IGF CultureWatch

I have not watched the television program "Grey's Anatomy," but according to newspaper reports, an actor on the show, Isaiah Washington, called another actor on the program, T.R. Knight, a "faggot."

Washington then denied calling Knight "faggot," repeating the term. "Nope. Didn't happen. Didn't happen," although several people nearby heard him and confirmed that he said it. Eventually Washington acknowledged using "faggot" and promptly issued an abject, cringing, fulsome apology:

"I apologize to T.R., my colleagues, the fans of the show and especially the lesbian and gay community for using a word that is unacceptable in any context or circumstance. I marred what should have been a perfect night for everyone who works on 'Grey's Anatomy.' I can neither defend nor explain my behavior. I can also no longer deny to myself that there are issues I obviously need to examine within my own soul, and I've asked for help."

It went on and on: "With the support of my family and friends, I have begun counseling. I regard this as a necessary step toward understanding why I did what I did and making sure it never happens again. I appreciate the fact that I have been given this opportunity and I remain committed to transforming my negative actions into positive results, personally and professionally."

Does anyone believe Washington himself wrote this example of gushing loquacity? Clearly it was written by a public relations person. Why not a simple: "I said it; I was wrong to say it; I apologize"? The only thing it really says is, "Please, please, let me keep my job." Was it sincere? Well, no doubt Washington sincerely wants to keep his job.

"I can [not]…explain my behavior. …I have begun counseling…as a necessary step toward understanding why I did what I did…"

Oh blarney! He doesn't know why he did it? How about: "I think homosexuality is disgusting and I wanted to insult T.R. Knight as deeply as I could."

More irritating than his using "faggot" in the first place was his subsequent denial. Washington behaved like the little boy who denies he broke the lamp even though he was the only person in the room at the time. That doesn't seem very manly. Did he expect everyone around him to support his denial because he is a "star"? Did he think being a star means never having to say you're sorry?

Frankly, I am not sure that "faggot" is in the same category as what is nowadays coyly called "the N word," although putting it there seems to be the goal of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

To be sure, "faggot," like the derogatory term for blacks, is a hostile term that demeans a person by reducing him to one aspect of his being and indicating contempt for that particular aspect. And, to be sure, it is a word frequently on the lips of young male gay bashers and the straight youths yelling out of their car windows as they drive around gay enclaves of our major cities. But should it be unspeakable?

In general, I oppose trying to ban words just as I oppose the rigidities of most "political correctness." The point is not to ban words, but to discourage people from using them to insult other people. And we should not do that by trying forcibly to prevent people from using them but by trying to change people's attitudes toward gays so they will have no desire to use demeaning terms.

The people who want to ban words are all too easily tempted to try to ban books and films that contain those words no matter the widely varying contexts-affirmative, playful, ironic, historical-in which those words are used. Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn is a familiar example.

Is it even possible to ban "faggot"? After all, 30 years ago writer Larry Kramer published a rather lame satire he titled "Faggots." How would we deal with that? And if we want to ban "faggot" what about other abusive terms gays have been called: fairy, pansy, fruit homo, queer? Are we to ban those words as well? Is that a path we want to start down? Many of us have been called these words and most of us resent their use, but is that a justification for wholesale "linguistic cleansing"?

And finally, let's put to rest the hoary myth that "faggot" comes from some supposed medieval practice of using gay men as "kindling" for witches' pyres. According to Prof. Wayne Dynes' gay etymological dictionary "Homolexis," the word actually comes from a Scandinavian word meaning "heap" or "bundle" which later came to be used for a fat, slovenly woman. It began to be applied to effeminate gay men about 100 years ago. So, like pansy and fairy, faggot turns out to be just another reference to the belief that gay men are not masculine or fully male.

No doubt we are in what we could call the "Post-AIDS Era." Not that AIDS is over by any means--people are still contracting HIV and being diagnosed with AIDS--but gay men are no longer obsessed with the disease as they once were and are moving on to ... what?

At one time AIDS was an overwhelming threat to our community and ourselves. Many people spent a great deal of time and energy working singly and with others to respond to and survive the epidemic. That effort provided a focus, a strong sense of community purpose and a source of meaning in many people's lives.

And so what for many gay men feels like the end of a threat also feels like the loss of a sense of mission or purpose and the loss of a common bond with other gay men.

A January 8 article in the San Francisco Chronicle reported that many gay men were now facing the challenge of defining new goals for themselves and, as they saw it, for the community.

