A selfless gay agenda
CommentsI have a new permanent page up: “Selfless agenda.”
Because I have frequently criticized the terrible selfishness of today’s gay and lesbian community, I thought it important to lay out what I think would be a selfless gay agenda, one I could readily endorse and promote wholeheartedly.
1. Relationship recognition. I have demonstrated why it’s wrong to meddle with marriage, but that doesn’t mean same-sex couples don’t have legitimate concerns that need to be addressed. Rather than focus on the ego boost from having the government treat us as exactly equal (even when we’re not), the LGBT community should promote national, state, and local versions of the Salt Lake City plan, which allows all unmarried adults to appoint one person to receive a set of benefits. We should ask for a broad variety of benefits including hospital visitation, custody, and health care. Rather than using the relationship recognition issue to call attention to how special we are for having same-sex conjugal relationships “just like marriage,” we can be broad-minded and make sure non-conjugal relationships, like best friends and roommates, are included as well.
2. Nondiscrimination. The selfish gay community has put tremendous energy into passing state and federal laws that ban discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and sometimes gender identity as well. But our nation’s nondiscrimination laws are a mess. Groups get protection because they can afford lobbyists to pass laws protecting them - which means the groups who need protection the most are left in the cold. Rather than cry “me too!” the LGBT community could lead a national conversation about how to write nondiscrimination laws that balance a business owner’s right to run her company how she wants, and the rights of people to do their jobs without being afraid of unfair treatment because of who they are. We can also try to come up with a single clear, coherent way to determine who gets covered by nondiscrimination laws, and who doesn’t.
3. Hate crimes. Laws should never try to regulate people’s thoughts, instead of their actions. So sentencing enhancement because the victim was gay or transgender (but not if she was a communist or overweight) is another sign of LGBT self-centeredness. Instead, let’s focus on toughening penalties for the kinds of crimes gays often face - but apply the penalties to everyone. Battery and assault, for starters. Prison rape, for another.
4. “Anti-bullying laws.” The latest trend in pro-gay legislation mandates indoctrination in pro-gay attitudes under the guise of preventing bullying. But America’s populace has lots of different attitudes about homosexuality, and insisting that LGBT attitudes get taught while other, equally legitimate attitudes are declared “bigotry” is, once again, selfish. In younger grades, homosexuality doesn’t belong in the curriculum at all - it can be taught at home, if at all. In older grades, let’s encourage lessons that respect everyone’s views, including but not limited to our own.
5. Not blaming the victim. In the 1980s and 1990s, the gay community responded strongly to the challenge of HIV, and worked assiduously to comfort and protect people who contracted AIDS, usually through gay sex. Now, more and more LGBT people are saying that the people getting AIDS today (usually poor black men who have sex with men) don’t deserve our sympathy and attention now that “everyone knows” how to avoid the virus. I disagree. I think the gay community should put more resources into education, research, and treatment for a variety of LGBT people in need - gay and bisexual men with HIV, lesbians at a higher risk for alcoholism, transgender women who are overrepresented in prison.
6. The military. I believe that gays and lesbians should serve openly in the armed forces. But I’m not an expert at whether out gays would help or harm the military’s primary mission - to win wars. I’ve heard some selfish gays say that even if it would have caused America to lose World War II, it would have been worth it to let gays serve openly. Well, I’m sorry, but there are some things more important than gay self-esteem - like, um, beating the Nazis. Let’s focus our energies on convincing the generals that ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell will help them, not hurt them, in their main objective. Once the generals are on board, Congress is sure to follow.
7. Fighting homophobia. There are two federal policies that exist for no reason than to accommodate homophobia. The need to be repealed - not for the symbolism, but for the real hurts they cause to real people, not all of whom are gay. First, the ban on visits and immigration by people who are HIV+ is a Jesse Helms-era slam at the gay community that President Bill Clinton shamefully signed into law. George W. Bush wants to sign legislation allowing the government to reverse it, but the gay community has mostly been MIA on the issue, probably because it doesn’t directly affect us. Second, the FDA does not allow men who have had sex with men in the last 20 years - even if they are HIV-negative and celibate or monogamous - to donate blood or even to be tissue typed to see if they can save someone’s life. This too, should be a priority for the gay community, but barely gets any attention by our national organizations.
