Shame on you, John McCain

John McCain "clarified" his views on gay and lesbian adoption Sunday.

The transcript reads:

STEPHANOPOULOS: What is your position on gay adoption? You told the "New York Times" you were against it, even in cases where the children couldn't find another home. But then your staff backtracked a bit. What is your position?

MCCAIN: My position is, it's not the reason why I'm running for president of the United States. And I think that two parent families are best for America.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, what do you mean by that, it's not the reason you're running for president of the United States?

MCCAIN: Because I think -- well, I think that it's -- it is important for us to emphasize family values. But I think it's very important that we understand that we have other challenges, too. I'm running for president of the United States, because I want to help with family values. And I think that family values are important, when we have two parent -- families that are of parents that are the traditional family.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But there are several hundred thousand children in the country who don't have a home. And if a gay couple wants to adopt them, what's wrong with that?

MCCAIN: I am for the values that two parent families, the traditional family represents.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you're against gay adoption.

MCCAIN: I am for the values and principles that two parent families represent. And I also do point out that many of these decisions are made by the states, as we all know. And I will do everything I can to encourage adoption, to encourage all of the things that keeps families together, including educational opportunities, including a better economy, job creation.

And I'm running for president, because I want to help families in America. And one of my positions is that I believe that family values and family traditions are preserved.

Got that?

However you parse McCain's words, a simple fact comes through clear as a bell: John McCain doesn't give a shit about the kids who are waiting for adoption by single men and women, straight or gay/lesbian. Not enough of a shit, anyway, to stand up to the Religious Right.

Every unmarried man and woman who has adopted a child should be outraged by John McCain's shameless pandering.

John McCain, though, has at least put his money where is mouth is, and adopted, providing a "traditional" family for his adopted daughter.

Not so for most of the "famly values" loudmouths who insist that gays and lesbians are not fit to adopt children because children should be raised only in "traditional" families.

Do what I do the next time you run into one of them polluting the air. Just ask them how many children they've adopted. Then enjoy the silence.

Oh, do tell ...

A recent Washington Times ABC poll suggests that support for getting rid of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has grown to the point where repeal is becoming politically safe enough that even the most timid Senators and Congressmen might finally find the testicular fortitude to put the policy behind us, a decade or more after most of our NATO allies did so.

The poll reports that 75% of the civilian population now believes that "homosexuals who DO publicly disclose their sexual orientation should be allowed to serve in the military", only slightly less than the 78% who believe that "homosexuals who do NOT publicly disclose their sexual orientation should be allowed to serve in the military".


The poll results, read together, shows that 75% of the public favors allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly, 3% favor allowing gays and lesbians to serve but only if they do not serve openly, 18% oppose allowing gays and lesbians to serve under any conditions, and 4% are undecided. In a nutshell, there isn't a lot of support left for DADT.

Support for allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly was strong across the board. Over 80% of self-identified Democrats, 75% of self-identified independents, 67% of self-identified conservatives, 64% of self-identified Republicans, and even 57% of self-identified "white Evangelical Protestants" -- the consistent base of anti-gay sentiment in the country, historically -- support allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly.

Resistance to allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the Armed Forces is getting down to the hard core anti-homosexual radical fringe, the folks who conjure up apocalyptic visions of us queer folks forcing our, ahem, "agenda", down their throats on the public streets in broad daylight. For these folks, any acknowledgment that gays and lesbians serve our country in the military, and do so with pride, skill, patriotism and honor, is anathema.

I am a realist, though, about the prospects for early repeal of DADT.

First, I doubt that repeal of DADT will be a high priority for the upcoming Congress, given all the other problems that beset us in the aftermath of eight years of Bush maladministration.

Second, given the reality that the hard core anti-homosexual radicals are an important, motivated, voting and vocal part of the Republican "base" needed to win Republican primaries, I suspect that it will be a decade before most Republicans will find the courage to stand up to them.

So I don't expect easy or quick repeal. But I do know that the day will come. And not a day too soon.

The Census Bureau is so gay ...

... it can't even count straight.

The mission of the Census Bureau, according to its mission statement, is to "serve as the leading source of quality data about the nation's people."

Quality falsified data, that is, in the case of married gays and lesbians who are residents of California and Massachusetts, where same-sex marriage is legal under state law, and New York, where same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions are recognized as valid under state law.

The Census Bureau will, during the upcoming 2010 census, alter the responses of any same-sex couples who are married under California or Massachusetts law so that the couples are reported as unmarried same-sex couples.