The newspaper quoted one Doug Sebesta of a group called the San Francisco Gay Men's Community Initiative that many men said it was hard to meet other gay men outside of sexual encounters and to connect on an emotional or friendship basis.

"People were saying they really have this longing for a sense of community ... that they feel everything is fractured, that everybody is paranoid, and nobody is having any fun."

In the absence of a common threat it is not clear whether it is possible any longer to have a sense of community with the "gay community" After all, being gay in a gay community is no longer the fascinating new experience that it seemed in the 1970s, nor is there the same level of external hostility that produced a kind of community centripetal force. And the community is much larger and more diverse than it was in the 1970s, making it harder to feel confident about what one is relating to.

Instead, what people seem to be wishing for is something more personal, more about friendship with specific people or groups of people.

The traditional advice is to get out and meet people. What is more difficult is getting to know people and having a sense that they know you. More practical advice is to join a community group. To be sure, there are people who go from group to group, "cruising for friends." But the point is to find a group the person is really interested in so he has a reason to keep going back. Getting well acquainted with people over time is key for forming friendships.

The problem is that many cities lack a wide variety of interest groups to choose from. There are religious, political, and recovery groups, but those aren't quite the same thing. AIDS activism, necessary at the time, sucked up a great deal of energy that could have gone into creating other community activities. If it has not dissipated, that energy is currently undirected.

Instead of one new focus for the entire community, what we need is the creation of an array of smaller groups focused on the members' interests in any of a variety of topics. Finding a sense of community with a smaller, identifiable group of people who have a common interest is easier than feeling a sense of community with unknown thousands of gays.

I have written recently of helping start a gay artists network and I will not repeat that story here. But its rapid growth (more than 50 members) suggests a previously unmet interest and offers an successful example of creating a new interest group. Participants are already getting to know one another, discuss common concerns and form friendships.

There must be a vast number of other interests out there that are not being tapped into. A friend has spoken of wanting to start a group of gay actors and theater people. What about amateur musicians? Or jazz fans? Or a literature discussion group?

The point is that with the decline of a common threat our energies can be directed to more personal interests. The organized "gay community" then consists of the aggregate of all these smaller groups. Their overlapping memberships can help knit the community together.

That variety of community group is what we mean when we speak of a "dynamic community"--a community that elicits the energies of its members by providing them with a way to pursue their heterogeneous interests and goals while still rooted in our community. These energies have in large measure been untapped in the last few years, but we have the opportunity to draw on them to build our community anew.

We can all wish Vice Presidential daughter Mary Cheney well in her intention to have a baby. If people want to go to the trouble of producing and caring for helpless infants and the even greater trouble of rearing them to be thoughtful and responsible adults, they deserve our blessing.

First announced a few weeks ago, Cheney's pregnancy recently became news again following her appearance at a panel discussion at New York's Barnard College where for the first time she spoke briefly about and defended her intention to have a child.

According to The New York Times, addressing the largely female audience, Cheney said, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years has shown there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents. What matters is being raised in a stable, loving, environment."

Well said! And the world needs to hear that repeatedly from prominent people, although strict accuracy would note that almost all research has been conducted among female partners and that the research found some marginal differences between children raised by female and opposite-sex couples, some of them to the advantage of same-sex parents' children.

But there was a certain contrived naivet� in her claim that, "This is a baby ... It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate on either side of a political issue. It is my child." No doubt she did not and does not intend her pregnancy to be a political statement, but that does not mean it does not have political significance. It is simply foolish to pretend otherwise.

In our celebrity-driven culture, almost anything a prominent person does is fuel for public discussion. After all, her father is Vice President and Cheney herself has been deeply involved in partisan politics. She managed her father's 2004 vice presidential campaign and even subtitled her recent book, "A Daughter's Chronicle of Political Life."

Then too, Cheney can hardy have avoided noticing that parenting by same-sex couples is a controversial topic on the social and religious right. And suddenly here we are with a prominent real-life example of something that is usually discussed in the abstract. So naturally discussion--or rather, polemics--surrounding the issue focus on her as the most prominent example.

A prominent lesbian couple having and raising a child is inevitably a political statement. It asserts in the face of vigorous disagreement that a lesbian couple having a child is just fine.

Mary Cheney also erred in her assessment of a recent exchange between her father and a CNN interviewer. CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked Vice President Cheney what he thought of religious and social conservatives such as James Dobson who had criticized his daughter for having a baby.

