Apparently the whipping-boy du jour is no longer the gays.

Everybody turn around, jump around, because it’s time to….

Pick on the Highspanicks

I think the clue for me was how quickly right-wing Republicans elide the difference between “immigrant” and “criminal,” as in the following quote (from the NYT): “We’re going to secure the border by catching those who enter illegally and hardening the border to prevent illegal crossings.”

Because the “real problem,” evidently, is “respect for the law.” Or, as Cartman so lucidly put it: “Respect My Authoritay!”

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So I was in LA with the fam for the holiday.

It must be living in this latter-day Gomorrah that makes Monrovia look like the lower reaches of heavan; Sherman Oaks a dense, vibrant, and urbane place; and Sierra Madre the very model of a modern livable community.

I would never have thought, growing up a snobbish Northern Californian, that I would find myself sighing heavily at the thought that perhaps, someday, if I’m very very good and very very lucky, I might, just maybe, live in the San Fernando Valley.

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So let me get this straight…

We indicted Jose Padilla for conspiring to kill people overseas.

Not, apparently, for a conspiring to make a dirty bomb, nor for conspiring to kill U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, not even for conspiring to kill U.S. citizens, or soldiers, overseas. Just “some people, somewhere over there.”

My head hurts. If Padilla wanted to kill people somewhere else, why isn’t he on trial there (where? unclear, since Alberto “fuck the Geneva conventions” Gonzalez declined to say, citing the impending indictment). Why haven’t we extraordinarily remanded him to whatever country whose citizens he conspired to harm? It just doesn’t make any sense.

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Forgive me if what I’m about to say repeats what I’ve said before…

So I had a friend visiting from Blueland this past weekend. Massachusetts, to be exact.

One of the conversations we had got me thinking. Basically, his question to me was a version of the “Guns, God, and Gays” argument, to whit: Didn’t I think that, if only the gays weren’t pushing so hard for, say, marriage equality, then the Christian Right wouldn’t be so angry?

First off, let me just say that any argument that begins “don’t you think X?” is GUARANTEED to get my dander up. Secondly, what the hell is a gay guy from Massachusetts doing making this argument? But be that as it may…

There are many versions of this argument, the two most common contemporary versions of which are:
a.) Massachusetts set off a reaction that led to the loss of the 2004 election, and
b.) the anti-marriage amendments arose as a result of “judicial activism”

Let me say a few words about why this argument is not just wrong, but dumb. I shall focus on (b), why the anti-marriage amendments occured when they did, as (a), the idea that Kerry lost because of those wacky Bay-staters, has already received a lot of analysis by pundits too numerous to mention.

First, let us look at the record. To argue that DOMA and its affiliated state DOMAlets arose as a result of ill-timed moves by gay activists and their liberal elite friends in the judiciary requires a fairly blinkered mis-reading of history. And let us leave aside for the moment the idea that trying to read a one-for-one relationship between movement and countermovement is bad history and bad political sociology. More to the point, this argument flows from a deliberate lie by the Christian Right that serves two purposes. It justifies their own pre-emptive action (“he hit me first!”) so as to avoid the charge that they’re being hateful. If they’re responding to “those gay activists” then they’re not technically beating up on the fags – the fags asked for it by being uppity. It is, in other words, a sort of homosexual panic played out on the national political plane. Not coincidentally, this tactic also scores rhetorical points in a larger game of demagoguery aimed at inflaming a population quite used to having its ire directed at meddling federal/Yankee carpetbaggers (if only those northerners/judges/liberals would stop meddling in our business, we wouldn’t have a race/gay/abortion problem!).

In point of fact, DOMA, the push for a Federal Marriage Amendment, and the DOMAlets were a response to the election of Bill Clinton; they were an exercise to test the power of the emerging alliance between the Christabigot hordes and the corporate oligarchs of the Republican Party. Baehr vs. Miike was simply a convenient hook on which to hang a larger cause of securing partisan control over the federal government.

