IGF CultureWatch

Originally appeared March 20, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

The recent disclosure of improper sexual contacts between Catholic youths and Catholic priests in the Boston archdiocese and elsewhere is what journalists call a "developing story" - one that is still unfolding, in which new information can be expected on a weekly if not daily basis, and whose implications have not yet fully been grasped.

Yet even at this early stage it seems worthwhile to try to separate out some of the basic issues involved, if only to avoid succumbing to the enormous amounts of "spin" promoted by the archdiocese, the Vatican and various interest groups.

Sexual contacts between priests and young people seem improper for at least three reasons:

1. Priests, as priests, promise to live a life of celibacy, commonly understood by laymen to mean abstinence from sexual relations or sexually arousing contacts.

Sexual contacts with young people seem to violate the very letter of that promise. In addition, they seem to do so in a clandestine, even secretive fashion, targeting those who are not only the most pliant and suggestible, but also the easiest to intimidate, shame or bribe into silence. More than one accuser has told of a priest blessing him after their sexual contacts.

To be sure, we all know of Catholic clerics who interpret the promise of celibacy more narrowly to mean abstinence from sexual intercourse proper, or abstinence from intercourse with women or simply remaining unmarried. And, to be sure, clerical celibacy was originally imposed primarily to prevent priests from having (legitimate) children they might wish to pass on property to.

But to the extent that the church promotes or allows a sharp divergence between lay and clerical understanding - on this as on so many other matters - instances where priestly behavior publicly contradicts popular understanding are an understandable cause for that gravest of all clerical sins, "scandalizing the faithful."

2. Priests are in a position of responsibility, delegated by parents, when dealing with young people.

Catholic parents often teach their children to trust and obey the priest, confident that priests have their children's interests at heart as much as the parents do, will treat the youths with respect and dignity, and will do their best to guide and protect them.

When parents find that priests' behavior with youths are for their own benefit - viz. erotic gratification of whatever sort - rather than for the children's benefit, parents justifiably feel that priests have betrayed their trust, the more offensively so because the parents taught it to the youths, never thinking that they needed to warn or caution their children about priests.

3. Priests are in a position of authority when dealing with all parishioners, but especially young people in their charge.

Many Catholic youths are taught that the priest is the person who can teach them what is right and moral, perhaps even more reliably than their parents, and who is obligated in his own conduct to exemplify those virtues, even more reliably than their parents. We might say that that is pretty much the basic job description for a priest; the rest is ritual and ceremony.

If young people feel a priest's conduct toward them violates that assumption, then their whole idea of who and what is a valid source of moral and ethical information seems falsified, in fact, completely reversed. Either the authority of the teachers or the teaching is called into question, perhaps both in a mutually destructive contradiction.

Specifically, just as parents resent their children being imposed upon, so too young people must find it deeply disturbing to realize - either gradually or in a sudden realization - that the priest is not treating them as a person for whom he has concern but as a means for his own gratification. This can hardly fit with the view of a priest as caring and benevolent.

In addition, people such as priests can, merely by virtue of their authority but also because of their greater age, be felt as applying great pressure to do as they say even against a younger, more vulnerable person's better judgment and personal inclination. That perceived pressure to violate one's own judgment and inclination is what can harm young people psychologically.

If we turn to various explanations of how these incidents come about and how to prevent them, we face a babel of opinions.

Pope John Paul II's personal spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls has tried to place the blame on homosexual priests, claiming that gay men should not be priests at all. But if estimates of the large proportion of homosexuals in the American priesthood are anywhere near correct, even if "homosexual" priests were involved, it would be only a small proportion who behaved improperly.

But more to the point, and contrary to Navarro-Valls, it seems likely that priests who are attracted to other adult men, to say nothing of priests actually involved with other adult men, are not likely to seek involvement with immature males.

Some liberal critics suggest that an (ostensibly) celibate priesthood is somehow responsible. That may be true but not because self-aware, self-accepting robustly heterosexual youths are unlikely to volunteer for a celibate priesthood. After all, self-aware, self-accepting homosexual youths would seem no more likely to be drawn to a celibate priesthood.

The Catholic church will have to search wider and deeper into its doctrines and its history for the sources of its current troubles.

Originally appeared March 13, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

LAST FALL, the United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism, the largest branch of American Judaism, issued a new Torah and commentary titled "Etz Hayim" - "tree of life" - that includes several background essays discussing recent scholarship on the bible and Near Eastern archaeological findings.

According to the March 9 New York Times account, the new Torah, the first in 60 years for conservative Jews, is particularly notable because the new scholarship shows that the early books of the bible have no historical validity.

The Garden of Eden? An etiological myth. Noah and the flood? A legend that arose in Mesopotamia suggested by the regular flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Sodom and Gomorrah? Another myth. Abraham? Like most legendary founders, he probably never existed.

The Israelite captivity in Egypt and the Exodus probably never occurred. There are no Egyptian sources mentioning an Israelite presence and no archaeological evidence anywhere for Israelites wandering in the Sinai - "not a pottery shard," as Rabbi David Wolpe put it.

