Brokeback, Farm Boys and Log Cabins

I haven't seen "Brokeback Mountain". I'll get to it after the holidays, no doubt.

Things are busy right now. Peter and John are home, and we have double holidays, living in a religiously mixed family. Michael is off work this week, and we've been knocking around, too. So I haven't been blogging, and I don't have time for things that take a big block of time -- like going to movies -- either. That's something of a mea culpa, I guess, for not blogging.

I read "Brokeback Mountain" when it was published in the mid-1990's, and I read it again last week.

The story reminded me of "Farm Boys: Lives of Gay Men from the Rural Midwest", by Will Fellows.

"Farm Boys" is an oral history of the Studs Terkel variety, a collection of the first-person recollections by about three dozen gay men who grew up on Midwestern farms. The narratives are grouped into three sections -- men coming of age before the mid-1960's, men coming of age between 1965-1975, and men coming of age after 1975.

The narratives show how each succeeding group came to grips with being gay without the assistance of role models, help groups, or even knowledge that other men and boys like them lived in the community, but also chart the generational differences in "growing up gay" in different generations, differences resulting from a growing cultural knowledge about and understanding of gays and lesbians in our broader culture.

I was struck, reading "Brokeback Mountain" again, about how similar the story of Jack and Ennis was to many of stories of the men in "Farm Boys". I was struck, in particular, by the stories of the men who married. Left on their own, growing up isolated and without knowledge of the possibility of a future as a gay man, many of the men who came of age pre-Stonewall in rural America married because they knew no other way. And, as in "Brokeback Mountain", the marriages were the occasion of pain and suffering for most of these men and their families.

"Farm Boys" charts, too, the influence of media -- Life Magazine, Time, television -- on the lives of gay men from the rural Midwest, charting the way homosexuality was presented during the years, and the ways in which the portrayal changed over time. The role of the media in bringing information to boys living in varying degrees of rural isolation is, perhaps, the most interesting cultural aspect of the stories, and demonstrates the critical importance of media coverage of the gay and lesbian community for rural gays and lesbians.

As I was mulling about "Brokeback Mountain" and "Farm Boys", I ran across an interview that Patrick Guerriero, President of the Log Cabin Republicans, gave to the "Windy City Times" around Thanksgiving.

The following is an excerpt:

WCT: I've been writing news for the gay press since 1988. It’s clear, by any objective analysis, that you have been — I can't think of a better word — the ballsiest LCR executive director in the time that I’ve been around. You recently demanded that conservative closet-cases in Washington come out. We’ve never heard language like that from Log Cabin before.

Guerriero: I'm at this reflective moment in my own life. ... When some politicians, and too many Republicans, decide to go after our families, we better grow a set of gonads [he laughs] and take them on and, if we don't, shame on us. And, at this particular moment ... with so much at stake, the reality is that 50 years from now, historians are going to look back at this moment and ask, what did the leadership of LGBT organizations do? What did individuals do? And shame on Log Cabin if it doesn't speak out against bigotry and intolerance within our own party, and shame on us if we don't call on our fellow gay and lesbian conservatives to find the courage to come out, particularly if they are in positions of power in Washington. ... If every gay and lesbian conservative came out tomorrow morning, the road to full equality would be a very short one. It would be over in two to five years. If that doesn’t happen, it's more likely going to be 15 to 20 years.

WCT: What kind of reaction did you get to that call?

Guerriero: I lost some friends. I was speaking to some of my friends—smart, terrific professionals, and a lot of them have huge hearts, and some of them have done some amazing work, and they’ve quietly helped the movement — and so some of them were offended that, in such a public way, I challenged them to come out. There's a second group ... who have done nothing for the movement, and have criticized us for almost everything that we do ... and they also didn't like the message.

WCT: What has been the reaction among your chapter presidents and the general membership to this less-kind, less-gentle version of Log Cabin?

Guerriero: The aggressive stance of the organization is less a reflection about me than about where a new generation of gay and lesbian conservatives are. They have been paying taxes and serving in the military and raising beautiful children and, quite frankly, a lot of them are fed up, too. They have made the choice not to remain silent in a lot of red states. ... In a lot of ways, I'm merely a reflection of a more courageous, more gutsy generation of gay and lesbian Americans who happen to be conservative.

The interview was not the first time, of course, that Guerriero has talked about this issue. But I wonder if Patrick Guerriero sees the same connection that I do.

The tragedy of Brokeback Mountain is not that many rural gay men my age lived the "Farm Boy" story one way or another growing up, coming of age in isolation, with a clear sense of what was not possible but with little sense of what was, seeing no other way.

The tragedy is that a lot of gay kids, particularly the kids raised in the red counties of our country, outside the major population centers, continue to grow up in a social environment that is not too far removed from the stories of "Brokeback Mountain" and "Farm Boys".

And it is no accident, either.

Social conservatives are doing everything that they can to make sure that gay kids, growing up in social conservative families, churches and communities, are given no sense of what is possible for gay men, and as a result follow the path of Ennis and Jack, and so many other gay men over the years, marrying and putting a time bomb in place that will, sooner or later, explode and create a lot of hardship for these men and their families. It is a tragedy, and an unnecessary tragedy.

Patrick Guerriero, it seems to me, has put his finger on the solution: If every gay and lesbian conservative -- the politicians, the religious leaders, the bankers and businessmen and so on in the red communities of our country -- came out of hiding tomorrow morning, gay kids would not have to repeat the tragedy of "Brokeback Mountain".

The process is happening, of course, as the later stories in "Farm Boys" makes clear. Rural gay kids growing up in the 1980's and 1990's lived in less isolation than the kids in the generations coming up before, and that will continue to happen. But it is not happening quickly, and social conservatives are fighting tooth and nail to see to it that it doesn't happen in their families, churches and communities.

It is, as Patrick Guerriero points out, a time a reckoning for gay conservatives -- a time grow a set of gonads.

Happy Holidays

I am pleased to report that the War on Christmas was won, hands down, by the American Family Association. Christmas was saved for another year.

I had a final gift to buy Saturday, on the last Shopping Day Before the After-Christmas Sales.

As it turned out, the headset I needed to buy (Nokia, male 2.5 mm plug) - a Chanukkah gift for my sister-in-law - was not easy to find. A

s a result, I got to visit two Best Buys, two Targets, MicroCenter and Radio Shack, before finally finding one at the Target at 26th and Pulaski, and grabbing it and a bit of Chanukkah wrapping paper and heading to the checkout line.

So I was in the front lines of the War on Christmas for about three hours on Saturday.

The stores were filled with piped-in Christmas hymns like "Silver Bells", "Rudolph", "White Christmas" and other social conservative favorites, the aisles were packed with the latest clothes, electronics, toys and bling-blings, each, seemingly more glittery and alluring than the last.

The overall shape of the war was difficult to see at times, but the skirmishes were not -- thousands of people scrambling to fill shopping carts, grabbing everthing in sight that was marked down, cutting in on cash register lines, negotiating jammed parking lots and bringing the streets to gridlock, accompanied by a frenzed calaphony of honking, curses and (occasional) pieties.

But at the checkout counters, the Holy Grail of Christmas in America, at least in Target, the haggard sales clerks wished the bedraggled and desparate shoppers with "Merry Christmas", transforming the frenzied madness of greed and consumerism into a transcendant religious experience.

And that, Angel Children, is what the American Family Association saved in the War on Christmas.

Don Wildmon has reason to be proud -- Don, like Ernest, saved Christmas. Target, caving in to the boycott, made dead certain that no one spent money in their store -- even for Chanukkah presents -- without being reminded that Christ was sent into this world to redeem the American economy.

The secularists, the politically correct, and those few Americans who display plain, old-fashioned manners by not assuming that everyone who is out shopping between Halloween and Christmas is celebrating Christmas, were vanquished. Don and American Family Association saw to that, Insallah.

Christianity -- at least the counter-rotating, small-minded, intolerant, ugly and unBiblical consumerist Christianity espoused by the likes of Don Wildmon -- is safe for another year.

I have a thought for next year, though.

We should start a war to save Christmas from the Christians. Christians are too arrogant to be trusted with Christmas, if this year is any example ...

Happy Holidays to all.

Dress Up

Michael Medved, a social conservative film critic, went after Brokeback Mountain last night on the Bill O'Reilly talk show.

Medved took his usual postures -- Brokeback is homoganda, Brokeback is bad for marriage because two straight marriages break up, Brokeback will flop in Middle America, and so on.

But then he said something really funny -- that Brokeback Mountain undermines the American, John Wayne ideal of the cowboy, and undermines the President's image as a Texas Cowboy.



Well, I have noticed that dressing up as a cowboy is a big part of the President's rather rich fantasy life, although he's also dressed up as a pilot, construction worker, biker, cop -- the whole Village People routine, except for the Indian, of couse.

But playing cowboy isn't so unusual, after all. What American boy doesn't want to be a cowboy at some point in his life?



But I suppose Medved might be right. Maybe Brokeback Mountain's portrayal of two gay cowboys does undermine the American, John Wayne ideal of the cowboy, and undermine the President's image as a Texas Cowboy.

And if so, we can count on Karl Rove to come up with a new and different personna for the President:

Breathtaking Inanity

The following are excerpts from US District Judge John Jones' ruling that struck down a Pennsylvania school board's decision to require biology students to hear about the concept of "intelligent design":

On Lying

"We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom, in violation of the Establishment Clause. ... The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy."

On ID as Science

"The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory."

"Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs' scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator."

"After a searching review of the record and applicable case law, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980's; and (3) ID's negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community."

