This weekend, we learned exactly how long it takes for a D.C. journalist to fall prey to the homogenizing aims of what passes for the “D.C. discourse.” Kerry Eleveld, whose work in The Advocate I’ve praised repeatedly, did something this weekend that was surprising and disappointing: She took the bait.
In this week’s “View From Washington” column — titled “Off Message” — Kerry talks about three people who this week said some things that some other people would have preferred they had not said: Former President Carter’s comments about the role racism plays in opposition to President Obama, Speaker Pelosi’s comments about the violence that followed the anti-gay campaigns of the ’70s, and Chairman Frank’s comments about the political mistake of Rep. Nadler’s DOMA repeal bill being introduced now with its “certainty provision.”
There’s been plenty of posturing in response to all three of these statements, but all three knew what they were saying when they said it. None were “off message.” They might have been off of someone’s preferred message, but they were not off of their message. These were comments from three exceptionally prominent politicians who have long lived in the public eye. If they say something, there’s a reason.
Rather than writing a penetrating column into the ways in which various forces in Washington silence or diminish important discussions, Eleveld does so herself. She brushes them off as having been, in Carter’s case, countered sufficiently by Democrats who “summarily dismissed” his comments. Kerry, somewhat surprisingly, diminishes Pelosi’s comments as having been little more than an emotional outburst that “welled up pure from within.” Nonetheless, though, she at least acknowledges that their comments “nam[ed] a sickening feeling that has been lingering in the gut of a good many Americans.”
So, the comments were ignored and eviscerated by Washington and Kerry furthers those dismissals (even the sexist, “Pelosi was emotional” one) — all the while admitting that they did some good.
Chairman Frank
As for Frank, though, Kerry directs near disdain for his actions. She writes that he “tilted the toxicity meter” against Rep. Nadler’s DOMA repeal bill by his comments that now is not the right time to be introducing a DOMA repeal and that the “certainty provision” makes the specific bill particularly problematic. Yes, of course he did. That would be his aim — his message, to follow Kerry’s title — if he thinks that now is a bad time for what he views as a bad bill.
Despite Kerry’s acknowledgment that no one wants to prioritize the DOMA repeal now and also her implication that no one thinks the repeal is possibly going to happen in this Congress, she refuses to take Frank at his word and actually examine his concerns.
Instead she summarily concludes that she’s “not sure to what good end” Frank’s statements would lead and asks “why hamstring a bill that’s just getting out of the gate”?
Well, since The Advocate’s voice in D.C. didn’t look into the possible answers to her own question, here are just a few of the many reasons why Nadler’s bill is potentially problematic, particularly now:
- Do we really believe that having a DOMA repeal debate front and center is the smartest strategic move as the “slippery slope” arguments about ENDA are being advanced by opponents of ENDA?
- Do we really believe that the best use of LGBT groups and advocates’ resources is spending their time and money encouraging members of Congress to sign on to a bill that has no chance of passage in this Congress?
- Do we have any actual strategic reason to push members of Congress — let alone targeted Democrats — to support a DOMA repeal right now?
- Has anyone responded, with analysis, as to how Frank — and I — are wrong about how problematic the “certainty provision” is?
- Has anyone considered the impact of the “certainty provision” on pending marriage cases?
- Has anyone considered the impact of the “certainty provision” on existing state same-sex marriage restrictions — be they statutory or constitutional?
Rather than maligning the longest-serving LGBT member of Congress — often described as one of the smartest members of that body — without any analysis, I believe that some calm, nuanced discussion of the substance of his argument would be a smarter route for our community.
[ALSO: Kerry Eleveld isn't alone. Other smart folks taking a similar view to Kerry's view include David Link's "What's Barney Frank Afraid Of?" and John Culhane's "Barney Frank, Reconsidered" and less on-the-ledge, kindly responsive, "Barney Frank, Re-Reconsidered?"]
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Chris Geidner is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who writes at Law Dork, is the senior political writer at Metro Weekly and has written for The Atlantic Online, Advocate.com, Salon and other publications. An extended biography can be found
Do we really believe that the best use of LGBT groups and advocates’ resources are spending their time and money encouraging members of Congress to sign on to a bill that has no chance of passage in this Congress?
But isn’t that always the rub. Wether it’s Sacramento or Washington, the readership (and I assume the Advocate feels that’s who they are, um, advocating for) are NEVER going to like the “wheels of Washington move slow” argument. And so like with UAFA, you get an entire group of pissed off LGBT that feel their interests aren’t being met because well they don’t have the rights they want. And they have media (and particularly columnists who can just spout at will) egging them on?
But so it goes, I suppose whether we are talking about Advocate readers or Glen Beck viewers, our media is a disgrace in explain the process and analyzing the situation. Instead? They do rage and cheap shots. But maybe their goal isn’t an educated electorate. Why would it be? Drivel is cheap and easy to produce.
Hopefully, people will search for the answers for themselves. Some of these “writers” have been proven wrong so many times, you would think they would’ve learned by now.