There was no Israelite conquest of Palestine. Instead, there was a gradual and largely peaceful settlement. And Jericho? It didn't have any walls and it wasn't even inhabited when Joshua's "battle of Jericho" supposedly occurred.

King David? If he existed at all, and there is some dispute, was probably a local tribal leader whose importance was later inflated to promote religious pride. There is an "almost total absence of archaeological evidence" for a sizable Jerusalem at that time.

These and other modern findings have long been accepted by most bible scholars and seminary teachers. They are well known by most priests, ministers and rabbis. But they have not been widely shared with the laity in the pews, so they may even come as a surprise to readers here. Nonetheless, they are now the views of most scholars and supported by substantial evidence.

Why clergy are reluctant to share this information with laymen is a topic for another time. But perhaps intelligent laymen will not be so shocked. After I wrote a column on the Sodom legend, a conservative Jewish friend asked why I bothered. "Some people believe those bible stories," I said. He shook his head. "Fairy tales," he said. "They're just fairy tales."

This growing willingness to face historical evidence is significant for gay men because two key texts religious conservatives cite to attack gay men are in the Leviticus "Holiness Code" purportedly given by the biblical god Yahweh to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

Leviticus 18:22 reads: "Do not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abhorrence" - as the new Torah translates it.

But if there was no Exodus, no wandering in the desert and probably no Moses, then there was no revelation on Sinai and the prohibition of homosexuality lacks divine authority. It is merely the human creation of ancient Jewish scribes.

In fact, so far as biblical scholars can tell, based on internal evidence, the Holiness Code (Leviticus chs. 17-26) was probably compiled no earlier than 750 B.C., and maybe as late as 550 B.C. - far later than the purported revelation on Sinai (traditionally between 1200 and 1450 B.C.) The code was then "backdated" by being inserted into the Moses legend to give it divine authority.

Examined carefully, noting various repetitions and inconsistencies, that section of Leviticus seems to combine at least two sets of laws by different writers who did not entirely agree on what was important and what the penalties should be.

For example, Lev. 18:22 says that anyone who does a number of things including homosexual sex "shall be cut off from his people" because the acts are "unclean." But the scribe who wrote Lev. 20:13, perhaps writing later, had much stronger feelings about homosexuals: "They shall be put to death," he inveighs; "Their blood shall be upon them."

Recognizing that there is no divine mandate to prohibit homosexuality, how do the compilers of the new Torah handle homosexuality? Well, some wanted to preserve the prohibition anyway.

"We couldn't come to a formulation that we could all be comfortable with," Rabbi Joseph Kushner said. "Some people felt that homosexuality was wrong." So the committee ended by saying that the prohibitions on homosexuality "have engendered considerable debate," but that conservative synagogues should "welcome gay and lesbian congregants in all congregational activities."

But while this step forward is welcome, a problem lingers. If homosexuality is wrong, we know from this Torah that it is cannot be wrong for theological reasons but for some secular reasons.

But if the reasons are secular, then people have an obligation to explain them, rather than just asserting their position, so we can examine them. But many people cannot give up age-old habits of thought, even when the rationale for them no longer has any validity.

But having readily dropped the Levitical mandate that gays should be killed, the new Torah would have been well-advised to abandon the idea that homosexuality is wrong and acknowledge that believing so is merely a cultural atavism.

Originally appeared March 6, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

IF WE HAD TO NAME one American composer whose music is sure to be played for the next hundred or two hundred years, it would have to be Samuel Barber (1910-1981), whose 92 birthday anniversary we celebrate on March 9.

From his earliest compositions Barber showed that he was able to write in his own recognizable melodic style while preserving a linkage to European romantic musical tradition. Without using jazz or folk tunes or experimental techniques, he managed to sound identifiably American simply by being himself.

"My aim," he once explained, "is to write good music that will be comprehensible to as many people as possible, instead of music heard only by small, snobbish musical societies in the large cities."

Even people who care little about classical music have probably heard Barber's most famous piece, the seven minute "Adagio for Strings." It was used in the film "Platoon," in a perfume advertisement and even as part of a rock album. There are almost 40 performances on CD.

When he finished the original string quartet version in 1936, Barber realized that he had written something remarkable. He wrote to a friend, "I have just finished the slow movement of my quartet today--it is a knockout!"

Because of its unhurried pace, the Adagio is sometimes played at memorial services. But it is far from a lament. It is abstract music, a careful interweaving of melodic lines that slowly rise to a high pitch of emotional intensity followed by a return to calm.

Composer and critic Virgil Thomson once insisted, "I think it's a love scene ... a detailed love scene ... a smooth, successful love scene. Not a dramatic one, but a very satisfactory one." Thomson may be on to something.

Barber did not publish much music, fewer than 50 works. He was a painstaking craftsman, waiting for inspiration, prone to making repeated revisions. But a higher proportion of his works probably deserve to be called "great" than is true for almost any other modern composer.

He wrote one piano concerto, one violin concerto, one cello concerto, one piano sonata, two short ballets, two symphonies, two major operas. Many have become part of the standard repertoire and most deserve to be recognized as among the best works in the last century.