"The evidence presented in this case demonstrates that ID is not supported by any peer-reviewed research, data or publications."

On Judicial Activism

"Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board's decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."

What is so remarkable about this opinion is that Judge Jones doesn't mince his words about the motives and behavior of the backers of Intelligent Design -- "... who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks ..."

The similarity between dissembling by Intelligent Design proponents in this case and the dissembling of social conservatives in arguing out of both sides of their mouths on the issue of anti-marriage amendments is not, I hope, lost on anyone.

While we are on the topic of "breathtaking inanity", I wonder if the Intelligent Design folks have considered how God, in their minds having been involved in creation only to the extent that science has not yet uncovered a natural mechanism at work, must feel about being shoved off into the margins ...

Down the Slippery Slope

The District of Columbia is poised to enact a domestic partner law that grants (1) recognition of domestic partners and their children as legal heirs should a partner die without leaving a will, (2) marriage-equivalent rights and benefits for surviving partners and children, (3) immunity from testifying against a partner in civil or criminal proceedings, (4) legal standing to sue for negligence in the event of a wrongful death of a partner, and (5) the right to make legally binding "pre-marital" agreements.

The law must pass two "readings" in the District of Columbia Council, be signed by the Mayor, and then go before Congress for a 30-day review period, after which it will become law if not vetoed by Congress. The law passed the "first reading" on December 6 and is expected to pass the "second reading" and be signed by the Mayor by the end of January. It is not clear how the law will fare in Congress.

A "domestic partner" law is the most that can be expected in the District of Columbia, given the fact that Congress has ultimate control over the laws affecting the District -- the District will be the among the last jurisdictions on the United States in which gays and lesbians obtain marriage equality.

The law defines "domestic partner" as "a person with whom an individual shares a familial relationship characterized by mutual caring and the sharing of a mutual residence." Note that this includes same-sex couples, straight couples, and any two unmarried, adult blood relatives who live together.

The law conflates same-sex relationships, "living together" relationships between straights who can't or don't want to get married, and (presumably) non-sexual "mutual support" arrangements between siblings, cousins, parents and children and other blood relatives, treating the three types of relationships as legally equivalent.

I think that this creates a cultural time bomb, likely to explode in two different directions at once.

The first time bomb is that the law creates "marriage lite" for straight couples. I think that this is dangerous, culturally, because creating "marriage lite" for straight couples diminishes marriage as the standard -- as in, "if you want to live together, then get married".

Several European countries have taken this route. The result has been that couples are opting for "marriage lite" in high numbers, and marriage rates are falling while the number of children born "out of wedlock" has skyrocketed. But if "marriage-lite" is available, why not? Why buy the whole pig when all you want is the bacon?

The second time bomb -- and a time bomb that is remarkable in its scope -- is that the law creates a "marriage-like" legal relationship for blood relatives who are not "coupled" in any traditional sense, as that has been understood for centuries, giving each claims on each other's income and children if their "partnership" is dissolved for any reason.

"Marriage-lite" is bad enough, it seems to me, based on the experience of European countries that have tried it out. But "marriage-like" -- this "uncoupled" form of marriage -- really does "redefine marriage", and not in a good way.

And it is particularly ironic, given the claims of social conservatives that GLBT legal equality would "destroy traditional marriage" and lead, sooner or later but inevitably, to legalized incest and polygamy.

I don't have any doubt that there are solid social arguments for extending health benefits to co-dependent blood relatives. But I think that it is very, very dangerous to marriage to couple this issue with marriage rights.

I don't know how this law is going to fare in Congress.

My guess is that there is at least a 50/50 chance that social conservatives will veto the law.

And that, in the short run, will be very damaging to gay and lesbian couples in the District of Columbia.

If social conservatives were honest about "protecting marriage", social conservatives would be working to eliminate adultery and tighten divorce laws, something that social conservatives are not inclined to do. And if social conservatives read that "marriage-lite", in the European style, threatens "traditional" marriage, which seems to be accurate enough, then social conservatives should be working for same-sex marriage, rather than trying to force gays and lesbians to seek legal protection around the edges.

Well, don't hold your breath.

But creating a weird form of "marriage-like" arrangement for blood relatives who are not "coupled" in any traditional sense of the word, and linking it to marriage and marriage-lite, strikes me as cultural madness.

I don't know whether the District of Columbia Council thought about the long-term effects of creating "marriage-like" arrangements for blood relatives. The District's domestic partnership law, which has existed for a decade but covered only health insurance benefits, covered blood relatives and straight couples, so it is likely that the Council didn't think through the potential for a cultural redefinition of marriage when it extended the rights and benefits available under the law.

But the law creates a new and unprecedented form of "marriage-like" legal relationship for blood relatives, granting siblings, cousins, parents and children and other blood relatives the right to sue one another for alimony and child support should their relationship "dissolve".

If siblings, cousins, parents and children and other blood relatives have the rights and benefits of marriage through "domestic partnership", and the domestic partnership is treated, legally, as the equivalent of domestic partnership between same-sex couple and straight couples, what then, prevents siblings, cousins, parents and children and other blood relatives from using the domestic partnership law -- "marriage in all but name" -- to argue on behalf of marriage?

And if two blood relatives who mutually support one another can become domestic partners, what argument can be made for refusing to permit three, or more blood relatives in such a relationship to declare themselves "domestic partners" -- unlike "coupled" relationships, as traditionally understood, familial relationships are rarely limited to "couples".

Talk about a "slippery slope" ...

Giving Lie to the "Homosexual Myth"

A school of thought in cultural anthropology -- the "structural/functional school", if I remember correctly -- posits that moral consensus is held together, in part, by cultural denigration of negative role models.

I was thinking about this model the other day while I was trying to figure out the reason why social conservatives have become such homo-hysterics in the last few decades.

I don't think that the "cultural denigration" model is the whole reason behind social conservative homohysteria -- fear, religious conviction that sexual orientation is a choice, and other factors are clearly important -- but I think understanding that social conservatives are attached to cultural denigration of homosexuality as a form of social control is critical to understanding homohysteria.

Social conservatives are frightened of many things, with good reason -- social conservatives tend to be live at the lower end of the socio-economic scale, live in areas where murder, rape, violent crime, domestic violence and divorce rates are higher than in other areas of the country, have lower education rates, and so on. And social conservatives get little respect from the "elite" -- few people take seriously social conservative conviction that our civil laws must be based on "Christian principles", in light of social conservative divorce and remarriage rates despite the clear words of Jesus. In a word, social conservatives have a lot to be angry about, without even getting around to the cynical way in social conservative "leaders" manipulate them to gain and maintain political power.

But none of that, it seems to me, explains homohysteria. I think that homohysteria is too visceral, too guttural, to be explained by fear, religious conviction and misdirected anger alone.

The "cultural denigration" model holds that widespread hostility toward gay men -- the jokes and put-downs, the determination to keep gay men "other" -- arises out of a cultural need for a "warning" to boys to walk the straight and narrow, to become "real men".

The idea makes sense to me.

The myth perpetrated by social conservatives is that gay men are promiscuous, disease-prone, flaming "girlie-men" who live lonely, horrible lives, caught in a cycle of mindless sexuality, essentially deranged, cut off from family, dying alone and miserable.

In the 1950's and 1960's, mainstream cultural presentations -- movies, novels, plays -- portrayed gay men as miserable, typically either committing suicide or being murdered in the end. By the 1970's, the mainstream portrayals focused more on isolation and loneliness than on death, but death staged a major comeback in the 1980's and 1990's, as AIDS took hold and became identified with gay men.

The point of the mainstream cultural presentations and the myth lying behind the representations is to create a horrible warning to boys, to make homosexuality an "unthinkable" choice.

As we all know, the cultural warning is absorbed by most gay boys to one extent or another, and is overcome only in adulthood. And, as we all know, the myth is not true.

Because the myth is not true, it is essential, for the myth to survive, that gay men remain "invisible" in our culture, as was the case thirty and more years ago. It is impossible to maintain the "horrible warning" if counter examples are common and readily at hand.

The same-sex marriage movement has brought more and more gay men "out" to middle America, beyond a circle of family and close friends, and has presented the country with images of older gay men in loving, monogamous, healthy and enduring relationships into focus. Both give lie to the "horrible warning" that is the reason behind the myth, and both give lie to the idea that the "homosexual lifestyle" is "unthinkable".

And that, I suspect, is why, in large part, social conservatives have descended into full-blown homohysteria as the drive for same-sex marriage took root in the GLBT community.

Twisted Logic

The American Family Association said Thursday that it will consider reinstating a boycott against Ford because the automaker plans to continue running advertisements in GLBT publications.

Ford said last week it planned to stop advertising its Jaguar and Land Rover luxury brands in gay publications to reduce its marketing costs. But after gay rights groups complained and held meetings with the automaker, Ford reversed course on Wednesday and said that it would continue to advertise in GLBT publications.

AFA Chairman Don Wildmon said: "We had an agreement with Ford, worked out in good faith. Unfortunately, some Ford Motor Co. officials made the decision to violate the good faith agreement. We are now considering our response to the violation and expect to reach a decision very soon. All we wanted was for Ford to refrain from choosing sides in the cultural war, and supporting groups which promote same-sex marriage is not remaining neutral".

Wildmon's logic is twisted, not that twisted logic from him is wildly surprising.

Businesses advertise where their advertising is likely to pay off.

In the case of the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, the natural target audience is a demographic that is likely to buy Jaguars and Land Rovers. Gay men, who have a higher than average disposable income, are part of the natural market for the brands.

