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In the wake of Ann Coulter's use of the word "faggot" to describe presidential candidate John Edwards, the basis of her original joke-however poorly received-was easily forgotten. She had claimed that those who use the slur have to go into rehab, a reference to the exploits of ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" star Isaiah Washington, who called one of his gay cast members the f-word last October on the set of the show.

Washington, immediately castigated by organizations like the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, apologized. But not long after, at the Golden Globe awards, Washington told reporters that the incident, "Never happened, never happened." Washington apologized again, and at the behest of his corporate overlords at ABC, said he would seek counseling to cure him of his homophobia.

Yet on March 2, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People gave Washington a coveted Image Award, annually doled out to people of color working in the entertainment industry.

On its own, Coulter's remark was not in poor taste. Imagine how much gays would be laughing if a drag queen had said it. But what was so damaging about Coulter's use of the word was that it validated, for conservative activists who make up the Republican Party base, the unapologetic ridicule and dehumanization of gay people. Coulter is a bestselling author and a popular speaker in Republican circles, no matter how much respectable conservatives may wish to disassociate themselves and the movement from her.

Similarly, the NAACP's decision to award a bigot such as Washington with an honor that has in the past been given to the likes of Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier and Oprah Winfrey sends the wrong message to a largely black audience, as it essentially validates the use of bigoted language.

But don't expect the national gay organizations-always loyal to the codes of political correctness-to issue some sort of disapproval of the NAACP. Unswerving loyalty to fellow progressive organizations is the sine qua non of gay rights activism today. On its web site, the NAACP describes the Image Awards as the "nation's premier event celebrating the outstanding achievements and performances of people of color in the arts as well as those individuals or groups who promote social justice." Awarding someone who calls a co-worker a "faggot," lies about it and then lamely checks himself into rehab is hardly the paragon of "social justice."

It should be noted that GLAAD issued a press release on Paris Hilton's use of the word "nigger," revealed in an amateur video (where all of the debutante's exploits seem to arise) shot several years ago. While the brainless, racist musings of the poor man's Anna Nicole Smith invoke the outrage of GLAAD, the homophobic (and thus, more pertinent for a gay organization) bigotry of a star on a highly rated network television show merits less outrage.

It is no secret that homophobia is especially prevalent among African-Americans. A 2003 study of 31 national surveys over an almost 30-year period found that, "Blacks appear to be more likely than Whites to both see homosexuality as wrong and to favor gay rights laws," which at first may appear paradoxical, but makes sense in light of the centuries-long legal discrimination that blacks faced in this country.

But support for gay civil rights does not negate the detrimental effect that attitudinal homophobia has on African-American society. Michael Paul Williams, a black columnist for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, noted last week that "if the Don't Ask, Don't Tell military remains a bastion of homophobia, the black community is no slouch in that department."

Imagine the outrage from black Americans if a white television star (irrespective of sexual orientation) called a black co-star a "nigger." The white actor's career would be ruined no matter how earnestly he processed himself through the public shaming ritual that our country has perfected, presided over by the likes of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

The NAACP's decision to recognize Washington with an award led the Hollywood gossip blog TMZ to speculate, "perhaps there's hope that Michael Richards will get a GLAAD Award" for infamously using the word "nigger" during his act of self-destruction at a comedy club last year.

The NAACP has a long and venerable history of fighting for equal rights under the law, exemplifying the historic change that can result from moral suasion. Honoring a bigot thus goes against everything for which the organization stands.

The gentleman stood up during a lull in the Q&A session, and I was grateful for anyone to break the silence. In recent years I'd become used to this routine: I'd go to a small liberal-arts college to speak on homosexuality. The students, who were increasingly pro-gay, would respond with "friendly fire" or genial shrugs. I'd wait for the opposition to speak up, often to no avail.

Then John spoke. "Since there seems to be a lull," he began, "I suppose that this might be as good a time as any for me to come out...as a religious conservative."

