Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Saturday, March 23

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Banned Ugandan Play To Be Staged In U.S.: Baltimore, MD. Last summer, play featuring a gay character in a pro-gay treatment was performed in a couple of small venues in suburban Kampala, Uganda. British national David Cecil, who served as the play’s producer, was soon arrested, jailed, tried and acquitted of charges in connection with staging the play, only to be re-arrested again and deported a month later. That play, The River and the Mountain, is being presented as a stage reading through this weekend  in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area. The reading was supposed to feature Okuyo Prynce, a Ugandan actor who played the leading gay role in the original production in Kampala, but his entry into the U.S. has been held up by the INS. Playwright Beau Hopkins however hopes to be on hand for the stage readings. Readings of The River and the Mountain will be held at:

• Saturday, March 22, at Artisphere, 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA., at 7:30 p.m.
• Sunday, March 24, at Single Carrot Theatre, 1727 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD., at 5:30 p.m.

Readings are free, though donations will be accepted. Click here for more information.

Events This Weekend: European Gay Ski Week, Alpe d’Huez, France; Exeter Pride, Exeter, UK; Florida AIDS Walk & Music Festival, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London, UK; Black Party, New York, NY; European Snow Pride, Tignes, France; OutBoard, Winter Park, CO.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Columnist: “State Department Hires Perverts”: 1950. The early stages of the McCarthyite red scare also had distinctly pink undertones, as gay people became looked upon as being as much as a danger to national security as communists. Deputy undersecretary of State John E. Peurifoy’s revelation (see Feb 28) that the State Department had fired 91 employees for being gay sent shock waves around the country and the nation’s columnist and pundit class in a tizzy. Author and novelist Robert Ruark, whose column was syndicated by Scripps-Howard, weighed in with his own unique literary style:

Looks like a new point in journalism has finally been reached, at which it is possible to face the problem of homosexuality and perversion with the same honesty it took us so long to win in the case of venereal disease. Our peering into the well of loneliness is as much overdue as our realization that syphilis and gonorrhea were something more than “social” diseases, to be hushed behind the hand.

This belated appraisal of a human aberration is due to the fact that our State Department, in record, as been filled with a type of humanity which is not “normal” as we construe normalcy in the broad sense, and that the list of perverted sex-crimes seems to be mounting furiously.

There is considerably more to abnormality in the sexes than a simple negation of boy-meets-girl. There is a great difference between homosexuality and perversion. The homosexual in a simpler sense is less dangerous to the world around him, because his odd sexual leanings creep easily into vicious criminality with innocents as victims.

Divergents from the sexual norm are pitiable, and in general live a life of mental and spiritual torture, full of frustration and persecution. Their residence in a minority group makes them subject to censure by the majority and leads them to a life in shadow.

This creates a constant nervousness that pays off in panic. Most “queers” eventually acquire a tendency to hysteria, which means the blow their tops in time of stress. Since the also must hide from the world that outweighs them — since the must always mask their activities in stealth and secrecy — they are forever open to apprehension.

A pervert fondles a child. The child cries. The creep blows his roof. He is panic-ridden and hysterically afraid of being caught. He throttles the child. A homosexual — possibly even a “happily” married one — is suddenly confronted with public awareness of his abnormal outcroppings. His position, his job, his very life is at stake. He blows his top. He has three choices. He can kill himself, jill his discoverer, or submit to blackmail.

In the loneliness that cloaks a homosexual that places him basically apart form his fellow, he scarred soul calls out for company. So his inclination is to surround himself with his like. Homosexuals travel in packs, as do most divergents from an accepted status.

It is all well to say that a man must live his own life and in a manner which best suits him, but in government which is operated for the greater good of the greatest number a dissenter from accepted behavior is a great liability. The drunkard, the boss who chases every stenographer, the sexual degenerate or homosexual all have a gaping chink in the behavioristoc armour. This leads almost invariably to erratic action, neglect of job, and even to blackmail. Always to blackmail.

When a man or woman is susceptible to easy blackmail, he is a tremendous risk in a position of trust. I know the story of the highly-placed State Department executive who crowded the lists with so many homosexuals that 91 resignations of firings have recently resulted. His appointees surrounded themselves with their appointees, and on down the line. What you have finally is a corroded organization which can be bribed, bulled or blackmailed in the easiest possible fashion.

Homosexuality has figured, off stage, in one of our traitorous operations. Homosexuality and similar irresponsibility has weakened us all over the world through the State Department’s calm acceptance of abnormality. A great deal of the trouble we are in, internationally, can be laid to the tolerance of that kind of weakness in a service which should be above reproach. You can say that the queer ones are pathetic and deserve a right to pursue happiness in most businesses but you don’t need them in positions of heavy trust. I have some case histories tomorrow.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Carl Westphal: 1833. the German neurologist is credited for revolutionizing psychiatry and bringing it into the world of modern medicine. That he is much lesser known today than Sigmund Freud is just goes to show just the kind lock psychoanalysis held in the mental health professions throughout the first three-quarters of the twentieth century.  Westphal founded the Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten (Archives of Psychiatry and Nervous Diseases) in 1868 where, for the first time, German clinicians could publish articles and discuss a new understanding of mental illness: that it was a  medical problem rather than moral or sinful failings subject to conviction and incarceration under the law. Westphal is credited for coining the term “agoraphobia,” to describe the case of three male patients who feared going out in public. He was the first to describe what is now known as hepatolenticular degeneration, in which cooper accumulates in the tissues and causes neurological and psychiatric symptoms, as well as liver disease. And he was the first to describe narcolepsy and cataplexy, which is a sudden temporary loss of muscle tone.

And, owing to a paper Westphal published in the Archiv in 1869 where he wrote about the case of a woman who was sexually attracted to other women rather than men, Westphal became the first to describe, in clinical terms, those who experienced Konträre Sexualempfindung (“contrary sexual feeling”). He described what would later become known as homosexuality as being the result of an individual’s alienation from his or her own gender, an archaic and ultimately unproven theory that remains a crucial underpinning of much of what is taught in ex-gay circles today. Westphal wrote:

I chose the term ‘contrary sexual feeling’ from a suggestion by an admirable, and in the field of philology and archeology, most distinguished colleague, after failing to find shorter and more appropriate terms. What shall here be expressed is that it is not always simultaneously the sexual urge as such with which we are dealing, but rather also merely the feeling of the complete inner being, being alienated form its own sex.

