With just one word, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah revealed last week what really lies at the heart of the anti-gay marriage agenda. Hatch assured his fellow lawmakers in a debate over the Marriage Protection Amendment:
This might not be a major issue for those who live inside the beltway, but for my neighbors in Salt Lake City, my constituents throughout Utah, and good, decent, clean Americans across the country, this is a critical issue.
"Clean?" What, pray tell, does that make those who of us who oppose the amendment? You do the math.
Remarkably, this slip was hardly remarked upon by the media. The only journalist to note it was Michael Crowley of the New Republic, who mentioned it briefly on the magazine's blog (here and here).
A day after posting Hatch's comment, Crowley discovered that Hatch had erased the word "clean" from his remarks in the Congressional Record. Whatever Hatch meant by the remark, he and his staff decided it was best for his reputation and his cause that the public not know what he actually said.
Those who oppose gay marriage talk about how extending the institution to gay couples will destroy it and lead to polygamy, out-of-wedlock births, higher divorce rates and other horrors. Hatch's insinuation that those who support gay marriage - and more specifically, gays - are dirty, is something conservatives used to say openly but now hardly do.
It's certainly possible to find homosexual sodomy to be a revolting practice personally, and not be homophobic. Many gay-friendly straight men would probably fall into that category. They have gay friends, support gay marriage, watch "Will & Grace," but would rather not think about two men having sex. Who can blame them?
Likewise, gay men who find sex with women to be disgusting could hardly be faulted as heterophobic. After all, that is what makes them gay. But to employ your personal distaste about someone else's private, consensual sexual preferences in an attempt to deny them rights is bigotry pure and simple.
Of course, not all those who oppose gay marriage are bigots. If this were the case, Howard Dean and most otherwise gay-friendly Democratic members of Congress would be bigots.
One Democrat who does support marriage equality, Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, did not help constructive debate when he said a vote for the amendment was "a vote for bigotry." With the vast majority of Americans opposed to gay couples marrying, we will win little sympathy by smearing everyone who disagrees as a bigot.
There are legitimate arguments against allowing gay couples to legally wed, some of which have been put forward by gays themselves. Kennedy painted with a broad brush.
But he is nonetheless right that bigotry motivates at least some of those who oppose marriage equality. Kennedy's remark infuriated Hatch, who asked whether the Massachusetts Democrat "really wants to suggest that over half of the United States Senate is a crew of bigots."
Not half the Senate, maybe. It's difficult to know what sort of attitude lies in someone's heart but every now and then, oftentimes unwittingly, they drop us clues. Hatch did just that on the floor of the Senate last week.
A question for Senator Hatch: How is homosexual sodomy (which, I assume, is the act that Hatch finds so detestable) any different from heterosexual sodomy - a practice in which many heterosexual couples regularly engage?
What about those heterosexual couples who partake in other consensual sexual activities of which the senator disapproves? Should they also not be allowed to get married and enjoy the benefits thereof?
More importantly, why do politicians seem to care so much about what grown people do in their bedrooms? If Hatch believes gays and our allies are not "clean," then he ought to explain how that impacts the policy issues surrounding marriage.
Hatch and his supporters might pretend he was defending his constituency from the likes of Kennedy and all those who would denigrate the character of those supportive of the MPA.
I have no doubt the citizens of Utah are "good, decent" citizens, and that they wash themselves on a regular basis. But so are gay Americans. It's hardly unusual behavior for a politician, but something tells me that Hatch was playing dirty.
14 Comments for “Sen. Hatch Talks Dirty”
posted by dalea on
Quote:With the vast majority of Americans opposed to gay couples marrying, we will win little sympathy by smearing everyone who disagrees as a bigot.
Just what is this ‘vast’ number of people? From the polls I have seen something like a majority, a small majority, favor either gay marriage or civil unions. Those opposed to both are a minority. Where does this ‘vast’ come from?
posted by Randy R. on
yeah, and the numbers are going in our direction.
