Gay People are Everyday People

The new Affirmations Lesbian and Gay Community Center, located in Ferndale, Michigan (Ferndale is Detroit's "Boystown") distributed a "Gay People are Everyday People" poster to Michigan colleges and high schools recently. The poster features a group of young people surrounded by pictures representing various careers -- scientists, teachers, mail carriers, soldiers, artists, and so on. The caption "Gay People are Everyday People" is followed by Affirmations's phone number and website address.



The posters created controversy at Troy High School, in Troy Michigan, a middle-class, largely Republican, suburb of Detroit. A parent, Tony Cruz, quickly became the spokesman for parents objecting to the poster.

Cruz's objections appear to be the standard social conservative grist, for the most part: "If the poster is truly a message of tolerance, it should not single out one group. It should not even be acknowledged to youth, much less promoted. If they want to engage it, that's their business. We believe it's a sin. I am here to censor their attempts to promote that lifestyle on my children. We do not want them to try and change our children."

But at one meeting on the topic, Cruz said something that was, to me, very revealing.

Cruz was making his central argument that the promote gay sex, which he views as both immoral and dangerous. The poster's defenders respond that the posters were about tolerance, not promoting sexuality: "We don't consider the word 'gay' any more sexual than the word 'marriage,'".

Cruz's rejoinder: "Yet, the very word 'gay' is used to define individuals who engage in homosexual activity. Marriage, on the other hand, is defined as the legal union of a man and a woman. Between the sacrifices, mutual commitment and children, this union includes so much more than sex."

Well, yeah, as they say in Minnesota. Marriage is about more than sex, a lot more. I was married almost 30 years and I can tell you firsthand, as can anyone who have been married longer than Britney Spears.

But -- and this is the point Cruz and other social conservatives can't seem to get through their heads -- so are gay/lesbian relationships, and so, for that matter, is being gay/lesbian or straight.

I think that is revealing. And important. Gay/lesbian lives are "everyday", but social conservatives focus on one and only one thing about gays and lesbians -- the sex. In fact, because social conservatives are so focused on the sex, most, like Cruz, will not, as a matter of principle, even acknowledge that being gay/lesbian and living gay/lesbian relationships are, like straight life and straight relationships, including marriage, about a lot more than sex.

Sidebar: Spain Sanctions Same-Sex Marriage. Spain joined Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada in sanctioning same-sex marriage today. The measure passed the 350-seat Congress of Deputies, Spain's parliament, by a vote of 187-147 with four abstentions.

Okay, Tony, here are the basics: Most men are sexually attracted to women, most women to men. A small number of men are sexually attracted to men, a small number of women to women. In each group, many people fall in love and have relationships with other people; others don't. Most people who are in relationships have sex; some don't. Many people who are in relationships have children; others don't. Some people in relationships have mortgages together, share household chores, put up with in-laws, and experience all of the other "everyday" things that social conservatives so doggedly insist on "protecting" as "marriage".

In short, almost all of the "everyday" experiences Cruz associates with straights but not with gays/lesbians are part and parcel of gay/lesbian life.

The only real difference between gays/lesbians and straights is that straights can take advantage of a web of legal protections to support and nuture their relationships and families, while gays/lesbians, for the most part, cannot -- with the exception of difficulties put in the path of gay and lesbian families because they are denied the legal protections afforded to straights, relationships are relationships, and families are families.

I began to realize this simple fact with a start, many years ago, when my friend Bob was entering into a long-term relationship with Alec, and I considering marriage. As we talked, friends since early childhood and entering into full manhood, it dawned on my that Bob thought about Alec exactly the way I thought about Helen. I was a bit surprised, in the days right after Stonewall, but I absorbed what I saw.

The lesson grew over the years, as I got to know more gay/lesbian couples. Tom and Steve, across the street, raising their kids, lived a life virtually indistinguishable from the life Helen and I lived, raising our kids. And what was true of Steve and Tom was also true of John and Sam, raising their son, and Miriam and Hanna, raising their kids.

And I learned something else along the way, too, from my single friends, straight and gay. People are attracted to each other, crushes on each other, enter into all sorts of ties and binds with one another, sexual and not, romantic and not, inside or outside of long-term relationships. And, of course, I learned that some gays and lesbians are every bit as hedonistic, heedless, selfish and foolish as some straights.

Update: California Challenge Rejected - The California Supreme Court on Wednesday let stand a new law granting registered domestic partners many of the same rights and protections available to married couples. The Campaign for California Families challenged the law, saying it undermines Proposition 22 -- the 2000 initiative that defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Without comment, the justices unanimously declined to review lower-court rulings that said the law does not conflict with a voter-approved measure against gay marriage. The domestic partner law grants registered couples virtually every spousal right available under state law except the ability to file a joint tax return.

In the end, I came to understand how everyday gays and lesbians are -- as everyday as straights.

So I think that it is very revealing that Cruz -- and social conservatives in general, as far as I can tell from listening to them -- see straight relationships as rich, multifaceted, and deep, while seeing gay/lesbian relationships as merely about having sex. It is, I think, all about the sex for social conservatives. So much so that social conservatives won't look or can't see beyond the sex. And because they won't look or can't see, social conservatives cannot meaningfully engage in our national discussion about gays and lesbians, and gay and lesbian relationships. All social conservatives can do is repeat "Never, never, never!"

I don't know if social conservatives can or will move beyond the sex. But it seems to me that the reminder that "Gay People are Everyday People" needs to be spread much further than our high schools and colleges. It is something that we need to point out to everyone.

Ralph Reed Running

“What Christians have got to do is take back this country, one precinct at a time, one neighborhood at a time and one state at a time…I honestly believe that in my lifetime we will see a country once again governed by Christians.“ - Ralph Reed



I think that Ralph Reed is running for President.

Reed is the founder and former executive director of Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition, was a top strategist for George W. Bush in both the 2000 and 2004 campaigns, and Atlanta-based political consultant.

Reed is set to run for Lieutenant Governor in Georgia.

If successful, Reed will be positioned to build a statewide political base that can provide a launching pad for higher office -- first Governor of Georgia and then President.

Marshall Wittman, a former colleague at the Christian Coalition who now works at the Democratic Leadership Council, also thinks Reed may be eyeing the presidency, apparently: "He knew he couldn't go from the Christian Coalition so he became a political consultant, then Georgia GOP chairman, then coordinator for the Bush campaign. The next logical step is to win a political office. This is what's available, but it's clearly a stepping stone to higher office."

Heaven help us.

Envy?

Have you ever noticed how the seven deadly sins are unequally distributed between gays and straights?



Gays lay claim to pride, straights attribute lust -- and only lust -- exclusively to gays and, I guess, reserve envy, gluttony, wrath, avarice and sloth for themselves.

Hmmmm, I wonder what straight envy is all about ...

Canada Sanctions Same-Sex Marriage

Michael, my son John and I watched the Canadian Parliament sanction same-sex marriage nationally in Canada by a vote of 158-133.

Calm, orderly, almost boring.

Decisive. Democratic.

Equal rights. No more. No less. No different.

Equal rights. No more. No less. No different.

Chicago celebrated Pride last weekend, piled on top of Taste of Chicago.



Chicago's year is marked with a dozen or so major parades, starting with Saint Patrick's in March and ending with Thanksgiving in November. Along the way, all of the city's largest ethnic and cultural groups have their day -- African American, Irish, Italian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Polish and so on. Chicago even has a boat parade, Venetian Night, when hundreds of boats, lit to the yards, parade across the downtown lakefront to the delight of a couple hundred thousand Chicagoans.

Chicago's largest parade is the Bud Billiken Day Parade, celebrating the African-American community. The second largest is the Pride Parade, drawing roughly a half million people into the city's "Boystown" neighborhood. The Pride Parade has, in recent years, like similar parades all over the world, has evolved from political to party, but watching it last night on television has given me a bit of pause.

The local ABC affiliate covered the parade for an hour this year, as it did last year, at 11:30 in the evening, well after social conservatives were safely tucked in bed, except, of course, for those up to no good, like the Republican staffers who like to haunt the gay bars.

The station's reporters, and in particular a bouncy and pert young woman reported dressed in an outfit that was, well, just remarkable (right down to the strange sunglasses she stole off an alien) babbled away with happy talk, soaking in the "diversity" and the "color" of the parade, all the while making it as clear as the day itself was that they didn't have a clue, bubbling about the club floats and mangling the names of the service organizations, having heard of none of them before, as far as I could tell.

But mixed in with the happy talk were cutovers to the crowd along the way. The cutovers followed a pattern. The reporter would bounce over to the barriers, her producer having found a "diverse" looking person, couple or family, and start asking them about the "diversity" and "color" of it all. And the people being interviewed would say "Yeah, its really fun, but that's not the point. The point is that we want equal rights, and we want them now. That's why we came here -- to show up and be counted."



