Looking out at the contemporary scene through an LGBT lens.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

TALES from the REPUBLICAN CLOSET

The news from The Atlantic Online is that President Bush’s 2004 campaign manager and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman, has come out. That’s right; he’s gay. Yet reading Marc Ambinder’s article forces me to come to a brutal conclusion: I’m not a nice person. If I were nice, I’d have a more sympathetic reaction to Mehlman’s statement:

"It's taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life ... Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I've told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they've been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that's made me a happier and better person. It's something I wish I had done years ago."

Instead, I want to scream: what took you so f***ing long? (And by the way, everybody has his own path and her own journey.)

This means that six years ago, when Ken Mehlman was running Bush’s campaign and was thirty-seven years old, well beyond the age of reason, he proceeded as if he was unaware of the Republican Party’s longstanding history of anti-gay posturing, its anti-black Southern Strategy, and its AIDS-phobic culture wars against LGBT artists. He managed to ignore the party’s Let’s-Use-Every-Social-Wedge-Issue-We-Can-Find-To-Cynically-Round-Up-Votes politics. With specific reference to LGBT issues, as Marc Ambinder writes, “[Mehlman’s] tenure as RNC chairman and his time at the center of the Bush political machine coincided with the Republican Party's attempts to exploit anti-gay prejudices and cement the allegiance of social conservatives.”

So now we are being asked to find Mehlman’s personal plight as a public figure at war within himself to be the occasion for a generous welcome to the fold of the LGBT community. Indeed, he is now working against California’s Proposition 8 on behalf of the American Foundation for Equal Rights. Apparently, he has become a “de facto strategist for the group” and has “opened his rolodex” to connect AFER with GOP donors. Gee, it’s such a big-tent party.

But in 2004, when Mehlman was thirty-seven, apparently still struggling with his sexual identity, he didn’t recognize any solidarity with the pain of young men and women a decade or two younger than he was, and with even less experience of life, whose parents, cheered on by a Republican party eager to throw verbal stones at sexual minorities, used God and religion to vilify their own children and make them feel like strangers in their own communities. In other words, despite his professed sexual confusion at the time, he still believed he had wisdom enough to run a presidential campaign and advise other people to vote for the head of a Republican party whose best record on Civil Rights probably ended with the Emancipation Proclamation.

Mehlman claims that President Bush “was no homophobe.” What a comfort. But was Bush willing to speak against the anti-gay virus which had infected his party in all matters, from national AIDS policy to “don’t ask, don’t tell” to marriage equality to free speech rights for artists in the LGBT community?

Ambinder tells us that Mehlman is now living in “Chelsea, a gay mecca in New York City.” And his new gay friends in the higher echelons are egging him on in his new identity as a gay advocate. According to the Atlantic article, Dustin Lance Black, the Academy Award winning screenwriter of Milk, said, "Ken represents an incredible coup for the American Foundation for Equal Rights. We believe that our mission of equal rights under the law is one that should resonate with every American. As a victorious former presidential campaign manager and head of the Republican Party, Ken has the proven experience and expertise to help us communicate with people across each of the 50 states."

Excuse me while I frow up.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

QUEERING the "MOSQUE"


What does the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” have to do with LGBT rights? I am certainly in dispute with fundamental Islamic precepts on homosexuality, gender roles, and the rights of women. There have been several prominent cases in the recent past where local Islamic counsels and courts, or national governments in the Middle East, have revealed a total disregard for the rights of gay men, women accused of adultery, and young girls seeking an education. To say nothing of female children subjected to genital mutilation as part of indigenous local custom. But I hope we can agree that in this country, we hold sacrosanct the right to worship one's religion freely.

Apparently, not so much anymore. The sensitivities of those who lost loved ones on 9/11 demand that nothing mar the sacred space that is the last site of the 2,751 men, women, and children who died there. A mosque “in the shadow of” Ground Zero is, in the minds of some, a desecration of hallowed ground.

The arguments in support of the “mosque” do not hold the same emotional resonance as those above, and the right-wing punditry and politicians are happy to parlay the genuine heartache of surviving families into fundraising heaven.

The following facts don’t rouse the populace to defend the Constitution above all else: The mosque in question is both not a “mosque” and not at Ground Zero. It is an Islamic cultural center in which prayer space will be but a part of the entire complex with library and swimming pool.1 As for its being at Ground Zero, it is two blocks away. This means, at least in the densely packed neighborhood in question, that a vast number of other businesses will be closer to the hallowed ground over which people like Newt Gingrich cry crocodile tears. The men’s clothing emporium, Century 21, for example, will survey the quiet and ordered calm of the commemorative spot. Deep discounts on suits and underwear will beckon tourists on their way from moments of quiet contemplation. Surely there is a New York deli/bodega situated somewhere closer to the Ground Zero that developers took years to negotiate than will the Cordoba Center, as the proposed Islamic cultural center is named (although the more innocuous Park51 is now usurping even that nomenclature). "A bagel with cream cheese, thank you," and some young prospective titan of industry will be on his way to his hedge-fund company high in the sky of one of the office buildings on the perimeter of the sacred space.

Somehow, making money will easily co-exist with the spot on which a murderous band of Islamic fundamentalists killed citizens of many countries. Indeed, the majority of them were American--but some were also Muslim. And yet, the Cordoba Center near Ground Zero is the one “business” expected to be exempted from lots of real estate anywhere in the vicinity by those draped in the American flag. Thankfully, Mayor Mike Bloomberg has stood for first principles and defended the Islamic Center's construction on the site of a building the Landmarks Preservation Committee refused to designate a "landmark" just to satisfy obstructionists.

