‘The Homosexuals’ — Timely Again

It's easy to find fault with "The Homosexuals," a 1967 documentary from CBS, the first ever aired on a major network about "the problem" of homosexuality. Dave White at The Advocate, rediscovered the relic, and provides a litany of its sins. For example, it focuses exclusively on gay men, and has not a word to say about how lesbians (who, one assumes, are also homosexual) might be different. Amazing how that focus on gay men to the exclusion of lesbians plagues our discussion even now.

That may be because lesbians don't fit so comforably into the stereotype of relentless, anonymous sex that is the documentary's framework. Mike Wallace's sometimes squalid questions and lascivious tone appear presumptuous and patronizing today, if you can't give yourself a little distance and appreciate its camp value:

The average homosexual, if there be such, is promiscuous. He is not interested in, nor capable of a lasting relationship like that of a heterosexual marriage. His sex life, his "love" life, consists of a series of chance encounters at the clubs and bars he inhabits, and even on the streets of the city, the pick up, the one night stand, these are characteristic of the homosexual relationship.

It's impossible to do justice to his spin on the word "love;" you have to hear it for yourself (this passage is about the 8:20 mark) to appreciate how near to contempt he finds the very thought.

And that age's experts on homosexuality are given almost total deference in the piece. Charles Socarides pronounces, to a classroom of curious students (including us) the conventional notion of the time that homosexuality is a mental illness. But he then goes further in responding to a student question about "happy homosexuals," by scoffing; they don't and can't exist. Question answered. Next?

That's why it might be hard to appreciate how groundbreaking this documentary really was. No one who missed the 1950s and 60s can imagine how much sheer effort it took, then, for the nascent gay rights movement to be heard or taken seriously. Mention of the word "homosexual" on commercial television in a neutral way was almost inconceivable. An hour-long slot on the subject -- even with condescension, misinformation and insults -- was a bonanza.

We simply have no conception, today, of how dominant -- and successful -- the closet was in virtually shutting down any public conversation at all in which gay men are viewed as citizens rather than predators. Yet the documentary opens with a gay man who is well adjusted even by the standards of our own time. There are also interviews with a judge (from North Carolina!) and a prosecutor who are going through the first stages of questioning social conventions about homosexuality. And, of course, any journalism from those days that includes an interview with Frank Kameny won't make it easy to leave unchallenged the notion which took for granted our (in Dean Rusk's candid phrase) "personal instability." (Kameny and Rusk make their points starting at the 29 minute mark.)

The toxins that still infect our debate today are closer to the surface here. And chief among them is the human distortion that Jonathan Rauch, Bruce Bawer and Andrew Sullivan have all tried so valiantly to have heterosexuals of good will envision: What would life be like if you grew up believing that love would have no role in your future? How would that affect a human being's ordinary development and moral thinking?

I can't imagine any way to make that point better than Mike Wallace's discrediting of the word "love" for gay men. He honestly felt, as virtually everyone else at the time did, that gay men were "not interested in, nor capable of, a lasting relationship like that of heterosexual marriage." In fact, the documentary ends with a (heterosexually) married homosexual saying that he doesn't believe he could have a "love relationship" with another man. His moral imagination was formed, along with the rest of the culture, around the notion that homosexuality involves no emotions, no affection, no relationship to others except the physical.

Wallace has since regretted the documentary's tone, as well as the prejudices of the time. But he has no reason to regret having participated in helping this nation begin an open discussion about homosexuality.

Forty-three years later, this documentary is timely again. Heterosexuals today don't have to imagine the moral deformity that was demanded of gay men by assuming they had no need for love. "The Homosexuals" shows exactly what that looks like. When we fight for legal recognition of our relationships, it is because of this sabotage of our souls. I am grateful we have it today to help make our case.

The Spiral of Progress

We rounded the corner and were met by an 8-year-old girl with her hand outstretched in greeting.

"How are you?" she asked. Her long ponytails jittered with energy. "My name is Selena. Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," we said.

"What is progress?"

We were at the Tino Sehgal exhibit at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. All we knew in advance was that the exhibit was interactive and took over the entire rotunda. We didn't expect that the piece would wind up being a serious conversation with several different people on the same theme.

Selena started walking up the ramp that circles the entire inside of the museum and we walked with her. I looked at my partner Jenny and her friend Lori and said slowly, "Progress is when you take steps toward a goal."