Nonetheless, Hatch is a jerk for his choice of language, but there is little we can or should do about it. Just keep a tickler file, and in a generation or two, we can pull it out and have a chuckle over the neandertal views respectable people once had.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
There’s no need to mince words here, Hatch is a judgmental asshole who likely has significant sexual issues of his own. No normal individual spends such time thinking about, no, obsessing about the sex lives of his neighbors and colleagues.
Rather than say “ah ha, we’ve finally rooted out what you think of us,” instead, laugh and shake your head. How insane is it, really, to be a man in such a position of power who obsesses over the “dirty sex things” that others do behind closed doors?
posted by Mark on
Intertestingly, a very large number of straight men find lesbian sex hot. Many porn films marketed to straight men feature lesbian sex.
posted by Mike on
Comments like Hatch’s should not surprise anyone. In the last election there was a very deliberate effort to alienate a section of the population. It is any wonder that proponents of ‘the anti-gay agenda’ use terms that polarize the electorate? I find it more interesting that they saw it fit to remove ‘clean’ from the official record-what’s next, will they refrain from dragging their knuckles?
posted by Alex on
As a citizen of Massachusetts and a proud Kennedy supporter I a glad he said it. I am certainly getting my vote’s worth. You see for someone from Mass the debate is different because we can get married. From our prospective this amendment will harm thousands of married couples and their children. Kennedy knows this and he knows that is what many (many polls saying the massachusetts majority) agree with Kennedy and I. Also if denying rights to a minority to satisfy the whims of the majority is not bigotry then what is these days. Granted you mentioned some Democrats like Howard Dean do not support it but they support something they are trying in their own cowardly way. Well thats my 2 cents.
posted by Tom in Vermont on
Some thoughts:
1. I don’t see anything in Hatch’s remarks to suggest he was referring to anal sex. “Clean” is figurative and broad in its connotation here.
2. “Likewise, gay men who find sex with women to be disgusting could hardly be faulted as heterophobic. After all, that is what makes them gay.” Um. Finding sex with women disgusting is not what makes me gay. I don’t find the idea of having sex with a woman disgusting, I just don’t want to do it. What makes me gay is that I can only have a full, meaningful, spiritual, physical and emotional relationship with another man. I want to spend my life with another man. I want to raise my family with another man.
3. Howard Dean is a bigot when it comes to our families. Stop making excuses for him. Stop drawing your definition of bigot to exclude someone just because their bigotry is a little more subtle and complex than Orin Hatch’s.
4. “With the vast majority of Americans opposed to gay couples marrying, we will win little sympathy by smearing everyone who disagrees as a bigot.” I agree with Dalea and Randy that there is no “vast majority” and I think that term is self-defeating. Majorities or near-majorities support marriage in many places. But further, I disagree that we are harming our chances for success by identifying and naming bigotry where we find it. The other side has a great advantage in speaking as if they have accurate moral clarity even though in reality they are on the wrong side of the moral and ethical debate. We need to get better at speaking clearly in moral and ethical terms. Discrimination in marriage laws is immoral and those who support discriminating against couples simply because both people are of the same gender are behaving in a biased and bigotted manner. I appreciate Kennedy’s speaking clearly in those terms.
5. “There are legitimate arguments against allowing gay couples to legally wed, some of which have been put forward by gays themselves.” I am not aware of any arguments in favor of discriminating against our families that are legitimate in the sense of based on sound facts, unmotivated by bias and pursuasive enough to justify discrimination. The author should have at least given an example. And by the way, just because a gay person puts forth an argument doesn’t mean it’s automatically free from anti-gay bias.
posted by Randy R. on
Amen to your last sentence, brother! I am always amazed at the latent homophobia I see in some gays and lesbians. It usually surfaces when someone argues like one of those so-called ex-gays: “Gays shouldn’t marry because they are way to promiscuous and can’t be trusted to uphold the sanctity of marriage.” Or, ‘gays don’t deserve any more rights than they have now, because it will make us a protected class, and I don’t want that. If an employer wants to fire me just because I’m gay, that’s his right.’