By advertising in GLBT publications, Ford was, at relatively low cost, targeting that demographic. In short, Ford was advertising based on standard business practice -- almost the definition of "refraining from choosing sides in the cultural war".

Not "support". Sound business practice.

Enough mindless faggoty bitching, though. On to a solution that will keep everyone happy.

I've got an idea for Ford -- market a car to the Religious Right demographic.

Build a "Jesus Edition" of a Ford Explorer, equipped with a KJV Bible in each seat pocket, a pop-down prayer seatback table for each passenger, a "WTFWJD?" logo on the tailgate, and a "rapture" hood ornament, custom designed to show the owner and his family being lifted up to heaven while fornicating fags are destroyed on the earth below.

The SE versions of the "Jesus Edition" Explorer could have hubcaps that played hymns as the SUV rolled along, a horn that tooted out the first few bars of "Jesus Loves Me", and a satellite radio that beamed in James Dobson and Pat Robertson 24x7.

You know what I have in mind -- a rolling, hell-bent-for-Jesus fundie equivalent of the over-the-top rosaries advertised in Catholic magazines with descriptions like "... crystal rosary with double cap beads, 22 K Gold filled crucifix and centerpiece Ruby, all Creed rosary colors available ..."

And then advertise the damn thing in publications such as Angels on Earth, Endtime, Men of Integrity, Spirit-Led Women, and Today's Christian Women.

Ford Tough?

I don't know quite what to make of Ford's on again, off again decision to withdraw advertising from the GLBT press and to stop sponsoring GLBT events.

The controversy has had the sad, drawn out flavor of the Monica Lewinski affair, as more and more facts emerged day by day, giving lie to Ford's initial assertion that its decisions had absolutely nothing to do with a threatened American Family Association boycott.

I have been particularly aware of the controversy because I work for an auto manufacturer -- not Ford -- in Motor City.

During the last five years, since Ford, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler jointly announced that the companies were extending health benefits to their GLBT employees' partners, Detroit's GLBT community and the Big Three automakers have a deep, respectful friendship.

The Big Three almost single-handedly funded construction of the Affirmations Lesbian and Gay Community Center in Ferndale, Michigan, a Detroit suburb, last spring, and each of the Big Three has worked hard to create a GLBT-friendly working environment.

So GLBTs in the Motor City were stunned by the news that Ford, following talks with the American Family Association about its boycott threats, announced the cutbacks in advertising.

Today, Ford announced that it will run advertisements -- for all of its eight brands, including Jaguar and Land Rover, in GLBT publications, reversing a decision announced last week.

I'm glad that the decision was reversed. But I'm sorry that Ford, which has had a well-deserved reputation for being GLBT-supportive and for putting the company's money where its mouth was, had to be dragged into the decision.

WTFWJD?

"Every company in America should be on its knees thanking Jesus for being born. Without Christmas, most American businesses would be far less profitable; more than enough reason for businesses to be screaming Merry Christmas." -- Bill O'Reilly, Fox Talk Show host who is the biggest loudmouth leading the "Christian" defense in the "War on Christmas", The O'Reilly Factor, November 28

The campaign to "protect Christmas" is a narrow-minded, ugly, divisive, territorial war, in which the Religious Right is hell bent to delegitimize Channukah and Kwanzaa as religious and cultural holidays for "real" Americans -- "Hey, hell, Bubba, this is a white Christian country, ain't it? And them that don't like it can go f**k themselves ..."

But it is becoming clearer and clearer that the campaign to "protect Christmas" is nothing more or less than a conflation of American commercial interests and Christian triumphalism -- and that a bunch of ignorant mopes in the pews are being duped once again by their fast-talking "leaders".

WTFWJD, do you suppose?

Jesus entered the Temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 'It is written,' he said to them, 'My house will be called a house of prayer but you are making it a den of robbers.'" -- Matthew 21:12-13

Lambda Legal Statement on Judge Alito

Lambda Legal has issued a statement in opposition to Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Lambda's analysis is reproduced in full below:


The Alito Agenda:
A Litigation Roadmap

I. Introduction

Lambda Legal is an advocacy organization. We’re committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and people with HIV. As an advocate, we have a vision of what’s just. Some call it an agenda.

Lambda Legal pursues its vision of justice primarily through litigation. Effective litigation to advance an agenda depends on fine legal craftsmanship. We know what fine legal craftsmanship looks like because we seek to engage in it.

We have studied Samuel Alito’s record closely. We carefully have analyzed many of the judicial decisions he has written. Applying our litigation expertise to this analysis, we conclude that Alito is a fine legal craftsman who knows how to read and respond to precedent. This is one important qualification for a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

Our expertise also helps us look behind legal craftsmanship. This part of Lambda Legal’s examination of Alito’s judicial record, especially when considered in light of extensive statements by the nominee that have been released during the confirmation process, reveals that Alito has a clear and consistent political ideology and agenda. He deploys his fine legal craftsmanship and existing precedent in the service of that political agenda — far too often, the results for Alito are predetermined.

It is the nature of Alito’s agenda that is of great concern to us. In fact, every member of the judiciary should have an agenda: a commitment to upholding the values embodied in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, as well as to upholding the nation’s civil rights and other laws. Above all else, every member of the judiciary must have an agenda of commitment to the principles of liberty, equality and justice for all. Unfortunately, Alito’s agenda is of a different nature. It stands apart from any principle that can reasonably be located in the Constitution. Instead, it his based on his personal political ideology. As we explain below, Alito’s agenda puts particular political ends above a fair reading of the Constitution, Bill of Rights and the laws passed by Congress. Put differently, his political agenda drives his legal decisions. He then applies legal craftsmanship and precedent to justify the results he is trying to achieve.

In Lambda Legal’s opinion, this disqualifies Alito from a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. The job of a Supreme Court justice is unique within the judiciary. Among other things, the constraints created by legal precedent are far less significant at the Supreme Court. Political agendas at the expense of the Constitution and laws of this country are dangerous at all levels of our judicial system, but they present their most acute challenges at the highest court in the land.

II. The Alito Agenda

There is no need to engage in guesswork about whether Samuel Alito has a political agenda or what it entails. In 1985 Alito applied and was hired for the position of deputy assistant attorney general for the Reagan administration. During the application process, Alito was asked to provide his qualifications for the position. In his application essay he chose to focus almost exclusively on his consistently conservative political beliefs and how advancing those beliefs motivated him to enter the legal profession. Alito stated: “I am and always have been a conservative and an adherent to the same philosophical views that I believe are central to this administration.”

In describing his political agenda, Alito explained that his interest in the law is animated largely by his strong commitment to conservative causes. For example, he wrote: “In college I developed a deep interest in constitutional law, motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause and reapportionment.” These areas of interest closely track conservative political attacks on the rights of criminal defendants, the separation of church and state — which is critically important to those who do not share majority religious rights — and jurisprudence built around the principle commonly known as one person, one vote. Alito also trumpeted his strong allegiance to “free enterprise” and “the legitimacy of a government role in protecting traditional values.” This political agenda stands independent of any reasonable understanding of the Constitution.

The steadfast conservative political ideology that Alito developed as a young man continued to be his primary focus while serving in the Solicitor General’s office during the Reagan administration. He stated: “I am particularly proud of my contributions in recent cases in which the government has argued in the Supreme Court that racial and ethnic quotas should not be allowed and that the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.”

Alito also emphasized that he “disagreed strenuously” with what he characterized as the judiciary’s “usurpation” of governmental decision-making authority. However, Lambda Legal’s analysis of Alito’s decisions reveals that this stated commitment to “judicial restraint” is in fact in service of his conservative political agenda. But “judicial restraint” cedes to what his allies disparage as “judicial activism” when neccesary to reach the desired end.

Information about Alito’s agenda is not limited to his 1985 Department of Justice (DOJ) job application. In addition, irrefutable evidence has emerged indicating that Alito pursued this agenda while working for the federal government by developing and pursuing a legal strategy designed to result in the overturning of Roe v. Wade. As an assistant to the solicitor general, Alito authored a 17-page document setting forth his proposed strategy to persuade the Supreme Court to restrict and eventually overturn Roe. He also volunteered to help write the administration’s brief in Thornburg v. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and, according to former colleagues, he was the attorney who did the thinking and legal research and analysis in this brief that argued that Roe should be overturned.

Samuel Alito’s clear political agenda provides a backdrop that sheds important light on his approach to the claims before him as a judge for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Among other things, this agenda is striking in its lack of empathy for the everyday person. Having an appreciation of the human condition of all Americans, regardless of their stature or affinity with majoritarian perspectives and values, is part of what helps Supreme Court justices enforce the promises of the Constitution and our civil rights laws with an equal hand for all who come before the Court. Alito lacks this empathy. In place of it he wields a hardened political agenda and advances that agenda through clever legal craftsmanship.

III. Legal Craftsmanship in Support of the Alito Agenda

What emerges from Lambda Legal’s careful analysis of Alito’s judicial record is the persistent use of strong legal craftsmanship and treatment of precedent to serve his political agenda. At root, Alito consistently has deployed a sophisticated, results-oriented approach. His judicial reasoning does not rely on ideological argument or vitriol. Instead, he skillfully uses traditional legal analysis, and deploys procedure and precedent to reach conclusions that are consistent with, and driven by, his political ideology.