I'm not sure when it happened, but the GBLT community -- and this year's Pride Parade" -- have been transformed in the last few years. Pride, once political and then party, has become inextricably linked to the gay and lesbian demand for full equality.

In the years since I came of age before Stonewall, a number of issues have been at the top of the "homosexual agenda" -- an end to police harassment in public places, employment nondiscrimination guarantees, repeal of sodomy and laws designed to suppress and oppress, AIDS, hate crimes and the right to serve in the military, for example. At different times, different issues surfaced as the GBLT community struggled for basic survival rights in our society.

Slowly, over time, the focus of the GBLT community began to move beyond basic survival rights. Civil marriage rights moved up on the agenda with the unexpected success of efforts in Hawaii and Alaska in the 1990's, and Goodridge then changed everything.

The landscape changed with Lawrence v. Texas. In that ruling, the US Supreme Court struck down the nation's sodomy laws. The language in the opinion -- both the Court's opinion drafted by Justice Kennedy and in Justice O'Connor's concurrence -- was sweeping and simple, treating gay and lesbian Americans as citizens, no more, no less and no different than straight Americans The opinion did not couch the legal and Constitutional questions presented in terms of accommodation for a strange and alien group, but in terms of the rights of citizens, without distinction between straight and gay/lesbian.

Gays and lesbians are "entitled to respect for their private lives. The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny" by outlawing private, consensual sex between gay and lesbian adults. As Justice Kennedy read from the decision, some gay and lesbian lawyers in the courtroom silently cried.

The Lawrence decision hit like a bomb, not so much because of what it decided, but because the opinion acknowledged the full citizenship of gays and lesbians and the full dignity of gay and lesbian citizens as human beings.



Justice Scalia wrote a churlish dissent, warning that the ruling opened the door to same-sex marriage. Justice Kennedy, in the Court's majority opinion, disputed Justice Scalia's dissent, but, in retrospect, Justice Scalia was right and Justice Kennedy -- although right on technical grounds -- was wrong. A few months later, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court affirmed a right to gay marriage under the State Constitution, it cited the support of the Lawrence ruling.

Justice Scalia understood the heart of the matter -- if the Court treated gays and lesbians as American citizens entitled to the full protection of the Constitution on equal footing with straights, as human beings entitled to dignity rather than as a diseased "problem group", then it is inevitable that it will follow, despite the technical distinctions argued by Justice Kennedy, that gay and lesbian citizens are entitled to civil marriage as a matter of law. Justice Scalia saw what Justice Kennedy did not, which is that if the law acknowledged the human dignity of gays and lesbians, then under our Constitution equal means equal, and it is just a matter of time before equal becomes equal under the law.

With the Massachusetts decision -- and particularly the court's "separate is inherently unequal" clarification following the initial decision -- the realization that gays and lesbians were equal swept through the GBLT community. The Massachusetts decision was a catalyst for a change in self-understanding within the GBLT community. The community had been battling unreasoned suppression for so many years -- the love that dare not speak its name and all of that -- for so long that the community's focus was on continued battling. Suddenly, with Massachusetts, the community was empowered us to believe that the long-term goal of equality was possible.

Massachusetts, I think, changed the way in which the GBLT community saw itself and saw the future. After Massachusetts, the GBLT community came to understand that it could and should demand equality -- not a lessening of legally sanctioned suppression, but "Equal Rights. No More. No Less."

Massachusetts was a sea change for the GBLT community, to be sure, but it also was a sea change for social conservatives.

Since Anita Bryant’s Dade County campaign of 1977, at least, the gay rights movement had been a high profile punching bag for social conservatives. But Massachusetts crystallized the effort of social conservatives -- from the lofty false "moderation" emanating from the Oval Office on down to the darkest mutterings of Christian hated in one-room churches -- to drum up opposition to the GBLT community in the way that nothing else has, or perhaps could. Nearly all of the significant movement for constitutional amendments permanently blocking same-sex marriage rights, in Washington, in the White House and in the states, has taken place since the Goodridge ruling.

If same-sex marriage was not yet clearly at the center of the "homosexual agenda" on June 26, 2003, the day the nation finally ended its tradition of criminalizing the intimate behavior of gay men and lesbians, it indisputably was on November 2, 2004, the day 11 states voted overwhelmingly to amend their constitutions to limit the rights of GBLT citizens and the nation re-elected a President who had made cynical use of the issue to bring narrow victory.

Where the GBLT community was once a a punching bag for social conservatives, the GBLT became the punching bag in the months leading up to the November 2004 election and following. After Goodridge, the other components of the social conservative grab bag of cultural evils(abortion, women’s changing role in society, teenage sex, divorce, curbs on prayer in public schools, welfare dependency, drugs and a host of others) narrowed down to a single, galvanizing issue.

Same-sex marriage became the focal point for cultural anxiety gripping social conservative.



Why? I suspect it is because social conservatives understand that acceptance of same-sex marriage means acceptance of the human dignity of gays and lesbians as human beings. If gays and lesbians are seen as human beings -- equal human beings -- rather than a diseased wellspring of social pestilence, then social conservatives, and specifically the Christian Right, will have only a single arrow -- the threat of eternal damnation -- to use against their gay and lesbian children. And what threat is hell for gay and lesbian kids who already live in the immediate hell of a social conservative family, a family that loathes them in the guise of love?

And so, after Massachusetts, the battle has been joined, and the GBLT community has come to understand that, too. It is now all or nothing. Gays and lesbians will either achieve legal equality or be condemned to live in a twilight of inequality, not human but not quite.

The recent assault by social conservatives sobered the GBLT community. Social conservatives, led by the President, who is as unwavering in his opposition to gay and lesbian equality as he is unwavering in his insistence that we are winning the war in Iraq, waged the same-sex marriage sword so effectively in 2004 that, despite the Senate’s clear repudiation of the FMA last summer, it is clear that the GBLT community has no choice but to wage the battle, committing every body and weapon at our disposal to the struggle.

And, in turn, social conservatives have been emboldened by their successes. In my view, social conservatives have become emboldened to the point of over-reaching, dramatically demonstrated by the Terri Schiavo case. As you will recall, social conservatives demonstrated in the Schiavo case that they would not be content to destroy the fabric of GBLT families, but insisted on interfering with the fundamental rights of straight families, too, second-guessing even a husband's established right to make medical decisions for his wife. Social conservatives have not been given pause by the recently-completed autopsy debunking the ground on which they stood in Schiavo, but storm on.

The recent and escalating assaults by social conservatives -- overreaching, I suspect -- on a host of individual liberty issues —- from common sense and compassionate choice in dying, to women’s access to reproductive health services to same-sex marriage —- make clear that the "culture wars" are approaching a fulcrum between an America that values freedom and equality -- an America that honors the seminal ideas that "all men are created equal" and all men have a right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" -- and an America that dictates moral authority along narrow, sectarian lines. I think that more and more Americans, straight and gay/lesbian alike, are beginning to understand where we are, and what is at stake.

And so, within this context, it becomes clear why the bouncy lady from Channel 7 was having so much trouble getting Chicago Pride Parade spectators to join her enthusiasm over the "diversity" and the "color" of the parade.

Equal rights. No more. No less. No different.

Out, Young and Proud

Munster, Indiana, is a town in northwest Indiana, not all that far from Chicago. The Northwest Indiana Times ran a series of articles yesterday, "Young, Out and Proud".

The articles are superb. I encourage you to take a look at the whole set, including the photos of the kids in the stories, but I am reproducing two of the stories -- unedited -- because the two, together, are as good as anything I've seen in a newspaper on the subject recently.

Young, out and proud
BY OLIVIA CLARKE
Northwest Indiana Times
June 26, 2005

The first time Justin Basile told a friend he was bisexual, it took forever to get the words out.

He didn't want to come out and just say it. Instead, he described how one of his friends was actually more than a friend. He dated him.

But after several conversations with different friends, the words came easier.

"I wasn't worried about it anymore," said 15-year-old Justin, who attends Munster High School. "I wasn't worried about them not accepting it. It is just a big thing to tell someone. It is like telling your biggest secret."

Growing up can be tough enough for a teen.

But life's challenges only compound for many gay teens who must defend their sexuality to friends, family and society. They face constant questions, stereotypes and mean words like "queer" and "fag."

They lose friends and sometimes even resort to suicide because they feel so alone.

Some young people grow up in a luckier world where their parents and friends understand their homosexuality. Others live in fear of their parents finding out and no longer loving them.

Their stories

Whiting junior John Stangel doesn't like to label himself as the typical gay person, even though some of his friends initially tried to.

When John first revealed he was gay, some friends assumed he would enjoy shopping with them. But he would rather be part of the rock music scene than the mall scene.

Some people also wrongly assume all gay guys like each other and all gay people get along, he said. Many of his friends are straight and he spends much of his time working, going to school, volunteering and listening to music.

