IGF CultureWatch

First published Dec. 3, 2003, in the Chicago Free Press.

Novelist Ayn Rand (1905-1982), best known as author of The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957), is rightly regarded as a rigorous defender of individualism and personal autonomy, of the right to craft a life satisfying to oneself rather than others, of the importance of thinking logically and carefully examining traditional assumptions.

Given this emphasis, it is easy to understand why many gays and lesbians would find in Rand's novels a message of encouragement, a powerful nudge toward self-acceptance and a foundation for self-esteem in the face of moralizing religions and social stigma.

Rand, who was born Alissa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg, Russia, is even listed in the "Gay Russian Hall of Fame" maintained by a Moscow alternative newspaper and The Fountainhead is called "a landmark of gay culture," presumably for its theme of personal liberty and individual creativity.

It is all the more surprising, then, that Rand herself held a strongly negative view of homosexuality which during the 1960s and 1970s influenced many of her followers, leading some gays to remain in the closet or try therapy in the vain hope of changing their orientation.

Yet there is nothing anywhere in the novels to suggest any hostility to homosexuality. Perhaps even the opposite is true in the themes of strong bonding between some of the male characters. In Atlas Shrugged, heroine Dagny Taggart remarks to industrialist Hank Rearden that she thinks he has "fallen" for Francisco d'Anconia. "Yes, I think I have," Rearden acknowledges.

And commenting on The Fountainhead, Rand said that the love of publisher Gail Wynand, a man, for architect Howard Roark was "greater, I think, than any other emotion in the book." Rand insisted that the love was not homosexual, but "love in the romantic sense...." Yet in a later essay Rand defined romantic love exactly as "the profound ... passion that unites mind and body in the sexual act." The contradiction is hard to miss.

Luckily in a way, most people just read the novels and took away whatever message they needed for their own lives, happily unaware of the author's personal opinions, tastes, and preferences. As D.H. Lawrence once remarked, "Don't tell me what the novelist says, tell me what the novel says."

Rand's one explicit statement about homosexuality, however, came in 1971 after a public lecture in Boston. She made it clear that her philosophy of personal rights and limited government required that homosexuality be decriminalized, an enlightened view for the time, but then went on to say, "It involves psychological flaws, corruptions, errors, or unfortunate premises .... Therefore I regard it as immoral ... And more than that, if you want my really sincere opinion. It's disgusting."

Although Rand offered no further rationale for her opinion, her designated successor Nathaniel Branden dutifully followed her lead for a time - with equally little rationale. But Branden gradually changed his views as did many others through the 1970s and 1980s.

By 1983, a year after Rand died, Branden was willing to say that she was "absolutely and totally ignorant" about homosexuality, describing her view "as calamitous, as wrong, as reckless, as irresponsible, and as cruel, and as one which I know has hurt too many people who ... looked up to her and assumed that if she would make that strong a statement she must have awfully good reasons."

Untangling the story of how Rand's views were gradually put aside or corrected by her successors is the subject of a new monograph by New York University scholar Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Ayn Rand, Homosexuality, and Human Liberation. The openly gay Sciabarra is author of Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical and editor of the important Journal of Ayn Rand Studies.

More than most others, Rand's candid biographer Barbara Branden retained her independence in the face of Rand's strong personality. "I never agreed with her about homosexuality," Branden told Sciabarra. "I considered her profoundly negative judgment to be rash and unreasonable."

Branden recounted that once she observed a Rand-influenced psychiatrist start to try to "cure" a young gay man unhappy about his gay feelings rather than help him achieve self-acceptance.

"I listened seething inside," Branden said. "Afterwards I said to him 'Please give me your proof that homosexuality is psychologically unhealthy and should be cured.' The psychiatrist seemed astonished by the question. Then he suddenly was silent for what seemed an endless time, apparently thinking, and finally he replied, very quietly, 'It's something I've always assumed to be true. ... I can't prove it. I don't know it to be true.' "

And openly gay Arthur Silber who currently writes the engaging "Light of Reason" weblog, summed it up to Sciabarra, "Rand did have an extremely unfortunate tendency to moralize in areas where moral judgments were irrelevant and unjustified. ... especially in ... aesthetics and sexuality."

In the end, Rand's gripping novels and some of her essays seem destined to have a long and productive influence, while her incidental personal preferences and tastes are likely to be completely forgotten by the next generation. No one could wish things otherwise.

Author's note: Sciabarra's 70-page monograph can be ordered for $9.95 from Sense of Life Objectivists or, beginning January 2004, from Laissez Faire Books.

First published on Nov. 26, 2003, in the Chicago Free Press.

In an opinion issued Nov. 18, Massachusetts' Supreme Judicial Court struck down the state's denial of civil marriage to people of the same sex, becoming the latest, but no doubt not the last state supreme court to affirm the full civil equality of gays and lesbians before the institutions of the law:

"The question before us is whether...the commonwealth may deny the protections, benefits and obligations conferred by civil marriage to two individuals of the same sex who wish to marry. We conclude that it may not. ...(The state) has failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples."

