Antigay Crusader Scott Lively, p. 3

TheA PUBLICATION OF POLITICAL R PublicEyeESEARCH ASSOCIATES Spring 2011 • Volume XXVI, No.1 The Conservative Attack on Birthright Citizenship By Sherrilyn A. Ifill All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. United States Constitution, Amendment XIV, Section 1 mong the many low moments of ARepublican leadership last year, the call s

e by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for hear - g a m

I ings on a constitutional amendment to y t t e repeal the birthright citizenship provisions G / n o

l of the 14th Amendment to the Constitu - l i

G 1 e

t tion was among the most dispiriting. Back a C in 2007, the National Council of La Raza Fathers 4 Justice, a fathers’ rights group whose members often dress as superheroes, demonstrate on a had honored Graham for his commitment rooftop in 2005. Their banner reads, “Stop War on Dads.” to finding solutions to the immigration issue. He had played the responsible grown- up among his Republican colleagues at Fathers’ Rights Groups Threaten the Senate confirmation hearings of Women’s Gains –And Their Safety The Conservative Attack continues on page 9 By Pam Chamberlain We’re fit parents, most of us. We IN THIS ISSUE n June 2010, Ned Holstein, the president just want to be involved in helping Commentary ...... 2 Iof the national group Fathers and Fam - to raise our children…. [Divorced] ilies, appeared on a Boston call-in radio children have a hole in their heart. Lively’s Lies ...... 3 show to promote a child-custody bill before The average child would crawl over Books ...... 24 the Massachusetts legislature. “The message broken glass to see their absent is so simple,” he said. parent.…. [This bill] is a very mild Reports in Review ...... 26 Eyes Right ...... 27 Father’s Rights Groups continues on page 15

THE PUBLIC EYE 1 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

COMMENTARY ThePublicEye Publisher INTHE WAKE OFTUCSON: A Call to Moral Responsibility Tarso Luís Ramos By Kay Whitlock Editor ven as Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), the survivor of an assassination attempt on Amy Hoffman January 8 that put a bullet in her brain, wounded thirteen others, and left six people Design/layout E Hird Graphic Design dead, engaged in a demanding rehabilitation regimen, the accused gunman, Jared Lee Loughner, pleaded “not guilty” in federal court. Printing Red Sun Press By all accounts, Loughner is a troubled, mentally unstable young man. Many analysts have documented Loughner’s belief in the conspiracy theories promoted by various right- Editorial Board Chip Berlet • Pam Chamberlain wing groups, and he seems to have regarded Giffords as his mortal enemy. Thomas Cincotta • Frederick Clarkson Whether he actually pulled the trigger will be decided, as it should, in a court of law. Amy Hoffman • Gillian Kane Yet the person who fired the gun is by no means the only one who bears some measure Surina Khan • Jean Hardisty Tarso Luís Ramos • Holly Sklar of moral responsibility for this shooting spree. The events in Tucson unfolded in a fear- soaked, paranoia-laden, resentment-stoked, and violently polarized political environment. PRA Political Research Associates Who, then, is accountable—and beyond a narrow understanding of criminal liability, what does accountability mean in a case like this? Founder and President Emerita In the aftermath of the shootings, progressives told a well-documented story about Jean V. Hardisty, Ph.D. escalating right-wing vitriol, underscoring a disturbing pattern of politically motivated Staff violence that had been developing for years.TheTucson shootings, which garnered world - Tarso Luís Ramos, Executive Director wide media attention because of Giffords’s political prominence, were only the latest pieces Chip Berlet, Senior Analyst Pam Chamberlain, Senior Researcher to be added to the mosaic. Liberal and progressive groups documented not only the Right’s Thomas Cincotta, Project Director Commentary continues on page 22 Amy Hoffman, Editorial Director Cindy Savage-King, Operations Manager Charles Ocitti, Finance Director Jean Smith, Development Associate Maria Planansky, Program Associate Aramis Tirado, Data/Web Master

Interns Hannah Gallo Ross Golowicz Megan Henry Alex Lach Tavish MacLoed Rachel Rampini Jonathan Sussman

Board of Directors Janet Jakobsen Surina Khan Pardis Mahdavi Supriya Pillai Emelia Rallapalli Marcy Westerling

The Public Eye is published by Political Research Associates, 1310 Broadway, Suite 201, Somerville, Massachusetts 02144-1837. 617.666.5300 fax: 617.666.6622 PRA is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. © Political Research Associates, 2011. Website: www.publiceye.org All rights reserved. ISSN 0275-9322 ISSUE 69

THE PUBLIC EYE 2 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye Lively ’s Lies A Profile of Scott Lively

By Jim Burroway Lively himself became an Lively said, molested the alcoholic at the age of twelve. boy: “And I saw what hap - The Uganda Speech For the next sixteen years, pened to that little child. He n March 2009, Scott Lively travelled he said, he couldn’t hold a was transformed [from] a Imore than 8,000 miles from his home in job. He slept under bridges sweet and innocent person Springfield, Massachusetts, to talk to a and begged for money on into a tortured and tor - small audience at the Triangle Hotel in the streets. A brother and a mented child, filled with Kampala, Uganda, about homosexuality. sister, he said, “went into anger and rage. And he never “My name is Scott Lively,” he began. “I’m homosexuality,” and another recovered from it.”The nine - married. I have four children. I am 51 sister “wasn’t able to enter teen year old, Lively said, years old, and I have been studying this issue into marriage until she was in “is still living in a gay lifestyle for twenty years, and I want to tell you why her forties because of the pain Scott Lively in Los Angeles, California. I’m doing that.” 1 Presenting his educa - of the family life that we had.” He’s an active homosexual tional background, he explained that he is Finally, said Lively, “[I] got down on my and he’s active in a church that endorses both a pastor who has studied scripture and knees and surrendered my life to Jesus what’s called ‘gay theology.’” an attorney “trained in secular reasoning.” Christ. I was healed in an instant. I never Lively “had his eyes opened” to all this He graduated magna cum laude with a doc - had another desire to drink or use drugs ever right after he became a Christian, he said. torate from Trinity Law School in Santa again. When I got up off my knees, I was “And God moved me very quickly into a Anna, California, and has a doctor of the - clean and healed.” ministry where I would deal with these ology from the Pentecostal Assemblies of things. And so for all of these years, I have God. In addition, he said, he holds “a been focusing on this topic. I know more certificate in human rights from the Inter - about this than almost anyone in the national Institute of Human Rights in “I got down on my world.” Strasbourg, France.” What Lively “knows” and came to warn “I stand before you a world traveler, hav - knees and surrendered his Ugandan audience about is chilling. He ing spoken on this topic in almost forty told them that one of the most common countries,” he said. “I’ve written several my life to Jesus Christ. I causes of homosexuality is child molesta - books.” tion; that’s how gays recruit children into Lively went on to describe his family was healed in an instant. homosexuality, he said. He told them that background—which has enough in it to European gays were flooding Uganda with keep a psychologist, armchair or other, I never had another money and gifts to recruit children. “They occupied for a long time: he is the oldest are very predatory,” he said. of six children, and his father developed a desire to drink or use They are very sexually oriented.They mental illness when Lively was young. want to satisfy their sexual desires. drugs ever again. When Often these are people that are Jim Burroway is the editor of Box Turtle molested themselves and they’re turn - Bulletin (http://www.boxturtlebulletin. I got up off my knees, I ing it around. And they’re looking for com/), a website founded in 2005 to analyze other people to be able to prey upon. the claims of antigay organizations. Jim was was clean and healed.” And when they see a child that’s the first in theWest to break the story of Scott from a broken home, it’s like they Lively’s fateful conference in Kampala, have a flashing neon sign over their Uganda, in 2009, and his website has faith - Lively became involved in antigay head. fully chronicled events in Uganda since then. activism because of two people who were, He attends conferences and other events to he said, “very close to me”—a four-year- He told the Ugandans about what he monitor antigay leaders and organizations old boy and a nineteen-year-old man, who, said are the various kinds of gays: the trans - first hand. sexuals, the transvestites, the effeminate

THE PUBLIC EYE 3 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye gays, and the “normal” ones, who blend in. A Pushpin on the Hate Map Chalcedon Foundation, a Christian Recon - They are the hardest to spot, he said.Then he peripatetic antigay activist has trav - structionist organization that endorses the there are the others: machos and, worst of Teled the world, and everywhere he revival of the Old Testament punishment all, he said, the “super machos.” It’s the lat - goes, wholesale lies about gay people fall of death for gay people. He has contributed ter two groups, Lively claimed, who about him like acorns in autumn. In 2007, money 5 to antigay activist and former founded the Nazi party and helped Hitler Lively was particularly active, traveling to WashingtonTimes reporter Peter LaBarbera’s to come to power. “These are men who have Riga, Latvia, in the spring; then to Novosi - Americans for Truth about Homosexual - very little restraint,” he said. birsk, Russia; then back to Riga. “There is ity. 6 He continued to contribute to dis - They are so far from normalcy that a war going on the world,” he told his credited “researcher” Paul Cameron’s they’re killers. They’re serial killers, Novosibirsk audience. “It’s a war between Family Research Institute long after mass murderers. … This is the kind Christians and homosexuals.”The war, he Cameron called for the quarantining of of person that it takes to run a gas said, is “the design of the devil to destroy civ - HIV-positive gay men and expressed chamber, right? Or to do a mass ilization, because civilization is based on the admiration for how the Nazis “dealt with 7 murder, like—the Rwandan stuff natural family.” 4 homosexuality.” All of these groups are on probably involved these guys. that same, short SPLC antigay list. There’s some dispute about whether The OregonYears MarkTwain actually said, “A lie can travel ively cut his teeth on antigay activism halfway around the world while the truth “There is a war going in Eugene, Oregon, where a February is putting on its shoes.” But there is no dis - L 1991 article in the Eugene Register-Guard pute that Scott Lively has thoroughly on the world… between described him as the assistant director for proven this truism. “The gay movement is the Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA). 8 an evil institution,” he told his spellbound Christians and homosex - OCA had been formed just a few years ear - Ugandan audience. “The goal of the gay lier by Vietnam vet, ex-hippie, and born- movement is to defeat the marriage-based uals….It’s the design of again Christian Lon Mabon, 9 with support society and replace it with a culture of sex - from the Oregon branch of Pat Rober - ual promiscuity.” His voice rising and his the devil to destroy ston’s Christian Coalition. 10 (Lively and eyes flashing with anger, he continued, Mabon served on the Oregon Christian If you deny and reject the design of civilization, because Coalition’s board of directors until 1993.) your own body, and you engage in According to the article, Lively denounced conduct that is self-evidently wrong civilization is based on a group of protesters against the first Gulf and harmful to you, then you’re War as “burned-out hippies and professional going to receive in your body the the natural family.” malcontents.” His rhetoric wasn’t terribly penalty of your error which is appro - original, but he was just getting started.The priate. Can anyone say AIDS? OCA would be his training ground. The Ugandan audience was unfamiliar This kind of rhetoric landed Lively on Lively quickly gained a reputation for with this American colloquialism. They the Hate Map developed by the Southern being a loose cannon. In October 1991, the didn't understand that Lively’s question was Poverty Law Center (SPLC) photographer Catherine Stauffer attended rhetorical. “AIDS,” some obediently but [http://www.splcenter.org/get- a church meeting where the OCA was quietly answered. They knew AIDS all informed/hate-map#s=ID]. The SPLC previewing a videotape it had cobbled too well, a disease which began making itself tracks more than 1,000 hate groups across together in preparation for a campaign in known in the Congo River Basin in neigh - the United States, but only seventeen of support of a series of local antigay ballot boring Zaire as far back as the 1960s, 2 them are highlighted as specifically antigay. measures across the state. Lively ejected long before it appeared on Western med - Lively’s AbidingTruth Ministries is one of Stauffer from the meeting forcefully, by icine’s radar. By 1982, doctors became them, and Lively has connections with throwing her against the wall and dragging aware of a new disease in rural Uganda that several others. In 2007, he helped to found her across the floor. 11 She sued Lively and the locals dubbed “slim,” because of the way the international Watchmen OnThe Walls, OCA.The jury determined that Lively was people who had it wasted away. 3 It was (and which quickly landed on the SPLC’s anti - guilty of using unreasonable force and is) a disease mainly of heterosexuals. gay list (The Watchmen are no longer awarded Stauffer $20,000. 12 active in the United States). He has OCA’s ballot measures were far reach - spoken at fundraising banquets for Mass - ing. They would prohibit “promoting, Resistance, written several articles for the encouraging or facilitating homosexual -

THE PUBLIC EYE 4 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye ity”—restrictions that would determine claimed to have rejected homosexuality to the people that ran it, and that put such basic community issues as which become straight. 18 it together. Most people understand books could be accepted into the local that there were some homosexuals library and which groups could access city PaybackTime: involved in the Nazi Party—no, it facilities, including streets and parks.They The Nazi Connection wasn’t that.They were the foundation would institute a double standard: for ively’s and the OCA’s campaign back - of the Nazi Party. example, OCA could hold meetings in Lfired. Measure 9 was defeated 56 per - Where did this idea come from? OCA’s city buildings, while Parents and Friends cent to 44 percent, 19 and the OCA took a Lon Mabon remembered that back in of Lesbians and Gays could not. drubbing as well. A statewide poll after the 1991, when he had filed papers in Spring - Lively took a particular interest in the election found that 57 percent of all field for the local antigay measure, he had 13 contest in Springfield, a suburb of Eugene. Oregonians had an unfavorable opinion of passed hecklers calling him “Nazi,” “Mr. An antigay ballot measure passed there by the alliance, while only 14 percent were Ayatollah,” and “hatemonger.” Mabon 14 a margin of 54 percent to 46 percent, favorable. 20 Lively and the OCA were unde - reportedly said that Lively had “gotten making Springfield the first city in the terred. Two years later, they returned with tired of being called Nazi.” He decided to country to pass such an ordinance. But even Measure 13, a slightly watered-down ver - do some digging and concluded that “many there Lively’s intemperance once again got sion of Measure 9. Measure 13 was also Nazi leaders were homosexuals and that the him in trouble. In a press release, he care - Nazi Party was closely tied to pre-Nazi Ger - lessly suggested that the former Springfield many’s gay-rights movement.” 21 In other Human Rights Commissioner George words, this was payback time. Wickizer was “a practicing homosexual Lively denies that he As Lively was developing this theme, he 15 man.” Wickizer wasn’t, and he sued : may have come across an article written by being falsely labeled a homosexual was blames gay people for the Kevin Abrams, a Canadian Orthodox Jew considered libel at the time. But Lively Holocaust. He reserves the who moved to Israel, that appeared in lucked out.The court ruled that Wickizer Peter LaBarbera’s Lambda Report in August was a public figure, making winning a 1994. 22 “If history is to be told accurately,” 16 libel case difficult. Sure enough, Wickizer actual blame for Satan; Abrams wrote, lost. The Springfield win propelled the OCA homosexuals, he says, were the behavior of homosexuals under toward its fall statewide campaign for a pro - Hitler’s barbarous rule provides fur - posed amendment to the Oregon Consti - merely “instruments in ther evidence that homosexuality is tution that would bar the state from using a pathology… Ironically, the record “monies or properties to promote, encour - its enactment.” shows that there was far more bru - age or facilitate homosexuality, pedophilia, tality, rape, torture and murder com - sadism or masochism.” It required all lev - mitted against innocent people by Nazi deviants and homosexuals than els of government, including school sys - defeated, but Lively used this campaign to there ever was against homosexuals. tems, to recognize “that these behaviors are try out a new rhetorical theme. Appearing abnormal, wrong, unnatural and perverse on a public-access cable program in Salem, Lively and Abrams quickly joined forces, and they are to be discouraged and Oregon, he tied homosexuality to the Nazi releasing a book in July 1995 titled, The avoided.” The proposal, known as Meas - Party. “It wasn’t just that homosexuals were Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi ure 9, was the most severe statewide anti - involved in the Nazi Party,” Lively told the Party. The book, now in its fourth edition, gay measure ever proposed in the United television audience. solidified Lively’s career, not just as an antigay extremist but also as a Holocaust States, and the campaign was acrimonious. Homosexuals created the Nazi Party, revisionist—although Lively denies that he Lively described gay people as “living a and everything that we think about blames gay people for the Holocaust. He voluntary lifestyle based on sodomy,” and when we think about Nazis actually reserves the actual blame for Satan; homo - alleged that child molestation by other comes from the minds and perverted sexuals, he says, were merely “instruments homosexuals was the most likely cause of ideas of homosexuals. When you 17 in its enactment.” 23 The vast homosexual homosexuality. He also released a video think of the Nazi Party… you can - conspiracies detailed in The Pink Swastika purporting to demonstrate the kind of not help but understand that this were sweeping: that gay people are natu - sexual activity in which gay men and les - organization was a machine con - rally violent, 24 predatory, 25 and hostile to all bians commonly engaged. The video was structed by militant, sadomasochis - moral norms; 26 that the permissiveness of loaded with false health information as well tic, pedophilic homosexuals .…They the Weimar Republic provided the open - as testimony from two ex-gays—men who built the Nazi machine. They were

