May 17, 2008
Is this the same Kevin James?
Posted by: Chris
You may have already seen this priceless video clip showing conservative radio talk show host Kevin James making a complete ass of himself Thursday on MSNBC's "Hardball." From the get-go he is hyperventilating -- literally yelling -- about how President Bush was completely justified in comparing Barack Obama, at least by insinuation, with Neville Chamberlain, the infamous British prime minister and other "Nazi appeasers" from the late 1930s.
Chris Matthews tries 28 times -- I didn't count, but others have -- to ask James to explain what it is exactly that Chamberlain did so it could be compared with Obama's willingness to sit down for talks with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. James tries desperately to avoid answering, except to insist that Obama is "exactly the same" as Chamberlain. Eventually he admits he doesn't know what exactly Chamberlain did and Matthews pretty much lays him to waste.
I'd almost feel sorry for James, if he weren't so clearly deserving of the humiliation. The video clip is all over the Net -- just one version of it on YouTube has been viewed more than 250,000 times -- but the reaction in gay Washington circles has been more one of jaws dropping.
Could this really be the same Kevin James, who with his then-boyfriend raised huge sums of money in Los Angeles to support a number of gay political groups, including the Campaign for Military Service -- which later became the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network -- to support President Clinton's effort to end the ban on gays in the military?
I'm not familiar with James on-air schtick, but I'm mighty curious whether he feigns opposition to gay rights or if his Ditto Heads even know he's a big ole homo. Or maybe he's Tammy Bruce in drag?
May 13, 2008
'Anatomy' does 'Don't Ask Don't Tell'
Posted by: Chris
"Grey's Anatomy" has become one of my iTunes "season pass" picks, after I just couldn't wait the 6 to 8 months for the show to show up with subtitles down here in Brazil. I've been a fan since the show's premiere, just for the range of characters and heart-tugging storylines.
A recent episode featuring a gay soldier and his platoon boyfriend was no exception. Enjoy the clip from YouTube while it lasts:
Hat tip: My pal Steve in D.C.; also David Mixner.
March 30, 2008
WaPo 'ins' gay soldier killed in Iraq
Posted by: Chris
The Washington Post ombudsman has gently criticized the paper's editorial judgment for "inning" a gay soldier killed in Iraq, omitting his sexual orientation from a story about his life.
Deborah Howell tackled the issue after a Washington Blade story quoted friends of Army Maj. Alan G. Rogers who were upset the Post ignored that Rogers was effectively the first openly gay soldier killed in the Iraq war. Rogers was out to many friends and was active in AVER, a gay veterans group.
Howell's look behind the scenes in the Post newsroom was quite telling:
For The Post, Rogers's death raised an unanswerable question: Would he have wanted to be identified as gay? Friends also struggled with that question but decided to tell The Post that he was because, they said, he wanted the military's "don't ask, don't tell" rule repealed. …
[The reporter] first wrote a story that included his friends talking about his orientation; some at the paper felt that was the right thing to do. But the material was omitted when the story was published. Many editors discussed the issue, and it was "an agonizing decision," one said. The decision ultimately was made by Executive Editor Len Downie, who said that there was no proof Rogers was gay and no clear indication that, if he was, he wanted the information made public.
It's fascinating to see journalists aggressive as those at the Post deferring to (some) friends and family rather than applying the same standards of newsworthiness they would to any other story. The Post stylebook even incorporates the views of the story subject into the editorial decision:
"A person's sexual orientation should not be mentioned unless relevant to the story . . . . Not everyone espousing gay rights causes is homosexual. When identifying an individual as gay or homosexual, be cautious about invading the privacy of someone who may not wish his or her sexual orientation known."
I'm not sure what "evidence" Downie needed to to prove Rogers' sexual orientation. Ex-boyfriends? Love letters? Did the reporter search for them? Yes it's true that heterosexuals can join gay rights groups and have gay friends, and that is true. But still why wasn't Rogers' participation in the group, which was confirmed, in and of itself newsworthy, along with what his gay friends had to say about him?
Howell eventually concludes in the last paragraph of her column that the story should have included Rogers' sexual orientation, but she cushions her criticism:
The Post was right to be cautious, but there was enough evidence -- particularly of Rogers's feelings about "don't ask, don't tell" -- to warrant quoting his friends and adding that dimension to the story of his life. The story would have been richer for it.
Cautious OK but the way the story was handled suggests a real double standard, however well-intentioned, is at work here. My own belief is that real reason for the omission -- which has been an ongoing issue with obituaries at the Post that I've written about a number of times over the years -- was signaled in the opening line of Howell's column:
What should a newspaper print about a person's most private life in a story after his death?
Rogers' being gay was his "most private life"? Why is the sexual orientation a gay person his "most private" secret when it is a routine fact treated with no privacy expectation whatsoever with heterosexuals? Howell acknowledges that Rogers kept his romantic life -- not sex life, which is private, but romantic life -- only as private as he needed to in order to comply with "Don't Ask Don't Tell."
I'm not of the school that the press "owes us" our heroes and thus should report sexual orientation more frequently. But I do believe the same editorial standards ought to apply to gay and straight alike.