By describing homosexuality as something that was an expression of the essential nature in an individual, the paper sparked tremendous controversy in medical circles. Until then, those who were caught engaging in homosexual behavior were treated as heretics, sinners, and criminals. Westphal instead sought to abolish those primitive, archaic superstitions with a new “scientific” understanding of gay people. Westphal’s paper, in particular, ascribed homosexuality to a disorder of the central nervous system. And while that particular theory was eventually discarded, it nevertheless placed homosexuality in the realm of psychiatry, there it it would remain for more than a century. So while Westphal can be credited for introducing the idea that gay people weren’t sinful criminals, he can also be blamed for the classifying all gay people as mentally sick. It could be argued that in 1869, that represented a huge advancement, but in reality it merely represented an exchange of prison and the pillory for the mental asylum and torturous treatments (see Jan 18, Jan 20, Mar 11, Jun 3, Jul 26, Oct 30, Dec 8), an exchange that would last for another hundred years before the American Psychiatric Association finally removed homosexuality form its list of mental disorders in 1973.

J. C. Leyedecker: 1874. At the turn of the century, men’s shirts were sold with detachable collars, and New York’s Cluett, Peabody & Co. and their advertising agency launched one of the most successful advertising campaign for Cluett’s line of Arrow collars. The Arrow Collar Man was the creation of Joseph Leyendecker, one of the the pre-eminent American illustrators of the era. Little did the nation’s housewives know that when they purchased those collars for their husbands with the handsome and debonair Arrow Collar Man in mind, that he was modeled after Leyendecker’s life-long partner, Canadian-born Charles Beach. By the time Leyendecker landed the Arrow Collar gig at the turn of the century, his work was already making regular appearances on the covers of the Saturday Evening Post, a relationship that would last for 44 years. Meanwhile the handsome Beach would turn up for Leyendecker’s illustrations in ads for Kuppenheimer Suits, Interwoven Socks, Pierce-Arrow automobiles, and wherever style and class were called for.

J.C. Leyendecker

By 1914, Leyendecker was financially secure enough to by a large home in New Rochelle, NY for himself, Beach, and Leyendecker’s brother and sister. The parties which Leyendecker and Beach hosted at their home became important important social events as Leyendecker became acknowledged as one of the country’s great illustrators. But with the stock market crash of 1929 and the onset of the great depression, Leyendecker’s high-society style lost favor among advertising agencies. Cluett, Peabody & Co. dropped him in 1931 as the company had stopped making collars in favor of completed shirts. By 1936, the Saturday Evening Post cut back on their commissions for his covers. World War II brought something of a respite, with contracts for war bond posters, but that work would mark the end of his output. He died in 1951, survived by his sister and Beach. A really great monograph of his illustrations was published in 2008 by Abrams.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

This your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

I don’t know how to argue with that.

As long as I’m all a-twitter, I might as well share this new gem from NOM’s Communications Director (whose posts I can read but am blocked from responding to):

if humans were divided into BLUE&RED, instead of MALE&FEMALE, marriage would =1Blue+1Red. Orientation doesnt matter, sexual difference does!

— Thomas Peters (@AmericanPapist) March 22, 2013

I don’t know how to argue with that. Literally. I don’t know how to argue with that.

Now if we could just get him in front of the Supreme Court.

The truth, but just half the truth, and nothing but half the truth.

The New York Times published a profile of NOM president Brian Brown today. The author interviewed quite a few gay bloggers about him, but little of that information appeared in the piece. It’s all very nice that she told hers reader we think Brown is dishonest, but why should they believe us? She’d have done her readers (and her story) a greater service if she’d pointed out some of his lies so they could sort reality from hearsay.

So, for the sake of a more complete account, here’s an email I sent her shortly after our interview. It’s a nice little gallery of horrors.

Hi Sheryl,

It was a pleasure talking to you today. If your focus is Prop 8, it turns out I do have something for you. NOM filed an amicus brief when Prop 8 went to appeal, and I take it apart here:

http://wakingupnow.com/blog/nomsense-plain-and-simple-minded

Also, here are the other links I mentioned:

NOM’s history of untruth

• http://wakingupnow.com/blog/noms-long-and-profitable-history-of-deceit (the list is halfway down the entry)
• http://wakingupnow.com/blog/truth-and-nomsense

NOM’s history of violent and vilifying rhetoric

• http://wakingupnow.com/blog/dear-brian-brown-when-it-comes-to-violence-and-vilification-nom-is-there

Speakers at NOM’s March for Marriage who have invoked Satan when it comes to gays

• NOM’s list of speakers: http://www.marriagemarch.org/speakers/
• Jim Garlow on Satan: “”So if I were Satan, if I were the Devil, I’d want to destroy the imagery of male and female coming together with light and joy, covenantal marriage on Earth.” http://www.glaad.org/cap/jim-garlow
• Harry Jackson on Satan: “…”a satanic plot to destroy our seed.” http://www.glaad.org/cap/harry-jackson

And just in general, this is a great resource for researching inflammatory rhetoric:

• http://www.glaad.org/cap

A couple of the more inflammatory NOM paid staffers:

• http://www.glaad.org/cap/rhode-island-christopher-plante
• http://www.glaad.org/cap/jennifer-roback-morse

On the Regnerus study:

Problems with the study:

• http://wakingupnow.com/blog/regnerus-admits-he-lacks-the-data-to-critique-same-sex-parenting-so-why-is-he-doing-it
• http://wakingupnow.com/blog/regnerus-defenders-miss-the-point

NOM’s misrepresentation of the study:

• http://www.riformarriage.com/site/607/ (NOM doesn’t reference Regnerus by name, but refers to his study when they say “The following graphs have been based on information from the “New Family Structures Study” found here: http://www.riformarriage.com/site/431/ This study was published in the well respected social science journal “Social Science Research” on June 10 2012.”
• http://wakingupnow.com/blog/dear-dr-regnerus

Please  feel free to call if you need anything else.

Best,
Rob

Thomas Peters Update

I’m trying to come up with some sort of pun using the term “facts evasion.” Because, you know, it sounds a bit like “tax evasion,” right? Right? No?

Anyway.

