More opinions on Argentina

From South Florida Sun-Sentinal

Sadly, the United States, which has traditionally been at the vanguard of human rights developments, finds itself falling behind in one of the great trends of human history. There are any number of reasons for this: our deeply ingrained religious mores, the generally right-of-center views of our body politic, and a reluctance on the part of timid politicians to unnecessarily energize a dwindling but dedicated group of voters bent on retaliation at the polls.

From the HuffPo:

Conservatives seem to view Iran and Saudi Arabia as good role models for governance and public policy, looking to god to help make law and impose a moral code handed down by divine edict. We move toward theocracy as the rest of the world embraces the future. The religious right is strangling us in a chokehold of ignorance and intolerance, arbitrarily imposing on us superstitions dating back 2000 years. This is no way to run a modern country.

UK to give civil marriages?

Right now, the UK has civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, which have most (but not all ) of the rights of marriage without the name itself. The current UK government, a coalition between the middle (Liberal Democrats) and Conservatives, has announced that "real" marriage is coming:

Under current rules, same-sex couples can contract a civil partnership, which is recognised in law but not given the same status as marriage for a heterosexual couple.

Mr Hughes predicted that before the next general election, the law will be changed to give an equal right to full marriage.
“It would be appropriate in Britain in 2010 to have civil marriage for straight people and gay people equally,” he said.
“The state ought to give equality. We’re halfway there. I think we ought to be able to get there in this Parliament.”

This is not the left in British politics. This is the right and the center.

Meanwhile in the American system, even the left/liberal party (the Dems) run away from us while the right actively opposes our rights.

pretty sad, really.

Immigration reform: don't count on inclusion

The Obama Administration really REALLY wants immigration reform Surprisingly, some religious conservatives do too--for the right reasons. An unlikely alliance that can resolve a clearly untenable situation for the common good.

Of course,

the whole effort could implode if the final legislation extended family reunification provisions to same-sex couples where one spouse did not have legal status. For evangelicals, he said, “That would be a deal-breaker.”

We've talked before about entering the US while gay. There are many devoted gay couples who are either living separated lives, or obligatory expatriates. Deportation and separation. clarknt67 takes it on at Daily Kos.

Do you think the Fierce Advocates will throw Teh Gay overboard to get an immigration bill passed?

I do. I hope I'm wrong.

NOM's bus tour: a deliberate sham?

The HRC reports that NOM's bus tour is intended as a stunt to draw out counterprotesters that can be filmed and used to support NOM's contention that GLBT people are violent.

“NOM’s highly-touted bus tour is less about so-called ‘traditional marriage’ and more about creating an elaborate and cynical stunt. NOM rolled out a summer of nationwide events in order to draw lawful protesters, all so that NOM and its allies can pepper ongoing lawsuits challenging public disclosure laws with made-up stories of harassment. This unprecedented victimization crusade is the lowest denominator of political activism, and it won’t fly.”

They go on,

NOM’s efforts to trump up false claims of harassment are part of a radical nationwide plan to evade long-established public disclosure laws and to hide their political activities from legitimate scrutiny and accountability. In doing so, NOM has falsely alleged that their donors have been harassed and intimidated across the country to justify why it shouldn’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else. These tactics have prompted a state ethics investigation in Maine and recent court defeats across the country.....

Sainz concludes: “The bread crumbs of their deceit are clear. Let’s add it all up: NOM and its allies are making a last-ditch legal stand in Washington and Maine that they should be specially entitled to hide their political activities, and they’re saying that harassment and intimidation should provide them this cover. At the same time, Brian Brown schedules a series of virtually unattended weekday afternoon events hoping for counter-protests that they can then use as evidence of harassment and intimidation. Why else would NOM execute such half-hearted non-events and then completely subjugate its so-called ‘pro-marriage’ message in favor of devoting its energies almost exclusively to condemning lawful protesters?”

Are they smart enough to do this?

Are we reading too much into a total failure of an event?

Or is there even less here than there appears?

Discuss.

A ray of hope in Arizona

Last September, Arizona's governor Jan Brewer decided that because of the state budget crisis, domestic partner benefits would be rescinded for GLBT citizens. Arizona claimed it didn't matter because people could buy insurance on the private market (for $$$$$, of course....)

Lambda Legal sued and has won a preliminary injunction.Writes the judge,

[T]he Ninth Circuit has recognized there is 'an inherent inequality' in allowing some employees to participate fully in the State's health plan, while expecting other employees to rely on other sources, such as private insurance or Medicaid. 'This back of the bus' treatment relegates plaintiffs to a second-class status by imposing inferior workplace treatment on them, inflicting serious constitutional and dignitary harms that after-the-fact damages cannot adequately address.

Lambda Legal goes on,

Sedwick also rejected the State's claims that maintaining the same benefits for gay employees that their heterosexual co-workers will continue to receive would endanger other state services:

"The State's argument, which is not supported by any evidence, is speculative at best and discriminatory at worst. Contrary to the State's suggestion, it is not equitable to lay the burden of the State's budgetary shortfall on homosexual employees, any more than on any other distinct class, such as employees with green eyes or red hair."

Emphasis mine.

The case continues.

What NOM really wants

Maggie Gallagher's National Organization for Marriage is doing a bus tour in the East/Midwest to heighten awareness of, and opposition to, marriage equality.

Apparently it's not going so well, as the pro-equality counter-protesters are equaling or exceeding Mag's numbers. There has been great coverage at Prop8trialtracker.

But amongst the flowery sweet soft thoughts of "religious freedom" and "children's welfare", let's not forget what the opponents of marriage equality REALLY think and what they REALLY want. More here.

UpdateProp8trialtracker reports today that the latest stop on the tour, in Madison WI, had the NOM-mers outnumbered 8 to 1 by equality supporters with signs of love and hope. The NOM group walled themselves off behind police tape. At other stops, they have threatened counterprotesters with arrest (though the police later apologized). Seems NOM thinks only hate speech should be free.


Update 2: some consideration of hate speech generally. A progressive organization called the Tides discovered that it was on the target list of a heavily armed man involved in a shootout with the California Highway Patrol last week. As in so many of the recent acts of violence, this was a gun-mad guy mad at liberals.

Writing in the SF Chronicle, the head of Tides writes,

This incident serves to remind us that it should be the obligation of every American, especially those whose voices are amplified by the media, to foster civil discourse and dialogue among those who may disagree about public matters. One does not win an argument by inciting troubled people to violence.

(H/T the Lead)

I don't think NOM and its fans are helping.

Red state, blue state, and same sex marriage

There's a new book out called Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture. How is it that states with the most liberal viewpoints (same sex marriage, major Obama supporters) do better in "family values" (low divorce rates, low rates of teen childbirth) than states with more "traditional" views?

