Independent Gay Forum -

Adam Lambert’s Hypocrisy

info@indegayforum.org (Jennifer Vanasco) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Jennifer Vanasco
First published in the Chicago Free Press on November 25, 2009

Yes, Adam Lambert. You’re right.

Hiphop artists and women get away with salacious performances all the time without an uproar. Of course, there was that famous Madonna-and-Britney kiss that caused a stir, but that was likely because the artists were — well, Madonna and Britney.

And yes, Adam Lambert, your performance on ABC’s American Music Awards this week was not really all that raunchy. A kiss is a kiss, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I could have done without you sticking a guy’s head in your crotch spontaneously, but it happened so quickly, and in the midst of so many other things, that if the dancer didn’t mind, I’m not sure “offensive” is what I’d call it.

What I’d call it, instead, is misguided.

Here’s my problem.

You told Out magazine that you didn’t make a big deal out of your sexual orientation during American Idol once pictures of you kissing a man had been exposed because: “I don’t understand why it has to be about my sexuality. I’m just not going to talk about it one way or another. . . . And then when those pictures came out, I was like, you know what? I thought maybe I’ll just own it and say, ‘Yeah, I’m gay.’ But I didn’t want to label myself.”

That’s interesting, Adam Lambert. When you were worried about winning a contest, you didn’t want to openly attest to being gay. (And, in fact, your people were worried that you would seem “too gay” on Out’s cover.) BUT, when you wanted to make a splash in public, when you wanted to get noticed — suddenly you were all about gay sexuality.

And so my problem is with the timing.

You see, Adam Lambert, you may say that “I’m not trying to lead the fucking way for the civil rights movement that we’re in right now,” but the fact is that we ARE in a struggle for our civil rights and you are a pop culture figure (thanks in no small part to the support of gays and gay allies.)

We are in a dangerous moment. Our political allies are quickly backing away from us, thanks to losses on gay marriage in California and Maine and the Democratic loss of the governorship in New Jersey.

Whereas just over a year ago it seemed like gay marriage was an inevitable wave sweeping the country - and a tsunami in New England, New Jersey and New York — now it feels like the tide has turned. The hate crimes bill victory was followed by a vicious hate crime in Puerto Rico. We have hearings on ENDA, which could go either way. We have Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell hearings which are being put off until 2010. We have a President who isn’t sure he is our friend.

And what is the mainstream most worried about, Adam Lambert? Why are they afraid of our partnerships, our service to our country, our working lives, our families? They are worried because they think gay life is exactly what you portrayed on the American Music Awards: focused on the kind of sex that turns people into animals (almost literally, in this case, with crawling dancers leading you on leashes), geared toward enticing children (ABC is a network owned by Disney, for heaven’s sake), degrading, rapacious, empty.

This is why mainstream America votes against gays, Adam Lambert. Not because of people who have families and jobs and bills and weddings. Because of people like you, who use sexuality thoughtlessly in order to advance your own agenda, instead of thinking about the very real consequences your actions will have on others’ civil rights.

If you were a private citizen, this wouldn’t matter. But you are not. You are able to be openly gay thanks to people who did, in fact, make it their life’s work to “lead the fucking way for the civil rights movement.” You dishonor them — and you hurt us — by pretending otherwise.

It Could Have Been Worse

info@indegayforum.org (Paul Varnell) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Paul Varnell
First published in the new Milwaukee Gazette on November 19, 2009

For many gay people, this year began with high hopes following the election and inauguration of President Barack Obama who had promised "change we can believe in." But the enthusiasm and hope seemed gradually to deflate with the passage of weeks and months in which Obama concerned himself with the economic crisis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the continuing debate over health care. There seemed no movement on any gay-related issues.

But then toward the end of the year there were signs that gays had not been entirely forgotten. The ban on HIV-infected visitors and immigrants was lifted. Health benefits for domestic partners of gay federal employees was proposed in Congress and is given a "chance" of passage. The Justice Department announced that it would not prosecute people for possession of medical marijuana in states that permitted it. And a gay-inclusive hate crimes provision was slipped into a defense authorization bill.

Except for the first there is little evidence pointing to Obama as the person prompting any of these changes, but most of them certainly would not have happened under President George Bush, or under John McCain had he been elected president in 2008.

Although gay organizations have been pushing for hate crimes legislation for several years, from what I have seen the issue never seemed to catch fire with the gay population at large. The chief issues for gays have become the irrational and insulting gay exclusion policy of the military and repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act barring federal recognition and benefits for legally married same-sex partners. Obama says he opposes both policies, but so far there has been no evidence of movement on either issue.

The narrow loss of marriage rights in Maine felt like a kick in the stomach. But the narrow victory of a measure in Washington state to expand domestic partner rights was a comparative bright spot. In that connection, let us not forget that the nation's largest Lutheran body, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, last summer voted to approve the ordination of people in same-sex relationships. This is good news even for nonbelievers because America is still a largely religious country and the culture often takes its tone from what its churches say and do. So this is an important move toward the legitimacy of gay relationships.

What now? You would think that 31 straight losses in votes on gay marriage would be a clue to gay activists; and the victory for domestic partnerships would suggest a path to follow. But now activists in New York state are still trying to persuade the legislature to approve gay marriage there. A final positive vote looks increasingly doubtful. I'd like gay marriage as much as the next gay person, but it doesn't look like it is going to happen anywhere for a few years. Americans seem a less opposed to civil unions. So maybe we should take what we can get right now while we continue to work for our ultimate goal.

Americans' attitudes toward gays have moved slowly in a positive direction by about one half to one percent a year for the last several years. In a few years in most states we should have public support for most of our goals. Much of this is the result of the slow replacement of older anti-gay voters by younger, more gay-positive voters.

Unfortunately, there is not much we can do to influence the military's anti-gay policy. The initiative to end "Don't Ask, Don't tell" will probably have to come from within the military itself in signals to Congress. But the military is not immune to the trends in the civilian world, so every gain we make in the civilian sphere ultimately shows up the military sphere. And the military in turn is not immune to pressure from Congress. So pressuring Congress is one indirect route to follow.

Things have suddenly become interesting again.

Stop Subsidizing Homophobia

info@indegayforum.org (James Kirchick) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by James Kirchick
First published in the Los Angeles Times, November 20, 2009

Since its inception in 2003, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — PEPFAR — has become the largest public health program in history. Created by President George W. Bush, it has distributed nearly $50 billion worldwide, mostly in Africa, to prevent the spread of HIV and to treat its victims. Over the last five years, the fund has provided care for 3 million people and prevented an estimated 12 million new infections. Even Bush's harshest critics do not deny that PEPFAR has been a huge success in combating the AIDS epidemic.

In spite of all that the program has accomplished, however, a persistent problem remains: the promotion of homophobia by African governments receiving American aid money. In no nation is this problem more acute than in Uganda, one of 15 PEPFAR "focus" countries that collectively account for half of the world's HIV infections. Homosexuality is considered a taboo in most of Africa, yet few governments have gone to the lengths of Uganda's in punishing it. The consequences are devastating not only for the people directly affected by these adverse policies but for the fight against AIDS in general.

Uganda's campaign against homosexuality took a disturbing turn last month when a member of parliament in the nation's governing majority introduced legislation that would stiffen penalties for actual or perceived homosexual activity, which is already illegal under Ugandan law. According to the proposed law, "repeat offenders" could be sentenced to death, as would anyone engaging in a same-sex relationship in which one of the members is under the age of 18 or HIV-positive. Gay-rights advocacy would be illegal, and citizens would be compelled to report suspected homosexuals or those "promoting" homosexuality to police; if they failed to do so within 24 hours, they could also be punished.

International human rights groups have protested the bill, but their complaints have only made the government more defiant. "It is with joy we see that everyone is interested in what Uganda is doing, and it is an opportunity for Uganda to provide leadership where it matters most," the country's ethics and integrity minister has said.

Aside from its evident inhumanity, such draconian legislation will only do massive harm to HIV-prevention efforts. Gay men are an at-risk community, and they already face severe repression in most African countries. Because of conservative social mores and government repression, many are hesitant to come forward to get information regarding safe sexual practices. This bill could make the very discussion of condom use and HIV prevention for gay men illegal. By driving gays even further underground, such governmental homophobia only ensures that HIV will continue to spread unabated.

When a government actively encourages homophobia, the effect reverberates throughout society. Uganda's president, Yoweri Museveni, has accused European gays of coming to his country to "recruit" people into homosexuality. Ugandan newspapers and bloggers have seized on the proposed law to launch their own broadsides against gays, posting the names and photographs of individuals in Wild West-style "wanted" posters in print and online. A major tabloid, the Red Pepper, trumpeted an expose headlined "Top Homos in Uganda Named" as "a killer dossier, a heat-pounding and sensational masterpiece that largely exposes Uganda's shameless men and unabashed women that have deliberately exported the Western evils to our dear and sacred society."

From 2004 through 2008, Uganda received a total of $1.2 billion in PEPFAR money, and this year it is receiving $285 million more. Clearly, the United States has a great deal of leverage over the Ugandan government, and the American taxpayer should not be expected to fund a regime that targets a vulnerable minority for attack — an attack that will only render the vast amount of money that we have donated moot.

Earlier this month, members of Congress led by the House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman, Howard L. Berman (D-Valley Village), and its ranking minority member, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calling on the U.S. "to convey to Ugandan leaders that this bill is appalling, reckless and should be withdrawn immediately." And in an open letter to Dr. Eric Goosby, the new U.S. global AIDS coordinator, Charles Francis, a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS during the Bush administration, asked, "Will we stand by and let national governments scapegoat a sexual minority for HIV/AIDS while receiving major funding for AIDS relief?"

Irresponsible and reprehensible behavior on the part of Ugandan officials should lead to a serious re-evaluation of U.S. policy and an ultimatum for the Ugandan government: It must desist in its promotion of deadly homophobia or say goodbye to the hundreds of millions of dollars it has received due to the generosity and goodwill of the American people.

A Window Slams Shut

info@indegayforum.org (Jennifer Vanasco) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Jennifer Vanasco
First published in the Chicago Free Press, November 18, 2009

I came out in the 1990s at the tail of the glory days of gay culture. There were gay bookstores then in most major cities, and a mix of gay social clubs, where you could gather to bowl, two step, play cards or organize for LGBT rights.

Most important, there was a gay paper in every city that could sustain one.

At the time, the mainstream media didn’t cover gay issues often or well. The New York Times called us homosexuals and didn’t cover our unions in their social pages. It was tough to find articles about our rights that didn’t have an obligatory quote from a religious conservative explaining that being gay is immoral, wrong and in many places illegal.

Before the internet, the gay press was the only place where you could find reliable, objective information about LGBT issues. It was the only place you could learn about vigils, bars specials, group gatherings, protests.

And now it is disappearing.

The demise this week of the Washington Blade (40 years old), Southern Voice (20 years) and other publications owned by Window Media hit me hard. Like many young gay writers who came out in the 80s and 90s, my first job was at a gay paper. I learned how to interview politicians, how to report on events, how to copy edit and assign stories and crop photos and layout pages. And I gathered deep knowledge about gay and lesbian history, icons, politics, culture.

