The Argent Wall

Big Content, systemic control and cultural consumption

2012-01-22T21:49:00.006+11:00

The vast majority of popular entertainment content - movies, tv shows, music, games - is owned and legally controlled by media conglomerates. They co-operate, via organisations like the RIAA and the MPAA, in ensuring that the system of ownership and control by which they can generate content and make a profit from it gets maintained, legitimised and extended. This is done via lawsuits, anti-piracy advertising, lobbying for greater legal ability to control distribution channels, and what have you. This system - let's call it "Big Content" - depends not just on the existence and aggressive enforcement of laws restricting the distribution of intellectual property, but upon the popularity of the content distributed within the boundaries of the restricted system. It also depends on the near or total lack of popularity of content outside of this system.

This describes the current situation. Sure, content is created and circulated outside of this system - copyleft, Creative Commons licensing - but in terms of popularity, these efforts are small potatoes compared to Big Content. The most popular media content is Big Content's content.

A quick clarification: "popular" as I'm using it here can refer to both content that is widely consumed, and content that is widely known. So Justin Bieber's music may not be popular to everyone in the first sense, but it is definitely popular to everyone in the second sense: people at least know who he is, even if they hate him and don't ever listen to his music. My belief is that the popularity of Big Media content in the second sense - the shared knowledge of it - is what makes finding a viable alternative to Big Content's system so difficult.

Why is Big Content's content popular? This is where people start getting it wrong. Supporters of the Big Content system interpret "popular" in the first sense, and say that content generated and distributed within the Big Content system is popular because it's good, and it's good because the system works: content creators get paid for good stuff, and the better the stuff they create, the more they get paid, and the more incentive they have to create stuff that's good. But "good" is a relative term. While the label "good" can perhaps objectively be applied to things like technical polish (and even then there's the existence of things like "garage rock"), it becomes much mushier when it comes down to matters of aesthetic taste. One person's "good" is another person's "low-brow trash" is another person's "pretentious twaddle". Saying that popular content is popular because it's "good" is simply saying that it's popular because a lot of people subjectively agree that it's good. Popular content is popular because it's...popular.....

A more technical-minded person might interpret "popular" more broadly, and might identify the reason for popularity as the control over the system of mass distribution by which Big Content had monopolised the content accessible to people. Big Content's content became "popular", in both senses described above, because it was foisted on consumers through narrow broadcast media like radio and TV. Consumers had little choice about what content they actually could consume. Fortunately, with the Internet and the proliferation of other distribution channels, it's now only a matter of time before the popularity of Big Content's content, dependent on narrow and controlled distribution as it is, stops being popular. Right? Well, no, that doesn't seem to be happening.

While as much control as possible over the system of distribution is very important to Big Content (the basic reason why proposed legislation like SOPA/PIPA even exists is to increase this control), it is not the sole thing buttressing the popularity of Big Content's content. The popularity isn't just tied to mass distribution, but to mass consumption. Or more specifically, to mass cultural consumption.

The content created through the system of Big Content is a specific type. I have previously described interaction with content as a cultural act. By this I mean that it forms ongoing relationships between the content and the people who interact with it. Here's a rough draft of how I see the different types of possible relationship formations being categorised: (1) individual relationship formation: a relationship is formed between 1 person and some content ("This album changed my life!") (2) communal relationship formation: people known to each other seek to form similar individual relationships with some content ("You should totally listen to this album!", "Let's go see a movie!") (3) mass relationship formation: people not known to each form personal relationships with each other by comparing the individual relationships with content that they have ("So what kind of music do you like?"). Interaction with content includes both consumption of content (watching movies, listening to music, etc) and production (writing fanfics based on a tv show, imagining yourself in the world of the movie, even humming).

Interaction with Big Content's content is primarily cultural consumption. But the more important characteristic of interaction with Big Content's content is that it, to date, is the content that by far the most readily facilitates cultural acts of mass relationship formation: forming new relationships with others via their share relationships with content. In our complex society where almost everyone is a stranger to everyone else, this is incredibly useful. Without it, feeling connected to others in society becomes much, much harder. It may not make sense to say that Big Content's content is popular because it's popular, as supporters of the system of Big Content do. But it may be possible to say that Big Content remains popular because its popularity is advantageous: it allows a mass society of strangers to feel like they're at least a little bit connected to each other, because they share the same culture. People are accustomed to this, and don't look like they're going to give it up any time soon.

Diversifying the channels of distribution and production - the most commonly imagined solution to the monopoly of Big Content - doesn't address this mass cultural function. In fact it directly contradicts it by breaking down the commonality of cultural experience through diversifying of the experience of content, and consequently increasing the dissimilarity of shared experiences of content between individuals.

It is this cultural issue, not a better technical platform, which needs to be addressed before any serious attempt to replace the system of Big Content can ever gain significant popularity. There is currently no alternative to the system of Big Content that can reliably generate content which facilitates mass relationship formation through the shared experience of it. Either such an alternative system needs to be created, or the system of shared cultural experience which so greatly facilitates the smooth running of mass society must be given up by that society's members. Until then, Big Content's content will remain the most popular content.

The "Mega Conspiracy" indictment

2012-01-21T20:58:00.004+11:00

The indictment for those involved with Megaupload, Megavideo, etc, etc, (the people and companies referred to in the indictment as the members of the "Mega Conspiracy") makes for interesting reading. Broadly, it seems that the argument in favour of treating the whole "Mega" enteprise as a criminal conspiracy to make money from stolen goods rests on three main sets of claims (1) that the people involved repeatedly demonstrated awareness of the existence of movies and television programs that they knew were copyrighted being distributed through Mega sites, and did nothing about it; (2) that the Mega sites were trying to give the appearance of complying with the Safe Harbor provisions of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), but actually weren't; and (3) the Mega enterprise only made a profit by engaging in illegal acts.

To the first one, the indictment repeatedly highlights e-mails from the highest-level owners and operators of the Mega sites instructing their clients on how to access popular TV shows, movies and music that were the product of big-name studios. For example, item 25 of the indictment lists an e-mail in which one high-level staffer e-mailed another complaining that the copies of TV show the Sopranos that he'd found was in French, and whether there was another version available.

Basically the prosecution is trying to attack the claims to ignorance of actual content that the defendants are most likely to make. It's relying in part on the actual claims of the higher-ups (example from item 69 (kk), a chat log in which one higher-up wrote "we're not pirates, we just provide shipping services to pirates"), but also in part on the assumption that much copyrighted and restricted content should be instantly recognisable as such: if it's a popular TV show, movie or song, then someone or something, most likely a media company, must own it, and must have restricted its distribution. The sad thing is that this seems to me to be basically true:popular media is so dominated by corporate-owned, highly restricted content that a reasonable person would assume that distributing it must be illegal unless explicitly told otherwise. So if someone becomes aware that, say, an episode of the Sopranos is online, then surely they know that they're violating copyright by distributing it, right? It should be interesting if the Mega site operators try to argue that the answer to that question is no.

To the second set of claims, the indictment points out an interesting technical quirk of the various Mega sites: if a file to be uploaded was identified as already present on the relevant Mega site, then there would be no duplication of the file on the Mega server, merely provision of a new URL that the "uploader" could distribute to share the content that they wanted to share. Multiple access URLs could thereby be generated for the one file. This is relevant because, according to the indictment, when a Mega site received a takedown notice, they did not remove the file, merely the access URL. The actual content remained on the Mega site servers, and could still readily be accessed by anyone who had an alternative URL for it. Further, the DMCA requires that a site have some sort of procedure in place to deal with repeat offenders if the site is to qualify for the Safe Harbor provisions. The indictment claims that the Mega sites made no effort to put any such procedure in place.

The situation here is somewhat more complex due to the technical issues at play. I don't think the DMCA is precisely worded enough to give a clear answer on the Mega sites' responsibilities. The relevant section of the DMCA keeps referring to how a site must "remove or disable access to" content that is the subject of DMCA takedown notice. There is some evidence of a cavalier attitude towards the DMCA, but also an attempt to abide by precise letter of the law: disabling access to content when a means of access is pointed out but not assuming that this means they have to hunt down and disable other ways of accessing the same content. I fully expect the defendants to argue that they were in full compliance with the DMCA at all times. I also fully expect that if the defendants are successful in such an argument, copyright owners will point to such a result as proving that the DMCA is deficient.

To the the third and final set of claims, there's a bit of insistent terminology going on in part I think. In item 7, a "cyberlocker" is characterised as exclusively being for private storage only, and the Mega sites are contrasted with this on the basis that they derive their profits from downloads and uploads (through advertising and through selling subscriptions that allow for greater capacity to download and upload) rather than from file storage. I'm not sure if the definition of a cyberlocker is so clear-cut: many storage sites (for example, Microsoft's Skydrive) provide facilities to easily share files with others, and many people only use "cyberlockers" for sharing, preferring to keep their private data, you know, private. This alone is not proof of nefariousness.

But in this set of claims, there's also a highly revealing sentence in item 5: "In contrast to legitimate Internet distributors of copyrighted content, Megaupload.com does not make any significant payments to the copyright owners of the many thousands of works that are willfully reproduced and distributed on the Mega Sites each and every day". There seems to be no alternative concept of copyright to the one in which content must be bought from a content owner - no copyleft, no Creative Commons licensing. There is also no concept of volunatary sharing: content is distributed once, by the "legitimate" distributor, and that's it.

Combined with the implicit assumption above that any popular content must be owned and restricted by a media company, and you start to get a picture of the world according to the people who most likely pressed for this indictment, i.e. media companies. In this world, power over the distribution of content is exclusively in the hands of those who own it. This power exists solely so that a profit can be made from it. Distribution of content must be restricted so that profit can be maximised. Content that is not so restricted is not popular, and is therefore not profitable. It is also, therefore, irrelevant. The cultural value of content - the emotional attachment of an individual to it, the desire to share this attachment with others, the bonds formed through shared experience of it - is secondary to its value in turning out a profit. Alternatives to this arrangement simply do not exist.

To be honest I expect the "Mega Conspiracy" to lose most if not all of their case, including the charges of money laundering. They thought that they could monetise culture by charging for facilitating the cultural act of sharing. Unfortunately it is impossible to make such a business model work when the most culturally salient content is owned and restricted by entities who are more interested in turning a profit than in developing actual cultural involvement among people.

That problematic control over popular content is what must be addressed. I hope to write more on it tomorrow, hopefully in a shorter and less meandering post. Blogging certainly seems harder to do than I remember it.

From the academic journals archive - privacy online

2011-10-07T13:39:00.003+11:00

Extracted from 'Situating Privacy Online' in the journal Information, Communication and Society Vol 7, issue 1, p100

In August 2000, the Pew Internet and American Life Project released ‘Trust and privacy online: why Americans want to rewrite the rules’, which described the results of a telephone survey. Researchers found that about a quarter of ‘internet users have provided a fake name or personal information in order to avoid giving a Web site real information’ (PEW 2000). Lying came ahead of the two other privacy-protection strategies mentioned in the report, namely email encryption software (9 per cent) and anonymizing software (5 per cent). This report caused quite a stir in the media (e.g. Charny 2000) and even prompted some zealous business executives to argue that lying when releasing personal information should be made illegal and punishable by law.

Heh.

Facebook to update itself yet again

2011-09-22T23:30:00.003+10:00

So apparently there's some huge Facebook revamp happening tonight (Australian time) which is going to absolutely blow our minds. Of course, there's this from the article:

For Facebook, it all boils down to one problem: emotion. Facebook has hundreds of millions of users and spectacular levels of engagement, but it is a platform that has lost its emotional resonance over the years. More and more people visit Facebook out of necessity rather than desire.

Nice PR spin.

As I said in the comments in that article, the issue with Facebook isn't "emotion", it's trust. People don't trust Facebook. And with good reason. Their privacy record is poor, and then there's this stuff, where they diddle about with the interface comfortable in the belief that people are going to learn to like it no matter how much they complain initially (they're certainly not going to leave. Where would they go? Google Plus? Google currently has trust issues of its own...)

I thought I'd give a quick stab at what possible wonderful new features Facebook might roll out that would "make it so you know your friends better than you ever thought you could":

Video chat with friends: this handy feature will automatically make any webcam you have attached to your computer turn on when you start browsing Facebook, and the video feed will automatically be made available to all your friends who are online at the time. It’ll be an always-on feature initially, but there’ll be an option to turn it off (rumour has it the off switch will be under the “account settings->manage friends” option...somewhere...)

Dating suggestor (aka Stalker-Suggest): by simply taking the “interested in” profile setting of a user, checking which profiles of the relevant gender you’ve browsed but haven’t friended, and running a proprietary "face comparison" algorithm over the tagged photos in its huge photo database, Facebook will suggest people that it thinks you might find attractive, and who live nearby, whose profile and photos you might want to check out. Unfortunately a bug in the new feature will mean that any person who clicks the link to browse the suggested profile will find that they can see all the prospective date’s photos, even if they were initially privacy-locked.

I wonder the actual changes will be, if it's just going to be some sort of cloning of Google+'s functionality?

The dubious existence of "do not euthanize me" cards in Holland

2011-09-19T23:43:00.004+10:00

From the "rapid response" section of the online portal to the British Medical Journal :

Fitzpatrick argues against legalization of assisted dying. The argument is partly built on quicksand. Particularly when referring to empirical fact, the water becomes turbid.

When he argues that older, disabled people's lives are under threat when a law would permit euthanasia, then he uncritically cites Lord McColl, who apparently has said: "Many elderly people in the Netherlands are so fearful of euthanasia that they carry cards around with them saying that they do not want it." However, an empirical foundation for this claim is not, and cannot be given. To my knowledge, no such anti-euthanasia cards exist in the Netherlands. What does exist is a living will ( the so-called 'levenswensverklaring') which is distributed by the Christian Dutch Patient Association (NPV). In this living will a person can express his or her wishes regarding end-of-life medical and nursing care in case of incompetence. Amongst others, the person may indicate that active life termination by him or her is considered not to be an acceptable option.

It is not known how many people actually have completed such a living-will. Lord McColl's quote is both incorrect and overly suggestive.

Details about sources from this Facebook group do seem to suggest that the so-called "do not euthanize me!" cards are simply the Dutch version of a "living will", and that the talk of "elderly people living in fear" is overwrought, to say the least.

I'm not 100% sure where the "over 10,000" figure from that Facebook group (and other online locations) comes from. Several sources refer to the "Nightingale alliance", but I can't locate any talk of actual figures anywhere on their website.

Euthanasia film on Youtube "Euthanasia: False Light"

2011-09-19T23:11:00.002+10:00

Between the scaremongering introduction and the blatant pulling of heartstrings about how much these terminally ill people enjoy life, this film does raise one or two interesting issues. It's helped me understand some of the anti-euthanasia framing a little better I think. Unfortunately it also has a few outrageous-sounding claims about how euthanasia is practised in Holland that I can't readily verify.

The framing I see is simply one of mistrust, specifically mistrust of the medical system. This is fair in that no modern system is infallible. But it seems to go further in this film: doctors are presented as inherently unable to judge the question of life and death accurately, and this seems to be at least in part because subjective experiences of life and death are viewed as inherently spiritual, not medical, concerns.

One recurring person in the film was a doctor, and he raised an interesting point in that doctors are trained to be clinical, and that talking to patients about issues of life and death with a patient require an empathetic approach, not a clinical one. Doctors right now aren't really trained to handle euthanasia very well because they see it in clinical, not medical, terms. Is this true?

I ask because several of the claims made about how euthanasia had worked out in Holland seem a tad dubious. One of them was referenced on ABC show QandA tonight. The claims were (1) that handicapped children are being euthanised in Holland, (2) that some people in Holland felt the need to go around carrying cards in their wallets saying "do not euthanise me", and (3) that an un-named 26-year-old ballerina was euthanised after getting arthritis in her toes, and the doctor who euthanised her said "one doesn't enjoy these things, but it's her choice". A garbled version of the last claim appeared on QandA, saying she was 25 rather than 26, and claiming that the doctor was required to perform the euthanasia (something that I don't think was mentioned in the film at all).

I'm going to have a quick hunt to see if these claims can be verified or not, though I don't hold out much hope. The film itself is fairly short, and is on Youtube. It's two parts, each about 7 minutes each:

Part 1
Part 2

Your name is not your identity

2011-09-08T17:33:00.004+10:00

Right?

So many of the claims in favour of "real names" online aren't about the benefit of knowing someone's name, but about knowing someone's identity. Western society has been quite good at conflating the two, so that provision of a name is viewed as equivalent to the provision of an identity.

They aren't actually the same. A supporter of using real names online once gave me an example where anyone would supposedly want a "real names" policy in place. Suppose I was seeing a doctor. Obviously I'd want to be able to see that their real name, not a pseudonym, was on a real degree indicating that they were a real doctor, wouldn't I? My response was that as long as I knew they were a real doctor, I didn't need to know their real name. Your name is not your identity.

The obvious question leading off from that is: how do I know they're a real doctor? And can you know this without requiring the doctor to reveal their name in public? I say that public disclosure of real name has historically been part of the process by which such verification of an identity claim has been done. But there is no reason why it has to be. Your name is not your identity.

Nymwars: is Facebook getting too much of a free pass?

2011-09-08T13:14:00.001+10:00

After Facebook went public, in 2008 it faced some issues with its requirement for "real names" that seem quite similar to the ones currently faced by Google+. Take the trouble Elmo Keep (that is her real name) had: Banned for keeps on Facebook for odd name. Or the case of V Addeman (also a legal name): Facebook rejects a man named V. There were many others.

Did complaints about this ever reach the level that they have for Google+?I don't know, but I can't find the huge outcry about it in the archives of public conversation that currently exists for Google's actions.

There are some obvious differences in the two situations of course. Facebook started out requiring real names (enforced through requiring a valid college e-mail address initially), and the culture of no pseudonyms meshed with rather than conflicted with its initial userbase. The norm was well established and accepted among the established userbase when Facebook went public-access. This is a far cry from Google, who have tended to present themselves as sharing the cultural ideals of the early community of the Internet. In that culture pseudonyms weren't just a routine part of online life, but the preferred method of protecting personal privacy while still being able to effectively participate in public communication. Google's situation feels like a betrayal, which Facebook's position, while still problematic, never did.

Further, a mistake Google made in their handling that Facebook simply couldn't make is to ban the entire Google account of an alleged violator of the "Real Names" Google+ policy. Facebook only offered social networking. Google offered so much more, and their policy was impacting much more than their social networking site. Worse, it was affecting Google services in which a "real name" wasn't a requirement. Using Google's services have been described by some as essential plumbing of the Internet, which, it is argued, makes their situation different to Facebook. However, it should be mentioned here that according to Zuckerberg's own claims (The Facebook Effect, p144, 159), he intends Facebook to be a "utility", the essential plumbing for Internet communication just like the way the other services have been historically, only better. So this distinction is less of a distinction than it first appears.

Facebook is also rather lacklustre in enforcing their policy. I need only traverse my "friends of friends" on Facebook a little way to find obvious fake names and identities, including a profile that is quite literally the profile of a dog (it's set up by the dog's owners, but everything, including the status updates, is written as if it was the dog itself maintaining the profile).

And of course, the other difference is Twitter. Many of the people complaining about Google+ are also avid Twitter users, which is an effective and popular platform that explicitly doesn't have a "Real Names" policy. For whatever reason - insufficient overlap between Facebook and Twitter users perhaps, or insufficient uptake of Twitter to reach the necessary critical mass in 2008 - the Facebook situation wasn't as avidly discussed and circulated among the Twitter public (and thereby through the broader Internet) as #nymwars has been (or so it seems to me - I could be wrong about this).

So the discussion of #nymwars has focused on Google+ and demands that they withdraw their "Real Names" policy. Yet for all these distinctions between the two, isn't the current discussion of #nymwars giving Facebook way too much of a free pass? Sure, there's some writings that say "Google and Facebook" when discussing anti-pseudonym sentiment generally, but nothing specifically directed at Facebook that I can see. If Google+ should be facing criticism and pressure for its identity policies, why shouldn't Facebook be facing the same amount, not just as an add-on to complaints about Google+?

Facebook has done the same stupid things as Google+ previously and with much less public criticism, they have the same obstinate refusal to countenance pseudonyms as useful tools for protecting privacy, so why should they avoid the level of criticism and pressure currently being applied to Google just because they're not fighting for "Real Names" very publicly right now? Facebook staff still believe in "radical transparency", and it's unlikely they'll just stop believing in it anytime soon

Facebook and its not so radical transparency

2011-09-07T23:30:00.004+10:00

"Facebook is founded on a radical social premise - that an inevitable enveloping transparency will overtake modern life" - The Facebook Effect, p200

The author of The Facebook Effect also makes reference to how he routinely heard Facebook staffers talk about "ultimate transparency" and "radical transparency" as an explicit and desirable social goal. Facebook is an attempt to implement this social vision. The wild popularity of Facebook is seen as a vindication of the view that this social arrangement of radical transparency is a good and desirable thing.

I wonder, then, why there are two things that are quite explicitly NOT "radically transparent" on Facebook as far as I know. The first is defriending someone (or as some people I've talked to call it, "deleting them"). You only find out that someone's deleted you when, or if, you notice that you have one less friend than you used to.

The second is refusing a friend request that's been sent to you. When choosing whether or not to accept a friend request, the dialog box offers the choice between "Confirm" or "Not Now" (itself an interesting choice - no simple option of "Deny"?). The "Not Now" option has mouseover text which says that choosing the "Not now" option will hide the friend request. It also cheerfully promises that you don't need to worry because the person who sent the friend request won't know that you've done this.

So Facebook is not only hiding data from the world about one's social choices in certain situations, but reassuring you that this is a good thing. How does this square with the message of radical transparency?

Certainly, Facebook offers privacy controls on many things that are currently potentially broadcastable to everyone. But these could be seen as a stopgap, a way of getting people comfortable using a service until the wonderful benefits of openness and transparency become so obvious that they no longer bother to keep things private and tucked away. The hiding specifically of a connection breakdown or connection refusal, with NO option to broadcast it publicly at ALL, is slightly different.

The particular problem for the ideology of radical transparency is that, in the case of un-transparent defriending and refusing of friend requests, what's being hidden is something which actually contradicts the premise on which the ideology of radical transparency is built. We are inevitably moving towards greater transparency no matter what? Well, this transparency depends on trust, which is one reason why Facebook demands people use their real names - knowing who you're communicating with makes you trust them more (The Facebook Effect,p201, and yes, I'm skipping over a lot of what's been hashed out in #nymwars) What does it mean for this belief if you are hiding the existence of those situations where such trust is not being cultivated (refusing a friend request) or is in fact breaking down (defriending a person)? Aren't you hiding the evidence of the ways in which the "inevitable" move towards transparency has actually taken a step backwards?

I doubt that hiding the evidence of the transparency ideology's failures is deliberate. I am curious if Facebook will ever make the act of defriending or refusing a friend request an action that is as potentially public as creating a friend request, even as an option. I strongly suspect that they won't. People won't accept it because it's too radically transparent.

Mark Zuckerberg and Julian Assange, more alike than you might think

2011-09-07T23:22:00.003+10:00

I am finally reading "The Facebook Effect" for my thesis way later than I should have done. In it I find the interesting claim that Mark Zuckerberg is indeed trying to change the world. He believes a more "transparent" world (to use his term) is a much better one, and Facebook in part is a way of bringing this transparent world into existence. The book (admittedly written by a rather sympathetic writer) claims that he isn't really interested in profit and was rather grudging about initial attempts to fund thefacebook (as it was originally known) through advertising. The goal of making money is secondary to the goal of pushing his goal of "radical transparency"

If I had more time, it might be interesting to compare and contrast this philosophy with the revolutionary philosophy of radical openness promoted by one Julian Assange. The rockstar CEO of Facebook and the gadfly leader of Wikileaks seem to have some views about access that might overlap more than a little

Flashback: EMO SUICIDE CULTS!

2011-08-31T18:43:00.002+10:00

Going through some old material as I write up a brief history of social networking sites in Australia, I have come to this old gem of bad reporting from Today Tonight. I felt like sharing my urge to constantly roll my eyes at what they were saying:

Manuel Castells, the Internet Galaxy andcontemporary Internet development

2011-08-29T18:26:00.008+10:00

For good writing on the social aspects of new media ubiquity, it's hard to go past Manuel Castells and his writings on what he calls "the Network Society". In his book "The Internet Galaxy", he distinguished four different groups of people whose cultural values were responsible for turning the Internet into the mainstream success that it is today. Each group built upon and to some extent transformed the norms and mores of an earlier group. The groups, in order are:

"Techno-elites": graduates and other academics who applied the scientific culture of openness, peer review, and meritocracy (judged by technical excellence) to the development of computer communication technology. They came up with the idea of a network of computers communicating via packet-switching, and created the initial technology that enabled this.

"Hackers": not the criminal types portrayed in Hollywood movies, but creative problem-solvers. They built on the techno-elite culture, but made "freedom" one of their paramount values as well: freedom to write software, to change it, to explore how machinery worked. They built and improved the technology that made the Internet work as a space for social interaction.

"Virtual Communitarians": less interested in the technical side of things, they embraced the hacker value of "freedom" as a political and cultural ethic for how online communities should work. They and their values seeded the communities which comprised the social space of the early Internet beyond the initial cadre of academics, hackers, and other computer geeks.

"Entrepreneurs": a somewhat problematic and late-arriving group, they are the ones who sold the public on the idea of the Internet. They created the "mainstream" Internet in the 1990s, primarily by selling the public on the idea of what the future would be like with the Internet, then working to try and bring that future about through speculative investment in Internet start-ups.

There is some significant culture clash between the entrepreneurs and the other three groups, yet the entrepreneurs' money is what makes development of the Internet possible now that the original network has been privatised, and it is the techno-elites, hackers and virtual communitarians who do the work of bringing about the entrepreneurs' vision that he sells to the public.