Employment Law

The area of employment law provides an interesting first case study. In this area, Alito has skillfully engaged in procedural hair-splitting that disadvantages employee plaintiffs in disregard of the purposes of civil rights laws enacted by Congress. Alito’s dissent in Bray v. Mariott Hotels is illuminating. In Bray, a hotel employee who was denied a promotion filed a lawsuit alleging illegal race discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Third Circuit majority ruled that the plaintiff had established the essential elements of a case of race discrimination and therefore was entitled to go to trial by a jury. Alito dissented, arguing for an evidentiary burden on employee plaintiffs that is almost impossible to meet. In fact, the majority strongly criticized Alito’s approach, pointing out that “Title VII would be eviscerated if our analysis were to halt where the dissent suggests.”

Alito’s approach in Bray reflects a pattern. Sheridan v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Co. involved a sex-discrimination claim brought by a hotel employee. Ten of the 11 members of the Third Circuit, sitting en banc, agreed that the employee had the right to take her case to trial because she first established all required elements of her affirmative case and then produced evidence to rebut the employer’s argument that it acted legitimately. Alito was the sole dissenter. The majority criticized Alito’s approach as one that would invite “confusion and uncertainty” in its imposition of additional burdens on empoloyees. Here again, Alito sought to use the nuances of procedure to place an employee plaintiff at a severe disadvantage in contravention of Title VII’s goal of combating workplace discrimination.

Alito’s lack of deference to Congress on Title VII is instructive. On its face, it stands in stark contrast to his stated opposition to “the usurpation by the judiciary of decision-making authority that should be exercised by the branches of government responsible to the electorate.” But what has become apparent through Lambda Legal’s analysis of Alito’s judicial track record is that this constrained version of judicial power is in service of his conservative political philosophy, rather than the other way around. Thus, when deference to Congress and the Executive Branch at the expense of the courts serves Alito’s agenda of support for “free enterprise” and disregard for individual and civil rights, that deference is invoked. When it does not, it is ignored.

Alito’s results-oriented approach is presaged not only by the political agenda he outlined in his DOJ job application, but also by a 1985 DOJ opinion on HIV and the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The opinion, which then-Deputy Assistant Attorney General Alito took public credit for helping to author, took the very controversial position that, under the Rehabilitation Act, an employer legally could fire a person with AIDS because of fear of contagion, regardless of whether the fear was reasonable or not. In the face of public criticism of the opinion, Alito claimed “we had to interpret the law as it stands.” In fact, precedent did not dictate the opinion’s analysis. A federal appellate court had just ruled the opposite, and the case was pending before the Supreme Court. Instead, the evidence indicates that the opinion was agenda-driven and designed to influence courts so that they would create precedent consistent with the DOJ analysis where none previously existed. The position taken by Alito’s DOJ opinion later was unequivocally rejected by the Supreme Court in School Board of Nassau County v. Arline.

Reproductive Health

Alito’s results-oriented approach is also on display in his analysis of a woman’s liberty interest in controlling choices about her reproductive health. As discussed above, while a government lawyer, Alito developed and disseminated a legal strategy that he hoped would result in the eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade. Alito seemingly tried to seize the opportunity to advance that strategy that was presented by Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. In that case, the Third Circuit was asked to pass on the constitutionality of a variety of new restrictions enacted by the state’s legislature, on a woman’s right to choose an abortion. One new restriction was the requirement that a woman notify her spouse before obtaining an abortion. The majority in the case found that the spousal notification requirement violated the Constitution. While claiming to be guided by existing precedent, Alito alone found that the notification requirement survived constitutional scrutiny. His opinion in the case argues for a less stringent “rational basis standard” of review for abortion-related cases. Alito’s position was rejected when the Supreme Court ultimately decided the Casey case; Justice Harry Blackmun later explained that Alito’s approach would make it impossible to challenge restrictions on access to abortion.

Relationship Rights

Alito has demonstrated that he is extraordinarily unsympathetic to protections for unmarried people and couples who are denied the right to marry due to unjust laws. In Chen v. Ashcroft, a young woman in China became pregnant, unsuccessfully attempted to get married and resisted the Chinese government’s pressure to abort her fetus. The woman and her male partner could not marry because they were both 19 years old, and the minimum age for men to marry in China is 25. The woman was ultimately forced to undergo an abortion during her eighth month of pregnancy.

When her partner applied for political asylum in the United States, Alito wrote the resulting opinion for the Third Circuit. Even though husbands of women forced by the Chinese government to undergo abortions routinely qualify for asylum in the United States, Alito reasoned that an unmarried partner does not because he does not suffer “persecution” as required by U.S. asylum law. Clearly reflecting his political agenda to support “the legitimacy of a government role in protecting traditional values,” Alito posited that it was “rational” to deny protection simply because a couple was unmarried, even under these extraordinary circumstances.

Federalism

In the area of federalism and Congress’s power to enact legislation to address important national concerns, Alito again appears to take a results-oriented approach — this time in service of his political agenda in favor of “limited government.” In United States v. Rybar, the Third Circuit joined six other circuits in ruling that a federal law banning the sale of outlawed machine guns was a constitutional exercise of Congress’ power under the Commerce Clause. Alito dissented. He argued that the Supreme Court’s then-recent decision in United States v. Lopez, which struck down Congress’ ban on guns in school zones, made it clear that Congress did not have the power to regulate the sale of guns. Alito would have extended Lopez — which invalidated an act of Congress on Commerce Clause grounds for the first time in nearly 60 years — and in the process gone even further than the current Supreme Court in weakening Congress’s power to enact legislation to address national issues.

This approach to federalism is inconsistent with Alito’s stated commitment to judicial restraint. Indeed, the majority in Rybar criticized Alito’s approach because it “runs counter to the deference that the judiciary owes to its two coordinate branches of government ...” But since Alito’s support for judicial restraint appears to be little more than a means of facilitating rulings that further his conservative political agenda, it should not be surprising that judicial restraint recedes when it stands in the way of a decision in favor of “limited government” or in opposition to individual rights. As the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights has observed, Alito’s approach to federalism “raises serious concerns about whether he will uphold major and historically effective pieces of civil rights infrastructure ... and whether he will hold a restrictive view of Congress’ power to move the country forward with additional civil rights laws.”

Church-State Separation

Church-state separation is still another area where Alito’s approach has tracked his political agenda — this time in his professed opposition to Supreme Court precedent in interpreting the Establishment Clause and his strong belief in the government’s role in protecting “traditional values.” Here again, Lambda Legal’s analysis of Alito’s opinions reveals a propensity to construe the Establishment Clause very narrowly to reach the result that is most deferential to majority religious views. In ACLU of New Jersey v. Township of Wall, Alito used procedural analysis to thwart a taxpayer challenge to a township’s religious holiday display — reasoning that the plaintiffs did not have taxpayer standing because the display was donated and any public employee time to support the display was minimal. In ACLU of New Jersey v. Schundler, Alito wrote an opinion holding that a city that originally created a holiday display with a crèche and a menorah, and then added Frosty the Snowman and other secular symbols when challenged, complied with its Establishment Clause obligations. And in Child Evangelism Fellowship of New Jersey, Inc. v. Stafford Township School District, Alito wrote an opinion for the court siding against a public school that invoked the Establishment Clause to bar a Christian evangelist group from using teachers to distribute the group’s flyers.


Copyright 1997-2005 by Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund

The War on Christmas

""And it has become pretty general. Last Christmas most people had a hard time finding Christmas cards that indicated in any way that Christmas commemorated Someone's Birth. Easter they will have the same difficulty in finding Easter cards that contain any suggestion that Easter commemorates a certain event. There will be rabbits and eggs and spring flowers, but a hint of the Resurrection will be hard to find. Now, all this begins with the designers of the cards."

Who do you suppose wrote this? Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News talk show host? John Gibson, the Fox News anchor who wrote "The War on Christmas"? Jerry Falwell, who has unleashed his Liberty Counsel to "defend Christmas"?

No. It was Henry Ford, in his 1921 tract "The International Jew", an anti-Semitic tract published in The Dearborn Independent, which Ford owned.

""One of the techniques now being applied ... to weaken the pillar of religion in our country is the drive to take Christ out of Christmas -- to denude the event of its religious meaning. ... What they now want to put over on the American people is simply this: Department stores throughout the country are to utilize [secular] symbols and emblems as Christmas decorations."

Who do you suppose wrote this? Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News talk show host? John Gibson, the Fox News anchor who wrote "The War on Christmas"? Jerry Falwell, who has unleashed his Liberty Counsel to "defend Christmas"?

No. It was the John Birch Society, in its 1959 pamphlet "There Goes Christmas?!", an attack on the UN "plot" to secularize Christmas with symbols of international brotherhood and goodwill.

The "War on Christmas" is nothing new. It seems to crop up every half-century or so. In the 1920's, a powerful Jewish conspiracy was working to "destroy Christmas". In the 1950's, it was the "Reds" and the UN.

Today, the "attack on the Christian majority" is led by the ACLU, the media elite, atheists, agnostics, liberals, secularists, gays, Wiccans and God himself knows who else -- a mishmash of "enemies" conveniently lumped together as the "anti-Christian minority".

I grew up in the shadow the McCarthy era -- my father hated Richard Nixon -- and came of age during the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War, followed on by Watergate, the rise of feminism, Iran-Contra and so on. As readers of PurpleScarf know, I draw connections between past and present.

The "War on Christmas" is no exception. It harkens back to the bad old days of the 1950's, when the far right, threatened by school desegregation, "Godless Communism", Rock-and-Roll and other forces of social change, retrenched.

The over-the-top rhetoric of social conservatives is similar, as are the exaggerated fears of a massive, hidden conspiracy by powerful forces with tentacles reaching into the fabric of society.

But what interests me is the similarity of the "War on Christmas" to the issues embroiling GLBT equality.

