Via CommonPlaceBook.com.

The United States has reversed its position on a formal stance by the United Nations to universally decriminalize homosexuality.

Last December, the UN General Assembly held a symbolic vote on a thirteen-point resolution “to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention.” At the time, Bush officials did not support the resolution, citing legal technicalities.

However, at the the “Durban Review Conference” currently underway in Geneva, the new Obama administration has come out in support of a policy against “all forms of discrimination and all other human rights violations based on sexual orientation.”

Equal Marriage Now will not be posting this week. If you read this blog via bookmark or Google search, please start checking back next week. Alternatively, don’t miss a single post: subscribe via RSS or subscribe via Email.

In the meantime, I am still accepting submissions for the Gay Rights Blog Carnival.

See you next week!

Inside ‘queer theory’, Southern Voice, Matt Schafer.

GSU professors defend sexuality research, Southern Voice, Matt Schafer.

Excerpts from the above headlines follow:

Inside ‘queer theory’

Lawmakers questioning the validity of Georgia college professors who are experts in “queer theory” are misguided in their attempts to inflame controversy, according to other professors in the field who stress their research is less provocative than opponents suggest.

…

Dr. Lynne Huffer is the chair of Women’s Studies at Emory University, which is private, and has taught queer theory courses at Yale and Rice universities. She said queer theory taught in classrooms is likely much different than the perceptions of legislators.

“All they would need to do is come to one class to see how absurd their claims were,” Huffer said. “It would be nice to see some of these legislators learn to do what I try to teach my students, and that is to think critically.”

Queer theory looks at how sexuality and gender are expressed in literature and culture, in a similar fashion to feminist theory.

GSU professors defend sexuality research

Three professors from Georgia State University appeared today before the Senate Committee of Higher Education to defend their jobs.

On Feb. 6, state Rep. Charlice Byrd (R-Woodstock) called out GSU for having experts in oral sex and male prostitution. Dr. Kirk Elifson, Dr. Mindy Stombler and Dr. Donald Reitzes, the chair of GSU’s sociology department, appeared before the Senate committee on Feb. 18 to defend their research.

…

Sen. Seth Harp (R-Hull), the committee chair, acknowledged his hearing was a reaction to Byrd’s comments, but said it was a meaningful use of his committee’s time.

“I think hearing what these other folks have said, and realizing that there is legitimate research being done, is very helpful,” Harp said.

Mounting HIV/AIDS rates among gay men in Asia, 365gay.com.

I posted on this topic already, referencing an article entitled “Gay men fuelling HIV/AIDS spread in Asia, says [World Health Organization].” Note the very different headlines; one is responsible and factual, the other inflammatory and presents a distorted view. This is part of the power that media has to shape conversation when it comes to issues relevant to the gay community.

The AIDS virus is spreading rapidly among gay and bisexual men in Asia as younger people shun condoms and authorities fail to increase awareness of the disease, health officials said Friday.

The epidemic will worsen dramatically in coming years unless there is better education and stronger political will to combat the disease, warned Massimo Ghidinelli, the World Health Organization’s regional adviser on HIV/AIDS.

Comments about gays cost Sen. Buttars his chairmanship, KSL.com.

Utah State Sen. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, has been removed from a Senate committee because of anti-gay comments he made that became public this week. Senate President Michael Waddoups says he decided to take the action because of public pressure, but at the same time he affirmed Buttars’ free speech rights.

Buttars isn’t backing down, even as Senate GOP leaders announced his punishment. In a statement posted online, Buttars says he disagrees with the censure, but he’s a “grown man who can take his knocks.” Senate President Michael Waddoups took him off of the senate judiciary committee.

Even in the face of what amounts to a demotion, Sen. Buttars is not apologizing and his supporters don’t think he has anything to apologize for. At the same time, his critics are angry. They want more severe action against Buttars, even for him to quit the Senate.

Via Towleroad.

While there’s some debate who coined the terms originally, it’s pretty clearly Andrew Sullivan who’s brought them into the modern conversation about religion and politics.

His basic definition splits Christianity into the Christian faith as spiritual experience versus a Christian-identified political imperative:

the critical distinction between a Christianist and a mere Christian. One wants to infuse politics with religion; the other wants to respect both, separately, and to keep religion private. I should add I do not want to banish the word “God” from the public square. But I do want that invocation to be as thin and as empty and as formal as the Founders intended. (1)

That wasn’t the first time he used the term, however. He originally defined the idea in an essay for Time Magazine, in which he described its meaning in greater detail:

So let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism. The distinction between Christian and Christianist echoes the distinction we make between Muslim and Islamist. Muslims are those who follow Islam. Islamists are those who want to wield Islam as a political force and conflate state and mosque. Not all Islamists are violent. Only a tiny few are terrorists. And I should underline that the term Christianist is in no way designed to label people on the religious right as favoring any violence at all. I mean merely by the term Christianist the view that religious faith is so important that it must also have a precise political agenda. It is the belief that religion dictates politics and that politics should dictate the laws for everyone, Christian and non-Christian alike. (2)

A subsequent blog post adds a layer of nuance. It’s not just the difference between leaving one’s religious belief out of politics or not, it’s about the fundamental way that belief interacts with the uncertainties and diversities of the world:

The thing about fundamentalism, though, is its totality. There is something in the fundamentalist psyche that not only demands complete submission to a certain “truth”; but subsequently a frenzied effort to remove and obliterate all threats to that truth – because it has become so psychologically important for your own spiritual survival. Doubt, in this view, is not a goad to faith, but a terrible threat to it – so doubt must be eradicated. That inevitably leads to the empowerment of government for the pursuit of Christianist ends, and to the loss of empirical prudence in governance. (3)

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(1) Sullivan, Andrew. “The right and religion.” The Daily Dish. 14 December 2007. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/12/the-right-and-r.html (retrieved 19 December 2009).