March 18, 2008
SLDN schools Bill Clinton
Posted by: Chris
The Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, created back in 1993 after Bill Clinton signed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" into law, has released an open letter to the former president, calling him out for his recent misrepresentations (here and here) of the policy itself, the politics that led to it, and the way it was enforced. In the letter to Clinton, SLDN director Aubrey Sarvis writes:
Over the last several months you have been asked by reporters and others about the passage and implementation of 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.' You have stated the law was not implemented as you understood at the time it would be.
I gather from your comments that when 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell' became law you intended for the Department of Defense’s implementing regulations to protect service members’ private lives. Unfortunately, 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’s' implementing regulations are by in large consistent with the statutory language of the law itself and effectively prohibits service members from engaging in any actions seen as homosexual conduct. This includes simply telling others that you are lesbian, gay or bisexual.
It's rather than charitable of SLDN to believe that Clinton actually buys his own B.S. about the intended effect of DADT's implementing regulations, considering how clearly they proscribe any type of "homosexual acts," whether or not the soldier or sailor is in private or wearing a uniform.
Kudos to SLDN for speaking out, since it has become almost unthinkable for the current crop of Beltway gay groups to publicly criticize anyone generally considered "pro-gay. Will we see a similar statement from the Humarn Rights Campaign or the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, whether on this issue or Bill Clinton's revisionist history of that other twin pillar of anti-gay discrimination from his administration: the Defense of Marriage Act.
March 17, 2008
Reprioritizing our legislative agenda
Posted by: Andoni
The worst kind of discrimination is the kind our government inflicts on us. Relatively speaking discrimination that others inflict on us is not as bad, not as powerful.
Discrimination written into the law, like slavery or separate but equal public facilities, set the tone for society, encouraging similar conduct by private citizens and companies. For us as gay citizens, the two most egregious pieces of federal legislation that enshrine official anti-gay discrimination by the government are "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act.
On Friday I attended a fundraiser honoring Aubrey Sarvis, the new executive director
of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. Aubrey was a very talented
and successful telecommunications lobbyist, and he knows how to
get legislation through Congress. Under Aubrey’s leadership, SLDN has a strategic
plan to repeal DADT with either President Obama or President
Clinton in the White House. What impressed me most, however, is that SLDN also has a strategy to work with a President McCain as well.
For me, the most important issue is same-sex immigration, but I realize that any success in ridding our government of institutionalized discrimination is a step toward reversing other anti-gay policies. For this reason, I am now supporting SLDN and believe that repealing DADT and DOMA are the two most important things we can do; more important and more symbolic than passing ENDA and hate crimes.
ENDA and the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act were selected as top priorities because they were supposed to be the easiest to get through Congress. However, I think there is a stronger moral argumen that our government treat every individual equally under the law before it adopts legislation that insists individuals and companies do not discriminate.
I would like to see our national organizations shift their emphasis to give government discrimination basd on sexual orientation a higher priority than the efforts to remedy individual and corporate bias.
Should a friendly new administration be elected, DADT and DOMA should be repealed first because that would be most effectively set a new tone against gay discrimination everywhere. To get this done, more of our national organizations need to prioritize DADT and DOMA and follow the lead of SLDN -- building a strategic plan. Getting this legislation passed requires lots of ground work and resources. You can’t ad lib it or do it on the fly.
March 16, 2008
Bill's excellent gay military adventure
Posted by: Chris
There he goes again.
Two months ago, Bill Clinton tried to rewrite the history on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," making it seem that he and Colin Powell had come up with a policy that "meant literally that -- that people would be free to live their lives as long as they didn't go march in gay rights parades or go to gay bars in uniform -- in uniform -- and talk about it on duty they would be all right."
As I pointed out at the time, the former president described the policy exactly backward, since it actually OKs going to gay bars and marching in Pride parades -- neither of which necessarily mean you're gay -- but strictly prohibits doing anything in a soldier or sailor's private life (out of uniform) that involves "homosexual acts" (sex, kissing, holding hands) or "homosexual statements (coming out, love letters, etc.)
The reason for Bill's revisionist history was clear: he was trying to explain away why he signed into law a discriminatory policy that dishonored the military service of thousands of gay men and lesbians, and resulted in dramatic increases in gay-related discharges.
Back in January, gay groups mostly did nothing in response to Clinton's big gay whopper, probably because most are led by Hillary Clinton supporters. Only Log Cabin called him to the carpet. At my request, the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network did issue a written statement from director Aubrey Sarvis, though only to me in an email:
As you point out, there were, indeed, some factual inaccuracies in President Clintonâs statement about "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Indeed, regardless of the intention behind the law, the reality is that it has not served the best interests of service members, our country or our national security. Since its implementation, nearly 12,000 men and women have been dismissed under the law. …
President Clinton's comments also miss a key part of serving under "Donâ't Ask, Don't Tell." Military members cannot be out to anyone, at anytime, while serving under the law. Statements to friends, family members or anyone else are grounds for dismissal from the armed forces, as they have been since day one. The law, indeed, practically prevents any gay American, who is out in anyway, from serving in the military.