Does this grouping still hold today? There are times when it feels like the entrepreneurs have become the dominant force in Internet development, subsuming the other groups (and their attendant cultural values of open-ness, meritocracy and freedom) to their overarching goal of "selling the future" (and the attendant money to be made from doing so).

Google+ Nymwars controversy: the short version

2011-08-29T17:42:00.004+10:00

Supporters of the Real Names policy of Google+ argue that it provides a safe environment for the consumer of their social networking service, who can relax securely and comfortably online talking only to those people they know they can trust (that's the theory as I understand it, anyway).

Opponents see it as an issue of ensuring everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in public online life, something which is not possible on Google+ with their current policy.

So I think it boils down to the question of whether you view the controversy in terms of online business or online politics.

It's online politics all the way for me. I view the Internet in terms of how it can change the world, not how it can make a few people very rich. The Google+ controversy is about a mega-entity like Google systematically excluding people from participation in a public forum. The free speech and privacy issues aren't solved by the business-oriented perspective of saying "don't use Google+ if you don't like it". That answer take some fundamental ideas about liberty that I hold dear - the incredible importance of privacy and freedom of speech - and makes them sound equivalent to carping about the problems of a brand of toothpaste. The issue is a tad more important than that.

Bishop to child of same-sex parents: "who are your REAL parents?"

2011-07-10T22:57:00.004+10:00

On Compass tonight, the Anglican bishop Rob Forsyth was posed a question about a child of a same-sex couple who was asking why her parents were not allowed to be married. Forsyth, an opponent of same-sex marriage, simply stated that he would tell such a child that the reason that they could not get married was simply because that they were not a man and a woman. When pressed a little on how he would explain to the child why he might suggest this about the child's parents, he outright stated that he would inquire from the child who the "real" parents were.

I find it fascinating that in a world of heterosexual adoption, heterosexual surrogate pregnancies, and heteroxual step-parenting, that the adoption, surrogacy or even step-parenting of a child by a same-sex couple could be so readily assumed to mean that the love, commitment and responsibility that turly defines parenthood should simply be ignored in favour of decreeing that the biological parents MUST be the real parents - regardless of how either the same-sex parents or the biological parents actually feel about the child, and even regardless of how the child feels about the same-sex parents. Please stop assuming you know what's in the best interest of a child that isn't yours either biologically or emotionally, bishop, because insinuating that a child's family isn't really their family is not a way to treat a child well.

Homosexuality, gender and disorderly assumptions

2011-07-10T09:27:00.007+10:00

There is a belief often brought up by people convinced that homosexuality is an aberration. This belief is that there is some sort of sexual trauma experienced by gay people in their youth that supposedly creates the "aberrant" same-sex desires. Strangely, the way this is presumed to works changes according to the gender of the purported victim. For a gay male, it is claimed that early sexual contact with another male results in the "victim" then wanting to have more sex with more men. But for lesbians, it's claimed that unwanted sexual contact with a male results in her wanting to not have sex with men anymore. This seems contradictory: why do men get "turned to men" by sex with a man, but women get "turned to women" by....sex with a man, as well?

I've long suspected that antipathy towards homosexuality tracks extremely well with misogyny. I wonder if this difference in belief about how sexual contact "creates" homosexuals illustrates a more fundamental distinction between anti-gay beliefs about how sexuality is supposed to work amongst different genders?

The distinction at issue doesn't just hinge on gender. There's also the matter of whether or not the alleged sexual contact is seen as desirable or undesirable. However, this latter distinction is cleaved completely along gender lines: gay men are always presented as finding the sexual contact with a man that supposedly "turned" them as desirable, while lesbians are always presented as find the sexual contact with a man that supposedly "turned" them as undesirable?

What does this say about anti-gay assumptions of how male and female sexuality "innately" function?

Are men - all men - expected to never turn down sex, or to never find sex undesirable? My own informal research has found two contradictory ideas about male on male sexual advances: first, men tend to think that a man examining another man in a sexual way is not as morally problematic as a man examining a woman in the same way; but second, men tend to think that a man sexually examining their own self in a sexual way can be a justification for reacting aggressively or even violently. The difference between the expectation and the personal reality of how men ought to react to sexual advances when the advance is coming from a man seems to create a certain amount of internal tension.

As for women, lesbianism in this case could be taken as a problematic adjustment to the Victorian-era assumption that women find sex unpleasant. However, in terms of "turning" a woman gay, there also seems to be fault laid at the feet of men. The problematic attitude towards which gender is to "blame" for lesbianism can be seen in the contradictory ways of "fixing" it. There's the disturbing concept of "corrective rape", and then there's the concept that women just need a relationship with a man who doesn't hurt them. Obviously the preferred method of "correction" indicates certain attitudes about the proper sexual role of women (although it should be noted that in both cases it is assumed that it is the man's responsibility to provide the "correction").

I don't think condemnation of homosexuality can be properly addressed until it's understood as a symptom of a much deeper social issue: that of crisis and uncertainty about contemporary gender roles. Even if much of the above turns out to be totally wrong (and it very easily could be), I would hope that it at least indicates that there are a lot of underlying issues around gender and sex that need to be addressed if the lives and welfare of LGBT people are to effectively protected.

Invite-only a good thing for Google+?

2011-07-04T07:49:00.003+10:00

My complaint yesterday about Google making their new social networking site invite-only got some flak elsewhere about being too dismissive of the usefulness of the invite-only beta-testing phase of Google+. It does make sense for a software product of any kind to be thoroughly tested for bugs before being released to the general public, and I could very well have been quite wrong about an initial closed-off phase being bad for social networking sites. The obvious counter-example is the most popular social networking site now in existence, namely Facebook. It started out being closed off to everyone except college/university students.

But that comparison points out the fundamental difference in the approach between Facebook and Google. Facebook limited its initial clientele according to social characteristics of the potential clientele: whether they were in school or not. Google's invites are being targeted, initially, at web developers, not because of any social characteristics of the web developer population but because of technical considerations: so they can debug the technical mechanics of the platform. This may mean that an initial, inter-connected and identifiable social segment of the larger population will indeed populate Google+ and thereby make it useful, so that Google+ becomes the social network of choice for tech-heads, but I still think it will be the success or failure of that initial population seeding, not any considerations of technical polish, that will set the trajectory for whether Google+ succeeds or fails.

As for the importance of debugging: it's probably not a pleasant thing for a tech developer to hear that the quality of their technical work is not actually all that important in people's decisions about what technology to use, but the entire history of technology for the masses seems to suggest that crappy-but-accessible eventually beats out polished-but-inaccessible most times: PC beat out Mac, DOS beat out OS/2, Microsoft Windows beat out everything else. This is just as true for social networking sites as for anything else. After all, nobody used Myspace because it was so well designed and so unlikely to error out. True, the much more cleanly laid out Facebook eventually superseded it, but Facebook's rise coincided with the rolling out of Facebook apps, which were still quite an attractive draw for the masses even when they (a) messed up the formerly clean layout of Facebook profiles, and (b)would initially error out as often as not. Unless there are parts of the Google+ site that currently flat out fail to function at all, then I think the potential bugginess of the platform isn't nearly as big an issue for the masses as the average tech developer might think it is.

So I could well be wrong about why I think being invite-only is a bad idea for Google+ as it currently stands, but as yet I'm not fully convinced.

Software Engineering vs the Sociotechnical: a Google Plus Post

2011-07-03T17:18:00.012+10:00

I have not been able to get my hands on an invite to Google Plus, Google's latest attempt to create a viable Facebook competitor. My only perspective to date has been from the video reviews that are now popping up on Youtube. This one, for example:.
From what I can see, Google has basically copied almost of all of Facebook's functionality, page layout and all, then added some of its own distinguishing features. These features are "circles", "hangouts" and "sparks". Looking at what they're trying to do, I'm uncertain if Google is fully understanding what they are trying to build: not just a technological platform for social communication, but a social world in itself.

The obvious first problem is making the thing invite-only. Part of Facebook's current appeal is that everybody is on there. In fact, part of the appeal of any social networking site is that other people are on there. According to Metcalfe's Law, the growth of value on a communication network grows exponentially in relation to the growth in the number of people who are on the network. Sure, Gogle Plus is in beta, and from an engineering perspective, it makes sense to only let potential debuggers on there first. But the engineering perspective is the wrong perspective to have.

In my area of study, the terminology for an approach that regards things in terms of both their social and technological factors is "sociotechnical". And I think in this case, the sociotechnical approach says: don't create an online social platform that depends on having as many people on it as possible in order for it to work most effectively, and then tell the vast majority of people that potentially want in on it that they're not invited.

The three highly-marketed new features of Google Plus (circles, hangouts and sparks) can be interpreted as new sociotechnical processes for communication. Before going into analysis of those new processes, I need to do a brief foray into some communication theory and how it relates to Facebook. Communication can be categorised in a number of ways. The divides I'm going to use are (1) "discursive" versus "presentational" forms of communication, and (2) "phatic" versus "informational" forms of communication.

Discursive communication generally refers to written and spoken language, usually thought of as privileging logic and rationality. Presentational communication generally refers to visual and aural pictures and sounds, usually thought of as privileging emotion and feeling. Presentational communication can generally be absorbed much faster and more fully than discursive communication (you can literally take it all in with a glance), but discursive communication tends to be more complete and more detailed.

Phatic communication refers to communication that cements social bonds: the actual content of the communication is irrelevant to the purpose of publicly creating and reinforcing the social bonds between individuals. danah boyd has called this kind of communication "social grooming". Informational communication refers, obviously, to communication that has informational content. These two categories are not mutually exclusive. However, phatic communication with little informational content is very efficient compared to any kind of communication with a great deal of informational content.

In a world where less and less time is available to communicate with more and more people, the speed and efficiency of presentational and phatic communication are preferable to the slower forms of discursive and informational communication. This can be seen in the evolution of Internet technologies, from Usenet groups to blogging to social networking to microblogging: each one enables more and more communication to be done with less and less discursive and informational content. Social networking in general, and Facebook in particular, maintain their continuing appeal due to their privileging of presentational and phatic communication. For the average user, Facebook status updates, comments, and especially "likes", are a quick way to use phatic communication to efficiently maintain social bonds with their hundreds to thousands of online "friends". But probably more important is the time and effort that's been put into making the Facebook website as oriented to presentational communication as possible: everything is highly visually-oriented rather than text-oriented (with certain obvious exceptions; more on that later). Indeed, the "killer app" of Facebook is most likely the photo gallery facility. It is here that friends can share visual representations of times and events spent together, ostensibly with a great deal of privacy as well.

Which brings us to Google Plus and its new features. With their first feature, "circles", Google has taken an obvious swipe at Facebook's...shall we say, "un-nuanced" approach to privacy. In Facebook, the ability to create and maintain different groups with different sharing settings is present, but not particularly pleasant: you create the group and, one by one, type in the names of friends you want to add to it. Assigning the correct permissions to the correct groups is also a chore, I've been told. Google Plus' approach has made the process much more visually oriented: group assignment is drag-and-drop over a visual map of all available circles, not just manual assignment to one group at a time. This process will make group maintenance much easier.

Whether the circles feature will make discrete group sharing more useful is another qeustion altogether. Part of the problem with all attempts to do this sort of thing online is that the attempt to mimic contextual sharing as it exists offline (where you're willing to share some things with some people, but not others) is by its very nature very difficult to replicate online: offline, the separation of context exists by default; online, the separation is something that must be actively created and constantly maintained. This constant requirement to expend effort to keep the contexts separate online is the true obstacle to effective implementation of conextual privacy online, not just an easier ability to create and maintain the existence of different sharing groups. Does Google Plus make this effort easier somehow? I don't see how it does.

Moving on, "hangouts" isn't a particularly revolutionary breakthrough. It's Facebook chat, but video chat instead of text chat. Facebook in fact is going this way too, with Skype soon to supply such chat on Facebook. What is different, but doesn't yet seem to be implemented, is apparently the ability to have multiple people chatting over video simultaneously.

Facebook chat is probably the most glaring exception to the preference for presentational over discursive communication on the Facebook platform. Chat is text-based. It conceals a lot of the emotive content that would occur over a video-type chat. Some people actually prefer this, as it allows them to exert much greater control over their online persona and online communications: there is no requirement to be always and immediately emotionally available to the people that they're chattting with, and there is the opportunity to take time to think about and consciously craft their communication with others. Video chat would eliminate these perceived advantages. Of course, for people who find text chat distasteful precisely because it lacks the emotive content of face to face communication, they would most likely prefer the video option (assuming they have the technology to make use of it: many people still don't have cameras connected to computers). From an engineering perspective, Google has the nous and framework to easily implement video chat thanks to their work on Google Talk. From a sociotechnical perpsective, it's not a bad thing either, but only if text chat is still available alongside video chat. Is it? I'm honestly not sure.

Finally, "sparks" are a new idea to apply to social networking sites. The idea seems to be to try and use interests and the like to try and stimulate conversation among friends who want to talk about that interest (or event, or person, or object). It actually seems to be an idea from Google's business department: try to leverage Google Plus' "plus one" feature (their answer to the Facebook "like" button) to improve the search results in their core product by recording how many people "plus one" the various interests (and potential search terms) that they are exposed to through sparks. The sociotechnical question in this case is whether anyone is going to use it. The default assumption of sparks even being a good idea is that all communication is informational: it's about something. This is wrong. In fact, to date "informational" communication has actually been deprivileged on social networking sites in favour of communication that is purely phatic. As someone who has the time and inclination to talk in detail online (just look at the size of this blogpost, and I'm not even done yet :P), I would probably like this. For many people, particularly the target market of people who use social networking sites (i.e Facebook users), this feature doesn't really offer much to the user, as most of them only really use Facebook to "keep in touch" rather than to have deep and meaningful exchanges about stuff. Unfortunately, the perceived business advantage to Google, through exploitation of the "plus one" feature for search optimisation, may blind them to the reality of how communication on social networking sites actually works (i.e. it is phatic far more than it is informational).

So, Google Plus offers some new things. But does it offer enough to encourage people to switch from Facebook, where all their friends and contacts are still set up, and have been for some time? Well, the obvious answer is that people can't switch anyway while the whole thing is still invite-only. Once Google Plus goes public, the answer may change. My tentative answer right now is that it will appeal to some people, namely those who have friends there already (which means friends of web-developers and other people currently entitled to Google Plus invites will move across), those who have the desire and available technology to use video chat (which means people in the upper half of the Western world's income bracket), and those who have both the time and inclination to make talk online. This means Google Plus would be the preferred location for people who are comfortably well-off, employed in white-collar jobs that are not too time-consuming, and who are comfortable with communicating online about things that they're interested in, in detail.

Hmm. If Google Plus takes off, and that becomes its expected demographic, what then becomes the expected demographic of Facebook?

"Is being gay a choice?" Why the question matters

2011-05-11T16:33:00.002+10:00

The reason that it matters whether or not homosexuality is a choice is because of the homosexual recruitment myth. If you believe people can choose to be gay, you believe people can be recruited into homosexuality. From that belief, it's only a short step to believing that homosexuals do recruit people into homosexuality.

Check how much anti-gay rhetoric either implicitly or explicitly rests on the assumption that homosexuality is something that is taught to people, children in particular. The worst of it even goes so far as to claim that this teaching is intentional on the part of the "homosexual agenda".

A bad prediction from the dot-com bust

2011-05-07T21:26:00.003+10:00

I'm reading some historical research on the growth of new media. In the wake of the dot-com bust in 2000, critics of the more grandiose claims made about the Internet got a lot more prominent. A financial writer for the New Yorker, one John Cassidy, had this to say not long after the crash:
"[the Internet} was not a disruptive technology that would destroy any company locked into the old way of doing things, such as selling books in stores, printing news on paper, or using people to sell stocks. The bookstores, newspaper companies, and brokerage houses are still in business, and most of them are doing fine"

Given what's happened to all three of those industries in recent times, I find this amusing.

Random writing

2011-04-12T16:39:00.003+10:00

Back at uni, and I currently feel that my writing is painfully lacking in necessary clarity for what I am being asked to do this year. So I may as well reactivate this blog for practice at writing. Mostly I'll just be tossing ideas as they come out, not to argue for them, but mostly at this stage just to publicly express them. I feel I need to improve at that. I feel I need to improve at it a lot

Today, my understanding of the Enlightenment in the view of Michel Foucault:
The Enlightenment is the first era of knowledge in which the people constructing the knowledge of the era consciously asked themselves what their purpose was in constructing the knowledge of the era (asking themselves and trying to answer the question "What is the Enlightenment?").

Election 2010, final thoughts until the actual result

2010-08-22T18:26:00.004+10:00

And so, after an election in which we often heard about the unfairness of a Prime Minister being chosen by backroom deals rather than the majority of the Australian people, the election itself has not produced a government chosen by a majority of the Australian people, but chosen by whoever manages to offer the sweetest deal to the independent and Green members who hold the balance of power in the House of Representatives.

I'm greatly tempted to just ignore all Australian political coverage for the next few days, since I can pretty much guarantee that most of it will be a lot of bluster and trash talk about why one party should gain the support of the minor members and why the other party shouldn't get it under any circumstances, with little actual substance behind them. A few final comments for this election, then, before I switch off until we actually have a result...

I can hear the echoes of British and American elections gone by in this Australian election. The UK 2010 election was described to by me as one person that it showed that the UK public wanted Labour out, but didn't want the Tories in. I think a similar result can be read here: The Australian Labor party was voted out, but the public has not voted the coalition in. I am reminded also of the pain that occurred when the split between Bush and Gore in 2000 resulted in a victory for Bush by judicial ruling, which I suspect has greatly contributed to the hyperpartisanship in that country which persists even 10 years later. I doubt the result here will be decided upon by a judge, but I suspect the process of forming a minority government will be messy enough that some people will be sore enough to consider the declared winner illegitimate.

But in any case, there is no way that the government - whoever that may be - will be able to have things all their own way the way Bush and the Republicans managed it during their run. Even if the minors in the House of Representatives don't keep the minority goverenment accountable, come July 1st 2011, the Greens will hold the balance of power in the Senate. Issues-wise, that's probably the most interesting thing that's happened in what has been, issues-wise, an extremely uninteresting election. The implications of this have yet to be felt, by I expect them to be quite far-reaching when they finally do become clear.

The 2010 election and the illusion of reality

2010-08-20T20:15:00.006+10:00

In this election, if there's one word that has really stood out for me in the sheer amount of its use by political parties of all types, it is this one: real.

The Liberal party slogan is "stand up for real action". In my local area, the blurb on handouts from the Greens in my area is "Let's really move Australia forward". The blurb on the flyer for sitting Labor MP for Grayndler (my electorate) is "real solutions". And of course there was the emergence of the "real Julia Gillard" a few weeks in after the Labor campaign was well under way, an open admission of the fakery that routinely goes on in election campaigns if ever there was one.

Why has the need to be "real" become so important in this election? It would be nice to think that this standing up for "real" whatchumacallits is a reaction to a public that's fed up with all the stage-managed spin and PR that is the basis of so much of what passes for political presentation these days. But it seems to me that what we're seeing in this election isn't a triumph of truth over political PR, but political PR that's trying to present itself as truth. As a very cynical aphorism puts it: "the key to success is sincerity - once you can fake that, you've got it made".

The act might be more convincing if so many of the political attacks by these clamants to truth weren't about things of highly questionable reality. Julia Gillard just claimed on ABC TV that if Abbott became Prime Minister on Sunday, WorkChoices would be back on the agenda on Monday. Um, not really: the Liberal party won't commit political suicide a second time, certainly not as quickly as within a single day, and the chance of WorkChoices-style legislation getting passed through what will probably be a hostile Senate is basically nil. Then there's the supposed "disaster" of Labor's economic record as claimed by the Liberal party, a record that's seen Australia get through a global financial crisis in a way that's the envy of the developed world. These exaggerated claims aren't the actions of people truly concerned with being "real".

So we have political parties insisting that they stand for something "real", but the behaviour suggests that this claim is just more spin. I guess that makes this the first truly post-modern election in Australia, where even trying to be real is just another illusion spun through the media. No wonder there's a feeling that this election isn't really about anything.

The origins of anti-gay sentiment in Western civilisation

2010-08-15T20:28:00.004+10:00

A small snippet of writing by one of the earliest Christian writers suggests that many of the modern negative beliefs about homosexuality have a much older provenance than I previously realised.

This excerpt is from the writings of a man named John Chrysostom. Writing in the fourth century AD, Chrysostom reflects two of the beliefs about homosexuality that are a mainstay of anti-gay sentiment in the West even today: that only humans perform this "unnatural" behaviour, and that there is a real danger that homosexuality could realistically displace all heterosexual behaviour in the general public. From the excerpt:

A certain new and illicit love has entered our lives an ugly and incurable disease has appeared, the most severe of all plagues has been hurled down, a new and insufferable crime has been devised. Note only are the laws established [by man] overthrown but even those of nature herself. Fornication will now seem a small matter in the reckoning of sexual sins, and just as the arrival of a more burdensome pain eclipses the discomfort of an earlier one, so the extremity of this outrage [hubreos] causes lewdness with women, which had been intolerable, to seem so no longer. Indeed to be able to escape these snares [in any way] seems desirable, and there is some danger that womankind will become in the future unnecessary with young men instead fulfilling all the needs women used to..

Also of interest is the complaint from Chrysostom, also heard today, that it is the opponents of homosexuality who are the ones that are actually suffering because of the anti-gay stance they have taken:

And this is not even the worst, which is that this outrage is perpetrated with the utmost openness, and lawlessness has become law. For no one fears, no one any longer shudders. No one is ashamed, no one blushes, but, rather, they take pride in their little joke; the chaste seem to be the ones who are unbalanced, and the disapproving the ones in error. If [the chaste or disapproving] happen to be insignificant, they are beaten up; if they are powerful, they are mocked, laughed at, refuted with a thousand arguments. The courts are powerless, the laws, instructors, parents, friends, teachers all are helpless. Some are corrupted with money, and some are only out to get what they can for themselves. As for those more honorable, who have some concern for the welfare of those entrusted to them, they are easily fooled and gotten around, for they fear the power of the debauched.

The contemporary myths and lies about homosexuality that exist in Western culture are very, very old. I had no idea just how old until now.

Julia Gillard's first interview, my first impressions

2010-06-25T11:03:00.004+10:00

So we've established that Australia's new Prime Minister is both a woman and a ginger, but might it just be possible to go a tiny bit deeper than that? Prime Minister Gillard gave her first interview on the 7:30 report last night. It's hard to get much more than stylistic impressions from these things, but two pertinent factoids did seem to stick out.

First, the style: Gillard seemed, for a politician, relatively straightforward about her answers. She didn't answer some questions but in each case that she didn't answer she made it clear that she had no intention of answering, usually saying something like "I'm not going to disclose the contents of private conversations with my work colleagues". She was also fairly forward about challenging the editorialising that from time to time came from Kerry O'Brien's questions, eg Kerry: "So after working with Kevin Rudd for so long, was it hard to stick the knife in?" Julia: "Well I certainly don't accept that characterisation of events, Kerry...". Her technique at taking questions as input and then massaging the meaning into one that offers Labour talking points like "our Government has been good for health, for education" as output, was also fairly good, without coming across too much as trying to dodge questions. Gillard talks slowly, which could get slightly annoying over the long term

More substantively, the new PM flat out stated "there will be an election this year". So the government will be calling an election before they would be required to in March/April next year.

The second more substantive point is on refugee policy. Gillard sort of danced around the question, stating that "Australians want to ensure that the borders of this country are well-managed", without actually ever stating what "managing" the borders effectively would entail in her government. She also stated something along the lines of "I understand that the Australian people are anxious to know that the country's borders are being managed, but it's irresponsible for the Opposition to increase those anxieties for political gain".

She didn't exactly accuse Tony Abbott of fear-mongering on the issue, since that would entail the politically risky move of claiming that the fears Abbott is tapping into are groundless, and no voter wants to hear that their concerns are not taken seriously. She doesn't like the politics of fear on boat people, though. Gillard seems to be walking a fine line here, and my initial impression is this is the thing most likely to give her the most trouble the soonest.

I haven't checked the headlines today to see what else has happened, so this is just my initial impression based on a first look at our new Prime Minister in a press environment. I'm sure impressions will change at a fairly quick pace, how ever they may do so.

The value of privacy

2010-05-15T14:37:00.013+10:00

I've been reading a book by Daniel J Solove called "The Future of Reputation: gossip, rumor and privacy on the Internet". With the privacy concerns around Facebook now making mainstream news, it's interesting to take stock of just what it is that makes privacy important. Solove has helped clarify that for me.

I would put it like this: privacy is an acknowledgement that humanity - both individuals and society - is imperfect in many ways, and it is a means by which people can cope with that imperfection.

Privacy enables people to hide character defects from others. This sounds like something that shouldn't be done, but it's actually necessary to some degree if we're ever going to make friends with anyone. As Solove says (p66-67): "When intimate personal information circulates among a small group of people who know us well, its significance can be weighed against other aspects of our personality and character. By contrast, when intimate information is removed from its original context and revealed to strangers, we are vulnerable to being misjudged on the basis of our most, embarrassing, and therefore most memorable, tastes and preferences". Privacy prevents us from being judged by people unfamiliar with us solely on the basis of our sensationalistic flaws.

Even if people have perfect information about us, this is no guarantee that their judgements will be fair or accurate. People are irrational beings, by and large, and privacy enables people to hide information about themselves that might lead to stereotyping and prejudice - sexuality and mental illness are some historical examples. Even in cases where a judgement might be accurate - employers discovering if a potential employee has a greater predilection to a fatal illness like cancer is the example Solove gives (p71) - then it's still possible to view this judgement as unfair. Is it fair to deny employment to an individual because they're statistically more likely to get cancer? Should disclosure of such medical information be protected by law? I suspect that in many if not most cases it already is.

