hunter of justice

Human rights, sexuality and gender in the Middle East

I'm a big fan of Scott Long, the lgbt rights division director at Human Rights Watch. Following is an excerpt of an interview he did with Rex Wockner. This portion focuses on the Middle East; the full interview is here.

The stuff we saw in Iraq, the killing campaign this year, is a very extreme version of what we’ve seen in other places in the Middle East, which is, you suddenly get basically a moral panic around the issue of homosexuality where a lot of other social anxieties about, you know, westernization, social change, change in gender roles, masculinity, they all get wrapped up into one issue and somebody’s scapegoated, someone is targeted. The Queen Boat arrests in Egypt were very much like that, in that all of these fears about rock music and Satanism and heavy metal and effeminate men and long hair suddenly got transmuted into the issue of homosexuality. And we’ve seen kind of smaller eruptions like that in places from Morocco to Turkey over the last few years. It is very complex because it is connected to the reality of very swift social change that people find unsettling, in many cases terrifying. It’s connected to the reality of westernization and of very swift and unsettling economic changes as well. I mean, the anxieties behind it are real.

The scapegoat is fictional, but the people who suffer are also real, and I think, you know, what we need across the Middle East is not just LGBT movements who are capable of responding to this—that will take a long time—but we need a stronger commitment from mainstream human rights organizations to fight moral panics and to stand up for the human rights even of the most marginalized, stigmatized people in the community....

In both Iraq and Uganda, I think the fears and the violence of the response—the kind of legal violence that’s being proposed in Uganda and the really literal violence in Iraq—are certainly enabled by a long history of violence and social collapse. You know, Uganda has gone through 25 or 30 years of civil war. You can stand in Kampala and it looks like a beautiful, placid, just lovely place, and then you remember what’s happened to many of the people walking by you on the street in the last two decades, and you remember the civil war that’s still raging in the north, and you realize how much fear there is underneath the surface. And I think the Museveni government has been actually very clever at focusing all of people’s anxieties on homosexuality as kind of the universal target and the universal scapegoat.

In Iraq, it’s quite true that homosexuals were never particularly targeted under the Saddam regime. He had other enemies. But to the other enemies, he was absolutely brutal. ... The sanctions, and then the just-total U.S.-induced collapse of security after the invasion, have created an environment where everybody lives in anticipation of violence and where everybody feels that being ready to be violent yourself is the only safeguard. And the militias, the Mahdi Army, are the product of that—they’re a bunch of young men who see no future for themselves and whose only social role that they can imagine for themselves if they don’t have jobs, they don’t have stable family structures, they don’t have stable lives, the only role they can imagine for themselves is enforcing some imaginary version of morality. So I think the circumstances are somewhat special, but, you know, these very deep-rooted fears about sexuality, sexual difference, gender—I really think the issue of, you know, what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman are at the core of much of this homophobic violence as much as people’s kind of fantasies about what other folks are doing in bed.

These fears are not just limited to Iraq and Uganda; you see them everywhere. I mean, the trans folks who get beaten up on the streets of New York are facing the same kinds of fears in a different version. It’s just that you have certain social situations which allow them complete sway....

State lgbt equality laws lag behind popular opinion

According to an article in the current American Political Science Review (103 APSR 367), popular support for enacting anti-discrimination and relationship recognition laws is significantly ahead of legislative action in most states. The authors find "a surprising amount of noncongruence [between public opinion and policy adoption]—for some policies, even clear supermajority support seems insufficient for adoption. When noncongruent, policy tends to be more conservative than desired by voters; that is, there is little progay policy bias."

The NY Times Economix blog illustrates this finding in the chart below:

Bubbles are placed to represent public opinion on a gay rights issue, with bubbles farther to the right indicating greater public support. For example, the red bubble on the line for California shows that slightly less than half of Californians say same-sex couples should have the right to marry. Filled-in bubbles signify that the policy has been adopted in that state (either by legislative or judicial action). The red bubble for California, for example, is not filled in, indicating that gays in the state are not currently allowed to marry.