The book argues that traditional family life was built on early marriages, and the ability of low-skilled men to get jobs with little education. Children, sex, and marriage were all tangled up together, divorce was hard to get, and thus people married young. But the global economy changed the game, by demanding high levels of skill and education, and the sexual revolution decoupled sex from children. Women entered the workforce and could postpone child bearing; liberalization of divorce laws made it easier to break up a marriage and gave women options and independence. Thus people take their time, marry later, and have fewer children, if at all. In this paradigm, The Red Families think Bristol Palin getting pregnant too soon is okay if she marries the boy; The Blue Families are horrified that she's having a child before finishing her education.

Jonathan Rauch has written about this several times and points out

In the Blue and Red paradigms, same-sex marriage has entirely different meanings.

In Blue World, same-sex marriage is wholly consonant with the ethic of responsibility and autonomy as the pillars of family formation. In this world:

• Mature adults form families to express and nurture commitment to each other and their children, and to share human capital which both partners have already amassed.
• Sex comes before marriage, and marriage comes before children, and indeed children need never come at all

....In fact, in Blue World, marriage is incomplete if it excludes gay couples! Excluding them sends all the wrong signals about family and responsibility. It would make a hypocritical nonsense of what it is that marriage is supposed to be all about.

In Red World, things look very different. The Red project is to maintain the linkage between sex, marriage, and procreation. In Red World, de-linkage has wrought all kinds of social problems.

Same-sex marriage, in this view, is in some sense the ultimate symbolic assault on what is left of the unity of sex, marriage, and procreation.....After gay marriage, in the Red view of things, how can sex, marriage, and procreation ever be put back together again?

In this regard, he suggests that the opponents are fighting for a world view and a society that is long gone.

I believe that, slowly but surely, family values are renormalizing and will continue to renormalize around later family formation and an ethic which stresses responsible childbearing over abstinence from sex—if only because economic and cultural forces are pulling so hard in that direction. ...I don’t think excluding gay couples from marriage will do anything to strengthen or restore the old sex/marriage/procreation unity, and I think trying to hold homosexual couples to the old norm while heterosexuals live by the new one will be counterproductive as well as unfair.
....

I think it's very interesting to suggest that the opposition to marriage equality is based in this resistance to changing norms. It's convenient to blame the gays since this seems a change that is So Big, but in reality, the changes have already taken place, and this is quite incremental. It describes a polarization in worldview that is really profound.

And that leads into a broader question of how we can bring along people for whom advanced degrees and educational opportunities are not available solutions. How do we rescue the kids in mill towns and rural America and poor working families to benefit from these changes? Something I blogged about elsewhere.

Ban Same Sex Marriage (video Sunday)

See more about money in last Monday's post.

Reading the Tea leaves from the Supreme Court

From The New York Times:

The sentence was resolutely bland and nicely hidden in a long Supreme Court decision issued on the last day of the term.

All it said was this: “Our decisions have declined to distinguish between status and conduct in this context.” But the context mattered. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the majority, was talking about laws affecting gay men and lesbians.

Slipping that thought into a case about the treatment of a Christian student group reminded some of a technique perfected by Justice William J. Brennan Jr., whose fellow justices were wary of his “time bombs.”.....

Justice Ginsburg’s bland talk about status and conduct was significant because courts are more apt to protect groups whose characteristics are immutable. Calling sexual orientation a status may not require the conclusion that being gay is immutable rather than a choice, but it certainly suggests it.
....

The decision in which the statement appeared, Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, considered whether a public law school could deny recognition to a student group that excluded gay men and lesbians. The majority decided the case on narrow grounds that barely acknowledged the clash between anti-discrimination principles and religious freedom.

Barely, but not entirely. In her brisk aside, Justice Ginsburg put the muscle of a majority decision behind a proposition that had attracted only one vote when the court struck down a Texas law making gay sex a crime in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas.

“Texas’s sodomy law is targeted at more than conduct,” Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote in a concurrence. “It is instead directed toward gay persons as a class.”

The Christian Legal Society decision was notable, too, because it was the only one in an argued case in the last term in which Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joined the court’s four more liberal members in a 5-to-4 decision. It is inconceivable that advocates for same-sex marriage can win in the current Supreme Court without his vote.

Some scholars cautioned against reading too much into very limited information culled from an inapposite decision.....

Others were prepared to go a little further.

New polls in California narrowly favor marriage equality

Two new polls to notice. First, a new Field Poll finds 51% of the Golden State favors same sex marriage rights.

The SF Chronicle cautions:

Although a majority of California voters say they support same-sex marriage, that endorsement is as tenuous as it was two years ago when voters told pollsters that they approved of the idea but still voted to ban the marriages.

A Field Poll scheduled to be released today shows little has changed since May 2008, when 51 percent of voters said they supported same-sex marriage, only to ban it by approving Proposition 8 six months later.

So we're back where we started.

Meanwhile, Public Religion Research also has some numbers:

•Only one-in-five (22%) Californians believe the passage of Proposition 8 was a “good thing” for the state. Most Californians believe Proposition 8 was either a bad thing for California (29%) or believe it has not made any difference (45%).....

•If another vote similar to Proposition 8 were held tomorrow, a majority (51%) say they would vote to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, compared to 45% who say they would vote to keep same-sex marriage illegal.

•There are major religious groups on both sides of the debate over same-sex marriage in California. Solid majorities of Latino Catholics and white mainline Protestants say they would vote to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry, while solid majorities of white evangelical Protestants, Latino Protestants, and African American Protestants say they would vote to keep same-sex marriage illegal....

•There is a striking Catholic-Protestant divide within the California Latino community on public policy issues related to gay and lesbian rights. A majority of Latino Catholics (57%) say they would vote to allow gay and lesbian couple to marry, compared to just 22% of Latino Protestants.....

•.... Mainline Protestants are the only major religious group that is more likely to hear positive than negative messages about homosexuality from their clergy.

Diana Butler Bass writes in the HuffPo:

It is not the job of religious communities to legally deny marriage to homosexual couples; it is their job to make sure that homosexual people make healthy, faithful, and respectful moral decisions regarding the exercise of their sexuality.....Progressive and mainline clergy seem to be having an impact on ways in which the Bible is interpreted: Californians who heard "positive messages from the clergy" about gay and lesbian people overwhelming supported either same-sex marriage (60 percent) or civil unions (22 percent).

H/T James

Political Homophobia: does this explain Incrementalism?

Joe Sudbay at Americablog coined that term to explain why the Congressional Democrats quake in their boots over giving any support to LGBT rights, and why despite all political signs that 2008-2010 would lead to great strides, we've not gotten far at all.