"Can you give me an example of progress?"

"Gay marriage advancing from state to state."

"OK," she said. An older teenager, Jane, was waiting for us farther up the ramp, half hidden behind a pole. Selena summarized our conversation for her and vanished.

We walked alongside Jane, climbing the slope of the circular rotunda, ascending higher and higher with each word.

She asked us again about progress and when I again responded with gay marriage, she gave her own example of progress: the weekend before, she had been out with a group of friends. They were mixed gay and straight, and no one had really noticed. To them, the difference was insignificant.

We talked about what social progress means, and how we can tell if it has been achieved.

The conversation continued to get deeper as we climbed higher.

With the next interpreter, a man in his 20s, we talked about where progress came from. "Consensus," said Lori.

"And where does consensus come from?" he asked.

"Listening," Lori said. Our final interpreter was Michael, an older man who told us a story. He had recently been to a play with his wife, he said. The play compared gay life in the 50s with gay life today. What did we think, he asked us. Have gays and lesbians made progress?

"Absolutely," I said. "In my lifetime you can see that."

With each interpreter, our conversation became a slightly different take on broader social progress, but those conversations themselves were a sign of progress, too. It is impossible for me to imagine that 50 years ago - or even 20 years ago - a similar conversation could have been had with an 8-year-old, an 18-year-old, a 25-year-old and a senior citizen.

Yet here was a random collection of New Yorkers who each believed that gay marriage is progress and weren't afraid to say so to (very straight looking) strangers.

I've been thinking of those conversations ever since.

When we think of the progress we've made on gay rights, we tend to limit our definition to whatever big state or national battle is currently in the news. Did a state legislature vote for gay marriage? We crow about progress. Did voters take that right back again? We mourn our country's backslide into homophobic intolerance.

But the truth is that those big battles aren't making progress - they're reflecting it. Progress comes slowly, person by person, step by step, in conversations like the ones we were having in the Guggenheim's rotunda.

Progress comes when we listen to those who have doubts about gay rights and when they listen to us about how it hurts us to be denied what straight people take for granted.

Progress comes when we tell our own truths to our families, our friends, our colleagues, our clients. Progress comes when, through conversation, people stop seeing us as a thing to be feared and start hearing our stories and empathizing with them.

When we do win those big battles, it is partly because of strategy - but it is mostly because of stories. It is only after we win hearts that we win votes.

At the top of the rotunda, Michael shook our hands. "This is a work by Tino Seghal," he said. "It's called, 'This Progress."

And it was.

My Bias Against Bias

Just a quick (and what I think is obvious) word on the fact that the judge presiding over the Prop. 8 trial is gay: It was inevitable that he would have some sexual orientation, and there really aren't that many options.

The fact that he has a sexual orientation -- a homosexual one, as it turns out -- doesn't make Judge Vaughan Walker any more biased toward what some might view as his team's side than an opposite sexual orientation would in favor of the majority. Unless, of course, you go in for the notion that nobody is ever not biased by their sexual orientation -- which is, itself, a bias.

A rather potent bit of evidence suggests that Judge Walker has the ability to separate his sexual orientation from his legal work. When he was nominated to the bench (first, unsuccessfuly, by Ronald Reagan, then by George H.W. Bush), his biggest obstacle was opposition from the gay community because he had represented the U.S. Olympics in a trademark suit against the Gay Olympics. This caused gay activists no end of dyspepsia.

Both heterosexual and homosexual judges all have an identical obligation to be fair and impartial, and to be fully accountable. If Judge Walker does exhibit bias, that alone is enough for a reviewing court to disqualify him . No one defending Prop. 8 has even filed such a motion, to my knowledge, and if they have they certainly haven't convinced any higher court of the merits.

Of course non-participants like NOM and Ed Whelan, the Excitable Boy over at NRO, can get as rhetorically exercised as they wish. But anything Judge Walker does will be reviewed by at least three judges in the Court of Appeal, possibly another 11 or so there, and then nine more above them. To my knowledge, none of these potential reviewers is him or herself openly homosexual. But even if one or two has slipped through, the homosexuals will - as arithmetic demands - be vastly outnumbered.

That would leave bias unconnected to sexual orienation -- as it should be.

Brian Brown’s Bad Logic

Brian Brown throws around the term "irrational" quite a bit.