(2) Sullivan, Andrew. “My problem with Christianism.” Time. 7 May 2006. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1191826,00.html (retrieved 19 February 2009).

(3) Sullivan, Andrew. “Christianism, Debated.” The Daily Dish. http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2006/05/christianism_de_3.html (retrieved 19 February 2009).

Government can handle one, equally for both straight and gay couples, by providing civil marital benefits (regarding inheritance, taxes, hospital visitation & medical decision-making, etc) to anyone who wants them. Meanwhile, churches can handle the other and deny marriage to whomever they want.

In many ways, it makes sense, but it also creates whole new complications. Another consideration: is it really a solution to the problem, or is it just trying to sidestep the problem altogether?

Two essays explore each side of the issue.

• First, from Terry J. Allen: “Forget marriage — civil unions for all.”
• Then, Beth Robinson of Vermont Freedom to Marry offers a response to this line of thought.

Allen, Terry J. “Forget marriage — civil unions for all.” In These Times. 12 February 2009. http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4196/forget_marriagecivil_unions_for_all/ (retrieved 19 February 2009).

Making your marriage sacred should be between you and your goddy thing.

Making your union legal, on the other hand, should be between you and state-guaranteed legal and human rights. And it should be available to any two people, gay or straight, in whatever configuration: Mother and son, grandparent and grandkid, mother and daughter, and best friends should all be able to form legal couples that enjoy the rights, privileges, financial benefits and responsibilities now assigned to marriage. (Calm down Rev. Rick: Only two people, no pets allowed.)

America’s current marriage system, even when it includes same-sex couples, inherently discriminates against millions of people who are not in a sexual relationship. (That many legal marriages are platonic only adds irony to injustice.)

…

The state’s job, then, would be to assign benefits, if any, to couples, but not to define who can enter into coupledom. There is no rational, as opposed to religious, reason why any two people shouldn’t be able to form a civil union that carries the same rights as marriage: to pass on and inherit property, make decisions for the sick, visit inmates and get discounts on Carnival cruises.

…

Irrational fear and religion (but I repeat myself) underlie the state’s stance that it can assign secular rights to a sacred institution designed for sexual partners—and can exclude platonic couples. But really, would the legal right to shared Social Security benefits so excite two heterosexual women that they would turn lesbian? Would allowing two brothers to share medical benefits inspire them to acts of incest?

Or would, God forbid, too many people get health benefits and share incomes and resources?

Robinson, Beth. “The state of the marriage business.” Vermont Freedom to Marry: Beth’s Blog. 19 February 2009. http://www.vtfreetomarry.org/2009/02/beths-blog.html (retrieved 19 February 2009).

Beth from Vermont Freedom to Marry offers a great response to this line of thought:

Why not “just get the state out of the marriage business?”

If I had a penny for every time someone said, “I think we should just get the state out of the marriage business and have civil unions for everyone; let’s leave marriage to the church!”

…

In an academic sense, it’s an interesting view, worth discussing and analyzing. But in the real world we live in here and now—and in particular, in the context of our current legislative work—it’s something of a dead end conversation for a bunch of reasons.

First, we aren’t starting from scratch here. Since our nation’s founding, marriage has been licensed and regulated by the state. Abolishing civil marriage as a state-regulated institution would be a radical departure from our history—far more dramatic than simply tweaking our existing laws to include same-sex couples. The notion that “the church” owns marriage is completely inconsistent with our nation’s history and traditions. We’ve confused matters some by authorizing clergy people to act as agents of the state in signing civil marriage licenses. But the fact is, civil marriage is a state regulated institution, completely independent of whatever holy celebrations some people perform within their faith communities.

Second, we don’t have a magic wand. As a practical matter, if Vermont stopped issuing civil marriage licenses and began issuing only civil union licenses to same-sex couples and different-sex couples, that would subject heterosexual Vermont couples to the same barriers to federal legal protections and recognition in other states as same-sex couples currently face. That’s obviously a non-starter. The goal here is ensure equal rights by increasing protections for the Vermont families whose protections fall short—not to promote equality by ensuring that everyone is equally disadvantaged.

Finally, churchgoers aren’t the only people who value marriage. Do folks really want to say that couples—including heterosexual couples—shouldn’t be allowed to get married if they don’t belong to a church or synagogue? Or if they belong to a faith community that won’t bless their union? (Talk to interfaith couples, or in some religious communities, couples in which one or both parties have previously married and divorced. Many wouldn’t be pleased by this suggestion.) Marriage is important to a lot of people—and not just those who go to church. As a Justice of Peace myself, I see lots of couples who choose to say their vows before purely civil authorities.

In my experience, once people actually think through the implications of the “leave marriage to the church” statement, they realize it’s not particularly helpful or realistic. So don’t be derailed by this one—next time you hear it, push back.

Cheers!

Emphases mine.