John, a lanky teen with edgy hair, learned he was gay at age 12 after listening to the radio program "Loveline." He heard guys describing their homosexuality and realized he could relate to them -- something that scared him.

When he told his mother, she told him it was just a phase he would grow out of. He didn't.

"I remember the first time I realized it. I thought, 'I can change it. I can change it,' " he said. "(Today) I'd rather be gay and get all the harassment than be straight."

Being gay has taught him to see all sides of a person and not prejudge others.

He attended Whiting High School, a small high school with a graduating class of about 60 students. He was one of only two openly gay male students during the recent school year. He plans to transfer to Crown Point High School because it has a larger academic and social pool.

He used to get upset about the comments and name-calling, but said he now he takes pride in himself. He remembers when someone threw a condom at him at school. He smiled at the person and said, "Thanks for noticing."

"The biggest hurdle is people's ignorance," he said. "If I get called 'queer,' it's not their fault they were raised to be that way. ... It's getting easier in Whiting, but it's nowhere as easy as I wish it would be."

Hobart High School senior Mallory Fiegle and her mother argue back and forth about what to say about Mallory's life.

Her mother wants to protect their family from the hate. Sure society tosses around words like diversity and unity, but Mallory's mother describes another world where her daughter's car could get trashed or the neighbors talk behind their backs because she's gay.

Mallory said she's pretty much known her entire life that she's gay.

She said she's not embarrassed by her sexuality, but she didn't come by her courage easily.

When she told a friend in seventh grade, she didn't realize her secret would spread throughout the middle school halls.

"I got really depressed because these people were my friends," she said. "I didn't know what to do.

"A lot of people I thought were my friends, they talked about me. They thought it was something really, really bad."

Her parents found out when another parent thought Mallory was giving love poems to their daughter -- a situation that turned out to be a misunderstanding. Her mother confronted her with the poems. A two and a half hour conversation filled with crying ended when she told her parents she was sexually confused so they could just stop talking about it.

Both parents told her they loved her no matter what.

Last year, she broached the subject again. She told her mother she was gay. Since then, she said her mother has been very open about talking about Mallory's relationships. Her father is less open; maybe he's ashamed or maybe he was raised to not talk about such subjects, she said.

"He'd rather see me get married to a guy and have children like everyone else," she said.

People wrongly assume teens are too young to feel attraction to the same sex and others believe gay people are infected with HIV, she said.

Today, she occasionally gets called names. But more students and teachers have "come out, making it easier to find people who understand what it's like being gay, she said.

"There are more people that accept it, but then there are people who still think it's the worst thing ever."

Lake Central senior Jeff Haupt, Munster sophomore Justin Basile and recent Munster graduate Allison Hassellof share laughs and milkshakes at a local Steak 'n Shake while talking about the gay culture in high schools.

Allison, who lets giggles escape when she looks at Jeff, is not gay. She enjoys hanging out with those who are, even though it can sometimes confuse people outside her circle of friends.

Jeff, a member of the track team who describes himself as outgoing and artistic, revealed he was gay at 14. At 17, his parents still don't accept it because it goes against their religion, he said.

"I believe being gay is not a choice," Jeff said. "Many people believe it's a phase. But why are you attracted to the sex that you are?

"People don't have to talk to us. They don't have to believe anything. We just ask for their respect."

Justin, a laid-back teen who enjoys theater, swimming and karate, said he's never really "come out" to his family, but they know. He describes his family as liberal and comfortable around those who are gay.

Most people do not immediately know he's bisexual, Justin said, because he doesn't act as feminine as some gay men do.

Both Justin and Jeff had girlfriends before they "came out," but now they date male teens. Justin also dates girls, but has been seeing more guys lately.

They meet other gay teens through parties or the Internet. They watch out for each other by screening photos or by hiding out at another table when their friend meets someone for the first time.

Last year, Jeff had a boyfriend at school and was one of the only openly gay teens at Lake Central. People look to him as a role model and this year more people admit to being gay, he said. His friends do not have a problem with his sexuality and he said the track team accepts him.

Several months ago, Munster teens started a Gay Straight Alliance that meets at their school, a rarity among high schools, they said. So much so that Jeff, who attends Lake Central, wanted to know if he could attend.

"It helps you know of a lot more people than you think who are OK with it," Justin said about the alliance.

Portage High School juniors Jeanne Brys and Stephanie Beam walk up to Barnes & Noble holding hands.

They've been dating for five months. This is Stephanie's first girlfriend, Jeanne's second.

With a round rainbow-colored button pinned to her collar and her tennis shoes painted in rainbow colors, Jeanne is comfortable with being bisexual. The colors are traditionally linked to gay pride. It's not unusual for her to wear T-shirts with sayings like "I love lesbos" or "I'm not gay, but my girlfriend is."

Jeanne said she's always been "boy crazy," but she's also attracted to girls. She admitted she was gay to her family and friends two years ago during the summer before her ninth-grade year.

Coming out to her loved ones wasn't too painful because they chose to accept it, she said. Her brother had a more difficult time because he would get teased at school. He hated her for a while, she said.

"His friends, whenever they came over, would call me names and say stuff to him about it later," she said. "I totally understand, but I can't help it."

School isn't too bad except for the names she gets called by senior boys in the hallways.

"I wish everybody accepted it and would leave us alone," she said. "We are not hurting them. We are not flaunting it. I don't understand why they have to torment us."

Jeanne counts herself lucky that her family was so accepting, when so many parents are not.

Stephanie said her mother always knew she was gay and even asked her before she admitted it last year. But her mother worries for her safety when Jeanne and Stephanie hold hands in public, she said.

Jeanne said she doesn't always like to show her girlfriend affection in public because she doesn't want to make other people uncomfortable.

She said she wants people to understand that gay teens are just like any other teens.

"We are regular people. We are not like aliens," Jeanne said. "We just have a different sexual preference."

Jamison Liang told his brother first that he was gay.

He meticulously planned how and when he would tell him. He visited his brother at college during spring break of his junior year. He talked to someone from a gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgendered group on the college campus beforehand.

"When I told my brother, I was exceptionally nervous and shaking and practically in tears," said the recent Homewood-Flossmoor High School graduate. "This was the first person I ever told in my family. I know there's lots of instances where kids are shunned or even kicked out of the family for being gay. I was pretty confident my brother would be OK, but I didn't know for sure what he would think."

His brother told him he would always love him.

"There were so many things in the back of my mind that I worried about," he said. "Once he said it, it put those worries to rest."

He told his mother last summer and told his father last. He made sure his brother was there for each conversation.

His parents told him they would support him, but he said there are varying stages of acceptance.

"Initially, it's very easy to say 'I'm very fine with it and I still love you,' " he said. "It's one thing to tolerate it and another thing to expect it. Once I have a boyfriend, that's going to be something my family is going to have to deal with."

Jamison has known his entire life he's gay. He said he wants people to realize that he's no different than anybody else. In high school, he was on the varsity tennis team and a member of National Honor Society.

Meeting people can be difficult because his high school only had a handful of openly gay male students, he said. He's never had a boyfriend and has started attending a group to meet other gay teens.

Jamison became local news when he and several friends started an awareness day at their high school where students wear T-shirts supporting gay students. This year, as participation in the day grew, students who opposed being gay decided to wear T-shirts condemning homosexuality.

His high school has a Gay Straight Alliance for students and the school board agreed to include sexual orientation in the nondiscrimination policy.

"Our administration likes to emulate other very good high schools in Illinois," he said. "When I talk to people who go to those schools, they are definitely quite a bit more progressive. I know we can't be like them just yet. But I hope in the coming years, we can sort of bridge the gap."

Sidebar: Beyond Munster

As background to the next story, here are some statistics. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, released its National School Climate Survey in 2003. According to the survey:
- Four out of five lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students reported being verbally, sexually or physically harassed at school because of their sexual orientation.
- Those lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youths who report significant verbal harassment are twice as likely to report they do not intend to go to college and their GPAs are significantly lower.
- 24.1 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students who cannot identify supportive faculty report they have no intention of going to college. That figure drops to 10.1 percent when lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students can identify supportive staff at their school.
- 84 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students report being verbally harassed because of their sexual orientation.
- 83 percent of students report that faculty never or rarely intervene when present during harassment.
- 90 percent of youths reported hearing homophobic remarks in their school.
- Three-quarters of youths reported feeling unsafe in their schools because of one or more personal characteristics, most often because of their sexual orientation or gender expression.
- More than half of the youths reported never telling their parents or guardians when they were harassed or assaulted in school.

The tough side of being gay
BY OLIVIA CLARKE
Northwest Indiana Times
June 26, 2005

They get called names in the school halls.

Parents tell them they no longer love them.

And bullies beat them up after school.

All because these local teens are gay.

Many teens face depression, ridicule, harassment, abandonment and even suicide when they choose to publicly admit they are gay or bisexual.

They enter a world that is not always accepting.