THE PUBLIC EYE 5 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye ing necessary for gays to wield power; 27 that Russian radio host Vlad Kusakin, Seattle And a new one: gays as responsible for the Nazi ideology was a modern revival of pastor Kenneth Hutcherson, and Latvian Rwandan genocide. pagan “homo-occultism;” 28 that homo - megachurch pastor Alexey Ledyaev, Lively The results were disastrous for the sexuals specifically target the youth, both founded the Watchmen On the Walls, LGBT community in Uganda, a country for political indoctrination as well as sex - which quickly became closely identified that is already very conservative and deeply ual induction; 29 that, yes, some gays were with violence, both rhetorical and real. homophobic. In the wake of Lively’s talk, killed, but they were the effeminate ones When LGBT advocates tried to hold a gay radio stations launched vigilante cam - targeted by the “butch” in their unquench - rights march in the Latvian capital of Riga paigns, reading out the names, addresses, able thirst for absolute power; 30 that the in 2006, a mob of parishioners from and places of employment of gay Ugan - Nazi Party’s stranglehold on German life Ledyaev’s New Generation Church pelted dans. Newspapers published their pho - was the direct result of this bloodlust; 31 and them with eggs, rotten produce, and excre - tos. LGBT people were attacked, arrested, that the same fate awaits any nation that ment as they tried to leave a gay-affirming and subjected to blackmail. A few weeks institutes equality for LGBT people. Anglican church. In May 2007, Lively after the conference, mobs marched on the The few historians who bothered to traveled to Riga and spoke at New Gener - Ugandan Parliament at the behest of con - comment on Lively’s historical revisions ation, where he called the gay rights move - servative Ugandan pastors, demanding dismissed them as farce, 32 while Charles ment “the most dangerous political new legislation to deal with the so-called Schiffman, executive director of the movement in the world” 35 and commended homosexual problem. Jewish Federation of Portland, expressed Ledyaev’s work in Latvia. Parliament was receptive to the idea. outrage over Lively’s “low effort to use a Meanwhile, back in Sacramento, a There had already been talk of imposing terrible tragedy for political purposes.” 33 group of Russian-speaking men killed new restrictions on Uganda's LGBT com - Lively and Abrams were unfazed. Lively, in Satendar Singh, a 26-year-old gay Fijian of munity, and that idea took on added particular, now had a mission: to sound the Indian descent. One of the two men urgency immediately following Lively's alarm that what had happened in Nazi Ger - charged with the crime fled to Russia. A explosive talk. 38 The morning after the many could happen here. “From the ashes month later, Lively traveled to Novosi - Triangle Hotel conference, Lively met with of Nazi Germany,” he wrote, “the homo - birsk for a Watchmen conference, where he fifty to one hundred members of Parliament fascist Phoenix has arisen again—this time spoke about Singh’s death to cheers and for four hours to discuss ideas for a new in the United States.” And not just in the applause. Lively tried to quiet the celebra - law. 39 Among his suggestions was that the United States. 34 Lively has sounded this tion—“We don’t want homosexuals to be Ugandan government offer so-called warning everywhere he goes. killed; we want them to be saved”—but restorative or reparative therapy, which only after complaining that the murder promises to turn LGBT people into het - Going Global investigation and news coverage proved that erosexuals, as an alternative to life impris - ome time in the late 1990s, Lively “homosexuals have achieved very high onment—which, given the conditions of Smoved to Sacramento, California. power…They’ve begun to cause the polit - a typical Ugandan prison would not have There, he founded the Pro-Family Law ical powers to punish anyone who says that been a difficult choice for most. Such ther - Center and became involved in litigation homosexuality is wrong.” 36 apies, however, have been widely discred - on behalf of conservative Christian causes. ited as not only ineffective but harmful, For a while, he also served as director of the The Nuclear Option: Uganda’s including by the American Psychological California American Family Association. Anti-Homosexuality Bill Association. Another suggestion, which he Sacramento, it turns out, has a substantial ively’s demagoguery took an even more repeated often in his travels, was to impose Evangelical Christian, Russian-immigrant Ldangerous turn when, in 2009, he trav - a legal ban on all advocacy on behalf of community, due largely to a popular short - eled to Uganda to deliver his now-infamous LGBT people. 40 wave radio station based there that used to talk at the Triangle Hotel. Two other U.S. In October 2009, the Anti-Homosex - broadcast to the Soviet Union. Although evangelicals—Exodus International board uality Bill was introduced into the Ugan - Lively soon moved to Temecula, near Los member Don Schmierer and International dan Parliament.The bill would impose the Angeles, his connections in Sacramento Healing Foundation’s Caleb Lee Brun - death penalty on gays and lesbians under opened the doors to a new world of anti - didge—joined him to deliver what Lively certain circumstances, including for “repeat gay activism. Russians and other Eastern later called his “nuclear bomb against the offenders”— anyone who had had more Europeans had suffered terrible atrocities at gay agenda.” 37 Lively threw everything he than one relationship.The bill established the hands of the Nazis, and their children had into the talk: gays as child abusers, gays a low bar for conviction, making mere and grandchildren eagerly embraced The as insatiable sexual predators, gays bent on “touching” for the perceived purpose of Pink Swastika ’s litany of conspiracy theories. political domination, gays bent on the homosexual relations a criminal offense. It Together with the Sacramento-based destruction of civilization, gays as Nazis. threatened teachers, doctors, friends, and

THE PUBLIC EYE 6 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye family members with three years impris - closely, nor posting stories about it to this 2011, Lively traveled to the former Yugosla - onment if they didn’t report anyone they website.” 46 vian Republic of Macedonia to denounce suspected of being gay to police within 24 However, just a few weeks later, he was a proposed antidiscrimination law as the hours. While Parliament ignored Lively’s back to obsessing about homosexuality. product of “a secret plan by the homosex - call for forced therapy, they did include his He had moved to Springfield , ual powers of the E.U.” He warned that its recommendation to broadly criminalize all Massachusetts, in 2008, and in August passage would result in an “outbreak of advocacy of homosexuality including, con - 2009 he traveled to Boston to testify against homosexuality.” 50 The Macedonian bill ceivably, the legal defense of accused gays. a transgender rights bill. (To him, gender has been shelved for now. I The bill even threatened landlords under identity and sexual orientation are indis - a “brothel” provision if they knowingly tinguishable.) After his testimony, he gave rented to LGBT tenants. an interview that was posted on YouTube. Endnotes Lively was proud of his “nuclear “Frankly, I see things simply disintegrating 1 All quotations from Lively’s 2009 talk in Uganda are tran - 41 scribed from the video, The Truth About Homosexuality bomb,” even though he disavowed any very rapidly and I believe that we’re going & Its Agenda: A Family Life Network Initiative, DayThree. responsibility for its fallout. In fact, his first to suffer some kind of infrastructure col - The DVD was obtained jointly by Ex-Gay Watch and Box response was to claim that the bill was the lapse in this society because of the failure Turtle Bulletin. LGBT community’s fault. Ugandans, he of moral culture,” he said. 47 2 Nahmias, A.J.; Weiss, J.; Yao, X.; Lee, F.; et al. “Evidence for human infection with an HTLV III/LAV-like virus in said, were merely reacting to “a lot of exter - In Springfield, Lively initially worked at Central Africa, 1959.” Lancet 1, no. 8492 (May 31, nal interference from European and Amer - a church affiliated with Ledyaev’s New 1986): 1279-1280. Sonnet, Jean; Michaux, Jean-Louis; Zech, Francis; Brucher, Jean-Marie; de Bruyere, Marc; Bur - ican gay activists attempting to do in Generation Church. In January 2011, he tonboy, Guy. “Early AIDS cases originating from Zaire Uganda what they’ve done around the reiterated to the Boston Globe that he was and Burundi” (1962-1976) Scandinavian Journal of Infec - world—homosexualize that society.” 42 through with talking about homosexual - tious Diseases 19 no. 5 (1987): 511-517. 3 Serwadda, D.; Mugerwa, R.D.; Sewangambo, N.K.; et As for the bill itself, Lively called it “a step ity, and that he wanted to “re-Christianize al. “Slim disease: A new disease in Uganda and its asso - in the right direction,” although he said he Springfield.” 48 He explained, “If someone ciation with HTLV-III infection.” Lancet 2, no. 8460 opposed the death penalty. 43 But even were looking for Scott Lively to stop being (October 19, 1985): 849-852. 4 Google video, Scott Lively, “Why WATCHMEN ON there, he struggled. He told one inter - involved in the other stuff [antigay activ - THE WALLS was created.” Available online at viewer that given the alternative of seeing ity], this is it. Those people who criticize http://video.google.com/videoplay? Uganda become more accommodating to me, they should be happy.” He opened the docid=3462412806399458879# gays and lesbians, he would rather the bill Holy Grounds coffee shop, a drop-in cen - 5 “Past Grantees.” Defend the Family web site (Undated): http://www.defendthefamily.com/pfct/grantees.php. passed “as the lesser of two evils.” ter for Springfield youth. Springfield offi - 6 “About Americans for Truth and Founder Peter LaBar - “Even with the death penalty?” an inter - cials expressed concern that truants from bera.” Americans For Truth web site. (undated): viewer asked him. After much hemming a nearby high school were hanging out at http://americansfortruth.com/about and hawing, Lively admitted that even as the coffee shop. The shop’s manager, 7 Burroway, Jim. “Paul Cameron’s World.” BoxTurtle Bul - letin web site (May 22, 2007): http://www.boxturtle - the “lesser of two evils,” he would oppose Michael Frediani, was arrested in January bulletin.com/Articles/000,020.htm the bill’s passage if it included the death because he failed to register as a convicted 8 Associated Press. “Portland rally backs war; Eugene penalty. 44 child-molester. Lively banned the students protest opposes it.” Eugene Register-Guard Feb 24, 1991): 12B. Available online at http://news.google.com/news - during school hours, and defended his papers?id=J1NWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zesDAAAAIBAJ Lively’s Latest Campaigns manager as someone who had changed by &pg=6829,5836472 ively’s “nuclear bomb” earned him converting to Christianity. 9 Rubenstein, Sura. “Mabon, OCA wield political power.” Lworldwide condemnation—about The Rev. Kapya Kaoma is an Anglican The Oregonian (July 28, 1991). A01. Cassidy, Kyle. “God, Gays and Glasnost.” WillametteWeek which he seemed ambivalent. Sometimes priest from Zambia who attended Lively’s (February 7, 2007). Available online at http://www. he appeared to relish the attention; other talk in Uganda. As a PRA researcher, wweek.com/portland/article-6573-god_gays_ times he tried to flee from it. In July 2009, Kaoma wrote the report, Globalizing the glasnost.html Culture Wars [http://www.publiceye.org/ 10 Associated Press. “Breakup revealed by OCA.” Eugene Reg - Lively announced his “final book on the ister-Guard (June 19, 1993): 1A, 3C. Available online at homosexual issue.” 45 He bragged that this publications/globalizing-the-culture- http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=FEVWAAAAIB book, Redeeming the Rainbow, “is the prod - wars/], about antigay organizing in Africa AJ&sjid=d-oDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2400,4329314 uct of twenty years of service as a front-lines by U.S.-based conservative Christians. 11 Dunn, Katia. “Honor thy debts.” Portland Mercury (October 5, 2000). Available online at http://www.port - opponent of the homosexual movement Kaoma doesn’t think Lively’s new focus is landmercury.com/news/honor-thy-debts/ and encompasses all that I have learned particularly credible. “Honestly, I would - Content?oid=23036 through this long tour of duty.” And with n’t believe a thing from Scott Lively,” he 12 Associated Press “Alliance spokesman guilty of using unreasonable force.” The (Bend) Bulletin (October 7, that, he said would “no longer be moni - said. “I don’t even think he’s capable of 1992): A5. Available online at http://news.google. toring the day-to-day developments of the toning down his antigay rhetoric.” 49 As it com/newspapers?id=qJFTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AYc - culture war regarding homosexuality as turns out, Kaoma was right. In March DAAAAIBAJ&pg=5736%2C1027172