Cast your mind back to the heady days of the early 1990s, when Clinton had just been elected, and the first rumblings that those wacky Hawaiians might do something so utterly insane as to allow gays to marry. Now the chronology gets a bit complicated, but the gist of the thing is this:

- Baehr vs. Lewin, the original case, went before the Hawaii state Supreme Court in 1991. In 1993 they handed down a decision stating, basically, that the state could not declare men and women to be equal while at the same time restricting marriage rights (in other words, if you say that men and women are equal, to then say that that they can marry one gender but not the other is to contradict the premise of equality). The HI Supremes then kicked the case back to the First Circuit Court (where it had originated), which took its sweet time (3 years – Judge Chang handed down his decision in December of 1996) to decide that, yes, in fact, the state could not deny marriages to gay couples under current law. However, the Circuit Court did not direct the state to start issuing marriage licenses – rather Judge Chang kicked this especially hot little potato back to the state legislature, which promptly passed both a defense of marriage act (1998, by referendum) and a domestic partnership law. The following year, when the case came back to the Supreme Court, they found – surprise! – that the passage of the state DOMA had cleared up the whole matter and no, the state did not in fact have to start issuing licenses to the fags.
- But in the midst of all this, Utah passed its own DOMA (1995) – a year before the Hawaii Circuit Court decision came down – and President Clinton passed the federal DOMA (summer, 1996) following which fourteen (fourteen! Over a quarter of the states!) passed their own DOMAs in November of 1996.

Read that chronology again carefully: nothing had been decided – it was all still up in the air, winding its way through the courts – when 15 states, plus the US Congress (backed by the President, who practically tripped over himself to sign the damn law) figured they HAD TO RIGHT NOW QUICK “define” marriage before those pesky faggots could get their grubby little hands on the silks in the trousseau.

In other words, rather than a “response” to “judicial activism” the move toward DOMAs at the state and federal level was a pre-emptive strike to “clarify” the matter, to “clear things up once and for all,” to do so before moderate and liberal folks could wise up to what was happening, and most especially to link the matter to partisanship – to equate “defense of the family” with voting Republican.

There was no serious effort by gay activists to bring up a court case in (say) Utah, but that state’s legislature made damn sure to pass a DOMA. And even after Clinton passed the federal law – which made explicitly clear that states were by no means under any obligation to respect each other’s laws when it came to the gay issue – an additional 12 states passed DOMA statutes in 1997 and 1998, and that’s not even counting the constitutional amendments that started making the rounds in 2000 and after.

Let me say it again: Hawaii was a convenient excuse, but once it came along, the Christian Right ran with it, taking the issue to states where there are hardly any gays (Mississippi, anyone? Alabama?) and where I will bet dollars to donuts we will not see gay marriage in my lifetime (Utah? Please). It wasn’t like there were gays running around courthouses in Jackson and Salt Lake and Montgomery “pushing” the issue. Clinton signed DOMA in 1996 and the issue was done at the federal level. And because it was done at the federal level – can you see Congress repealing that law anytime in, oh, the next decade, or even two? – it was done at the state level.

My personal favorite part of this whole “let’s define it because it’s not clear!” movement is, of course, the super-DOMAs, the statutes and constitutional amendments that say not only will gays never marry, but they’ll never have any kind of recognition for their relationships – not civil unions, not domestic partnerships, not nothing. Because why? Pushing for second-class status as domestic partnerships was “edgy” and occurred “too soon?” The absurdity of the argument barely bears serious consideration.

So that’s why the argument about “gay activists are too radical!” is wrong. Next up, why it’s dumb.

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So D and I descended from that A-list party
Down unto a B-list venue, “Boon Companions”
By far the best bar in this town, but still…

The bouncer-fellow stood, a-dipping chaw
Examining the IDs of all that entered
Judging and assigning covers as he saw fit.

I mean that when each patron ‘peared before him
And rendered up their photo, it confessed all;
And he, the connoisseur of fakery, could tell

The fine appropriate to tally them
And as many times as tapped his fingers on the pict,
That marked the dollar fee extracted thence.

Always there is crowd that stands before him
Each poor lez and boi advancing toward their judgment
Some nervous that they be cast entire

Unto “Transform,” the trannie bar across the street.
But seeing us, the bouncer said quite loud:
“Approach, Stonewallers – the show is ‘bout to begin!”

“be careful how you enter, though,
We’re happy to support the cause,
But there are some around that are contrary.”

To which D then shouted: “who are they?
Who dare contest the rightness of our cause?
Who closet-cased fool, or Baptist bigot

Dare to speak in favor of this evil?”
And I, looking round ‘pon the outburst of this passion
Hustled D right quick inside.

