This one was particularly entertaining, from Sharon Kass, whose bigotry has blinded her to the point where she's joined in on a vicious conservative attack on a 7-year-old who wants to join the Girl Scouts. 

Dear Ms. Marcotte:

No one is born "gay" or "transgender."

These conditions arise as a result of faulty bonding and identification with the same-sex parent, starting in early life. They indicate deep-seated gender self-alienation (TG's cross-identify with an opposite-sex figure), and are preventable and treatable.

The writings of well-known figures like Chastity Bono, James Morris, and Richard Raskind confirm this pattern.

Psychiatrist Richard Fitzgibbons's articles "Gender Identity Disorder in Children" and "The Desire for a Sex Change" are instructive.

The Left has been lying to the public for decades, with false science and false argument. "Gays" are a manufactured "minority" used for political purposes.

The National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality has the real information (http://www.narth.com).

More and more Americans are learning the truth. GayScam, this fraud, will be ended. The laws will be adjusted accordingly.

--Sharon Kass Washington, D.C.

I responded:

Well, you weren't born an asshole, either, but I still think it's wrong to take your computer away.

And then, feeling like perhaps she doesn't have the mental acuity to get the joke, I followed up with:

I'll add that no one is born religious, either. That condition arises, often as in your case, because of a strong hatred in the heart that can't be rationalized by real world evidence. So fantasies of gods and demons arise, giving the religious person justifications for their ugliness and irrational hatred, in this case of queer people. These fantasies are preventable, and treatable.

Since you appear to have blanket refusal for giving anyone rights for conditions they weren't "born" with, to be consistent, you should work on banning the practice of religion. After all, the question of homosexuality or transgenderism being inherent at birth is still up in the air, but no one believes babies are born religious.

"Blame the mother" is an old, and thoroughly discredited theory. Quacks like to cling to it, often in all sorts of ways, for the same reason that anti-vaxxers talk vaguely about "toxins" in vaccines. The reason is that nearly anyone's experiences can be framed this way, if need be. If your mom showed you affection as a child---and mothers are known to do t hat---and you were clingy and needy---I have rarely seen a child that is not---then a manipulative bigot can use that as "evidence" that you overly identified with your parent. Perversely, if your mother was actually distant or unaffectionate, that also can be used, as you'll then be told that you were made clingier by lack of affection. Once you've determined that being queer is a "disease" with its roots in childhood, you're able to exploit anything from even the most idyllic childhood and claim that as the cause. 

Ironically, Kass is not only wrong that "more and more" Americans are turning against gay people, but she has it completely backwards. As the real-world evidence piles in that being gay or transgendered is not inherently damaging, and certainly is not experienced as  "choice" any more than being straight is, more and more Americans are coming around to support gay and transgender rights. This includes the American Psychological Association, which says: 

There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles; most people experience little or no sense of choice about their sexual orientation.

They also take this position on transgendered people:

Many transgender people do not experience their gender as distressing or disabling, which implies that identifying as transgender does not constitute a mental disorder. For these individuals, the significant problem is finding affordable resources, such as counseling, hormone therapy, medical procedures, and the social support necessary to freely express their gender identity and minimize discrimination. Many other obstacles may lead to distress, including a lack of acceptance within society, direct or indirect experiences with discrimination, or assault. These experiences may lead many transgender people to suffer with anxiety, depression, or related disorders at higher rates than nontransgender persons.

In other words, what psychological distress stems from being transgendered is not inherent to the state, but a result of bigotry. Anyone who claims to be concerned about the mental health of gay and transgendered people should respond, then, with acceptance. Like I said in the comments at the Girl Scouts post, I hear a lot of complaints from bigots about how they don't like accepting people, but so far, I have not heard one give a substantive example of genuine damage to themselves that could occur by just accepting people for who they are. 

Sharp readers will notice that I didn't engage in the debate over whether or not people are "born this way". Empowering Lady Gaga lyrics aside, the reason is twofold. One, the evidence is sketchy for any claims about where queerness "comes" from, and in fact, many of us think that's because we're asking the wrong question. Asking where queerness "comes" from implies that cisgendered and straight is a baseline, and anything that differs from that is deviant and needs an explanation. I think of queerness like I do being left-handed: most people are right-handed, but some of us are left-handed. We don't think of left-handed people as deviant so much as we accept that in any population of people, there's going to be some diversity in orientation, as in personality.

The second reason is that it's beside the point. My sense is that sexual orientation and gender identity are probably a mish-mash of genetic, environmental, and experiential influences, but even if you could somehow prove that it's all experiential, so what? It doesn't change the needs of queer people to get proper medical care, social acceptance, and legal rights. I don't give a fuck about this "choice" argument. There is a small subset of the GLBT community that can legitimately be said to be making the "choice" to be at least perceived as gay: bisexual people who really could date either way but have chosen a same-sex partner. So what? I still don't think they should face employment discrimination, being kicked out of community organizations, or being forced not to marry the person they love. It's a completely moot argument, in the pragmatic sense. A lot of identities are partially social constructs, but we still recognize them as real and extend legal protections from discrimination. On the far end, you have religion, which is 100% a choice and completely a social construct, but religious people, in fact, enjoy many legal protections for their religion. On the other end of the spectrum, you have things like race and gender, which are socially constructed but often have easily recognizable physical markers that let people know "what" you are. Gayness is rightly perceived as closer to the race/gender side of the spectrum, since all available evidence shows that it's mostly experienced as not a choice. But it doesn't really matter to me; what matters is that it's on the spectrum, and therefore people who are gay or transgendered deserve to be protected.