Gay papers are our community’s treasure. The stories there are more local and gay-specific than the mainstream media, more reflective and better reported than what often appears on the internet. Gay reporters who work at gay papers take politicians to task and hold them to their promises. And gay papers themselves — since they are staffed by a small group not by individuals working remotely — pass along knowledge, skills and expertise to the next generation of gay reporters.

Blogs are wonderful, of course. We all read them. They can disseminate a lot of information quickly. But they also get things wrong; and in the constant churn of information, important stories — stories that dominate front pages for a week — can be lost under other, less significant posts.

And don’t forget that few blogs actually report news — most only link to and comment on news that has already been reported by other sites.

Newspapers as a class are being killed by many things besides blogs. The rise of free and convenient information and news on the web. The loss of classified advertising to sites like Craigslist. The expense of paper.

And the gay press is further hurt by the rise of gay reporting in the mainstream media.

But don’t be fooled. Just like chain bookstores reduced their gay and lesbian section to barely an aisle after forcing local gay and feminist bookstores out of business, the mainstream media reports only on stories about the gay community that are of mainsteam — not LGBT — interest.

Gay papers and gay reporters are important. We need to support and nurture the ones we have. Perhaps, too, we need a new model — something like Pro Publica, the non-profit organization devoted to investigative news gathering. If we were able to gather the best LGBT reporters from around the country and give them the resources to investigate important local stories, we could provide fuel to activists and bloggers everywhere.

I mourn the Washington Blade and all the other gay papers now gone that both built a community and explained it to itself.

But I celebrate the papers we have left. And I admire the reporters who staff them, providing the information to our community we just can’t get anywhere else.

Why Approval Matters

info@indegayforum.org (John Corvino) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by John Corvino
First published at 365gay.com on November 13, 2009

It’s November, which means bookstores have next year’s calendars on display.

When I was a teenager, this annual occurrence unnerved me. The “male interest” calendars”—think “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model of the Month”—held no appeal for me. Instead, I would nervously reach for a Chippendales calendar, hiding it behind something innocuously themed (race cars, puppies, whatever) so that I could stare admiringly at half-naked men. As soon as I noticed anyone approaching, I would throw both calendars back on the shelf and dart out of the store.

I laugh now at the thought that I could ever find the overly pumped and coiffed 1980’s Chippendales dancers appealing. But when I see these calendars on the shelves today, I still feel a residual emotional tug. Like the underwear models in the J.C. Penney catalog (and so many other ordinary features of American life), the calendars were a painful signal: you are not like other boys.

I noticed a calendar display in a bookstore the other day just shortly after receiving an e-mail from a reader complaining that I waste too much time trying to win over straight society’s approval. “When are you going to stop seeking other people’s acceptance?” he asks.

My answer? I’ll stop seeking it once we get it.

The calendars reminded me of why. It’s not because I’m still scared that other people will know my “secret.” Today, I can walk into a bookstore and look at whatever I want. Indeed, I sometimes make a point of picking up the “female interest” calendars just to remind myself—and anyone else watching—that I can. It’s my way of saying: No, I am not like (most) other boys, and I’m okay with that. Honestly, I really don’t give a flying fig whether you give me a dirty look when I do it.

But there are plenty of boys and girls growing up who are not there yet. They still get unnerved when they see the calendars, or the catalogs, or countless other possible triggers. They still feel that nauseous shame and isolation. They have yet to learn that the feelings they dread can eventually be a source of great joy, and beauty, and comfort.

Social approval can make a huge difference in the lives of these kids, not to mention those who come after them.

This is one significant way in which LGBT people differ from most other minority groups. Whereas black children generally have black parents, Jewish children generally have Jewish parents, and so on, LGBT people can have any sort of parents—and most often have straight ones. Far from being able to take for granted our parents’ understanding of the discrimination we face, we often have to struggle for their acceptance, too.

So while their parents’ opinion on homosexuality may not directly matter to me, you can be damn sure it matters to them.

I don’t mean that they can’t go on to have happy, fulfilling, successful lives even if their parents ultimately reject them. I just mean that doing so will be harder—needlessly, sometimes tragically so.

Moreover, it’s not as if I have no stake at all in their parents’ opinion. As we’ve seen over and over, their opinion affects how they vote. And their votes make a difference to our legal rights, whether we like it or not.

Of course it isn’t fair. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

So I’ll stop seeking their approval when we get it, and not a moment sooner. Because their approval helps make our political struggle easier. Because it’s crucial to the lives of their kids, some of whom are LGBT. And because it’s the right thing.

Maine, Detroit, and the Closet

info@indegayforum.org (John Corvino) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by John Corvino
First published at 365gay.com on November 7, 2009

When I was a “fag” on the junior high playground, getting punched hurt even when I saw it coming. So too with Maine this past week.

Like many, I was dispirited but not surprised when we lost. The rights of minorities (gays especially) generally don’t do well when put to a popular vote. And the opposition’s central message—that gays want to influence schoolchildren—remains as effective as it is sinister.

The message conjures up the image of gays as child molesters—a myth debunked but never fully extinguished.

A slightly less sinister (but still false) version portrays us as anti-family and anti-morality. Still another falsehood is that we’re trying to “recruit.”

Then there’s the underlying truth that sustains the myth as plausible. Yes, of course marriage equality will affect what children are taught in schools, because if same-sex marriage is legal, they will naturally be taught that it’s legal. That it’s an option for consenting adults who want it. That women sometimes fall in love with women, and men with men, and live happily ever after.

We should not shrink from saying these things, but we do. No doubt, the ugliness of the sinister versions—not to mention our opponents’ penchant for quoting us out of context—makes us nervous about discussing the truthful version. And that’s surely one lesson of this loss: the closet is still powerful, and our opponents use it to their advantage.

But we will not go back in the closet again.

We will keep telling our stories. We will keep showing our faces. We will keep getting married, even if—for now—Maine doesn’t legally recognize our relationships. We will not go back in the closet again.

And though we’ve lost this particular battle, we will continue to win the war.

On the same day that Maine voters took away marriage equality, Detroit (where I live) elected an openly gay City Council President. This, in a city that’s 84% African-American and where churches exert considerable political influence. The rest of the country hardly noticed, but Detroit defied several stereotypes on Tuesday.

His name is Charles Pugh. A popular newscaster before running for City Council, Pugh was actually endorsed by both the Council of Baptist Pastors and the AME Ministerial Alliance. They knew he was gay and they endorsed him anyway.

One could argue that Pugh was endorsed—and won—because of name recognition. Detroit elects all nine council members at-large, and the top vote getter automatically becomes council president. It’s a dumb system in several ways, and in the past it has resulted in famous but incompetent council members—Martha Reeves, of Martha and the Vandellas, leaps to mind. (Incidentally, in this year’s primary Reeves was voted out, and in the general election voters overwhelming approved a referendum for council-by-district.)

But even if Pugh’s landslide can be attributed to sheer popularity, it sends an encouraging message about the way the world is changing. Being openly gay is no longer an absolute bar to getting public support. And even those who regularly oppose us will sometimes let other factors trump whatever makes us scary otherwise.

Meanwhile, the more they know us, the less scary we become.

It’s unfair and unfortunate that we need to work harder than our opponents to win. They win by exploiting fear, which is easy to do when you’re in the majority. We win by building relationships—by letting voters know who we really are. That takes time.

So our opponents have a soundbite edge, but we have a long-term advantage. The closet is crumbling.

In the wake of the Maine loss, we will catch our breath and press on. We will continue to live our lives; we will keep speaking our truth. We will stand up in the firm conviction that our love is real, and valuable, and worthy of equal treatment under the law.

Because whatever legal roadblocks they may put in our way, we will never go back in the closet again.

Taking Maine’s Measure

info@indegayforum.org (James Kirchick) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by James Kirchick
First published at Advocate.com on November 5, 2009

Maybe it was the cold weather. Or perhaps it was the rival protest across the park competing for the attention of passerby. Or maybe it was the oddity of seeing Maggie Gallagher, president of the National Organization for Marriage, sitting smugly on a nearby bench, letting loose a sly smile as she watched the anguished faces of those standing before her.

But these features of the hastily arranged rally yesterday in Washington, D.C.’s Dupont Circle — the focus for most of the city’s earnest protests — just exacerbated what was already a depressing moment for gay rights this week, when Maine voters chose to repeal the state’s same-sex marriage law on Tuesday. There was, predictably, a great deal of anger, including the occasional f bomb. But the assembled Washingtonians were well behaved; certainly to the extent that Gallagher could feel safe sitting quietly by herself to watch the proceedings. So much for her complaints, registered shrilly and frequently in the wake of the success of Proposition 8 last year, that gay rights activists physically “intimidate” her and other opponents of marriage equality. If there was a horde of angry, violent lesbians out for her head, they were nowhere to be found that chilly October evening.

But perhaps the most disheartening, and telling, aspect of Tuesday’s loss was the rude awakening offered by President Barack Obama’s silence. In December of last year, responding to complaints over his selection of the controversial Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration, Obama pledged to be “a fierce advocate for gay and lesbian Americans.” It was a promise he had made repeatedly on the campaign trail, to the extent that he raised more money from gay donors than any other presidential candidate in American history. Yet that much-ballyhooed advocacy was nowhere in sight these past few months, as those hoping to maintain Maine’s legislatively enacted law permitting gay marriage fought tooth and nail to keep it on the books.

That silence was shared by Obama’s former campaign organization, Organizing for America, since subsumed by the Democratic National Committee. As blogger John Aravosis discovered, OFA did not mention the initiative in any of its literature or e-mails sent out to its supporters in Maine. Never mind the president — as for the White House, it could only bring itself around to issuing a halfhearted statement after The Advocate’s indefatigable Kerry Eleveld prodded them into offering some sort of explanation of where they stood. That mealymouthed statement, reiterating the president’s logically untenable opposition to both gay marriage and ballot initiatives banning it, did not even mention Maine by name, nor did it include any reference to a similar battle in Washington state, where voters were given the opportunity to vote to uphold or repeal a law giving expanded domestic-partnership benefits to gay couples. That measure fortunately passed — the first time that state-level benefits have been granted to gays by popular vote — no thanks due, however, to the “fierce advocate” in the White House.

But Maine is where marriage was up for consideration, and it was there that the real gay rights battle of the year transpired. Maine is in solid blue New England territory, and given the recent marriage victories in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Vermont, many predicted — hubristically — that similar fortune would befall them in the Pine Tree State.

That it did not is doubly depressing.

Still, the gloating by the likes of Gallagher will be short-lived. Yesterday, she told The New York Times, “Maine is one of the most secular states in the nation. It’s socially liberal. They had a three-year head start to build their organization, and they outspent us two to one. If they can’t win there, it really does tell you the majority of Americans are not on board with this gay marriage thing.”

Gallagher may be right in her last assertion, but the number of voters opposing gay marriage declines with each successive poll, and all the data shows support for gay marriage trending higher with younger voters. According to census projections, Maine has the third-largest percentage of voters over the age of 65. Not only do these voters represent a critical mass of people who will be inclined to oppose gay marriage, they also will turn out to vote in higher numbers than younger citizens.

