The Real Steve Schmidt
Lawrence Lowe has a terrific, insightful piece on Steve Schmidt at TNR that is well worth your time. This is interesting:
Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for the California governor’s re-election campaign, told me that Schmidt isn’t always “comfortable with the whole social conservative aspect of the party. He’s a big patriot and has a big respect for the military—his wife was a navy nurse—but being judgmental and moralistic, that’s just not his cup of tea.” Dowd recalls having long conversations with Schmidt, whose sister is gay, over cigars in Schmidt’s backyard “about civil unions and gay marriage, where he wasn’t necessarily in lockstep with the Republican Party.”
Weaver describes Schmidt as “hardly a right-wing reactionary guy” and counts him among a corps of Republican operatives in their late 30s and early 40s—most of whom have served in the Bush White House—who hope to chart a less divisive course for the party in the coming years.
The trouble is that “being judgmental and moralistic” is fully consonant with charting a less divisive course — the question is, what kind of public morality are you championing? I strongly believe that Republicans need to reject anti-gay rhetoric and policies. But a pro-marriage politics, for example, is less about abandoning moralism than embracing a more inclusive moralism. Isn’t it? I think so.
Mr. Salam, the core and periphery of the homosexual population sum to about 3% of the total, who are ‘excluded’ primarily because they perform poorly or not at all in the sort of intimate human relations that a well ordered society is built around. Their status is at issue in political life because a vanguard among them keep insisting that:
1. Matrimonial and family law be distorted and disfigured to please them, by judicial fiat if necessary;
2. Labor law, commercial law, and landlord-tenant law be modified to allow them to compel hiring, contracts, and miscellaneous transactions that would otherwise not take place; and
3. The ethos and standards of conduct in the military be altered to accommodate them; and
4. Self-gossip and making a public spectacle of yourself is a defensible and salutary activity; and
5. Their social viewpoint is properly incorporated into state school curricula (though the schools can and do function without reference to or discussion of sexual perversion), even as the social viewpoint of others is pointedly excluded.
A regular listener of David Brudnoy once said “it wasn’t an issue because he never made it an issue.” The homosexual population is an issue largely because a self-appointed vanguard have made it an issue. It is not distasteful or dishonorable for politicians, be they Republicans or no, to say ‘no’, ‘suck it up’, and ‘hesh up’ to Elizabeth Birch and Cleve Jones, et al. The political demands of lobbies are refused all the time, and it beggars belief that those who fancy themselves the tribunes of this subpopulation are not quite pleased when elected officials and judges tell the petitioners of antagonistic communal groups to screw. That is what happens in a working political society.
— Art Deco · Aug 2, 02:13 PM · #
Art Deco, I think the real number is closer to 7%, but that doesn’t affect your point.
What does affect your point is the political reality, not just of a vocal 7%, but 1) a further 35-40% of sympathetic voters, 2) a sympathetic elite, and 3) the zeitgeist of inclusion.
So while the numerical value of the vanguard is negligible, there are other political facts which distinguish the Gay Rights movement from other, more (politically) unsavory flavors.
Politically, you cannot win on the issue of private behavior (moot after Lawrence); nor can you win on the issue of political and social equality. In fact, I don’t think you win on any issue where you’re side is arguing exclusion, or, for that matter, suggesting any policy of negative distinction.
Rather, as you pointed out, the way you win is to stand your ground on the issue of public license and decorum. Or, as Reihan says, the right kind of public morality.
— Kris Sargent · Aug 2, 04:42 PM · #
Art, I find what you’re saying objectionable and there’s going to be a fascinating flame war here I don’t want part of. But there’s one place you have a real problem, that I do want to point out. You want to say, look, it ain’t that all the gays are bad, it’s a “self appointed vanguard” agitating for this stuff. But you’re going to have to confront that fact that the large majority of gays — not just that “vanguard,” want recognition of civil marriage-like rights, freedom from discrimination in commercial and legal matters, and the opportunity to serve in uniform. So you’re going to have to stop pretending you’re worrying about some artificial group of gay leaders and worry, I guess, about gays, period. Your idea of an artificial nonrepresentative lobbying leadership might apply to those of us heterosexuals who also find discrimination against gays deeply offensive, but it doesn’t apply to gay opinion makers or leaders.