Sarvis also indicated in the statement that SLDN has "made sure that Senator Clinton's campaign is aware of our concerns regarding the President's remarks."
Well, whatever SLDN said it didn't stick. Because there he went again this week, repeating his false facts about "Don't Ask Don't Tell" in an interview with college journalists:
It would have been a better policy if it had been implemented the way Gen. [Colin] Powell and I agreed to implement it. I think we may have the support now in Congress to get rid of it altogether. That's what we should do. We should do what every other major country has done and allow gays to serve honorably in the military. I'm not defending 'Don't Ask, Donât Tell' on the merits. Our guys came to us and said, 'Look. If you don't agree to this, theyâre going to bury you. You will have nothing.
It's classic Clinton, claiming he's not defending "DADT" when that's exactly what he's doing by suggesting some unseen Pentagon ne'er do wells enforced the policy in a different way than he and Powell had agreed upon. DADT was adopted in the first year of Clinton's presidency, if there was an enforcement problem then why didn't the Commander in Chief do something about it? Was he not ready to lead on Day 1?
In fact he wasn't, ironically. In this week's interview, Clinton portrays himself in an impossible political bind. But those of us who were in Washington at the time remember like it was yesterday how the president rolled over with absolutely no fight, agreeing to the "compromise" policy foisted on him by Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn.
Ultimately it's a good thing of course that Bill Clinton supports his wife in repealing the policy, even as he stubbornly refuses to acknowledge that it was the policy -- his policy -- that was wrong and discriminatory, and not how it was implemented by the military.
But Clinton isn't the only one who needs to come clean. Enough of the silence from gay groups on this. It's incumbent on SLDN, the Human Rights Campaign and the Task Force to proactively issue statements that correct the historical record.
For those who are interested, Clinton also offered some insight into why he promised during his 1992 presidential campaign to repeal the outright ban on military service by gays that existed previously. Follow the jump for that.
January 23, 2008
When a Clinton lies about gay rights…
Posted by: Chris
… and no gay rights group makes a sound, did it ever really happen?
UPDATE: At the end of the post.
Yes it did, and now Log Cabin has posted the video evidence of Bill Clinton misstating the history and legal effect of his "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays in the military. The clip is short, so have at:
Still nothing public in response from the Hillary fans at the Human Rights Campaign, even though HRC hasn't hesitated to interject itself thus far during the primaries when it would benefit "the other HRC," Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In fact, the gay media and blogosphere generally has ignored the issue. So far all I could find was a post on Gay Patriot and a small story on PageOneQ (that doesn't test the validity of his comments).
Also conspicuously silent is the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an organization whose work on gays in the military I greatly respect. SLDN owes it to gay soldiers and sailors kicked out during the Clinton administration and since to correct Bill Clinton's gross rewriting of the history of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," not to mention the basic structure of the policy -- which was never intended to allow gay service members to "live their lives freely" so long as they didn't march in Gay Pride parades in uniform, as Clinton suggested.
I've asked SLDN for comment and am awaiting a reply.
UPDATE: Pam Spaulding did post in response to Bill Clinton's selective memory, concluding, "The long legacy of triangulation and the Clintons is too familiar not to make this new statement sound like another bit of Bill revisionist history going on."
Still nothing in the gay or mainstream media, and no reply from SLDN or its spokesperson Steve Ralls, who apparently spends a good portion of his day blogging off-topic over at the Bilerico Project. Since when did gay activism get so boring that they need to moonlight as journo-bloggers, anyway?
January 20, 2008
Bill Clinton hoisted on his own petard
Posted by: Chris
The video clip of Bill Clinton misstating the legal effect and history of his "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy has turned up over at PageOneQ. CNN's Situation Room broadcast the excerpt, and here's exactly what the former president, stumping for votes for his wife in Nevada, had to say:
"Don't Ask Don't Tell" as it was articulated, as I worked it out with Colin Powell, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meant literally that -- that people would be free to live their lives as long as they didn't go march in gay rights parades or go to gay bars in uniform -- in uniform -- and talk about it on duty they would be all right. Now, as soon as he left, the anti-gay forces in the military started using it as an excuse to kick people out.
The impression from the video is that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was limited to a service member's conduct "in uniform," and they were free to "live their lives" out of uniform, in private. That is a gross misstatement of the policy, as I outlined in a post yesterday, which makes no meaningful distinction between conduct in uniform and out.
As constructed by Bill Clinton's Defense Department lawyers, led by Jamie Gorelick, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was falsely cast as a "homosexual conduct" policy that far from allowing gay soldiers and sailors to "live their lives," required that they actively lie in inevitable banter about personal lives and engage in absolutely no "homosexual acts," which includes not just sodomy but kissing, holding hands or anything indicating romantic interest in someone of the same gender.