Let’s take a look at the graphic [below], keeping an eye on the dashed vertical line in the middle that designates 50 percent support for any given policy. Bubbles to the right of that line have support from the majority of a state’s population; bubbles to the left of the line have support from less than half the state’s population. Notice that there are many more unfilled bubbles on the right side of the line (representing policies that the majority of people support but that have not been put into effect) than there are filled bubbles on the left side of the line (representing policies that the majority of people do not support, but that have been implemented anyway).

The big outlier is Iowa, where polls show only slightly more support for gay marriage than in Virginia, but where the state supreme court last year struck down the marriage exclusion. And if this chart is correct, the anti-gay marriage forces in Maine should be able to win the referendum there next week. If they don't, it may signify the ability of lgbt rights groups to use an election to nudge public opinion over the halfway mark, at least in some situations.

Even more statistically dramatic, though, is the gap between support for and enactment of laws protecting against job discrimination. In only 2 states does public support fall (barely) below 51% - Oklahoma and Arkansas - yet there are 29 states where legislatures have rejected anti-discrimination legislation. If this chart isn't a powerful argument for Congress to step up to a politically safe plate and pass ENDA, I don't know what is.

Critical moments in New England campaigns for marriage equality

The Boston History Project sponsored a panel discussion recently in which GLAD Legal Director Gary Buseck posed questions to two of the leading advocates for gay marriage: GLAD lawyer Mary Bonauto and Vermont Freedom to Marry lawyer Beth Robinson.  The result is a window into the history of the litigation and legislative efforts across New England, beginning more than a decade ago. Listening to the video below (excerpts of the discussion, compiled by GLAD) reminded me of how profoundly local these decisions are. I found especially interesting the background on the civil unions law in Vermont - its enactment and the almost successful attempt to repeal it. And there's a very funny story about then Vermont Governor Howard Dean at the end of the first excerpt.

How Media Matters stopped the Kevin Jennings smear - UPDATED

UPDATE - See the Media Matters documentation of each step in the Washington Times campaign to drive Jennings out of his job.

Marc Ambinder's Politics blog carries a post today crediting the progressive media watchdog group Media Matters with stopping the smear campaign against Kevin Jennings.  How?  the old fashioned way: research.  Kudos to Media Matters editor-in-chief Marcia Kuntz. 

...Jennings appears to have survived. Here's why. While the fire hasn't completely died down ...it has certainly lost steam. Jennings is no longer a topic du jour, mostly due to one simple fact: the boy wasn't actually underage. The liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America dug up a 2004 letter from Jennings' attorney stating that the boy was actually 16 at the time--the legal age of consent in Massachusetts, where this had taken place--although Jennings had said the boy was 15 in his speech.

According to Media Matters' timeline of events, Fox News then confirmed the boy's age (by contacting him via Facebook). The watchdog group then posted a copy of the boy's driver's license, showing that he had been over the age of consent when Jennings advised him.

Whether or not one agrees with how Jennings handled the situation--a completely separate, ethical question--the boy's age was an important fact. Had the boy been under 16, Jennings would have had different legal responsibilities. Under state law, teachers are considered "mandated reporters" of statutory rape, required to report cases to the Department of Social Services, though not necessarily to police, according to multiple authorities on Massachusetts education law.

If the boy had been under 16, Jennings would have appeared to violate the law, and that would have placed him in a very different situation, politically. With affirmed legal high-ground, one can bet that conservative pundits, bloggers, and political groups wouldn't have backed off in the least--and that the noise surrounding Jennings wouldn't have faded as it has. And the White House would have had a much more difficult time ignoring the calls for resignation.

The President's HRC speech: What the media are missing

The news media seem unanimous this morning in reporting that the big news from the President's speech last night was his promise that "I will end Don't Ask Don't Tell." Many gay commentators, on the other hand, are asking how this speech was different from any other speech he has given - after all, he's promised to end DADT before. I think both voices are missing the mark.

