Don't Blame the Gays, Part One: We Need More Democrats Like Gavin Newsom

The Canadian Supreme Court's sanctioning of gay marriage should shame those American liberals who decided to blame San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom for John Kerry's loss. A typical example of this scapegoating can be found in Alexander Cockburn's November 22 column in The Nation. He wrote that instead of attacking Ralph Nader during the campaign, the Democrats should have turned on Newsom:

If the Democrats had wanted to identify a serious saboteur of their chances they should have homed in on Mayor Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, whose OK to gay marriage saw all those same-sex couples embracing, on every front page and nightly news in America. Ohio had a proposition banning gay marriage, and the drive to put it on the ballot and push it to victory brought the Christians out in their hundreds of thousands, marching to the polls across the rubble of their state's economy.

I'll acknowledge that the best course of action might have been for Newsom and others in California to pursue the legalization of marriage through the courts. But I also accept his argument that "putting a face" on the issue is the only way to change minds.

Seeing same-sex couples embracing shouldn't freak Americans out. But by and large, it does. That's not Gavin Newsom's fault. Nor is it the fault of gay people who want to get married. It's because Christian fundamentalism, distrust of "the other," and ignorance about sexuality have created an atmosphere of hatred and intolerance toward gays. Maybe this would change if more politicians and celebrities with a public forum were as brave as Newsom. What we need are more people willing to say, "Homophobia is wrong, religious justifications for it are bullshit, and any kind of discrimination against gay people is an injustice that affects us all."

In an NPR debate between six of the Democratic candidates in June, the only two who spoke with ease on the subject of same-sex marriage were Kucinich and Moseley-Braun, both of whom said it's an issue of equality and argued that gay people should be able to get married. All the others hemmed and/or hawed. Even Dick Gephardt, whose own daughter is a lesbian, said he wasn't for gay marriage. (Sharpton, who did not participate in the debate, is for it.)

The most absurd and convoluted response, predictably, came from Kerry. He said he's always believed that marriage is between a man and a woman, then droned on for a couple sentences about the law of equal protection and how there should be rights for gay relationships, but whether it's marriage or not is "up for grabs."

In the debate with the infamous Mary Cheney reference, Kerry spoke about homosexuality as though it were a serious injury. His tone and the look on his face made it seem like he was saying, "We should pity these people, what they have to go through, being homosexual..." And of course he agreed with Bush that marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Kerry has voted for gay rights legislation and non-discrimination laws, and he was brave enough to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act (unlike Paul Wellstone, who's often revered as the ideal liberal). But Kerry's stance against marriage--which can't be chalked up to Catholicism, as he is for legal abortion--and his inability to speak comfortably about gay people and their relationships, are representative of the Democratic party's problem when it comes to gay rights.

California senator Dianne Feinstein was one of the most vocal of the post-election anti-Newsom crowd. "I think that whole issue has been too much, too fast, too soon, and people aren’t ready for it," she said in an interview.

Screw Dianne Feinstein. I was one of many gay voters (though at the time I was "straight") who elected her to the Senate in 1992. I don't regret it, because the alternative of a Republican senator would have been much worse. But a state like California, with such a large and vital gay population, should be represented by someone willing to stand up for that population's rights regardless of what voters in Mississippi and Georgia and Ohio think.

Even Barney Frank, the openly gay congressman from Massachusetts, has harshly criticized Newsom. He should instead turn his criticism on his fellow Democratic representatives and senators for being so wimpy and noncommittal when it comes to supporting gay rights. Frank and other gay-rights defeatists take the wrong view of current events, as profiled in this article in the Times this week:

The leadership of the Human Rights Campaign, at a meeting last weekend in Las Vegas, concluded that the group must bow to political reality and moderate its message and its goals...Pragmatists and politicians are more inclined to support the Human Rights Campaign's measured approach. Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, said it was important for the movement to sensibly pick its fights. "You take risks for your gains," he said, "but you don't take risks for no gain."

Spoken like a true coward (I mean, politician). The fact is, there's no way to know whether you'll gain or lose until you do take a risk.

Before last year, I didn't expect to see gay marriage legal in this country for at least another 20 years. But now that the issue is at the forefront, it seems ridiculous to say that it has happened too fast or too soon. The two women who were the first couple to get married at San Francisco City Hall have been together for more than 50 years. Tell them to their faces that they should have been more patient, Feinstein.

The Times also published an article after the election about Democratic successes in Montana, citing the Democratic candidates' opposition to gay marriage as a key reason why the governorship and other offices went their way in this year of Republican domination, and in a state that voted handily for Bush. Unfortunately this strategy will probably be seen by many moderate Democrats as the way to go. Join the heartland of America in its gay-bashing, and maybe they'll join up with you. Clinton worked this angle to his benefit in 1996, running advertisements on Christian radio stations boasting about his signature of the Defense of Marriage Act.

What we need is not more Democrats like those in Montana, who are either anti-gay themselves or willing to sell out gay people, or like Dianne Feinstein or Bill Clinton, for whom civil rights are trumped by political expediency. We need more Democrats like Gavin Newsom, who believe in equality for everyone and are bold enough to speak up for it. Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago falls into that category as well. He supported domestic partner benefits for city employees in the mid-1990s, standing up to hardcore opposition from religious groups, and said earlier this year that he'd support same-sex marriage in Illinois.

The Democrats' problem is not that they're too gay-friendly for Joe and Jane Nebraska. It's that the party is too compromised by corporate money to passionately champion progressive causes, and can't find a candidate who has enough charisma and substance to win the presidency.

It's too bad we haven't had a presidential candidate who believes that gay people deserve equal rights and who isn't afraid to say so. If we had more leaders who would talk about homosexuality in honest, straightforward language, and be forceful in support of equal rights, maybe political moderates who just don't understand homosexuality could be persuaded that their fears and prejudices are irrational.

Even though I've made "blue" the central motif of this blog, I don't want to imply that I am a Democratic loyalist who supports the party no matter what. For me, and I think for many, blue has become emblematic of more than which party voters favored. It suggests a progressive mindset, a counter to the fundamentalist, jingoistic, ignorant "red" that prevailed on November 2. But maybe that's a stretch. Maybe the subtitle of this blog should be "Looking Forward to a More Progressive America" instead of a "Bluer" one. Debate on that is encouraged.