IGF CultureWatch

It's hard to know what to say about James Bowman's essay defending the ban on gays in the military. Andrew Sullivan and Isaac Chotiner take the first shots; I'm still speechless.

Here is the heart of Bowman's argument:

Yet if reason were to be readmitted to the debate, we might find something in the history of military honor to justify the principle now enshrined in the law decreeing that "homosexuality is incompatible with military service." We know that soldiering--I mean not training or support or peacekeeping or any of the myriad other things soldiers do, but facing enemy bullets--is inextricably bound up with ideas of masculinity.

Unpacking the centuries of stereotypes, affronts, provocation and plain old cheap shots jammed into these 70 words will take a week or so at least (and there are plenty more insults where these came from), but here's one that should be at the head of the pack, that I hope will be expanded on by the man who first made it, 18 years ago: Kenneth L. Karst.

In his prescient 1991 law review article, "The Pursuit of Manhood and the Desegregation of the Armed Forces" (38 UCLA L.Rev. 499, Feb. 1991), Professor Karst showed how attempts to keep African-Americans out of the military were of a piece with exclusion of both women and gays from the military. Here is his thesis:

Masculinity is traditionally defined around the idea of power; the armed forces are the nation's preeminent symbol of power . . . The symbolism is not a side effect; it is the main point. From the colonial era to the middle of this century, our armed forces have alternately excluded and segregated blacks in the pursuit of manhood, and today's forms of exclusion and segregation are similarly grounded in the symbolism of masculine power.

In a little over 80 pages, Karst demolished the narrow self-interest of those like Bowman who - whether intentionally or not - try to use the military as a means of affirming their own masculinity at the expense of others. The icing on the cake, of course, is that they then can use the lack of such "masculinity" against those they exclude.

It took generations for African-Americans to fully work their way into America's image of power and authority. Women are still trying. Lesbians and gay men have long been there, but only by agreeing to the extortion of lying - implicitly accepting that gay people should not participate in the very thing they are participating in.

I'd like to see Bowman respond to Karst, if he can. But frankly, I don't know if he's man enough.

In his initial look at the numbers for Maine's Question 1, Nate Silver raises a fascinating issue. The People's Veto will be ". . . a standalone initiative in an off-year election in which voters will have few other things to consider. What sort of electorate will turn out?"

What a test case for the paradox of the minority in a democracy. The issue of same-sex marriage means a lot to those of us who are homosexual - to some of us, it means the world - but what does it mean to the majority of heterosexuals? What reason, if any, will they have to vote in this election?

Frank Schubert, the go-to guy to run anti-gay marriage campaigns, has pointed out that he faces a challenge from the fact that most heterosexuals haven't had much opportunity to think about same-sex marriage very much. . . and when they do, they don't see much to worry about. That's why Schubert needs to (in his words) "develop" things for heterosexuals to worry about - what he calls "impacts." Or, in the words of his partner, Jeff Flint, their job is to create a doubt and "project the doubt forward" into an imagined -- and very scary -- future.

Schubert and Flint came up with some very effective zombie tales in California and startled enough people to pass Prop. 8. But that was in an election where same-sex marriage was hardly the main subject in most voters' minds. In contrast, Maine's election will focus voters on that one issue.

What, for heterosexuals who support us, will match the passion to vote that we have, with our minuscule numbers? This election, more than any I can think of, will test the potency of sheer justice as a motivator for voters. Our supporters really have nothing else at stake except the naked idea of fairness. They neither win nor lose anything else with their vote. But fairness is a notion that does not even register in the minds of our opponents, aroused into hallucinations of religious persecution and childhood indoctrination. That will be Schubert's get-out-the-vote strategy.

Who will vote in Maine, and why? That will give us an x-ray of American democracy circa 2009.

Hospital visitation rights for same-sex partners seems an absurdly low bar when it comes to our equality - the very least we could possibly ask -- and it's hard to imagine such small comfort being denied any more.