People do not always understand or respect their sexual orientation. Some hate them, and others want to condemn them for going against religious beliefs.

The story of college student Matthew Shepard, who was tied to a fence in Laramie, Wyo., in 1998, pistol-whipped and left to die because of his homosexuality made national news. But other, less violent but not less painful stories exist in Northwest Indiana and the south suburbs.

"It's a depressing lifestyle with all the negative feedback," said John Stangel, a gay teen who lives in Whiting.

One parent, who would not give her name, said her son is not gay even though he says he is. Homosexuality goes against the family's Christianity and they do not accept it or support him, she said.

A Lake Central student said her parents did not want her to speak about being gay because they feared she would not be able to get a job or college scholarship.

When high school junior Stephanie Beam was an eighth-grader at Griffith Middle School a friend was jumped and beaten up by a group of teens because he's gay, she said.

Other teens described similar situations.

"They beat him up bad enough to put him in the hospital," Stephanie said.

Gay youths are two to three times more likely to attempt suicide than heterosexual youths. And one-third of teen suicides are by lesbian and gay youths, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Gay teens face a sense of isolation because they cannot find the needed support, said Brad Becker, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian National Hotline.

"In rural or conservative areas, they are not really hearing anything positive," Becker said. "They are just not hearing anyone say it's OK to be honest about their lives."

The hot line, open eight hours a day, receives about 1,000 calls a month, and half of the calls are from people in their teens or early 20s, he said. People are admitting they are gay at younger and younger ages, which means they are in greater need of support, he said.

Munster junior Mary Carp said many teens do not publicly admit they are gay because they are afraid of ridicule. She helped start a Gay Straight Alliance that meets at Munster High School so teens would learn they are not alone.

"It's hard to accept yourself when other people are not accepting you," said Mary, who said she and her girlfriend get rude comments because they are gay.

"If you don't know anybody, it's hard to come out. I actually know people at this school who refuse to come out because they are afraid of what other people will think."

Mary said some people now are more open about homosexuality. But others still have a way to go.

Society, she said, "just needs to realize that it's just like anything else. It's the same as the civil rights movement in the '60s with African-Americans. You can't help it. You are no different than anyone else."

Becker, from the Gay and Lesbian National Hotline, said the country is taking a step back in its access to good health care information. Students are being taught abstinence-only programs and that they should not have sex unless they are married. And he said teens are being taught that gay people cannot get married.

If safer sex is being taught, he said, it is only being taught in the context of heterosexual relationships.

"You are denying them access to information, combined with the kind of common feeling of being invincible. You are just seeing a lot of people making bad decisions," he said.

Gay and lesbian teens receive little specific information on STDs, according to the American Social Health Association.

"That doesn't make STD and HIV prevention seem like an important issue," according to the association. "But, think for a minute. Some estimates suggest that one in five HIV-positive men were apparently infected during their adolescent years. Also, one in four sexually experienced teens has an STD."

John said sex between two men or two women is not talked about during sex education. Sex, in general, can be a taboo subject in schools, he said.

"It is almost shunned. You don't talk about it," John said. "If you don't think about it, it's not going to happen."

On Baptists and Boycotts

The Southern Baptist Convention met in Nashville this week.

The keynote speaker, so to speak, was a Methodist, the President, who called on Congress Tuesday to pick up the pace and pass a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

President Bush praised the denomination for its strong "family values" and support for the amendment: "Building a more compassionate society starts with preserving the source of compassion - the family," Bush told the convention. Strong families teach children to live moral lives and help us pass down the values that define a caring society. And Southern Baptists are practicing compassion by defending the family and the sacred institution of marriage. Because marriage is a sacred institution and the foundation of society, it should not be re-defined by local officials and activist judges. For the good of families, children, and society, I support a constitutional amendment to protect the institution of marriage."

The President did not, oddly, mention the divorce rate among Southern Baptists, among the highest in the nation.

In other Convention news, Southern Baptists voted to end their boycott of the Walt Disney Company, a move that comes eight years after the group condemned as immoral and "gay-friendly" everything from the company's same-sex employee benefits to the TV show "Ellen." The Disney resolution, passed in 1997, called for Southern Baptists to refrain from patronizing Disney theme parks and products.

Earlier this year, the American Family Association, a Mississippi-based conservative Christian group, ended a boycott of Disney launched nine years ago over similar issues, including the gay benefits and gay-related events at its theme parks.

So it looks like Mickey gets a pass.

Not so the schools. Southern Baptist delegates passed a resolution on Wednesday that encourages parents to investigate their children's public schools to determine whether they are too accepting of homosexuality. The resolution states, in part: "Homosexual activists and their allies are devoting substantial resources and using political power to promote the acceptance among schoolchildren of homosexuality as a morally legitimate lifestyle."

Houston lawyer Bruce Shortt, who co-sponsored the measure, said many public schools promote acceptance of homosexuality through officially sanctioned gay clubs, diversity training, anti-bullying courses, safe sex and safe-schools programs.

In other news from the Religious Right, evangelist Jerry Falwell called on his followers to threaten Kraft Foods with a national boycott over the company's support for the Gay Games, trumping the American Family Association, which began a campaign against Kraft last month for its sponsorship of the event, but stopped just short of advocating a boycott.

In his monthly column, in his publication National Liberty Journal, Falwell says that "multiple millions of Americans who loyally purchase Kraft products have a right to express their opinion on the company’s decision to link itself with the Gay Games. These people have a right to say, 'If Kraft insists on sponsoring the Gay Games, I will be compelled to seek alternative brands at the grocery store.' I urge everyone to take a stand for decency by participating in this national effort to defend traditional family values. In addition, I am calling on pastors across the country to urge their congregations this Sunday to get involved in this action. We must let Kraft (and other big companies that are watching this situation) know that we are holding them accountable for their actions."

Falwell, who has a radio and television ministry and is the founder of the Moral Majority and Liberty University, has had a long history of opposing gay rights. In 1976 he, along with Anita Bryant, led the charge against gay adoption in Florida leading to the most repressive anti-gay adoption law in the US.

Following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001 Falwell declared that gays and pro choice advocates were to blame. Speaking on the 700 Club religious program Falwell said, "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen'."

Well, true enough. God will not be mocked. But nonetheless, we mock God, often enough. Right, Jerry?

Pants on Fire

Social conservatives, like unstaked vampires, refuse to let the ground settle.

Last year, the Massachusetts legislature narrowly approved a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage in Massachusetts but allow "separate but equal" civil unions. Under Massachusetts law, legislators must approve the amendment again this year before it can go to the voters in 2006. The amendment is scheduled to be considered again this fall, but it is becoming increasingly clear that the amendment will be defeated this time around.

Social conservatives, sensing that the constitutional amendment will not go forward through the legislature, have now abandoned the amendment and announced a grass roots effort to put voter-initiated amendment on the ballot, ending same-sex marriage and prohibiting civil unions in Massachusetts.

The group, VoteOnMarriage.org, a coalition of the state's most powerful same-sex marriage opponents, including the Catholic hierarchy, the Massachusetts Family Institute and the Black Ministerial Alliance, condemned the existing amendment because it will permit civil unions.

To get a citizens initiative on the ballot the wording will need to be approved by the Secretary of State and then group will need to collect enough signatures to get the initiative on the ballot. The earliest it could go on the ballot would be 2008.

Not, mind you, that success is assured on the ballot. A public opinion poll earlier this year showed that most people in Massachusetts have grown comfortable with same-sex marriage since it became legal a year ago and a majority of respondents said they would oppose amending the state constitution.

Within minutes of today's announced citizens initiative Governor Mitt Romney threw his support behind it, renouncing his previous support of the earlier amendment: "Governor Romney believes that voters should be given a straightforward amendment to decide the definition of marriage and not one that muddies the water by creating civil unions that would be equivalent of marriage in all respects but name," according to spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom. At a press conference held on June 16, Governor Romney said: "I therefore support the coalition for marriage's proposed amendment. I believe it is superior to the amendment that is pending before the state Legislature and hope that this amendment will ultimately be the one that the citizens have an opportunity to vote on."

That is a change in tune, of course, but not unusual for Governor Romney, who is running for President and has to somehow overcome the fact that he is running from the Gay State as a true red social conservative. The Governor has been getting a lot of heat from social conservatives about the earlier amendment, which is why he started to dance around it. If Governor Romney is to have a chance of garnering social conservative votes in the Republican primaries, he has to build an image as the premier gay-baiter in the Republican Party, opposing gay and lesbian civil rights at every turn. The new amendment gives Governor Romney a chance to position himself as an implacable foe of gays and lesbians.

Governor Romney also attempted to make a conciliatory gesture to Republican moderates, however, pledging to support domestic partner legislation if the new amendment passes: "If this amendment were to pass at that stage I would support legislation that would provide certain domestic partnership benefits like hospital visitation rights and rights of survivorship and so forth. There will be children born to same-sex couples and adopted by same-sex couples and I believe that there should be rights and privileges associated with those unions and the children that are part of those unions."

