Category Archives: Gay Rights

Word Column                                                              Sheila Suess Kennedy

January 29, 2008                                                          811 words

 

A Post-Culture-War America?                                                                        

Okay, let me begin with an admission—I’m obsessed with the Presidential campaign. Totally, hopelessly obsessed. I spend really embarrassing amounts of time emailing back and forth with two of my sons who are equally obsessed, and equally enamored of “my” candidate.

By the time this column appears in print, the primary may well be decided. Worse, on those rare occasions when I force myself to be realistic, I have to admit that the odds are against my guy; the smart money says he isn’t going to be the candidate. The thing is, it has been so long since there has been a national candidate I could wholeheartedly support; it’s sort of like falling in love, even when you know—as my husband keeps warning me—you are likely to get your heart broken. Again.

When I sat down to write this column, I wasn’t going to write about the primary. But then I thought about why it is that I am so enthusiastic about Barack Obama, why his emergence has made me feel almost hopeful for the future of the country I love, and it seemed a phenomenon worth exploring, because his candidacy has a particular message for America’s minority communities, including the gay community.

The past seven years have been a disaster for America, and if polls are to be believed, a significant majority of Americans recognize the dimensions of that disaster. We are a sour, dispirited electorate. (My husband says I’ve been in a really bad mood since 2000.) In the immediate aftermath of 9-11, there was a rush of national solidarity and the best kind of patriotism, but it didn’t take long for this Administration to slam that window shut, and to turn us against each other. “Good Christian Amuricans” were under attack by “Islamofascists,” “homosexual deviates,” “secular humanists” and other assorted heathens—and they weren’t going to let us forget to be very, very afraid.

Fair is fair; this Administration didn’t invent the culture wars. They just used culture war issues to gain and retain power. I don’t have to remind readers of The Word how Karl Rove and his political disciples sliced and diced the electorate in order to win elections; anyone who voted in a swing state in 2004 knows just how well the cynical use of state constitutional marriage amendments worked—bringing out the haters to vote against the “queers” and not coincidentally to pull a lever for George W. Bush.

Bush and his crowd will be gone in November, and we can all breathe a sigh of relief. (Hell, we can have a party! I certainly intend to.) It is certainly true that almost anyone who takes the oath of office next January will be an improvement. But we have a chance to do more than trade a sleazy, incompetent Commander in Chief for a sleazy, competent one. We have a chance to elect a post-culture-war President, and begin to put the nastiness and intolerance behind us.

When the campaign began, I’d have gladly taken any of the Democratic front-runners. (Someday, perhaps, if the sane people retake control of the GOP, I can feel that way about Republicans again…). But after watching the Clintons’ willingness to say and do anything in South Carolina—their willingness to distort, smear and shamelessly use the race card a la Karl Rove—I no longer feel that way.

The Clintons have been allies of the African-American community for decades—but they were clearly willing to throw blacks under the bus when they thought it served their purposes. “Don’t ask, don’t tell” gave the gay community a taste of how lasting their commitment to gay rights was. Hillary is running well among Hispanics, but she was quick to retreat from her statement at an early debate that undocumented workers should be able to obtain drivers’ licenses—an issue very important to that community. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Clintons’ alliances are strategic—and disposable—rather than principled and enduring.

As Ted Kennedy said when he endorsed Obama, we have a chance to make this a transformational election. We can put a new kind of candidate in office; multi-ethnic, multi-racial and post-culture-war. As Obama himself said in his South Carolina victory speech, this is not an election about gender or race or ethnicity—it is about the old politics versus a new politics. It is about the past versus the future.

I am so ready for that future.

It may be that by the time you read this column, the primary is effectively over. It may well be the case that the “old politics” has won. (There’s an old saying that goes, “age and treachery will beat youth and skill every time,” and for all I know, that’s true.) But for right now, for the first time in a very long time, I’m in a good mood.

 

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Well, I see that in addition to recipes for cooking squirrels in popcorn poppers, Mike Huckabee has shared some wisdom about God’s plan for the U.S. Constitution, specifically His desire to insert provisions prohibiting abortion and same-sex marriage. As in, God doesn’t want us aborting or cavorting (with or without state sanction), and we ought to revise the U.S. Constitution to reflect God’s will on those matters.