Barber is particularly interesting, of course, because of his long relationship with fellow composer Gian-Carlo Menotti after they met in 1928 as students at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music.

People who say a composer's sexuality has no influence on his music are wrong. By conditioning whom he has relationships and friendships with, a composer's sexual orientation can influence the kinds of pieces he writes, the texts he sets to music, the instrumentation, even the musical style itself.

Menotti and Barber interacted constantly, encouraging each other, offering suggestions on each other's work. Barber dedicated his first symphony (1936) to Menotti. Menotti wrote one opera text for Barber and helped revise another. The undulating beginning of Barber's "Knoxville" (1948) is reminiscent of Menotti, as is some of his ballet "Medea" (1947). Or vice versa.

Then too, the beautiful slow movement of Barber's piano concerto (1962) started as a piece for a young flute player Barber had a brief affair and long friendship with. Another man Barber had a relationship with introduced him to Pablo Neruda's love poems which Barber used for his orchestral song-cycle "The Lovers" (1971).

There is no space to discuss many of Barber's works. But three deserve mention.

Symphony No. 1 (1936), a condensed, 20-minute symphony, is Barber's first obvious great work and one of the first important American symphonies. It has enough flash and dissonance to be recognizably modern, but is romantic at its core, especially in the beautiful, sad-sounding theme in the slow section.

The Violin Concerto (1939) is Barber's most lyrical, romantic work, full of warm melodies and rich harmonies. By contrast, and this became typical for Barber, the last section is a tumultuous, fiendishly difficult "perpetual motion," a challenge for violinists but exciting to listen to.

Although the concerto fell into disfavor during the 1960s, and '70s when many academic composers and critics promoted intentionally dissonant styles, the "New Romanticism" of the 1980s and '90s led to its revival and there are now at least ten recordings.

The Piano Concerto (1962) is certainly the best American piano concerto, and probably the best in America or Europe in the latter half of the 20th century. Many critics think it is Barber's finest, most important single work. It is hard to disagree.

Listening again to these and other Barber pieces before writing this column reminded me once again what a great composer Barber was and how lucky we are that he refused to be unduly influenced by transitory fads in contemporary music.

Late in life, Barber commented that some composers "feel they must have a new style every year. This, in my case, would be hopeless. ... I just go on doing, as they say, 'my thing.' I believe this takes a certain courage."

Originally appeared Feb. 6, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

It was bad enough that Afghanistan's repressive Taliban regime publicly executed at least five gay men during its brief existence. Then we learned of Egypt's ongoing arrest, imprisonment and possible torture of gay men, charging them with "offenses against religion" (i.e., Islam).

Now we learn that on January 1, 2002, Saudi Arabian authorities publicly beheaded three gay men after Islamic religious courts in the southwestern city of Abha declared them guilty of "engaging in the extreme obscenity and ugly acts of homosexuality, marrying among themselves and molesting the young," charges obviously exaggerated to provoke public outrage.

With the defeat of the Taliban, Saudi Arabia is now the world's most repressive Islamic regime - with its Taliban-like, truncheon-wielding religious police, a nationwide ban on other religions, state support for fundamentalist religious schools, and complete censorship of media and the Internet.

Troublingly, there have been few noticeable condemnations of the Saudi executions from human rights groups, none from moderate Islamic groups, no expressions of concern from the U.S. or Western European governments.

Gay, human rights and civil liberties groups, here and abroad, should be protesting to the Saudi embassies and the Saudi government. Gay and gay-supportive groups could picket and demonstrate outside the Saudi embassy in Washington. Individual gays and lesbians could send letters of concern and Faxes to the embassy.

The hope would be to raise awareness of the executions and warn repressive Islamic regimes that there is declining public support for American financial or technological aid or military protection for anti-gay regimes.

The Saudi's American ambassador, Prince Bandar, is a key members of the ruling Saud family. If he detected growing U.S. disapproval, with its possible policy consequences, he would transmit that message back to his government.

We may anticipate that in the short run such protests would have little or no impact on the Saudis or the Egyptians since the arrests and execution of gays are generated by a powerful internal dynamic that we have little ability to influence.

In both nations, particularly Saudi Arabia, corrupt, repressive and undemocratic regimes try to mitigate internal political dissent and pressures for social and economic reform by conspicuously enforcing traditional Islamic law and its strict codes of sexual morality.

Arresting and executing gays (along with much else) is part of their means of staying in power. It is meant to reassure a restive populace that they are pious, uphold Islam, have not capitulated to Western decadence and do not need to be reformed.

Against such a strong dynamic any direct actions at our disposal will be frustratingly ineffective. No doubt, too, all the potentially effective actions are frustratingly indirect. Nonetheless we ought to try them - because there is nothing else.

Ultimately tolerance of gays will not happen apart from an overall moderation and liberalization of Muslim societies. Hence we should support initiatives that will force, induce or assist conservative Muslim nations to move toward becoming more tolerant, pluralistic, open societies.