THE PUBLIC EYE 7 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

13 Bjornstad, Randi. “OCA, foes square off in debate.” 32 Jensen, Erik N. “The pink triangle and political con - 43 Colmes, Alan. “Rev. Scott Lively: Uganda anti-gay bill Eugene Register-Guard (May 9, 1992): 1B, 6B. sciousness: Gays, lesbians, and the memory of Nazi per - “a step in the right direction.” Alan Colmes Presents secution.” 11, no. 1 web site (January 4, 2010): http://www. 14 Portal, Ann “Voters approve anti-gay measure.” Eugene Journal of the History of Sexuality Liberaland (January 2002): 319-349. See specifically note 19 on p. alan.com/2010/01/04/rev-scott-lively-uganda-anti-gay- Register-Guard (May 20, 1992): A1, A4. 323. Mueller, Christine L. “The Other Side of the Pink bill-a-step-in-the-right-direction/. Includes audio of an 15 Bishop, Bill. “Defamation suit targets OCA.” Eugene Reg - Triangle: Still a PinkTriangle.” (October 24, 1994). Avail - interviewwithScottLivelyfromAlanColmes’sradioprogram. ister-Guard (October 27, 1993): 1D, 3D. Available able online at http://www.pink-triangle.org/ptps/ 44 “Missionaries of Hate” Vanguard (Current TV, June 6, online at http://news.google.com/newspapers? revresp.html. Wyneken, Jon David. “A historian’s id=M0hWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=iuoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=641 2010). Available online at http://current.com/shows/van - analysis of T he Pink Swastika, part 1.” Warren Throck - guard/92468669_missionaries-of-hate.htm 1%2C6390373 morton’s web site (June 8, 2009): http://wthrockmor - “Scott Lively, father of Uganda’s ‘pro-family’ movement: 16 Bishop, Bill. “OCA prevails in lawsuit.” Eugene Register- ton.com/2009/06/08/a-historians-analysis-of-the-pink-s Vanguard extended interview.” (Current TV, Guard (November 6, 1993): 1A, 4A. Available online at wastika-part-1/. Wyneken, Jon David. “A historian’s Vanguard http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=ka9YAAAAIBAJ analysis of The Pink Swastika, part 2.” Warren Throck - May 25, 2010). Available online at http://current. &sjid=g-oDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4212%2C957546 morton’s web site (June 9, 2009): http://wthrockmor - com/shows/vanguard/92455052_scott-lively-father- ton.com/2009/06/09/a-historians-analysis-of-the-pink-s of-ugandas-pro-family-movement-vanguard-extended- 17 Bjornstad, Randi. “Experts unsure of origins of homo - wastika-part-2/. interview.htm

sexuality.” Eugene Register-Guardian (November 1, 33 45 1002): 1B, 14B. Available online at http:// Associated Press. “OCA: Gays had a big role in Nazism.” Lively, Scott. “A message to visitors.” Defend the Fam - news.google.com/newspapers?id=_EFWAAAAIBAJ&sji Eugene Register-Guard (October 20, 1994): 4B. Available ily web site (June 17, 2010): http://www.defendthe - d=fuoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6248,81926 online at http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Jk1 family.com/pfrc/newsarchives.php?id=3679335. The WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2-sDAAAAIBAJ&pg= current posting on Lively’s web site has been shortened. 18 Associated Press “Backers of anti-gay measure release 5480,4963341 It now omits Lively’s announcement that he would be

graphic video.” The Spokesman-Review (October 28, 34 withdrawing from “day-to-day developments.” Excerpts 1992): B4. Available online at http://news.google.com/ Lively, Scott; Abrams, Kevin. The Pink Swastika: Homo - from his original announcement can be found at: Bur - newspapers?id=TVtWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=MvADAAAAI sexuality in the Nazi Party (1st ed.) (Keizer, OR: Founders roway, James “Is Scott Lively’s ‘Pink Swastika’ Kaput?” Publishing, 1995): 143. BAJ&pg=3563,5632895 Box Turtle Bulletin web site (July 2, 2009): http:// 35 19 Oregon Blue Book. “Initiative, Referendum and Recall: YouTube Video “A Warning to Latvia of the goals of www.boxturtlebulletin.com/2009/07/02/12813 1988-1995.” (Undated):http://bluebook.state. homosexual movement”. Uploaded May 31, 2007. 46 Lively, Scott. “A message to visitors.” Defend the Fam - or.us/state/elections/elections21.htm Available online at http://www.youtube.com/watch? ily web site (June 17, 2010): http://www.defendthe - v=45BEybjj8Us 20 family.com/pfrc/newsarchives.php?id=3679335. Walth, Brent. “Poll: Voters would nix less-extreme Meas - 36 ure 9.” Eugene Register-Guardian (December 18, 1992): Google video, Scott Lively: “Why WATCHMEN ON 47 YouTube video. “Scott Lively interview in Boston.” 1A, 4A. Available online at http://news.google.com/news - THE WALLS was created,” Scott Lively speaking in Available online at http://www.youtube.com/watch? papers?id=RUJWAAAAIBAJ&sjid=gOoDAAAAIBAJ& Novosibirsk, Russia. Available online at http://video. v=5pnhXOYjuJs google.com/videoplay?docid=3462412806399458879 pg=3363,3981077 48 37 Levenson, Michael. “Shift in mission for religious fire - 21 Lively, Scott. “Report from Uganda” Defend the Fam - Bjornstad, Randi. “Nazi issue clouds ‘13’ fight.” Eugene band.” Boston Globe (January 5, 2011). Available online Register-Guard (October 24, 1994): 1B, 2B. Available ily web site (March 17, 2009): http://www.defendthe - at http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachu - online at http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Kk1 family.com/pfrc/archives.php?id=2345952 setts/articles/2011/01/05/antigay_pastor_refocuses_on_ WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=2-sDAAAAIBAJ&pg= 38 Sharlet, Jeff. C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to aiding_springfield/?page=full 6964,6189181 America (New York: Little, Brown and Co., 2010):145- 49 Levenson, Michael. “Shift in mission for religious fire - 22 146. Abrams, Kevin E. “The other side of the PinkTriangle.” band.” Boston Globe (January 5, 2011). Available online Originally published in the Lambda Report (August 39 Lively, Scott. “Report from Uganda” Defend the Family at http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/ 1994). A copy of the article is available online at web site (March 17, 2009): http://www.defendthe articles/2011/01/05/antigay_pastor_refocuses_on_aid - http://wthrockmorton.com/wp-content/ family.com/pfrc/archives.php?id=2345952 ing_springfield/?page=full

uploads/2009/06/the-other-side-of-the-pink- 40 50 triangle.pdf Lively, Scott. “Letter to the Russian People.” Defend the Burroway, Jim. “Scott Lively warns of ‘outbreak of Family web site (October 15, 2007): http://www. homosexuality’ in Moldova, part of a ‘secret plan by the 23 Lively, Scott; Abrams, Kevin. The Pink Swastika: Homo - defendthefamily.com/pfrc/archives.php?id=5225300 homosexual powers of the EU’.” Box Turtle Bulletin sexuality in the Nazi Party (1st ed.) (Keizer, OR: Founders web site (March 6, 2011): http://www.boxturtlebul - Publishing, 1995): 142. Liveky repeated his call to ban all advocacy for LGBT equality in his talk at the Triangle Hotel, as recorded in letin.com/2011/03/06/31159 24 Ibid., 174-176. video, The Truth About Homosexuality & Its Agenda: A 25 Ibid. References throughout the book are too numerous Family Life Network Initiative, DayThree. The DVD was to enumerate; here are just a few examples: 28-35, 66- obtained jointly by Ex-Gay Watch and Box Turtle Bul - 68, 79-82, 150-151, 154-168. letin. 41 26 Ibid., 135-142,194-199. Lively, Scott. “Report from Uganda” Defend the Family web site (March 17, 2009): http://www.defendthefam - 27 Ibid., 163-165. ily.com/pfrc/archives.php?id=2345952 28 Ibid., 46-64. 42 Westen, John-Henry. “Int’l pressure on Uganda to accept 29 Ibid., 27-35, 154-163. homosexuality caused over-the-top sanctions: Chris -

30 tian Activist.” LiveSiteNews.com (November 27, 2009): Ibid., 6-27. http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/ 31 Ibid., 115-122. 2009/nov/09112708

THE PUBLIC EYE 8 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye THE CONSERVATIVE ATTACK cont’d from page 1 Supreme Court Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. But with the rise of the Tea Party and its increasingly ruthless attempts to purge Republicans of other persuasions from party lead - ership, Graham seemed anxious to prove his conservative bona fides. He argued that birthright cit - izenship had encouraged Mexican women to come to the United States to have “anchor babies,” who would enable the parents to remain in the country legally. “It’s called ‘drop and leave,’” Graham explained. Graham’s evocation of a ruthless Mexican woman who breeds for n i r the purpose of gaining privileges o M m i and immunities was unaccompa - J nied by facts, statistics, or even © one verifiable story. But in the fan - tasy world where affirmative action under - ernmental interest. The challenge to violently attack Latinos in border states, all achievers, welfare queens, Manchurian birthright citizenship is repugnant on sev - the while cloaking themselves in the lan - 3 candidates, and anchor babies appropriate eral grounds: it stigmatizes the children of guage of “security” and “border control.” resources from deserving Americans, facts undocumented immigrants. It is targeted But facts do matter. So does law. Both don’t matter. Reactionary rhetoric, at a specific racial/ethnic group—Lati - the facts and the law demonstrate that bedecked with catchy phrases that insult arguments calling for a repeal of birthright immigrant families, is a surefire way to citizenship cannot be supported by the his - demonstrate conservative allegiance. Gra - Contemporary efforts to tory leading up to the passage of the 14th ham’s defection to the fringes of the immi - Amendment, the intent of the Framers gration debate provided a patina of repeal birthright citizenship who drafted it, or the Supreme Court’s legitimacy to attacks on the birthright cit - interpretation of the birthright citizen - izenship provisions of the Constitution— strike at the most lasting ship provision. which had previously come from far The CaseThat Started the beyond the mainstream. Among those and important legacy of the Civil War advocating a repeal, some argued that Congress needn’t bother with amending Reconstruction Congress: he 1857 Supreme Court case Dred the Constitution—a simple statute would TScott v. Sanford has been called the case do. Others suggested that birthright citi - the post-Civil War that started the Civil War. In it, the court, zenship could be denied as a matter of state led by Chief Justice RogerTaney of Mary - law, without regard either to the Consti - transformation of American land, held that Blacks “are not. . . and were tution or federal statutes. 2 not intended to be included under the In the United States, legislation that tar - ideals and identity. word ‘citizens’ in the Constitution, and can gets groups based on racial identity or therefore claim none of the rights and priv - national origin is subject to the most rigid ileges which that instrument provides for 4 scrutiny. It is unconstitutional unless it is and secures to citizens.” The decision was narrowly tailored to serve a compelling gov - nos—and at a specific nationality—Mex - sweeping in its scope. It foreclosed citizen - icans. The movement to repeal—and ship rights for slaves and stripped free mainstream acceptance of its legitimacy— Blacks (many of whom were property own - Sherrilyn A. Ifill is a professor at the University has grown up in a context in which mem - ers and even voters in the North) of their of Maryland School of Law and a civil rights bers of far-right groups feel emboldened to citizenship. lawyer.

THE PUBLIC EYE 9 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

After the Civil War, Black Codes— were “required to reside on and cultivate the violence by intransigent southerners local laws that created a labor-contract soil without the right to purchase or own directed at both former slaves and Union system that forced Black families into it[,] . . . were excluded from many occu - officials suggested that without the pres - indentured servitude, limited Black access pations of gain and were not permitted to ence of Union soldiers in the South, the to the justice system, and restricted Black give testimony in the courts of any case peace was precarious indeed. Violence was movement—threatened to make Blacks where a white man was a party,” explained encouraged by southern legislators, who “slaves in everything but name,” in the the Supreme Court in one case. 6 By main - exhorted their constituents to resist “acts words of W.E.B. DuBois. 5 (In the restric - taining the former slaves as a servile class, of Congress … by the bayonet.” 8 The loy - tions the Black Codes placed on where one correspondent observed, southerners alty of the South to the Union remained in Blacks could live and work, they resemble were “determined to do by policy what they question. Bombastic secessionist rhetoric today’s statutes that attempt to regulate had failed to do with arms.” 7 continued unabated. Latinos’ access to jobs and home rental.) Nevertheless the use of arms by south - Any attempt to understand the mean - Under the Black Codes, newly freed slaves erners constituted its own problem: ing and intent of the provisions of the 14th Amendment must be made with the knowledge of this historical context. The The Conversion of Lindsey Graham physical battles of the Civil War were over, Senator Lindsey Graham’s statements opposing birthright citizenship were particularly tough but the legislative war was yet to be won. for Latinos and immigration advocates to swallow. When Graham received an award from the Neither the loss of 600,000 lives in the Civil National Council of La Raza in 2007 because of his courageous vow to act on immigration War, Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclama - reform, he took a great deal of heat from conservatives. At the time, his response was to call tion, nor even the passage of the 13th his opponents out of touch. Amendment, which abolished slavery, But that was before the 2008 election of Barack Obama. The ascent of the first Black presi - could restore or create citizenship status for dent unleashed a wave of nativism that has swept the immigration debate far from the shores former slaves and free Blacks. By the sum - of rational discourse. Obama’s election itself has been persistently challenged by “birthers” who insist he was born not in Hawaii but in Kenya. Because the Constitution limits the mer of 1866, Republicans—both moder - presidency to native-born U.S. citizens (as opposed to naturalized citizens), the birthers claim ate and radical—understood that strong Obama’s presidency is illegal. legislation protecting the rights of newly Both the birthers and those who wish to repeal birthright citizenship seem to be impervious freed Blacks would be necessary to ensure to facts. The birthers refuse to accept Obama’s birth certificate, while repeal activists insist that the war had not been fought in vain. that the United States is being invaded by “anchor babies” in the absence of any empirical Before settling the debates about the mean - evidence. Despite their questionable ideas, both birthers and birthright citizenship repeal ing of “privileges and immunities” or even activists have succeeded in mobilizing an influential bloc of the Republican Party. The Tea “equality” as used in the 14th Amend - Party has put congressional Republicans on notice that if they make common cause with Democrats on immigration, or even behave cordially to the president, they will be seen as ment, the Reconstruction Congress under - traitors to the party. stood that, first and foremost, the newly To his credit, Graham criticized the Tea Party as late as last July, when he announced that it freed slaves, and indeed all Blacks, needed was “unsustainable.” 28 His critical comments about the Tea Party in a New York Times Maga - to be entitled to citizenship on the same zine profile were the last straw for some. 29 One Republican website labeled him a RINO— terms as Whites. As a result, the birthright Republican In Name Only. 30 His willingness to work out a pragmatic conservative position citizenship provision was the first and least on closing Guantanamo, to support Democrats on climate change legislation, and to vote in controversial provision of the 14th Amend - support of Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan had placed him squarely within the sights of Tea Party activists. ment. It was also the most important. For this reason, attacks on the birthright In August, Graham announced that he would introduce legislation to overturn birthright citizenship. Although he doesn’t face re-election until 2014, given the aggressive challenges citizenship provision not only target Lati - mounted by the Tea Party to establishment Republican candidates last fall, he is surely con - nos, they also constitute an affront to cerned about the likelihood of drawing a Tea Party challenger in 2014. To shore up his sup - African Americans, for whom the provision port among conservatives, a reversal on immigration may seem like a small price to pay— was originally enacted. Efforts to undo his state of South Carolina is only 4.5 percent Latino. 31 birthright citizenship undermine the foun - Graham is likely to throw more red meat to the Right during the next few months. A recent dation of Black—and indeed all—civil poll found that forty percent of Republican voters think Graham is “too liberal.” 32 Already, his rights. In this regard, contemporary efforts 33 website has a new look ; it touts Graham as “A Conservative Problem Solver” and features to repeal birthright citizenship strike at the photos of Graham posing with South Carolina Tea Party darlings Governor Nikki Haley and Senator Jim DeMint. most lasting and important legacy of the Reconstruction Congress: the post-Civil Completing his conversion, Graham recently announced that the Republican Party needs a coalition of “Main Street, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Tea Party.” 34 War transformation of American ideals and identity.