I wonder if Governor Romney's pants are on fire yet, or just smoking. Governor Romney pledged to support domestic partner legislation as far back as his gubernatorial campaign in 2002, but he has never put forward such legislation during his time in office. The Governor shows all the signs of being as two-faced as most social conservatives.

The good news is that the new amendment effectively seals the fate of the earlier amendment, and gives gays and lesbians an additional two years of marriage in the state. In that two years, it is likely that Massachusetts voters will continue down the path of acceptance of same-sex marriage, making passage of the new amendment less likely than passage of the earlier amendment.

In any event, it sounds to me like Massachusetts social conservatives are beating a dead horse -- nobody in Massachusetts seems to be all that interested in changing course at this point, except for the wing nuts -- but no effort to protect gays and lesbians from marriage is too outlandish for social conservatives.

Air Jesus

If you want to get a taste of what life in our country will be like if social conservatives gain control of our government and manage to steamroll the courts and the Constitution, the Air Force will release a report today addressing religious intolerance at the Air Force Academy.

The report calls the academy's problems serious and persistent and expresses suspicions that similar issues extend to Air Force bases, according to Abe Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, who met with Air Force officials and Congress members this week. The league is an American Jewish group that battles anti-Semitism.

The roughly 80-page report will contain recommendations to change the atmosphere. Foxman said he was briefed on the report earlier this week by acting Air Force Secretary Michael Dominguez and Lieutenant. General. Roger Brady, deputy chief of staff for personnel who heads the task force.

"It will acknowledge there have been problems and continue to be problems that need to be addressed. They will say it is serious, though I don't know exactly to what extent."

The report follows a long history of pervasive and inappropriate proselytizing by conservative Christians at the Academy.

A team of retired military chaplains interviewed Air Force Academy cadets and officers last week as part of a broader investigation into complaints that some academy leaders inappropriately promoted evangelical Christianity and that cadets of other faiths were victims of religious bias.

Among the complaints sent to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld in late April:

(1) Professors telling students on the first day of class that they were born-again Christians and urging cadets to adopt the same beliefs.
(2) Instances of upper-class cadets harassing junior cadets on the basis of religion or employing religious slurs.
(3) Posting of a banner reading "I am a Christian first and last. I am a member of Team Jesus Christ." by football coach Fisher DeBerry in the locker room used by the Air Force football team.
(4) The practice of marching cadets who decline to attend chapel services after dinner back to their dorms in a ritual called the "heathen flight."
(5) Brigadier General Johnny Weida, the Academy's deputy superintendent, calling for cadets to observe the National Day of Prayer, promoted heavily by evangelical organizations, and advising cadets that their "first duty is to God".
(6) An aggressive promotional campaign for Mel Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ included publicity flyers placed on meal plates in the spring of 2004 and images from the film flashed on cafeteria screens used for official messages during cadet meals.

The academy's superintendent, Lieutenant General John Rosa Jr., a Roman Catholic, has publicly acknowledged the problem. Earlier this month, he told Jewish leaders at an Anti-Defamation League national meeting: "I will tell you as a commander, I have problems in the cadet wing. I have issues in my staff, and I have issues in my faculty. It's been at the academy for a while, and it's going to take a while to fix."

Needless to say, social conservatives have a different read. In the view of social conservatives, religious freedom of expression is being unduly attacked.

An executive of Focus on the Family, based in Colorado Springs, called the complaints and investigation "a witch hunt", according to a report in Christian Century. Christian Century also reported that at a Colorado Springs banquet sponsored by the nationwide Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Bobby Bowden, football coach of the Florida State University, asked, "If you knew the cure for cancer, would you tell somebody or would you keep it a secret?"

I don't know about social conservatives, but my ancestors came to this country to escape religious persecution, not to promulgate it. How quickly we forget.

No Point in Doing Honest Work

A long, long time ago, when Moses was a boy and we were mired in Vietnam rather than Iraq, a bunch of us -- drunk, needless to say -- were trying to figure out a way to turn our Green Beret skill set into a money-making operation.

We explored, among other things, the idea of taking over Haiti and exploiting it for our own purposes. But then, Papa Doc was replaced by Baby Doc, and it no longer looked like the sort of thing a dozen or so guys with our training could pull off. And most of the other ideas involved honest work.

So we decided to become evangelists. The idea was a simple one -- skydive into some small, southern town on a moonless night, phosphorescent crosses on our parachutes, and evangelize the gullible for a day or two while milking them for all they were worth, and then take the money and run.

Well, that, too fell by the wayside, the straight and narrow path being a bit hard to negociate while drunk.

Unfortunately, as it turns out. The idea was a good one.

At least, it is an idea that Force Ministries appears to have adopted.

I wish the guys well -- and Godspeed.

Promiscuity and Priests

The Chicago Tribune reports:

As the nation's Roman Catholic bishops gathered in Chicago Thursday for a meeting to review their sexual abuse policy, Cardinal Francis George said homosexual men should not be admitted into seminaries.

George, who is archbishop of Chicago and vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in light of the sexual abuse crisis, bishops are paying closer attention to the sexual backgrounds of men interested in entering the priesthood. Part of the commitment is that a man is celibate when he enters seminary.

"Also, anyone who has been part of a gay subculture or who has lived promiscuously as a heterosexual would not be admitted ... no matter how many years in his background that might have occurred," George said.

I wonder if Cardinal George would apply the same "promiscuity" standard to straight candidates? And if not, why not?

And I wonder whether Cardinal George thinks that pedophilia (adults whose primary sexual attraction is toward prepubescent children), ephebophilia (adults whose sexual attraction to postpubescent adolescents) and homosexuality (adults whose primary sexual attraction is to adults of the same gender) are equivalent.

Since I'm suggesting that a bit of education for Fred Phelps might be in order, I guess Cardinal George could use a bit of education himself.

Odious

The odious Fred Phelps is at it again.

Wisconsin's Marshfield News-Herald contains a report today that Phelp's church, the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, is threatening to protest at the funeral of Lance Corporal John J. Mattek, Jr. on Monday. Mattek died in Iraq when a roadside bomb exploded during combat operations.

The Antigo Police Department is aware of the notice and will maintain the peace, according to the newspaper.

Westboro sent notice to area media outlets and the funeral home handling Mattek's services Wednesday, saying it will picket outside the service.

The group proclaims the war deaths of US military personnel are a punishment from God because the US is a country that accepts homosexuality, according to Shirley Phelps-Roper, a member of the organization quoted in the Marshfield News-Herald.

If Phelps and his hate-filled crew follow to form, the group will stand outside the funeral home, church or cemetary with the usual "God Hates Fags" posters, singing such musical hits as "God Hates America, the Faggot's Home" to the tune of God Bless America.

Members of the church have protested at other military funerals, including one Wednesday in Idaho for Army Specialist Carrie French. At that funeral, the group flew the American flag upside-down and dragged it on the ground during protests.

The Reverend Jeremiah Worman, the priest who will perform Mattek's funeral Monday, isn't worried: "God knows what he wants us to do and he sees to it that we kind of respond to him. I'm not worried about idiots trying to come in and sabotage a religious service. (God will) take care of it for us."

Father Worman also told the News=Herald that he doubts the organization will show up in the first place, and said any potential disruption would be quickly handled by police. The community support for the Mattek family has been so strong, Father Worman said, that it would overwhelm any possible protests.

No doubt.

And the Marine honor guard at Corporal Mattek's funeral -- men who know war and sacrifice first-hand -- can be expected acquit themselves with a dignity that Fred Phelps lost long ago, if he ever had any.

But I do hope that veterans in town -- every small town in Wisconsin has lots of veterans my age, given the way the draft worked in Vietnam -- will take a moment to discuss the importance of respect for our country's war dead with Phelps and his haters on the way back from the funeral.

Education is important in and for itself, even when you are educating a bunch of hate-filled idiots.

Dark Clouds, Safe Havens

In the City of Chicago, the GBLT community broke ground on Tuesday for a $20 million center planned as the new home of the Center on Halsted, the city's largest GLBT social service agency, and a cultural and social hub for the GBLT community in Chicago.

The three-story facility will offer meeting and office space to more than 40 Chicago-area community groups, classrooms, recreational areas, a 175-seat performance venue, a rooftop garden, a cyber center and a underground parking garage. The new facility will allow the Center on Halsted to expand social service programs it has provided for 32 years, including youth counseling services, aid for victims of domestic violence and hate crimes, individual and group therapy and HIV/AIDS programs.

After surveys and interviews in Chicago, and site visits to gay and lesbian centers in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, Center on Halsted officials learned that members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community wanted a space where they could foster unity, feel physically and emotionally safe and find cultural enrichment, according to a report in the Chicago Tribune.