And there is no evidence to support Clinton's claim that Colin Powell's departure from the military in September 1993 had any impact on the way his policy was implemented. For one thing, Bill Clinton remained the commander in chief for the proceeding seven years, and groups like the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network painstakingly documented abuses in the policy, as well as its basic unfairness. The buck stopped with Bill, not simply the Pentagon, to stop the witchhunts. Instead, discharges increased annually until after Bill Clinton left office and the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. The Pentagon's "stop loss" policies allow gays to die during war, even as they would be discharged during other times.
Just so we're clear, I know of what I speak. One of the first things I did after coming out at the Washington, D.C., law firm of Covington & Burling in 1993 was to bring a constitutional test case representing Navy Lt. Paul Thomasson, a decorated pilot working then in the Pentagon for the Navy admiral in charge of enforcing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Even though the admiral testified at Paul's discharge hearing that he was a model lieutenant whose homosexuality didn't bother the admiral or any of Paul's coworkers, the panel ruled against Lt. Thomasson and his military career came to an abrupt end. The point of Thomasson's case was two-fold: that the policy was unconstitutional and that the Clinton Defense Department was irrational to conclude that merely stating, "I am gay" was presumptive evidence that a service member was violating policy by engaging in "homosexual acts."
I left Covington and Washington at the end of 1994, but the firm continued to represent Paul, whose case was the first gays in the military challenge to be rejected (without comment) by the U.S. Supreme Court.
It would be one thing for Bill Clinton to argue that he was sandbagged by the pushback he got on his promise to end the ban on gays in the military, so he agreed to a "compromise" that in retrospect was wrong and discriminatory. That would at least be closer to the truth, although it wouldn't capture just how little Clinton tried to defend himself and gay service members at the time.
But Bill Clinton under pressure is not a pretty sight. So like his shifting positions on Iraq (and those of his wife), he tries instead to weasel his way out of responsibility, rewriting history and, no doubt, doing some damage control on his own legacy.
It is incumbent on the media and gay rights groups, whatever their presidential candidate affiliation, to call Bill Clinton out on his misrepresentation of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and correct the record once and for all.
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January 19, 2008
Déjà Bill all over again
Posted by: Chris
It's beginning to feel a lot like the '90s. All of Bill Clinton's campaigning on behalf of Hillary has allowed to us to relive some of the highlights and lowlights of his two terms in office, including his (very instructive) betrayal of campaign promises on gay rights.
Now the Log Cabin Republicans have issued a statement condemning Clinton -- Bill, not Hillary -- for rewriting history on "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." According to LCR:
On the campaign trail Thursday for his wife, presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY), former President Clinton said, "'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' as articulated as I worked it out with Colin Powell, who was then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, meant literally that...that people would be free to live their lives as long as they didn't go march in gay rights parades or go to gay bars in uniform...in uniform...and talk about it on duty, they would be all right. Now, as soon as he [Colin Powell] left, the anti-gay forces in the military started using it as an excuse to kick people out."
The entire Log Cabin press release, which hasn't been posted to the group's website, is available in the jump to this post. Kudos to LCR for raising the issue, but demerits for not offering a link to Clinton's comments or some hint of where they can be found. (My own Internet search turned up squat, so let me know if any of you find it.)
If the Log Cabin quote has it right, then Bill Clinton definitely got it wrong. LCR leader Patrick Sammon hits the former commander in chief and would-be first gentleman pretty hard:
"President Clinton's latest attempt to re-write history and deny the reality of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' is an insult to the thousands of gay and lesbian service members who have been kicked out of the military because of the failed law he signed in 1993," said Sammon. "President Clinton either didn't understand the legislation he signed or he's lying."
If anything, I would hit Clinton even harder. His recollection of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has things completely bassackwards. In fact, the policy makes a point of saying that service members can go to a gay bar or march in a Gay Pride parade without violating the policy. What they cannot do is acknowledge that they are gay or, as Clinton put it, "live their lives." Because if they had a same-sex boyfriend or girlfriend -- even kept in private -- then they violated the policy.
Why? Because Clinton and Defense Department lawyers led by Jamie Gorelick portrayed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" as a "homosexual conduct" policy. A soldier or sailor who acknowledges they are gay is in violation not because they are gay -- that's not prohibited under the policy -- but because by publicly acknowledging as much, they are presumed to be engaging in "homosexual conduct" -- i.e., sodomy, same-sex kissing and other gay yucky stuff (protected by the U.S. Constitution).
This fig leaf rationale was employed to hide the real reason for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell": the Pentagon brass knows gays can serve honorably but was worried about the effect on "combat readiness" if bigoted heterosexual soldiers became aware of gays with whom they served. So rather than acknowledge and deal with anti-gay bigotry, Bill Clinton and Colin Powell gave it the effect of law (another constitutional violation), and punished the gays for it.
Not surprising, then, that Clinton is misremembering reality today, as even his wife advocates the repeal of his policy -- albeit while defending its enactment as a necessary "transitional" measure.
This is what you get with the Clintons, folks. Why would we want a repeat?
January 17, 2008
Dems 'Don't Tell' on gays in military
Posted by: Chris
Lost amid all the headlines about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton calling a truce at Tuesday night's Democratic debate in Nevada was a question by NBC's Tim Russert about whether they would enforce a statute on the books that cuts off all federal funding to colleges and universities that do not allow military recruiters on campus.