Writing in the January 2002 issue of "Foreign Affairs" former ambassador Martin Indyk sketches out several general policy approaches in dealing with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which I freely adapt, alter, and supplement here to gay-specific purposes.

Conservative Islamic governments must stop subsidizing religious schools that teach an intolerant, fundamentalist version of Islam. Instead, they must begin providing economic and moral support as well as media exposure for moderate Islamic spokesmen and clerics.

They must begin to permit more democracy and popular participation in order to provide an alternative outlet for dissent besides support for fundamentalist Islam. In addition, as foreign policy analyst Joshua Muravchik pointed out, democracy not only allows legitimate grievances to be addressed but people also begin to learn the virtues of moderation and compromise.

They must be pressured to promote an independent "civil society" separate from both religion and government whose institutions would help create the social and political space for Muslim gays to breath and begin to articulate their concerns - as they cannot now.

They must initiate neo-liberal economic reforms to promote private business and industry that can give people independence from government and religious control, a stake in social and economic progress, and personally meaningful work to reduce their psychological need for religious validation of their lives.

They must be persuaded that their persecution of gays promotes disrespect and disdain for Islam, damaging the Islamic cause, by inclining people around the world to view Islam as a narrow, retrograde and punitive religion rather than as a great religious tradition worthy of respect and consideration.

They must stop demonizing America and other liberal Western nations as decadent or Satanic in their state-owned media and schools and begin portraying America as a humane, successful and virtuous nation worthy of respect and emulation.

This is particularly important for gays because America is prominently associated with the acceptance of gays and seen as a fountainhead of the gay movement. As moderate Muslims gradually change their view of the U.S., they may come to see persecution of gays as a cultural excrescence and emblem of social weakness rather than strength.

Originally appeared Jan. 30, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

A RECORD HIGH 58 PERCENT of college freshmen think gay and lesbian couples should have the right to "equal marital status," i.e., civil marriage, according to a survey conducted by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute (HERI).

Confirming the pro-gay sentiment, the survey of more than 281,000 freshmen last fall also found that only 25 percent think there should be "laws prohibiting homosexual relationships," the lowest support for that view since the survey first asked about it in 1976.

Both items show an increase in gay support of about 2 points over the 2000 survey, paralleling a similar 2 point increase in the number of students describing themselves as "liberal."

But since only 30 percent of the students say they are either "liberal" (27 percent) or "far left" (3 percent), that means half of the support for gay civil marriage comes from students who say they are "middle-of-the-road" or even "conservative."

In other words, support for gay civil marriage is becoming the "middle of the road" position, perhaps even picking up some small support among "conservative" students who grasp the social benefits of stabilized relationships.

Although the term "legal marital relationships" seems clear, "laws prohibiting homosexual relationships" is not. When the item was introduced in 1976, it referred to sodomy laws, and many students may still think so. However, some states have recently passed "defense of marriage" laws to bar recognition of gay marriage, so other students may now think it refers to those.

That ambiguity is what led the HERI to add the item specifically about "legal marital status" in 1997. At present, it may be best to view the "homosexual relationships" item as an index of tolerance for gays and the "legal marital status" item as an index of the acceptance of gays as equal citizens.

The survey report ("The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2001") also provides a useful breakdown by the sex of the respondents and their schools' average SAT scores, religious affiliation, and private or government ownership.

As in previous years, freshman women were far more gay-supportive than men. Nearly two-thirds of the women (65 percent) supported gay civil marriage, but not quite half of the men (49 percent). The 16 percentage point gender difference was one of the largest for responses on any public issue.

The difference is interesting because women generally are more sexually conservative than men. For instance, 55 percent of the men think it is all right for two people to have sex even if they have known each other for only a short time, but only 32 percent of the women think so.

Most of the freshmen at Catholic colleges (61 percent) and nonsectarian private colleges (63 percent) supported gay marriage, but less than half (44 percent) of those at Protestant-affiliated colleges, some of which are associated with more conservative religious sects.

Gratifyingly, intelligence seems to correlate with support for gay civil marriage. Support for gay civil marriage is stronger at more "selective" universities--ones where freshman had higher SAT scores than at less selective universities. For instance:

At public universities with low or medium entrance requirements (as measured by SAT scores), 53 percent of the freshmen supported gay civil marriage. But 66 percent of the freshman at public universities with high entrance requirements supported gay civil marriage - a 13 point difference.

In exactly the same way, 57 percent of the freshmen at private universities with medium entrance requirements supported gay civil marriage, but 72 percent of freshmen at private universities with high entrance requirements did so - a 15 point difference.

Those comparisons point to another factor as well. Students at private universities are more supportive of gay civil marriage (66 percent) than those at "public" (cheaper, taxpayer subsidized) universities (59 percent) - a 7 point difference.

The data do not explain that difference, but it is plausible that parents who can afford to send their children to private schools have themselves been bet ter educated and are able to expose their children a broader range of cultural and educational experiences while they are growing up.

The survey found increased support for other personal rights and liberties as well.

More than one-third (36.5 percent) of the freshmen said marijuana should be decriminalized, an increase from last year's 34 percent, the highest support since 1980.