I'm taking the rest of the day off---though I'll be on Twitter for the debates tonight---to honor MLK Day. Everyone should celebrate by getting some relaxing in. That said, I had to take the time to respond to someone who had the nerve to use this holiday to send off bigoted missives. 

Igor Volsky at Think Progress examines whether or not Rick Perry's comparison of homosexuality to alcoholism will hurt him in the campaign.  I think it probably will---that kind of overt bigotry is becoming less acceptable by the hour lately.  Igor agrees, to an extent, saying that bigotry like this makes you look bad and distracts from economic issues, pointing out that it hurt Ken Buck in his bid for Senate in Colorado.  He adds:

Republican presidential candidates from Michele Bachmann to Mitt Romney continue to make offensive and homophobic remarks in debates and on the campaign trail, despite the public’s growing acceptance of gay people. It’s unlikely that these positions will resonate with a constituency beyond the party’s social conservative base, since, as Paul Thornton notes in today’s Los Angeles Times, “the radical ideas espoused by Bachmann, Perry, Santorum and others are [already] held up not for genuine consideration but for scorn.” “Perry’s and Bachmann’s views aren’t weighed against President Obama’s ‘evolving’ stance on same-sex marriage; rather, they are simply ridiculed. It says as much about our society as it does the candidates.” And if that’s the case, then Buck’s candidacy was the first in what may be a long line of Republican contenders who will pay a political price for their homophobia until they learn to accept and respect the LGBT community.

Here's what I find fascinating about all this: the "homosexuality is like alcoholism" thing actually came about because social conservatives are trying to sound more tolerant of gays.  It's actually an attempt to evade accusations of bigotry.  The old line was basically that gays are molesters and perverts who only do gay stuff because they're bad people.  The narrative is that gays are broken people with a disease, a compulsion---and that they need "help" to overcome it.  But the public saw through that attempt at revisionism as quickly as it was concocted.  

In fact, many conservatives have moved past even that and are trying to argue that they believe that sexual orientation is fixed and gay people deserve rights. They've retreated to arguing that opposition to marriage equality isn't discrimination at all, but somehow "protecting traditional marriage".  Again, their attempts to evade the label of "bigot" by cleaning up bigoted arguments isn't working. Each new move lasts a couple years, and then the public starts to see through the new gambit, as well.

Of course, the rates of progress vary by community.  I think the very far right is still stuck in the "gays are demons who snatch children" mode, the larger Christian right is in the "gays are sick people who need 'help'" phase, the "traditional marriage" coalition is collapsing since it was a last-ditch effort to retain inequality in more liberal areas, and people of moderate to liberal politics have accepted gay people and are moving on. 

Update: Nona Willis Aronowitz came to the same conclusion as me.  Great minds, you know the drill.  She has even more statistics, some showing again that men's attachment to marriage is, if anything, stronger than women's.  Which makes sense, since at least with straight marriage, men get more out of it on average.

Ruh-roh: statistics have come out showing that in these early years of same sex marriage being legal in some states, lesbians are hitting the altar far more than gay men.  Like far, far more.  

In Connecticut, 3,252 lesbian couples have been married since 2008, compared to 2,053 male couples. In Massachusetts, 8,404 female couples, 4,911 male. In New Hampshire, 1,113 pairs of women, 411 pairs of men. In Iowa, 1,376 lesbian marriages, 772 gay male marriages. In Vermont, 1,157 to 597.

These numbers are even more amazing when you realize that gay men way outnumber lesbians. Cue the sexist stereotypes about how women are monogamous and men are promiscuous!  And that men want to avoid commitment while women are eager to put a ring on it.  

There's just one problem with that stereotype: it isn't true and  never has been.  Susan Faludi debunked this one in "Backlash" and recent research indicates that single men are just as eager to get married as single women.  If anything, men are more attached to the institution than women, as women file for divorce far more than men do.  So this disparity can't really be boiled down to men v. women.  Now, it could be that this is a matter of comparing apples to oranges---there's reasons to think that straight people and gay people of the same gender have different sets of motivations and circumstances on average that would change their willingness to get married---but I think there's a very simple explanation for this that hasn't been considered in any blogging I've seen on this.  Maybe it's as much about who you're marrying as that you're marrying.  Research consistently shows that married men---who until recently have all been in straight marriages---fare better psychologically, physically, and financially than single men.  Women do better in some ways, but not nearly to the degree that men do.  This might indicate that the institution itself has some magical effects on men, but I think a large part of it is that being married to a woman is good for you and more of a value-add to your life than being married to a man, stastically speaking.  (Obviously, individuals vary.)  Which makes sense.  Women are socialized to be caregivers in a way men aren't, and so by marrying one, you get cared for more.  I'm guessing lesbians aren't immune to these trends, and thus are quicker to get married. 

So some songs about weddings and marriage for your Friday:

Yes, the general attitude towards marriage in my music collection is negative.  Your point?

As I'm sure you all realize, the fact that New York tipped over into the "legal same sex marriage" column is a big deal.  There are 44 more states to go, and the usual suspects in the South will be the biggest struggle, but the size and influence of New York will help usher this process along.  Once straight people start to realize nothing is really going to be that different from them, they'll stop caring.  Many people are quietly adjusting towards a less bigoted point of view about gay people.  

