A couple thoughts about the State of the Union Address: Glad to see so many Democrats clapping when Bush announced that the PATRIOT Act was set to expire next year and before he had called for it to be renewed. Nice to see glimmers of resistance from the Dems - maybe this time they'll vote against the damn thing. Have to say I'm not quite sure what Bush meant by "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities" - but I guess that's the idea. Were the Iraqis hosting academic conferences about WMD? If Bush believes that alluding to a constitutional marriage denying homosexual couples the right to marriage without explicitly calling for it with mollify both the "religious right" and the "soccer moms," he's got another think coming. Giving gay couples the same legal protections as heterosexual ones? Not, contrary to conservative dogma, "special rights." Giving religious groups a free pass to ignore anti-discrimination law and still receive federal funding on account of being religious? There are your special rights. Howard Dean's primal scream Monday night I think we can agree didn't make him new friends. But how many people actually found the Daschle-Pelosi fireside chat to be a more effective response to a speech that was a paen to the radical right? The Center for American Progress offers some line-by-line parshanut (commentary).

Howard Dean gets it right: From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people...My view of Christianity . . . is that the hallmark of being a Christian is to reach out to people who have been left behind. So I think there was a religious aspect to my decision to support civil unions. I can't help wondering however, why Howard Dean's God stops short of full civil marriage...

I'm generally not one for on-line polls, but I think sending the right-wing American Family Association a message - through their own poll - that Americans reject their campaign to disenfranchise gay families is a worthy cause, especially given that they've promised to pass the results on to Congress. I just got an e-mail from the AFA sharing the results of the poll so far, and it looks like the real pro-family folks are clobbering the AFA's supporters: I oppose legalization of homosexual marriage and “civil unions” total votes: 201914 I favor legalization of homosexual marriage total votes: 378691 I favor a “civil union” with the full benefits of marriage except for the name: 52238 Pretty embarrassing for them, eh? So if you're the AFA, and you're losing your own poll, what do you do? The end of the e-mail may have a hint: Only votes that have a valid email address associated with them will be counted. We will be purging those with invalid email addresses, which may cause poll results to change somewhat. No explanation of what renders a vote "invalid," of course. Must be the same thing that marks so many of my friends' and relatives' families invalid as well...

Just watched an episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy last night. My sense has been, and still is, that those who are arguing that the show symbolizes a crude minstrelesque stereotyping of gay folks and those who are arguing that the show symbolizes a new prominence and acceptance of gay folks are both right. The most powerful argument of the former camp, I think, is that after performing stereotypical queer labor for heteros, the "Fab Five," leave the heteros alone and go back into their queer home to watch from a distance as the people they've served experience romance. The fact that they're drinking martinis doesn't diminish the resemblance to servant quarters. The powerful argument of the latter camp, I think, is that queer folks are being brought into heteros' homes not only to joke, advise, and support them but specifically to facilitate the development of healthier monogomous, faithful, loving relationships. What struck me most strongly on watching the show last night, however, was the class-typing which pervades it. I think that the "positive stereotypes" associated with the "Fab Five," while they share some of the problematic nature and potential utility in social progress as, say, the idea that Blacks beat Whites as Basketball, are comparatively noteworthy in that they're almost totally inaccesible to a large swathe of the homosexual community. What are gay teenagers gorwing up in urban ghettos - especially those of color - to make of a queer icon distinguished by his inpeccable fashion who in a recent episode found an unacceptable shirt in a hetero man's closet and asked him, "What are you, poor?" There's a compelling argument that the recent media buzz over "metrosexuals" - basically, hetero men who follow homosexual stereotypes - represents a reification of the claim that homosexuality and the expressions associated with it - warmth, compassion, fashion - both other you and make you less of a man. There's a compelling argument to be made that the buzz over "metrosexuals" represents a problematization of constructs of gender and sexuality, and a growing comfort with the idea that multiple masculinities are available to heterosexual and homosexual guys alike. But what both of these arguments gloss over is that "metrosexuality" further weds sexuality and class by implying that northeastern urban wealthy trendy heterosexual men can perform homosexual stereotypes too. It shouldn't be surprising that the internet parodies of this show - some quite hateful - which have risen up have also been pervaded with class-typing: regular, blue-collar, beer-guzzling, poorly-dressed men converting effete trendy queers. But perhaps it should be concerning. Just as it should be concerning how many of the official and unofficial spokespeople of the political gay rights movement are white, upper-middle class folks (some of whom have a great deal of vested interest in divorcing the movement from class- and race- based justice movements). What's needed is more voices, and diverse ones. Let a thousand queer TV shows bloom - but please, let them depict more than the type of gay folks in the Fab Five.

