Homosexuality and Bisexuality
Subterms
More stories
- in Elections
With Falsehoods About Pelosi Attack, Republicans Mimic Trump
WASHINGTON — Speaking on a conservative radio talk show on Tuesday, former President Donald J. Trump amplified a conspiracy theory about the grisly attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, that falsely suggested that Mr. Pelosi may not have been the victim of a genuine attack.“Weird things going on in that household in the last couple of weeks,” Mr. Trump said on the Chris Stigall show, winking at a lie that has flourished in right-wing media and is increasingly being given credence by Republicans. “The glass, it seems, was broken from the inside to the out — so it wasn’t a break-in, it was a break out.”There is no evidence to suggest that. Mr. Pelosi, 82, was attacked on Friday with a hammer by a suspect who federal prosecutors say invaded the Pelosis’ San Francisco home, bent on kidnapping the speaker and shattering her kneecaps.But Mr. Trump, a longtime trafficker in conspiracy theories who propelled his political rise with the lie that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States, has never let such facts get in his way.The reaction to the assault on Mr. Pelosi among Republicans — who have circulated conspiracy theories about it, dismissed it as an act of random violence and made the Pelosis the punchline of a dark joke — underscores how thoroughly the G.O.P. has internalized his example. It suggested that Republicans have come to conclude that, like Mr. Trump, they will pay no political price for attacks on their opponents, however meanspirited, inflammatory or false.If anything, some Republicans seem to believe they will be rewarded by their right-wing base for such coarseness — or even suffer political consequences if they do not join in and show that they are in on the joke.“LOL,” Representative Claudia Tenney, Republican of New York, who is up for re-election in a competitive district, tweeted on Friday night, circulating a photograph that showed a group of young, white men holding oversized hammers beside a gay Pride flag.On Sunday, Representative Clay Higgins, Republican of Louisiana, who is in line to helm a Homeland Security subcommittee if his party wins control of the House next week, also amplified a groundless and homophobic conspiracy theory hatched on the right about the attack. He tweeted, but later removed, a picture of Ms. Pelosi with her hands covering her eyes, with the caption: “That moment you realize the nudist hippie male prostitute LSD guy was the reason your husband didn’t make it to your fundraiser.”On Tuesday, Mr. Trump said he thought the federal complaint detailing the break-in and the attack was not telling the entire story.“I don’t know,” Mr. Trump said suggestively. “You hear the same things I do.”Mr. Pelosi, 82, remained in intensive care with a fractured skull, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity.In Arizona, the Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, made the attack a punchline at a campaign event on Monday, noting that while Ms. Pelosi has security around her, “apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection.” She smiled as her supporters howled with laughter.Republican leaders have condemned the violence against Mr. Pelosi and have not shared the conspiracy theories or sinister memes, but they have not publicly condemned those who have done so or done anything to try to tamp down on the stream of lies. And over the past few years, they have consistently demonstrated to their colleagues in Congress that there are no consequences for making vitriolic or even violent statements.If anything, such behavior has turned those more extreme members into influencers on the right, who carry more clout in Congress.The intruder who attacked Mr. Pelosi had wanted to take Ms. Pelosi, whom he saw as “the ‘leader of the pack’ of lies told by the Democratic Party,” hostage and break her kneecaps. He entered her San Francisco home with rope, zip ties and a hammer, according to the federal complaint against him.There was a time when such an event would have led to unequivocal denunciation by the leaders of both parties, sometimes followed by a pause in the day-to-day mudslinging of a campaign — if only to ensure that no candidate would make a remark that could be construed as in any way offensive to the victim.This time, few Republicans made such moves.Former Vice President Mike Pence followed the old model, saying that the attack was an “outrage” and noting that “there can be no tolerance for violence against public officials or their families.” But what would have once been a run-of-the-mill statement stood out for being one of the few that was unqualified in its condemnation of the attacker, who Mr. Pence said should be prosecuted.“They don’t have any fear of reprisal,” said Douglas Heye, a former Republican leadership aide on Capitol Hill. “That’s because our politics have become so tribal that anything that is about owning the other side is somehow seen as a political message, even though it’s not.”It is a page out of Mr. Trump’s playbook. For years, he elevated online rumors by speculating about them, bursting onto the national political scene in 2011 with the unfounded “birther” theory about Mr. Obama. When Mr. Trump insulted Senator John McCain of Arizona for being taken captive in Vietnam, his popularity among Republicans suffered no discernible hit.The current crop of candidates and lawmakers who have grown in power through their allegiance to Mr. Trump have replicated his methods. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, tweeted that Mr. Pelosi was attacked by a “friend” and that the media was the source of disinformation. Her post has since been removed.Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, recirculated a Twitter thread stating that “none of us will ever know for sure” what happened at Ms. Pelosi’s house and complaining that the attack was being cited as an “indictment of Republicans.” More