Watching wingnut reactions in light of this information has been interesting.  The reactions indicate that they get that the tide has really turned against them, because there's not a whole lot of calm, confident rebukes to New York's actions.  When the writing's on the wall, there's basically two reactions: give up and shut up, or turn into a rabid, screaming maniac.  As Roy notes, many right wing bloggers have decided that there's no time like the present to stop adding to the pile of bigoted comments that will be recorded in the history books as the utterings of villains.  

But the folks at the National Review by and large have gone with the "foaming at the mouth" response, as chronicled at Think Progress. Gay rights proponents were compared to Kim Jong Il and Bull Connor, and of course, there were endless insinuations that people will be fucking in the streets.  The overwrought imaginations  of the wingnuttery never stop amazing me.  There were a couple of actual supporters of gay marriage at the National Review and a couple of people who realized there's no time like the present to shut the fuck up, but overall the theme was that having to live in a world where gay couples can be full citizens was the exact same thing as having dogs sicced on you because you sat at a lunch counter.  

What's interesting about all this is that the more gains that gay activists achieve, the more obvious it is that the people who oppose them are screaming bigots and nothing more.  As someone who has been an interested witness to all this, I have to say it's absolutely fascinating.  When I was young, being a homophobic bigot was basically hiding in plain sight, because bigots were able to conduct themselves with grace and dignity.  But now the pressure is on and their true natures are coming out.  You learn so much about people when they're squeezed a little. 

I cannot sign off on this piece enough:

Liberals have a tendency (much more pronounced in 2007 and 2008 but still evident) to imagine that Barack Obama is just as liberal as them. Because he's obviously smart, because he dabbled with genuine leftism in his youth, and because he opposed Iraq, liberals think he's actually Paul Krugman, forced by electoral circumstance (or cowardice) to talk and govern like George H.W. Bush. Coincidentally, this is also Newt Gingrich and Stanley Kurtz's thesis. It's silly when they say he's hiding his socialism behind a veneer of centrism and it's silly when liberals say he's doing the same.

But on one issue it's pretty obvious that Barack Obama is simply hiding his dangerous radicalism: same-sex marriage. He famously signed a questionnaire affirming his support for same-sex marriage in 1996. But he apparently thought that he couldn't remain so liberal if he wanted to be a national political figure. By 2008 he opposed gay marriage, favoring the more reasonable-sounding civil unions instead. He did still oppose DOMA, though, and he plainly understood why gay couples need legal recognition.

The only thing that Alex is missing is that there's another liberal tendency that is probably just as irritating: being addicted to feeling betrayed to the point of concocting conspiracy theories that posit that all Democratic leaders are secretly Republicans.  It's black-and-white thinking, for sure, but it's widespread.  These liberals will seek any evidence they can find that Democrat X is exactly like the most far right nutter out there, even though the evidence tends to suggest that said Democrat is a fence-straddling centrist who is too afraid of his shadow to ever commit to a point of view, which is completely unlike far right Republican assholes.  While the vast majority of people I spoke to at Netroots had a nuanced view of Obama, I did run across in the past few days, online and offline, people who were pushing the "Obama is a member of the religous right" line.  For instance, knowledge that Obama's administration---like Clinton's before it---had put a minor amount of funding into some abstinence-only programs was rolled up into being the same thing as Bush mandating that all schools teach nothing but abstinence, unless they get their federal sex education dollars revoked.  (This was after the zombie abstinence-only was brought up on a panel, so I can somewhat see why it's confusing, but still.)  And, to my dismay and surprise, a Facebook friend insisted that there was no difference between Michele Bachmann's point of view on gay marriage and Obama's view. The method used to determine this was to find the most reasonable-sounding thing Bachmann has said (her garbled and clearly facetious claim during the GOP debate that she wants to leave it to the states---which also requires ignoring that she wants a constitutional ban at the same time) and then to round up Obama's weaseling statements while ignoring his actual opposition to DOMA and his appointment of Supreme Court judges who are likely to vote against it.

I can't actually believe that people believe this stuff when they say it.  I think there's an emotional reward to claiming that Obama hates the gays just as much as Bachmann, because it makes things nice and simple.  Plus, enough time has passed that we've forgotten how much damage a Ralph Nader situation can do.  I'm as unhappy as everyone with the fact that Democrats are cowards, but I still remember the Bush years, and pretending that Democrats are the exact same thing as Republicans didn't do us any favors then.  And Republicans are even more radical now.  Pretending Bush and Gore were the same is why we're in two wars and there's a solid chance that Roe v Wade is going to be overturned.  Oh yeah, and if Gore had been elected and had all those Supreme Court appointments that Bush ended up getting?  The gay rights movement would be fully empowered right now to challenge gay marriage bans in the high court with assurance that they would win. 

This is where I blame Obama and all Democrats like him: Look, when you clearly agree with left on an issue, you have a real chance to kneecap the people who are eager to claim you're a closet Republican by coming out firmly on the side of the left. Obama allows the paranoids to claim he hates gays by playing the centrist position when we all know that he's far too damn smart to believe the blooey about civil unions.  It's also galling now that half the country supports gay marriage.  The game is over.  The main person you're hurting is yourself with this "civil unions" and "I'm evolving" crap.  Throw those of us who are in the trenches arguing with the paranoids a bone and say what you mean, so we can point to it.  We're your main weapon against a Ralph Nader, you know. Work with us here.

Because as it stands, I honestly think that Obama could sign a repeal of DOMA, and people would still be claiming that he's a closet homophobe, because he'd probably do so while spouting some legalese that allows him to avoid saying the magic words, "I support marriage equality," and losing the two or three votes that he probably still gets for that. 