Such observations will not offer much consolation to the gay couples in Maine who saw such a basic civil right snatched from them by their fellow citizens. Nor will it provide succor to the nationwide advocates of marriage equality, gay and straight alike, who have banked so much on a state-by-state strategy. In the wake of the Maine defeat, many are beginning to question the wisdom of that approach and are looking with newfound hope to the federal lawsuit filed by superstar lawyers David Boies and Ted Olson challenging the legality of Proposition 8.

Bringing such a case to the Supreme Court is a risky plan that could reap massive dividends if it succeeds or tragic consequences if it fails. And while the local strategy may not have worked this time in Maine, it has worked thus far in several other states, and the results will only get better with time. Rest assured that the day will soon come when Maggie Gallagher won’t be sitting quite so contentedly, smiling at the people whose rights she’s spent so much effort to strip away.

Open—But Invisible

info@indegayforum.org (Jennifer Vanasco) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:00 EST

by Jennifer Vanasco
First published in the Chicago Free Press on November 5, 2009

No one can tell my girlfriend is gay.

An example: About two years ago, Jenny and a gay male friend went to San Francisco in June. They were excited to celebrate Pride.

But first they were hungry, so they approached a short gay guy wearing leather. “Anyplace around here we can get Mexican food?” Jenny asked.

The man looked them up and down and then said with a condescending sigh, “The Mexican neighborhood is a few blocks over. This is the Castro. I just want to let you know that there will be a lot of people here, because there’s a thing happening called Gay Pride, so if you really want to stay in the neighborhood, there will be long waits.” Jenny and her friend stared at him in disbelief.

“I am a lesbian standing with a gay guy in the Castro,” Jenny said to me later. “And even then, no one knows I’m gay.”

I think this is funny, because to me Jenny is obviously gay. Sure, she keeps her curly hair long. She wears makeup. But she tends to gesture like a boy, she talks low in her throat and her nails are short. In these post-‘L’ Word glamour lesbian days, those should be all the cues another gay person needs.

But no.

Not even gay people can tell that Jenny is gay, and it makes her sad.

“How can you be part of a community if no one can see you?” she asks.

Humans are a tribal animal, and if you’re gay, the LGBTcommunity is your tribe. We want other gay people to recognize us, because it makes us feel less alone. It makes us feel like part of something.

“Also, being gay is more fun,” Jenny says.

Back in the early ’90s era of identity politics, recognition was easy. We wore rainbow rings around our necks, pink and black triangles in our ears, shirts with slogans like “No one knows I’m a lesbian” on our torsos.

When we came out, lesbians automatically cut their hair and stopped wearing makeup completely.

But as the movement has gotten older, lesbians — and gay men, too — have stopped conforming to a narrow (if highly recognizable) stereotype and instead have found ways to be both gay and deeply ourselves. We now know that if we like the feeling of long hair against our shoulders, if we like the way our eyes look when rimmed with mascara, if we like the swish of skirts against our knees or the brisk click of heels, then that’s OK.

We can be butch all the time, sometimes or never. Whatever we choose to wear, we’re still lesbians.

But while society has gradually grown more accustomed to the idea that gay people can be flamboyant or perfectly ordinary, we in the gay community don’t always recognize our more subtle brothers and sisters on the street. We assume heterosexuality. Even in our own neighborhoods and our own shops.

Yesterday, Jenny walked into a cafe. “Feminist Salads” was chalked on the menu board. Ani DiFranco growled over the sound system. And the woman behind the counter, pierced and short-haired, was so clearly lesbian she could have been wearing a name-tag.

“I kept joking with her and talking to her, wanting her to know I was gay without actually saying, ‘Hey, I’m gay!’ or ‘Hey, I have a girlfriend at home!’” Jenny told me later.

“I looked at her and felt a sense of connection — and I wanted her to have that sense of connection, too. But of course she didn’t.”

So Jenny left, feeling more isolated than if the barista had been straight. Because the woman didn’t see her.

What a Difference a Decade Makes

info@indegayforum.org (Jennifer Vanasco) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Jennifer Vanasco
First published in the Chicago Free Press on October 28, 2009

It’s sometimes tough to measure progress, personal or political. Our lives are lived slowly, day by day, and so change can seem incremental. Or impossible.

But a lot of difference can be made in a decade.

About 10 years ago, I went to my dad’s second wedding and wrote about it here. It was the first time since high school that I had seen many of the family friends and neighbors who I grew up with, and so it was an evening of perpetual coming out.

Gray-haired friends of my dad would ask, “Are you married?”

And I’d say, “I’m partnered with a woman. I’m a lesbian.”

There would be a short pause. They’d start to say something. Then a longer pause.

Then they’d say something like, “Excuse me, I need to say hello to Mrs. Smith, I just spotted her”; or, “Would you like something from the bar?”; or, in one memorable case, a woman who I like very much said — with the best of intentions — “I work in a school with developmentally disabled kids, so I know what’s it’s like to be special and different.”

I looked at her and paused. Started to say something. Paused again.

“Can I get you something from the bar?” I said.

Things are so different now.

Last week, I went to my sister’s very elegant wedding. It was attended by many of the same people, most of whom I hadn’t seen since my dad’s shindig.

This time, my current partner was invited. And this time, things were very different.

“It’s wonderful to meet you!” these even-more-graying friends of my dad said. They kissed her on the cheek. They made party small talk. They took me aside to tell me how great Jenny is, how funny, how much they like her, how perfect we are together.

When they left, they made a point of saying goodbye to Jenny, too; of asking us both to dinner; of hoping they saw us both again soon.

Jenny and I slow danced together. We held hands. A year into our relationship, we are obviously in love and we didn’t try to hide that or mute it.

We were out lesbians at my sister’s wedding and no one cared.

And that is exactly how it should be.

Marriage in Massachusetts, Iowa, New Hampshire and Connecticut has legitimated gay and lesbian couples in a way nothing else could. It even affects couples like Jenny and me, who can’t get married in our home state of New York (though our Governor says we should expect marriage by the end of November).

People are getting accustomed to the idea that gays and lesbians get married, that we call each other husbands and wives. And with social change, familiarity breeds acceptance, not contempt.

That is why the marriage debate itself has been useful — even when it fails, in places like California - because it has meant that hundreds of ordinary gay and lesbian couples have been showcased in the media and on the streets. We are no longer a mysterious minority with strange and secret rituals. We are couples. We are families.

Yes, my dad’s friends had 10 years to get used to the idea that I was a lesbian. But they wouldn’t have changed their minds if society hadn’t rapidly changed.

Jenny and I are planning to get married when our marriage can be legally performed in New York.

We’re planning on a small wedding, so we don’t know if we’ll invite any of my dad’s friends.

But the difference now, is that we feel like we could.

And if we invited them, we think they’d come.

The Other Ballot Battles

info@indegayforum.org (John Corvino) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by John Corvino
First published at 365gay.com on October 16, 2009

I’ve spent the last week traveling through rural Wisconsin for a series of diversity lectures at small technical colleges. Lecturing on gay issues at such venues can be eye-opening. It’s a big country out there, and while students today may be a good deal more gay-friendly than they once were, not everyone shares the views of a typical liberal-arts major at NYU or UC-Berkeley.

Of course, there are pleasant surprises along the way, like the scraggly welding major who came up after one talk and said, “I’m a former homophobe. Thanks for being here.” On the other hand, it’s hard not to react visibly when an audience member tries to establish his scholarly bona fides by announcing, “My views on this are very well thought out. I studied the Bible carefully when I was in prison.”

My travels through the Midwest got me thinking about national LGBT movement’s tendency to focus on California and the Northeast. There are good reasons for this bias, insofar as these are populous and influential regions. But having discussed Maine in my last column, I decided to spend this week discussing the other two gay-related ballot initiatives currently going on—in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and in Washington State. They both deserve more attention than they’re getting.

Kalamazoo:

The Kalamazoo initiative is close to home for me—I live in Detroit, about two-and-a-half hours away. Kalamazoo is a small town in a conservative part of the state. Nevertheless, as the home of Kalamazoo College, Western Michigan University, and the Arcus Foundation, it has a vibrant progressive streak.

About three years ago citizens began discussions with city representatives about expanding Kalamazoo’s non-discrimination ordinance (which prohibits discrimination in employment, housing, and public accommodations) to include protections for sexual orientation and gender expression. In December of 2008, the Kalamazoo city commission unanimously approved the expanded ordinance, but opposition forced the city to subject it to public review.

As a result, in June of this year a new ordinance was introduced with stronger exemptions for churches and other religious organizations. Once again, the ordinance passed unanimously, and once again, opposition groups derailed it, this time by collecting enough signatures to suspend the ordinance until it can be put to a public vote in November. A YES vote would preserve the ordinance prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender expression; a NO vote would strike it down.

Opposition has largely been organized by the Michigan American Family Association (AFA)—a small-minded, sex-obsessed group that even some right wingers I know prefer to steer clear of. They’ve been trying to instill fear in voters by raising the specter of men with “psycho-emotional delusions” preying on women and children in restrooms.

Reasonable minds can differ about whether, and to what extent, legal action is the right response to discrimination by private employers, landlords, and so on. But if we’re going to have non-discrimination laws at all, they should surely include sexual orientation and gender expression. Visit One Kalamazoo’s website for more information.

Washington State:

For some years Washington State has had limited domestic partnership rights which include hospital visitation, inheritance rights, the ability to authorize autopsies and organ donations, and legal standing under probate and trust law. This year legislators expanded the law so that domestic partners would be granted the remaining statewide legal incidents of marriage (though not under the name “marriage”)—including access to unpaid sick leave to care for an ailing partner, various legal process rights, pension benefits, insurance benefits, and adoption and child-support rights and responsibilities, among others.

Opponents then collected signatures to force the new law on the ballot. As in Kalamazoo, a YES vote here is the pro-gay vote: it would support the expanded domestic-partner law. A NO vote would kill the expanded domestic-partner law, leaving Washington staters with the far more limited domestic-partner rights they previously had.

The opposition’s campaign is ugly. Take a moment to visit protectmarriagewa.com and click on the video on the right with the smiling white couple in wedding attire. There you will learn that “God established, and defined marriage, between a man and a woman….Senate Bill 5688 violates GOD’s mandate.”

Incidentally, you will also learn that Adam and Eve look like they should be doing Breck commercials—at least as depicted in a certain Lowell Bruce Bennett painting owned by the Mormon Church.

The visuals may be funny, but ignorance and discrimination are not. Visit approvereferendum71.org and learn more about efforts to preserve robust domestic-partnership legislation in Washington State.

Polls for both of these initiatives show us close enough to win—but if, and only if, we support them.

Opposite Color...Same Sex

info@indegayforum.org (Jennifer Vanasco) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Jennifer Vanasco
First published in the Chicago Free Press on October 21, 2009

Let me tell you a story.

A Louisiana couple goes to a justice of the peace. They love each other. They want to get married.

The justice of the peace, though, denies them a marriage license.

He says society doesn’t accept those kind of marriages. He doubts, he says, that the couple will be together long. He says, “My main concern is for the children.”

He says, “I don’t want to put children in a situation they didn’t bring on themselves.” He says, “In my heart, I feel the children will later suffer.”

He says, “I try to treat everyone equally.”

This is exactly what happens to gay couples over and over again in the 45 states where we can’t marry.

But this story isn’t about a gay couple. It’s about a straight couple. An interracial straight couple.