Bilerico chimes in:

If you follow LGBT politics closely, you know the polling numbers by heart. Two thirds of Americans believe same-sex couples deserve legal protections in the form of civil unions or marriage. About 75 percent believe gays and lesbians should be able to serve openly in the military. Even more say employers shouldn't be able to fire people based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.

In the last decade these numbers have moved in only one direction--toward fairness and inclusion. And yet, Congress still hasn't enacted significant protections for LGBT Americans. Why?

Fear, mostly. Fear that despite their distinct minority status, anti-LGBT extremists wield inordinate power when directly challenged. Swat that nest, the thinking goes, and the hornets will swarm. ....

Whether one believes it's rational or not, this fear exists, and it's part of working in LGBT politics in Washington. It must be understood, or the conversation stops.

Yes, decrying this doesn't do much good. How do we reverse it? Part, I think is exposing the fringe views of the opposition, exposing their hatred and hypocrisy. We have to mobilize the non-extremes.

Someone once said fear is just an acronym for "false evidence appearing real." When it comes to anti-LGBT extremists, there may be something to that.

Few lawmakers who've voted to end discrimination against people because of their sexual orientation or gender identity have been defeated by anti-LGBT challengers. That's not to say there isn't a hardcore group of voters who will work to oust pro-equality politicians, but that group may not be large enough to matter very much in many places.

There will always be elected officials whose constituents are overwhelmingly opposed to LGBT equality. And with few exceptions, those politicians will fall in line whether they personally agree with the voters or not. But public opinion has shifted so dramatically in recent years it's hard to justify caving to minority opinion in more moderate districts.

Our job as advocates is to come together to find a solution, address the fear and create the conditions to win.

DADT Federal Trial

Did you know there's a DADT (don't ask don't tell) trial in federal court?

Why not?

I know I don't cover much with DADT but this is a biggie. The Log Cabin Republicans are challenging DADT in federal court and the Obama DoJ is fighting back HARD.

Yes, yes, I hear what you're saying. It's repealed, right?

NO it's not! There's an addendum in a budget bill that lets the Pentagon, er, dick around forever while those opposed drag their heels. NOT repeal, NOT what our Fierce Advocate promised. DADT will NOT be history any time soon, and they are still dismissing loyal military servicemembers.

The military has decided to poll its members (poll them. Do you think they asked the grunts about racial integration?) and it turns out the poll is totally insecure, anyone can with little effort skew the numbers. If this goes through, they will segregate the military between straight and homo.

Go over and read Karen Ocamb's blog on this trial, and then GET EQUAL.

And BTW, Get Equal, where are you and Dan Choi?

Follow the money: do marriage equality opponents really WANT to win?

It has been speculated that the Right doesn't really want to ban abortion; it's far more effective as a political and fundraising boogeyman if Roe v. Wade stays essentially intact.

I am starting to wonder the same thing about marriage equality. What a great rallying cry it is to trumpet the decline of marriage, to decry the activist judges, and bemoan the legislative process as middle-aged gays and lesbians seize the opportunity to join the married bourgeois and pay the marriage penalty.

In campaigns involving tens of millions of dollars, someone, somewhere, is getting rich.

A case in point is George "Lift my Luggage" Rekers, who made a profession of being a witness-for-hire at anti-gay hearings and trials. His employers didn't do so well because not only did he cost them a lot of money (on the order of hundreds of thousands) but his testimony was so over the top that it was routinely dismissed. Still, a lucrative business for Mr Rekers.

Or look at The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), and its CEO Maggie Gallagher with its hidden lists of donors and millions that it spends.

IRS reports from Gallagher's other organization, the "Institute for Marriage & Public Policy" reveal that she pays herself up to 42% of the donations received by that organization. I wonder if the donors know that over 40 cents of every dollar they give go to Ms Gallagher's bank account. This sounds a bit "excessive" by the standards used to judge compensation at non-profits.

Brian Brown is president of NOM and doled out over $160,000 to a consulting firm he runs called "Common Sense America". It shares an office with NOM. It sounds kinda like a giant shell game, doesn't it? Brown and Gallagher each have lucrative deals with a variety of organizations, all intertwined, while the centerpiece of NOM apparently acts as a money-laundering operation for institutional foes of marriage equality. And despite repeated investigations over campaign finance ethics, NOM keeps rolling on.

And the money keeps rolling in from every side....

I think that everyone was surprised at the weakness of the case that the Prop8 defenders put together to defend Prop8. Most pro-equality activists could probably have done better. The bad guys' witnesses managed to make the case for the equality side. Was that intentional? Losing early wouldn't be a problem, and might be a great fund-raising boon. If that's the case, their real triumph was in hiding the trial from public view. I suspect they are pretty confident of winning at SCOTUS but in no hurry to get there. Those of us they attack, who lose rights, and are materially damaged, are just "collateral damage" .

I know that there are many "true believers" in the anti-marriage equality movement. But increasingly I wonder whether they are all puppets to the most cynical puppet-masters, whose interest is not in the topics of social battles, but in the far more American desire to enrich themselves on the backs of those below.

It was the very American PT Barnum who reminded us "There is a sucker born every minute."

Update More on money at Pam's House Blend, pointing out the same logic is used for opponents of the DADT repeal.

In order for the coffers to remain full, gays must be deemed an enemy to be feared. This worked well forty years ago, but America has grown up to find FDR was right - there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

Now, desperate to remain relevant keep the cash flow steady, the religious right must go further and further from the political mainstream to justify their unjustifiable fear of gays. There is just one problem - the more outside the mainstream the religious right ventures, the more ridiculous they look.

Marriage in Argentina (video Sunday)

Despite robust opposition from the Roman Catholic Church and the Mormons, Argentina's senate voted to support the rights of ALL Argentines to full citizenship.

Well done, Argentina.

NOM's bus tour against equality

The Courage Campaign points out that Maggie Gallagher's hate group NOM is planning a series of rallies in venues across the Midwest and East to oppose equality; they plan a Tour Tracker Campaign The Freedom to Marry organization plans parallel events as part of their own Summer for Marriage.

Full props to Equality Maine for staging a counter protest. Let's make sure NOM sees a peaceful opposition at all their stops. Remember, we're about LOVE. It's they who are about hate.

More from the Courage Campaign:

Compared to the marriage equality rally, the mood at this gathering was bitter and angry. These folks weren’t smiling. They stood awkwardly, clapping at inappropriate times. With the exception of small children, Dan and I were the youngest by at least a generation. There was not a single attendee who was a person of color; all attending were white, old, and conservatively dressed. Some carried signs proclaiming homosexuality a sin; many wrapped themselves in the flag.

