I Left My Heart in Sodom and Gomorrah

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCII

First, one of our favorite columnists, Mark Morford, writes at SFG, Feb. 18, about the executive lawlessness in San Francisco. Note the sort of respect he shows towards Christians.

Friendly sex shops. Peet's. Dog parks. Stellar restaurants. Superlative tattoo artists. Fabulous weather. Unparalleled natural beauty. Organic foods. Fewer SUVs, more Priuses. Mission burritos. An overwhelming anti-Schwarzenegger sentiment. Sushi. Bush never visits.

There are things that make you happy to live in San Francisco, truly grateful, along with plenty of things that make you hyper-aware that you live in the country's most progressive open-minded convoluted messed-up liberal bubble, for both good and ill.

But few are the things that transcend mere gratitude, things that our struggling budget-strapped modern metropolis has offered of late that makes you say, oh my God, I am right now so incredibly proud to say I live here, I mean just look what we're doing, look what ground we are breaking, what stagnant trends we are blasting, what history we are making.

But for the moment, that's all changed. There is one astounding beacon of political and social (and romantic) action about which San Franciscans can be truly emboldened: The move to legalize same-sex marriage, to hold genuine same-sex wedding ceremonies, this should make any progressive soul proud to live in this amazing city. Deeply, genuinely, thoroughly.

Here's why: No matter what the final outcome, this past week will go down as one of those defining moments, a seminal point in American history. It hearkens back to the civil rights movement and to women's suffrage, though with less screaming chanting effigy-burning marches and beatings by angry cops, and more roses and warm-hearted grins and life-affirming smooches on the steps of city hall.

It was a delicious and heartwarming historic spectacle indeed, and there was simply no way for any person of any elevated consciousness or spiritual awareness — anyone with any heart whatsoever — to witness the huge line of happy, eager same-sex couples snaking around city hall and not be deeply moved, profoundly touched.

I was there. I saw the lines, the smiles, felt the intense emotional energy. It was simply irrefutable: These are people in love. These are couples who have been together for years, decades, who have started families and raised children and set up homes replete with dogs and dinner parties and antiques and regular shopping excursions to Safeway and the mall. You know, just like "real" Americans.

These are couples who are willing to go the distance, to commit and connect, and who are eager to prove to themselves and the world that their love is something true and real and momentous, something that, in truth, can only serve to reignite and reunite our stagnant, fractured, contentious, 50 percent-divorce-rate nation. Hey, we need all the help we can get.

And one other thing was very apparent: It was a situation in which you simply could not imagine anyone hurling gobs of intolerant hate at it. It would have required a serious amount of nasty, inbred ignorance and appalling nerve to march up to any of the passionate and committed couples waiting patiently in line for their marriage ceremony and say, you know, God hates you for this, you immoral disgusting sodomites, and it's intolerable and unacceptable that you wish to love and honor each other till death do you part.

Which, yes indeed, is exactly what a great many antigay groups are doing, in effect, right now.

But here's the best part: The City's brave move was not merely a giant well-manicured middle finger to the Christian Right and indignant homophobic conservatives everywhere.

Nor was it just an audacious act of civil disobedience, guaranteed to raise the ire of Bible thumpers and so-called pro-family groups hailing everywhere from Orange County to Colorado Springs. That's just a nice bonus.

It was, more than anything, an incredible celebration of love. The more than 2,600 wedding ceremonies performed so far were the purest evidence, an irrefutable outpouring of the most wondrous and messy and baffling and orgasmic and desperately needed of human emotions, the air electric and warm, the ceremonies themselves radiant and poignant and genuinely tearful.

And no question became so clear, so obvious, as the one being asked by same-sex-marriage advocates around the world: What, really, is so wrong about this? What is the horrible threat about two adults who love each other so intensely, so purely, that they're willing to commit to a lifetime of being together and sleeping together and arguing over who controls the remote? And what government body dares to claim a right to legislate against it?