What President Obama said that was new and different last night wasn't the repetition of his support for ending DADT, or passing ENDA, or signing the hate crimes bill into law, or ending the HIV immigration ban, or enacting benefits for federal employees - all of which he has said before and none of which he can do without Congress. What was new, at least to my ears, were the subtle steps toward a language of moral equality.

He did this at two points in the speech.  First, he argued that society should recognize relationships between same-sex partners as "just as real and admirable as a relationship between a man and woman." He's not taking any chances by calling them just as real - mainstream America is already backing civil unions. But "just as admirable"? That's important.

And no - he very carefully did not endorse marriage equality. I won't hold my breath for that. But "just as admirable" is what the marriage struggle is all about; it's the reason why marriage has come to dominate the lgbt agenda. This is America, and we Americans seem to have a penchant for using the promise and premise of domestic security in marriage as an unacknowledged stand-in, even litmus test, for the nation's domestic security. Yes, it's a false promise and no, it doesn't make much sense to me, but there it is. The marriage struggle has become the proxy for equal citizenship, and so it's the fight we're going to have to win. And "just as real and just as admirable" -- if I lived in Maine, I'd start printing No on 1 bumper stickers with that phrase.

The second important moment in the speech was his call for an America where "no one has to fear walking down the street holding the hand of the person they love." That example - although totally outside the realm of law - cuts to the heart of making it safe to come out, which has always been the central goal of lgbt rights advocacy. Visibility without fear is the marker of true cultural equality. There are many places where it's already safe to hold hands, but there are many more where it isn't. And one reason why I regret that the coverage of the speech is focusing on DADT is that I would much rather that all the people living in the unsafe-to-be-gay states read the hand holding sentence than that they hear that the President has (once again) declared the military policy is wrong.

So while the speech announced nothing new in the realm of law and policy, it was a moment and a text that was rich in meaning and in promise. And a good use of the bully pulpit.

[PS - If you compare his Pride reception speech in June, you'll see several of the same ideas - even the same lines - that he used in the HRC speech. What's different is the tone on relationship recognition.]

Dem Senators and Clinton on gays in the military, 1993

From Joan Walsh at Salon who is reviewing the new Taylor Branch book, The Clinton Tapes:

There are some wonderful windows on policy triumph and disappointment: [Branch] depicts a stormy but funny meeting of Democratic senators to tell Clinton why they'll block any liberalization of policy on gays in the military. Robert Byrd leads off fulminating about the immorality of homosexuality, and Clinton tries to head him off by noting that adultery is immoral (ahem) but we don't dismiss military folks for cheating on their spouses. Sam Nunn raised the unit cohesion argument (there was a lot of discussion of those close quarters, especially on Navy ships!). Clinton observes Sen. Ted Kennedy on the sidelines: "I couldn't tell if Teddy was going to start giggling or jump out the window" as the talk turned to the bawdy, omnisexual practices of ancient Greek and Roman warriors.

But at the end of the day, Clinton said, he was surprised by the fact that he couldn't tell which of the opponents truly believed it was bad to have gays in the military (or anywhere else); all they discussed was the politics of the proposal. That theme would recur. Clinton was the consummate horse-trader, no steely ideologue, but even he was surprised at the extent to which politics trumped policy, or even the silly idea of what's right or what's best for the country, in every single debate.

Out in Carolina politics: an interview with NC State Senator Julia Boseman

Julia Boseman, North Carolina's only out state senator, was the solitary holdout who voted no on the resolution honoring Sen. Jesse Helms after he died last year. She is also the successful plaintiff in a custody case, in which the North Carolina Court of Appeals accepted the validity of a second-parent adoption. What absolutely boggles my mind is that if I still lived in the very conservative town where I grew up, she would be my state senator.