NOM is a dangerous group that fronts a lot of the money for anti-marriage equality campaigns. (I'll tell you more about that soon). It behooves us as a community to stand up to them robustly, and let OUR voices be heard.

Argentina votes for marriage equality

From the Advocate:
In a debate that lasted well into the early hours of Thursday morning, Argentina's senate voted 33-27 to make theirs the first country in South America to legalize same-sex marriage....

Freedom to Marry's Evan Wolfson issued the following statement early Tuesday morning:

".....Today's vote adds momentum to the international movement to secure the freedom to marry for all loving and committed couples.

"Key to Argentina's human rights achievement was strong leadership from legislators and the president. It is time we see more of our own elected officials standing up for the Constitution and all families here in the United States. America should lead, not lag, when it comes to treating everyone equally under the law."

Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon, makes it more explicit:

It's worthwhile now and then to take stock of the vast disparity between how we like to think of ourselves and reality. When a country with Argentina's history and background becomes but the latest country to legally recognize same-sex marriage -- largely as the result of a population which demanded it -- that disparity becomes quite clear.

The problem with incrementalism

What's the problem with incrementalism? A new article in Newsweek takes it on. Emphases mine.

But here’s the catch—the bigger issues are consistently on the verge of happening, but never seem to be a done deal.....

Paul Yandura, a Democratic strategist and gay-rights organizer, gives one example of the disconnect. “My trainer, my aunt—everyone called to congratulate me on the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” I had to explain to them that the law is still on the books and now it’s completely open-ended as to when it might get repealed. They were appalled.” Even conservatives like Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council have readily admitted in conversations with NEWSWEEK that smaller gains, such as hospital visitation rights, help conservatives fight larger ones like the legalization of gay marriage. “The next time I debate someone on TV about same-sex marriage, that’s exactly what I’ll tell them—I’ll say, ‘The president already took care of that, didn’t he?’ ”

Cathy Renna, an LGBT media adviser, says ...many people think that gays have the right to marry and, for example, that gays are protected from discrimination in the workplace despite the fact that the Employment Non-Discrimination Act has yet to come to a vote on the Hill, ...Polling has shown that 61 percent of heterosexual Americans don’t realize that federal law does not provide protections to employees based on sexual orientation. “The amount of progress we have made culturally has vastly surpassed where we’re at on the policy level. And that can be aggravating.”

So, the slowly-slowly approach may actually solidify our second-class status more than a big change would.And, bills like the pending Domestic Partners Benefits and Obligations (DPBO) act that would give some protections to federal employees might likewise do moreharm than good for the longterm goal of equality. In fact the Obama DoJ, in defending DOMA, points at the DPBO as a reason why marriage equality is not necessary.

WOuldn't that be a supreme irony if our "fierce advocate"'s incrementalism maneuvered us into permanent 2nd class?

What about the backlash?

There are a sea of op-ed pieces wondering what will happen with the Prop8 case, which-ever way it goes, and lots of hand-wringing. Lots of people think it will be worse if we win....and at some level, they hope we won't. They reason it will be safer and better if the inevitable march of time brings us equality without the divisive fight.

Consider a recent op-ed in the Washington Post where Jonathan Rauch, a married gay man, hopes that the Prop8 case fails. His reasoning is that a win would be so divisive, that "judicial restraint" really demands a slower course.

A sensible judge can say something like, “Same-sex marriage may indeed be a civil right, but not all civil rights demand immediate judicial intervention, and other important interests militate against imposing this one on the whole country right now.”....nothing in the Constitution requires the Supreme Court to short-circuit the country’s search for a new consensus, either by imposing gay marriage nationwide or by slamming the door on it with an aggressively dismissive ruling. Sometimes the right answer for the courts is to step aside and let politics do its job.

Over at Prop8 Trial Tracker, they take on Rauch's argument.

The mandatory school segregation that was overturned in Brown and the interracial marriage bans that were overturned in Loving were the product of democratically-elected legislatures, and one could credibly argue that they were the expression of the will of the voters....
....
In fact, when it comes to LGBT rights, the Supreme Court has already ruled that the Constitution trumps the voters. In 1996, the Supreme Court, led by Anthony Kennedy, handed down the Romer v. Evans decision, overturning a constitutional amendment approved by Colorado voters in 1992 that prevented Colorado from doing anything to protect or advance LGBT rights. Kennedy slammed Amendment 2 as being “unprecedented” and clearly motivated by animus toward LGBT people – one of the main reasons why that very issue has become so important in the Prop 8 trial.

This all goes back to a core principle of the US Constitution. Contrary to what Rauch seems to believe, the Constitution’s authors did not envision a democracy that was all-powerful. The Constitution’s very purpose was to both define as well as limit what government – and therefore, what the voters – could do. It absolutely did not suggest that the “will of the voters” was absolute or even of primary importance. Instead the Constitution produced strict limits on what both the government and the voters could do in the interest of protecting basic rights.

The Keen News Service also contemplates a backlash.

Scott Keeter, director of survey research at the Pew Research Center, said Pew’s previous polling data predicts “backlash.” Those polls, and others, have historically shown LGBT victories in court lead to an increase in public opposition to same-sex marriage. It happened after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state sodomy laws (in June 2003). It happened after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled gay couples had a constitutional right to marriage equality (in November 2003). And even before Walker issues his decision, said Keeter, polls indicate the public opinion climate “remains chilly” for same-sex marriage.

And, of course, if a victory in the initial case is followed by a reversal either by the 9th circuit or SCOTUS, along with the animus of such a backlash, what then? Jonathan Capehart fears the results:

Given the current landscape, it would be astounding if the court overturned the will of the people as expressed through state constitutions, acts of the legislature and at the ballot box.
....
Legally speaking, the kindling is there for a controlled blaze confined to California or an inferno that could stop the national march toward marriage equality in its tracks possibly for decades either through a constitutional amendment (extremely difficult, but not impossible) or, as Rauch put it, through an “aggressively dismissive ruling” from the Supreme Court. All that’s needed is a spark. Right now, Judge Walker is the man holding the matches.

This of course was the logic that led EQCA to challenge prop H8 under the state Constitution, on narrow legal grounds, while ignoring a federal challenge. This is why so many GLBT-rights groups were opposed to AFER pushing the federal case, although once AFER decided to do it, they got behind the effort. Everyone is still terrified that being rejected at the SCOTUS level will lead to a major setback, and we won't live to see the recovery.

The amazing case that Olson and Boies put on was deliberately hidden by the courts, so that the public couldn't be made aware of the evidence of prejudice The people who hate us (and many of them do) continue to cover their faces behind pious platitudes. Yes, I'm looking at you, twice-divorced Governor of Hawai'i.