— Sanjay · Aug 2, 04:47 PM · #
Sanjay, I have little doubt that a large fraction of the male homosexual population regard themselves as entitled to the solicitude of the state, among others. However, only a small minority of Americans are politically active at any given time and about three-fourths pay no attention to public affairs. The courts and the politicians are importuned by the few, not by the many. The lobbyists in this case represent a small minority.
Kris, I am not sure of the provenance of your 7% figure, but it looks derived from an oft-quoted figure of 10% as pertaining to the male population. That figure was propagated by the Indiana Institute for Sex Research in 1948 and referred to the population that had had exclusively homogenital relations extending over a three years period, not to an abidingly or exclusively homosexual population. It has been known for some time (and was known by some at the time) that Dr. Kinsey and Dr. Pomeroy made use of a convenience sample with a high proportion of prison inmates, quite apart from the other deficiencies in their sampling. Dr. Kinsey was a biologist who specialized systematics and entomology. He did not have the acquired skills to do what he was attempting to do.
You cannot say ‘no’ to the homosexual lobby without oppositional statements, a.k.a. ‘anti-gay rhetoric’, & c. Policies in opposition to that lobby’s preferences would mean undertaking no changes in matrimonial law, no changes in military discipline, leaving private companies to develop their preferred office culture (i.e. doing nothing, nothing, nothing and leaving private companies in peace), excising discussion of sexual perversion from state school curricula (where it is largely gratuitous, a distraction from authentic learning, and injurious to the preferences of a large minority in some areas, a majority in others), and confining adoptions to ordinary married couples (who are lined up three deep to do so). Mr. Salam is advocating giving that lobby what they want and ratifying the freebooting of the educational and social services apparat, or he is deeply confused. Whatever for? What’s in it materially for anyone but the aforementioned 3%? As for the helping professions, the chattering classes, the anointed amongst the professional-managerial bourgeosie, &c., there are organizations which promote their understanding of how things ought to be, including the Democratic Party in most times and places. Are the rest of us chopped liver? Mr. Salam has co-authored a book offering a program for the other party. He either believes the opposition in these matters is demographically inconsequential (it is demonstrably not) or it is properly negligible for its benighted character (this from your soi-disant allies).
— Art Deco · Aug 2, 05:43 PM · #
Art, 7% was the number I was taught in my sociobiology classes; rightly or wrongly, it is reiterated in several similar books on the subject. Where they got it, I can’t remember.
7%, 3%, 10%, whatever number you use is beside the point. Even if you put the number at 10%, you’re still dealing with a marginal group properly defined as “fringe”.
My point is that sympathy for Gay Rights — up to and including political sympathy — is not a fringe phenomenon, even though the actual set of homosexuals is. This is a political reality, and as such has large implications for a “working political society.”
One implication flows from the 48-to-52 constraint on ascent/descent in national party politics. This dynamic artificially magnifies the impact of the swing voter and the wedge issue; the issues that “matter” are the ones that allow oftentimes subtle, oftentimes merely rhetorical adjustments in focus rather than principle. The trick is to shave off a larger percentage of the swing vote than you lose on the other end (the motivated base). Most often this tactic manifests as triangulation; purchase the digestible wheat of a wedge issue, discard the indigestible chaff, repackage and resell in the home-team brand.
Public order, private freedom, and political equality are themes Republicans can win with. That’s because the 1-2% that might be shaved off the top of this issue are not anti-gay-sex in principle; instead, these voters are anti-“in-your-face”-gayness, or anti-licentiousness, or uncomfortable with normalizing homosexuality in the public sphere, and worried about its impact on their children.
In other words, Republicans cannot win on this issue with a thud, which is what you’re advocating.
— Kris Sargent · Aug 2, 06:49 PM · #
Art- for someone who claims to disapprove of those who “perform poorly or not at all in the sort of intimate human relations that a well ordered society is built around,” you seem to have an inordinate fondness for having your head stuck up your own ass.
Also: please stop writing like such a candy-ass dandy fop. “benighted”? “soi-distant”? You sure write fruity for someone who hates gays.