Leaving aside the broader issue—i.e., why, if I wanted to live in a country where some people’s narrow vision of religiosity was made the law of the land, I wouldn’t just move to Saudi Arabia—I want to address one claim Huckabee made, because it is a common theme of arguments against same-sex marriage. Huckabee said, “Marriage has historically, as long as there’s been human history, meant a man and a woman in a relationship for life.”

Except that’s simply untrue. And not just untrue around the edges; it is massively, demonstrably, wildly untrue.

In Ancient Greece, marriage was important, but for entirely practical reasons. Parents chose their children’s partners for economic reasons, and the purpose was to produce children. Women were considered inferior to men, who were free to indulge their romantic and sexual desires elsewhere; as Demosthenes famously explained, “We have prostitutes for our pleasure, concubines for our health, and wives to bear us lawful offspring.” Many men also established sexual and emotional relationships with young boys, and those relationships were widely accepted. Husbands could divorce relatively easily, especially if the wife proved infertile.

In Rome, marriage was personal and optional, and evidently so widely disregarded that the Emperor Augustus found it necessary to pass laws compelling people to marry. Even then, there were three kinds of marriage: one called “usus” where the couple simply moved in together; a more formal variety that involved a ceremony with witnesses; and an upper-class version requiring ten witnesses and a priest. Divorce was common for all three types, and tended to be pretty informal.

In early Israel, a man could have several wives and concubines. You’d think that Huckabee, who is so hung up on God’s law as revealed in the bible, might recall the story of Jacob, who married two sisters, Leah and Rachel. Or that of Solomon, who had 700 wives and 300 concubines. (Solomon was evidently one busy dude!)  Divorce was permitted if you were the husband—wives weren’t so lucky. Both marriage and divorce remained entirely civil matters.

Over the following centuries, marriage came increasingly under the influence of the Catholic church, which was extending its authority over more aspects of life generally. Catholic theologians decided that marriage was for life (although there were grounds for annulment), and imposed a number of other rules. Even so, however, it wasn’t until the 12^th Century that priests got involved in the marriage ceremony, and not until the 13^th that they actually took charge of it. Marriage continued to be a practical, economic arrangement.

Martin Luther declared marriage “a worldly thing” that belonged to the realm of government, not religion, and the English Puritans decreed that marriage was purely secular. (When the English Reformation occurred, the religious significance of marriage was reasserted.) The Protestant reformers also allowed divorce.

Here in America, there have been various experiments with marriage. In 1848, the Oneida community cultivated a form of group marriage. They called it “complex marriage” and every woman was married to every man in the community. (They also practiced so-called “scientific breeding.”) And we all know about Mormon polygamy. While the Mormons have formally renounced the practice, polygamy persists in many parts of the Middle East to this day—among President Bush’s princely pals in Saudi Arabia, for example. (Not only that, a so-called “Christian polygamy movement,” unrelated to Mormonism, began in the U.S. in 1994.) In Senegal today, it is estimated that 47% of marriages are “plural” or polygamous.

Why this brief—and incomplete—excursion down history lane? Because it really fries me the way the radical right manufactures history out of whole cloth. They have succeeded in promulgating an ahistorical mythology in which the Founding Fathers—most of whom were Deists—created a “Christian Nation” that looks remarkably like their own version of Christianity. Like Huckabee, they blithely fabricate wholly fanciful historical “facts”—confident, evidently, that no one reads  history anymore.

Mike Huckabee knows a lot more about fried squirrel than I do. But he obviously doesn’t know  much about other countries, world history, U.S. history or the Enlightenment philosophy that guided those who drafted our Constitution.

 

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Word Column                                                              Sheila Suess Kennedy

October 8, 2007                                                          611 words

 

Lessons from the Closet                                                                                               

 

I remember laughing at my mother because when the newspaper came each morning she turned first to the obituaries, to see if anyone she knew had died. (As she got older, she told me that she wasn’t looking for the names of friends—“I look to make sure I’m not there. If I’m not, I get up and get dressed.)