Privacy permits violation of social norms. Again, this sounds bad but isn't necessarily so. It is an acknowledgement that there can be conflict between what society demands of an individual and what an individual desires for themself, and a recognition that sometimes the desires of the individual should take precedence. Solove puts it thus (p72): "Most of us desire a limited realm where we might have reprieve from the judgment of others, which otherwise might become suffocating".

Finally privacy helps us to overcome our individual imperfections and grow as human beings. It does this firstly by providing the opportunity to hide our pasts, giving us the opportunity to break free of them, in essence letting us have a second chance at life. Solove again (p73): "Protection against disclosure permits room to change, to define oneself and one's future without becoming 'a prisoner of one's recorded past'".

It does this secondly through group privacy, or the opportunity to have different identities among different people. This is not dishonest, but simply an acknowledgement of the complexity of human beings, that "when you play various roles you're not being artificial or phony. These roles let you accentuate different aspects of yourself" (Arnold Lugwig quoted in Solove, p69). This roleplay enables personal growth, because "people even play roles in which they seem improperly cast, hoping to grow into the part. One plays a role until it fits, becoming transformed in the process." (Solove, p68) This is not possible without privacy.

It would be very easy to go through this list and point out instances where privacy should not apply, and Solove recognises as much, explicitly calling for a balance between the benefits of privacy and the benefits that disclosure of information about others can bring. But in a time when it's not uncommon to hear the claim that privacy is dead, I want to point out just what is being lost if privacy is lost altogether, and question whether our society, and the people within it, can cope.

Is there any society in which nobody has any imperfections that they legitimately do not want disclosed to others? In which nobody ever judges anybody else in a way that is unfair or inaccurate? In which people never have any need to violate the existing norms of society in even the mildest, slightest way? In which nobody ever needs to develop themselves personally beyond the labels already placed upon them by the society around them? I don't think there is. And I don't think there ever will be.

As long as humanity is imperfect, we will need something that performs the functions that privacy currently performs. If we are indeed losing our privacy, then we need to do one of two things. We need to come up with something that currently does for us what privacy had done for us in previous years, and fast. Or else we need to get our privacy back. And fast.

Nick Minchin on tobacco addiction, 1995

2010-05-03T22:21:00.004+10:00

It came up on the ABC show Qanda tonight that Senator Nick Minchin (he of the "climate change is a left-wing anti-industry beat-up" view) allegedly claimed in a government report that cigarette smoking was not addictive and that passive smoking was not real. Minchin claimed on Qanda that his statements were taken out of context, and that this was part of a larger argument that people should be free to smoke or not smoke as they see fit, without government interference.

The report in question wasn't hard to find: The Tobacco Industry and the Costs of Tobacco-Related Illness. A final section starting on page 119 entitled "Dissenting report by Senators Nick Minchin and Sue Knowles" does express a lot of disagreement with regulatory proposals out of a desire to see less government interference in general life. However, a comment on page 120 by Nick Minchin (and it is explicitly made clear that this opinion is only the opinion of Nick Minchin alone) reads as follows:

Senator Minchin wishes to record his dissent from the Committee's statements that it believes cigarettes are addictive (1.25) and that passive smoking causes a number of adverse health effects for non-smokers (1.34).

So....not a denial, but it seems to me a response of "not all the evidence is in yet" on the issue. I wonder if he still feels that way?

The dissent goes on:

The Committee's terms of reference did not ask it to reach conclusions on these controversial issues, and nor was sufficient evidence from both sides of the argument brought to bear. These are medical conclusions which it is inappropriate for this Senate Committee of inquiry to reach.

Senator Minchin briefly referred to this part in his Qanda reply when he claimed that his comments on smoking should be disregarded because the Senate Committee wasn't convened to address medical issues. This seems like a half-truth: to my eye, it's only the dissenters Minchin and Knowles who took issue with the scope of the Senate report's medically-informed decisions, specifically because they didn't believe that there was sufficient medical evidence of the reality of nicotine addiction and passive smoking. In 1995.

This might be worth keeping in mind when Senator Minchin makes claims about the supposed unreliability of current climate science on the question of anthropogenic global warming.

Conroy not going to budge

2010-03-30T18:35:00.004+11:00

Say what you like about Senator Conroy (and believe me I do), I've got to admire sheer testicular fortitude when I see it. He's refusing to back down from even the toughest opponents of his censorship scheme, including opponents as powerful US government and Google. From those articles, it looks like Conroy's gone on the attack for Google but isn't saying anything about the US government just yet. I wonder if he will?

Earth Hour: how about some REAL commitment?

2010-03-27T20:23:00.005+11:00

Earth Hour is the annual event in which people are encouraged to switch off their lights for one hour of one day of the year. It is described by the organisers as "a global call to action to every individual, every business and every community throughout the world. It is a call to stand up, to take responsibility, to get involved and lead the way towards a sustainable future."

The event receives criticism. One is that it doesn't actually save any energy at all for that hour. The response from organisers in the linked news article to this criticism was that "Earth Hour is not about saving energy, it’s a positive inspiring event that will show the level of public concern about climate change". Earth Hour is, apparently,"an opportunity for people to show that they care about climate change and want global leaders to take action". It's an awareness-raising exercise, in other words.

I don't think it's effective. For one, we're well past the stage of needing awareness-raising for the general public. The issue of climate change is almost impossible to avoid in any form of media. Perhaps the "awareness-raising" is aimed at leaders, making them aware of a constituency that wants the issue addressed, and not a general message to the public. But if so, I think it fails.

Turning lights off for one hour of one year tells leaders that people want something done? Yes. It tells them that people are willing to accept what those leaders actually need to do? No, I don't think it does. It just tells them that people are willing to engage in a very temporary and very tiny inconvenience that's then conveniently discarded for the other 364 days of the year.

Facing climate change requires long-term commitment, and it requires sacrifice. None of those values are truly on display in Earth Hour. The symbolic message being sent to leaders, from where I'm sitting, is "we care, but we expect you to fix the problem, without inconveniencing us more than we want to be". A politician can easily exploit such a sentiment to ensure nothing gets done. Thus we have situations such as that in Australia, where the Opposition opposes a cap-and-trade scheme by basically saying "sure climate change is an issue, but this particular approach costs too much". It doesn't take much to figure out that any approach can be said by opponents to "cost too much", because any approach is going to cost.

I don't object to symbolism, nor do I object to trying to send a message to leaders. I do object to what I think is the message being sent by the fairly lacklustre effort required to implement Earth Hour for one day a year. If proponents of this approach truly want to demonstrate a commitment, they need to get people on board for more than one hour a day. Maybe they could convince people to engage in this hour a day for a month at a time? Six months? A year?

Would it be possible to get all the people, governments and countries, all so allegedly determined to see leaders do what needs to be done to combat climate change, to do engage in an ongoing "Earth Hour" every day for more than a week?

Whatever the answer, the extent to which such an event could be sustained beyond just one day would to me demonstrate just how committed people really are to making the commitment and sacrifice needed to address and adjust to climate change. And I fear the real answer to the question exposed by such a demand would "not very committed at all".

India and Australia, racist attacks or moral panic?

2010-01-05T20:13:00.005+11:00

The paper ran a cartoon depicting an Australian policeman wearing a pointed white hood associated with the US racist group the Ku Klux Klan. The officer was shown saying "We are yet to ascertain the nature of the crime."

That was, apparently, the actions of a newspaper in India called the Mail Today, in response to the murder of 21-year-old Indian student Nitin Garg. When I found the site of the Mail Today to check, the first thing I'm greeted with is a pop-up asking for my feedback in response to the question "SHOULD INDIA PURSUE THE MATTER OF AUSTRALIAN RACISM IN AN INTERNATIONAL COURT?"

It worries me that the single biggest source of the claim of a dramatic increase in racist attacks against Indian people in Australia appears to be the sensationalist media, and that the same media is making calls for special action to address the claimed problem. I'm currently trawling for actual statistics of crimes, but in the absence of reliable, verifiable statistics demonstrating an upsurge in demonstrably racist violence against Indian people, and with the role that the media is playing right now, I have to wonder: is this a moral panic? Is "racist Australia" here playing the role of a folk devil perceived as threatening the virtuous and vulnerable youth of India?

I have found one claim of of a clear and dramatic increase of attacks against Indian students as reported in the Indian media: both the Mail Today and the Siasat Times claim that a "government report tabled in parliament" said that "The number of Indians attacked in Australia in 2008 was 17. In 2009, 94 Indians were attacked till November 20. A total of 100 attacks on Indians, including students, have been reported in Australia during last year". If true, that would be an extraordinary upswing.

Unfortunately I don't know what this report actually is, or how these claimed statistics were compiled. I would need that information, I think, before I could accept the figure as accurate. So....moral panic or genuine upsurge in racist violence that specifically targets Indian people? I'm not really sure at this point, although I do find it odd that Indian people, and only Indian people, would be experiencing such an upsurge. I think that believing such a situation to be possible gives Australian racism far too much credit - it's far too broad to expect it to be targeted solely at one non-white group.

The parenthood of Janet Miller-Jenkins

2010-01-03T20:29:00.004+11:00

A case between two lesbians (one of whom now claims to be ex-gay) in America has been at the periphery of my attention the past couple of months.

I don't have time to get all the links together right now, but here's the situation as I understand it: Lisa Miller and Janet Jenkins got a civil union in Vermont. While living in Virginia, they had a child together, with Lisa conceiving through artificial insemination from an anonymous donor. Sometime later they separated. Under the terms of the dissolution of the civil union filed in Vermont by Lisa, Lisa would have custody of the child and Janet would have visitation rights. This did not happen, with Janet being refused visitation by Lisa after just one visit. Lisa then filed a new petition in Virginia requesting that the Virginia (not Vermont) court system grant Lisa exclusive access to the child, and deny any visitation rights to Janet, on the basis that same-sex marriage was illegal in Virginia, and that Janet was not really the child's parent (this in spite of the fact that the Vermont family court had ruled that she was).

The upshot: a 2006 Vermont Supreme Court ruling claiming that Vermont had exclusive jurisdiction over the issue, based on a law called (I think) the Parent Kidnapping Protection Act which explicitly prevented attempts at "jurisdiction shopping" in child custody disputes. In 2008, the Virginia Supreme Court also ruled that it was Vermont, not Virginia, that had jurisdiction. Finally, on November 20, the original Vermont judge that awarded custody to Lisa found Lisa in contempt of court and switched custody to Janet on the basis that this was the only way to ensure equal access to the child. Upon expiration of the time allotted for Lisa to give up the child, both Lisa and child vanished without trace.

Anti-gay arguments in support of Lisa's decision to go on the lam place much focus on the claim that, as biological parent, Lisa's needs should take precedence no matter what the law says. In the more extreme version of the argument, giving the child over to Janet is described by anti-gays as equivalent to forcing a mother to give her child over to the milkman.

So, I've found the 2006 Vermont Supreme Court ruling online, available here. The relevant section on the question of parenthoood, and why Janet Jenkins has it, is in paragraphs 56 to 58:

56.  Many factors are present here that support a conclusion that
  Janet is a parent, including, first and foremost, that  Janet and Lisa were
  in a valid legal union at the time of the child's birth.  The other factors
  include the following.  It was the expectation and intent of both Lisa and
  Janet that Janet would be IMJ's parent.  Janet participated in the decision
  that Lisa would be artificially inseminated to bear a child and
  participated actively in the prenatal care and birth.  Both Lisa and Janet
  treated Janet as IMJ's parent during the time they resided together, and
  Lisa identified Janet as a parent of IMJ in the dissolution petition. 
  Finally, there is no other claimant to the status of parent, and, as a
  result, a negative decision would leave IMJ with only one parent.  The
  sperm donor was anonymous and is making no claim to be IMJ's parent.  If
  Janet had been Lisa's husband, these factors would make Janet the parent of
  the child born from the artificial insemination.  See generally People v.
  Sorensen, 437 P.2d 495 (Cal. 1968).  Because of the equality of treatment
  of partners in civil unions, the same result applies to Lisa.  15 V.S.A. §
  1204.
   
       ¶  57.  Virtually all modern decisions from other jurisdictions
  support this result, although the theories vary.  See e.g., Brown v. Brown,
  125 S.W.3d 840, 844 (Ark. Ct. App. 2003) (husband estopped from denying
  child support where husband knew wife was using artificial insemination to
  have child); Sorensen, 437 P.2d at 498-500 (Cal. 1968) (husband is lawful
  father of child conceived through artificial insemination born during
  marriage to child's mother); In re Buzzanca, 72 Cal. Rptr. 2d 280, 286-87
  (Ct. App. 1998) (finding virtually all decisions hold husband to be parent
  based on his consent to artificial insemination); In re M.J., 787 N.E.2d at
  152 (mother of children conceived through artificial insemination may seek
  to establish paternity of man with whom she had ten-year intimate
  relationship based on theories of "oral contract or promissory estoppel"); 
  Levin v. Levin, 645 N.E.2d 601, 604-05 (Ind. 1994) (husband who orally
  consented to artificial insemination of wife estopped from denying
  fatherhood of child); R.S. v. R.S., 670 P.2d 923, 929 (Kan. Ct. App. 1983)
  (husband who orally consented to artificial insemination of wife estopped
  from denying fatherhood); State ex. rel. H. v. P., 457 N.Y.S.2d 488, 492
  (App. Div. 1982) (wife estopped from denying husband's paternity where she
  fostered parent-child relationship); Brooks v. Fair, 532 N.E.2d 208, 212-13
  (Ohio Ct. App. 1988) (public policy disallows wife from denying paternity
  of husband where parties agreed during marriage to conceive via means of
  artificial insemination); In re Baby Doe, 353 S.E.2d 877, 878 (S.C. 1987)
  (husband is legal father of child where he consented to artificial
  insemination of wife during marriage); see generally A. Stephens,
  Annotation, Parental Rights of Man Who Is Not Biological or Adoptive Father
  of Child But Was Husband or Cohabitant of Mother When Child Was Conceived
  or Born, 84 A.L.R.4th 655 (1991).  Some courts find the party a parent as a
  result of contract theory or estoppel.  E.g., R.S., 670 P.2d at 928. 
  Estoppel is often invoked because of the strong reliance interests that
  arise from consensual artificial insemination.  Other courts reach the
  result more as a matter of policy, particularly stressing the adverse
  consequences of leaving the child without a parent despite the clear
  intention of the parties.  E.g., Brooks, 532 N.E.2d at 212-13.  We adopt
  the result in this case as a matter of policy, and to implement the intent
  of the parties.
   
       ¶  58.  This is not a close case under the precedents from other
  states.  Because so many factors are present in this case that allow us to
  hold that the non-biologically-related partner is the child's parent, we
  need not address which factors may be dispositive on the issue in a closer
  case.  We do note that, in accordance with the common law, the couple's
  legal union at the time of the child's birth is extremely persuasive
  evidence of joint parentage.  See People ex. rel. R.T.L., 780 P.2d 508, 515
  n.11 (Colo. 1989) ("We acknowledge that the presumption that a child born
  during wedlock is the legitimate child of the marriage was one of the
  strongest presumptions known to the common law."); Cicero v. Cicero, 395
  N.Y.S.2d 117, 117 (App. Div. 1977) (presumption of legitimacy attached to
  "issue of the marriage"); LC v. TL, 870 P.2d 374, 380 (Wyo. 1994) ("The
  presumption of legitimacy is one of the strongest in the law."); see also
  Godin, 168 Vt. at 522, 725 A.2d at 910 ("Thus, the State retains a strong
  and direct interest in ensuring that children born of a marriage do not
  suffer financially or psychologically merely because of a parent's belated
  and self serving concern over a child's biological origins.").

Needs to be summarised for the attention-addled, obviously, but that's the argument. Unsurprisingly, most people that take Lisa's side in this dispute haven't even glanced at it.

Homosexual visibility and beyond the concept of "coming out of the closet"

2009-12-22T20:45:00.010+11:00

The rising tolerance of the existence of homosexuality has perhaps invalidated, or at least significantly modified, the expected experience of LGBT people's lives. Homosexuality need no longer be hidden in as many social mileux as it once was, prompting academic author Steven Seidman to describe contemporary western society as gradually becoming a "post-closet society".

In his book, Seidman uses "closet" in a way that I don't often see these days: a "closeted homosexual", per Seidman, is someone who has accepted their homosexuality and engages in same-sex relations, but conceals it totally from people in their everyday, "normal" life. In my experience, most times "closet case" these days instead refers specifically to someone who still hasn't admitted their own sexuality to anyone at all, perhaps not even to themself. I find the evolution of language telling: there is less of a need for a term to describe someone who accepts their homosexuality but conceals it from everyone. Is this because such a thing is gradually ceasing to exist?

Perhaps such total concealment is getting phased out, but this is not to say that concealment is no longer necessary. In fact I think the situation now is more complicated that a binary closeted/out dichotomy can properly describe. Jon Lasser and Deborah Tharinger performed a study of LGB youth, published in the Journal of Adolescence (volume 26, issue 2, April 2003, pp 233-244), called Visibility Management in School and Beyond: A qualitative study of gay, lesbian, bisexual youth The concept of "visibility management" that they came up with seems to offer a richer understanding than that of the traditional concepts of the closet and of coming out.

Visibility management differs from coming out of the closet in several ways. First, where coming out is an event, visibility management is a proces: "While 'coming out' functions as a common expression for simple disclosure of one's sexual orientation, visibility management captures the complexity of the strategic and continuous process that GLB youth employ over time" (Lasser & Tharinger 2003, p237).

This is as much about non-verbal cues as it is about verbal announcements of one's sexuality. Dress and speech were all described by the study participants as influenced by how visible they wanted their orientation to be: "participants modify dress, speech, and body language to manage their visibility. They use subcultural symbols, euphemisms, humour and references to pop culture to manage their visibility" (Lasser & Tharinger 2003, p238)

Second, visibility management occurs on a continuum: "the extreme points of the continuum are most restrictive visibility management and least restrictive visibility management ... most participants (N=16) placed themselves between the endpoints" (Lasser & Tharinger 2003, p238). Rather than being "closeted" or "out", the youth studied had disclosed their sexual orientation to some people, but not to others. Further, and logically, they had to monitor and manage their disclosure in order to ensure that only people that they wanted to know about their sexual orientation would know about it. This of course further entailed decisions about who they wanted to know, and why.

Lasser & Tharinger didn't go into specific detail about what influenced these decisions, beyond describing it as an outcome of their interactions with their environment. This is a pity, as I think it's important, and should be a part of any more general theory of how LGBT people engage in visibility management.

Examples tI've come across in my day to day life of the kinds of pressures influencing the decisions of LGBT people about how to manage their visibility include: issues of safety, the issue of "why is it other people's business anyway?", the desire to dispel myths and fears about homosexuality by being open about it with friends and acquaintances, or simply the desire to let a potential significant other know that you swing the same way they do. There are almost certainly others, and I'd be interested in finding out what they are.

Conroy and the Australian Christian Lobby make sweet, sweet love together

2009-11-30T21:23:00.005+11:00

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy has started the political process of spinning his upcoming report by meeting with Jim Wallace, managing director of the ACL, to discuss..something or other about the proposal which ABSOLUTELY WAS NOT any details about the upcoming report on the ISP filtering trial, shortly after which Jim Wallace said that he believed he'd "found out" enough to know that ISP-filtering would work.

Nobody else has been in any such discussions about...something or other which ABSOLUTELY IS NOT details about the upcoming report on the ISP filtering trial, particularly ISPs and free speech supporters who might be motivated to scrutinise the data a little more closely than uncritical cheerleaders like the ACL. The Greens have noticed this funny business, and would like further details. I suspect they won't get any, but it's nice that somebody is asking.

Chaid Feldblum quote in context

2009-11-19T11:54:00.002+11:00

An openly lesbian woman is being nominated to America's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Predictably, the Christianist right in America is having an absolute fit. The website Good as You has already demonstrated that a video of Chai circulated by anti-gay activists has been significantly edited in a misleading way. I'm still exploring all the many claims being circulated, but I would like to put one quote back into context.
From this anti-gay website we have the claim

Feldblum has written: "Once a religious person or institution enters the stream of commerce by operating an enterprise such as a doctor's office, hospital, bookstore, hotel, treatment center, and so on, I believe the enterprise must adhere to a norm of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity." Feldblum believes that every organization must ascribe to her vision of society or else face penalties from the EEOC.

Unusually for anti-gay activists, they include a reference to the original article. It is entitled "Moral Conflict and Liberty: Gay Rights and Religion", and I find it notable just how much she stands up for the rights of religious believers in it. Of course, you wouldn't know that from reading the one small passage that anti-gay activists cherry-pick from it.

And as is quite usual for anti-gay activists, the cherry-picked quote is taken out of context and a supposed "summary" is provided which misrepresents the true meaning. Nowhere does Feldblum say that she requires "every organization" to "ascribe to her vision of society". Feldblum, in the very next paragraph of this article explicitly cites situations in which she does believe religious organisations should be allowed to discriminate against gay people.

The text of the quote, and the continuation of it that demonstrates that anti-gay activists are lying, is on pages 52 through 54 of Feldblum's article. I'm including the two paragraphs here so people can see for themselves what's going on. I'd actually recommend reading the whole thing, though, so you can get a complete picture of Feldblum's views instead of relying on anti-gay distortions.

As a general matter, once a religious person or institution enters the stream of commerce by operating an enterprise such as a doctor's office, hospital, bookstore, hotel, treatment center and so on, I believe the enterprise must adhere to a norm of non-discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. This is essential so an individual who happens upon the enterprise is not surprised by a denial of service and/or a directive to go down the street to a different provider. While I was initially drawn to the idea of providing an exemption to those enterprises that advertise solely in very limited milieus (such as the bed & breakfast that advertises only on Christian Web sites) I became wary of such an approach as a practical matter. The touchstone needs to be, I believe, whether LGBT people would be made vulnerable in too many locations across society. An "advertising exception" seemed potentially subject to significant abuse.

Nevertheless, I believe there might be a more limited exception that would be justified. There are enterprises that are engaged in by belief communities (almost always religious belief communities) that are specifically designed to inculcate values in the next generation. These may include schools, day care centers, summer camps and tours. These enterprises are sometimes for-profit and sometimes not-for-profit. They are within the general stream of commerce, together with many other schools, day care centers, summer camps and tours.

I believe a subset of these enterprises present a compelling case for the legislature to provide and exemption in a law mandating non-discrimination based on sexual orientation. The criteria for an exemption should be as follows: the enterprise must present itself clearly and explicitly as designed to inculcate a set of beliefs; the beliefs of the enterprise must be clearly set forth as being inconsistent with a belief that homosexuality is morally neutral and the enterprise must seek to enroll only individuals who wish to be inculcated with such beliefs.

The dignity of LGBT individuals would still be harmed by excluding such enterprises from the purview of an anti-discrimination law. But in weighing the interests between the groups, I believe the harm to the enterprise in having its inculcation of values to its members significantly hampered (as I believe it would be if it was forced to comply with such a law) outweighs the harm to the excluded LGBT members.

I am more hesitant regarding the second limited circumstance, but I offer it for analysis and criticism. I believe there may be a legitimate exemption that should be provided with regard to leadership positions in enterprises that are more broadly represented in commerce. Many religious institutions operate the gamut of social services in the community, such as hospitls, gyms, adoption agencies and drug treatment centers. These enterprises are open and marketed to the general public and often receive governmental funds. It seems quite appropriate to require that the enterprises' services be delivered without regard to sexual orientation and the most employment positions and that most employment positions in these enterprises be available without regard to sexual orientation

But the balance of interests, it seems to me, shifts with regard to the leadership positions in such enterprises. Particularly for religiously-affiliated institutions, I believe it is important that people in leadership positions be able to articulate the beliefs and values of the enterprise. If the identity and practice of an openly gay person will stand in direct contradiction to those beliefs and values, it seems to me that the enterprise suffers a significant harm. Thus, in this limited circumstance, a legislature may perhaps be legitimately conclude that the harm to the enterprise will be greater than the harm to the particular individuals excluded from such positions and provided a narrow exemption from a non-discrimination mandate in employment for such positions.

Quote for the day

2009-08-14T14:43:00.000+10:00

"Most liberal opinion is horrified by persecution of homosexuals and supports abolishing anti-homosexual laws without really accepting homosexuality as a full and satisfying form of sexual and emotional behaviour. Such tolerance of homosexuality can co-exist with considerable suspicion of and hostility towards it, and this hostility is reinforced in all sorts of ways within our society." - Dennis Altman, Homosexual Oppression and Liberation, 1972

Weird statistical reporting from Rasmussen Reports

2009-08-02T21:29:00.004+10:00

For reasons unfathomable to me, the US public opinion poller Rasmussen Reports has decided to measure President Obama's popularity by a Presidential Approval Index rating arrived at by strange means. They get it by subtracting the percentage of those who strongly disapprove of his Presidency from those who strongly approve of it.

Why exclude moderate approval and disapproval? The current figure of -8% arrived at by Rasmussen Reports through their methodology seems to the casual viewer to suggest a negative overall view of President Obama. Yet the total numbers provided by Rasmussen in the article (50% overall approval and 49% overall disapproval) suggest a much more even split. I don't see much room here for interpreting this as Obama having negative overall popularity the way this Index misleadingly suggests. I think that there is room for interpreting this as Obama being more unpopular among rabid partisans than he is among the general population, though.

Curious also is the decision by Rasmussen to only survey likely voters to determine approval rating. As the survey summary notes, "President Obama's numbers are always several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters". I can understand why this might be relevant in a poll of how people are likely to actually vote, but in general overall approval? Does being unlikely to vote automatically make your opinion completely worthless when it comes to politics? I can see how some people might argue that it should, but personally I think the principle of democratic accountability extends well beyond the single moment of an election. If people, even people unlikely to vote, have an opinion about government, then that opinion should be known and taken into account. It's a shame that Rasmussen doesn't do that.