THE PUBLIC EYE 10 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

The Framers’ Determination to the 14th Amendment. During the debate, person born on U.S. soil would be a citi - Extend Birthright Citizenship some opponents asked, “Is the child of the zen of the new United States, as ushered to All Chinese immigrant in California a citizen? in by the Civil War Amendments to the hen the Reconstruction Congress Is the child of the Gypsy born in Pennsyl - Constitution. W guaranteed that anyone born on vania a citizen?” 11 Others openly expressed U.S. soil would become a citizen, it did so the fear that “the tide of emigration that “Subject to the Jurisdiction” consciously, deliberately, and explicitly. might pour in upon the Pacific States from n the first day of the 2011 congres - Any fair examination of the legislative his - the surcharged populations of eastern Asia” Osional session, Rep. Steven King (R- tory reveals that Congress considered and would overrun “[o]ur Christian civilization IA) introduced legislation to amend the rejected many of the arguments made by and our [g]overnment.” 12 A senator Immigration and Nationality Act to outlaw contemporary repeal supporters. Conser - opposed to Section I asked “Are [the peo - automatic birthright citizenship. 15 King vatives who in other contexts contend that ple of California] to be immigrated out of argued that the 14th Amendment on its face the Constitution should mean only what the house and home by the Chinese?” 13 gives Congress the authority to restrict Framers intended conveniently ignore the birthright citizenship because of the lan - great weight of the historical record sur - guage of Section 1, which includes the rounding their decision to embrace qualification that potential citizens born on birthright citizenship. The birthright U.S. soil must be “subject to the jurisdic - When the 14th Amendment was tion” of the United States. King contends enacted, there was no more disfavored citizenship provision of that this enables Congress to deny citizen - immigrant group than Chinese laborers. ship to the children of illegal immigrants Nineteenth-century U.S. history (and the 14th Amendment who, he says, are not “subject to the juris - indeed a good part of twentieth-century diction” of the United States. history as well) is replete with national and cannot be altered by A simple originalist analysis of the local discriminatory legislation targeted birthright citizenship provision defeats at Chinese immigrants. Justice John Mar - legislation. Only a King’s argument. The intense prejudice shall Harlan’s dissent from the Supreme against the Chinese again led to the Court’s Plessy v. Ferguson decision, which constitutional amend - Supreme Court’s most cogent and unequiv - upheld the constitutionality of segregation, ocal interpretation of the birthright citi - is well-known for its courageous and pre - ment can overturn a zenship provision, in the 1898 case, U.S. scient articulation of Black equality—but v. Wong Kim Ark. 16 In that case, the court it is less well-known for its explicit deni - constitutional provision. had to decide whether the U.S.-born child gration of Chinese immigrants. In support of Chinese immigrants was a citizen. Wong of his argument that segregation in public Kim Ark was born and raised in San Fran - accommodations is unconstitutional, Har - cisco, the son of Chinese laborers who lan criticized Louisiana’s segregation laws, These concerns failed to win the day. were forbidden by federal law from becom - which restricted Blacks but not other races. Instead, the principle of birthright citi - ing naturalized citizens. When he was He reminded the majority that “there is a zenship was deemed critical to the trans - about seventeen, Wong Kim Ark and his race so different than our own that we do formation of the United States. One parents visited China, and upon his return not permit those belonging to it to become Republican senator from California who to the United States, he was permitted to citizens of the United States . . . I allude to had expressed concerns about Chinese enter the country by customs officers, on the Chinese race.” 9 Segregation of Blacks immigration nevertheless offered his sup - the grounds that he was a U.S. citizen. on railway cars could not be justified, rea - port for the birthright citizenship provision, However, when he went to China for a soned Harlan, if no such laws existed to sim - announcing, “[W]e are entirely ready to second visit four years later, customs offi - ilarly restrict the Chinese. Indeed, as a accept the provision proposed in this con - cers prohibited him from re-entering, matter of federal law, Chinese immigrants stitutional amendment, that the children claiming that he was not a U.S. citizen. were effectively barred from becoming cit - born here of Mongolian parents shall be At the outset of the case, the court izens until 1943 10 —a sweeping restriction declared by the Constitution of the United noted an important fact: Wong Kim Ark’s placed on no other immigrant group in States to be entitled to civil rights and to parents were laborers.They had never been U.S. history. equal protection before the law.” 14 “employed in any diplomatic or official Prejudice against the Chinese was no less Clearly, in the interest of articulating an capacity under the Emperor of China.” 17 intense in 1866, when Congress was debat - undiluted principle of equality in citizen - This was the key to the court’s resolution ing the birthright citizenship provision of ship, the Framers chose to ensure that any of the case. It found that the words “sub -

THE PUBLIC EYE 11 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

ject to the jurisdiction” confirmed the Anchor Babies, Welfare Queens, and OtherTropes common-law understanding that diplo - The crude use of the term “anchor baby” to describe a child born to an undocumented mats are “subject to the jurisdiction” not Mexican mother in the United States is part of a long tradition of the successful deployment of the country in which they serve, but of of imagery that plays to coarse racial and gender stereotypes. It was President Ronald Reagan their sovereigns. (Similarly, an embassy who invoked the idea of the “welfare queen” 35 during his 1976 presidential campaign. Refer - represents the actual territory of the home ring to a single story of welfare fraud in Chicago, he denounced women who supposedly country, and the conferral of diplomatic “drove Cadillacs” while living on welfare checks. It was understood that these women were immunity recognizes that foreign ambas - Black. The “welfare queen” myth took on a life of its own, dramatizing the racialized anger of sadors are subject to their countries’ laws.) Whites on the Right toward the Black poor. Reagan used the story to stoke the ire of those he called “hard-working” Americans. The Framers intended to recognize and carry forward this tradition. Thus, the The right-wing activist Clint Bolick used the residue of the “welfare queen” image in his children of foreign diplomats who are born distorted description of the civil-rights scholar Lani Guinier as a “quota queen” in the Wall in the U.S. do not become U.S. citizens. Street Journal. 36 Bolick’s op-ed essay was the opening salvo in a campaign of character assassi - nation designed to derail President Clinton’s nomination of Guinier as assistant attorney Common law also recognized a second general for civil rights. An article in U.S. News and World Report marked Guinier as an category of children born in the United “other” on the basis of gender and ethnicity when it said of her, “strange hair, strange name, States who were excluded from birthright strange ideas—she’s finished.” 37 citizenship: those born to soldiers in hos - The “anchor baby” trope has similar possibilities. It both demonizes Mexican mothers, who tile armies of occupation.Thus, according allegedly use their newborns as tickets to welfare and other citizenship benefits, and dehu - to the court, “The real object of . . . the addi - manizes their children as just so much immigration baggage. The thin logic behind this tion [of the words] ‘and subject to the notion is illustrated by Lindsey Graham’s claim that the process of coming to the U.S. to have jurisdiction thereof,’ would appear to have “anchor babies” is called “drop and leave.” Either Mexican women are crossing the border to been to exclude, by the fewest and fittest have their babies in the U.S. to obtain welfare benefits, or they are having babies and leaving words … the two classes of cases—children for Mexico. Both cannot be true. (In an additional twist, Rep. Louie Gohmert [R-TX] told born of alien enemies in hostile occupation Congress last summer that Arab women come to the United States to have babies, take them and children of diplomatic representatives home to be indoctrinated as “terrorists,” and then unleash them into the United States. 38 ) of a foreign State.” 18 The amendment, There are real dangers attendant to this kind of dehumanizing language. When children are according to the court, “was not intended no longer regarded as vulnerable members of our society, entitled to the protection of the to impose any new restrictions upon citi - state, then it is easy to justify such actions as workplace immigration raids that leave children frightened and devastated by the abrupt arrest and detention of their parents. Indeed the chil - zenship, or to prevent any persons from dren themselves can be detained in conditions likely to leave them psychologically scarred. 39 becoming citizens by the fact of birth within the United States.” Only certain immigrant children are dehumanized in this way, however. Dismissive refer - ences to Mexican “anchor babies” stand in stark contrast to the solicitous welcome extended Congress regulates naturalized citizen - by those on the political Right to the noncitizen, undocumented child-immigrant Elian Gon - ship. But the fact that Congress had exer - zales, who arrived from Cuba in 2000, after his mother drowned at sea during an attempt to cised its power over naturalization to gain access to the United States. Conservative Cuban-Americans and others campaigned to exclude Chinese immigrants was irrelevant allow Gonzales to stay—although he was eventually deported. 40 to the citizenship of Wong Kim Ark. The Of course, no empirical data has ever been presented to support the existence of “anchor court held that “[t]he fact ... that acts of babies.” Instead the same anecdotes are circulated as right-wing talking points: hotels that Congress or treaties have not permitted offer “birth holidays” in the U.S.; pregnant Mexicans who time their dilation precisely and Chinese persons born out of this country show up at hospitals across the border. In fact, the Mexican-national parent of a U.S.-born to become citizens by naturalization, can - infant could not even apply for citizenship until the child was 21 years old. 41 Thereafter, the not exclude Chinese persons born in this average wait time for the successful processing of a citizenship application is ten years. This country from the operation of the broad means that a Mexican-national mother would have to wait at least 31 years for her baby to and clear words of the Constitution.” 19 provide her with the reward of citizenship—an unlikely motivation for her to give birth in the U.S. The 14th Amendment, said the court, “has conferred no authority upon Congress Mexicans come to the United States for the same reason that millions of immigrants have to restrict the effect of birth, declared by the traveled to the U.S. over the past 200 years: economic survival. The impending birth of a child can make the need for employment and a chance at a better life even more urgent than Constitution to constitute a sufficient and 20 usual. Irish, Scottish, Italians, Norwegians, Russians, and others were assisted by U.S. immi - complete right to citizenship.” Birthright gration policies that until the 1960s discriminated in favor of European immigrants. This citizenship is limited only by “birth within “affirmative action” ensured that millions of White children born in the U.S. to newly arrived the dominion of the United States, families would never be labeled “anchor babies.” notwithstanding alienage of parents.” 21 Wong Kim Ark was unequivocally a U.S.

THE PUBLIC EYE 12 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye citizen. And Congress is powerless to restrict birthright citizenship. Rep. King’s efforts to restrict birthright citizenship by statute, therefore, constitute a patently unconstitutional usurpation of authority.The birthright citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment cannot be altered by legislation. Only a constitutional amendment can overturn a constitutional provision— much as Section 2 of 14th Amend - ment, which requires the inclusion of Blacks in the enumeration of popu - lation for congressional districts, overturned the hideous “3/5 clause” of Article I of the Constitution, which m o c . counted only a fraction of each slave s n o o t for purposes of apportionment. r a C l a c i t i l

The Benefits of Birthright o Citizenship P he U.S. is among a minority of countries that provide birthright T should integrate themselves fully into U.S. States, when compared to other western citizenship—also called jus soli. Most coun - culture. But it is birthright citizenship that nations, this country has been remarkably tries, including many in Europe as well as has fostered the integration of immigrants successful in absorbing immigrants. India, determine citizenship according to into mainstream American life at a rate and Contrary to conservative rhetoric, empir - jus sanguinis —or “blood law.” Under jus ical evidence demonstrates that the chil - sanguinis a child’s citizenship depends on dren of immigrants to the U.S. today the citizenship of the parents. To be a cit - quickly become integrated. 23 Even when izen, one parent, or in some cases grand - Birthright citizenship has segregated, immigrants enjoy a support parent, must also have been a citizen. Jus network of social service organizations, sanguinis often results in generations of per - fostered the integration of political leaders, and activists. Birthright manent immigrants who, despite their citizenship and the presence of a well- longstanding presence and work in a coun - immigrants into mainstream developed civil rights infrastructure ensures try, never count as citizens. In Germany, for that successive generations benefit from example, generations of Turkish “guest American life at a rate accumulated political power and social workers” were never accepted as Germans, justice organizing. resulting in parallel, separate, self-con - and with an intensity What Graham, King, and other tained Turkish communities in cities like antibirthright citizenship advocates pro - Berlin and Hamburg. 22 After 9/11, German unprecedented among pose is trading in America’s relatively suc - authorities recognized that they had little cessful (although troubled) immigrant meaningful understanding of or contacts immigrants internationally. integration experience for the failures of with the largeTurkish-Muslim communi - Western Europe. ties in those cities. Ironically, nativists who attack birthright The New United States citizenship fail to recognize that it fur - with an intensity unprecedented among thers the aims many of them purport to espite the high aspirations of the immigrants internationally. advance in other contexts. For example, DFramers of the 14th Amendment, it Although racial and national origin, many right-wing, anti-immigrant groups took nearly 100 years for the Civil War and language-minority discrimination support “English only” initiatives and Amendments to begin to yield fruit from continue to pose substantial challenges to argue that immigrants to the United States the trees they so painstakingly planted. Blacks, Latinos, and others in the United The early flower of Reconstruction—the