There were no audible gasps, but there was palpable silence. John identified himself as a faculty member in the music department. He spoke for several long minutes, describing himself as theologically conservative but socially and politically liberal, opposed to same-sex marriage within his church but supportive of civil marriage (and adoption) for gays, skeptical of reconciling biblical faith with homosexual relationships but open to arguments for doing so. He also lamented what he perceived as my hostility toward religious believers (some of it deserved, he admitted) and my too-easy dismissal of opponents.

When John finally sat down, I thanked him for his candor and then launched into what was probably an overly defensive clarification of my position. I could tell that neither of us was entirely satisfied by the exchange (the audience for their part seemed quietly fascinated by it). But our time was soon up and that was that.

Until the next day, when John e-mailed me to thank me for my visit. We corresponded for a bit, and then he invited me to get together for coffee when I returned to town for some additional talks the following week.

And so I did. I picked John up at his office in my rented Ford Crown Victoria ("My students are going to think I'm being interrogated by a federal agent," he quipped). I did not quite know what to expect. Thoughtful academic? Stealthy religious nutcase? I had been reading Sam Harris lately (The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation), and as a result I'd become increasingly dubious about "moderate" or "tolerant" religion. (Harris, an outspoken atheist, argues that liberal religion tends to sugarcoat the still-problematic belief in scriptural authority.)

But John defied simple categories, except one that we both shared: college professor. Our common academic training and temperament made it easy to spend several hours together, discussing a paper of mine I had sent him on homosexuality and the bible (he read it within a day, despite being swamped with midterms), analyzing political rhetoric on various sides of the debate, and delving into deeper epistemological questions (What is the proper relationship between faith and reason?). It was a delightful and productive afternoon.

Later that day, John and his wife Sarah invited me to dinner at their home. His wife, I now knew, worked for Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, an organization that used to provide me with regular opposition during the early days of my campus speaking. This fact made me slightly apprehensive. But I was delighted by the opportunity to eat somewhere other than the Applebee's next to my hotel, and pleased to spend more time with John and to meet Sarah, so I accepted.

As we chatted over appetizers, Sarah asked me about my life, my family, my work, and my relationship with my partner Mark. At one point I mentioned that Mark and I would be going to Mexico in April for his sister's wedding. We were anxious about it, I explained, since Mark's parents generally refuse to be in the same room with me (they refer to me, not by name, but as "that man"--the one who corrupted their son). Sarah and John seemed genuinely sympathetic.

Then came dinner--a hearty yet delightfully simple meal of soup, salad, and bread. As we sat down, Sarah asked if she could say grace. I nodded and politely folded my hands and bowed my head (what else should polite atheists do during grace? Read the newspaper?). She invoked many blessings, but the one that stuck out most for me was the following:

"Bless John, whom we are delighted to have as our guest. Bless John and Mark, and their relationship. And in particular, bless the family gathering in April..."

I am not a Christian, and I don't believe that one needs to be religious to show warmth and hospitality. But that day kindness came with a Christian flavor, and I was deeply touched by it.

Article I of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights begins, "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." The United States was not just a party to its adoption in 1948; the key force behind its creation was Eleanor Roosevelt. While sexual orientation is not a protected category, the U.S. State Department since 1991 has included gay rights abuses and advances in its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, tracking the status of internationally recognized human rights.

The reports for 2006, released on March 6, 2007, reflect a dramatic improvement in LGBT- and HIV-related information gathering. In the reports for 2005, I found relevant items under 105 countries. For 2006, the number has risen to 142 countries. You can view my extracts online at http://www.glaa.org/archive/2007/CountryReports2006.shtml .

Here are some highlights, organized in three broad groupings.

Negative:

• In many countries, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) reported HIV/AIDS in prisons.

• In Cambodia, "Trafficking victims, especially those trafficked for sexual exploitation, faced the risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS."

• In Cameroon, "false allegations of homosexuality were used to harass enemies or to extort money."

• In Central African Republic, "An estimated 110,000 children have lost one or both parents to HIV/AIDS, and children accused of sorcery ... were often expelled from their households."

• In China, HIV/AIDS activist Hu Jia "was detained and held incommunicado for 41 days." His attorney was similarly detained.

• In Egypt, "The government ... has occasionally used emergency courts to prosecute homosexuals ...."