If you haven't seen this yet, it's kind of amazing---opponents of gay marriage in California are trying to appeal the decision overturning Prop 8 on the grounds that the judge is gay and so can't be allowed to rule on gay issues. Amazing because they're always denying this is about bigotry, and yet bigotry is the only grounds the appeal is being made on.  Of course, the argument against gay marriage that's forwarded to hide the bigotry is that it somehow threatens straight marriage, so by their own measures, straight people should be even less objective.

We shouldn't be too surprised by this, though.  This is just the judicial version of a common right wing trope about elections, which is to complain that if Group X (never straight white men) was excluded from election results, they would have gone a different way.  The underlying assumption is that non-white people, women, and gay people just count for less.  Our citizenship is viewed as a novelty, and not real like that of straight people/non-white people/men, depending on the circumstances.  I'm genuinely surprised I haven't seen anyone suggest that women should be excluded from legislating about reproductive rights on these grounds as well.  Though Allen West is veering closer to coming out and saying just that any day.

The good news is this is the dumbest argument I've ever heard.  They're getting increasingly bad about hiding their bigotry.  This is the end game, and while it may still take some time for gay marriage to be legalized across the land, pro-gay folks are winning.

Steph Herold, writing at Feministe, put up a post that’s been gnawing on my brain for a few days, and I want to post a couple of points arguing with Steph and a larger point offering an answer to her question.  Steph asks why the gay rights movement is ahead of the abortion rights movement, observing that “Glee” had an episode with two dudes kissing and it was considered sweet and romantic, and you’d never see such a positive portrayal of abortion on TV.  She is right that positive portrayals of abortion on scripted TV—-at least, as positive as you can get, which is to say portraying it as an acceptable decision that, while no fun for the woman involved, doesn’t cause permanent damage either—-are rare.  I can only think of two, one in 1972 on “Maude” and one recently on “Friday Night Lights”.  But I would hardly say that the gay rights movement is ahead of the abortion rights movement for that.

To dial this down a little harder, I think Steph is a tad vague on her terms, even saying at one point, “To compare the gay rights movement and the feminist movement is an impossible task,” which I disagree with, since I think few movements in the liberal world have so much overlap.  I realize there are liberal feminists and some gay rights activists (mostly male) who don’t see it that way, but overall, I feel that the two movements are functionally fighting for the same goal, an overturn of the patriarchy.  It’s natural to ask ourselves why we’re making better ground on this front than that, such as how within feminism you might ask whether anti-rape activism is doing better or worse than pro-choice activism.  What I think Steph is talking about is specifically the gay marriage movement versus the abortion rights movement, because her example—-the applauding of a monogamous gay teenage romance—-is indeed part of the larger shift towards accepting same-sex relationships that follow the models we accept for opposite-sex relationships in our society. 

On this front, I dispute that gay rights are doing better. When we talk about “rights”, for instance, we are duty-bound to look at one’s actual rights to do something, and not just certain cultural markers like “will they show this on TV?”  Bluntly put, abortion rights are much more widespread than gay marriage rights.  You can legally get an abortion in all 50 states in the country, even though it’s really hard to nearly impossible in some.  You are still allowed to cross state lines to get an abortion in states that are more favorable to the right.  With gay marriage, neither is true. 

I also want to quarrel a little with Steph, who switches gears from gay marriage to AIDS activism, to laud ACT UP for its 80s and 90s success in overcoming legal and cultural barriers to a proper response to the the AIDS crisis.  She is implicitly contrasting ACT UP from that era to some of the more fearful and small-c conservative pro-choice orgs nowadays, but I have to point out that the pro-choice movement also used to be more like ACT UP used to be.  ACT UP is comparable to the Redstockings and groups that organized abortion speak-outs, which are like the pride events that Steph longs for.  And in both cases, as the demands were actually met to a degree, the radical activism faded away—-the radical pro-choice movement that had ACT UP-style actions faded away after abortion was legalized, and ACT UP hasn’t really been raiding places in a long time, now that HIV is taken seriously as a public health issue.  In the gay rights movement, the behemoth orgs face the same criticisms as they do in the pro-choice movement—-being fearful and conservative.  For instance, many of the big wigs, from what I understand, are trying to avoid a Supreme Court showdown on gay marriage for fear of losing. 

I bring these criticisms up because I don’t think that the problem Steph is talking about isn’t there.  She’s right that the gay marriage movement has forward momentum and the abortion rights movement has been losing ground since Roe v. Wade, and lately at an accelerated pace.  I just think she wants to lay blame on the activists and the movement where it doesn’t apply, and I understand this urge, because our movement is within our control and if it’s just a matter of fixing that, then we win.  But I don’t really think that’s it.

There are a couple of alternate theories.  One may just be regression to the mean.  When a group makes a big leap forward, there’s often a backlash that sets them back.  Two steps forward, one step back is the nature of progressivism.  You see this with the anti-racism movement, for sure.  Desegregation was a major victory, but then there was a backlash that resulted in white flight, a massive de-funding of anti-poverty programs and an escalation of the prison-industrial complex, and so the dream has definitely been deferred.  For all we know, anti-gay organizers are already working on the backlash strategy to find a backdoor to depriving gay people of their rights after they’ve been formally recognized across the land. 

Read All...

Obviously, the big stunning news that wasn’t really expected but is totally welcome today is the Obama administration announcing that they believe the Defense of Marriage Act—-signed by the last Democratic President, Bill Clinton—-is unconstitutional, and therefore they’re not going to enforce it any more.

