With her legions of television fans (her soon-to-end talkfest averages 2.8 million viewer per day), it's one more sign of the new "homonormative" world, as the queer theoristic critics of "heteronormality" might say. On the other hand, there's the hypocrisy issue -- including her fierce support for limiting legal gun ownership (excluding her own armed bodyguards, naturally). And, of course, all that insipid cooing over Tom Cruise a while back. On the other hand (yea, that's three; I can count) it's wonderful that she's speaking out against Florida's cruel and destructive ban on adoptions by gay couples -- many of whom have seen their foster children torn away from the only homes where those kids were every loved. Rosie, an adoptive (and foster) parent herself, has a home in Miami, so the issue touches her directly.
Even on the Cruise cooing, Rosie may have turned it around for me. As reported by Jeannie Williams in a Feb. 27 USA Today piece, she had this to say: ""Oh, but you were lying," the gay Nazis say. "You said you liked Tom Cruise." I said I wanted him to mow my lawn and bring me a lemonade. I never said I wanted (to perform a sex act on him)."
Hmmm. I just don't buy that Rosie's Cruisy comments per Tom Terrific weren't meant to come across as girlish infatuation of the straight kind, while her show was still aiming for Top Gun ratings. On the other hand (yeah, yeah), it was quite bold of Rosie to take on "the gay Nazis" who demand lock-step homo-uniformity, so maybe there's hope for her after all?

RINOplastic. If, as appears likely, Dick Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor and liberal Republican, loses the California GOP gubernatorial nomination on Tuesday to more conservative stalwart Bill Simon Jr., look for the pundits to proclaim that the Republicans just couldn't bring themselves to vote for a guy who's pro-choice (on abortion, not schools) and pro-gay rights. The pundits, as usual, will be wrong. The nomination has been Riordan's to lose, and he just may, mainly because he didn't have a response as to why he would support and contribute to liberal DEMOCRATS such as current Governor Gray Davis and Senator Diane Feinstein. As the Washington Times put it on March 4, "Even Republican centrists have quipped that Mr. Riordan has more big-name Democrats he counts as friends than does National Democratic Chairman Terry McAuliffe -- and has given more in campaign contributions to left-wing Democrats."
Now, it's one thing to be a RINO (that's "Republican in Name Only"), as conservative GOPpers dub those in their party who tend to vote left of center on most issues. But it's a step beyond that to be a RINO for whom the label really isn't hyberbole. Gay Republicans risk alienating their fellows in the party by embracing anti-Republican Republicans (a la Jim Jeffords); the better, albeit more challengng strategy is to get real Republicans to be more gay-inclusive and forgoing electoral alliances with "progressives" on the left.

This past Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (or "HELP") held hearings on the proposed federal Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which seeks to ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Democrats are eager to use ENDA to energize lesbigay voters in this November's congressional races, although the last time their party controlled both houses of Congress as well as the presidency -- during Bill Clinton's first term -- they failed to move the legislation (it did come up later, but narrowly failed to pass the by then GOP-controlled Senate). Now, with the prospect of easy passage later this year in Tom Daschle's chamber, but blockage by the GOP's leadership in the House, or better yet, a possible presidential veto, they're happy to make it an issue.

Forgive me for sensing ulterior motives, but when the most visible sponsors are Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton, the game is firing up your base, not passing law.

Of course, the religious right is joyous over ENDA's re-emergence as well; it's more red meat for their own fundraising efforts. As reported in a Feb. 27 story on the conservative CNSNews.com headlined Kennedy, Clinton Promote Homosexual 'Rights' Bill, the Traditional Values Coalition's Lou Sheldon warned that "This will mean that homosexuals, bisexuals, transvestites, and even voyeurs could claim federal protection for their particular 'orientation.' Christians and other religious individuals will be silenced under this law." And then be fed to the lions in RFK Stadium, no doubt.

Keep the Faith. Speaking of the religious right, they're none too happy with the newest version of George Bush's "faith-based initiative" bill. The new proposal will NOT exempt religious groups getting federal money from local laws barring anti-gay discrimination, the Washington Times reported in February. Pro-family groups decried Bush's "caving" on the bill and said they "feel betrayed, unless the president gives them a guarantee he will come back after this year's elections with a bill offering religious organizations protection against 'pro-homosexual' laws," the paper reported. Don' hold your breath, Lou, Pat, and Jerry. George W. isn' going to fall into that trap again.

The Religious Left. IGF's Mike Airhart supplies the following. Writes Mike:

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force recently concluded its annual National Religious Leadership Roundtable, a confab of bright stars from the religious left. Reps from the American Friends Service Committee, gay Muslim group Al-Fatiha, Amnesty International, More Light Presbyterians, and Reform Judaism criticized alleged excesses of the "war on terrorism"(their quotes, not mine).

"To be sure," writes Mike, "I'm glad to see someone criticizing U.S. foreign policy. However, these progressive leaders offered no constructive alternatives to the open-ended detention of Arab immigrants and White House saber-rattling against terrorist nations. The most these religious leaders could muster were vague appeals to 'justice' and 'human rights' for all."

Mike concludes, "The left has always been good at dictating finger-wagging lists of 'do nots,' but when it comes time to offer a list of 'do's,' these folks end the discussion. At a time when terrorist cells continue to lurk across America, empty protests such as these are a disappointment, to say the very least."

Why am I not surprised?

