The liberal minded had little consolation in the US mid-term elections earlier in the week. The defeat of Republican Meg Whitman (who spent around $160 million of her own money on the race) by the veteran Democrat, Jerry Brown in California was a rare positive on a gloomy night for Democrats. In Illinois the electorate further struck out against all things liberal and booted out of office three Iowa Supreme Court Justices who had been part of the unanimous decision to legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Read the full New York Times story here.
When the judiciary becomes politicised, gay rights activists and attorneys can't think (as many do argue in the US) that in the absence of clear pathways to reform in the political process, they can count on the judiciary. The Right are striking back on that front too and those seeking a more open, tolerant and equal society - whatever their political badge - need to wake up and take on this assault on freedom. Gay rights activists may find themselves fighting the clock being turned back rather than promoting further advances. These are worrying times.
The Telegraph carried a story yesterday that was a good old fashioned right-of-centre horror story. They reported that the European Commission has spent £124,000 on a five day conference 'for 200 homosexual, bisexual, transgender and "intersex" activists'.
Obviously images abound of orgies and grapes being served from an intersex activists naval at Telegraph Towers. They were probably also engaging in languages other than English. A true Halloween image for Telegraph readers.
OK, the price does seem remarkably steep especially if there was no income (conference fees etc), however, the idea of the event was a sound one. To explore and educate in an area that is still subject to so much ignorance. The Telegraph's branding of session titles as 'baffling' is an argument to fund these sort of events, rather than scrap them.
Betty White - surviving Golden Girl and a host of other great roles (I loved her in Boston Legal) is the latest celebrity to weigh in on the US same-sex marriage debate. It's a general interview in which she cements her iconic status. Read it in full here.
The Guardian carried a really interesting piece earlier in the week on schools attempts to tackle homophobic bullying through schooling. The brilliant Brit scholar Ian Rivers has done some wonderful work in this area and also blog on it here. Be sure to take a look. This story comes in the wake of a series of suicides in the US and the It Gets Better Project which is seeking to get ordinary people involved and explaining how they are leading happy lives. The project pages can be viewed here. Even Barack Obama got involved although the cynic in me thinks that might have more to do with the mid-terms next week and the predictions that the Democrats are about to get a serious kicking.
So here's Obama lending his support to the It gets Better Project:
Obama also popped up on The Daily Show this week and at one point found himself uttering "Yes we can, but". It was a historic moment and his advisers must have had their heads in their hands at that moment. The subject of gay rights is a good example of the "yes we can but" syndrome. Yes, there has been some progress - not least in terms of the benefits for federal employees and the number of openly gay people appointed to government jobs but there's been little by way of 'big-ticket' substance. Check out the second half of the Daily Show for the clip:
Yuvraj Joshi offers some interesting reflections on same-sex marriage in the Guardian. He explores, and wrestles with some of the conflicts and issues within the gay marriage debate that I find myself struggling with. On the one hand, he notes: 'it is difficult to see how a legal system that claims to take equality before the law seriously can deny marriage equality'; on the other, 'same-sex marriage may actually allow an ancient institution to progress into modern times'. it's a really thoughtful piece that also seeks to consider same-sex marriage within the wider context of debates about the nature of modern gay identity. he observes that 'the debate about same-sex marriage exists in a context where spaces for sexual experimentation are being replaced with more socially "respectable" forms of gay visibility'. Absolutely! This a theme in all my work whether it is considering public sex, male for male sex work or barebacking and I believe it is going to be the next 'big debate'.
Joshi wisely concludes that 'gay marriage is hardly the final frontier for gay politics, and may well prove an easier political victory than garnering support for broader sexual diversity'. Read the full piece here.