In addition, 32 percent said the death penalty should be abolished, a 1 percent increase over last year, again the highest support for abolition since 1980. And the percentage of students who think there is too much concern for the rights of people accused of crimes decreased by 2 percent, continuing a recent downward trend.

In the same way, there was less support for "soak-the-rich" tax rates (down 0.5 percent), for further government control of handguns (down 1 percent), for college prohibitions on racist or sexist speech (down 1.4 percent), and in the number of freshmen who think an individual can do little to change society (down 1 percent).

Some of these trends would be called "liberal" and some "conservative," but taken together they suggest a common libertarian trend away from insisting or relying on government controls and a greater desire to make one's own decision and act on one's own initiative.

Originally appeared Jan. 2, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

Recently Log Cabin Republican leader Rich Tafel posted an editorial commentary at his Liberty Education Forum website criticizing the "victimization" rhetoric employed at times by gay activists.

Some gay writers and leaders, he said, seemed to be arguing that our lives as gays as getting worse and worse while in reality gays are gaining greater acceptance.

"In the end, gay politics became dominated by a 'virtual victimization,' with our own society full of enemies oppressing us. Obscured by this paradigm was the reality that, while we still have barriers to clear, life for gay Americans has never been better," Tafel wrote.

To replace this inaccurate "virtual victimization" paradigm which Tafel linked with identity politics, Tafel urged a post-Sept. 11 paradigm of "United We Stand" in which gays present themselves as fellow citizens helping in the struggle against a far more menacing common opponent. Perhaps Tafel's approach could be described simply as "Accentuate the positive."

Tafel was promptly criticized by other activists and writers for mischaracterizing their arguments ("We don't constantly claim we are victims"), or ignoring the hostility gays encounter ("We are too victims"), or just trying to please Republican officials ("He's giving them an excuse to ignore our grievances").

However that may be, the important question to ask about any activist approach, if we are to keep our integrity and our claims are not mere propaganda, is: Is it authentic? That is, does it draw accurately from our experience and whatever facts we can find?

This past November, the Kaiser Family Foundation released two surveys about gay issues, one of which directly addressed these issues. It asked some 400 gays, lesbians, and bisexuals about their experience of prejudice and view on gay progress.

As it turned out, more than three quarters (76 percent) of gays, lesbians and bisexuals said there is more acceptance of gays and lesbians today compared to a few years ago. Most are comfortably "out" to heterosexual friends (93 percent), family members (84 percent), co-workers (72 percent) and neighbors 66 percent).

Gays and lesbians also felt in control of their lives rather than reacting passively to the world. Many said they had made important decision based on being gay such as where to live (62 percent), what doctor to choose (54 percent) or whether to take a particular job (30 percent).

Although the vast majority (80 percent) think there is "a lot" of prejudice and discrimination against gays and lesbians, less than one quarter (23 percent) said they personally had experienced "a lot" of discrimination. (Three quarters said they had experienced some.)

Originally appeared December 5, 2001, in the Chicago Free Press.

SURINA KHAN, head of the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission in San Francisco, recently circulated an interesting op-ed commentary in which she questioned whether the U.S. "military campaign in Afghanistan is justified."

Strangely, Khan seems to believe it is not. Now let's think about that.

"Will we be safer after the bombing campaign is over?" Khan asks rhetorically. Why, yes. Thank you for asking. We will be lots safer. I felt safer right after the first American bomb was dropped on Taliban military facilities. Finally we were fighting back against people who have bombed U.S. embassies, U.S. ships, U.S. cities.

The primary goal of the military action is to disable Al Qaeda, the fundamentalist Islamic terrorist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks. But the Taliban regime sheltered and protected Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. Disabling the Taliban was simply a necessary preliminary to being able to search for bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders.

The fewer Al Qaeda chemical/biological war experts, the fewer Al Qaeda training camps, the fewer arms depots, the fewer surviving Al Qaeda strategists and leaders there are, the safer the United States is. Here is how to remember: More Al Qaeda, bad. Less Al Qaeda, good. No Al Qaeda, best.

Oddly, nowhere in her op-ed piece does Khan so much as mention Al Qaeda or bin Laden. But somehow, that seems like discussing World War II without mentioning Hitler or the Nazi party.

"Will the bombing help us bring the Sept. 11 criminals and future terrorists to justice?" Khan asks?

Why, yes, exactly so. Thanks for asking. The U.S. cannot bring terrorists to justice if it cannot search for and find them. If the U.S. is able to kill Al Qaeda leaders and terrorists, that promotes justice by preventing their ability to commit further attacks on this country.

Alternatively, if and when the U.S. finds terrorists alive, it can grill them for information about past terrorism, future terrorist plans, other Al Qaeda members, financial supporters and so forth. But again, gaining free access to Afghanistan was necessary for that search process.

Khan ominously warns, "The death of civilians from our bombs - 'collateral damage' to use the military term - will bring new volunteers to the cause of terrorism."

Stuff and nonsense. First, there has been little such "collateral damage." Bombs and missiles guided by lasers or using Global Positioning System have been remarkably accurate. Gratifyingly few civilians have been killed - far, far fewer than the number of, ahem, civilians killed in the World Trade towers.