• In El Salvador, "There were no developments regarding the Governance Ministry's 2005 denial of legal status to En Nombre de la Rosa, a homosexual and transvestite advocacy NGO," and no developments in investigations into the 2004 killings of two transvestites.

• In Guinea, "An international NGO reported the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS among incarcerated minor boys to be as high as 50 percent, suggesting sexual abuse."

• In Iraq, "There were several reported examples of juveniles sentenced to up to 10 years in jail for having engaged in same-sex sexual relations."

• In Jamaica, the gay rights group J-FLAG reported "police harassment, arbitrary detention, mob attacks, stabbings, harassment of homosexual patients by hospital and prison staff, and targeted shootings of homosexuals."

• In Kuwait, "police raided a party where homosexuals were allegedly celebrating a wedding," and a law was approved "to impose a fine of $3,450 and/or one year's imprisonment for those imitating the opposite sex."

• In Rwanda, "Due to the genocide and deaths from HIV/AIDS, there were numerous households headed by children, some of whom resorted to prostitution to survive."

• In Tanzania, a Muslim NGO "blocked a local restaurant's planned celebration of Freddie Mercury's birthday because the Zanzibar-born rock star was gay."

• In Zimbabwe, members of Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe were once again expelled from a book fair and their literature seized by unidentified men while police watched.

• Permits for gay events were denied by officials in Ghana, Latvia, Moldova, and Russia. Police in Estonia failed to protect gay rights marchers.

Positive:

• In Brazil, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation, "The Secretariat of State Security in Rio de Janeiro State in partnership with NGOs operated a hot line and offered professional counseling services to victims of antihomosexual crimes."

• In Bulgaria, the gay rights group Gemini won three gay-related discrimination cases.

• In the Czech Republic, "parliament passed registered domestic partnership legislation."

• In Israel, "the High Court issued a ruling requiring the government to recognize same-sex marriages legally performed in foreign jurisdictions."

• In Mexico, Mexico City passed a civil unions bill.

• In Mozambique, "a major newspaper published, for the first time, an article arguing in favor of homosexual rights."

• In Singapore, "the government approved a gay and lesbian festival that included movie showings, book signings, and theater performances."

• South Africa legalized same-sex marriage.

Mixed:

• In Burma, despite widespread human rights abuses including anti-gay discrimination, "homosexuals had a certain degree of protection through societal traditions. Transgender performers commonly provided entertainment at traditional observances."

• In Germany, "authorities in Baden‑Wuerttemberg required residents seeking naturalization to complete a questionnaire concerning their political and moral beliefs and their adherence to the constitution. ... Critics viewed the questionnaire, which included questions on attitudes toward women's and gay rights ... as discriminating against Muslim immigrants."

• In Romania, a gay pride parade "was marred by violent physical and verbal attacks by onlookers" who "hurled bottles, food, and buckets of water" and were egged on by Orthodox priests and seminarians. On the other hand, "police were reportedly alerted in advance to the planned attacks and dispatched a highly organized force to protect the marchers."

• In Saudi Arabia, while sodomy is punishable by death or flogging, there was regular discussion in the media of homosexuality (previously taboo), and a case was dismissed against a journalist charged with promoting homosexuality for suggesting that homosexuality has a genetic cause.

• In Sweden, "The government allocated extra funding to combat honor-related violence [by Muslim immigrants] against young women and men (including homosexuals)."

As I searched through the immense document for the LGBT- and HIV-related portions, it was hard not to be overwhelmed by all the brutality and inhumanity; but gradually I became inspired by the realization that LGBT people are organizing everywhere from Mali to Fiji. Great things grow from small seeds.

It is amazing how well the General Peter Pace episode turned out. The underlying homophobia of the military's gay ban was fully exposed, prominent politicians challenged the nation's highest military officer, and for the first time leading presidential contenders openly stated that homosexuality was not immoral. It was a breakthrough moment.

Recall that Gen. Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Chicago Tribune, "I believe homosexual acts between two individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts. I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way. As an individual, I would not want it to be our policy, just like I would not want it to be our policy that if we were to find out that so-and-so was sleeping with somebody else's wife, that we would just look the other way, which we do not. We prosecute that kind of immoral behavior."