Cheney refused to answer and told Blitzer that he was "over the line." What line would that be, one wonders, and in what way was Blitzer over it? A line separating public and private? Hardly that since Mary's lesbianism and pregnancy are part of the public record. A line barring discussion of parenting by same-sex partners? There is no such line.

Mary Cheney, always a dutiful daughter, expressed the same view when she said that Blitzer "was trying to get a rise out of my father." But Blitzer was in fact giving Cheney an opportunity to defend his daughter against scurrilous attacks.

Most fathers would jump at the opportunity to defend their children. But, of course, the Vice President, among the most political of men, did not want to criticize--or even disagree with--a prominent conservative who has supported the administration. So in a classic example of displaced aggression, Cheney lashed out at Blitzer rather than Dobson, pretending that he had asked an inappropriate question.

But why, one wonders could Cheney not have replied simply, "Dr. Dobson is welcome to his views," or "Lynne and I love our daughter and will love our new grandchild" or even--a little feisty here--"As a father it is personally very painful for me to hear people criticize my daughter."

And it sure would have shown more family values for him to have said, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years has shown there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents. What matters is being raised in a stable, loving, environment."

I suspect that children do benefit from living with any two parents who see the world through different lenses and have different ways of relating to it. So if Dobson were truly worried about optimal parenting he would focus his attention on single parenting rather than attacking gay and lesbian parents.

More than six out of 10 college freshmen say they support the concept of "legal marital status" for gays and lesbians, according to a newly-released survey of freshmen conducted each fall by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The freshmen's support for "legal marital status" for same-sex couples rose in 2006 to an all time high of 61.2 percent, a 3.3 percentage point increase over fall 2005 when support stood at 57.9 percent. The increase continues a relatively steady upward trend since the question was first asked in 1997 when support stood at 50.9 percent.

The survey was based on responses from more than 271,000 freshmen at 393 colleges and universities, statistically adjusted to reflect responses of 1.3 million freshmen in 2006.

In a related question, only 25.6 percent of freshmen believed that it is "important to have laws prohibiting homosexual relationships," a decline of 1.8 percentage points from 27.4 percent in 2005. When that statement was introduced in 1976 it was intended to refer to sodomy laws. But in recent years students have no doubt interpreted it to refer to laws and constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage.

This year for the first time the Institute also separated out data for freshmen labeling themselves liberal, conservative and middle-of-the-road. The survey found that 83.6 percent of the liberal freshmen supported "legal marital status" for gays, as did 63 percent of middle-of-the-road freshmen. Among conservative freshmen support stood at 30.4 percent.

The results demonstrate clearly what has been implicit in the recent years, that among college freshmen, at least, supporting "legal marital status" for gays is the middle-of-the-road position. It is particular interesting that even among conservative freshmen, almost one out of three now support legal gay unions, a level of support you would not anticipate considering the opposition of prominent conservatives.

In the question about the importance of laws against legalized gay unions, only 11 percent of the liberal freshmen and only 22.8 percent of the middle-of-the-road freshmen agreed. Further, only 48.5 percent--fewer than half--of the "conservative" freshmen thought such laws are important.

Although a plurality of freshmen, 43.3 percent, still call themselves "middle-of-the-road," the centrist position has lost support in recent years while the ideological polarities of liberal and conservative have both gained support: 31.2 percent of the freshmen now call themselves "liberal" or "far left" and 25.6 percent call themselves "conservative" or "far right."

Legalized gay unions and abortion were the two issues on which liberal and conservative freshmen were most sharply divided: 78.3 percent of liberals favored legalized abortion while only 31.8 percent of the conservatives did. The findings raise the possibility that those are defining issues by which freshmen determine whether they are conservative or liberal rather than their holding those positions because of some antecedent determination that they are liberal or conservative. The data are insufficient to decide.

Consistent with previous years, freshman women were about 15 percentage points more supportive of gay unions than were the men: 67.9 percent of women supported legal marital status for same-sex couples but only 52.9 percent of freshman men.

This year was the first time that more than two-thirds of the women support legal marital status for gays and the first year that a clear majority of the men did so. Fall 2005 was the point at which exactly half of the men--50.1 percent--supported legal gay unions.

There was a similar gender divide regarding prohibiting legal gay unions. Fewer than one in five freshman women--19.3 percent--thought laws barring gay unions were important while almost exactly one-third--33.4 percent--of freshman men thought so.