It does seem awfully convenient that both these statistical oddities have the effect of making President Obama's approval rating seem much lower than the results reported in other surveys with more meritorious methodologies. If I was a conspiracy-oriented person I might start wondering if this was deliberate. Good thing I'm not a conspiracy-oriented person, then.

Ex-gays to ex-ex-gays: it's your fault you didn't change

2009-07-29T19:08:00.003+10:00

I recently found myself at the first official recognition that I've seen of the existence of ex-ex-gays from a supporter of an ex-gay ministry. The piece is written by one Sue Bohlin of Probe Ministries and is available here. It's also notable in distinguishing between the "reparative therapy" used by psychoanalysts trying to "cure" homosexuality and what Bohlin calls the "redemptive approach", in which homosexuality is "healed" through cultivating a relationship with Jesus Christ. She describes the latter as the superior method of the two.

The specific reference to ex-ex-gays is an attempt to explain their existence. Ater all, if a relationship with Christ is all that is needed to heal homosexuality, then why do ex-ex-gays even exist? Unsurprisingly, the answer is to blame the victim: Bohlin outright states that it is because ex-ex-gays failed to really do what is necessary to change that they didn't change. Notably, she didn't talk to a single ex-ex-gay before leaping to this conclusion, merely assuming it to be true based on her own assumptions about religious belief. This is understandable given the ex-gay ideology: after all, in the Fundamentalist worldview God cannot fail, therefore He can only be failed, therefore it must be the ex-ex-gays and not the "Godly" ex-gay ministration that failed.

But it's also quite destructive. Unlike Miss Bohlin, I have spoken one-on-one with ex-ex-gays (the undergraduate assignment for which I did this has been publicly posted about halfway down this forum page), and I understand just what the accusation that "they're not trying hard enough to change" did to them when they were in ex-gay ministries. It laid a whole new heaping of undeserved shame onto them, over and above the shame they experienced in the first place for "experiencing unwanted same-sex attractions", as the ex-gay movement puts it. Having given their all in the effort to change, these people were then told by the ex-gay ministries that their all wasn't good enough. Is it any wonder that Shidlo and Schroeder's 2002 ex-gay study found that the many individuals in ex-gay institutions who experienced no change at all reported that they found the ex-gay experience harmful? The ex-gay ministries make it abundantly clear to them that they will never be able to change, and that this is their own fault.

This is why the demands by the ex-gay movement for "tolerance" fall flat. They do not merely want tolerance for how they live their own lives, they want people to be "tolerant" of the way they dictate how much or how little faith other people must allegedly have, without any regard for the actual feelings of those other people about the matter. They can also be dangerous to a same-sex-attracted person's mental well-being: their harmful imposition of shame onto those who they fail, demanding that their failure be treated as the failure of their victims, is not something that deserves any tolerance at all.

The response of Bryce Faulkner's family

2009-07-24T14:54:00.006+10:00

As I expected, the parents of Bryce Faulkner have hit out against efforts to locate their son, speaking to a media outlet that is sympathetic to their side of the story, specifically, Fox News. Notably, there is still no direct contact with Bryce Faulkner, despite a written statement from an unidentified "family representative" allegedly from Bryce saying "Every decision that I've made has been based solely upon my beliefs and I have not been manipulated or coerced by anyone to do anything".

The Facebook groups that were set up concerning Bryce's situation still appear to be down, and the original "help save Bryce website has been updated with correspondence between the site maintainer and what he believes to be members of the Faulkner family (The e-mail address is unverified but the wounded effrontery, bad spelling and unironic signing off of a really angry letter with "in Christ," suggests to me that the letters are indeed from a small-town Christianist family that has found their actions unexpectedly scrutinised).

I have an obvious bias in the matter, but the Faulkners deserve a fair hearing, so I'm glad the letters are up. The website maintainer for his part is to my mind responding well to all allegations made about such things as the alleged length of the relationship between Bryce and Travis Swanson and the reason the relationship ended. One troubling thing does stand out for me however.

In one letter, signed by "The Faulkner's [sic]", it is stated "Bryce has ended this relationship and is moving on with his life. It is no different than any other relationship...its over...". This is a highly unusual thing to see in Christianist writing, specifically placing a homosexual relationship on the exact same emotional footing as "any other relationship". The standard anti-gay rhetoric as I understand it is that there's simply no equivalency between a heterosexual relationship and a homosexual one: the latter is a product of "sexual broken-ness" and can never be emotionally satisfying. So why is a rather different point of view about homosexuality being put forward by the Faulkners?

The Fox News article has a quote from Mrs Faulkner in which says that Bryce "got caught up with friends who were pulling him that way", which Fox News interprets (probably correctly) as Mrs Faulkner believing that friends were influencing Bryce towards homosexuality. So she apparently believes homosexuality is a choice, and one that can be influenced by outside factors. Yet the usual rhetoric doesn't quite match.

I'm not sure what to make of that. It could be that the Faulkners have never really had to think the issue through, and so have amassed a collection of contradictory beliefs that they've never taken the time to examine. I'm afraid that'll probably change now as anti-gay activists turn them into "victims of the homosexual movement" and instruct them more formally in the assumptions of anti-gay ideology. Pity.

Xavier High School, villification, and freedom of speech

2009-07-19T23:48:00.004+10:00

Somewhat unusually for a GLBT person it seems, I'm opposed to the criminalisation of "hate speech". That includes opposition to the villification laws that exist in New South Wales and other Australian states. That means that on principle I must oppose the decision by Gary Burns to use villification law against Xavier High School in Albury after they printed a letter to the editor in their Alumni magazine from "former homosexual" Matt Price entitled "Imagine a world free from homosexuals".

Gary Burns is suggesting that this can only be interpreted as a call to murder gay people. I disagree: as an ex-gay, the author of the letter most likely thinks that "a world free of homosexuals" is more akin to the idea of "a world free of unbelievers" that the Catholic church presumably aspires to through its prosetylising. It can be interpreted as a call to conversion of homosexuals to heterosexuality rather than a call for elimination. Admittedly, other people might not think so.

It's especially difficult to judge as the full text of the letter is no longer available online. As Channel Nine reports, the online version of the newsletter in question has changed the text in question to remove all references to homosexuality. Price's letter now reads as the following inoffensive pablum:

Sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. My family
moved from Sydney and then to Howlong, but my
parents divorced when I was in Year 7.
I started at Xavier North Campus in 1985. I stayed until
Year 11 when I transferred to Albury High, doing Year
11 again and completing my Year 12 certificate. Later
I was accepted into Sydney University to become a
Registered Nurse.
I have been a Registered Nurse since 1994 and have
pretty much worked full time since then. I am currently
living in Noosa and my mother is here also. I am really
pleased to say I am going regularly to church where I am
a reader. It is enjoyable and I can lead/heal my spiritual
life in the way I was guided as a child. “The Truth Will
Set You Free” is what Xavier taught me.
I have a surfboard which I’m still trying to learn, but I can
get up! I had a friend that I used to catch the school bus
with from Howlong – his name was Paul Lavis. I have
not heard from him since I left school. If you hear his
name in passing could you say Hello to him for me.
God bless! Yours,
Matt Price

According to SX News, a local paper called the Border Mail may have posted the original letter under the heading "world of sex and drugs", alongside an article entitled "gay activist demands cash from schools" which trys to paint Xavier High School as the victim. But again, neither of those two articles are available from the Border Mail website. There is an online copy of a letter to the editor of the Border Mail complaining that the Border Mail's coverage of the situation was inaccurate and misleading, but nothing more.

My approach to issues like this is that it is better to publicly expose bigotry as bigotry rather than try to censor it. I mean, it's kind of hard to publicly demonstrate just what's wrong with the letter when nobody's able to read it. Presumably it's out there somewhere, even if it's not online. If I find something, I'll post it. Otherwise....

Australian Christian Lobby's misleading press release on GetUp's "misleading" ad

2009-07-14T23:06:00.006+10:00

GetUp was planning to run some satirical ads opposing the Australian government's proposed mandatory Internet filtering scheme on Qantas fights in Canberra. Qantas has now refused to run them, citing a long-term ban on running "political advertising". While Qantas and GetUp tussle over the exact definition of the term "political advertising", the Australian Christian Lobby (ACL) has put out a press release entitled "ACL Welcomes Qantas move to ditch misleading GetUp ad".

The supposedly "misleading" ad is not misleading at all. It is ACL who is being misleading in their press release. The ad itself briefly makes mention of Iran and the alleged cover-up of a rigged election there, prompting the response from the ACL:

We have been concerned that people might be responding to GetUp's plea for money to screen its ad because of the misleading claim that the Rudd Government's clean feed for kids election promise might lead to Iranian-style political repression,

Yet again, proponents of Internet censorship misleadingly try to dodge the real problem with Conroy's filter: that under his scheme, Internet censorship will be mandatory for adults. It is the ACL, not GetUp, who is misleading the public by trying to suggest otherwise.

I thought "Christians" weren't supposed to bear false witness?

Another case of coerced involvement in an ex-gay group

2009-07-09T22:03:00.003+10:00

The story of Bryce Faulkner, a gay pre-med student in Arkansas, has started making the rounds on the net. Short version: a young man was unexpectedly outed to his parents through their discovery of electronic communications between Bryce and his boyfriend Travis. Bryce was given the option of ex-gay treatment or losing all financial parental support (for a college student in America, a very grave threat indeed). Bryce has not been heard from at all in 25 days since the time I write this.

Waymon Hudson of the Bilerico Project has been in contact with Travis' parents to verify the story (Per Waymon, Bryce's parents refuse to communicate anything at all). For that reason I believe that this comment, originally posted at Bilerico, is genuinely from Travis' mother. I'm reposting part of it here because I find it so disturbing:

Hello everyone. First and foremost, I want to thank Waymon for putting this out here for everyone. I am "the BF's mom". That being said, this is not a hoax, scam or anything blown out of porportion. Bryce is a fine young man and had a bright future ahead of him, until he decided to come out to his mom and dad. He actually didn't even have the option of coming out. He was "found out" by despicable means. Everything he had was in their name, the cell phone, the car, internet, he worked at a clinic his mom owned. She would call the cell company and tell them she forgot the voicemail password, which they would then reset for her in order to get access to his voicemails. His dad is a technician for the local cable company (inet) and installed a "tap" on the internet in order to get access to passwords for email accounts. They even got the password to an account that they didn't know that he had. Any mail that came to the house addressed to him was opened and scanned. He did rely on his parents for everything.

I suppose nothing about what Christianist parents will do to their children to try and keep them in line should surprise me, but this claim that Bryce's parents covertly monitored every communication that he had was still disconcerting to me. I hope that little factoid gets publicised in the wake of the parents' inevitable attempt to paint themselves as the victims of the so-called "homosexual agenda" in response to the negative publicity that, with any luck, is now coming their way.

Gay people's anger getting misinterpreted as usual

2009-06-13T16:11:00.008+10:00

The US Department of Justice recently filed a brief in response to a challenge to America' Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the US law that ensures US state don't have to recognise same-sex marriages in other states, and prohibits the federal government from recognising same-sex marriages in any way, including same-sex marriages in states where same-sex marriage is now legally recognised at the state level.

Gay rights advocates have been upset by the brief, although you'd be very hard pressed to find out the main reason why from the news reporting and DOJ PR about the issue. The problem is not so much the fact that a brief was filed in support of DOMA but the language and arguments used in the brief. As David Link put it:

It is gratuitously insulting to lesbians and gay men, referring (unnecessarily) to same-sex marriage as a “form” of marriage, approving of congressional comparisons between same-sex marriages and loving relationships between siblings, or grandparents and grandchildren, and arguing (with a straight face, I can only assume) that discrimination against same-sex couples is rational because it saves the federal government money. There are some respectable arguments in this motion, and this kind of disrespect is offensive.

Yet the DOJ statement in response to the public outrage pretends otherwise, defending their actions as if it was the decision to file a brief alone that was making gay people upset:

As it generally does with existing statutes, the Justice Department is defending the law on the books in court. The president has said he wants to see a legislative repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act because it prevents LGBT couples from being granted equal rights and benefits. However, until Congress passes legislation repealing the law, the administration will continue to defend the statute when it is challenged in the justice system.

Nor is the anger over how the DOJ supported DOMA in their brief appearing in mainstream media reports: CBS simply states "Gay rights groups are upset that Obama appears to be going back on his word [to repeal DOMA]. But the Justice Department says it's following the standard practice of defending existing law", with no indication of the main problem identified by prominent gay rights advocates such as Andrew Sullivan that "the question is not why the DOJ should defend existing law; it is why they chose to lard it up with such egregious anti-gay rhetoric and religious right arguments"

It is very hard to put forward your case about why something is hurtful to you when the very reason that it is so hurtful is not being made known. No wonder you get people claiming that gay people get "hysterical" over things. If I was seeing someone getting really mad and upset just because a brief was filed in a court case, I'd probably think they were hysterical too. But that's not the root cause of the anger here: it's the actual callous language in the brief that's at the heart of the matter. And yet, I fear, most people will be completely unaware of that, thanks in no small part to the PR actions of the DOJ itself.

Justifying torture as a way to demonstrate that torture is evil

2009-04-26T14:15:00.012+10:00

Right-wing Fox News pundit Sean Hannity half-jokingly offers to undergo water-boarding as a test to see just how bad it really is, Huffington Post writer Jason Linkins says go for it.

My first reaction to this would be: shame on Linkins and those of his commentors who support Hannity getting the torture he asked for. Torture is evil. It is always wrong. Period. It is not something which should be done to anyone for any reason, ever, and it is interesting to see just how easy it is, even for the people on the side of the angels in the argument over whether or not to prosecute Bush era officials for their design and use of "enhanced interrogation techniques", to decide that a little bit of torture is okay if it's done for a just cause on a person naive enough to ask for it to be done on them. This is why torture must be ferociously opposed, no matter whether it works, no matter why it is done, no matter who does it, no matter who it is done to. Its evil is too seductive even for good people.

On the other hand: there is an argument made by the anti-torture side that waterboarding that can be stopped at any time by the person undergoing it isn't actually torture, and that the complete and total helplessness of the person undergoing a torture "treatment" to make it stop when they've had enough is an essential component of defining something as torture rather than a lesser moral evil like "unwarranted infliction of violence". That conceivably opens up space for Hannity to undergo water-boarding under carefully controlled conditions: if he's able to stop it at any time while undergoing it, then it doesn't cross the moral evil threshold of being torture. But it also defeats the purpose of the entire exercise: if the idea is to show that the techniques used by the Bush Administration are too horrible to use on anyone, then what's the point of putting on a demonstration that's missing a key component of what made those techniques qualify as "torture"? It would at best just show how painful and frightening water-boarding really is, but it wouldn't demonstrate just what it is about torture that makes it truly evil.

To do that without actually torturing someone seems impossible. Keeping in mind the possibility that I myself am getting seduced by the evil of torture by even suggesting that taking Hannity up on this offer to subject him to some type of water-boarding is anything other than irredeemably evil, I'm inclined to explore the idea that it might be possible.

The problem: for the experience of waterboarding to truly demonstrate to Hannity some measure of the personal experience of being tortured, it would have to be done in a way that he can't stop. But if he has no say in when it stops, then we're torturing him. A partial reproduction of the treatment may be ethically justifiable, but the mere physical experience of water-boarding, able to be stopped by Hannity at any time, is an insufficent example of what it actually is that makes torture irredeemably evil.

But, what if Sean Hannity was allowed to decide how long he would be water-boarded for, but he had to make that decision before the waterboarding started? Then, once the process starts, he cannot change that decision for any reason and must undergo waterboarding for the time he himself earlier chose. That would give an idea of what its like to be helpless to stop waterboarding while still granting him a limited control over the whole process.

In suggesting that Sean Hannity be offered a chance to undergo waterboarding under the conditions I just described, have or have I not myself just justified torturing someone as a legitimate way to demonstrate to them why torture is evil? I suspect that the only reason Hannity would accept the terms I presented would be because he's too naive about torture to understand what it is he would be signing up for. That says "yes, it's torture" to me. So yes, it is impossible to give a person a personal understanding of why torture is so evil without torturing them, and it would be better for all to stop contemplating the highly seductive, evil idea of even trying.

Seen on the Internet: a parable about torture

2009-04-23T09:50:00.005+10:00

Top members of Mossad, MI-5, and the CIA compete in the International Intelligence Service Olympics. They are told to enter a nearby forest and return with a fox.

The Mossad agents return an hour later with a fox. Two hours later, MI-5 also returns with a fox. The two groups congratulate each other on their respective gold and silver prizes.

Hours pass. The judges begin to get restless.

Finally, the CIA agents emerge from the forest with a deer, who is battered and bleeding, with shackles on its legs, opaque goggles over its eyes, and muffled earphones on its ears. As it passes the judges’ stand they hear it saying over and over:

“I am a fox. I am a fox. I am a fox . . .”

21 Reasons Why Gender Matters: Plagiarism?

2009-02-22T17:33:00.003+11:00

This is odd. Section 15 of the pamphlet 21 Reasons Why Gender Matters is the section of the leaflet primarily concerned with homosexuality (or "gender identity disorder", as they pseudoscientifically call it). It starts out like this:

Consider first the issue of pathology. The whole notion of gender
disorientation has been highly politicised in the past few decades.
Objective scientific debate has been overwhelmed by advocacy
groups driving specific agendas. For example, in 1952, the first edition
of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the official catalogue of mental
disorders used by mental health professionals, listed homosexuality
as a sociopath personality disturbance. In 1968, the revised DSM II
reclassified homosexuality as a sexual deviancy. But in the midst of the
sexual revolution, homosexual protestors began picketing the APA’s
annual conventions, demanding that homosexuality not be identified
as a pathology. In 1973, under enormous pressure from homosexual
activists, the APA removed homosexuality from its DSM III edition to
the dismay of about 40 percent of psychiatrists - particularly those who
specialized in treating homosexuals.

Now look at the section "Understanding: Gender-Disorientation Pathology" in this paper from the far-right website the Patriot Post:

n order to understand how to respond to the homosexual agenda in the Church and society, it is helpful to understand the underlying pathology.

In 1952, the first edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the official catalogue of mental disorders used by mental health professionals, listed homosexuality as a sociopath personality disturbance. In 1968, the revised DSM II reclassified homosexuality as a sexual deviancy. But in the midst of the sexual revolution, homosexual protestors began picketing the APA's annual conventions, demanding that homosexuality not be identified as pathology. In 1973, under enormous pressure from homosexual activists, the APA removed homosexuality from its the DSM III edition to the dismay of about 40 percent of psychiatrists -- particularly those who specialized in treating homosexuals.

The second paragraphs of each section are likewise almost identical. Gender Matters pamphlet:

Dr. Ronald Bayer, author of the book, Homosexuality and American
Psychiatry, writes: “The entire process, from the first confrontation
organized by homosexual demonstrators, to the referendum demanded
by orthodox psychiatrists, seemed to violate the most basic expectations
about how questions of science should be resolved. Instead of being
engaged in sober discussion of data, psychiatrists were swept up in
a political controversy. The result was not a conclusion based on an
approximation of the scientific truth as dictated by reason, but was
instead an action demanded by the ideological temper of the times.”106
It is hoped that the APA will reverse its position.

From the Patriot Post article:

Dr. Ronald Bayer, author of the book, Homosexuality and American Psychiatry writes: "The entire process, from the first confrontation organized by gay demonstrators to the referendum demanded by orthodox psychiatrists, seemed to violate the most basic expectations about how questions of science should be resolved. Instead of being engaged in sober discussion of data, psychiatrists were swept up in a political controversy. The result was not a conclusion based on an approximation of the scientific truth as dictated by reason, but was instead an action demanded by the ideological temper of the times."

But the APA is not likely to reverse their position.

It continues. Gender Matters pamphlet:

Some homosexuals report that they over-identified with their opposite
sex parent and peers - thus a boy becomes increasingly feminized
while a girl becomes more masculine.107 In both cases - lack of identity
and over identity - there is a common denominator, which is emotional
deprivation. In their formative years, all children need emotional and
physical closeness with their parents - particularly with their samesex
parent, and they need to develop a healthy sense of their gender
identity as male or female.

Skip a little in the Patriot Post article until:

Many homosexuals report that as children, they had a dysfunctional relationship with their same-sex parent, such relationships being their primary means of gender identification and affirmation. For some children, particularly those whose parents are separated or divorced, the dissociation from their same-sex parent can cause an unconscious but directive drive for gender identification and affirmation among same-sex peers, which, after puberty, can manifest as sexual behavior. The search for closure to a dysfunctional relationship with a parent can lead to a lifetime of misery.

Some homosexuals report that they over-identified with their opposite sex parent and peers -- thus a boy becomes increasingly feminized while a girl becomes more masculine.

In both cases -- lack of identity and over identity -- there is a common denominator, which is emotional deprivation. In their formative years, all children need emotional and physical closeness with their parents -- particularly with their same sex parent, and they need to develop a healthy sense of their gender identity as masculine or feminine.

The number "107" you can see up there sandwiched in the quotes from the Gender Matters pamphlet refers to this footnote:
107 Mark Alexander, “The Homosexual Agenda”, http://www.patriotpost.us/papers/03-32.asp 6/6/2006, although the URL didn't work for me when I tried it. The link to the Patriot Post piece above references the URL by IP address, not domain name.

In any case, it is remotely conceivable that reference 107 is an attempt to reference all this apparently plagiarised text. If so, it was done so badly that it makes it look like the text presented here was actually original work by the Gender Matters people. I don't suppose Mark Alexander (author of the Patriot Post piece) would mind being plagiarised overmuch so long as his writing is being used to further an anti-gay agenda somehow, but I wonder how such plagiarism would reflect on the people doing the plagiarising?

The only other possibilityI can see here is that Mark Alexander himself was involved in the production of this pamphlet somehow. I've found no evidence of that as yet.

21 Reasons Why Gender Matters: Paul Cameron references

2009-02-22T16:58:00.007+11:00

I go back to university soon, so I won't have much time to write here. I didn't get through nearly as many of the references of the local anti-gay pamphlet "21 Reasons Why Gender Matters" as I would have wanted over the holidays, but realistically I suppose it's too tough a job for one person. There are still a few things I have found, though. The most significant would probably be the use of not one, but two, direct references from Paul Cameron, an "expert on homosexuality" so discredited that there are even anti-gay groups who consider his work too shoddy and unreliable to use (and that's saying something).

The first is using his recent distortions about the average lifespan of gay and lesbian partnered people in Europe:

Scandinavian research has shown that married homosexuals’ and
lesbians’ life spans are 24 years shorter than heterosexual couples.
In Denmark over the 12 years after 1990, the average age of death
of hetero men was 74, whereas the 561 partnered homosexual men
who died in the same period did so at an average age of 51. Married
women died at an average age of 78, whereas the nine lesbian women
who died, did so at an average age of 56. In Norway the figures were
similar – married heterosexual men died at an average age of 77, the
31 homosexuals at 52; heterosexual women died at 81, while the 6
lesbians who died, did so at mean 56.151

With footnote 151 being none other than

151 Paul Cameron,. “Federal Distortion of The Homosexual Footprint.”:

which has already been debunked in detail by Box Turtle Bulletin.

The second is the usual conflation of homosexuality and child molestation

A recent review of the child molestation literature as it appears in
medical and psychological journals concluded that between 25 and 40
per cent of all recorded child molestation was homosexual.169

With footnote 161 being

169 Reported in Paul Cameron, Exposing the AIDS Scandal. Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House Publishers, 1988, p39.

Child molestation is child molestation of course, and it's only anti-gay activists who falsely treat molesters of boys and girls as subsets of the larger heterosexual and homosexual population. But I am somewhat amused by the description by the Gender Matters pamphlet of a Cameronite writing from 1988 as a "recent review of the child molestation literature". Getting desperate for relevance, these anti-gay types are.

Origin of the homosexual recruitment myth?

2009-02-02T19:29:00.004+11:00

It's probably one of the most powerful lies in the anti-gay lobby's rhetoric: that homosexuals recruit. I'm curious about where it first appeared.

The usual "deduction" to justify it is that homosexuals can't procreate, therefore they must need to recruit. There are a whole load of problematic assumptions in this "deduction" that, I think, would not be so conveniently skipped over if there wasn't such a long history of the belief of homosexual recruitment in Western culture. It's the social entrenchment of the belief rather than any internal logic to the idea that is the problem I think.

Believing the recruitment myth is not a requirement of believing that homosexuality is wrong. It is a requirement of believing that homosexuality is a "social disease" which needs to be "contained". Is there any other society that viewed homosexuality as socially contagious before Western culture introduced the idea to the world? I honestly don't know. I suspect not.

What few writings I've examined about the recruitment myth so far merely try to refute it or, in the case of anti-gay tracts, support it. I've found almost nothing about the origin or spread of the belief. Has anyone actually ever bothered to research it?

There is just one reference I've found, in a newsletter from 1993 put out by Paul Cameron's Family Research Institute. He points out a single passage in an early writing by the Christian founders. The Didache contains the single line "you shall not corrupt children", which Cameron portrays as a prohibition on attempts at homosexual recruitment. Another work called the Apostolic Constitutions, chapter 7 of which is apparently an expansion of the Didache, suggests that the "corruption" referred to is indeed male homosexuality: "Thou shall not corrupt boys: (5) for this wickedness is contrary to nature, and arose from Sodom, which was therefore entirely consumed with fire sent from God."

That's the only reference to an origin of the recruitment myth I can find, and it's still vague (does "corruption" specifically refer to the idea of recruitment here? I'm not 100% convinced that it must do so). I'd be very interested in further exploring the origin and trajectory of the idea if at all possible.

