Originally appeared May 17, 2001 in Update (San Diego).
Sometimes the anti-gay brigade can't help itself. Its activists drop their pretensions and reveal that what they're about isn't really "upholding traditional family values." Instead, it's anti-gay animus, pure and simple, that stokes their passion.
Here's an example. In Washington State, a bill aimed at curtailing bullying and harassment in public schools became stalled in the legislature after Christian conservatives complained that it amounted to a gay rights measure. How's that? The bill would have required school districts to set up policies against harassment, bullying and intimidation. It also would have mandated that districts train employees and volunteers in the prevention of bullying.
Sounds reasonable, doesn't it? To most people, perhaps, but not to the anti-gay brigade. In lobbying against the measure, Christian rightists claimed it would amount to censorship of the bullies' rights to "condemn homosexuality." The director of the Christian Coalition of Washington made a dire prediction that this sort of thing would lead to homosexual sensitivity training in schools.
The State Attorney General offered to add language to the bill making it "perfectly clear" that it would not abridge anyone's right to criticize homosexuality on moral grounds. But the anti-gay brigade would have none of it, and the bill, which had sailed through the state Senate with bipartisan support, never made it out of the House Education Committee.
"I think that people thought that this was going to give some special protections to the gay and lesbian communities," said one supporter, Rep. Dave Quall. He commented that what opponents seemed to want was not an anti-harassment bill, but a bill that "protects people's rights to be a bully" under the guise of expressing their religious convictions - as if calling someone a "faggot" in the school yard is a theological discussion.
Let's think about this. Hurling homophobic epithets has become the prime means of harassing and humiliating any student - gay or straight - who is seen as vulnerable. Usually the victims have little choice but to put up with the constant stream of abuse, often internalizing the hate. On rare occasions, lawsuits have been brought against school administrators for their woeful failure to protect the kids in their charge, but it's hardly a viable course of action. And sometimes, in extreme cases, the victims become mentally unhinged, and seek violent revenge against their tormentors - or innocent parties.
None of this seems to concern the anti-gay brigade. If having teenage brownshirts terrorize gay youth (or those whom they perceive as gay) will ensure that homosexuals know their place (i.e., in the closet), then that's fine with them. God's in his heaven, and all is right with the world.
Need another example? In Vermont, that state's historic civil union legislation is under siege. Civil unions, passed last year, allow same-sex partners to formalize their legal relationship and to share all the benefits the state provides to married couples (as well as the same barriers to dissolution, which requires family court action - just like marriage). The anti-gay brigade is beside itself. But in Vermont, the state Supreme Court ruled that gay couples must have access to the more than 300 state rights and benefits that flow from marriage, if not the right to marriage itself.
So, if civil union can't be overturned outright, what is to be done? The solution they've hit on is to try to replace civil unions with what would be termed "reciprocal partnerships" which - get this - would allow unions between sons and mothers, brothers and sisters, and any other two people whether related by blood or not, as long as neither is currently wed to anyone else. That's to say, reciprocal partnerships would not be limited to those who now can join together in a committed and loving (and sexual) relationship, but would instead apply to any two unmarried people who want to share their health insurance, or obtain other benefits heretofore reserved traditionally for committed adult couples.
This means that in the guise of protecting traditional family values, the anti-gay brigade would like to see any two friends or blood relatives gain the special status that marriage has had in the law. You'd think that would be one of the worst possible scenarios if your goal is actually to protect marriage. But if your motivation is to see that gays don't gain equality to marriage rights and to demean gay couples who have joined together in civil unions, then by all means let's devalue the special relationship between committed couples. It's a wonder they didn't include "reciprocal relationships" between people and their pets in their bill (as long as both are otherwise unmarried).
The anti-gay brigade was hard pressed, in testimony before the state legislature, to show that there's a huge demand for reciprocal partnerships between a child and parent, siblings, or a nephew/niece and their aunt/uncle. On the other hand, many couples united in civil unions put forth a powerful case for leaving the law in place as is. "I do not want our civil union weakened by reciprocal partnerships that would equate my relationship [with her partner] to my relationship with my mother, sister, great aunt," said Deb Reed. "Those relationships are qualitatively different."
Obvious, right? Except when the anti-gay brigade is showing its true intentions, which aren't much different from the schoolyard bullies they seek to protect.