Independent Gay Forum
Encyclopedia
The Independent Gay Forum is an organization that sponsors a website featuring free access to articles and opinions penned by gay conservative, center-right Independent
and libertarian gay authors. Its raison d'etre is dissatisfaction by some lesbians and gay men with the alleged center-left or liberal orthodoxy of the lesbian and gay rights movement in the United States.
published his book A Place At The Table that criticized homophobic social conservatives and U.S. Democratic Party
-aligned and center-left lesbians and gay men in the United States. He argued that this political bias produced an unworkable and partisan bias which locked lesbian and gay voters into endorsement of one partisan choice, instead of bipartisan political initiatives that focused on both the Democrat and Republican Parties, as well as questioning the relevance and importance of some broad center-left goals and objectives to lesbian and gay communities in the United States.
Bawer called for full inclusion of gays in mainstream society and criticized what he considered an unrepresentative but highly visible gay subculture that equated homosexuality with promiscuity, hedonism, political correctness or stereotypes like being effeminate or "different" in general.
In 1995, Andrew Sullivan
published the book Virtually Normal. Sullivan was a longtime critic of decadence in the gay community, but the book also did something that Bawer did not do. Sullivan criticized what he called the prohibitionist, liberationist, liberal, and conservative approaches to gay rights in favor of a more "classical liberal" or libertarian approach.
In 1996, Bawer edited a collection of writings by mostly gay men and women titled Beyond Queer: Challenging Gay Left Orthodoxy. The authors--including Sullivan, Jonathan Rauch
, Stephen H. Miller, Paul Varnell, and Norah Vincent
--covered a wide range of topics and did not have one political message. Some authors were critical of how the gay rights movement was trying to achieve its goals, some were critical of certain goals such as hate crime laws, and others were critical of both the ends and the means.
These books became labeled in leftist gay circles as the manifesto of a new "Gay Right" though many of the authors in these books would dispute being labeled conservative. Some had libertarian
political sympathies.
The Independent Gay Forum became a significant online site for U.S. lesbian and gay authors that endorsed limited-government conservative or libertarian alternatives to what they saw as the 'impractical' center-left bias that 'characterizes' lesbian and gay identity and politics. Additional writers include philosopher John Corvino, activist Richard Rosendall and columnist Jennifer Vanasco
.
The website includes hundreds of articles on a wide range of political and cultural topics -- marriage, sex, religion, economics, law, politics, activism, books, and gay identity. It also includes "CultureWatch", a blog authored by Miller.
, free market
capitalism and personal responsibility.
Liberal critics felt that the Independent Gay Forum was too closely aligned with the Republican Party
, to be called "Independent", and that its writers demonstrated too little respect for cultural diversity
, social justice
and social responsibility
. IGF writers would often endorse conservative Republican theories about the harm that gun control
legislation would pose to lesbian and gay handgun owners, arguing that such controls infringe constitutional rights under the Second Amendment
, welfare 'reform', Social Security
privatization, abortion
, and the neo-conservative theory about initiating military action in order to promote a freedom
and democracy
in certain nations such as Iran
and Iraq
.
In another was when Miller supported Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger
's successful bid to become governor of California
, praising his socially liberal, fiscally conservative philosophy. Liberal critics pointed out that Miller was much less supportive of Vermont
Governor Howard Dean
's bid for governor who ran on a similar neoliberal philosophy.
In another case, gay liberals also argued that the articles about the late, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan
were too partisan and tried to rewrite the Reagan Administration's policies on AIDS
and gay rights.
When Miller defended the work of gay Republicans by using an analogy of the benefits to the consumer that occur when there is more than one grocery store in a town. The message was that gay voters, like consumers, would get a better deal with more competition for their support. This angered many Libertarians as the 'grocery store analogy' ignored the fact that government regulations as ballot access
law make it hard for a third political party such as the Libertarian Party
to compete for the support of gay citizens because they have to spend limited resources in order to obtain access on the general election ballot with a party affiliation. Thus some libertarians felt that Miller should have been a better advocate for greater voter choice.
