IGF CultureWatch

A snapshot from the Culture War: Anti-gay Mormon parents sue the Santa Rosa City (Calif.) School District for giving their daughter a written reprimand for using the put-down "That's so gay." The parents, long-time opponents of the school's diversity program, consider the reprimand part of a homosexual agenda.

To be fair, the article suggests the daughter was teased about being a Mormon and that similar reprimands did not follow. That's a problem with diversity initiatives. They can't and shouldn't be neutral (no equal time for the Klan), but letting bureaucrats decide what's acceptable can mean only politically incorrect teasing gets the stick, leaving everyone to compete over who has been more "victimized."

Shall I go out on a limb? I'll take exception with my IGF colleague Dale Carpenter, who suggests that the GOP's social conservative base will sink the Giuliani campaign. Based on factors including the early California primary, I predict in 2008 it will be Hillary vs. Rudy, and that Democrats will do all they can to publicize Rudy's support for gay rights-including veering on outright homophobia-in an attempt to keep social conservatives at home on election day. (And if I'm wrong, I'll delete this post and deny I every said any such thing).

More. Walker comments:

It's not "Rudy in drag" they'll use. They'll say in the debates "those of us who have gay friends-and I know Mayor Giuliani lived with a gay couple for some time after his second divorce" ... Just like the repeated Mary Cheney gambit.

Some are asking why the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) is targeting gay (and white) comedian/drag performer Charles Knipp, who performs as a black woman on welfare, with too many kids, named Shirley Q. Liquor. Here's Shirley's take on Kwaanza, and here's her skewed commentary on "homosexicals."

Knipp also portrays other large female characters with irreverence, including North Dakota Marge and Betty Butterfield.

The Washington Blade reports that GLAAD's critics, including some still upset over the organization's silence during last year's congressional page scandal (when those making partisan hay over GOP Rep. Mark Foley's interest in former teenage congressional pages freely invoked stereotypes that confused homosexuality and pedophilia), have called into question GLAAD's targeting of Knipp. However:

"We very clearly recognized," [GLAAD head Neil Giuliano] said, "that what we were doing in that case was standing with those organizations and individuals in the African-American community that asked us to take a stand against that racism."...

Giuliano said GLAAD took action this month against the Shirley Q. Liquor routine-an act that's been running for years-partly because he and other gay leaders recently attended a seminar on racism. "The outcome of which made me much more sensitive to when there is an opportunity to stand up against racism, it's important to do so," he said, "even when it may not be the core scope of your work day in and day out."

One can certainly argue whether Knipp's routine is "racist" or whether certain underclass cultural dysfunctions are a fair target for comedy. One might also raise the issue of whether when black comedians Tyler Perry or the often homophobic Eddie Murphy dress up as large black women this, too, is "defamatory." But the larger issue is that GLAAD seems to think that it needs to score points with fellow progressives by using its limited time and resources to attack gays for being "racist," rather than, oh, say, maybe for instance, taking on homophobia in the African-American community (which would, no doubt, run the risk of those progressives labeling GLAAD as "racist").

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) usually defends conservative students against the PC left. The group's website notes:

At many of our nation's colleges and universities...students are expected to share a single viewpoint on controversial matters like the meaning of diversity, the particulars of racism, and the impermissibility of "hate speech." Mandatory "diversity training," in which students are instructed in an officially-approved ideology, is commonplace.

Now, FIRE is showing its evenhandedness by taking on Virginia's Hampton University, which for the second time in two years has denied recognition to students trying to start a gay and lesbian student group on campus. Good for FIRE!

Shifting gears somewhat, this Washington Post report looks at how the Democratic Party's leftwing "net-roots" are going after even moderate liberals who are pro-choice on abortion and support gay rights if they also happen to favor legislation to scale back the estate tax, tighten bankruptcy rules and promote free-trade agreements. It's very possible that the GOP will move toward the center as 2008 approaches, while the Democrats veer sharply into leftwing loonyland.

Virginia looks like it may pass, with bipartisan support, a law giving hospital patients explicit authority to choose their visitors. It's a small step, but even anti-gay conservatives seem to be onboard since it's not being promoted as a gay rights bill. As the Washington Post reports, Virginia Assembly Delegate David Englin, a Democrat who sponsored the measure, emphasized that it carries a "broad purpose" that goes beyond gay rights. Still:

[Englin] said that granting protections to same-sex couples is, in his view, an added benefit. In fact, Englin said it was just such a scenario that inspired him to introduce the bill. Last year at a forum about the marriage amendment, Englin met Mike Rankin, a psychiatrist in Arlington County who was denied the right to visit his dying partner in a Seattle hospital because the man's ex-wife barred him from the facility.

"She had said a visit by me would be disruptive to his children and depressing to his children, so I was not allowed to visit," Rankin recalled. "All I knew was that I couldn't get in to see the man who had been the light of my life for six years."

