You gotta smack 'em in the forehead with it

I hate paper. So it's no surprise that it took me more than a month after the LP National Convention to finally go through the crushing mass of paper I accumulated there. But one thing stood out -- a rainbow flag of a postcard simply saying "Vote your values" followed a candidate's name .com.

For anything to stand out in the mass of papers stuffed in my LP Convention binder, it must be well designed. And it got me to thinking about something one of our local Massachusetts candidates opined about recently. To paraphrase, he said that the LP has been better on gay rights than Republicans and Democrats, ever since our party was founded in 1971. But the gay activists don't support the LP, and the gay voters don't support the Libertarian candidates. Why not?

My answer is "because you gotta smack 'em in the forehead with it." And that's exactly what Bruce Guthrie, Libertarian for US Senate in Washington State has done.
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It's not like high school civics classes even mention third parties, much less their positions on the important issues of the day. And we all know how worthless the mainstream media is at covering third parties. So it's up to the parties and the candidates to educate the voters, which is difficult, especially when you want to target a minority of constituents who tend to no longer ghettoize geographically for easy door-knocking. In the case of the LGBT community, you're pretty much stuck with doing your outreach via the annual Pride celebration. But you simply won't get many takers if you try to give folks at an LGBT Pride celebration plain black-and-white brochures (or if they take them, you find them on the ground or in the trash ten feet away). Though if you give out something as eye-catching as a giant rainbow flag with the empowering words, "Vote your values," people are compelled to take it, probably assuming it's from a Democrat.


But then, when they're ready to look at who the candidate actually is, and they turn the card over, they see that it's not a Democrat, but rather a Libertarian. And not your typical crazy-looking wouldn't-wear-a-suit-if-his-life-depended-on-it Libertarian, but a professional-looking candidate with a professionally-run campaign, yet with the uncompromising stance on equality under the law that differentiates Libertarians from the other parties.

Bruce Guthrie's campaign for US Senate in Washington State is a model for how Libertarian candidates need to be reaching out to the LGBT community and other constituencies currently being oppressed by government. It's unapologetic in its support of key libertarian values, but it makes use of the marketing tools long since mastered by the major party candidates. I'd love to see more campaigns like this, which don't hide from or apologize for the Libertarian platform, but rather proudly embrace it, while running a serious organization that can be considered viable not only by the voters, but by the media. This is the path to electoral success.

Pass An Anti-Gay Law, Destroy Your Economy

When people say that gay rights are “special rights,” they couldn’t be more wrong. Gay rights, from a Libertarian perspective, are simply affording gays the same legal responsibilities and rights as any other group of Americans receives. Various state governments, however, don’t see it that way, and they do so not only to their own detriment, but the detriment of their own citizens.

Consider this example: when I lived in Silicon Valley in 2002, Alabama was making a concerted push into the Valley to try and recruit high tech companies. Alabama had what it thought was the ultimate in incentives – low taxes and an abundance of cheap electricity (compared to the government-enabled Enron scam, this seemed like a blessing). However, they had trouble attracting Silicon Valley companies.
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I agreed to meet with one of the economic advisors to the Alabama government when he was visiting in Palo Alto, and explained to him that despite all the tax benefits, Silicon Valley companies would never relocate to Alabama because of its anti-gay laws. Then Alabama-Supreme-Court-Justice Moore’s ruling that gay parents need to be executed before keeping custody of their own children would ensure that the many gay parents working at Silicon Valley high tech companies would never agree to move to that state. Mix in the anti-gay attitudes in every level of government, laws designed to harass gays (or make them jump through hoops to get their powers of attorney recognized, etc.) and Alabama was anathema to the employees and thus their employers.

The Alabama rep was furious. “You’re saying we have to accept that lifestyle to get investment,” he fumed. He didn’t understand that not harassing or targeting gays is not “accepting a lifestyle,” but rather following the dictates of the Bill of Rights. He insisted that Intel, Apple, AMD, Hewlett-Packard and other companies could simply force their employees to move to Alabama – he wasn’t aware that most of the top marketing, strategy, design, engineering and finance people at all of those companies have standing offers for employment at competitors which they could take at any time. He then insisted that the companies could move their heterosexual-only employees to Alabama. Ignoring the absurdity of such a proposition (can you imagine the HR implications?), he didn’t understand (or care to understand) that often, gay employees are the decision-makers in such a scenario and would never go for it. Silicon Valley is successful because it’s a meritocracy – one’s religion, race, sexual orientation, etc. is not a barrier (or enhancer) of success. Alabama is not a meritocracy, thus the Silicon Valley culture of innovation would never take root.

