David Ehrenstein Claims "We're Even" In Gay Marriage Fight

In Tuesday's Los Angeles Times openly gay film critic and blogger David Ehrenstein has an of-ed titled "Gay Marriage Gets Even" where he claims that despite recent setbacks for same-sex unions, the coming out of Lance Bass evens the score in the ongoing culture war.

GAY MARRIAGE in the United States is on the ropes and fighting for its legal and political life. In the last year alone, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a same-sex marriage bill in California; the supreme courts of New York, Washington and Georgia upheld marriage bans; and at least a dozen states have passed, or are working on, anti-gay-marriage laws.

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But take heart. Lance Bass, a singer with the now-defunct boy band N'Sync, has come out of the closet, disclosing to People magazine two weeks ago that he's in a "very stable relationship" with actor/model and reality television star Reichen Lehmkuhl. Upon hearing this news, the first word that popped into my head was "even!"

The above comments are from the gay film critic who hated "Brokeback Mountain" He was wrong about that, and he's wrong about Lance Bass being "out" meaning that gay activists are now "even." To bolster his claim, David repeats a scurrilous report originally printed in the New York Daily News that "Sean William Scott turned heads when he showed up at Los Angeles gay bar Heat on the arm of David Geffen." Now, I am completely in favor of outing in lots of circumstances as an original subscriber to Mike Signorile's OutWeek magazine, but come on, now! There is no Los Angeles gay bar named "Heat" and the actor's name is Seann William Scott. But, I digress.

Ehrenstein's point (and he does have one) is that the good guys are winning the cultural war, and he quotes the results from the Pew Research Center poll MadProfessah also noted last week:

"On the subject of gay unions, 56% opposed giving gays the right to marry, but 53% favored allowing gays to enter into legal agreements that provide many of the same rights as married couples," a Reuters summary reported. "There has been an increase in the proportion of Americans who believe homosexuality is innate 36%, up from 30% in 2003. Similarly, 49% believed homosexuals cannot be changed to heterosexual, compared to 42% in 2003."

My quibble with Ehrenstein is his use of the word "even" (although he is really using the word as a reference to a Seinfeld episode, not in its true mathematical sense). In general, he does point out that even the man who coined the term kulturkampf (culture war), Pat Buchanan, "is calling for an 'armistice' in the culture war and encouraging conservatives to give up fighting for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage." It is true, these are all good news, but they are not equal (or even) in their indicatory or predicative value. Lance Bass' "I'm gay" does not equal the Daily News snarky outing of a gay billionaire's latest boytoy. And neither of these events is as significant as Governor Schwarzenegger's veto of last year's marriage bill or the two adverse marriage ruling during the dark day of July.