First published in the Valley News, Jan. 25, 2008.
What a non-issue civil unions are turning out to be.
I fully expected that the GOP candidates would leverage New Hampshire's newly enacted civil union law to remind voters that only they will protect the traditional family. I'm sure there were comments made at rallies and in restaurants that I didn't hear and that reporters chose to ignore. But short of Mike Huckabee's statement in the ABC/WMUR/Facebook debate that he and Obama likely held different positions on same-sex marriage, fulminations against lesbian and gay couples simply failed to materialize.
In point of fact, the positions of Huckabee and Obama are much closer than one may realize - no viable candidate for the White House supports same-sex marriage - but consider what the silence in New Hampshire portends. Just a little more than a week before the Jan. 8 primaries, the local papers were abuzz with news of the law taking effect. The steps of the capitol became the Dixville Notch for gay couples as three dozen of them said their "I do's" before family, friends and the media (and at least one cranky protester from Maine) at midnight on New Year's Day. Projections from those in the know suggest that over 3,500 couples will take advantage of the new law in the first year alone. That ain't chump change.
Meanwhile, the local GOP opposition isn't even trying to overturn the law. At present, it hopes to repeal the provision that says New Hampshire will recognize out-of-state civil unions. News flash: Not gonna happen. Gay Vermonters who work in the Granite State are tired of being legal strangers every time we head east across the Connecticut River, and our allies in New Hampshire will rally for us. Besides, four states now have civil unions: Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire. Only one has same-sex marriage (Massachusetts.). The trend line says that more and more states will enact civil union laws, and just as in New Hampshire, more and more people will have no objection when that day comes.
Now fast-forward to the spring of 2009. Imagine the next president proclaiming that the federal benefits that attend civil marriage (well over 1,100) would be extended by executive order to all federal employees whose relationships have been registered in one of the 50 states. And imagine that president calling upon Congress to pass legislation to extend those benefits to all couples so registered.
I'm deliberately avoiding the M-word here because for years now I've argued that we as a nation need to divorce the legal benefits of marriage from the religious connotations of the word. I've argued that civil unions need to be available to all. And the collective shrug seen in New Hampshire suggests that a move in that direction is possible, both on a statewide and on a federal level.
After all, most of us intuitively grasp the distinction between a license filed away in a musty vault somewhere and the moment enacted before witnesses where two people wed their lives to each other. The latter, not the former, constitutes marriage. The rest is paperwork.
I do not discount the symbolic important the M-word has for many in our world today, which is why I'm happy to report that people routinely refer to my partner and I (neither one of us likes the word "husband") as married. The state cannot withhold the word or the ceremonial rites of marriage.
The legal rights of marriage, in contrast, are held exclusively by the state. Let's keep prying those rights free from the word itself. One of the fastest ways we can do that is to elect a president who can help make this distinction clearer, who respects all couples for their intrinsic worth and sees their genuine need for the protection of their relationships that only the law can afford. And when the GOP nominee starts squawking about civil unions on the state and federal level, say: You had your chance to speak up in New Hampshire. It's time for you now and forever to hold your peace.
Corvino, John
{ 70 comments }
“The legal rights of marriage, in contrast, are held exclusively by the state.”
Um, joint tax returns? Spousal benefits under Social Security? Immigration privileges tied to marrying a U.S. citizen. And those are just a sample of the federal rights, benefits and priveleges that attach to marriage but not civil unions.
I’d also be curious to know your basis for positing that the president can, by executive order, require benefits for same-sex civil union partners in direct contravention of DOMA.
I don’t mean to be mean, but this was a very uninformed and poorly reasoned piece.
Come on, Kip, look at europe, gays didn’t get all their rights all at once. First it was marriage without adoption rights, then they got adoption rights. The name of the game is stepping stones. Today civil unions, tomorrow same sex marriage.
Bobby,
Nothing you said addressed Kip’s points.
Steve makes an inexcusable (though common) factual error in stating that “the legal rights of marriage are held exclusively by the state.”
While the licenses may be handed out by the state, the federal government can and frequently does take marital status (not civil union status or domestic partnership status or power of attourney status or beneficiary of estate status – MARITAL status) into account, and Kip provided several examples.
Taking the stepping stone path did not require us to pretend the facts aren’t the facts, last time I checked.
His other point might be valid, except I can’t imagine a power that the president DOESN’T have in the post-Bush era. Of course the President can contravene laws by dictate. He’s the Decider. And anyway, Steve did mention “calling upon Congress”, although I’m not sure what Congress he’s thinking of, because the one I know wouldn’t respond to a President calling for such a thing unless their constituents (in reality, their donors) made them.
The rest is paperwork? Maybe so, but it’s REALLY IMPORTANT paperwork, and nothing that’s called anything but a “marriage license” will do, since so many other things are already built around “marriage licenses”.
Newsflash for Steve: EVERYBODY has heard the “let’s do away with civil marriage and call it civil union instead” plan. Steve has not come up with a brilliant new idea here. It just isn’t that simple. You know what is that simple? Understanding that a government marriage license is a small but important part of the big picture of a marriage – and doing away with the unconstitutional and unjust invasion of privacy where the government checks between your legs to make sure you’re the right sex before it gives you one.