Russert didn't explain that the purpose of the statute, known as the Solomon Amendment, wasn't to override liberal universities opposed to the war or the military generally -- but to block dozens of schools from enforcing non-discrimination policies based on sexual orientation, which prohibit on-campus recruiting by employers unwilling to sign a pledge not to discriminate.
The military, of course, does discriminate based on sexual orientation, forcing soldiers and sailor who are gay, lesbian and bisexual to hide and lie about who they are and to remain celibate. A group of the nation's most prestigious law schools, including the alma maters of Obama (Harvard Law) and Clinton (Yale Law) challenged the constitutionality of the amendment on First Amendment grounds but lost in a unanimous Supreme Court ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts.
Unfortunately, most debate viewers were completely unaware of this background because the way the question was put by Russert, the Solomon Amendment came off as a progressive effort to achieve a better balance in the military among poor urban and rural service members and well-off, college-educated youth. Perhaps as a result, all three Democrats promised aggressive enforcement of the Solomon Amendment without even acknowledging the civil rights issue at the heart of it.
Ditto Russert's follow-up about schools that resist on-campus Reserve Officer Training Corps programs. Some objections may be pacifist, but most are civil rights based, and all three candidates are on record agreeing that "Don't Ask Don't Tell" is wrong, discriminatory and should be repealed. (The full question and responses are excerpted in the jump to this post.)
The Supreme Court correctly decided the Solomon Amendment case, since the law is viewpoint neutral and schools can still inform students who visit military recruiters about the school's opposition to the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Even still, it was unfortunate that none of the candidates managed to at least raise the issue in their answers.
Credit CNN commentator David Gergen, a moderate Republican who also worked in Bill Clinton's administration, for raising the issue at the end of a commentary about the debate:
A post-script to last night's Democratic debate: Clinton, Edwards and Obama each told Tim Russert they would enforce laws requiring universities to allow military recruiters on campus. As a long-time advocate of restoring ROTC to major universities, I just want to add that a huge stumbling block now is the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of the military, which is seen at many schools as highly discriminatory against gays and lesbians. If that is amended -- as growing numbers in the military think should happen -- we will have a much better chance of persuading schools to honor service in the armed forces in the ways that they should.
One of the ways to test the candidates' commitment to gay rights is what they say to a general audience when given the opportunity to address gay issues. On that score, all three failed on Tuesday night.
March 20, 2007
Defend us or defend us not?
Posted by: Chris
In my column for gay newspapers this week, I had a chance to look back with a bit of perspective on the controversy over Marine General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, justifying the ban on military service by out gays because "homosexual acts" are "immoral."
Like most gay people, I sharply criticized the general for injecting his own personal moral view into a public policy debate. And yet, like most gay people, I was also critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama for not injecting their moral views on homosexuality.
That double-standard — that moral views about homosexuality ought to be heard in politics but only from our friends — probably explains why exactly half of you voted in my online poll that, "Yes, politicians should defend the morality of gay Americans," and the other half voted, "No, the personal view of politicians about the morality of homosexuality ought to be irrelevant."
I had originally voted "yes," and wrote as much. In my column, I reconsidered that stance:
Perhaps we all fell too easily into the trap set by Pace's remarks, expecting politicians to defend our morality instead of our equal treatment under the law. If we truly believe in the separation of church and state, and that personal moral views have no place in politics, then we shouldn't demand that gay-friendly politicians pronounce us "moral" any more than we accept it when conservatives like Pace call us immoral.
We know more than enough about most politicians and even most religious leaders not to put too much stake in their moral approval anyway. Let's not get distracted from the real equality issues at the heart of the movement.
It's controversies like this one that remind me why "separation of church and state" never really commands the full support of most Americans in practice as much as it does in principle. Because deep down, we want our political leaders to share our moral outlook on the important social issues of the day, even if we say it's only the policy position that ought to be important.
March 15, 2007
A Clinton-Obama immorality tale
Posted by: Chris
Congratulations, homosexuals. You're not immoral, after all. Or so said the two leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination today, backtracking from their evasive answers about whether they agreed with Joint Chiefs chairman Peter Pace that gays are "immoral."
Hillary Rodham Clinton, who had said only yesterday that she would leave the matter for others to conclude, issued a short statement reacting to angry gay supporters:
I have heard from many of my friends in the gay community that my response yesterday to a question about homosexuality being immoral sounded evasive. I should have echoed my colleague Senator John Warner’s statement forcefully stating that homosexuality is not immoral because that is what I believe.
The clarification is welcome, even though it is carefully couched (imagine!) to piggyback on a conservative Republican, inoculation from criticism down the road. Query whether treading a path already blazed by a right-wing Republican is what gays really need in the way of White House leadership.
Barack Obama also issued a short statement, as well he should have since he tied St. Peter's record of thrice-refusing to embrace the morality of his gay supporters. Said the Illinois senator:
I do not agree with General Pace that homosexuality is immoral. Attempts to divide people like this have consumed too much of our politics over the past six years.