The "War on Christmas", like the campaign to "protect marriage", is based on fiction rather than fact. Gays and lesbians are not out to "destroy marriage" but instead to enter into the rights and responsibilities of marriage, and equal rights under the law is not a zero-sum game, in which treating gays and lesbians on an equal footing with straights will not diminish the rights of straights.

Similarly, Charles Haynes, a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center and the author of "Finding Common Ground: A Guide to Religious Liberty in the Public Schools", denies that the "War on Christmas" is real. According to Haynes: "I certainly wouldn't put it that way," he says. "The big picture is that there's more religion now in public schools than ever in modern history. There's no question about that. But it's not there in terms of the government imposing religion or sponsoring it, and that bothers some people on the right. They miss the good old days when public schools were semi-established Protestant schools. [In the past two decades] religion has come into the public schools in all kinds of ways ... many schools now understand that students have religious liberty rights in a public school, so you can go to many public schools today and kids will be giving each other religious literature, they will be sharing their faith. You go to most public schools now and see kids praying around the flagpole before school."

Truth be known, if Christmas needs to be protected, the way to do it -- NOT! -- is to equate Christmas with a shopping holiday. And yet, that is exactly what the "protect Christmas" crowd is doing. The "War on Christmas" is yet another example of social conservatives confusing the sacred and the profane. In that, too, the "War on Christmas" bears similarity to the campaign to "protect marriage", a campaign in which social conservatives have blurred the line between civil and religious marriage out of existence.

But the most obvious similarity is that the "War on Christmas", like the campaign to "protect marriage", is a chimera, allowing social conservatives to pretend to be playing defense when social conservatives are, in fact, on the offensive -- against the ACLU, separation of church and state, GBLT equality and pluralism, to name just a few targets.

And, most telling perhaps, is the fact that the "War on Christmas", grounded in delusion, serves as a rallying point for social conservatives, a tool to pack in the crowds and fill the kettles. In that, too, the "War on Christmas" is a lot like the controversy surrounding gay and lesbian equality -- Christmas, like marriage, is a great wedge issue.

Brokeback Mountain

If you are interested in reading the short story "Brokeback Mountain", you can find it in the New Yorker archive from 1997.

The story, written by Anne Proulx, is superb. I hope the movie is half as good.

Thanks be to God ...

The Hartford, Connecticut, Courant reports that Ann Coulter, asked what she would do if one of her kids turned out to be queer, said: "I'd say, `Did I ever tell you you're adopted?'"

I'm glad to see that Ann has gone down, so to speak, on the "nature" side of the "nature versus nurture" argument, apparently refuting her earlier assertion that "sodomy causes sodomy", but I got to thinking about how a conversation between Ann and the mythical fairykin might go in real life ...

Maybe like this:

Kid: "Uh, Mommy Dearest, I have, uh, something, uh, to tell you ..."

Ann: "Spit it out. This new diet is making me crazy, and I've got a column to write."

Kid: "I'm, uh, gay."

Ann: "Did I ever tell you your're adopted?"

Kid: "Adopted? I'm adopted? Oh, thanks be to God! I thought I might be related to you."

As far as I know, Ann doesn't have any kids, adopted or otherwise.

Thanks be to God.

Guns, Gays and Crazies

The Wisconsin Senate, Republican controlled, worked on guns and gays this week.

The Senate passed a "concealed carry" bill 23-10 Tuesday.

If passed by the Assembly and signed by the Governor, the bill would end the state's 133-year-old ban on concealed weapons.

Democrat Governor Jim Doyle said that he will veto the bill this year, as he did in 2003.

Wednesday, the Senate voted 19-14 to amend the Wisconsin Constitution to ban gay marriage and civil unions. The bill is expected to pass the Assembly next week, putting the proposed amendment on the statewide ballot in November.

The Senate rejected a series of attempts by Democrats to alter the amendment, including a push to strip the portion pertaining to civil unions.

The amendment, if ratified by voters in the November 2006 general election, would prohibit legal recognition of any relationship between unmarried people that is identical or substantially similar to marriage.

In a related development, Wisconsin Senator Dave Hansen (Democrat, 30th District, Green Bay) has released a recording of a message left on his voicemail, in which an anonymous constituent calls for an "open season" on homosexuals: "We gotta stop these queers. There's no question in everybody's mind that this cannot go through. Uh, we, we...this is getting ridiculous. We gotta..we gotta stop this..there's no such thing as queer marriages..we gotta stop it..in fact, no, i think we should have an amendment put on the ballot, a referendum, uh, maybe we should have an open season on those people and just let 'em know how we really think. Okay? Bye."

Senator Hansen released the voicemail because he found it "disturbing".

Listening, I wonder if the "concealed carry" law might be a good thing. Maybe Governor Doyle should reconsider his veto.

I think that it would be enlightening for guys like Senator Hansen's anonymous caller to get a hint that he should pick on someone of his own caliber.

What does he know ... anyway?

Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo Higuera, the papal nuncio to the United States, has asked Boston Archbishop Sean P. O’Malley to step in and stop allowing Catholic Charities of Boston to place adoptive children with same-sex couples, according to newspaper reports in Boston.

The archdiocese refused to comment on report. Peter Meade, the chair of Catholic Charities also declined to comment.

Meade has been under fire since it became known earlier this year that a handful of children had been placed with gay and lesbian couples. At the time Catholic Charities said that because it accepts money from the state it could not discriminate between straight and GLBT parents.

My view?

I'll stack the health and well being of my four kids, and the four kids raised by my ex-laws, Miriam and Hanna, against any kid in intimate contact with a priest or bishop -- not to mention a papal nuncio -- any day.

A dumb-assed dolt, is what Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo Higuera is ... what does he know about raising kids, anyway?

Save Christmas - Boycott Bush

Sunday, poking fun at the Religious Right, I created a holiday fable around the children's book "There's no such thing as a Chanukah Bush, Sandy Goldstein."

And I thought I was being silly.

Truth, as it turns out, is stranger than fiction, and I am not making this up.


President Bush just sent out over a million Christmas cards, featuring the First Pets -- Laura's butch dog Miss Beazley, the President's Barney the Poof Dog, and India the black cat (named after Ruben "the Indio" Sierra) -- frolicking on a snowy White House lawn. The Christmas card wishes supporters a happy "holiday season".

What? A happy "holiday season"?

Old farts in blue coats at Walmart greeting folks with "Happy Holidays" instead of a chuckled "Merry Christmas"? Public schools letting kids take off for "winter break" rather than "Christmas vacation"? The Capital "Christmas Tree" called a "Holiday Tree" until Denny Hassert put a stop to it? Land's End putting out a "Holiday" catalog?

Devastating blows to the the Joy of Xmas, to be sure.

But the President of the United States -- a born-again Christian, the leader of the free world, the defender of marriage against us queer folk, and the last hope of civilization against the barbarian hoards?

He himself should not deign to mention "Christmas" on his Christmas cards?

That blows out the bottom, so to speak.

Worse yet, the President's Christmas card included a verse from Psalm 28 but no mention of Jesus' birth.

Needless to say, it didn't take long for the Religious Right to go nuts.

"This clearly demonstrates that the Bush administration has suffered a loss of will and that they have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture. They'd better address this, because they're no better than the retailers who have lost the will to say "Merry Christmas"." whined William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.

Joseph Farah, editor of WorldNetDaily, a conservative news roundup, opined that the President "claims to be a born-again, evangelical Christian. But he sure doesn't act like one. I threw out my White House card as soon as I got it."

Tim Wildmon, president of the American Family Association tried to condemn and give allowances at one and the same time: "It bothers me that the White House card leaves off any reference to Jesus, while we've got Ramadan celebrations in the White House. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether this is sinister--it's the purging of Christ from Christmas--or whether it's just political correctness run amok. I think in the case of the White House, it's just political correctness."

The White House tried damage control: "Certainly President and Mrs. Bush, because of their faith, celebrate Christmas," said Susan Whitson, the first lady's press secretary. "Their cards in recent years have included best wishes for a holiday season, rather than Christmas wishes, because they are sent to people of all faiths."

Isn't that lame?

The President sends Christmas cards to people of all faiths ... so he dumps "Christmas" from the card, quotes from the Jewish scriptures rather than the Christian scriptures, and doesn't even depict an adoring Barney the Poof Dog in front of the manger ...

Lame.

The lamest thing, though, about this -- other than Barney the Poof Dog, of course -- is that I can remember the day when any fundamentalist worth his salt wouldn't touch Christmas -- that Papist holiday -- with a ten foot pole. And now Christmas trees and Christmas cards are the measure of fundie orthodoxy.

So go figure.

Anyway, the Christmas-less cards aren't even the worst of it.

Check out this photo from the White House website:



The caption? "Laura and President Bush welcome children to the White House's Children's Holiday Reception in the East Room Monday, Dec. 5, 2005. White House photo by Shealah Craighead"

The "White House's Children's Holiday Reception"?

Indeed.

And, by the way, while you are at it, read the President's message at the lighting of the National Christmas Tree. President Bush didn't mention Jesus even once, although he worked in a stupid joke about Santa (and is rumored to have patted the old bear on the butt, although I haven't seen the video).

No doubt the White House will issue some lame excuse for these outrages, too.

I didn't have the stomach to check the other links -- although the Barney Cam is cool, and I always like to see a poof postively portrayed, even if the poof is a dog -- but I'll bet that you won't find Jesus mentioned anywhere on the White House Holiday website.

The bottom line: Enough is enough!

Walmart, Target and Land's End didn't get a pass when they tried to X out the X out of Xmas.