Ultimately, they want to hold us all down so that we stay at their low level.
posted by Steve - Geneva, IL on
This brings up a principal we tend to gloss over that is key in the minds of the right. -Being gay automatically means \\”without virtue\\”.- John Stewart asked Rick Santorum about this point blank and of course, Santorum lied in his response. But having spent plenty of time in an evangelical church, this is a big issue. They cannot fathom (or accept) a virtuous and moral gay person. To them, if a gay person gives the appearance of virtue, there must be some evil alterior motive.
posted by Jarrow on
Actually, I know Senator Hatch and he’s made a remark to me that he would support something along the lines of civil unions, he definitely realizes that some sort of status and protection is appropriate. What he said for political reasons was, well, political. The reality is that he would support a compromise and we need to work with that.
posted by AdidasRob on
“Likewise, gay men who find sex with women to be disgusting could hardly be faulted as heterophobic ”
This is the second time today I have come across this insulting, offensive neologism. This is more backlash and to hear from the gay press distresses me to no end. Homophobia is real. It is a pathology and a disorder that manifests itself in a myriad of ways that have dangerous and sometimes deadly consequences for LGBT people. Heterophobia is a word made up by people who don’t like the fact that LGBT people are demanding civil rights. It is similar to the way racists refer to articulate, assertive African Americans as “uppity” The word “heterophobia” confirms the existence of homophobia and I hate it and all those who use it.
posted by Cowboy on
Jarrow,
I know my Senator Hatch too and I hope you are not suggesting Orrin is tolerant of gays/lesbians? How can that be? He has co-sponsored the anti-gay marriage amendment and his leader/Prophet of his religion has pretty much said gays are second-class citizens deserving nothing similar to marriage. He does not believe gays should adopt nor should they be foster parents.
If your definition of tolerance is being subjugated to blatant discrimination then I suggest you go back to living in the pre-Orrinelling era (that is: more than three decades ago).
posted by Mike on
Marriage isn’t about sex. Everyone knows married people don’t have sex! [Humor intended!] I think it’s normal to experience squeamishness if you think about people you know having sex. Do you really want to see any of your friends going at it with their significant other? Yeah, I didn’t think so.
The right wing consistently preaches the message that being gay is about having gay sex. Thus gay marriage must be about gay sex as well. I suppose it’s an issue of framing. If you framed straight marriage in the same way, with images of the husband poking his wife in her unwashed butt or the wife eagerly kneeling before her unwashed husband, I’m sure that you could create a fairly unflattering, sex-based picture of straight marriage.
posted by tm on
One of the legitimate arguments against same-sex marriage that comes from queer quarters: by participating in what has traditionally been an institution that valorizes and legitimizes heterosexuality, reifies gender and sexual inequalities, and privileges particular (and state-sanctioned) individual relationship choices over others, gay and lesbian people will be taking a step backward, politically. The problem or barrier to equality, from this perspective, is not the inability to marry, but marriage itself. Why do it? This is an argument that basically leads to consideration of abandoning the marital institution (as it currently exists) completely in favor of new (and, pointedly, *unspecified*) modes of intimate relationship that neither proceed from nor reproduce the inequalities associated with traditional heterosexual “marriage.” If marriage is the problem, then (same-sex) marriage cannot be the solution, I guess.
Okay, this argument seems reasonable to me, but I am not persuaded. I agree with the poster above who suggests that such an argument isn’t strong enough to justify discrimination in the here-and-now.
And let me register my general irritation with shrill denunciations of neologisms like “heterophobia.” Not so long ago, “homophobia” was a neologism, as well. It was an idea, and over time we have been able to explore this idea and expand its meaning into an observable pathology, a pattern, a disorder, or whatever. It began, however, as an attempt to name what was an unnamed and socially/politically unrecognized experience. Homophobia is only as real as we have defined it to be. I might suggest that instead of hating the word “[heterophobia] and all those who use it,” we acknowledge that it might actually mean something (even if that something is NOT the opposite of homophobia).
Perhaps “heterophobic” might be useful as a way to describe the argument against same-sex marriage I summarized above? Heterophobia might be the fear of losing queer identity through assimilation into traditionally heterosexist institutions–in other words, becoming just like *them*. Of course, this isn’t how it is used, I guess (and certainly not by the author of the original post here), but this is a possible definition.
Overall, I think exploring an idea is superior to hating people who are doing so.