The important point to notice at the outset is the court did not assume that the seven same-sex couples who were plaintiffs had to prove they had a specific right to civil marriage. Instead the court began with the assumption that people have a right to marry and the state had the burden of defending its prohibition of same-sex marriage.

In doing so the Massachusetts court followed the lead of the U.S. Supreme Court's 2003 Lawrence decision decriminalizing sodomy, where the U.S. court said, "Liberty presumes an autonomy of self that includes freedom of thought, belief, expression and certain intimate conduct," and placed the burden on Texas to justify its sodomy law.

But the Massachusetts court went further to adopt a fundamentally libertarian approach to government and law, affirming that people have, or should have, a fundamental right to do as they wish in the absence of some rational basis for prohibiting them.

"The Massachusetts Constitution protects matters of personal liberty against government incursion. ... The individual liberty and equality safeguards of the Massachusetts Constitution protect both 'freedom from' unwarranted government intrusion into protected spheres of life and 'freedom to' partake in benefits (such as civil marriage) created by the state for the common good."

Justice Greaney put it more tersely in a concurring opinion: "The right to marry is not a privilege conferred by the State, but a fundamental right that is protected against unwarranted State interference."

The court then asked whether - absent persuasive reasons otherwise - the freedom to marry included freedom to marry a same-sex partner and concluded that it did: "The liberty interest in choosing whether and whom to marry would be hollow if the commonwealth could, without sufficient justification, foreclose an individual from freely choosing the person with whom to share an exclusive commitment in the unique institution of civil marriage."

Or as Justice Greaney put it, "The right to marry...is essentially vitiated if one is denied the right to marry a person of one's choice. ...The equal protection infirmity at work here is strikingly similar to ... the invidious discrimination perpetuated by Virginia's anti-miscegenation laws" struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving vs. Virginia.

The court then examined the state's arguments for prohibiting same-sex marriage and found them either factually incorrect or contrary to existing public policy.

The state first argued that the primary purpose of marriage is procreation. "This is incorrect," the court said flatly, noting that the state does not require opposite sex couples to have the ability or intention to conceive children.

Instead, the court patiently instructed the state, "it is the exclusive and permanent COMMITMENT of the marriage partners to one another, not the begetting of children, that is the sine qua non of civil marriage" (emphasis added).

The state argued second that limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples "ensures that children are raised in the 'optimal' setting." But the court pointed out that the state already recognized and accepted many alternative child-rearing configurations and the state had already acknowledged that same-sex couples may be "excellent" parents.

For that matter, the court added, excluding same-sex couples from civil marriage ran counter to the state's vaunted concern for children by preventing children raised by same-sex couples from enjoying the assurance of a stable and assured family structure.

The state argued third that prohibiting gay marriage conserved state and private financial resources since same-sex couples were less financially dependent on each other and so had less need of the tax advantages of marriage or private health plans that include spouses.

But the court pointed out that was contrary to current public policy: "(M)arriage laws do not condition the receipt of public or private financial benefits to married individuals on a demonstration of financial dependence on each other."

And so, the court repeated with evident exasperation, that the state "has had more than ample opportunity to articulate a constitutionally adequate justification for limiting civil marriage to opposite-sex unions. It has failed to do so. ...It has failed to identify any relevant characteristic that would justify shutting the door to civil marriage to a person who wishes to marry someone of the same sex."

In sum, the court said, the absence of "any reasonable relationship" between a same-sex marriage ban and public health, safety or general welfare, "suggests that the marriage restriction is rooted in persistent prejudices against persons who are...homosexual."

First published Nov. 12, 2003, in the Chicago Free Press. This version has been slightly revised.

One of the Bible verses most frequently cited by conservative, anti-gay Christians occurs in the Letter to the Romans, generally attributed - except for its final verses - to the Apostle Paul, Romans 1:26-27:

(26) "For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural," (27) "and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error." (Revised Standard Version)

First of all, it is important to notice that although Paul clearly refers to sexual acts between males, it is not clear at all that he is referring to lesbian behavior. Not only does Paul distinguish women from men, but just where the parallelism of the two verses would lead us to expect it he specifically avoids saying anything like "woman committing shameless acts with women." It is only in the case of men that Paul specifies homosexual sex as the "unnatural" behavior he objects to. So Paul may be thinking of some other behavior by women.

Be that as it may, the usual gay Christian interpretation of this passage is that Paul had little concept of a life-long homosexual orientation and so regarded homosexual acts as a deviation from a natural heterosexuality by people who were unusually lustful or wanton or rebellious. In that case Paul's argument would not apply homosexuality as we understand it today.

That may well be true. But, even if so, exactly what theological point Paul was trying to make about homosexual behavior is far from clear and, on closer examination, seems far different from what both gay and anti-gay Christians assume. But that point emerges only when the verses are seen in context of the whole section (or "pericope") where they appear: Romans 1:18-32.

In this insistent and repetitious passage dense with "therefores" and "becauses" that obscure a lack of real argument, Paul asserts that his God's eternal power and deity (singularity, omnipotence) were once perceptible through the "eye of reason" by all men in the things God created.