After posting my conversation with NOM’s Communications Director Thomas Peters yesterday, I alerted him to its existence:

@AmericanPapist Nice chatting on the phone today. http://t.co/9wjc7CHJFW Tell me if I got anything wrong. And please, release the audio.

— Rob Tisinai (@robtish) March 22, 2013

In response, he blocked me.

That’s probably the sensible move for him, on a number of levels. But it does nothing to change my judgment that Thomas’ primary strategy for dealing with inconvenient reality is simply to ignore it. Once again, it seems NOM is guilty of facts evasion.

No? Still no? Really?

I might need some help with that one.

The Daily Agenda for Friday, March 22

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: European Gay Ski Week, Alpe d’Huez, France; Exeter Pride, Exeter, UK; Florida AIDS Walk & Music Festival, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London, UK; Black Party, New York, NY; European Snow Pride, Tignes, France; OutBoard, Winter Park, CO.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Suspensions Announced of Allegedly Gay Teachers in Florida: 1961. Pinellas County School Superintendent Floyd T. Christian confirmed at a school board meeting that five Pinellas County teachers had been suspended for “alleged homosexual practices.” The action came after accusations against the teachers were lodged by a state Legislative Investigative Committee which had been formed in 1956 to root out communists from government but switched its focus to look for gays among teachers and university professors. Superintendent Christian said that following the accusations from the state, the teachers were suspended last October “with the full knowledge and approval of the board.” The matter was referred to the state’s Cabinet Board of Education in Tallahassee for a decision on whether to revoke their teaching certificates. The state board revoked the certificates of three of the teachers, but that decision was overturned by the State Supreme Court in 1962, saying the state board didn’t follow proper procedures. The three teachers’ certificates were finally restored in 1963.

Superintendent Christian would go on to become the Florida Commissioner of Education from 1965 to 1973, which became an elected position with Florida’s new constitution in 1968. Christan’s career ended in scandal, and he spent several months in federal prison following a conviction for income tax evasion.

Montana Senate Requires Convicted Gays To Register With Police: 1995. In a 41-8 vote, the Montana Senate gave its approval to a bill that would require offenders of the state’s anti-homosexuality law (which prohibited “deviate sexual conduct”) to register for life with local law enforcement officials. The provision was a last minute amendment to a bill requiring registration for those convicted of murder, rape, aggravated assault, incest, sexual assault, and indecent exposure. During the debate, Sen. Al Bishop (R-Billings) said that homosexual acts, even consensual acts between adults, were “even worse than a violent sexual act,” a statement that drew outrage among women’s rape crisis advocates. Gay rights advocates quickly organized rallies in Helena, Billings and Missoula, and the entire state became the target of national scorn. By noon the next day, red-faced lawmakers were in full retreat mode, repealing the provision specifying “deviate sexual conduct” from the bill that they had just passed the day before in a unanimous voice vote with no debate.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

This your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

I Spoke to NOM Today!

The National Organization for Marriage has been spreading a host of falsehoods about research into same-sex parenting. Every so I often I lob a tweet about this to Thomas Peters, NOM’s Communications Director. He never replies, which is a shame, because I’ve always wanted to know what he’d say when confronted with these blatant…inaccuracies.

And now I know. [Spoiler alert: He doesn’t say, “Oh, we’re awful, and I’ll fix it right away!’]

It began this morning when reader/warrior StraightGrandmother directed me to Maggie Gallagher in the National Review:

There are at least four reviews or studies in peer-reviewed literature that contest the claim that children do equally well with same-sex parents. (Regnerus, Marks, Sirota, Allen). None of which are mentioned by the American Academy of Pediatricians in their endorsement of gay marriage. They cannot cite a single scientific study in a peer-reviewed journal showing children with gay parents are better off if their parents are considered legally married. None of this matters. How serious are we about children’s well-being in this country?

Then I found this new press release on NOM’s website:

One recent large-scale random sample study that has been produced by University of Texas researchers found that those raised in a same-sex household fared worse than those raised in intact heterosexual families on two-thirds of outcomes measured. Nowhere in the AAP statement do they address the confounding scientific evidence by Regnerus, Marks, Sirota and Allen — all published in peer-reviewed journals. The AAP simply ignores them.

I know a bit about Regnerus and Sirota. Their studies tell us nothing about same-sex parenting. I called the phone number on the press release and spoke to a very nice press rep. She told me I should talk to Thomas Peters and gave me the number to his office. And I was all, Goody!

Well, Thomas was reluctant from the start: I’m not  a journalist, he doesn’t do impromptu interviews, and I should direct my questions to their press reps. I said a press rep had directed me to him. He hesitantly agreed to a conversation and asked whether I were recording it (no) and whether I were okay with him recording it (of course!).

I referred him to the press release quote above and asked if he were aware that the Sirota study did not look at same-sex parents. He slowly said no (I believe him) and asked what it did look at. I told him Sirota compared kids raised by straight dads with those raised by gay dads, but in both cases the dads were married to the mothers, so the study was really about opposite-sex parenting.

He told me he didn’t write the press release.

When I told him Regnerus hadn’t specified any results for kids raised by same-sex parents, he quickly agreed (that’s why I believed him about Sirota) and accurately characterized the study as looking at kids with a parent who’d had a same-sex relationship. I told him that NOM’s Rhode Island branch wasn’t describing it that way — they were falsely attributing these results to kids raised by lesbian couples.

At this point NOM’s Communications Officer told me if I had a problem with what NOM Rhode Island was saying I should talk to NOM Rhode Island.

(This was actually a screw-up on my part: I didn’t need to bring up NOM-RI. This falsehood was promulgated in the press release above!)

I pressed Thomas on the content of these studies and he fell back to affirming NOM’s broader point that the AAP had simply ignored other research when they issued their politically-motivated endorsement. That sent me back into the details of studies and he fell back to affirming NOM’s other broader point that there isn’t a lot of good research on the topic at all and I wondered whether that meant he was saying these studies supposedly against same-sex marriage weren’t good, either, and he said this was turning into more of a lecture than an interview, on which point he was probably correct, and he firmly and emphatically but not impolitely ended the call.

Whew.

So now I know what Thomas Peters will do when confronted with NOM’s falsehoods: He’ll act like facts don’t matter.

He won’t dispute the facts. He won’t admit NOM has the facts wrong. He won’t take responsibility for how the facts are communicated. Instead he’ll evade. He’ll change the subject. He’ll strategically retreat to discussing NOM’s broader points in order to avoid getting mired in the tiny points. Like facts.