Al-Qaeda´s opinion about the closure of Guantanamo Bay

2009-01-27T21:33:00.006+11:00

Al-Qaeda has apparently been releasing a lot of anti-Obama propaganda in the wake of his election victory. While the linked article concerns itself with what it means for al-Qaeda that Bush is no longer President and Obama is, I was struck by a minor point on Page 2:

Friday, a new al-Qaeda salvo attempted to embarrass Obama, a day after the new president announced his plans for closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay. Appearing on the videotaped message were two men who enlisted in al-Qaeda after being freed from that detention center.
"By Allah, imprisonment only increased our persistence in our principles for which we went out, did jihad for and were imprisoned for," said Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, who described himself as a deputy commander for al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

It does not escape my notice that al-Qaeda is trying to scare people into believing that releasing prisoners - even prisoners who were not originally jihadists when they were originally imprisoned - from Guantanamo Bay will greatly increase the risk of terrorist attack. This is the same argument made by domestic opponents of the closure: that the people imprisoned there are too dangerous to release, even into the regular American prison system.

I conclude from this unity of arguments that al-Qaeda doesn´t want Guantanamo Bay to close. Why would they? The propaganda value that its continued existence has for them is immense. I conclude also that they are intentionally trying to feed the fear that local opponents are instilling about the possible release of Guantanamo Bay detainees in an intentional effort to prevent the facility´s closure. Local opponents of the closure of Guantanamo Bay might want to think about that.

Homosexuality and shame: how shame turns us against ourselves

2009-01-24T19:33:00.007+11:00

Some basic research that I did at university has led me to believe that one of the most important things in defining gay people on both an individual and social level is the emotion of shame.

Shame is what so many of us carry as a silent burden when we are closeted. Heck, it's the very reason for the existence of the closet. It's a common refrain from our opponents when we appear in public in, say, Pride marches: "Shame on you!" "You should be ashamed of yourself!". The very existence of gay Pride was once described to me as "a natural reaction to undeserved shame".

Shame is intimately bound up with social activity. A social theorist named Barbalet(1998, p104) whose writings I encountered in my studies described the social mechanism of shame as the "supposition of another's regard for self, of taking the view of another". It is a means of social control, more subtle and more effective than brute force or even peer pressure: make a person feel that others will judge them negatively for the "shameful" thing and also make them believe that this judgement is correct. The person, through their own feeling of shame, punishes themself more effectively than through any further external means that could be applied.

The struggle against undeserved shame is the struggle to believe that the judgements of others is wrong. Even after you may have spent a very long time believing that they were right.

Our society has long treated homosexuality as a shameful thing on the basis that homosexuality was seen as something that could be prevented or altered: making it shameful would therefore prevent people from engaging in it and encourage those who had engaged in it to stop. The emotional coercion of shame was preferred over attempts at rational persuasion perhaps because of the view of homosexuality as "depravity", "mental illness", and many other labels, all signifying the belief that a homosexual must have taken leave of their senses and could not be reasoned with.

It is my suspicion that true liberation from the corrosive personal and social effects of this shame has not yet been achieved among the GLBT community.

I suspect that one of the understandable but unfortunate results of individuals' efforts to throw off this shame is overcompensation and oversensitivity. Having struggled so hard and for so long, often from the very start of adolescence, against external attempts to, through the pressure to feel shame, over-ride feelings and emotions as fundamental to our being as those concerning sexual orientation, it makes sense to me that many such individuals would be very sensitive to even so much as the possibility of other people attempting to pressure them emotionally. Oversensitive, even. To the point that a gay person will absolutely not let other people's opinions and desires affect their behaviour in any way. Do gay people tend to be more selfish and egotistical than straight people? On average, perhaps, yes. If so, our battle against the shame we have been taught to feel is the reason why.

In some cases this overcompensating defense against the imposition of shame may cause a gay person to start attacking first in self-defense, so to speak. The sense of threat, so pressing for so long, leads to a sort of bunker mentality. Every social engagement with another is seen as a potential danger. The sense of threat from others is exaggerated, and the person counterattacks even before they know for sure whether or not an attack is coming. And the usual form of attack? The one they are most familiar with: an attempt to shame a person. Hence the reputation of gay people as "bitchy".

Occasionally a gay person notes that gay people are quite good at oppressing ourselves without any outside help, which I think isn't quite true: we do oppress ourselves, but we do it as a result of our struggles with the shame which we have been taught to feel about ourselves.

There is hope. The younger generation are growing up in a society where the social pressures of shaming have been weakened, or even in some cases have vanished completely. It's somewhat gratifying to occasionally read one of the younger generation say that they don't understand the point of gay pride. And for them, having never been taught to be ashamed of being gay, there is nothing to be gained from a conscious display of pride. It's for those who have still been taught that homosexuality is a shameful thing. It's a way of dealing with that shame. I don't know if it's the best way to deal with it - my Buddhist tendencies lead me to see the opposite of shame as not pride but as, well, the absence of shame - but it's one way of dealing with it.

I believe that our failure to deal with our shame effectively makes us often far too quick to take offense, even (or perhaps especially) to take offense at each other, and far too quick to give it, even (or perhaps especially) to each other. That is corrosive to us, and it is corrosive to our community. While there have been many positive steps to prevent the future generations from experiencing that shame, I think we need to become more aware of how our battle with our existing feelings of shame impacts us and the people around us, so that we can better ameliorate its effects.

Reference
Barbalet, J.M., 1998. Emotion, social theory, and social structure: a macrosociological approach, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge NY,

21 Reasons Why Gender Matters: Footnote 67, promiscuity and fidelity

2009-01-02T18:53:00.005+11:00

From page 10 of the anti-gay pamphlet "21 Reasons Why Gender Matters":

Indeed, high rates of multiple partnering in the homosexual community continues to be the norm. As one recent report notes, “The majority of the 2006 respondents had engaged in sex with between one and 10 partners in the six months prior to the survey [over 63 per cent], while almost 20% of the men reported having had sex with more than 10 partners.”67

I do wish the Fatherhood Foundation would be more accurate in their referencing. Footnote 67 lists the quoted text as coming from the "Gay Community Periodic Survey. Sydney: National Centre in HIV Social Research, 2007, pp. 14-15", by Iryna Zablotska, et. al. Close, but not quite: the NCHSR conducts multiple surveys in multiple cities around Australia, and they all specify the city in the title. There is no single "Gay Community Periodic Survey".

There is, among others, a "Gay Community Periodic Survey: Canberra 2006". This marks the second time that the pamphlet garbled the title of the work they referenced, and the error is more severe this time. It took me quite a while to locate the one they were talking about. I suppose I should be thankful they gave me page numbers, and that they were the right ones: many of the references in anti-gay literature in general and in this pamphlet in particular fail to go that far.

Despite the inaccurate referencing of the title, the text of the quote is accurate. Whether it supports the conclusion that the authors are trying to suggest - that homosexual relationships are all fundamentally unfaithful and unstable - is less clear. The pamphlet's authors could have mentioned that this survey was not limited to gay men in regular relationships: on page 6 the survey notes that "about 60% of the men in the sample were in a regular sexual relationship with a man at the time of completing the survey". So 40% of the men were, how shall we say, "swinging singles", "footloose and fancy free"? Gee, you think that should be taken into account when reporting the findings about number of sex partners? Or is it more convenient for the pamphlet's authors to just let readers leap to the wrong conclusion that this says something about "infidelity" in gay relationships?

Perhaps more suited to the pamphlet authors' purposes are the figures on men who are both in a "regular sexual relationship" and have "regular casual sexual relations" as well. They comprised 29.1% of the 2006 respondents according to the Table on page 6 of the survey, which sounds like a lot. Yet it is still less than the number of respondents who reported having sex only with a regular partner: 31.6%. Furthermore, despite the stereotype of all gay men being horribly oversexed, 14.5% of the 2006 survey respondents reported having no sexual contact over the 6 month period at all.

I feel strangely sorry for that 14.5%. Here everyone is saying how much sex gay men have and this lot isn't getting any. Or then again, maybe they prefer it that way. It's impossible to tell just by looking at the numbers.

Of course, the survey was only asking about behaviour during a six month period, so it's entirely possible that the "monagamous" and "no sexual partners" entries for that particular period were in part due to circumstance rather than choice. Some clarification is available on page 21. Figure 28 provides a breakdown of "Agreements with regular male partners about sex outside the relationship". The figure is about split 3 different ways: 30.4% "Anal intercourse is permitted only with a condom", 33.3% "no sexual contact with casual partners is permitted", 26.7% "no spoken agreement about sex" (remaining percentages are 5.2% "no anal intercourse with casual partners is permitted" and 4.4% "anal intercourse without a condom is permitted"). I would say that the figures for monogamous and non-monogamous relationship arrangements seem about equal, but that large chunk who report no agreement makes such estimates impossible. It is not possible to say which is more common. It is possible to say that (a) monogamous male-male relationships exist, and (b) the number is far from miniscule, if we view the results of this survey as representative of relationships.

And that is the final problem with the way the pamphlet uses the survey, what is it really measuring? Seems to me that it's a measure of sexual behaviour of a specific subsegment of GLBT individuals, not an overall examination of the quality of our emotional partnerships.

"Regular sexual partner" as used in the survey could include everything from "man of my dreams" to "fuckbuddy", the survey doesn't care about such distinctions. The recruiting strategy of the survey described on pages 1-2 also seems biased in favour of gay men who identify strongly with the existing gay community, under-representing those gay men who might not identify with mainstream gay culture and its urban liberal sexual morality.

And of course, as in each and every one of these anti-gay statistics, we only ever hear the scary stories about the alleged sexual proclivities of gay men. Where are women in all this? I begin to understand why some lesbians view the lesbian experience and more problematic than that of gay men: their very existence is totally disregarded in so many fundamental ways.

21 Reasons Why Gender Matters: Footnote 66 is another mistake

2009-01-02T04:00:00.003+11:00

The pamphlet "21 reasons why gender matters" can be found online here.

Footnote 66 is the alleged source of these statistics on the length of male same-sex relationships:

a study of the Melbourne homosexual community showed that 40 per cent of men had changed partners in the past 6 months; 9.8 per cent had been in a relationship for only six months to a year; 18.8 per cent for 1-2 years; 15.3 per cent had lasted for 3-5 years; and only 15.7 per cent were in a relationship of more than five years – meaning 84 per cent had broken down after five years.

They supposedly come from the "Melbourne Gay Community Periodic Survey, 2000" by Clive Aspin et al, published by the National Centre in HIV Social Research.

The survey results are available online. It is simply impossible for the statistics attributed to it to have come from there. The Periodic Survey only measures whether the regular relationships of those surveyed have lasted for "less than 1 year" or for "at least one year" (see Table 9 on page 12 of the Periodic Survey). Even the most statistically illiterate person around would have trouble getting the Fatherhood Foundation's alleged statistics from the data actually in the Periodic Survey: in 2000, 31.8% of those in a regular relationship had been in it for less than a year, while 68.1% had been in it for a year or more.

The website of the Australian Christianist group the Saltshakers includes a statistics page on relationships which quotes the same numbers but gives a different source, although it's easy to get confused (which the Fatherhood Foundation apparently did. Again). Their source for the numbers is "Men and Sexual Health", by the National Centre in HIV Social Research, 1997. There doesn't appear to be any kind of study with this name. Are they referring to the longitudinal cohort study called "Sydney Men and Sexual Health" (SMASH)? It's hard to say, as the main report that I can find on that study is a book called "Methods and sample in a study of homosexually active men in Sydney, Australia" that was, er, published in 1995. The book is accessible to me, once university libraries end their holiday closing period next week.

So the Fatherhood Foundation has, for the third time that I've now found, supplied a reference in their pamphlet "21 Reasons Why Gender Matters" that is verifiably wrong. I hope people keep that in mind when anti-gay activists rabbit on about how "well-referenced" this little smear pamphlet supposedly is. And the only alternative source given for the quote - from another anti-gay organisation - does not appear to be correct either. Maybe I'll be lucky enough to find the true source next week, but we'll see.

By the by, the reason that anti-gay groups continue to get away with telling these lies is because nobody effectively challenges them. That's one of the reasons I continue to hunt these misquotes down despite the obstacles and frustrations that their inaccurate referencing throw up. I hope it proves useful to somebody someday.

Statistical skullduggery from the Fatherhood Foundation: "proving" gay relationships shorter

2009-01-02T02:38:00.005+11:00

On page 10 of the anti-gay pamphlet "21 reasons why gender matters" there is a piece of statistical deception that is very popular among anti-gay circles. It is one that needs no examination of references to spot.

The text is as follows:

Heterosexual married couples have a far lower rate of relationship breakdown than homosexual couples. As an Australian Government report stated, “According to a 1995 study, ten per cent of marriages failed within six years, 20 per cent within ten years, 30 per cent by twenty years, and 40 per cent by thirty years.”65 In comparison, a study of the Melbourne homosexual community showed that 40 per cent of men had changed partners in the past 6 months; 9.8 per cent had been in a relationship for only six months to a year; 18.8 per cent for 1-2 years; 15.3 per cent had lasted for 3-5 years; and only 15.7 per cent were in a relationship of more than five years – meaning 84 per cent had broken down after five years.

The lie is glaringly obvious to anyone within even a slight understanding of statistics: the Fatherhood Foundation is comparing every single homosexual relationship to only those heterosexual relationships that are called "marriage". They've deliberately and dishonestly weighted the heterosexual side of the comparison by excluding all unmarried opposite-sex couples, and then used that false data to try and paint homosexual couples as inherently inferior across the board. Unmarried opposite-sex couples, and not married opposite-sex couples, would be the real equivalent of unmarried same-sex male couples such as those allegedly studied in Melbourne. But making a comparison that's actually valid wouldn't give the Fatherhood Foundation the opportunity to smear the gay community with their misinformation now, would it?

Homosexuality and Tolerance in the Netherlands: The Real Story

2009-01-01T19:51:00.008+11:00

Significantly, the study sampled residents of the Netherlands, where social acceptance of same-sex behavior is high. This would call into question the assumption that the high rate of psychiatric problems is primarily due to social or internalized homophobia.

This is what the "pro-treatment of homosexuality" group NARTH recently said about the study "Same-Sex Sexual Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders: Findings from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (NEMESIS)" published in Archives of General Psychiatry 2001, vol 58(1), pp 85-91. While NARTH may chauvinistically choose to view the entirety of a Western European country like the Netherlands as some sort of gay mecca where no anti-gay sentiment ever exists in any form at all, the truth is that anti-gay sentiment does exist there, and it causes serious problems for gay people. Perhaps NARTH should engage in an honest assessment of the Dutch attitudes towards homosexuality instead of misleadingly trying to handwave past it.

The Dutch study itself actually references three works that assess attitudes towards homosexuality in the Netherlands. I have traced one of them: a study called "Attitudes towards nonmarital sex in 24 countries" by E D WIlmer, J Treas, and R Newcomb, published in Journal of Sex Research 1998, vol 35, pp349-358. Its measurement of sexual attitudes in the 24 countries included a question on whether respondents believed that homosexual sex was wrong. With 65% of Dutch respondents saying that it was "not wrong at all", it is true that tolerance in the Netherlands for homosexual sex is relatively high, especially compared to the USA where fully 70%said it was "always wrong". But the fact remains that 19% of Dutch respondents believed that homosexual sex was "always wrong". Intolerance for homosexuality still exists in the Netherlands, and it is reasonable to believe that this will be reflected in an increased toll on the mental health of people who engage in homosexual behaviour. (To round out the percentages, 4% of Dutch respondents believed that homosexual sex was wrong "almost always", while a further 12% believed it was wrong "only sometimes". I will not speculate at this time on why those people answered the question like that.)

And the attitudes of people who do find fault with homosexuality would seem to be especially virulent. A study on anti-gay violence by the University of Amsterdam called "As long as they keep away from me" (an English translation of the summary is available at the bottom of the page) noted that "gays fall victim to violence in Amsterdam on a regular basis. In 2007, 201 cases were recorded, of which 67 were of physical violence", 17 of robbery and 38 of serious threat". Yet anti-gay groups like NARTH would have you believe that gay people in the Netherlands experience no kind of discrimination that would tax their mental health whatsoever.

Further, and disturbingly, a person who might claim homosexual sex is not wrong can still be a gaybasher. As the Dutch study on anti-gay violence discovered, the "tolerance" expressed towards homosexuality among some Dutch youth can be highly conditional:

The major cause of the aversion to homosexuality felt by perpetrators of anti-gay violence lies in their views and emotions regarding masculinity and sexuality. Four aspects of homosexuality that particularly appear to arouse annoyance, disapproval and loathing are anal sex, feminine behaviour, the visibility of homosexuality, and the fear of being hit on by a gay.
It is remarkable that the perpetrators do not reject homosexuality on all fronts. Indeed, in many cases the perpetrators declare not to hate gays at all and realise that homosexuality is a part of Dutch society. They reject homosexuality, however, on express conditions: gays should not openly show the four aspects of the behaviour mentioned above. The perpetrators tend to copy the prevailing gay-tolerant rhetoric of Dutch society, but do not refrain from all sorts of violence as soon as homosexuality comes close to them or if gay men do not fulfil their supposed obligations[emphasis added].

It may be premature for me to accuse NARTH on capitalising on the anti-European bigotry prevalent among their usual audience of Christianist fanatics, who tend to inaccurately view Amsterdam as a modern-day Sodom where homosexuality is not just tolerated, but glorified. But I would hope that this examination of the actual evidence will help to correct the misinformation propagated by anti-gay activists that increased mental health problems among homosexual men and women in the Netherlands cannot be the result of discrimination against gay people. Overt anti-gay bigotry does exist in the Netherlands, and even some Dutch youth who might call themselves "tolerant" of homosexuality can show an especially violent side if the conditions put on providing that "tolerance" aren't perceived as being met.

21 Reasons why Gender Matters: shonky referencing and the mental health of gay people

2008-12-30T19:04:00.004+11:00

I found a second serious referencing error in the anti-gay pamphlet 21 Reasons why Gender Matters. Like the earlier one, it falsely claims that a study includes text which it doesn't actually include. Unlike the earlier one, I can actually see how they got it wrong.

On page 14 of the pamphlet, the following text appears:

One study revealed that “the lifetime prevalence for two or more psychiatric disorders for men who engaged in homosexual behaviors was 37.85 per cent versus 14.4 per cent for men who did not engage in homosexual behaviors. For women engaging in homosexual behaviours, the rate for two or more psychiatric disorders was 39.5 per cent versus 21.3 per cent for women not engaging in homosexual behaviours. Society’s oppression of homosexual people is a hypothesis unlikely to find support in this study, concluded the Netherlands [sic], which is perhaps one of the most homosexual-affirming and tolerant countries in the world.”110

Footnote 110 refers to a study that is very popular among anti-gay activists trying to "prove" that homosexual behaviour itself directly causes the person engaging in it to become mentally disturbed: "Same-sex Behavior and Psychiatric Disorders", by TGM Sandfort et al, published in volume 58(1) of the Archives of General Psychiatry in 2001.

I have now read the complete study, and the text quoted above as appearing in the study itself does not appear anywhere within in. Given the actual sentiments expressed by the authors in the study, particularly their fairly clear statement in the "Comment" section that "because of the study's cross-sectional design, it is not possible to adequately address the question of the causes of the observed differences" in mental health, it is highly misleading to claim that they made any statement of fact as clear-cut as the one that the pamphlet falsely attributed to them.

The actual source of the quoted text is this article from the so-called "research and therapy" group NARTH, a little way in to "Section D:Mental Health, Physical Health, Stability of Homosexual Men and Women and Longevity of Homosexual Relationships". The shoddy use of HTML, in which a separate font is used when quoting a study, but that font accidentally spills out of the closing blockquote, could, if you're not reading carefully, give the misleading impression that the paragraph after the quote from the study is also a quote from the study. Apparently the Fatherhood Foundation didn't notice the problem.

The study itself that they're misquoting is interesting, and probably deserves a more thorugh consideration given the multiple lies that a great deal of anti-gay organisations tell about it, not just NARTH and the Fatherhood Foundation. For now I'll just point to a news article about a much more recent study about the issue of homosexuality and mental health, one which should give pause to any anti-gay activist trying to encourage negative attitudes to homosexuality: Parents' response key to health of gay youth:

Kids with parents who reacted negatively 8 times more likely to try suicide
by Lisa Leff
Associated Press
SAN FRANCISCO - Young gay people whose parents or guardians responded negatively when they revealed their sexual orientation were more likely to attempt suicide, experience severe depression and use drugs than those whose families accepted the news, according to a new study.

Follow the link for the full article.

21 Reasons Why Gender Matters on transgenderism, cont.

2008-12-26T20:16:00.004+11:00

The pamphlet "21 reasons why gender matters" can be found online here.

The pamphlet offers three footnotes citing two documents in support of their contribution to the question of "whether gender re-assignment surgery can ever be justified". The first footnote refers to a court case, in which they reference an online post from the right-wing site Worldnet Daily about the case rather than the case itself. The other two refer to statements made by transgender individuals who allegedly express regret about undergoing gender reassignment surgery, the second of which is also from the Worldnet Daily post.

The court case referred to is Marc Andrew Mario vs P & C Food Markets, Inc, in which Mario tried - unsuccessfully - to argue that his gender reassignment surgey should have been covered by his employer's health insurance because it was "medically necessary". The court found in a summary judgement that this was not the case, a judgement which was upheld on appeal. The characterisation in the pamphlet that the decision was made due to the court's perceptation that there was "conflict in the medical community over whether or not gender dysphoria is a legitimate illness worthy of such severe medical intervention" seems accurate. It's not entirely clear with the court's impression was accurate, though.

Opponents of the ruling point out that this particular decision is "an anomaly in light of the many recent developments signaling a growing acceptance of the reality of transsexualism", including the Medicaid program in the US covering gender reassignment surgery in many states and jurisdictions, "under regulations that limit coverage to medically necessary procedures". There's apparently some room for disagreement here.

Not so much with the second, though. It's a quote from a transgender woman named Dr Renee Richards, taken from an interview with her in Tennis Magazine in March, 1999:

“I would have been better off staying the way I was,” said tennis star Renee Richards, the high-profile sex-change recipient.26 She goes on to say: “I wish that there could have been an alternative way, but there wasn’t in 1975. If there was a drug that I could have taken that would have reduced the pressure, I would have been better off staying the way I was - a totally intact person. I know deep down that I’m a second-class woman. I get a lot of inquiries from would-be transsexuals, but I don’t want anyone to hold me out as an example to follow. Today there are better choices, including medication, for dealing with the compulsion to crossdress and the depression that comes from gender confusion. As far as being fulfilled as a woman, I’m not as fulfilled as I dreamed of being. I get a lot of letters from people who are considering having this operation...and I discourage them all.”

I couldn't find the original interview, but a later interview with the New York Times provides some interesting context when she talks about her 1999 comment. Contrary to the implication in the Gender Matters pamphlet, Dr Richards does not believe that transsexualism doesn't exist, and does still think of herself as a woman:

''In 1999, you told People--'' the reporter begins.

Dr. Richards interrupts.

''--I told People what I was feeling, which I still feel: Better to be an intact man functioning with 100 percent capacity for everything than to be a transsexual woman who is an imperfect woman.''

In the same interview, Dr. Richards talked about wishing for something that could have prevented the surgery.

''What I said was if there were a drug, some voodoo, any kind of mind-altering magic remedy to keep the man intact, that would have been preferable, but there wasn't,'' Dr. Richards says. ''The pressure to change into a woman was so strong that if I had not been able to do it, I might have been a suicide.''

Does she regret having the surgery?

''The answer is no.''

Got that? She does not regret the surgery, she did not view her gendery dysphoria as "curable" through mere therapy, and the reason she does not want others to undergo the surgery is not because she thinks it's wrong to try and change gender, but because it doesn't go far enough in changing it.

The final footnote refers once again to Worldnet Daily, in which is quoted a self-described "former trans-sexual" named Joseph Cluse:

“How can outward physical change bring about the needed change
within? (After surgery) there is still a painful void,” says a regretful Joseph Cluse, who in 1979 had surgery in Trinidad, Colorado. “Relationships are destroyed and everyday I have to live with scars. The mirror is ever before me.”

Joseph Cluse is described on the Exodus International website as "a man whom God redeemed from transsexuality". His statement there that he no longer views himself as transgender, and that he sought gender reassignment surgery in the first place because "Satan’s stronghold on my life was such that I could see no other course for my life than a complete sex change operation" seems sincere enough, but it's difficult to tell with testimonials from people affiliated with ex-gay organisations. Will Joseph Cluse become JoAnna Cluse again as an ex-ex-transsexual, as so many ex-gays have become ex-ex-gays? Only time will tell.

21 Reasons Why Gender Matters on transgenderism

2008-12-26T19:22:00.003+11:00

The pamphlet "21 reasons why gender matters" can be found online here.

On page 5 and 6, the pamphlet disgracefully misuses the story of Dr John Money as an argument against the very existence of transgender people. Apparently because one unwilling boy still viewed himself as a boy after an attempt to force him into girlhood was attempted, then this supposedly "highlights the dangers in gender reassignment which does not match the chromosomes of the individual."

No, this story tells us nothing about people who want to have their gender reassigned at all. But then, the Religious Right always did have a problem fully understanding the concept of free will.

21 Reasons why Gender Matters: Footnote 7

2008-12-26T18:19:00.002+11:00

The pamphlet "21 reasons why gender matters" can be found online here.

It's unclear to me which part of the text footnote 7 refers to. There are two sentences just preceding it: "Yet various social engineers, including extreme feminists and homosexual activists, have sought to ignore or minimise these inherent differences. Their attempts have led to social and personal upheaval." Does the Footnote refer to just the sentence about "social and personal upheaval", or does it contain evidence about the alleged activities of "extreme feminists and homosexual activists" as well? The way it's laid out is not at all clear.

