How John McCain Could Secure My Vote

An interesting point made by Republican supporters about Democrats is that “you’re never going to vote for John McCain anyway, so why should he care what you think?” This challenges those of us who are inclined to consider carefully our endorsement to coherently answer the (admittedly weaker) question Under what circumstances might I vote for a Republican presidential candidate?

If we are to be persuaded to vote for Mr McCain, or some future Republican candidate, we would naturally wish to be assured that they had a 'reasonable' stance on LGBT issues. A seemingly universal, and perennial, admission by LGBT Republicans is the judgement that LGBT rights issues are subservient to other issues, be they the war or the economy or whatever. We ought to question, then, presupposing that he is not a homophobe, whether Mr McCain is doing all he can within the confines of Republican ideology to support these issues, or if he is not, that there is an overriding justification for this.

In this spirit, allow me to propose two compromise positions that seem to me to be consistent with Republican values (by which I mean conservative and broadly libertarian values):

First, since there is excellent bipartisan evidence that DADT is harming the effectiveness of the military and its ability to recruit and train LGBT personnel, it would seem to be entirely consistent with McCain’s emphasis of military effectiveness to repeal DADT.

Second, on the subject of LGBT marriage, any number of compromises might be possible even within the Republican ticket: for instance, recognizing that the realities of California and Idaho (for example) are rather different, it would be consistent with the principles of small government and state supremacy to endorse the states’ right to decide for themselves; alternatively, recognizing that objections to LGBT marriage are may be recast as religious objections to the nomenclature, he might propose a federal definition of civil partnership and propose marriage as an (excluded to LGBT people) special case of this. Such compromise positions are intellectually problematic – they continue to discriminate even as they acknowledge the existence of value in LGBT relationships – but if indeed other issues are more pressing then such a compromise might well be acceptable.

In point of fact, if the various other issues are indeed so pressing, then any sort of statement that McCain acknowledges the contribution of LGBT people to society but that the time is not appropriate might well be persuasive. Tellingly, however, no such statement, nor either of the above suggestions, is a part of the McCain platform.

In fact the strongest argument that Mr Mcain is not a homophobe would appear to be that his Campaign Chief of Staff is, so it is alleged, openly gay. The fallacy of this argument ought to be manifest, but in case it is not, allow me to explain: my boss is a homophobe, and he is nonetheless content to employ me (an openly gay man). Somewhat conveniently, and rather unfortunately for me, I am a demonstration of this logical fallacy.

So why then are proposals like these, that are perfectly compatible with Republican views, not on a Republican platform that advertises itself as being “for change”? In order to explain this, I introduce a scientific (i.e. falsifiable) hypothesis:

NO LGBT issue will EVER be on a Republican Presidential ticket UNLESS and UNTIL LGBT Republicans are able to VISIBLY clinch an election for the Republican platform.

This claim is made from the experiences of many minority groups within many democracies and draws upon a common phenomenon: political access will change precisely nothing without political power. This was true for the Clinton administration, where despite LGBT people having considerable influence in setting policy, the lack of a grassroots LGBT movement meant that there was no political power to achieve that administrations goal of opening up the military. To take a second example, contemplate why, for that matter, did Boris Johnson (the Mayor of London) – a conservative – attend London Pride?

The ramification for Gay Republicans of this principle is this: you shall forever be repeating the mantra “there are more important issues” until you are able to use your voice specifically as LGBT Republicans to elect candidates. Having LGBT people within the Republican party will never be enough to bring LGBT issues onto the Republican ticket in any form beneficial for LGBT people. If you really do disagree with the Democrats, and if you’re not prepared to defer your freedom perpetually, then you must build your own political power.

Of course, the LGBT Democrats are a lot further along this road and there is a useful corollary for the Obama campaign: this will be a close election. If LGBT freedom is to be a concern of an Obama administration, it is essential that the LGBT Democrat vote is there and vocal in the swing states. Neither "I don't do politics" nor "I preferred Hilary" nor "I'm still deciding" is enough: this election is a unique opportunity to build considerable power for LGBT reform. We must not waste it.

The Abercrombie & Fitch Challenge

I ran the A&F challenge 5k yesterday in Columbus, OH. Complete race results are here. I did pretty well, coming in 187th place, with a time of 25'25" and an average pace of 8'11". The event was very well organized, with really good food afterwards, cool t-shirts and a very flat course. 

Whoever reads this, I think you're beautiful

Found on the back of an advertisement for an exhibition at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England: "Whoever reads this, I think your beautiful" [sic]

What a wonderful sentiment.

Thoughts on Cleveland Pride

Families planning to sail on the Goodtime III pleasure cruiser that is docked at Voinovich park might have initially had some apprehension after they boarded upon seeing that their principal view was of the 20th Annual Pride celebration. If they did look closer, they would have seen a crowd only a little more remarkable than those at any of the festivals in Ohio. Children, couples, friends, lovers, parents, pets and churches were interspersed with the odd drag queen or leather person, and even Foucault might have felt uncharitable in deconstructing the notion of an LGBT community of Cleveland. A very poignant image for me was of my friend Matt’s friend Michael carrying a child–an image of love and an empowering metaphor for the role of LGBT people in nurturing the future of our wider society.