, hate crime
or hate speech
bans,
the religious right, the military gay ban, Social Security, the War in Iraq, and the Second Amendment.
Independent (voter)
An independent voter, those who register as an unaffiliated voter in the United States, is a voter of a democratic country who does not align him- or herself with a political party...
and libertarian gay authors. Its raison d'etre is dissatisfaction by some lesbians and gay men with the alleged center-left or liberal orthodoxy of the lesbian and gay rights movement in the United States.
Rise of the new 'gay right' movement
In 1993, Bruce BawerBruce Bawer
Bruce Bawer is an American literary critic, writer and poet. His work focuses mainly on criticism and issues related to Islam.-Personal life:Bawer received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D...
published his book A Place At The Table that criticized homophobic social conservatives and U.S. Democratic Party
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
-aligned and center-left lesbians and gay men in the United States. He argued that this political bias produced an unworkable and partisan bias which locked lesbian and gay voters into endorsement of one partisan choice, instead of bipartisan political initiatives that focused on both the Democrat and Republican Parties, as well as questioning the relevance and importance of some broad center-left goals and objectives to lesbian and gay communities in the United States.
Bawer called for full inclusion of gays in mainstream society and criticized what he considered an unrepresentative but highly visible gay subculture that equated homosexuality with promiscuity, hedonism, political correctness or stereotypes like being effeminate or "different" in general.
In 1995, Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan is an English author, editor, political commentator and blogger. He describes himself as a political conservative. He has focused on American political life....
published the book Virtually Normal. Sullivan was a longtime critic of decadence in the gay community, but the book also did something that Bawer did not do. Sullivan criticized what he called the prohibitionist, liberationist, liberal, and conservative approaches to gay rights in favor of a more "classical liberal" or libertarian approach.
In 1996, Bawer edited a collection of writings by mostly gay men and women titled Beyond Queer: Challenging Gay Left Orthodoxy. The authors--including Sullivan, Jonathan Rauch
Jonathan Rauch
Jonathan Charles Rauch is an American author, journalist and activist. After graduating from Yale University, Rauch worked at the Winston-Salem Journal in North Carolina, for the National Journal magazine, and later for The Economist magazine and as a freelance writer.Currently a senior writer and...
, Stephen H. Miller, Paul Varnell, and Norah Vincent
Norah Vincent
Norah Vincent is an American writer.Vincent was a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies from its 2001 inception to 2003...
--covered a wide range of topics and did not have one political message. Some authors were critical of how the gay rights movement was trying to achieve its goals, some were critical of certain goals such as hate crime laws, and others were critical of both the ends and the means.
These books became labeled in leftist gay circles as the manifesto of a new "Gay Right" though many of the authors in these books would dispute being labeled conservative. Some had libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
political sympathies.
The Independent Gay Forum became a significant online site for U.S. lesbian and gay authors that endorsed limited-government conservative or libertarian alternatives to what they saw as the 'impractical' center-left bias that 'characterizes' lesbian and gay identity and politics. Additional writers include philosopher John Corvino, activist Richard Rosendall and columnist Jennifer Vanasco
Jennifer Vanasco
Jennifer Vanasco is an award-winning syndicated columnist for the gay press, was the editor in chief of the defunct 365gay.com and a former theater critic for the Chicago Reader.-Biography:...
.
The website includes hundreds of articles on a wide range of political and cultural topics -- marriage, sex, religion, economics, law, politics, activism, books, and gay identity. It also includes "CultureWatch", a blog authored by Miller.
Liberal criticism
Critics of the Independent Gay Forum's writings tend to be drawn between a division between liberals and conservatives and a second division between conservatives and libertarians. The Independent Gay Forum mission statement is to forge a new "gay mainstream" that is committed to more conservative-libertarian values; i.e., limited governmentLimited government
Limited government is a government which anything more than minimal governmental intervention in personal liberties and the economy is generally disallowed by law, usually in a written constitution. It is written in the United States Constitution in Article 1, Section 8...