Attorney General Eric Holder said President Barack Obama has concluded that the administration cannot defend the federal law that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman. He noted that the congressional debate during passage of the Defense of Marriage Act “contains numerous expressions reflecting moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships - precisely the kind of stereotype-based thinking and animus the (Constitution’s)Equal Protection Clause is designed to guard against.”....

Holder wrote to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that Obama has concluded the Defense of Marriage Act fails to meet a rigorous standard under which courts view with suspicion any laws targeting minority groups who have suffered a history of discrimination.

It’s hard to tell what prompted this, and it’s possible it was a why-not sort of thing.  But I like to think that the Obama administration sees challenges to gay marriage bans percolating up through the courts, and he’s throwing his hat in with the pro-same-sex-marriage people to send a signal to the Supreme Court.  As basically everyone knows, the wild card vote should gay marriage come in front of the court is Anthony Kennedy.  I’ve been fairly confident for a long time now that Kennedy would vote to strike down bans against same-sex marriage and legalize it across the country, because he wrote the decision for Lawrence v Texas.  Yes, it’s been argued that he hedged his bets in that decision and said that it didn’t indicate the legalization of same-sex marriage, but that’s kind of standard bet-hedging in judicial decisions, from what I understand.  What is more interesting to me was that Kennedy was extremely sentimental (in a good way) about Lawrence, reading the decision aloud to please all the people whose private sexual choices he just mandated cannot be made criminal. 

Now opponents of gay marriage will find that not only with the Justice Department not back them if this gets to the Supreme Court, odds are high they’ll write an amicus brief suggesting same-sex marriage be legalized.  That sort of thing can and probably will have a profound impact on Kennedy.

That’s just my prediction.  Feel free to spin your own!

So, the State Department (under Hillary Clinton) has changed the passport application to make life easier for gay parents and other non-traditional families, by changing the terms “Mother” and “Father” to “Parent 1” and “Parent 2”.  This will make life a lot easier on gay parents, who currently have to carry like 15 kinds of proof of legal custody in order to travel over national borders with their children.  Fox News reported on it, and naturally, they had to give plenty of space for professional bigots to screech about the evils of a decision that quite literally has nothing to do with them, and is probably something they wouldn’t even notice if they weren’t trolling around looking for reasons to believe gays have too much freedom of movement. 

But I must say I detect a note of malaise.  The professional bigots aren’t really bringing their A game anymore, but instead copying and pasting the same anti-gay screed they’ve trotted out a million times before.

“Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio. “This is clearly designed to advance the causes of same-sex ‘marriage’ and homosexual parenting without statutory authority, and violates the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act.”

Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, agreed. “It’s part of an overall attempt at political correctness to diminish the distinction between men and women and to somehow suggest you don’t need both a father and a mother to raise a child successfully,” said Jeffress. “(This decision) was made to make homosexual couples feel more comfortable in rearing children.”

These quotes could be about pretty much anything, if you think about it.  They’re totally phoning it in.  The heavy use of scare quotes where they’re inappropriate? Check. Suggesting that it’s pointless to have children for any other reason than to prove the virility of heterosexual men? Check.  Dropping the word “homosexual” a lot in hopes that people think about butt sex instead of two same-sex parents trying to corral a toddler through airline security, just like everyone else? Check.  Suggesting that the only acceptable response to homosexuality from the government is ghettoizing people, depriving them of their basic freedom of movement, and seeking ways to shake their finger at them for who they are? Check. 

This bigotry is really weak sauce. They should take some notes from Michele Bachmann.  Why just push one wingnut resentment button when you can just be like a kid in an elevator hitting every floor?  I mean, this is about passports, which implies travel to foreign nations.  There are way more buttons you could be wacking with this one.  Let me rewrite it for them.

“Only in the topsy-turvy world of left-wing political correctness could it be considered an ‘improvement’ for a birth-related document to provide less information about the circumstances of that birth,” Family Research Council president Tony Perkins wrote in a statement to Fox News Radio. “What kind of pansy, egg-headed world do these homosexuals live in that they need to be traveling with children anyway?  We have peer-reviewed research that indicates that homosexuals only want to travel with children so they can take them to countries that practice socialism.  What kind of nation allows two men to take a child to a place like Paris for a re-education camp in socialized medicine, homosexual marriage, and pacifism?”

Robert Jeffress, pastor of the First Baptist Church in Dallas, agreed. “It’s part of an overall attempt at political correctness to allow homosexuals to cross over our borders, when we know they can’t be up to any good traveling around, no doubt drinking wine and eating cheese that doesn’t come presliced,” said Jeffress. “Passports are for Christians going on missions in foreign countries, not so some frou-frou art lovers can indoctrinate their fake children into leftist hedonism by taking them to Louvre.”

See what I mean?  Passports are a rich mine, where you can bash people for having intellectual curiosity, tolerance, and for not hating the French. Also, for seeing children as people who deserve adventure and fun, instead of tiny little Satanic rebels who need any spiritedness beat out of them. They could have totally linked gay rights with all these things, and failed miserably.  I think they’re losing steam.  The DADT repeal is driving home how the bigots are going to lose this battle, as they have in the past.  Tony Perkins spent the first half of his career trying to cover up his association with racist groups.  Now he’s turning into the George Wallace figure of the gay rights movement, and that’s got to be demoralizing.  Of course, I couldn’t think of a better person for it to happen to.