-- Focus on the Family threatened Walmart with a boycott after he found out that greeters wished Christian shoppers rolling in to buy cheap underwear with "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas".

-- Wildmon's AFA called for a consumer boycott of Target stores because the chain issued a holiday advertising circular that did not mention Christmas.

-- Donahue announced a boycott of the Lands' End "Holiday" catalog, and he was not amused by a letter from Lands' End saying it "adopted the 'holiday' terminology as a way to comply with one of the basic freedoms granted to all Americans: freedom of religion."

So, why should the President get a pass?

Christian martyrs, face up to it -- the President of the United States of America is the Commander-in-Chief on the "War on Christmas".

Boycott the President, damn it. Ooops, dagnabbit.

Or, even better, just shut up.

How in the hell are we queer folk supposed to don our gay apparel in style with all this ungodly grousing drowning out the beat?

On the Other Hand ...

The United Kindom's Civil Partnership Act 2004 became law last week, right in the middle of all the fuss about the Vatican's retrenchment.

The Vatican and local Catholic bishops fought the Civil Partnership Act in the United Kingdom, as they fought each and every other step toward marriage equality around the world.

I think, in light of the fuss, that it might be an appropriate time to bring to mind our gains in the struggle for marriage equality:

1989

Denmark adopted a "Registreret Partnerskab" law, granting same-sex couples most, but not all, of the rights of married couples.

1993

Norway adopted a "Registrert Partnerskap", granting same-sex couples most, but not all, of the rights of married couples.

1994

Sweden adopted a "Registrert Partnerskap", granting same-sex couples most, but not all, of the rights of married couples.

Iceland adopted a "Staðfest Samvist" law, granting same-sex couples most, but not all, of the rights of married couples.

1996

Greenland adopted a "Registrert Partnerskap", granting same-sex couples most, but not all, of the rights of married couples.

Hungary adopted "The Unregistered Cohabitation Amendment to Civil Code", granting all unmarried "common law" couples, including same-sex couples, limited rights and benefits which have to be applied for to the local government.

1998

The Netherlands adopted a "Geregistreerd Partnerschap" law for both heterosexual and same-sex couples, giving couples the same rights and responsibilities as for married couples.

1999

France adopted a "Pacte Civil de Solidarité" law for both heterosexual and same-sex couples, giving couples limited rights, not including taxation, inheritance and adoption.

2000

Vermont adopted a civil union law, giving same-sex couples the same life insurance, health care and child custody benefits as married couples.

Belgium adopted a "Cohabitation Légale" law, giving same-sex couples the same rights and responsibilities as for married couples.

2001

The Netherlands adopted same-sex marriage.

Portugal adopted a "União de Facto Economia Comum" law extending limited rights to same-sex and heterosexual couples.

Germany adopted a "Eingetragene Lebenspartnerschaft" law, giving same-sex couples the same inheritance and tenant rights as enjoyed by married couples.

2002

Finland adopted a "Registrert Partnerskap", granting same-sex couples most, but not all, of the rights of married couples.

2003

Belgium adopted same-sex marriage.

An Ontario court ruled that same-sex marriages are legal in that province. British Columbia and Québec adopted same-sex marriage.

Croatia adopted a civil unions law granting limited rights to same-sex couples.

Austria granted gives cohabiting same-sex partners all the rights of unmarried cohabiting heterosexual couples.

2004

Same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts.

Luxembourg adopted a "Loi Relative aux Effets Légaux de Certains Partenariats" law, granting limited rights to same-sex couples.

Brazilian courts ordered the government to recognize same-sex couples for purposes of pension, inheritance and taxation laws.

Tasmania (Australia) adopted registered relationship or civil unions for both same-sex and heterosexual couples, giving same-sex couples equal status with married couples under nearly all state laws.

New Jersey adopted a Domestic Partnership law giving same-sex couples many of the rights of married couples.

Switzerland adopted "Eingetragene Partnerschaft" giving same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples in terms of pension, insurance and taxation.

The United Kingdom adopted a "Civil Partnerships" law, giving same-sex couples virtually all of the rights of married couples.

New Zealand adopted an act that permits Civil Unions between same-sex couples.

2005

Andorra adopted a "Unió Estable de Parella" law, giving same-sex couples limited rights.

Connecticut adopted a law establishing same-sex civil unions, granting extensive rights to same-sex couples.

Spain adopted same-sex marriage.

Connecticut adopted a civil union law giving same-sex couples many of the benefits of married couples.

Slovenia adopted a "Zakon o Registraciji Istospolne Partnerske Skupnosti or ZRIPS" law, giving same-sex couples limited property, support and inheritence rights.

Canada adopted same-sex marriage.

Canberra (Australia) adopted a civil unions law for same-sex couples.

California adopted a civil union law giving same-sex couples most of the rights of married couples.

The Australian Defence Force adopted housing and education assistance, and relocation rights for same-sex couples serving in the military.

The High Court in South Africa ruled that preventing same-sex couples from getting married was unconstitutional, and gave the government one year to adopt legislation permitting same-sex marriage.

Pending

Legislation granting civil union or domestic partnership rights to same-sex couples is pending in the Republic of Ireland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary. A same-sex marriage law is pending in Argentina.

Court rulings on same-sex marriage are expected in California, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Washington.

We have a long way to go, but we will get there, Catholic Church or no Catholic Church.

How did we get into this mess?

The Vatican's recent pronouncements on gay seminarians and gay priests were anticipated. The document had been in preparation for several years, and the Vatican had been trotting out leaks, playing the usual game of "now you see it, now you don't", for months, signaling that the Vatican planned to crack down on the seminaries.

The American bishops seem have been caught flat-footed by the scope of the crack down, which now encompasses gay priests teaching in seminaries and will no doubt extend outward from there in the future.

The American bishops, generally a mediocre lot -- bureaucrats with little if anything else to commend them -- are doing damage control as best they can (hence the flutter of statements being issued "regretting the pain"), but are apparently baffled at the clarity of the Vatican's various statements and unwilling to absorb the clear language used in the documents.

The American bishops are singular in this respect. Just about everyone else is "getting it" -- the guidelines and instructions represent an extraordinary level of repression but are as clear as a bell. Anyone who can read can understand them.

Catholics who have followed the Vatican's pronouncements on gay and lesbian issues over the last couple of decades are not surprised to find things getting worse.

Catholic teaching, under the guiding hand of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, formerly head of the CDF and now Pope Benedict XVI, has been headed south for almost two decades. The guidelines and instructions are but another step in the Vatican's slide into homohysteria, and things will get worse before they get better.

Despite the claims of Catholic conservatives, who are trying to argue, as usual and with the usual obtuseness, that "what is taught is what has always been taught ...", I think that the recent guidelines and instructions can best be understood -- and the future perhaps anticipated -- in the context of the history of Catholic teaching regarding homosexuality over the last three decades, following the deft hand of Pope Benedict XVI as he reversed the Vatican's trajectory with respect to homosexuals and homosexuality.

The Catholic Church was among the first religious bodies to incorporate a modern understanding of homosexuality into its teaching.

In 1975, the CDF issued the "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics".

The Declaration begins with the proposition that human sexuality is innate:

" According to contemporary scientific research, the human person is so profoundly affected by sexuality that it must be considered as one of the factors which give to each individual's life the principal traits that distinguish it. In fact it is from sex that the human person receives the characteristics which, on the biological, psychological and spiritual levels, make that person a man or a woman, and thereby largely condition his or her progress towards maturity and insertion into society. ... The people of our time are more and more convinced that the human person's dignity and vocation demand that they should discover, by the light of their own intelligence, the values innate in their nature, that they should ceaselessly develop these values and realize them in their lives, in order to achieve an ever greater development."

The Declaration then moves on to a discussion of sexual mores, covering a wide range of topics including masturbation, pre-marital and extra-marital sex, and so on, comparing and contrasting Catholic moral teaching with modern societal values.

With respect to homosexuality, the document says:

At the present time there are those who, basing themselves on observations in the psychological order, have begun to judge indulgently, and even to excuse completely, homosexual relations between certain people. This they do in opposition to the constant teaching of the Magisterium and to the moral sense of the Christian people.

A distinction is drawn, and it seems with some reason, between homosexuals whose tendency comes from a false education, from a lack of normal sexual development, from habit, from bad example, or from other similar causes, and is transitory or at least not incurable; and homosexuals who are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct or a pathological constitution judged to be incurable.

In regard to this second category of subjects, some people conclude that their tendency is so natural that it justifies in their case homosexual relations within a sincere communion of life and love analogous to marriage, in so far as such homosexuals feel incapable of enduring a solitary life.

In the pastoral field, these homosexuals must certainly be treated with understanding and sustained in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their inability to fit into society. Their culpability will be judged with prudence. But no pastoral method can be employed which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant with the condition of such people. For according to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God. This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of.

The Declaration established the framework of Catholic teaching with respect to homosexuals and homosexuality, accepting the modern psychological understanding that some men and women were "definitively" oriented to same-sex relationships due to "some kind of innate instinct" for which they weren't "personally responsible", on the one hand, but maintaining that according to scripture, "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered" and rejecting the idea that homosexual acts were morally acceptable.

In 1983, the Congregation for Catholic Education, acknowledging the role of "physiological or psychological factors" in homosexuality, citing the CDF Declaration in part, drew the same conclusion in " Educational Guidance in Human Love: Outlines for Sex Education":

Sexuality is a fundamental component of personality, one of its modes of being, of manifestation, of communicating with others, of feeling, of expressing and of living human love. Therefore it is an integral part of the development of the personality and of its educative process: "It is, in fact, from sex that the human person receives the characteristics which, on the biological, psychological and spiritual levels, make that person a man or a woman, and thereby largely condition his or her progress towards maturity and insertion into society".