Which is one reason the court decision in Janice Langbehn's case is so startling. She and her partner, Lisa Pond, took their three children to Miami for a family cruise in February 2007. Pond suffered an aneurism, and was hospitalized in Miami. The hospital did everything it could to prevent Langbehn from having any contact with Pond, and succeeded in keeping them apart until Pond died. Langbehn and Pond had done everything a couple unable to get lawfully married could do to prepare for such an event, including health care proxies. But in a state like Florida where anti-gay prejudice continues to prevail, all the legal preparations in the world don't mean a thing.

According to a press release, the court ruled that "the hospital has neither an obligation to allow their patients' visitors nor any obligation whatsoever to provide their patients' families, healthcare surrogates, or visitors with access to patients in their trauma unit."

As a strictly legal matter, that may be true (the decision can still be appealed). But as a moral matter, it is appalling. Hospitals came into being because of human compassion for illness and suffering. Whatever their legal obligations, preventing a woman from seeing her dying partner until the priest arrives to deliver Last Rites is a level of cruelty that should go down in the annals of depravity. For the record, the hospital is Jackson Memorial ("One of America's finest medical facilities"), a name that should also be recorded for posterity.

Their depravity, though, is reserved only for those of us who are homosexual. That may provide comfort to a subset of heterosexuals. But for the rest of us, this story is beyond horror only because it is true.

There was an elephant missing from the room during the congressional hearing on ENDA - the opposition.

I don't mean witnesses testifying against the bill; Craig Parshall of the National Religious Broadcasters Association was quite clearly in opposition. Camille Olson, while not so clearly opposed to the bill, made some cogent points about how current language might be too broad.

The absence was most obvious among legislators who oppose ENDA. Of the 19 GOP members on the committee, only three I could count -- John Kline, the ranking member, Todd Russell Platts, and Judy Biggert -- spoke, or even showed up, and the last two are cosponsors of the bill. Kline's opposition was vague and he never said it would be a bad thing to prohibit discrimination against lesbians and gay men; rather, he was concerned about "philosophical and logistical" considerations. Religious groups are now clearly exempted from the bill, and Kline was worried only about "how that exemption will be applied." He never even tried to make a respectable libertarian argument against the bill.

There's no doubt that the GOP will vote en masse against ENDA, so why weren't they at the hearing to articulate their case, or challenge the pro-ENDA witnesses? This is becoming characteristic of the anti-gay movement. They're no less opposed to gay equality in employment, housing, marriage and the military, but they've stopped trying to make arguments publicly.

That's a fairly recent development. Maggie Gallagher, for example, used to be a leading voice willing to debate the anti gay marriage case, but nowadays, it's rare to see her outside of Fox-friendly forums and religious or NOM-sponsored gatherings (these categories may have little distinction).

And it's not just that the right is not talking to the public - they now actively want to keep anyone else from hearing what they say to one another. In early September, Stand For Marriage Maine had a "pro-marriage" rally, and Jeremy at GoodAsYou asked for tickets. SFMM is the group that got Question 1 on the ballot, and you'd think their events would and should be public. But when Bob Emrich discovered Jeremy might not be sufficiently supportive of Emrich's cause, he said no, but offered to send Jeremy a DVD of the proceedings. Needless to say, that promise is still unfulfilled.

In place of arguments and persuasion, the right now hides behind commercials that deploy either fear or deception. To be fair, this tactic can certainly be effective, as we Californians can attest. But when a movement gives up on persuasion and relies only on surrogate strategems like this, perhaps it's safe to assume even they see they're coming to the end of the line. At the very least, it's hard to believe they have any confidence in their own logic.

UPDATE: The original post misidentified one of the Republican members at the hearing.

Here are some things we've learned in the last week:

(1) If you are a faithful Mormon, but also gay, one day you can ". . . rise with normal attractions for the opposite sex."

(2) "[A]ll pornography is homosexual pornography because all pornography turns your sexual drive inwards."

It isn't hard to show how irrational these statements are: Of course it's normal for heterosexuals to have attractions to the opposite sex; it's a truism. But it's completely abnormal for someone who is homosexual to have such attractions; it's an absurdity. Pornography may, indeed, turn your sexual drive inwards, but even if you believe that, it's heterosexual pornography that turns heterosexuals' drive inwards, and it's homosxual pornography that does this for homosexuals -- and never the twain shall meet.

