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T A B L E+T A L K
Is patriotism dead? Discuss the cynical state of the Union in the Politics area of Table Talk

R E C E N T L Y
Newtron Bomb
By Bruce Shapiro
Will Gingrich's self-purge save the Republican party?
(11/06/98)
Newt to U.S.: You won't have me to kick around any more
Jerry Brown, Christopher Hitchens, Maxine Waters, Dan Schnur, David Horowitz and Mark Hertsgaard react to Newt Gingrich's stunning announcement that he will not stand for reelection as Speaker
(11/06/98)
Body slam
By Micah L. Sifry
Jesse Ventura turned out turned-off voters on Election Day, and upended the nation's political elite
(11/06/98)
Money talks, but voters talk back
By Ellen Miller
Reformers prevail in billion-dollar congressional election
(11/06/98)
Gone with the windbags
By Gary Kamiya
The election took some of the steam out of the Washington Punditocracy's hot air balloon
(11/05/98)
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Gay symbol GAY RIGHTS GROUPS SHOULD RETHINK THEIR DRIVE FOR AFFIRMATION AT THE BALLOT BOX AFTER TUESDAY'S DRUBBING.

BY REBECCA BRYANT | On election eve in Fayetteville, Ark., nearly 50 people gathered at the Campaign for Human Dignity headquarters. "How many think we're going to win tomorrow?" asked Campaign Manager Anne Shelley. Arms surged in buoyant optimism.
A day later, at the election watch party, the mood had plummeted. Final results tallied 7,800 votes against a resolution that would have extended the city's equal employment policy to homosexuals. Only 5,700 voted for the resolution, while progressive city council candidates who had backed the measure collected 9,300 votes.
What happened in Fayetteville mirrored a national trend. Democrats and swing moderates put their foot in the door of the Republicans' party, but gay civil rights ballot measures fared miserably. In Fort Collins, Colo., where Matthew Shepard died in a hospital after a vicious beating in Wyoming, voters trounced a measure that would have prohibited discrimination against gays in housing, employment and public accommodations. Statewide efforts to restrict gay marriages won by landslides in Alaska and in Hawaii. The single gain was South Portland, Maine, where citizens passed a broad nondiscrimination ordinance. While many commentators are calling election results a rebuke to moralizers, the rap on the knuckles of gay rights activists was equally severe.
Why did Fayetteville's resolution go down? We could point a finger at our opponents' reckless and hateful rhetoric about "special privileges" and the "homosexual agenda." Or we can take a moment and think about the broader meaning of the election results. I joined the Fayetteville campaign reluctantly, knowing the vulnerability and pain I would feel on election night if, after serving up part of my identity for outside affirmation, we lost. But even before the numbers came in, I'd been watching the toll our opponents' rhetoric was taking on volunteers. I'd begun to wonder: Is affirmation by ballot box an effective keystone strategy for the gay rights movement?
Initially I attributed our uphill battle in Fayetteville to the other side's ignorance. But after three months of campaigning -- morbidly punctuated by Shepard's death, mourned by most of the country but gloried in by the Dickensian Rev. Fred Phelps and his supporters -- I realized I had no idea where the ultra right was coming from. I thought about a speech made by Arkansas campaign consultant Betsey Wright -- President Clinton's former campaign whiz -- about the drive in politics today to draw a line and simply declare those on the other side evil. Was I doing that? Maybe I was the ignorant one. If so, my ignorance -- my simplistic view of the good vs. the bad, the enlightened vs. the unenlightened -- appears to be reflected throughout the gay rights vanguard of the civil rights movement.
The writing of conservative gay authors has helped me understand where the ultra right is coming from. Andrew Sullivan, in his provocative New York Times Magazine essay "Going Down Screaming," describes the ultra right as a new blend of conservatism and Puritanism, motivated by a fear of a post-1960s liberalism that no longer exists. The nation has reformed welfare, reduced teen pregnancy and promiscuity; even divorce rates are down. Gays are asking for the right to be married, Sullivan observes, not threatening the institution. But the right wing, thrilling to persecution and ideological battle, continues to see liberalism everywhere, like the Japanese soldiers who didn't know World War II was over, who needed the war as an affirmation of their identity. So abortion and homosexuality become obsessions, symptoms of the country's moral decline.
Peter Gomes, Harvard minister and author of the bestseller "The Good Book," detailed the religious context behind the right's political positions. Since the first compilation of early writings that became the Bible, some have used it as a map to regain a lost moral society. Others have used the Bible to reach toward an ideal society never attained. Today, says Gomes, we are engaged in a struggle to reform our national character "as complex, ambitious, and destabilizing as any of those reformations that traumatized sixteenth-century Germany and seventeenth-century England."