The footnote itself is also singularly unhelpful, saying merely "See for example, Dale O’Leary, The Gender Agenda. Lafayette, LA: Vita Issues Press, 1997." I have to read an entire book to verify the claim (or possibly claims) being made? Again?

The book's full title is "The Gender Agenda: Redefining Inequality". It is not readily available to me, and I can't give any kind of verdict about it without reading it, even assuming I could take the time to do so, and trace down the further references almost certainly within it. I'll just have to add it to the pile I guess. In the meantime, here's a description of it from the viruently anti-feminist site "Fathers For Life":

The Gender Agenda, by Dale O'Leary, a book that explains the sinister strategy — firmly rooted in communist ideology — for the destruction of our families and the role that the U.N. and the seemingly innocent word gender play in it.

Oookay, then.

There's just too much referenced in this pamphlet to be able to examine everything properly (and why do I suspect that that's deliberate?). I'm going to have to change strategies and go after the low-hanging fruit first.

edit: Here is a further book review of "The Gender agenda", in which the author's bizarre confusion between the concepts of "gender" and "sexual orientation" can be seen:

It is a useful instrument to expose the aims and machinations of a strange new breed of people - people who believe in five genders, male, female, homosexual male, homosexual female, and bisexual.

Treatment of Muntadhar al-Zeidi looking very suspicious

2008-12-23T10:08:00.003+11:00

So now the Iraqi government is claiming that the shoe-thrower was put up to the act by an un-named (but definitely evil) "militant".

"He revealed ... that a person provoked him to commit this act, and that person is known to us for slitting throats," al-Maliki said, according to the prime minister's Web site. The alleged instigator was not named and neither al-Maliki nor any of his officials would elaborate.

No word from al-Zeidi himself at this stage, although his brothers have been allowed to visit him. They contradict the government's claims:

"He told me that he has no regret for what he did and that he would do it again," Uday al-Zeidi told The Associated Press."

Muntadhar al-Zeidi's brothers continue to say that he's being tortured while in custody, although the AP is at pains to point out that "there has been no independent corroboration that al-Zeidi was abused once in custody." However, there is confirmation that he received injuries in the process of being arrested:

The investigating judge, Dhia al-Kinani, has said that the journalist was beaten around the face and eyes when he was wrestled to the ground after throwing the shoes at Bush during a Dec. 14 press conference in the Green Zone. The judge said al-Zeidi's face was bruised but he did not provide a further description.

I've been trying to give the Iraqi government the benefit of the doubt over the torture allegations, but this admission that he received injuries during his arrest, combined with the claim that he did not appear in open court on Wednesday 17th December despite earlier expectations that he would, do not bode well.

Rick Warren - the reason behind the anger

2008-12-20T10:27:00.003+11:00

The kerfuffle over the inclusion of evangelical minister Rick Warren at Obama's inauguration has inspired a fair bit of writing around the blogosphere. I might as well add my two cents.

I think that the reaction to Warren's inclusion is excessive, but the strength of the reaction has a reason behind it. This reason is more than just "hysterical faggots are over-reacting to nothing", which is in some cases disturbingly close to an accurate assessment of the sentiment expressed by people telling us to quieten down.

Having spent some time reading and listening to those who oppose gay rights, there's a certain style to their rhetoric. In many, many cases, the words and language convey kindness and a desire to help, but the sentiment behind them is deeply painful to the gay target. An example is in the motivations anti-gay people ascribe to themselves: where they say they're only so opposed to homosexuals being homosexuals because they love us and want to "rescue" us from the "evils" we face by being "in the homosexual lifestyle". I wonder if it has ever even occurred to them that they just told those of us who don't want to be "rescued" that they think we're in love with our "evil". Why else would we actively resist any attempts to "rescue" us, in their opinion?

I don't know if this duel-messaging is intentional, but it comes off as passive-aggressive: publicly conveying insulting messages, but then acting deeply hurt and shocked when called out on it, insisting that they never said anything insulting at all. Anyone who's been on the receiving end of such a tactic will know how deeply infuriating it is, made all the worse when others insist that it's the target who's in the wrong for losing their temper over "nothing".

Glenn Greenwald has suggested that the existence of the controversy here "is a proxy for numerous pre-existing conflicts and agendas that have nothing to do with Rick Warren". I do think that the anger has something to do with Rick Warren, or rather with evangelical anti-gay sentiment in general. It's frustrating that an evangelical can casually say in response to a question about gay marriage that "a committed boyfriend-girlfriend relationship is not a marriage. Two lovers living together is a not a marriage. Incest is not marriage. A domestic partnership or even a civil union is still not marriage", and then we get berated for suggesting that he just equated gay marriage with incest, and get lectured that Pastor Warren "shows no indication of hate or bigotry". The frustration at that false statement from someone who claims to be on our side needs an outlet.

It's unfortunate that the outlet has become Rick Warren's presence at Obama's inauguration, because it's a symbolic gesture really matters very little, if at all. But telling gay people to "quieten down", while making ZERO effort to understand the source of their anger, no matter how misdirected it might currently be, won't make them quieten down. It'll probably make us more frustrated, and noisier, especially if you give indications that you don't see what's going on. The "loving" and "compassionate" language of evangelicals is deeply hurtful to us, and we fear that people don't see the hurt it's causing.

Please don't give us reason to believe that our fear is justified.

21 Reasons Why Gender Matters: footnotes 4, 5 and 6

2008-12-17T18:54:00.003+11:00

The pamphlet "21 reasons why gender matters" can be found online here.

Footnote 4 is intended to act as clarification rather than an academic cite. The footnote is used to back away somewhat from the claims made in the pamphlet so far that give the impression they believe that gender variation is 100% biologically determined. The footnote mentions that "environmental influences certainly have a role to play". Unfortunately such acknowledgement of environmental influence extends only to a concern about resisting "cultural norms which may constrain the free and natural expression of males and females". I take issue with the argument that environmental factors have such a tiny role to play, but the footnote serves a reasonable function even though it isn't citing anything.

Verdict on Footnote 4: Null Verdict (explanatory footnote, not a cite)

Footnote 5 once again offers an opportunity to explain just what the writers mean when they define homosexuality with the pseudo-scientific sounding label "gender disorientation pathology". This footnote once again fails to do so, once again merely citing the pamphlet itself by saying "See Section 11". Section 11 will (if I ever get there) be dealt with in due course.

Verdict on Footnote 5: DISQUALIFIED DUE TO BEING SELF-REFERENTIAL

Footnote 6 is from the book "Taking Sex Differences Seriously", by Steven Rhoads. The quote is "Sex differences are large, deeply rooted and consequential. Men and women still have different natures, and, generally speaking, different preferences, talents and interests....These differences can be explained in part by hormones and other physiological and chemical distinctions between men and women. Thus they won't disappear unless we tinker with our fundamental biological natures".

The full quote in the original source, with the small amount of redacted text emphasised here, reads "Men and women still have different natures, and, generally speaking, different preferences, talents and interests.The book provides evidence that these differences can be explained in part by hormones and other physiological and chemical distinctions between men and women. Thus they won't disappear unless we tinker with our fundamental biological natures".

The omitted text is logical to remove, but removing it may give the impression that the book is repeating established and uncontested fact about the hormonal/physiological basis of sex difference, while keeping it in illustrates that the author is making an argument and preventing evidence which is contestable. I'm unsure if I should consider this misleading or not.

In any case, examining this footnote means examining the merits of the argument of the book.

The book author - Rhoads - has this to say in response to possible criticism of his work, on page 6: "I will not consider my argument disproved if some of my evidence is questioned. There is so much of it that what remains will be enough to challenge the dominant ideology of the last thirty years that sees men and women as having fundamentally equivalent natures and goals".

So, to challenge Rhoad's argument, Rhoad thinks I need to read his whole book, and then examine each and every book and study that he cites. You begin to see why critically engaging with footnotes like this is very rarely done. I'll say for now that the original source was represented accurately in footnote 6 of the pamphlet (well, except for that slight omission), without going into the relative merits of the source itself. I'd like to though, someday.

Verdict on Footnote 6: Accurately Represented

I wonder how long I can keep doing this?

Strange arguments from supporters of Conroy's censorship proposal

2008-12-12T18:49:00.003+11:00

The backlash against Senator Conroy's proposed Internet filter for Australia made the New York Times. Two supporters of the filter were quoted in it.

Clive Hamilton, described by the Times as "a senior ethics professor at the Australian National University and a supporter of the plan", said "The laws that mandate upper speed limits do not stop people from speeding, does that mean that we should not have those laws?.....We live in a society, and societies have always imposed limits on activities that it deems are damaging.....There is nothing sacrosanct about the Internet."

Mr Hamilton seems confused about the difference between a legal restriction like laws against speeding and a technological limitation like what's being proposed for the Australian Internet. This filter is not like passing a law - is Mr Hamilton not aware that child pornography is already illegal in Australia?

The correct analogy to Senator Conroy's proposal in the context of speeding would be as if the government started requiring all cars manufactured in Australia to be made in such a way that they could not go over the speed limit at all. Needless to say, no cars in Australia are made like this, and no car maker would ever accept such a stupid and technologically ignorant demand. I admit I don't fully understand the technical details that make such a thing unachievable in today's cars, but I trust the people who do understand when they say that cars need to be made the way that they're made: with the ability to let the user violate speeding laws. It is the task of the user, not the car, to respect the law and refrain from doing so.

And yet when the people who understand the technology that drives the Internet say that requiring an ISP to filter Internet traffic won't work and is a technically ignorant demand, their expertise is ignored because the answer "it can't be done", no matter how accurate and no matter how well-informed the person giving the answer, is not the answer that Senator Conroy wants to hear. And we get subjected to quotes from ethics professors who confuse the issue with inaccurate analogies.

The other supporter was the group ChildWise, who said filtering child pornography on the Internet would be "a victory for common sense". I guess ChildWise is still in denial about the (lack of) effectiveness of the proposed filter.

21 Reasons Why Gender Matters: Footnote 3

2008-12-09T12:56:00.003+11:00

For reference the pamphlet "21 Reasons Why Gender Matters" can be found online here.

Footnote 3 is provided as evidence that the brains of men and women are different, claiming "for example, one University of Massachusetts researcher reported that “at least 100 differences in male and female brains have been described so far”." The quote is a secondary quote, footnoted as being "cited in Michael Gurian and Kathy Stevens, The Mind of Boys. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005, p. 46.

It was tricky to track down for two reasons. The first was that they got the title of the book they cited slightly wrong, and while the difference between "The Mind of Boys", and "The Minds of Boys" (complete title is "The Minds of Boys: Saving our Sons from Falling Behind in School and Life") may seem unimportant, it can mean the difference between a successful and a failed Google Book Search.

The second was that the quote in the book was cited in the book from another source, not published there originally. I found the details for the original source. The unnamed-in-the-pamphlet University of Massachusetts researcher has a name: Nancy Forger. The quote from her is not from any academic work, but from a news article. The footnotes in "The Minds of Boys" give the following source: "Quoted in Amanda Onion, 'Sex in the Brain: Research Showing Men and Women Differ in More than One Area', ABC News, Sep 21 2004". This article does not appear to be online anymore at abcnews.com.

I'm forced to rely on what appears to be a reposting of some or all of the original article on a web forum. Again, the quote isn't quite right. "The Minds of Boys" lists the quote as given above, but this repost of the news article includes an extra word: "At least 100 sex differences in male and female brains have been described so far" (emphasis added).

So after all that, does this footnote support the claim that the pamphlet makes in the main text? Yes, as far as demonstrating the existence of differences in brain structure between the sexes goes. But Nancy Forger makes a further statement that isn't included in either the pamphlet or the book quoting her. From the article itself:

This kind of research [searching for differences between sexes in the brain] remains controversial, as does any work that looks for explanations for human behavior in the brain. But most researchers looking into differences of the brain are quick to point out that there are many more differences in the brain just between individuals than between groups of people or between the sexes.

"Men and women are more the same than different in the brain — without a question," said Forger. "But," she added, "little differences can go a long way."

When the pamphlet states in the main text that "our brains are different", it seems to me that they are vastly overstating the limited findings so far. They leave the findings behind completely in the very next sentence, claiming that "such hardwired differences explain why men and women are so different in areas of behaviour, perceptions, the way they process information, and so on".

While there is some of evidence of some difference in brain structure provided, the news article (not a research paper) cited does not support claims about those differences as grandiose as those made in the pamphlet.

Verdict on Footnote 3: Exaggerated

Islamic school controversy: the news reporting is confusing me

2008-12-05T20:44:00.004+11:00

After reading about allegations that a Muslim school had banned singing of the Australian national anthem because singing the anthem, or possibly the anthem itself, was against the "Islamic view and ethos", I'm now reading conflicting reports about what really happened. I'm confused about what was in the memo that's the source of the controversy. Later reports only heighten my confusion.

What exactly about the entire situation was against the "Islamic view and ethos"? The news reporting says that "his [the teacher's] proposal for students to sing Advance Australia Fair was ruled to be against the 'Islamic view and ethos'". It doesn't say what specifically about the proposal was problematic. But despite that my reading of the news report strongly implies that we should believe that there's something inherently incompatible between Islam and the national anthem as far as the school is concerned.

The school and its defenders are also disputing the characterisation of their actions as a blanket "ban". And I would dispute the characterisation of their actions as a ban as well, even if it turned out that the national anthem was never sung at any school event at all (which is not actually the case, as per the school officials): it's not as if the decision not to enforce the singing of the anthem is the same thing as explicitly preventing it. Calling this a "ban" makes no sense to me: something is not forbidden just because it's not actively promoted.

I'm also desperately trying to reach back in memory to my school years and failing: I don't recall if I was required to sing the national anthem at every assembly or not. I vaguely recall that I was expected to sing it at some, but I also vaguely remember some in which I didn't. My memory may be faulty or the situation may have changed, but is this school doing something unusual by not expecting the national anthem to be played at every assembly, if that's actually all that they're doing?

It's not entirely clear to me if the anthem was not going to be sung at every assembly or just some. The linked article in the Australian does provide the tantalising quote from the memo saying "the singing of the anthem will be put on hold", but provides no context as to when. Or why. I think that's the main problem I'm having here: the full text of the memo which is the entire source of the controversy is not being made available. By anyone - the newspapers quoting from it or the school that authored it. I find that disconcerting.

Where is the original text? Why is nobody making it available?

21 Reasons Why Gender Matters: Footnote 2

2008-12-03T15:57:00.005+11:00

Footnote 2: inaccurately listed as a second "footnote 1" in the main text. It's purportedly a source for the claim that "some people" refer to a condition called "gender disorientation pathology" (by which they mean "homosexuality"). It isn't a real academic footnote, saying only "refer to Section 15" of the exact same pamphlet.

Section 15 of the pamphlet concerns homosexuality and is predominantly, but not completely, unfootnoted pseudoscientific gobbledygook like "Many homosexuals report that as children, they had a dysfunctional relationship with their same-sex parent - such relationships being their primary means of gender identification and affirmation". Those limited areas which were footnoted in that section will, hopefully, be dealt with in time.

Verdict on Footnote 2: DISQUALIFIED DUE TO BEING SELF-REFERENTIAL

PS Failing to footnote correctly by repeating "footnote 1" twice in the text? Sloppy.

21 Reasons Why Gender Matters: Footnote 1

2008-12-03T15:36:00.003+11:00

Well, this is going to get old really quickly, but I said I'd do it. I'm going to attempt to go through each footnote of the pamphlet 21 reasons why gender matters and check their validity. Having already seen 1 outright lie buried in footnote 82, I'd like to go through as many as I can for as long as I can. Can I do all 178? Probably not, but I'll attempt it.

To start with, Footnote 1: used to support the claim that "The great majority of single-parent families are fatherless". The footnote reads "In 2006, 87% of one-parent families with children under 15 years were headed by mothers. “Australian Social Trends, 2007: One Parent Families.” Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007."

Original source is here. The footnote's characterisation of the data is accurate.

However, the main text of the pamphlet's characterisation of this data is not. Note that the claim is that children in these families "grow up fatherless". However, according the ABS study quoted, the majority of single-parent families are created from divorce. A further substantial proportion are created from the break-up of de facto couples. Therefore the children from these families have had fathers in the lives, and in some cases may still do so, albeit only in the form of the father's visitation rights. They are not "fatherless" in the alarmist sense that the pamphlet claims.

This is not the evidence of masculinity in crisis that the pamphlet authors claim it is. It is evidence of the unfortunate prevalence of divorce, and possibly an argument that courts in custody battles side with the mother of a child much more than the father (a VERY common complaint of fathers in custody battles, by the way). But the conclusions drawn by this pamphlet here are misleading.

Verdict on Footnote 1: HALF-TRUTH

Thoughts on the Lori Drew conviction

2008-12-02T22:17:00.004+11:00

I think the most complete summation of the Lori Drew case is the Wikipedia page on Megan Meier. Short summary: a teenage girl (Megan) killed herself after receiving bullying-style messages on Myspace from a person she believed to be a 16-year old boy ("Josh Evans"), but was in fact a fake account created by the mother ("Lori Drew") of one of her schoolfriends ("Sarah Drew"). Lori has since been charged and convicted, although the charges brought against her don't really seem to match up with the crime: three charges of using a computer account without authorisation.

I can't really find myself in agreement with any of the interests who've presented an opinion on the issue so far. Neither the lawmakers pushing for "cyber-bullying" to be outlawed in the wake of this case nor the people thinking this case tells us nothing new seem to have it right, in my opinion.

danah boyd rightly notes the foolishness of blaming this occurence on computer technology, and highlights the problem of treating "cyber-bullying" as somehow distinct from and more dangerous than offline bullying: all that the internet has done in many instances is made what was a private activity between youth into a public one. Blaming the computer for what people do with them is stupid. But I disagree that this particular case is no different from what has gone before.

Perhaps I'm losing touch in my old age with how young people use the internet these days, but there is one aspect of this bullying case that is completely new to me. It is the fact that much of the emotional abuse inflicted on Megan Meier came from a "person" she was interacting with was a fake identity, and she didn't know that.

Regular internet users are deeply concerned that Drew's conviction was basically for violating that part of Myspace's TOS which states that people should not use a fake identity. I believe that they're right insofar as this could be used against anyone who adopts a pseudonym online at some point (i.e. a huge percentage of the entire Internet-using population). But that doesn't really conform to the situation in this case. The key, in my opinion, is not that the identity was fake, but that Megan Meier thought it was real.

According to the wiki article, the people behind the account went to a great deal of trouble at giving that impression of reality. They provided legitimate-sounding explanations to conceal possible avenues of exposing the account as fake: claiming that "Josh Evans" had no home phone (no contact outside Myspace), was home-schooled (no school to verify his identity with), and had only recently moved into town (accounting for a suspicious lack of long-term local friends). This is, to my mind, very different from some teen or twenty-something deciding to post under the moniker "Pete_Wentz_can_have_my_babies!!!!" instead of their real name. They should be treated differently.

So merely signing on under a different name should not have been grounds to prosecute Lori Drew. The fact that she did not disclose that the fake identity was fake - and took active steps to make it appear real - places it in a different - and worse - category than regular internet anonymity, in my opinion.

Here's where I get speculative: Meier's presumption of validity of "Josh Evans'" identity may have led to a perception of that identity's actions which would be different from what it would be if that identity was known to be fake. The faker could exploit this, inflicting emotional abuse of a type that is qualitatively different, perhaps quantitatively different as well, from what would otherwise be available. In other words, the fact that "Josh Evans" was a fake identity pretending to be a real one may have provided new and interesting ways of exacerbating the harassment. Did that upping of the ante push Megan Meier to suicide in a way that regular online bulling would not have done?

Despite that possibility, I hesitate to say that a blanket prohibition on such deceptive use of a fake identity should be enacted in law. I'm having difficulty seeing where adopting a fake identity and passing it off as real could have a positive benefit that could not still be provided by adopting a fake identity that is known to be a fake, but that may be simply becausing I'm focusing too much on the current situation. Should such identity fraud - not just anonymity, but actively passing a fake identity off as real - be illegal? Should it be illegal only under certain circumstances? if so, which ones? Should it perhaps not be a crime in itself, but be treated as an aggravating factor when considering the punishment given for other crimes that can involve it?

In any case, any such law should have no reference to technology in my opinion. It's the fact of identity fraud, not the use of computer technology to enable it, that is the issue. And I do think that some sort of law needs to be enacted: the very fact that vigilante justice was meted out against Lori Drew suggests to me that there is an interest in dispensing justice here which the law as currently written can't successfully serve.

Mercy Ministries' instructions for Demonic Exorcism leaked

2008-12-02T19:55:00.000+11:00

I'm sorry I missed this when it was first reported: Mercy Ministries' exorcism books have been leaked. This is noteworthy in that Peter Irvine, then-head of MM, had earlier specifically denied that his group used such techniques: "There’s no exorcism, no driving out of spirits it’s not how the program works".

The book is called "Restoring the Foundations" and...well, read the article and check out the excerpts Livenews have put online for yourself. I'm just trying to make sense of picture 5. I'm pretty sure that's a list of demons, based on the information provided by the pseudonymous "Megan Smith" about how it all works. If so, then I'd have to say that "lesbianism" is actually one of the less surprising things to be listed there as demonically inspired. Check it out.

ANTI-GAY LIE EXPOSED

2008-11-28T20:42:00.004+11:00

Rare it is that I get a chance to show in unequivocal terms how dishonest anti-gay people are in their use of academic resources. Today I have that chance.

I first discovered the unequivocal lie I'm about to expose when checking footnote 82 of the pamphlet "21 reasons why gender matters". It is alleged that in an academic article entitled "Lesbian mothers and their children: A comparison with solo parent heterosexual mothers and their children", published on pages 167-184 of Volume 15, issue 2, of the academic journal 'Archives of Sexual Behavior', the researchers Green et al found

developmentally important statistically significant differences between children reared by homosexual parents compared to heterosexual parents. For example, children raised by homosexuals were found to have greater parental encouragement for cross-gender behaviour (and) greater amounts of cross-dressing and cross-gender play/role behaviour”.

The anti-gay pamphlet specifically quotes this text as allegedly appearing in the "Lesbian mothers" article. Well, I found the article in question (thank you, university access to academic databases). The text they say is in there is not there.

Really, the fact that the article's title plainly specified that it was comparing single-parent families, and not comparing "homosexual parents" (plural) with "heterosexual parents" (plural), should have been a slight clue that it couldn't possibly include the quote that these anti-gay fraudsters say it includes. But they went ahead and used it anyway. Ponder what that says about their ability to understand the whole concept of "evidence".

But the best part for me is what the article they're lying about actually does say. The summary at least is available to the general public here. Emphasis is mine. The study's real conclusions were that:

No significant differences were found between the two types of households for boys and few significant differences for girls,. Concerns that being raised by a homosexual mother might produce sexual identity conflict and peer group stigmatization were not supported by the research findings. Data also revealed more similarities than differences in parenting experiences, marital history, and present living situations of the two groups of mothers. The postulated compromised parental fitness of lesbian mothers, commonly asserted in child custody cases, is not supported by these data.

Gee, it seems to me that the study that the anti-gay people are using to "prove" that a difference was found between gay and straight parents is actually saying that they can't find any difference at all - at least as far as comparing single lesbian mothers to single heterosexual mothers goes.

The only question left for me is what the real source of this quote may be. I've searched for it online, unsuccessfully. It's definitely not in any article published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that I can find (and my access to that journal is total). And all I get on the web is people repeating the lie that it's this 1986 study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that is the source. I wonder how long it would take to visit each one in turn and correct them?

I'll keep looking for the true source I guess. If there is one.

"21 reasons why gender matters" - the whole pamphlet

2008-11-28T20:30:00.005+11:00

Looking closer at the "21 reasons why gender matters" issue, apparently the NARTH page I linked to earlier was just the summary of the main points. The full text is much more detailed, and is available online. Like most anti-gay tracts, it's brimming with footnotes, based on the usual anti-gay assumption that pointing to the sheer volume of footnotes is a good enough substitute for actually examining their quality and accuracy. Seriously. One of the first footnotes (footnote 2 to be precise) doesn't really qualify as an academic footnote at all, being just an exhortation to "refer to section 11" of the exact same document.

The pamphlet has its own dedicated site here. I'll give the footnotes a stab if I have time.

GetUp joins opposition to Australian Net filter

2008-11-28T19:17:00.003+11:00

I'm aware that a lot of people have been trying to bring the Net censorship threat to GetUp's attention for a while now. They've finally weighed in. They're talking pretty big, too.

GetUp says it plans to run mainstream ads and offline action that will be as elaborate as its free Hicks campaign. In just a day, a petition on its website has attracted over 22,000 signatures; GetUp said it had received more emails urging them to act on this issue than "any other campaign in recent history".

With both the Opposition and the Greens opposed to the filter, I believe that means that the government will have to look to Senator Fielding of Family First and to Independent anti-pokie campaigner Senator Nick Xenophon to get any legislation on this through the Senate. Hello nationwide restrictions on all gay-related and gambling-related content? A bit much perhaps, but who knows what the two Senators will demand to be put on the blacklist in exchange for their votes?

The trial of the filter is scheduled to start on December 24, although it can be postponed if need be. That doesn't leave a lot of time to fight it.

The unfortunately anti-gay stance of the Fatherhood Foundation

2008-11-28T10:19:00.003+11:00

Roxon sacks health ambassador over gay slur

Somewhat predictably, one of the men is playing the victim card, insisting that he's being "persecuted".

"If I am attacked it is because I believe that our children matter," he said in the statement.

"If I am attacked it is because I believe every child has the right to a mother and a father. Children need a mother and a father, not two mummies or two daddies."

Mr Marsh said certain journalists had claimed he was "homophobic" and he was baffled by "this sort of heterophobia".