Predictably the Parade was the (bloodless) battleground of a theological battle between the many Cleveland churches that embrace LGBT people and a small number of placard-bearing protesters. The ripostes were humorous and dignified; the marching band drowned out the microphone. How best to deal with them nonetheless provoked some debate: my friend Brandon was of the opinion that these people were attempting to provoke a fight and were best ignored. Perhaps there is some merit to the repudiation of homosexuality as a no-man’s land in the the internal politics of the church, but perhaps we are better if we welcome the protesters as humans, showing them the love they fail to reciprocate. The rights of freedom of speech and association that they enjoy are shared guarantees, even if we have had to fight to claim them and they have not, that allow us to be there in the first place.

Inside the festival, there were many interesting booths of the usual local and national organizations. Sadly absent was a Case Western Reserve booth (the LGBT Provost’s group did march in the parade), but for those who are interested, there’s plenty of groups to get involved with. Sexual health campaigners were encouragingly omnipresent although I wish the organizers had been more sensitive that to place Flex, a bathhouse, next to the AIDS campaign of Greater Cleveland.

Other people I talked to: I’ll now be going to the ACLU brown bag lunches on Wednesdays on Chester. I spoke with a representative from the Human Rights Campaign and offered to volunteer. I took a leaflet for my mom from PFLAG. I also offered to volunteer at the LGBT Center, who never got back to me last year. I’ve actually been looking for a while to volunteer somewhere but haven’t really found the right outlet yet. Perhaps these groups could do more to encourage volunteers. There were many other worthwhile groups, including musical, outdoors and athletic groups (softball and volleyball but alas, not rugby or snowboarding).

A minor peeve: I regret that groups like the HRC in trying to attract support for legislation like ENDA (which would prevent LGB but not T people from discrimination in employment on the basis of their orientation) lack the ambition for something more intellectually consistent. Such a bill would prevent discrimination against anyone–straight people too–for any reason irrelevant to their employment. The lady we spoke to unconvincingly reiterated Politics Is The Art of The Possible, but it is hard to see how this could not enjoy more widespread support than the more limited ENDA. It would moreover resist the distasteful and essentially discriminatory exercise of compartmentalizing subgroups of the community and then arguing separately on the rights that they ought, or ought not, enjoy.

It would have been churlish of me to have attempted to have argued this extensively at Pride even if I wish they might have more rigour in their sales pitch, so I did not, and signed up. I got a stylish bracelet with the Equals sign for my trouble. Matt got an equally stylish bag.

For one day a year we get to see that LGBT people cover the entire cross section of society and not merely those we see in bars. I heard the sharing of stories yesterday of discomfort within people’s families (I’m not immune to this either) about their orientation; I saw an evanescent vision yesterday of less conformist society. With the weight of Kant and Rousseau, Pride challenges us: Dare to know; Dare to be free.

The fallacy of appeals to biology

In the past few days I’ve read several articles (such as this one) about sexuality and biology connected to a scientific study into the claim that gay men have ‘similar’ brains to women. LGBT people, like all humans, have a need to understand our origins, and these sorts of studies have an appeal for some in fulfilling that requirement. To attempt to use them as a basis to legitimize us is, however, both superfluous and misconceived.

There is an old view that retains some lustre: one founded in the writings of St Thomas Aquinas, that sees in nature a revealed model for human society and that of course does not include LGBT people. The many intricacies and apparent arbitrariness of Nature ought to be sufficient warning that this continuation is suspect: just as some see in Nature a divine plan, others see chaos and if they were to follow the natural law argument ought to propose anarchy! Rather than project nature onto our society, there is more value in explaining society through parallels in nature, as we might recollect from Henry V.

The recent work with fMRI and DNA sequencing is not the first counterargument to Aquinas, nor even the first scientific one. Previously, the arsenal of evidence of gender non-conformity throughout the animal kingdom was amassed to demolish the myth of the nuclear family. The counter then, even accepting the inconsistency, was to divide homosexual acts, which of course involve choice, from homosexual nature and to condemn the former (the Catholic view). This is cruel and dehumanising, but the new science would be no better ammunition against it.

If we legitimize ourselves by our biology, in consequence we in fact proliferate a sanitised homophobia: Of all the words that are levelled at us–Poof, Queer, Faggot, etc.–the neologism homosexual is perhaps most dishonest in that the same disparagement is hidden behind a veneer of latin legitimacy. The facade works because it presents a false objectivity, and yet at the same time the medicalised term forces us to be patients suffering from a condition to be cured. It is admittedly possible to construe this as too much weight placed on a single word, but it is not too heavy a burden to place on this most recent body of biological analysis. Appeals to biology only serve to perpetuate the myth that LGBT have an aberration.

I do not mean that the research ought not be performed–it ought to be–but its limited use in moral arguments for LGBT tolerance should be recognised. We have much stronger arguments in our armoury.

LOLcatz that didn't want to live II

Diverging elasticity and director uniformation in a nanopatterned cell near the nematic–smectic-A phase transition

Somewhat behind the times, I just realised that my recent paper in Physical Review E is finally available on the journal website (you need a subscription to download it). I'll be presenting it in digestible poster form–I printed the poster today incidentally–at ILCC in Jeju in a couple of weeks, so the timing really couldn't be better.