Durham Indy interview conducted by Steven Petrow:     

In sitting down with the Indy recently at her Wilmington home, Boseman, a 43-year-old Democrat from New Hanover County, spoke frankly and movingly about [a number of issues].

For Boseman (and North Carolina's LGBT community), it's been, as she says, a "really good year," one where she successfully led the fight as primary sponsor of the School Violence Prevention Act (known informally as the anti-bullying bill), which specifically protects LGBT kids and marks the first time that sexual orientation and gender identity are included in North Carolina law. The year also marked the passage of the Healthy Youth Act, which provides young people with life-saving information about STDs as part of a comprehensive sex education program that teaches more than just abstinence....

Indy: When you first ran for office, were you out as a lesbian?

Sen. Boseman: Yes!

How much do you think your sexual identity has been a driver in your political life?

I have to say it's much easier with the whole world knowing that you're gay. I can remember when I ran in 2000 for county commissioner, I had a choice: I can either be closeted or I can run as an openly gay candidate. If I run as an out gay person, I take away the biggest bombshell that they can use against me. There was a lot of interest in my race at that time—especially my first Senate race [in 2004]—because there have only been a handful of openly gay elected officials in North Carolina. So people from around the country had concerns.

[In the end], I made a conscious decision to run as an out lesbian. I have to say it was a little unnerving when the media went through my campaign reports and they found out I got support from the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. They came into my office with the cameras running, saying, "You're a lesbian. You're openly gay."

"Yes, I am. I am going to be honest with the people about who I am, just as I will be about honest with them about the issues that affect them."

So what's it like to be the lesbian, the only out state senator, the poster child for being an elected dyke here in North Carolina?

I never really think of it like that. People automatically assume things about you because you're gay—like you're going to raise taxes through the roof because you're liberal. You want everything that's considered liberal. Actually, we care about all the same things as other people—getting a good education, roads, where's the guy who's picking up my trash.

What advice do you have for other LGBT folks who are thinking about politics and public service?

You better have a really thick skin. You better want it real bad. You need to work hard. Don't get distracted from the light at the end of the tunnel.

Kendell 2.0 - I felt like I was playing out of position

Kate Kendell reflects on the personal side of the California roller coaster ride for lgbt rights (with apologies for too much camera movement):

Kate Kendell on whither California

At a recent conference, I had a chance to catch up with Kate Kendell, executive director of NCLR (National Center for Lesbian Rights). She's fab as always.  Following is part 1 of our conversation; tomorrow I'll have a video of Matt Coles talking about the future of marriage campaigns, and on Sunday, Kate reflects on what it was like to jump from litigation chief to an electoral campaign in a state the size of a small country.

Women in Congress bring home more bacon

As reported in Politico, a new study by researchers at Stanford and the University of Chicago have found that women in Congress do a better job than their male counterparts of bringing home money for their districts -

The study, which examined the performance of House members between 1984 and 2004, found that women delivered roughly 9 percent more discretionary spending for their districts than men.

For instance, during Rep. Judy Biggert’s first two-year term, Illinois’s 13th District received $382 million in federal funds, $70 million more than it received during the final term of her predecessor, Rep. Harris Fawell. Rep. Zoe Lofgren delivered around $859 million to her district, compared with $541 million brought in by her predecessor, Rep. Don Edwards, during his final term, the researchers said. And during then-Rep. Connie Morella’s first term, Maryland’s 8th District received $780 million, $183 million more than predecessor Rep. Michael Barnes brought in during his final term, they said.

While there are obviously variables beyond gender — seniority, party affiliation, majority/minority status and the differing priorities of a freshman and a veteran lawmaker — the researchers say they’ve accounted for those in making their male-to-female comparisons.

“You could easily make the argument that a politician who is on his way out, or someone who is sitting on a really powerful committee, is in a different position than someone just coming into office,” said Stanford researcher Sarah Anzia. “Not every example will cover every alternative explanation, but we control for all of those factors in the study.”