And no, this interracial straight couple story didn’t happen in the 1950s, way before the landmark 1967 Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia in which the court wrote, “Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival.”

This story happened this month. It was reported by the Associated Press.

It is an astounding story, because the same arguments that the justice of the peace made against marrying this interracial couple — arguments that are clearly wrong and, in fact, illegal — are regularly made to explain why gay couples shouldn’t be able to marry.

Sometimes, people learn best by analogy. It is easier for us to understand a complex situation if we are shown the ways it resembles a more familiar situation.

Because of that, this ugly incident is something of a (strange) gift to the gay community. It is clear that this public official is wrong in refusing to marry an interracial couple based on his own experience, opinions and prejudices.

And, because he uses the same arguments used against gay couples, we can see that it is also wrong when individuals — and states, and the federal government — refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, just because they are worried about the effect on the couple’s children, or because they don’t think that sort of couple is valued as highly (Remember that the official said he believed that interracial marriages don’t last long — that is, they are not as strong or equal as same-race marriages.)

National LGBT organizations quickly issued a joint statement saying they stood with the NAACP and that “It is wrong for loving couples who want to make a life-long marriage commitment to be denied that right because of someone else’s prejudice.”

It is wrong. It is wrong when it comes to interracial straight couples, and it is wrong when it comes to gay and lesbian couples.

We rely on public officials, legislators and judges to do their work in the best interest of the people, without personal bias.

We don’t ask them to judge the quality of our marriages or our commitments; we don’t ask them to decide if we love each other enough, or are mature enough, or are a couple that other people like, respect and approve of. We don’t ask them to analyze each couples’ fitness to be parents or partners. We don’t ask them to pick our perfect mate, or decide what we should and should not do in the bedroom.

That is not their job.

All we ask is that they license our marriages so that we have proof that we belong to our partners exclusively, that we are a family in the eyes of the law.

It is 2009 and an interracial couple still has issues getting married in the state of Louisiana. It is 2009 and a gay couple still can’t get married in the state of New York — or Illinois, or California.

Both situations are equally wrong.

An Unbalanced Bill

info@indegayforum.org (Richard E. Sincere Jr.) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Richard E. Sincere Jr.
First published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, October 20, 2009

For more than a decade, liberal lawmakers have argued that federal "hate crimes" laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation among the categories that have been protected since the first such statute was enacted in the 1960s.

On Oct. 8, the House of Representatives approved the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, named for the young gay Wyoming man who was tortured and killed by thugs who now wallow in prison under life sentences. The U.S. Senate passed its version earlier this summer, and the two versions were reconciled by a conference committee.

In both the House and the Senate, this proposed hate-crimes law had been incorporated, with no hint of germaneness, into each chamber's Defense Authorization bill (numbered HR 2647 and S 1390, respectively). The latest version was passed on by the House on a 281-146 roll-call vote. Senate action will be virtually pro forma and is expected to take place soon.

Arguments against hate-crime laws often focus on the "thought crime" aspects of such legislation — noting that a criminal convicted of assault will have his punishment enhanced based upon words he said before, during, or after committing the act.

As retired Hunter College Professor Wayne Dynes once noted, hate-crime laws, if they are to be applied in a constitutional manner, must be content-neutral. He gave this example: "Countless numbers of people, aware of the unspeakable atrocities under his leadership, hated Pol Pot. This hate was surely well warranted. If one of the Pol Pot haters had killed him, would this be a hate crime? Why not?"

Dynes, editor of the Encyclopedia of Homosexuality, added: "In seeking to exculpate the killer, we would get into the question of whether some hate is 'justified' and some is not." He concluded that hate-crime prosecutions "will be used to sanction certain belief systems — systems which the enforcer would like, in some Orwellian fashion, to make unthinkable. This is not a proper use of law."

What is particularly disturbing about the Matthew Shepard Act, however, is that this bill federalizes crimes that properly belong under state or local jurisdiction. It signifies creeping encroachment of federal law on state prerogatives and the dulling of the distinction between the central government in Washington and the various state governments.

Previous federal hate-crime statutes were written when state and local authorities often looked the other way if crimes of violence were committed against members of minority groups. These laws were narrowly focused and meant specifically to prosecute crimes against victims engaged in a federally protected civil-rights activity (such as helping to register African-Americans to vote).

The current bill says the federal government can step in to prosecute a case if "the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to State charges left demonstratively unvindicated the Federal interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence." In other words, if a U.S. attorney dislikes an acquittal or the punishment of someone convicted under state law, he can re-open the case as a federal matter.

By Orwellian logic, this kind of re-prosecution does not violate the Constitution's prohibition on double jeopardy, because the same act becomes two separate crimes — one state and one federal.

Violent crime against any person is deplorable. Fortunately, state and local governments no longer routinely look away when crime victims belong to socially disdained groups. Hateful thoughts may be disagreeable, but they are not crimes in themselves. The crimes that result from hateful thoughts — whether vandalism, assault, or murder — are already punishable by existing statutes.

There is no good reason to expand the reach of the federal government to fight "hate crimes." That would do violence to the Constitution itself.

New March, New Movement

info@indegayforum.org (Jennifer Vanasco) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Jennifer Vanasco
First published in the Chicago Free Press on October 14, 2009

The Equality March was a success.

I didn't think it would be, honestly. I was worried about the lack of publicity, a sense of organizational disorganization, the tepid response from our trusted national organizations.

I was worried that the March would wind up being a few shirtless guys and a megaphone.

But I was wrong.

Thanks partly to Barack Obama deciding to speak the night before at HRC, the March brought positive national press attention to our issues. And enough people came — perhaps 200,000 from across the country — that it strengthened our sense of community and unity.

But perhaps most importantly, the March showed that we are now a different movement. We are a movement that knows what it is doing. We are a movement that will win.

The gay civil rights movement has slalomed through many iterations over the past 40 years. There were the Stonewall days, when we were trying to stop police harassment; the lesbian separatism of the 1970s; and the ‘90s era of identity politics, when we were determined to celebrate — and make the country accept- our distinct culture.

But the feel of the Equality March was very different.

This wasn't about outsiders seeking visibility. It was about ordinary people wondering why we weren't being treated like everyone else.

Despite the sunny weather, men weren't marching with their shirts off. There was no lesbian fire eating. No boas. This wasn't about a celebration of individual flamboyance or the acknowledgement of sub-identities. This was about showing Washington and the world that we are serious about our rights. That we will not be silent. That we will not back down.

Sure, there were groups of Christians and bears and anarchists and an amazing number of straight supporters. But by the end, the crowd mostly flowed together, with couples with children marching beside a guy in a chicken suit and everyone stopping by the White House for a photo.

Marchers carried signs that expressed rights-fatigue: "Tired of carrying signs," one said. "I got married. Why can't my moms?" said another.

We have spent the year protesting and marching thanks to the fallout over the passage of Proposition 8 last November, and all that activism shows. Even our young people are no longer new to this. We know what to say. We know what to do. We chant, sure, but mostly we walk, holding our rainbow flags high, making a statement through our peaceful presence.

There were a few celebrities, most notably Lady Gaga. But even they were about protesting, not performing. This wasn't a march to express our buying power or our party power. It was about our staying power. It was a march that said, "No matter how tired we get, how long we've been doing this, how much our feet hurt, we will stay the course."

Washington was empty over Columbus Day weekend. No Senators were looking out their windows to see the human river below. The White House was quiet. The center of DC felt almost deserted. There were none of the Pride Day crowds; no beer-swilling gawkers. No thump of dance music.

There was only a sense of determination. Of public will. Of the fierce belief that we deserve equality and if we demand it loud enough and long enough, we will get it.

The Equality March was less about who we are and more about what we can — and will — do.

The Equality March said to the country: We are not outsiders. We are Americans who were born equal. And it is time Washingon recognizes that.

Street vs. Suite

info@indegayforum.org (Richard J. Rosendall) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Richard J. Rosendall
First published in Bay Windows, October 13, 2009

Sunday’s National Equality March (NEM) brought out tens of thousands (according to The Washington Post), including lots of dogs and children, with the simple purpose of demanding equality. It remains to be seen whether the rally, the AIDS vigil, and the flash protest against "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" (DADT) will be followed by productive action.

The march mixed the serious and the festive, with banners saying "Equal Justice Under Law" and "Teabaggers for Gay Rights." Placards ranged from "End the Harm from Religion-Based Bigotry and Prejudice" to "If Liza Can Marry Two Gay Men, Why Can’t I Marry One?"

The messages at the rally at the U.S. Capitol were a hodgepodge. On one hand, there were strong speeches by Lt. Dan Choi and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond. On the other hand, Lady Gaga said, "This is the single most important moment of my career. And you know I love Judy Garland." (The Judy mythology refuses to die.) David Mixner spoke conspiratorially about "politicians in a back room." Urvashi Vaid described the four steps that are necessary to bring down the Patriarchy.

The NEM organizers refused to invite openly gay members of Congress to address the rally. At a news conference on Oct. 9, NEM co-director Robin McGehee said that politicians would only be welcome if they "would make a commitment over the next year to work towards legislation that would bring full federal equality." So Reps. Baldwin, Frank, and Polis are not committed to working for LGBT equality? One wonders how the organizers expect to influence Congress while overtly disdaining Barney Frank, one of its most powerful members.

The march’s "no excuses" rhetoric contrasted with the cheers for President Obama at Saturday’s Human Rights Campaign dinner. The President gave a fine speech, but broke no new ground-no increased pressure on Congress, no explicit statement opposing the ballot initiatives in Maine and Washington State, no stop-loss order ending discharges of gay and lesbian service members. It is easy to defend the President by noting that Congress must pass bills before he can sign them; but we need more bully in the bully pulpit. To be fair, though, for millions who watched the speech on CNN and C-SPAN, it was the first time they saw the President make such a strong statement for LGBT equality.

HRC President Joe Solmonese did his cause no good by saying last week in a letter to members, "[O]n January 19, 2017, I will...look back on many...victories that President Barack Obama made possible." While HRC probably has a detailed strategy for advancing our lengthy legislative agenda, the tone-deaf 2017 reference reinforces perceptions that HRC prioritizes Democratic Party interests over LGBT advocacy.

NEM leader Cleve Jones did no better when he denounced incrementalism as a failure mere days after the introduction in the D.C. Council of a marriage equality bill that enjoys overwhelming support and strong prospects resulting from a smart and thorough incremental strategy.

Early Sunday morning, the HRC building in D.C. was defaced with pink and black paint. Credit was claimed by Queers Against Assimilation, who told the LezGetReal blog, "HRC is run by a few wealthy elites who are in bed with corporate sponsors who proliferate militarism, heteronormativity, and capitalist exploitation." Blogger Michael Petrelis wrote approvingly of "this act of urban redecorating," which only bolstered a White House adviser who told NBC that the NEM protesters were leftist-fringe bloggers who "need to take off the pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely-divided country is complicated and difficult."

Temperatures plummeted the night after the march, a reminder that sunny rallies cannot spare us the long winter of struggle to turn slogans into legislative victories. Support from cultural figures like Lady Gaga and the cast of Hair, while valuable in its own right, does not automatically translate into political success. Bills reach the floor of Congress one at a time. Passing them requires persistent engagement by people who know the process, the players, and the details of the issues. As in entertainment and sports, victory requires both passion and preparation.