The new facility is sorely needed.

Chicago has been a hub for gays and lesbians in the Midwest for many years, but it has been a hub without a center. Young gays and lesbians flock to Chicago from smaller communities all over the Midwest, and too many of them get lost in the club and drug scene.

This is nothing new for Chicago, of course. Chicago has always been something of a "sin city" for the Midwest, immersing fresh-faced, naive rural youth, straight and gay, into the ways of the world. A large, rich and active social services and recreational center will provide needed help for gay and lesbian youth.

But it will also provide, as the Tribune report noted, a place where the entire community, young to old, can "feel physically and emotionally safe".

In my view, that is every bit as important as a social services center. The new facility will be a place to "breath easy".

I was struck by the need for a place to "breath easy" on Saturday, when I was at PrideFest in Milwaukee. As those of you who follow this blog know, I was with a couple of friends, Damien Scott and Bob Mitchell.

Bob had a stroke a year or so back, and no longer is able to move around as much as he used to do. At one point during the afternoon at PrideFest, he told me that it was good to be around so many gays and lesbians again. It is not something that he gets much any more.

And, I might note, in a safe place.

PrideFest is held at the SummerFest grounds in Milwaukee, and it is a protected area. Police and paramedics were on the grounds, and -- notably -- the place was free of straight hooligans. Everyone on the grounds was gay or lesbian, or straight but gay-friendly. It was a day to "breath easy", a day in which there was no need at all to keep an eye out for trouble.

I don't experience many of those days in Chicago. While I don't get harassed all that often -- I'm too old and too adept at, as a friend puts it, "carrying it off" -- and have never been attacked, I'm constantly aware that an ugly glare or ugly remark can come any time, unexpectedly, out of nowhere, even in gay-friendly areas. It happens with enough frequency that it is just part of my life and I'm used to it, in the way that anyone in any visible minority is used to it.

But at PrideFest, there was no need to keep an eye out. And the new Center on Halsted facility will be a similar place.

Which brings me to another thought, something that was mentioned in a comment on this blog: "But would a thirteen-year-old skinny Baptist kid in Buford, Georgia choose to be different in any way?"

My friend Bob was out in the early 1970's, when "coming out" meant opening yourself up for a lot of harassment and disdain. Over the years, although "coming out" has never been easy, I suspect that the path became a bit less perilous than it was in Bob's time.

But what about now? What about that kid in Buford, Georgia, or his counterpart in Salon, Iowa, or Chicago's southwest side, an enclave of ethnic conservatism? Could "the closet" look more inviting now than ever?

I don't know, but I wonder.

We live in a time when gays and lesbians are under increasing, and open, attack. Our President is a cheerleader for social conservatives, preaching the gospel of legal inequality, restricting the rights of gay and lesbian citizens, disparaging gay and lesbian families, insisting that the way to "protect marriage" is to keep gays and lesbians from marrying. Our Pope and the leaders of our country's dominant religious group -- Evangelical Christians -- preach a loud and constant drumbeat that gay and lesbian is wrong, bad, dangerous, immoral and/or unacceptable.

All of this had had its effect.

Like many people, I've noticed that the social conservative campaign has emboldened the bigoted. It is not, I suspect, unusual for gays and lesbians to have discovered that friends and family support the campaign -- at least the "no marriage" part -- buying into the idea that same-sex marriage will give children the "wrong" idea about what a family is or should be. I've been surprised at work, finding that co-workers who I would have thought would be supportive -- like the lady with a partnered sister raising children and a partnered nephew in her family -- shut down when the discussion come up. And I've certainly noticed -- as everyone has -- the increase in homophobic assaults, anti-gay graffiti, hateful letters to the editor, and so on.

I don't think that bias against gays and lesbians is anything new -- I'm 58 and came of age pre-Stonewall -- but I think that what is new is that those who hold those biases feel increased permission to express anti-gay bias. And it is hard to argue with them, given the tone set by our religious and political leaders -- if the Pope, for God's sake, is trumpeting his anti-gay bias, why shouldn't "Joe Average" spew his own?

Today's GBLT youth live in a world which is darkening, like the dark clouds over Europe in the 1930's.

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force recently found that LGBT hate crimes have gone up 30 percent within the past year.

The Office of Public Policy of GLSEN conducted a survey of the experience of kids in schools in 2003, which found that: "77.9 percent heard remarks such as 'faggot' or 'dyke' frequently or often at school; 18.8 percent heard similar remarks from faculty or school staff at least some of the time; 82.9 percent reported that faculty or staff never or only sometimes intervened when they were present when such remarks were made; 84 percent personally had been verbally harassed at school because of their sexual orientation; 65.3 percent had been sexually harassed; and 39.1 percent had been physically harassed."

According to Jessea N. Greenman, a student affairs officer at UC-Berkeley and a member of the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on LGBT Affairs, many medical students and graduate students at Berkeley are not "out" due to the increasingly hostile social climate. "They don't feel they can be out and still be successful in their careers right now. And that's very sad because when people aren't out, they're afraid, and they put a lot of energy into hiding, which could make them less successful."

The pendulum swings. African Americans experienced much the same thing was the struggle for civil rights heated up. And the wall will, in time, crack. In the long run, the US government can no more preach to the rest of the world about freedom and equality while openly supressing freedom and equality at home now than it could in the 1960's. Segregation fell, ultimately, because the American people saw this simple truth. And discrimination against gays and lesbians will similarly fall in our own time.

But meanwhile, I think that it is important for the gay and lesbian community to build centers like the new Center on Halsted, providing resources and a safe haven.

Gaydar

Police officers in Oxford, England, arrested Sam Brown, a student at Oxford University, on charges of "causing harassment, alarm or distress" and fined him £80 after Brown asked a mounted police officer if he knew that his horse was homosexual.

Brown made the remark during a night out in Oxford where he was celebrating completing his English Literature degree. He had approached two mounted policemen in the city center after leaving a bar where he had been drinking with friends. After his arrest, he was handcuffed and taken to a police station where he was given a fixed penalty notice after spending the night in a cell.

"The whole thing is absolutely absurd," said Brown. "There were about six police officers and a whole load of patrol cars. I will be speaking to a solicitor to see how I can overturn the ruling."

The horse has had no comment, but is reported to have winked slyly at his stall mate, who responded with a low, knowing snicker.

Safer in Iraq?

Idiots.

That's the only word for it.

Social conservative lawmakers in Georgia, who cooked up a proposal to require parental permission for students to participate in any extracurricular activity as a way to intimidate kids from joining gay-straight alliances and other GBLT support groups, failed to get the proposal through the Georgia School Board Tuesday but now vow to take the measure to the Georgia legislature.

The plan was put forward in March by Schools Superintendent Kathy Cox after she was pressured by lawmakers who have tried for several years to squelch GBLT student support groups in Georgia high schools. But, a month later, it was rejected by the board and then revived under pressure from some members of legislature. Tuesday, it was rejected again by a 10-3 vote.

Georgia School Board member Jose Perez put it well, I think. He noted that students could drop out of school at 16, join the Army at 18, but would still have to get a parent's permission to join an extracurricular organization if they remain in school. "I'm not sure I quite comprehend that," commented Perez.

But State Superintendent Cox predicted the issue is not dead: "I would venture a guess that, after today's action, there probably will be action in the legislature."

No doubt.

Maybe GBLT kids in Georgia should drop out of school and join the Army. They might be safer in Iraq than Georgia.

Warning Labels

The Reverend Bill Banuchi, formerly pastor of Living Waters Assembly of God in Higland Falls, New York, and now Executive Director of the New York Christian Coalition, a social conservative lobbying group affiliated with the Christian Coalition, says that gays should be required to wear warning labels:

"We put warning labels on cigarette packs because we know that smoking takes one to two years off the average life span, yet we "celebrate" a lifestyle that we know spreads every kind of sexually transmitted disease and takes at least 20 years off the average life span according to the 2005 issue of the revered scientific journal Psychological Reports."

Psychological Reports regularly publishes articles described by mainstream psychologists as misleading and faulty. The homosexuality morbidity study referred to by Reverend Banuchi was conducted by the Family Research Institute.

Reverend Banuchi is not the first, of course, to insist that gays wear identifying badges.

Never forget.

Queer by Choice? Why Not?

The question came up again Saturday night at dinner with friends -- "Are we gay by birth or gay by choice?"

I think that it is now clear that both the consistent witness of gays and lesbians as well as the bulk of scientific evidence -- most recently the fruit fly orientation gene switch, for example -- suggest that sexual orientation is inborn. Even the Catholic Church officially teaches that homosexuality is not, for most, a choice. As far as I am concerned, there isn't much doubt.

And the only straight people who don't seem to agree are those who are so bound up in a teetering worldview that they are afraid to ask the parallel question: "Am I straight by birth or straight by choice?" I have yet to find any straight who remembers making a choice to be straight, or even thinking about it.