The researchers also found that women introduced more legislation than men who served in their same districts, often hitting the ground running in their first terms. “We find that, on average, women sponsor about three bills more per Congress per term than their male counterparts,” said Anzia. “They co-sponsor more bills than other members, and they also obtain more co-sponsors for their own bills.” 

...Researchers say the small number of female members may have something to do with their effectiveness. Women who run and win are likely the most politically ambitious and talented of their pool, having potentially overcome hurdles including voter bias and self-doubt about their ability to win. Female candidates also tend to attract more challengers. Politically eligible women tend to doubt their ability to get elected and raise money more than men do, multiple studies have indicated.

Once women get to Capitol Hill, those hurdles may drive them to perform better, on average, than male counterparts who have faced a less contentious road. “Research shows that even though women have similar success rates in primaries and elections as men, they are likely to face more challengers,” said Hartwick College political science department chairwoman Laurel Elder. “The results might be the same, but they might have to work harder to get those same results.”

Queering Utah

Smart analysis, as usual, by Lisa Duggan, in The Nation:

Forget everything you think you know about Utah. Yes, it's the reddest state in the union and the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). For the past twenty-five years, Republicans have had a virtual lock on statewide offices. Utah hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since 1964, and last year the state chose John McCain over Barack Obama by almost a 2-to-1 margin.

But here in Salt Lake City, it's a different story. The city and surrounding counties are a lovely blue. The current and previous mayors--Ralph Becker and Rocky Anderson--are well-known progressive Democrats with excellent records on the environment, gay and civil rights, disability access and other municipal issues, and Salt Lake County, home to four of the five most populous cities in the state, went for Obama in 2008.

Then there's Salt Lake City's queer community, whose smart, creative and coalition-building strategies could provide a model for gay activists across the country.

That last claim requires a bit of explanation. Last fall I lived in Salt Lake City. As a leftist and New York City dyke, I had expected to find a conservative city and a quietly assimilationist gay community. Instead, I was repeatedly blown away by the progressive politics and outright queerness of the capital city, which is about 40 percent Mormon.

I was in Salt Lake City in November when the passage of California's Proposition 8 generated national outrage against the Mormon Church for its role in sending money and volunteers to help antigay forces take away the right of California's same-sex couples to marry. A few national LGBT figures, most notably gay pundit Dan Savage, called for a boycott of Utah to punish its majority Mormon population. In Salt Lake City, I joined a furious crowd, including many gay Mormons and ex-Mormons, at a November 7 protest at the LDS Temple. The scene was a jumble of mixed messages, with signs ranging from Love Makes a Family, to Separate Church and State, to Brigham Young Had 55 Wives, I Want 1! But no one I saw advocated a boycott. Most seemed to agree with KRCL-FM public radio station personality Troy Williams, referred to by some Utahns as their homegrown Harvey Milk, who challenged Savage on his hourlong program, calling for an influx of queer migrants to the state rather than a boycott. Perhaps a New Queer Pioneer movement, modeled on the sanctified Mormon pioneers of the nineteenth century, would do more to shrink the impact of LDS antigay bigotry than any boycott ever could.

Not that Utah needs new queer residents to spark political, social or cultural creativity. The city is home to a floridly queer and unusually politically unified LGBT community. Salt Lake City hosts numerous gay bars and businesses, a busy assortment of queer artists and intellectuals, a thriving drag culture and an "extreme" BD/SM school. At this year's pride rally, after the annual dyke march on June 6, the city's residents flocked to the downtown Federal Building to hear local drag celebrity Sister Dottie S. Dixon (Mormon mother of a gay son, as embodied by actor Charles Frost) beseech "the almightly diva S&M Goddess of her Most High," among other deities, to "help our surgeons ta discover how to perfarm a complete brain transplant, so that Mitt Romney can live with hope fer a better future." And "while yer at it," Sister Dixon implored, "if you've got any more of them plagues of locus--please send them ta every household that voted fer Preperation 8!"