With respect to homosexuality, the document noted:

101. Homosexuality, which impedes the person's acquisition of sexual maturity, whether from the individual point of view, or the inter-personal, is a problem which must be faced in all objectivity by the pupil and the educator when the case presents itself.

Pastorally, these homosexuals must be received with understanding and supported in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their social mal-adaption, their culpability will be judged with prudence; but no pastoral method can be used which, holding that these acts conform to the condition of these persons, accord them a moral justification.

According to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts deprived of their essential and indispensable rule.

102. It will be the duty of the family and the teacher to seek first of all to identify the factors which drive towards homosexuality: to see if it is a question of physiological or psycho logical factors; if it be the result of a false education or of the lack of normal sexual evolution; if it comes from a contracted habit or from bad example;(63) or from other factors. More particularly, in seeking the causes of this disorder, the family and the teacher will have to take account of the elements of judgment proposed by the ecclesiastical

Magisterium, and be served by the contribution which various disciplines can offer. One must, in fact, investigate elements of diverse order: lack of affection, immaturity, obsessive impulses, seduction, social isolation and other types of frustration, depravation in dress, license in shows and publications. In greater profundity lies the innate frailty of man and woman, the consequence of original sin; it can run to the loss of the sense of God and of man and woman, and have its repercussions in the sphere of sexuality.(64)

103. The causes having been sought and understood, the family and the teacher will offer an efficacious help in the process of integral growth: welcoming with understanding, creating a climate of hope, encouraging the emancipation of the individual and his or her growth in self control, promoting an authentic moral force towards conversion to the love of God and neighbor, suggesting - if necessary - medical-psychological assistance from persons attentive to and respectful of the teaching of the Church.

In 1986, the CDF, now under the control of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, reversed course, issuing the "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons".

The Letter said it was a "clarification" of existing teaching, issued because in "the discussion which followed the publication of the Declaration ... an overly benign interpretation was given to the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it neutral, or even good."

What the Letter did, however, was turn the 1975 Declaration on its head, reversing the course of evolving Church teaching concerning homosexuality.

The Letter rejected the emerging understanding that "the homosexual condition" was distinguishable from homosexual acts, and instead argued that the condition, itself, was the problem: When people "engage in homosexual activity, they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent."

In the 1975 Declaration, homosexual orientation was "disordered" because it tended toward homosexual acts, which were "disordered" because they were not ordered to procreation. In this sense, homosexuality was treated like any other human sexual urge that tended toward non-procreative sex outside of marriage, differing in degree and inclination, perhaps, but not in substance or effect.

In the 1986 Letter, on the other hand, homosexual acts were treated as "disordered" because the acts "confirmed" the"inclination", and the condition -- homosexual orientation -- was "essentially" self-indulgent, whether or not a gay or lesbian engaged in homosexual acts.

The 1986 Letter, I believe, reveals the core of Pope Benedict's thinking on the issue, and is worth quoting in depth for that reason:

3. Explicit treatment of the problem was given in this Congregation's "Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics" of December 29, 1975. That document stressed the duty of trying to understand the homosexual condition and noted that culpability for homosexual acts should only be judged with prudence. At the same time the Congregation took note of the distinction commonly drawn between the homosexual condition or tendency and individual homosexual actions. These were described as deprived of their essential and indispensable finality, as being "intrinsically disordered", and able in no case to be approved of (cf. n. 8, $4).

In the discussion which followed the publication of the Declaration, however, an overly benign interpretation was given to the homosexual condition itself, some going so far as to call it neutral, or even good. Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.

7. The Church, obedient to the Lord who founded her and gave to her the sacramental life, celebrates the divine plan of the loving and live-giving union of men and women in the sacrament of marriage. It is only in the marital relationship that the use of the sexual faculty can be morally good. A person engaging in homosexual behavior therefore acts immorally.

To chose someone of the same sex for one's sexual activity is to annul the rich symbolism and meaning, not to mention the goals, of the Creator's sexual design. Homosexual activity is not a complementary union, able to transmit life; and so it thwarts the call to a life of that form of self-giving which the Gospel says is the essence of Christian living. This does not mean that homosexual persons are not often generous and giving of themselves; but when they engage in homosexual activity they confirm within themselves a disordered sexual inclination which is essentially self-indulgent.

As in every moral disorder, homosexual activity prevents one's own fulfillment and happiness by acting contrary to the creative wisdom of God. The Church, in rejecting erroneous opinions regarding homosexuality, does not limit but rather defends personal freedom and dignity realistically and authentically understood.

8. ... increasing numbers of people today, even within the Church, are bringing enormous pressure to bear on the Church to accept the homosexual condition as though it were not disordered and to condone homosexual activity. Those within the Church who argue in this fashion often have close ties with those with similar views outside it. These latter groups are guided by a vision opposed to the truth about the human person, which is fully disclosed in the mystery of Christ. They reflect, even if not entirely consciously, a materialistic ideology which denies the transcendent nature of the human person as well as the supernatural vocation of every individual.

9. The movement within the Church, which takes the form of pressure groups of various names and sizes, attempts to give the impression that it represents all homosexual persons who are Catholics. As a matter of fact, its membership is by and large restricted to those who either ignore the teaching of the Church or seek somehow to undermine it. It brings together under the aegis of Catholicism homosexual persons who have no intention of abandoning their homosexual behavior. One tactic used is to protest that any and all criticism of or reservations about homosexual people, their activity and lifestyle, are simply diverse forms of unjust discrimination.

There is an effort in some countries to manipulate the Church by gaining the often well-intentioned support of her pastors with a view to changing civil-statutes and laws. This is done in order to conform to these pressure groups' concept that homosexuality is at least a completely harmless, if not an entirely good, thing. Even when the practice of homosexuality may seriously threaten the lives and well-being of a large number of people, its advocates remain undeterred and refuse to consider the magnitude of the risks involved. ...

10. It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs. It reveals a kind of disregard for others which endangers the most fundamental principles of a healthy society. The intrinsic dignity of each person must always be respected in word, in action and in law. ... But the proper reaction to crimes committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual condition is not disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to protect behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase.

11. It has been argued that the homosexual orientation in certain cases is not the result of deliberate choice; and so the homosexual person would then have no choice but to behave in a homosexual fashion. Lacking freedom, such a person, even if engaged in homosexual activity, would not be culpable. ... Here, the Church's wise moral tradition is necessary since it warns against generalizations in judging individual cases. In fact, circumstances may exist, or may have existed in the past, which would reduce or remove the culpability of the individual in a given instance; or other circumstances may increase it. What is at all costs to be avoided is the unfounded and demeaning assumption that the sexual behavior of homosexual persons is always and totally compulsive and therefore inculpable. What is essential is that the fundamental liberty which characterizes the human person and gives him his dignity be recognized as belonging to the homosexual person as well. As in every conversion from evil, the abandonment of homosexual activity will require a profound collaboration of the individual with God's liberating grace.

12. What, then, are homosexual persons to do who seek to follow the Lord? Fundamentally, they are called to enact the will of God in their life by joining whatever sufferings and difficulties they experience in virtue of their condition to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross. ... Christians who are homosexual are called, as all of us are, to a chaste life. As they dedicate their lives to understanding the nature of God's personal call to them, they will be able to celebrate the Sacrament of Penance more faithfully and receive the Lord's grace so freely offered there in order to convert their lives more fully to his Way.

In the Letter, Cardinal Ratzinger laid the structural foundation for all that has followed since.

Cardinal Ratzinger, however, did not then dominate the Vatican as he later came to do, and other congregations continued to distinguish homosexual acts from homosexual orientation, treating the latter as morally neutral.

In 1990, for example, the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life issued "Directives on Formation in Religious Institutes", the first Vatican document since the 1960's that expressly addressed the issue of gay priests .

The document distinguished between celibate gay priests -- the orientation but not the acts -- and non-celibate gay priests -- gay priests who "do not seem to be able to overcome their homosexual tendencies, or who maintain that it is possible to adopt a third way, "living in an ambiguous state between celibacy and marriage" must be dismissed from the religious life ...".

In 1992, Ratzinger raised the stakes, setting the Vatican against the growing secular movement for gay and lesbian civil rights in secular society.

In "Some Considerations Concerning Legislative Proposals on the Non-discrimination of Homosexual Persons", the CDF repeated that "the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder" and extended this principle to civil law.

The document brought the Church into the arena of civil law with respect to the rights of gays and lesbians, and provided the spadework for the Church's resistance changes to civil law that would protect the rights of gays and lesbians in Europe and North America:

Recently, legislation has been proposed in various places which would make discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation illegal. In some cities, municipal authorities have made public housing, otherwise reserved for families, available to homosexual (and unmarried heterosexual) couples. Such initiatives, even where they seem more directed toward support of basic civil rights than condonement of homosexual activity or a homosexual lifestyle, may in fact have a negative impact on the family and society. Such things as the adoption of children, the employment of teachers, the housing needs of genuine families, landlords' legitimate concerns in screening potential tenants, for example, are often implicated. ...

10. "Sexual orientation" does not constitute a quality comparable to race, ethnic background, etc. in respect to non-discrimination. Unlike these, homosexual orientation is an objective disorder and evokes moral concern.

11. There are areas in which it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account, for example, in the placement of children for adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or athletic coaches, and in military recruitment.