But I wonder if there isn't a hidden trap for gays and lesbians in both the question and the answer. The reason, it seems to me, that the question is asked about homosexuality but not heterosexuality is that there is an implicit assumption underlying question and the answer -- "No, I did not choose it; who would choose to be gay?. And that, to my mind, unmasked the hidden homophobia behind the question and the answer -- the answer "inborn" with its implicit statement "Who would choose to be gay?" suggests that gays and lesbians would be straight if they could.

Perhaps that is right. I don't know. But the idea that gays and lesbians would choose to be straight if they could implies that homosexuality is a defective, lesser state of humanity, and that attitude is born of and reflects our cultural biases.

I want to take you on a journey of imagination, to ask, “Why not choose to be gay?”

The answer is important, it seems to me. Affirming our sexual orientation, whether it is by birth or choice, is a matter of personal and spiritual dignity. If gays and lesbians -- mature gays and lesbians, at any rate, who understand what it means to say "I choose you ... to a partner -- cannot answer "I would choose my partner, no matter what ... no matter how high the cost ..." then it seems to me that gays and lesbians are trapped by the question and answer, a question and answer carrying our cultural biases.

I understand, I think, why the question is of scientific interest, given our growing understanding of genetics. If something so basic as sexual orientation is inborn, science might be able to find out the mechanism of how sexual orientation is determined. And that, in turn, might lead to other gains in understanding of human nature.

And I understand, I think, why idea of “gay by birth” has become so much a centerpiece of the struggle for GBLT equality. Conventional wisdom assumes that if sexual orientation is inborn, then it is unfair to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, just as it is unfair to discriminate on the basis of skin color or other inborn traits.

But I think that this assumption -- the assumption that somehow the gay and lesbian struggle for legal equality is furthered by an understanding that sexual orientation is inborn -- misses the point.

I've discussed the legal irrelevance of the question in other posts, and I won't repeat myself on that score.

But I want to think about what the question means in terms of human dignity, in the context of our how our spiritual traditions deal with choice.

It would seem, at first glance, that if sexual orientation is inborn, much of the opposition of our religious opponents would dissolve. But a deeper look suggests otherwise.

The Catholic Church, of which I am a dissenting member, teaches the sexual orientation is not, for most, a choice, and that orientation itself is not intrinsically evil. Yet at the same time the Roman Catholic tradition teaches that the response for gays and lesbians is not acceptance but imposed lifelong celibacy. In this, in one sense, the Church's teaching with respect to gays and lesbians is no different than it is with respect to straights -- the Church teaches that all sexual acts outside of marriage which do not culminate in vaginal intercourse with ejaculation are intrinsically sinful. Catholic moral theology in this respect, as is typically the case of Catholic theology in general, is well developed and internally consistent, even if out of skew with human experience.

The situation is even more extreme -- downright weird, to be truthful -- among evangelical Christians. Evangelicals invariably teach that humans are by born into a sinful condition, and, unlike the Catholic Church, evangelical Christians generally teach that mankind is "hopelessly depraved", born with few if any traces of good in them. The Catholic view, by contrast, is that creation, although fallen, is inherently good, even if only by a 51/49 ratio.

The dark evangelical view of human nature is emphasized by their own cultural experience -- left floundering in life without a comprehensible theology or coherent worldview, and living in regions of the country with the highest murder, rape, violence, divorce birth out of wedlock, and other similar rates of social disorder, evangelical Christians, for the most part, have every reason to believe their own dark view of human nature.

Evangelicals believe, accordingly, that everything -- everything from masturbation to salvation -- is a choice, a choice for Satan or for God. The entire focus of evangelical Christianity focuses on making a "lifestyle" choice; that is, choosing Jesus Christ. All evangelical life is organized around a choice. It is not by accident that evangelical Christians insist that sexual orientation is

What is common to both the Catholic and evangelical Christian view of human morality is that human nature amounts to little other than to set the stage for moral choice; what counts is the moral choices made during the course of life. In the context of this theology of a fallen, sinful, depraved mankind, the theme of choice is played and replayed over and over again. The choices we make, and not our inborn nature, is the source of spiritual integrity.

Against that backdrop, the idea of "gay from birth" will have little or no effect on our opponents. And it does not seem to me, when understood in terms of our cultural biases, to do much for the dignity or spiritual integrity of gays and lesbians, either.

So it seems to me that gays and lesbians might be better off, both in terms of dealing with the religious opposition to gay and lesbian equality and in terms of gay and lesbian well being, to get out of the "gay by birth or gay by choice" argument altogether, and begin to build a case for what most mature gays and lesbians know -- that the choice to live fully and freely as responsible gay and lesbian adults is spiritually and morally sound, affirming the worth and dignity of gay and lesbian lives.

PrideFest

Michael and I went to Milwaukee's Pridefest yesterday with my friend, Bob Mitchell.

Pridefest was fun -- a lot smaller than the Pride mob scene in Chicago, attracting 40,000 rather than 200,000 -- and it was held at Summerfest, a park along the lakefront.

Pridefest was fun and the crowd manageable. Bob is in a wheelchair and we could move around freely, something I can't imagine happening, say, at North Halstead Days in Chicago, when eight blocks of North Halstead Street are blocked off and 100,000 people cram in.

The crowd was a good mix -- young, old, lesbian, gay, single, coupled, families -- and the Fest itself was a healthly mix of fun and education -- stuff for the kids,
bands belting it out from various stages for the adults, political workshops and representatives of various social services, including at least three health clinics offering free HIV testing.

The fest had a friendly atmosphere about it, with little of the frenzy of the Chicago Pride events -- but I say that with a caveat, because we left around dinner time, and the cute young things wouldn't really get going until dark. But what I saw, I liked. It was just a good, fun party, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Even the "Homsexuality is a Sin" crowd outside the gate seemed to be infected by the normalcy of it all -- the only really good hate stare I saw from them was from a boy about 12 who I caught in my peripheral vision as we were driving away, and his was a cold, stone look. He'll have a struggle growing out of the venom his parents put into his head, if he ever does. I wondered, as we drove off, whether the Jesus folk who haunt gay events find the sight of gays and lesbians kissing and hugging as unremarkable as gays and lesbians do, after hanging around gay and lesbian events so much ...

The crowd had a noticeable number of straight couples, too, generally young. I imagine that they came for the fun and the dancing. After all, the difference between PrideFest and PolishFest is in the music and the costumes, but not in fun.

Speaking of costumes, I saw a dozen or two youngsters running around in what I only describe as "rainbow goth", which was a sight to behold -- black from head to toe,
with rainbow accessories. Michael said that he saw one guy gothed from top to bottom, but wearing a "I just want to cuddle ..." T-shirt, which sends an even more mixed message than my pink cowboy hat with a Clint Eastwood conche hatband.

Early Saturday morning in Chicago before Michael and I drove up, walking with another friend, John Zubrig, who hails from Milwaukee, we were laughing about the "gay with a gut" -- in a clash between gay thin and Milwaukee beer, we both suspected that gay thin would lose. And sure enough, Pridefest had enough beer guts floating around to populate a Sox game.

Oh, well, as Bob says.

Honoring Veterans, Texas Style

During a news conference held in a Fort Worth church, Texas Republican Governor Rick Perry was asked what he would tell Texas gay and lesbian war veterans returning home from war about the law.

Governor Perry responded, according to the Fort Worth Star Telegram, by saying that "Texans made a decision about marriage and if there's a state that has more lenient views than Texas, then maybe that's a better place for them to live."

Yeah, well, I won't argue with that ...

PrideFest?

I will be going to Milwaukee's PrideFest with my friend Bob Mitchell this weekend. Bob, with the exception of my brother, has known me longer than anyone on earth. We go way back (back to the days when neither of us could walk and a good time was bopping each other with toddler toys) and we get together every month or so.

Bob came out shortly after Stonewall, in the early 1970's, after a stint in the Army as a medic.

After discharge in Japan, he traveled though Afghanistan, Iraq and all sorts of other places that were then just exotic and now are of critical national focus.

In those days (before Gay Pride and the Rainbow Flag were invented and when "gay" was not yet part of the vocabulary of most people) being out meant that you were treated as a pariah by most people, lived with the threat of physical danger (for example, a trip to the Back Door, Madison's only gay bar at the time, meant keeping an eye out for the bashers, who operated more or less with impunity, given the attitude of the cops at that time), were subject to arrest for private sexual acts or going to a gay bar, had limited employment opportunities, and were subject to a socio-cultural regime that was intended to suppress gay and lesbian visibility.

I remember Bob dealing with the older folk in our community after he came out. Bob was relaxed about it, but the older folk were so awkward that it was funny even at the time, watching middle-aged adults trying to come to grips with the fact that Bob, a handsome, tall and robust young man, was a "pervert" and a "sissy". But in time, most everyone adjusted, to the great credit of the older people, although I suspect most, in private, thought it a shame that Bob would never live a "normal" life.

