May 21, 2001

Eagle Eye on Austin

DOMA MEETS AN UNTIMELY END AS A TRULY UNUSUAL SESSION WRAPS UP
Despite months of grassroots lobbying, the Defense of Marriage Act has been consigned to spend the waning days of the 77th Legislative Session stuffed in the in-box of the House Calendars Committee. Although the bill had managed to gain Senate approval and secure a favorable vote from the House State Affairs Committee, it could not overcome the opposition of a number of Calendars Committee members in time to meet House reporting deadlines. Opponents of the act had stated that it would constitute a "slap in the face" to homosexuals because of its explicit ban on the recognition of same-sex unions performed outside the state. Texas law already bans the recognition of same-sex unions performed in the state.

The death of DOMA, taken together with the passage of the James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Act making "sexual preference" a near civil right, lends credence to the argument that lawmakers are wrapping up a session filled with legislative victories for the homosexual lobby. Pandering to narrow interest groups espousing identity politics has always been a favorite "vote-getting" activity of politicians, but the behavior exhibited by a number of lawmakers during the current "Homosexual-rights Session" almost defies belief. Consider for the moment some of the following examples:

• House Bill 1296, a regular bill by Harryette Ehrhardt banning discrimination in public schools based on a student's sexual orientation, managed to clear the House Education Committee for the first time this session before faltering in Calendars.
• House Bill 687, another regular bill by Debra Danburg (D-Houston) repealing the state's sodomy law, cleared the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee on a 7-0 vote before being stopped in Calendars.
• Hate Crimes was passed with not only sexual preference language in tact, but with an amendment attached mandating the creation of a hate crimes curriculum to be offered to public schools. This terrible piece of legislation was brought to the Senate floor with the aid of seven Senate Republicans, all of whom knew the bill would pass once it hit the floor, and was signed into law by a Republican Governor.

Of the many lessons to be learned from the Homosexual-rights Session, two are worth mentioning here. First, homosexuals exert far more influence on public policy than their numbers warrant. Their political clout is a direct result of the national media's shameless promotion of their "lifestyle," coupled with the doctrine of radical tolerance for all things abnormal found in our court system today (indeed, 43% of Americans believe that homosexuality should be ILLEGAL!). Secondly, redistricting is crucially important to the future success of the pro-family movement in Texas. The Homosexual-rights Session has provided ample evidence that our current Legislature does not have a sufficient number of socially conservative lawmakers to enact sensible public policy regarding homosexual conduct. It is time for the people of Texas to go to the voting booth in 2002 and "out" those lawmakers who consistently vote against the interests of families and public morality.

"GRANNY TAX" BILL SHOT DOWN BY GOVERNOR
A bill sponsored by Senator Mike Moncrief (D-Ft. Worth) that would have levied a tax on nursing home occupants was effectively killed last week after Governor Rick Perry announced his opposition to the measure. The Austin American-Statesman reported last week that Perry had warned lawmakers in January that he was opposed to any new taxes, and that he didn't believe the state should "go raise taxes…on people in those nursing homes." He added, "Quite frankly, a substantial number of those people can't afford that type of increase because it's going to be passed on to a goodly number of individuals." The House Human Services Committee responded to the Governor's remarks last week by cutting the bed fee, and the appropriations conference committee stated that $175 million would be earmarked for nursing homes instead, although no mention was made about where the money would come from.

The bed-fee legislation, dubbed the "granny tax" by Senator Jane Nelson, was introduced in response to what many are calling Texas' "nursing home crisis." A great many nursing homes in the state are in dire need of equipment and payroll upgrades, and many are in danger of filing bankruptcy due to low Medicaid reimbursement rates. Moncrief's bill would have levied a $5.25 per day surcharge on occupied nursing home beds, generating $186 million in new revenue in 2002 that would draw down $279 million in federal funds for a grand total of $465 million in new money available for nursing home needs. Under current law, Texas does not spend enough state money on nursing homes to draw down federal matching funds for nursing homes, a fact that has dropped Texas to 47th among the states in Medicaid nursing home reimbursements.