If it takes civil unions first, fine. But let’s not pretend that civil unions will ever be the same thing as marriage. Just look at the civil unions that already exist. Hey, big surprise: they are seperate and NOT EQUAL. Any time any institution – government or private – has protocols and procedures that depend on marital status, they are depending on the kindness of strangers to graciously interpret their civil union as the same thing as a marriage. If they HAD a marriage, that wouldn’t be an issue. You can pry things free of the “marriage license” all you like, but you’ll never be able to get the word “marriage” off of it.
Civil Unions are a non-issue with most bigots because they’re a public embrace of second-class citizen status on the part of non-heteros. Why complain when you won?
Bigoted whites similarly loved Jim Crow laws that mandated rigged ‘literacy tests’ for people of colour who wanted to register to vote. Same dishonest thing, different dishonest name.
Steve Swayne said ” I?ve argued that we as a nation need to divorce the legal benefits of marriage from the religious connotations of the word.”.
Marriage isn’t a religious word, its a secular one. The religious word for marriage is MATRIMONY. That’s their word and they can have it. Marriage belongs to the non-religous
I am more for marriage than civil unions, but I do think a case can be made that gay relationships are not the same as heterosexual marriage.
1. Heterosexual marriages tend to be based on the expectation of children. Gay relationships have the choice to have children, but it’s not as much of an expectation.
2. Heterosexual marriage involves the joining of families. Gay relationships tend to focus on the two involved without bringing the two families together as tightly.
3. Heterosexual partners tend to form a single identity. Gay relationships tend to be two individuals who keep their separate identities.
None of these are absolutes. But I’m not totally against the idea that “marriage” has qualities which only happen between a man and a woman, and that gay relationships are different. Different is not less important or less sacred–the Greeks thought friendship a higher goal than marriage. One could argue that the differences in gay partnerships make them better than heterosexual marriage.
As long as we have the same legal rights, I’m OK with whatever we call it. I can’t force society to value my relationship or consider it equal, even if they are forced to call it marriage. Only I and my partner can decide what value our partnership has, and Dominic Purcell and I don’t care what society thinks.
I think many of you are misunderstanding what Steve meant by “The State”. He doesn’t mean state governments, he means “the State” as a concept… i.e., the government. “The State” in any context except for the US generally refers to the national government.
Arthur, since as a gay man, I’m currently a third-class citizen, becoming a second-class citizen would be a big move up for me (and hopefully, a stepping stone on the way to becoming a first-class citizen). I would gladly take civil unions over what I have right now, which is nothing.
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
1. Heterosexual marriages tend to be based on the expectation of children. Gay relationships have the choice to have children, but it’s not as much of an expectation.
Not exactly. In the majority of circumstances marriage is primarily based on economics, and not directly procreation. The rate of DINK (Dual Income No Kids) couples is rising in developed and high stressed countries such as the US, Singapore, and Japan. For the third world, procreation is primarily due to the economic incentive of labour from offspring.
2. Heterosexual marriage involves the joining of families. Gay relationships tend to focus on the two involved without bringing the two families together as tightly.
Bullshit. The only reason why a good proportion of same-sex couple families don’t join is due to homophobia within the “family.” There’s a lot of shit-kicking parents and relatives out there that tend to make family unions more difficult. Not that it matters, sometimes it’s important to lance off the biological family and start a new family, no matter how hard it is. Personally I tend to filter out those not out to their parents or don’t really have a family for the purpose of dating.
Also, I know of many couples who are close with their mate’s family and are considered a part of them, including the extended family. My ex-bf, whom I’m in good relations with, is also close to my family.
3. Heterosexual partners tend to form a single identity. Gay relationships tend to be two individuals who keep their separate identities.
Can you explain this further? You mean sharing family names? A lot of legally married same-sex couples do change their last names, either as a hyphen of both last names, or a completely new one. Mind you, some cultures like Indonesia and Iceland don’t have last names like in North-America.
None of these are absolutes. But I’m not totally against the idea that “marriage” has qualities which only happen between a man and a woman, and that gay relationships are different. Different is not less important or less sacred–the Greeks thought friendship a higher goal than marriage. One could argue that the differences in gay partnerships make them better than heterosexual marriage.
Fact of the matter is that the definition and the motives of marriage have changed throughout history. If we were talking about the notion of marriage in Europe, before the 20th century, I’d say that it wouldn’t make much sense to advocate same-sex marriage in that context, since marriage wasn’t based on romance and love (that what mistresses were/are for).
As long as we have the same legal rights, I’m OK with whatever we call it. I can’t force society to value my relationship or consider it equal, even if they are forced to call it marriage. Only I and my partner can decide what value our partnership has, and Dominic Purcell and I don’t care what society thinks.
I don’t care what the shit-kickers think. What I care about is how government will respect my legal contract. The government must be forced to recognize it, otherwise it’s a serious case of discrimination and welfare.
Ash, when my wife and I got married, our families and our identities were joined. Actually, in a lot of ways they had been for some time already, since our wedding was delayed a few years longer than it would have probably been if we were straight.
I have always been “Aunt Karen” to Rebecca’s sister’s kids and she has always been “Aunt Rebecca” to my brother’s daughters. (My kindergardener niece bragged to my old 3rd grade teacher about being the flower girl in “Aunt Karen and Aunt Rebecca’s wedding”, sweet innocent thing. She has no concept that anyone would possibly disapprove.) I have a special connection that everyone recognizes with one of my nieces, who has severe developmental delays – and she’s not related to me through blood. Just marriage.
We hyphenated our last names. We are both on the deed to our house and car titles and insurance cards. Our friends and family all think of us as a unit, not as two individuals.
Our families live in seperate towns, and we live in a different state, so the families don’t really hang out – but they most certainly did during the wedding and they will if and when we move back to Florida. Rebecca’s grandmother even calls me sometimes.
And believe you me, our parents EXPECT GRANDCHILDREN. They have ever since, years ago, we cleared up the misconception that being gay meant we couldn’t/wouldn’t have kids.
So when people tell me that my marriage is “different” from a straight marriage, all I see is prejudice.
I see a lot of gays who complain about civil unions wanting to be victims when they’re not. Gifted children have special classes–does that make them second-class citizens? The deaf have accomadations made–does that make them second class? Are we making Latinos victims when we offer services in Spanish?
Gays and straights are different. Their relationships are different. As long as the legal rights are the same for gifted children, the deaf, Hispanics, gays, etc., it doesn’t make any difference what the various services are called. It’s not prejudice to acknowledge differences–after all, men are from Mars and women are from Venus. If that weren’t the case, comedians would have nothing to talk about. Why can’t we think of ourselves as separate but better?
I find the idea of same-sex marriage indicative of self-hate and gays trying to be straight. Besides marriage historically is an odious institution. Why don’t we just inflict homophobia upon ourselves. I say give us unions with equal rights, and then we create our own institution that is more beautiful and eternal than straight marriage. I hope every state makes same-sex marriage illegal, permanently.
Most of my life, I’ve been around gays like Sodoma, so please stop telling me such gays don’t exist. I want lifelong, sexually exclusive marriage to be the norm for gays, and I have nothing in common with people like Sodoma, who don’t. We are not simply two stripes on the same rainbow. We are different at our core, basic values–and we should respect that. All my posts here have expressed a value system which is at odds with Sodoma and every other gay I’ve ever met–I don’t see why you’d think I’d find the gay community a welcoming place for me when I have to have this same argument all the time with gays who really don’t want lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships which have had God’s blessing publicly celebrated in a church. We are not working together for the same role for gays in society, and we should stop pretending that we are.
Ashpenaz, you’ve got your blinders on. Karen and Sodoma are the exact opposite. You claim to want to see LGBTs like Karen but ignore her existence to focus on Sodoma. What makes you think Sodoma represents the gay community and that Karen doesn’t? Take your blinders off and see the fact that most LGBTS are welcoming of marriage.
Where do you get the statistics that suggest a majority of gays want a lifelong, sexually exclusive relationship? I agree there are some, but I would bet the percentage doesn’t top 10%. Most gays I’ve known believe that being gay means you can do whatever you want sexually, you are free from all rules and social norms. Those of us happy few who want to show that gays can shoulder the responsibility of taking public vows of lifelong sexual exclusivity are shouted down by the more powerful, more visible, and well, more bitchy “Grab your condoms and let’s go!” crowd.
Whether we call it “marriage” or “civil union,” I only want to extend legal rights to those couples, gay or straight, who vow lifelong sexual exclusivity. I don’t support any other definition of an intimate partnership, and I won’t vote for laws which use civil unions to redefine marriage.
Hey Ashpenaz, don’t get on another tangent without replying to my post. You always ignore replies, and rant about something else that is barely related to the subject. Try using the emphasis tags and reply to me bit by bit like I did.
James: “Those of us happy few who want to show that gays can shoulder the responsibility of taking public vows of lifelong sexual exclusivity are shouted down by the more powerful…”
Get back to us when you’ve actually had a relationship (and you better act quick, you’re not getting any younger), maybe then we will take your delusional rants seriously.
So Ashpenaz is James, I wondered what happened to him. James, I’ve never met any of these “grab your condoms and let’s go” crowd. And I’ll throw your question right back at you – where do you get your statistics that most gays don’t want a lifelong and sexually exclusive relationship?
Sodoma is the same person as Matthew on the previous post. You can tell because he doesn’t bother rephrasing much. Helloooo, Ashpenaz: Sodoma is a troll!
“Gays and straights are different. Their relationships are different.”
Prove it. How is my relationship inherently different from, say, my straight brother’s, simply because we’re gay? Any characteristic of my marriage that you name, I can name a straight couple who has it too, except for the single fact that we are both female.
Classes for gifted children, accomodations for deaf people, Spanish language versions… these are all FUNCTIONAL differences that are inherent in the definition of the group.
There is no functional, inherent difference between my marriage and a straight marriage that would justify the differences between our legal rights. This would be the case even IF your assertion were true that less than 10% of gays are like me, which simply doesn’t hold up in my experience.
Seperate but better? Ash, what is better about not being able to guarantee that a hospital will allow me to visit my wife? What is better about having to pay lawyers and financial planners thousands of dollars to set up next-of-kin instruments that would have been automatic with a $20 marriage license? What is better about having to pay taxes on my employer’s health plan that my straight coworkers do not have to pay? What is better about not being able to apply for loans as a single earning unit? What is better about being excluded from married-couples’ housing at university? What is better about having to go through an invasive second-parent adoption process when the straight, infertile couple down the street who got pregnant exactly the same way we did doesn’t have to? Name ONE THING that is better about being gay when it comes to civil marriage rights.
We have the same needs and situations as a straight married couple, and yet we’re excluded. This is not being “special” or “different”. It’s being DISCRIMINATED AGAINST.
“I only want to extend legal rights to those couples, gay or straight, who vow lifelong sexual exclusivity.”
Your value system and my value system ARE NOT AT ODDS. There goes your “and every gay I’ve ever met” claim. I GOT MARRIED IN A CHURCH, with God’s blessing, in front of familty and friends, and vowed to be faith. And yet, you keep insisting that because I’m gay, this can’t possibly be true. Not only that, but straight people can and DO cheat, or have open “swingers” marriages, but they are still allowed to marry even though you strongly disapprove of THEIR ‘lifestyle’.
You are obviously one of the happy 10%
Let’s say you are a young gay man. You decide to explore the gay world by talking to 10 other gays. Of the first 10 gays you meet, how many will be men in lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships? How many will be men who are waiting to have sex until they are in a lifelong, sexually exclusive relationship?
Now, let’s say you are a straight young man. You want to explore the straight world. How many of the first 10 men you meet will be in lifelong, sexually exlcusive relationships? How many will be men who are waiting to have sex until they are in a lifelong, sexually exclusive relationship?
Which of these young men is more likely to meet a greater percentage of men who value lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships?
When I was 17, the first 10 gays I met were, let’s see, prostitutes, drug addicts, amoral hedonists, etc. And that was in South Dakota. My friends who went to the bar scene in Minneapolis, Iowa City, New York, and Seattle did not bring back reports of married gays living in the ‘burbs. They did, however, bring me news of a wierd disease which seemed to be striking the gay community. During one visit, I got to kiss a guy with AIDS before it was cool! (Of course, he didn’t tell me he had AIDS until later–wow, you can imagine how I felt when I got that phone call!)
I think my fear of and anger at the gay community is justified by those early experiences. You say that the percentages have shifted, and a young gay man just starting out is going to meet 10 married gay couples right out of the box who will caution him to wait to have sex. Hmmm. Prove it.
“where do you get your statistics that most gays don’t want a lifelong and sexually exclusive relationship?”
Armchair psychology:
Scenario 1: He’s so scared that he isn’t worth loving that he preemptively makes himself believe that all of his potential dates are the ones who aren’t worth loving, so he doesn’t even have to try.
Scenario 2: He can’t admit to himself that he was completely wrong to submit himself to so-called ‘reparative therapy’, so he has to believe that they are at least a LITTLE right. If they aren’t right about the possibility of becoming a straight guy, they’re at least right about WHY one would want to – otherwise, how could he have been such a fool? He gets around the fact that HE does not fit the reparative therapy picture of “gay life” by massive narcissism – he’s special and good and unique and different from other gays, who are all bad – and massive denial – none of us exist.
Ash,
You’re just going to have to take some personal responsibility for hanging with the wrong crowd, for looking for love in all the wrong places, hon. There’s nothing else for it.
Did you and your friends GO to the burbs and look for married gays? No? Then why are you surprised that they didn’t find married, settled gays in the “club scene”?
Are you looking now? Are you actually putting in the effort it takes to find and build relationships with mature gay people? Here’s a newsflash: it’s HARD to make good friends when you’re older. Passing aquaintances with floozies at bars come cheap. Friendships with the people you are looking for do not.
Let go of your anger. I’m sorry you had a bad experience when you were 17. But you’re letting it cloud your vision. There are dozens of gay people with the values (although not necessarily opinions) that you are looking for RIGHT HERE on IGF talking to you.
I have never embraced my friend Steve Swayne’s call for dropping the “M Word” because I just refuse to concede ownership of the word “marriage” to religious groups. It is de facto a civil institution as much as a religious one, and the legal debate is exclusively over the civil portion. I understand Steve’s point regarding the lesson of New Hampshire, and it is an important one; but to me that shows the value of an incremental approach. I have never advocated a marriage-right-now-or-nothing strategy, and indeed here in D.C. (where we have to deal with our special constitutional relationship with the U.S. Congress, something the states do not have to contend with) my group, GLAA, has embraced domestic partnerships as our interim solution. In the past several years (since Congress started letting us implement our D.P. law in 2002) we have worked with the D.C. Council to make a dozen incremental additions to the rights and responsibilities of registered domestic partners, so that now D.C. is among the top jurisdictions in the country in terms of legal protections for same-sex couples. And Steve is quite correct in stressing the importance of those protections over the particular term used.
As to the 1,138 federal rights and responsibilities accorded married couples and denied to same-sex couples, Barack Obama has specifically pledged support for granting those R&Rs to us. The convenience of using the term “marriage” is that we could thereby be granted everything in one fell swoop. But politically that is infeasible. I am prepared to take whatever I can get, and keep educating and organizing and pushing for the rest. And in a couple of decades, when we have achieved equality in all but name, the social reality will be that people will routinely refer to same-sex couples as married (as they do in Scandinavia, despite the fact that those countries have registered partnership laws that parallel most of the rights of marriage, rather than including them in the marriage statutes). And at that point the purported religious ownership of “marriage” will seem quaint.
Now to Sodoma’s statement, “I hope every state makes same-sex marriage illegal, permanently.”
This is deeply obnoxious. No one, I repeat no one, seeks to force Sodoma or anyone else into entering a marriage or any other relationship he or she does not want. So why in the world would Sodoma be eager to deny the choice of marriage to others who want it? This shows the true radicalism of the gay opponents of marriage equality: they know perfectly well that no one wants to (or could possibly) force them to marry; their purpose is to keep gay people marginalized. There not one relationship currently in existence that would be threatened in any way by adding to the law books an option for same-sex couples that does not exist now. Increasing everyone’s legal options does not take anything away from anyone. The continuing rise in legal protections (by whatever name) for same-sex couples reflects social trends, rather than leading them. And it is really the social trends to which people like Sodoma object. They define marriage in a static, monolithic, oppressive way–which ignores the past 50 years of history–and then accuse those of us who seek to marry of being self-hating, etc. Rubbish. I love my Patrick, and he loves me, and the law (in addition to a long list of other inequities) currently separates us because he is a foreign national. If a solution presents itself that does not involve the term “marriage,” that’s fine with us; but there is no reason other than tactical ones to foreclose any option.
Most of the gay men who enter reparative therapy are gay men like me–men who have had bad initial experiences with the gay community and want to find an alternative. I think the gay community needs to take responsibility for all the men it has harmed for giving them no options but reparative therapy to escape the unhealthy aspects of the gay community.
These men, like me, are discovering that new ideas about gay marriage and civil unions offer a new way of approaching their sexuality in a way which goes along with their values. I think a lot of men go through this process: unhealthy gay community/reparative therapy/gay marriage.
Yes, I do think reparative therapy is a “little right” about the negative aspects of the gay community. In fact, I think they are spot on when pointing out the damage the default, hedonistic gay lifestyle does. Reparative therapy may not cure you of homosexuality, but it does cure you of any illusions you may have had about the welcoming, warm, diverse, accepting gay community.
So, yes, I’m mad at the gay community for what happened when I was 17–many Catholics are still mad at the priests who abused them and won’t set foot in a Catholic Church. Why should I be more forgiving to the gay community than abuse victims are to the Church? Because I “really wanted it?”
Now, I am at a stage where I accept and embrace my sexuality and I’m in a church which will bless my future marriage. That’s why this issue is so important to me. And it’s also why I don’t want amoral gays like Sodoma to use civil unions to import their own agenda into an issue which goes to the core of my values.
The gay community needs to recognize many men are coming out of reparative therapy into gay marriage–but they are still rightfully angry at the gay community which abused them. Maybe you should listen to our stories instead of attack us. I hope it doesn’t take the gay community as long to listen to the young men it abused as it took the Catholic Church to listen to the young men it abused. But you’ll probably say it wasn’t really abuse and none of us were really hurt–line up behind Cardinal Mahoney.
Sodoma: “Why don’t we just inflict homophobia upon ourselves?”
I’d say Ashpanez is doing a pretty job of that.
Ashpenaz wrote, “I think the gay community needs to take responsibility for all the men it has harmed for giving them no options but reparative therapy to escape the unhealthy aspects of the gay community.”
The huge fallacy here is your monolithic treatment of the gay community. As Gore Vidal said about God, “gay community” is a convenient fiction. In particular, the notion that most gay people are part of a hedonistic urban culture that condones or overlooks abuse is just absurd, and Ash must know that such a sweeping claim goes far beyond Ash’s own evidentiary base. Most gay people do not live in the city at all. The fact that hedonistic club goers get a disproportionate amount of attention does not justify blaming all gay people for the behavior of a relative few. Also, it is unfair even to blame the hedonists in general for individual cases of abuse. If particular establishments or members of a particular social class do in fact behave in ways that tacitly condone sexual abuse or exploitation of teenagers, then of course they deserved to be condemned. But the vast majority of gay people I know, whether party types or not, strongly oppose such abuse and support groups that protect gay teens, such as DC’s Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League or New York’s Hetrick Martin Institute. Credit should be given where it is due, and not only criticism; and criticism should be more carefully aimed, and not used to smear all gay people. If one truly wishes to end harmful behavior, one needs to focus on those committing or supporting the behavior, rather than scapegoating a broader population. Blaming entire populations in this way is the sort of thing that was used in the past century to set off lynchings (in the U.S.) and Kristallnacht (in Germany). I can understand how, emotionally, a survivor of sexual abuse or exploitation would cast blame more widely, but at some point a mature and responsible adult must have their cerebral cortex assert itself over their R-complex, which is to say use better and more considered judgment.
These comments are eerily like those given to abuse victims who confronted the Catholic Church.
“You can’t blame the whole Church/gay community for the actions of one priest/gay man.”
You can if all the other priests are tacitly complicit. The gay community is just as complicit in the abuse it has caused because it creates an environment where abusing young men is just part of the game.
“It wasn’t abuse because you wanted it/you liked it/you were smiling.”
Sexually confused young men are prey to those who seem to have answers. The fact that a sexual act is enjoyable doesn’t mean it doesn’t have long-term emotional impact.
“The fact that you didn’t tell anyone at the time means you weren’t really abused.”
Who is a young guy going to tell that his best friend is a gay drug addict prostitute? Who’s he going to tell about the nice Air Force MP who got him to “experiment”?
“You need to go back to the Church/gay community. We’re not like that now.”
Sure. Yeah. Right.
I see no reason to let the gay community off the hook for its abuse of me and other young men any more than those who were abused by priests going back to the Catholic Church. It may have been just one priest or one gay man who did the abuse, but it was the whole community who knew it was going and and gave their silent approval as lives were destroyed.
Ash, that response is dishonest and pernicious. I did NOT deny that you or others had been abused. And I specifically noted that a wider group COULD bear responsibility if it condoned or deliberately overlooked abusive or exploitive behavior. If you read my statement, you know this. That is clearly different in kind from the apologia for the Catholic Church and abusive priests. In the case of the Church, that organization systematically engaged in cover-ups and facilitation of abuse. The gay community, by contrast, is not an organization, much less a centrally controlled, top-down one. Come on, you must know better. Unless your experience of abuse occurred in the very recent past, there is no excuse for this kind of irrational and unfair response.
By the way, do you honestly believe that the entire “gay community,” as a single, undifferentiated, monolithic entity, knew about and condoned the abuses you report? Do you honestly insist that all gay people are city-dwelling club-goers? Come on, you must know this is absurdly false generalization. For God’s sake, decide to be rational. I am part of the gay community, and I do not go to clubs, and I specifically support an organization (SMYAL in DC) that provides safe spaces to sexual minority youth. Either address my specific points and explain how I am wrong and how in fact ALL gay people ARE city-dwelling club-goers who condone molestation of teenagers, or admit that you have gone too far.
Oh, I almost forgot that one–”Grow up–it happened years ago.” I think a lot of priests used that one.
The Catholic Church is not particularly monolithic, and it also does a lot of good things. Does that justify its silence when it comes to abuse?
And also, whatever I feel, it’s my fault. If I’m angry, it’s my fault, my inner homophobia. Again, another tactic the Catholic Church used. All abusers, whether well-organized or just loosely related, are the same.
I’ve been blogging on these issues here and on various sites for several years. I realized something today–I will never stop being angry at the community that stood by in silence while I was abused. I will never stop being angry at those who offered protection and tacit approval to those who abused me.
Maybe you were like one of the “good” priests. You still knew it was going on and you never spoke out against it when it was happening to me and to all the others–all those who went on to try find a cure to the pain and shame they were feeling by undergoing reparative therapy. The gay community is responsible for driving them to something which would only reinforce their shame. You are responsible for that, and I will never stop being angry.
James, we didn’t know and we are not responsible. If you want to waste your life being angry go ahead but leave us out of it. You’re trying to punish everyone for things they had nothing to do with, you’re just spreading hate in ever increasing circles. Stop the cycle and do something good with your life
Take some personal responsibility, James.
17 year olds are not babes-in-the-woods. You could have CHOSEN not to hang out with drug addicts and prostitutes and negative people. Just because you’re gay and they’re gay doesn’t mean they had to be your best friends. A 17 year old can be expected to know that.
And where on earth were your parents? If I had tried to hang out with drug addicts and prostitutes at 17, my mother would have tanned my hide.
People are not “standing by in silence” just because an imaginary community never swept into your life and rescued you. “The gay community”, insofar as it actually is a definable thing, has many battles to fight.
Why don’t you direct your anger at the people who, for so many years, made it nearly impossible for anyone but the most transgressive and radical gays to be seen and heard? That’s the REAL reason it was hard for you to find role models. The tools and resources that were there were driven underground by a hatefully anti-gay society. No one could have made you seek them out and use them but yourself, and tragically, you didn’t.
What do you think should have happened? Who specifically should have done something, and what should they have done? Organizations for gay youth were (and still are) accused of “recruiting” and run out of town. Gay people who wanted to work with kids had to (and still sometimes have to) keep their orientation secret. Who was/is making it difficult to reach gay youth with positive messages? I’ll give you a hint: It’s not gay people.
It’s sick that you compare what happened to poor, poor you to real child abuse. I’m sure your story is tragic, but you were no prepubescent altar boy.
If you want to be angry at the people who ACTUALLY stood by and watched your plight – whatever it was – without saying anything, go ahead. Even considering personal and parental responsibility for your wellbeing at 17, everyone needs a little extra help sometimes. Well guess what: Drug addicts and prostitutes aren’t generally the best at lending a helpful and wise hand to misguided youth, whether gay or straight. Being angry at them is understandable, but what we’re trying to tell you is that the people who did fail you ARE NOT THE GAY COMMUNITY. I guarantee you that the majority of gay people DO NOT CONDONE what happened to you – whatever it was.
You say yourself that you never found or knew any positive gays at that age. Maybe if you had looked somewhere other than the negative atmosphere of the clubs and streets, you could have found some help, but you never did – and they couldn’t reach out to errant gay teenagers for fear of the repercussions in their own lives.
I’m sorry you never found a patron saint of gay teen boys out there. But quit taking it out on us!
Based on what I have read, you are wrong to take such a hard stance on how you view/respond to Ash. He makes a few good points and I certainly understand his plight. He?s putting himself out there and some of you don?t like what he is saying. When something like that presents itself, it?s best to step back and take another look.
You can?t just tell someone to ?Stop it.? Some of you are ?armchair therapists? and you should back off from your inexperience.
Brent,
I don’t back down when people insult me and my friends like he has. Your sentiment is nice, but if Ash wants to be treated with kid gloves, he shouldn’t come in here swinging his own fists. It’s not like he doesn’t initiate this conversation, over and over and over again.
Every once in a while I go back and see all the things Ash never responded to (like, how he tried to compare our inability to marry our partners to being in a gifted class.)
I noticed this:
“The Catholic Church is not particularly monolithic.”
Excuse me a moment…
BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Ok, sorry.
In what universe is a worldwide, strictly heirarchical, dogma-based organization headed by one man who is supposedly God’s very own respresentative on earth, not monolithic?? In what universe does that kind of chain-of-command and assumed authority compare to the loose grouping of people who happen to be attracted to members of the same sex?
Respect for, and sensitivity toward, people’s suffering is one thing, and is appropriate. It is another thing for someone to use that past suffering as a tool for permanent grievance mongering and holding people hostage politically or emotionally who had nothing whatsoever to do with that suffering. And it is yet another thing to blame the entire gay population. That is simply a lie. Ash (or James, or whoever) is either mentally incompetent or knows that this generalized blame is false and pernicious. As others have noted, if you object to abuse, then you should not be abusive yourself. Ash’s insistence upon attributing views and statements to me that I have not made, while refusing to address the ones I have made, amply demonstrate Ash’s bad faith in this discussion. At some point, like it or not, a person has to take a measure of personal responsibility for his or her life. What is the point of spending the rest of your life blaming everyone you meet for something that happened to you in the past? This is a discussion board, not group therapy.
Well put, Karen and Richard.
Your responses here are almost word for word the responses Catholic leadership gave when the sex abuse scandals came out. When you see lives damaged by the abuse of priests, do you say “Grow up and take responsibility for yourself!” ? Should they have filed those suits or simply gone on with their lives? I’m sure Cardinal Law and Mahoney would have been happy if their victims had simply acted like adults and gone on with their lives.
The GLBT community is just as large and monolithic as the Catholic Church, with its leadership in groups like PFLAG. Any time you go to a Pride Parade, you are giving support to a community that looks away when young people are sexually exploited and abused. You are just as complicit as those congregations which chose to support their priests than side with the priests’ victims.
Back to civil unions–when there is movement which would offer healing to those who have been abused, that is, a movement to support lifelong, sexually exclusive relationships free from exploitation and abuse, the gay community should unequivocally give support. Young gays should be told that the healthiest way to be gay is to wait until marriage for sex. That choice would keep them free from the emotional damage which comes from sexual exploitation. Nobody I know, straight or gay, has ever been happy with a string of multiple sexual partners. Young gay people need to have the decision to wait for sex until marriage affirmed and modelled by the older generation of gays.
Ash, it amazes me that someone who has been so thoroughly refuted can so relentlessly persist in an unreasonable position. The first two grafs of your latest post are mind-bogglingly dishonest, givent the previous discussion. You do not refute the points we made, you merely reiterate your absurdly sweeping assertions.
The really sad thing about this is that, by persisting in blaming ALL GAY PEOPLE for the sins of a relative few (and among those few I include enablers and condoners of the bad behavior, as I’ve already indicated), you undermine your concerns. It is simply not true that gay people are “a community that looks away when young people are sexually exploited and abused.” I cited as examples groups like SMYAL and the Hetrick-Martin Institute, which have counterparts in many cities, specifically dedicated to PROTECTING gay youth rather than exploiting them. These organizations are living proof that your generalized smear of gay people is NOT TRUE. Acknowledge that fact if it kills you, or you show yourself to be without decency, honor, or scruple.
Ash, you are OVERGENERALIZING. The chances that you are too dimwitted to grasp this are negligible, so I can only conclude that you are blinded by bitterness that you have chosen to nurse in perpetuity. Such bitterness is self-consuming, and you really ought to try to overcome it for your own sake. If you won’t, you cannot expect much sympathy from the people you are slandering, especially when you keep attributing views to them which they have not expressed and do not hold. You are being uncivil. Your own complaints have no meaning without the assumption of a social contract based on a standard of civility. In other words, if it is okay for you to spew your ridiculous calumnies, you have no right to complain about the wrongs done to you.
Ash, as has already been pointed out to you, your assertion that the gay community is just as large and monolithic as the catholic church is absurd. The Catholic church aided and abetted child molestors by hiding their existence and transfering them to other parishes when their acts came to light. The gay community does no such thing, has no such controlling hierarchy, is not lead by an all powerful dictator.
I know you want sympathy, but you’re not going to garner much when you repeatedly and indiscriminatly blame all gays for the actions of a few. Take your revenge on those that wronged you, stop attacking those that had nothing to do with it.
And you can’t be so dimwitted as to not be aware that what you are saying is EXACTLY what the Church said to the abuse victims. The Catholic church also has many charities devoted to abuse victims–does that excuse them? And if the gay community isn’t some kind of organization, how can we hold parades? At least the Catholic Church has acknowledged the damage it has done and has publicly apologized, however insincere. When is the gay community–a community which is well-organized enough to be a political lobby–going to issue a formal apology to me and all the others who were abused while it silently stood by? You are just like those quietly sitting in the pews, supporting your priest, not speaking up, while the young men–16 and 17–who helped Father out after school suddenly started committing suicide.
That’s absurd Ashpenaz. There’s no pope of the gay community. No one supported and abetted the people you say abused you. And its highly offensive for you to compare your “abuse” to children being sexually assaulted. From re-reading what you said apparently the “abuse” you suffered amounted to unsavoury people becoming your friend and one of them kissing you while not telling you he was HIV positive. Not even remotely close to statutory rape. You don’t know what abuse is junior.
Ash, endlessly repeating a falsehood does not make it true. There is no similarity at all between my statements and the RCC’s response to abuse by priests. None. I have bent over backwards to be fair with you. I have repeatedly stated that those who condone or excuse abusive behavior are blameworthy, and not just the ones who commit the abuse. By contrast, Church officials stated that the accused priests were private contractors for whom they were not responsible, and all sorts of other aggressive defense lawyer crap. The broad, indiscriminate blame you are spewing is akin to blaming leaders and members of a Presbyterian church for crimes committed by Catholic priests.
And for the umpteenth time, the gay community includes lots of people who have nothing to do with the gay urban scene that you find so exploitive. How can such people be blamed? How can the SMYAL staffer, who busts his ass protecting and helping gay youth, be blamed when he not only does not condone exploitive behavior but actively fights against it? How would it cost you anything simply to acknowledge that some people are blameworthy and others are not? Don’t you realize how your indiscriminate spewing of blame undermines your credibility? It is you who owes an apology to all the good gay people whom you have slandered.
Thank you, Cardinal Mahoney (Richard).
Perhaps the responses to my posts explains why I feel about the gay community the way many people feel about the Catholic Church: both are large, cohesive communitie which are rife with sytematic evil. They are both unapologetic about the damage they cause. And their members are willing to sit with tacit approval while the system continues its abuse.
Many people, once damaged by the Catholic Church, can’t find a reason to return, no matter how supposedly “nice” it has become. The fact that there are good and thoughtful individual Catholics doesn’t make the Catholic system less abusive. The same is true for the gay community. Yes, there are many within the gay community who are good and nice–but their continued presence in an abusive and corrosive system makes them complicit in the damage the system does.
When you want to understand how I feel about the gay community, think about your feelings about the Catholic Church. I would bet we have a lot of anger in common, but directed at different abusive communities.
Thousands of young men have died from drug addiction, AIDS, and suicide because they were seduced into a world for which they were not emotionally prepared. My friend, 16 years old, cruised the Main Street every weekend, picking up men in cars. The older men who were his gay mentors never told him this was wrong, but gave him advice on how to do it better. Every gay man in the world knew this was going on, and no one spoke out against it. It was part of the scene. The fact that there were nice gay men who didn’t do this doesn’t make them any better–they gave their tacit approval to the abuse, like any codependent mother who just doesn’t want to hear about Father Smith’s wierd little games.
Some of these abused teens, like me, turned to reparative therapy, which at least said there was an alternative to the gay scene. Maybe it was shame-based, but the amount of suicides due to the shame of reparative therapy is much smaller than the amount of suicides due to being pushed out of the car onto the side of the road, or discovering that the man who gave you that coming out party also infected you with AIDS. While his nice friends who would never do that helped with the decorations.
I’m glad you’re nice and you do nice things. I’m glad that priests give nice sermons and have nice pancake suppers for the Boy Scouts. That doesn’t mean you aren’t complicit in an abusive and deadly system. But, like any good codependent mother, you don’t think it was really abuse anyway.
James, you’re totally out to lunch, do you even listen to what you’re saying?
“Every gay man in the world knew this was going on”. That’s impossible and you know it.
The Catholic church is an organized rigid hierarchy, the gay community is simply people who are same sex attracted, there’s no comparing the two.
You don’t care about the truth, you’re just out to smear all gays because you won’t take responsiblity for your own behavior. There’s no comparing what you call abuse (being befriended by unsavoury people) with the sexual abuse that went on in the church. Your false martyr story isn’t playing here, take it somewhere else.
Arguing with Ash/James is about as productive as that sketch from Monty Python:
“This isn’t an argument, it’s just a contradiction.”
“No it isn’t.”
“I paid for an argument.”
“No you didn’t.”
Actually, come to think of it, that exchange was more coherent than the responses of Ash/James. He’s like a politician who just repeats his talking points no matter what you say. Ash, all you have accomplished is to display your gay-hating psychopathology.
Does IGF not have an anti-troll policy?
This Ash person is CLEARLY a troll who enjoys hijacking discussions with ridiculous strawman arguments.
If trolls can’t be banned on IGF at least don’t feed them!
James, get help. I’m completely serious. Please talk to a professional about this, and show them a transcript of these discussions.
I have done the best I can. If you bring this conversation up again, my only response will be to ask you if you have done that yet. I think that’s an appropriate response whether you’re merely a troll or you really do have this problem.
Go read a conservative Catholic blog and their opinions on the sex abuse scandal. See how they defend the Catholic Church. See how they blame the victims of abuse. See how they say that the Catholic Church is filled with wonderful people. Then look at what you say to those of use who don’t see the gay community as a world of happy rainbows. It is uncanny how much you are exactly like conservative Catholics defending the church and attacking the victim.
Yes, Fr. Karen, I’ll get therapy–can you recommend someone who won’t report you to the authorities?
OK, let’s say the gay community isn’t heirarchical and monolithic–though it is, the joke about the Gay Mafia pointing to the hard truth–there are sections of the gay community which are toxic and abusive and exploitative in ways that are truly damaging to young people just coming to terms with their sexuality. And there is no statute of limitations on the anger you feel when you have been betrayed by those you turned to for help and who chose to exploit you instead.
My story and my anger is the same as many gay young men. Most of those who survived went on to reparative therapy because it is the only therapy that allows you to be mad at the gay community. I want to move beyond reparative therapy into healthy, whole, non-abusive, non-exploitative gay relationships. Yes, I do believe they are out there. But I’m going to be very careful, and I’m not going to stop being angry. Like a wounded Catholic searching for God, I’m going to remember what hurts and remember who hurt me as I try to find the connection I was denied earlier.
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