Since he offered no other reason for the policy, the Tribune not unreasonably wrote that Pace supported the gay ban because he thought homosexuality was immoral.

When Pace was attacked by gay groups for his comments and learned of the strong disagreement by Republican Sen. John Warner of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Pace expressed "regret," said he was stating his personal moral views, and offered no apology. He further claimed that the military gay ban "does not make a judgment about the morality of individual acts." But of course it does. Why else may heterosexuals talk about their sexuality but homosexuals not do so?

Furthermore, Pace again offered no rationale for the policy--none of this absurd pretense about maintaining discipline or unit cohesion or a fear of showers.

Pace's comparison of gays with adulterers does not even survive casual examination. Pace said, "Military members who sleep with other military members' wives are immoral in their conduct." But the compoarison is too broad because a single gay serviceman might have sex with another single serviceman of the same rank. No marriage is violated, no third party is harmed. Or a gay serviceman might have sex with someone outside the military. The military does not prosecute servicemen who have sex with civilian women.

And Pace's argument is too narrow because there is a great deal of "immorality" that the military tolerates. Many conservative Christians regard abortion, even birth control as immoral, but does the military punish people who use birth control? Some religions view any oral and anal sex as immoral. But does the military prosecute men for giving or receiving oral sex by a woman? And if not, what exactly is the difference between oral sex performed on a man by a man or by a woman.

This shows once again that when many otherwise intelligent people try to talk about homosexuality it overloads their mental circuits and blocks their ability to think clearly. They lose their ability to analyze their own arguments and say all kinds of illogical nonsense.

It would take a whole separate column to follow the adventures of Senators Clinton and Obama through the political thickets of responding to Pace's comments. Asked on ABC News about Pace's view of homosexual immorality, Clinton's ambiguous response, "Well, I'm going to leave that to others to conclude," was no profile in courage. Obama was no better: Newsday reported that he declined on three separate occasions to respond at all.

Later a Clinton spokesman said she "obviously" disagreed with Pace. No, it wasn't obvious. The next night her campaign tried again, quoting Clinton as saying, "I disagree with what he said and do not share his view, plain and simple." Later still, associating herself with Republican Sen. Warner, she finally stated through a spokesperson that she did not believe homosexuality is immoral. Obama too through a spokesman later said he did not think homosexuality is immoral.

These were important breakthroughs. Anyone who remembers how politicians kowtowed to Gen. Colin Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during the 1993 controversy over ending the military's ban on gays cannot help but be gratified by the current willingness of politicians to stand up to the head of the military.

And it is an important breakthrough that a prominent Republican senator and two of the leading Democratic contenders for the Presidency are willing to say that homosexuality is not immoral. Many people take their bearings from what prominent public figures say, so it is enormously encouraging that a few of the most important public figures are finally willing to speak out about our moral legitimacy. Our job is to increase their number.

Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts and a 2008 Republican presidential candidate, is a thoughtful politician, for a politician. So it was not surprising to find him recently debating one of the country's core conundrums. It was a little surprising, though, to find him debating himself.

Romney believes abortion is wrong, but he thinks the decision on whether to allow it should be left to the states. In February, National Journal asked him if he favored a constitutional amendment banning abortion. No, he replied:

What I've indicated is that I am pro-life and that my hope is that the Supreme Court will give to the states … their own ability to make their own decisions with regard to their own abortion law … My view is not to impose a single federal rule on the entire nation, a one-size fits all approach, but instead allow states to make their own decisions in this regard.

Romney also believes gay marriage is wrong, but he thinks the decision on whether to allow it should not be left to the states. Last year, he poured scorn on Senator John McCain, who (like Romney) opposes gay marriage, but who (unlike Romney) opposes a U.S. constitutional amendment banning it. "Look," Romney said, "if somebody says they're in favor of gay marriage, I respect that view. If someone says-like I do-that I oppose same-sex marriage, I respect that view. But those who try and pretend to have it both ways, I find it to be disingenuous."