- in Elections
Katie Couric’s Breast Cancer Diagnosis
More from our inbox:L.G.B.T. Rights in Singapore: The Government’s ViewStanding by the Filmmaker in the ‘Jihad’ ControversyA Question for Election Deniers Karsten Moran for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Katie Couric Talks About Her Breast Cancer Diagnosis” (nytimes.com, Sept. 28):Bravo to Katie Couric not only for sharing her breast cancer diagnosis, but also for raising awareness about breast density, which is an independent risk factor for developing breast cancer.Women with dense breasts have a higher incidence of breast cancer. Compounding this increased risk is the fact that mammograms of dense breasts — breasts with a higher proportion of fibroglandular tissue compared with fatty tissue — are less effective at identifying cancers because the dense tissue can obscure signs of breast cancer and lower the sensitivity of the image.In 2018 the Brem Foundation to Defeat Breast Cancer helped to pass a Washington, D.C., law requiring health care facilities to provide mammography results, including patients’ breast tissue classification, to patients. The law also requires insurance coverage for essential screenings beyond mammograms — such as ultrasound — that women with dense breasts and other risk factors need to diagnose their breast cancer. Similar bills have been passed in many states.It is high time that the Food and Drug Administration take action at the federal level to address breast density and modernize breast cancer screening and diagnosis. Doing so will save countless lives.Clare DoughertyWashingtonThe writer is C.E.O. of the Brem Foundation to Defeat Breast Cancer.L.G.B.T. Rights in Singapore: The Government’s ViewTo the Editor:Joel Tan, a gay Singaporean playwright, writes, “I Have Worked and Loved in Other Countries Because I Can’t at Home” (Opinion guest essay, Sept. 26).Many L.G.B.T. people lead fulfilling lives in Singapore. They do so in all fields, including Mr. Tan’s, the arts.This is not to minimize his pain, but L.G.B.T. rights remain divisive issues everywhere, including in the United States.In Singapore, too — by some measures the world’s most religiously diverse nation — people hold very divergent views on L.G.B.T. rights.In 2007, the government decided not to enforce Section 377A of the Penal Code, which criminalizes sex between men, but left the law itself unchanged.Fifteen years later, Singaporeans have become more accepting of homosexuals, enabling us to repeal Section 377A, and thus provide some relief to gay Singaporeans.But the majority of Singaporeans, not just a few “hard-line conservatives,” continue to believe that marriage must be between a man and a woman.The Singapore courts are not the right forum to decide this issue. So we are amending our Constitution to ensure that same-sex marriage cannot become legal through a court challenge. It can happen only if Parliament legislates to allow it.The current ruling party has said it will not do this, but neither will it tie the hands of future parliaments.Reaching a political accommodation balancing different legitimate views takes time. All sides must recognize that no party in this deeply divisive matter should expect to enforce its views on all.Our goal is to hold our society together, and avoid tearing ourselves apart in self-righteous fury.Ashok Kumar MirpuriWashingtonThe writer is Singapore’s ambassador to the United States.Standing by the Filmmaker in the ‘Jihad’ ControversyAfter criticism by Arab American and Muslim filmmakers led to the film being shunned by festivals, Meg Smaker renamed her documentary “The UnRedacted.”Tai Power Seeff for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Film on Jihad Causes Storm Over Identity” (front page, Sept. 25):As co-executive producers of “Jihad Rehab,” we believe that the time and care that the filmmaker, Meg Smaker, took in researching the lives of the former Guantánamo detainees she portrayed, as well as the extent of her immersion in Muslim culture, did indeed qualify her to tell their story.The notion that a story can be truthfully depicted only by those of the same ethnicity and gender as its subjects would have, if applied through the ages, deprived the world of a great deal of important work. Yes, reports from inside a culture have a definite edge over interpretation by outsiders, but talent and perceptiveness and a desire to make the information available can counterbalance these advantages. It’s not an either/or question.Certainly Meg’s film wasn’t utterly flawless — few documentaries are — and she’s now made some minor adjustments to it, but it told a necessary, powerful human story that conveyed with great sympathy many facets of the experience of these particular men accused of terrorism.This is why we continued to support the film during the controversy surrounding it, and why we hope that audiences will soon be able to arrive at their own conclusions by viewing it for themselves. In the meantime, we proudly stand by Meg and her work.Jamie WolfNathalie SeaverLos AngelesMs. Wolf is the founder and president of Foothill Productions, and Ms. Seaver is its executive vice president.A Question for Election Deniers Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times; photograph by Stephen Maturen, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:To help ensure integrity in governing, the following question needs to be asked, by reporters and constituents, of every candidate who believes that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent:“So, you are running on the belief that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent, even after many in-depth investigations were conducted, and dozens of lawsuits were filed, and they all showed that there was no evidence of fraud.“Therefore, please tell me what other beliefs and policy positions are in your campaign platform (and in your governing plans, if you are elected) that also have no evidence to support them?”Richard JohnsonMadison, Wis. More