Second, rather than volunteering for anti-U.S. terrorism, Afghans seemed elated to be free of the repressive Taliban regime. They celebrated, they played music, they danced, they crowded into movie theaters, men shaved. As one Afghan man told National Public Radio, "We are grateful to the Pentagon for what they have done."

Afghans were no longer whipped if they failed to pray. Women could show their faces, go out in public alone, begin going to school. People could criticize the regime. Could we call these "collateral benefits" of the bombing? You bet. But not Khan.

But you might ask, why does the IGLHRC take a position on U.S. military actions in Afghanistan. What is the gay angle? Funny you should ask.

"IGLHRC takes a clear position against the bombing of Afghanistan ... our concern grows out of our commitment to defending the full range of human rights."

Well, let's see now. The bombing that helped defeat the Taliban regime brought about freedom from religious repression, freedom of movement for women, freedom to be educated, freedom for the press and other media, and the real possibility of democracy for the first time in decades. Are these part of "the full range of human rights"? One might have thought so.

But Khan seems interested in playing the Human Rights card only when it allows her to criticize the U.S., never when it would forced her to acknowledge U.S. virtues.

Straining to find a rationale for her position, Khan then says she is concerned about the 52 Egyptian men tried on charges related to homosexuality. Khan says she fears the U.S. would not oppose their conviction in order to keep Egypt as an ally against Al Qaeda.

We have all criticized Egypt's persecution of gays. But the idea that Egyptian courts would cater to U.S. desires seems as doubtful as the idea that Egypt's support hinged on U.S. silence about the trial. In any case, about half the men were released and the others given 1-3 year terms.

By contrast, under the Taliban regime homosexuals were executed, and by barbaric means. Somehow, supporting efforts to eliminate a regime that murders homosexuals might seem an even greater priority for the IGLHRC than protesting one that imprisons some for a short while. But not for Khan.

And could the IGLHRC pause to mention that the Egyptian persecution of gays is simply a government response to pressure from Islamic fundamentalists for moral purity codes, exactly the same source of anti-gay persecution as in Afghanistan. No, not a word.

Finally, in a breathtaking display of reckless innocence, Khan blurts out, "Bombs cannot deliver justice."

But, of course, they can.

Originally appeared November 28, 2001, in the Chicago Free Press.

In the December Atlantic Monthly, social critic David Brooks explores the similarities and differences between "blue" and "red" America - differences between the liberal, cosmopolitan, coastal areas that typically voted for Al Gore in the 2000 election and the more conservative, community-values oriented "heartland" regions that mostly voted for George Bush.

Brooks not only failed to find any deep cultural divide between the two regions, he also manages to counter a number of common stereotypes about people in the "red," Bush areas held by people who live in the "blue" areas - where most Atlantic Monthly readers live.

For all its emphasis on religious observance and the value of community, Brooks notes that the towns he visited have a lot of tattoo parlors as well as churches. Softball players go to bars to drink after a game. Divorce is tolerated more than it used to be. Teenagers drive recklessly, young women hang around pool halls and Prozac use is common.

Nor is that all. No doubt recalling sociologist Alan Wolfe's claim a couple of years ago that Americans were becoming more accepting of personal differences except for homosexuality, Brooks made specific inquiries about that.

"The local college has a gay-and-lesbian group," Brooks writes. "One conservative clergyman I spoke with estimated that 10 percent of his congregants are gay. He believes that church is the place where one should be able to leave the controversy surrounding this sort of issue behind. Another described how his congregation united behind a young man who was dying of AIDS."

A Pentecostal minister Brooks interviewed said his father, also a minister, routinely preached against television, smoking, provocative dress, and divorce. "But now," Brooks relates, the minister says he himself "would never dream of telling people how to live."

"For one thing, his congregants wouldn't defer. And he is in no rush to condemn others. 'I don't think preaching against homosexuality is what you should do,' he told me. 'A positive message works better.'"

The key to understanding what is different about life in smaller communities is to see it as reflecting not an "ideological" conservatism but a "temperamental" conservatism: "People place tremendous value on being agreeable, civil, and kind. ... They are hesitant to stir one another's passions. ... They work hard to reinforce community bonds."

One important reason is that people do not want to offend other people they will inevitably be running into and dealing with in the future. The editor of one newspaper told Brooks, "We would never take a stance on gun control or abortion." Regarding abortion, another editor said, "It would simply be uncivil to thrust such a raw disagreement in people's faces."

This is a different stance toward living than most of us are accustomed to. In large cities, where the gay movement has its primary locus, people know one another far less, have less reason to trust one another and so fall back on trying to gain acceptance or victory by passing laws.

So much of our participation in public life has involved holding marches and demonstrations, complaining about grievances. Call it "the politics of yelling." At some point it all begins to feel a bit uncivil but there seems little alternative.

In smaller towns where social linkages are far more numerous and robust, difference seemed to be, if not quite accepted, at least accommodated, so long as no one makes a big deal about them. You may well be treated equally so long as you do not demand to be treated equally. These things are managed instead by personal contacts and social pressure.