It is a question no group, no homophobic senator, no piece of antigay legislation, no BushCo stump speech, no Bible-humping [sic] pastor has been able to answer with any clarity or conviction.

They can only mumble about immorality and quote some vague Scripture about sodomy that makes them all tingly, as wary biblical scholars all over the world roll their eyes and point to a thousand proofs that demonstrate, over and over again, how the Bible is basically a reinterpreted regurgitated piece of classic patriarchal misogynistic mythmaking that says exactly what the church rewrote it to say.

But I might have part of an answer. From what I can glean from some of my hate mail and the general conservative outcry, here is what the homophobes fear about same-sex marriage: bestiality.

That is, they are utterly terrified that same-sex marriage is a slippery slope of permissive debauchery that will lead to the utter breakdown of social rules and sexual mores, to people being allowed to marry their dogs, or their own dead grandmothers, or chairs, or three hairy men from Miami Beach.

In short, to the neocon Right, a nation that allows gays to marry is a nation with no boundaries and no condoms and where all sorts of illicit disgusting behaviors will soon be legal and be forced upon them, a horrific tribal wasteland full of leeches and flying bugs and scary sex acts they only read about in chat rooms and their beloved "Left Behind" series of cute apocalypse-porn books.

You know, just like how giving blacks the right to own their own land meant we had to give the same rights to house plants and power tools, or how granting women the right to vote meant it was a slippery slope until we gave suffrage to feral cats and sea slugs and rusty hubcaps.

This, then, is why it is a time to be incredibly proud. San Francisco is slapping this moronic worldview back to the dank basement of subhuman intellect, where it belongs. We have broken the taboo, challenged the ignorant and the easily terrified, made it beautifully clear that what matters most in a modern society is not unfounded, naive fears, not uptight religious puling, but a humane and equal, joyous sense of love for all.

The war is far from over. It will be a brutal battle, with much hate yet to be spewed, much Bible waving and law mangling accompanying what will undoubtedly be a slow, painful sea change for a very uptight, easily terrified American society.

But S.F. has taken the lead, has sounded the battle cry, has defined itself anew. And for that, more than any other of its wonders, I am incredibly proud that I live in San Francisco, the best city in the whole goddamn world — gay, straight or anywhere in between.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Back to Planet Earth.

First, an article by Peter Schrag at SacBee, Feb. 18.

Pollster Stanley Greenberg was in Berkeley the other day flogging his new book, "The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It." Greenberg, political adviser to President Clinton and a list of other political leaders on the liberal side of the spectrum — from Al Gore to Tony Blair, Nelson Mandela and Gerhard Schroeder — believes that the sharp and nearly even political split in America reflects, more than anything else, a deep cultural divide. Within that divide, the major parties represent two "cultural blocs" clustered around deep splits about faith, family and moral values.

On the Republican side: Christian evangelicals; "privileged men," the "f-you boys," blue-collar men without a college education; exurbia and rural voters.

On the Democratic side: "black power" and, to a lesser degree, Latinos; "super-educated women"; "secular warriors," people who don't go to church and don't own guns; the unions; and, more generally, the "cosmopolitan states" (including California and most of the Northeast) with high concentrations of college-educated voters, environmentalists and minorities.

Because of the sharp and nearly even national divisions — in voting, in Congress, in the states — between these two party blocs, Greenberg says, each has concentrated its electoral strategy in getting out its base and only marginally in broadening its appeal.

And so for more than a generation, neither party has offered the kind of vision for the country that, for example, gave the New Deal its dominance and ability to control the national agenda through five elections. Ditto, to a much smaller degree, for the short-lived Reagan revolution that, in Greenberg's view, still "lives vividly in the consciousness of today's modern conservatives."

Greenberg, who hopes his Democrats can break the deadlock, thinks they could win the 2004 election with their re-energized base alone. So far, he said, they've avoided the symbolic internal cultural fights that badly damaged them in the past.