- in Elections
Giorgia Meloni’s Adoption Views Worry Gay Parents in Italy
When Giorgia Meloni, the hard-right leader who is likely to become Italy’s next prime minister, said on Italian TV this month that she opposed adoption by gay couples and that having a mother and a father was best for a child, Luigi, 6, overheard her and asked his father about it.“I wasn’t able to answer very well,” said his father, Francesco Zaccagnini. “I said they are not happy with how we love each other.”In recent weeks, Mr. Zaccagnini, 44, who works for a labor union in the Tuscan city of Pisa and is a gay father, went door to door asking friends and acquaintances to vote in Sunday’s elections to oppose Ms. Meloni’s party, Brothers of Italy.“My family is at stake,” he said.Mr. Zaccagnini and his partner had Luigi and their 6-month-old daughter, Livia, with two surrogate mothers who live in the United States. In her election campaign, Ms. Meloni pledged to oppose surrogacy and adoption by gay couples. As a member of Parliament, she submitted an amendment to a law that would extend a ban on surrogacy in Italy to Italians who seek the method abroad. It has not yet been approved by Parliament.Francesco Zaccagnini, left, with his partner and their children, Luigi and Livia. Mr. Zaccagnini worries that his son could see some of the hard-right messaging around gay families when he starts reading soon.Courtesy of Francesco ZaccagniniItaly is already an outlier in Western Europe in terms of gay rights — gay marriage is still not recognized by law — but the possibility of Ms. Meloni taking power has prompted fears among gay families that things might get worse.In 2016, Parliament passed a law recognizing civil unions of same-sex couples despite opposition by the Roman Catholic Church, which is influential in Italy.Gay parents remain cut off from the main avenues for adoption, which require a marriage rather than a civil union. And with surrogacy banned and in vitro fertilization only allowed for heterosexual couples, gay couples are effectively forced to travel abroad to become parents, and to navigate complicated — and case by case — paths through bureaucracy, courts and social services.“We hoped that the country would go forward,” said Alessia Crocini, the president of Rainbow Families, an association of gay families. “But we have a dark period ahead.”Ms. Meloni has said that civil unions are good enough for gay couples. She has also repeatedly said that she is not homophobic, and that she is not going to alter existing civil rights, but that what is best for a child is to have both a mother and a father. Her surrogacy proposal scared many gay parents, as did her tone and emphasis on what constitutes a family.“It gives homophobes an excuse and a political support,” Ms. Crocini said.Ms. Meloni has decried what she calls “gender ideology” as aimed at the disappearance of women as mothers, and opposes the teaching of such ideas in schools.Ms. Crocini said she worried that her son, 8, saying he has two mothers at school might be considered gender ideology. She has some reason to think that. Federico Mollicone, the culture spokesman for Ms. Meloni’s party, recently urged the Italian state broadcaster RAI not to air an episode of the popular cartoon “Peppa Pig” that featured a bear with two mothers, calling it “gender indoctrination,” and claiming that young children should not see gay adoption presented as something “natural” or “normal, because it’s not.”Last year, Ms. Meloni campaigned to make surrogacy a “universal crime,” using a picture of a child with a bar code on its hand.Mr. Zaccagnini said he was scared his son would see such images and messages if they kept circulating. Despite his instinct to stay in Italy and fight, Mr. Zaccagnini said he had been thinking about relocating abroad.“My son this year will start reading,” he said. “I need to protect him somehow.” More
- in Elections
The Midterm Election’s Most Dominant Toxic Narratives
Ballot mules. Poll watch parties. Groomers.These topics are now among the most dominant divisive and misleading narratives online about November’s midterm elections, according to researchers and data analytics companies. On Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Truth Social and other social media sites, some of these narratives have surged in recent months, often accompanied by angry and threatening rhetoric.The effects of these inflammatory online discussions are being felt in the real world, election officials and voting rights groups said. Voters have flooded some local election offices with misinformed questions about supposedly rigged voting machines, while some people appear befuddled about what pens to use on ballots and whether mail-in ballots are still legal, they said.