I'm no virgin to politics, but my focus has been environmental causes. Still, while my vision has been peripheral, outsiders sometimes see things that insiders don't. I remember the ACT-UP activists I watched from the door of the Clinton headquarters, then joined, marching through Manchester during the '92 New Hampshire primary, chanting: "Suck my dick! Lick my clit!" Our naughty adolescent behavior had a psychological label: oppositional defiance. Since then, I've watched the gay rights movement gain sophistication, but it still lacks reach; it lacks the generosity of spirit that results from understanding the other side. We need to understand the anxiety of those who see gay rights as another crusade to undermine family and community as they have known it.
Matthew Shepard's death generated public sympathy and moral capital for gay rights. It was a historic turning point, a pivot, but instead of compounding the moral advantage and using this as a platform for peace talks, gay and lesbian leaders shoved forward national hate crimes legislation, another victim-centered oppositional strategy. We're stuck in a reactive, enemy-centered mode, defending our rights, insisting on outside acceptance.
The election provides another opportunity to reset our bearings. But I see little evidence that's happening. The Human Rights Campaign, which had invested heavily in the Hawaii ballot measure, immediately announced its intent to muscle forward with "every ounce of energy, commitment and vigor." And when I asked Kerry Lobel, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, how she felt about election results, she mostly defended the movement's strategy. "We've built infrastructure where we never had it before, engaged people who were never engaged before. This is how the movement has grown -- by taking risks and fighting." Lobel's words echoed those of PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) regional coordinator Carolyn Wagner, who initiated Fayetteville's resolution. "We have such a statewide database now," said Wagner, "and we've educated a bunch of newspapers that two years ago wouldn't print a PFLAG ad."
I asked Lobel how she explained the political undertow that took down gay ballot measures even while progressives did well in Fayetteville and nationwide. Her answer: "We have a long way to go before we completely make our case to progressives that the fight around women's and other civil rights issues are connected to gay rights." I waited for some pause, a reflection on the message of the '98 election, an indication that what she calls GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered) leaders will be evaluating their keystone strategy of affirmation by local ballot box. Despite the significance of election losses and increasing resistance to legislated tolerance, Lobel appeared to be steering NGLTF full speed ahead.
What about reaching out to dialogue? I asked. "That's not in the leadership's interest," Lobel noted, then added with barely a skip, "the conservative leadership, I mean. They have no interest in seeing me as anything but a figure they can demonize in order to generate funds and consolidate their base. Our tactic is building coalitions. Theirs is stripping down to one idea and building a base. I have everything to gain and nothing to lose by reaching out. If tomorrow Gary Bauer [president of the Family Research Council] decided to have a conversation with me, he would lose his job."
N E X T+P A G E+| Election message: Everybody grow up

T A B L E+T A L K Is patriotism dead? Discuss the cynical state of the Union in the Politics area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y Newtron Bomb By Bruce Shapiro Will Gingrich's self-purge save the Republican party? (11/06/98) Newt to U.S.: You won't have me to kick around any more Jerry Brown, Christopher Hitchens, Maxine Waters, Dan Schnur, David Horowitz and Mark Hertsgaard react to Newt Gingrich's stunning announcement that he will not stand for reelection as Speaker (11/06/98) Body slam By Micah L. Sifry Jesse Ventura turned out turned-off voters on Election Day, and upended the nation's political elite (11/06/98) Money talks, but voters talk back By Ellen Miller Reformers prevail in billion-dollar congressional election (11/06/98) Gone with the windbags By Gary Kamiya The election took some of the steam out of the Washington Punditocracy's hot air balloon (11/05/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.
		Can we talk? ___________________ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - GAY RIGHTS GROUPS SHOULD RETHINK THEIR DRIVE FOR AFFIRMATION AT THE BALLOT BOX AFTER TUESDAY'S DRUBBING. BY REBECCA BRYANT \| On election eve in Fayetteville, Ark., nearly 50 people gathered at the Campaign for Human Dignity headquarters. "How many think we're going to win tomorrow?" asked Campaign Manager Anne Shelley. Arms surged in buoyant optimism. A day later, at the election watch party, the mood had plummeted. Final results tallied 7,800 votes against a resolution that would have extended the city's equal employment policy to homosexuals. Only 5,700 voted for the resolution, while progressive city council candidates who had backed the measure collected 9,300 votes. What happened in Fayetteville mirrored a national trend. Democrats and swing moderates put their foot in the door of the Republicans' party, but gay civil rights ballot measures fared miserably. In Fort Collins, Colo., where Matthew Shepard died in a hospital after a vicious beating in Wyoming, voters trounced a measure that would have prohibited discrimination against gays in housing, employment and public accommodations. Statewide efforts to restrict gay marriages won by landslides in Alaska and in Hawaii. The single gain was South Portland, Maine, where citizens passed a broad nondiscrimination ordinance. While many commentators are calling election results a rebuke to moralizers, the rap on the knuckles of gay rights activists was equally severe. Why did Fayetteville's resolution go down? We could point a finger at our opponents' reckless and hateful rhetoric about "special privileges" and the "homosexual agenda." Or we can take a moment and think about the