Freshmen at private colleges and universities were more supportive of legalized gay unions than those at public institutions, a difference probably reflecting family income level. Freshmen at Catholic and non-sectarian private schools were far more supportive than freshmen at "other religious" colleges, primarily conservative Protestant, who were even less supportive than freshmen at public institutions. Freshmen at colleges with more rigorous entrance requirements were more supportive than freshmen at less selective institutions.

On other public issues, 37.1 percent of the freshmen supported legalized marijuana; 73 percent supported a national health care plan; 47.1 percent thought affirmative action in colleges should be abolished; 58 percent thought wealthy people should pay higher taxes; 34.5 percent thought the death penalty should be abolished; 46.7 percent thought illegal immigrants should be denied access to public education; and 56.8 percent thought abortion should be legal.

More than the necessary 50 of Massachusetts legislators meeting in a Constitutional Convention voted to support placing a proposal to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot in a statewide election.

If at least 50 votes at a second Constitutional Convention also support a referendum, then the referendum will take place and whether Massachusetts should allow legal same-sex marriage will be decided by the majority of Massachusetts voters.

Like most of us, I suppose, I was rooting for the defeat of the anti-gay, or at least anti-gay marriage, forces during the run-up to the Constitutional Convention (dubbed ConCon) and while following the confused proceedings at ConCon itself at a blog provided by the Boston gay newspaper Bay Windows.

But then after passion had ebbed a bit, no longer caught up in the heat of the moment I found myself having some troubling second thoughts.

Remember what happened. Gay marriage advocates had argued before the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) that same-sex marriage was mandated by the equality provisions of the Massachusetts state constitution. After deliberation, the majority of the SJC agreed and same-sex marriage was duly instituted.

So same-sex marriage owes its very existence to the Massachusetts constitution.

Then in an effort to roll back the moral depravity of gay marriage, anti-gay forces gathered signatures to call for a statewide referendum on the issue. The Massachusetts Constitution states that if enough voters petition in support of referendum, state legislators meeting in ConCon should vote on whether to place the issue on the ballot. If at least 50 legislators (one quarter of the whole) approve it at two successive ConCons, it goes on the ballot.

Plausibly fearing that at least 50 legislators would approve a referendum, gay advocates tried to block a vote. Anti-gay marriage forces responded by petitioning the SJC to order the ConCon to vote on ballot placement.

In a rapid decision, the SJC stated unanimously-including all the justices who had approved gay marriage-that the ConCon must vote, that the constitution stated that if presented with sufficient signatures the ConCon shall vote on about a ballot referendum, not may vote.

The court acknowledged that it lacked the power to force ConCon to hold a vote, but the message was not lost on legislative leaders. And so the ConCon voted and more than 50 votes supported sending it on to the next ConCon to see if it is approved there.

Now here is where the nagging second thoughts come in. With all the gay-supportive will in the world, I do not see how Massachusetts gays and their supporters can appeal to the state constitution to establish gay marriage, and then turn around and urge defiance of the plain language of the constitution when it comes to some aspect they do not like.

Constitutions provide neutral rules of procedures to be followed in deciding contentious issues. To refuse to follow the constitution is to cut yourself off at the knees, to undermine the very basis by which your own rights are recognized. And the next time it may be the other side that urges that the constitution be ignored.

Further, to urge the legislature to ignore the language of the constitution is to urge it to undermine its own legitimacy: The constitution is what created the legislature in the first place and gives it its authority. Defying the constitution would deny the very basis of the legislature's existence and legitimacy.

Gay advocates coped with these kinds of arguments ... by ignoring them. Instead they trotted out the familiar catch-phrase of "People's basic civil rights should never be subject to a popular vote." But however appealing that phrase may be as political rhetoric there are two problems with it.

First, that is not what the Massachusetts constitution says. The constitution provides a means for voters to vote on practically everything if they jump through enough procedural hoops.

Second, "civil rights" are not self-defining. Anyone can claim anything as a (civil) right. But what should justifiably count as a civil right may be a matter of serious disagreement. Like it or not, they are themselves matters to be decided by constitutional processes, legislatures and ultimately voters. That is what the word "democracy" means.

And so Massachusetts gay marriage advocates must either persuade a few more legislators at the next ConCon to decline to approve a referendum or else they must be prepared to defend what they hope will be recognized as a civil right. If I were they, I would be starting preparations yesterday. And the rest of us would be wise to do whatever we can to help.

It is amazing how many politicians claim they support equal rights and oppose discrimination against gays, but then favor a ban on same-sex marriage, oppose allowing gays to serve openly in the military, even oppose adoption by gay couples.

