IGF CultureWatch

Writing in The Politico, a Washington paper, Peter Berkowitz of George Mason University School of Law asks:

Is conservatism, as led by a tax-cutting, crime-fighting, socially liberal big-city blue-state mayor, about to remake itself by reclaiming the center of American politics? Or is it about to collapse from the combined force of its internal contradictions...?

That, of course, is one of the big question posed by the Giuliani campaign.

Berkowitz continues, providing some political theory context:

Modern conservatism derives above all from Edmund Burke, the great 18th-century Anglo-Irish orator and statesman. Burke was a lover of liberty and tradition who saw a great threat to liberty in the tradition-overthrowing forces unleashed by the French Revolution. He was solicitous of established ways but acutely aware that the preservation of liberty required "prudent innovation" in response to the constantly changing circumstances of political life....

[But] There is no settled recipe, and there are no fixed proportions, for determining the prudent innovations that balance liberty and tradition.

In a nutshell, then, the challenge is to increase liberty without falling prey to the left's siren call of "remaking society" by pursing utopian social engineering that leads, in fact, to nightmarish dystopias.

Berkowitz concludes: "The competition and conflict that is developing among the leading conservative candidates should prove invigorating, not only for conservatism in America but for the nation as a whole." We shall see if the Republican party is capable of supporting a conservatism that prudently expands the scope of individual liberty, or falls back on rigid defense of traditional social norms that exclude recognizing legal equality for gay people.

It's hard to take veteran gay activist Larry Kramer seriously when he says things like, "I believe that Ronald Reagan is responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler." Or when he luxuriates in victimhood by proclaiming, "I wish I could make all gay people everywhere accept this one fact I know to be an undisputed truth. We are hated."

The gay enragee has re-emerged into the spotlight with a highly publicized "open letter" in the Los Angeles Times and a speech at New York's LGBT Center (here's a video).

Kramer has accomplished much good, often despite himself, co-founding Gay Men's Health Crisis and even ACT UP (which, in the early days, brought much needed attention to the AIDS crisis despite some woefully wrongheaded attacks). But he has never understood that a case has to be made for changing society, that the need to make radical alterations cannot simply be assumed, with all who oppose such transformations labeled "haters" or "murderers."

More Kramer:

"We must cease our never-ending docile cooperation with a status quo that never changes in its relationship to us. We are cutting our own throats raising money for Hillary or Obama or Kerry or, God forbid, Giuliani, or anyone until they come out in full support of all the things I am talking about..."

While it's refreshing (and somewhat rare) to see Democrats held to the same standard that their party's gay activists routinely hold Republicans to, the idea that it must all be Now, that there can be no forward if incremental steps toward progress, is in its own way frighteningly totalitarian.

If society readily accepted fundamental transformations without struggle, we'd be in a constant state of revolution, and revolutionary terror. That sort of upheaval and the tyranny that (not always, but often) follows, would be our daily fare. Resistance to demands to alter the social fabric, even to the over-reaching and often counter-productive social engineering of the welfare state, is a societal self-defense mechanism.

This is especially true of demands for change made by those who think that the purity of their rage is testament to the rightness of their cause.

Of course we must fight for gay equality, and often that requires expressions of great passion. And some of our opponents are, in fact, motivated by an ugly animus (while others shamelessly see gay-baiting as their path to power). But demonifying all who oppose gay equality based on conservative impulses is not a successful strategy. Rather, working to enlighten a majority- demonstrating, over and over again until the message gets through, that gay equality is not destabilizing toward families and society, but actually makes both stronger-is a painstaking but necessary requirement.

It is just not enough to base our identity on victimhood and expect that this will move us toward our goals, no matter how much we "act up."

More. It's not about Larry Kramer, but George Will writes today on how political rage has become pandemic. "Today, many people preen about their anger as a badge of authenticity: I snarl therefore I am. Such people make one's blood boil."

Sweden prepares to move from civil unions to full marriage equality. I've long said that civil unions, once accepted, can't help but be a preliminary to same-sex marriage-something that the religious right has long noted. But some gay activists take the view that we must move from no partnership rights to full marriage in one step by the decree of liberal courts, despite the opposition by a majority of a given state's electorate.

That's not a prescription for progress, but for the kind of backlash that leads to amendments barring marriage equity for at least a generation.

Self-defense ruling update. Gay liberals aren't happy as a libertarian gay activist fights for our right to self-defense.

The nation is seeing an increasingly polarized debate on how-if at all-government (that is, "public") schools should discuss homosexuality, reports the Washington Post:

In most of the country, the trend in sex education is toward "abstinence only," which dictates that sex outside of marriage is wrong and potentially dangerous. Such programs tend to bypass homosexuality, except to characterize gay sex as a public health risk....

SIECUS [the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S.] counts nine states that require "something negative" if sexual orientation is taught, such as characterizing homosexuality as unacceptable behavior.

The Post goes on to note that:

the federal government...since the mid-1990s has required a strict abstinence-only approach as a condition for substantial federal funds. Such programs, the government says, should endorse sex only in the confines of marriage, one reason they tend to skirt homosexuality.