Brown is the Executive Director of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), an anti-gay-marriage organization (Maggie Gallagher is its president). I first came across his name last summer when the Washington Post profiled him, describing him as "pleasantly, ruthlessly sane" and "rational."

From the profile, it appears that "irrational" is Brown's favorite term of abuse.

For example, he claims it's irrational when polls indicate that most young people support equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians. Or when people argue that marriage equality is ultimately inevitable. Or when they describe his position as bigotry:

"I think it's irrational that up until 10 years ago, all of these societies agreed with my position [and yet now they're changing]" he tells the Post.

However, the term "irrational" was given new meaning in Brown's most recent fundraising letter, in which he uses a new Department of Health and Human Services study, the "Fourth National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect (NIS-4)," to argue against same-sex marriage.

Brown cites the HHS study as stating that

"Children living with two married biological parents had the lowest rate of overall Harm Standard maltreatment, at 6.8 per 1,000 children. This rate differs significantly from the rates for all other family structure and living arrangement circumstances."

Brown goes on to argue,

"All parents working hard to raise good kids…deserve our respect and help. But there is no call to wipe out the ideal itself, rooted in Nature and Nature's God, and replace it with a man-made fantasy that same-sex unions are just the same as the one kind of union that best protects children."

Got that? Children do best with a married biological mother and father. Therefore, we ought to oppose same-sex marriage.

I felt like I was missing some steps-maybe I was being "irrational"-so I went and read the study Brown cites. And I learned a few interesting things.

First, the 455-page study says not a word about gay and lesbian parents. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Which makes it essentially useless for anyone wanting to do a three-way comparison between children of married straight parents, married gay parents, and unmarried gay parents.

The study does indeed find that, on average, children living with married biological parents are at substantially lower risk of maltreatment than children in other family structures studied: namely, those with "other married parents" (not both biological but both having a legal relationship to the child), unmarried parents (biological or other), single parents with an unmarried partner, unpartnered single parents, and no parents.

What follows from this finding is quite simple. My fellow gays and lesbians should stop snatching children away from married biological parents who are raising them. As The Gay Moralist, I hereby call for an immediate cessation of this horrible practice. It's bad for the kids. Stop it. Thank you.

Back on Planet Earth, where gay and lesbian people are generally not kidnapping children from their married biological parents, the relevant conclusion is rather different.

To the extent that the study teaches us about gay and lesbian families at all, it is to suggest that children in them would do far better IF THEIR PARENTS COULD GET MARRIED.

Are you listening, Mr. Rational? The study actually shows the OPPOSITE of what you're using it for.

But wait-there's more. Everything I've said thus far (and indeed, everything in the HHS report) assumes an "all else being equal" clause. But of course, all else is often not equal.

Which is why the report looks at factors beyond family structure, and notes that, for example

• Children of the unemployed are at a 2-3 times higher risk for maltreatment.

• Children in large households (four or more children) had more than twice the incidence of maltreatment than those in two-child families.

• Children in families of low socio-economic status were 5 times more likely to be victims of maltreatment than other children.

Somehow, however, I don't expect Brown to oppose marriage for the poor, or for his fellow conservative Catholics (who tend to have large families).

Or maybe to ask wealthy lesbians (Ellen and Portia?) to revive that imaginary kidnapping trend.

The general problem here is familiar: making the best the enemy of the good. Brown's argument presupposes that the only people who should be allowed to marry are those whose marriages would create ideal scenarios for children.

By that logic, NOM's own president wouldn't have been allowed her current marriage, since that marriage created a stepfamily. Logician, heal thyself.

Meanwhile, there are several million American children being raised by gay parents. What (if anything) can the HHS study tell us about them?

According to the study, children living with "other married parents" (at least one non-biological) are at LESS THAN HALF the risk of maltreatment compared to children living with a single parent and an unmarried partner.

So if we really care about these children's welfare, we should let their parents marry. It's only rational.

Doing Gay/Being Gay (Part II)

I come not to praise the distinction between status and conduct, but to bury it.

Differentiating between conduct - doing homosexual things - and status - being homosexual - has been with us for most of the modern gay rights debate. That's in part because of a fundamental tenet of the law that says you can't convict someone of a crime based on their status, only their bad conduct. The government can't criminalize alcoholism, but it can convict an alcoholic of doing otherwise criminal things.