“Our voters are angry and confused,” Lisa Marra, elections director in Cochise County, Ariz., told a House committee last month. “They simply don’t know what to believe.”The most prevalent of these narratives fall into three main categories: continued falsehoods about rampant election fraud; threats of violence and citizen policing of elections; and divisive posts on health and social policies that have become central to political campaigns. Here’s what to know about them.Misinformation about the 2020 election, left, has fueled the “Stop the Steal” movement, center, and continues to be raised at campaign events for the midterms, right.From left, Amir Hamja for The New York Times, Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times, Ash Ponders for The New York Times Election FraudFalse claims of election fraud are commanding conversation online, with former President Donald J. Trump continuing to protest that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.Voter fraud is rare, but that falsehood about the 2020 election has become a central campaign issue for dozens of candidates around the country, causing misinformation and toxic content about the issue to spread widely online.“Stolen election” was mentioned 325,589 times on Twitter from June 19 to July 19, a number that has been fairly steady throughout the year and that was up nearly 900 percent from the same period in 2020, according to Zignal Labs, a media research firm.On the video-sharing site Rumble, videos with the term “stop the steal” or “stolen election” and other claims of election fraud have been among the most popular. In May, such posts attracted 2.5 million viewers, more than triple the total from a year earlier, according to Similarweb, a digital analytics firm.More recently, misinformation around the integrity of voting has metastasized. More conspiracy theories are circulating online about individuals submitting fraudulent ballots, about voting machines being rigged to favor Democrats and about election officials switching the kinds of pens that voters must use to mark ballots in order to confuse them.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Inflation Concerns Persist: In the six-month primary season that has just ended, several issues have risen and fallen, but nothing has dislodged inflation and the economy from the top of voters’ minds.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate candidate in Georgia claimed his business donated 15 percent of its profits to charities. Three of the four groups named as recipients say they didn’t receive money.North Carolina Senate Race: Are Democrats about to get their hearts broken again? The contest between Cheri Beasley, a Democrat, and her G.O.P. opponent, Representative Ted Budd, seems close enough to raise their hopes.Echoing Trump: Six G.O.P. nominees for governor and the Senate in critical midterm states, all backed by former President Donald J. Trump, would not commit to accepting this year’s election results.These conspiracy theories have in turn spawned new terms, such as “ballot trafficking” and “ballot mules,” which is used to describe people who are paid to cast fake ballots. The terms were popularized by the May release of the film “2000 Mules,” a discredited movie claiming widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. From June 19 to July 19, “ballot mules” was mentioned 17,592 times on Twitter; it was not used before the 2020 election, according to Zignal.In April, the conservative talk show host Charlie Kirk interviewed the stars of the film, including Catherine Engelbrecht of the nonprofit voting group True the Vote. Mr. Kirk’s interview has garnered more than two million views online.“A sense of grievance is already in place,” said Kyle Weiss, a senior analyst at Graphika, a research firm that studies misinformation and fake social media accounts. The 2020 election “primed the public on a set of core narratives, which are reconstituting and evolving in 2022.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.The security of ballot drop boxes, left; the search for documents at Mar-a-Lago, center; and the role of the F.B.I., right, are being widely discussed online in the context of the midterm elections. From left, Marco Garcia for The New York Times, Saul Martinez for The New York Times, Kenny Holston for The New York TimesCalls to ActionOnline conversations about the midterm elections have also been dominated by calls for voters to act against apparent election fraud. In response, some people have organized citizen policing of voting, with stakeouts of polling stations and demands for information about voter rolls in their counties. Civil rights groups widely criticize poll watching, which they say can intimidate voters, particularly immigrants and at sites in communities of color.From July 27 to Aug. 3, the second-most-shared tweet about the midterms was a photo of people staking out a ballot box, with the message that “residents are determined to safeguard the drop boxes,” according to Zignal. Among those who shared it was Dinesh D’Souza, the creator of “2000 Mules,” who has 2.4 million followers on Twitter.In July, Seth Keshel, a retired Army captain who has challenged the result of the 2020 presidential election, shared a message on Telegram calling for “all-night patriot tailgate parties for EVERY DROP BOX IN AMERICA.” The post was viewed more than 70,000 times.Anger toward the F.B.I. is also reflected in midterm-related conversations, with a rise in calls to shut down or defund the agency after last month’s raid of Mr. Trump’s Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago.“Abolish FBI” became a trending hashtag across social media, mentioned 122,915 times on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and news sites from July 1 to Aug. 30, up 1,990 percent from about 5,882 mentions in the two months before the 2020 election, according to Zignal.In a video posted on Twitter on Sept. 20, Representative Andrew Clyde, Republican of Georgia, implied that he and others would take action against the F.B.I. if Republicans won control of Congress in November.“You wait till we take the House back. You watch what happens to the F.B.I.,” he said in a video captured by a left-leaning online show, “The Undercurrent,” and shared more than 1,000 times on Twitter within a few hours. Mr. Clyde did not respond to a request for comment.Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, center, is among the politicians who have spread misinformation about gay and transgender people, a report said.From left: Todd Heisler/The New York Times, Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times, Todd Heisler/The New York TimesHot-Button IssuesSome online conversations about the midterms are not directly related to voting. Instead, the discussions are centered on highly partisan issues — such as transgender rights — that candidates are campaigning on and that are widely regarded as motivating voters, leading to a surge of falsehoods.A month after Florida passed legislation that prohibits classroom discussion or instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity, which the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, signed into law in March, the volume of tweets falsely linking gay and transgender individuals to pedophilia soared, for example.Language claiming that gay people and transgender people were “grooming” children for abuse increased 406 percent on Twitter in April, according to a study by the Human Rights Campaign and the Center for Countering Digital Hate.The narrative was spread most widely by 10 far-right figures, including midterm candidates such as Representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, according to the report. Their tweets on “grooming” misinformation were viewed an estimated 48 million times, the report said.In May, Ms. Boebert tweeted: “A North Carolina preschool is using LGBT flag flashcards with a pregnant man to teach kids colors. We went from Reading Rainbow to Randy Rainbow in a few decades, but don’t dare say the Left is grooming our kids!” The tweet was shared nearly 2,000 times and liked nearly 10,000 times.Ms. Boebert and Ms. Taylor Greene did not respond to requests for comment.On Facebook and Instagram, 59 ads also promoted the narrative that the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community and allies were “grooming” children, the report found. Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, accepted up to $24,987 for the ads, which were served to users over 2.1 million times, according to the report.Meta said it had removed several of the ads mentioned in the report.“The repeated pushing of ‘groomer’ narratives has resulted in a wider anti-L.G.B.T. moral panic that has been influencing state and federal legislation and is likely to be a significant midterm issue,” said David Thiel, the chief technical officer at the Stanford Internet Observatory, which studies online extremism and disinformation. More
- in Elections
Don’t Let Republicans Off the Hook on Same-Sex Marriage
Why is it always on the Democrats to compromise?To be the nice ones? To take the high road to nowhere?On Thursday, the bipartisan group of senators behind the Respect for Marriage Act, which would have enshrined federal protections for same-sex marriage, announced a delay on putting the measure to a vote, which had been expected to take place this week.According to the bill’s lead sponsor, Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin, postponing the vote until after the November elections would increase the likelihood of getting the 10 Republicans on board necessary to push it through today’s filibustery Senate, where 60 votes would be needed for it to advance.Baldwin, and Democrats generally, are essentially conceding that it will be hard to get Republicans to commit to a measure that’s anathema to their base prior to the midterm elections. That in the interest of actually passing the bill, as opposed to putting Republicans on the record with an unpopular, anti-same-sex-marriage vote, Democrats should be generous and allow Republicans more time to muster support.Really? We’re supposed to believe it will be easier to bring Republicans on board after the election? If the Democrats retain the Senate post-election, Republicans will have little reason to vote against their base. If the Republicans retake the Senate, they’ll have less incentive still.Please. This just makes things easier on Republican lawmakers: A vote would force them to dissatisfy either swing voters, with whom same-sex marriage is highly popular, or their extremist base, with whom (to put it mildly) it is not. Easier for Republicans to scurry away from a proposal that’s politically risky, just as they did earlier last week with Lindsey Graham’s unpopular bill on abortion. And they’re doing this at the expense of the many Americans in same-sex relationships — married, engaged or on the cusp of commitment — for whom this just makes life harder and more precarious.This is exactly the moment to hold Republicans’ feet to the fire. It’s the moment for those Republicans who are in favor of gay marriage to stand up for what has become a clear majority position in the country, or to cave spectacularly to the prejudices of their base. As Senator Elizabeth Warren put it: “Every single