THE PUBLIC EYE 13 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye election of seven Black congressmen, 24 the Endnotes 25 Robert Westley, “Many Billions Gone: Is It Time To 1 Andy Barr, “Graham Eyes ‘Birthright Citizenship,’” Reconsider The Case for Black Reparations? ”, 19 B.C. construction of 630 schoolhouses, eleven Third World L.J. 429,461 (1998). 25 Politico, July 29, 2010, available at http://www. colleges and universities, and participation politico.com/news/stories/0710/40395.html (last vis - 26 Derrick Bell, Race, Racism & American Law, Sixth of 700,000 Black voters in the presidential ited February 14, 2011) Edition (Aspen Publishers 2008)at p. 51. election of 1872 26 —soon gave way to the 2 Jacques Billeaud, “Vote Eyed in Arizona on Denial of 27 W.E.B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction , Citizenship to Kids,” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (online), 28 Howard Kurtz, “Lindsey Graham Spits OutTea Party,” reign of violence, repression, and terror February 7, 2011, available at http://www.ajc. Washington Post, July , 2010, available at http://www. 2 com/news/nation-world/vote-eyed-in-az-831770.html that marked the years 1875 – 1900. Dur - washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/ (last visited on February 14, 2011) ing this period, known as “the nadir,” 07/02/AR2010070201530.html (last viewed March southern segregationists, apathetic White 3 http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/02/minuteman_ 13, 2011) vigilante_shawna_forde_convicted_for_brisenia_ 29 Robert Draper, “Lindsey Graham: This Year’s Maver - northerners, and an acquiescent Supreme flores_murder.html# ick” NewYorkTimes Magazine, July 1, 2010 available at Court read out of the 14th Amendment the 4 Dred Scott v. Sanford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 404 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/magazine/ very protections the Framers had carefully (1857). 04graham-t.html?_r=2&src=twt&twt=nytimespoli - 5 tics&pagewanted=all debated and adopted.The equal protection W.E.B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction In America, 678 (Russell & Russell 1962) (1935). 30 See http://www.redstate.com/skipmaclure/2010/03/09/ clause was interpreted by the Supreme 6 Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. (16 Wall.) 36 (1873). lindsey-gr-amnesty-rino-extraordinaire/ Court in 1896 to mean “separate but equal.” 11 7 William E. Nelson, The Fourteenth Amendment (Har - U.S. Census Bureau, State and County Quick Facts, avail - The due process clause was hijacked by vard University Press, 1988) at p. 41, quoting from cor - able at http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/45000. corporations, which became the primary respondence of Jesse Shortess of Springfield, Missouri, to html , (last visited on March 13, 2011) 32 beneficiaries of its protections for the first General Sherman, December 24, 1865. Public Policy Polling, February 3, 2011, available at 8 Id, letter from W.W. Trimble to John Sherman, Febru - http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/PPP_Release_ seventy years after the amendment’s passage. ary 12, 1866. SC_0203.pdf (last visited on March 13, 2011) 33 The one provision that remained 9 Plessy v. Ferguson, 163. U.S. 537, (1896), J, Harlan dis - http://www.lindseygraham.com/ untouched, and that formed the foundation senting. Available at http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/ 34 Scott Wong & Manu Raju, “Lindsey Graham Tempers from which the other provisions drew their html/historics/USSC_CR_0163_0537_ZD.html Tea Party Stance,” Politico, March 14, 2011, available 10 For a summary of Chinese Exclusions laws dating from at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51214. strength, was the birthright citizenship the 19th century, see http://www.archives.gov/ html (last visited on March 14, 2011). provision. With the Supreme Court’s deci - pacific/education/curriculum/4th-grade/chinese- 35 “Welfare Queen Becomes Issue in Reagan Campaign,” sive determination in Wong Kim Ark, the exclusion.html New York Times, February 15, 1976, available at 11 http://picofarad.info/misc/welfarequeen.pdf (last vis - birthright citizenship provision became Nelson, The Fourteenth Amendment supra note ii at p. 101, quoting remarks of Sen. Edgar Cowan of Pennsyl - ited on March 13, 2011). the least controversial and least litigated pro - vania in Congressional Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess, 2890 36 WSJ, April 30, 1993 . In fact the title of Bolick’s article vision of the 14th Amendment and ensured (1866). – “Clinton’s Quota Queens” was directed at two women 12 of color nominated by President Clinton – Norma that America would retain its unique posi - Id., quoting remarks of Sen. Garrett Davis of Kentucky in Congressional Globe , 40th Cong., 3d. Sess. 287 app. Cantu, who was nominated to serve as assistant secretary tion as a “nation of immigrants.” (1869). for civil rights in the Department of Education, and Guinier. Contemporary attacks on birthright 13 Id., quoting remarks of Sen. Edgar Cowan in Congres - 37 sional Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. 2890-2891. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/930607/ citizenship are transparent and odious archive_015266.htm 14 Id. at p. 114, quoting remarks of Sen. John Conness of attacks on Latino immigrants and immi - 38 California in Congressional Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-06-27/news/ grant families. But they are also attacks on 2892 (1866). 27068389_1_terrorists-baby-pregnant-woman 39 the rebirth of the United States after the 15 Simmi Aujla, “Steve King Unveils Birthright Bill,” Emily Bazar, “Workplace Raids Ensnare Kids in NetToo,” Civil War. The new Constitution that Politico, January 5, 2011. Available at http://www. USA Today, October 31, 2007, available at http:// politico.com/news/stories/0111/47125.html (last visited www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-10-31- accompanied America’s rebirth was one February 14, 2011) immigration-kids_N.htm, (last visited on March 13, 2011). designed to reframe the terms of citizenship 16 169 U.S. 649 (1898) 40 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/elian/ in this country. Under these terms, this 17 U.S. v. Wong Kim Ark, supra n. x at 652. etc/eliancron.html country for the first time removed the 18 Id. at 683. 41 http://voices.washingtonpost.com/right-turn/ stain and shame of slavery, and created the 19 Id. at 704. 2011/01/birthright_citizenship.html promise of equality which, although yet still 20 Id. at 703. unmet for many in this country, has 21 Id. at 688. become enshrined as the highest national 22 Matthias Barsch, Andrea Brandt and Daniel Steinvorth, ideal. I “Turkish Immigration to Germany: A Sorry History of Self-Deception and Wasted Opportunities,” Spiegel The Reproductive Rights Online International, September 7, 2010, available at http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,71 Activist Resource Kit Keep PRA Healthy 6067,00.html (last visited on February 14, 2011). 23 is now available online at DONATE NOW http://www.urban.org/pdfs/immig_integration.pdf. 24 Philip Dray, Capitol Men: The Epic Story Of Reconstruc - www.publiceye.org! tion Through The Lives Of The First Black Congressmen, www.publiceye.org (First Mariner Books, 2008).

THE PUBLIC EYE 14 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye FATHER’S RIGHTS GROUPS continued from page 1 nudge in the direction of getting both parents to be involved. 1 This mild-mannered approach to child custody, a major issue in contested divorces, hides the real agenda of Fathers and Fam - ilies. What appears at first glance to be an honest plea for fairness is in fact a backlash movement against changing gender-role norms and family structures—cultural shifts that have been influenced by femi - nist thought and action. Although Holstein sounds as though he ] s n is promoting a new initiative, some form o m m o of joint custody bill has been filed in the c e v i t

Massachusetts legislature every year since a e r c [

1983. Since the 1970s, certain conserva - r e f i n tive men’s organizations, commonly called n e J y fathers’ rights groups, have been seeking to b o t o increase their visibility and influence over h P divorce-court proceedings. While their A display by a disgruntled ex-husband tactics have changed, they remain a threat to women’s hard-won gains. Fathers and Families, one of the hun - divorce.The groups correctly point out that lawyer Jeffery Leving and the author Eric dreds of fathers’ rights groups that has most of the time, women do the initial fil - Legette. Fathers’ rights groups organize sprung up in the past 35 years, uses lan - ing, 4 but they go farther, claiming that against what they perceive to be a court sys - guage that is far removed from the angry fathers usually lose in divorce courts.They tem that unfairly penalizes men during pitch of early movement spokespeople. base their organizing on the anger and contested divorces and custody battles, For example, in 1986, the journalist Greg resentment of a million ex-husbands a leaving them without adequate contact Weston paraphrased the feelings of such year. with their children and with burdensome fathers: Although some groups continue to use financial obligations. rancorous, misogynist language, the most These groups tend to be driven by a They are tired of being legally cas - influential organizations have modified charismatic leader’s personal, negative, trated by what they perceive as a sex - their tone. Sounding reasonable gains them experience with divorce and as such display ist judicial system that almost mileage and has the added benefit of mask - a high level of emotional content. This automatically hands sole custody to ing their true agenda. appeal to emotion can be an effective women for no other reason than the organizing tool. The rhetoric of fathers’ archaic and unproved belief that The Demographics of Fathers’ rights tends to represent women’s and children are better off with their Rights Groups men’s rights as mutually exclusive; if the mothers. 2 athers’ rights groups are diverse, rang - woman gains benefits in a divorce pro - In 1989, a divorced father was quoted Fing from one-man websites and grass - ceeding, then the man loses. According to as saying, “We’re sick and tired of being con - roots support networks to national “Christian,” a member of a fathers’ rights sidered no more than walking wallets and membership organizations. They share group, sperm donors.” 3 some common characteristics, though. Since the 1960s, we [have] had From the fathers’ rights point of view, According to Jocelyn Elise Crowley, a polit - tremendous progress, if you will, in the wave of no-fault divorce laws that ical scientist at Rutgers who studies fathers’ terms of obtaining equal rights swept across English-speaking countries in rights groups, these organizations tend to between the genders and among the the 1970s made it too easy to file for attract men (and a smattering of second races, but few have realized how wives) who are more highly educated, more much the pendulum has swung the oftenWhite, more conservative, and more Pam Chamberlain is a senior researcher at other way in terms of the role women highly politicized than the general popu - have in the family court system ver - Political Research Associates and is on the 5 lation —although the movement also sus what men have. 6 editorial board of The Public Eye. includes African Americans such as the

THE PUBLIC EYE 15 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

The movement has continued to grow, main targets. Female-headed households Divorce in the United States so that there are now several groups in every were seen as incomplete and devoid of a ivorce has long been stigmatized by state. Along with U.S. groups, such organ - moral compass. Daniel Patrick Moynihan Dreligious and social conservatives as a izations have simultaneously developed famously promoted this idea in his 1965 personal, moral flaw. Until the 1970s, this over the past 35 years in Canada, the U.K., government-funded report, The Negro Fam - notion was reinforced by state require - and Australia. They all share a common ily, which excoriated African Americans: ments that couples seeking a divorce pro - complaint: divorce must change. There is one unmistakable lesson in duce a valid reason for terminating the American history: a community that marriage, such as a spouse’s adultery, abuse, Making Sense of Marriage allows a large number of young men or abandonment. aking sense of divorce requires to grow up in broken families, dom - Because marriage is a legal contract, “M making sense of marriage,” say inated by women, never acquiring divorce requires the intervention of the state the legal scholars June Carbone and Mar - any stable relationship to male to witness its dissolution. In the United garet Brinig. 7 What they mean is that the authority, never acquiring any set of States, there are about one million divorces rankling disputes over divorce gain mean - rational expectations about the a year.The rate of divorce spiked after no- ing when we look at society’s various expec - future—that community asks for fault divorce was introduced but has since tations for marriage. For social conservatives, and gets chaos. Crime, violence, declined and leveled off to about forty the institution of marriage is both a sym - unrest, disorder—most particularly percent of marriages. You would never bol of traditional gender roles and a basic know that, though, if you listened to peo - economic structure. A smoothly function - ple like Stephen Baskerville, a national ing family should be a self-sufficient eco - marriage-promotion leader: nomic unit that does not need to rely on “We’re sick and tired of The decline of the American family charity from private or state sources.Thus, has reached critical and skeptical marriage is characterized as the building being considered no proportions….The breakdown of 8 block of society. the family now touches virtually In addition, some traditionalists assert more than walking every American. It is not only the that marriage “tames” the man and makes source of instability in the western him more responsible, to both his wife and wallets and sperm world but seriously threatens civic his children. Marriage, then, is a behavior freedom and constitutional govern - regulator and guarantor of civilized behav - donors.” ment. 11 ior. People with these views claim that challenges to conventional marriage are Divorce laws and their reform have largely been the purview of state legislatures. deliberate attempts to destroy the social the furious, unrestrained lashing out In 1970, California began offering no- structure. Divorce, they believe, signals at the whole social structure—that is fault divorce, which now exists in all fifty the disintegration of a sacred institution. not only to be expected; it is very near states. No-fault laws indeed make it easier Mike Duff, the president of United Fam - to inevitable. And it is richly to divorce, because neither party needs to ilies International, a conservative anti- deserved. 10 abortion, pro-traditional-family advocacy prove the other is at fault. If both agree, the group, says: In recent decades, defense of so-called process can be relatively smooth. In con - family values has become one of the Right’s trast, contested divorces are expensive. Experiencing life in a natural family most reliable frames. Organizers have been The cost of repeated trips to court in becomes absolutely fundamental to able to use the issue to pull voters to the polls lawyers’ fees, court costs, child support, and the preservation of society….A cul - in support of conservative candidates. settlement arrangements can add up to ture that does not value marriage Current political interest in marriage has hundreds of thousands of dollars. will eventually replace civil society focused on encouraging some people, such While the division of material property 9 with tribalism. as poor, heterosexual women of color, to plays a part in many of these disputes, the The most visible current “enemy” of tra - marry, while forbidding others, such as battle is most often about custody and ditional marriage is same-sex marriage. LGBT people. But marriages can be frag - financial support of the children. Where the Strategists have skillfully used existing ile things, and there is additional contro - children live and who pays for their homophobic attitudes to encourage oppo - versy over how society handles the other end expenses are two interdependent aspects of sition to any alternative to a heterosexual of the marriage contract, divorce. The divorce. Usually, one parent is appointed family structure. In the past, single-parent fathers’ rights movement has taken full the main physical custodian, and the non - families with nonnmarital births were the advantage of all these social anxieties. custodial parent pays child support. If the

THE PUBLIC EYE 16 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye divorcing parents cannot agree, a court He…says he wants to build the same nection between custody and child support decides who will gain custody of children kind of close relationship he enjoys is not an effective way to build support for and the amount of child support to be paid. with his [own] father…. But Ayers fathers’ rights, since it hints at selfishness. Government enforcement agencies mon - does not share joint physical cus - itor how often and how much child sup - tody of his only child…. “I was very RhetoricalTools port is actually paid. In 2007 a little more upset,” said Ayers, 30. “I thought, in he fathers’ rights rhetoric that the legal than sixty percent of child support money this country, you wouldn’t have to Tscholars Miranda Kaye and Julia was actually paid. 12 The courts and enforce - necessarily fight to spend time with Tolmie analyzed in Australia is similar to that ment agencies have the authority to order your child.” 14 in the United States. 16 In general fathers’ noncustodial parents to pay or to seize the Another reason to favor joint physical rights groups appeal to familiar, esteemed money out of their paychecks. This is a custody is one these groups rarely articu - values such as the protection of families, the major source of anger for fathers’ rights late: an award of joint physical custody usu - guarantee of equal rights, and the welfare advocates, who resent state interference in ally reduces the amount of child-support of children. These powerful rhetorical their finances. devices link the desires of divorcing fathers Giving custody of children to their with established norms, making their argu - fathers is a major plank in the fathers’ ments appear plausible and rational. rights platform, but an inspection of group The rhetoric of fathers’ Often fathers’ rights groups illustrate members’ language reveals that they are their claims and demands using stories often more interested in asserting power rights tends to represent about individual incidents.These accounts and control than in providing for “the best create an emotional link between the pub - interest of the child”—family courts’ usual women’s and men’s lic and the fathers who seek support and standard for assigning custody—or the understanding of their loss. For example, strengthening of the father/child relation - rights as mutually the Boston Globe reported: ship. A self-help website, “Divorce Advice For one divorced father of four who for Men: How the System Really Works,” exclusive; if the woman requested anonymity because his recommends, gains benefits in a case hasn’t been settled, the crum - Demand primary custody of your bling economy has had consequences children even though you would divorce proceeding, beyond the emotional and finan - have agreed to a joint custody or vis - cial. His $1,400 weekly support pay - itation arrangement. You spouse will then the man loses. ments, plus additional expenses like probably be terrified by the thought, health insurance and tuition, had and he or she might agree to an been based on a court judgment in unfair agreement.” 13 2007. The man works for a realty Usually, a judge determines where the paid by the noncustodial parent. Stephen business, and since the real estate children will live, based at least in part on Baskerville, a spokesperson for the father - market has frozen, his income has evidence of which parent has better cared hood movement, describes state-mandated plummeted. Earlier this year he fell for the child. In many cases, because the child support as $23,000 behind in what he owed, mother has already provided more hours a political underworld where gov - including attorney’s fees to his ex- of direct care, she receives custody. Fathers’ ernment officials are feathering their wife’s lawyer. With his modification rights groups have focused their recent nests and violating citizens’ rights petition still pending, he was hand - lobbying efforts on what they call the “pre - while cynically proclaiming their cuffed in court and put in jail for 30 sumption of joint physical custody,” which concern for children….The divorce days. 17 makes both parents more or less equal industry, in short, has turned children In response to the Globe article, “Sky - partners in direct, day-to-day care. into cash cows. 15 hawk85u” wrote: Fathers’ rights groups recognize that a Since one-third of court-ordered child I’ve been divorced for a few years, joint physical custody standard can give support is never paid, avoiding the court have my children about 50% of the them more time with their children with - involvement, expense, and the tarnishing time, yet still pay hundreds in child out prolonged courtroom battles. For of reputation that may occur because of support every week. Why? I don’t example, the quoted “Brian Boston Globe nonpayment is a priority for some fathers’ know. As I am self-employed with Ayers, a part-time police officer who jug - rights group members. Of course, speak - wildly variable income I often have gles two jobs, [and] is the proud father of ing openly about this aspect of the con - weeks when my support payments a fourteen-month-old son.”