Now, remember, I didn’t record the call, so I’m recounting this from memory. And I’m editorializing (just a bit?). But that, of course, is why Thomas records this sort of call. And if Thomas would like to release the entire, unedited audio of the conversation, I hereby grant him permission.

Somebody please let me know if he does.

Colorado Civil Unions Signed Into Law

After one failed referendum, two years being voted down in the House, civil unions were signed into law today with a high-five and thumbs-up from Governor Hickenlooper.

And video footage of (most of) Sen Pat Steadman’s formal remarks followed by the Governor’s signing.

Tiny Bisbee, AZ To Issue Civil Union Certificates

Gay-friendly Bisbee, Arizona

The city council of Bisbee, Az, a rough old mining town south of Tombstone that has since re-emerged as a vital arts community (pop. 6.000), has given its initial, unanimous approval to an ordinance that would allow any two unrelated, unmarried adults of any sexual orientation to enter into a civil union. According to the Sierra Vista Herald:

The City of Bisbee supports the right of every person to enter into a lasting and meaningful relationship with the partner of his or her choice, regardless of the particular sexual orientation of that partnership.”

City Council members reviewed the language of an ordinance Tuesday night that opposes discriminatory practices against lesbians, gay, bisexual and transgender people and offers them the same rights as any married couple.

The ordinance continues: “The City of Bisbee will exercise its inherent powers of self-government. as established under its city charter, to attempt to lessen the impact of these discriminatory practices upon all citizens within the (city limits)

The City Clerk’s Office would issue civil union certificates for $25, and would be given the rights of a married couple within the city of Bisbee. Because of the geographic specificity, this appears to be similar to domestic parnership registries which are in place in other cities like Tucson and Phoenix. But by calling this arrangement a Civil Union, the city council is sending a strong message about the city’s commitment to marriage equality. Arizona’s constitution prohibits same-sex marriage, but is silent on domestic partnerships or civil unions.

In 2010, Bisbee was named the gay-friendliest city in Arizona, and it remains one of my favorite weekend getaway destinations. You can read more about why I love Bisbee here.

Nation’s Largest Pediatrics Organization Supports Same-Sex Marriage, Criticizes Regnerus Study

The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement today putting the nation’s largest professional organization of pediatricians firmly in support of same-sex marriage.

In a policy statement issued today, the AAP says (PDF: 684KB/6 pages):

All children need support and nurturing from stable, healthy, and wellfunctioning adults to become resilient and effective adults. On the basis of a review of extensive scientific literature, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) affirms that “children’s well-being is affected much more by their relationships with their parents, their parents’ sense of competence and security, and the presence of social and economic support for the family than by the gender or the sexual orientation of their parents.”

…Public policy related to marriage and family is largely a state function. Consequently, the laws across the country that regulate marriage, adoption, and foster parenting by gay men and lesbians are an inconsistent patchwork. Even civil marriage in a state that permits it does not ensure access to federal benefits. The federal Defense of Marriage Act (1996; Pub. L. No. 104-199) denies members of married samegender households access and benefits equivalent to those available to households headed by married parents of different genders, such as (1) Social Security and related programs, (2) housing and food stamps, (3) federal civilian and military service benefits, (4) employment benefits, (5) immigration and nationality status, (6) remedies and protections for crimes and family violence, and (7) certain loans and financial guarantees. For this reason, the AAP has joined with other national organizations in support of the position that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional.

A core mission of the AAP is to support the best interests of all children, regardless of their home or family structure, on the basis of the common principles of justice. If a child has 2 living and capable parents who choose to create a permanent bond by way of civil marriage, it is in the best interests of their child(ren) that legal and social institutions allow and support them to do so. If 2 parents are not available to the child, adoption or foster parenting remain acceptable options to provide a loving home for a child and should be available without regard to the sexual orientation of the parent(s).

Recommendations:
The AAP works to ensure that public policies help all parents, regardless of sexual orientation and other characteristics, to build and maintain strong, stable, and healthy families that are able to meet the needs of their children. In particular, the AAP supports:

1. Marriage equality for all capable and consenting couples, including those who are of the same gender, as a means of guaranteeing all federal and state rights and benefits, and long-term security for their children.

2. Adoption by single parents, coparents adopting together, or a second parent when 1 parent is already a legal parent by birth or adoption, without regard to the sexual orientation of the adoptive parent(s).

The policy statement was accompanied by a tachnical report by Drs. Ellen C. Perrin, Benjamin S. Siegel, and the Committee on Psychosocial Aspects of Child and Family Health. Titled “Promoting the Well-Being of Children Whose Parents are Gay or Lesbian” (PDF: 736KB/12 pages), the report lists a whole range of legal disparities created by various state laws addressing the rights and responsibilities of parenthood, as well as legal disparities created by federal laws and regulations. The technical report also lists several disparities which directly imact the child’s health, including barriers which may prohibit one parent from making medical decisions for their children in emergency situations or accompanying their children in the hospital. Othe barriers stand in the way of a working parent obtaining employer-provided health insurance for his or her children.

The technical report also examines some thirty years of research on gay and lesbian parenting, including last year’s deeply flawed study by Mark Regnerus claiming to demonstrate negative outcomes for children of same-sex parents:

A recent publication was based on a large national sample of US adults who were asked whether their parents had ever had a relationship with a person of the same gender while they were growing up and whether they had ever lived with that parent while the parent was involved in such a relationship. Parents who were said to have had a same-gender relationship were categorized as lesbian or gay parents, although their sexual orientation was not directly determined. In comparison with those who did not report that a parent had had a same-gender relationship, a number of adverse outcomes were identified, including being on public assistance, being unemployed, and having poorer educational attainment. Extensive critique of this study has pointed out that:

• 
  It is well known that family instability, and in particular divorce, is a risk factor for children, and almost all of the respondents whose parent had had a same-gender relationship had also experienced the divorce of their parents.
• 
  These data reflect an era when stigmatization and discrimination toward same-gender couples and their children were strong and were likely to have contributed to less-than-optimal child-rearing environments.
• Respondents were certainly not children “raised by” lesbian or gay parents, because only half were living with these parents, and the sexual orientation of the parents was not determined.
• 
  The great variability in the form and characteristics of both same-gender and heterosexual relationships, combined with the small number of those relationships, even in a large data set like this one, makes it impossible to sort out true evidence of causality.