And maybe so. Marriage and children are wonderful things. But Bob lived a productive, happy life according to his own lights, uncloseted and free to be himself. Bob settled into Milwaukee's Brady Street area after he got back, bought and rehabbed a few houses over the years, and settled down to a life as a pharmacist for the Veterans Administration, retiring about two years ago.

Bob suffered a stroke a while back while rehabbing yet another house. He now has to be in a wheelchair for extended wandering around, and this is his first venture to Milwaukee's PrideFest since his stroke. I've never been to PrideFest.

So Saturday promises to be an interesting experience on two scores -- it will be interesting to see how Milwaukee handles PrideFest, which is smaller than Chicago's huge Pride parade, and it will be interesting to see how the shirtless young things treat us. The conventional wisdom is that older men are invisible in the gay community, and we won't be invisible because the shirtless young things are going to have to dodge us.

Gay Pride started with "the March on Stonewall" in 1969, a spontaneous protest against discrimination and violence against gays in New York City. Gay and lesbian anger over police tactics used in New York -- still common in much of the country -- spilled over into several weeks of protests and eventually into a parade. Over the years, Gay Pride spread to other cities across the United States and Europe, and pride events have become an annual ritual involving millions of gay, lesbian and gay-friendly participants and spectators all over the world.

Pride parades can be quite a show for the uninitiated. Many gays and lesbians dress in bright colors, head-to-toe leather or sometimes next to nothing. Pride parades and other similar events have become a huge party for gays and lesbians, but are also a symbol of solidarity and an opportunity to express the vivid personalities which reflect the diverse gay communities, and to enjoy a day of freedom.

As Pride events have become more party than political statement, a number of gays and lesbians -- mostly older gays and lesbians, to be accurate -- have begun to ask "What's the point?"

After all, times have changed and so has the battleground.

"Gay Pride" was a slogan invented in the early years after Stonewall, to encourage gays and lesbians to come out of the closet -- not easy for most in those days -- and to promote healthy self-esteem. In today's world, most gays and lesbians -- adults, anyway -- make no secret about their orientation, and the struggle has turned to gaining legal equality.

And so the question asked is: "Is "Gay Pride" -- the boa-feathered celebration that scares the shit out of social conservatives and many other straights -- really appropriate at this point in the struggle?"

I don't know. Maybe not.

The need now is for gays and lesbians to lean on straight family and friends, insisting on political support. Gay Pride events might, at this point, be counter-productive politically, when the gay and lesbian community is working make it clear that almost all of us live "normal" lives, lives revolving around work, friends, family.

So be it. That's the political expedient, I guess.

But I don't think that gays and lesbians should put an end to Pride on the altar of political expediency. The gay and lesbian community is what it is, and there is no point in hiding any of it from straight eyes, in my view, no matter how uncomfortable straights are about it. Toning it down is nothing more than another form of "going invisible".

Gays and lesbians have no obligation to be "invisible". The gay and lesbian community is diverse, playful and wonderful and nobody should even think that gays and lesbians should hide the "color" from straight eyes. Social conservatives want gays and lesbians back in the closet -- why else are they pushing so hard -- and the absolute last thing that gays and lesbians should do is to cooperate with them. Out, in your face, and proud. And then lean on straight family and friends politically. Gays and lesbians will get nowhere by pretending to be straight.

But, more to the point, my view is that Gay Pride still has a social, cultural and political role, independant of the celebration, a point which is similar to the original.

Although a lot of progress has been made -- made by gays and lesbians like Bob Mitchell, who took the lumps for it as a young man -- the gay and lesbian community is currently under tremendous, relentless attack in ways that I haven't seen since the days before Stonewall.

Pride is both a healthy and reasonably response to that pressure, to a society where many people insist that being gay or lesbian is something to be ashamed of and hidden from sight -- or at least discretely silent about, which is the basis of the "counterproductive" argument. In that atmosphere, it is all too easy to head back into the closet, or stay in the closet. And that nobody needs.

So, in that sense, Gay Pride continues to serve the role it has always served, promoting a positive message to closeted gays and lesbians, neutralizing the negative images promoted by social conservatives with positive (self-positive, anyway) images of pride, solidarity and freedom.

And Gay Pride is a message that it is important to send to young gays and lesbians, particularly those who are coming up in the "red" states, in "red" families. The gay and lesbian kids in those families and in those states have been fed a constant diet of hogwash by social conservatives, from the President of the United States on down to the local Scout leader. The gay and lesbian kids are still oppressed in their daily lives in school and at home, and need to see that they are not alone.

Gay Pride -- and particularly Youth Pride -- helps to make the real message visible even to kids in the darkest corners of oppression and ignorance.

If that is all it accomplishes, it is worth it, and damn the political cost.

Odds and Ends

Clueless in Spokane

James West may not be sleepless in Seattle, but he is clueless in Spokane.

You will recall that the Spokane Spokesman-Review alleged that West, the Mayor of Spokane and a social conservative who has long opposed gay and lesbian equality, used the perks of his office to lure men into sexual liaisons.

West, who in the privacy of the gay chat room is reported to have referred to social conservatives as "sex Nazis", seems to have changed his mind recently: "I'm not a closet liberal pretending to be a conservative. I'm a conservative. And what's wrong with somebody who has what's called an alternative lifestyle or an alternative sexual orientation being a conservative?"

Huh? What he means is that he is a "social conservative" -- at least if his record of gay-baiting and anti-gay legislative initiatives is any indication.

Social conservatives consider gays and lesbians a mortal danger to families and so-called "family values" -- particularly gays and lesbians who live in committed relationships, raise kids, and want to marry.

And what's wrong with a gay or lesbian believing that??

I guess I don't get it.

Chairborne Ranger?

A rainbow flag waved beside the American flag Monday at Daley Plaza, where a thousand or so of Chicago's gay and lesbian veterans gathered annual "Salute to Gay Veterans".

The sight put Peter LaBarbera right over the edge.

Peter LaBarbera, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, frothed: "Open homosexuality is prohibited in the military. Chicagoans are getting tired of seeing the mayor pandering to the homosexual movement. A lot of veterans would be insulted to see an honor bestowed on the very behavior that is not allowed in the military."

Right, Peter.

The Salute to Gay Veterans began in 2003 when members of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations Advisory Council on Veterans' Affairs decided to honor the service of gay and lesbian soldiers.

Service -- as in putting your ass on the line for your country. Thousands of gay and lesbian men and women in our Armed Forces serve every single day, as they always have done, taking the risk for the rest of us.

Peter LaBarbera and other social conservatives want gay and lesbian veterans to be silent about their service to our country. And they want our country to be silent about the service of gay and lesbian veterans.

Pretend it never happened. Pretend that men and women who served our country in spite of the fact that our country told them, "No thanks, we don't want you ..." didn't serve. Pretend that social conservatives' fear that if gays and lesbians are permitted to serve openly, it will explode the myth that "homosexuals are hedonistic perverts", should keep us from acknowledging the dedication, courage and patriotism of gay and lesbian veterans. Pretend that gays and lesbians don't serve, shouldn't serve, despite the fact that gays and lesbians do serve.

I have a question for Peter and all the other "patriots" who want gay and lesbian veterans to be silent about their service: "Peter, do you know what service means -- did you serve?"

I am, as Peter notes, a veteran who is tired of it. But not of Mayor Richard M. Daley.

Family Values Awards

Damien Scott sent me this little squib:

"In May, Jim Stelling, the Republican Party chairman in Seminole County, Florida, won a lawsuit for defamation against an intraparty official who had accused him of being married six times, which Stelling said he found particularly insulting, since he "believe(s) in family values." Stelling said he has been married only five times. The judge ruled that Stelling was not defamed enough for money damages." - St.Petersburg Times-AP, 5-15-05

Where to begin?

Well, Stelling is clearly in the right party. The Republican Party is full of holier-than-thou "family values" social conservatives who are unlucky in love -- just ask Senator John Warner, who married his fifth wife last year. Marriage is what Republicans live to do, it seems, when a nice, warm, cuddling corporation isn't available to hop into bed with ...

But what really cracks me up is the hillarious notion that being married five times is somehow one short of the threshold for tackiness, kind of like the number of ostrich feathers adorning a drag queen in a Pride parade. I've only been married once, so I don't know, but it seems to me that the difference between five and six wives is not all that much of a difference. I mean, after a while, don't they all begin to look and sound more or less alike?

Any why wouldn't the court grant monetary damages? Would the court have awarded damages if Stelling had been accused of being married seven times, or eight? Is there some ratio of accusation to fact, like 9:7 or 10:8, that would entitle a defamed serial polygamist to damages? I guess I'll have to look up the case someday, if Stelling appeals.

Anyway, I hope that Stelling and his current wife are enjoying marital bliss. Stelling is living too close to the line for anyone's comfort ...