 

Well, that was then, and now is now, and I find myself scanning the death notices just as faithfully as she used to do. And every once in a while, you see an obituary like the one I noticed this morning. Beneath a photograph of a square-jawed, severe-looking woman was a column attesting to a long life with numerous accomplishments—a doctorate, many civic and charitable activities, devotion to nieces and nephews. She had never married, never had children. The eulogy was delivered by her “close (female) friend” of many years.

 

I have no way of knowing whether this elderly woman and her “close friend” were lesbians, but it is a reasonable assumption. Hers was a generation born before coming out days and gay pride celebrations. Recently, one of the news magazines featured a personal essay by an 88-year old woman who had just lost her life partner, and had decided to declare her orientation publicly for the first time. As she wrote, “What can happen to me now? I don’t have a job to lose, or parents who will be scandalized or humiliated.”

 

As difficult as it can be to be gay and out today, those who were born 75 or 80 years ago rarely felt that they had the option to be honest about their identities. They usually remained closeted to everyone but a handful of others who were similarly situated, often living in fear that their secret lives would become known. When the AIDS epidemic hit, many gay men went to their graves insisting they’d contracted the disease from a blood transfusion.

 

I can’t imagine living a lie your entire life, living in fear that someone will figure out that you aren’t who you pretend to be. Just think of the amount of energy it must take to erect and maintain that sort of facade—energy that might be devoted to more productive and enjoyable ends. Think of the psyches that the need for secrecy has twisted, the Larry Craigs and Ted Haggards and others who have tried to escape detection by being more homophobic than the homophobes. 

 

To make matters worse, at least for men, the gay community has not been particularly hospitable to its elders. Gay men seem to put a premium on youth and muscle tone and good looks, in much the same way that heterosexual men prize good looks and youth in women. (Trophy wife, anyone?) But just as heterosexual women of a “certain age” feel bypassed, older gay men can feel isolated and rejected. 

 

As the LBGT community continues to make significant strides toward inclusion and equal rights, I can’t help feeling a pang for those who have lived their whole lives in the closet, never experiencing the relief that comes from not being constantly “on guard,” never knowing the joy of being accepted and valued for who they really are.

 

The next time you are angry over unfair treatment, outright discrimination or the general hatefulness of the not-very Christian Right, you might pause to consider that America is still a far better place than it was 30, 40 or 50 years ago. And then remind yourself that all of us—gay and straight—need to redouble our efforts to ensure that it will be better still 10 or 20 years from now. 

 

 

 

    

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Coming Out Day is coming.

 

I remember making speeches eight or nine years ago about the importance of coming out—detailing the reasons that gay rights would not advance until the majority of gay and lesbian citizens made their identities known. (This was before people routinely included references to bisexual and transgendered identities.)

 

• It’s much harder to demonize “the other” if it turns out that he/she lives next door, works in the adjacent cubicle, or is your lawyer. It’s a lot easier to picture all gay men as female impersonators with feather boas when you don’t know that your favorite Aunt Bea and her friend Gladys haven’t just been roommates for the past thirty-five years.
• If you are a politician—at least a politician from an urban area—it is harder to disregard a potentially substantial group of voters and contributors. (These days, that only holds true if you’re a Democrat, unfortunately.)
• If you are a gay person who is still in the closet, it is much harder to speak out on gay issues, for multiple reasons.
• If you are a mother or father, you can’t really know your child if s/he is hiding such an important part of who they are. And that child loses an opportunity to discover what a ferocious and effective ally mom and dad can be. (Speaking for myself, anyone who tries to make my son a second-class citizen had better watch out for mom!)

 

These were—and are—good reasons for coming out, and they convinced thousands of people to do just that.

 

These days, we hear much less frequently about the importance of coming out, and for good reason. People listened, heard, and acted, and the consequences have been dramatic. While there are plenty of people still hiding behind the off-season clothes in the back of what must be a very large closet, there are so many people who now proudly acknowlege their gayness and relish their ability to truly be who they are that the conversation has turned from whether to come out to the question of when. That’s because we are seeing a new phenomenon, increasing numbers of young people who now come out to family and friends while they are still in high school.