The Regnerus Study, which was mostly paid for by some $700,000 in grants from the anti-gay Witherspoon Institute, was released last year to great fanfare in the conservative press. BTB was the first to debunk the study on the same morning in which it was released to the public.

The technical report went on to review some thirty years’ worth of studies, and concluded:

On the basis of this comprehensive review of the literature regarding the development and adjustment of children whose parents are the same gender, as well as the existing evidence for the legal, social, and health benefits of marriage to children, the AAP concludes that it is in the best interests of children that they be able to partake in the security of permanent nurturing and care that comes with the civil marriage of their parents, without regard to their parents’ gender or sexual orientation.

The policy statement and technical report will appear in the April 2013 issue of the AAP’s journal Pediatrics.

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, March 21

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Rhode Island Senate Committee Considers Marriage Bill: Providence, RI. Last January, the Rhode Island House overwhelmingly approved a bill to provide marriage equality for the state’s same-sex couples. The tally was 51 to 19, with even the Republican Minority Leader urging the Senate leadership to bring the bill up for an up-or-down vote. One problem though is that the Democratic Senate President, Teresa Paiva-Weed, is an outspoken opponent of marriage equality. Paiva-Weed assigned the bill to the Senate Judiciary Committee, where four Senators support marriage equality, and four oppose, although one of those who oppose said he would vote to move the bill to the floor because his constituents asked him to. That makes five of the six votes needed for the bill to pass out of the committee, with two others not yet announcing their position.

Meanwhile, the waters were muddied when a senator proposed a competing bill that would allow Rhode Island voters to vote on a constitutional amendment allowing same-sex marriage. But that bill provides such broad religious exemptions that it would eviscerate the state’s anti-discrimination laws which prohibit  discrimination in employment, credit and public accommodations. That proposed amendment posed a serious threat by drawing support away from the bill passed by the House. But earlier this week, three Democratic co-sponsors announced they were withdrawing their support of the bill after getting an earful from their constituents.

All of this means that it’s anybody’s guess what will happen when the Senate Judiciary Committee meets today to consider both bills. The meeting will take place beginning at approximately 4:30 this afternoon in Room 313 at the State House.

Banned Ugandan Play To Be Staged In U.S.: Baltimore, MD. Last summer, an unusual play was performed in a couple of small venues in suburban Kampala, Uganda. What made the play so unusual was that it was the first known play on the Ugandan stage to feature gay characters in a pro-gay setting. British national David Cecil, who served as the play’s producer, was soon arrested, jailed, tried and acquitted of charges in connection with staging the play, only to be re-arrested again and deported a month later. That play, The River and the Mountain, will be presented as a stage reading beginning today and through the weekend, in four venues in the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area. The reading was supposed to feature Okuyo Prynce, a Ugandan actor who played the leading gay role in the original production in Kampala, but his entry into the U.S. has been held up by the INS. Playwright Beau Hopkins however hopes to be on hand for the stage readings.

Readings of The River and the Mountain will be conducted:

• Thursday, March 21, at Spotlighters Theatre, 817 St. Paul St., Baltimore, MD., at 8:00 p.m.
• Friday, March 22, at Bowie State University, 14000 Jericho Park Road, Bowie, MD., at 8:00 p.m.
• Saturday, March 22, at Artisphere, 1101 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA., at 7:30 p.m.
• Sunday, March 24, at Single Carrot Theatre, 1727 N. Charles St., Baltimore, MD., at 5:30 p.m.

Readings are free, though donations will be accepted. Click here for more information.

Events This Weekend: European Gay Ski Week, Alpe d’Huez, France; Exeter Pride, Exeter, UK; Florida AIDS Walk & Music Festival, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London, UK; Black Party, New York, NY; European Snow Pride, Tignes, France; OutBoard, Winter Park, CO.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Vadim Alekseevich Kozin: 1903. The great Russian tenor Vadim Alekseevich Kozin was celebrated throughout the Soviet Union in the 1920s for his recordings and concerts specializing in gypsy romances and love songs. He sang those songs, which he wrote himself, with such passion and tenderness that garnered him the title of the “Russian Orpheus.” He once gave a concert with American Paul Robeson and is said to have performed for Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin at the Tehran conference in 1943. But in those precarious days during Stalin’s rule, Kozin fell out of favor with the Kremlin and was arrested in 1944. He was sent to a prison camp near Magadan in the Russian Far East for five years for political offenses, “corruption of youth” and homosexuality. From that moment on, his songs disappeared from the radio and his public concerts came to an end.

After his release in 1950, Kozen resumed performing in local theaters in the Russian Far East and Siberia, but he was prohibited from performing in Moscow and Leningrad. It was during this period when Kozen began to keep a diary. “How I would like even just once,” he wrote of one unnamed man in 1956, “even for one instant, to look into the depth of those green eyes. Why does it happen like this? One person appears, and there is nothing else sacred in the world. He has filled it all himself. Who that person is, no one will ever find out.”

Kozin also used his diary to express his impatience with the official attitude toward homosexuality. “There is nothing unnatural in the life I want to live,” he wrote. “There is real, good friendship and complete mutual trust.” In another entry, he criticized actors with their “demonstration of fictional family values” and waving of party cards. “Do I have the moral right, with my defects, to see them that way? After torturous and long thought, I have realized that I do. They are much more rotten people.”

But Kozin worried that he risked further imprisonment. In another entry, he was alarmed by another actor while on tour. “His behavior will lead him to the camp. I must tell him that his sexual motives shouldn’t affect me at all. … I don’t want people to think about me like that again. I will try to suffer alone.”

Kozin’s fears were well-founded. He was arrested again in 1959 for homosexuality and was forced to write a humiliatingly detailed confession. Despite a brief revival in the 1980’s when his records were reissued, he was never officially rehabilitated. He died in Madagan in 1994 at the age of 91. Since his death, Vadim Kozin has become an icon in Russia’s gay community. One of his most famous songs is one called “Friendship” which, he later confided to a friend, was dedicated to another man:

“We are so close that words do not have to be repeated. Our tenderness and our friendship are stronger than passion and greater than love.”