The culture clash between the Joneses and the Solmoneses reflects a longstanding tension between liberationists and assimilationists, between "the streets and the suites." Some mutual respect is in order if we want to defeat the anti-gay right instead of one another.

The High Cost of Queer

info@indegayforum.org (Jennifer Vanasco) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Jennifer Vanasco
First published in the Chicago Free Press on October 7, 2009

It is expensive to be gay.

How expensive?

We didn’t know. We did know that committed gay couples had fewer rights than committed straight ones. We knew this meant we paid more for health insurance, that we couldn’t share our partner’s social security benefits, that we had to pay estate taxes that straight couples didn’t.

But the wonderful people at the New York Times ran the numbers. They wanted to figure out how much more gay couples had to pay over their lifetimes because of fewer rights.

So they set up an imaginary lesbian couple with kids and an imaginary straight couple with kids. They gave them the same imaginary income of $140,000 per couple. And they looked for best-possible-case scenarios (both women were able to get health insurance on their own, for example) and worst possible cases (property was in only one of their names, which left the survivor with a whopping inheritance tax).

The reporters went through around 900 simulated tax returns, analyzing the data.

What did they find?

That, yes — it is expensive to be gay. Very expensive.

Try $41,196 more expensive than a married straight couple for a married lesbian couple with kids.

That’s the best case.

The worst case is that this mythical lesbian couple will pay $467,562 more than a straight couple over their lifetimes — all because of a lack of rights.

$467,562.

Whoa.

That is a lot of money.

And that is great.

I mean — the cost itself isn’t great. That’s a preventable tragedy for thousands of families. But it is great that the cost of our rights is now in cold, hard dollar signs, because it is economic arguments that are most likely to move legislators (and perhaps judges).

Before, we knew the number of federal rights gay couples were denied: 1,138. But that number doesn’t compute for most people. We don’t understand what it means.

But almost half a million dollars? That we get in our gut.

That’s a pair of college educations. That’s the difference between living on the edge and being able to sleep at night. That’s a house.

And the Times didn’t even look at the other piece of this — that lesbian couples often make less than straight couples, especially because we’re often found in helper jobs like social work, teaching and nursing.

They didn’t consider that it’s still legal in most states to fire someone for being gay or lesbian. They didn’t look at the fact that some jobs with good benefits — say, serving in the military — are closed to us, which means that we also have fewer opportunities than members of straight couples.

Nevertheless, I am grateful to the Times for this analysis. It’s the kind of work we need to do on our own behalf, because it’s this kind of work that makes change.

We spend a lot of time in our movement trying to convince wingnuts on the right that Christianity doesn’t have to be anti-gay, that we are just like anyone else, that we don’t have some kind of subversive agenda.

These arguments don’t work. Not on wingnuts. In fact, NOTHING will work on wingnuts, because they are crazy. They aren’t open to argument or reason — they have their opinion and they’re sticking to it.

But most Americans aren’t wingnuts. Most Americans believe in fairness and justice. And it is those Americans who will look at those numbers and think — This is not OK.

We have rightness on our side. But now we also have the numbers. And sometimes, numbers speak louder than words.

Pink, Maybe. But Still Red.

info@indegayforum.org (James Kirchick) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by James Kirchick
First published in Advocate.com on September 28, 2009

Over the past few years, the government of Cuba has earned praise for an unlikely development: a campaign to improve the status of the island’s gays. Standing at the forefront of this effort has been an even unlikelier figure: Mariela Castro Espín, the daughter of Raul Castro, who officially assumed the Cuban presidency last year after his brother Fidel fell ill. The latest entry in this narrative was a largely laudatory profile of Espín in The Advocate, which described her as a “champion” of the island’s “gay and transgender community.” Espín is director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education, an organization which, according to its website, promotes “the development of a culture of sexuality that is full, pleasurable, and responsible, as well as to promote the full exercise of sexual rights.”

Like most Latin American countries, Cuba has long been marked by regressive policies concerning homosexuality, due largely to a machismo culture that promotes a heroic masculinity portraying gays as weak and ill-suited to positions of leadership, whether in home or government. As Espín herself says, “Homophobia in Cuba is part of what makes you a ‘man.’” But while Espín should be praised for her attempt to change Cuban attitudes about homosexuality, her advocacy in this realm ought not disabuse anyone of the fact that she is part and parcel of the architecture of repression that has governed the island for five painful decades.

Whatever pleasant sounding pieties she mouths about the dignity of gay people, Espín is a communist, an appellation that ought carry no less opprobrium today than it did before the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Castro’s Cuba it’s still 1956, the year Soviet tanks crushed a peaceful democratic uprising in Hungary, one of the Cold War’s darkest moments. Cuba remains the most repressive country in the Western hemisphere; Freedom House, the international human rights monitoring organization, lists it as the only “unfree” nation in the region (on a scale of one to seven — seven being the worst — Cuba earns a seven for political rights and six for civil liberties). The time warp is evident in a more literal sense: the few cars you’ll see on the streets are decades old, except, of course, the late-model Mercedes that chauffeur around the island’s elite.

It may seem strange that, in this day and age, one still has to mount a case against communism, but as long as a prominent member of the family that has ruled Cuba without interruption for 50 years is the subject of a flattering profile in a major publication, the work remains sadly necessary.

As a political system, communism has killed some 100 million people, according to The Black Book of Communism, a number that increases each day the North Korean slave state continues unabated. Castro’s Cuba is responsible for a relatively minor portion of those victims, but that’s only because “el jefe” has had just a small island’s worth of people to oppress, imprison, and murder. And Castro’s treatment of gays is particularly notorious: Not long after taking power, his regime herded thousands of gay men into concentration camps for “reeducation,” where they were subjected to sexual humiliation and forced labor and were murdered en masse. In 1980, gay Cubans were among the 125,000 people — “scum,” in the words of the Cuban government — whom Castro allowed to leave for U.S. shores in the famous Mariel Boatlift. To underscore what he thought of gay people, Castro made sure that an ample number of violent convicts and patients from mental asylums joined the departing masses.

As she related to The Advocate and elsewhere, Espín remains a fervent proponent of the “revolution” which has wreaked so much misery and poverty on Cuba, and she thus carries all of the malicious baggage that such an avowal entails. She says that her uncle is a “brilliant man.” Considered the “first lady” of Cuba, she recently told a Russian government-controlled television station that “Cuba will stay socialist after Castro’s death.” She told The Advocate that, despite her “faith and hopes” in President Barack Obama, “he has shown no real democratic outreach to Cuba.” On top of this, she patronized the American people by saying how “proud” she was of the “miracle brought about by” their electing “a young, intelligent black man.” If only she cared for democracy and racial tolerance in her own nation, where there has never been an election, and where people of African descent face systematic and rampant discrimination by the government.

Moreover, Espín’s activism is largely hype, and mostly the product of people who have a vested interested in putting a pleasant face on a despicable regime. For true believers, Cuba is the last bastion of an utterly discredited political and economic system. But with gay equality now a component of the “progressive” agenda, it has become painfully necessary to portray the Cuban regime as gay-friendly.

Yet it’s difficult to point to any tangible benefits that Espín’s activism has accrued, other than a decision last year by the Cuban government to dispense free sex-reassignment surgeries. This is a policy of dubious merit that affects an infinitesimally small number of people, and is better understood as a propaganda tool rather than a genuine sign of concern for the plight of gays. This is the sort of thing that’s fodder for those who think that our health care system should emulate that of an island prison.

But no matter how genuine or fervent her promotion of gay rights may be, Espín’s activism will ultimately go nowhere as long as Cuba remains communist. And that’s because homophobia has been intrinsic to communism, which, like all totalitarian ideologies, seeks to perfect mankind, often through violent means. Doctrinaire communists view homosexuality as a bourgeois affliction standing in the way of our “progress” towards a utopian society in which there is no private property, war, or discord and all responsibilities are equally shared. Same-sex attraction is held as an expression of the “false consciousness” that distracts us from the class struggle.

Like Sean Penn, who has also emerged of late as a self-styled advocate for gay rights, Mariela Castro Espín has a serious blind spot. It is the failure, so pervasive and persistent throughout human history, to understand that no political system — regardless of how wonderful in theory or the marvelous claims it makes for itself — can be considered humane as long as it inherently denies fundamental rights like freedom of conscience and speech, the ability to practice religion, vote for one’s leaders, and earn a living commensurate with one’s talents and abilities.

“Being considered a lesbian would not be an insult to me,” Espín told The Advocate. “Being considered corrupt would be.” Her first concern is of but prurient interest. As for her second, by proudly embracing a moral stain as a badge of honor, it’s far too late. Gay rights are human rights, and if one is not an advocate for human rights, as Mariela Castro is most certainly not, one cannot be an advocate for gay rights, no matter how well disposed toward gay and lesbian people one may be.

Let’s posit, for the sake of argument, that Cuban gays truly earned equal rights. No doubt the Cuban regime’s apologists would point to its supposedly “progressive” attitude, contrasting it favorably to the Christian yahoos who run the United States. But even if Cuba legalized gay marriage tomorrow — a highly dubious prospect — it would still be a dictatorship. No matter the degree to which the status of homosexuals in Cuba improves under the communist regime, Cuban gays — like Cuban straights — would still be thrown into prison for daring to tell an anti-Castro joke. They still would not be able to organize peaceful demonstrations against government policies, never mind vote in a free election. More fundamentally, they still would not be able to leave the island of their own volition.

What sort of freedom is this?

Self-Help Helps Most

info@indegayforum.org (Paul Varnell) — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Paul Varnell
Published the Chicago Free Press on September 24, 2009

Q. Should I go to this upcoming gay March on Washington?

A. It depends. It seems to me that if you think it will help the cause of gay marriage, or whatever else it is to be about, you might want to go. But if not, why bother. These gay marches on Washington have been steadily losing significance; the last one was a financial fiasco. If you know of any other way to promote marriage equality, it might be better to do that instead of taking the time and money to go to Washington. Of course, it is always fun to see many thousands of gays and lesbians gathered in one place. So if you lived in Baltimore or, say, Philadelphia, go ahead and go. But if you live in Chicago or St. Louis....

Q. Do you support this idea of a gay school being proposed in Chicago?

A. First of all, it isn't to be an all gay or even primarily gay school. Fewer than half of the students are projected to be gay. But the point is that it is an explicitly gay-friendly and supportive environment for gay students, many of whom have been harassed or bullied at their own local school. I cannot see any advantage in keeping them in those schools. Let them go to a place where they can do what students are supposed to do in school—learn. The argument that students should learn to cope with harassment and bullying is a nonstarter. Most of the "real world" of adults is not so hostile or threatening. And the argument that rejecting a gay school will somehow magically force schools to improve on their own is sheer fantasy. It will do nothing of the sort. The absence of a gay-supportive school has had no such effect up to now. What the gay-supportive school might do is be a role model for schools that want to do a little better. No gay school, no role models, no incentive to improve.

Q. You keep going on about how we should try to improve our community. OK, how?

A. Maybe I should do a whole column just on this. But here are a few ideas for a start. There are three aspects to this: self-improvement, public participation, and neighborhood/community improvement. In no particular order. Patronize a gay business. Thank them for being there. Remember the gay community center in your will. Plant flowers in your front yard or in a window box. If you are a male over 50, attend the Prime Timers' book discussion group.