Exactly what is equal about letting heterosexuals marry the person they love, but not gays; letting heterosexuals serve openly in the military, but not gays; and letting heterosexuals adopt children, but not gays--not even let them adopt gay youths?

I don't know about you, but I am getting a little tired of people who say they are for gay legal equality--except when they are against it, or saying they are against discrimination--except when they are for it, and then using all sort of verbal evasions to wriggle out of acknowledging how anti-gay they are.

My favorite evasive phrase is "unjust discrimination." Take outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Please. Romney says, "I've opposed same-sex marriage, but I've also opposed unjust discrimination against anyone, for racial or religious reasons, or for sexual preference."

Romney not only opposes same-sex marriage, he also opposes the Employment Non Discrimination Act and ending "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Yet he says he is against "unjust discrimination." Romney advisor Barbara Comstock says he defends traditional marriage and opposes "unjust discrimination against anyone" but doesn't see a need for "new or special legislation" on DADT or ENDA.

It is worth noticing that the Pope uses the same phrase--saying he opposes "unjust discrimination" against "homosexuals." And we all know how gay-friendly the Pope is. Clearly people using the phrase hope to sound moderate and tolerant by creating the impression that they think discrimination is unjust--and many gullible people do take them to mean that.

But what they actually mean is that they think only some forms of discrimination are "unjust"--and those are the ones they oppose. But they think other forms of discrimination are entirely just--and those they fully support. And, of course, they get to decide which kinds are which. In other words, the term has no objective meaning. It is utterly empty. It means ... nothing.

Romney is not the only presidential aspirants emitting evasions. Consider the nearly incoherent obfuscation by Arizona Senator John McCain: "I do not believe that marriage between--I believe in the sanctity and unique role of marriage between man and woman. But I certainly don't believe in discriminating against any American."

Asked by George Stephanopoulos if he were for civil unions then, McCain continued: "No, I'm not. But (the Arizona anti-gay marriage initiative which he supported) did allow for people to join in legal agreements such as power of attorney and others." Question: "So you're for civil unions?" McCain: "No. I am for ability of two--I do not believe gay marriage should be legal. But I do believe that people ought to be able to enter into contracts, exchange powers of attorney, other ways that people who have relationships can enter into."

But signing contracts, exchanging powers of attorney and "other" arrangements are rights that friends, business partners, and every adult already has, so McCain is actually saying that he is not for anything beyond what already exists. But he is trying to seem "moderate" by saying what he is for, even if it is nothing new. Thanks for, literally, nothing, Senator.

Moving to the other side of the aisle, consider former North Carolina Senator John Edwards. Edwards described same-sex marriage as "the single hardest social issue" for him and said he had had a lot of "personal struggles" over the issue. Oh, John, John, we feel your pain! How hard it must be for you to grant others the same right you have to marry the person you love.

Edwards said he favored civil rights for gays but that it was a "jump for me to get to gay marriage … I am not there yet." So Edwards favors civil rights but opposes civil marriage. Apparently a civil marriage is not a civil right. And he has the effrontery to teasingly imply that he might change his position ("I'm not there yet") but suggests no sorts of reasons or criteria he would use in reevaluating his position. Apparently it is all just a mucky ooze of subjective feelings.

And where is the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation? The gay organization that should be monitoring these statements, publicly pointing out contradictions, obfuscations, and evasions, sensitizing the news media to detect them and advising how to ask follow-up questions to force candidates to answer more clearly? GLAAD is off partying with television and film personalities--"Dancing with the Stars."

The coming year will provide an all too brief respite from all too many people's focus on politics. We do not have to face threats from a GOP Congress, but we aren't going to get much out of a Democratic Congress since they don't want to give the GOP ammunition to attack them with in 2008.

Instead it is an opportunity for community building, for attention to promoting social acceptance of gays, and heading off future assaults from the religious right. Here are some possibilities. If you don't like these, create your own.

We need far stronger gay organizations at the state level. Because of America's federal system, many gay issues are and even more can be determined at the state level-marriage, civil unions, child custody, adoption, non-discrimination, etc. For years the national organizations appealed for funds to fight the GOP hegemony in Congress, starving our state organizations. Now that that threat is absent, it is important to build up state advocacy organizations and community centers, providing for a staff and adequate technical support. This is particularly important in states with a strong conservative presence.