12. Homosexual persons, as human persons, have the same rights as all persons including the right of not being treated in a manner which offends their personal dignity. Among other rights, all persons have the right to work, to housing, etc. Nevertheless, these rights are not absolute. They can be legitimately limited for objectively disordered external conduct. This is sometimes not only licit but obligatory ... the state may restrict the exercise of rights, for example, in the case of contagious or mentally ill persons, in order to protect the common good.

13. Including "homosexual orientation" among the considerations on the basis of which it is illegal to discriminate can easily lead to regarding homosexuality as a positive source of human rights, for example, in respect to so-called affirmative action or preferential treatment in hiring practices. This is all the more deleterious since there is no right to homosexuality which therefore should not form the basis for judicial claims. ...

14. The "sexual orientation" of a person is not comparable to race, sex, age, etc. also for another reason than that given above which warrants attention. An individual's sexual orientation is generally not known to others unless he publicly identifies himself as having this orientation or unless some overt behavior manifests it. As a rule, the majority of homosexually oriented persons who seek to lead chaste lives do not publicize their sexual orientation. ... Homosexual persons who assert their homosexuality tend to be precisely those who judge homosexual behavior or lifestyle to be "either completely harmless, if not an entirely good thing", and hence worthy of public approval. ... In addition, there is a danger that legislation which would make homosexuality a basis for entitlements could actually encourage a person with a homosexual orientation to declare his homosexuality or even to seek a partner in order to exploit the provisions of the law. ...

16. Finally, where a matter of the common good is concerned, it is inappropriate for church authorities to endorse or remain neutral toward adverse legislation even if it grants exceptions to church organizations and institutions. The church has the responsibility to promote family life and the public morality of the entire civil society on the basis of fundamental moral values, not simply to protect herself from the application of harmful laws.

A few months later, the Catechism of the Catholic Church was released by Pope John Paul II.

The Catechism was six-year product of "consultation among all Catholic Bishops, their Episcopal Conferences or Synods, and theological and catechetical institutes" -- John Paul called the Catechism a "symphony of the faith" -- and Cardinal Ratzinger's views did not dominate the document.

The Catechism distinguished between "homosexual acts" and "homosexual tendencies" in the text, echoing the 1975 Declaration more closely than the Ratzinger documents:

2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity,140 tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered."141 They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

Of particular note is the Catechism's clear statement that gays and lesbians could live chastely through human support, prayer and God's grace. The Catechism, in this respect, reflects traditional Catholic teaching concerning sexual chastity, and did not narrow out gays and lesbians as a distinct class of persons from unmarried heterosexuals.

Three years after the Catechism was release, the Pontifical Council for the Family issued "The Truth And Meaning of Human Sexuality", a long and comprehensive look at human sexuality.

The document discussed homosexuality in terms of adolescent development, echoed the Cathechism, and declared, "A distinction must be made between a tendency that can be innate and acts of homosexuality that 'are intrinsically disordered.":

104. A particular problem that can appear during the process of sexual maturation is homosexuality, which is also spreading more and more in urbanized societies. This phenomenon must be presented with balanced judgment, in the light of the documents of the Church. Young people need to be helped to distinguish between the concepts of what is normal and abnormal, between subjective guilt and objective disorder, avoiding what would arouse hostility. On the other hand, the structural and complementary orientation of sexuality must be well clarified in relation to marriage, procreation and Christian chastity. "Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained". A distinction must be made between a tendency that can be innate and acts of homosexuality that "are intrinsically disordered" and contrary to Natural Law.

Especially when the practice of homosexual acts has not become a habit, many cases can benefit from appropriate therapy. In any case, persons in this situation must be accepted with respect, dignity and delicacy, and all forms of unjust discrimination must be avoided. If parents notice the appearance of this tendency or of related behaviour in their children, during childhood or adolescence, they should seek help from expert qualified persons in order to obtain all possible assistance.

For most homosexual persons, this condition constitutes a trial. "They must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition". "Homosexual persons are called to chastity".

In 1998, the Congress on Vocations to the Priesthood and to Consecrated Life in Europe said the crucial test for a prospective priest was to be "able to control these weaknesses."

The 1998 document, circumvented -- ignored might be more accurate -- Ratzinger's 1986 and 1992 pronouncements, and recommended "to reject not [candidates] who have such tendencies but rather 'those who cannot manage to control such tendencies.'"

In 2003, the CDF, under Cardinal Ratzinger's signature, issued "Proposals To Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons", a follow up to "Some Considerations Concerning Legislative Proposals on the Non-discrimination of Homosexual Persons", issued a decade earlier.

The document amounted to a frontal assault on legal recognition for gay and lesbian equality. The document urged governments to "contain" gay unions "to avoid exposing young people to erroneous ideas about sexuality and marriage that would deprive them of their necessary defenses and contribute to the spread of the phenomenon."

The document begins with a discussion of homosexuality, a discussion that largely repeats the view put forward in the 1992 "Considerations" document:

4. There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Homosexual acts "close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved".

Sacred Scripture condemns homosexual acts "as a serious depravity... This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered". This same moral judgment is found in many Christian writers of the first centuries and is unanimously accepted by Catholic Tradition.

Nonetheless, according to the teaching of the Church, men and women with homosexual tendencies "must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided". They are called, like other Christians, to live the virtue of chastity. The homosexual inclination is however "objectively disordered" and homosexual practices are "sins gravely contrary to chastity".

The document then moves on to a discussion of strategies the Church can use to fight legal recognition of gay and lesbian unions:

5. Faced with the fact of homosexual unions, civil authorities adopt different positions. At times they simply tolerate the phenomenon; at other times they advocate legal recognition of such unions, under the pretext of avoiding, with regard to certain rights, discrimination against persons who live with someone of the same sex. In other cases, they favor giving homosexual unions legal equivalence to marriage properly so-called, along with the legal possibility of adopting children.

Where the government's policy is de facto tolerance and there is no explicit legal recognition of homosexual unions, it is necessary to distinguish carefully the various aspects of the problem. Moral conscience requires that, in every occasion, Christians give witness to the whole moral truth, which is contradicted both by approval of homosexual acts and unjust discrimination against homosexual persons. Therefore, discreet and prudent actions can be effective; these might involve: unmasking the way in which such tolerance might be exploited or used in the service of ideology; stating clearly the immoral nature of these unions; reminding the government of the need to contain the phenomenon within certain limits so as to safeguard public morality and, above all, to avoid exposing young people to erroneous ideas about sexuality and marriage that would deprive them of their necessary defenses and contribute to the spread of the phenomenon. Those who would move from tolerance to the legitimization of specific rights for cohabiting homosexual persons need to be reminded that the approval or legalization of evil is something far different from the toleration of evil.

In those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty. One must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation in the enactment or application of such gravely unjust laws and, as far as possible, from material cooperation on the level of their application. In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection.

And finally, the document calls upon Catholic politicians to oppose recognition of gay and lesbian unions:

10. If it is true that all Catholics are obliged to oppose the legal recognition of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are obliged to do so in a particular way, in keeping with their responsibility as politicians. Faced with legislative proposals in favor of homosexual unions, Catholic politicians are to take account of the following ethical indications.

When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is proposed for the first time in a legislative assembly, the Catholic law-maker has a moral duty to express his opposition clearly and publicly and to vote against it. To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral.

When legislation in favor of the recognition of homosexual unions is already in force, the Catholic politician must oppose it in the ways that are possible for him and make his opposition known; it is his duty to witness to the truth. If it is not possible to repeal such a law completely, the Catholic politician, recalling the indications contained in the Encyclical Letter Evangelium vitae, "could licitly support proposals aimed at limiting the harm done by such a law and at lessening its negative consequences at the level of general opinion and public morality", on condition that his "absolute personal opposition" to such laws was clear and well known and that the danger of scandal was avoided. This does not mean that a more restrictive law in this area could be considered just or even acceptable; rather, it is a question of the legitimate and dutiful attempt to obtain at least the partial repeal of an unjust law when its total abrogation is not possible at the moment.

The hand of Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, is the moving force behind the Vatican's recent pronouncements on gay seminarians and gay priests. The document reflects another step in what appears to be a determined campaign by Pope Benedict to reverse the course of Catholic teaching concerning homosexuality, a course that reflected a trajectory taking modern understanding of homosexuality into account.

The history of the Church's teaching regarding homosexuality during the last 30 years suggests that the common explanation for the Vatican's recent ban on gay seminarians -- that the ban is a response, however misguided, to the sex-abuse scandal -- is wrong.

To my mind, things will get worse before they get better. I think that we can expect Pope Benedict to move beyond the seminaries and into the active priesthood. And I take no comfort from the fact that the current documents are applicable to the priesthood. As I read the documents, Pope Benedict appears to believe -- not unlike fundamentalist Protestants -- that homosexuality is a contagious disease, and I expect the Vatican to continue to move vigorously to resist all attempts by civil society to level the playing field for gay and lesbian citizens.

In the long run, Pope Benedict will not succeed, if for no other reason than that he is and old man and will be a transitory force in Catholic teaching. I have no doubt that in the long run, the base instincts of Pope Benedict will fall by the wayside, an artifact of error, just as the Church's historic antagonism to Judaism fell in the years following Vatican Council II.

But until that time comes -- and I have no expectation that it will come in my lifetime -- the Church's antagonism to gay and lesbian rights creates a dilemma for Catholics like me, who strongly believe in equal treatment under civil law for gays and lesbians.

For the present, I continue to stand in "faithful opposition", remaining Catholic, separated from the Eucharist, fighting the base instincts of the Pope and the Vatican.

In the long, I just don't know.