Sodomy has historically been the bad thing that homosexuals did. Theoretically, heterosexuals could also engage in the same form of bad behavior, but because sodomy has so conventionally been used against homosexuals, that has tended to be the focus of the public discussion.

In 1986, Bowers v. Hardwick seemed to erase that distinction. The majority's almost obsessive focus on the phrase "homosexual sodomy" when analyzing a law that applied to sodomy without reference to the genders of the participants, appeared to give permission to discriminate against homosexuals. If not, why spend so much time talking about homosexual sodomy when the statute didn't?

That is exactly how Ninth Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt read Bowers. In one of the pre-DADT cases of military discharge for homosexuality, Judge Reinhardt would have ruled against Sgt. Perry Watkins. The majority opinion (later overturned) had distinguished the spanking-new Bowers because that was a case about homosexual conduct, and Watkins' case was about sexual orientation as a status. They found homosexuals to be a suspect class for equal protection purposes, and ruled that the military could not constitutionally ban all homosexuals simply because of their status as homosexuals.

Judge Reinhardt found the distinction an unconvincing reading of Bowers:

I do not believe we can escape the conclusion that "homosexuals", however defined, cannot qualify as a suspect class. Even if we define the class as those who have a "homosexual orientation", its members will consist principally of active, practicing homosexuals. That the class may also include a small number of persons who are or wish to be celibate is irrelevant for purposes of determining whether the group as a whole constitutes a suspect class. I simply see no way to say that homosexuals defined broadly (by status) are a suspect class, but that the same group, if more narrowly defined (by conduct) is not. Whether the group is defined by status or by conduct, its composition is essentially the same. In short, "homosexuals" are either a suspect class or they aren't.

He concluded that the fairest reading of Bowers allowed open discrimination against homosexuals, period, and that as a judge on a court inferior to the Supreme Court, he could not depart from their ruling - or what he believed to be their bias.

I had the privilege of working in Judge Reinhardt's chambers the year after Watkins. It had caused quite a stir in his office, and I had the opportunity to discuss my own views (supporting the majority) with him. He was unshakable, and I came to believe he was right. The overreach in the Bowers majority is nothing but the conventional understanding that, whatever the specifics, homosexuals should not have sex with one another. The fact that they do have sex gives rise to all the peripheral prejudice against them. If (as Bowers ruled) the law can prohibit homosexual sex, its inferential and attendant prejudices against the group must also be permissible.

Judge Reinhardt did not personally believe it was appropriate (or constitutional) to treat homosexual sex differently than heterosexual sex:

[T]he fact that homosexuals (or persons of "homosexual orientation") engage in or seek to engage in homosexual conduct is as unremarkable as the fact that "heterosexuals" (or persons of "heterosexual orientation") engage in or seek to engage in heterosexual conduct. To pretend that homosexuality or heterosexuality is unrelated to sexual conduct borders on the absurd.

That brings me back to Sprigg/Fischer/Bahati. They want to love the sinner but hate the sin. While that's as suspect in theology as it is in law, they are free to condescend to us as a religious belief. But here in the secular world, Bowers is no longer the law, and the civil world has to take us as we are, conduct and orientation together.

It remains fashionable to dismiss Judge Reinhardt as a knee-jerk liberal (and, to be fair, he has a long track record to that effect). But Watkins stands as one crystal clear example where he knew what result he wanted, and found the fairest reading of the law did not permit that result.

Lawrence is now controlling, and Justice Scalia articulated a thought similar to that of Judge Reinhardt in his Watkins dissent. Overturning Bowers is a pivotal step for the equal protection challenge that the Watkins majority prematurely forged. Why do our lives have to be dissected into discrete legal arenas and sectors? We're whole human beings, sex and love included. Lawrence helped put our lives back together again.

Lawrence applies to criminal laws, and marriage is quite different. But Justice Scalia thought that overturning Bowers would inevitably lead to a fuller equality that would have to include marriage. I agree. We will see if Justice Scalia hews to the same kind of principled respect for his court's authority that Judge Reinhardt exhibited when he was put to the test.

The Revolution in 3 minutes and 7 seconds

Even those of us who believe the Constitution protects us know that a ruling in our favor will only be as secure as at least 2/3 of the states will let it be. That's why we have to keep up our efforts to change the political culture.

This is how we are doing it: A brief conversation in South L.A., where an African-American woman, who obviously does not feel comfortable even talking about the subject is kindly but firmly helped to actually think about the issue directly.

