Category Archives: Gay Rights

Friends, Enemies and Identity Politics

As I write this, the news is filled with conflicting stories of interest—and concern—to the gay community.

 

On the plus side, I offer two “tidbits” suggesting increased support:

  • In Asheville, North Carolina, a pastor has announced that he will continue to perform religious weddings, but will no longer “officiate” for purposes of conferring that legal status. That is, he will conduct religious ceremonies for couples desiring to be married in the church—including gay couples—but those who are straight and thus entitled to the legal incidents of marriage will need to make an extra trip to City Hall if they want legal recognition. He says that it is his way of refusing to participate in an unequal system.
  • In Ohio, in response to a Republican-sponsored bill that would bar gays from adopting children, a legislator has sponsored a bill that would prevent Republicans from doing so. The anti-gay bill had a preamble with the usual “because children are more emotionally healthy growing up in ‘traditional’ families” justification; the anti-Republican adoption bill began by citing “credible studies” showing that children raised by Republicans tended to become more rigid, less tolerant adults.” It was pretty funny. The sponsor acknowledged his bill was a spoof, but said it pointed up the unfair and ridiculous nature of the anti-gay rhetoric.

 

On the minus side:

·        In response to the ever-vigilant Family Research Council, the federal Department of Health and Human Services has removed critical GLBT health information from its government website. FRC charged that the government “uses material from pro-homosexual activist groups…such as Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.” The content—which addressed substance abuse among GLBT populations—had been up for six years.

·        All indications are that the Republicans—who face formidable problems in the upcoming midterm elections—are gearing up to once again use “gay marriage” and “the homosexual agenda” as their wedge issue of choice. The gay community should brace itself for a real onslaught of hateful faux piety this fall.

 

Welcome to the culture war, 2006 edition.

 

In such an environment, it would seem prudent to reward and support those who—sometimes at considerable personal risk—have stuck their necks out to stand up for equality and human dignity. In Indianapolis, one of those people has been Congresswoman Julia Carson—and I find it inexplicable that this newspaper has endorsed her primary opponent.

 

Not only has Carson consistently and visibly supported legislation important to the gay community, she has used her considerable political capital when she didn’t have to get involved. When timid Democrats on the Indianapolis City-County Council voted with the GOP to defeat an amendment to the City’s Human Rights Ordinance—an amendment that would have extended protection against discrimination to gays, lesbians and transgendered citizens—Carson called them in and told them to do the right thing or answer to her. The amendment passed. Without her support, it wouldn’t have.

 

I can only assume that the Word decided to support her primary opponent because he is a gay man.  But it is a profound mistake to assume that people who share an identity will also share political and social goals. I am Jewish, and I can assure my readers that I share very few positions with Senator Joseph Lieberman.

 

I remember many years ago, when some of us “women’s libbers” created an organization called the Women’s Political Caucus. Its mission was to support women’s rights and especially women candidates. In the legislature at the time was a female state senator who consistently voted for conservative Christian “values” that had the effect of perpetuating discrimination against women. Redistricting had thrown her into a primary battle with a pro-choice, progressive male legislator. The Women’s Political Caucus (properly) endorsed the man.

 

When we engage in “identity politics”—supporting people because they are members of our “tribes”—we are perpetuating the attitudes that support inequality. If gays don’t support their friends, they deserve their enemies.

Comments

Who’s In the Closet?

Recently, a friend of mine was interviewed by the Indianapolis Star’s religion reporter. She is president of a local humanist organization, and the paper was doing a feature story on the group. Most humanists are agnostics or atheists, and she was understandably nervous about how the famously conservative newspaper would report the interview. When it appeared, it was very straightforward and factual, and I emailed her to congratulate her on the coverage.

 

In her reply, she forwarded another message she had received about the article. It came from a small town resident who was on the humanist email list, but had never attended one of their meetings. And it was heartbreaking.

 

The writer began by congratulating her on the article, saying “As you know, most articles about atheists, freethinkers, secular humanists, etc. treat us like aliens from another planet.” He then wrote

 

“It would be nice to be as open about my convictions as you all are. However, I still work for a living in a position which is highly visible in a community which is extremely fundamental. I am a top level leader in my profession, recognized state-wide by my peers as a quality professional, even honored by some for my service and skill. That would all change overnight if I were to ‘come out of the closet’ about my convictions. Regardless how much good I have done, how much skill I have acquired, I would be disowned I’m sure. In fact, a member of the governing board of the organization which employs me came into my office before the last presidential election asking if I were a closet Democrat because I had a bumper sticker on my car, a W with a slash through the center of it…I answered ‘I am not a Republican, not a Democrat, but an American who thinks for himself. I cannot support the current president and I am obviously not in the closet about that. “He was shocked at my response. In the community in which I work, Republican and Christian mean the same thing. So, in his mind, I was displaying disdain for Christ’s little lieutenant, and that translates to lack of support for the Christian Right—a dangerously bold move.’….