THE PUBLIC EYE 17 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

are far more than I’ve made. And I Most voters probably saw nothing prob - ture were founded on a “property model,” still have my kids 50% and pay for lematic with such language; 86 percent of in which “ownership, entitlement, interest, everything while they’re home with those voting on the measure supported it. and control” are central concepts. 21 She sug - me (yes, “home” not “visiting”!) It’s But the nonbinding referendum obscured gests that the rights that fathers’ rights ridiculous, and all the ex wants is the fathers’ rights strategy of moving toward groups seek are associated with the tradi - more. Everyone should support legislation that would require equal dis - tional, privileged position of men in our http://www.fathersandfamilies.org/ 18 tribution. The resolution gave fathers’ society. Anecdotes can be powerful rhetorical tools. rights groups in Massachusetts a powerful Fathers’ rights groups often portray However, as sociologists are fond of remind - addition to their toolkit. their members as victims, either of an ing us, “anecdotes are not evidence.” Fathers’ rights groups often claim that uncaring court system or vindictive Fathers’ rights groups claim that fathers their members have been denied their women.The fathers describe themselves as are discriminated against in divorce pro - rights by a state that intervened in their pri - having lost control over their lives because ceedings because they are not treated vate lives with restrictions on their income, of an external source. Occasionally, they “equally”: they may end up spending less freedom of movement, and freedom of combine women and the courts into a time with their children or paying more association with their children. A father melded opponent, claiming that the courts child support than the mother. But the who was imprisoned for not paying said, have been influenced by feminist thought, notion that “equality” requires an identi - which they believe is necessarily biased cal division of benefits ignores the differ - against men. ences between men’s and women’s roles in marriages, the reality of women’s greater Some traditionalists assert Appealing to “Science”:The responsibility for childcare, and their lesser Myth of Parental Alienation economic strength compared to men. that marriage “tames” the ver the last two decades a distressing Calling for equal rights in this context is Opattern has emerged in divorce set - a co-optation of the language of liberal man and makes him more tlements: women who claimed that the social change. fathers had abused their children ironically Nevertheless, such demands have suc - responsible, to both his began to lose custody, in favor of the alleged cessfully appealed to an American sense of abusers. It turned out that fathers’ rights fairness. For instance, in 2004, voters in wife and his children. groups had developed a persuasive argu - Massachusetts were presented with a bal - ment in family courts across the country, lot question about child custody. The Marriage, then, is a behavior enabling them to win custody of their nonbinding resolution read: children more often. The fathers hired [I]n all separation and divorce pro - regulator and guarantor of expert witnesses trained in identifying a dis - ceedings involving minor children, order in children called Parental Alien - the court shall uphold the funda - civilized behavior. ation Syndrome, or PAS—a phrase coined mental rights of both parents to the in 1985 by the psychiatrist Richard shared physical and legal custody of Gardner, who gave himself a new career in their children and the children’s right the process. He claimed that children of to maximize their time with each par - My fellow fathers.....even though divorce could be alienated from one parent ent, so far as is practical. 19 you’ve been a great citizen for all of by the other, thus transforming what most your life, if you are captured by the experts acknowledge may be an occasional child-support Gestapo, you will no phenomenon into a full-blown, although NOW AVAILABLE longer be treated as human beings. unproven, theory. Gardner further insisted You will be housed with murderers, that any associated charges of child abuse Platform for Prejudice: three-strikers, lifers ... the real scum were unfounded and due to a spiteful 20 How the Nationwide Suspicious of the earth. attempt by one parent to alienate children Activity Reporting Initiative Invites Racial Profiling, Erodes Civil Liberties, Describing divorced or single fathers as from the other. and Undermines Security targets of government-sponsored dis - Scientists’ reaction to Gardner’s con - By Thomas Cincotta crimination can appeal to the public’s siderable influence has been harsh. “This sense of fairness, especially in a climate is an atrocious theory with no science to A Publication of Political Research Associates where trust in government has plummeted. back it up,” says Eli Newberger, a profes - V..is.i.t.w..w.w..p.u.b.l.i.c.e.y.e..o.r.g . But the feminist legal scholar Selma sor at Harvard Medical School and an Sevenhuijsen argues that “rights” in our cul - expert on child abuse. 22 “No data are pro -

THE PUBLIC EYE 18 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

vided by Gardner to support the existence managed to shift the grounds for discussion Fathers’ Rights and Domestic of the syndrome and its proposed dynam - about violence against women from a fem - Violence ics,” says Kathleen C. Faller, a professor at inist challenge to men’s physical power to growing segment of the fathers’ rights the University of Michigan. 23 Gardner reg - a male-centered attack on women. A movement consists of fathers who ularly published his own writing, avoiding Some fathers’ rights groups make the never married their children’s mothers. A the peer-review process. The American specious claim that women abuse men as man who does not marry his child’s mother Psychiatric Association does not include often as men abuse women. The fathers’ lacks visitation or custody rights when the PAS in its Diagnostic and Statistical Man - rights group RADAR [Respecting Accuracy relationship ends unless he secures a court ual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the gold order, and he is required to pay child sup - standard of mental-illness definitions. port, even if the mother receives TANF Despite the theory’s lack of scientific cred - (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) ibility, Gardner continued to publish exten - Giving custody of funding. This lack of legal rights can cre - sively until his death in 2003, and the ate resentment among fathers that may PAS argument has been used in hundreds children to their fathers transform into anger. of divorce cases, almost entirely by men Applying forTANF creates problems for who are trying to increase their chances of is a major plank in the low-income women. To receive support, receiving custody of their children. In they must provide the father’s name to Massachusetts, fathers now receive pri - fathers’ rights platform, TANF officials. Fear that the agency may mary or joint custody in more than seventy track down an angry father and require him percent of contested cases. 24 but an inspection of to pay child support may prevent them PAS claims can obscure legitimate accu - from applying, since it may result in their sations of child abuse and violence against group members’ becoming victims of violence. 30 Recogniz - women. Sadly, disputes in a divorce are not ing the problem, TANF created a Family always verbal; domestic abuse occurs in 25 language reveals that Violence option for applicants. But accord - to fifty percent of custody cases. 25 Feminists ing to a study conducted by Legal Momen - began to point this out in the 1980s, and they are often more tum, the women’s legal defense and since that time sociologists and psycholo - education fund, this option is inadequate gists have continued to document the interested in asserting and creates its own problems. 31 Women problem. Domestic violence remains a must submit burdensome documentation major problem for women and children in power and control. proving they are victims of violence in this country. A conservative estimate is order to receive a waiver from providing the that more than 1.3 million women per year father’s name. ManyTANF-eligible women are attacked by their male partners. 26 Three- in Domestic Abuse Reporting] claims to fear that state child protection agencies will quarters of visits to emergency rooms by have weakened four pieces of legislation become involved if they provide evidence victims of domestic violence occur after a about violence against women, including of domestic violence.These obstacles have separation, making the divorce process the reauthorization of the groundbreaking prevented some women who need TANF one of the most dangerous times in a federal Violence Against Women Act from applying for it. woman’s life. 27 (VAWA). 29 The tactic of claiming PAS is used to dis - tract courts from an accurate understand - ing of claims for divorce; accusing women INTERNET RESOURCES of making false allegations of child sexual Rights for Mothers is a blog that provides “Resources and Support for Noncustodial and abuse is another. Some fathers’ right groups Custodially Challenged Mothers.” http://www.RightsforMothers.com use the term “abuse-excuse” to trivialize accusations of violence against women. The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interpersonal Violence is an educational and advocacy group of professionals including scholars, lawyers, and scientists who provide In fact, multiple studies have shown that reliable information on family structures and domestic violence. up to twenty percent of child sexual abuse http://www.leadershipcouncil.org/index.html allegations made during custody disputes are falsely initiated; but the evidence shows National Organization for Women Family Law Ad Hoc Advisory Committee Newsletter pro - that these false allegations are most often vides articles and resources for women and their advocates involved in family courts. made by men. 28 By deliberately spreading http://www.nowfoundation.org/issues/family/family_law_newsletter_summer2010.pd f misinformation, father’s rights groups have

THE PUBLIC EYE 19 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

Get Involved to Prevent Havoc 3 Kris Wells, “Divorced DadsTellTheir Side of the Story,” http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/arti - St. Petersburg (FL) Times, May 15, 1989, p. 1D. cles/2009/04/13/amid_layoffs_child_support_pacts_fray espite their use of questionable tactics, ing/?comments=all&plckCurrentPage=1 4 According Margaret Brinig and Douglas Allen, 60-70% Dfathers’ rights groups have succeeded of divorces are initiated by women. “These Boots are Made 19 Ballot question on presumptive joint custody, Massa - in influencing public policy through testi - for Walking: Why Most Divorce Filers are Women,” Amer - chusetts 2004, http://www.boston.com/news/spe - ican Law and Economics Review, (2) 2000, p. 127. cial/politics/2004_results/general_election/question_sum mony before commissions and other state s/Q26.htm 5 Jocelyn Elise Crowley, Defiant Dads: Fathers’ Rights bodies, lobbying for changing family law Activists in America. (Ithaca N.Y.: Cornell U. Press), 20 Christopher Robin Sr., “Adventures of a Father’s Right through legislation and case law in the 2008, p. 45. Activist in Debtor’s Prison,” Fathers for Life.org; http://fathersforlife.org/articles/robin/adventures.htm courts, and creating an echo chamber in the 6 In Jocelyn Elise Crowley, “Adopting ‘Equality Tools’ from the Toolboxes of their Predecessors: The Fathers’ 21 Selma Sevenhuijsen, “Justice, Moral Reasoning, and media to broadcast their views. Rights Movement in the United States,” Fathers for Jus - the Politics of Child Custody,” (1992) 1 Social & Legal Additionally, they have built a move - tice: Fathers Rights Activism and Law Reform in Compar - Studies n. 48,p. 92. ment by providing supportive spaces for ative Perspective, ed. Richard Collier and Sally Sheldon, 22 Jamie Talan, Newsday.com, July 1, 2003, “The Debate (Oxford: Hart Publishers) 2006, p. 96. Rages on…In Death Can He Survive?” http://www.lead - fathers who experience anger, resentment, 7 June Carbone and Margaret F. Brinig, “Rethinking Mar - ershipcouncil.org/1/pas/talan.html and loss at the ending of their relationships. riage: Feminist Ideology, Economic Change, and Divorce 23 Kathleen Coulborn Faller, “The Parental Alienation After all, sympathy for those involved in Reform,” Tulane Law Review, (65) 5, May 1991, p. 954. Syndrome: What is it and What Data Support it?” contested divorces is widespread and under - 8 See Allan Carlson and Paul Mero, The Natural Family, A Child Maltreatment, (3)2, May 1998, p. 112. Manifesto (Dallas: Spence Publishing) 2007. 24 standable. Such reactions create a climate Lynn Hecht Shafran, “Gender Bias and Family Courts,” 9 Mike Duff, “The Age of the Uncivilized,” United Fam - Family Advocate, Summer 1994, p. 26. in which fathers’ rights groups can gain a ilies International Weekly Alert, August 17, 2010; email 25 Commission on Domestic Violence, American Bar listening ear, if not actual policy change. newsletter on file at PRA. Association, “10 Custody Myths and How to Counter Some leaders have used the movement to 10 Daniel Patrick Moynihan, The Negro Family: A Case for Them,” Quarterly E-Newsletter, 4, 2006, July. National Action, (Washington, D.C.:U.S. Department http://www.abanet.org/domviol/enewsletter/vol4/cus - fuel both their anger at a loss of male of Labor) 1965. todymythsandcounter.pdf power in a relationship and their resent - 11 Stephen Baskerville, Taken into Custody:TheWar against 26 “Domestic Violence Facts,” http://www.ncadv.org/ ment in the face of state interference in what Fatherhood, Marriage, and the Family (Nashville: Cum - files/DomesticViolenceFactSheet(National).pdf they consider a private family matter. berland House) 2007, p. 11. 27 Stark, Evan and Anne H. Flitcraft, (1988). “Women and 12 “Custodial Mothers and Fathers and Their Child Sup - Children at Risk: A Feminist Perspective on Child Practitioners of feminist family law are, port, 2007,” (Washington D.C.:U.S. Census Bureau) Abuse,” 1988. In E. Fee and N. Krieger (Eds.), (1994) of course, already aware of gender bias in November 2009, p. 1. http://www.census.gov/prod/ Women’s Health, Politics, and Power: Essays on Sex/Gen - 2009pubs/p60-237.pdf der, Medicine, and Public Health. (Amityville, NY: Bay - the courts and the stealth tactics of fathers’ wood Publishing,1994), pp. 307-331. 13 “DivorceTips,” Divorce Advice for Men, http://divorce- rights groups. The rest of us would do advice-for-men.com/88/divorce-tips-learn-the-dirty- 28 The Leadership Council on Child Abuse and Interper - well to get up to speed. Fathers’ rights tricks-that-may-win-your-divorce/ sonal Violence, “Are Allegations of Sexual Abuse that Arise During Child Custody Disputes Less Likely to be Valid? groups are not a short-lived or a trivial phe - 14 Brian MacQuarrie, “Fathers Back Bill on Rights of Par - An Annotated Review of the Research,” http://leader - ents,” Boston Globe, July 5, 2010. http://www.boston. nomenon.To hold fathers’ rights advocates shipcouncil.org/1/pas/ap.html com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/07/05/fathe accountable and restrict their illegitimate rs_back_bill_on_rights_of_parents/ 29 See Kathryn Joyce, “‘Men’s Rights’ Groups have Become Frighteningly Effective,” DoubleX, November 5, 2009, grab for power, activists should scrutinize 15 Stephen Baskerville, “Appetite for Family Destruction,” http://www.doublex.com/print/9316. state-level ballot questions and proposed Washington Times, June 17, 2001, p. B5. 30 Martha Fineman, J.E. Jackson and A.P. Romero, Femi - 16 Miranda Kaye and JuliaTolmie, “Discoursing Dads: the pieces of legislation about child custody and nist and Queer LegalTheory: Intimate Encounters, Uncom - Rhetorical Devices of Fathers’ Rights Groups,” Melbourne fortable Conversations, (Ashgate, Farnham, Surrey UK) violence against women.They should sup - University Law Review, 22 (1998), p. 162. 2009, p.330. port public education campaigns about the 17 Joseph P. Kahn, “Amid Layoffs, Child Support Pacts Fray - 31 Timothy Casey et.al., “Not Enough: WhatTANF Offers ing,” Boston Globe, April 13, 2009. http://www. actual agenda of fathers’ rights groups. Family Violence Victims,” 2010; http://www.legalmo - boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/04/ mentum.org/assets/pdfs/not-enough-what-tanf- And, they should alert progressive judicial 13/amid_layoffs_child_support_pacts_fraying/ offers.pdf watchdogs to scour the courts for changes 18 Reader comment to Kahn article, “Amid Layoffs.” in patterns of legal judgments. Such vigi - lance will reduce the amount of havoc such groups can inflict on women, children, Read the best analysis of the Christian Right on I and the culture as a whole. Talk2Action.org!