Chris,
Thanks for referring to my second post as “less” on the ledge, although I didn’t think my first post was ledgy — maybe edgy — either. The only think I’d like to direct your readers to is the comment by Nadler, which I analyzed in the “Barney Frank Re-Reconsidered” post, that the certainty provision likely won’t add to the opponents’ arguments that states’ rights are being trampled. (In fact, as Obama and the Gill case make clear, the trampling of states’ rights and interests is happening on the other side, as the denial of federal benefits to even those couples validly married in their home states has a measurable effect on the states’ ability to recognize the marriages. See Gill complaint for an effective account of this argument.)
And then there’s my point, unanswered, that Frank isn’t consistently averse to supporting bills that have little chance of passing. I cite one example in the first post: “Barney Frank, Reconsidered.”
John, as to your first comment, it’s not about “the trampling of states’ rights” — something Frank hasn’t said. What he did say is that it raises “the question of are you trying to export it to other states.”
For Nadler, Eleveld or you to pretend that this is not a completely rational — and painfully obvious — concern that will be raised about the “certainty provision” shows either a lack of insight as to politics or a willful abandonment of reality.
The “certainty provision” means that the federal government will say there are legally married couples in Alabama and Idaho. Newspapers will need to decide: Do we count the state definition or the federal definition in our marriage announcements? What about in their obituaries? If state tax law is based off of federal filings, the state will need to allow joint filing or re-vamp their process.
For Nadler to disingenuously dismiss concerns about the impact of this provision on non-marriage equality states is to admit that he has no real thoughts that this will be passed into law anytime soon.
I think a straight DOMA repeal gets us a lot further a lot quicker. The certainty provision is a whole separate bill for later down the line.
As to the second point about Frank not being averse to fail-likely bills, I think he sees this as a strategic process of bills. If anything, I think it shows how seriously he is taking this that he’s willing to draw this line in the sand.
Chris,
I don’t see the difference between “trying to export” a right from one state to another — by hypothesis here, against the other state’s will — and “trampling of states’ rights.” Maybe I’m missing something.
My point about the certainty provision is that the arguments that will likely be used against it likely aren’t that different from those that will be used against the effort to repeal the provision that permits one state to disregard the SSMs performed in another. That’s Nadler’s point, too. I don’t think he’s “disingenuously” dismissing anything, but rather that he thinks the provision adds little or anything to the quiver of arguments currently available. Is it really “naive” to think that? (sob)
Newspapers can decide whatever they want. The NY Times has long listed same-sex commitment ceremonies — even before they were legal marriages anywhere — in their “marriage” section. State or federal law can be followed or disregarded, as long as the paper maintains a clear and consistent policy. The states that would strictly ban SSMs don’t have laws banning sexual orientation discrimination anyway (with maybe a couple of exceptions), so people couldn’t sue there. And the laws that do exist probably don’t cover announcements anyway. AND even if they did, the papers would be safe in announcing that they’re only reporting on marriage validly recognized by the State of X. This argument seems to me weak.
The tax concern is real, but quite minor, I think. Right now there’s the opposite problem; a same-sex couple validly married in MA, for example, that wants to file a joint state return must also create TWO federal returns — one for a single person (the official one, that’s filed), and a second, dummy return that’s used as the basis of the joint state return. This is nuts. All resisting states would have to do in this case is the opposite — simply require those with federally recognized marriages to submit a dummy federal form listing themselves as single. It seems, again, that all of the burden falls on the individual.
You might be right about what’s a quicker route to repeal of DOMA; there we just have a disagreement that can’t be resolved unless there were two parallel bills and we had a controlled experiment. Maybe there’s no difference, maybe there is.
I take your response to the second point. Maybe you’re right about how Frank decides which bills to introduce or support.
The only other thing I think needs emphasis is that context matters. Frank, remember, defended the odious first DOJ DOMA brief. He earns skepticism for motive when he does something like that. I’ve seen this connection made elsewhere in the (infinite) blogosphere, even among people that tend not to rush to negative judgment.
Sorry for filling your comment box,
John
The newspaper example is weak as an “argument,” but I just meant it as an example of the complications large and small that will result from one couple having two different statuses.
I have been consistent in that regard. It’s also been my expressed concern with Rep. Baldwin’s Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act (H.R. 2517).
I agree with John that the newspaper example is weak. The tax issues that would arise, however, are more significant and we are seeing them already with the disparity between states that recognize SSM and a federal government that does not. Why would this difficulty suddenly become “quite minor” if it were flipped around and there were couples whose marriages were recognized by the federal government but not by their state of residence?
“Frank, remember, defended the odious first DOJ DOMA brief. He earns skepticism for motive when he does something like that. I’ve seen this connection made elsewhere in the (infinite) blogosphere, even among people that tend not to rush to negative judgment.”
Oh, help. First, Frank was initially misled by folks like John Aravosis to flip out unnecessarily over that brief. When Frank got a chance to read the brief himself, he realized that it had some unfortunate bits (as I’ve commented, particularly in treating as objective fact ideas that were just Congress’s beliefs) but overall was not as bad as was being claimed.
Second, what was so “odious” about that brief? If you say it’s the references to states’ having different laws about which marriages to recognizes (some states allow 16-year-olds to marry, some don’t; some states allow first cousins to marry, some don’t), then take it up with Lambda Legal, which made the same citations in its briefs arguing in favor of SSM recognition.