GAYS DEFEND MARRIAGE

My column on the 40th anniversary of Stonewall is appearing in Friday’s Houston Chronicle and Monday’s Philadelphia Daily News:

At the end of this month, the gay community will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which began the gay liberation movement. This season, known in gay circles simply as “Pride,” will be particularly emotional because of the gay marriage avalanche. While gays and lesbians have much to be proud of (such as early health organizing around the devastating AIDS epidemic), gay history since Stonewall is unfortunately stained with selfishness and arrogance, traits that ironically were once themselves called pride — back when that wasn’t a compliment.

Having experienced the closet and coming out as a gay man in my late teens, I understand the common gay experience of overcoming shame and the constant need for self-esteem reassurance. But I have also come to realize that sometimes gay esteem has innocent victims, and I believe it’s time to balance out gay pride with some gay humility.

To examine the gay community’s self-absorption, look no further than the event celebrated this month that has been commemorated with parades for four decades: the “Stonewall Rebellion.” Why is it that in all that time no gay leader has acknowledged that there were non-gay victims at that event, which we should regret, if not apologize for? Stonewall was sparked by a legitimate bar raid on an unlicensed, Mafia-run drinking establishment. The gay “heroes” threw glass bottles and bricks at police and at one point tried to light the building on fire while people were still inside. Even if one celebrates Stonewall’s repercussions for sparking feelings of gay pride and leading to nationwide community organizing, shouldn’t we acknowledge that our self-esteem doesn’t have to come at the expense of other people’s safety?

Another example: During the late 1980s and early 1990s, gay activists insisted that a wave of “heterosexual AIDS” was just around the corner in the United States, even though no data existed proving that was going to happen, and even though HIV spread through heterosexual sex has always been and continues to be a small percentage of the American transmissions of the virus. Out of fear that Americans would not devote energy to treating and curing a disease spread mostly through gay sex and drug use, AIDS activists consciously lied about the size of the minuscule threat to Americans who did not use drugs or have gay sex. As a result, huge sums of money were spent to educate about and prevent a “coming health epidemic” that would never materialize. People made major lifestyle changes to protect themselves from what was essentially a phantom menace.

The gay parenting movement is still more evidence of the fundamental selfishness of post-Stonewall gay America. Whereas many gay couples can and do bring parentless children into their homes in an act of loving and giving, thousands of other gay couples who could have adopted use various technologies and arrangements to make babies that from the start have no mother or have no father. This cruel act — to one’s own child — is almost never criticized in the gay community, which is so focused on everyone’s freedom and self-esteem, it doesn’t seem to want to bother to notice that children are being hurt by being denied up front the right to have both a mother and a father.

The gay and lesbian community today is infected with what I like to call Equality Mania. That’s the belief that there is literally nothing more important than total equality between gays and straights, no matter what the costs. They are willing to sacrifice other good, important values in the name of gay equality — such as the religious freedom of same-sex marriage opponents, the welfare of children and (in the case of gays in the military) even national security.

Forty years into this particular social movement, it’s not too late to re-evaluate priorities and find more selfless ways to help gays and lesbians.

Time Magazine weighs in on the biological aspects of the Phantom Gay Past:

Which raises the evolutionary question of why men and women who are exclusive gay and lesbian exist. One answer is that exclusive gays and lesbians are a relatively new creation: the concept of exclusive homosexuality barely existed before modernity; even a century ago, most same-sex-attracted men and women got married and had kids.(Read “Do Monkeys Pay for Sex?”)

As Bailey, Zuk and many others have pointed out, no one has offered an adequate evolutionary explanation for the relatively recent development of exclusive homosexuality among humans. In January, the journal Evolution and Human Behavior published a paper exploring the idea that certain alleles increase the likelihood of homosexuality by blocking the effect of androgens during fetal development. Having all those alleles hampers the masculinization of some parts of the brain that affect personality, making you gay, the theory goes. Brothers of gay men who have only some of the alleles would turn out straight but less aggressive than typical guys. And because those brothers exhibit less psychopathology, they would attract more women and therefore have more kids. It was a provocative theory, but it turned out not to be proved: gay men’s brothers don’t actually have more kids than straight men’s brothers do.

Once again, the opposition to enshrining same-sex relationships in American law has shown itself to be utterly tone-deaf. According to Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council,

Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the “Uniting American Families Act,” a bill that would allow homosexuals to immigrate to the U.S. with their partners under the same resident status as married spouses. As FRC has argued, there is no reason for Congress to carve out an exception to the immigration rule to accommodate these “partnerships.” In my written testimony, which was submitted today to the Judiciary Committee, I reiterated the fact that “families” are legally recognized by blood, marriage, or adoption. In other words, these same-sex “partnerships” don’t constitute “family” relationships. 

Arguing in favor of privileged male-female relationships (which I do here all the time) does not require alienating millions of common-sense readers and voters who know that two gay guys and a cat (or whatever) are, indeed, a family. Even if he believes a couple of lesbians and their baby are not a family, he’s only making a semantic and definitional argument here, which can be addressed by the other side saying, “Well, OK, let’s change the definition.”