Credit John Edwards with coming out full-fledged in disagreement with Pace from the get-go.
This from CNN's "Situation Room," even before Hillary and Obama dodged:
BLITZER: Let's talk about General Peter Pace, the chairman of the joint chiefs. He suggested today, his own personal opinion, homosexuality, he said, was immoral. As a result, don't change the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.
First of all, in your opinion, is homosexuality immoral?
EDWARDS: I don't — don't share that view. And I would go — go further than that, Wolf. I think the don't ask, don't tell is not working. And as president of the United States I would change that policy.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson gets a bit of a pass, since AP apparently asked him about the controversy only after he saw the trap that ensnared the two leading Democrats:
Richardson called Pace's remarks "unfortunate" and said the Bush administration should reject them, adding that he would push Congress to repeal military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy. …
"People should not be judged based on their sexual orientation," the New Mexico Governor said in Santa Fe. "Throughout my entire career I have fought for equal rights and against discrimination of any kind."
All these statements and clarifications leave me feeling a bit uneasy, and only partly because they were even necessary. For one thing, if we really believe that General Pace's personal moral views about our lives ought to be irrelevant to public policy, then why are the personal moral views of these politicians of any interest? Perhaps that's why almost half of you who've voted in my blog poll said they didn't want the candidates defending our morality.
And maybe it's just the lawyer in me, but are the Democrats parsing words here? General Pace never said "homosexuality is immoral," and it's a bit of a straw-man to suggest otherwise. He said "homosexual acts" are immoral, and in so doing he tracked the language of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which still prohibits consensual homosexual sodomy.
Leave it to an anti-gay conservative to understand the difference. Sam Brownback, the Kansas senator trying to steal the Republican right from Mitt Romney, understands the difference. Asked if he agreed with Pace, Brownback followed the classic "hate the sin, love the sinner" approach:
I do not believe being a homosexual is immoral, but I do believe homosexual acts are. I'm a Catholic and the church has clear teachings on this.
Brownback also gets credit for consistency, if not respect for pluralism, since he argues that his own personal view and that of General Pace are perfectly suitable grounds for public policy, even if that means discharging gays from the military. Said Brownback:
We should not expect someone as qualified, accomplished and articulate as General Pace to lack personal views on important moral issues. In fact, we should expect that anyone entrusted with such great responsibility will have strong moral views.
Were the Democrats still dodging by saying they disagree that "homosexuality is immoral" while taking no position on whether "homosexual acts" are? Maybe that's why Hillary told Bloomsburg News (watch the video here), all while "clarifying" her disagreement with Pace, that morality will still have a role to play in the military, even after the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell":
Let the Uniform Code of Military Justice determine if conduct is inappropriate or unbecoming. That's fine. That's what we do with everybody. But let's not be eliminating people because of who they are or who they love.
"Who they are" and "who they love" are about sexual orientation, of course, while "what they do about it" is about those dirty "homosexual acts" about which the general spoke so fondly. Technically speaking, the UCMJ is silent as to sexual orientation, while saying loudly that only heterosexuals are allowed to act on theirs.
Here's to holding out for someone to say in response to General Pace that not just "who they love" but "what they do about it" ought to have no bearing on whether Americans can serve their country in uniform, whether or not their "acts" are thought to be "immoral" by some.
March 14, 2007
Hillary dodges 'immorality' issue
Posted by: Chris
Hillary Rodham Clinton's interview today on ABC's "Good Morning America" made headlines because she (belatedly) joined calls for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resignation. But ABC's Jake Tapper also asked Clinton what she thought of comments by Joint Chiefs chairman Peter Pace in support of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" because of his personal belief that homosexuality is "immoral."
Tapper asked Clinton if she agreed with the general about the morality of homosexual acts and rather than take issue, as John Edwards had in an CNN interview and even Republican Sen. John Warner (Va.) did, Clinton dodged. "Well, I'm going to leave that to others to conclude," she said.
In a report about Clinton's demurral on CNN's "Situation Room," campaign spokesman Philippe Reinns tried to undo the damage, issuing a statement that said the Democratic frontrunner "obviously" disagrees with Pace and that everyone, including the general, "has the right to be wrong, but should not inject their personal beliefs into public policy."
The report also quoted a political analyst who attributed Clinton's unwillingness to stand up for the morality of gay and lesbian Americans to her carefully scripted campaign, which makes it difficult for her to be "spontaneous." Credit Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson with calling on Clinton to stand up for her gay and lesbian supporters. "I assume that Senator Clinton ... understands that gay Americans are not immoral, and she ought to say so clearly," he told CNN.
Yes, Clinton opposes "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," a policy backed by her husband when he was unwilling to fight to allow gays to serve openly in the military, as he had promised in his campaign. And yes, there is something to be said for politicians (and generals) staying out of the debate over the "morality" of homosexuality, since there personal views should be irrelevant to public policy.
At the same time, HRC (the candidate) can hardly expect to believe she'll be our "champion," and be willing (unlike her husband) to actually expend political capital on our behalf, if she won't even say publicly whether she thinks we're immoral for pursuing the same happiness in relationships as straight Americans. And her demurral is even more galling when you think about the clear "arrangement" she reached in her own marriage that stands far outside the bounds of traditional morality.