By announcing his opposition to the "granny tax," Governor Perry saved thousands of elderly Texans from being fleeced by a state government hungry for federal dollars while simultaneously providing the people of Texas with an excellent example of how federal programs can drive state and local tax hikes. Under our constitutional regime, the federal government does not have the power to compel state legislatures to levy new state taxes. By extending offers of federal funding contingent upon specified levels of state spending, however, the federal government can encourage lawmakers to appropriate more money to socially desirable programs-money that must ultimately be taken from taxpaying citizens. When state lawmakers refuse to spend at levels high enough to draw down federal funds, they become vulnerable to the charge that they denied their constituents "their fair share" of federal dollars (of course, these federal dollars were collected in large part as federal income taxes).

Like any other interest group, the nursing home lobby of Texas would like to receive its "fair share" of taxpayer money. Their problems are certainly real, and no one wants to see the elderly poor out on the street without proper care. Creating a new state "granny tax" for the purpose of prying open Uncle Sam's wallet, however, isn't the right way to go, and Governor Perry deserves credit for taking a strong stand against it.

SENATE REPUBLICANS RUN OUT THE CLOCK ON REDISTRICTING BILLS
Senate Republicans last Friday effectively ended any chance of a redistricting bill being signed by the governor before the end of the session. Denying Senator Jeff Wentworth (D-San Antonio) the 2/3 vote he needed to bring his redistricting bill up for debate on the floor, dissenting Republicans sent the task of drawing new state legislative lines to the Legislative Redistricting Board (LRB), where Republicans have a decisive 4-1 majority. The membership of the LRB consists of Lieutenant Governor Bill Ratliff, Attorney General John Cornyn, Land Commissioner David Dewhurst, Comptroller Carol Rylander, and Speaker of the House Pete Laney.

In addition to the Senate and House lines, state lawmakers were also charged with mapping out new Congressional and State Board of Education lines, a task which they failed to accomplish as well. Instead of going to the LRB, however, these maps must be hashed out in either a special legislative session or by a court. Republicans have long argued that the current partisan splits in the House, Senate, and among the Congressional delegation are the result of Democrat gerrymandering ten years ago, and would like to see the courts and the LRB draw lines more representative of Texas' Republican majority.

At this point, it is still too early to determine whether future lines will be favorable to pro-family candidates. The fact that the task of drawing them has passed out of the hands of the Legislature, however, is a very promising sign. The lines proposed and passed by both the House and Senate redistricting committees were nothing better than incumbent protection plans, ensuring liberal majorities in both the House and Senate for years to come. Although sending the maps to the LRB and to the courts is not a foolproof strategy against liberal gerrymandering, it does give conservatives hope that the next decade will afford them significant gains in elective offices.

Brief Notes From Near and Far

MEXICO CITY POLICY UPHELD BY U.S. HOUSE
By a narrow vote of 218 for and 210 against, the U.S. House of Representatives last week voted to uphold President Bush's decision to reinstate the Mexico City Policy. Originally announced by President Ronald Reagan at a meeting in Mexico City, the policy dictates that U.S. funds cannot be used to finance abortions overseas. This restriction guarantees that taxpayer dollars sent to other nations in the form of foreign aid are not used to pay for a procedure that many Americans rightly believe to be murderous. Below is the roll call votes cast by the Texas House delegation.

TEXAS DELEGATION: Y=voted for the Mexico City Policy; N=voted against the Mexico City Policy

Democrats - Bentsen, N; Doggett, N; Edwards, N; Frost, N; Gonzalez, N; Green, N; Hall, Y; Hinojosa, N; Jackson-Lee, N; Johnson, E. B., N; Lampson, N; Ortiz, Y; Reyes, N; Rodriguez, N; Sandlin, N; Stenholm,Y; Turner, N.