, free market
Free market
A free market is a competitive market where prices are determined by supply and demand. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts...
capitalism and personal responsibility.
Liberal critics felt that the Independent Gay Forum was too closely aligned with the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, to be called "Independent", and that its writers demonstrated too little respect for cultural diversity
Cultural diversity
Cultural diversity is having different cultures respect each other's differences. It could also mean the variety of human societies or cultures in a specific region, or in the world as a whole...
, social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
and social responsibility
Social responsibility
Social responsibility is an ethical ideology or theory that an entity, be it an organization or individual, has an obligation to act to benefit society at large. Social responsibility is a duty every individual or organization has to perform so as to maintain a balance between the economy and the...
. IGF writers would often endorse conservative Republican theories about the harm that gun control
Gun control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
legislation would pose to lesbian and gay handgun owners, arguing that such controls infringe constitutional rights under the Second Amendment
Second Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights that protects the right of the people to keep and bear arms. It was adopted on December 15, 1791, along with the rest of the Bill of Rights.In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two Second...
, welfare 'reform', Social Security
Social Security (United States)
In the United States, Social Security refers to the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program.The original Social Security Act and the current version of the Act, as amended encompass several social welfare and social insurance programs...
privatization, abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, and the neo-conservative theory about initiating military action in order to promote a freedom
Freedom (political)
Political freedom is a central philosophy in Western history and political thought, and one of the most important features of democratic societies...
and democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
in certain nations such as Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
and Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
.
In another was when Miller supported Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American former professional bodybuilder, actor, businessman, investor, and politician. Schwarzenegger served as the 38th Governor of California from 2003 until 2011....
's successful bid to become governor of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, praising his socially liberal, fiscally conservative philosophy. Liberal critics pointed out that Miller was much less supportive of Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
Governor Howard Dean
Howard Dean
Howard Brush Dean III is an American politician and physician from Vermont. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S...
's bid for governor who ran on a similar neoliberal philosophy.
In another case, gay liberals also argued that the articles about the late, former U.S. President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
were too partisan and tried to rewrite the Reagan Administration's policies on AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
and gay rights.
Libertarian criticism
Libertarians criticism of the IGF tends to be tied to a belief that the writers do not go far enough in advocating for reducing government regulations that limit citizens personal and economic life. Yet, a second source of criticism, among libertarians is that the IGF writers do not advocate election law reforms that would allow the Libertarian Party to freely compete for votes in elections.When Miller defended the work of gay Republicans by using an analogy of the benefits to the consumer that occur when there is more than one grocery store in a town. The message was that gay voters, like consumers, would get a better deal with more competition for their support. This angered many Libertarians as the 'grocery store analogy' ignored the fact that government regulations as ballot access
Ballot access
Ballot access rules, called nomination rules outside the United States, regulate the conditions under which a candidate or political party is either entitled to stand for election or to appear on voters' ballots...
law make it hard for a third political party such as the Libertarian Party
Libertarian Party (United States)
The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
to compete for the support of gay citizens because they have to spend limited resources in order to obtain access on the general election ballot with a party affiliation. Thus some libertarians felt that Miller should have been a better advocate for greater voter choice.
Topics
Aside from Miller, other writers have contributed to the Independent Gay Forum and have written numerous articles about current events such as gay marriage, civil unions, the Marriage Protection Amendment, transgender rights, the Employment Non-Discrimination ActEmployment Non-Discrimination Act
The Employment Non-Discrimination Act is a proposed bill in the United States Congress that would prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by civilian, nonreligious employers with at least 15 employees.ENDA has been introduced in every...
, hate crime
Hate crime
In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...
or hate speech
Hate speech
Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic....
bans,
the religious right, the military gay ban, Social Security, the War in Iraq, and the Second Amendment.