Where quick we reached a place where every light was muted
But sound and fury bellow like the sea in storm
And every ear is battered by opposing winds.

The hellish hurricane of music, never ceasing
Driving on the dancers with its violence;
Wheeling, pounding, bumping and harassing

Such when dancers jar against a drunken loper
Then there are cries and wailing and lament
And calls for “bouncer!” to arrest the fight,

‘Twas clear immediate that those t’were there
Were driven by the fleshly sins
Subjecting reason to the wants of lust

And reminded as I was of sighted bats
‘Twirling in the misty light in broad and crowded ranks
‘Though here was to a beat and blast quite clearly on the audible plane.

Now for’d, now back, hands up, hands down, stomping there and here
The beat is never ceasing, nor comforting
No hope for rest and none for lesser pain.

And just as long be-legged queens in flight will ballet faux
Sashaying hips wider than they’d like across the floor
Such like did the graying daggers ‘pproaching us

By the stupid beat of Lady Lust, lamenting, moaning both.
Thence turned I to S, saying, “who is here
Tonight – this is not the crowd I ‘spected, sure!”

“That first of those ‘bout whom you should know,”
Said S, the owner, pointing to one be-coiffed queen
“She was the Empress of our Court

But sadly her lusty talk became so customary
At all the shows that our crowd was bored
And ceased to care about the scandal she would cause.

She is Amber D.D., whom you ought know
Succeeded Sapphire Tonic (pointed he to a dusky beaut),
Who in turn took over from Sultana Raisins,

Who is no longer with us, having killed herself for love.
She was betrayed by Ashley Dustidus, who stole away
The wanton Cleto Patrick – who’s over there.

Flirting with that slut Helena Hanbaskit, (try to ‘void her),
Though make sure to chat up that limping guy she’s next to:
Ace has been a trooper for all our past elections.

So, yes, let’s see…” – and by walked a queen done up as Paris Hilton –
“that should be all the folks you ought know from Court
That are performing in the show.”

No sooner had I heard the owner name
These ancient drag queens and their kings, than
Fervor seized me, and I was wont to talk.

My first words, “S, I would willingly
Speak to such Courtesans what are here
If doing so would convince them vote our side.”

And he to me, “Hush, the show is ‘bout to begin.
You’ll have a chance to make your pitch
And grab the ‘ttention of all the crowd.”

No sooner had he said this then the lights went down
And hearing a tune familiar, I found myself
Singing along with certain members of the throng…

“Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome,
Damen und Heren, Mesdames et Messieurs…”
When all at once a booming voice came ‘oer the mic

Inviting all those present, “Ladies and Gentlemen!
Here to entertain you these evening, a very special
Presentation of Tarrant County Stonewall…

Welcome to the Cabaret!” And hearing this,
I turned to D and shook my head, gob-besmack-ed
At the thought that even here, in Godless Texas

One could with no irony at’all, put on a show
Set to the tune and tone of Kander and Ebb.
But oh, the best was yet to come.

For out marched our chapter president,
Done up in fishnets and a teddy
With top-hat and be-rouged to whoredom

Lifting (shapely!) leg and lip’ing words
Better than the false-men could on any given day
Decked as they were with falsies, frock, and wig.

And sang she first a tune from “Miserables”
‘Synching ‘long with Eponine
Weeping for a love can never be.

“A gentle fall of rain” she piped,
Miming an embrace with an injured man
Bleeding from a bullet on the barricades

And who was this fallen false Marius?
Why ‘twas a dyke done up as Marlene in Morocco
Laid out upon the floor in tux and bow-tie

After all this show of injured love
The DJ called a halt, and beckoning to me
Cried to the patrons, “Hush! For here we have a speaker!”

And there my moment had arrived.
Taking up the mic, I surveyed the crowd.
All the queens and dykes, the beer-y and the bearish,

Those bleary-eyed with X and T, but all arrayed
Expectant, waiting for some good word
To carry ‘em through the coming storm.

And looking down at the “talking points”
So-called, provided by the campaign
It came to me, with dawning horror

That I couldn’t say my set-speech
‘Twould be but dust and ashes on my tongue
Meaningless, or rather nonsense, really

Because it had been focus-grouped for straight folks.
So I began instead, dear reader, with an improv
A speech made up entire, on the spot.