I don’t support adding a whole new classification of people who have the right to go to the head of the visa and citizenship line based on who they have sex with and how. If someone wants to present to me a Salt Lake City style immigration bill, I’ll look at it.

During the Prop. 8 campaign, one important point raised by opponents of the initiative including myself is that it is far too easy to amend the California Constitution. (On this blog, I called the threshold “shockingly low.”) Whatever one thinks of same-sex marriage, it shouldn’t be a controversial notion that constitutional amendments require supermajorities and not 50 percent plus one.

So, I would encourage Californians to raise the bar for amending the state’s constitution by popular vote from 50 percent to 60 percent, at least. The problem is, of course, that many of the same people who wanted to raise the threshold during the fall campaign are now planning a new initiative to overturn Prop. 8 and they only want a 50 percent bar to get their repeal passed.

Once again, Northwestern University Professor Andrew Koppelman has distinguished himself among supporters of same-sex marriage for his clarity, timeliness, and provocative thoughts. From his latest piece:

Retribution is appropriate only if there is harm. Imagine you discover that someone has spent all afternoon sticking pins in dolls representing some people he doesn’t like (but has no just complaint against), hoping that this will cause their painful deaths. You’re entitled to decide that he’s a nasty person. But does he deserve punishment? For what, exactly?

If they can be rendered harmless, antigay bigots, even the morally reprehensible ones, will be just like the guy with the pins and the dolls. Nasty, maybe (though I know people on that side of the political divide who, I’m convinced, are honestly doing their best to pursue the right as it is given to them to see the right). But why is it important for the law to beat up on them?

More pertinently, why is beating up on them so important that it’s worth letting same-sex marriage die in New Hampshire altogether rather than give those people any accommodation? 

There are people who are reprehensibly embracing self-aggrandizing fantasies that are hurting real people. But I’m sorry to say that they’re not the Christian conservatives. They are the people on my side, the gay rights side, who are willing to sacrifice the hopes of New Hampshire gays who want to marry, out of pure malice toward their political opponents.

As much as I like Professor Koppelman’s challenge, I actually think he’s missing part of the point. My side isn’t fighting for religious exemptions because it’s so important to us to secure the right to Just Say No to catering lesbian weddings. We’re trying (I should say I’m trying since I never got elected anything) to mark territory during the very birth of gay marriage for the concept that it’s “OK” to believe that same-sex marriages aren’t marriages and to treat them as such - in the culture, in our discourse. That is a relatively big fight, and I can understand why gay activists in New Hampshire and elsewhere would go to the mat to protect the concept that not considering gay marriages to be equal is bigotry and thus unacceptable.

The smaller fight, whether Christian photographers in Nashua have to work at same-sex nuptials, is - as Koppelman indicates - only so much voodoo.

On Tuesday, I was invited to appear on CNN to discuss Miss California USA and the scandal surrounding her comments when asked by Perez Hilton what she thought about gay marriage. I haven’t blogged about this yet, and since my segment got bumped I thought I’d share with the blog some of my thoughts on the situation:

1. Hilton’s question was vastly different than the typical question to a pageant contestant. They are usually pap such as:

What will you do as Miss USA to bring world peace?

How can society make the world a better place for our children?

What is the number one issue you’re concerned about and how will you address it if you win the pageant?

There aren’t questions on abortion, capital punishment, or affirmative action. What Hilton did was change the rules in a way that he knew - no matter what Prejean answered - would garner publicity for the gay marriage cause and, especially, for himself personally. He abused his role as pageant judge.

2. My friend Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse pointed out to me that the notion of a gay man judging women’s beauty jibes with my column on Playgirl and how straight women’s libidos get shaped by gay men’s sensibilities.

3. The question, which Hilton “knew” had only one “right” answer, was, in his mind, along the lines of asking about Brown vs. Board of Education or the passage of the 15th Amendment (ending slavery). I have blogged earlier about my disagreement with the racism comparison. But even if society is moving toward considering opposition to redefining marriage to be the equivalent of racism (and I’m not sure it is), it’s not there yet. Particularly in California, where a half-million residents more favored Proposition 8 than opposed it. Prejean represents the mainstream in California, yet Hilton treated her as if she had some fringe opinion.

4. I saw Rachel Maddow (with whom I was friends in college) on MSNBC make fun of the beauty contestant stumbling over herself in answering the question, using phrases like “opposite marriage” (which I now use on this Web site - I think it’s pithy, not stupid). But I don’t blame her, being a couple of votes away from winning the pageant of her dreams, and being asked an unfair question, for being extremely nervous.

I can’t believe I missed this, but about three weeks ago, Colorado adopted the Salt Lake City plan. Good going, Colorado!

If more states would follow Colorado’s lead, we could solve the gay-marriage issue forthwith with rights for same-sex and other unmarried couples but without undermining the institution of marriage.