8. Adoption. We must overturn Florida’s ban on adoption by lesbians and gay men. The policy hurts children and insults the parenting ability of an entire class of people. If straight people in Florida were adopting all the available children, that would be one thing, but to keep children orphans when there are good homes waiting for them is just wrong. We should also undertake a massive campaign in the gay and especially the lesbian community about the joys of adopting. Unfortunately, an increasing number of same-sex couples are creating babies from scratch rather than adopting, which means rather than giving a child with no parents two same-sex parents, they’re deliberately bringing a child into the world without both a mother and a father. Such an act is selfish and cruel, and even worse since they’re victimizing their own child. While same-sex baby-making cannot and should not be made illegal, the LGBT community can do a lot to make adoption “cool” and baby-making less so.
The thing about your proposed agenda is that if you really want to mobilize the gay community behind your priorities, I don’t see you getting very far by regularly calling the gay community “selfish.” I’m sure other marriage defenders love your critique. But when you continue to rip on the gay community, thereby alienating yourself from it, do you expect your marriage defender allies to jump on board and help you address these other priorities?
I mean, I think it’s pretty apparent that you’re not gaining many allies within the gay community who are willing to work with you on these more important issues. Is that correct?
My point is that if you really care about these other priorities, and I have no reason to think you do not, I think it’s pretty likely that labeling the gay community as “selfish” only hurts your cause.
Is it possible for you to make your arguments without also calling gay people selfish? Many gay and lesbian families don’t seek marriage out of some mere desire for an “ego boost.” Rather, they honestly feel that their families are demeaned and devalued because the unique and special status of marriage is not available to them. I know you believe that allowing same-sex couples into marriage would devalue marriage in your eyes (right?). But can you at least concede that same-sex couples feel as legitimately demeaned by not being allowed into marriage as you feel demeaned by allowing them into the institution?
You may say that no one has died a slow and painful death by not having their relationship called marriage, but I could just as easily demean your feelings by saying that no heterosexual has died a slow and painful death by allowing same-sex couples to marry.
I just now discovered your blog (via National Review) and am glad to have found it. You bring up a lot of thought-provoking points. I look forward to reading more!
David, that agenda would meet with a great deal of support among marriage defenders, I think, because it cuts away the underbrush of identity politics and focussing on the common good.
Your last item regarding adoption is probably the exception.
More important than creating an implicit adult right to adopt, society ought to focus on removing the hurdles that exist for adoption by people who would provide homes that integrate motherhood and fatherhood.
Attitude surveys indicate that more than enough interest exists and is strong among married people and people who are open to marriage; but that we need to work on overcoming negative myths and we need to reform key well-intentioned but counter-productive policies such as those which lead to a disproportionate removal of poor children from their parents.
I don’t wish to distract from you overall list, however, and will repeat that undoubtedly the ideas would be welcomed (are welcomed) by many who are disturbed, and provoked, by the radical attack on the core of the social institution of marriage. Making common cause like this would go a great distance in deflating the antagonisms that the SSM stuff has enflamed — on all sides.
Fannie-
As usual, you raise a good point. However, it’s become clear that the organized gay community isn’t going to listen to me no matter how polite I am. A leading transgender organization refuses to support my proposal to save the lives of transgender women in prison because they consider me to be an unacceptable ally. All I can do is lay out a non-selfish LGBT agenda and people can make their own decisions whether to embrace all or parts of it.
But since you raised it, how do you feel about just one element of my proposed agenda (I have removed all comments critical of LGBT people):
• The gay community should divert some of the resources spent on the semantic squabble in California over what term will be used for the exact same rights and instead spend them on passing Salt Lake City-type mutual beneficiary laws in states like Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas, Michigan, and Ohio where marriage and civil unions are both barred by the Constitution.
Do you agree? If not, why not?
Chairm-
I was specific that my proposal is only if, as is abundantly true, there aren’t enough mother-father homes for Florida children. If you can explain why it’s better for a little girl to live in foster care or an orphanage rather than be adopted by two Moms that love her, I’d be interested in hearing.
David,
It is not abundantly evident that there there is a shortage of mother-father homes in Florida. There are obstacles in the way of recruitment of more married homes for children in need, yes, but this is not about a shortage of such homes. Likewise with adoptive homes headed by peole who are open to marriage.
The child population now in the care of the state is not comprised solely of orphans. About half will be reunited with their families. A good proportion will become wards of related guardians. Others will reach the age of majority and exit the system as adults — and there are programs available, and more coming, that will assist such children into their early twenties.
Meanwhile less than half of the children in the state’s care will become available for adoption. And, as I said, the economically disadvantaged are disproportionately represented.
The diversity of options to assist children in need is not limited to the dichotomy of orphanges or gay adoption. There is no one solution that fits all children.
But, even if that dichotomy was true and operable, it is mistaken to assume that the orphanage is the worst option. Especially when that option does not preclude the little girl being adopted by a home that includes both a father and a mother.