Asking every person there to cast their mind
back to the moment when they first knew of love.
“Who was it? What was the story in your head?

For me ‘twas when I read of Lancelot
Who was the best and purest man
In all the kingdom. And knowing, in my heart

That he and Art would make a better pair
Than wispy Guinevere. Would rule all England
As lovers, true, never to be parted.

That’s all we ever want, is to be part
Of the same damn myth that speaks to everyone.
To tremble, kiss, and promise.

Take our Ruth, or David, and love them as our soul.”
And while I said these words, I set to weeping
Involuntarily. And looking round at this piteous place
For pity’s sake, I damn near fainted.

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So, evidently one of Daily Kos’s contributers thought that yesterday’s bread and circus for the plebes Reid/Biden/Obama rally was just the cat’s pajamas. The Dallas Morning News also has an article here, focusing mostly Biden’s “charges” that Bush misled us on the war.

I am glad that the rally had its intended effect on the faithful. To be able to see three U.S. Senators, 1 member of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1 State Senator, half a dozen State Reps and 1 Dallas City Councilor is a rare thing indeed. And, for the record, the weather was beautiful. Oh, and the brownies? To die for.

So here’s to hoping that good vibes, and optimism, and free hot-dogs, and a general sentiment of “let’s give ‘em hell Harry!” can carry us past:
- the bitter taste of Amendment #2
- the total lack of any formal program proposals (and I’m not being a wonk here: no-one said anything of substance)
- the conspicuous absence of Dallas’s mayor (non-partisan post, but still she is a registered Dem)
- the even more conspicuous absence of my own state rep (otherwise, the only white male elected officials present were the Senators)
- and the nagging sense that the only reason why the rally happened at all was because three rich guys in Dallas plunked down the dough to make it happen.

Yes, here’s to hoping.

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Yeah, that about sums up my view on Judy Miller’s tenure at the NYT

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The fact that a proposal to change the name of the city of White Settlement to West Settlement was…

defeated. And not just by a little bit. Defeated 92 to 8.

Yes, because we’re proud of our “heritage” and our “culture” and “character” down here, yes we are…

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My fellow Texans vote today on whether or not I and my partner are part of this state’s social compact. Whether we are welcome at the table of civic communion. Whether we can partake of the bread and wine of liberty and equality.

Whether, in sum, we can ever hope to see our partnerships legally recognized and protected.

Wish us luck, that we be more like Ohio and Oregon (which voted “only” 62% and 57%, respectively, to pass their marriage restriction laws), or more like Mississippi (where a paltry 14% of voters would grant any recognition to gay and lesbian relationships).

Post-script (11:30 p.m., CST): semi-final vote tally: 75/25. 3 to 1 in favor. There’s the answer to my question. Of every student in my class, every person I meet on the street, three out of every four literally wish I would take up my faggotty self and get the hell out of Texas.

Are ya happy now, Texans? Your marriages are now secure, safe and guaranteed against the threat of homosexuality. They are _defined_, because evidently they weren’t before, and now we know. Marriage is preserved.

Fuck I have to get out of this place before I go completely insane.

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Below are some remarks I put together for a panel discussion on the Texas lets-fuck-the-gays-for-fun-and-profit amendment. It’s obviously written in “informal talk” mode. I post them here only so as to invite comments. I’m thinking this might be the germ of a paper, assuming someone hasn’t already covered this.

Max Weber, a 19th century social scientist (who, incidentally, coined the term “Protestant Ethic”) developed the theoretical notion of “status groups” – basically, identifiable social groups bounded by community notions of “honor,” culturally-defined ideas about what is honorable and dishonorable, sinful and pure, insider and outsider, good and bad. All of us belong to one or more status groups, and many of the identities we have (our religion, our ethnicity and racial background, our socioeconomic class) carry some status component. One need think only of what it means to be a “bad Catholic” or a “poseur” – someone who tries to effect a status to which they aren’t entitled - or saying that someone “wasn’t raised right,” etc. to see what I mean here.

Weber noted that one of the major ways in which status groups mark boundaries of what is good and bad, honorable and dishonorable, is through consumption and behavior patterns. Manners and morals, if you will. How we worship, what kind of music we listen to, what kind of television shows we watch, what kind of car we drive, what kinds of clothes we wear, where we live, what kind of school we attend – all of these things mark us as belonging to one status group and not to some other status group.

