More A Way Of Life… Look, this is just between you and me

Thirteen Years On

(This started out in my mind as quite focused, but became less so as I wrote it.  Apologies for any lack of coherence.)

Thirteen years ago today, Matthew Shepard was lured to a remote rural spot, tied to a fence, tortured and left for dead.  When he was found unconscious the next day the person who found him initially thought he was a scarecrow.  He died in hospital without regaining consciousness five days later.  His murderers each received two life sentences, one having made a deal against the other to avoid the death penalty.  Their girlfriends testified at their trial that they had set out to target a gay man, which Matthew was.

Matthew Shepard's murder is seen by many as a defining moment in the long history of anti-LGBT violence.  It shocked his own community of Laramie, Wyoming, and galvanised the wider American gay world to address the problem of hate crimes as they affected LGBT people.  As a consequence of the Shepard murder President Clinton attempted to add crimes targeting the community (as well as those against people with disabilities and women) to existing hate crimes legislation but was defeated in Congress.  The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr Hate Crimes Prevention Act as the legislation was finally called, eventually became law in 2009 and encompassed sexual orientation, gender identity (actual or perceived) and disability to the hate crimes designation.

I'm not planning on debating the thorny topic of hate crimes legislation, but I do feel like discussing the wider subject of plain old hate.  Last month 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer committed suicide after a relentless campaign of bullying by his schoolmates, the latest in a depressingly long list of queer teens who've seen no way out of their despair but to end their lives.  The It Gets Better Project is doing an amazing job in getting the message out that there can be a better solution, but clearly the hill to climb is huge.  And the fact is that following his death those schoolmates who bullied Jamey ended up chanting that he was better off dead at a homecoming dance.  To my mind that goes somewhere past a bullying mentality and into the realms of ingrained hatred.  Among schoolchildren in 2011... which puts all the progress it sometimes feels we've made and are making into context.

It's hard to put into words how directly I sometimes feel this indirect, unfocused hatred.  I see politicians like those who want to be the next Republican President of the US lining up to burnish their anti-gay credentials by signing vicious pledges to prevent our relationships being legally recognised, (and standing silently while the audience at one of their 'debates' booed a gay American soldier), I hear the leaders of groups like the American Family Association and the Family Research Council, treated as respectable commentators in the media,  spewing hatred against me and people like me without ever meeting me or knowing anything about me.  The leader of the FRC, for example, maintains that there's no correlation between anti-gay bullying and gay teen depression and suicide - in his twisted mind it's because LGBT kids know that there's 'something wrong with them' that causes them to kill themselves.  (And note that those groups also on principle tend to hate non-Christians, Native Americans, non-white Americans and generally anyone not exactly like them - equal opportunity bigots, basically.)

On this side of the Atlantic this week, in a move I'll happily give him credit for, David Cameron announced that he supports gay marriage, not in spite of being a Conservative, but because he's a Conservative.  From the leader of a party which inflicted Section 28 on this country barely more than twenty years ago, this is huge, and taken in isolation could be seen as a very positive sign.  But of course there was the inevitable religious backlash (against an updating of a civil status - I see no point on which they have room to comment), and it's in the context of an increase in anti-LGBT (especially T) crime in the UK.  So I can be relatively sure that David Cameron wouldn't want to kick my head in just for existing, but I can't say the same of everyone I encounter in the street.

I tend to count myself as lucky - I've only ever been on the receiving end of actual or threatened violence three times because of my sexuality.  I've been on the receiving end of personal verbal attacks more times than I can count, and of indirect ones (every time I read the outpourings of the more extreme homophobes) even more frequently.  But hate crime laws and an inch-by-inch more theoretically progressive society just don't ever quite rid me of the expectation that at some point I'll be on the receiving end of some form of anti-gay hatred again.

If Sexual Orientation Is A Choice…

People who are in my Google+ Circles will already know that I got rather depressed when I heard that the legislature in North Carolina had voted to put an amendment to the state constitution to their electorate which would enshrine an anti-same-sex definition of marriage into that document.  They're far from the first state to have done so, but given that same-sex marriage is already banned by statute in the state, this just feels unnecessary, vindictive and divisive.  It may not pass, of course, but whether it does or doesn't, the thing that depressed me is that there are people who hate me and others like me so much - people who've never met us and know nothing of our lives - that they want to see discrimination against us written into the documents which define the very nature of their union.

I think that a bit of depression is reasonable off the back of that.

But:  in the coverage of this I've seen that dull old saw about 'choice' in regard to sexual orientation has been trotted out again.  For as long as I can remember my standard response to this is to question why anyone would choose to be a target of prejudice, discrimination, abuse, violence and occasionally murder.  To ask what the questioners think is so attractive about being on the receiving end of their hatred that millions of people through recorded history would have 'chosen' it.  I've never had a response to this question that made even the smallest sense, so I still have no idea why on earth anyone would think I'd chosen to love men.