I don't know who Jay, the lesbian canvasser is, but hers is the face of the last mile in this revolution. Thanks to all the Jays out there.

Doing Gay/Being Gay (Part I)

We are indebted to Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council and Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association - not to mention David Bahati, sponsor of Uganda's Anti-gay bill - for returning us to a debate that should have been put out of its misery in 2003: Should homosexual conduct be against the law?

Lawrence v. Texas answered the question for constitutional purposes. The government has no legitimate business making particular sexual acts a criminal offense if they are voluntary, adult and in private.

But the constitution isn't everything. For centuries, criminal prohibitions provided the foundation for official (i.e. legal and governmental) discrimination against homosexuals. The premises about homosexuality in those laws are what most older people, in particular, take for granted. We may no longer be criminals under the law, but in some people's minds we are certainly doing something that is wrong.

The unambiguous desire of Sprigg/Fischer/Bahati to reestablish a legal regime where homosexual conduct is criminal lets us look at the issue from today's entirely new perspective: Why is some sexual conduct between consenting adults in private wrong. By "wrong" I do not mean "a sin," since I am talking about the law here, not theology. Religious adherents are free to believe, among themselves, what their religion teaches about sin, whether it's murder or adultery or dancing. There is much overlap between criminal laws and theological transgressions, but the two realms are not identical. Criminal laws in a pluralistic society of varied religious beliefs have to have justifications beyond sinfulness, since there is inconsistency between, and even within religions, and since many people belong to no formalized religion at all, a choice the constitution requires all of us to respect.

Sprigg distinguishes between homosexual conduct and homosexual orientation. Homosexual conduct is bad, but mere orientation is no problem. Ironically, this is a distinction gay rights supporters have drawn as well, when it has been advantageous. But it doesn't answer any questions.

Justice Scalia illustrates the problem in his dissent in Lawrence: "Many Americans do not want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in their children's schools, or as boarders in their home."

Look how casually the thinking here moves from the notion of homosexual conduct as sex to homosexual conduct as - well, as being gay. It's safe to assume, I'd think, that few, if any of those business partners, scoutmasters, teachers or room-renters would be observing any sexual activity by these particular homosexuals (though the last category comes very close, which is why it is given universal exemption in housing discrimination laws). In the quote, it's not even necessary that any of those people have a partner at all. The homosexual conduct Justice Scalia is concerned about people so "openly" engaging in is living their lives without hiding their sexual orientation. Simply being gay, the way heterosexuals are straight, is to "openly engage in homosexual conduct."

The closest to "openly" engaging in conduct that could be considered sexual is when homosexuals kiss or hold hands while walking down the street. That's openly being gay, but it's not different (in the view of the people Scalia is worried about) from sodomizing your partner right there at the corner of Pico and Sepulveda.

There is no such concern about heterosexual kissing or hand-holding. More to the point, no sodomy law ever prohibited such acts. So why the difference for gays?

That difference is everything. In general, most people don't spend a lot of time imagining the sex lives of others; or when they do, it's considered impolite if not outright rude. Yet speculation like this is taken for granted when homosexuals are the subject.

It is that permissive speculation about sexual conduct that brings the bedroom right out into the open, and makes gays ripe for this kind of condemnation. It reaches its zenith of absurdity in DADT. DADT strays so far from a requirement of actual conduct that simply speaking about being gay is sufficient to have a servicemember ejected. The theory is that this shows a "propensity" to engage in homosexual conduct, and therefore a mere statement gives the military sufficient evidence of someone's unfitness.

Yet heterosexuals have a propensity to engage in heterosexual conduct - and "propensity" may be understating it for many of them. Some of their conduct will be the same kind of sodomy as homosexuals might engage in - specifically oral or anal sex. Yet for heterosexuals, we don't (as the kids say) go there.

The debate about sexual conduct is not about sexual conduct at all, but about being openly gay. It is that honesty which is objectionable. Even Peter Sprigg acknowledges that some people have a homosexual orientation. The criminal law has as little effect on that as it could have on preventing the tide from coming in. All it can do is prevent people from being honest - or, in Justice Scalia's words, of "openly" engaging in what he calls "conduct." But as we see in the debate over DADT, when honesty is a problem the law is trying to solve, there is something deeply wrong with our priorities.