What is striking about these remarks from fairly respectable people in the modern world is how thoroughly irrational they are. And, of course, the fact they were delivered in all seriousness.

In the constitutional debate over whether laws prohibiting same-sex marriage have a rational basis, it is deeply held beliefs like these that are rolled into the motives of some people who support marriage bans. These are only the most recent eruptions of some fundamental misunderstandings about what, exactly, homosexuality is. Amid this muck, it is no small task for a court to discover any genuine reasoning. And it's proving hard even for same-sex marriage opponents to deliver any arguments that are much more coherent.

Yet in Iowa, where 92% of those surveyed said nothing much had changed in their state after same-sex marriage was made legal, 41% still said they would vote for a marriage ban. Why? If nothing much has changed since gay marriage became legal, and if states like Massachusetts can show an actual decrease in divorce rates after five years of same-sex marriage, what is it that is wrong with same-sex couples marrying one another?

Voters don't have to struggle with these questions if they don't want to. But courts have to, and have to explain their reasoning. That is one reason, on this issue in particular, that same-sex marriage opponents so love the ballot; voters never have to explain themselves.

Daily Kos posts poll numbers from Maine: If the vote to revoke gay marriage were held there today, we'd lose by two points, 46-48. Given that more people tend to vote against same-sex marriage than admit in polls they'll vote against it, the real gap is probably more like 5 or more percent.

No news in the finding that women and younger people are more supportive of same-sex marriage, but look at the partisan breakdowns. Our problem can be summarized in one word: Republicans. Democrats favor SSM by a two-to-one margin (60-30). Independents favor it by seven percentage points (52-45). But Republicans are overwhelmingly, crushingly opposed, 74-20-and their combination of solidarity and intensity swings the whole equation.

This intensity gap explains why, as two political scientists, Jeffrey Lax and Justin Phillips, found recently [PDF], policy tends to be more conservative on gay marriage than the voters prefer-not, as conservatives often insist, more liberal.

It also underscores the importance of targeting persuasion relentlessly to the political middle. Forget about preaching to the converted. Another five percentage points or so of independents changes the game. That's the challenge.

A Human Rights Campaign (HRC) nightmare: As the Washington Blade reports, in an upstate New York congressional district a pro-gay-marriage Republican is running against an anti-gay-marriage Democrat. My prediction: no endorsement from the nation's largest LGBT rights group.

Of course, Democrats may say (should a gay-supportive Republican tip the partisan balance) that a GOP-led House wouldn't take up issues such as reforming the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA)...oh...never mind.

OK, there is some truth to that. But you simply can not get to gay legal equality with just one party, while half the nation supports a party that remains opposed, because it receives no gay support, because it remains opposed (play loop endlessly). Gay inroads must be made in the GOP, and races such as this one are important.

Two things struck me about last Saturday's huge "tea party" March on Washington: the way the media dismissed the event's importance and focused on the kooks (exactly as they used to do with gay protests), and the lack of an anti-gay message from among the marchers (a very good development).

As to the first point, Matt Welch, editor of the libertarian magazine Reason, observed in the New York Post, "How do you marginalize a significant protest against a politician or policy you support? Lowball the numbers, then dismiss participants as deranged and possibly dangerous kooks. In the case of Saturday's massive 9/12 protest in Washington, done and done." Just as was done with gays. The major media is rarely objective, it's just that its biases change.

Similarly, the Cato Institute's Gene Healy's recounted:

Judging by the massive crowd on Saturday that descended on Washington for the 9/12 March, you'd have to be deaf not to recognize that small-government conservatism remains a vital part of the national conversation.

If you've been fed a steady media diet of MSNBC over the last few months, though, you could be excused for fearing a Pennsylvania Avenue takeover by a rabble of pitchfork-wielding cranks and extras from "Deliverance." But the crowd - "in excess of 75,000 people," according to a D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services spokesman - was made up of orderly, pleasant, middle-class Americans from all across the country.

