Uncompromising Positions: God, Sex, and the U.S. House of Representatives

2. The Culture of Progressive Sexuality

51 2 The Culture of Progressive Sexuality The government has an absolute overriding duty to enforce morality in interpersonal relations. We have a moral duty to protect innocent people from those who would impose on them. That is a very important moral duty. But is it the government’s duty to say divorce is wrong and there are strong biblical arguments that say if you are divorced, you should not remarry? And should the government then put obstacles in the way? No. —Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) R epresentative Barney Frank envisions a role for government as the protector of public morality. The moral vision he advocates, however, is not informed by religious values. The moral vision Frank seems to promote is one in which government carves out and defends individual autonomy, directed toward making private moral decisions pertaining to families, marriage, and sexuality. Religion informs these decisions only to the extent that individuals wish. This moral vision, or culture, competes in the public space with the culture of religious traditionalism discussed in chapter 3. Given their autonomous vision of society, advocates of progressive sexuality regard an array of previously unconventional social relationships as appropriate: Gay relationships, for example, and relationships in which women are equal economic partners with men and control their reproductive capacities are considered consistent with a vision of progressive sexuality.1 In this chapter I trace the politics of two social 52 Chapter 2 movements within the culture of progressive sexuality: feminism and the gay rights movement. I devote special attention to the efforts of Congress to cope with the demands of these movements, both of which call on government to enact policies that legitimate their culture. Abstract normative debates are well and good, but in a practical sense, cultures compete over concrete issues—such as abortion and gay marriage. They compete not just for the rhetorical high ground but also for policy. FEMINISM AND FERTILITY The feminist movement has advanced on the economic, political, and social fronts. Even before the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, both political parties soberly regarded women as a potential source of electoral support—although the parties had a very narrow concept of what issues were important to women. While the parties set up organizational offices to reach out to women, women’s issues were defined domestically: Pay equity and reproductive health were many years off. As women’s issues were institutionalized in party organizations, “women’s unique policy interests were co-opted, independent women’s organizations were diminished , and few policy concessions were granted” (Leege et al. 2002, 119; see also Harvey 1998). As Leege et al. (2002, 120) note, in the years after the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified, Republicans quickly reached out to women and tried to incorporate them into their coalition. After suffering national electoral defeats in 1932, 1934, and 1936, the party began to compete for women’s votes, rather than simply assuming that women would vote in the same manner as their husbands. Later, Dwight Eisenhower advanced the idea of pay equity and even appointed women to high-profile positions in government (Melich 1996, 10). As a result, there was an electoral “gender gap” in the 1950s: Women supported Eisenhower at higher levels than men did. In 1952, 58 percent of women supported Eisenhower, compared to only 53 percent of men. The gap widened in 1956, with 61 percent of women supporting Eisenhower, compared to 55 percent of men (Costain 1992, 33). Practically speaking, early feminists did not really have alternatives . The Democratic Party at that time was dominated by The Culture of Progressive Sexuality 53 “Southern traditionalists and evangelicals, Northern ethnic Catholics , and organized labor”—none of whom were eager to carry water for gender equality (Leege et al. 2002, 119). By the 1960s, however, the Depression had been replaced by the civil rights movement for African Americans and the Vietnam War as the defining events of political socialization for a new generation of young Democrats. The New Deal coalition began to show cracks. In the realm of congressional politics, this period produced reform as liberal Yankee Democrats demanded power from their intraparty rivals, the conservative southern Democrats. How did stress within the New Deal coalition affect the treatment of women’s issues by the parties? Leege et al. (2002) argue that Democratic leaders sought the support of women to shore up the fragmenting party...