Originally appeared July 10, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.
On July 6, the day of England's annual Gay Pride parade, British activist Peter Tatchell wrote a column for the left-leaning London Independent deploring changes in the gay movement over the last 30 years.
"We had a beautiful dream," he wrote. "Our demand was liberation. We wanted to change society, not conform to it. Our radical, idealistic vision involved creating a new sexual democracy, without homophobia and misogyny. Erotic shame and guilt would be banished, together with compulsory monogamy, gender roles and the nuclear family."
Tatchell went on to criticize gay organizations that focus on issues such as gay marriage which reflect traditional heterosexual goals, rather than "more contentious issues such as ... consensual sex between underage partners, the censorship of sexual imagery, the timidity of sex education lessons, and the criminalization of sex workers and sadomasochistic relationships."
Tatchell articulates both the nostalgia and the bafflement frequently expressed in the U.S. as well as England by old-timers on the gay left. At some point, the gay movement seemed to slip out from under them and they are not quite sure what happened, why it happened or who to blame.
But Tatchell underestimates both the success of the gay movement and the extent to which society has changed. To a great degree gays and lesbians have achieved the liberation that Tatchell and his colleagues sought from the repression imposed by government and public opinion.
Increasing numbers of gays fully accept themselves and live their lives openly and happily, accepted by family and friends, their sexuality accorded respect and their relationships treated with dignity. If that is not a revolution, then Tatchell is forgetting what a revolution is.
We have even achieved some of the sexual liberation Tatchell sought. Whatever Tatchell's "sexual democracy" means - and majority rule over people's sex lives seems like a dangerous idea - we have moved toward a more libertarian sexual individualism in which people can determine their own sexual and romantic lives, independent of what others think. The right conceptual model here is free market individualism not some governmental "sexual democracy."
Second, Tatchell and other early leaders on the left deceived themselves in assuming that early participants in gay liberation - the "we" he keeps referring to - all supported some sort of social and sexual radicalism. A substantial number of leaders and "activists" no doubt did since people with the most zeal about their views tend to push themselves forward most vigorously.
But the majority of gays even then were all over the political map. The thousands of gays and lesbians who marched in the earliest Gay Pride parades were hardly affirming any left-wing or radical agenda. They were simply making themselves visible, affirming their existence and moral legitimacy.
Films of early gay pride rallies show thousands of well-scrubbed, wholesome-looking gays and lesbians in T-shirts and jeans, looking slightly bored as they are harangued from the stage about the oppression of transvestites, prostitutes, gender roles, etc., and you know they're sitting there thinking, "When does the band get to play?" and "I wonder if that guy over there wants to hook up later."
Third, Tatchell seems to assume that any social movement such as ours should never depart from its original agenda (such as he imagines it). This is the nerve of the current liberationist position and it is repeated endlessly. Unfortunately, Tatchell never offers any argument for it.
But any movement that wants to stay vital and grow has to reflect the goals of its constituents and supporters. And if the primary slogan of gay lib was "come out, wherever you are," gays did come out in large numbers, bringing their own needs, beliefs and personal goals with them.
And it turned out that what most gay and lesbians wanted was "a normal life" - a stable, comfortable home, a primary relationship with someone they loved, a degree of freedom to explore their sexuality, and opportunities to live and socialize free of stigma and prejudice. If they felt any concern about prostitutes, transsexuals, sadomasochism, etc., it was hardly a priority.
Fourth, the good news for Tatchell is that he fails to consider how the open participation of gays in our social institutions will gradually change those institutions. If, as leftists sometimes argue, there is an inherent gay sensibility, they should have faith that it will have an effect wherever it is present. Dennis Altman caught this in his book title "The Homosexualization of America."
But more than that, the presence and legitimacy in our social institutions of people with a slightly different way of engaging with the world will result - is already resulting - in the relaxation of social strictures and open those institutions to other possibilities as well. In a free market of social behavior, once a legal monopoly is broken, more options will offer themselves for consideration.
This is, of course, an unintended effect, but it is a powerful effect nevertheless, and impossible to prevent because it has no direct cause. So Tatchell may obtain more of his goals than he expects, but in modified form and by means he never anticipated.