 

The results of this increase have been striking. Because so many in the gay community  had the courage to declare themselves over the past decade or so (often in extremely hostile environments), the broader culture has changed. Is it still hostile? Yes, but not nearly as much as it used to be. If some families and workplaces remain ideologically closed, many others have become welcoming. Young men and women today certainly don’t have it easy, but they face a far more accepting culture than their older brothers and sisters faced just ten or fifteen years ago.

 

On Coming Out Days in the past, the message was simple: come out. Own who you are. Be visible.

 

This year, on Coming Out Day, it might be appropriate to reflect on just how much good the coming out movement has done—socially, culturally, personally and legally. Progress is always slow and difficult when it requires shifting people’s attitudes, but progress—substantial progress—has been made.

 

Being visible isn’t just productive. It’s exhilarating.

 

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Okay, so I sound like a broken record. Or like the lawyer I used to be. But dammit, the rule of law matters. And it matters—or should—even more to those of us who are not part of “the majority” at any given time.

 

Maybe it is because I grew up Jewish in a small town in Indiana, where many of my classmates still genuinely believed that Jews had tails. Maybe it’s because I went to college in the South during the sixties, when we were arguing about whether black folks should get to vote or be allowed into the local movie theater. Maybe it’s because I have a gay son, and lots of gay friends and relatives. If these experiences have taught me anything, it is the critical importance of impartial, enforcable rules that apply to all citizens, whether their neighbors like them or not.

 

To put it another way, your fundamental rights shouldn’t depend upon the outcome of the next election.

 

The problem is, the rule of law—the principle that citizens should be equal before the law, and the corollary belief that no one is above the law—has been under unremitting assault by this administration, and recent events have served to underscore the degree to which our fundamental institutions have been deliberately sabotaged. Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence occasioned the most outrage, but travesty that it was, it isn’t the sort of  thing I’m talking about. Election of a President with a fully-developed ethical sense (okay, any ethical sense) will stop that sort of abuse.

 

What worries me far more are the sorts of revelations that came out recently in the Washington Post’s devastating four-part series on Dick Cheney. Sure, he’s looney—but unlike our President, he’s also smart, and he has managed to inflict real and lasting damage to our governing institutions. The problem is, that damage isn’t visible to Joe Sixpack or the various talking heads that pontificate on what passes for news these days. It’s more insidious.

 

Equally insidious, and even more worrisome—especially to gay Americans and other disfavored minorities—is the damage being inflicted by a generation of judicial appointees chosen for their far-right ideology rather than their legal competence.

 

Recently, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed a lawsuit challenging the President’s domestic spying program. The court didn’t uphold the NSA spying—it really couldn’t have. Instead, it ducked the question by ruling that the plaintiffs had no “standing,” no right to sue. That’s a refrain we are going to hear more and more frequently; the Supreme Court dismissed a challenge to the Administration’s “Faith-based Initiative” last month on the same basis.

 

To define standing in terms more relevant to the gay community, what if the Massachusetts courts had ruled that only people who were already married had “standing” to challenge Massachusett’s marriage laws?  

 

This sort of decision is so dangerous precisely because non-lawyers are likely to shrug it off as some legal technicality. Few citizens understand that what these courts are doing is leaving laws on the books, but rendering them essentially meaningless. You don’t really have a right if no one can enforce it.

 

In the domestic spying case, the court said if the plaintiffs couldn’t prove that they were personally being spied on, they couldn’t sue—they couldn’t challenge the program. But of course, the program is secret, and without the ability to challenge it and subpoena relevant information, there is no way they can ever prove that they are among those being targeted. It’s a perfect catch-22. Before this case, being in the same category as the people being watched would have been enough; indeed, it was enough for the lower court, which had ruled that the program was illegal.

 

As I write this, the “Backward Bush” countdown clock I’ve installed on my computer says this administration has 562 days left in office. It can still do plenty of damage, of course, but it is the judges this President has installed—with the shameful “advice and consent” of a compliant Senate—who can really turn America’s clock back. And they will be on the bench for a generation.

 

Canada looks better all the time.

 

 

 

 

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