member of Congress should be willing to go on the record. And if there are Republicans who don’t want to vote on that before the election, I assume it is because they are on the wrong side of history.”Maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t. They could be true believers, or they could simply be selling their souls in the interest of staying in office. But those who do support gay marriage need to act. Particularly given the ominous words of Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which many interpreted as a threat to revisit the landmark 2015 decision establishing the right to same-sex marriage.If that right is no longer settled law, as had previously been assumed, it’s certainly a settled moral principle. Over the past seven short years and following the course of many long ones, same-sex marriage has reached the status of a basic and bedrock civil right. Currently 71 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage. This not only includes the vast majority of Democrats, but as of 2021, 55 percent of Republicans according to Gallup. That is the definition of bipartisan consensus.In theory, I’m as much in favor of bipartisanship as the next pragmatist, despite the consistent battering the practice has gotten, especially from Obama’s failed efforts to woo Republicans on the Affordable Care Act onward. It’s hard to hold much hope in the ideal.When it comes to polarizing culture war issues, gay marriage may be the most unifying policy there is. Even under the capacious L.G.B.T.Q. umbrella, where disparate issues around sexual orientation, gay rights and gender identity split Americans across the political spectrum, you can’t get much closer to consensus than same-sex marriage. It may be the one clear-cut policy here that unites people rather than divides them.Alas, and unsurprisingly, it was Republican senators who requested the delay. According to Politico, a number of Republican senators complained that if Chuck Schumer forced a vote on the measure on Monday, they’d view it as politically motivated. As if delaying the vote for explicitly political reasons wasn’t politically motivated?What’s on Democrats here is the failure, once again, to play hardball — in the same way Republicans have done repeatedly and without remorse. To take just one recent and brazen example, Republicans pushed through a vote on Amy Coney Barrett days before an election, despite Democrats’ simmering fury over McConnell refusing to even consider Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court nomination eight months before an election.Instead, Democrats are effectively joining Republicans in putting politics ahead of principle — and purely on behalf of Republicans. If politics were remotely fair play, Republicans would return the favor by voting overwhelmingly in favor of the Respect for Marriage Act during the post-midterm lame-duck session.Who here is holding their breath?The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More
- in Elections
Our Assumptions About the Maternal Instinct
More from our inbox:The ‘No Labels’ Plan for a Centrist AlternativeSupport Us at WorkBaseball, FasterA Billionaire’s Giveaway Csilla KlenyánszkiTo the Editor:Re “The Pernicious Myth of Maternal Instinct,” by Chelsea Conaboy (Opinion guest essay, Aug. 28):My husband and I are two dads who raised a boy and a girl from birth to adulthood in small-town America.As gay dads, we got to pull back the curtain of the assumptions about maternal instinct. I showed up at the Mommy and Me music classes, the P.T.A. meetings and the informal klatches waiting at school for the kids at 3 p.m.When our kids came to us as newborns, I worried that we, as two men, might not be as naturally nurturing or “motherly” as a woman would be. But observing the many moms in action, I was disabused of that fear.The range of parenting was huge. Quite a few moms were not particularly “maternal” at all. Even though most were good parents, many were impatient, cold, sharp-edged. Several clearly had never wanted children.Would I say that, on average, the moms were more “nurturing” than the dads? Yes, and I won’t wade into the debate over how much of this is hormonal rather than cultural. But the bell curve was huge, as with all gender assumptions, and quite a few dads were more nurturing than the average mom.I also recall feeling, when I held my newborn daughter against my naked chest, capsules of fierce, inexplicable parental love bursting in my bloodstream in a way I’d never experienced. I later read a study of gay men whose oxytocin levels soared to levels similar to that of nursing moms when they held infant babies to their bosom. Perhaps we should start calling it “parental instinct.”Ken DorphSag Harbor, N.Y.To the Editor:Oh, hurray, another gloomy take on mothering in 2022. “To become a parent is to be deluged” … “brutal” … “a rock at the ocean’s edge, battered by waves and tides and sun and wind.” Come on, really?Maybe the reason that today’s writing on motherhood so often describes it in terms of various degrees of torture is that many young mums, to their great credit, and having read chapter and verse on the subject, try to do the job perfectly. Then they torment themselves when they can’t.The good news is that there is no such thing as perfect mothering, just good enough mothering, and that is manageable by most. Welcome to the ranks, moms. Rest assured you are doing a good job. Bless you all, and, dare I say it, have fun.Margaret McGirrGreenwich, Conn.To the Editor:Chelsea Conaboy seems to dismiss the “myth” of maternal instinct because it has been misused by some to limit