The rally was sponsored by the rapidly expanding Utah Pride Center, which under executive director Valerie Larabee has more than doubled its budget in the past five years. At the Pride Center, a broad range of local activist groups and LGBT individuals actually talk to each other--in stark contrast to the balkanized landscape of national LGBT organizations. Indeed, perhaps more than in any other city, Salt Lake City's queer scene resembles the storied days of ACT UP, when mainstream assimilationists collaborated with radical activists to develop talking points, coordinate strategy and change homophobic policy.

This conversation across boundaries is a product of savvy activists and, paradoxically, of the formidable political and cultural barriers created by the Mormon Church and the statewide strength of the Republican machine. In such a political arena, queer flamboyance and tough-minded seriousness have to coexist in order to get anything done. In that sense, as gay activists nationwide take stock of where the gay rights movement has come in the forty years since the Stonewall riots and plot a political future, they should look to Salt Lake City for pointers instead of Boston or New York.

Obama Catholics

From The Tablet, a British Catholic publication:

A new kind of Catholic Democrat is emerging in America's corridors of power - young, politically committed and often with the same community organising background as the President himself. So who are these new church advocates with a direct line to Obama? At the time of the Democratic ­primary campaign last year, the patriarch of America's iconic Catholic family, Senator Edward Kennedy, gave then-Senator Barack Obama's campaign a boost with his endorsement. Kennedy hails from an earlier era of Catholic political involvement. For him, as for other prominent Catholics such as Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, politics is the family business. The culture of Catholicism in the north-­eastern United States is tribal, heavily influenced by the ethnic immigrant experience and its hardships, built upon personal loyalties as much as ideological inclinations, and the politics reflects that culture.

While these traditional Catholics supported Obama, his victory and the power that goes with it have allowed him to patronise a new and different kind of Catholic Democrat, whose source of political involvement is more intentional than tribal and more rooted in ideas. Their curricula vitae are likely to include experience as an activist or community organiser. They are younger and they plug into their constituencies through blogs and emails, rather than visits to the union hall. They are as likely to hail from the Midwest or California as from New England or Maryland. Many of them are Latino. They are Obama's Catholics.

On 27 May, at 8.08 p.m., ... the White House announc[ed] the nomination of a new ambassador to the Holy See, Professor Miguel Diaz. A theologian at St John's University in Minnesota, Diaz is a scholar whose works bring together the ­theology of Karl Rahner with the experience of US Hispanic Catholics, with heavy nods to liberation theology. He is the first theologian to be appointed to the post and the first Hispanic to represent the US at the Vatican...

Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good is the paradigmatic new Catholic advocacy organisation. Chairman of its board is Elizabeth Bagley, an ambassador during the Clinton years, whose husband, Smith Bagley, donated $119,700 to the Democrats' campaign last year. The group's executive director and co-founder, Alexia Kelley, worked at the Campaign for Human Development, the Church's national anti-poverty programme, for years. The other co-founder of the group, Tom Perriello, is now a Democrat congressman from Virginia. ... Kelley is leaving Catholics in Alliance to become director of the Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives at the Obama administration's Department of Health and Human Services, a key post. Catholics United is another advocacy group in the new style....

... When Obama nominated Kathleen Sebelius to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, conservative Catholics howled. Sebelius is pro-choice and, as Governor of Kansas, had been prohibited by her bishop from receiving Communion because of her stance. Catholics in Alliance composed a petition of prominent Catholics in support of her nomination. Catholics United issued a press release supporting her as well .... Even four years ago, reporters could write that "Catholics oppose" such a nomination. These new groups have levelled the playing field. ...

...Of course, some Catholics with influence in the White House got there the old-fashioned way, through a career in politics, not a career in Catholic advocacy. Most prominent among them are vice president Joe Biden and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee Donna Brazile. ...