In general, while the Republican states are gaining population, the demographic trends favor his party. The declining number of "f-you boys" now represents just 6 percent of the electorate, the rural vote is shrinking and the percentage of the population with at least a college degree is growing.

With mounting doubts, moreover, about the costs of the Iraq war and the distorted intelligence used to justify it, the jobless recovery, the ballooning deficit, the endemic favoritism for corporations and their executives, the festering White House embarrassment about the president's National Guard service, President Bush's own base is not as imposing as it seemed a year ago.

But Greenberg wants something broader and policy-rich than another swing of the pendulum, and he thinks his party could do it — as he unsuccessfully urged Gore to do in 2000 — by coupling its attacks on corporate favoritism with a much more positive and encompassing "opportunity" vision.

The notion of equal opportunity, he says, is losing the racial cast it's had since the 1960s. Clinton sold the idea of diversity as a source of national strength, and equal rights are more accepted.

According to Greenberg's polls and surveys, "People are hungry for a view of America as a place of opportunity." The opportunity vision cuts across the cultural divide.

Greenberg also understands that there's risk in a no-risk, just-bring-out-the-base strategy, in part because unforeseeable events could confound it, and in part because Republicans control all three branches of government in Washington — and because of that huge advantages in campaign funds — and thus have enormous power to manipulate the political agenda.

One unforeseeable event — the gay marriage issue — is already in play, thanks in part to the Massachusetts Supreme Court and thanks in part to Gavin Newsom, the new mayor of San Francisco, who in one of his first major acts (of monumental political stupidity), successfully urged city officials to grant licenses for the gay unions that Californians had voted overwhelmingly to forbid.

That measure, Proposition 22, the gay marriage initiative passed by a 61 percent to 39 percent margin four years ago, was itself a nasty volley in the culture wars and a foray into religious wedge politics where, aside from the property and custodial laws relating to civil unions, the state ought to have no business at all.

Polls show that while Americans oppose gay marriage, they also worry about the federal government's meddling with the sort of constitutional gay marriage ban that Bush has been toying with. But just when Bush's support and his poll standings are shrinking, here come San Francisco's city-county sanctioned gay marriages — almost certain to be declared invalid anyway — to rouse Bush's base.

Clinton learned painfully that wading into the gay front of the culture wars in his first days in office is not a good way to begin. Maybe Newsom has no wider political ambitions. But just as Bush, fearing a weakening political base, is working overtime to inflame the cultural right, couldn't Newsom have done his fellow Democrats a favor and waited a year before adding fuel to the fire?

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Finally, Carla Marinucci writes at the San Francisco Chronicle, today.

Now that Democratic San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is allowing same-sex marriage in San Francisco, he has won the gratitude of Republican Party activists in California and across the nation.

GOP stalwarts say Newsom has fired up Republicans by handing them a defining issue just when they needed one. The parade of City Hall marriage ceremonies blanketed cable TV news shows at the height of the 2004 Democratic primary season, when presidential contenders were grabbing most of the headlines by bashing President Bush on issues like jobs and the economy.

"It's going to be a political backlash, and I think it will obviously mobilize our troops a lot more than it will mobilize traditional Democrats," said leading GOP consultant Ed Rollins, who believes the same sex marriage issue could impact both the presidential and California U.S. Senate races.

Senate Republican leader Jim Brulte of Rancho Cucamonga (San Bernardino County), noting that two-thirds of state voters approved the 2000 Knight Initiative defining marriage between a man and woman, said the issue "doesn't fire up just rank and file Republicans. It draws a visceral reaction from most Californians.''

Said Brulte: "If the mayor of San Francisco wants the people of California to debate gay marriage again, we're more than happy to have that debate."

Indeed, the possibility of such a revived debate, and the potential national ripple effect on the political front, was underscored this weekend as 1,200 GOP insiders from the nation's most populous state gathered at their semiannual state convention in the Hyatt Regency Burlingame, not far from where hundreds of gay marriages have been performed.