Alabama probably spent/wasted millions of dollars on this campaign – to no avail. Not a single Silicon Valley company chose to move there. Alabamians who could have looked forward to a career in a high-growth company which rewards performance, not religion or sexual orientation, likely had to leave the state for others places to find it -- driving a continued brain-drain and continued capital flight out of the state. The price, if ever calculated, is likely quite high to the state economy.

Which brings me to the latest absurdities, this time in Virginia:

Edel Quinones lived in Virginia for 10 years, but early this year, he sold his Arlington townhouse to move to the District.

"It felt like I wasn't welcome anymore," he said.

Quinones and his partner of three years are joining a migration of gay people out of Virginia in the face of recent legislative action they perceive as hostile.

Twenty states have amended their constitution to ban same-sex marriage since 2004. Virginia state legislators passed a law two years ago that prohibits "civil unions, partnership contracts or other arrangements between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage." A proposed constitutional amendment, which will go to voters in November, excludes any "unmarried individuals" from "union, partnership or other legal status similar to marriage."

Many gay people in Virginia and some family-law attorneys say they worry that the state law and proposed amendment are more far-reaching than simple bans on gay marriage -- that the measures could threaten the legal viability of the contracts used by gay couples to share ownership of property and businesses.

The exact effects are unclear, and the 2004 law remains untested, but some gays say they fear the laws could affect their ability to own homes together; to draft powers of attorney, adoption papers or wills; or to arrange for hospital visitation or health surrogacy.

Once again, a state that isn’t too interested in its economy passes a law that makes its gay citizens strangers to the law. Some suggest that the law might not survive a court challenge, or that it won’t be rigorously applied, but most gay families aren’t going to risk being the “guinea pigs” for such a court case – putting their assets, health, financial decisions, hospital visitation options, child custody, parental rights and other basic, constitutionally-guaranteed rights up to risk.

Virginia, and Fairfax County in particular, has made great noises about what a high-tech economy it is building. The qualitative trends are beginning to suggest otherwise, and I suspect the numbers will as well. What entrepreneur is going to want to set up shop in a state which targets gay people for nasty treatment? Gays are all over high tech -- they're some of the hardest working employees around. In certain areas of high technology, especially development, engineering, product design and marketing, many companies have groups which are 20% gay or more -- run by gay and lesbian managers. Locating in a state like Virginia will shut off access to over 20% of the talented, hardworking employees the entrepreneur needs in order to succeed. He'll simply cross the state off his list, or put it at or near the bottom, along with Alabama and Ohio.

For various regions of the country, the message is clear: anti-gay policies that marginalize or destroy the rights of gays under the US Constitution also destroy the economic growth prospects of the jurisdictions that pass them. Non-partisan gay groups should start carrying this common-sense message forward – Libertarians have done so since 1971.

Montana Democrats Reject Gay Amendment Plank

This speaks volumes about how the Democrats feel about equality before the law for gays. Short version: only when it helps them stay in power.

Houston Voice Botches Article; Shills For Democratic Front Group

I came across this article in the Houston Voice, the local queer rag. It is about the Houston GLBT Political Caucus (HGLBTPC) PAC's Endorsements in twenty-seven Houston-area races.

Guess how many Libertarians or Republicans were endorsed? How about Greens or Independents?

If you guessed "zero," you would be right on the mark. How about Democrats? Twenty-Seven — what a lucky choice!
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Now, I am not one to disparage partisanship; we practice it here on the Outright Libertarians web site every day. But what I thought somewhat duplicitous was that this bias towards Democrats was nowhere disclosed in either the column or by the HGLBTPC themselves. Nowhere does it mention that the HGLBTPC is just a Democratic party front group. In fact, on the HGLBTPC's web site, the endorsements are all listed, but nary a one with their party affiliation.

I checked out the party affiliation of every single named candidate, judges and all. This, too, turned out to be more difficult than I expected. It may be hard to believe, but about half of the candidate web sites do not mention that the candidate is running as a Democrat! Sometimes I had to find a local newspaper report in order to find out which party the candidate belonged to. Are these candidates ashamed of their Democratic party affiliation?

We are up front about our Libertarian Party bias. It is in our mission statement and even our name. Why can't the HGLBTPC be honest about their purpose? It seems that they are redundent with the Stonewall Democrats, except they try to achieve their purpose by chicanery and deception. I bet they didn't even approach the Libertarian candidates to find out their position on marriage equality and other gay issues.

Partisanship by the Voice's journalist is even less forgivable. While they mention the party affiliation of many of the endorsed candidates, and some of their opposition Republican candidates, the only Libertarian mentioned is Michael Badnarik in the 10th Congressional district, and then only as "also running". Badnarik's pro-gay positions, reported on by us here, are not mentioned at all.

