Salon.com > Gay Rights

Don’t ask, don’t tell 2.0

Thu, 17 May 2012 15:50:00 +0000

People who thought the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” was the final word on discrimination against gay and lesbian soldiers were mistaken. As the House of Representatives debates the National Defense Authorization Act this week, Republicans will push for two amendments to permit the military to discriminate against gay and lesbian service members, using “religious freedom” as a cover.

One amendment, offered by Mississippi Republican Steven Palazzo, would prohibit the use of military property to “officiate, solemnize, or perform a marriage or marriage-like ceremony, involving anything other than the union of one man with one woman,” even on bases in states in which same-sex marriage is legal. Rep. Todd Akin’s, R-Mo., amendment would require the military to “accommodate the conscience and sincerely held moral principles and religious beliefs of the members of the Armed Forces concerning the appropriate and inappropriate expression of human sexuality” and would prohibit “adverse personnel actions” against them.

Can you identify?

Thu, 17 May 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The news of recent research documenting how readers identify with the main characters in stories has mostly been taken as confirmation of the value of literary role models. Lisa Libby, an assistant professor at Ohio State University and co-author of a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, explained that subjects who read a short story in which the protagonist overcomes obstacles in order to vote were more likely to vote themselves several days later.

The suggestibility of readers isn't news. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's novel of a sensitive young man destroyed by unrequited love, "The Sorrows of Young Werther," inspired a rash of suicides by would-be Werthers in the late 1700s. Jack Kerouac has launched a thousand road trips. Still, this is part of science's job: Running empirical tests on common knowledge -- if for no other reason than because common knowledge (and common sense) is often wrong.

Why do conservatives hate freedom?

Tue, 15 May 2012 16:15:00 +0000

Why do conservatives hate freedom? The question may be startling. After all, don’t conservatives claim they are protecting liberty in America against liberal statism, which they compare to communism or fascism? But the conservative idea of “freedom” is a very peculiar one, which excludes virtually every kind of liberty that ordinary Americans take for granted.

I distinguish conservatives from libertarians, who, on issues of personal liberty, tend to side with liberals. Since World War II, mainstream conservatives have opposed every expansion of personal liberty in the United States.

During the civil rights era, the leading conservative politician, Barry Goldwater, and the leading conservative intellectual, William F. Buckley Jr., along with most of their followers opposed federal laws banning racial discrimination. To their credit, they later admitted they had been mistaken; indeed, both Buckley and Goldwater supported gay rights late in their careers. But at the time that conservative support for a color-blind society might have made a difference, the leaders of American conservatism sided with the Southern segregationists. They claimed they did so, not because of racial prejudice, but because they feared federal tyranny — a weaselly stance that, in practice, made them side with white supremacist tyranny at the state level. If they had truly believed in their own propaganda about federalism, conservatives could have opposed federal civil rights legislation while campaigning for civil rights laws at the state level. They didn’t.

Our real first gay president

Mon, 14 May 2012 18:09:00 +0000

The new issue of Newsweek features a cover photo of President Obama topped by a rainbow-colored halo and captioned "The First Gay President." The halo and caption strike me as cheap sensationalism. I realize airport travelers look at a magazine for 2.2 seconds before moving on to the next one. I grant that this cover will probably get Newsweek a 4.4 second glance. I also understand that Newsweek is desperate for sales. Nevertheless, I doubt that the Newsweek of old, before it was sold for a dollar, would have pandered as shallowly.

The caption is a superficial way to characterize an important development of thought that the president -- along with the country -- has been making over recent years. It is also entirely wrong. Like the mini-furor a couple of months back about the claim that Richard Nixon was our first gay president, the story simply ignores that the U.S. already had a gay president more than a century ago.

There can be no doubt that James Buchanan was gay, before, during and after his four years in the White House. Moreover, the nation knew it, too -- he was not far into the closet.

Lowlifes deserve justice too

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:41:00 +0000

Law professor Dale Carpenter’s new book about the Supreme Court 2003 sodomy case, “Flagrant Conduct,” has been causing a stir with its claim that the plaintiffs who legalized same-sex sex for everyone weren’t actually having sex at all when they were arrested. Worse, rather than the camera-ready litigants people are used to in civil rights cases like the saintly Mildred and Richard Loving in the interracial marriage case, John Lawrence, and his one-night stand (or not) Tyron Garner, were lowlifes. They were caught drinking beer in a room with vulgar pornography on the walls when a jealous lover called the police. Lawrence and Garner were hardly the model of a devoted couple seeking protection from the jack-booted thugs of the overreaching state. “Philadelphia” this was not.

These revelations are hardly news. At least six years ago, Garner’s New York Times obituary included a clear description of the two individuals (and the jealous lover) involved, including the winsome tidbit that the lover had been beaten to death in 2000, and that Garner had been arrested for assault at least twice.

Weekly Standard sends out bigoted anti-gay email

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 18:30:00 +0000

(UPDATED BELOW)

Today, subscribers to the Weekly Standard's email list received a message with the subject line, "Congress to mandate pro-homosexual education?"

It was a sponsored fundraising message from anti-gay activist Eugene Delgaudio focusing on the Student Non-Discrimination Act, which would bar discrimination against LGBT students in public schools. (The email rechristened the legislation the "Homosexual Classrooms Act.")

But whatever one's position on the legislation, the message is remarkable for its fierce anti-gay rhetoric, dripping with disdain and disgust for "homosexuals." A taste (emphasis added):

Better named the "Homosexual Classrooms Act," its chief advocate in Congress is Rep. Jared Polis, himself an open homosexual and radical activist. ...

Require schools to teach appalling homosexual acts so "homosexual students" don’t feel "singled out" during already explicit sex-ed classes; ...

In fact, it will set them up to ram through their entire perverted vision for a homosexual America. ...

Sexual deviants being held up as models of virtue? If that makes you as sick as it makes me, you simply must join me in this battle for America’s children.

Ask, tell: What gay rights wins can teach pro-choice movement

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:00:00 +0000

It's happened to Newt Gingrich, and he responded calmly. Michele Bachmann gets it again and again. Mitt Romney learned the hard way in a New Hampshire diner.

It seems that everywhere the Republican hopefuls go, they're confronted by supporters of gay rights, who may or may not themselves be gay. And every time it happens, their equivocations or evasions or sputtering give birth to another viral moment, primed for Facebook sharing and coalescing around the view that the Republicans are hopelessly out of touch on an issue of growing consensus. That narrative gets reinforced even without the candidates' help -- just last week, there was the instantly iconic image of a sailor, first off the ship, passionately kissing her partner, and the enduring popularity of Zach Wahls' earnest speech about his mothers before the Iowa Legislature.

Religious leaders battle African homophobia

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:00:00 +0000

When Secretary of State Hilary Clinton made a historic speech in Geneva on Dec. 8 calling for recognition of gay rights and support for those who brave hostility to defend gay rights, she might have been speaking of the Rev. MacDonald Semberka who was in the audience listening.

On the evening of Sept. 11, 2011, Sembereka, a Malawian Episcopalian, found his house reduced to unrecognizable rubble by a petrol bomb. A month later, he borrowed money for airfare so he could attend a conference at Union Theological Seminary, a Manhattan institution with a long history of social activism. He arrived wearing a clerical collar and a smile that belied the horror of seeing his home and nearly everything his family owned destroyed. At the two-day conference in New York, he would meet and strategize with other Christian leaders in the fight against Africa’s perilous and increasingly prevalent brand of homophobia.