— on the other hand · Aug 2, 07:16 PM · #
Kris, Electoral politics and advertising are not my trade, so I would not venture to say much about the practical implications of this (and I suspect that political consultancy incorporates a good deal of voodoo sociology in any case). There is the question of what a politician should regard as negotiable. That aside, I do not think Mr. Salam is proposing merely rhetorical adjustments, nor would the dissent attributed to the fellow profiled in the article in question implicate merely that, either. If our public policy was animated by the principle that we would not ‘normalize homosexuality in the public sphere’ and respect ‘private freedom’, every single benefit acquired by the gay lobby in the political and social sphere over the last forty years would have to be rescinded bar the repeal of proscriptions on consensual sodomy, funding for AIDS research, and the discontinuance of the practice of summary dismissal from public employment. Mr. Falwell might have been satisfied with such a settlement.
OTOH:
1. I am not sure how you can see where my head is or guage how much time it is in one position rather than another;
2. My diction is not meant to please you;
3. I have no particular solicitude for the interests of the asphalt lobby, the Farm Bureau Federation, suburban taxpayers, public employee unions, and quite a number of others. In my experience, tribunes in comment boxes attribute this to my hating heart with reference to one group (homosexuals) and to my murderous heart with reference to another (Arabs from the old Palestine Mandate). Otherwise, I’m just a shmoe with an opinion. Parse that.
— Art Deco · Aug 2, 08:35 PM · #
Art: Perhaps you’d have a point if members of the asphalt lobby were not permitted to marry or if the homes of suburban taxpayers were bulldozed without restitution and without due process. Failing that, though, I fail to see how the situations are in any way analogous.
People demanding their human and civil rights are not just another special interest group asking for a favor.
— on the other hand · Aug 2, 08:50 PM · #
OTOH:
‘Human and civil rights’ as defined where?
The community is under no obligation to dignify the user defined affiliations of homosexual men with the term ‘marriage’, which has had heretofore a very specific meaning in occidental civilization. It is under no obligation to regard such transactions as of such merit and importance that formal legal obligations adhere to them. It is under no obligation to regard such affiliations as something meriting more official notice than ordinary friendships between men. I cannot put a buddy of mine on my company health insurance, no matter the length, depth, and durability of our friendship; I fail to see how adding sodomy to fraternity renders it more of interest to social institutions.
In New York law, consensual sodomy was a class b misdemeanor. The penalty for class b misdemeanors could include unconditional discharge, conditional discharge, a modest fine, some months probation, or a term in jail no longer than 90 days. Uncompensated seizures of real estate were not on the list of permissible sentances. I doubt they were in other states, either.
— Art Deco · Aug 2, 11:10 PM · #
Art, there’s nothing wrong with being gay. You should just try to learn to accept your sexuality.
— cw · Aug 3, 06:33 AM · #
Hey screwhead, the dig about bulldozers was about your reference to Palestinians, whom you refuse to even call by their name. Zing!
In the future, rather than splaying them all over the comments, please keep your unconditional discharges to yourself, hmm?
— on the other hand · Aug 3, 11:31 PM · #
That is a non sequitur, cw.
OTOH:
I think if the Arab population on the West Bank or in Gaza would like a quiet life, they might rein in their ample population of bomb-throwing blockheads. In persuit of an aspect of this, their leadership might just cut a deal with their Jewish neighbors. They have, since 1947, rejected three clear opportunities to do this. Vicious stupidity has consequences.
— Art Deco · Aug 4, 12:32 AM · #
“Vicious stupidity has consequences.”
If that is the case, I can rest all the easier, knowing that you’ll eventually get yours. Unfortunately, I’m not as convinced of these karmic consequences as you are, and I fear that you’ll live the rest of your life displaying the same blissful lack of self-awareness that you manifest here.
— on the other hand · Aug 4, 02:29 AM · #
“That is a non sequitur, cw.”
A classic response from someone in denial. Critique the stationary so as not to have to deal with the contents of the letter. Again, I say, those sexual urges you have for other men are nothing to be ashamed of. That is who you are and there is nothing you can do about it. Homosexuality is biologically determined. You can no more deny it than you can you height or skin color. And as such, it is perfectly natural, and therefor OK. You are OK, just as you are: a gay man.
— cw · Aug 4, 02:53 AM · #
Interesting… a response can be found here:
http://joshxiong.com/?p=55
— Don · Aug 5, 08:34 PM · #