I also hear a lot about this 'lifestyle' I've 'chosen', as if something as fundamental as my basic emotional core is the same as deciding to live on a commune, or being vegetarian.  Or, I don't know, deciding to attend a church.  I know that for many people choices like those are deep and significant ones, but they are choices - lifestyle choices if you will.  That's not what being LGBT is.

Chief among the messages about lifestyle and choice I've seen in this debate is the view of Senator James Forrester, the leading sponsor of this amendment, who at a town hall meeting on the subject said "we need to reach out to them and get them to change their lifestyle back to the one we accept".

That's a chilling statement from any legislator in a democracy.  It's worse when uttered at an event organised by a group with a mission to get people across America to "vote the bible".  The fundamental (and I use the word advisedly) point here is that "changing a lifestyle to one we accept" is not a viewpoint which stops at the destruction of any security gay relationships might conceivably one day be afforded.  This is a viewpoint that will trample over any dissenting religion; that will go on to require women return to the status of possession in their marriages, and work to ensure that their reproductive rights vanish.  This is the viewpoint of tyrants, not democrats.

But returning to the point that I started from here several days ago, (contant distractions is my excuse), I'm left thinking that this thing about choice could all be looked at from another perspective.  If sexual orientation is a choice - it's not, obviously -  and I (for example) have chosen to be gay, doesn't that mean people like Senator Forrester have chosen to be (presumably) straight?  If it's possible to choose, then that choice must largely be between two or more equally viable options.  So all those straight people like the Senator and his ilk actually find men attractive, but have simply chosen to focus their attention on women.

Now that I think about it, that could explain why so many flaming homophobes turn out to be flaming queens :- )

New York – One Leader Present, One Entirely Absent

(This is me, doing more of my 'obsessing on the political situation thousands of miles away' thing.  Brit people, consider this cultural education )

Late on Friday evening, the New York Senate approved a bill to make New York the largest state in the union so far to legalise same sex marriage.  Governor Andrew Cuomo (champion of the legislation and one of the most unambiguously supportive straight political allies to the LGBT movement) signed the bill within hours, and thirty days from that day, same sex marriages can start being solemnised in New York State.  If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen one or two tweets referencing it...

This is the kind of positive news that the movement doesn't get every day.  Indeed, it comes on the heels of more than one piece of bad news of late, including attempts to include anti-marriage constitutional amendments on more than one state's ballot this year.  The final decision makes history in more than one way:  due to NY State's size it more than doubles the number of Americans living in states with marriage equality, it exemplifies the shift in thinking that's taken place in the US in recent years, a similar measure two years ago having failed in the Senate, and it represents the first time a Republican-led legislature has approved marriage equality legislation.  The significance of this last point cannot be understated.  It was four Republican supporters who secured the passage of the bill, and according to campaigners, a sizeable proportion of funds raised for the campaign came from Republican sources.  That constitutes a change in political fortune that would have seemed like a crazed fantasy even as recently as last November, when the nation saw legislatures across the country fall to the GOP on a wave of Tea Party excess and some seriously extreme positions.

Not that extreme positions were absent from the New York debate of course:  The only Democratic Senator to vote against the bill was rabidly homophobic Reuben Diaz, who organised a huge rally against marriage, bussing in supporters from who-knows-where, and claiming all the while to love LGBT people (including his own granddaughter) while at the same time applauding his guest speakers, even those who announced we should all be put to death.  And of course the National Organization for Marriage were there, throwing out their now well-worn mix of falsehoods and threats (their initial $1million pledged to be used against Republicans voting for the bill has been increased to $2million since Friday), alongside the international child abuse ring that calls itself the Catholic church, with Archbishop Timothy Dolan getting his panties in a right twist over the prospect of a civil government passing a law regarding a civil institution.

In all this, one figure (and one remarkable bit of timing) stands out - the President of the United States of America.  Back during his presidential campaign, Barack Obama stated openly that he opposed gay marriage.  He said it more than once, and in doing so provided huge capital to the proponents of Proposition 8 in California, who quoted him on the point regularly.  Given that back in 1996, when running for slightly less visible office, he stated his support for gay marriage, most sensible observers have concluded that this shift is 100% politically motivated, which makes the "Yes we can" president look more like the "Yes we can if it's nothing that might affect my chances of getting elected" man.  In what must have seemed like terrible timing to his handlers, in the middle of the week of uncertainly around the vote, Obama was scheduled to attend a fundraising event  with LGBT supporters in New York City on Thursday evening, and massively fumbled his impossible-to-avoid comment on the subject, falling back on an "it's up to the states" formula which basically means he's absolutely okay with large numbers of LGBT Americans being barred from marriage.  Worse, in reflecting on the day of his election win in 2008, he referred to it as 'a perfect night'.  That's right, to an LGBT audience he called the day the Prop 8 was passed 'perfect'.  Does no one who writes this man's speeches think?