We need to hear from Hillary herself. Are we "immoral" or not?
UPDATE: This just in from a reader. Apparently Barack Obama is dodging as well:
Barack Obama joined Hillary in courting gays and lesbians by calling for the rollback of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" — without wanting to directly refute General Pace's comment that homosexuality is "immoral."
Newsday caught Obama as he was leaving the firefighters convention and asked him three times if he thought homsexuality is immoral.
Answer 1: "I think traditionally the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman has restricted his public comments to military matters. That's probably a good tradition to follow."
Answer 2: "I think the question here is whether somebody is willing to sacrifice for their country, should they be able to if they're doing all the things that should be done."
Answer 3: Signed autograph, posed for snapshot, jumped athletically into town car.
Why the dance? Maybe it has something to do with not wanting to alienate moderates — or social conservatives, the churchfolk who view homosexuality as a sin.
If you give them the benefit of the doubt, it's for the reason given by Obama and implied by HRC: that personal views about the morality of homosexual acts ought to be irrelevant to public policy. The more skeptical view is that suggested by the reader.
I think these candidates need to understand that, since Pace has injected the issue of our morality into public debate, we need to hear from them that they respect our relationships, even if they are unwilling to go the full distance and back marriage equality. It is not too much to ask.
March 13, 2007
The bible-thumping general
Posted by: Chris
In a surprisingly candid interview with the Chicago Tribune, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace explained that his support for "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is based on his own personal view that homosexuality is "immoral":
Responding to a question about a Clinton-era policy that is coming under renewed scrutiny amid fears of future U.S. troop shortages, Pace said the Pentagon should not "condone" immoral behavior by allowing gay soldiers to serve openly. He said his views were based on his personal "upbringing," in which he was taught that certain types of conduct are immoral.
"I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts," Pace said in a wide-ranging discussion with Tribune editors and reporters in Chicago. "I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way.
"As an individual, I would not want [acceptance of gay behavior] to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior," Pace said.
It is striking to see the nation's top uniformed military officer, in the midst of a long slog war that has been so purely executed, taking time out to explain why he thinks gay Americans should be blocked from serving openly because it offends his personal beliefs. He does not go on to explain why military policy should enforce his personal moral code, and the Tribune unfortunately doesn't ask.
It's worth it to visit the Tribune site to listen to the small audio clip of the good general. He winds up tongue-tied as he tries to explain how "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" serves to defend his moral code. It's easy to understand how he gets tripped up. Current policy does not protect the military from service by immoral homosexuals; it protects bigoted heterosexuals in the military from knowing the gays are there.
Before 1993 gays were banned from military service — end of question. Under DADT, gay men and lesbians are allowed to serve so long as they stay in the closet and aren't caught engaging in "homosexual acts."
Therein lies the aspect of DADT that most offends the constitutional guarantee of equal protection. The U.S. Supreme Court made clear long ago that, while the Constitution does not require the government to eradicate private prejudice; it cannot give that bigotry "public effect" — meaning it cannot enforce anyone's private moral code on anyone else.
The Supreme Court case that stated that principle involved efforts by morally upstanding Texans opposed to a mental health facility in their neighborhood. It was, of course, in another famous case from the Lone Star state, Lawrence vs. Texas, that the court made clear that personal objections to homosexuality — or "homosexual acts," as the general put it — cannot be enforced through criminal law.
Yet the Uniform Code of Military Justice still outlaws sodomy, almost four years after Lawrence was decided. And the Joint Chiefs chair can wax moralistic in explaining why private, consensual homosexual sex is the equivalent to adultery.
The last time I checked, it was our sworn enemies in the "war on terror" who advocate the use of laws to enforce their personal beliefs. General Pace should make clear just which side of that war he's on.
March 11, 2007
Busted by the Blade
Posted by: Chris
It turns out that Marine Reserves Cpl. Matt Sanchez may not have been completely honest about just how far back in his past some of his time in the gay sex industry. His porn work, he claims, dates back 15 years, and he has said up until now that his escort work does as well.
But in a radio interview with Alan Colmes — the leftie punching bag for Fox News' Sean Hannity — Sanchez is confronted with a personal ad he placed in the New York Blade as recently as 2004 offering his "massage" services. Sanchez at first denies the ad is his, and Colmes doesn't help matters by mangling the publication name. Eventually, Sanchez "owns up to everything" even while claiming someone could be placing fake ads with his name and phone number.
You can understand Sanchez's need to stay vague. Not only does he risk blowing his conversion-to-conservativism story, if he's been tricking out for money so recently, he also risks getting tricked right out of the military.
Sanchez joined the Marine Reserves in May 2003, long after the (apparent) end of his porn career. But if he was selling "massage" services that involved "homosexual conduct" as defined by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, then he could get the boot from the Marines, and not in a good way.