From the exhibition halls to the debates and cocktail receptions, the chatter this weekend was about the next step: taking the issue of San Francisco's gay marriage to the streets, to the court, and to the heartland, with an eye toward helping George W. Bush get re-elected.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking before the California state Republican convention Friday, won a standing ovation when he urged Democratic state Attorney General Bill Lockyer, the state's top law enforcement officer, to terminate San Francisco's wedding celebrations immediately, blasting what he called Newsom's "unfortunate choice to disregard state law."

And Republican U.S. Senate candidate Howard Kaloogian drew cheers Saturday when, in an obvious jab at the San Francisco mayor's recent actions, said that "when a judge steps over a line" and writes law from the bench, "that judge should be removed.''

The comments dramatized the increasingly high stakes of an election year that has morphed a local matter into a national battle, one in which Republicans have begun gearing up in earnest.

"We're mad as hell about it," said Marilyn Mellander, a central Contra Costa County GOP committee representative of Newsom's actions in San Francisco City Hall. She said that voters will revolt if Democrats try to push the matter too far and that Republicans will begin demanding to "send out the police and arrest these people.''

Tim Bueler, 17, a young Sonoma County GOP activist who has been featured on national television shows for trying to start a conservative club at his Rancho Cotati high school, said young voters were also getting fired up because gays and lesbians "have no right to redefine marriage.''

While many Republicans believe gays have the right to be happy and live their lives, he said, it's angering some that "communists are using homosexuality to push an attack on the family.''

Loren Thornton, a GOP activist from the South Bay, predicted the issue would backfire on the Democrats come fall.

"The more they shoot their mouths off, doing things that offend ordinary people, the better for Bush," said Thornton, who shook his head as he talked about the San Francisco mayor.

Newsom's actions will "force politicians to take a stand," he said. "And if they stand with gay marriage, they're dead.''

Pete Ragone, spokesman for Newsom, said this week that the mayor's action were not political at all, but merely an effort to uphold the state Constitution by "refusing to discriminate against anyone in our state." He noted that hundreds of couples daily were committing to each other and their families at City Hall, and that Republican leaders should see for themselves that "what has happened is both lawful and loving.''

But that explanation — and the mayor's contention that he would abide by what the courts decide — hasn't deterred Bush and other GOP officials from weighing in on a matter that fires up their conservative base.

Indeed, Republicans in Burlingame are gleeful that Lockyer, a potential Democratic candidate for governor in 2006, has had his feet put to the fire on the issue.

Likewise, U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer has faced some heat. This week, the Democrat pronounced the law banning gay marriage to be "fair," getting a tongue lashing from other Democrats like Board of Equalization Chair Carole Migden, who said Boxer's reluctance to stand with gays and lesbians could cost her support from her own base.

"The mere fact that Boxer has already switched her position" from being against (Proposition 22) to calling it fair "indicates that she sees a political sensitivity to it," said Rollins. "There are an awful lot of people in America who would certainly be supportive of a contractual arrangement," such as civil unions. But most still see marriage as "a sacred thing," Rollins said.

U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, speaking out for the first time, also said this week that Newsom should have taken a legal route to challenge the current state law. The Democrat worried publicly that he may have set off a political earthquake that, in the end, could endanger domestic partnership rights and fire up a move toward a constitutional amendment outlawing same-sex marriage.

But Rollins also cautioned that Bush — or any other Republican, for that matter — should avoid pressing the matter too aggressively — or allow it to be perceived as a wedge issue.

Brulte said that voters may not see this as a wedge issue, but as a matter of principle — and that's where the GOP can win with voters.

"You have a relatively young mayor from San Francisco who wanted to make a name for himself, who's already put himself on the national political stage by defining California law," Brulte said. "But I think if he (saw) the logical conclusion of what he's doing, he wouldn't do it.''

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 02/22/04 05:07:40 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Political.