Dave Weigel’s suggestion for a Palin tweet index is clever and sadly on target.  It is true that the number of words exhausted on every little tweet and flutter from her has gotten out of control.  I suppose you could say this post is an example.  But, what I realized his post was that while the main reason that Palin probably loves the brevity of Twitter is that coming up with more than 140 characters can take her all damn day, there’s also something else going on in her favor.  Either she stumbled upon this by accident and is working it (the likeliest explanation), or she’s an evil genius.  Either way, it’s working.  I realized that the brevity of Twitter makes it easier for Sarah Palin to be a cipher for the various strains of wingnut out there.

The example Dave whips out demonstrates this perfectly.  It all started when Tammy Bruce, whose racism outweighs her pro-gay concerns enough to drive her into the Republican party, tweeted:

But this hypocrisy is just truly too much. Enuf already—the more someone complains about the homos the more we should look under their bed.

It was in response to this scandal. I’d be curious to see if you guys can get to the tweet, since I’m not authorized to see it, which may mean it’s closed off to the public now or that Tammy Bruce blocked me from seeing it after I made fun of her for having shit for brains, the proof of which will become evident soon. 

Sarah Palin retweeted this, in an action that seemed incredibly mysterious to anyone not familiar with the Palin Corollary of Occam’s Razor, which is, “If stupidity is a plausible explanation for her choice, it’s the likeliest explanation.”  And indeed, you can see how Palin retweeted this out of sheer dumbheadedness. Without knowing that Bruce is a lesbian or much about the context, with a side dose of not reading it too closely, it’s possible that she just saw the word “homos”, thought it was a gay joke, and thought to retweet it. 

But Bruce has really worked her ass off to interpret this retweeting as some sort of evidence that Bible-thumping Sarah Palin is a secret Friend of the Gays.

When it comes to Sarah Palin’s position on DADT, I have never asked her about it and she has never spoken to me about it–but I assess her as a Conservative with Libertarian influence. Both her husband and son are Independents, with Mr. Palin serving as his wife’s primary adviser. I will remind people of things already in the public realm about the governor–she refused to veto partner benefits legislation as governor of Alaska and is a firm believer in fairness and “live and let live.” She is not a Culture Warrior, however. She is, which should be apparent by her Facebook postings and opinion pieces, a Policy Wonk. She is also, which is clearly evident, a charismatic leader who remains grounded by her character, faith and family.

I’m sorry, but someone who makes eating cookies vs. eating vegetables an occasion for culture war is a dyed-in-the-wool culture warrior, and have I mentioned the word “abortion” yet?  The only reason that Todd Palin isn’t a Republican is because he has aligned himself with parties that see the Republicans as too left wing, and he’s thrown in with the Alaska Independence Party, an offshoot of the Constitution Party that wishes to turn America into a theocracy.

This is how they feel about gay people:

The law of our Creator defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman. The marriage covenant is the foundation of the family, and the family is fundamental in the maintenance of a stable, healthy and prosperous social order. No government may legitimately authorize or define marriage or family relations contrary to what God has instituted. We are opposed to amending the U.S. Constitution for the purpose of defining marriage.

We reject the notion that sexual offenders are deserving of legal favor or special protection, and affirm the rights of states and localities to proscribe offensive sexual behavior. We oppose all efforts to impose a new sexual legal order through the federal court system. We stand against so-called “sexual orientation” and “hate crime” statutes that attempt to legitimize inappropriate sexual behavior and to stifle public resistance to its expression. We oppose government funding of “partner” benefits for unmarried individuals. Finally, we oppose any legal recognition of homosexual unions.

Basically, no gay marriage, and really, the fundamentalist Christian church should have all power to say who is and isn’t married.

Of course, Bruce also thinks Palin is a policy wonk, so she’s far off into fantasy land.  Palin also took a couple of swipes at gay people in her latest book “America by Heart”. 

Anyway, the point.  And that is Palin says something cryptic on Twitter, almost surely due to straight up dumbassery.  But because it’s cryptic, her fans can read whatever fool thing they want into it.  She’s all things to all wingnuts.  No wonder she’s so popular.

This rant by John McCain about the DADT repeal is something else:

Direct quote:

And you know, we’ll repeal it. And all over America, they’ll be gold stars put up in windows in the rural towns and communities all over America that don’t partake in the elite schools that bar military recruiters from campus, that don’t partake in the salons of Georgetown and the other liberal bastions here and around the country.

Seventy-seven percent of Americans support gays serving openly in the military.  Thus, we are forced to assume that McCain thinks 77% of Americans follow the path from an Ivy League school into a Georgetown cocktail party.  Which really calls into question this term “elite”.  If three quarters of Americans are going to Harvard, is that really an “elite” education?

He also claims that the people that will be celebrating this didn’t serve in the military or even know someone who did/does.  Which is funny, because that creates an interesting paradox.  If the only people who support repeal have no experience with the military, then why is there a law banning openly gay service members?  By definition, those people are interested in repeal, but in McCain’s formula, they don’t even exist.  Why ban something that doesn’t happen?  Granted, he used the term “most”, but seriously, he’s trying to create a dichotomy between Real Americans With Patriotic Family Values Who Only Have Missionary Heterosex In The Dark Before Praying and Perverted Liberals Who Eat Bon Bons And Screw Each Other In The Ass For Fun On Big Piles Of Money.  And I’m going to say there’s a lot more overlap there than you’d think.