 

I am near retirement, and will eventually have nothing to fear from coming out. I look forward to the day when I can comfortably do so. In fact, I plan to come out shortly before retirement. Each retiree is honored for service. By making my convictions public prior to retirement I will force folks to pay homage to a known infidel. I will enjoy the irony of it.”

 

Is there a single gay American who cannot relate to this man’s experience? I doubt it. We face a fundamental issue (no pun intended) today: namely, what sort of an America are we becoming? Are we creating a society where people whose opinions, beliefs, sexual orientations and behaviors are different from those approved by the majority must spend their lives in the closet? It will have to be a very, very big closet.

 

For that matter, do the theocrats really represent the majority? Or does their current dominance in the discourse of our times reflect the fact that reasonable, tolerant people are less likely to be militant? Unlike the shrill thought police, we are less sure that our opinions are universally valid, more likely to subscribe to a “live and let live” philosophy, less likely to “make waves” or “rock the boat.”

 

The first gays who came out were unbelievably courageous. They also changed the terms of the debate in ways that made the lives of their successors immeasurably better. How many other people are still in the closet for fear that their deviations from the prescribed orthodoxy will generate reprisals?

 

Maybe, if all of the people with unapproved ideas, unorthodox beliefs, different sexual orientations and/or minority political views came out of the closet together, we could reclaim America.

 

Comments

SJ 7 and the Jews

Why Jews Should Oppose SJ 7

Opening Remarks at Jewish Community Relations Council Workshop on

Same-Sex Marriage
For the JCRC, there are really two questions about SJ 7. One is a policy question, and one is a question my grandmother would have asked. The policy question is: would this be good or bad for Indiana? The grandmother question is: would it be good or bad for the Jews?
There are a lot of bad public policies. Since the JCRC has limited resources, those resources need to be focused on issues that clearly threaten our community and our religious values. I think SJ 7 is such an issue, and is something the JCRC should actively oppose, because it isn’t just bad policy; it is also bad for the Jews.
I won’t spend a lot of time on the reasons it is bad policy, because those will undoubtedly be addressed by others. Let me just quickly enumerate some of them:

  • It’s bad for economic development. Indiana is trying to recruit and grow high tech industries that employ a significant number of gay people. Sending a message that Indiana doesn’t value gay citizens won’t help.
  • It’s bad for business. The language of Part B virtually ensures that there will be a lot of costly litigation over its application.
  • It’s bad for civil liberties. SJ 7 would write discrimination into the constitution—a precedent I don’t think we want to set.
  • It’s bad for families. This ban would do absolutely nothing to “protect” families, and claiming that it would is illogical. Look at the four most common justifications:
1) Gays are immoral. If legislators care so much about morality, why do they let rapists and murderers marry?

2) Marriage is for procreation. Then why do we let old people and sterile people get married?

3) Gay parenting is harmful to children. There isn’t a scrap of credible research supporting that assertion. Most of the “studies” cited as “evidence” come from the same good scholars who first alerted us to the fact that Sponge-Bob Squarepants is gay.