What, if anything, about lesbianism would make the dichotomy such that the little girl is assumed to be better served by two women?
If lesbianism is not the key feature of the option you think might be better than an orphanage, then, a woman could adopt a child, as a single parent, and even if her mother or a sister helps care for the child, the option would remain open for the child to eventually live in a home that integrates fatherhood and mother, should the adoptive mother be open to marriage.
David: ‘1. Relationship recognition’
Sure, after we’ve gotten gay marriage. Marriage, precisely as it stands, is exactly what many gay couples need. We’ll have it thanks. Other couples, straight, gay and platonic, need something more light duty. Let’s have a few versions of that as well.
‘2. Nondiscrimination’
If you can suggest additional groups that need to be brought under the umbrella of anti-discrimination law, I’ll happily consider supporting them. But I don’t believe for a moment that that was why you brought this up. The first words out of your mouth when you listed your detailed agenda were “a business owner’s right to run her company how she wants”. I don’t think you get the idea here. Anti-discrimination law is precisely about restraining business owner’s rights. All the concessions that are ever going to be made have been made: business owners can be as racist, sexist, homophobic and religiously chauvinistic in their homes and places of worship. To the extent they’re running their business as a public accommodation, too bad.
‘3. Hate crimes. Laws should never try to regulate people’s thoughts, instead of their actions.’
Hate crimes laws don’t. You are at perfect liberty to froth with hatred against gay people as much as you like. You just can’t beat them up, and to make sure the deterrent is in proportion to the itchy feeling some of you guys have to do that, hate crimes increase penalties. There’s also a second reason. Hate crimes are normally terrorism: they are typically committed against opportunistic victims in part to strike fear into an associated community. Therefore it’s reasonable to increase penalties to reflect not only the suffering of the direct victim but also the terrorized community.
‘4. “Anti-bullying laws.”’
Don’t kid yourself that homosexuality isn’t being discussed. It’s being discussed all right, and in virulently negative terms, which is where a lot of the bullying comes from.
‘5. Not blaming the victim.’
I think you’re making this up. Every discussion I’ve ever heard mentions that minority communities tend to be harder to target with safe-sex information because of factors like living in the shadows, language barriers, cultural barriers (”I’m a man who has sex with men, but I’m not _gay_!”) etc.
‘6. The military [...] But I’m not an expert at whether out gays would help or harm the military’s primary mission - to win wars. [...] Well, I’m sorry, but there are some things more important than gay self-esteem - like, um, beating the Nazis.’
Well, why aren’t you an expert on this? Plenty of other armed forces have experience with out gay and lesbian service people by now and it’s a non-issue. Why are you still flogging this when the results are in? You’re flogging it because you want something to complain about.
‘7. Fighting homophobia’
No argument here.
‘8. Adoption.’
Adoption is of course a no-brainer. You haven’t sold me at all on the opposite-sex thing at all though. I do have misgivings about surrogacy arrangements that would leave a biological parent totally anonymous and/or shut out, but I wouldn’t support a campaign against it unless it applied to same and opposite sex couples equally.
David,
You asked me:
“The gay community should divert some of the resources spent on the semantic squabble in California over what term will be used for the exact same rights and instead spend them on passing Salt Lake City-type mutual beneficiary laws in states like Virginia, Wisconsin, Texas, Michigan, and Ohio where marriage and civil unions are both barred by the Constitution.
Do you agree? If not, why not?”
I would agree to that if the California marriage defenders would divert some of the resources they’re spending on this semantic squabble to more important issues facing the heterosexual community.
Legal provision for reciprocal beneficiaries has existed alongside marital status, and has been well-utilized, long before the SSM campaign kicked-off.
In California, Prop 22 was about more than just the label. But domestic partnership status was rapidly modified to become a localized merger with marital status in all but name. That illustrates the folly of enacting a relationship status when no such status, at law, is required for lawful reciprocal beneficiaries.
The SSM campaign has been a huge waste or resources because the SSM merger is entirely unnecessary to provide protections for families in need. The SSM merger in California excludes far more such families than it includes — because the purpose of the merger is not justice nor protctions but rather the promotion of identity politics.
Too bad that the energy and resources the SSMers have thrown into their attack on the social institution of marriage was not spent on more substantive, and less corruptive, purposes.
Chairm-
A brief response and then you can have the last word because I prefer to spend most of my time at GDM dialoguing with SSM supporters. The various “solutions” you refer to do not provide parents for the children in need. I agree that if all else is equal, children should go to mother-father homes instead of same-parent homes. But in the frequent situation where the child has to have two Moms or no parents at all, I think your position that they should have no parents at all is horribly cruel, since it is sustained only by your ideology and nothing more. I think every bit of energy traditionalists like us expend to prevent same-sex adoption of children that are not going to be adopted to mother-father families otherwise could be better spent promoting adoption among mother-father families that could do a terrific job in adding a little one to their families.