Bob and Phil who move from the city to run a bed and breakfast, will in due course be accepted as neighbors so long as they mow their yard, go to church together, play softball with the volunteer fire department, make plum cakes for the Christmas bake sale, play horseshoes at the annual Kiwanis "Family Day" picnic. You become part of the community by participating amiably and usefully.

But it is worth keeping in mind that the quietly tolerant attitudes Brooks found do represent a change. Gay men or lesbians are not regularly harassed or as they might have been in the past. And doubtless this is due largely to the aggressive gay visibility in large cities which in turn influenced the mass media: television programs with gay characters, news coverage about gays and AIDS, and so forth.

The "red" areas still have obvious disadvantages. They do not sound like easy places to "come out" or achieve a healthy gay self-understanding, nor likely places to find a partner. Hostility and misunderstanding probably linger especially among younger males. For many of us, such a subdued, small town, near communitarian environment would feel repressive, stultifying.

But tastes differ. As the recent census figures suggest, some couples, especially lesbian couples, who no longer need or want the "meet market" of the big cities, seem to prefer the slower, more subdued pace of suburban, rural, or small-town life. It is gratifying to learn that those areas can offer a qualified acceptance and support.

Originally appeared Oct. 31, 2001, in the Chicago Free Press.

IT WOULD SCARCELY be politically correct and it would certainly seem rude to claim that Western culture, as exemplified by, say, America, is better than Near Eastern or Islamic culture, as exemplified by, say, Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.

But perhaps it is useful to point to a number of important differences between the two so we can understand their different natures and potentials.

One aspect of Western culture is that it has two contrasting foundational principles: one is the Jewish and Christian religions, often conveniently referred to as "Jerusalem"; the other is the tradition of philosophy or the search for truth that developed in ancient Greece, often referred to as "Athens."

The two principles, existing in unresolvable tension, have challenged each other's primacy but neither has ever entirely defeated the other.

"Jerusalem" contributes to the moral seriousness with which we approach our lives. "Athens" urges us to hold our beliefs, even and especially our most important beliefs, tentatively and be willing to doubt and question, always alert to the possibility of rejecting our views and considering new truths.

A second aspect of Western culture: "Athens" itself not only creates conceptual space for doubt and questioning, but urges us actively to challenge and criticize our own views. It insists that we seek new sources of information and that we investigate the heavens and the earth to replace faith (or speculation) with knowledge.

This questioning, openness, and experimenting is what generates developments in the arts and sciences, improvements in our understanding, and the social and intellectual changes we call progress. Not all change is progress, but no progress could happen without openness to change.

A third aspect of Western culture: Our openness to critical analysis requires that we accept, even welcome, the presence of numerous competing viewpoints, schools, sects, or ways of looking at things, even different ideas about what is the best way to live. In other words it requires pluralism.

Since we cannot think of everything ourselves, we have to be open to new ideas and interesting concepts wherever they come from. That means we must be open to "foreign" ideas, insights from abroad, intellectual and artistic innovations from other cultures. In short, Western culture by its nature must be "multi-cultural."

To take our own case as just one example, it is important to remember how much the growing equality of gays and lesbians owes to all these factors. Religion's prioritizing of reproduction and its demand for the "right" form of sexual interaction were open to the questioning philosophy requires.

The challenge to rethink settled views spurred scientific and social science research to learn more about gays. Alfred C. Kinsey's studies are a prime example of the Western willingness to challenge previous thinking and replace faith (or self-deception) by knowledge.

Our culture's pluralism allowed pro-gay voices to exist and make their case, and that case was better articulated by being confronted with disagreement. Openness to learning about the ways homosexuality is expressed in other cultures has given us examples to learn from and test our own experience against.

Few of these components of Western culture seem present in Islamic culture.

For Islamic culture, there was never a background or development of any sort of secular or rationalist tradition to defend science when it was attacked. Philosophy never gained serious standing; when taught at all, it was in private with just a few disciples.

Attempts by Alfarabi (870-950) and a few others to promote philosophy were decisively countered by the conservative Baghdad theologian al-Ghazali (d. 1111) who denounced philosophy, scientific investigation, atheism and heresy, and promoted an implausible alliance between irrational mysticism and Qur'anic legalism.

According to J.J. Saunders' "History of Medieval Islam," "The attempt of Ibn Rushd (Averroes) in Spain to answer Ghazali and defend the pursuit of secular science fell on deaf ears and exposed him to the charge of teaching atheism."

As a result, says Saunders, "The profane sciences, which had always operated on the fringe and had never been free from the suspicion of impiety, were largely and quietly dropped as 'un-Muslim.'" Accordingly, "Arabic philosophy was dead by 1200, Arabic science by 1500."

It was al-Ghazali who promoted Qur'an-based religious schools called "madrasas" that today in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan turn out uneducated young fundamentalists who fight for the Taliban, support Osama bin Laden, and view the struggle against the West as "jihad." Higher education is no different: Two-thirds of all Saudi PhDs are in "Islamic Studies."