Taking the two quotations side by side, one could be excused for supposing Romney was trying to have it both ways. However, in fairness to him, now is not the first time Republicans have argued with themselves over moral federalism-or, what may be a better term, moral pluralism: leaving states free to go their separate ways when a national moral consensus is lacking.

In 1973, when the Supreme Court (in Roe v. Wade) declared abortion to be a constitutional right, conservatives were outraged. But what to do? Republicans were divided. Abortion opponents wanted the practice banned by a constitutional amendment, and supporters of Ronald Reagan soon took up the cause. Reagan, of course, was preparing a conservative primary challenge to the politically vulnerable and ideologically moderate Republican president, Gerald Ford-and Ford was in a bind, because his wife, Betty, had already endorsed Roe ("a great, great decision").

Ford's response was also to call for a constitutional amendment-but one that would return authority over abortion to the states, not impose a federal ban. In the end, Ford won the presidential nomination but lost the struggle within his party: The 1976 Republican platform called for "enactment of a constitutional amendment to restore protection of the right to life for unborn children."

The more things change, the more they stay the same: In this decade, Vice President Cheney-a Ford administration alumnus, as it happens-has called for the gay-marriage issue to be left to the states. But his party's cultural right has insisted on a national ban: not one gay marriage on U.S. soil! When President Bush sided with the right, he effectively cast the deciding vote, and moral pluralism lost.

Who was right, Cheney or Bush? Ford or Reagan? Romney or Romney? A priori, the answer isn't obvious, but the country has recently run, in effect, a laboratory experiment. On abortion, it went with a uniform national rule. On gay marriage, it has gone the other way.

Abortion started in the state legislatures, where it was sometimes contentious but hardly the stuff of a nationwide culture war. Neither party's national political platform had an abortion plank until 1976. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, some liberal-minded states began easing restrictive abortion laws. When the Supreme Court nationalized the issue, in 1973, it short-circuited a debate that was only just getting started.

By doing that, it moved abortion out of the realm of normal politics, which cuts deals and develops consensus, and into the realm of protest politics, which rejects compromise and fosters radicalism. Outraged abortion opponents mobilized; alarmed abortion-rights advocates countermobilized; the political parties migrated to extreme positions and entrenched themselves there; the Supreme Court became a punching bag; and abortion became an indigestible mass in the pit of the country's political stomach.

Gay marriage started out looking similarly intractable and inflammable. As with abortion, a few liberal states began breaking with tradition, thereby initiating a broader moral debate; and, as with abortion, purists on both extremes denounced the middle as unsustainable or intolerable, saying that gay marriage (like abortion) must be illegal (or legal) everywhere in order to be effectively illegal (or legal) anywhere. The purists got help when two important actors preemptively rejected compromise. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered same-sex marriage in 2003, and then refused even to consider civil unions. That decision provoked President Bush's equally provocative endorsement of a constitutional ban on gay marriage. The battle lines appeared to have been drawn for a national culture war, waged by extremes of left and right over the heads of a marginalized center.

But the political system, and the public, refused to be hustled. Congress rejected a federal constitutional ban. The federal courts stayed out of the argument (and Bush's appointment of two conservative Supreme Court justices who look favorably on states' rights probably ensures that the Court will keep its distance). With the federal government standing aside, the states got busy. All but a handful passed bans on gay marriage. Several adopted civil unions instead of gay marriage. One, Massachusetts, is tussling over efforts to revoke gay marriage.

The result is a diversity of practice that mirrors the diversity of opinion. And gay marriage, not incidentally, is moving out of the realm of protest politics and into the realm of normal politics; in the 2006 elections, the issue was distinctly less inflammatory than two years earlier. It is also moving out of the courts. According to Carrie Evans, the state legislative director of the Human Rights Campaign (a gay-rights organization), most gay-marriage litigation has already passed through the judicial pipeline; only four states have cases under way, and few other plausible venues remain. "It's all going to shift to the state legislatures," she says. "The state and national groups will have to go there."

Barring the unexpected, then, same-sex marriage began in the courts and will wind up in the state legislatures and on state ballots: the abortion tape run backward. The issue will remain controversial, producing its share of flare-ups and fireworks; but it will become more tractable over time, as the country works its way toward a consensus. As a political issue, gay marriage will be around for years, but as a catalyst for culture war, it has already peaked.