But despite this evidence for an invisible, transcendent God, people refused to honor and worship him and being "vain in their reasoning" invented pagan gods - "created things," "images resembling mortal man, or birds, or animals or reptiles." (Notice, in passing, the glancing allusion to deified emperors.)

In other words, Paul claims that knowledge of his God had been available and that people who refused to acknowledge him were led astray by their own thinking "and their misguided minds are plunged into darkness." Referring to the ancient Greek and Roman poets, priests and intellectuals, Paul says, "They boast of their wisdom, but they have made fools of themselves."

And because they fail to acknowledge Paul's invisible God, nothing keeps them from depraved reason and wrong conduct. Here is Paul: "God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves BECAUSE they have bartered away the true God for a false one ..." (Romans 1:24-25, emphasis added).

The word "because" is key. Paul is offering his explanation for homosexual desire and behavior - as well as a generic explanation for other things he regards as improper - including people who are "gossips, slanderers, insolent, haughty, haters of God, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless," etc. (Romans 1:28-31)

So Paul's argument refers to cultures that rejected an earlier natural knowledge of God available by the eye of reason and turned to worship other, visible, pagan gods. And it is the worship of pagan gods that leads them to engage in these various types of conduct Paul deplores.

Put the other way around, Paul's claim is that homosexual desire and behavior are (are only?) the result of belief in pagan gods. And belief in pagan gods comes about when people reject the light of reason and place more confidence in their own theological imaginings.

But if that is so, then Paul's claim about the origin and significance of homosexual desire and conduct can hardly apply to people who did not reject an earlier belief in God and turn to pagan gods. Specifically, it hardly applies to homosexuals who are Christians or Christians who come to realize their homosexuality. Paul amateur theologico-psychologizing has no explanation for such a thing.

Furthermore, it is not clear in any case how a supposed primordial belief in or "perception" of a unitary, transcendent god could have provided anyone with a particular ethical code, much less any specific commands about sexual behavior. Paul was clearly aware of that difficulty because he struggled to fill the gap later by postulating that some pagans have the law "by nature," "written on their hearts" (Romans 2:14-15). But he is unable to explain - nor does he try to explain - how this happens or why some peoples do and others do not have it "by nature."

First published on Nov. 5, 2003, in the Chicago Free Press.

It is a striking fact that people who are anti-Semitic are so often homophobic and many who are homophobic are anti-Semitic as well.

At the end of October, Malaysia's prime minister - dictator, actually - Mahathir Mohamad retired after ruling for 22 years. Shortly before, in mid-October, Mahathir gave a widely publicized speech to a gathering of leaders of Islamic countries in which he charged that "Jews rule the world by proxy" and "get others to fight and die for them. " Further, "They invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they can enjoy equal rights with others. "

If we took such charges seriously enough to rebut them, we could point to Jews serving in the American and other western militaries as well as the fact that military service is mandatory in Israel, where Jews have fought and died since 1948 repelling repeated invasions from surrounding countries who oppose Israel's mere existence.

We could point out that democracy was invented not by Jews but by ancient Greeks. Natural human rights were first conceived by the English philosophers Hobbes and Locke. Socialism was invented by early 19th century French writers. And Communism was invented by Plato, another Greek, as an ironic construct - as the Soviet Union so painfully discovered - of the politically impossible.

But clearly such factual corrections would have little impact. The hostility comes first, then "facts" are imagined or rearranged to support the prejudice. Does that sound familiar?

It is now barely recalled that in 1998 Mahathir suddenly turned against his presumptive successor Anwar Ibrahim, accusing him of corruption and sodomy and after a flamboyant show trial had him sentenced to prison for 20 years. The charges were almost surely false, prosecution testimony coerced and perjured, and human rights groups protested the whole affair as politically motivated.

Far from being unique, Mahathir is all too typical. Most Arab countries are both viciously homophobic and obsessively anti-Jewish. Saudi Arabia lashes, imprisons and executes gays and not only prohibits Jewish (and Christian) worship services but has its government-owned newspapers print absurd medieval libels against Jews.

Egyptian police conduct sweeps of gay cruising areas and entrap gays they meet on gay websites. At the same time, Egyptian government television broadcast an interminable mini-series based in part on "Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," a late Czarist forgery about supposed Jewish plans for world domination.

In the West, the Catholic church from its beginnings has been both homophobic and anti-Jewish. The anti-Jewish sentiment was attributed to the supposed responsibility of "the Jews" for the death of Jesus in the gospel legends (John 19:12-15; Matthew 27:25). Given the Catholic view that Jesus sacrificial death was necessary for mankind's redemption, you would think Catholics should be grateful to "the Jews" for helping it happen, but then no one ever claimed Catholic doctrine was logical.

In any case, it was not until the 1960s that the Catholic church formally declared that, oh, by the way, "the Jews" were not responsible for the death of Jesus after all. Small comfort to the generations of Jews excluded, harassed, assaulted and killed in pogroms by pious Christians doing the Lord's work.