I'm scared too that whichever way this decision goes, it will be bad for us.

But as Prop8Trial Tracker concludes,

Our movement must be ready for whatever Judge Walker rules, and whatever the Supreme Court ultimately rules. And part of being ready is building the movement and shaping the climate to favor a win. It’s how the Civil Rights Movement overcame the “go slow” advocates of “judicial restraint” in the 1950s and 1960s, and it’s what the LGBT rights movement needs to do here in the 2010s.

And remember the words from Martin Luther King's letter from a Birmingham jail:

My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.....

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

Video Sunday: How David Boies took down the opposition

When you begin to the think about the issues, you think about the harm that it causes... when you think about the harm that's done to the children, when you think about the lack of any redeeming social desires that this kind of ban has, it's inevitable that a rational person on the stand faced with those kinds of questions will admit that.

Full video of this event in Aspen here.

The other opinion

From the Commonwealth vs. HHS ruling:

This court has determined that it is clearly within the authority of the Commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages among its residents, and to afford those individuals in same-sex marriages any benefits, rights, and privileges to which they are entitled by virtue of their marital status. The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state, and, in doing so, offends the Tenth Amendment. For that reason, the statute is invalid.

Update on DOMA cases

There were actually two cases, which I had conflated in some of my earlier posts.

Gill vs. Office of Personnel Management: argued by GLAD, this case brings suit on behalf of several legally married Massachusetts couples who were treated unequally by the Federal Government. Nancy Gill works for the postal service but is unable to cover her wife on the USPS plan or obtain other work benefits that are available to heterosexual married couples, and argued this violated equal protection principles since she is legally married.

Commonwealth vs. Department of Health and Human Services, argued by the Massachusetts State Attorney General, was based on the fact that the federal government told the state that it could not extend benefits (like the state Health insurance program) to same-sex spouses, on penalty of losing federal aid dollars. This case argued that DOMA infringed improperly on the state's sovereign right to determine who is married.

Both of these challenged just section 3 of DOMA, which states that the federal government will not recognize legal state marriages between same sex couples. (Section 2 excuses states from recognizing each other's marriages. That was not addressed.) The Judge found that Section 3 was invalid under two constitutional tests: equal protection (Gill) and a violation of the 10th amendment that delegates broad powers to the states (Commonwealth).

It's a great pair of opinions by Judge Joseph Tauro, appointed to the bench by Richard Nixon. From the Gill decision (and with my emphases):

This court can readily dispose of the notion that denying federal recognition to same-sex marriages might encourage responsible procreation, because the government concedes that this objective bears no rational relationship to the operation of DOMA. Since the enactment of DOMA, a consensus has developed among the medical, psychological, and social welfare communities that children raised by gay and lesbian parents are just as likely to be well-adjusted as those raised by heterosexual parents.But even if Congress believed at the time of DOMA’s passage that children had the best chance at success if raised jointly by their biological mothers and fathers, a desire to encourage heterosexual couples to procreate and rear their own children more responsibly would not provide a rational basis for denying federal recognition to same-sex marriages. Such denial does nothing to promote stability in heterosexual parenting. Rather, it “prevent[s] children of same-sex couples from enjoying the immeasurable advantages that flow from the assurance of a stable family structure,” when afforded equal recognition under federal law.

Moreover, an interest in encouraging responsible procreation plainly cannot provide a rational basis upon which to exclude same-sex marriages from federal recognition because, as Justice Scalia pointed out in his dissent to Lawrence v. Texas, the ability to procreate is not now, nor has it ever been, a precondition to marriage in any state in the country....

I like that dig at Scalia, who was vehemently opposed to the decriminalization of homosexuality in the Lawrence case. This takes out the procreation argument.

But more generally, this court cannot discern a means by which the federal government’s denial of benefits to same-sex spouses might encourage homosexual people to marry members of the opposite sex. And denying marriage-based benefits to same-sex spouses certainly bears no reasonable relation to any interest the government might have in making heterosexual marriages more secure.

What remains, therefore, is the possibility that Congress sought to deny recognition to same-sex marriages in order to make heterosexual marriage appear more valuable or desirable. But to the extent that this was the goal, Congress has achieved it "only by punishing same-sex couples who exercise their rights under state law." And this the Constitution does not permit. 

"For if the constitutional conception of ‘equal protection of the laws’ means anything, it must at the very least mean" that the Constitution will not abide such "a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group."

That takes out the "defending/protecting straight marriage" Meme. Remember those opposed to marriage equality have never been able to point at any deleterious result in Massachusetts or other states.

Neither does the Constitution allow Congress to sustain DOMA by reference to the objective of defending traditional notions of morality. As the Supreme Court made abundantly clear in Lawrence v. Texas and Romer v. Evans, “the fact that the governing majority in a State has traditionally viewed a particular practice as immoral is not a sufficient reason for upholding a law....”

In other words, take YOUR religion out of MY rights.

....In sum, this court is soundly convinced, based on the foregoing analysis, that the government’s proffered rationales, past and current, are without “footing in the realities of the subject addressed by [DOMA].” And “when the proffered rationales for a law are clearly and manifestly implausible, a reviewing court may infer that animus is the only explicable basis.[Because] animus alone cannot constitute a legitimate government interest,” this court finds that DOMA lacks a rational basis to support it.....Indeed, Congress undertook this classification for the one purpose that lies entirely outside of legislative bounds, to disadvantage a group of which it disapproves. And such a classification, the Constitution clearly will not permit.

. ....And where, as here, “there is no reason to believe that the disadvantaged class is different, in relevant respects” from a similarly situated class, this court may conclude that it is only irrational prejudice that motivates the challenged classification.As irrational prejudice plainly never constitutes a legitimate government interest, this court must hold that Section 3 of DOMA as applied to Plaintiffs violates the equal protection principles embodied in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The dislike and fear paraded through the Prop8 trial are dismissed by this Judge of the 1st US DIstrict Court as the bias they are. You don't get to discriminate just because you don't like us.

What next? Well, as with the Perry case, the next step would be appeal to the (1st?) Circuit Court of Appeals, and after that to SCOTUS. The interesting thing here is that the government is defending DOMA: Pres Obama's Justice Department is arguing that while it is discriminatory, it is still constitutional. And Pres Obama is supposed to be a "fierce advocate" for GLBT rights. So the Administration has got a tiger by the ear, here.

If the decisions stand, I'm not sure of the breadth; do they only apply to states and marriages within the geographical confines of the 1st District, or would it apply across the country?

