IGF CultureWatch

In his remarks commemorating World AIDS Day, President Bush included a sentence calling attention to the gay community's role in addressing AIDS:

Yet America still sees an estimated 40,000 new infections each year. This is not inevitable-and it's not acceptable. HIV/AIDS remains a special concern in the gay community, which has effectively fought this disease for decades through education and prevention. And the demographics of this disease continue to change. AIDS is increasingly found among women and minorities. Nearly half of the new infections are found in the African-American community.

The gay-inclusive statement is also included in a White House fact sheet. For a Republican conservative, that's a step forward. Will there be any supportive feedback to the president from our national organizations?

Also, in California, Gov. Arnold has appointed a lesbian former abortion-rights activist to be his new chief of staff. I'm sure that will go over big with social conservatives! And Daniel Zingale, former political director of the Human Rights Campaign, now serves as chief of staff to first lady Maria Shriver.

Libertarian-minded columnist Cathy Young has an interesting take on what's happened since the Netherlands first legalized registered same-sex partnerships, and then full gay marriage. She finds that neither the social conservatives' fears of moral chaos, nor the optimistic predictions of some activists, have come true. She writes:

As this [Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics] table shows, same-sex marriages peaked in 2001 when they were first legalized; that year, there were 1,339 male-male marriage and 1,035 female-female ones. (Male-female marriages that year numbered 79,677.) The figures have dropped in every subsequent year, to 579 male-male marriages and 631 female-female marriages in 2004. In the same year, there were 261 civil partnerships registered between two men, and 322 between two women; these figures have held relatively steady over the past four years. (Registered partnerships first became available in 1998.) . . .

. . .[W]hile I fully support legal rights for same-sex partners, I think both sides in the marriage debate have been prone to unwarranted and exaggerated claims about the social impact of same-sex marriage. The legalization of same-sex marriage has not, as some have claimed, led to polygamy in the Netherlands. But at least so far, it has not created a "marriage culture" among gays and has not boosted marriage among heterosexuals. As we continue our own discussion of same-sex marriage, we need to have all the facts on the table.

Of course, the Netherlands isn't the U.S. And just because many choose partnerships over marriage (because they're easier to dissolve) when both are available, or take advantage of neither, doesn't mean that marriage isn't going to transform gay culture in profound ways.

According to this report:

More than two dozen gay Arab men-arrested at what police called a mass homosexual wedding-could face government-ordered hormone treatments, five years in jail and a lashing, authorities said on Saturday....

On Friday the minister of justice and Islamic affairs, Mohammed bin Nukhaira Al Dhahiri, called on parents to be vigilant for "deviant" behaviour in their children.

... [A spokesman] said the Interior Ministry's department of social support would try to direct the men away from homosexual behaviour, including treatment with male hormones. "Because they've put society at risk they will be given the necessary treatment, from male hormone injections to psychological therapies," he said.

Isn't the United Arab Emirates supposedly one of the more "advanced" Arab countries?

Update: The U.S. State Department, reports the Washington Blade, issued a statement saying that "The United States condemns the arrest of a dozen same-sex couples in the United Arab Emirates and a statement by the [UAE] Interior Ministry spokesman that they will be subjected to government-ordered hormone and psychological treatment." The Blade reports further that "Last year's State Department human rights report chronicled several anti-gay abuses." A good sign of incremental but important progress.

The document on gay priests has been released. It's not an outright ban, as some expected, but the decree holds that men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" or who fail to reject "gay culture" may not become priests. Men who have "overcome" tendencies that were "transitory" and who have remained celibate for three years before joining the seminary are still eligible.

The language is just ambiguous enough to allow it to be used, or not used, in an arbitrary and cruel fashion. But judging from this silly L.A. Times headline, "Vatican Document Bans Active Gays as Priests," you might think that prior to the document noncelibate gays had been deemed ok.

The Human Rights Campaign weighed in with a call for gay Catholics to speak out, which is fine, but their statement refers to the Vatican "Decision Banning Gays," which is not quite accurate (and if you're opposing a policy, you really should understand what that policy is). [Update: A subsequent HRC release got it right, correctly noting the policy is a "restriction of gays in the priesthood."]

To add insult to injury, the Vatican then came out with another official statement, charging that homosexuality risks "destabilizing people and society," has no social or moral value and can never match the importance of the relationship between a man and a woman. The more things change...

In Sweden, a model state according to many U.S. lefties, Pentecostal pastor Ake Green was sentenced to one month in prison for a sermon in which he condemned homosexuality. He's now been acquitted by the Supreme Court of Stockholm, to the chagrin of Swedish gay activists:

Gay right groups have condemned the verdict, saying that it makes a nonsense of the law. "It is extremely serious when the church is turned into a free zone for agitation," said Soren Andersson, chairman of gay rights group RFSL. ... Prosecutor Stefan Johansson argued that Green had gone much further than the Bible, and had expressed his own views. ...