But what’s really fascinating about this rant is how it’s total capitulation to the principle that anything that pisses off liberals is good.  Indeed, I’m thinking about 99% of what being a conservative is about right now is a combination of insecure masculinity issues and punishing liberals for thinking they’re so smart.  So much so that huge chunks of this country basically waste time and money or hurt themselves doing things that liberals don’t actually care about in order to piss us off (voting for Bristol Palin on “Dancing With The Stars” comes to mind, as does slurping down tons of fatty food that will eventually kill you to prove a point to people who actually wouldn’t know the difference if you switched to whole grains).  If you take this garbled rant from McCain and rebuild what he’s trying to say, it seems that his point is that gay service members should be deprived of their rights, because it will piss off liberals.  And pissing off liberals is important, because they drink better cocktails than you do, and they all went to Harvard, and so a little being pissed off evens the score somehow. 

For the record, I don’t think I even met anyone who went to Harvard until I was like at least 25.  I have still never been to a Georgetown cocktail party, though I have been to many tailgate parties.  I also sign off on what Scott said here:

What a bullet this country dodged in 2008. Frankly, I’m not sure he was even the best candidate on his party’s ticket at this point…

I hate to say the opera’s over, because the U.S. Senate can literally fuck anything up, but it seems now almost certain that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell will be toast by Christmas.  The standing Republican filibuster on it was finally taken back, and now they can have an up or down vote on the bill.

There is very little good news lately, and most of it is due to the Senate becoming this hellish place where government goes to die.  It’s nice to see one decent thing happen despite all this. 

But don’t worry, people who hate the hope that America could ever actually become a better place.  I’m about 99% certain that any attempt at rules changes at the start of the next session that would make it harder to impossible for Republicans to kill basically any and all legislation of any importance will fail pretty quickly. 

Today, though, I want to offer my congratulations to everyone who has worked tirelessly for the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and for the chance of GLBT service members to serve with the pride they deserve. 

Because I’m not gay.  At the beginning of the project, I thought that the input of straight people was not necessary, as the project was about GLBT adults telling teenagers that the message that they’re getting—-from peers, from adults, from right wing media, from churches—-that they aren’t good enough and will die lonely and afraid is a straight lie.  It’s a common lie, of course.  In the Christian right, it’s an article of faith that gay men die when they’re 40, just from the gayness, and no one ever loves them.  Kids who are brought up on a steady stream of this shit often understandably despair.  The point of the project was to say that even if you’re being horribly bullied now, hang on, because the lies that people tell you are lies.  And that the truth is there is a world outside of your immediate one where you can actually live a normal life. 

Straight people, I figured, don’t have a place in that message.  I never had any doubts when I was being bullied for being bookish, nerdy and unathletic* in high school that I would have a normal life, with all the attendant privileges of being straight.  I never thought I would never find love or acceptance.  I never believed my family would turn me out.  On the contrary—-nerds find a lot of larger social support in the world.  There are countless books, TV shows, and movies that promote the myth that the nerds in high school bloom into the adults who own the world, and then they get to go back to their high school reunions and enjoy being hot, smart, and accomplished while their former bullies sulk in the corner, their glory days behind them.  You can focus on life after high school easily when you’re a nerd.  College is right around the corner, where nerdiness, you’re routinely assured, is rewarded.  Being nerdy =/ being gay.  A lot of gay kids have no one telling them there’s a corner to turn, and that it gets better.  The role of allies is to be vocal supporters, cheerleaders, analysts, and fighters.  But it is not to claim to share the same experiences.

This, by the way, is why examining your privilege is not the great evil wingnuts make it out to be.  It’s true that some liberals turn it into a self-flagellation spectacle that helps no one, but leaving that nonsense aside, it’s good to know where you stand.  Makes you think about things like, “I’m not going to clutter this up with my pointless retroactive self-pity that I’ve encountered people who don’t like me.” 

But I will say that when straight people started to get involved, I relented a little on this, though not enough to think my contribution was necessary.  It’s nice to watch the videos where straight people do good ally work, which is to say they lay into homophobes for promoting the message that gay people aren’t good enough.  Sarah Silverman did this, for instance.  That message—-that this is not just the fault of bullies, but also of churches, pundits, authority figures, whoever promotes homophobia—-is necessary.  It’s probably not bad for gay kids to see that the world they’re growing up into is one that has straight people who have no problem with homosexuality.  So, I was okay with that.

What I’m not okay with is sharing your own, irrelevant stories of bullying.  Gabriel Arana describes this problem perfectly:

Indeed, the wave of B-list celebrities and straight liberals making “It Gets Better” videos just keeps growing. But there’s a problem: As the discussion about gay-teen suicide has radiated outward, it’s stopped being about gay teens. Kim Kardashian has a video relaying how hurt she was at online comments calling her fat. Ezra Klein’s video discusses how he was called a nerd in high school. Even Obama’s video steers clear of too much talk about gay people, safely focusing on the hurt that comes with “being different or ... not fitting in with everybody else.” The public conversation and the policy response have shifted from stopping anti-gay harassment to preventing bullying in general.

In turn, this has allowed homophobic adults off the hook.  All they have to say is that they object to the narrow behavior of shoving kids into lockers, and then feel free to go back to saying, “Gay people will never be loved, will die at 40, are evil perverts, and don’t deserve rights.”  To their children.  Some of whom are gay and hear that they are defective and should just give up.

So, no.  It’s not about bullying in schools.  It’s about homophobia, and bullying is just one expression of that.

I do think there’s an important public dialogue to be had about bullying, don’t get me wrong.  But this isn’t really the hook to hang that on. 