Does this affect the Perry (Proep8) case? That's a much broader case with a more sweeping question: whether or not same sex marriage bans are Constitutional. The DOMA cases didn't address that at all, they simply asked, given same sex marriages, whether it is Constitutional for the Federal Government to discriminate. (The reason Prop8 is not being defended by the government is that neither the Governor nor the Attorney General in CA supported Prop8, and they refused to defend it. Therefore THAT case is being defended explicitly by the promoters of Prop8.) I'm sure that Judge Walker will read these opinions, but I don't know how it might affect his decision.

According to the NY TImes, legal scholars are split on whether this will hold up in appeal, but nearly everyone says it will be appealed. Lots of reactions compiled by Andrew Sullivan worry this could be an expensive victory, if it's overturned.

Breaking: part of DOMA unconstitutional

Judgment on the Massachusetts cases that were challenging DOMA's effects on legally married Massachusetts citizens. I'll write more later, meanwhile check out the Advocate or the Prop8trialtracker.

What about the threats?

In Doe v. Reed, marriage equality opponents from Washington argued for secrecy for the signatures on the petitions that qualified Referendum 71 for the ballot (and thus allowed people to vote on whether or not domestic partner benefits should be expanded). They claimed that to reveal the signatures would expose the signers to violence.

As we know the Supreme Court decided that generally, signatures should be public. (See my previous post here). So the bad guys lost this round.

One of the amicus briefs filed with the court to support the good guys specifically addressed this claim of violence and intimidation. Several social scientists who study direct democracy and the initiative process actually did the research to see whether there is credible evidence that publicizing the names of petition signers leads to threats.

BRIEF AMICI CURIAE OF DIRECT DEMOCRACY SCHOLARS IN SUPPORT OF RESPONDENTS
The take home message?

More than a million names of signers of petitions for referenda and initiatives opposing gay marriage have been posted on the internet. Yet there is no evidence that any of these signers has faced any threat of retalia-tion or harassment by reason of that disclosure.

First they looked at Washington state petitions on all subjects

Petitioners do not, however, identify a single case in which a voter signing a petition has actually been subject to any form of harassment or intimidation as a result of public disclosure of that voter’s signature, name and address on the petition.
...
The lack of any demonstrable threat of intimidation or harassment is not limited to Washington. In fact, it is difficult to identify any case of intimidation or harassment of a petition signer occurring during the entire previous century.

Then they take on the claims about one particular organization around the gay marriage issue:

Petitioners state that an organization called KnowThyNeighbor.org, an organization supporting equal marriage rights for lesbian and gay couples, “posted the names of traditional marriage supporters signing petitions in Arkansas, Florida, Massachusetts, and Oregon.5 ” .... Upwards of a million names and addresses of these individuals in three states (Arkansas, Florida, and Massachusetts) have been posted online by KnowThyNeighbor. org. Petitioners, however, have not identified a single individual who has actually faced any threat of intimidation, retaliation or harassment as a result of merely signing any of these petitions and having that signature publicly disclosed.

And, in a sting to the tail, the publication of the signatures actually helps weed out fraud, which they show is epidemic in proportion in these initiative campaigns:

In Massachusetts, the public disclosure on the web by KnowThyNeighbor.org of the individuals who signed petitions to ban gay marriage led not to harassment or intimidation of those signers, but rather to the realization by thousands of citizens that they had been duped into signing the petition, thinking they were signing a petition to permit gay marriage.

The anti-gay side is fighting hard to make themselves the victim. Those marauding homos, doing violence against old ladies! Those terrible gays, destroying straight marriages! Those Godless 'mos, viciously attacking religious values!

It is imperative that we challenge these lies. The harassment that there was during Prop8 affected both sides --almost certainly, ours more than theirs. As I've said before, I was spit at, cursed, cut off on the freeway and had my car vandalized. During the post-8 mega-marches I attended, the only arrests were of THEIR side. And it's their campaign who wrote threatening letters to pro-equality donors.

No straight marriage ever failed because two gay people married. And plenty of GLBT and GLBT-friendly folks are very religious (just check out the crowded Episcopal Cathedral in San Diego for an example). The right-wing does not own the term "Christian" (and it's past time progressive Christians managed to wrest that name back again, but that's a subject for a different post).

And NO ONE has ever been harassed or threatened because their petition signature was made public.

Facts matter. Get them out there!

Update a great review of this and another relevant amicus brief at LGBT POV.

Also see another amicus brief at GLAD

Hawai'i Governor: no Aloha for GLBT citizens (updated)

From AP,

Hawaii's governor on Tuesday vetoed legislation that would have permitted same-sex civil unions, ending months of speculation on how she would weigh in on the contentious, emotional debate.
....

"There has not been a bill I have contemplated more or an issue I have thought more deeply about during my eight years as governor than House Bill 444 and the institution of marriage," Lingle said at a news conference. "I have been open and consistent in my opposition to same-sex marriage, and find that House Bill 444 is essentially same sex marriage by another name."

Had Lingle not vetoed it, the measure would have granted gay and lesbian couples the same rights and benefits that the state provides to married couples. It also would have made Hawaii one of six states that essentially grant the rights of marriage to same-sex couples without authorizing marriage itself. Five other states and the District of Columbia permit same-sex marriage.

So, Hawai'i wants to deny my family rights and responsibilities. Wonder how they'll like me denying my tourist dollars to my favorite state in the Union. Increasingly, I'm moving towards making my major tourist expenditures in places that, you know, respect me as a human being.

Update Americablog reminds us with this picture that Lingle is a stalwart defender of man-woman marriage. That must explain her two divorces.

Update 2 From the Honolulu Star-Advertiser:

Opponents of civil unions celebrated Lingle's veto but recognized that the community appears divided.

"We feel the stress in this community, and that's not our objective at all," said Francis Oda, chairman of the Hawaii Family Forum. "What we want to do is create unity in this community."

That is the single most stupid comment any of the anti-gay side has ever uttered. Oh, sure, I can see finding unity with someone who denies my essential humanity and civil rights, who wants my family to be second class, my relationship permanently illegal. "Don't take it personally, we just hate the sin." Spare me your meaningless platitudes, you bible-thumping bigot. The paper goes on,

"It seems like she is taking us back 100 years if we are going to decide civil-rights issues by majority rule," said state Sen. Les Ihara Jr. (D, Kapahulu-Kaimuki-Palolo), who believes lawmakers will try to move the bill again next year.

Ya think? Conservatives, the party of the past, proud supporters of Jim Crow.

The Star-Advertiser has an editorial today that takes apart Lingle's cowardly bleat "let the people decide":

Decisions dealing with the civil rights of a minority population -- and HB 444 in its essence attempts to equalize the civil rights of all couples -- are unsuited to be put to a popular vote. Civil rights decisions of the past, including the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, would not have won passage had they been left up to the electorate. Preventing the tyranny of the majority is precisely the province of representative government.