4) Same-sex unions will undermine the institution of marriage. We aren’t told how or why. For that matter, the same thing was said about interracial marriages, and about letting women own property and vote.
These aren’t reasons—they are excuses. So SJ 7 is bad public policy. But SJ 7 is also bad for the Jews. Not just because Jews do better in open and tolerant societies, although we do, but because the Jewish community has an enormously important stake in preserving the constitutional separation of church and state. SJ 7 is an effort to turn a religious belief held by some Christians into the law, in a state where many citizens—including many Christians—do not share that belief.
Now, all laws are based to some extent on a society’s shared moral premises—shared being the operative term. But in our constitutional system, in order to be legitimate, laws must be justified by what philosophers call “public reasons”—secular civic purposes that are not grounded solely in religious doctrine. Let me suggest an example: In Judaism, we circumcise baby boys eight days after birth. There is research suggesting that wives of men who have been circumcised may be less likely to get cervical cancer. (That research is actually a lot more credible than the research cited by proponents of SJ 7.) If we had enough votes, should we pass a law requiring that all male infants be circumcised, irrespective of the wishes or beliefs of the child’s parents? If we leave out the eight-day wait and don’t require that a mohel perform the circumcision, would such a law be a secular exercise of authority?
Or take a less fanciful example: women’s rights were fiercely resisted for decades, in substantial part because a majority of Americans believed God wanted women to stay home and be submissive to their husbands. That isn’t what policymakers said, of course—they talked about protecting the “traditional family.”
This is not just about marriage. The people who support this ban believe homosexuality is evil, and that equal rights for gays are an endorsement of evil. They are the same people who oppose application of Indiana’s civil rights laws to gays and lesbians, the same people who defeated a city ordinance extending health care coverage to domestic partners of gay city workers. The organizations opposed to same-sex unions are the same ones that sent angry letters to the editor when Mitch Daniels and Carl Brizzi adopted employment policies protecting workers from being fired for being gay.
This measure is part of a much wider campaign to marginalize an entire group of people because some Christian denominations disapprove of them, and part of an ongoing assault on separation of Church and State. If there is one thing Jews have learned over the centuries, it is that we do not do well in a society that gives government the right to decide whose beliefs and “lifestyles” are acceptable.
Here’s the deal: the First Amendment means that Jews have to honor the free speech rights of Nazis and anti-Semites. We have to protect the right of religious figures to say things like “God doesn’t hear the prayer of the Jew,” or “God hates fags.” And people whose religions disapprove of homosexuality have to swallow hard and honor the right of all Americans to equality before the law. They don’t have to approve, they don’t have to invite gay people (or Jews) to dinner. They can picket gay pride, they can denounce gay culture, they can run homophobic political candidates. But in a society that separates church from state, they cannot deprive an entire group of people of equal treatment before the law. That is the line in the sand—and once it is erased, no one is safe.
Since we’re talking about religion, let me just conclude by referencing a passage from Leviticus that I don’t hear quoted by proponents of SJ 7. It describes an old ritual in which the high priest placed his hands on the head of a goat, and confessed the sins of the people. The goat was then sent into the wilderness, taking the sins of the people with it.
When people are frightened, when their world no longer seems comprehensible, they need someone to blame and send into the wilderness—a scapegoat. The Germans wanted a reason for their lost war and ruined economy, and blamed the Jews. In Salem, when things went wrong, it was the witches. Today, for those who find themselves surrounded by social change and events they can’t understand or control, it’s “the homosexuals” and “the gay agenda.” It is understandable, but it is an enormously dangerous road to travel.
And—as my grandmother would have said—it’s a road that is very bad for the Jews.

Thank you.
Comments

Morality or Bigotry?

How did the song go? You say “potato” and I say “po-tah-to?”

 

Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi triggered a modern version of the old standard when he adopted a new office policy providing that employment decisions would be made only on the basis of job performance, and that no one would be discriminated against on the basis of skin color, gender or sexual orientation. From my perspective, this was an entirely appropriate confirmation of the value Americans place on equal treatment before the law. According to Micah Clark and the American Family Association, it was a cowardly acquiescence to the “homosexual agenda” and a “slap in the face” to citizens of Marion County.

 

Whatever views people hold on the far more volatile issue of same-sex marriage, if polls are to be believed, most Americans are deeply committed to fairness in the workplace and equal treatment before the law. Because it is so difficult to argue that employers ought to be able to fire people just for being gay (or black, Jewish or Christian), those objecting to equal civil rights for gays have asserted that they aren’t really against equal rights—they are against “special rights.”  But it has become quite clear that what they define as “special” is equal rights for gay people.

 

A couple of weeks ago, the Kansas Supreme Court struck down the sort of law that the American Family Association feels is proper. Kansas had adopted a statute prescribing penalties for statutory rape—consensual sex between two individuals, one of whom is under the age of consent. For heterosexuals, the maximum penalty under the statute is fifteen months. Matthew Limon, a gay teenager convicted of having sex with a younger gay teenager, had already served five years of a seventeen-year sentence.

 

Let me be very clear: if every single other fact of the offense had been identical, but Matthew had been arrested for heterosexual conduct, he would have served at most fifteen months. He got an extra fifteen years and nine months because he was gay. When the Kansas court ruled that this amounted to unconstitutional discrimination, the decision was met with predictable accusations of “judicial activism.” In language quite similar to Micah Clark’s, a Kansas pastor decried the ruling as “a victory for supporters of a creeping gay-rights agenda.”   