A too-common scenario. Until we gain spousal recognition, these small steps can take us at least part of the way.

Archbishops of the Anglican Communion meeting in Tanzania sent a message of support to anti-gay members of the U.S. Episcopal Church, and also called on Anglicans to explore uniting with Catholics under the pope (who, as pictured in this Evening Standard account, looks amazing like the evil emporer from the Star Wars flicks). Specifically, American bishops are being asked to state that they will not consent to the election of gay or lesbian bishops and that they will not allow the creation and promulgation of rites for gay and lesbian couples (currently a local pastoral option).

Really, at this point, shouldn't U.S. Episcopalians just declare that the Anglicans, now fully under the sway of arch-reactionaries from the heart of darkness, can have the church of hate they so desire, and then go their own way?

More. Time magazine reports: "Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, Anglicanism's first primate among equals and the man responsible for trying to hold the Communion together, made it clear in a press conference that he supported the communique." Also:

[Episcopalian Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori] appears to have been involved in putting together parts of this solution, which suggests that she is committed to making them work. If so, she will face stiff opposition from many U.S. Episcopalians, who would probably prefer second-class status-or no status at all-in the Communion, rather than retreating from a position on homosexuality that they feel more closely reflects the spirit of the Gospel than the exclusionary position of the majority of the primates.

Public school U.S. history lessons often confuse the difference between the Pilgrim separatists who sought to break with the corrupt Anglican church to better follow the gospel message, and authoritarian Puritans who sought to "purify" a centralized church in order to force their will on others. It's to the Pilgrims that today's Episcopalians should turn for inspiration.

Through drips and drabs of celebrity hate-speak, most recently Isaiah Washington and, now, former Miami NBA star Tim Hardaway, we are beginning to come to terms with an unspeakable topic: that open expressions of gay hatred are far more acceptable in the African-American community than among whites. To quote from Hardaway's outburst:

Well, you know, I hate gay people....I let it be known I don't like gay people. I don't like to be around gay people. I'm homophobic. It shouldn't be in the world, in the United States, I don't like it....I don't condone it. If people got problems with that, I'm sorry. I'm saying I can't stand being around that person, knowing that they sleep with somebody of the same sex.

The topic is "taboo" because to even suggest that black culture is more tolerant of homophobia is to risk being branded as a "racist," the politically correct line being that blacks, Latinos/as and LGBTs are all oppressed by straight white America and thus natural coalition partners, supporting each other's political agendas (which is why many gay groups opposed welfare reform and support race-based preferences). Yet polls show that opposition to gay marriage is much higher among African Americans. Example-Pew Research: A majority of Catholics (53%) and black Protestants (74%), as well as a plurality of white mainline Protestants (47%), also oppose gay marriage."

And really, it's hard to imagine a white TV star assuming it was somehow ok to blast a fellow cast member a "little faggot," or a white celebrity athlete making comments as hate-filled as Hardaway's. Yet, instead of addressing the problem of homophobia in the African-American community outright, our national "leadership" chooses to engage in the kind of cognitive dissonance that refuses to see evidence of what ideology dictates can not exist.

More. And yet another coerced apology.

To clarify a bit, I realize gay groups do crticize individual celebrities who spout bigotry, regardless of color. But what they won't do is confront the issue of homophobia being more acceptable within the African-American community than among people of pallor.

More on Rudy, or How gay is this!

Liberal Garrison Keillor pounces:

Mr. Giuliani should put the issue behind him by answering a few questions: (1) How much did he have to drink that night, and what was he drinking? (2) Whose idea was it--his own or an aide's? If the latter, was there wagering involved and how much was bet? (3) Were the garments new or used, and who picked them out? And was he wearing male or female underthings? (4) On a scale of 1 to 10, how good did he feel in that dress?

Meanwhile, conservative James Taranto defends Rudy:

Whether Keillor is expressing his own prejudices or cynically trying to appeal to the prejudices of others, his effort to smear Giuliani by playing on fears of homosexuality is invidious and unseemly.

The conservative National Review and others on the right have voiced serious doubts about (or outright opposition to) Rudy Giuliani, who is now clearly in the 2008 presidential race, owing in part to his too accommodating stance on gay unions and abortion. In fact, Rudy's position (supports civil unions but opposes same-sex marriage; opposes a federal amendment against same-sex marriage) is the same as Hillary's and Obama's. But more significantly, Rudy would be the first GOP presidential nominee who has marched in Pride parades, addressed Log Cabin events, criticized "don't ask, don't tell" and, in an Odd Couple twist, moved in with two gay guys (a long-term couple) after his divorce. (Southern Voice has a nice wrap-up on all the leading candidates' positions.)