Michael Lucas - CEO of the porn company Lucas Entertainment has posted footage from a recent debate at the Oxford Union on his website and it's been picked up by various porn blogs. Lucas - a law graduate and former porn actor was speaking in proposition of the motion 'This House Believes That the Gay Rights Movement Has Undermined Family Values'. The full speech is below. Annoyingly, I can't find out what the vote was so I'd welcome any info from people on that (I think the proposition was passed). Lucas makes some interesting and compelling points but he seems to send the audience to sleep - which given his speaking style is perhaps understandable. Although a porn CEO, Lucas with his celebrity friends (including the family friendly Graham Norton) is no doubt at the more 'acceptable' end of the spectrum. How would a porn CEO such as Paul Morris have gone down? Would such a figure even be invited?
It might be surprising that I am arguing on the same side as Stephan Greene, whose views I despise. But in this case I am proud to be part of a movement that has undermined family values and continues to undermine them.
To me “family values” is a code word.
Here is what I think when I hear the term family values…. I think of family as “one size fits all”, the Model T of relationships, organized around the holy five: spouse, career, home, church and children, possibly including the occasional dog. I think of my native Russia where it is basically a requirement for a women to get married by the age of 23, which makes them forever neurotic, and insecure. I think of Clinton’s impeachment hearings — because he had an affair with an intern and not for passing “don’t ask, don’t tell”. And I think about many great politicians who lost their careers because of American hysteria over family values.
I also think about St Paul who said, “The husband is head of the wife”.
And we can never escape from hearing daily about family values of sons of Allah, about the treatment of Muslim women by their husbands. The Koran clearly said: “Admonish them to their couches and beat them.” As Borat concluded, ”in my country first is God, then man, horse, dog, then women, then rat”.
So what do the defenders of Family Values really defend, when they repeat endlessly “that the traditional family is the essential building block of traditional society?” They defend the traditional order of society.
This is where they clash with the gay rights movement. Gay rights are profoundly subversive of traditional society. They posit a new identity, which is not accounted for in most traditional societies. If gay identity becomes a possibility, then the straight identity becomes a matter of CHOICE and established Family Values become options rather than the “natural order.” That’s why they hate us so much: because we really do undermine their certainties.
We gay people offer CHOICE in the construction of our relationships, freedom and liberation, which is very attractive to straight people. Our lives challenge their certainties every day.
We gay people are broadening and redefining the values, which govern our relationships. That’s not to say that we don’t value family. But we love our partners because we have chosen them out of pure love — and not to meet the expectations of society.
We also prove that remaining single, with a family made of friends, is a viable option to experience love, caring, trust and commitment in a family of choice. One does not have to be in a relationship and can be happy without a partner; one does not have to have children in order to live a wonderful fulfilling life.
Worst of all, perhaps, for the sex-obsessed family values defenders, we undermine the sanctity of monogamy. Some gay couples chose to be monogamous, and others do not. And we have certainly proven that love for a partner is about far more than sexual exclusivity. We have proven that, monogamy is neither necessary nor sufficient when it comes to love and family. What’s required is something emotionally deeper and more profound.
Studies in the US conclude that three in four long-term, stable, committed gay couples have negotiated some form of open relationship. I think both choices are significant. A quarter has chosen to remain monogamous. And three quarters have chosen to base their relationship on trust and intimacy rather than sexual exclusivity. It’s the word “choice” that’s so subversive – Now, where is the choice, where is the room for negotiation according to traditional Family Values?
This is not to say that the gay movement stands for sex without limits, just like the reality of traditional family is not about monogamy. About half of all married women and 60% of all married men have cheated on their partners. (NOTE: Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy) — and so “family values” support norms that include lying about one’s sexual life. We challenge this by coming out of the closet not just about being gay but by aspiring to honesty about our sexual lives.
In fact family values are so artificial that they do not work for their own proponents:
Jim Bakker -head of PTL (Praise The Lord)-cheated on his wife Tammy Faye with his secretary.
Ted Haggard –evangelical preacher –had sex with a male escort while married.
Mark Foley: US representative sent sexually explicit e-mails and text messages to male pages.
Mark Sanford: South Carolina Governor married with children, who disappeared to continue affair with his mistress in Argentina.
Newt Gingrich: former Speaker of US House of Representatives; married three times; had an affair with women who would become his second wife while married to his first. Then had affair with a woman who would become his third wife while married to the second.