For John F. Kennedy's generation of Catholic politicians, the pressing need was to fight anti-Catholic prejudice and demonstrate their patriotic bona fides. Obama's Catholics, conversely, have had to demonstrate their Catholic credentials, not their American ones. Today, conservative Catholics charge their progressive counterparts with not being sufficiently influenced by their faith, backsliding from the efforts of some bishops to prioritise life issues and claiming the Catholic mantle for social justice concerns about which reasonable Catholics can disagree. The progressives counter that conservative Catholics abandoned the rich social justice teachings of the Church in favour of a one-issue approach to politics centred on abortion. Whether you agree with the Obama Catholics or not, so far they have the President's ear.

Could a religious exemption overturn Prop 8?

A new unreleased poll shows that Californians remain almost evenly divided on gay marriage, with basically no sign of voter remorse over having adopted Prop 8. There is a very slight edge for those seeking to overturn Prop 8 if they wait until 2012 rather than pushing forward in 2010. Most intriguing to me is how much better chance there is to eliminate Prop 8 if a new constitutional amendment includes a religious exemption and/or a schools exemption. 

There is no surprise in these results, but they do illustrate the need, more obvious every day, to formulate reasonable opt-outs for people who object to gay marriage.  I know that sticks in the craw of many lgbt advocates, but it is both right and advantageous. The framing of the debate - when exceptions to the rule should be created for opponents of equality - drives home the point that equality is the norm.

Many advocates believe that the better course is to hold out for laws with no exemptions, that it is worth the wait to eventually win in ways that do not legitimize the opponents of gay marriage. I understand that perspective, but I am comfortable with (some) exemptions that place the clear burden on those who object to same-sex marriage - let them explain to their children why they are going to have go sit in a study hall while all their friends stay in class. And then let's collect the data on how frequently the exemptions are invoked.  My bet - we will see a very small number, that will dwindle down further into marginality as newer generations replace the old folks.

Despite the enormous noise being made now by those who are lobbying for the exemptions, they are relegated to continuously invoking a handful of examples when arguing from real life rather than imagination: one photography studio in New Mexico, one boardwalk in New Jersey, and one adoption agency and one school exemption case in Massachusetts. None of these situations, by the way, had anything to do with a marriage law. The underlying issue is whether there should be exemptions from anti-discrimination laws. Marriage makes a difference because, all of a sudden, openly gay people are inside that category rather than safely, without anyone having to say so, excluded.

Let me be clear that I do not support any and all exemptions - far from it. Crafting the best way to proceed on this issue will be challenging. But that is where the debate is going. And that, I think, is important intellectually, politically and normatively.

Details on the new poll, from the Bay Area Guardian report:

The poll was commissioned by Polling 4 Equality, a broad coalition of large and small state groups (including the Courage Campaign, Equality California, and Marriage Equality USA), and conducted May 9-13 by David Binder of David Binder Research and Amy Simon, a partner at Goodwin Simon Victoria Research. Overall, the poll shows that California is split down the middle when it comes to same-sex marriage, with 47 percent in favor and 48 opposed. Those figures mirror other statewide polls that have been done since last fall's election, suggesting that many voters' minds are made up on the issue and the percentage of persuadable voters is very small, about 5 percent, Binder said Sunday during an informal news conference after the closed session.

The poll also shows the marriage equality side doing better in 2012 than in 2010. On a series of similar questions, the poll results show more support for reinstating the right of same-sex couples to marry (46 percent yes, 49 percent no in 2012, compared to 45 percent to 51 percent in 2010), or a constitutional amendment to end California's ban on same-sex marriage (47 percent yes, 47 percent no in 2012, compared to 47 percent yes, 48 percent no in 2010).

However, Binder noted that a ballot measure in either year would be close. "It's a very close race regardless of whether it's 2010 or 2012," Binder said. "People's opinions are very strong on both sides." ...