And the communications delivered on his behalf are no better.  A couple of weeks ago, one of his people tried to claim that the 1996 questionnaires in which he supported gay marriage were faked, though the White House press office then said that the speaker wasn't fully informed...  And following the New York win, they issued a statement that claimed the president supports the idea of gay couples having the same rights as straight couples, disregarding the fact that they can only get them through marriage.  Which he opposes.

The New York Times has today weighed in on the subject and made clear the stupidity of Obama's position.

Obama was supported by a lot of LGBT people, at least in part because of his claim that he would be a 'fierce advocate' for them.  Andrew Cuomo promised to get marriage equality in New York, then worked the votes, found the support, worked with the campaigning and lobbying groups, and applied every bit of political capital he could; and made it happen.  Obama says he doesn't actually even believe in marriage equality.  There's one fierce advocate in this paragraph, and he doesn't currently live in the White House.

Marriage Matters

Following up from my last post I thought I'd reflect a bit more on the Prop 8 case and for the benefit of the Brits and anyone else who didn't follow the detail I present a (long) summary of the key points and an unexpected shift in my own perspective arising from it:

The Prop 8 case was fascinating, mostly for the startling lack of effort that seems to have gone into the case of those defending the ballot initiative, and also for the nature of the legal team seeking that Prop 8 should be declared unconstitutional.

As I noted last time the legal team was led by Theodore Olson and David Boies, both experienced litigators with past form arguing all the way up to the Supreme Court, most famously when they were on opposite sides of the Bush/Gore fight following the 2000 election.  Ted Olson went on to be part of GWB's legal team and is a card-carrying Republican, as well as the most experienced of currently-active Supreme Court litigators.  The fact that these two legal giants came together and saw this as a case capable of winning is, to me, an incredible testament to the strength of the case for same-sex marriage(SSM)  and also to the protections that should be inherent in the US Constitution (which is the foundation of trying to have the initiative declared unconstitutional, obviously).  More, the fact that Olson in particular was able to see past the the dogma of his political 'soulmates' and take a stand for what he perceived to be right makes him worthy of significant respect.

Almost more astonishing than this alliance though, is the way the case itself unfolded.  (Note to keep things clear - the case was brought on behalf of two California couples who argued that the result of the Proposition was to deny them their right to marry - therefore the prosecution and plaintiffs in this case are people against Prop 8 and the defendant was the State of California.  The State, by the way, declined to defend the Proposition in court - effectively saying that it agrees the proposition is unconstitutional - leaving it to a group of anti-SSM activists to assemble a defence).

When it came to the trial, Olson and Boies presented what was to every neutral viewpoint I've read, a robust, rational, compelling case that systematically dismantled every argument against SSM.  They made the case that not only was the intention and effect of the proposition to deny rights to an identifiable minority, but that the institution of marriage is in no way harmed by SSM, while those who cannot create legally protected unions are indeed harmed by that fact.  They called the plaintiff couples, and other affected parties, and a list of expert witnesses to show how marriage has evolved over time, how the LGBT community is discriminated against, and how the campaign for Prop 8 had been conducted through lies, smears and false innuendoes.  By every account it was a textbook case.

The defence case, conversely, was simply bizarre.  The initially six-strong witness list was whittled down to two, allegedly because the other four feared the wrath of the violent homofascists if they testified (yes, I know...).  With hindsight though it seemed they also failed to take part because their pre-trial depositions actually strengthened the case against Prop 8.

Among other points, the depositions of some of these witnesses confirmed that marriage equality would strengthen family stability, and that lesbians and gay men have a long history of being discriminated against, including by propositions such as this one...

The two defence witnesses they did call to the stand were catastrophic for their case.  One 'expert' supposed to demonstrate that LGBTs are not politically vulnerable (ie not prone to being legislatively discriminated against) had only had one peer-reviewed article published, and that was about Prop 8 itself.

The second was so bad for them you'd think he was a prosecution plant.  He turned out to have NO relevant research qualifications or published works, and didn't even know what past Supreme Court judgements had said about the right to marriage.  Worse (for them), he made plenty of statements about how marriage equality would be a good thing; that it would be, among other things, "a victory for, and another key expansion of, the American idea" - and this is the key anti-SSM witness!

Olson and Boies even called one of the defence witnesses who had declined to appear, one of the Official Proponents of Prop 8, and just took him apart.