We need a small specialty think tank of gay-supportive theologians to issue counter-arguments when the Catholic Bishops or other religious groups condemn gays, gay relationships, or gay sex. The religious round table of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force seems to limit itself to issuing feeble press releases praising this or condemning that, but it never offers sustained arguments against whatever conservative religious groups say. Over the years I have tried to respond to the Catholic bishops and other homophobic religious statements (in pieces now posted at the Independent Gay Forum), but I am a journalist, not a theologian, so I undoubtedly overlook many excellent arguments-and I am only one small voice.

We need a study of homelessness among gay adults. A new NGLTF study drew attention to the fact that a disproportionate percentage of homeless kids are gay. But we have little information on the proportion of gays among homeless adults. I was talking recently with a homeless man in his 30s. He said simply, "What about people like me?" I had no answer. I know of no studies of homelessness that indicate the proportion who are gay. Nor do I know what unique issues they face, nor where to suggest they go for help, nor how best to help them.

Many of us have urged gays to come out to more people. Let me be more specific: Come out especially to older friends and relatives. A larger percentage of older Americans vote than any other group. And older Americans are the most likely to be anti-gay. Born in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, they grew up when most gays were not open, so they may never have known a gay person when their social and cultural attitudes were formed. Since older Americans are living (and voting) longer, we need to try to remedy those formative impressions.

In states where it is most practical to advocate gay civil unions rather than marriage, we should start using a film clip of President Bush's statement late in the 2004 campaign that if states want to offer civil unions for gays, "They should be able to do that." What more effective propaganda could you offer to conservative voters than Bush's own non-opposition? I do not understand why that clip hasn't been used repeatedly.

Drop "queer." The attempt to "reclaim" it has failed utterly. For most of us it sets our teeth on edge. Gabriel Rotello, a former publisher who once promoted "queer," renounced it in an Advocate opinion piece titled "The Word That Failed." (The literary allusion is obvious.) Some younger gays all full of youthful rebellion-without-responsibility adopted "queer" for a time, viewing it as "edgy" and "in your face." But let me tell you, dear ones, gay liberty and equality are not going to be won by being self-indulgently "edgy" and "in your face." You are just helping our opponents.

We need more heterosexuals to speak out for gay legal equality, but I have no idea how to go about making this happen. The Advocate recently featured comedian and talk show host Bill Maher who regularly speaks out on behalf of gays, but can we somehow induce 10, 20, 100 people with a national reputation to take up our cause? Most prominent whites began supporting black civil rights only when the level of violence, intimidation, and denial of rights in the south was made crystal clear on television news shows. But how often is a gay bashing broadcast? Or a child being yanked away from its lesbian mother or gay father? And how can you film a marriage ceremony that doesn't happen?

You could almost feel sorry for U.S. Catholic Bishops. Periodically they gather, issue "Tut tutting" pronouncements, and everyone ignores them. You have to wonder why they even bother.

Assembling in Baltimore in mid-November, the bishops delivered themselves of an amusing piece of badinage titled "Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination." There they claimed that although a person with a homosexual inclination is not disordered, the inclination is disordered, that such persons should not marry each other, adopt children or disclose their inclination outside a trusted small group.

In other statements the Bishops opposed contraception and said sexually active homosexuals and heterosexuals using birth control should not take communion. As Spokane Bishop William Skylstad asserted, "There is a mocking reduction of sexuality, debasing it from God's beautiful gift of creation to little more than casual chemistry and inconsequential recreation."

Hardly anyone pays much attention to what the Catholic bishops say about sexuality. The bishops have simply lost the argument. Either they should give up or come up with new and better arguments. But their statements do indicate the Catholic hierarchy's inability to talk coherently about homosexuality.

Consider that word "inclination." The bishops avoid the word "orientation." Orientation suggests something much more fundamental and comprehensive, a part of the basic structure of people's psychological constitution. The bishops would not refer to a mere "heterosexual inclination."

It is as if the bishops refuse to acknowledge the fundamental nature of homosexuality. Although they do not say a homosexual inclination can be changed, it is as if they are leaving an opening for some future statement that homosexual feelings are less deeply rooted than heterosexual ones so they can more easily be suppressed or even replaced.

Although the bishops claim they are reaching out to gay Catholics, few gays are likely to be lured by having their deepest emotions labeled "disordered." Is any gay man likely to agree that, "It is disordered that I love John with all my heart" or "I love John deeply with a disordered love"?

No more than a heterosexual man would feel that way about his love for a female partner. Love is pretty much self-validating. The statement is more likely aimed at reinforcing heterosexual disapprobation of gays and promoting shame, anxiety and self-doubt among vulnerable young gays. Certainly that would be its easily predictable effect.