Andersson said that the judgment showed the need for the law to be strengthened. ... "Agitation and threats, such as those uttered by Ake Green, limit LGBT people's rights and opportunities to participate in debate."

OK, even if the sermon was over the top, barring what a pastor can preach in front of his own congregation shows an appalling lack of respect for basic civil liberties. Sadly, it's what many censorious gays would like to see enforced here as well, and why moderates become fearful of "the gay agenda."

For more, check out this analysis on the Swedish Law Blog (no kidding!). Krister Bruzelius comments:

The sermon does not seem to fit very well with the kind of language one would expect to see in a speech contrary to the hate crime legislation. ... Neither does [Green's] closing statement in his sermon: "We must never think that some people, because of their sinful lives, would end up outside of grace." ... Nothing about killing all gays at all; only a disgusting expression of assumed moral superiority over sinners.

--Stephen H. Miller

Elton John is planning to wed his partner of 12 years, David Furnish, according to news headlines. Yes, even the Voice of America and CNN" say John and Furnish are "to marry."

But the United Kingdom doesn't offer gays what American activists call "full marriage equality"; instead, Britain has a civil partnership act which allows same-sex couples to register their unions and receive most of the legal rights and responsibilities that married couples enjoy. A separate religious ceremony is optional and at the couples' discretion. (The AP story does seem to get this.)

Here in the U.S., a far larger number of voters (and political leaders) seem ok with civil unions or domestic partnerships, but not ok with same-sex marriage. That's a big reason why so many states have recently passed constitutional amendments which ban gay marriage (and which increasingly have also banned civil unions, too, though that's sneaked into the language).

Some have argued that rather than demanding full marriage equality right now, a better strategy would be to work for civil unions in the belief that (1) people will soon treat civil unions as if there were, in fact, marriages, which seems borne out by the Elton John coverage, and (2) after that happens and Americans get used to the idea, merging civil unions into full marriage won't seem like such a big deal.

But domestic gay activists are now firmly ensconced in the "full marriage now" movement, which seems more likely to lead to no same-sex marriages outside the most liberal states (Massachusetts and perhaps California) for a very long time, and may bring down civil unions in the backlash as well.

There's a growing battle between conservative campus Christian groups at public colleges and gay students who try to join.

At state institutions funded by taxpayer money, should such groups be able to exclude gays in defiance of their school's own non-discrimination policies? I'd argue that the right to freely associate is constrained when you dip into the government's till. But then should gay groups be forced to admit anti-gay religious conservatives who apply for membership (keeping in mind that the same policies the ban sexual orientation discrimination also forbid discrimination on the basis of religion)?

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HIV among gay men is, reportedly, up 8 percent. According to the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, it's Bush's fault.

In Miami, Kansas, County Attorney David Miller has filed a new charge of "unlawful voluntary sexual relations" against Matthew Limon. In 2000, Limon, then 18, was sentenced to 17 years in prison on a charge of criminal sodomy for having sex with a 14-year-old boy. He served four years until the Kansas Supreme Court ruled the state can't punish underage sex more harshly if it involves homosexuals (and if Limon's partner had been a 14-year-old girl, the maximum he could have received would have been 15 months).

But Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline's office repeatedly described Limon as a "predator," and so this baseless, homophobic, double-jeopardy persecution continues.

Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, Lucas Dawson, a gay man who fought back while being punched by several gay-bashers, stabbing one of his attackers to death, was initially cleared of any wrongdoing but still may face prosecution for manslaughter.

Said Police Capt. Michael Costello, "the level of force used by Dawson did not correspond to the threat.... He [Dawson] wasn't all that injured, yet he introduced deadly force."

So, having been jumped and while being repeatedly punched by several bashers, Dawson should have evaluated what level of force would be just right? Or maybe the police view is more akin to the anti-Semites' view of Israel: Jews (or gays) should not be permitted to defend themselves. They should just die.

From the New York Times, "And the Winner Is...Only Acting Gay." Writes Caryn James:

There has been an explosion of Oscar-baiting performances in which straight actors play gay, transvestite or transgender characters.... The actors are straight as far as we know..., an issue that matters only because it becomes part of the filmmakers' shrewd if unspoken calculation.... [P]ortraying gay, transvestite and transsexual characters allows actors to draw on a huge supply of gimmicks-wigs and costumes, mannerisms of speech and posture-that signify Acting.

A bit cynical, in that snide, superior NYT culture-coverage way, but still of interest.
--Stephen H. Miller

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