In my recent NRO article “Political Science and the Big Uneasy,” I described an effort by gay-marriage advocates to get the 2012 meeting of the American Political Science Association moved from New Orleans, and to get the APSA to adopt a policy, for locating future meetings, that at the very least disfavors states and localities that have moved to ban same-sex marriage either by statute or in their state constitutions.

At its special meeting in Chicago on June 26, the APSA Council decided to go ahead with the New Orleans meeting, despite Louisiana’s adoption in 2004 of a constitutional amendment recognizing only traditional marriage—one man and one woman. Word is out that at this year’s APSA meeting (in Boston later this week), some of the advocates of relocating the 2012 meeting will be calling for a boycott. But while they lost that Battle of New Orleans (for now), the pro-gay-marriage party gained ground in its war to take over the disciplinary establishment in American political science. New language in the APSA’s “siting policy” reads that, “In locating its future meetings, APSA presumes that states with legal restrictions on rights afforded recognized same-sex unions and partnerships create an unwelcoming environment for our members in cities where we might meet.” This is only the opening salvo: there is more language devoted to the interests of gay and lesbian political scientists in the current APSA siting policy than to any other subject the policy considers.

But whether an “environment” is a “welcoming” one is a matter to be considered from a great many angles. After all, while the APSA declares in its constitution that it is “nonpartisan” and neutral on “questions of public policy” (and on the latter score its current position on same-sex unions is a violation of that constitution), in the same section it declares this one great exception to its declared avoidance of political position-taking:

“The Association shall not be barred from adopting resolutions or taking such other action as it deems appropriate in support of academic freedom and of freedom of expression by and within the Association, the political science profession, and the university, when in its judgment such freedom has been clearly and seriously violated or is clearly and seriously threatened.”

The flap over New Orleans did have one positive outcome (in addition to NOLA staying on the meeting calendar). It got some political scientists thinking about the problematic nature of next year’s site of the meeting: Toronto, Ontario. Surely the APSA has noticed that freedom of speech has been under assault in Canada lately?