Here are just the first of the Center's "dangerous" stated goals:


Uphold respect for the diversity of expression and ideas between all people

Cultivate and embrace neighborly relations between all New Yorkers, fostering a spirit of civic participation and an awareness of common needs and opportunities

Encourage open discussion and dialogue on issues of relevance to New Yorkers, Americans and the
international reality of our interconnected planet

Revive the historic Muslim tradition of education, engagement and service, becoming a resource for
empowerment and advancement

Now, unless someone proves this is all just a front for planning the next terrorist attack in the Big Apple, we ought to be lauding, not slandering, their efforts at dialogue and establishing a moderating Islamic influence in the city where the worst face of Islam showed itself.


So, to return to this blogger’s basic question: what does any of this have to do with the LGBT community? Well, even the august Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has seen fit to side against the “mosque,” not out of any animus towards Muslims—indeed it has on many occasions forcefully spoken out against anti-Muslim prejudice--but out of a heightened sensitivity to those 9/11 survivors who have had their emotions manipulated by those making political hay over this matter. Said ADL’s National Director, Abe Foxman, "Their anguish entitles them to positions that others would categorize as irrational or bigoted.”


In other words, their irrationality and/or bigotry gets a free pass. Tell me, is there no way to square deep respect and sympathy for their anguish with the Bill of Right’s First Amendment?


Because if there isn’t a way to acknowledge their pain and yet say, despite this, that it is also our sacred duty to uphold the most essential founding principles of this nation, then guess what? The next time an LGBT center is being built in a part of this city or any other and some group of citizens is deeply offended that queers are to inhabit their turf, who will stand with us on the basis of our right to free expression? True, an LGBT center is not a house of worship, but planning to build one can raise all the same objections as the Cordoba Center has. Perhaps the LGBT center will be situated too close to a public school, too close to a Roman Catholic Church, too close to your Orthodox Jewish grandparents’ cemetery?


And don’t ya just love all those reptilian right-wing politicos who have taken such an interest in the uses of real estate in New York City, the city they were once happy to tell to go “Drop Dead” in the midst of our financial crisis of the 1970s? To them, we were the Gomorrah of the East Coast to San Francisco’s Sodom. It’s so nice to know they care. They really care.

1. The Cordoba Center’s website describes the facilities of The Community Center at Park51 as follows:


•outstanding recreation spaces and fitness facilities (swimming pool, gym, basketball court)
•a 500-seat auditorium
•a restaurant and culinary school
•cultural amenities including exhibitions
•education programs
•a library, reading room and art studios
•childcare services
•a mosque, intended to be run separately from Park51 but open to and accessible to all members, visitors and our New York community
•a September 11th memorial and quiet contemplation space, open to all

Thursday, August 5, 2010

MARRIAGE AND MEDIA

There may have been dancing in the streets after U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker declared California’s Proposition 8 unconstitutional, but the media I viewed seemed instantly caught up in reporting that the proponents of Prop 8 were certainly going to appeal. The anchors on the major networks and cable can’t resist reporting everything like a gladiatorial fight. If someone is for, someone else must be against. If the gays and lesbians win one round, they will face defeat in the next.

What was missing in so much of the reporting I saw was any sense of the breadth of Judge Walker’s opinion. It is striking in its thoroughness. It’s Findings of Fact run over 50 pages, detailing reports of psychologists, sociologists, and historians. These findings give evidence of continued discrimination against gays and lesbians while, at the same time, affirming that same-sex couples are substantially the same as different-sexed ones. The children of same-sex couples do as well or better than those of straights. Gays and lesbians are productive members of society, but discrimination against them adds serious stress to their lives. Hate crimes against gays and lesbians have not abated, and they are often likely to be violent in nature. “Domestic partnerships” are by any measure seen as distinctively less than “marriage.” On the basis of studies in Massachusetts, there is no evidence that marriage equality for same-sex couples has affected the rate of traditional marriage, divorce, or out-of-wedlock births in that state.

You would think a few of these findings might find their way onto the airwaves, but no. The broadcasters are too interested in the really sexy issue of how quickly Judge Walker stayed his own decision and how fast the Prop 8-ers filed their appeal. That Judge Walker dismantled the internally contradictory evidence of the Prop-8 defendants is hardly mentioned, unless you are watching Rachel Maddow or Keith Olbermann. You know, the biased liberal media.

The larger point is this: news coverage in America is, with rare exception, superficial, biased not necessarily right nor left but in favor of conflict and sound bites, which is necessarily a reactionary mode. Those who are in the LGBT community—like those in other minority communities—learn the lesson that we can hardly expect the media to represent us credibly. Television is a visual medium: easier to get pictures of us dancing in the streets celebrating a still premature victory than to explain the rigorous argument of a U.S. District Chief Judge for the Northern District of California that “Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses.” That would require explaining the meaning of those terms, the history of the 14th Amendment in which those terms are inscribed, and crediting moral weight to the LGBT movement. This last would be in contradistinction to the high-horse morality of people who pretend no animus toward gay people but do everything in their power to deny us daily dignity. Think of all those Republican Senators (Jeff Sessions, anyone?) who raked Elena Kagan over the coals because she disputed the military presence on the Harvard campus over “don’t ask, don’t tell” which was an affront to Harvard’s own LGBT anti-discrimination policies.

Oh, dear. I write all this and I don’t even think marriage is such a sacrosanct institution in the first place—but I sure can smell a rat when an option is denied me because I’m light in the loafers.

For the full decision, go to this New York Times site:
http://documents.nytimes.com/us-district-court-decision-perry-v-schwarzenegger?ref=us