Maybe now is the time for Sanchez and his conservative friends-standing-by-him to call for the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
Here's the interview (audio only):
Hat tip: AmericaBlog
'The real 11 inches' on Matt Sanchez
Posted by: Chris
Matt Sanchez may have left his gay porn-escort past behind him, but it is coming back to haunt, and I don't mean angry Ann Coulter phone calls. The Navy Times reports that the U.S. Marines have begun a probe — er, investigation:
Homosexual behavior is prohibited by an article of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that forbids “sodomy.”
As a member of the [Individual Ready Reserves], Sanchez falls under the authority of Marine Corps Mobilization Command in Kansas City, Mo., where the commanding general’s staff judge advocate, Lt. Col. Michael Blessing, has begun an inquiry into the revelations about his past, according to command spokesman Shane Darbonne.
“We’re looking into it and we’re going to verify facts and determine if any further action is warranted,” Darbonne said.
As of Friday afternoon, officials at Marine Forces Reserve in New Orleans were unable to confirm whether Sanchez had enlisted prior to the end of his film career or if Reserve Marines were prohibited from doing porn when not in a drilling status. Sanchez has not returned phone calls seeking comment. He joined the Corps May 14, 2003 and is a refrigeration mechanic.
On Friday officials at Marine Corps Recruiting Command were unable to say whether past participation in gay porn disqualifies a potential enlistee because it was unclear how the current “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy might apply.
If liberal and gay bloggers can get over their (understandable) glee at the fact that O'Reilly-Coulter-Hannity put a gay porn star on their right-wing pedestal, the real focus of the Sanchez flap ought to be here. Or, as Matt Foreman of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force put it, this is "the real 11 inches" of the Matt Sanchez story. Says Foreman:
There’s no inherent contradiction between Matt Sanchez being pro-military and being part of the ‘adult film’ industry. The real hypocrisy expresses itself in two different and important ways. First, the failed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law requires Matt Sanchez and thousands of other loyal Americans to hide their sexual orientation to serve their country in the military.
The important 11 inches in this story? That is the approximate distance between berths on U.S. naval submarines, so defamatorily measured in front of TV cameras by then-Sen. Sam Nunn in 1993, who immorally intimated that openly gay service members could not be permitted to bunk next to straight service members. From that shameful episode, Nunn led Congress to adopt the ‘Don't Ask, Don't Tell’ law, which should now be repealed. Let’s be done with officially enforced closets.
It's not a juicy hypocrisy, but it's certainly wrongheaded, that adult consensual sodomy between two people of the same sex is still a crime under the Military Code of Justice, almost four years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down civilian sodomy laws.
It's little known outside legal circles that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" actually depends on that military sodomy law. Since the Clinton Justice Department (9/11 Commission member Jamie Gorelick in particular) wanted to hide how the policy is actually based on the "status" of being gay, they constructed it to be based on "conduct," in particular the UMCJ prohibition on "homosexual conduct."
So now Sanchez might get caught up in "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," even though he's not technically "telling," since he claims he was so "bad at being gay" that he isn't anymore. (Huh?) Ironically, that ludicrous defense just might work. There's a loophole that allows a service member to stay even after being identified as gay if they can prove that they have no "predilection" for future homosexual conduct.
Let's hope this whole ridiculous house of cards comes tumbling down when the First Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston considers an appeal in a suit challenging the policy brought by the gay vets and the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. Or maybe the Democratically-controlled Congress will step up to the plate, and listen to a much more impressive handsome gay Latino Marine — Eric Alva, the first American injured in the 2003 invasion of Iraq — and repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."
It's disappointing that Sanchez hasn't added his voice to that call, perhaps because he still hopes to curry favor with those conservatives who've been so accepting of his porn past. Whether or not he is actually gay — and Andy Towle is insisting he as "pretty good at it" back in the day — Sanchez ought to know as well as anyone that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is unfair, and may well result in his own ouster.
March 10, 2007
Judging an ideology by its followers
Posted by: Chris
Marine Reserves Cpl. Matt Sanchez posted an interesting essay
on Salon.com where he argues that his history in gay porn is not only
not hypocritical, as some gay and liberal pundits are charging, but
helps explain why he wound up so conservative:
Porn reduces the mind and flattens the soul. I don't like it. That's not hypocrisy talking; that's just experience. I sometimes think of myself, ironically, as a progressive: I started off as a liberal but I progressed to conservatism. Part of that transformation is due to my time in the industry. How does a conservative trace his roots to such distasteful beginnings? I didn't like porn's liberalism. In porn, everything taboo is trivialized and everything trivial is magnified.
Why did I become a conservative? Just look at what I left, and look at who is attacking me today. Let's face it: Those on the left who now attack me would be defending me if I had espoused liberal causes and spoken out against the Iraq war before I was outed as a pseudo celebrity. They'd be talking about publishing my memoir and putting me on a diversity ticket with Barack Obama. Instead, those who complain about wire-tapping reserve the right to pry into my private life and my past for political brownie points.
Sanchez seems to be arguing that he turned right mostly over his distaste for those on the left. I can identify with him in a sense. When I arrived at a different Ivy League grad school in the late '80s, I had been branded a liberal and, by some, "a nigger white"