Credit Where Credit Is Due

There's been a lot of gloom and doom around here lately, and this morning seems like a good opportunity to look on the bright side of life.

  • Both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton spoke out against the Uganda anti-gay bill - at the National Prayer Breakfast! Obama used the word "odious" to describe it.
  • Senator Orrin Hatch is open to repealing DADT.
  • Colin Powell is not just open to the repeal, he now "fully supports" it.
  • Gayle Haggard (wife of Ted) believes the government "should provide equality under the law" for same-sex couples, and to that end supports civil unions.

None of these is without qualifiers and wiggle-room. But every one of them goes against some pretty widely held notions about the public figure involved. It behooves us to acknowledge what each of them has said. That simple courtesy is an important aspect of progress.

Throw the Gays in Jail!

OK. It doesn't come much clearer than this. Family Research Council's Peter Sprigg says homosexuals should be menaced with arrest and imprisonment. Transcript and video here. We must not let the public forget that this ugly reality-they want to make us criminals-is what lies behind these guys' insistence that they mean us no harm.

‘Raw Sex’ and Rev. Evans

There was no suspense at the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics hearing on Jan. 27, which concerned the proposed referendum on the recently passed marriage-equality bill. Two similar ballot measures were already tossed out by the Board and the Superior Court. My fellow defenders of equality and I were there to testify again that D.C. law bars measures that put people's rights up to a popular vote, but first we had to listen to dozens of anti-gay witnesses.

The referendum proponents' attorneys were preparing the ground for an eventual appearance before the Court of Appeals, but most of their acolytes were just venting. Their indignation did little to conceal the desperation of people out of arguments but unwilling to concede.

One witness warned, "These are the End Times," which made me wonder why she wasn't off preparing for the Rapture. Another offered some peculiar numerology. Several called out biblical references as if they were casting spells. But the day's highlight was by Rev. Anthony Evans, one of the leading opponents of D.C. marriage equality.

Evans demanded of the Board members, "Are you homosexual? Are any of your family members or friends homosexuals? Do you have any hatred in your heart towards the church? Do you have any hatred in your heart towards clergy? If you have answered yes to any of these questions, then you should excuse yourself from these proceedings..."

A few days later, Evans sent me a link to an open letter he had written criticizing NAACP chairman Julian Bond for supporting marriage equality. "For the NAACP to take up this cause is an abomination and an affront for all African Americans who died for human and civil rights." Purporting to speak for 99 percent of black clergy, Evans wrote, "You have ignored our voice and have the audacity to suggest that two men having sex with one another is a legitimate civil rights issue."

Have you ever seen someone walk down the street talking, and you thought he was on the phone but then realized he was just talking to himself? Evans's ranting letter reminds me of that. He copied it to several prominent ministers around the country, including TD Jakes and the president of the National Baptist Convention - a gesture that appeared designed to exaggerate the reach and influence of Evans and his so-called National Black Church Initiative.

Evans declared that the issue of gay equality is theological, ignoring our constitutional separation of church and state. He accused Bond of prostituting himself and the NAACP "for a contribution from the white, gay community." Evans simply ignores the prominent participation by African Americans in every aspect of D.C.'s marriage equality effort, from canvassers to witnesses at legislative hearings to affirming clergy. Those facts are inconvenient to his effort to sow divisions by race and class.

Evans claimed to love his gay brothers and sisters, but called us "a small minority with a selfish end," and said our relationships are all about "raw sex," echoing a witness at a hearing last October who held up a copy of the children's book King & King and called it a sex book. It is no more a sex book than Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella. The relentless effort to reduce gay people's love to sex illustrates the prejudice that we have had to overcome to reach this moment.

Evans wrote to Bond, "As you well know, we have more pressing issues to deal with such as education, health, the economy, unemployment, and foreclosure." But Evans is the one trying to divert churches' attention from those concerns in his obsession over gay sex.

Sunday morning, Evans told me via E-mail, "My word is the only word, Let the people vote!" So now he's a prophet. As Mark Levine, counsel for the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, pointed out at the hearing, the U.S. Constitution (Article IV, Section 4) specifies a republican form of government, not government by plebiscite. Evans can repeat his mantra all he likes, it will avail him nothing.

By demanding that the Board of Elections members establish their heterosexual credentials, Evans invited questions about his own. But never mind. Evans has displayed enough of himself already.