It is scarcely necessary to recount the arrest, torture, executions and burning at the stake of "sodomites" when the Catholic church held political power, nor the innumerable hate-inspiring sermons denouncing homosexuality and "sodomites" in both Catholic and evangelical Protestant churches. Even today the Vatican and conservative Protestant churches inveigh against homosexuality and are the strongest supporters of sodomy laws and opponents of gay equality.

The reasons for the frequent appearance of both hostilities in the same person or culture are complex, speculative and deserve a column of their own. But here is a start.

Most people seem to want to think that however they are is the right way to be - that their conduct and beliefs are true and natural for everyone. Both gays and Jews diverge in noticeable ways from the usual, the familiar, so people conclude that gays and Jews must be wrong to be as they are. And since how "we" - the majority - are is "natural" the others are somehow "unnatural" and probably malicious in rejecting the obvious superiority of our practices and beliefs.

Thus Jews are an affront to Christianity because they do not accept the founding Christian myth that Jesus is a savior or messiah - or, in Islam, Mohammed the last and truest prophet. Since the truths of Christianity (or Islam) are so blindingly obvious to their proponents, they think that Jews are being willfully stubborn when they refuse to accept them as true and may well be motivated by evil intent to harm Christians (Muslims) and undo Christianity (Islam).

In a similar way, gays are an affront to heterosexuals who cannot imagine that anyone can really have different desires from their own except by virtue of something unnatural about them or else motivated by evil intent to harm heterosexuals or undo heterosexuality. So mere difference is interpreted as opposition and then as a threat.

First published October 15, 2003 in the Chicago Free Press.

The recall of California's Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and the election of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger as his replacement has a number of encouraging implications for the future of gay liberty and equality.

First off how did California gays and lesbians view the race? Based on 3,772 exit poll and 400 absentee voter interviews (4,172 total), 4 percent of voters were gay, lesbian or bisexual. We can assume this is an undercount since people in suburban, rural or conservative areas are more reluctant to disclose their orientation. So the gay vote was probably closer to 5 or 6 percent.

Of the 4 percent who said they were GLB, 58 percent opposed the recall of Davis. In their choice for a replacement candidate, a bare majority (52 percent) voted for Democrat Cruz Bustamante, 31 percent voted for Schwarzenegger, 9 percent for Arianna Huffington, and 4 percent for the conservative Republican Tom McClintock. That means 35 percent (technically, closer to 36 percent) voted for a GOP candidate. And (including Huffington) 60 percent voted for a Democrat.

If the actual gay vote was more than 4 percent it is plausible that people who were comfortable disclosing their orientation (living in big cities, having ample social support, etc.) were also more politically liberal and those less likely to disclose were more conservative. If so, then the actual gay vote for Schwarzenegger was indeterminately higher than 31 percent.

Schwarzenegger's position on gay issues is unknown. He is viewed as a social moderate/liberal given his support for abortion, limitations on guns, quasi-environmentalism, his dismissive comments about "religious fanatics" and vague statements that gays should be treated equally.

But how much equality he thinks gays should have is open to question. Whether he would have signed the state's new domestic partners law is doubtful. That he would support its repeal seems unlikely, however. For the moment, that is sufficient. The standard model is this: The Democrats advance gay equality, the Republicans confirm the advances when they do not repeal them.

That said, as with so many things affecting gays, we have to look beyond specifically gay issues to see how events such as Schwarzenegger's election affect gays indirectly, for instance, by tamping down anti-gay passions and promoting general tolerance and social moderation. While the defeat of a pro-gay Democrat is no doubt a loss for gay Californians, it seems outweighed by the sudden ascendancy of a social liberal Republican like Schwarzenegger in the nation's largest state.

One might even question whether Davis would have signed the comprehensive domestic partners bill had he not been desperately trying to hold onto his voter base among gays and liberals generally in the face of declining public support. It would be ironic if gay Californians owe their new partnership benefits largely to Schwarzenegger's rise in the pre-election polls.

However that may be, Schwarzenegger's election is a defeat for the conservative wing of California GOP. For years they rejected moderate Republicans and nominated socially conservative, anti-gay candidates who went on to lose.

Schwarzenegger proved that a social moderate Republican can win election. The conservative McClintock got only 13 percent of the total vote - and probably less than one-third of the GOP vote - so perhaps California Republicans have learned a useful lesson.

By the same token, Schwarzenegger's election weakens, perhaps fatally, the hold of anti-gay religious fanatics on their powerful institutional base in the California GOP. Lacking that amplifier, their legitimacy is diminished and their voice and cultural impact will be markedly reduced.

National GOP leaders are already trying to size up the message of Schwarzenegger's election. The New York Times quoted a conservative former GOP congressman and political commentator Joe Scarborough as approving a GOP strategy of moving toward the political center on social issues.

"I think the country right now continues to get more conservative on economic issues and more progressive on social issues, " Scarborough said. "I think Schwarzenegger is ahead of the curve. "

The political message for President George W. Bush is to emphasize the "compassion" - although that term reeks of condescension - in his conservatism. Anti-gay policies and rhetoric may solidify votes in the South, but those are states he can win anyway even if evangelicals stay home. In the rest of the country, especially California, an overtly anti-gay message is going to lose Bush many moderate and libertarian voters. If he wants to win in 2004, Bush will have to listen to what Schwarzenegger tells him.