Vadim Kozin with friends in Madagan in 1993:

Rosie O’Donnel: 1962. Times change, don’t they? During her years hosting her popular daytime talk show, The Rosie O’Donnell Show, from 1996 to 2002, she developed a reputation for being “The Queen of Nice” and for her self-professed crush with actor Tom Cruise. Two months before her talk show ended, she came out, saying, “I’m a dyke!” When she became a moderator for The View in 2006, her “queen of nice” persona was ancient history, as she engaged in several public controversies and on-air disputes. She was encouraged by the program to be provocative and outspoken, and she certainly delivered. She picked a public fight with Donald Trump, she compared the Mark Foley congressional page scandal to the Catholic Church’s child sexual abuse scandals, and she condemned the Bush Administration’s Iraq war policies. The final straw for O’Donnel was during an on-air argument with co-host Elizabeth Hasselbeck, the producers showed O’Donnel and Hasselbeck in a split screen, which, O’Donnel, said, “they (the producers) had to prepare that in advance… I felt there was setup egging me into that position.” Tired of the confrontations, O’Donnel left the show in May, 2007. Parade magazine named her “The Most Annoying Celebrity of 2007,” while Time called her one of their “100 Most Influential People.”

Since then, O’Donnell has been involved in several projects, including acting as Executive Producer of a Lifetime movie, hosting SiriusXM’s “Rosie Radio” from 2009 to 2011, a short-lived talk show on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN, and a collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company R Family Vacations. She has also been involved with several charitable causes, including early childhood care and education, adoption and foster parenting, and rehabilitation therapies for Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. Her For All Kids Foundation has awarded more than $22 million in grants to 1,400 child-related organizations. Overall, O’Donnell has given more than $100 million to charity. O’Donnel herself is a foster and adoptive mother, and in February of 2004, she married Kelly Carpenter in San Francisco when Mayor Gavin Newsom launched an ill-fated effort to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, but the couples split in 2007. (Those marriages were later declared invalid by the California Supreme Court.) In 2012, O’Donnel married Michelle Rounds in a private ceremony in New York.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

This your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Uganda’s President Denies Anti-LGBT Persecution

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni reportedly told a visiting delegation from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights that there was no marginalization or killing of LGBT people in Uganda. Both the government-owned New Vision and the independent Daily Monitor reported on Museveni’s remarks yesterday According to New Vision:

President Yoweri Museveni has said the issue of homosexuality and lesbianism has been totally distorted leading to wrong public debate.

“In our society, there were a few homosexuals. There was no persecution, no killings and no marginalization of these people but they were regarded as deviants. Sex among Africans including heterosexuals is confidential,” Museveni said.

“If am to kiss my wife in public, I would lose an election in Uganda. Western people exhibit sexual acts in public which we don’t do here,” he said, adding that, Africans do even punish heterosexuals who publically expose their sexual acts.

The president said what is new is the way Europeans and other Western people handle the issue of sexuality in general, including public flaunting which is a problem and luring young people into acts of homosexuality for money.

He said attempts to promote homosexuality as an alternative way of life has led to engagements in running battles with the church.

“You have a lot of room in your house, why don’t you go there. Sex is a bilateral issue, not a multilateral one,” he said.

Among the delegation was Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late Sen. Robert Kennedy. In 2011, the Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights honored Sexual Minorities Uganda executive director Frank Mugisha with the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. According to Daily Monitor:

Ms Kennedy, who was accompanied by several lawyers, actors and religious leaders, expressed concern over the pending Anti-Homosexuality bill, reports of harassment of the Gay and Lesbian Community in Uganda and over the exposure of the identities of sexual minority groups. She also said the pending bill on homosexuality works against the international law treaties that Uganda has signed. Ms Kennedy cautioned against the misconceptions that equate paedophiles with homosexuals.

New Vision reported that Kennedy also told Museveni that “it is a violation of people’s rights to put pictures of sexual minority groups in the [news] papers.” Museveni reportedly promised to investigate:

Reacting to various issues raised by the team, Museveni said he would investigate claims of violence against homosexuals, adding that for a viable solution, activists must respect the confidentiality of sex in our traditions and culture. He reiterated that in Uganda, “there is no discrimination, no killings, no marginalization, no luring of young people using money into homosexual acts”.

Museveni did not directly address the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, which still incudes the death penalty for what it defines as “aggravated homosexuality.” Some observers believe that in these statements he was distancing himself from the proposed legislation. I don’t see it that way at all. Besides, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been an exceptionally useful tool for Museveni’s government as it pursues other political agendas.

The bill still remains on Parliament’s agenda, under the heading of “Business to follow,” where it has occupied various spots since November. Parliament is currently on break until April as it wrangles over the highly controversial Marriage and Divorce Bill, which is wrapped up in highly emotional arguments over women in society and, in addition, pits government policy against entrenched and longstanding tribal practices. In fact, it was a walk out by women MP’s in a dispute over the Marriage and Divorce Bill in the closing days of the Eighth Parliament in 2011 which prevented the Anti-Homosexuality Bill from coming to a vote. With the Marriage and Divorce Bill back on the agenda, it appears that the AHB is again playing its normal role, having been placed on stand-by in case a unifying vote is needed to  heal fractures in Parliament, or if a popular vote is needed to salve outraged sectors of the general public.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, March 20

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Events This Weekend: European Gay Ski Week, Alpe d’Huez, France; Exeter Pride, Exeter, UK; Florida AIDS Walk & Music Festival, Ft. Lauderdale, FL; BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, London, UK; Black Party, New York, NY; European Snow Pride, Tignes, France; OutBoard, Winter Park, CO.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Florida Supreme Court: Gays Can’t Be Barred From State Bar: 1978. In 1976, Robert F. Eimers, a recent graduate of Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, had already been certified for admission to the Pennsylvania bar when he moved to Florida and took the exam for the Florida bar. He passed, but the Florida Board of Bar Examiners found that he might fail to meet the “good moral character” standard for admission because, in response to a question at a hearing, Eimers said that he was gay. The twelve member board deadlocked on whether to admit him and referred the matter to the Florida Supreme Court. On March 20, the Supreme Court ruled in a 6-1 decision that a “substantial connection” between private behavior and the ability to carry out professional responsibilities would be required to bar Eimers from practicing law, and his homosexuality did not rise to that level. “Otherwise, the bar will be virtually unfettered in its power to censor the private morals of Florida bar members, regardless of any nexus between the behavior and the ability to responsibly perform as an attorney.”