Got the idea? Here's more. Join a sports team. Stop littering—and this includes cigarette butts. Attend the opening of an art show or a local theater performance. Limit the amount you drink at bars—no one likes a drunk—even at bars. Even if you are not religious, go to church. Churches are natural communities and a potential source of friends. Smile. Say "hello" or "morning" or even "How ya doin'" to your neighbors whether they respond or not. Get an HIV test. Floss. Prevent crimes: Stay alert when walking alone at night. Join a neighborhood group. No one is expected to do all of these, but everyone can do some of them.

Q. The recent death of "neo-conservative" Irving Kristol brings to mind the question of why so many conservatives and "neo-conservatives" are anti-gay. Got any thoughts?

A. As Samuel Johnson replied when a woman asked him why he incorrectly defined a word in his great "Dictionary," "Ignorance, Madame, sheer ignorance." I suspect that is the case here. Most conservatives, especially older ones, don't know many or any gay people, or don't know they are gay, and are wholly incurious about our lives and our struggles: They know nothing about us and want to know nothing. Perhaps they fear contamination. They may think it is an unaccountable choice, a fact they would unlearn if they asked just a few questions, of course. Some are following religious proscriptions of early biblical writers—who were just as ignorant about homosexuality as some are today. Yet others may see us as a threat to the family and society—as if more men would be gay if homosexuality wasn't suppressed. Maybe they think everyone is potentially homosexual! But mostly it is unreasoning, just an embedded cultural prejudice.

‘Always and Everywhere’...Again

info@indegayforum.org (John Corvino) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by John Corvino
First published at 365gay.com on September 14, 2009

Last week I wrote about marriage-equality opponents' "Always and Everywhere" argument—the claim that since marriage has "always" been heterosexual, we ought not to tinker with it now.

In response, a prominent same-sex marriage opponent e-mailed me to explain what was "logically and philosophically wrong" with my critique. In particular, she argued that my claim that "each new same-sex marriage is a living counterexample to it" fails, because it misunderstands the rationale behind "always and everywhere." According to this opponent, the "always and everywhere" argument is not intended as a straightforward descriptive claim—in which case, a single counterexample would indeed refute it—but rather as a tool to uncover the REASON why society after society constructs marriage heterosexually.

As she put it, "Why do they keep stumbling on this idea that it's important to unite male and female in public sexual unions that define the responsibilities of male and female parents to their biological children? Is that reason still valid today?"

Interesting. Is this the right way to understand the "always and everywhere" argument? And if so, does that affect my assessment? To these questions, my answers are "Maybe" and "Absolutely not."

It's probably misleading to talk about THE right way to understand the "always and everywhere" argument, unless one is considering a specific instance of it by a particular marriage-equality opponent. After all, the claim that marriage has been heterosexual "always and everywhere" has been used by different people at different times for different purposes.

But let's suppose one is using the claim to flush out why marriage has been the way it is—that is, 'typically heterosexual almost everywhere. Why, indeed, has marriage been this way?

One huge reason is the misunderstanding and oppression of gays throughout the ages, or what we might call "heteronormativity." It is therefore no surprise that as scientific and moral understanding of homosexuality evolves, so does acceptance of same-sex marriage.

What's more, it's not clear that the reasons for heterosexual marriage would be in any way invalidated by acknowledging reasons (perhaps similar, perhaps different) for homosexual marriage. This is not a zero-sum game.

But what if there's a reason for making marriage EXCLUSIVELY heterosexual—as most (but not all) societies do? According to marriage-equality opponents, there is such a reason. It is to bind parents, and especially fathers, to their biological children.

I have two responses. First, talking about THE reason for marriage is even more misleading than talking about THE purpose of the "always and everywhere" argument. While there may be an embedded practical logic in social institutions, the underlying justifications for them are nearly always complex. Marriage looks the way it does today because of a varied and often messy history.

Second, even granting that one important reason for marriage is binding parents (especially fathers) to their biological children, it is not clear why this reason requires marriage to be exclusively heterosexual. I've said it before and I'll say it again: same-sex marriage never takes children away from loving biological parents who want them.

And here's where same-sex families provide a living counterexample in the strongest sense. It's not just that they falsify the claim that marriage is always and everywhere heterosexual (by announcing, in effect, "Not anymore it isn't!"). It is that they falsify the patently absurd claim that binding parents to their biological children is the sole justification for marriage.

No one actually believes this claim, which is why it continues to amaze me that marriage-equality opponents suggest it with a straight face. Marriage surely binds children to parents, but it also binds spouses to each other—for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health and so on. Generally, that's good for the spouses and good for society—even where children are not present.

Alternatively, opponents will make the more limited claim that this particular purpose of marriage (binding parents to children) trumps the others. But again, even if that were true, it's not clear what follows. How would allowing gays to marry make straights any less bound to their biological children?

Imagine the thought process: "Yikes, Adam and Steve are getting married! Kids, I'm outta here."

In short, whether we take the simple reading of the "Always and Everywhere" argument ("Never before, therefore not now") or this supposedly new and improved one ("Almost never before; therefore, there must be some good reason for 'not now'), the anti-equality conclusion doesn't follow.

‘Always and Everywhere’?

info@indegayforum.org (John Corvino) — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by John Corvino
First published at 365gay.com on September 4, 2009

Marriage-equality opponents frequently claim that marriage has been heterosexual since…well, since FOREVER, and that it is arrogant and foolish to tinker with such a pervasive human institution.

Whatever its logical shortcomings, the “always and everywhere” argument is rhetorically effective. Even gay-rights advocates concede that marriage equality seemed unthinkable just a decade or two ago. Imagine how novel it appears to those who, unlike us, have no direct stake in the issue.

It’s tempting to respond that lots of things that seemed unthinkable a few decades ago—iPhones, Facebook, Sarah Palin—are, for better or worse, now familiar. But the reluctance to tinker with marriage is deep-seated. The “always and everywhere” argument demands a response that is not only logically sound but also rhetorically compelling.

Several responses are worth pondering. I’ve given them each names for convenience:

(1) False premise: The claim that marriage has always been exclusively heterosexual suffers from what should be a fatal flaw: it is simply not true. Same-sex marriages have been documented in a number of cultures, notably some African and Pacific Island cultures.

Marriage-equality opponents retort that these marriages are not quite the same as modern same-sex marriages, since they typically involve a kind of gender transformation of one of the partners. But this response is a red herring. Sure, homosexual marriages in these cultures look different from ours in various respects—but so do their heterosexual marriages. More important, it is doubtful that opponents would abandon their objection to contemporary same-sex marriages as long as one partner agreed to be the “wife” and the other the “husband.”

The real problem with the “false premise” response is rhetorical: The response depends on anthropological data unfamiliar to most people, and it appeals to “exotic” cultures whose practices most Americans find irrelevant.

(2) Heteronormativity: Rhetorical considerations would also weigh against using words like “heteronormativity” when responding to people’s basic fears about marriage. But it’s nonetheless true that the “always and everywhere” argument begs the question against those who argue—quite rightly—that the heterosexual majority tends to oppress the homosexual minority always and everywhere. Because of that oppression, recorded history often ignores or erases our lives and commitments.

Keep in mind that just a few decades ago, gays and lesbians were still considered mentally ill in much of the West; even today, gays are stoned to death in parts of the world. Against that backdrop, it’s not surprising that same-sex marriage seems newfangled. The marriage-equality movement owes as much to an improved understanding of sexuality as it does to changing views about marriage.

(3) Not mandatory: Even granting the (false) premise that marriage has been heterosexual “always and everywhere,” so what? No one is proposing that same-sex marriage be made mandatory. Heterosexual marriage will continue to exist “always and everywhere” for those who seek it, even while society recognizes that it’s not appropriate for everyone. The opponents’ argument seems to play on the irrational notion that giving marriage to gays somehow means taking it away from straights.

(4) Non-sequitur: Let’s concede to marriage-equality opponents that history and tradition are important, and that we should be cautious about changes to major social institutions. Yet even if (contrary to fact) marriage were heterosexual “always and everywhere,” it does not follow that marriage cannot expand and evolve. One should never confuse a reasonable caution with a stubborn complacency.

Increasingly, that complacency is more than stubborn—it’s unconscionable. Marriage-equality opponents can no longer ignore the fact that we fall in love, just like they do; that our relationships have positive effects in our lives and the lives of those around us, and that we reasonably seek to protect and nurture these relationships. If not marriage for us, then what?

Ultimately, the problem with the “always and everywhere” argument is that each new same-sex marriage is a living counterexample to it. Whatever happened in the past, we have marriage equality now—in a small but growing number of places. These same-sex marriages are by and large bearing good fruit. If ignoring tradition is “arrogant and foolish,” ignoring the evidence unfolding before us is exponentially so.

Lutherans Accept Gays

info@indegayforum.org (Paul Varnell) — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Paul Varnell
First published in the Chicago Free Press on August 27, 2009.

On August 21, the national assembly of the 4.6 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted to allow the ordination of non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy. The resolution was passed by a 55 percent majority.

Earlier in the week the membrs had prepared for this vote by approving a measure that reduced the requirements for changing church policy from a two-thirds vote to a simple majority. Without that change, the resolution would have failed as before.

Gay-supportive Lutherans had long worked toward this end. For more than a decade and a half, the Lutheran Church has distributed materials on human sexuality and varieties of Bible interpretation, urging congregations to study the materials carefully. They were probably the first accurate discussion of sexuality and Bible interpretation that many church members had encountered and they clearly had at least some impact on members' attitudes.

We do, after all, know more about sexuality than people did two thousand years ago, and in the last two hundred years have learned a great deal about how to interpret the original significance of various biblical texts.

The assembly memberx also approved a social statement that called on Lutheran congregations to "welcome, care for, and support" gay and lesbian couples. That in itself is a strong indication of church attitudes, especially by its inclusion of the word "support."

The new church policy does not apply to all gay clergy, only those in "lifelong, monogamous relationships." In practice this will mean it will prohibit all publicly noticeable sexual behavior outside of the relationship, although there may be a certain amount of winking at occasional straying so long as it does not become open and notorious.

The Lutherans thus follow the lead of other Protestant churches such as the Unitarians, the United Church of Christ, and the Episcopal Church in allowing gay clergy. But the Lutherans differ from those other denominations in that they are generally regarded as less liberal than the others, and therefore the policy change has broad significance.

It is also important to note that Lutherans are strongest in the Midwest, the "heartland of America," whereas the Unitarians and United Church of Christ (once the Congregational Church) are particularly strong in New England—where most states have recently approved gay civil marriage. Is it significant that the Iowa Supreme Court recently voted unanimously to approve gay marriage? Probably.

Despite the fact that dissenting congregations are free not to accept openly gay clergy, there were vigorous dissents from conservatives. One man told The New York Times the new policy made him sick at his stomach, suggesting an almost phobic reaction to homosexuality itself rather than a mere religious difference. And one female pastor criticized the statement as contrary to the "Word of God," which seems ironic given that the Apostle Paul in "the same Word of God" said that women should be silent in church. Obviously there is some picking and choosing by Bible literalists of which verses one wishes to honor—as there always is.

