Borders and Closets
by John Corvino | March 15, 2010
It is important for gays to be open about their sexuality, even — perhaps especially — when facing intimidating public officials. [read article]
What's New?
What’s Love Got to Do With It?
by John Corvino | March 1, 2010
The claim that marriage must either be about love between adults or the care of children is, of course, a false dilemma. [read article]
Gays Without Borders
by Jennifer Vanasco | February 24, 2010
Anti-gay Christians are doing aggressive missionary work in Africa. There’s no reason gays can’t respond in kind. [read article]
What Marriage Is
by John Corvino | February 21, 2010
Marriage can’t be too small to include gays while also being large enough to do all that society expects of it. [read article]
The Judge is Gay. So What?
by Jennifer Vanasco | February 17, 2010
Homosexuality is not a bias, which is why Vaughn Walker can be as fair as any straight judge in the federal gay-marriage case. [read article]
Refining—Not Redefining
by John Corvino | February 15, 2010
There’s even less than meets the eye to claims that same-sex matrimony defines marriage out of existence. [read article]
The Spiral of Progress
by Jennifer Vanasco | February 10, 2010
Advances in the big, politically charged gay-rights battles aren’t so much making progress as reflecting it. [read article]
Brian Brown’s Bad Logic
by John Corvino | February 9, 2010
There is nothing ‘rational’ about the claim that if having married biological parents helps kids, allowing gay marriage would harm them. [read article]
‘Raw Sex’ and Rev. Evans
by Richard J. Rosendall | February 1, 2010
Some opponents of gay marriage are really just obsessed with gay sex, as a recent fracas in the District of Columbia shows. [read article]
Crying Fowl about Marriage
by John Corvino | January 31, 2010
Opponents say calling gay couples married is like calling a duck a chicken. But the definition of marriage is man-made and can change. [read article]
Case Closed
by Jennifer Vanasco | January 29, 2010
Forced to present actual arguments against gay marriage, the defendants in the Prop 8 lawsuit came up with…nothing. [read article]
It’s Not Abortion, Stupid
by Jennifer Vanasco | January 20, 2010
A Supreme Court decision legalizing gay marriage would not be as polarizing as the Roe v. Wade decision. [read article]
Aid laced with poison
by Richard J. Rosendall | January 19, 2010
Because aid dollars continue to flow unabated, U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing the persecution of homosexuals in Uganda. [read article]
Violent Distortions
by John Corvino | January 13, 2010
For anti-gay obsessives, equating homosexuality with sexual violence is not just a misunderstanding — it’s a strategy. [read article]
The Pleasures of Aging
by Paul Varnell | January 3, 2010
As gay culture matures, it needs to appreciate the many ways in which getting older makes us better. [read article]
The Year of Going Mainstream
by Jonathan Rauch | December 28, 2009
Despite some discouraging setbacks, after 2009 gay marriage will never again be seen as a fringe or radical cause. [read article]
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Less Than Equal, Again
Posted on March 20, 2010
The original House-passed health care bill contained a provision extending to domestic partners the same tax exclusion on the value of employer-provided health benefits that spouses of employees receive. That was a major step forward—the taxes paid by domestic partners but not spouses for "family coverage" are huge.
The Senate dropped the tax-equalizing provision entirely in its version of the health care bill, although at the same time it loosened the language restricting government funding of abortion. Score: One for the pro-choice/abortion lobby, zero for gays.
The new reconciliation bill negotiated by Obama with House and Senate Democratic leaders (intended to be passed after the House's passage of the Senate bill) keeps the Senate's less-restrictive abortion-funding language but doesn't put back in the House's provision equalizing the tax treatment of health benefits for domestic partners. Score: Two for the pro-choice/abortion lobby, zero for gays.
The choice/abortion lobby knows how to play hardball. The LGBT Democratic party fundraisers know how to applaud and swoon.
Not Betraying Us
Posted on March 18, 2010
General Petraeus' statement this week on DADT:
"I believe the time has come to consider a change to Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I think it should be done in a thoughtful and deliberative manner that should include the conduct of the review that Secretary Gates has directed that would consider the views in the force on the change of policy. It would include an assessment of the likely effects on recruiting, retention, moral and cohesion and would include an identification of what policies might be needed in the event of a change and recommend those polices as well.”
Anti-gay social conservatives will be contacting Moveon.org to see if it has any of those General Betray Us posters left over.