Now, who can marry, whom we choose to marry, and how we expect the marriage relationship to function are all deeply tied up in our collective ideas regarding who belongs to an honorable social group and who belongs to a stigmatized social group, as well as to who is a person (in legal terms) and who is not.

In medieval Europe, for instance, nobles could not marry without the permission of the sovereign, and peasants could not marry without the permission of their lord.

In the antebellum South, slaves in general could not legally marry, and where they could it was generally at the direction of their masters, and what private relationships were celebrated in the slave quarters (e.g., jumping the broom) carried no legal weight (i.e., no protection against one’s spouse being sold down the river).

Over time, as my historical examples should illustrate, we have seen a gradually widening circle as regards who could enter into a formal marriage, in the legal sense.

This circle was expanded as we broadened the notion of who qualified as a subject/citizen with the legal right to make contracts, and as we developed the notion of individual personhood.

Obviously, marriage markets as status consumption boundaries also explains why we used to have miscegenation laws in this country. And why we still see a rather astonishing degree of class and racial (though not, intriguingly, religious or ethnic) homogamy.

The shift in marriage from patriarchy to equality.

Now, obviously marriage has also historically been a patriarchal institution – at least in the Christian West. And the boundaries of status honor as regards marriage have been drawn by, and for the benefit of, men (especially white, upper-class men).

Thus, for instance, in some essential respects in the European tradition and within some parts of the Arab/Islamic world even today, marriage consists basically of a bill of sale between two men, the property being exchanged consisting of some piece of female chattels. Thus also the rather quaint tradition of a young man asking young lady’s father for permission to propose.

One of the effects of this long historical expansion of the definition of personhood and individuality (a trend, by the way, which is neither “natural” nor inevitable, but has cultural roots in the progress of the modern project of rationalization, as well as in the cultural logic of Protestantism), has been a change in the nature of marriage:

This change has been away from a clearly patriarchal model, where men and women were one person in law, and therefore wives could not hold their own property, could not claim custody of children after a divorce, could not sue and be sued, could not contract their own debts, etc. And toward a partnership of equals, where each member of the marriage is jointly responsible for raising the children, maintaining the household income, maintaining the honor and integrity of the marital bond, etc.

And it was as an extension of this move toward greater equality within marriage that we find ourselves at the current developments. For the first intimation of even the idea of gay marriage came out of the debates over the Equal Rights Amendment. And if I may, let me illustrate this point with a quote: “many ERA proponents were quite open in predicting that ERA would require that marriage licenses be issued to persons of the same sex. For example, Rita Hauser, United States representative to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, stated in her address on ERA to the American Bar Association Annual Meeting St. Louis in August 1970: ‘I also believe that the proposed Amendment, if adopted, would void the legal requirement or practice of the states’ limiting marriage, which is a legal right, to partners of different sexes.’ (Phyllis Schlafly, in a 1979 article for Policy Review)

Ms. Schlafly’s view, although about a decade early, was prescient. The reasoning of the courts in Baehr vs. Miike (the case that precipitated the Hawaii marriage debate) and Goodrich vs. Dept. of Public Health (the case that precipitated the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts), and even (if I am not mistaken), the Connecticut Supreme Court’s decision that lead to that state’s adoption of a civil unions registry — all relied on equal rights reasoning.

In sum, while I would not go so far as to say that “marriage is the bedrock of civilization” (or other such tautological pabulum) I would agree that marriage constitutes one of the primary ways in which our society – like other societies – draws boundaries between who is worthy and who is unworthy. Furthermore, the way in which we organize marriage in this society – as in other societies – says a great deal about our collective ideas about equality and personhood.

And to the extent that we have, as a society, moved to a point where marriage, as a contract, is a partnership between equals, theoretically open to any freely consenting adult and (as I shall elaborate next), we have, as a society, moved to a point where gays and lesbians increasingly have the same civil status (rights, protections, etc.) – and therefore, at least potentially, the same honor status – as heterosexuals, we should therefore not be surprised that these two issues – the civil status and moral worth of gays and lesbians on the one hand, and the nature and boundaries of marriage on the other hand – should intersect.

Phew. Got that? Now on to why this became an issue _when_ it did (the early 90s) and not before.

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