As in the Episcopal Church, some Lutherans may choose to leave the ELCA, either to affiliate with the more conservative 2.6 million-member Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod or to join some other conservative denomination. Their departure will make the existing ELCA even more gay-friendly.

The policy shift also makes the ELCA more attractive to gays and lesbians (and their supporters), so some people may join or rejoin the church, making up some of the loss from the departure of any conservatives.

The ELCA shift leaves the United Methodists and Presbyterians USA as the major moderate denominations that do not afford gays and lesbians equality. As America slowly moves in a more gay-accepting direction and with continuing efforts by gays and their supporters in those churches, that will change in time.

Other People’s Judgments

info@indegayforum.org (John Corvino) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by John Corvino
First published in 365gay.com on Aug. 28, 2009

“You don’t just want us to tolerate what you gay people do,” my skeptical questioner announced, “you want us to think that it’s RIGHT.”

Whenever I hear this point—and it’s pretty often—I always think to myself, “Duh.” Of course I want that. Why would anyone think otherwise?

Actually, the latter question is not entirely rhetorical. Even my fellow gays ask me why we should care about other people’s moral approval. Beyond the obvious pragmatic advantages—for example, more moral approval means more favorable voting attitudes, means more legal rights, means an easier life—why should we give a damn what other people think? And while we’re on the subject, why should THEY care? Why are our lives any of their business?

There’s a myth circulating among well-meaning people that “morality is a private matter,” and that therefore “we shouldn’t judge other people.” This is nonsense of the highest order. Morality is about how we treat one another. It’s about fairness and justice. It’s about what we as a society are willing to tolerate, what we positively encourage, and what we absolutely forbid. It is the furthest thing from a private matter.

There’s a (wholly fictional) story I tell in my introductory ethics classes about a freshman who wrote a paper defending moral relativism. His paper was laden with references to what’s “true for you” versus what’s “true for me,” what’s “right for you” versus what’s “right for me” and so on. The professor gave the paper an F. Surprised and angry, the student went to the professor’s office demanding a justification.

“Well,” the professor carefully explained, “I graded your paper the way I grade all papers. I stood at the top of a staircase and threw a batch of papers down the stairs. Those that landed on the first few stairs got A’s…then B’s, C’s and so on. You wrote a long, heavy paper. It went to the bottom of the stairs. It got an F.”

“That’s not right!” the student blurted out.

“You mean, that’s not right…FOR YOU,” the professor responded, grinning.

The moral of the story (aside from, tenured professors do the darnedest things) is this: despite all of our talk of “right for you,” deep down we believe in public moral standards. We may disagree about what those are, and about what actions fall under their purview—but we still believe that right and wrong aren’t entirely relative.

One might object that grading affects other, non-consenting people, whereas relationships affect only the people involved. There are two problems with this objection. The main one is that the latter point is just false. Unless one endorses a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” secrecy, relationships have a public presence and thus public consequences. Gays aren’t waging the marriage battle just so we can all go back in the closet. Like most people, we want to stand up before family and friends, proclaim our love, have it celebrated for the beautiful thing that it is. (At least, that’s what many of us want.) We want to send the message to young gays and lesbians that there’s nothing wrong with them; that they, too, deserve to love and be loved, and that there’s nothing sinful or wrong about that. We want to be treated equally in the eyes of the law. All of these aims affect other people in various ways.

Second, the objection invites the response, “Says who?” Who decides that only actions affecting other people are appropriate targets of moral scrutiny? Who determines that that’s the right way to look at morality? And there’s no way to answer such questions without engaging in a bit of moralizing. Value judgments are inescapable that way. Those who claim that they’re not taking any moral stances about other people’s lives are, by that very claim, taking a moral stance about other people’s lives—a “tolerant’ one, though not necessarily a very admirable one. Sometimes, other people’s behavior is horrific, and we should say so.

“Saying so” is part of the confusion here. There’s a difference between MAKING moral judgments and OFFERING them, not to mention a difference between offering them respectfully and wagging your finger in people’s faces. The latter is not just self-righteous; it’s generally counterproductive. I suspect when people say that “we shouldn’t judge other people,” it’s really the latter, pompous kind of moralizing they’re concerned to avoid. But we shouldn’t confuse the rejection of bad moralizing with the rejection of moralizing altogether.

In short, we should care what other people think and do, because the moral fabric touches us all.

‘Safe’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Shut Up’

info@indegayforum.org (John Corvino) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by John Corvino
First published at 365gay.com on August 21, 2009

A friend writes, “I’m coordinating a safe-space training at [an urban public university]. One participant stated that she felt she was a strong ally, but her religious beliefs dictate that homosexuality is a sin. What should I do? Can I deny her a safe-space sticker, or ask her not to advise students on religious issues?”

This is a hard question.

It’s hard partly because of its legal implications. Georgia Tech, another state school, recently lost a lawsuit because its safe-space program distributed literature uniformly criticizing traditional interpretations of the Bible. Not surprisingly, a federal judge ruled that this practice violated the First Amendment by favoring particular religious viewpoints. (Georgia Tech has kept its safe-space program but dropped the religious literature.)

Legal matters aside, the question raises difficult policy issues. What counts as “safe”?

Safe-space programs generally involve a school-sponsored diversity training focusing on LGBT issues. Upon completing it, participants receive a sticker to display on their office doors announcing their “ally” status.

Given how often religion is used as a weapon, I can understand why many LGBT students would not feel “safe” while being judged as sinners. We should never underestimate the potential damage done by telling youth, at a delicate stage in identity formation, that acting on their deep longings could lead to eternal separation from God.

In contemplating my friend’s question, I mainly thought of those vulnerable students, and how best to protect them. I also thought of my friend John.

John is a faculty member at a small private liberal arts college. He is an evangelical Christian who believes that homosexual conduct conflicts with God’s plan as revealed in the bible. And yet John defies easy stereotypes. He supports civil marriage equality, decries the various ways religion is used to harm LGBT people, and avoids “heteronormative language” (his words) in his classroom.

While he believes that homosexual conduct (not to mention plenty of heterosexual and non-sexual conduct) is sinful, he also believes that all humans—himself included—have an imperfect grasp of God’s will, and that we should generally strive to respect other people’s life choices and give them wide latitude in forging their own paths. John and his wife have welcomed me in their home, and during grace before the meal, his wife asked for God’s blessing on me, my partner Mark, and our relationship. (For the record, I did not take the latter to imply approval for every aspect of our relationship.)

In light of all I know about John and his loving treatment of LGBT persons, I can think of few spaces “safer” than his office. Any program that would disqualify him draws the circle of “safe spaces” too narrowly.

Moreover, there are good strategic reasons for wanting to make the circle of self-proclaimed allies as inclusive as possible, consistent with the well-being of LGBT students. We need people like John to make their presence known.

Yet I am not suggesting that we draw the circle so broadly as to rob “safe space” of any real meaning. Any student in any campus office—stickered or not—should expect to be treated with respect and professionalism. Presumably, the safe-space sticker denotes venues that substantially exceed that bare minimum (as John’s office would).

So how does one draw the circle broadly enough to include John and other conservative religious allies while excluding those who might rant about gays burning in hell?

As with any policy question involving human beings, there’s no perfect formula here (just as there are no perfect people). To some extent, the desired group will be somewhat self-selecting. Those interested in condemning LGBT people to hell generally don’t attend voluntary pro-gay diversity trainings.

Yet there are also steps one can take to tailor the circle. My recommendation would be to include, among various other elements of a pledge taken by safe-space training participants, something along the following lines:

“I understand that my own values and beliefs may differ from those of students who seek me out for a ‘safe space,’ and will refer students to appropriate resources given their particular values, beliefs, interests and desires.”

The idea here is that students who wish to retreat to a “narrower” circle will be assisted in doing so. Note that religious people offer such assistance all the time. Think, for example, of the Christian who helpfully directs a student to the Buddhist Student Center, despite her personal conviction that eternal salvation is through Christ alone.

On this approach, students who want pro-gay religious literature can receive it and evaluate it for themselves. At the same time, those who want the advice of fellow conservative evangelicals, for example, or fellow Orthodox Jews, can receive it and evaluate it for themselves.

Admittedly, my recommendation would allow conservative religious students to request and receive—in a designated “safe space”—literature of a sort that’s often deeply damaging to LGBT people. But the approach is preferable to the alternatives: a public university’s (illegally) favoring particular religious viewpoints, on the one hand, or its becoming silent on religious issues—the Georgia Tech solution—on the other.

Universities are places for free exchange of ideas. As long as that’s done in a compassionate manner that respects student autonomy, it should never be considered “unsafe.”

2012, Not 2010

info@indegayforum.org (Richard J. Rosendall) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Richard J. Rosendall
First published in Bay Windows, August 20, 2009

Equality California (EQCA) is not sitting back and waiting in the struggle to regain marriage equality in the Golden State. They are "ready and committed to fighting, persuading and working tirelessly - doing whatever it takes to win the right back as quickly as possible." The question for them, in a smart analysis and plan released last week, is when a return to the ballot will give the best chance for victory. Their conclusion: 2012, not 2010.

EQCA offers many reasons why a rematch in 2010 is problematic. Recent years have seen a stall in the movement by California voters toward marriage equality. Experienced political consultants strongly feel "that neither the data nor their intuition supports moving forward with an initiative to win marriage back in 2010." Among those who gave $50,000 or more for last year’s fight, EQCA found that most top donors will sit out a 2010 campaign, or, if a measure reaches the ballot, "will participate at a much reduced level of funding."

The leading coalition partners in communities of color consider 15 months insufficient to build the cultural competency and trust required to change minds in those communities. LGBT family groups, noting the increased harassment faced by their school-age children in a heated campaign, argue that the costs of returning to the ballot would outweigh the benefits without a high confidence in victory.

$2 to 3 million would be needed just for a professional signature-gathering effort to gain ballot access. Experienced hands estimate that an affirmative campaign would cost between $30 million and $50 million — a tall order so soon after last year’s loss — and the voter and funder fatigue from back-to-back losses would push the next try back at least four years. EQCA also points out the hardships being faced by social service organizations due to the economic downturn, and questions the ethics of spending tens of millions on a 2010 campaign that would be dicey at best.

EQCA has found that for most voters, marriage is more a cultural than a political issue, and changing minds is a lot easier outside the heat of a campaign. Pushing the deadline back to 2012 will give the best chance for California’s 18,000 same-sex married couples to crystallize what is at stake, to connect with voters as only friends and family can, and to refute the wealth of misinformation.

The pro-equality numbers look 4 percent better in 2012 when you consider the higher turnout of young voters in a presidential election year, the young people who will join the voter rolls in the next 38 months, and the older people who will leave the voter rolls in the same period. That’s without considering the effect of any efforts at persuasion.

EQCA lists many puzzle pieces that must be assembled for success: "field, messaging and media, coalition and leadership outreach, activating our base, work in people of color communities, activating the faith community, supporting the grassroots, campus organizing, voter registration and coordination across the state." Canvassers must be trained to listen as much as to convey the campaign message. EQCA is setting up a speaker’s bureau and training speakers, and is working with other groups doing field work to coordinate scripts, voter targeting, and message testing. An innovative online campaign is needed for areas in the state without a field staff presence, since field offices are located where support for Prop 8 was strongest.