The Census Bureau, through the Bureau's director, Steven Murdock, argues that the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act -- which defines marriage as solely between a man and a woman for all purposes related to federal regulations -- prohibits the Census Bureau from recognizing same-sex marriages. As Murdock put it in an interview last week, the 1996 federal law "has that effect, in terms of being a federal agency. We are restricted by it."

Accordingly, for the 2010 survey, the Census Bureau intends to change the responses of married same-sex couples so that the same-sex couples are reported as "unmarried partners" in all Census tabulations.

This would be funny if it weren't so sad. Consider the odd collision of law created by DOMA: Federal law imposes stiff criminal penalties for men and women who falsify information reported to the Census Bureau, but requires the Census Bureau to falsify information truthfully reported, all to conform to the necessity of political pandering.

The falsification of data will, I think, have long-term and adverse effects for the Census Bureau. The Census Bureau, funded at great cost by taxpayers, has long been considered the gold standard of statistical reporting about people living in the United States, and the Bureau's accuracy is relied on by journalists, researchers and the government itself.

Since the 2000 Census, for example, the first in which same-sex couples were tabulated, more than 400 newspaper stories and scholarly journal articles have referenced the census counts of same-sex couples, and government agencies, such as the Congressional Budget Office, used Census Bureau data to estimate the effect on the federal budget if same-sex couples were permitted to marry.

Now, because of the dampening effect of DOMA, the Bureau's statistical data about gay and lesbian couples for states in which one in five Americans reside will be inaccurate and suspect -- data marked with a permanent asterisk, explaining that it has been falsified.

This has serious implications for economic projections based on Census data.

Prior Census data demonstrates that straight couples who are married tend to exhibit different economic behavior than straight couples who are unmarried, and Census data is used to study the differences. Because the Census will not provide data about married same-sex couples, Census data will not be available to study whether similar differences exist between married and unmarried same-sex couples.

Worse yet, the 2010 Census will undercount families, because same-sex couples who are married but with no children will not be classified as families, nor will same-sex married couples with children unless the children are related to the "head of household", an arbitrary classification. As a result, government policies based on the number of children being raised by single parents will be skewed.

In short, without accurate and reliable data concerning same-sex marriages, scholars, policymakers and the public will be forced to form opinions based on anecdotes and stereotypes, as well as "guesstimates", instead of facts. That's a shame, because facts are the basis of sound policy decisions, at least in a rational world.

The whole thing is a scenario right out of "Through the Looking Glass", a bit like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's reply to a question about gays in the Islamic Republic: "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country."

But such is life in our benighted country, where political pandering trumps reality.

Your cheating heart ...

"President Bush believes that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt children. Do you agree with that?" McCain said plainly, "I think that we've proven that both parents are important in the success of a family, so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption." When the Times pressed him with, "But your concern would be that the couple should be a traditional couple," McCain replied "Yes." -- New York Times, "McCain’s Conservative Model? Roosevelt (Theodore, That Is)", July 13

If you want a hint about how clueless -- not to mention unreflective -- John McCain is, consider this quote.

First, McCain might be good at "talking the talk", but he sure as hell didn't "walk the walk". McCain divorced his first wife when his children were young, leaving them to be raised by a single mother and an absent father, who promptly remarried. McCain might now believe that "both parents are important in the success of a family", but his belief wasn't important enough for him to stay married long enough to see his children raised by "both parents" when the chips came down. McCain might want to reflect on that a bit, perhaps with his clergyman.

Second, McCain is ignoring consistent findings -- study after study -- that show that the children of gay and lesbian parents do just fine, better than the children of divorce, whether raised by single mothers or in so-called "blended families" with multiple "mommies and daddies". Leaving aside McCain's personal failings, paying attention to the facts does not seem to be his strong card. We've been there and done that with our current President for the last eight years, and have a misbegotten war and a ruined economy to show for it.

Third, note that McCain is not pushing the "biological mommy and daddy" tripe, but instead suggesting, without basis in fact or supporting his argument, that straight parents -- he and Cindy, for example -- are better, prima facia, than gay or lesbian parents. I can see why he would insist that non-biological parents are just fine -- after all, he and Cindy are adoptive parents, and it would be too much to ask him, I suppose, to deny the value of providing a home to a child who needs a home -- but he is not above stooping to pander to the worst extremists of the Religious Right, for whom gay and lesbian parenthood is an anathema.

McCain has taken the side of darkness, allying himself with the radicals who are attempting, in a handful of states, to ban gay and lesbian adoption. McCain might be clueless, but we queer folk don't have an excuse for similar cluelessness after this statement. Any gay or lesbian who votes for him is a damn fool.