 

To his credit, the Kansas Attorney-General, a Republican, has said the state is unlikely to appeal, and pointedly noted that when he had served in the legislature, he had voted against the law.

 

The bottom line in these debates—and in the ongoing City-County Council struggle to include gay people under the City’s Human Relations Ordinance—is quite clear. On one side are those who may or may not approve of homosexuality on religious grounds, but who nevertheless believe that every American should be treated equally in the workplace and by the law. On the other side are those who believe that laws preventing them from punishing or harassing gay people are somehow an “endorsement” of homosexuality.

 

Potato—po-tah-to.

  

Comments

Get Mad–And Get Even

Remember the great line from the classic movie Network?  Where people leaned out their windows and yelled, “We’re mad as hell, and we aren’t going to take it anymore”?


I’m there. What pushed me over the edge were the grim pictures from New Orleans, showing the devastating consequences of stupidity, arrogance and continuing, monumental failures of leadership. Added to the incompetence of an unnecessary war that no one knew how to wage, economic policies that are rapidly turning the U.S. into a banana republic, it was for me—and, I hope, for many others—the last straw. 
           
But just being mad doesn’t get us anywhere. Being pissed off doesn’t win wars. (If it did, some of us have been so mad so long, dead bodies would be littering the battlefield.) People who care about America have to channel our anger into productive activism in our own communities. If we don’t, we are equally culpable.


The gay community needs to be politically active for lots of reasons that are only marginally connected to the disaster that is our national government, but let me just list four:
·        First, elected officials are not mind-readers. City-County Councilors don’t know that most people really do believe in civil rights for everyone. Even Jerry Falwell says he believes that! State Senators and Representatives don’t know that the local clones of the American Family Institute and Concerned Women for America don’t speak for most Americans, and they won’t know unless we tell them.
·        Second, the Right wing is not just vocal, they are shrill. It’s one thing to be quiet when most other people are being quiet. But the right wing makes up for its small numbers with VERY loud voices. If those voices aren’t countered, if they are allowed to dominate the conversation, there will BE no conversation, because they are sure not interested in dialogue. If it takes two to make a debate, we need to be one of the two.
·        Third, nothing ever changes unless ordinary, good people make it change. It’s a political truism that the “base” of each political party is dominated by the most committed—okay, the most rabid—partisans. The majority of Americans have long since “tuned out” the usual voices, and they are not invested in civil rights or any other issues—they aren’t against equal rights, they just haven’t thought about it one way or the other. (Until Hurricane Katrina intruded, they’ve mostly been following the kidnapping of the blond in Aruba, or watching Donald Trump fire someone.)
·        And fourth, we owe it to our communities, and to America. People have died to protect our right to free speech, our right to petition our government for redress of grievances, to criticize public officials when they are wrong, or corrupt, or just plain stupid–we need to use that right. Use it or lose it was never more apt.


Feel impotent? Wonder what you can do between your job and other obligations? Plenty!


You can write letters to the editor(s)–supporting the good guys, criticizing the bad guys. And don’t just send them to the local daily paper: send them to neighborhood papers, appropriate newsletters, local and national magazines—any appropriate outlet. (And do use spell-check; I get hate emails about my columns all the time, and there is nothing more annoying than being cussed out in language you can’t decipher.)


Contact your elected officials. I know you get told that all the time, but it really is important. Email is good, if time is a problem. Hand-written letters are better, and personal contacts are best of all. Does your Representative hold town meetings? Go. And speak up. Did you contribute to a campaign? Call and remind the recipient that you’ve supported him financially and you are vitally interested in his position on fairness and equality for all Americans.


Does someone who is actively working against gay rights own a business? Boycott it, and tell them why.

Be a precinct committeeperson or ward chair, for either party. Actually, the GOP would be best—today’s Republicans desperately need more rational voices within the ranks.


Monitor the media. Pat Robertson isn’t the only loony-tune out there making ludicrous statements. Rational people are offended by pronouncements that God destroyed thousands of poor people in New Orleans because He opposes gay rights. Any opportunity to highlight the essentially nutty character of the far right is an opening. My favorite headline in the wake of the most recent Robertson episode was, “Who Would Jesus Whack?” One story about James Dobson saying Sponge-Bob Squarepants is gay is worth a month of well-researched arguments.  
 
There is a large and receptive audience waiting for our message—but someone has to deliver it.

Comments