the role of women in society. Nonsense! Because it has been misused is no reason to reject the importance of this most wondrous of emotions.Who cannot be awed and deeply respectful of the mother elephant, tenderly using her trunk to help her newborn stand, or of the mother dog or cat as she tends to her newborn pups after birth, licking off the birth membranes and carefully positioning them for nursing. Has anyone seen a father do that? And yet, I doubt that there has been a cabal of animal fathers scheming to assign this task to the mothers. Why should humans be any different?Thank God for maternal instinct.Robert H. PalmerNew YorkThe ‘No Labels’ Plan for a Centrist Alternative Samuel Corum for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “If an Alternative Candidate Is Needed in 2024, These Folks Will Be Ready,” by David Brooks (column, Sept. 5):To the Editor:David Brooks tells us that a new political group called No Labels may offer a way out of our political crisis. He writes, “If ever the country was ripe for something completely different, it’s now.”He did not ask the simplest and most important question: Where does its money come from? If we are truly ready for something new, then the first principle is transparency about sources of funding. Much of No Labels’ money comes through super PACs, which means that donors can give very large amounts, shape the group’s goals and preserve their anonymity.To accept the worst of American political abuses — ones brought to us by Citizens United — is, by definition, not to make a clean new start.Steven FeiermanPhiladelphiaTo the Editor:The idea of a No Labels presidential candidate is destined to fail. A better challenge would be for all candidates to commit themselves to choosing a vice president from the other party. Now that, in David Brooks’s own words, would be “something completely different.”Lawrence RosenBar Harbor, MaineSupport Us at Work Lily PadulaTo the Editor:Re “So You Wanted to Get Work Done at the Office?” (Business, Sept. 12):While there is more discussion about what makes a productive work environment, this isn’t a new issue for many of us who are neurodivergent, disabled, burned out or healing from trauma.We have been acutely aware of how difficult it can be to operate in a workplace that doesn’t support personal sensory needs — lights, sounds, temperature, positioning, etc.Unsupportive work environments can affect employees’ focus, job satisfaction and productivity. We must normalize communication about sensory experiences in the workplace, and that can also promote inclusion and equity for all.Let’s go beyond thinking that this is just a pandemic-related issue. This problem has been present and it will continue because we all have sensory, emotional and cognitive needs. The workplace is just one important setting where we notice them.Nicole VillegasPortland, Ore.The writer is an occupational therapist and a teaching professional at Boston University.Baseball, Faster John Minchillo/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “M.L.B. Bans Shift, Adds Pitch Clock and Enlarges the Bases” (Sports, Sept. 10):So, just like that, Major League Baseball has decided to join the fast-paced and restless world in instituting, among other changes, a 15- or 20-second timer between pitches. The thinking goes that this will yield a more action-packed and less stagnant game.That’s a shame. Don’t get me wrong: I work in the technology start-up sector and am well accustomed to the incessant movement, constant productivity and “go go go” mind-set of our modern world.But I’m also a psychiatrist who understands the restorative power of mindfulness and meditative experience. And baseball, with all its beautiful pauses and inherent stillness, has provided me with just that from a very young age.David Y. HarariBurlington, Vt.A Billionaire’s GiveawayYvon Chouinard founded Patagonia in 1973.Natalie Behring for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Billionaire Gives Away His Company to Fight Climate Change” (Business, Sept. 15), about the founder of Patagonia transferring ownership of his company to a trust and a nonprofit organization:Billionaires should be a very rare thing! But even as we rightly congratulate Yvon Chouinard for reducing their number by one with his visionary benevolence, let’s not forget that his money will be doing the job our own government should be doing, if only it were allowed to operate as intended by taxing the wealthy and redistributing the funds for the benefit of all.Elisa AdamsNew Hyde Park, N.Y. More
- in Elections
Democrats Delay Senate Vote to Protect Gay Marriage as GOP Balks
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats decided on Thursday to postpone a planned vote on legislation to provide federal protections for same-sex marriage until after the midterm elections in November, amid dimming hopes of drawing enough Republican support to ensure its passage with tight races on the line.Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin and the lead sponsor of the Respect for Marriage Act, said that delaying action would increase the chance of getting the 10 Republican votes needed to push it through the evenly divided Senate, where 60 would be necessary to move it forward.The decision to do so came as a relief to Republicans, the vast majority of whom oppose the measure and were worried that voting against it so close to the elections would alienate voters.It spared Republican senators in difficult re-election races, including Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Marco Rubio of Florida, a fraught choice of casting a vote that would anger their party’s conservative base or one that could sour independent voters in the closing days of the campaign. The amended legislation would also have to go back to the House, where Representative Ted Budd of North Carolina, who is running for the Senate, would then be forced to vote against it for a second time.But the delay angered some Democrats who argued that Republicans should be forced to go on the record with their stance.