Sacred Hearts
by David Link
Posted on March 16, 2010
There were many questions and much speculation (particularly in the Comments to my post) about the underlying facts related to the Catholic School in Boulder that expelled the children of a lesbian couple.
That couple has issued a statement anonymously (to protect their children's privacy). It lays out the facts clearly, concisely and with a cool passion I can only admire. If there's any better commentary on this situation, I can't imagine what it would sound like. If this case has caught your attention at all, their words are a must-read.
I titled my post "Suffer the Children," but I am happy to take it back. These children have got a couple of the best parents in the world, and while their church is doing everything it can to undermine these women's amazing parental skills, any suffering the church may be causing to the kids is more than compensated for by God's gift of their moms.
(H/T to Towleroad)
Abortion and Gay Equality: Not Joined at the Hip
Posted on March 13, 2010
Writing in the Washington Post, Michael Gerson observes:
Just 20 years ago, opposition to abortion and opposition to homosexual rights seemed to overlap entirely. They appeared to be expressions of the same traditionalist moral framework, destined to succeed or fail together as twin pillars of the culture war.
But in the years since, the fortunes of these two social stands have dramatically diverged. A May 2009 Gallup poll found that more Americans, for the first time, describe themselves as "pro-life" than "pro-choice." A February CNN-Time poll found that half of Americans, for the first time, believe that homosexuality is "not a moral issue." This divergence says something about successful social movements in America.
He goes on to note that:
...a generation of thoughtful gay rights advocates, exemplified by Jonathan Rauch of the National Journal, has made the argument for joining traditional institutions instead of smashing them. More radical activists have criticized this approach as assimilationist and bourgeois. But only bourgeois arguments triumph in America. And many have found this more conservative argument for gay rights—encouraging homosexual commitment through traditional institutions—less threatening than moral anarchism.
That speaks to the advancement of gay marriage and other "assimilationist" goals once virulently denounced by "progressive" gays as "rightwing." But going back to Gerson's initial point about abortion, many leading gay political groups still maintain a pro-abortion-on-demand litmus test for candidates they'll endorse, including the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. This effectively eliminates many Republican gays—and gay-supportive but pro-life Republicans (and a few Democrats)—from ever being backed by these officially nonpartisan LGBT groups.
More. Another sign of the times. Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia, a Republican and long-time social conservative, unexpectedly issued a directive barring discrimination against gay state workers. As the Christian Science Monitor reports:
By making that move, the governor "is now projecting the image of reasonableness and inclusiveness," says Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. "This is not going over with the hardcore right-wing elements in the party, but it is a necessity for governing and it tells you where our society has gone. McDonnell has recognized a reality."
Small steps forward are still steps forward, and we'll only fully gain equality under the law when anti-gay stances are anathema among both liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans.
Suffer the Children
by David Link
Posted on March 13, 2010
Bill O’Reilly is quite right. “Something doesn’t sit right here.” There’s a big chasm between the reasons offered by Sacred Heart of Jesus School for expelling the children of lesbian parents and the consistent application of those reasons to anyone other than homosexuals.
The Catholic school did not remove these children because they were homosexual, but because their parents were. The eager but nonpersuasive priest O’Reilly interviewed gave this woolly but absolute reason for the decision: “a religious institution [must be] able to preserve its identity on fundamental issues.”
I certainly couldn’t argue with that, nor could O’Reilly. But what is that supposed to mean?
And that’s where O’Reilly zeroed in. What about divorced parents? Or adulterous ones? Is the archdiocese as zealous in preserving its identity on those fundamental issues as well?
I can speak to this from personal experience. My parents needed to use contraception for medical reasons after the birth of my younger sister, and were prohibited for many years from attending mass (they would drop my sister and I off at church and pick us up afterward; eventually they found a more understanding priest). My sister is divorced and remarried. I am gay.
My family, then, provides a trifecta of Catholic sins. Yet the church is not engaged in any active campaign to prohibit contraception or divorce; just same-sex marriage. I am not aware of any diocese that is prohibiting the children of divorced and remarried parents, or those who use contraception from enrolling their children in Catholic schools, and the priest here does not even attempt to engage O’Reilly on that issue – he simply reverts, again and again, to the general principle, which he wields to defend the church’s fundamental identity as anti-gay but not anti-contraception or divorce.
