Government Support of Gay Pride

According to the New York Times, the Hillsborough County (Florida) Commission "approved by a vote of 5-1, with one abstention, a policy that directs the county government to 'abstain from ackowledging, promoting or participating' in gay pride recognition or events" (6-26-05, p. 1.17). Further, "the commission also voted to require a supermajority vote of 5 to 2 to overturn the policy" (p. 1.17).

I think it is unfortunate that the commission decided to make such a blanket policy. First, it singles out a group of legitimate citizens and says, in effect, that government shall not take heed of them. Will a public administrator be in violation of this policy if he or she allows gay groups, as gay groups, to participate in public hearings or other forms of participatory democracy? After all, doing so would be an acknowledgement or recognition of gay citizens - a source of pride.

Second, it deals with the issue with a one-size-fits-all brush. Rather than deal with the question on a case-by-case basis, the commission is saying that gay pride is itself something that government in Hillsborough county must not associate with.

Third, it begs the question of the First Amendment rights of gay pride groups. Since the county cannot refuse to grant parade permits based on the content of the speech being espoused by the marchers, but can only make content-neutral limitations on their access to the same rights that other groups (like the Daughters of the American Revolution) are granted, it is unclear what the real effect of the new p0licy will be. If the county grants permits for a gay-pride event based on a content-neutral determination, then will they then be in violation of their own policy? If they refuse to grant such a permit, are they then not in violation of the Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court?

Fourth, as a county policy, it is unclear to me what the effect would be on municipalities within the county. Will cities also be required to follow this rule, or can only the state impose such rules on them?

Perhaps the biggest problem, though, is the supermajority requirement, which is inherently anti-democratic in nature. It appears that, if you can control a majority of the commission at any given time, you can vote for supermajority requirements that will make it difficult, if not impossible, for future commissions to make changes or repeal those policies. The only way to truly be able to do this with a shred of democratic spirit would be to make changes to the charter of the county - and that cannot be done, democratically, without a public referendum.

Culture of Life, Culture of Death

I often hear from those persons who describe themselves as supporters of a "culture of life" - that anyone who doesn't support the policies that they associate with that culture is thereby in favor of a "culture of death." Yet, does such a dichotomy make sense? Is there no other option besides these two, that one is either in favor of one or the other? Or, would it be better to say that the question is set up to be misleading and is therefore not a reasonable question in the first place?

I support the latter position. First, there is more to the question than life and death. There is also the question of types or qualities of life (relating to questions of assisted suicide), questions of when human life truly begins to exist in a meaningful way (relating to questions of abortion and stem cell research), and questions of due process (relating to questions of the death penalty. There are also questions of when it is right or even obligatory to kill (as in "just war" theory), and whether it is at all ethical to profit from someone's life or death (think of the insurance and mortuary industries, IVF clinics who create many more embryoes than they are likely to use, and companies that engage in stem cell research with the hope of future profit.

I want to pursue these questions in future postings, but will content myself for the moment by suggesting that it is very difficult to fashion a completely consistent "culture of life" argument that ties all these areas together. The Roman Catholic Church makes a pretty good effort at consistency here, but many members of the so-called religious right do a lousy job of it. They seem to argue that there is a religious basis for going to war even when the reasons for doing so are short of the standard of "imminent danger." They also argue that capital punishment is acceptable to Christianity (or even obligatory in the sense of the state protecting a "godly" people). Yet, in both cases, they are supporting policy of death over one of life, mercy or prudence. To be fair, they would argue that there is a difference between a helpless "unborn child" and a convicted murderer. However, this introduces the idea that there are some extraneous factors to the life-death question that can make death an acceptable alternative.

In the end, all they are really doing is choosing which factors they prefer while denying others the same privilege. By collapsing all of this into a culture of life vs. culture of death dichotomy, they oversimplify the question by denying the existence of such factors while implicitly taking advantage of them.

I'm not sure whether this is a matter of unclear thinking, or of simple (?) hypocrisy.