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Midterm Data: Could the 2020 polling miss repeat itself? Will this election cycle really be different? Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, looks at the data in his new newsletter.Republicans’ Abortion Struggles: Senator Lindsey Graham’s proposed nationwide 15-week abortion ban was intended to unite the G.O.P. before the November elections. But it has only exposed the party’s divisions.Democrats’ Dilemma: The party’s candidates have been trying to signal their independence from the White House, while not distancing themselves from President Biden’s base or agenda.“We need to vote on equal marriage today,” said Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts. “Every single member of Congress should be willing to go on the record. And if there are Republicans who don’t want to vote on that before the election, I assume it is because they are on the wrong side of history.”Polls show that a majority of Americans support same-sex marriage, but Republicans are split. At a private lunch with fellow Republicans this week, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina made the case to his colleagues that it would be politically wise for them to support the measure, according to a Senate aide who described the meeting on the condition of anonymity.But the turnabout suggested that most Republicans preferred to steer clear of an issue on which their party is split. It was the second time in a week that the G.O.P. had struggled to articulate its position on a major social issue. On Tuesday, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, introduced a federal 15-week abortion ban, reigniting debate on the issue at a time when polls have shown that voters are already alarmed about the demise of abortion rights. Many Republicans distanced themselves, eager to turn the campaign conversation away from a subject that they believe hurts their candidates.The abrupt change of plans on the marriage bill was the latest surprising turn for the measure, which began as a messaging bill but morphed into a concerted legislative effort after an unexpected number of House Republicans voted for it.“We’re very confident that the bill will pass,” Ms. Baldwin said on Thursday. “But we will need a little more time.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, had been eager to hold a vote before the elections, even if only to put Republicans on the record voting against a broadly popular position on a social issue. But he deferred to Ms. Baldwin and senators in both parties with whom she had been working to reach a compromise.“Leader Schumer is extremely disappointed that there aren’t 10 Republicans in the Senate willing to vote yes on marriage equality legislation at this time,” Justin Goodman, Mr. Schumer’s spokesman, said in a statement. He added that Mr. Schumer would “hold the bipartisan group to their promise that the votes to pass this marriage equality legislation will be there after the election.”The intense legislative push in the Senate began in July, after the House passed the same-sex marriage bill with 47 Republicans voting in favor. At the time, Mr. Schumer said he was encouraged by the amount of G.O.P. support it had garnered, and promised to work to find the necessary votes to move the measure past a filibuster and to a vote.Ms. Baldwin expressed confidence that she could bring at least 10 Republicans on board, and said that she expected even more to vote in favor of the legislation when it came to the floor.Democrats have been pressing to enact the legislation after the Supreme Court ruling in June that overturned the nearly 50-year-old right to an abortion, and amid concerns that precedents protecting same-sex marriage rights could be the next to fall.But the momentum on the issue faded as Democrats spent the final days before the August recess pushing through the Inflation Reduction Act, the core of President Biden’s domestic agenda.And since returning to Washington last week, Republican senators have expressed concerns about whether the bill would violate the religious liberty of those who do not accept same-sex marriages as valid. The bill would require the government to recognize same-sex marriages, and enshrine marriage equality for the purposes of federal law.But mostly, the concerns that Democrats heard were political, related to the risks of taking such a vote just weeks before the midterm elections.Mr. Schumer wanted to move quickly. He briefly floated the idea of linking the marriage equality legislation to a bill to fund the government that must pass by Sept. 30. And aides said Democrats were considering moving as early as Thursday to set up a floor vote next week on the marriage bill.But Ms. Baldwin demanded more time to find the Republican votes to pass the bill, rather than holding a vote this month in which it would fail at the hands of the G.O.P.“I think we’re in very good shape,” said Senator Susan Collins of Maine, one of the Republicans involved in the negotiations. “This bill is going to pass. I think we’ve managed to thread the needle on the religious liberty concerns. We’ve taken a lot of input.”Emily Cochrane More