In addition, Schwarzenegger's mere existence will probably reduce expressions of homophobia within the GOP. Every time some southern GOP Senate or House leader says something anti-gay, Schwarzenegger, as head of the nation's most populous state, will be able to remind them, "This is not going to fly in my state. " He may not even need to say anything. The mere knowledge that he was elected as a moderate may incline GOP leaders to weigh their words more carefully.

And that, of course, affects the national tone on homosexuality. Once politicians cease or curb their homophobia, zealot bishops and preachers are on their own, without further support or legitimization.

Originally published September 24, 2003, in the Chicago Free Press.

If you found that you just about OD'ed on "gay" this past summer, think how the religious right must feel. Those 90 days were the gayest in U.S. history. A brief recap:

Canadian gay marriage (with significant U.S. impact). Supreme Court's "Lawrence" decision. Gay Anglican priest elected New Hampshire bishop after one appointed in England withdrew. Presidential aspirant Howard Dean promoted gay civil unions. California Gov. Gray Davis signed extensive gay partnership law. Congressional subcommittee hearings on Defense of Marriage Act.

"Queer Eye" was Bravo's "breakout hit of the summer." "Boy Meets Boy" had happy ending. "The Amazing Race" won by two gay men. "Will and Grace" still going and going. Ellen DeGeneres's talk show finally began. MSNBC's ranting rightist Michael Savage "let go" after he broke no-homophobia vow.

Is there anything to be learned from all this or any conclusions we should draw? Let us try a few possibilities. The most obvious single fact was the unparalleled gay visibility. Gay lives, gay relationships and evidence of the growing acceptance of gays in at least some sectors of society were given publicity as never before.

Most of the visibility was positive. The language of the "Lawrence" decision was a landmark of affirmation. Even the anti-gay congressional hearings managed to communicate that many gays and lesbians want to marry their partners, join the mainstream and be fellow citizens. Conservatives suddenly found that "special rights" rhetoric just didn't work since they were the ones with the special rights. (Negative publicity came mostly from the Catholic priest sex scandals, which gay advocacy groups handled poorly.)

All these advances did not just suddenly pop into existence. They were the result of years of preparation and constant painstaking advocacy, of numerous smaller advances here and there in the churches, the media, the law, the political system. They were the result of more than 30 years of gays and lesbians coming out, explaining and sharing their lives, talking to those with open ears and struggling to open the ears of those whose ears were closed.

Socially the U.S. is still a melting pot, though with an incompletely melted content. That is, it is also a nation of niches in which population groups with ethnic, social, business or religious interests in common may hold differing social views from other groups. This means that gays do not have to change the nation as a whole to make any gains. They can make gains in gay friendly niches - liberal churches, creative business sectors, the urban patriciate, liberal politicians - and build on those, using them as models or leverage with other niches.

The major religious and political gains gays have made are, not unexpectedly, in coastal, Democratic-leaning states, especially in New England. A New Hampshire Episcopal bishop. Pro-gay Vermont and Massachusetts presidential candidates. Massachusetts and New Jersey gay marriage lawsuits. The religious denominations friendliest to gays and lesbians are the Episcopalian, Unitarian and United Church of Christ, all with New England roots and strong New England influence, all inheriting the tradition of Yankee individualism and personal autonomy.

In other words, gays make gains most readily in the region where the demand for personal responsibility and a consequent respect for individual independence are most deeply rooted. That being so, those are social values we would be wise to help promote as the most fertile soil for future gay advancement elsewhere.

Despite all the rest going on, "Queer Eye" felt significant for several reasons. It did not have gay visibility, it had gay dominance - open, assertive, self-confident dominance. "We are the experts here." It was less that the "fab five" could be campy, even frivolous, than that they were helpful, friendly, knowledgeable, and at root sincere. To some people in this nation that still comes as surprising news about gays, and it is a message we must never tire of repeating.

It was also interesting to see how many companies were happy to see their products mentioned on "Queer Eye." Very mainstream Pier 1 was delighted to have the gay men shop on camera at Pier 1 and walk out carrying Pier 1 shopping bags. The company viewed them as a valuable endorsement with virtually no downside. Public aversion, at least by women, who constitute the vast majority of shoppers, is now judged largely absent, and religious right boycott threats must be viewed as entirely toothless.

Skeptics might argue that "Queer Eye" drew at most 3 million viewers, or 1.1 percent of Americans. Rebroadcasts on NBC reached no more than 5 percent. But, equally important, "Queer Eye" and the other gay-inclusive shows generated enormous amounts of print publicity. Many who did not watch the shows were exposed to their influence through the literally hundreds of articles about them that appeared in magazines and newspapers large and small. More people probably read about the shows than saw them.

Just as one swallow does not make a summer, one summer does not immanentize the gay eschaton. But it was a summer our gay predecessors would have longed for.

Originally published in the Chicago Free Press, September 17, 2003.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Federal Marriage Amendment.