Apparently Mr Marsh believes that defending homosexuals from pseudo-scientific smears means that heterosexuality is under attack. This actually makes sense in anti-gay peoples' warped worldview, as they sincerely believe that homosexuality's unchallenged existence threatens heterosexuality. Examine the pamphlet "21 reasons why gender matters" that is the source of the controversy:

14. In healthy societies, gender complementarity is celebrated; societies rejecting this face harmful consequences.

Their idea is that accepting that there is a slight exception in so-called "gender complementarity" for some (GLBT people) automatically means negating the very concept of different genders altogether. Everyone will have sex with everyone willy-nilly, and heterosexuality will cease to exist. There are times that I honestly believe that they are literally incapable of understanding any different, the belief is so deeply embedded in their worldview.

I won't waste time refuting the remaining points dealing with homosexuality (or "gender disorientation pathology" as they pseudo-scientifically call it). Anyone with a modicum of scientific understanding (which is far too few people, sad to say) can figure out what's wrong with them if they really want to. As for the Fatherhood Foundation itself....

Finding the Fatherhood Foundation's website was easy enough. Their About Us page lists them as one of the founding members of the National Marriage Coalition. People may remember that organisation as the one which in 2004 lobbied for a ban on gay marriage to be explicitly written into Australian law, a ban which both major political parties support to this day. The other two, as per information from the NMC's website, are the Australian Family Association and the Australian Christian Lobby.

Despite rubbing shoulders with those two, my tentative impression is that the Fatherhood Foundation isn't specifically malicious towards gay people. They've just never had any reason to doubt the centuries' old prejudice that our sexuality is a sickness (a "gender disorientation pathology") that needs to be contained. I would hope that they can be convinced otherwise by the examination of reality rather than of anti-gay institutions' pseudo-science, but Mr Marsh's reaction to him being called out on his smears suggests that it won't be easy.

Iinet sued for allegedly "allowing" copyright violations

2008-11-21T18:53:00.004+11:00

Depressing:

THE Australian film and television industry has launched legal action against one of the largest internet service providers in the country for allowing its users to download pirated movies and TV shows.

The action against iiNet was filed in the Federal Court yesterday by Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, 20th Century Fox, Disney and the Seven Network.

For the record, there's no legal precedent or ruling in Australian law that would suggest that Iinet can accurately be described as actively "allowing" people to download copyright-infringine material. ISP's aren't in the business of policing content, although the sheer number of political forces with a vested interest in getting them to start is worrisome.

First Stephen Conroy's pathetic effort to build a Great Firewall of Australia, and now this. I worry for the future of the Australian Internet sometimes.

And really, how long is it before the two ideas get combined? The conglomerates comprising the "Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft" are almost certain to have a list of demands for the government about further "unwanted" content that they want the filter extended to cover.

I note that ITWire has also put 2 and 2 together here. I agree also that it seems odd that it's Iinet, the ISP who just happens to employ the outspoken Managing Director Michael Malone, and not Telstra or Optus, that's getting sued.

What opposition to gay marriage is really about

2008-11-16T23:31:00.004+11:00

It's not about marriage. It was never about marriage. It's about homosexuality.

Many opponents of gay marriage claim otherwise. Some are sincere in that belief. But they're still mistaken.

The "we're pro-marriage, not anti-gay" argument rests on the assumption that the relationship between two gay people is qualitatively different from a relationship between two straight people in such a way that the entire meaning of marriage would be changed if it were to be applied to both types of couples. This inaccurate impression is bolstered by the cosmetic fact of the difference in gender make-up of the two couples.

Those of us who support gay marriage believe that the difference in gender make-up does NOT translate to any difference in meaning. A man wanting to marry a man and not a woman is no different from a man wanting to marry a 60-year-old and not a 40-year-old. All the emotional aspects of an opposite-gender relationship that are fulfilled by marriage occur in EXACTLY the same way in a same-gender relationship. Not "almost" the same, not "approximately" the same, but EXACTLY the same.

Same-sex couples who want to get married do not believe that marriage would be "redefined" by letting them marry. Letting them marry would instead mean that marriage was finally being made available to every couple that qualifies for it according to its current meaning.

They have no problem with the meaning of marriage as it currently exists. They just disagree about which types of relationships conform to that meaning. They believe that their relationships do conform to it.

Opponents of gay marriage do not believe this. They believe that a same-sex relationship CANNOT be the emotional equivalent of an opposite-sex one. It therefore cannot be fulfilled by marriage in the same way that an opposite-sex relationship can be, and the very meaning of marriage would be changed if marriage could include same-sex relationships as well as opposite-sex ones.

People's opposition to gay marriage therefore stems not from their view of marriage, but from their view of homosexuality. As long as they believe that homosexual relationships cannot have the same emotional aspects to them as heterosexual relationships do, they will believe that including same-sex couples in the definition of marriage would mean "redefining" marriage in a way that renders marriage less than it was. Because they believe this, they will also view themselves as "pro-marriage" rather than "anti-gay". They are mistaken.

The Christianist condemnation of Ted Haggard's family

2008-11-16T10:10:00.005+11:00

Ted Haggard recently returned to the media spotlight, apologising for sinning and claiming to be all "cured" of his sinful homosexuality. His attempt to blame the origins of all homosexual desire on sexual molestation is pretty stock-standard, but there's another comment from him that is especially interesting:

"I'm very, very sorry that I sinned," he [Haggard] said. "My wife -- all my sin and shame fell on her. People treated her as if she had fallen. And my children -- they all went through carrying my shame."

Why did people treat his wife as "fallen"? Why did they require his kids to "carry his shame"?

Police report contradicts some claims about Bash Back action

2008-11-16T09:02:00.004+11:00

Well there's a shock. Seems like the "loving" Christians describing the actions of Bash Back against their church exaggerated a few of the details. First about the fire alarm that was supposedly pulled:

The protest — according to reports from the media, the church and the protesters — was held both inside and outside Mount Hope Church on Nov. 9, during which someone is alleged to have pulled a fire alarm inside the church.

However, a spokesman for the Delta Township Fire Department, which covers fire issues in the area, said today the department had not received any fire alarm calls nor did they respond to one in the area of the church on Sunday.

And second about the "illegal" protest that happened outside:

Also, a church press release stated that “The Eaton County Sheriff’s office was called and the illegal demonstration ceased.” In a follow-up email, Mount Hope Church communications director David Williams asserted that “the demonstration is under investigation.”

But in an interview yesterday, Eaton County Sheriff’s Lt. Jeff Warder said that when two officers were called to the scene for “disorderly persons,” they found protesters on the public sidewalk.

“They were picketing,” Warder said. “The church security people came out, the pastor contacted the deputies and told us we want them off our property. We had to tell them they [the protesters] were on public property.”

After further discussion with protesters, it was determined some had parked in the church’s parking lot. Officers directed that the vehicles be removed from the lot, or the owners could face trespassing charges for retrieving them if police had to return. The protest broke up as a result of that, according to the sheriff.

Warder said that at no time did the church inform officers of the disruption inside the church and that no charges were filed. He also said that there was no criminal investigation and that the church had declined to file any formal complaints.

To the extent that the group Bash Back has been unfairly maligned by these "Christians" lying about what really happened, I apologise for my earlier condemnation of them.

That said, it does still appear that the group Bash Back trespassed on the Mt Hope Church's property, which I still condemn as morally wrong. If they're anarchists, then I doubt there's anything I could say to convince them that trespassing of any kind is wrong, but I would point out that it's counterproductive. Yes, some of the reason it's counterprodcutive is because anti-gay people are good at exaggerating the wrongfulness of any actions against them in order to elicit undeserved sympathy, like they've apparently done here to some extent, but I think that the fact of these exaggerations and smears needs to be taken into account when protesting.

Yes, I think that it's monstrously that we have to do that, but if life was fair, we'd have marriage rights by now.

The "black people voted for Proposition 8 so protest them" red herring

2008-11-15T19:14:00.004+11:00

I read these comments from time to time, usually from opponents of gay marriage currently feeling the backlash from California, stridently pointing to the 70% of African-Americans who votes in favour of Proposition 8, and demanding to know why African-Americans aren't being singled out for protests and boycotts.

The answer is really very simple. Absolutely nobody to date has been singled out for the way they voted on Proposition 8. For funding the campaign pushing it, yes. For telling parishioners that they must vote for it, yes. For telling lies about the eeeevil and scary things that will supposedly happen if gay marriage is legally recognised, yes. But the actual way that people voted has not been a factor in deciding who to protest.

So why are our opponents so desperate to see us start? Because it takes the heat of them for their political advocacy and their dishonesty of course.

Feeling the need to condemn the actions of other gay people already :(

2008-11-14T22:18:00.005+11:00

Well, it was only a matter of time before a gay activist group got nasty:

A gay anarchist group infiltrated the Mt. Hope Church in Eaton County Sunday morning, disrupting a service by pulling a fire alarm, dropping leaflets and yelling at parishioners, a pastor said.

The group, Bash Back, was simultaneously picketing outside the church, beating on buckets and using a megaphone to shout “Jesus was a homo” and other slogans as confused churchgoers continued to enter the building.

I do not believe these actions from Bash Back are right either morally or practically. These churchgoers aren't gaybashers. This is what I mean when I say that many gay activists have misunderstood the nature of much contemporary opposition to homosexuality. I think all of these parishioners would genuinely be horrified and appalled that anyone would think it okay to bash a gay person just for being gay, even as they work hard to try and prevent a political "gay agenda" out of fear it will lead to them being subjected to...well, to what Bash Back did to them, for one. Yes, they also have the hopelessly wrongheaded idea that opposing gay rights will somehow encourage their kids to stop becoming gay if they're ever in "danger" of going down that path, but still....

In my opinion, this action by Bash Back here was neither necessary nor helpful. It validated the parishioners' fears.

That's not to say that every action gay people might do in support of their rights should be avoided if gay rights opponents show the slightest disapproval of it. For example, I note from the comments of that news article that many people there are now trying to pin this one action on the entire gay community. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who tries to do that has just indicated that it's okay for me to pin the antics of Fred Phelps and his funeral-picketing clan on all of them. If they disapprove of that being done to them, then they should stop doing it to me.

"Join the Impact" protests followed by....what?

2008-11-14T17:16:00.003+11:00

The Join the Impact effort to protest against the passage of Proposition 8 specifically, and in favour of gay marriage generally, proceeds apace. Protests are intended for across the entire USA. There's even an effort to make it an international effort, although the page for Australia doesn't exactly inspire confidence that there'll be much of any action here: looks like someone in the US just threw up something saying "gather at Federation Square in Melbourne everyone! And nobody's planned any signs or anything, so organise your own!"

I've read a little bit about grassroots mobilisation efforts. Their biggest obstacle, from what I understand, is keeping the momentum going. It's all too easy for them to falter in the face of unclear direction about what to do next. Even worse, the energy that inspires them can turn in on itself, and the people involved can end up doing nothing but bickering amongst each other, spending so much time fighting about "how we should go forward" that the movement as a whole never does go forward.

I don't know how things are going for the protests in the US. There seems to be a lot of raw enthusiasm. But to date I haven't seen any ideas about a follow-through. What happens after the protests?

Yes, I realise that I'm trying to spur a debate about "how we should go forward". As long as any grassroots movement doesn't become entirely an argument about that, I think it's a productive question. Up to a point, anyway.

Taking part in Conroy's censorship trial: wise?

2008-11-13T23:22:00.005+11:00

Michal Malone, the head of Iinet - the ISP that I use - has decided to take part in what he calls the "ridiculous" trials of Senator Conroy's Internet censorship program. Malone's stated intention is to demonstrate "how stupid it [the proposed filter system] is" using "hard numbers". I'm sure Mr Malone's intentions are good, but I'm not sure if what he's doing is such a good idea.

See, in most tech-oriented situations like I assume Mr Malone would be familiar with, statistics are viewed as useful mathematical tools, essential to understanding any number of issues. But in politics, statistics aren't tools. They're weapons. They're not used to describe reality, they're spun and cherry-picked and massaged and then quoted to give the veneer of "mathematical" legitimacy to a political claim.

I'm concerned that this trial isn't really about gauging the effectiveness of the filter system. I think it's not about having real-world workings to examine, but statistics to cherry-pick. I recall that Senator Conroy has already shown he's willing to do something like this, saying that there was a "successful" lab test of his filter system previously when the results actually showed that it slowed internet speeds down significantly, and didn't block P2P content in the slightest. If Mr Malone is serious about exposing the filter system as flawed, I hope he understands that to do that, he's going to have to consistently and repeatedly get out in front of any spin that Senator Conroy puts on the results.

On a semi-related note, I see that according to this article, ISPs taking part in the test will be doing the testing by asking for volunteers from their own subscribers to try the system out. I guess it'd probably be too much to hope that absolutely no subscribers bother to volunteer.

Civil unions vs gay marriage: "separate is not equal" explained in depth

2008-11-12T12:53:00.006+11:00

In advocating the inadequacy of civil unions as a substitute for gay marriage, a claim is often made that "separate but equal" is an impossibility: separate cannot be equal. I've never really seen an adequate explanation as to why this is. Sure, Brown vs Board of Education struck down the idea as unconstitutional when the US Supreme Court ruled against segregated schooling, but simply pointing to the fact of that court ruling, and saying that's the end of it, isn't good enough. You have to look at the reasoning of the decision and see if it can apply to civil unions. So I did.

An interesting fact that I see straight up is that the decision was only intended to apply to the question of segregated schooling. Plessy vs Ferguson, the 19th century court decision that created the "separate but equal" idea in the first place, was originally applied to segregated accomodation, and wasn't actually overturned by this ruling. In this ruling, the legitimacy of the "separate but equal" doctrine in any area besides education wasn't considered. It seems that it is therefore necessary to explicitly lay out a case why the "separate but equal" doctrine is just as pernicious in a different context.

There is guidance from the ruling on this. It was the "intangible" factors associated with education that tipped the court in favour of ruling "separate but equal" unconstitutional in the realm of public education. These "intangibles" were described in one case as "those qualities which are incapable of objective measurement but which make for greatness in a law school". Even with complete equality in legal statute, and in access to buildings and teachers, the mere fact of separation negatively impacted these intangible qualities because the act of separation was inferred to demonstrate the inherent inferiority of the minority group. This created in the segregated school-children "a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone."

If it is possible to point out that there are "intangible" factors associated with marriage, then they need to be taken into account to determine if separation of same-sex couples into "civil unions" unjustly demonstrates the "inherent inferiority" of same-sex relationships.

Are there such "intangible" factors in marriage? Hell, yes. The intangible benefits of marriage are the whole point of legally recognising any marriage at all in the first place. All the legal framework about rights and responsibilities is there entirely because marriage is presumed to have some indefinable qualities, "incapable of objective measurement" to use the Supreme Court's language, that makes it worthwhile.

And yes, the separation of same-sex couples from opposite-sex couples does promote inequality in the way those "intangibles" would be provided. You can see this already in the way people talk about the issue. Talk to any person who supports "civil unions" for gay people but "marriage" for straight people. Their excuses make it clear pretty quickly that they want the separation specifically because they believe that the "intangible" benefits of marriage for opposite-sex couples either couldn't exist, or would exist only in an inferior form, in a gay "marriage". "Marriage is about raising children" implies that same-sex couples are inferior child-raisers. "Marriage is a sacred tradition" implies that same-sex couples are excluded from the sacred. "Marriage is about what's best for society" implies that same-sex couples are not good for society. Even "we shouldn't risk experimenting with the established definition of marriage" implies that there's something inherently risky about treating same-sex relationships as on par with opposite-sex ones.

So the reasoning of Brown vs Board of Education does apply to the question of civil unions and gay marriage. A separate institution for gay people, even one that functions like marriage in legal statute, will create an inherent inequality in the provision of the intangible benefits of marriage that is biased against gay people. This is wrong. Only gay marriage can provide complete equality.

Unfortunately, most people don't believe that same-sex couples are really equal to opposite-sex couples.....

Proposition 8 debates on the ground: depressing

2008-11-12T11:54:00.004+11:00

Just read a comments section of an LA newspaper from before Proposition 8 was passed. My impression?

The supporters of Proposition 8 tended to make highly specific claims about what would supposedly happen in California due to its passage, and what had supposedly happened in other states already. The opponents tended to make vague generalised appeals to rights and to the importance of opposing bigotry.

Really not good enough.

From the journals: "Origin Stories: Same-Sex Sexuality and Christian Right Politics"

2008-11-08T19:30:00.008+11:00

This journal article is much more obviously relevant to GLBT issues: "Origin Stories: Same-Sex Sexuality and Christian Right Politics", by Jyl Josephson and Cynthia Burack, published in volume 6, issue 3, of the journal "Culture and Religion" in 2005.

The article notes that there are two ways in which opponents of gay rights understand how homosexuality originates: there's the "narrative of choice", which is the one gay activists usually work against, but there is also the "narrative of development". There's some overlap between the two narratives, but they also contradict each other in some areas. I think it's important to understand the developmental narrative, as it usually gets neglected in political advocacy.

The developmental narrative claims that homosexuality is not consciously chosen. It instead views homosexuality as an aberrant development, an emotional malfunction caused by some sort of psychological disruption in childhood. The exact type of "disruption" varies depending on which anti-gay group you ask, but the finger usually gets pointed at either sexual abuse, or at parents who failed to have the "right" type of emotional relationship with their offspring. For example, Dr Nicholosi of NARTH, a proponent of the idea that homosexuality is caused by a lack of emotional bonding between father and son, has told people that "if fathers don't hug their sons, then some other man will".

According to the article's authors, the narrative of development treats homosexuality as something adopted without conscious intention; a "homosexual identity" gets unconsciously incorporated into an individual through behavioural reinforcement. It accepts that homosexuality is something that cannot be easily changed in those that have already gone down a "homosexual path", so to speak, but it also maintains that prevention is possible: "pre-homosexuals" or "proto-homosexuals" who have undergone the triggering disruption but have not yet accepted and embraced their same-sex attractions can be "saved".

There's some overlap with the narrative of choice here, in that it's implied that people can choose whether or not to embrace their homosexual identity or to fight against it, but where the developmental narrative gets real serious play is when talking about those individuals who are not yet able to make any kind of "choice" for themselves: children.

You can see the narrative at play in the excuse-making for Lawrence King's murder, in particular the placing of blame on the lesbian principal for allowing Lawrence to engage in such "reinforcing" behavioural acts as wearing high-heel shoes and flirting with boys. As Gaywired put it: "The assistant principal, our lesbian heroine, was questioned for pushing a gay agenda on a sleepy, otherwise happy middle school." The developmental narrative would have people believe that a principal acting properly could have (and definitely should have) been able to address the issues effectively by guiding the emotionally disturbed young boy Larry away from the "problem" of homosexuality that he was developing. That's one way of interpreting what "pushing a gay agenda" means: the belief that Larry could have been straight if the lesbian hadn't interfered.

There's a wide latitude in anti-gay rhetoric about what could lead a child to "develop" (not "choose") homosexuality. A contributing factor could be as simple as growing up in an environment where homosexuality is not condemned. Take this comment from a gay marriage opponent: "It worries me deeply that my kids could grow up in a world that accepts homosexualality [sic]. I do not want my children to come home from school and tell me that they learned it is ok for them to have a homosexual relationship." In the developmental understanding, being taught that homosexuality is ok may not necessarily encourage homosexuality, but it will make it that much harder to discourage it. In other words, many opponents of gay marriage really do believe that legalising gay marriage, and having their existence so much as mentioned in schools, will make it more likely that their own children will embrace any homosexual tendencies they might develop, and that it is their moral duty to stop this happening.

I think existing gay rights organisations have neglected this developmental understanding of homosexuality to their detriment. The fight against the idea of "homosexuality as perverse and degenerate choice" has been relatively successful against stopping individual mistreatment, but neglecting the other narrative has led to a situation in which the most common refrain from our opponents is "I've got nothing against homosexuals as people, but I object to them pushing their agenda on society". They tolerate gay people as individuals but fight any measure that could be perceived as encouraging the "development" of homosexuality. This includes explicit legal recognition of gay marriage. They'll accept a "civil union" compromise for those poor be-knighted gay souls who are beyond "help", but will fight tooth and nail against any measure that makes homosexuality and heterosexuality look even slightly morally equivalent. After all, they believe their children are at stake.

Some thoughts on Proposition 8: I'm not mourning

2008-11-08T18:13:00.001+11:00

My attitude towards the successful passage of Proposition 8 in California has been surprisingly optimistic, given the emotions of sorrow and hurt expressed by others concerning its passing. Sure, I don't have the personal connection to things that happen in the USA, or to the gay couples in California who were hoping to get married, that those who do feel hurt by its passage have.

But consider:
In 2000, the Vermont state court legalised civil unions. Such unions were a scary and radical notion at the time, and their initial existence only just survived an attempt at a constitutional amendment outlawing them. Gay couples, in the form of "civil unions", remain legally recognised there to this day.

In 2003, the Massachusetts state court legalised gay marriage. Gay couples, in the form of marriage and not just "civil unions", remain legally recognised there to this day.

In other states of course, constitutional amendments restricting marriage to the union of a man and a woman were passed even in advance of any state court ruling suggesting that it should be otherwise. These amendments often passed by very large margins.

And yet, in 2008, in California, their version of civil unions – domestic partnership legislation – is and remains uncontroversially on the books. Far from radical and threatening, they are viewed as the safe compromise. As for the passing of Proposition 8....

Support for the Proposition received an enormous amount of financial support, such that gay rights groups were constantly struggling to match it. Much of the work to garner support for the Proposition came from the considerable financial and political muscle of the Church of Latter Day Saints, who came awfully close to crossing the line separating church from state, if not passing over it entirely, in their zeal to see it passed. And a great deal of the attempt to garner support for Proposion 8's passage was done through propagating distortions and fabrications, as documented by the LA Times here

With all of these tremendous advantages, the total amount of support that this huge assault of money and lies managed to muster for Proposition 8 was....52%. A paltry 2% over the majority mark.

I am sorry for those who have suffered because the advances made in the last 8 years were not as far-reaching as they were thought to be. But they are far-reaching. The anti-gay forces may have won this time, but they were barely able to hold their own, even with their full amassed might brought to bear. And even then it's still unclear whether they got everything they wanted; word from the California Attorney-General's office is that Proposition 8 will not be applied retroactively: already-married same-sex couples will remain legally married.

All that's happened here is a temporary setback. In fact, from where we were a year ago, we've actually gained a tiny bit of ground. We now have actual married gay couples to point to in California, which makes it that little bit easier to talk about the issue in real human terms rather than in terms of airy abstract ideals. I think we're continuing to inch ahead.

From the academic journals: "contingent" relationships, "essential" relationships, and why gay people would want to marry

2008-11-07T20:32:00.008+11:00

A side-effect of my time at uni is that I see academic articles in the scholarly databases I can access which make me think: "hm, I can see how that's relevant to a public issue of the day". For instance, I found an article in the Canadian Journal of Political Science that clarifies a few issues about gay marriage. Well, about marriage, at any rate.

It's by P. Neal and D. Paris, from vol 23, issue 3 of that journal, published in 1990. Its title doesn't make it sound that relevant: "Liberalism and the Communitarian Critique:
A Guide for the Perplexed", but it is. The subject matter is concerned with elucidating an ongoing debate between, as it says, liberals and communitarians. Communitarians accuse liberals of having an understanding of the self that is unjustifiably "atomistic", ignoring the importance of social relationships and community in two ways: missing the importance of social relationships in people's construction of their own identity, and missing the general moral good in itself that comes from having a "community". Liberals for their part accuse communitarians of placing the values and rules of institutions and groups above the right of an individual to make their own individual choice for themselves.

The relevance of the debate to marriage comes from the two different understandings that the two groups have of what Neal and Paris call "shared relations": liberals emphasise the value of contingently shared relations, while communitarians emphasise essentially shared relations. Quoting Neal and Paris:

A contingently shared relation is a relationship between two or more antecedently defined separate selves which, however much it may affect their attitudes and behaviour, does not penetrate the identity of the separate selves to the point that the identity of each becomes partially or wholly constituted by the relation itself. An essentially shared relation penetrates this deeply; when two selves essentially share a relation, the identity of each self is partially or wholly constituted by the relation.

Neal and Paris make no value judgement on which view is superior, but they do point out which relationships conform to which model. Marriage, for examples, is generally an essentially shared relation:

marriage is or can be a relation whereby two separate selves become redefined in their identities as one through the relation with the relation (as union rather than contract) coming to constitute what were once separate selves as one shared self.

This is, I believe, what people who are pushing for gay marriage for themselves want. They value and want an essentially shared relationship with their would-be spouse that would subsume the identity of the participants: "let two become one", "'til death do us part", and so forth. I wonder if the people pushing gay marriage as an abstract matter of legal rights for others, and who personally think that the idea of getting married is stupid, understand that?

Neal and Paris mention that essentially shared relations can be poisonous to those involved: abusive relationships and divorce are both depressingly common occurrences. Yet, as they also say, it is not enough to discredit the very idea of essentially shared relationships based only on the existence of abusive cases; it would be just as easy to criticise liberal values of individual independence on that basis using those horror stories of people who die alone and whose bodies go undiscovered for months.

To date I don't think I've seen an argument against marriage that wasn't based on either pointing to the subsection of those marital relationships that are abusive and problematic, or else asserting freedom and a sense of self as values that shouldn't be given up to something like marriage. I think enough marriages are sufficiently unproblematic enough to view the institution itself as not inherently compromised, and I am unconvinced that a person who chooses to subsume their identity in marriage has made an inferior moral choice to someone who doesn't. Sure, it could be the wrong choice for some, and nobody should be forced to get married if they don't want to be, but for others, subsuming their identity in marriage may be the thing that makes them happiest.

I think this understanding of marriage as being an essentially shared relation is also why "civil unions and "domestic partnerships" are an inferior alternative to marriage. Do those legal constructions carry the same sense of two individuals giving themselves to a shared identity, incorporated from both of them, that marriage does? My impression is that they don't. In fact, I think placing gay unions in a separate legal category can encourage the view that such relationships are contingent. They're not really marriage, after all.