I wondered whether the church had eased up on contraception and remarriage. Perhaps those are no longer “fundamental” parts of the church’s identity. I’ve seen ads and signs for Catholics Come Home, which is calling ex-Catholics to return to the church, and went to their website.
Both divorce and contraception have their own specific pages, and if the church has changed its position on either since I was a member, you couldn’t tell from this site. Divorce is still prohibited; however, it looks like the church may be a bit more generous these days in handing out annulments (“it’s not scary”) to pave the way for remarriages.
Contraception is still banned, though, as well as any infertility treatments. The page specifically says “these issues are a big deal.” So where is the enforcement effort to maintain the church’s fundamental identity on contraception? The U.S. Catholic Bishops, themselves, estimate that about 96% of married American Catholic couples use birth control.
The numbers speak for themselves. No rational institution is ever going to try and enforce a rule it knows 96% of its members violate. It’s far easier to take a hard line against a group that is smaller – say 3-5%.
This is how the Catholic church has lost its credibility. Its survival takes precedence over its coherence. What moral principle is at stake in bullying a tiny minority when the sins of the majority are accepted in the normal course of business? O’Reilly wants to hold the church to a higher standard, to some level of consistency. But over and over, the Catholic church proves its anti-sexual posturing goes only as far as homosexuality.
Only heterosexual Catholics can call the church on its hypocrisy. The question is why would they? O'Reilly suggests they might do it out of principle. I applaud him on this. That would be a principle worth standing up for.
The Ashburn/Perez Axis
by David Link
Posted on March 6, 2010
On Monday, March 1, John A. Perez was sworn in as California’s first openly gay Speaker of the Assembly. Two days later, state Senator Roy Ashburn was arrested for driving drunk in Sacramento’s gay neighborhood, accompanied in the car by a young man.
There you have the culture war over homosexuality in a nutshell, the two iconic ways of being gay: pride or shame.
It might not be entirely fair to call Sen. Ashburn gay; he certainly doesn’t. But he’s about the only one. His sexual orientation is usually referred to as an “open secret” in Sacramento, where his appearance at the city’s gay bars is neither infrequent nor unnoticed.
His approach to homosexuality is the one the 55 year old grew up with: denial. But “denial” isn’t exactly right, since, over time, he seems to have come to some acceptance of the fact that, by nature, he finds men sexually attractive. And even in public he does not formally deny he is gay; he dodges. His sexual orientation is “not relevant” and “has no bearing” on his job performance. He doesn’t say he’s gay, but neither is he on record saying he’s not gay.
This public avoidance of what is obvious to everyone who knows and works with him requires almost military discipline and Herculean exertions of nuance and distraction.
Not to mention self-deception. Not his (since it’s fairly obvious he knows his sexual proclivity), but the self-deception of those who are working so hard to disbelieve the undeniable.
That is what his party not only demands of its followers, but seems to prefer – the willing (if not mandated) suspension of disbelief. No GOP candidates can ever be (openly) homosexual.
The confines of that small parenthetical contain the entire culture war over gay rights. Of course some GOP candidates and elected officials are homosexual. Of course GOP voters are, as well. But that observable and unavoidable fact can’t be honestly and straightforwardly talked about in the party. Log Cabin and now GOProud keep trying, while the party leaders and voters put their fingers in their ears and shout “Lalalalala!” as loud as they can.
This not only disables the party’s gay officials, it makes the entire party look simpleminded if not entirely insane.
Compare that to the Democrats. Yes, the Dems have their closeted gays as well, but that’s not the party’s fault, it’s entirely an individual choice. And it can be as fatal to Dems as it can to their counterparts.
But homosexuality is hardly a disqualifying factor for a Democrat – or certainly isn’t in California. John Perez worked his way up right alongside heterosexual party regulars, and his sexual orientation is no more a secret than theirs. On the merits (or on the politics – the two are intertwined), his colleagues in the Assembly voted for him to be their leader. Like the Latino, women and African-American speakers before him, being a minority in California might actually have been an advantage, but among many contenders, he’s the one who made the cut. Prior speakers of both parties, including the Granddaddy of them all in modern California politics, Willie Brown, showed up to celebrate Perez’s elevation. Encomiums and accolades were offered, and Perez’s inaugural speech met with rousing and sustained cheers.
Ashburn could never have aspired to anything like that in his party. No homosexual could.
Many people fall between these radically different understandings of homosexuality. But we are now at a stage where each party has adopted its own model. In California this week, we got to see exactly how they differ.