At the Sept. 4 Senate subcommittee hearings on "What is Needed to Defend the Bipartisan Defense of Marriage Act of 1996?" (against gay marriage), none of the witnesses who opposed gay marriage made a coherent case against it. None even tried very hard.

Of six witnesses, only conservative columnist Maggie Gallagher and African-American pastor Rev. Ray Hammond attempted to address the substantive harms of gay marriage. But what they actually addressed was the importance of marriage in childrearing and the social costs of fatherlessness and unmarried motherhood. It is as if they believe that arguing for heterosexual marriage constitutes an argument against same-sex marriage.

To be sure, Hammond offered dire warnings about gay marriage "eras(ing) the legal roadmap to marriage and the family," as if heterosexuals won't know how to marry if gays can marry. And Gallagher opined that marriage is "the place where having children and creating families are actually encouraged," as if the goal were to encourage more married couples to have children.

"How can Bob and James' marriage possibly affect Rob and Sue's marriage?" Gallagher finally asks. And replies: "There are long, complicated and erudite answers to this question. Fortunately there is also a short simple and obvious answer. ... In endorsing same-sex marriage, law and government will thus be making a powerful statement: our government no longer believes children need mothers and fathers."

Children may well benefit from having a mother and father. If so, that is an argument against unwed motherhood and for forcing heterosexual child producers to marry (say, by reviving shotgun marriages or making a paternal DNA match constitute civil marriage to the mother) and for making divorce far more difficult.

In short, it is an argument about what heterosexual parents should do, not about gay couples who do not and by themselves cannot have children. In other words, Gallagher is saying she does not have time for a long argument against gay marriage, so she will give a short one about something else.

To quote James Thurber's story The Thirteen Clocks: "'If you can touch the clocks and never start them, you can start the clocks and never touch them. That's logic and I know and use it,' said the Golux."

Gallagher continues by claiming that legalizing same-sex marriage means the government would be saying that "Two fathers or two mothers are not only just as good as a mother and a father, they are just the same."

But Gallagher's "short, simple and obvious" answer is at best an argument against gay couples' adopting or rearing children from intact opposite sex couples, not one against marriage by two men or two women who want to merge their lives, care and provide for each other, and have access to the numerous means governments offer to promote that end. Marriage, Gallagher seems to forget, is not just about children. It is also about adults and their relation to each other.

But even if, other things being equal, opposite-sex parents are better than same-sex parents, other things are seldom equal in the real world where most of us live. Conservative polemicists seldom acknowledge the fact of neglected, rejected or abandoned children whose biological parents divorce, die, refuse to marry, are abusive or are incapable of caring for children. Such children often end up in orphanages, group homes or the poorly monitored foster-care system.

We live in an imperfect world of better and worse choices where the optimum is not always available. Are single parents better than no parents? Children obviously benefit from having parents who love and care for them. Most states acknowledge this by allowing single people, including gays and lesbians, to adopt or retain custody of children.

Are two parents, including same-sex parents, better than one? Two parents may provide a higher family income. Two parents have more time to provide attention, support and affection to their children. Children can see two equal adults cooperating together, negotiating their plans, discussing disagreements - exemplifying adult partnering, something children of single parents never see. So yes, two parents are better than one.

Do children benefit from their parents being married? Conservative insist that marriage provides financial and emotional security for children that parents who merely live together cannot provide. There is no reason to disagree. And that obviously applies to same-sex couples raising children as well as opposite sex couples, and for the same reasons.

In the final analysis, in an era of increasing gay visibility and gay awareness, gay marriage opponents - to the extent they are not merely religiously motivated bigots - need to ask themselves this: When they say they want to "protect" marriage by preventing gay marriage, which scenario do they imagine will incline young heterosexuals to take marriage more seriously - the increasing visibility of married gay couples, or the increasing visibility of unmarried gay couples living together and single gays living independently?

First published August 13, 2003, in the Chicago Free Press.

Just as its Boston archdiocese was offering $55 million to hundreds of sexual abuse victims, the irony-impaired Vatican issued "Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions between Homosexual Persons" containing the amusing objection that allowing gay couples to adopt children "would actually mean doing violence to those children."

The interesting thing is not so much what the Vatican said but that it felt a need to issue a statement at all. It must puzzle the Vatican that its anti-gay views, long accepted and dutifully enforced by society, are now inexplicably being ignored.

Realizing that it was no longer possible to simply declare its opinion, the Vatican tried to offer arguments. But that may have been a mistake. The argument are not nearly up to the task demanded of them. On the contrary, the arguments are vague, slippery, feeble, circular or false.

Here is the core argument: Marriage is only for heterosexuals because heterosexuals cause babies and marriage is for causing babies because that is what happens when heterosexuals have sex. Did you get that? Read it again. The rest of the "arguments" are even worse. Viz.:

"No ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman." If that is a factual claim, what is it based on? But, in fact, the "certainty" itself is a social "ideology" now losing its grip on a previously pliant population. Even popes cannot transmute mere traditions, no matter how widespread, into necessary truths.

"Marriage was established by the creator ... as confirmed by Revelation contained in the biblical accounts of creation." But nowhere in Genesis is there any report that Adam and Eve were ever married. Their progeny (and others) "knew" or "took" wives, but again no report of any marriages.