Republicans - Armey, Y; Barton, Y; Bonilla, Y; Brady, Y; Combest, Y; Culberson, Y; DeLay, Y; Granger, N; Johnson, Sam, Y; Paul, Y; Sessions, Y; Smith, Y; Thornberry, Y.

Commentary - Whoever Causes One of These to Sin
by John Derbyshire

I am going to take issue with my colleague Deroy Murdock. Reluctantly and respectfully, since I love Deroy's stuff, and I also love the fact that a tiny alteration to his first name gets you started on my last name. And in fact I'm not even sure I'm taking much issue, rather filling in something important I think he left out of his piece on homosexuals being re-oriented by therapy (Gays Can Go Straight).

To begin with, let me quote, with permission, an e-mail I recently received from Lawrence Henry, who is a columnist for Enter Stage Right and a person of much worldliness and wisdom. This email was one of several in some exchanges we were having about homosexuality. Here is what Larry wrote (except that I have changed a name and a city).

My best friend in college was a wonderful-looking young man named Gerry, who studied modern dance with Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham. He was really very good. I visited Gerry's home with him once on a school break. He lived in Richmond. His father was the rector of one of the oldest downtown Episcopal churches.

During that visit, his father told me (perhaps suspecting an attachment that did not exist between Gerry and me) that Gerry had come home from a high school vacation spent at a dance camp or conclave of some kind, and had told him he had been propositioned by a homosexual, and had asked him what to do about it.

"I told him," the old rector rumbled in self-righteous satisfaction, "'Gerald, it's up to you.'"

I thought then, and still think, this was one of the most extraordinarily cowardly acts I ever heard of.

Adolescence, of course, is a time of such powerful sexual desires that adolescents can be persuaded to attach themselves to almost any set of images, objects, or ideas - especially when appeals are made to the equally powerful adolescent insecurities and desires to belong to some seemingly attractive group. Lee Trevino, describing himself as a young man, said, "I'd f--- a rock if I thought there was a snake under it." W. H. Auden, asked in old age what it felt like when his sexual desires diminished said, "It's like being allowed to get off a wild horse."

To exploit that adolescent complex of desires is about the most despicable thing I can think of. "Whoever causes one of these to sin, it would be better if a millstone were hung about his neck and he were cast into the sea," just about summarizes it.

Before I proceed to my main point, let me say that I think the whole issue of homosexuality is a very difficult one for social conservatives. For some of us, anyway. If you're a Christian or Jewish fundamentalist, it's a no-brainer: The proscription is right there in Leviticus 18:22, and there is nothing more to be said. Most of us, however, are not fundamentalists. I myself am a not-very-observant Episcopalian. For people like me, who think that homosexuality as a social phenomenon - whatever we may think of individual homosexuals, or wish them to think of us - is deplorable, or at least regrettable, there is some explaining to do, especially to the homosexual friends and colleagues all of us have. I have no space to do that explaining here, though I think what I'm going to say covers some of the territory. What I mainly want to do is just unpick one single thread from Deroy's Monday piece, and pull on it to see how much unravels.

In that piece, Deroy discussed the controversy over a recent study asserting that "highly motivated" homosexual men can be "turned" by appropriate counseling and therapy. Deroy quotes some of the angry reactions to this study from homosexual-rights activists, and points out that their protests are based on the widely-held beliefs that sexual orientation is firmly fixed at birth, and that a person is either 100 per cent gay, or 100 per cent straight. He then explodes those beliefs by raising some counter-examples, for example of heterosexuals like James Hormel, the former U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg, who went in the other direction after fathering five children. Deroy concludes:

Perhaps it's best for gays and straights to agree that it's OK for every American to follow whichever sexual frequency suits his fancy, whether he tuned in at conception or switched channels as an adult.

Perhaps it is; but what, exactly, does the phrase "every American" encompass? Every American above the age of…what? Obviously it does not include my son, aged, as he will be pleased to tell you, five and three-quarters. What about "Gerry" in Lawrence Henry's little story - is he included, as his father seemed to believe? Young people - and I would include college-age under "young" - need some guidance and authority to turn their raging romantic and sexual urges into healthful and socially desirable channels. They know they do - what is Gerry doing but asking for guidance? So what guidance should we give? Is homosexuality healthful? Is it socially desirable?