Another important finding from the poll is that when a religious exemption is included in the ballot language, support for same-sex marriage increases. Such language means that the initiative would not mandate or require clergy of any church or religious institution to perform a service or duty that goes against their faith. When that question was asked, the results were 52 percent in support for same-sex marriage, compared to 39 percent against, according to the poll....

A question on the poll shows the issue is close and that people are fearful that same-sex marriage will affect their place of worship. The question states, "Churches and religious groups that oppose gay marriage will be punished by the government, fined, or lose their tax exempt status because they can't in good conscience perform same-sex marriages or allow them to be performed in their churches or community halls." Of the respondents, 48 percent found the statement "very" or "somewhat" persuasive, compared to 49 percent who found it "not too" or "not at all" persuasive.

The Binder-Simon poll includes a series of questions that seem to be based on what the Yes on 8 campaign used in its messaging during last year's election. ... The questions [include] the "need to protect traditional marriage as a union between a husband and a wife, in order to have the best moral environment for our families and children" (52 percent of respondents believe that statement is "very" or "somewhat" persuasive, compared to 46 percent who find it "not too" or "not at all" persuasive).

There is also a question, "If same-sex marriage is legal in California, then the public schools will have to start teaching school children that homosexual marriage is just as good as marriage between a man and a woman" (48 percent of respondents believe that statement is "very" or "somewhat" persuasive, compared to 49 percent who said it was "not too" or "not at all" persuasive).

The Binder-Simon poll was a random telephone survey of 1,794 Californians. That figure included oversamples of Latinos (172), African Americans (258), Asian Pacific Islanders (265), and labor households (105). The base number of people surveyed was 1,008. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.8 percent. Of the respondents, 90 percent identified as heterosexual; 3 percent as bisexual, gay, or lesbian; and 7 percent did not know or refused to answer. On political party affiliation, 45 percent identified as Democrats, 34 percent as Republicans, 19 percent as decline to state, and 2 percent belonged to a minor party. Nearly three-quarters of the respondents, 73 percent, said that they personally know or work with someone who is gay or lesbian, while 21 percent did not.

New Pew poll: Independents surge, opinion on gay marriage shows jagged line

A new Pew Research Center report on political values and core attitudes - which Pew has been monitoring for 22 years - shows that more people now self-identify as Independents than as Democrats or Republicans. Over the last six years, most of the new Independents have been refugees from the Republican Party, but in the last five months, both the Dems and the Repubs have dropped by roughly equal amounts, while the number of persons identifying as Independent has surged by almost one-third.

On gay marriage, although there is endless media commentary about the steady upward march in public support for marriage equality, the Pew numbers tell a story of much greater volatility:

The opposition is broadly trending downward, although Pew's numbers show that a smaller percentage of Americans opposed gay marriage last year and even in 2006 than do today.

The same jagged up and down line, though trending generally upward, characterizes the percentage who favor marriage equality. Again, the number in support this year is not the highest in the last 13 years, and in fact shows a small drop from last year. According to Pew, the same percentage of Americans supported gay marriage in 2001 as do today.

Although these are national data and not specific to California, they at least hint at why going back to the ballot box for a repeal of Prop 8 in 2010 - if it happens - is going to be dicey.  Maybe the numbers trend in California is completely different - that's possible, although I doubt it - but there is no sign of voters' remorse in these data.

Fidel Castro's niece leads gay rights rally in Havana

Sweet.  From the SF Chronicle:

President Raul Castro's daughter led hundreds of Cuban gays in a street dance last week to draw attention to gay rights on the island.

Participants formed a carnival-style conga line around two city blocks to the beat of drums, accompanied by costumed stilt-walkers. Events also included educational panels and presentations for books, magazines and CDs about gay rights and sexual diversity.

"We're calling on the Cuban people to participate ... so that the revolution can be deeper and include all the needs of the human being," said Mariela Castro, an outspoken gay rights advocate who directs Cuba's officially sanctioned Sex Education Center.