This op-ed in today's YDN first argues, rightly, that reasonable conservatives should be more concerned with recruiting skilled men and women to join the army than with casting them out for their sexual orientation, and then argues, wrongly, that reasonable liberals should see the JAG core's right to Yale Law-sponsored interviews, rather than the Law School's right to enforce it's non-discrimination policy, as a first ammendment issue. The factual error at the heart of the piece is in the suggestion that law students and military recruiters were - up until the Pentagon's $350 million blackmail scheme last year under the Solomon ammendment - being denied their right to association. JAG recruiters, like prospective students, Jews for Jesus, and leafletting undergrads, are free to associate with law students who want to meet with them on campus. What the Pentagon is threatening the termination of a third of a billion dollars worth of lifesaving research to demand is that the Law School sponsor those interviews through its on-campus interview program - and the Law School is right to resist the pressure. The suggestion that political protest is self-indulgent, and institutions can only be changed by the elect that's granted membership in them, belies the history of this University, let alone the US army.

There are moments when Yale's leadership takes significant, even potentially unpopular progressive stances in line with the best values of the University. While they tend to be on symbolic issues - like reimbursing lost financial aid for students with drug possession charges - and exclusively on national and international debates rather than local struggles, they should be acknowledged, both because credit should go where it's deserved and because it's nice sometimes to be able to be proud of the leadership of this institution. While there's certainly much more Yale could do to defend its non-discrimination policy, the letters released to the YDN, showing a nearly two-decade struggle with the Pentagon over the incompatability of the army's hiring practices, Yale's non-discrimination policy, and military recruitment on campus, are a nice break for those of us used to only seeing Levin directing pithy and blistering rhetoric at the working people of this University.

Cheney says in the debates marriage rights are for the states to decide, and then Bush last month calls for a federal marriage ammendment. Now, from the AP, yet another demonstration that the "federalism" of the Republican Right represents a defense only of "states' rights" to be more conservative than the federal government: California and other states that want to make marijuana available to sick or dying patients are flouting federal drug laws in much the same way that Southern states defied national civil rights laws, a senior Bush administration lawyer said.

This must be why President Bush doesn't do press conferences more often. One highlight would be the implication (in the context of defending himself as tolerant of gay people despite not wanting them to have civil rights like marriage) that homosexuals are sinners: I am mindful that we're all sinners and I caution those who may try to take a speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own," the president said. "I think it is important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts." Another would be blaming the failure of massive tax cuts to jump-start the economy on the media's choice to cover his desire to go to war: I remember on our TV screens--I'm not suggesting which network did this, but it said: "March to war," every day from last summer until the spring: "March to war, march to war, march." That's not a very conducive environment for people to take risks when they hear "march to war" all the time.

Today marks a long-overdue but nevertheless greatly welcome reversal of the High Court's 1986 defense of Sodomy Laws. It's a notable loss for the "Religious Right" that was so central to the Republican Party of the Impeachment Era, and increasingly seems to be on its way out in favor of the foreign policy hawks and domestic libertarians (and the single-issue grassroots campaigns of the NRA). The response on the right ranges from Sullivan's celebration to Will's argument that sodomy laws are wrong but a purely local issue (like segregation?) and a constitutional right to privacy is a step on a slippery slope to damnation (like interracial marriage?), to some inspired Lamentations from the Christian News Service: In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul says men whose "foolish hearts were darkened" exchanged the truth of God for a lie. His warning about man's wisdom has apparently gone unheeded in Washington, D.C., where the U.S. Supreme Court has struck down an anti-sodomy law in Texas -- effectively telling states they can no longer punish homosexual couples for engaging in activities the Bible says are "unnatural" and sinful. Fortunately for AgapePress, the Supreme Court is yet to rule on whether the right to privacy includes other Biblical prohibitions like eating fish without fins and scales (same Hebrew word - to'evah - as is used to describe homosexuality). "Under our constitutional republic, it is the place of the state legislature, acting through its duly elected representatives, to decide what is moral," [American Family Association Chief Counsel Steve Crampton] says. "For a handful of un-elected judges to impose their views of morality is not law, it is tyranny." Actually, today would be a shining example of what a Supreme Court should do - hold a nation's legal system to its own best values. Crampton may be thinking of this. A Florida attorney believes the decision handed down will awaken Americans who want to preserve traditional marriage. Mat Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, says the decision will galvanize the majority of Americans who want to preserve family values but who have ignored the radical agenda of homosexual activists. "This particular decision essentially is a shot over the bow and a wake-up call that I believe will galvanize the sleeping giant of the majority of Americans who believe in traditional family values and traditional marriage so that every American will get involved in this cultural war," Staver says. "If we don’t, in the next decade or two, we could lose traditional family values and marriage in this country." See my parents' marriage, as I testified in March, is holy because of the love with which it's infused, not because they get legal recognition our gay friends don't. It's sad to me that some people see anything that expands and democratizes the legal institution as chipping away at the worth of the personal bond. It's a shame to see people convinced that their marriage needs to compete for significance and exclusivity. Staver also says the decision underscores the importance of the next Supreme Court appointment. Indeed. Bring it. P.S.: In case there was any confusion, Justice Scalia wants us to know that he has nothing against gay people personally. Well that's a relief. It's easy to lost track of his personal preferences when you get so caught up in his exercise of power as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States... But I'm sure some of his best friends are gay, right? Well, let me clear up any confusion now by sharing that some of my best friends are people like Justice Scalia...