broader meaning of the election results. I joined the Fayetteville campaign reluctantly, knowing the vulnerability and pain I would feel on election night if, after serving up part of my identity for outside affirmation, we lost. But even before the numbers came in, I'd been watching the toll our opponents' rhetoric was taking on volunteers. I'd begun to wonder: Is affirmation by ballot box an effective keystone strategy for the gay rights movement? Initially I attributed our uphill battle in Fayetteville to the other side's ignorance. But after three months of campaigning -- morbidly punctuated by Shepard's death, mourned by most of the country but gloried in by the Dickensian Rev. Fred Phelps and his supporters -- I realized I had no idea where the ultra right was coming from. I thought about a speech made by Arkansas campaign consultant Betsey Wright -- President Clinton's former campaign whiz -- about the drive in politics today to draw a line and simply declare those on the other side evil. Was I doing that? Maybe I was the ignorant one. If so, my ignorance -- my simplistic view of the good vs. the bad, the enlightened vs. the unenlightened -- appears to be reflected throughout the gay rights vanguard of the civil rights movement. The writing of conservative gay authors has helped me understand where the ultra right is coming from. Andrew Sullivan, in his provocative New York Times Magazine essay "Going Down Screaming," describes the ultra right as a new blend of conservatism and Puritanism, motivated by a fear of a post-1960s liberalism that no longer exists. The nation has reformed welfare, reduced teen pregnancy and promiscuity; even divorce rates are down. Gays are asking for the right to be married, Sullivan observes, not threatening the institution. But the right wing, thrilling to persecution and ideological battle, continues to see liberalism everywhere, like the Japanese soldiers who didn't know World War II was over, who needed the war as an affirmation of their identity. So abortion and homosexuality become obsessions, symptoms of the country's moral decline. Peter Gomes, Harvard minister and author of the bestseller "The Good Book," detailed the religious context behind the right's political positions. Since the first compilation of early writings that became the Bible, some have used it as a map to regain a lost moral society. Others have used the Bible to reach toward an ideal society never attained. Today, says Gomes, we are engaged in a struggle to reform our national character "as complex, ambitious, and destabilizing as any of those reformations that traumatized sixteenth-century Germany and seventeenth-century England." I'm no virgin to politics, but my focus has been environmental causes. Still, while my vision has been peripheral, outsiders sometimes see things that insiders don't. I remember the ACT-UP activists I watched from the door of the Clinton headquarters, then joined, marching through Manchester during the '92 New Hampshire primary, chanting: "Suck my dick! Lick my clit!" Our naughty adolescent behavior had a psychological label: oppositional defiance. Since then, I've watched the gay rights movement gain sophistication, but it still lacks reach; it lacks the generosity of spirit that results from understanding the other side. We need to understand the anxiety of those who see gay rights as another crusade to undermine family and community as they have known it. Matthew Shepard's death generated public sympathy and moral capital for gay rights. It was a historic turning point, a pivot, but instead of compounding the moral advantage and using this as a platform for peace talks, gay and lesbian leaders shoved forward national hate crimes legislation, another victim-centered oppositional strategy. We're stuck in a reactive, enemy-centered mode, defending our rights, insisting on outside acceptance. The election provides another opportunity to reset our bearings. But I see little evidence that's happening. The Human Rights Campaign, which had invested heavily in the Hawaii ballot measure, immediately announced its intent to muscle forward with "every ounce of energy, commitment and vigor." And when I asked Kerry Lobel, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, how she felt about election results, she mostly defended the movement's strategy. "We've built infrastructure where we never had it before, engaged people who were never engaged before. This is how the movement has grown -- by taking risks and fighting." Lobel's words echoed those of PFLAG (Parents, Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) regional coordinator Carolyn Wagner, who initiated Fayetteville's resolution. "We have such a statewide database now," said Wagner, "and we've educated a bunch of newspapers that two years ago wouldn't print a PFLAG ad." I asked Lobel how she explained the political undertow that took down gay ballot measures even while progressives did well in Fayetteville and nationwide. Her answer: "We have a long way to go before we completely make our case to progressives that the fight around women's and other civil rights issues are connected to gay rights." I waited for some pause, a reflection on the message of the '98 election, an indication that what she calls GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered) leaders will be evaluating their keystone strategy of affirmation by local ballot box. Despite the significance of election losses and increasing resistance to legislated tolerance, Lobel appeared to be steering NGLTF full speed ahead. What about reaching out to dialogue? I asked. "That's not in the leadership's interest," Lobel noted, then added with barely a skip, "the conservative leadership, I mean. They have no interest in seeing me as anything but a figure they can demonize in order to generate funds and consolidate their base. Our tactic is building coalitions. Theirs is stripping down to one idea and building a base. I have everything to gain and nothing to lose by reaching out. If tomorrow Gary Bauer [president of the Family Research Council] decided to have a conversation with me, he would lose his job." N E X T+P A G E+\| Election message: Everybody grow up