Last week, when Judge Vaughan Walker ruled on the case and declared Proposition 8 unconstitutional, he would clearly have been prepared for the cries of "activist judge!" that inevitably sprang up.  He was probably also prepared for the shrieks that as an alleged gay man he should have recused himself from the case (right, because all those straight white judges keep recusing themselves from cases affecting straight white men...), and he was probably prepared for the attempt to pass a Congressional motion condemning his ruling.  But his ruling itself - all 130+ pages of it, should be all the defence he needs of his actions - it's argued dispassionately, based heavily on facts as presented by both sides in the case, and establishes both key legal principles that the prosecution sought, based on the actual case presented to him.

Last Sunday in the wake of the ruling, and pending possible appeals, Olson and Boies both took to the morning talk TV shows.  Olson ripped up the challenges to him on Fox News, which in other times would be his natural constituency, and David Boies took on Tony Perkins of  the grimly homophobic Family Research Council on CBS and, in the vernacular, tore him a new one.  This comment from Boies in particular has been well circulated but is worth repeating:

And what we saw at trial is that it's very easy for the people who want to deprive gay and lesbian citizens the right to vote, to make all sorts of statements and campaign literature or in debates where they can't be crossexamined. But when they come into court and they have to support those opinions and they have to defend those opinions under oath and cross-examination, those opinions just melt away. And that's what happened here. There simply wasn't any evidence. There weren't any of those studies. There weren't any empirical studies. That's just made up. That's junk science. And it's easy to say that on television. But witness stand is a lonely place to lie. And when you come into court, you can't do that. And that's what we proved. We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost.

This gets to the heart of it.  When robbed of the ability to scaremonger; when forced to justify their claims with evidence; when compelled to address the real world, not the world they make up based on one reading of one 'holy' book, every argument that the anti-LGBT forces can rally is revealed as bigotry or sham, and it withers and dies.

Bringing this to the personal, something has struck me as this case has unfolded, which is that in some ways my own viewpoint has been affected by the arguments here.  The Mrs and I regard ourselves as married.  We occasionally use the word 'husband' of each other, and we talk about our wedding.  But strictly speaking, we're civil partners.  This hasn't ever tended to bother us, since we legally we have every right and responsibility of marriage, just not the name.  And legal recognition is what concerns us.

But we don't live in a country where the concept of 'separate but equal' has such powerful connotations.  We don't live in a culture which has so painfully and publicly endured a period where 'separate but equal' was a code phrase for 'institutionalised discrimination'.  Simon Hughes, one of the sad shower currently running our country, rec
ently made a commitment to 'proper' marriage equality in the UK.  Not long ago I wouldn't have been bothered much one way or the other.  But after really, seriously, examining my feelings about marriage equality, not similarity, and especially after looking at what separate but equal actually means, I find I am bothered.  Very much so.

There will inevitably more on this subject over time.

A Few Words On Prop 8

If you followed me on the SF blog, you'll be aware that I became mildly obsessed with US politics while I was there.  In truth, I still am - more so than I can find the energy to be about this shower of opportunistic bastards we're stuck with in the UK certainly.

And it was while I was in the US that the voters of California, a majority of them at any rate, elected to remove the right of same sex couple to marry.  They did so on the same day that the country as a whole was energised by the election of Barack Obama, which made that day bittersweet for a lot of Californians.

Earlier this year, a case challenging the constitutionality of Proposition 8 was heard by a judge in San Francisco.  There's a lot of coverage elsewhere of the case itself, so I won't get into the detail - suffice it to say that the State of California itself was the defendant, and the State chose not to defend the Proposition.  It was left to a ragbag of anti-equality types to do so, and their case in defence of the Prop was laughably thin; expert witnesses who weren't expert in marriage, witnesses who actually accepted the benefits of same sex marriage, it was a joke.  The case against was thorough, impeccably reasoned, and entirely robust.  I'm not just saying it as someone who would obviously want Prop 8 overturned; that's a pretty broad consensus.

And most remarkably, the advocates of the case were two men called Theodore Olson and David Boies - incredibly experienced litigators who've argued before the US Supreme Court, and astonishingly, against each other.  They actually represented Bush vs Gore in their contested election.  Ted Olson went on to be one of Dubya's Solicitors General.  That's right - someone who worked as the legal muscle for George W Bush is a stronger advocate of marriage equality than the increasingly disappointing Obama.

Today, Judge Vaughan Walker issued his ruling.  Proposition 8 is Unconstitutional.  Over more than 130 pages of carefully considered analysis, he found that, as he concludes:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. 

It'll be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court of course, so the matter doesn't end here.  But this is huge.  The Constitution should, in theory, stop the majority enshrining in law any kind of discrimination against a minority.  And the arguments against same sex marriage are all about doing exactly that.  Exactly how the anti-SSM forces will argue otherwise will be interesting to see.

But in the meantime - Great Day.