Yesterday's veto proves that civil unions must remain a central issue in the upcoming gubernatorial debates. Lawmakers need to champion another bill -- and hope Lingle's successor will agree that everyone deserves equal access to protections that the state offers its citizens.

Good luck. Elsewhere, the paper has another story that the anti-gay bigots won't be happy till they defeat the legislators who vote for this bill in the first place.

The legal issue behind Prop8: strict scrutiny

The legal issues behind the Prop8 case, from the Keen News Service

Judge Walker will, of course, decide. The primary questions before him are whether California’s ban on same-sex marriage violates the federal constitution’s guarantee to equal protection and due process.....

“I’ll be floored if he does not offer the Ninth Circuit [U.S. Court of Appeals] his conclusions about whether very rigorous scrutiny should be applied to antigay discrimination,” said Lambda’s Pizer.

Kendell said she thinks Walker will use “some higher level of scrutiny” than just a simple “rational” one—the easiest level to satisfy. The higher levels of review—quasi and strict—she noted would be “enormously helpful in challenging all manner of laws that discriminate based on sexual orientation.”

The highest level of review—strict scrutiny—is applied to laws that disfavor persons on the basis of race, and Olson relied heavily on comparisons between the current ban on same-sex marriage and the ban that existed in the 1960s on interracial marriage. The claim by supporters of Proposition 8, he said, that marriage has “traditionally” been understood to be one man and one woman does not constitute a reason to ban same-sex marriage.....

But if Walker applies the lowest level of scrutiny, said Kendell, “virtually every state law we attack survives because, at the rational basis level, laws essentially get a free pass.

Marriage lite, again

I wrote previously about France, where the availability of "marriage lite" , or civil unions (called pacs), has led to a loss of "traditional marriage". The partnerships are available to gay and straight, but "real" marriage is available only to straights. But more and more young straights opt for the unions rather than marriage. Now, whose fault is that?



Now the BBC tells us about a straight couple in Austria who want access to that country's civil unions, instead of marriage, precisely because it is not the same.

"The couple involved already have grown up children and are not interested in adopting," says their lawyer, Helmut Graupner.

"They are more interested in a more loose, modern form of partnership with a shorter time period for divorce and lower maintenance obligations afterwards."

Got that? By ensuring that GLBT people can't be tied together in "real" marriage, they undercut the whole concept.

Mr Graupner is also representing two Austrian same-sex couples, one gay and other lesbian, wanting a traditional marriage.

He has an argument that applies to both sets of clients: "You can't be a little bit equal, in the same way as you can't be a little bit dead or a little bit pregnant. You can only be equal or unequal."

Exactly.

France's Pacs has some similarities. There are tax advantages and, for many straight couples, it seems like a low-risk stepping stone to marriage.

Delphine Rorive a 31-year-old management consultant "Pacsed" her boyfriend Frederic Morel, 29, in July last year.
"We just wanted to pay less taxes," she says.....

And what of the future? "To me, it doesn't replace marriage. I'd still like to get married one day."

So marriage-lite is like pretend or practice marriage. It's not the same thing, and it's not enough. These European cases are great examples of that fact. If they do not involve the same commitments and expectations, it is not the same as marriage. It continues to be a master irony that by blocking GLBT from marriage, the "marriage advocates" are causing the decline of the traditional state far more than would occur if they simply allowed GLBT couples the rights to civil marriage.

Sadly, the European Court of Human Rights has decided that lesser is acceptable.

European nations do not have to allow same-sex marriage, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled, though gay rights groups claimed a partial victory Friday because the court acknowledged growing agreement that their relationships should be recognized in law.....

Six EU states — Belgium, The Netherlands, Sweden, Portugal, Norway and Spain — have legalized gay marriage. About a dozen others, including Britain, Germany, France and — since January — Austria, have legal partnerships... .

Once upon a time in America (video Sunday)

There will be no video today. Nothing out there quite captures what it is to be gay in America on the 4th of July.

My friend counterlight put this quote on his blog:

LGBTs are probably the last people who really believe in the United States. They want to join the military, to make families, to join churches, to take part in their communities. They actively seek responsibility contrary to the larger culture and the dominant political ideologies today that are all about evading responsibility.

The sad thing is, of course, we can't.

Gays and lesbians can be fired simply for being gay.

Our relationships and families have no rights and protections federally.

Gays and lesbians are victims of violence.

Gay youth is at heightened risk for suicide.

Gays and lesbians cannot even serve honestly in the military--though they serve bravely in secret.

Let's hope that America will eventually live up to its history and ideals for its gay citizens, as well as everyone else.

Let's hope that liberty and justice for all eventually includes....all.

International news: Iceland, and Ireland

Iceland's prime minister got married this week.

Iceland's Prime Minister is now the world's first national leaders with a same-sex spouse. On Sunday Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, 68, married her long time partner, writer Jonina Leosdottir.....

Sigurdardottir and Leosdottir celebrated their union with a Lutheran church ceremony....

On June 11, Icelandic parliament voted 49 to zero to change the wording of marriage legislation to include matrimony between "man and man, woman and woman," in addition to unions between men and women.

And in Ireland, civil unions:

The Bill recognising the civil partnership of same-sex couples passed all stages in the Dáil tonight without a vote.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said the Civil Partnership Bill would put in place a legal regime that reflected the many forms of relationships in modern Irish society.....

The purpose of the new Bill is to establish an extensive package of rights, obligations and protections for same-sex couples who register as civil partners.

All parties in the Oireachtas formally supported the legislation, although individual TDs and Senators have expressed criticism.....

The Catholic bishops have come out strongly against the legislation. However, Government ministers recently dismissed claims from them that the Bill may be unconstitutional.

This AP article does a good job summarizing the international scene for GLBT people. From a married prime minister in Iceland, to a death penalty in Uganda.

Obama MIA?

Following up on my post of Monday, Richard Soccarides in the Wall Street Journal: (behind a firewall, so check out selections at Pam's House Blend)

Another of Mr. Obama's core campaign promises was that he would put an end to workplace discrimination, a key issue for gay Americans. To date, White House efforts to pass federal employment nondiscrimination legislation (known as the Employment Non-Discrimination Act) have been virtually nonexistent. The administration sent the acting chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to testify in support of the bill at a House hearing and called it a major accomplishment.

AmericaBlogGay provides more quotes;

Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice not only have chosen to aggressively defend the constitutionality of that law [DOMA], which bars recognition of same-sex marriages, but Justice Department lawyers actually cite it affirmatively to deny federal employee benefits like health insurance to same-sex couples. Where is the Civil Rights Division, which Mr. Holder has called the "crown jewel" of his department?

