Bill Richardson has gays up in arms for saying homosexuality is a 'choice,' but should we care if a politicians thinks it's nurture not nature?
Much of the coverage of last week's forum on gay issues with the Democratic presidential candidates has centered on Bill Richardson's answer to a question from singer Melissa Etheridge about whether homosexuality is a choice. To the New Mexico governor's discredit, he said it was, although he has enthusiastically reversed himself in statements issued since.
In some ways, the question says more about us than the answer says about Richardson. Why do we care if a candidate for president believes it's nurture and not nature? Do we really need validation at every level from everybody, just like our conservative opponents claim we do?
Remember the Peter Pace controversy, where we all complained when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs injected his personal views about the morality of homosexuality into a policy debate? Then like hypocrites, we freaked out when leading Democrats weren't immediately willing to do the same, albeit in our defense.
Either private opinions about homosexuality are relevant to politics or they're not. Bloomberg correspondent Margaret Carlson, one of two real journalists asking questions at the Democrats' forum, pointed out in a follow-up that conservatives harp on the 'choice' issue as a justification for opposing our rights. But clearly Richardson doesn't.
If he really does think being gay is a choice, that just means he can say to Republicans that the nature/nurture question is a non-issue, since he still supports our equality ( except for marriage ) .
It's ironic that Melissa and so many other women who speak out so forcefully about a woman's 'right to choose' on abortion, would infer that we have no 'right to choose' our sexual orientation or aren't entitled to full civil rights if we do.
I certainly didn't choose my sexual orientation, and I disagree fundamentally with Governor Richardson's response. But to suggest he 'imploded' with his response, as so many have in the gay blogosphere, just shows how needy we remain for the right kind of rhetoric, rather than the right kind of laws.
Speaking of the right rhetoric, kudos to Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post, the other real journalist at the forum, for pressing Richardson about whether he used the slur 'maricón,' which means 'faggot,' last year on the Don Imus show. This time around, Richardson managed to apologize without conditioning his contrition with ominous suggestions about the motives of those ( that would be me ) who dug up the gaffe.
Throughout his 15 minutes on camera, Richardson tried again and again to return the conversation to his very strong record of actual achievements in gay rights, but the 'choice' and 'maricón' gaffes underscore how easily he manages to distract voters from his impressive resume—on this and so many other issues.
As for the frontrunner, Hillary Clinton confirmed what we already know about her—whether the issue is gay rights, Iraq or fill-in-the-blank political hot potato. She will talk a good game, connect with her audience and ultimately say or do the absolute minimum she thinks she can get away with.
On gays in the military, gay marriage or gay whatever, Clinton will calibrate her position according to the political winds, and so will accomplish nothing more and nothing less than what's achievable without the expense of political capital. That is not leadership.
It was Barack Obama who led off the HRC-Logo presidential forum and ultimately set a standard no one else measured up to. He committed on policy, promised leadership not just talk, and spoke with passion in a way that connects gay civil rights to Black civil rights while recognizing the differences.
Even on marriage, Obama's answers were as good as could be expected, keeping in mind the president and Congress can't 'enact' gay marriage. As the current occupant of the White House has shown, all a president can do is ( try to ) prevent states from marrying us, or in the alternative, push for federal recognition for gay couples who are married, civil union'd or otherwise committed.
Clinton inexplicably talked about how marriage was a states' rights issue, ignoring the ugly civil rights history of that warped concept of federalism. Obama, on the other hand, talked about fully 'compatible' federal rights for gay couples in civil unions and 'loving same-sex couples' in committed relationships. And unlike Clinton and John Edwards, Obama's opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act isn't recent, and carries no asterisk.
He favors repeal of both halves of DOMA—the one blocking federal recognition of married gays and the other allowing states to refuse recognition of gay marriages from other states. Clinton and Edwards would repeal only the first half, and that's a major policy difference.
Clinton railed against Karl Rove and George Bush at the forum, which is red meat for a gay audience. But it's also part of why she remains a deeply divisive figure. Obama talked about gay rights, including civil unions, in a way that fits his 'new kind of politics' and historic candidacy, bringing people together and making us a part of the American family.
Crain is former editor of the Washington Blade, Southern Voice, and gay publications in three other cities. He can be reached via his blog at www.citizencrain.com .
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NOTE: The volume issue number for this issue Windy City Times is Vol. 22, No. 49; this is a correction due to an error in numbers beginning June 27, 2007.