Also not mentioned are all the other Libertarian candidates, not least of which is our Gubernatorial candidate, James Werner. A quick comparison of the 170 Texas Libertarian candidates vs. the 27 HGPC endorsements indicates that about half are opposed by Libertarians, not just one.

Update: Ironically, this 2004 column just got indexed on Google News today. It gives a pretty good overview of Badnarik's views on LGBT issues.

IGF - ‘Beyond Marriage’ — to Nowhere

This is a very good article, explaining why marriage equality is, and should continue to be, our highest priority in LGBT advocacy:

Independent Gay Forum - ‘Beyond Marriage’ — to Nowhere

But even better than the article is the set of comments afterwards, which shows just how boggling the thought processes are of those who put socialism before equal rights:

My point is that FIRST we need to provide for those in need in our community, whether through the private sector or the government. I don't care. I'd rather give homeless folks a community land trust to live in, with a living wage job. But that ain't going to happen anytime soon. Some of us are working on it here and we've managed to establish a land trust for a building of Chinese immigrants who were about to be evicted. We are currently working on a land trust for a building of low-income people with AIDS.

In the meantime, homeless and poor folks have to eat and have shelter. That's the bottom line. So bringing food to them is vital, even as we struggle to find the permanently affordable housing controlled by the tenants, even as we push to enforce our city's living wage laws and expand them to include every job, even as we win universal healthcare for all San Franciscans (which we just did). The latter was from a radical queer supervisor, Tom Ammiano, though our centrist mayor is now traking credit for it. Thanks to him, every person in SF, homeless or housed, will have access to healthcare!

Many of us Socialist types are doing more than handouts.

-- tommi avicolli mecca | August 4, 2006, 1:29pm

That last sentence implies that the laundry list of wealth redistribution schemes right before it are anything other than "handouts." When the person you're debating is that clueless, how on earth can you carry on an intelligent debate?

Two Wrongs do not a Right Make

And this is wrong on at least two fronts.

365gay.com reports that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco has decided to get out of the adoption business rather than submit to state regulations requiring same-sex couples be treated equally. This is unfortunate.

It is too bad that the Catholic establishment feels the way it does about same-sex couples. There are kids needing adopted, and couples willing to raise them. Many children today are raised by only one parent, so having two, of any sex, seems like a blessing.
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I must admit that it is their right to set any criteria they want for whom they deal with, no matter how much I may disagree with their logic (or faith, as logic may not have been involved). Which brings us to the second part of the tragedy.

The state does not believe in the Archdiocese's freedom of association . . . it is telling them exactly how they must conduct the business of adoptions, and with whom. That "whom" includes same-sex couples. For the church that is a show-stopper.

Instead of two wrongs making a right, we just have a lot of heartbreak and disapointment.

• The church stops helping with adoptions for those 90-plus percent of couples that they are willing and anxious to serve
• Those couples don't get kids
• Those kids don't get placed, and many stay as wards of the state; surely not the best parenting organization around
• And ironically, same-sex couples—those austensibly "protected" by the non-discrimination law—still don't get served

It's a lose-lose-lose-lose situation. The church, the straight couples, the kids, and the same-sex couples all lose. Did I mention the taxpayer? All this grief brought about by religious fundamentalists on the one hand, and a bunch of liberal do-gooders abusing the power of government on the other. There needs to be a stand-down, starting with the State of California butting out of the church's business.

When will everyone learn? Force is seldom the way to accomplish a social objective. That is, unless your objective is specifically to increase the size and scope of government.


Update: The church blinks first, with a creative approach to the problem.

Get ready for liberals to abandon marriage equality

It's already started. Egged on by a report by 260 gay "scholars," entitled "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision for All Our Families & Relationships," Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle suggested that with the oceans dying and the ice caps melting and Iraq in flames and 10 million kids in Africa starving, that gay marriage maybe wasn't worth quite as much energy as it was getting.
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In contrast to the argument I've heard from many libertarians that the government should just get out of the marriage business altogether (to which I respond that I'll support that position as soon as the majority of straight folks are ready to tear up their marriage licenses and give up their government goodies), both Carroll and the gay "leaders" are suggesting more government benefits for many more groups of people. In other words, "Queers for Economic Justice" agrees with liberals like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton that socialized medicine and other wealth redistribution schemes are more important than LGBT equality.

Get ready for it. The Democrats have already effectively dropped LGBT advocacy, in their preparation for the presidential election two years away. By 2008, you'll see groups like HRC endorsing whomever the Democrats put forward, no matter how bad they are on LGBT equality, because the people running the national gay organizations are socialists first, and queers second.