The absence of a position from the Justice Department in favor of expanding civil rights is as shocking as the absence of a coherent White House policy on gay issues. There is no senior policy person at the White House whose primary responsibility is gay rights. And there is no gay person in Mr. Obama's inner circle of advisers. That matters when trying to get attention for issues in an already overcrowded agenda, and the result is obvious.

And the sad thing is some of the strongest voices for marriage equality, from Ted Olson on down, are conservatives.

Mr. Obama entered office with greater immediate challenges confronting him than most. But after eight years of benign neglect (at best) from Washington, and a campaign in which Mr. Obama promised to be our champion, gay Americans had good reason to expect more from this president, and now are understandably frustrated.

In a telling development, the most significant and aggressive legal effort to promote gay equality today is being led by a conservative, former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson. In federal court in San Francisco, together with co-counsel David Boies, he is prosecuting the most comprehensive and sophisticated legal attack on antigay marriage laws in history.

Update from The Advocate:

In a wide-ranging interview with LGBT journalists and bloggers Thursday, White House domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes said President Barack Obama had chosen to take steps at the agency level to eliminate inequities for same-sex couples and gave no indication he would move toward supporting full marriage equality.

Asked if the president would go beyond incremental fixes to address a lack of marital rights for same-sex couples before 2012, Barnes noted that the president “has consistently called for the repeal of [the Defense of Marriage Act]” and used his “executive authority” to help provide more benefits to same-sex couples through federal agencies.

“That’s the course that he has identified, that’s the course that he has supported,” Barnes said.

The Advocate followed up with, “Just to reiterate, he still supports civil unions ... that’s a separate-but-equal institution — and I’m wondering if he’s at any point going to move to embracing full equality rather than these smaller steps.”

Barnes responded, “I understand what you’re saying, but that’s the course he has set forth.”

Fierce advocating.....riiiiiiigggghhhhht.

Medical "ethics": Curing lesbians and cutting up little girls

The blogs are abuzz with a recent article in the Bioethics forum, describing an "off label" usage of the drug dexamethasone ("dex"). Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) is a condition that results from excessive exposure to androgens in developing female fetuses that can lead to intersex morphologies and other health problems. Some physicians have treated this with dex, although a variety of professional bodies consider this a potentially dangerous, experimental treatment that should only be done with rigorous review and follow up. (More in this Time article).

The article in Bioethics Forum describes one researcher who is doing unsupervised administrations of this drug essentially to "cure lesbianism". It's less the physical aspects of CAH that she's targeting, than the behavioral ones. She is very deliberately targeting behavior and orientation rather than the physical manifestations of CAH, and THAT is why everyone is concerned.

Pediatric endocrinologist Maria New, of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Florida International University, and her long-time collaborator, psychologist Heino F. L. Meyer-Bahlburg, of Columbia University, have been tracing evidence for the influence of prenatal androgens in sexual orientation. ...

And it isn’t just that many women with CAH have a lower interest, compared to other women, in having sex with men. In another paper ... Meyer-Bahlburg writes that “CAH women as a group have a lower interest than controls in getting married and performing the traditional child-care/housewife role. As children, they show an unusually low interest in engaging in maternal play with baby dolls, and their interest in caring for infants, the frequency of daydreams or fantasies of pregnancy and motherhood, or the expressed wish of experiencing pregnancy and having children of their own appear to be relatively low in all age groups.”

In the same article, Meyer-Bahlburg suggests that treatments with prenatal dexamethasone might cause these girls’ behavior to be closer to the expectation of heterosexual norm....

In a paper published just this year in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, New and her colleague, pediatric endocrinologist Saroj Nimkarn of Weill Cornell Medical College, go further, constructing low interest in babies and men – and even interest in what they consider to be men’s occupations and games – as “abnormal,” and potentially preventable with prenatal dex...

(emphases mine)By pathologizing women who aren't interested in babies, or who are interested in men's jobs (like scientist or doctor?) these physicians are invoking a "Handmaid's Tale" view that would put women back, walking 3 steps behind the men.

There are real concerns with this. From the Time article:

Perhaps most controversially, prenatal dex must be given as soon as a woman learns she is pregnant, which is usually several weeks before genetic tests can determine if the fetus is in fact a female affected with CAH — the chance of which is 1 in 8 for parents who already have an affected child or know they are carriers of the genetic disorder. If the baby is healthy, treatment is stopped, but at that point, the fetus has been exposed to the steroid drug for weeks. There is no data on how many mothers receive prenatal dex, but according to the odds, 7 of 8 may be taking medication unnecessarily.

I am a lesbian. I never wanted children, I was a tomboy who preferred toy cars to baby dolls, and I work in a "man's profession" as a science professor. I'm certainly not a sufferer of CAH; my body isn't at all "masculinized" (quite the opposite! ;-) but at some level, I am the sort of person this "treatment" is intended to eliminate. Who I am is considered a pathology by this "doctor".

From this, I point out another Bioethics post on female genital mutilation on CAH patients. Seems there's another pediatrician in New York who makes a living "cutting down" the clitorises of little girls who are deemed to be "over-endowed". Not that there is anything really WRONG with them, just a somewhat larger than average clitoris, but there is discomfort from their parents that they are different and a physician who "recommends" amputation. Many medical professionals decry these surgeries as unnecessary. Again, with no institutional research subject approval,

At annual visits after the surgery, while a parent watches, Poppas touches the daughter’s surgically shortened clitoris with a cotton-tip applicator and/or with a “vibratory device,” and the girl is asked to report to Poppas how strongly she feels him touching her clitoris. ....Poppas has indicated in this article and elsewhere that ideally he seeks to conduct annual exams with these girls. He intends to chart the development of their sexual sensation over time........Ken Zucker, a psychologist [said]"Applying a vibrator to a six-year-old girl’s surgically feminized clitoris is developmentally inappropriate." "

What sort of parent lets a doctor do that to her little girl?

What all of this boils down to is not simple heterosexism. It's also fear of all women's sexuality, gay or straight, and it attempts to pathologize any female who doesn't fit a rigid gender binary of traditional sex roles. It's absolutely offensive to me that any "physician" would justify these "treatments" which are not based on the needs or desires of the young patient, but on the fears and biases of their parents or of the physicians themselves. I hope the institutional review boards (IRB) go after these doctors, and I hope that patient advocates consider bringing suits for medical abuse.

What this also shows us is that even if the bad guys are forced to admit being gay is not a choice, but a biological fact, we are still deeply endangered by their efforts to turn us into a pathology to be eliminated, or a variant to be cured.