There is no pluralism, cultural or religious, in conservative Muslim nations. The whole of Saudi Arabia is regarded as "sacred" Islamic soil. Saudi religious police compel Muslims to attend prayers. The West is resented and signs of its presence are regarded as "Western imperialism."

None of this is to claim that Western culture is better than Islamic culture. It is only to point to marked differences between their attitudes toward faith, science, progress, free discussion, the moral and intellectual autonomy of the individual, and the role of the state in enforcing behavior.

Originally appeared Oct. 21, 2001, in the Chicago Free Press.

BARELY TWO WEEKS before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the New York Post and Court TV both ran items about the Afghanistan Taliban regime's punishment of two men convicted of homosexuality.

According to those stories, the Taliban's Islamic jurists knew that homosexuality was reprehensible and the sentence should be execution, but they were genuinely puzzled by conflicting Islamic opinion on exactly how the execution should be carried out.

"We have a dilemma on this," one Taliban leader explained. "One group of scholars believes you should take these people to the top of the highest building in the city, and hurl them to their deaths. (The other) believes in a different approach. They recommend you dig a pit near a wall somewhere, put these people in it, then topple the wall so that they are buried alive."

No one thought to point out that these approaches are atavistic survivals of options presented during the earliest days of Islam in the mid-7th century.

The idea of stoning derived from the Qur'an's account of Sodom's destruction by a "rain of stones," apparently Muhammad's misunderstanding of the Hebrew legend's "fire and brimstone" (sulfur), and from a supposed hadith ("saying") of Muhammad urging stoning of both partners found engaging in homosexual sex.

Muhammad's successor, his father-in-law Abu Bakr (reigned 632-34), reportedly had a homosexual burned at the stake. The fourth caliph, Muhammad's son-in-law Ali ibn Abi Talib (reigned 656-61) ordered a sodomite thrown from the minaret of a mosque. Others he ordered to be stoned.

One of the earliest and most authoritative commentators on the Qur'an, Ibn 'Abbas (died 687) stipulated a two-step execution in which "the sodomite should be thrown from the highest building in the town and then stoned." Later it was decided that if no building were tall enough, the sodomite could be shoved off a cliff.

Subsequent commentators on the Qur'an denounced homosexuality in what ethnologist Jim Wafer calls "extravagant" terms: "Whenever a male mounts another male the throne of God trembles; the angels look on in loathing and say, 'Lord, why do you not command the earth to punish them and the heavens to rain stones on them.'"

These early doctrines and practices were codified by the influential Hanbalite school of law, the most conservative school of Islamic jurisprudence, named after the theologian Ahmad ibn Hanbal (780-855).

Ibn Hanbal argued that human reasoning was not a reliable guide to truth and that the Qur'an and the habitual behavior of Muhammad, literally understood, offered sufficient guidance for later practice. As a result, Hanbalites uniformly urged execution, usually by stoning.

There were, to be sure, other schools of jurisprudence. The Hanafites, named for Abu Hanifa (699-767), put greater emphasis on individual reasoning and local circumstances. It taught that homosexuality was wrong but did not merit physical punishment because another supposed hadith of Muhammad said Muslim blood should be spilled only for adultery, apostasy, or murder.

But some ambiguity remained. For a married man, homosexuality could be interpreted as adultery -- i.e., sex outside of marriage -- so an individual judge might choose to impose a penalty anyway.

Other schools of jurisprudence urged public whipping, usually 100 lashes, so that the pain of the sodomite might serve as an exemplary warning to others.

Reports of these punishments being carried out in early times are not abundant. Some historians think this means Islamic culture was more tolerant in practice than in principle. But more likely most court records have simply not survived, so we have no information.

What may have protected some homosexuals, though, was the insistence by most Islamic jurists that conviction for homosexuality required witnesses, sometimes as many as four. That meant that homosexuality conducted discreetly and in private might survive unpunished.

What does all this history have to do with us?

Just this. The strict Hanbalite school of jurisprudence remains powerful to this day, and is dominant in Saudi Arabia and Syria. The distinguished Islamic scholar Seyyed Hossein Nasr describes the current Hanbalite school as:

"The most strict in its adherence to the Qur'an and the Sunnah (the original practices) and does not rely as do the other schools of law upon the other principles" -- such as the consensus of the learned, the welfare of the community, modern scientific knowledge, or individual human reasoning -- "and, in fact, rejects them."

In addition, the official Saudi Arabian state religion is a puritanical branch of Islam called "Wahhabism," named for the fundamentalist religious leader named Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab (1703-92), who urged an anti-modern, 'restorationist" or "back to the Qur'an" puritanism fully consistent with the Hanbalite school.

It is hardly necessary to remind anyone that Osama bin Laden is a Saudi Arabian who grew up in the state-supported fundamentalist Wahhabi religion; nor that the Saudi government and royal family have channeled hundreds of millions of dollars to fundamentalist Islamic groups worldwide including, according to the New York Times (Oct. 20, 2001), hundreds of millions of dollars to promote their particularly homophobic version of Islam among U.S. Muslims.