Although I bow to no one in my support for gay marriage-society needs more marriages, not fewer, and gay couples need the protections and obligations of marriage, and gay individuals need the hope and promise of marriage-the last few years have provided a potent demonstration of the power of moral pluralism to act as a political shock absorber. Even moral absolutists-people who believe gay marriage is a basic human right or, for that matter, people who believe abortion is murder-should grudgingly support pluralism, because it makes the world safe for their moral activism by keeping the cultural peace. Someone should tell Mitt Romney. Maybe Mitt Romney could tell him.

I was in the Burger King by the World Trade Center site when the wall of televisions turned to CNN flashed the news that General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had declared that "homosexual acts between two people are immoral." That's what he believed because that's how he was raised, he said.

The restaurant wasn't crowded, but it was full. People stood up and walked from their seats to stair at the TV and listen. Not just me, a lesbian. Not just the small pack of young gay men in a corner. But a white woman cradling a baby, who leaned back against her husband. A trio of older black women. An aging Chinese man and his wife and a younger woman, maybe their daughter. A couple of men who were speaking some sort of Slavic language, maybe Czech.

They gathered close so that they could hear, because even though it was a story below us and across the street, the WTC site is noisy, spidered with large machines gunning their engines and making reverberating grinds and groans as they dug and flattened and moved the sacred earth.

They were strangely solemn, the ones that gathered there. I watched them, watching. The stood with their arms crossed, silent. CNN could have been announcing a disaster somewhere. That was the tenor of the crowd.

The fall of the Twin Towers is still very present in New York. It is not a faded photograph, but a lived memory. Those of us who live or work in Lower Manhattan, as I do, walk by the site as a matter of course, as we come up from the subway, or go shopping at the discount department store Century 21. Even New Yorkers who don't go downtown much hear something WTC-related almost daily on the news, from first responder health issues, to bickering over the proposed memorial, to new remains found.

New Yorkers don't feel one way about anything, of course. There are 8.2 million of us.

But the one thing that affects every one of us is the missing World Trade Center. Its absence is present, all the time.

And one thing that most New Yorkers seem to understand is that those men and women are fighting for us, because of what happened here at this ground that is now a construction site. We might disagree on whether they should be in Iraq at all, but we all can agree that 9/11 was certainly the catalyst.

We watched General Pace-who was himself born in Brooklyn-compare homosexuality to adultery. And then we watched as another Marine, Eric Alva, one of the first wounded in the Iraq War, a man who recently came out as gay, we watched him thoughtfully tear down Don't Ask, Don't Tell. It's bad policy, he said. It hurts unit cohesion because you can't be honest with the people who are supposed to care for your life like your own.

"He's got it right," one of the women watching, said. This is an instance, I think, of America being ahead of our policy makers. Don't Ask, Don't Tell is a dinosaur. People on the ground in the military know it. Americans watching the military desperately trying to meet recruiting goals know it. The media knows it, which is why the Chicago Tribune asked Pace about Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the first place. Even the men who crafted the policy know it.

The only person who doesn't seem to know it is General Pace. His argument, that gay acts are immoral, doesn't even make sense in this context. Soldiers aren't allowed to "fraternize" with each other already-there are military laws against that sort of thing. So we're not talking about homosexual acts of any kind. What we are talking about is homosexual people-and Pace already thinks that homosexual people should be allowed to serve. That's why he supports Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

Pace also says that the military shouldn't look the other way when faced with immoral acts. But, uh, if the military thinks that homosexuals themselves are immoral, than that's exactly what Don't Ask, Don't Tell does-looks the other way and pretends that they're not there.

Back at the Burger King, various CNN experts were weighing in on Don't Ask, Don't Tell, accompanied by video of our soldiers in the Middle East.

The man with the wife and child gestured out the window, his voiced raised slightly. "It's not fair," he said. "Those gay soldiers are fighting for us, for this." He glanced toward the World Trade Center. His wife nodded. If General Pace had been there, I wonder if he would have nodded, too.