How about this reason? Heterosexual marriage is based on "the complementarity of the sexes" who "tend toward the communion of their persons," who "mutually perfect each other ... in the procreation and upbringing of new human lives"?

Pause to notice how this relegates celibate priests to irremediable imperfection since they cannot be "mutually perfected." And it seems odd for celibates, of all people, to instruct the rest of us about the relations of the sexes. How would they know?

But it is not even clear what the "complementarity of the sexes" and "communion of their persons" means. That heterosexuality causes babies does not prove the sexes are complementary. Daily experience remind us that the sexes have different needs, wants, priorities, life-rhythms, even different sexual arousal patterns. Most heterosexual couples say it takes work to keep a marriage together.

The Vatican often claims that heterosexual sex is "unitive" and here refers to the Bible's odd notion that man and woman "become one flesh." To be sure, man penetrates woman, but that does not mean man and woman are "united" or "become one flesh." We now understand biology better than the Biblical authors:

The sperm cell carrying a man's DNA has to travel a significant distance from the man after being emitted before it can merge with an egg. If I send you an e-mail message, you get the information, but that does not mean your computer "united" with my computer. So heterosexuality is no more "unitive" for the participants than homosexuality.

Homosexual acts "do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity," the Vatican says. But of course they do. We almost always choose someone whose difference from ourselves makes them admirable, exciting or interesting in some way, so "affective complementarity" applies just as well to gay marriage.

As for gay sexual complementarity, that is subject to mutual accommodation rather than the strictures of biology and is accomplished either by diverse preferences or reciprocity. Sadly, full sexual reciprocity is an option not available to heterosexuals and that fact impairs their ability to have as communicative and empathetic relationships as gays.

Finally, "the absence of sexual complementarity in these unions ... is not conducive to (adopted children's) full human development," and therefore constitutes "doing violence to these children." The Vatican says "experience has shown" this, but cites no evidence. In fact there is scant scientific support for its claim, and some to the contrary.

But the Vatican claim overreaches. It means that single parents should not raise children either. But if one father or mother is tolerable, then two fathers or mothers would be pretty good too--in fact, better, since any two parents will have different personalities and perspectives for the children to experience.

But the real reason the Vatican opposes gay marriage is that its goal is to press governments to "contain the phenomenon" (the Vatican cannot utter "homosexual sex") to avoid "exposing young people to erroneous ideas about sexuality" that would "contribute to the spread of the phenomenon."

Legalized gay marriage could lead celibate gays to act on their desires, lead closeted gays to "come out," and lead society to cease its disapproval of homosexual sex, which would undermine the Vatican's effort to "contain" it and reduce its occurrence. Why does the Vatican disapprove of gay sex? Its arguments for that are no better.

First published July 23, 2003, in the Chicago Free Press.

Northwestern University psychologist J. Michael Bailey's recent book "The Man Who Would Be Queen" has been criticized by transsexual advocacy groups. But most of Bailey's book is about gay men and that part of his book should have received far more critical attention than it has.

Bailey primary claim is that the link between femininity and homosexuality is well-established: "My research demonstrates a large degree of femininity in gay men." And Bailey thinks this gay femininity is rooted in the brain. Gay men's brains are a mosaic of male and female parts, he says.

For example, Bailey says, gay men were feminine in childhood. They move in feminine ways, have feminine voices (a "gay accent") and tend to be feminine in their sex roles. They have feminine interests-show tunes, decorating, fashion, dancing. They have more psychological problems than heterosexual men such as depression and anxiety, just as women do.

These are long-familiar stereotypes about gay men. But Bailey claims the stereotypes are true and true of most gay men. No doubt some gay men fit part of the stereotype, but the problem with stereotypes is that believing them causes people to overlook gays who do not fit the stereotypes, even if they are far more numerous. Such people think there are few gays.

Thus although Bailey vacillates about the proportion of men who are gay, he finds 2 percent or even "at least 1 percent" plausible estimates. Yet avowed gays are at least 4 percent of voter turnout. And the 1992 National Health and Social Life Survey found that in large cities such as Chicago where Bailey lives more than 9 percent of men identify as gay or bisexual. (Bailey himself thinks most "bisexual" men are gay.)

The problems with Bailey's use of stereotypes of gay femininity to support his notion of gay men's feminized brains are that a) they are based on exaggerated notion of gender dichotomy, and b) there are very plausible non-biological explanation for the instances of stereotyped behavior Bailey mentions.

Gay men may not feel more depression and anxiety than heterosexual men, though they may be more willing to label and acknowledge those feelings. But gays obviously face additional stress growing up and living in a potential hostile environment, so anxiety could be a valid response.

Most of our speech patterns and body language are learned behavior, differing from culture to culture, rather than brain regulated. Thus Americans think Frenchmen act gay. And much of "gay" gesture and affectation are social performance. Kinsey noted that most gay men can drop them readily.