Obama's grandmother

2008-11-04T11:55:00.002+11:00

Barack Obama's grandmother died today.

Smallish Biden/McCain dust-up in America

2008-10-23T23:11:00.003+11:00

There's been a mini dust-up in the US election as the McCain campaign desperately tries to spin an attack out of the following comments from Joe Biden:

"Mark my words, it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy," Biden said. "The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America.

"Watch, we're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy," Biden went on to say.

McCain has portrayed the comment as evidence that electing Obama is dangerous, that electing Obama - Obama specifically, not just a new president generally - will invite threats and attacks from all the evil people living in the big bad world outside America's borders (no idea how he believes the evil people living inside America's borders would react, but after seeing the low-level violence already occurring against Obama's supporters in some parts of the country, I think I can guess).

It took a moment of examining this charge for me to realise that the thrust of it isn't that electing Obama invites attack, but that Obama won't be able to handle the danger he invites because he's too inexperienced. This is not a new meme from the right: we have here the same basic charge, with the "experience" component made explicit, in the writings of a conservative journalist from several months ago:

Experience especially in the area of foreign policy is increasingly important with the instability around the globe. Many rogue nations and world leaders would test the Senator [Obama] early on in his administration making a determination about his leadership, wisdom, and judgment.

I find it interesting that in response to Biden's comments, the Obama campaign is having none of the "experience" charge and focusing entirely on the "Joe didn't really say a specifically Obama presidency would invite attack" part. That's actually pretty clever: Obama's defusing the main thrust of the attack by getting McCain and the press hung up on the part that doesn't matter so much. Nice dodge.

The Daily Show on Wasilla, Alaska

2008-10-22T09:12:00.004+11:00

I think some of the recent comments from Republican spokesdroids about how "real America" supports them have pissed the Daily Show team off just a tad.

The conservative movement's mythology versus statistical evidence

2008-10-15T13:39:00.003+11:00

One of the recurring themes of the McCain-Palin campaign has been that Obama is "out of touch", or "doesn't understand the problems of everyday Americans"

Well, check out this poll, and understand the difference between electioneering and observable reality.

By the by, I've settled on the phrase "conservative moment" to try and distinguish what I see as two conflicting versions of conservative ideology. The first is "classical conservatism", which values respect for tradition, opposes radical change and is, although not my preferred intellectual preference, a fairly useful philosophy to have around. The other, "movement conservatism", is little more than an angry mob railing against anything slightly different to them, and which is coming dangerously close to turning into a movement of brownshirts. Both currently exist in today's Republican party I think. But the number of non-movement conservatives in it appears to be dwindling rapidly.

McCain: tragic figure

2008-10-12T10:48:00.003+11:00

Tragic in the classical sense: a figure who is undone by himself.

McCain is now trying to walk back the Krystalnacht-style turn that his campaign has taken. But his Republican supporters are having none of it:

Said McCain, "I want to be president of the United States and I obviously I do not want Senator Obama to be. But I have to tell you, I have to tell you, he is a decent person. And a person that you do not have to be scared as president of the United States."

The crowd booed.

Bits and pieces of bad behaviour continue to leak out from McCain's campaign rallies. Here we have a McCain supporter who'd brought in a monkey with an Obama bumper sticker stuck on it. Here we have the official clergyman for the event give the following invocation at the start:

"I would also pray, Lord, that your reputation is involved in all that happens between now and November, because there are millions of people around this world praying to their god - whether it’s Hindu, Buddha, Allah - that his opponent wins, for a variety of reasons,” Conrad said.

“And Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they’re going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens. So I pray that you will step forward and honor your own name with all that happens between now and Election Day"

"Buddah"? Praying to "their god?"

Sometimes the McCain campaign gives a lukewarm indication that McCain doesn't like this sort of thing, as with their official statement about that invocation:

While we understand the important role that faith plays in informing the votes of Iowans, questions about the religious background of the candidates only serve to distract from the real questions in this race about Barack Obama’s judgment, policies and readiness to lead as commander in chief.

But sometimes the campaign comes out with the claim that pointing out this bad behaviour is an unfair attack on Mccain's supporters:

Barack Obama’s attacks on Americans who support John McCain reveal far more about him than they do about John McCain. It is clear that Barack Obama just doesn’t understand regular people and the issues they care about. He dismisses hardworking middle class Americans as clinging to guns and religion, while at the same time attacking average Americans at McCain rallies who are angry at Washington, Wall Street and the status quo.

By the by, this post contains a poll comparing Independent voters' opinion about if they think Obama or McCain "understands your needs and problems". Obama blows McCain out of the water.

The difficulty McCain faces now is that the destructive social forces he unleashed are beyond his control, and are threatening to destroy not only him, but the social fabric of the country as well. Can you imagine what these people are going to do if Obama wins? Some commentors on American blogs I read are already discussing the best small arms to get for self-defense purposes should the Reichstag Right turn violent after "Barack Hussein Osama" becomes President.

Worse for Mccain, the Reichstag Right appears to exist within his own campaign apparatus, and even appears to include his own Vice Presidential nominee. That's my interpretation of this recent article from the Sunday Times, anyway: McCain tussles with Palin over whipping up a mob mentality. Read the whole thing, and be very afraid.

In classical tragedy, the tragic hero must sacrifice himself in order to right the larger wrong he helped create. It's certainly not necessary to go that far in this day and age of course, but I will say this: John McCain, the only way you can win is by feeding this mob. If you don't, they'll turn on you and demand you be replaced by someone who will, like your own running mate. If you do, you'll be responsible for everything that this mob does in the future to all the people that they merely demonise and threaten now.

You can either try to become president of the United States of America on the backs of those who do not believe that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the right of anyone who is not exactly like them, or you can show that you truly believe in American values, ensure that the next President is not faced with a large segment of his own population wanting to kill him just for being who he is, and oppose this mob and everything it stands for, even though politically it will cost you everything.

It's either you or the country. Make your choice.

"He's got the bloodlines"

2008-10-10T12:02:00.000+11:00

My opinion has been that the question of who wins the US presidential election is important for the world and for liberal democracy, but just as important is how they are perceived to have won it. That will tell us what values America really stands for - whether the American people genuinely want to stand up for their liberal democracy and what it has given them, or whether they're just going through the motions in a slow descent to...something else.

On that basis, here is a 4 and half minute Youtube of some McCain-Palin supporters from one of Palin's campaign events.

I'll transcribe what I think is by far the worst part, starting at about 1:00, when the cameraman asks two women about Obama:
Cameraman: He's a terrorist?
Woman #1: Definitely.
Woman #2: He's got the bloodlines.
Cameraman: What does that mean?
Woman #2: Well, just think about it. The name.
Cameraman: So you do think he's a terrorist.
Woman #2: I didn't say that, but, ah...
Woman #1: I think he is.
Cameran: You do? Why?
Woman #1: He's got the connections. Have a look at his name!

Democracy can tell you so much about a people. Oh yes, I'll know how John McCain won the election if he does.

Election year in October in the US; ugly time

2008-10-09T01:32:00.003+11:00

And the Republican Party has discovered new lows amongst the party faithful. I think one commenter from here had the best response to any attempt to absolve Palin from responsibility for the near-violent rhetoric of the crowds at her gatherings:

she is not lynching him, but she's a hell of a rope salesman.

I've becoming addicted to watching Pollster's poll of polls from day to day. Near as I can tell, Obama's popularity hasn't taken much of a hit over the past few days after the McCain campaign went full negative. But the start of the Republican incitement to hatred seems to roughly coincide with McCain's popularity slowly but steadily going up after a long period of decline.

I'll see if the trend continues before I speculate on what it means. But I think people need to keep in mind that even though Obama's currently ahead, he has not secured more than 50% of the vote: there are enough undecided voters that it's still statistically possible for McCain to win the popular vote even if Obama doesn't lose any support from now until election day. It seems unlikely, but I find that worrying nevertheless.

Lawrence King's killer has a defense fund in his name

2008-10-06T19:15:00.003+11:00

Well, Brandon McInerney is a 14-year-old who's being tried as an adult, and plenty of people, including several GLBT rights groups, think it important that a minor still be legally treated as a minor even in the case of murder. I could imagine any number of groups would cheerfully and openly fund McInerney's defense on that basis.

But I find it slightly odd that the people actually responsible for The Brandon Mcinerney Defense Fund are not identifiable. The Fund's own website says that the account is administered by Leiderman Devine LLP, a fairly mainstream lawyer group from what I can see, but they only administer the account, and have no actual involvement in the court case itself. One possible advantage of this arrangement is that the real identity of the Fund's owners is likely protected by attorney-client privilege. The domain name of the website is registered via Domains by Proxy, a service that offers itself as a way of keeping a domain name owner's details out of the public whois registry.

I try not to be distrustful of anonymity per se, since I think it's important as a way of making speech truly free. But this is about funding a court case rather than speech, and I'm concerned about why the identity of the fund maintainer is veiled. All the groups that I can think of who might have an interest here, including "pro-family" (ie, anti-gay) groups like the Alliance Defense Fund, would want their identity known. Who is this?

Document from inside an anti-gay organisation leaked.

2008-10-06T18:05:00.002+11:00

The anti-gay group in question is called the Eagle Forum. Seems like someone accidentally attached the wrong document to an e-mail that they were sending to an openly gay radio host. The full text is currently here. I'm mirroring it in full here just in case.

Dear Jack,
Hello, I am so sorry, I just found out I'm going to have to participate in a meeting that continues after our conference ends on Sunday. That will preclude me from doing the interview. I apologize for telling you this now. (I hate to risk pulling a McCain! And I hope it doesn't create problems for you.) I just found out, myself, and am bummed. I was looking forward to talking with you. Any chance we could reschedule?

Thanks,
Colleen

I was giving more thought to why people are hesitant to get involved in this issue, which led to trying to brainstorm ways to counter the “Will and Grace” effect. The other side has so effectively used rhetoric and emotionality to manipulate and flat-out bully many Americans away from taking any position indicating that homosexuality is wrong. It’s not surprising that politicians, media members and even military leaders are shying away from the topic, because Hollywood and other media outlets react so virulently at even the slightest hint of negativity toward homosexuality. There are so many examples. One that you’ll probably remember that really illustrated the hysteria to me happened when American Idol runner up Clay Aiken was co-hosting the morning talk show “Regis and Kelly.” While exchanging banter with host Kelly Ripa, Clay (then-rumored, now confirmed to be homosexual) put his hand over her mouth to stop her from talking because he disagreed with something she was saying. Legally, his actions constituted battery, in addition to
being a terrible violation of etiquette and civil conduct among adults. Ripa, understandably upset, moved his hand away and said something like, “That’s a no-no, I don’t know where that hand has been.” Ripa insisted that she was merely concerned about germs as a working mother with three young children. Rosie O’Donnell and other gay media advocates blasted Ripa – the actual wronged party in the situation - insisting that the comment was a homophobic slur. The issue has become such a tar baby, people don’t want to go anywhere near it, because the “homophobe” moniker is so dreaded and so liberally applied. It’s also very distracting, because the homosexual advocates are so strident and relentless in their attacks. Thus, people fear saying anything that might risk their ire, for fear that such attacks will detract from other issues or work the figure might want to focus on or accomplish.

One thing I thought that might be somewhat helpful in your efforts to recruit members of the military for your cause is to do what Pete or Peter, the gentleman seated to your left against the wall during the meeting indicated – use “horror stories” to illustrate that allowing homosexuals in the military is not simply a matter of respecting one person’s personal choice, but they actually threaten our national security and in some cases individual soldiers’ personal safety. I know the horror stories are very difficult to find as you explained. It sounded like you did have some that illustrate the very serious issues.

I saw this use of “horror stories” executed very well earlier this summer when I attended the Family Research Council’s Panel Discussion on Same Sex “Marriage.” (Which can be found online at: http://www.frc.org/panel/california-same-sex-marriage-the-impact-on-religious-liberty)

Admittedly, that was a very friendly forum. In fact, it was about 6-1, with only Chai Feldblum defending the same sex marriage. Even though she was in the minority, she was treated very respectfully (I’m so sorry members of the U.S. Congress did not feel it was necessary to afford you the same respect.). There were many constitutional law and policy experts, but the most compelling arguments were the “horror stories” in
which children were being intimidated on playgrounds for being “homophobes” (synonymous with Christians) and one parent was actually arrested for peacefully dissenting against his child’s being forced to participate in a pro-homosexual “educational” presentation.

One presenter discussed some of these examples. Chai Feldblum scoffed at them and said essentially, “the other side will tell you the sky is falling. . . ,” but indicated those were extreme examples and there was no danger of those scenarios actually happening. Feldblum was followed by Ben Bull of the Alliance Defense Fund who had cases in hand to say that not only is the sky falling, he was holding pieces of it. This was so effective in not only illustrating the dangers same sex marriage presented, but it enabled the listener to overcome the intimidation and fear of being labeled a homophobe by having tangible examples to further legitimize their position.

I know all this is easier said than done, but these are just some ideas about the PR battle that it seems needs to be waged first against any hesitation military leaders who support the current law might have to taking a stand for it.

Again, just some ruminations for now, but I would love to continue the discussion and to see if there is any way we can help. Again, I appreciate what you’re doing so much and know that this is a very intense battle not just politically and interpersonally, but I really believe it is a spiritual battle.

Looking forward to talking to you more soon.

Many blessings,

Colleen

Colleen Holmes
Executive Director
Eagle Forum

Bad debt buyouts and conspiracy theories

2008-09-23T09:09:00.005+10:00

By now I expect most people even vaguely aware of what's going on in America's financial markets has heard that the Bush plan to respond is to have the American treasury (it is the treasury, yes?) essentially write a blank check for $700 billion dollars (that's American billions, so $700 000 000 000) to buy off the bad debts that are causing the problem in the first place, and demand that Congress pass it NOW, dammit.

Is it too much of a conspiracy theory to think that this massive cash injection, for which there is no apparent oversight or accountability planned, isn't designed to fix the problem at all, but simply to delay the ultimate collapse for a few more months so that, when it finally does happen, the blame can be pinned on ~~Obama~~ the next President rather than Bush?

Headline of the day

2008-09-17T21:47:00.001+10:00

Dick Smith to look at phone porn images

Will he now?

Running the numbers: Obama/McCain polling and changes in their support

2008-09-17T17:09:00.007+10:00

At the time of writing, The American Research Group has provided some statistics on the American Presidential election. What grabbed my attention was the detailed breakdown of some of the numbers. Now, it's possible to tie yourself into all sorts of ridiculous knots with this kind of demographic detail with questions about how Candidate A is faring against Candidate B amongst female immigrant blue-collar dog owners. Nevertheless, this is eye-catching:

National
Likely voters	Aug 30- Sep 1	Sep 13-15	Change (pts)

McCain:
Democrats	5%	19%	+14
Republicans	83%	84%	+1
Independents	43%	43%	0

Obama:
Democrats	88%	75%	-13
Republicans	11%	9%	-2
Independents	45%	49%	+4

This is the breakdown of support for each candidate among Democrats, Republicans and Independents, respectively. Note the striking swing among Democrats away from Obama and towards McCain. There has been a slight swing away by Republicans as well, but not a huge amount, and Obama's gained some Independent support (although McCain hasn't lost any). But it's that 2-digit swing towards McCain from people who identify as members of Obama's own party where Obama's hurting most, to my amateur eye.

The cause? Difficult to say, but it's tempting to view it at as a gender issue. After all, the same period shows Obama losing 5% of women and McCain gaining 7%. But that's ALL women, not just Democrats. Nor is it right to assume that the Democratic support Obama's lost is mostly female, although it very well could be.

Both surveys were taken after Obama had officially accepted the nomination instead of Hillary Clinton, so that alone doesn't explain it. The first survey was taken after Sarah Palin was announced as VP for McCain, but before she gave her convention speech. That's a possible area for analysis. But given the two week gap - a very eventful two weeks - between surveys, it's difficult to pinpoint the exact issue. More data is required. Unfortunately, I suspect that the required data is more detailed than most survey companies are willing to put up for free on their websites.

Sarah Palin and the Bush Doctr...the what now?

2008-09-16T01:06:00.002+10:00

Sarah Palin flubbed a foreign policy question about the Bush Doctrine in her one and only interview to date, and conservative commentators, including Australian ones on the Sunday morning TV I was watching yesterday, have scrambled to defend her, saying how incredibly complex and arcane the whole definition of the "Bush Doctrine" is, and she can't possibly be expected to effectively answer such an obvious "gotcha" question like that.

I'm not going to waste even a second with the irrelevant charade of the Bush Doctrine's "complex definition". The fact is that Palin would have to demonstrate that she'd even heard of the Bush Doctrine before it's possible to get into the question of whether she understands it. She failed to do so:

GIBSON: Do you agree with the Bush doctrine?

PALIN: In what respect, Charlie?

GIBSON: The Bush -- well, what do you -- what do you interpret it to be?

PALIN: His world view.

Um, no. Besides the obvious initial stall for time and attempt to pump for more information to obscure the fact that she has no idea what was just asked of her ("In what respect, Charlie?"), the fact that she guesses that it has something to do with Bush's "worldview" tells me that she had no concept that the "Bush Doctrine" even existed, let alone what it was. In fact, the confusion demonstrates that she is unaware of the concept of foreign policy "doctrine" at all.

Bottom line: when Charlie Gibson asked Sarah Palin what she thought of the Bush Doctrine, she didn't even know it was a question about foreign policy until Charlie Gibson told her it was.

Edit: oh, and to pre-empt (heh) what I expect to be the most likely line of defense, please don't waste your time and mine if all you're going to do is "use enhanced interrogation tactics" on the definition of "worldview".

Why I'm saying sorry to Sarah Palin, and why I still support Barack Obama

2008-09-12T17:31:00.007+10:00

"Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us"

When I first got past my reaction of "Sarah who?" to Sarah Palin's selection as McCain's running mate, I deeply regret that my next thought was how to discredit her. She was, after all, a Republican: something that after the past 8 years seemed to me to mean the same thing as "enemy". That reaction - condemning someone before I even knew who they really were - was wrong, and I am sorry for it.

Despite that, my opinion of the pick of Palin as running mate is still that it was a deeply divisive move. But I think that this is no fault of Palin.

Whose fault is it in reality? No small part of the blame needs to lie with those of us who jumped to the attack before we knew the first thing about her. Are we so upset about the last 8 years, the destructiveness and blazing hatred put out by the national Republican Party, that we will adopt the same hateful and destructive attitude towards all Republicans? I do not seek to end Republican hatred and destruction only to see it replaced with Democratic hatred and destruction.

I know that many believe that attacking as hard and as viciously as possible is the only way to effectively counter the Republicans' smears and attacks. To that I say two things. First, Sarah Palin is not like other, established Republican figures. I'm sorry if you think otherwise, but she's just not. As Governor of Alaska, she's been a long way from the follies and failures of the Bush Administration, and bringing such an outsider in to the campaign was probably the best thing that the McCain campaign could have done to burnish the national Republican party's severly tarnished image. Treating her as part of the established Republican brand is factually wrong and won't work.

Second, and most important, attacking Sarah Palin is EXACTLY what the McCain campaign wants Obama and his supporters to do. They want it so much, in fact, that they've actually been forced to distort the truth - repeatedly -in order to make it look like Obama's attacking her in the wake of his refusal to do so.

The glee which I've seen in some "movement" conservative opinion leaders when they talk about the supposed "disgusting attacks" on Palin by Obama is actually a little sickening: they like it when they think she's getting trashed, because it gives them an excuse to trash Obama. They're celebrating the idea of Palin getting thrown to the wolves, and even convincing themselves it's happening where it isn't so they can celebrate some more. The only conclusion I can come to is that they want it to happen.

While we who mindlessly attacked Palin before we truly knew who she was deserve some blame for festering the divides that have once again opened in the wake of Palin's introduction to the world stage, it is the Republican party and the so-called "movement conservatives", not Obama or his supporters, and not Sarah Palin, who have deliberately sought to create that division, and who are cynically, even gleefully, trying to exploit it to victory, no matter what the cost to America, to the world, or even to Sarah Palin herself. I include the quote from Obama's inaugural 2004 speech above to remind people that he knows the score. That is why I still support him. And I believe I can support him quite effectively without any need to get a hate-on for Sarah Palin, however much the McCain campaign might want me to.

Wanted: artistry of lipstick on a Republican pig

2008-09-11T17:11:00.009+10:00

Obama, from what I've seen of him, wants the American Presidential election to be about the issues that are important to America. Republicans, from what I can see, currently want it to be about lipstick. I should be outraged at the phoniness of the Republican outrage about this so-called "personal attack on Sarah Palin", but if Republicans want this campaign to be about lipstick, then I think it's possible to oblige them, without sacrificing the any emphasis on the issues that are of importance to America and to the world.

If I was any good at this kind of creativity I'd do it myself, but since I'm not: I ask anyone who cares about the issues facing America to create this imagery by any method they can: a pig, identifiably associated with the Republican party, which has at least one of the Republican failures of the last 8 years clearly written or identifiable on it: failing economy, sub-prime mortgage crisis, ruined international reputation, record levels of debt, The Iraq war and so forth (I was originally going to say put all the failures on one pig, but I realised that they may not actually fit on just one, given the sheer number of them). Then put very obvious lipstick on the pig. The tube of lipstick used should be readily identifiable with the McCain campaign.

I would trust that any attempt to portray any actual Republican person as a pig would be denounced as a personal attack, in keeping with Obama's desire to focus on real issues rather than the phony distractions of personality politics. I realise of course that Republicans see a "personal attack" in everything these days, and may see one in something as stupid as the remote possibility that the lipstick on the pig may be roughly the same colour as some lipstick that Sarah Palin may or may not have once worn, so use your best judgement as to what genuinely is unpalatably personal and what is just the frothings of "movement" conservatives engaging in their Two Minutes of Hate.

I'm sick of American elections being won or lost by bullshit. If Republicans want America to obsess about lipstick on a pig, I say give Americans the McCain lipstick on the Republican pig of failure good and hard. And let's bring the focus back on actual issues in the process.

Touching on Bristol Palin's family life, considering the relevance of gay marriage to it

2008-09-03T11:52:00.007+10:00

Not sure if I should write this, but...

Several bloggers I read, that happen to be openly gay, have been the most vocal proponents of the idea that it's okay to make the family situation of Sarah Palin an issue, in spite of Obama's harsh words on the subject. It's sort of understandable that gay people would be the ones who feel most annoyed at the obvious double standard of so-called "pro-family" people like the Palins in a situation like the one they're in: denouncing gay people as causing the breakdown of the family, while there's an as yet unmarried, pregnant teenage daughter in their family.

Do this bisexual man want to ask a few questions myself? Weeelll...

I do have one question that relates to the general political issue of gay marriage rather than to any so-called "character" issues that may or may not be highlighted in the Palin family's private life. Anti-gay marriage writer Stanley Kurtz has claimed that gay marriage in the Netherlands (more accurately, registered partnerships in the Netherlands, but many conservatives like to skip over the difference) is at least partially to blame for rising amounts of out-of-wedlock births there. The actual mechanism by which this actually happens isn't made altogether clear. Apparently the existence of alternatives to "traditional marriage" makes people abandon the institution in favour of cohabitation, which is bad. And totally different from, say, two teenagers entering into a shotgun marriage because the girl got knocked up, which I suppose is good: it is, after all, a traditional marriage form (including the "father who didn't want kids having to marry the girl he got pregnant" bit, that's a very old and common marriage tradition in our society that has not yet been destroyed, sad to say).

So anyway, a question for people who opposes gay marriage:
How did gay marriage help cause this Bristol Palin's out-of-wedlock pregnancy? Since you so readily claim that it's acceptance of relationships like mine that contributes to the existence of family-unfriendly situations like the one in which Sarah Palin's daughter has found herself, please illustrate the mechanism by which that occurred in this situation. I don't see it, and I'd like you to point it out. I hope you agree that if you claim that gay marriage has nothing to do with this situation at all then I think you're entirely correct: gay marriage has NOTHING to do with the family situations of other people, and gay marriage opponents should stop falsely claiming that it does.

Obama and Sarah someone

2008-09-01T19:43:00.004+10:00

On Friday, I watched online as Barack Obama laid out his ideals and addressed the issues that he believed were most important to America. I had hoped that the ensuing political discussion would be about the issues and ideals he'd laid out rather than the petty sniping and personality politics that so turns me off the whole political process.

By Saturday, and pretty much every day since then, the talk from political observers, both Republican and Democratic, has been about the personality, gender and life experiences of someone named Sarah Palin. Issues? Ideals? What are they?

I am not a Democrat (well, obviously, since I'm not an American, but even if I was American, I'd still value my political independence). I do not care to support any political party blindly. I'm interested in this US political campaign because I want to see some repairs done to the political system of the world's oldest existing liberal democracy; I think it's fundamentally broken. I want to see America once again have a political system that promotes the ideals that make a liberal democracy work - accountability, involvement by the people in the task of government, ability of multiple different polities to work together, if not always well, then without any actual bloodletting - above phony considerations of a candidate's "character" that is, in reality a media-constructed fantasy about the person, so carefully crafted by their campaigns. I don't care if the effort to restore the overarching importance of core liberal democratic ideals, and end all the bullshit about fictional "character" issues, comes from a Republican, Democrat or other candidate, so long as it comes from somewhere.

I have been deeply impressed by the commitment that the Obama candidacy has had to those liberal democratic principles. I am anxious to see both Republicans and Democrats stop obsessing about the minutiae of Sarah wotsername's life story, and return to working towards promoting those overarching liberal democratic ideals over the phony politics of personality.

You know, some part of me can't help wondering if part of the point to this pick was to get people on both sides focused away from the big issues and back onto the petty, election-winning but ultimately country-destroying, stuff again.