Well, in the first place, there cannot be much dispute about the fact that male homosexuality is seriously un-healthful. There was not much to dispute about this even before the rise of AIDs, though this has been pretty much forgotten now. Leaving that aside, is homosexuality - male or female - socially desirable? Is any kind of entirely private behavior any of society's business?

That, of course, is where the interesting arguments begin. Social conservatives like myself rest their case on the common experience of humanity across the ages. You can't have much of a society - let alone a civilization - without some reasonably stable system for nurturing and socializing children, some system sanctioned by custom, fortified by law, and granted preferences and privileges to assist it. The only system with much of a track record is the man-woman family arrangement. There might be individual records of success with other schemas; but statistically speaking, homosexual partnerships are way too unstable to serve the nurturing and socializing purposes, and the single-parent family gets you what we see in our inner-city ghettoes. (And while polygamy and polyandry might, for all I know, both work, they are both grossly and obviously unfair.) It follows that while homosexuality can be, and in my opinion ought to be, tolerated as a fringe activity for people who are determined to follow that inclination, attempts to proselytize and normalize homosexuality ought to be resisted, even if it could be shown that normalization is possible, which I don't think it could.

The common attitudes of humanity reflect these (as it seems to me) obvious truths. Very large numbers of people agree with me that homosexuality is not socially desirable. Polled by Gallup in February 1999, in fact, 43 percent of respondents to the question "Do you think homosexual relations between consenting adults should or should not be legal?" answered with "Not legal." This is much sterner than my own position - I can't see any point in laws against homosexuality, nor can I see how such laws might be enforced - but it's obviously how an awful lot of people feel.

Now, you might say that widespread beliefs prove nothing. You might say - well, you probably wouldn't say, but you might very well think - that the only thing proved by Mr. Gallup is that 43 per cent of the American public are unenlightened bigots in need of some serious re-education. They are homophobes! (A stupid word, which, if it meant anything, would mean "having similar fears," as in: "She and I are homophobic; we're both scared of spiders.") You might add that a majority of citizens in 16th-century Spain probably supported the burning of heretics, and that until quite recently, a majority of people everywhere believed that the earth was flat. Sure, sure: but look at the sheer stubbornness of these attitudes. By 1999, the American public had been marinated in pro-homosexual propaganda for thirty years. Movies, TV sitcoms, magazines, newspapers, celebrities, colleges and even high schools have been preaching the gospel for an entire generation. Tolerance! Diversity! Could be your own child! Gay is just as good as straight! Yet after all this - in the teeth of all the propaganda, all the proselytizing, all the sanctimony and intimidation and lawyering and moral blackmail - the U.S. public obstinately refuses to believe that homosexuality is just fine. Close to half of them think it should be "Not legal"!

Whether you think they are right or not, one important fact undeniably follows: that homosexuals are an out group (no pun intended). They are an unpopular minority - unpopular, at least, with huge numbers of their fellow citizens, and likely to remain so for a very long time to come. If thirty years of relentless propaganda by the massed forces of the U.S. media, education and entertainment industries have still left 43 percent of us wanting homosexuality "Not legal," when, exactly will homosexuality be taken as "normal"? Homosexual activists are in complete denial about this. Like British generals in WW1, they believe that one more propaganda Big Push - one more Philadelphia, one more Queer As Folk, one more Mathew Shepard atrocity - will swing the public to their side, will suddenly have everyone believing that, by gosh, yes, gay is just as good as straight! I have news for these activists: It ain't gonna happen. You are stuck in the trenches. Forever. Again, you may think this is a grave injustice, and you may be right: but unjust or not, it's a fact as plain as the nose on your face.

Source: Condensed from an article on National Review Online: www.nationalreview.com

For the full article:
http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshireprint051801.html

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