More on "Mind". Regarding my Feb. 23rd posting on "A Beautiful Mind" and the brouhaha over director Ron Howard's "de-gaying" of John Forbes Nash Jr., a friend writes: "I hadn't heard about the controversy, but it doesn't surprise me. Much more offensive than Opie's apparent homophobia is his looks-ism. How dare he insult people who aren't as handsome as Russell Crowe by casting him to play a man who was, at best, only mildly good-looking! Where is GLAAD on this issue? Why aren't they building alliances with our natural partners, the homely people of the world?"

The Times They Are A Changin". A nice column today by Jim Pinkerton about Paul Holm, the significant other of Mark Bingham, one of the "let's roll" heroes who died thwarting the hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93. Holm is described as "a typical 40-something Republican white male" who, atypically, happens to be gay. More to the point, "Holm's political heart is not in the leftism of the Bay Area; it's in the libertarianism of Reagan Country, and it's that cause to which he is dedicated now," Pinkerton writes. Holm has, in fact, become the national political strategist for the Republican Unity Coalition (RUC), described as "a gay-straight political organization that is well on its way to giving $1 million this year to tolerant "big tent" Republicans." Want to change the hearts and minds of the huge constituency of those who aren't hostile, just ambivalent, about gay inclusion? This is how to do it.

Welfare Addicts. To be an advocate of gay and lesbian equality means to oppose welfare reform, according to the always dependably National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The NGLTF Policy Institute (the group's tax-exempt arm) has just released a report titled "Leaving Our Children Behind: Welfare Reform and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community." The national zeitgeist may be trending toward a greater expectation of personal and familial responsibility, but the gay left is caught in a time warp. As the authors of the new report see it, the 1996 welfare reform law is rife with dangerous consequences for us GLBTers -- such as lesbian mothers who want taxpayers to support them via welfare assistance (the expectation that the biological father, when known, should be relied on to help is part of an "attack on lesbian families"). Or, as the Washington Blade reported on Feb. 22, the failure to fulfill dress code requirements under the welfare law has resulted in transgendered people being removed from welfare rolls, "forcing them to fend for themselves in the streets," in the view of the Queer Economic Justice Network.

The NGLTF report "draws parallels among attacks from right-wing conservatives on GLBT people, people of color, and women." Couldn't you guess?

Last year, then-NGLTF head Elizabeth Toledo blasted the appointment of Tommy Thompson -- one of the most gay-inclusive Republicans on the political scene -- as head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Said Toledo, "If he punishes poor women for having too many children, how do we think he's going to treat GLBT parents who need help providing for their kids?" Not to belabor the obvious, but the assumption here is that adults need not have a plan to support any number of offspring that they might wish to bring into the world. Just why should trying to move welfare recipients into the workforce, requiring fathers to bear financial responsibility for those whom they sire, and eliminating incentives that make it profitable to have more children when you can't support the ones you already have, earn you the ire of the "GLBT community"? The ethos of the gay left, as revealed here, is that we"re all children in need of the parental state to give us our allowance, especially those who are disinclined to join the workforce. What a sorry vision of adulthood -- and of gay activism -- this all represents.

The NGLTF Policy Institute seems especially irate about the Bush administration's proposed "fatherhood initiatives" and its encouragement of marriage for welfare-dependent single mothers. There may, in fact, be legitimate issues of concern for gays and lesbians here -- but shouldn't the response be to at least try to incorporate gay marriage (or, to be pragmatic, domestic partnerships) into the vision, rather than just demanding that the state be an endless source of income for impoverished, unwed mothers, in perpetuity?

It's Oscar season, and given the multiple nominations for Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind," let's consider the controversy over the "de-gaying" of schizoid mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr., as played by heartthrob Russell Crowe in the flick. Could little Opie be a great, big homophobe? Yes, or so say the folks at the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. The film is "an absolute insult" to the lesbigaytrans community," said the group's Scott Seomin, as quoted in the Washington Blade. Seomin added, for good measure, "It would be laughable and ridiculous if it was not so disrespectful to gays and lesbians" and, by way of comparison, "If Ron Howard had made [the movie] 'Ali,' there would be no black Muslims." The real Nash, though married and a father, wrote of his homosexual attractions and was once arrested in a men's room sting. But the elderly fellow is finishing his years with his wife, after all, and their relationship seems firmly rooted by deep emotional ties. In the movie's defense, Russell Crowe, who played a gay hunk in the Aussie flick "The Sum of Us" (note: must rent), told Entertainment Weekly that remaining faithful to Nash's real life risked insulting gays. "We didn't want to imply that there was any possibility that schizophrenia and homosexual are related," Crowe told the magazine. "That would be ridiculous."

"De-gaying" films about real people who had a lavender streak has been and remains a legitimate issue, and one the gay community should take seriously. But I think this was a case where Opie just wasn't gonna win. If he had left in the gay stuff, some quarters would assuredly have complained about another crazy gay guy (especially in light of the Anne Heche "I'm not a lesbian, I was just psychotic" episode). Leaving it out got him in hot water, too. Some days it doesn't pay to leave Mayberry.

On the other hand: Reading in the Feb. 4 Washington Post about how Human Rights Campaign doyenne Elizabeth Birch sucked up to Ron Howard at a charity screening of the movie (for the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign) gave me the willies. "I'm never in awe of anything in Washington," beamed Birch, "But show me a great director, and I'll swoon." Maybe Howard shouldn't be damned for choosing to excise mention of Nash's homosexual proclivities, but to genuflect over him seems a bit much, no?