An additional 24 months will give equality advocates more time to plan, organize, fundraise, build the grassroots, integrate allied efforts, recruit new allies, and improve outreach to the people of color who comprise a majority of California’s population.

Those who insist on returning to the ballot in 2010 should explain how EQCA’s analysis is wrong, rather than merely serenade us with stirring rhetoric. Strategy is not a dirty word, and enthusiasm is not enough.

None of us with a stake in this fight wants to wait. Every day that I am separated from my own foreign partner is painful. Unfortunately, wanting is not having. There is a great deal of work remaining to overturn Prop. 8, not to mention the ballot fight looming this November in Maine, where our opponents hold a fundraising edge. Let us do the preparation needed to win a lasting victory in California, and not let our hearts rule our heads.

2010 or 2012: A False Choice

info@indegayforum.org (Paul Varnell) — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by Paul Varnell
First published in the Chicago Free Press on August 20, 2009

Most states have their own struggles for gay marriage, whether in the long term like Illinois or near term like Maine, where a referendum is coming up almost immediately. But it is California that seems to have seized an outsized portion of the attention.

For one thing, California is by far the largest state. For another both the legislature and the state Supreme Court have voted in favor of gay marriage. But last year voters rejected gay marriage by a vote of 52 to 48 percent.

Now the question roiling California activists is whether to return to the voters to try to have the ban reversed in 2010 or in 2012. Equality California, the group that managed the 2008 effort to preserve gay marriage argues for 2012. But an apparently large group of "grass-roots and net-roots" activists calling themselves the Courage Campaign are pushing for a revote right away—in 2010.

It is difficult to take Equality California very seriously these days. They ran an exclusionary, top-down campaign, hired high-paid consultants, made several strategic misjudgments, spent $40 million dollars—and lost. Not an impressive showing. So why should we believe them now?

On the other hand, what is the Courage Campaign offering? Enthusiasm, to be sure, and a good portion of righteous indignation. But not much else. Consider what they don't offer.

Money. Will the well-off donors who made large contributions to the 2008 struggle want to repeat the process just two years later? Are they not likely to be suffering from "donor fatigue"? Rick Jacobs, Courage Campaign founder, bragged to The New York Times that they had raised $75,000 in just one day.

Fine. Do that for 460 days and you have the amount of money that Equality California spent to lose. If donors can say to Equality California, "No more money for losers," they could say to the Courage Campaign, "No money for people with no track record at all."

A Strategic Plan. If the strategy of Equality California was flawed, where is an alternative strategy by the Courage Campaign? Where is their plan to persuade cultural conservatives, religious voters and ethnic minorities to support gay marriage, to clear up the (alleged) doubts and uncertainties many mddle-of-the-road voters felt about gay marriage, to somehow lure more pro-gay voters to the polls?

Polling Data. The advocates for a 2010 vote have no polling data to suggest that the outcome would be any different from 2008. They should want polling data showing substantial gains in public support for gay marriage among likely voters before they advocate another referendum. Given the tendency of some people to lie to pollsters and purport to have a more gay-supportive or laissez-faire attitude toward gay marriage than they actually do, advocates should want to see polling data showing at least 56 or 57 percent support.

The conclusion forces itself forward that neither 2010 nor 2012 is a really good bet. What California gay marriage advocates should give us is a number—a level of support for gay marriage that would let us know that a referendum finally has an excellent chance of passage. Up to now, support for gay marriage has been growing at a rate of roughly one-half to one percent a year.

In the meantime, to hasten that result, they could work in various ways on changing people's minds about gay marriage. But no one has shown us any plans to do that. Until either side offers that, it is hard to take them seriously.

Crashing the (Grand Old) Party

info@indegayforum.org (James Kirchick) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 00:00:00 EDT

by James Kirchick
First published in The Advocate, September 2009

The scene at the White House East Room on June 29 was incongruous, if predictable. Nearly 200 gay leaders were assembled to hear the soothing words of the president, who has yet to do anything significant regarding the causes for which they lobby. But that didn’t stop the activists from fawning over Barack Obama; the Washington Blade reported that cries of “I love you!” could be heard from the crowd. Such embarrassing expressions of infatuation were not owing to the open bar.

In the four decades that it has been politically active, the gay community has stood foursquare behind the Democratic Party. Gay identification with liberalism in general and the Democrats in particular is so strong that many conflate the success of the party with that of the movement. Gays overwhelmingly vote for Democratic candidates and pour millions of dollars into Democratic coffers. Homosexuality and political liberalism are inextricably intertwined in the popular consciousness. Even when Democrats support antigay measures — like the odious Defense of Marriage Act and “don’t ask, don’t tell,” for which we have Bill Clinton to thank — gays rally to the party with votes and cash.

More telling than this ostensibly “pro-gay” president’s dilatory strategy on moving legislation, however, is the mix of indignation and bewilderment on the part of so many gay activists. Given their unconditional support for Democrats, how can gays credibly claim to be surprised that Democratic politicians take us for granted? Why move pro-gay legislation forward when there are no consequences for doing nothing? The relationship between gays and Democrats is like battered wife syndrome. We keep coming back for more abuse.

“The facade of the gay movement has always been that Republicans are the bad guys,” says Rich Tafel, the former executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans. “Now that [Republicans] are completely powerless, the illusion that the Democrats are everything is being torn down.” That’s a wise perception as far as the cowardice and double-talk of the Democrats goes. But is there any hope for gays on the other side of the aisle?

In an ideal world the GOP would be a more hospitable place for the gay electorate. Battered in the 2008 congressional election and having waved goodbye to one of the most unpopular presidents in the history of polling, the Republican Party is now in the early stages of a long and vicious rebuilding phase. One would hope that as they examine the factors that have contributed to their downfall, Republicans will recognize that their positions on issues affecting gay Americans have played some part.

Unfortunately, with the internal disarray of the Log Cabin Republicans, the party is lacking the institutional apparatus to support pro-gay figures from within. Many gay Republicans understandably gave up on their party long ago; President Bush’s support for the Federal Marriage Amendment was the last nail in the coffin for this beleaguered crew. The creation of the Log Cabin splinter group GOProud earlier this year should not be taken as a resurgence of gay support for Republicans, as it had more to do with personality differences between the leaders of both organizations than a newfound burst of conservatism among gays.

If Republican leaders were smart (which, to be sure, they show few signs of being), one of the first steps they could take to persuade younger voters of their electoral worthiness would be to drop active opposition to gay rights. If they can’t be persuaded to do this on substantive grounds, then the polling numbers ought to convince them that their platform will soon prove to be a huge electoral liability.

That’s because the political utility of gay bashing is past its peak. With each passing day more and more Americans see the sense of allowing same-sex couples to gain legal recognition for their relationships and patriotic gay Americans to serve openly in the nation’s armed forces. Younger voters overwhelmingly support gay rights, and the more the party solidifies its reputation as a bulwark against this major societal shift, the greater will be the lasting damage to its reputation, much like Richard Nixon’s southern strategy doomed the Republican Party — once the political home of African-Americans — with black voters. Adopting a more tolerant stance is also in the best traditions of a party that purports to stand for individual liberty, limited government, and the fundamental right of Americans to live their lives as they see fit — all tenets of the gay rights movement.

The more perceptive Republicans realize this. Take Meghan McCain, daughter of Sen. John McCain. In a matter of months she’s written, talked, and tweeted her way into becoming the most outspoken Republican advocate for gay rights, doing everything from a photo shoot on behalf of the No H8 campaign to raising money for the Trevor Project anti-suicide hotline to acting as the keynote speaker at this year’s Log Cabin Republicans convention. Gays should welcome whatever support they can find within the ranks of the GOP, but at the end of the day McCain is the daughter of a failed presidential candidate who was never particularly popular among Republicans in the first place. She’s not a potential party leader.

As for an actual elected official who could lead the party out of the antigay wilderness, such hopes rested largely on the shoulders of former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, a Mormon who, in contrast to the leaders of his church, supports civil unions for gay couples. Earlier this year, however, in a brilliant political move that neutralized a rising star and potential rival, President Obama appointed Huntsman as his ambassador to China. And so the gays’ loss is the country’s gain.

In June former vice president Dick Cheney reiterated, however vaguely, his support for gay marriage, stating, “I think people ought to be free to enter into any kind of union they wish.” This was not exactly news; Cheney, after all, has a gay daughter, and he registered his opposition to the FMA in the 2004 presidential campaign. And it’s slightly disingenuous for gay conservatives like those in GOProud to trumpet Cheney’s halfhearted endorsement of gay marriage as proof that he’s better on the issue than Obama. Cheney did nothing to press the cause of gay rights when he was in the White House. Now that he’s liberated to speak his mind on a whole host of topics — something he’s shown no hesitation in doing — he can only be bothered to talk about gay rights when pressed by reporters. If Cheney can launch a campaign attacking the Obama administration’s antiterrorism policies, why can’t he find time to rebut the antigay figures on the right wing of his own party who wish to treat his daughter as a second-class citizen? Surely, as a former secretary of Defense, Cheney has insights into the utility of “don’t ask, don’t tell”?

The apparent self-inflicted immolation of Sarah Palin’s political career cannot be viewed as anything but a boon for gay rights. Though she has a scant record on the issues, as the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate, Palin opposed the man at the top of the ticket with her support for the Federal Marriage Amendment. And her careerist attempt to position herself as the standard-bearer of the party’s socially conservative wing suggests that she would effortlessly embrace its antigay politics were she to run for national office. But even with Palin out of the picture (for now), there’s little reason to be hopeful about the 2012 GOP field. Front-runner Mitt Romney cemented his reputation as a flip-flopper largely due to his cynical positioning as a “pro-family” candidate during the 2008 Republican presidential primaries, trumpeting his opposition to gay marriage during his years as Massachusetts governor to win over evangelicals wary of his Mormonism. Mike Huckabee, another 2012 contender, campaigned on explicitly conservative Christian themes, while Newt Gingrich railed about “gay and secular fascism” in the wake of Proposition 8.

So is a gay-friendly GOP too much to hope for? Probably, at least in the near future. But just because the Republican Party shows little sign of moderating does not mean that Democrats should get a free ride, and the decision by some major gay activists and donors to boycott a June DNC fund-raiser is a welcome development. Obama has delivered major speeches on divisive topics like race and abortion, speeches that, unlike so much political pabulum these days, made Americans think. Why can’t he deliver a White House address tearing down the last acceptable social prejudice? His unique station as the nation’s first African-American president provides him with a historic opportunity to do just that.

Divining what the president might say were he inclined to deliver such a game-changing speech is not difficult; a recent proclamation he issued celebrating June as LGBT Pride Month contained a few hints. “As long as the promise of equality for all remains unfulfilled,” Obama declared, “all Americans are affected.” By framing the lack of equality for gays as an issue that affects all citizens — and not just those directly affected by discriminatory laws — the president went further than any of his predecessors in emphasizing the fundamental injustice of the status quo, and he intimated that his sweeping promise of “change” will also benefit gay people. As a candidate, Obama complained about those who criticized his campaign as offering “just words.” But words are all he’s offered thus far, leading us to the conclusion that the conflation of the Democratic Party’s interests and those of the gay rights movement is a status quo equally in need of change.