I found a comment at BoxTurtleBulletin I wanted to comment on. “Kristie” said, in part:

Whether “marriage” was ordained by God or not isn’t the point and that is something opponents of marriage equality don’t seem to get. They have the right to their religious beliefs but they don’t have the right to foist those beliefs on every other citizen of this country.

I bring you this comment because it represents something supporters “of marriage equality don’t seem to get.”

Nobody on my side of the debate is trying to force “opposite marriage” on gays and lesbians in a theocratic way. We’re doing it in a democratic way - using our one vote apiece and our freedoms of speech, the press, petition, and assembly to support public policies consistent with our values.

Gays and lesbians do the same.

Then, our votes get added up, mostly through our representatives, and public policies are determined. What else would gays and lesbians have us do? Vote and speak out using your values instead of ours? Not vote or use our First Amendment expression rights at all?

Or are you saying we can take any position we want as long as it’s not based on the Bible? Leaving aside that Barack Obama disagrees with you, how are we to regulate rules about where positions can come from? Right now, Americans can make political choices based on family tradition, what Jon Stewart said on TV last night, their horoscope, or flipping a coin. Why is the Bible not allowed to be part of that list?

Or, if you’re saying that we’re allowed to use the Bible to determine our political stances, but we’re wrong to want to use the Bible to do so, well, duh. I think you’re wrong for NOT using the Bible to determine your political stance. So? We determine who’s right and who’s wrong through the democratic system. Or is there some other system you’d propose?

The pro-gay-marriage lawsuit was occasioned by Iowa’s version of the Defense of Marriage Act, defining marriage as the union between a man and a woman. The court used the lawsuit as an occasion not only to overturn Iowa’s DOMA, but to rewrite all state statutes limiting marriage to male-female couples.

Which makes me wonder - if there never was an Iowa DOMA, would the Iowa Supreme Court not have had a chance to implement gay marriage, at least not right away?

Gays in the military is in the news at the start of a Democratic president’s term again. Fox news had a headline “Obama to End Military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Policy” which is pretty silly since Obama doesn’t have that power; Congress has to change the policy since Congress passed it. I wrote an opinion piece last September about what I feel about this subject, although I didn’t find a home for it. I thought maybe GaysDefendMarriage readers would like to see the relevant part of it. To be clear, I would like to see gays and lesbians serving openly in the armed forces, but only when the experts determine it won’t undermine the military mission:

The U.S. military exists to fight and win wars. Period. Yet in the last 40 years, various groups in society have tried to use the armed services to further their social agenda. Given that our very freedom could be at stake, the military should have no tolerance for decisions about its personnel that focus on anything but the military mission. The two most significant examples are gays and affirmative action in the military.

In my mind, the problem with gays in the military is not homosexuality but the smooth functioning of the armed forces. I know that most of the gay community (a group I’m a part of) believes that nothing is more important than equality for gays and lesbians. But the people we fought in World War II and the people we’re fighting now have far harsher plans for gays should they win a total victory than simply not allowing them to be open in uniform.

The notion that everyone should be able to serve, no matter what the social attitudes of the rank and file and the military brass, becomes silly when considered historically. Should women have been able to serve equally during the American Revolution? What about blacks (remember Glory?) serving equally in the Union army in the Civil War? In those cases, social engineering in the military would have impaired morale, unit cohesion, and the military mission. In the case of the Civil War, a Union victory was more important to freed slaves than being integrated and serving in the main ranks.

I have spoken to gays and lesbians who have said gays should have been allowed to serve openly during World War II. Given the attitudes at the time, that would have made it harder to successfully win the war effort, and I don’t have to tell gay men what the Nazis thought of them.

I discussed this issue with a scholar of issues relating to gays in the military, Dr. Aaron Belkin, director of the Palm Center at the University of California-Santa Barbara. He cited historical evidence that some gays did serve openly in World War II, and said “I don’t think there’s any evidence that the policy even as far back as World War II was necessary to preserve cohesion. The question has always been, will leadership stand behind integration or not?”

I personally have a hard time believing that even the best leadership could lead to unit cohesion at certain stages in history.

Contrary to popular opinion, President Truman’s 1948 order to desegregate the military did not, in fact, desegregate the military. It took the contingencies of the Korean War a few years later, and military leaders like Gen. Matthew Ridgway finding efficiency, logistical, and morale problems in a segregated military. Due to such circumstances, the military was completely integrated by the end of the fighting in 1953.

So the questions are, when is social progress sufficient for integration, and who gets to decide? I don’t know the answer to the former question, but the answer to the latter is Congress and the president, in consultation with military leaders. I hope they decide to end “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell,” but only when they think such a move won’t hinder our ability to win on the battlefield….

I believe that employment equality - including for African-Americans and gays and lesbians - is a good thing. It’s just that there are other goals that are equally important or more important. Surely, fighting and winning wars is one of those goals.