Endnotes Talk2Action is a group blog led by The Public Eye writer 1 “Radio Boston,” WBUR, June 18, 2010. and editorial board member Frederick Clarkson. Read weekly http://www.wbur.org/media-player?source=radio - boston&url=http://www.wbur.org/2010/06/18/joint- contributions from Fred, Political Research Associates custody&title=Mass.+Fathers+Group+Fights+For+Joint+ Custody+Rights&segment=joint- researcher Chip Berlet, and the rest of the best thinke rs custody&pubdate=2010-06-18 about the Christian Right. 2 Greg Weston, “Divorced Dads Tired of ‘Sexist’ Judicial Visit Talk2Action.org System,” Ottawa Citizen, January 23, 1986, p. A4.

THE PUBLIC EYE 20 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye COMMENTARY cont’d from page 2 promulgation of fear and hatred toward It is dishonest for right-wing com - bility? The nation seems also to have purported traitors but also the constant mentators to insist on an equiva - entered a plea of “not guilty.” amplification of that message through lence that does not exist.The danger The theater of accusation developed in right-wing controlled media. of political violence in this country response to the tragedy ofTucson is all too Predictably, Glenn Beck, Rush Lim - comes overwhelmingly from one familiar: “ they hate and are trying to destroy baugh, Sarah Palin, and Bill O’Reilly, direction—the Right, not the Left. us. ” It’s an appealing and potent political among others, lashed out, labeling Lough - The vitriolic, antigovernment hate message, not only for the Right but also for ner as a deranged, extremist loner and speech that is spewed on talk radio us progressives. After all, it is easy to decry denouncing the politicization of a terrible every day—and, quite regularly, at the “extremists”— the shooters, the arson - crime. Loudly denying any culpability for Tea Party rallies—is calibrated not to ists, the bombers, the vandals, and those the violent political atmosphere, they inform but to incite…Demagogues who encourage them through inflamma - accused liberals, Democrats, and Pima scream at people that their govern - tory rhetoric. County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik of demo - ment is illegitimate, that their coun - But how do we show that Tucson was nizing conservatives, failing to keep the try has been ‘taken away,’ that their just not about “a crazy loner” with too much community safe, and even destroying the elected officials are ‘traitors’ and that time and ammo on his hands? How do we country. their freedom is at risk…They have bring into vivid focus the reality that Others simply dismissed the notion a right to free speech…[b]ut they respectable leaders, together with public that a steady stream of violent rhetoric is shouldn’t be surprised if some lis - and private institutions who want to ensure harmful.The conservative NewYorkTimes teners take them literally. 4 that power remains in the hands of wealthy, columnist David Brooks rejected wholesale White males, have always fueled hatreds the idea that the Tucson killings were fos - and resentments, while washing their hands tered by a climate of hate, saying the very The events in of responsibility when disturbed individ - suggestion “that political actors” were in any uals inevitably do some of their dirty work? way culpable was “extremely grave” and Tucson unfolded in a We will never end political violence by “vicious.” 1 denouncing the actions of others while A bogus media theme conflating right- fear-soaked, paranoia- denying our own complicity—often tacit wing and left-wing rhetoric conveniently and unintentional—in supporting its struc - took hold—what the New York Times laden, resentment- tural underpinnings. Today, liberal advo - columnist Frank Rich called, “the pious, cacy and civil rights groups increasingly feel-good sentiment that both sides are stoked, and violently organize and fundraise around the message, equally culpable for the rage.” 2 Such media “Stop Hate.” While a worthy aspiration, it pundits as David Gregory (NBC), Matt polarized political is not a message that calls us to transform Bai (New York Times), and Dan Baltz either the conditions that bolster and rein - (Washington Post) helped to mainstream the environment. Who, force structural violence or the demoniz - message. 3 Indeed, both the Left and the ing political rhetoric that protects it. Nor Right resort to demonizing rhetoric from then, is accountable? can we effectively expand our base of sup - time to time; however, liberals and pro - port when our primary recruiting message gressives have not made it a reliable and con - to people who believe themselves to be sistent tactic and do not possess the media Rich and Robinson are correct equivalent of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh’s ollowing the passage of the federal radio outreach, or other right-wing broad - Help PRA and The Public Eye cast media to amplify the rhetoric. More - Fhealthcare reform bill in 2010, some over, as the Washington Post ’s Eugene Democrats in Congress—including Gif - Expose the Right! Robinson pointed out well before the fords—received anonymous threats and Tucson shootings, were targeted for incidents of vandalism at their homes or offices. 5 But the danger Donate $30, $60, $100 goes far beyond threats; the recent record or whatever you can! of killings and attempted violence shows KayWhitlock, who lives in Missoula, Mon - ...... clear links to the influence of far-right tana, is co-author (with Joey L Mogul and scapegoating and conspiracy theories. 6 Visit www.publiceye.org Andrea J. Ritchie) of Queer (In)Justice: The Criminalization of LGBT People in So, is anyone willing to take up the more difficult question of moral responsi - the United States (2011).

THE PUBLIC EYE 21 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye moral and decent but don’t (yet) agree with us boils down to, “You’re a hater. Stop it! Just say no!” To develop a progressive politics of transformation, we have to stop speaking primarily to ourselves while insisting that only evil others are responsible for the current state of affairs. We may not be guilty of firing the shots inTucson, but we are all responsible for what happens next. None of us holds all the answers, but together, we can develop them. That, however, requires willingness to reach out in new ways to people who may not yet be with us, but yearn for something a i d better and share many of our concerns— e M t including the favoring of Wall Street over e N h c Main Street, low wages and unemploy - r a e ment, lack of affordable healthcare and S housing, attacks on Social Security, crum - The site of the Tucson shooting rampage in which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others were shot. bling public school infrastructure, and lack of community safety. Recent right- wing/Republican Party assaults on unions cies in our own locales.The particularities common agenda, uniquely suited to local and public sector employees—school teach - of how the hardship is distributed across needs and conditions.That’s harder—but ers, nurses, and other government work - many groups—communities of color, also more rewarding—than it might ers—in Wisconsin and a growing number immigrants, indigenous peoples, LGBT initially seem. of states have fostered powerful new waves folks, seniors, people with disabilities— For example, some years ago, my eco - of protest and resistance to the attacks. How should concern us. What would safe and nomically diverse neighborhood was being can we build on and sustain hammered by a devastating set of protests while also addressing the political decisions: closing our hunger for something better? beloved elementary school; dis - Our usual modes of campaign- “It is dishonest for right-wing placing poor residents for the sake focused, single-issue organizing of aggressive, higher priced devel - and increasing reliance on Inter - commentators to insist on an equiva - opment; destroying open space; net communications can’t meet jacking up real estate taxes and the challenge of the moment, lence that does not exist. The danger of prices. At the time, we lacked any because they cannot substantively organized voice. We had to start address the question of shared political violence in this country comes from scratch. We held a series of moral responsibility for the well- meetings, open to all, and to pub - being of all our neighbors. overwhelmingly from one direction— licize them, we walked the neigh - The challenge is to expand our borhood time and again, talking to communities’ capacity to care for the Right, not the Left.” people and delivering flyers to one another, build a collective every house, apartment, trailer, stake in a more compassionate and business. We posted announce - future, and bring collective pressure to just communities for all really look like? ments and set up sidewalk sandwich board bear when public and private institutions What strategies hold the promise of signs to encourage participation. More not only foster injustice but also seek to producing such communities? And how do and more people began to attend. We did consolidate power by stoking fear and we start? not discuss Left-Right divisions; rather, we deploying violently demonizing rhetoric That’s where renewed commitment to had come together to talk about what we and images. Deeper change demands an “boots to the ground,” grassroots com - loved about our neighborhood and how the emphasis on building strong, trustworthy munity organizing comes in. We start by changes were affecting us. We wanted to fig - relationships across issues and constituen - getting folks together and developing a ure out how to respond.

THE PUBLIC EYE 22 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

isolation, and helps equip groups with what they need to keep going for the long haul. Respectable leaders, together with public and private And we are in this for the long haul. Directly following the Tucson shootings, institutions who want to ensure that power remains in Republican politicians, leaders, and right- wing media revved up the toxic, violent the hands of wealthy, White males, have always fueled rhetoric, exhorting us to be a nation of ene - mies. In an interview with the Christian hatreds and resentments, while washing their hands Broadcasting Network, John Boehner (R- OH), the Speaker of the House of Repre - of responsibility when disturbed individuals sentatives, compared collective bargaining to armed hostage-taking, saying that unions inevitably do some of their dirty work. have “a machine gun” aimed directly “at the heads of local officials.” 8 Echoing Rush Limbaugh, Tea Party groups refer to pub - lic employees and unions as “parasites.” 9 We realized that, to be effective, we severely polarized political environment— In response, progressives need to work could never retreat to an insular vision of locally, statewide, and nationally. on changing the entire frame of debate. Our a community of agreeable people who In San Antonio, Texas, the Esperanza visions of safe and just communities can 7 were “just like me.” We had somehow Peace and Justice Center offers another inspire vibrant and expansive organizing. both to embrace our (sometimes pro - inspiring example of organizing within a Starting at the local level and moving out found) differences and develop and move framework that emphasizes an inclusive from there, we must develop the means to forward with a common voice. Eventually, vision of civil rights, economic justice, hold not only public and private leaders and we developed a solid, inclusive neighbor - and cultural integrity for multiple com - institutions but also ourselves account - hood vision that today remains as valid as munities, including women, people of able for dismantling structural violence and it was years ago. And the vision isn’t just color, LGBT people, and working-class and tending to the collective well-being. about stopping negative impacts; it also poor people. With a focus on bridge We are all responsible. Not because speaks to our collective hopes and dreams. building through cultural and artistic there is any equivalency in violent rheto - We’ve won several heartening victories expression, education, crosscultural under - ric between the Left and the Right, but and lost a couple of heartbreaking battles. standing, and community empowerment, because as progressives we believe that no Today, as a new round of destabilizing Esperanza constantly strengthens the com - lives and no communities are expendable. development threatens us, new waves of munity’s ability to respond to pressing— leadership and activism have a foundation and ever-changing—local, national, and on which they can build. Because we meet global concerns. By providing meeting over kitchen tables and get to know the fam - space and networking support for grassroots Endnotes ilies in the neighborhood and how every - activists and groups as well as technical 1 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/opinion/11 brooks.html body is doing during rough economic assistance in such areas as grant writing, 2 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/opinion/16 times, we have come to care about one alliance building, and board and mem - rich.html. another. We understand the specifics of how bership development, Esperanza helps to 3 http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/11?print our lives and our futures are interrelated. expand the community’s capacity to organ - 4 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti - We learn from one another’s experiences. ize for social and economic justice. Art cle/2010/03/29/AR2010032901891.html This makes it easier to bridge at least some shows and cultural programs featuring 5 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/health/policy/ 25health.html.. See also https://www.irehr.org/issue- political divides with fresh ideas. It’s not per - drama, dance, poetry, performance art, areas/tea-parties/19-news/67-tea-party-reactions-to-the- fect—sometimes too few people are doing and music touch hearts, impart history, and tucson-tragedy too much—but new folks are stepping up stir imaginations. Through its passionate 6 http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009062410/ to help out. We are constantly learning determination to address “the inherent tragedy-holocaust-museum-how-real-terrorism-begins. 7 about how to challenge our local politicians connection of issues and oppressions across http://www.esperanzacenter.org/ 8 http://thinkprogress.org/2011/03/01/boehner-machine- as well as one another without relying on racial, class, sexual orientation, age, health, gun-unions/ a politics of enemy formation. We’re proud physical and cultural boundaries,” Esper - 9 http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/02/limbaugh- of having managed to do this within a anza shares resources, breaks down walls of calls-wiscosin-teachers-anti-democracy-parasites/

THE PUBLIC EYE 23 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye Books Edwidge Danticat: “To Add MyVoice” By Michelle Coffey orn in Haiti, Edwidge Danticat moved to the United that her uncle had been arbitrarily denied his medication, BStates when she was twelve. She is the author of many and as a result had had a fatal seizure: “Fifteen minutes works of fiction set in Haiti and the United States, includ - passed before help arrived ,” she said. “When a medic and ing the short story collection Krik? Krak! (1991), which was nurse arrived at the scene, the medic accused my uncle of a finalist for the National Book Award; Breath, Eyes, Mem - faking his illness .” Her family had to file a Freedom of Infor - ory (1994), an Oprah’s Book Club Selection; The Farm - mation Act request to obtain his medical records.Thus, Dan - ing of Bones (1999); and The Dew Breaker (2004). She ticat and her family are intimately acquainted with the received a MacArthur Fellows Genius Grant in 2009. terribleconsequencesofU.S.immigrationlawsandpolicies. In Danticat’s memoir Brother, I’m Dying (2007), she I was both excited and humbled when Political writes about being raised in Haiti by her uncle, Joseph Dan - Research Associates asked me to interview Danticat about tica, a minister—and about her uncle’s death at age 81 at her new book, Create Dangerously (2010), for The Pub - the hands of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). lic Eye. It is an honor to engage in dialogue with one of the most impor - Although he had a valid visa and had come to this country to request tant artists of our time about the artistic process and the artist’s asylum, he was imprisoned in ICE’s Krome Detention Center in Miami, response to today’s political challenges. Can artists offer innovative frame - Florida. In testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s Sub - works and strategies for progressive movement building and fundamental committee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, social change? Danticat’s explorations in Create Dangerously can help and International Law in October 2007, Edwidge Danticat explained guide our collective efforts to make a more just world.