Gay men who enjoy receptive anal sex probably do so not because they feel feminine but because their prostate gland is stimulated that way. Nor does Bailey trouble himself about "tops," or men who enjoy both receptive and insertive sex, or men who do not engage in anal sex at all.

Bailey sometimes acknowledges these alternative explanations, but even when he agrees they are plausible, he dismisses them with little argument.

Bailey's view that gay men were feminine boys is based largely on some gay men's recollections. But retrospective memories are unreliable: most people recall the things that fit the prevailing cultural view. In a culture suffused with notions of gay femininity, gay men likely recall more feminine behavior (and heterosexual men less) than was actually the case.

And like most heterosexual researchers, Bailey views team sports as the distinctive masculine activity. He assumes a false dichotomy of either playing those sports or being feminine. But gay youths who did not enjoy those sports need not have been feminine, though some may have internalized that interpretation.

Boys may have preferred individual sports-running, swimming, diving, gymnastics. Or they might have enjoyed entirely different activities. I remember as a young child, bike riding, climbing trees, making castles and forts out of blocks, playing cowboys and Indians, creating marionette shows, building dams and canals in a creek, playing with our dog, playing Monopoly, writing a little newspaper, listening to a lot of classical music, writing stories, collecting stamps and coins, reading books on astronomy, science fiction and news magazines.

Basically, Bailey tries to update and biologize the hoary psychological theory that gays suffer from faulty gender identity. But Bailey's view, like the older one, dies the death of a thousand cuts and counter-examples.

When did Bailey go wrong? First, he believes simple-minded, lower social class notions of exaggerated gender dichotomy. Second, although he is unforthcoming about his methods in this book, his past methods of gathering research subjects or data (e.g., ads in gay newspapers) seemed to skew his results without his realizing how they might be systematically unrepresentative. Third, Bailey over-interprets his findings and those of people he agrees with.

Fourth, Bailey's view of gay men seems shaped particularly by visits to gay dance bars in Chicago. But the generally younger, single gay men at dance bars are hardly typical of all gay men in Chicago's gay enclave, much less those living elsewhere. Fifth, Bailey seems remarkably un-self-critical, reluctant to look for, acknowledge or discuss problems or inadequacies in his intuitions, hypotheses, methods or findings.

It's a shame trees had to be sacrificed in order to print J. Michael Bailey's controversial new book "The Man Who Would Be Queen: The Science of Gender-Bending and Transsexualism."

Bailey takes a perfectly interesting and reasonable question - what is the relationship between childhood femininity in boys and gay men, and transgenderism - and succeeds only in writing a bunch of speculative and insulting nonsense.

Don't be fooled by the "science" in the title: There is very little science in this book. It's not science calling up a two-decades-old research study and declaring it the truth for all time. It's not science without documentation - there are no footnotes, no references listed and no bibliography.

It's not science sitting at a bar in Chicago's gay neighborhood of Boystown talking to gay men and transgenders about their childhoods. It's not science when someone answers your questions and you don't like the answers or don't believe them, so you dismiss the insight as lies, or internalized "femiphobia."

It's not science when you write pages about what "perfect" studies would need to be conducted to prove your wanted findings, and then write that, of course, these studies could never be done because of their length and complexity.

It's not science to simply quote small studies and surveys with no context. It's not science taking an 8-year-old boy's cross-dressing issue and basing an entire book on the question of what he may or may not become later in life. And it's not science or scholarship to praise your son's ability to spot gay men on the street. It's not science to base your knowledge of transgender and gay lives on what they say they are seeking in personal ads.

This book is not science. A discussion of ideas, yes. One straight man's look into an unfamiliar world, yes. Science, absolutely not.

Bailey's thesis is that there is a connection between femininity in boys and gay men and the desire to change gender. In investigating this he takes a long detour through covering gay masculinity and femininity, stereotypes of gay men and whether gay men are actually more like straight men or women.

Then he declares there are exactly two types of transgenders: homosexual and autogynephile. The former are men who want to change gender because they identify as women and the latter are men who are erotically charged by switching gender. In his limited exploration, Bailey paints an ugly picture of transgenders' alleged sexual perversity, confusion and relationships. And he makes no effort to consider transgenders who carry on "normal" jobs, friendships, sexual desires, lives, etc.

While the argument Bailey makes is pretty bad, the writing and organization of the book aren't much better. He never adequately connects the several different strands he's weaving into a cohesive whole theory. And his personal anecdotes are annoying, not to mention credibility-busting.

This book is not worth reading, even for the controversy. You'd learn a lot more reaching out to someone in the trans community and having a friendly and honest discussion with them about their lives than reading this ridiculous concoction of speculation.

What's also mystifying is that some reputable authors (Steven Pinker, Anne Lawrence) and literary establishments (Kirkus Reviews, Publisher's Weekly, Out magazine) gave the book positive quotes, since it doesn't take much analytical ability to slice through Bailey's arguments, speculations and assumptions. Also confusing is how an author of Bailey's apparently reputable credentials can get away with a shoddy publication like this. He is a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, has written for The New York Times and is a well-known sex researcher.

Wisely and appropriately, the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition has called for the National Academy of Science to investigate the book and remove it from under its banner.