Iris Robinson: Northern Irish member of Parliament who cheated on her husband with 19 year old boy.
This list could go on forever.
And our relationships are more equal— there are no blueprints and no traditions, which determine the powers and economic arrangements between each other. Each couple has to develop and negotiate from scratch, what works for them. And again, there is the element of CHOICE, which strikes at the core of what traditional Family Values are all about.
Speaking of choice, the PACS in France and civil unions has been overwhelmingly embraced by straight couples who are seeking a legal framework for their relationships without resorting to marriage and the traditional baggage it carries. Something similar is happening in the U.S.: many cites and towns in the U.S. are allowing couples to register as “domestic partners.” Politicians are offering this to gays, as an alternative to “marriage.” One result has been that straight people are choosing to declare themselves ”domestic partners,” rather then getting married. As straight couples realize that there may be alternative arrangements available to them, family values rooted in marriage are being undermined.
So to my gay counterparts – don’t be so humble! Our fight produced a very attractive role model that scares our opponents to the point of hysteria; that’s why they are attacking us so vigorously. Sometimes those attacks become ugly and desperate. From Pat Robinson and Jerry Falwell who said that ”gay people helped the terror attacks on 9/11” to Stephen Greene who supports the death penalty bill for homosexual acts in Uganda. People like Greene would be happy to wipe gays off the face of the Earth to defend their lifestyle.
So our opponents are right when they argue that the state must deter public approval of the gay identity in order to defend traditional family values. We are indeed Family Values’ worst enemy. But the point is this: We are winning and they are losing.
Well Proposition will be televised. 3 stationary cameras will be in the court room and will be available for public view the following day on YouTube. The courts YouTube page can be viewed here.
This will be instead of a live feed on the Court's website which I think is a shame. Quite a few appear to be complaining that this means only the already committed will look at these videos. I think that's fair comment in the short term but in the long term, having them on YouTube will boost the likelihood of viral web transmission, and others encountering the material during searches (not least law students). For me, it shouldn't have been an 'either or' debate. I would have liked to have seen live transmissions on the court website to help deliver immediacy for those who can't physically be in the court room (and overflow room). It would also have delivered genuine transparency. These should then have been additionally uploaded to YouTube. Ahh well, at least we will get to see it but given the time delay and the time difference, it will probably be Wednesday when UK viewers get to grips with the case which kicks off on Monday.
Readers can get some idea of what it will look like thanks to the test transmission which I have embedded below.
Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi might be better known for grabbing the media headlines for his gaffs, corruption rumours and so on but has also demonstrated that he does do a bit of governing on the side. The Guardian reported yesterday that:
'As tens of thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Italians prepared to demonstrate tomorrow against a string of homophobic attacks, Silvio Berlusconi's government announced a ground-breaking €2m media campaign against discrimination.
After meeting representatives of more than 20 gay rights associations, the equal opportunities minister, Mara Carfagna, said Italy's rightwing government would make "an unprecedented commitment to get across our message". The money would pay for TV commercials, newspaper advertisements and posters to be put up on hoardings and in buses and trains'.
The event that is probably dominating the media at the moment is the Olympics in Beijing. Like millions of other people around the globe, I watched the opening ceremony last Friday. The opening drums and the ceremony as a whole was incredibly impressive. But then, as journalist Ann Lesley pointed out at the weekend, so was the 1936 Olympics. GayNZ reported last week that the Olympics had actually brought masses of new restrictions for gay men and lesbians in China and drew on a Gay Times piece from last year. Inspired by the site I took a look at some sites that provide cruising and sauna listings. There does indeed seem to be a new restrictive tone with venues closed or changed. One comment would have been funny if it wasn't so sinister. A guy went to a sauna he'd been to many times before, hidden down an ally. He went in, the staff were the same staff and smiled in their usual way. Only now the venue had become a karaoke venue and people played cards. The sex beds had vanished and the showers removed.
Watch that video again - impressive outward looking event or terrifying image of a totalitarian state, 2008 drummers working as one? You decide.