I have a confession to make: I compulsively watch Ann Coulter whenever I happen to catch her on TV. She's like watching a movie in which you know there will be a disaster but you aren't sure how and when it will come about. You stick around for the climax.

Coulter climaxed in early March at an annual convention of conservative activists, where she said: "I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot,' so I [pause for audience reaction] -- so kind of an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards."

She later defended her use of what she conceded was a "sophomoric" word by saying it was a "school-yard taunt" meant not to imply that Edwards was homosexual but that he was "lame" and a "wuss." It was also a reference to a recent incident in which TV star Isaiah Washington referred to a co-star as a "faggot." When the incident became public, Washington went into counseling. Coulter cracked that she would never insult gays by comparing them to Edwards.

Was Coulter's use of the word objectionable? Of course it was. The word is a school-yard taunt, as Coulter said. It's been hurled at many gay (and straight) youths as they grow up, to great and painful effect. But how exactly does this fact cleanse her use of it? It works as a taunt precisely because of its association with homosexuality, and because of the implication that male homosexuals are, as Coulter might have it, lame wusses.

Coulter may not be personally anti-gay in the sense of being uncomfortable around gay people. But it's possible to use stereotypes and hate for personal or political gain without actually being personally hateful, and she's to be condemned for that. I don't expect much better from Coulter, whom a straight right-wing friend described to me as having intellectual Tourette's.

Much more interesting was the reaction. From the videotape, the audience appears to have reacted with a mix of surprise, bewilderment, disapproval, murmuring, laughter, and finally applause. You can see from Coulter's face that she herself was a bit taken aback by the fact that the reaction was not universal mirth.

All three of the major Republican presidential candidates somewhat perfunctorily denounced Coulter. Mitt Romney has noticeably adopted President Bush's mantra about homosexuals, affirming blandly that all persons are entitled to be treated with "dignity and respect." Reaction from the conservative blogosphere was, in varying degrees and with varying qualifications, censorious.

Still, why did anyone laugh at or applaud the remark? It wasn't even mildly humorous, either as a reference to the Washington incident, as an anti-gay joke, or as a slap at Edwards.

When I was in college and law school, young conservatives like me adopted a highly adversarial and theatrical persona when it came to politics. This persona was formed and honed in debating societies. We would say the most outlandish things, defend the most extreme propositions, to amuse each other and to annoy and shock liberals on campus. It was and is, especially on campuses dominated by liberal faculties and students -- which is to say most colleges and law schools -- the transgressive and nonconformist thing to do.

It was entertaining and fun, and we understood that we didn't really believe most of the things we were saying in quite the way we said them. The world was, in our rhetoric, one of absolute certainties, black and white, right and wrong, patriot and traitor, admitting no doubt. Anyone who did not hold forth in this stylized fashion was a "squish." It was the conservative version of political theater, fueled by the kind of self confidence you get after a couple of gin-and-tonics.

Back in college, a conservative friend once saw a book about the Inquisition on my desk, then looked at me and quipped, "Pro or con?"

We would debate topics like, "Resolved: The Government Should Surrender in the War on Poverty," and "Resolved: The Public Schools Should Be Padlocked, Not Reformed."

It didn't do any real harm and actually goaded complacent campuses into political discussion. But most of us grew up, got jobs, lived in the real world where much is squishy, and dropped the bravado if not the conservative politics.

Most of us weren't at the forefront of gay rights, but I never heard anyone call another person "faggot." A surprisingly large number of us turned out to be gay.

A big part of the audience that laughed at and applauded Coulter also comes from that milieu. There were a lot of young male conservatives present who are still in college or are fresh from it. They were laughing and clapping, not necessarily because they hate gays or like cheap name-calling (though I'm sure some of them do), but because they revel in this form of rebellion. They can't admit to consuming pornography, or to smoking dope, or to looking at other guys in the gym, but they can applaud things that rightly appall responsible people. There's no excuse for it in this instance, but at least most of them will grow out of it.

Coulter, an aging conservative frat boy, a right-wing minstrel, keeps it up because it gets her money and attention. The less we give her of both the better off we'll all be.