But I doubt that will stop the Human Rights Campaign, now essentially the gay lobby of the Democratic Party, from endorsing their gal sometime during the primary season (in 2000, they endorsed Gore before it was clear whether the GOP candidate would be Bush or, in a possible upset, McCain). If/when they do so, their message to the GOP could be summarized as: "You could nominate the ghost of Harvey Milk and we'd still be loyal Democrats. So don't even bother trying to reach out to us. After all, we favor securing patronage positions for our key activists in a Clinton adminstration much more than we care about moderating anti-gay views in the other party."

In a Feb. 10 interview with National Journal, former Massachusetts governor and current Republican presidential aspirant Mitt Romney comes out against a constitutional amendment banning abortion. So his double-standard on same-sex marriage and abortion is clearer than ever. Here's the whole exchange (not available online to non-subscribers):

Q: You would favor a constitutional amendment banning abortion with exceptions for the life of the mother, rape and incest. Is that correct?

Romney: What I've indicated is that I am pro-life, and that my hope is that the Supreme Court will give to the states over time or give to the states soon or give to the states their own ability to make their own decisions with regard to their own abortion law.

Q: If a state wanted unlimited abortion?

Romney: The state would fall into restrictions that had been imposed at the federal level, so they couldn't be more expansive in abortion than currently exists under the law, but they could become more restrictive in abortion provisions. So states like Massachusetts could stay like they are if they so desire, and states that have a different view could take that course. And it would be up to the citizens of the individual states. My view is not to impose a single federal rule on the entire nation -- a one-size-fits-all approach -- but instead allow states to make their own decisions in this regard.

So it's official: Romney favors a constitutional amendment to prevent gay couples from marrying, but not to prevent what most pro-lifers regard as infanticide. Not even Marx (Groucho) could find a consistent principle here, unless political expediency counts.

More: Romney on gay rights and discrimination...

Q: In 1994, during the Kennedy debate, you presented yourself as an advocate for gay rights. Would you say that you are advocate for gay rights now?

Romney: I am an advocate for treating all people with respect and dignity, and for the absence of discrimination.

Q: What does that mean, specifically?

Romney: What that means is, in my administration, I didn't discriminate against someone on the basis of their being homosexual. And I think that it is appropriate for private citizens and government entities to take their personal care to ensure that we do not discriminate in housing or in employment against people who are gay.

Q: So, employers should not be allowed to fire someone...

Romney: Wait, wait. You have to go back and listen to what I just said, and not say something I didn't say. I didn't say there should be a law... I said that employers should take care... this is not a law. I'm not proposing a law. I am not proposing a federal mandate, or I'm not proposing that there is an act of Congress of this nature. I'm saying that as a society, I think it is appropriate for us to avoid discrimination and denial of equality to people who make different choices and decisions including gay people. I do not support creating a special law or a special status. I've learned through my experience over the last decade that when you single out a particular population group for special status, it opens the door to a whole series of lawsuits, many of them frivolous and very burdensome to our employment community, and so I do not favor a specific law of that nature. What I do favor is people doing what I did, or what I tried to do, and not discriminate against people who are gay.

...and on his record:

Q: You remember, though, in 1994, you said you'd be better for gay rights than Ted Kennedy?

Romney: And then I explained why. And that was that Ted Kennedy was a Democrat and a liberal and that I was a Republican, and therefore that I would be able to be a voice for equal treatment and non-discrimination. Let me make it very clear: I am not a person who is anti-gay or anti-equal rights. I favor the treatment of all our citizens with respect and dignity. I do not favor creating a new legal special class for gay people. And I do not favor same-sex marriage, but as I've demonstrated through my own record, I have endeavored not to discriminate in hiring... one, in my administration, and second, in my appointment of judges.

I've appointed approximately 60 judges, one or two of whom... one of whom I'm quite confident is gay, the other may be gay as well. I think he probably is, and there may be more for all I know. But I've never asked a judicial candidate, "are you gay?" and discriminated against them on that basis. Nor, if I look in their resume and there's an indication of their being gay, I don't then delve into it and say, "Gee, are you gay yourself, or are you in support of gay issues?" I believe that in America, we should not discriminate against people on the basis of our differences. But that doesn't mean that you create a law for every difference that exists between people. It opens the door to lawsuits.

Q: In a Romney administration, Romney as president in the White House, there would be no discrimination against gay people? You'd hire people who happen to be gay?

Romney: That's been my record as governor. I would not discriminate against people on the basis of their physical and personal decisions or differences.

...and on homosexuality:

Q: You say "decisions" -- does that mean you believe homosexuality is a choice?

Romney: I'm not a psychologist. I don't try and delve into the roots of differences between people.

Unlike President Bush, Romney doesn't seem to choke on the words "gay" and "homosexual." And this time, at least, he didn't use the loaded term "unjust discrimination."