Michelle Coffey: Tell me, how did It’s a privilege for us to have words, and the they don’t know how to maneuver around Create Dangerously come about? Was ability to live with experience rather than the system. I had recourse: I had words and it something that was living inside of to suffer through it, as many people do. For the ability to make protest art. your head for a while? Was it triggered example, my uncle died in the custody of One of the people I talk about in my book by the anti-immigrant climate here in ICE, an experience I share with many is a radio journalist, who always said, “My this country? Last year’s devastating families. But many of them are silenced, microphone is my weapon.” That’s how he earthquake in Haiti? because they’re undocumented, or because would fight against injustice, on the radio Edwidge Danticat: I wanted to write with his microphone and his words. Those about something that I not only have of us who have that privilege are lucky. We expertise in, but that I am passionate about: As an immigrant artist, can express ourselves out in the world. We how people come to their art, especially do it with words.We do it with song.We do under difficult circumstances. How do you’re inauthentic to the it with our bodies.We do it with our canvases. people create in spite of horrors, in spite of tragedies? I had read an essay by Albert place where you come from, Q: Where does that “privilege” come Camus, called the “The Artist in hisTime.” and you’re inauthentic to from? The English translation is called “Create A: As an immigrant artist, you’re inau - Dangerously.” I decided to borrow his title the place where you are. thentic to the place where you come from, and to explore what “create dangerously” and you’re inauthentic to the place where means to me and to other immigrant This silences many people, you are.This silences many people, because artists. they think, “I’m not Haitian enough. I’m because they think, “I’m not American enough.” But I believe that the minute you realize that wherever you Michelle Coffey is the director of the Lambent not Haitian enough. I’m are from, you’re just enough, you are free. Foundation, which examines, explores, and You have your own sort of national identity, supports the intersections between arts/ not American enough.” with its own landscape and its own stories . culture/creativity and social justice.

THE PUBLIC EYE 24 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

Q: As you describe it, there are artists, One of the people I talk about in my book is a radio and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and communities.The impor - journalist, who always said, “My microphone is my tant connection is between the artist and the community, isn’t it? Do we really weapon.” That’s how he would fight against injustice, need the NGOs? A: They’re a bridge. The artists may have on the radio with his microphone and his words. the initiative and the time, but they don’t always know how to make the connection Those of us who have that privilege are lucky. with the community. For example, when I was in Haiti recently, I went with the Inter - national Rescue Committee (IRC) to some refugee camps where they’ve created child- Q: You write about Marcel Numa and show us the lion crushing the victim? friendly spaces. The adults in the camps Louis Drouin. Were they artists or Camus says you do both. They’re inter - who are singers and dancers teach the chil - cultural workers? woven. If you come from a place like Haiti, dren. The IRC provides organizational A: Numa and Drouin were activists who where you have disasters in rotation, it’s structure, supplies, a building. Without the were executed by the dictator Francois nearly impossible to create art that is com - IRC, there would still be singers and “Papa Doc” Duvalier in 1964, in Port-au- pletely removed from those events. Even if dancers, and there would still be children, Prince. People were required to watch the you tried, there would still be the contrast: and maybe once in a while they would execution and the government showed the “I’m writing about outer space because I organize something. video of it everywhere. If you went to the don’t want to write about earthquakes.” movies, it came on first thing, and it played Q: The arts can on TV all the time, too. Q: As a social justice remind us of the activist, I’ve always wanted resources we have Q: In the book you say you remember to figure out how we can internally. Are there seeing big posters of the execution. bring creativity, and imag - other artists who have A: Yes. It’s imprinted on people’s psyches. ination, and beauty into a similar philosophy One person told me, “They die all the time. our movement work. How to yours? They die over and over again.” can social justice organiz - A: Many of them! For The dictatorship made them symbolic and ers work together with example, the Domini - used their images for its purposes, but artists? can-American writer ultimately another meaning emerged. A: In Haiti, the tradition of Julia Alvarez. She has a Numa and Drouin became cultural sym - playacting is so strong that if farm in the Dominican bols just as Che Guevara did. I tried for a you want to get a message Republic, and aside long time to write fiction about them, but across, the best way is to pres - from writing great nov - it just wouldn’t work. ent a play, and it helps if it’s els, she grows coffee: it’s a funny play. Groups of traveling per - fair-trade and organic, and the people who Q: Could you talk about your work as formers have educated people about many work on the farm learn to read and write protest art—and by that I don’t mean issues, including domestic violence and during their time there.The Chicana nov - that you are necessarily an agitator, but AIDS prevention. elist Sandra Cisneros is another role model. rather that you’re holding up a new lens The artist brings expertise and enthusiasm She created a writers’ colony, a house where through which we can view the world. into a collaboration with the community; writers come and stay and work. A: Camus goes deeply into the old debate he or she doesn’t just come in from the out - I’m still trying to figure out what I can do. about “art for art’s sake” versus “commit - side.The artist honors what already exists, Before my uncle died, he had a school, so ted art.” He says, if you’re on the deck of a and learns about what the community has I worked through him.There are so many slave ship, where do you focus your atten - to offer. Both the community and the efforts that are worth supporting. I don’t tion? Do you write about the slaves or artist benefit. There is parity. The artist need to start a new one. I’ve always wanted about the constellations in the night sky? doesn’t come in to teach the community. to support what others do, to add my voice. You’re in the Roman Coliseum: do you record the gossip in the stands, or do you For the complete interview, visit www.publiceye.org/

THE PUBLIC EYE 25 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye ……Reports in Review……

REPORT OF THE MONTH Nowhere to Turn: Blackmail and Extortion of LGBT People in Ugandan gay activist David Kato, demonstrate that even prominent Sub-Saharan Africa LGBT activists are not immune to this frightening phenomenon. Edited by Ryan Thoreson and Sam Cook The report’s co-editors also shed light on the cultural context for New York: International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, blackmailing LGBT Africans. In Zimbabwe, for instance, what the 2011, 140 pp. http://www.iglhrc.org/binary- researcher Oliver Phillips calls a “lineage-based culture,” which pri - data/ATTACHMENT/file/000/000/484-1.pdf oritizes collective responsibility, clashes with a “modern” culture that Nowhere toTurn does what no other research on LGBT people has values individual autonomy. When a woman marries a man, accord - managed to do: it documents with incontrovertible evidence that gays, ing to Phillips, the groom makes a “bridewealth” payment to her father lesbians, and gender-nonconforming people across sub-Saharan Africa or other male guardian. If as a lesbian she chooses not to marry, she suffer serious persecution, often by people they know well. effectively denies her male relatives resources and challenges the patri - The stories told here are so compelling, it is difficult to put the doc - archal structure in a real, not symbolic, way. ument down. Seven experts on African LGBT culture have contributed These stories are so disturbing that the report’s findings would be new research to document the prevalence of blackmail and extortion heavily depressing had the editors not also included multiple recom - in the lives of LGBT people on the continent. It is a common prac - mendations on how to deal with these violations of human rights.The tice in countries where homosexuality is illegal to threaten closeted key leverage point for blackmailers is the threat of both social and crim - LGBT people with exposure unless they respond to demands of inal sanctions. Although blackmail is illegal in virtually every society, money, material goods, or other valuables. For example, 26 percent laws against blackmailing gays and lesbians are not always enforced of men who have sex with men in Botswana report being victims of in countries where homosexuality is perceived negatively. According blackmail. Where LGBT people are vulnerable socially, in the nearly to report editor RyanThoreson, the major reform that would stop black - forty African nations that outlaw homosexuality, these men and mail of LGBT people is the decriminalization of homosexuality.This women are targets for exploitation. would remove the legal threat. However, legal reform alone would not Example after example fill chapters covering Zimbabwe, Ghana, guarantee protection for LGBT people. Social stigma continues to exist Nigeria, Malawi, and Cameroon. The perpetrators are usually peo - long after laws have been changed. African countries face a formida - ple who know their targets personally. In the Malawi study, 95% of ble challenge in re-educating their people about homosexuality. victims were acquainted with their blackmailers. Many of the victims Holding authorities accountable for human rights violations is are blackmailed by their own relatives, coworkers, or lovers. another avenue of reform. Many African nations have adopted uni - The story of “Bola,” a Nigerian woman, is unusual in that it demon - versal human rights language in their foundational legal documents, strates both extortion (demands for money, goods, or services under and claims that violations of sexual rights are violations of human rights threat of violence) and blackmail (a threat to reveal a secret unless certainly exist in such rights declarations. However, there is a philo - demands are met). A co-worker at the high school where Bola taught sophical, maybe even a legal, problem. According to Columbia Uni - intercepted some of Bola’s emails to her lover and threatened to “out” versity scholars Alice Miller and Carole Vance, as referenced in the report, her unless she turned over a portion of her monthly salary. Bola agreed, human rights arguments depend on the perception of the victim as until the co-worker demanded more money. When Bola refused, the innocent and the perpetrator as guilty. Demanding redress is difficult emails ended up with the male principal of the school, who extracted in any culture that labels sexual activity outside of heterosexual mar - sexual favors from Bola for months before she fled the city, changed riage as inherently noninnocent. Nowhere toTurn highlights this con - her name, and started a new life. tradiction, as well as the urgency of finding thoughtful solutions to “Rashid,” a Ghanaian man, ended a short-lived relationship with the profoundly troubling pervasiveness of persecution and harassment another man who then became his blackmailer.The man went to the of LGBT Africans. –Pam Chamberlain police, claiming that Rashid had hired him for sex but that Rashid had refused to pay. Because the accuser carries the weight of presumptive innocence since he spoke up first, Rashid was put on the defensive with the authorities. In countries such as Ghana, where homosexuality is illegal, the police often become entangled with the blackmailers, using Keep PRA Healthy their power to extract a share of the money themselves. DONATE NOW Occasionally the threats, especially from extortionists, turn real, and LGBT people have been beaten, raped, and killed by their tor - www.publiceye.org menters. The murky details surrounding the recent death of the

THE PUBLIC EYE 26 SPRING 2011 The Public Eye

of HIV can be stopped by giving mothers the Republicans are more narrowly focused on Eyes medicine Nevirapine before delivery.” Sec - projects such as the U.N. Intergovernmen - RIGHT ond, adds Betsy Hartmann, the director of tal Panel on Climate Change and the U.N. the Population and Development Program Population Fund. At the end of February, led and professor of Development Studies at by the new chair of the House Foreign Affairs PAYING KENYAN WOMENTO Hampshire College, in Amherst, Massa - Committee, Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R- BE STERILIZED chusetts, “It ignores the fact that HIV is a FL), the House cut funding for the two proj - Project Prevention, formerly Children chronic condition, not an automatic death ects and for U.N. peacekeeping activities. Require a Caring Kommunity (CRACK), sentence. With access to healthcare and the “These are the kind of extreme measures pays women drug addicts and alcoholics in appropriate medicine, people with HIV— I don’t think we’ve seen for years,” said for - the United States and the United Kingdom both adults and children—are living much mer Sen. Tim Wirth (D-CO), president of to be sterilized or to use long-term contra - longer lives than in the past.” the independent United Nations Foundation ception. The project has now expanded to Hartmann explains that Project Preven - and Better World Fund. Kenya, where it is offering women who are tion’s funding comes from right-wing sources. House members have introduced legisla - HIV positive $40 to have an intrauterine According to Forbes.com (October 19, tion that would make additional cuts. Accord - device (IUD), a form of long-term birth 2010), one of Project Prevention’s main fun - ing to columnist Renée Loth of the Boston control, implanted by a doctor. South Africa, ders is the conservative billionaire Richard Globe, “Representative Kevin Brad of Texas Project Prevention says, is next. Mellon Scaife. Barbara Harris, Project Pre - filed something called ‘The Cut Unsustain - According to the organization’s website vention’s founder, told Forbes.com, “I met able andTop-Heavy Spending Act of 2011,’ (www.projectprevention.org), Project Pre - him years ago. It was an honor.” which would slash $300 million from a dif - vention’s goal is to increase public awareness Hartmann says that Project Prevention’s ferent U.N. account. Representative Blaine of the problem of women giving birth to targetting of drug addicted women in the Luetkemeyer of Missouri led the attack on drug-addicted children. It “seeks to reduce United States and HIV-positive women in the climate change panel, complaining that the burden of this social problem on tax - Kenya is racist. “There is a long history of its Nobel prize-winning scientists have payers, trim down social worker caseloads, population control organizations using incen - ‘whipped up a global frenzy about a phe - and alleviate from our clients the burden of tives and disincentives to pressure poor peo - nomenon that is statistically questionable having children that will potentially be taken ple to be sterilized,” she says. “These were at best.’” away.” Because the group doesn’t have the roundly rejected at the 1994 UN population resources to eliminate poverty and drug conference in Cairo, but they persist, for addiction, the website says, “Those resources example, in China and India.” we do have are spent to PREVENT a prob - Asked what her message would be to peo - INTERNS WANTED! lem for $300 rather than paying millions after ple considering supporting Project Preven - it happens in cost to care for a potentially tion’s African initiative, Gathumbi had one The Public Eye damaged child.” word: “Don’t,” she said. The Public Eye welcomes interns In Kenya, Project Prevention seems sim - to join us in producing PRA’s ilarly to define a poor woman’s child as a A WORLD-CLASS DEAD - quarterly magazine . “problem” to be “prevented.” Giving birth BEAT—AGAIN control to HIV-positive women, the organ - In 2009, the Obama administration ended Political Research Associates ization says, will “prevent the conception of a decade of nonpayment and forked over the the parent think tank of The a child who will only be born to die.” $750 million the U.S. owed in back dues to Public Eye, offers a research Reproductive justice advocates on the the United Nations. Republicans had blocked Open Society Blog (blog.soros.org) point out paying the U.S. obligation, arguing that the internship, and a communica - that this idea is false on two counts: first of U.N. undermines U.S. sovereignty and that tion and development internship. all, explains Anne Gathumbi, the program the dues might pay for abortions. manager of the Health and Rights Unit at the The U.N. has long been a target of the To apply, just email a letter and Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa, right-wing conspiracy theorists, especially the resume identifying the internship and a founding member of the Coalition on John Birch Society, which believes that it aims that interests you to Violence against Women in Kenya, “Over - for a “one-world” government that will [email protected] . whelming evidence shows that transmission enslave the world’s population. Today’s

THE PUBLIC EYE 27 SPRING 2011 NON-PROFIT ORG. ThePublicEye U.S POSTAGE MAGAZINE PAID BOSTON, MA Political Research Associates PERMIT NO. 54584 1310 Broadway, Suite 201 Somerville, Massachusetts 02144-1837 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

The Public Eye

I Yes! I want to support The Public Eye . SupportThe Public Eye magazine! Enclosed is a donation of: I $1000 I $750 I $500 I $250 I $100 I $50 Help us provide the best reporting I Other $______and analysis on the U.S. Right I Check Enclosed and government repression. I Charge my Mastercard or Visa ( circle one )

Account # ______Exp Date ______Each issue of The Public Eye Signature ______costs $12,000 to produce –

not including staff time! Name ______

Yet we still make it available Adress ______to everyone who wants it, City ______State _____ Zip______with your help. Mail form with payment to: Political Research Associates, 1310 Broadway, Suite 201, Somerville, MA 02144-1837

THE PUBLIC EYE 2 8 SPRING 2011 PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER