What is to be done about "Dr." Laura Schlessinger, radio's top-rated "moral warrior" with a listening audience estimated at 18 million? The good doctor (actually a physiologist, not an M.D.) has called homosexuality "deviant" and referred to gays and lesbians as "biological errors." She seems to believe that homosexuality is a "curable" affliction, and cheers on the ex-gay movement. And now Dr. Laura is about to make the jump from the radio to the boob tube, courtesy of a show this fall from Paramount Television.
Dr. Laura's ascendancy puts a spotlight on an old issue: should gay activists seek to prevent voices opposing gay rights from gaining media exposure? Or, put another way, is opposition to gay equality a form of hate like racism, or is it something different, calling for a different response?
The folks over at the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) have pursued different tactics at various times on this question, and even spoken with contrary voices about Dr. Laura. According to media accounts, Cathy Renna of GLAAD's National Capital Area office (that's Washington, DC) told a lesbian and gay conference last October that "We're going to go after the media outlets, the radio stations that run her, and get her off."
But GLAAD Executive Director Joan Garry declares on GLAAD's Web site, "We are not in the business of trying to shut down opposing points of view." And, after a recent meeting with Paramount, GLAAD announced what it regards as a substantial victory. While Dr. Laura will have her TV show, the format will ensure that she includes viewpoints contrary to her traditional views on sexual morality (specifics, however, were vague).
Surprise, surprise. This tentative settlement has not been enough for more militant factions. Lesbian activist Robin Tyler, for instance, issued a statement on February 25 that read in part, "GLAAD's position on keeping `a place at the Paramount table' is wrong. No other civil rights movement would allow a hate monger to spew their viciousness on their own show on national television. This community needs to circumvent GLAAD's decision and effectively not support anything that Paramount does until they cancel the show. This includes, but is not limited to picketing every television station that has signed on to carry the show, and not going to movies produced by Paramount."
That strikes me as a bit of activist hyperbole. Aside from the fact that boycotts are notoriously ineffectual (shall we stop watching Paramount's "Star Trek Voyager"?), the view that homosexuality can be "cured," no matter how wrong-headed, is not the same as urging that gay people be lynched or put into ovens. It's counterproductive to ignore that difference.
GLAAD's Garry seems to recognize this, and she responded to Tyler's challenge with this statement: "With those who argue that GLAAD should have been advocating 'pulling the plug' on the Dr. Laura television show from the start, we respectfully disagree. Our plan has been intentional from day one. We have always believed that there were series of cards to play and that it has been our responsibility to play each of them. We are working toward the same end - to ensure that Dr. Laura does not spew her homophobic rhetoric to a television audience and that media professionals are held accountable for portraying the reality of our lives."
Tyler's response: "Our only acceptable position is not 'the freedom to publicly debate with homophobes', but an end to the kind of spewed, continued hatred that reinforces, not just the violence against us, but our youth's high suicide rate. Words are as damaging as deeds."
Adds Alan Klein, a spokesperson for the website/coalition StopDrLaura.com., "We're not about to let her spew her defamatory pseudo-science on national television." (Which all adds up to a lot of strong condemnation of "spewing.")
For her part, Schlessinger told the Associated Press, "I've made anti-gay activist agenda commentaries, but I"ve never made anti-gay commentary." She said that critics who claim her rhetoric creates an environment that leads to harassment and violence are guilty of "the worst kind of intellectual dishonesty." Moreover, she wrote in an August newspaper column that "homosexual activist groups...contact sponsors and call me homophobic, hateful, dangerous and a voice for promoting violence. Why? Because I believe that homosexual behavior is deviant." She went on to claim, "I never have advocated hate or hostility toward homosexuals on or off my program. ... Maintaining an opposing point of view to many aspects of the liberal agenda is terribly difficult because of the hate slung at you." She offered that one sponsor, when contacted by a critic of the show, "asked how shutting me down because I simply had an opposing viewpoint would further the cause of free speech."
What do I make of all of this? No one is more angered by stupid, backward, anti-gay viewpoints such as Dr. Laura's than I am. As a former GLAAD activist and long-ago board member myself, I, too, met with radio and TV station general managers to self-righteously demand that they cease and desist from broadcasting those we deemed unacceptable (including a meeting with WABC in New York City over a then-emergent windbag named Rush Limbaugh).
It was not unusual that the stations would agree to tell the host not to use slurs or confuse homosexuality with pedophilia - a small victory. And typically, we wound up negotiating some sort of "balance," such as more time for talk shows with pro-gay hosts.
However, the problem with demands that the media "silence all dissent" on gay matters is that it comes across as politically correct censorship. Whatever merit there might have been to muffling anti-gay perspectives when there were few pro-gay viewpoints expressed in the media, it's increasingly hard to justify that demand when this season saw some 30 gay or lesbian characters on prime time TV (including on shows from Paramount) and pro-gay themes dominant in theater and Academy Award nominated films, not to mention broadcast on "Oprah" and most other TV talk shows.
All of which is to say that I actually felt GLAAD did the more or less reasonable thing this time round. As a community, we need to distinguish between someone who says "I hate gays" and someone who says "homosexuality is a deviance that can be overcome, for the good of homosexuals." Yes, it's an attitutde that we believe is wrong on all counts, and it's not a positive message for those coming to terms with their sexuality - especially gay kids. But it's not equivalent to the Klan, either.
If we attempt to deny those with a religion-based opposition to homosexuality any mass media forum, where do you then draw the line? If you oppose (as I do) "progressive" students who steal all the copies of conservative campus newspapers and burn them (because the papers advocated "fascistic" viewpoints like opposing affirmative action preferences), than you have to concede that liberal-left activists sometimes wind up promoting censorship. At GLAAD, we tried to block the filming of "Basic Instinct," which in retrospect is a rather benign film (and whose star, Sharon Stone, is now a darling of progressive gays, go figure).
I suspect that in the glare of the TV lights, Dr. Laura's backward views will be seen for what they are, a reactionary response to enlightened social change, and she'll slink back into the smaller niche of talk radio-land. Those offended by Dr. Laura are free to criticize Paramount Television for giving her a show, and in fact www.stopDrLaura.com has been set up for just that purpose. Moreover, it seems fair that GLAAD should seek to negotiate a means of response to her most egregious declarations.
Yet trying to silence Dr. Laura completely, even if it were doable, would only make her a martyr to her followers. With apologies to Robin Tyler, words are NOT as damaging as deeds, and such an assertion is an affront not just to the First Amendment but to the entire liberal tradition. If we truly believe that our cause is just, we should have no fear of subjecting them to public debate.