Mark-
1. I fail to understand the reason (other than cruel selfishness) that you would refuse to try to do anything to help same-sex couples in El Paso and Atlanta and Toledo who have absolutely no rights until you have “gotten gay marriage.” Even if you are sure that gay marriage is a terrific idea, why not divert just 10 percent of the millions of dollars being spent on the semantic squabble in California, and spend it in a state where Democrats are currently strong - Ohio, say - to pass a mutual beneficiary law so lesbian couples in Akron can know for sure they can visit each other in the hospital and a pair of gay fathers in Cincinnati can know for sure that if one of them dies the other will be able to inherit custody without a fight? I know I can’t force you to adopt my priorities, but I am flummoxed why someone with your priorities wouldn’t be willing to support such a simple step.
2. You say “Anti-discrimination law is precisely about restraining business owner’s rights” which is not absolutely true given that virtually every nondiscrimination law including ENDA contains a total exemption for small business owners. Why do you think such provisions exist if not to accommodate business owners’ rights?
3. I would be far less concerned with hate crimes laws that are narrowly tailored to real cases of identity terrorism - someone beats up a gay man leaving a gay bar, and calls him “faggot” in an attempt to prevent other LGBT people from going to that bar. But that’s not how hate crimes laws operate in the real world. They are a reward to politically powerful groups that want to be stroked by the government by gaining the special privilege of having their antagonists given extra punishment when they are harmed. If I am assaulted because I am gay or because I am Jewish, why should my attacker get extra punishment than if I was attacked for being Republican or being short? My stay in the hospital is just as long. It’s the same crime. It should get the same punishment. In New York during my most recent semester at NYU there was an appalling case in which a gay man was charged, tried, convicted and punished under a hate crime enhancement because his victim was gay, and the judge ruled that since the particular statute did not require any actual proof of hate, the enhancement applied to him. Surely that’s not identity terrorism.
5. Believe it. I’m working on a longer piece on this subject and I don’t want to publicly use all my quotes in the blog comments section, but one should suffice for now. The president of a major statewide marriage-equality organization told me he is “not very sympathetic about the affects on black MSM and married men on the ‘down low.’ We live in a very different America today, where many men have no excuse to be in the closet and/or living in homophobic towns where they can’t live more healthy lifestyles.”
6. The other armies that have incorporated openly gay servicemembers come from very different societies with very different traditions than ours, and with the possible exception of Israel, none has the track record of military success that we do. I hope the military lifts the ban, but only if it will help us win wars, not if it will hurt us.
8. I am willing to support a campaign run by the gay community encouraging baby-making only when the child will have both a mother and father that extends to the heterosexual community; for example I oppose the Murphy Brown situation. But most heterosexual baby-making is for cases where the child will have both a mother and a father, so I see no need to discourage that.
Fannie-
The California campaign is a semantic squabble as far as the same-sex couples are concerned; they get all the same rights whether it’s called a domestic partnership or a marriage.
It is most certainly not a semantic squabble for supporters of traditional marriage, which you already know if you’ve been reading my blog. Same-sex marriage waters down the meaning of marriage for everybody by including huge numbers of people who are completely clueless as to what marriage is. It also restricts the religious freedom of traditional Americans to use the definition of marriage they believe in in the way they run their businesses, raise their children, and perform their jobs.
As with Mark, I am completely flabbergasted at your abandonment of gays and lesbians in places like Virginia and Georgia where it’s really hard to be in a same-sex couple with your obsession in helping gays in totally gay-friendly California get the word they want. Because that’s all they’ll get if Prop. 8 loses - a word.
I appreciate the last word on our exchange about adoption.
But I emphasize again: the rest of your proposed selfless agenda provides plenty of good stuff for making common cause across the lines that usually divide people in the culture wars — including the dispute over marriage.
* * *
David said: horribly cruel, since it is sustained only by your ideology and nothing more.
There is far more to what I said than that, David. In principle, and in practice, orphanages are not a cruel option. Nor is guardianship in leau of adoption. It is untrue that these valid alternatives are loveless or don’t provide for the needs of the children. The dichotomy that you described does not exist. I am standing on reasonable principles and practices, not blind ideology.
One example to illustrate: a significant portion of children in the Florida foster care system today are in sibling groups that can be very difficult to place with adoptors. Is it more cruel to seperate siblings or to keep them together as a family unit in a caring and loving orphanage?