If a person with a disordered inclination is not a disordered person, why should the bishops disapprove of gays disclosing widely that they are homosexual? Fundamentalist Protestants fear that coming out would solidify a "homosexual identity." There is a whiff of that in the bishops' statement.

But more likely the bishops fear that if people know that friends and neighbors who are decent, friendly and helpful are homosexual, they might think well of gays, want them to be treated equally and stop believing that they have a disorder. Apparently the bishops believe that it is better that people believe damaging stereotypes about gays promoted by anti-gay polemicists. And--what could be clearer?--the bishops hope to silence opposition from self-affirming gays.

If gays are not disordered, it is also unaccountable why the bishops oppose gay adoption. If they do not object to a single parent raising his or her children, then why would they object to a gay person's adopting children? Absent any plausible rationale, their actual reason may be that they do not want gays to seem normal, responsible adults with a capacity for love, affection, and family life.

Bishop Skylstad's statement itself demonstrates deep ignorance of sexuality and human psychology And he perpetrates not one but two obvious errors by reducing sex to "the gift of creation" or else "inconsequential recreation." First, "recreational" sex is hardly inconsequential. Like all play, sex can be life-enhancing and promote psychological development.

Second, Skylstad perpetrates a false dichotomy. Sex can be not only for procreation or recreation. It can also be a mode of personal relating and bonding, certifying affection and solidifying and deepening a human relationship. The bishops seem ignorant of this fact.

Whether sexually active gay Catholics should take communion is not my issue. But traditionally for Christianity the informed conscience is authoritative. The Informed conscience takes into account not only traditional doctrine but also the individual's condition and circumstances. If gays are fully convinced that their sexual activity is not sinful, they should feel free to take communion. Most heterosexual Catholic couples using birth control have already made exactly that determination.

During 12 years of congresses disproportionately influenced by the GOP's religious right "core constituency" gays and lesbians became so used to tempering their political expectations that it is hard to know how to react to the sudden change in party control wrought by the Nov. 7 election.

Giddy excitement would be one possible reaction. Cautious optimism would probably be better. After all, gays won some and lost some. And George Bush is still president and can wield a veto pen.

Two results stand out: Gays and lesbians will no longer always need to play defense and an implicit rebuke to the religious right for overreaching.

The party switch places gay-friendly Nancy Pelosi as speaker of the House and gay and gay friendly chairmen such as Barney Frank and Henry Waxman in charge of some congressional committees. And because gays are a constituency of the Democratic party, Congress is unlikely to approve any specifically anti-gay legislation.

Nor is a constitutional amendment barring gay marriage likely to get further than being introduced. It would be blocked at the committee level. In a related gain, the amendment's major fan Rick ("man on dog") Santorum went down to substantial defeat (Thank you, Pennsylvania voters), and although amendment co-sponsor Colorado Rep. Marilyn Musgrave was reelected, she won only 46 percent of the vote, so she is likely to take a lower profile role.

Can we expect any positive actions from a Democratic congress? Among the possibilities that have been mentioned are overturning the military's ban on openly gay service members, inclusion of gays in a federal hate crimes law and passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA). Certainly public opinion supports all three.

The Hate Crimes law is perhaps the likeliest since it produces the least opposition. Both ENDA and repeal of DADT are possibilities, but are more likely to be vetoed. Something very limited for same-sex partners has also been mentioned, but seems unlikely.

To be sure, many of the new Democratic legislators are more socially conservative than the Democratic leadership--Rep. Rahm Emanuel recruited them specifically to counter the GOP's appeal on social issues.

But simply because they originally joined the Democratic rather than the Republican party, they may not be as hostile to equal treatment for gays as the Republicans were. Whatever they may believe about guns, abortion, or tariffs, they tend--if only "tend"--to think that discrimination is wrong--unlike most Republicans who approve of discrimination if it is called "values." Even if Bush vetoes such enactments, congressional passage itself is a powerful precedent to build on in the future.

We can even dare to hope for greater congressional insistence that federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and the Drug Enforcement Agency begin to tell the truth about marijuana, condoms, oral sex, abortion and a host of HIV issues. And that the National Institutes of Health might finally be adequately funded to research vaccines for syphilis and gonorrhea.

As to the religious right: With their remarkable capacity for self-pity and victim mongering when they do not get every jot and tittle they want, some religious right figures claimed to be devastated by the election. The New York Times quoted the head of the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue describing it as "Bloody Tuesday" because South Dakota turned back a state law banning almost all abortions, California and Oregon rejected parental notification of a minor's abortion, and Missouri rejected a ban on stem-celll research.