And yet polls show only a quarter of Americans deem homosexuality and sexual orientation inappropriate topics for sex education, while a majority think schools should teach what homosexuality is (but not whether it is right or wrong). Given the lack of "school choice" in public education, that's probably the best common standard we can hope for, and one that is still much better than the "gays as health risk" view taught with the government's blessing in certain locales.

Public schools cannot help but be creatures of government, and increasingly it's the federal government that calls the curriculum shots. This means common sense, factual teaching falls by the wayside. While a few liberal districts go out on a rope (and risk federal funding) by teaching tolerance, many more treat homosexuality as beyond the pale.

Now, if education were privatized and government provided, say, tuition vouchers instead of buildings and (overstaffed) bureaucracies, there would still be a wide divergence on how homosexuality was taught. But at least the negative, "abstinence outside marriage" (and no marriage for immoral gays) view would not be coming directly from government educrats.

More. The Cato Institute makes a similar point in Why We Fight: How Public Schools Cause Social Conflict: "Such clashes are inevitable in government-run schooling because all Americans are required to support the public schools, but only those with the most political power control them."

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, makes the thinking behind the military's "don't ask, don't tell" gay ban perfectly clear:

"I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe that the armed forces of the United States are well served by saying through our policies that it's OK to be immoral in any way."

Oh, and then there's that "unit cohesion" thing, too.

But gays are much more an open part of our world then when "don't ask" was put in place by President Clinton, at the instigation not just of congressional Republicans but of Democratic bigwigs like senators Sam Nunn and Robert Byrd. This time, GOP Sen. John Warner, one of Congress' most respected authorities on military matters and a former Navy secretary, shot pack at Gen. Pace: "I respectfully but strongly disagree with the chairman's view that homosexuality is immoral."

In other words, the threshold of anti-gay bigotry is much lower these days, even among Republicans (see Coulter, Ann, response to), suggesting that the gay ban is unlikely to survive the post-Bush presidency, whichever party takes the White House.

How Clintonesque.

"I have heard from many of my friends in the gay community that my response yesterday to a question about homosexuality being immoral sounded evasive. My intention was to focus the conversation on the failed don't ask, don't tell policy. I should have echoed my colleague Senator John Warner's statement forcefully stating that homosexuality is not immoral because that is what I believe."-Hillary Clinton in a March 15 statement

Her initial political inclination was to try to stay to the right of Virginia's GOP senior senator, and to thereby earn her expected Human Rights Campaign endorsement without actually having to affirm the dignity of gay people.

Our friend and fellow blogger Tom G. Palmer has helped score a legal victory in defense of constitutional freedoms, specifically the right to own a gun for self-protection. The case concerns our nation's capital, where adult citizens are barred from legally owning or possessing firearms. No licensing, no background checks, a total ban. Reports the Washington Post:

Palmer, 50, said that his gun rescued him 25 years ago when he was approached by a group of men in San Jose. Palmer, who is gay, said he believed the men were targeting him because of his sexual orientation. He said he and a friend started to run away, but then he took action.

"I turned around and showed them the business side of my gun and told them if they took another step, I'd shoot," he said, adding that that ended the confrontation.

Palmer moved to [Washington, D.C.] in 1975 and lives in the U Street NW corridor, where police have struggled lately to curb assaults and other crimes.

Many believe the state alone should have a monopoly on all protective weaponry. Apart from denying free individuals the right to defend life and property (including equalizing the terms with gay bashers when the cops don't happen to be around!), legal gun ownership serves as the founders intended, as a barrier to the government ever veering too close to tyranny (one of the first laws Hitler passed was to bar German Jews from owning guns). It's a right worth fighting for.

More. Over at The Volokh Conspiracy, law prof. Eugene Volokh takes on the meaning of "militia" as used in the Second Amendment, noting that the Supreme Court has ruled:

"The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense."

Yet much of the liberal media pretend as if the founders, anachronistically, were pre-visioning something akin to the contemporary National Guard. But why rely on facts when confusion serves the political purpose so much better?

Lefty bloggers outed a campus ex-Marine conservative, Matt Sanchez, by publicizing that he had appeared in a gay porn film years earlier, and Sanchez responds.

Given the left's constant talk about equality, discrimination, minority rights and systemic oppression, I thought the fact that I was a Hispanic, a Marine, a nontraditional, 36-year-old Ivy League student and a 100 percent flag-waving red-blooded Reagan Republican would make my point of view interesting, but so be it. Everything is political now, and even the double standards have talking points....

Those on the left who now attack me would be defending me if I had espoused liberal causes and spoken out against the Iraq war before I was outed as a pseudo celebrity. They'd be talking about publishing my memoir and putting me on a diversity ticket with Barack Obama. Instead, those who complain about wire-tapping reserve the right to pry into my private life and my past for political brownie points....

I am embarrassed to admit that was I worried that my fellow conservatives would distance themselves from me when the news about my film career broke. The opposite has happened. I've been asked to give my point of view, invited to speak at various functions, and invited back on television. My peers on the right have gone out of their way to give me a vote of confidence and avoid a rush to judgment. I appreciate the support. I am also not really that troubled by the abuse I've taken from the other side.