That’s where the “Today in History” part of the story ends, but Eimers’ story would contuinue. While Florida’s Supreme Court was correct in ruling that a gay man cannot be prohibited from practicing law because of his “private morals,” that same court nine years later would wind up disbarring Eimers because of his dismal public morals, not to mention breaking a few laws along the way. In 1982 Eimers, his law partner (who was not licensed to practice law) and husband-and-wife clients Daniel and Sally Phelps, were the subjects of an undercover sting involving money laundering and prostitution. In November 1982, they were all charged with two counts of money laundering, and the Phelps’s, in addition, were charged with three counts associated with the prostitution ring. After their arrest and indictment, they were all released on bail. The Phelps and Eimers were tried and convicted in June, 1983, but Eimers’s conviction was in absentia due to his becoming a fugitive in March. Eimers was sentenced to ten years and fined $100,000. In 1987, the Florida Supreme Court officially disbarred him (PDF: 176KB/6 pages) because of his felony conviction and allegations that he had misappropriated funds from three of his clients. I can’t find any record of his having served his sentence, but in 1993 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court also ordered his disablement in that state as well. He apparently died in 1998 at the age of 51.

And that, as they say, is the rest of the story.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

This your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

“Show Me Your Papers Before You Pee”

Cathi Herrod, of the Center for Arizona Policy (an official state affailiate of Focus On the Family) is shopping a proposal around to Arizona state legislators:

Now there is a “bathroom bill” before the state Legislature — “show me your papers” before you pee. Read it:

A PERSON COMMITS DISORDERLY CONDUCT IF THE PERSON INTENTIONALLY ENTERS A PUBLIC RESTROOM, BATHROOM, SHOWER, BATH, DRESSING ROOM OR LOCKER ROOM AND A SIGN INDICATES THAT THE ROOM IS FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF PERSONS OF ONE SEX AND THE PERSON IS NOT LEGALLY CLASSIFIED ON THE PERSON’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE AS A MEMBER OF THAT SEX.

The targets are transgender residents of Arizona. They would be committing a crime (a misdemeanor) by using the wrong bathroom with the wrong birth certificate. (Moms and dads would be allowed to bring opposite sex kids into the bathroom with them.)

Acording to Arizona Repiblic’s Brahm Resnik , “The new bathroom bill, SB 1432, is a ‘strike-everything’ bill inserted in the shell of another bill that had the same number.”  The original SB 1432 was supposed to deal with the licensing of massage therapists. A hearing is set for 2:00 p.m. tomorrow before GOP State Rep. John Kavanagh’s House Appropriations Committee.

Jeez, I live in a total freak-show of a state.

Update: From the Arizona House of Representative’s web site:

Overview:

SB 1432 requires the Arizona State Board of Massage Therapy (Board) to appoint an Executive Director (Director), outlines the Director’s powers and duties and establishes the Board’s fund.

Summary of the Proposed Strike-Everything Amendment to SB 1432

The proposed strike-everything amendment to SB 1432 is an emergency measure that adds a person who intentionally enters a specified area designated for the opposite sex to the disorderly conduct statutory classification, with exemptions.

History:
Arizona Revised Statutes Title 13, Chapter 29 establishes offenses against public order.  Specifically, statute outlines offenses classified as disorderly conduct, which include a person committing any of the following:

• Engaging in fighting, or violent disruptive behavior,
• Making unreasonable noise,
• Using abusive or offensive language to provoke an immediate physical retaliation by another,
• Preventing the transaction of business of a lawful meeting or gathering,
• Refusing to obey a lawful order to disperse issued to maintain public safety, or
• Recklessly handling, or discharging a deadly weapon.

Provisions:

• States a person commits disorderly conduct if they intentionally enter a public restroom, bathroom, shower, bath, dressing room or locker room, and a sign indicates that the room is exclusively for the use of one sex, and that person is not legally classified as a member of that sex on their birth certificate.
• Classifies the disorderly conduct violation as a Class 1 misdemeanor (6 months/$2,500).
• Provides an exemption from the violation for persons that:
  • Enter as part of their job responsibilities,
  • Enter to give aid or assistance to another,
  • Is a child in need of assistance, or
  • Are physically disabled.
• Contains an emergency clause.
• Makes a conforming change.

The amended Section 1.  Section 13-2904 as proposed is shown here.

Gracie, no one is trying to take one of your parents away.

I rarely get so enraged that it’s hard for me to write. Certainly I can be emphatic, sarcastic, even outraged, but that usually motivates me at the keyboard. Only rarely do I get so furious that I want skip writing altogether and just go out to scream on the streets.

But that’s happening today.

An 11-year-old girl, Gracie Evans, is getting a lot of press from the antigay establishment. As  NOM describes it:

Here is an 11-year-old(!), Gracie Evans, testifying before the Minnesota state legislature against same sex marriage. She had a question for the legislators: “I want to ask you this question: which parent do I not need: my Mom or my Dad?” [emphasis added].

She asks the question twice and looks around the room in vain for an answer. Out of the mouths of babes, my friends, out of the mouths of babes!

The anti-gay establishment is using Gracie to push the notion that same-sex marriage is wrong because kids need a mother and a father. And they take the room’s silence as evidence that no reply to this could ever be made.

At first when I read this I wasn’t angry at all.  I just thought this was ridiculous rhetorical stunt that some adults had put together. I mean, when our eloquent straight ally Zach Wahls describes the two devoted moms who brought him up, he could just as easily ask, “Which of these two parents did I not need?” and any decent person would have no good answer for him.

Then I thought of another reply, so clear, so obvious, a reply as simple as:

But Gracie, no one is trying to take one of your parents away.

And with that, I thought my argument was done. But the sentence popped into my head again, this time with a different inflection:

But Gracie, no one is trying to take one of your parents away.

And that’s when the rage started to build.

NOM is making full use of this girl’s testimony. They’ve created a graphic out of it and are building a PR push around it– NOM, an organization devoted to destroying our families. And that — that — is what makes me want to stand in the streets in front of NOM’s offices at shout “How DARE you??”

The only way I can pull it together is to imagine what I would say to the person I’m not mad at, little Gracie Evans, and how I would explain the situation to her. Here’s my best attempt.