We agree on my central point: [time and energy is] better spent promoting adoption among mother-father families that could do a terrific job in adding a little one to their families.
We need to do more to remove the known hindrances to recruitment because there is no shortage of such candidate families.
Better that than instituting an implicit adult right to adopt. For that is the selfish basis upon which a supposed right to gay marriage has been asserted.
David,
I have a question regarding what has been referred to as the symbolic squabble over the term “marriage” (please read no negative connotation or sneer in the reference, merely stating my focus).
If I understand you position correctly, you pose the question why shouldn’t the GBLT community push for civil unions/domestic partnerships (hereafter referred to as “CU/DP”) that supply the exact same rights as marriage, even if they use another name. True, that seems logical and fair topically; but another question lies just beneath the surface.
If the new set of laws provided by CU/DPs would grant the same rights as marriage in this scenario, why then not use the same institution that is currently available? I see no national gain by creating two sets of the exact same laws that apply to two different groups of citizens. The only reason I see for setting up CU/DPs on that level is because it really means that the two will not be equal. What rights currently available to heterosexual couples seeking this level of legal entanglement under the auspices of marriage should not be made available to homosexual couples seeking that level of legal entanglement under the auspices of CU/DP?
From my own perspective, I do agree that the removal of any form of domestic partnerships that also include heterosexual couples, as has been seen in other states, is unfortunate. A co-worker of mine recently got domestically partnered to a significant other (male co-worker, female counterpart). They enjoy significant legal benefits short of marriage, and that was the point. I had asked why they chose this route instead of getting married (the two people have been in a romantic relationship for quote some time) and he stated that it was because the marriage laws create a lot of mutual entanglement legally; they wanted certain things held mutually (in fact it was getting her on his insurance at work that spurred it) but kept many other areas separate (taxes, finances, property [my state of New York has specific rules regarding what kinds of property and to what extent]). It was precisely because marriage has so many other benefits and responsibilities that the chose not to partake. If domestic partnership laws that allow for same-sex couples mirror marriage as you would like, now you are taking options form heterosexual couples as well.
I say let domestic partnerships remain at the sub-marriage level for the very reasons they were created. If you want to compare civil unions, that include same-sex couples, and marriage, that excludes them, I’ll be happy to palaver. But that brings me back to my original quandary: why have two sets of laws that do the same thing?
Why not another compromise: marriage as far as law should be done away with entirely and let everything legal fall under the aegis of civil unions. The clear separation of church/state would then be simple. Then no marriage would be valid unless the couple was also civilly unified by a member of government (or deputized agent thereof).
The term marriage can remain in the hands of the religious and I would have no objection.
I haven’t seen an example where someone comes right out and details the answer. What would be you response to this question? What exactly should be different between a same-sex civil union and different-sex marriage in the eyes of the law other than the genatilia of the parties involved?
David: ‘ I fail to understand the reason (other than cruel selfishness) that you would refuse to try to do anything to help same-sex couples in El Paso and Atlanta and Toledo who have absolutely no rights until you have “gotten gay marriage.”’
I’ve addressed this elsewhere. Briefly, I don’t see the conflict. You can’t just throw money at the problem, you have to change attitudes, and a big part of changing attitudes is having the sky not fall when cutting edge measures like marriage go through in cutting edge states like California.
‘You say “Anti-discrimination law is precisely about restraining business owner’s rights” which is not absolutely true given that virtually every nondiscrimination law including ENDA contains a total exemption for small business owners.’
Really? From the California Civil Code:
51. (a) This section shall be known, and may be cited, as the Unruh
Civil Rights Act.
(b) All persons within the jurisdiction of this state are free and
equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color, religion,
ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, marital
status, or sexual orientation are entitled to the full and equal
accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in
all business establishments of every kind whatsoever.
And in any case, even if there’s a small business exemption in some versions of this sort of law, that has exactly no bearing on whether “Anti-discrimination law is precisely about restraining business owner’s rights”.
‘But that’s not how hate crimes laws operate in the real world. They are a reward to politically powerful groups that want to be stroked by the government by gaining the special privilege of having their antagonists given extra punishment when they are harmed.’
Very possibly. So? I’ll have some of that, thanks. It’s absolutely no skin off your nose unless you were planning to beat me up.
‘The other armies that have incorporated openly gay servicemembers come from very different societies with very different traditions than ours, and with the possible exception of Israel, none has the track record of military success that we do. ‘
Lame as a very lame thing. I believe the technical term is special pleading.
‘But most heterosexual baby-making is for cases where the child will have both a mother and a father, so I see no need to discourage that.’
That’s what I figured, so sorry, no alliance.