And there's an interesting take over at Protein Wisdom on the left's hatred of gays who won't toe the party line:

In Matt Sanchez, we have a conservative who, from the perspective of his earlier libertine attitudes toward sex and sexual orientation, wandered off the "progressive" plantation, and so, to people like [leftwing blogger Tom Bacchus], must be exposed, mocked, and MADE TO PAY for his ideological transgressions, the undisguised subtext being that the political positions of gay men must necessarily be tied to that of the collective, which not only presumes to speak for them, but which, it is clear, is willing to police its ranks by engaging, in the most vicious ways, in behaviors it claims ostensibly to find anathema-namely, reducing a person to his sexual orientation (the game of "outing") in order to undermine his positions (which has the net effect of arguing that your only value as a homosexual is tied inexorably to what you are willing to do for the orthodoxy's conception of "the cause"; your individualism, that is, is ironically only granted you should you willingly surrender it to the Greater Good).

I do think there's an important distinction between closeted homosexuals who work against gay equality, and gays who are libertarian/conservative and trying to work toward greater freedom from within that camp. But to a great many on the self-righteous, smug, and (yes) hate-driven left, any gay non-"progressive" is an open target that must be silenced or destroyed.

I don't know enough about Sanchez (who reportedly does not identify as gay) to peg him, but I do know that I'm appalled by the tactics of those who would bring him down.

More. The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force weighs in with a defense of Sanchez-and porn. But the response, probably written shortly after the brouhaha began, assumes that Sanchez's fellow conservatives would break with him (they haven't, just as they didn't abandon openly gay conservative Jeff Gannon when bloggers publicized his past work as an escort/hustler). NGLTF also doesn't take into account that Sanchez is himself now a critic of the porn industry (which may, in fact, be what does make him acceptable to his fellow conservatives).

Isaiah Washington wins an NAACP Image Award! Washington, of "Grey's Anatomy" infamy, originally called co-star T.R. Knight a "little faggot," and then at the Golden Globes denied doing so while managing again to deploy the "F" word.

No sign of protest from HRC and friends about their liberal allies, though TMZ.com suggests that perhaps now Michael Richards should receive a GLAAD Award, and Queer Sighted isn't very happy, either.

But then I guess GLAAD has just been too busy condemning gay drag queens for their supposed racial insensitivity!

Ann Coulter was her usual despicable self when she called John Edwards a "faggot," and HRC takes the opportunity to express its outrage at Republicans. But Gay Patriot shows that a good many conservative and/or Republican bloggers are also unhappy with La Coulter's antics. And we can now even add some on the Christian right.

If HRC hadn't transformed itself into a Democratic Party fundraising arm, then its reacton to something like Coulter's imbecility might not seem like such a knee-jerk, rouse the base, operation. But then, fostering meaningful dialog with those on the right is the last thing on HRC's to-do list, and so it has no credibility when it issues a response to incidents such as this.

Speaking of HRC, if you think I've been hard on their ultra partisanship of late, just read Chris Crain.

More. Andrew Sullivan blogs:

"HRC, the organization, is now fully integrated into HRC [Hillary Rodham Clinton], the campaign. It is the Clinton campaign.... What matters is what's in the best interest of the Clintons and the Democrats."

Still more. One of Coulter's themes during her CPAC address was her dislike for Rudy (she said she's likely to support Romney). Meanwhile, Rudy surges among Republicans, not all of whom are intolerant bigots, it seems. And Rudy shares is vision of the GOP as the party of freedom.

Worth noting. In her March 3 Wall Street Journal op-ed (WSJ subscribers, only), the very politically astute Peggy Noonan writes that:

In 2000 [McCain] felt he could take on Christian conservative leaders in the South. Bad timing. In 2000 they were at the peak of their 20 years of power. Now their followers are tired and questioning after a generation of political activism. And many leaders seem compromised-dinged after all that time in the air. Mr. McCain could rebuke them now and thrive. Instead he decided to attempt to embrace them.

McCain is re-fighting the last political war. I don't think Rudy is going to make that mistake.

Update. The GOP big three sharply denounce Coulter's remark.

The very first soldier wounded in the Iraq war-a marine who lost his leg- comes out. Retired Sgt. Eric Alva also wears a wedding ring to signify his relationship with his partner, Darrell.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is considering hiring at the State Dept. at least some of the Arabic-speaking gay linguists discharged from the military under "don't ask, don't tell" (also known as "lie and hide").

How much longer can this increasingly antiquated and just plain wrong policy last? I dunno, although renewed efforts for repeal are underway in Congress. But the arguments against it that will be most effective will draw on examples such as Sgt. Alva, and not the kinds of anti-military protests now popular at our elite liberal universities, which seek to hamper armed services enlistment and oppose the war while incidentally citing the gay-exclusion policy.

"Stop the War!," "End Campus Recruitment!" and "Let LGBTs Serve!" is not a winning message.