Dear Gracie,

Congratulations on speaking in front of the Minneosta state legislature. That must have been scary. Even grown-ups get nervous doing it. You must be a bright and special girl, so I think you deserve to know why no one had a answer when you asked, “Which parent do I not need: my Mom or my Dad?”

See, Gracie, those of us who believe in same-sex marriage also think if you’re lucky enough to have two parents who love you, then you have every right to say you need them both. In fact, I wish every child were lucky enough to grow up in a safe, stable home with loving parents. And Gracie, that’s why I support same-sex marriage.

Let me tell you about two little boys who weren’t as lucky as you, at least not at first.

John was 4 years old, and his little brother James was only 4 months old. Their parents did not take good care of them, so they were sent to live with two men who had a nice home. John and James showed up in dirty clothes, and John had worms living in his scalp. Someone had given him medicine, but there had been no one to make sure he used it, so the worms were just getting worse and worse. Even the baby was sick, just a little 4-month-old boy with an earache.

Gracie, I know this sounds awful, but I also know you’re brave, so let me keep explaining.

Even though John was just 4, the only thing that mattered to him was taking care of his baby brother. There had been no one else to do it, and it had been very hard. Although John got lots of food in his new home, he would sneak extra and hide it in his room, because having enough food to eat was such a strange and unusual thing for him. Before he lived in that home, he had never seen a book, didn’t know how to count, and couldn’t even say what the different colors were.

But Gracie, things got better after they moved in. A few years later, the boys were going to school, saying grace over dinner, doing homework at night, going to church, and they even had pets! A dog, a rabbit, and a kitten.

Soon these two men, whom John and James called “daddy” and “papi,” wanted to give them a safe place to live forever. But believe it or not, some people didn’t want this to happen, just because the parents would be two men. But Gracie, think about the boys’ lives before they found this home, and how things got better after they moved in and became a family. Now think about little John asking you, “Which parent do I not need? My papi or my daddy?”

I bet you wouldn’t have an answer for them, either.

John and James were lucky. They did get to stay with their new parents in a safe home. But in a way, Gracie, you’re even luckier, because your parents were allowed to get married. Our country has a lot of laws that help married parents keep their family strong and protect their children.

But John and James’ parents aren’t allowed to get married, so they don’t have that help. They have to do it on their own, and they will, because they love their new sons. But do you think that’s fair? Now that John and James have been lucky enough to find a safe home, don’t you think their family deserves the same help and protection as yours? Haven’t their live been hard enough?

Thanks for listening, Gracie, and I hope you to take a little time to think more about John and James.

Yours truly,

Rob

The Thirty-Six Percent

Click to enlarge.

An ABC/Washington Post poll released yesterday (PDF: 194KB/5 pages) shows that support for marriage equality has hit an all-time high:

Support for gay marriage reached a new high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, marking a dramatic change in public attitudes on the subject across the past decade. Fifty-eight percent of Americans now say it should be legal for gay and lesbian couples to wed.

That number has grown sharply in ABC News/Washington Post polls, from a low of 32 percent in a 2004 survey of registered voters, advancing to a narrow majority for the first time only two years ago, and now up again to a significant majority for the first time.

Most Americans, moreover, say the U.S. Constitution should trump state laws on gay marriage, a question now before the U.S. Supreme Court. And – in another fundamental shift – just 24 percent now see homosexuality as a choice, down from 40 percent nearly 20 years ago. It’s a view that closely relates to opinions on the legality of same-sex marriage.

The poll also shows that intensity of opinion has changed a lot in the past decade. But what’s most interesting, I think, is how much of a shift has occurred  in just the past seven months:

I think Rob Tisinai is onto something in observing that the recent rush of a few key conservatives who had previously opposed marriage equality to the pro-equality camp represents their last opportunity to be on the right side of history before the door closes for good with the Supreme Court’s upcoming marriage cases. After all, nobody remembers anyone who decided to support mixed race marriages after 1967’s Loving v. Virginia decision. And with the notable exception of Alabama Gov. George Wallace, it’s hard to remember anyone who switched his support for segregation after Brown v. Board of Education and the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

And yet, switching sides for those who had staked out such a strong position against marriage equality cannot be an easy thing to do, mainly because it means having to admit that you were once wrong. And while a few in the Republican Party are willing to do that, and while the younger generations of Republicans are telling their elders that they most definitely are wrong, it’s only now that the GOP appears to be truly wrestling with how to pivot, but without pivoting. Last January, a panel of “Political Insiders” convened by The National Journal showed that among GOP insiders, 48% said that their party “should avoid the issue” of gay marriage, and only 11% said they should oppose it outright. So when the Republican National Committee released its “autopsy” of the 2012 presidential election, it chose not to address gay issues directly, but noted instead that those issues stand in the way of reaching the voters that the GOP really needs in order to survive:

For the GOP to appeal to younger voters, we do not have to agree on every issue, but we do need to make sure young people do not see the Party as totally intolerant of alternative points of view. Already, there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be.

If our Party is not welcoming and inclusive, young people and increasingly other voters will continue to tune us out. The Party should be proud of its conservative principles, but just because someone disagrees with us on 20 percent of the issues, that does not mean we cannot come together on the rest of the issues where we do agree.

…When it comes to social issues, the Party must in fact and deed be inclusive and welcoming. If we are not, we will limit our ability to attract young people and others, including many women, who agree with us on some but not all issues.

That’s hardly the call for the GOP to become more gay friendly that some observers have made it out to be.  But rather, it’s a call to recognize that the GOP’s positions on gay rights are turning off young voters, the demographic that the party really wants to attract. But how the GOP will do that without changing its positions on gay marriage is anybody’s guess. My  guess is magic. Or social media, which is also magic. Or more realistically, as Michelangelo Signorile suggests, the Supreme Court:

It’s been been clear since President Obama came out for marriage equality in May of 2012 that a Democrat could never win the Democratic presidential nomination again without supporting marriage equality. But few of us would have imagined just a few years ago that contenders might be fiercely battling one another over who has done more for gay equality. With mainstream America embracing gay rights, that’s becoming a bigger reality. The GOP’s only hope, it seems, is for the Supreme Court to take the issue off the table entirely. It’s ironic (and grotesque) that the party that has been the most vociferously anti-gay, the party that brutally attacked LGBT people for decades and exploited homophobia for political gain, may be praying that the justices next week begin the process of giving gays full equality.