In my two hours at the protest, I didn't see a single "Birther" sign, and spied only one racially insensitive caricature. "Many of the signs," the liberal Center for American Progress alleges on its blog, "attacked President Obama using explicit racial and ethnic smears" - a claim that's simply false. . . . The gallery of "racist, radical portrayals" they posted after spending hours looking at tens of thousands of signs contains few that fit the bill.

And, somewhat surprisingly, there seems to be no evidence of anti-gay contingents at the protest, either. Even Andrew Sullivan, who posted every crazy or embarrassing sign that anyone saw at the March (how dare they criticize the Chosen One!), couldn't find any that were anti-gay. So I think we can assume there weren't any.

This was, in fact, a different group of right-wingers, as the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday:

"The demonstrators, who plan to march up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, are drawing their passion not from Bush-era fights over terrorism or gay marriage, but rather from Reagan-era debates over big government programs."

This could be partly because Obama has steered clear of social issues, such as marriage equality, and has instead worked hard to advance bigger-government programs, so that's where the country's focus is. But it's also true that the established groups that played some role in Saturday's march - National Taxpayers Union, Freedomworks, Americans for Prosperity - tend to be led by libertarians with no interest in the anti-gay agenda.

It's clear that the Bush-Obama bailouts and the larger Obama program have galvanized libertarian-leaning, anti-tax, anti-deficit, small-government people, and those are the issues being talked about this summer. And if the beltway LGBT movement wasn't run by Democratic party operatives, they might see that making common cause with pro-liberty groups on the right as well as with the pro-gay big-government left could create a movement that might have a fighting chance of achieving legal equality for gay people, rather than just delivering gay votes, and dollars, to Democrats.

I've been reading Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus's Chairman's Mark, his outline for health care reform. To the already very long list of federal benefits and obligations heterosexual married couples are entitled to that same-sex couples are denied because of DOMA, you can soon add one more: how much you pay for health insurance.

Under the Chairman's plan, the rating bands (within which insurers can vary rates) will allow lower or higher rates according to family composition. While the Chairman's Mark includes no language, will anyone be surprised when the definition of "family" includes married spouses of only the opposite gender, and their children?

This is the way federal law constantly inflicts a thousand small (and some very large) cuts on same-sex couples every blessed day of our lives. DOMA is that federal law, and it is intolerable.

I'm a big fan of Chris Geidner at LawDork, but I have to disagree with him (a bit) about the DOMA repeal bill, and specifically about Barney Frank's unequivocal position that he won't sign on.

Chris agrees with Frank's strategic thinking, which is nearly always impeccable. The bill's "certainty provision" provides that any marital rights recognized by the federal government (social security survivor benefits, say) could not be denied by a state that doesn't, itself, recognize same-sex marriage. Frank argues this would be a political problem of enormous proportions, and again it's hard to disagree with him about that.

But neither Barney Frank nor Chris argue that this is a bad thing as a policy matter. In fact, unless I'm misreading this provision, I suspect both of them might think it's a good thing, and entirely consistent with the way the federal government interacts with state governments on a regular basis. States don't often get the right to deny people federally recognized rights.

But as a strategic matter, having the most powerful, openly gay member of Congress in either house refuse to co-sponsor a repeal of DOMA because it includes a provision that will be controversial, or because the bill, itself, would be controversial (which it will) sends an odd and disconcerting message - that we should only support bills that are sure to pass.

No bill about gay equality in Congress will be easy But where is the shame (for us) in having the right thing voted down? DOMA repeal, in particular, is going to be a big challenge. But that's not because it's the wrong thing to do, it's because there is still adequate anti-gay prejudice in the country to make doing the right thing troublesome for many members of Congress.

That shouldn't be the reason for Frank to avoid co-sponsoring the bill, though, it should be the reason for him to be front and center on it. DOMA repeal is a public fight we need to have, even if it means surviving a losing vote or two. If gay people won't stand up for our own equality in the face of opposition and possible failure, how can we expect heterosexuals to?