*I want to update this to make it clear I’m not trying to pick on anyone who was trying to do their best to empathize by relating homophobic abuse to other kinds kids face.  People who pick on you for reading too much aren’t unaware that they’re full of shit, and that being anti-reading will end up hurting them more in the end. 

Rachel Maddow did this extremely convincing report last night on how the Obama administration is setting themselves up to let DADT go on for years with their current strategy of ruthlessly pushing for enforcement while pleading with the Senate to overturn it.  You know, even though they have the tools at hand—-simply not appealing this federal decision—-to make DADT go away tomorrow.  What was going through my head the entire time was, “Is the administration being stupid or arrogant?”  The facts seem indisputable.  When was the last time the Senate actually passed a bill that explicitly guaranteed equality for a minority group that was being routinely bagged on in public forums?  Maybe you could say Lilly Ledbetter, but that was more of a smaller bill shoring up pre-existing rights—-rights that even hard right pundits are often loathe to attack.  (Instead of arguing openly that women should be paid less, they just impugn women’s abilities, and suggest unequal pay reflects that.)  But something on this level?  I’d have to say that the closest is the Voting Rights Act of 1965? If I’m wrong, please let me know.  I’m curious. 

Either way, the possibility that the current administration could round up votes, LBJ-style, is fucking laughable.  There’s a couple of reasons. The first being that Republicans in the Senate are obviously not interested in working with the President, and that goes double on this issue.  They have made it clear they’ll kill defense spending before they allow this.  They’re not being reasonable.  Second of all, Obama is no LBJ, for better or for worse.  You’re not particularly afraid that he’s going to break your knees if you don’t play ball with him.  He’s offered no real leadership on this issue, in direct contrast to LBJ.  He’s like the anti-LBJ. 

Which I tend to believe is his choice—-he actually seems to buy the Beltway wisdom that you shield yourself from right wing criticism by going through certain channels.  I suspect he actually thinks letting the courts handle this one will put it in a place where Roe v. Wade never got, which is calcified in the common wisdom.  He’s wrong on this.  People don’t hate the courts.  They hate gays.  Hating on the courts is just a cover story for that.  If Congress had legalized abortion, anti-choicers would be just as mean and ugly.  This Beltway common wisdom is for crap. 

So, are they arrogant or stupid in thinking this brilliant “let the Senate do it instead of simply instructing the Justice Department to let it go”?  The one thing they need to understand is the longer they let this question linger, the more option #3 seems possible—-that the Obama administration is homophobic and actually supports DADT, despite their protests.

Take, for instance, Valerie Jarrett calling a gay teenager’s orientation a “lifestyle choice”.  (She’s since apologized.)  That’s not the sort of thing that’s going to quell suspicions that the administration is doing the wrong thing by gay people because of some procedural bullshit but because they don’t like gay people.  What it’s going to do is ramp up suspicions that they don’t give a shit how this actually affects the fighting men and women in uniform who have to live lies, because they think that all you have to do to avoid DADT is to choose a different “lifestyle”. 

Just remember this, when the administration is making excuses: just because the Justice Department doesn’t pursue this case doesn’t mean the Senate can’t go ahead and codify the federal judge’s decision into law.

Well, this is incredibly frustrating news to hear about my alma mater.

St. Edward’s University has notified an organization that advocates for the rights of gays and lesbians that it will not be allowed to participate in an upcoming nonprofit internship fair because it does not fit in with the university’s Catholic principles.

The university declined a request from Equality Texas to recruit interns at the fair, which is scheduled for the morning of Sept. 15 in Mabee Ballroom. The group was notified of the university’s decision on Aug. 31 in an e-mail from Assistant Director of Campus Ministry Lou Serna.

I can’t help but feel this is a slide backwards.  When I was working in the admissions office, basically all throughout my stint at St. Ed’s, we would occasionally get phone calls from freaked out super conservative parents about GLBT acceptance and how they were against it.  The usual instigating event was thumbing through the school’s materials and finding GLBT organizations listed amongst student groups.  You’d get a frantic phone call, and some higher up had to calm them down.  I’m not sure what the parents thought would happen.  Maybe they think their kids will be bopping along, craving sex with the opposite sex, and then run into a poster advertising for a gay rights groups and boom! Suddenly they’re getting all gay married.  Or maybe they fear that their gay kids will start to believe that they have options and rights, instead of just going into the priesthood and hoping that they can successfully avoid temptation their entire lives. 

Either way,  it’s a huge disappointment to see the university give in to the bigots. Lindsay Marsh, also an alum of St. Ed’s and someone who used to work for Equality Now, replied on their Texas blog:

St. Edward’s mission statement says the university encourages its students to “confront the critical issues of society and to seek justice and peace.”

  * Is equality not a critical issue of society?
  * Is it not critical when Texans can be fired from their jobs simply for identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?
  * Shouldn’t we all seek justice for this intolerance?
  * Is it not critical when employers blatantly discriminate against employees by only providing healthcare to partners who are straight and married?  St. Edward’s University falls into this category.

I’d like to think this was just the actions of a few imperious bigots, but who knows?  When I was a student there, I remember someone writing an angry letter to the editor of the school paper about how he saw lesbians! kissing! in a parked car! by the library!  And how the reaction of pretty much everyone I knew was to pass that letter around and laughing at it.  And how the next week, there were even more letters to the editor calling him out for being such a miserable bigot.  This kind of bigotry is the expression of a few people who need to mind their own damn business, and certainly need to cease activities that result in fewer internship opportunities for students.