Yet they managed to pass seven out of the eight state amendments barring same-sex marriage. Even though gays were heartened by Arizona's rejection of a gay marriage ban, a national first, they should be kicking themselves that they lost by 52 to 48 percent in South Dakota.

It may be that the October 25 New Jersey civil unions/marriage decision influenced the vote in some states. Heterosexuals who say they support civil unions or marriage in the abstract--even if they are telling the truth--seem to get skittish when confronted with the actual possibility. Is it an accident that of states with marriage bans on the ballot Arizona is the farthest away from New Jersey? Perhaps more important, Arizona retains a strong Goldwater/Kolbe libertarian tradition of live and let live.

It is hard to know how effective gay groups' anti-amendment efforts were in states such as Wisconsin, Colorado and Idaho. A friend reports that he walked into the Wisconsin group's Madison headquarters prepared to donate a few hundred dollars. Although people were standing around in the office, they all ignored him, so after a few minutes he walked out, keeping his money. When are gay advocacy groups going to stop depending on untrained volunteers and get serious about our lives?

With Hallowe'en and the mid-term elections now behind us we are, it seems, hurtling headlong into the "Holiday Season." Already stores are offering Holiday sales, drug stores are selling Christmas tree lights and ornaments and, believe it or not, one Chicago radio station began playing Christmas music around the clock in the first week of November.

But it would be a shame if in all this flurry of activity the venerable holiday of Thanksgiving got lost. Thanksgiving is the only occasion during the year when each of us is encouraged to think about the things we are grateful for.

Originally the idea was to be thankful to a god people then believed in. But even in our more secular age we can still be aware that much of what makes our lives satisfying is not the result of our own efforts but the efforts of others, often people we do not even know--for example, the people who invented antibiotics or the founding fathers who created America's free political institutions.

But rather than telling you what you should be giving thanks for, it might be better if I share a few things I am thankful for in hopes that it will stimulate some ideas of your own. I am aware that a personal approach risks seeming sappy, but that is a necessary risk.

I suppose, first of all, I am thankful to be alive. It could easily have been otherwise. As a gay man who was sexually active during the late 1970s and early 1980s when, unknown to us all, HIV was spreading rapidly through our community, I could have been among those who contracted the virus and died early in the epidemic. Most of my friends from that era are dead.

So I am also thankful for the handful of friends I have left from that period as well as the ones I have managed to acquire since. They are the people who connect me to the world, entertain and inform me, offer help when needed and admonish me when I am wrong. More than most of us realize, we depend on friends to keep us sane and balanced.

As a single man and, it would seem, a confirmed bachelor, I am comfortable living without a partner. But for many people, having a partner can be a great blessing and certainly something to be thankful for. I can pass on the comment of one of my friends who observed one evening, "I am so lucky to have found a man I love and who loves me."

I am thankful that I am living at a time and in a country where a person can live openly with integrity as a gay person and lead a reasonably normal life. This opportunity is unique in recorded history and is still not possible in most of the world today. If we have not yet achieved full equality, we are closer than at any time in the past. Much of the freedom we have today is due to the courageous work of the pioneers of the gay movement and I am grateful to and thankful for them.

I am thankful for the two men from whom I have learned the most--Leo Strauss and Friedrich Hayek. Hayek and Strauss agree on almost nothing, so they exist in an unresolvable tension in my mind, a constant reminder that the world is more complicated than it seems, and serve as a stimulus to think carefully and write as clearly as possible. Two men whose erudition on homosexuality I am thankful for are psychologist C. A. Tripp and historian Wayne Dynes. Both shed light where there was darkness.

I am thankful for the proliferating variety and creativity of Western culture. Most of us will never absorb even half of it, but its music, art and literature have enriched my life and in many ways made my life worth living. A sampling of specifics: Literature--Conrad, Austen, Bely, Rand, Johnson, Swift; Music--Bach, Rachmaninoff, Vaughn Williams, Martinu, Gershwin; Art--Caravaggio, Caspar David Friedrich, De Chirico. My lists could be extended indefinitely, but then you have your own list.

Does it go without saying that I am thankful for my parents who did their best to guide and educate me? Perhaps it does not. When I have written appreciatively of my parents in the past, some people have commented to me that they did not have any such warm relationship with their parents. Reminders like that make me realize that supportive parents were not something I should take for granted but were the constant effort of two people trying hard to be good parents. For that I am thankful too.