IGF CultureWatch

I've thought since about the summer of 2005 that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney - smart, articulate, telegenic -- had the best chance to be the Republican nominee for president in 2008. While his Mormon faith will turn off some Christian conservatives, he's the only social conservative with a decent chance to win. And while Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) will be a real challenge, McCain has a way of getting testy and saying things that get him into trouble. Before Romney is crowned, however, he needs to answer more questions about his position on gay civil rights.

As someone who knows grassroots Republican politics from some experience, I've been amused at the media's coverage of the race for the party's 2008 presidential nomination. The idea, for example, that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has any chance of getting the nomination is laughable. Yes, he was mayor when 9/11 happened and didn't start screaming hysterically (though what his credentials are for "leadership" beyond this have always eluded me). Yes, he's the Republican lots of Democrats could vote for. Yes, the mainstream media seem to like him.

Believe it or not, CBS News is not going to pick the GOP nominee. The nominee will be chosen by a disciplined and hard-working core of religious conservatives for whom two issues matter more than anything else. Those issues are abortion and gay rights. Giuliani is for both; the party's primary electorate is vehemently against both. End of candidacy.

Just a decade ago, Mitt Romney also favored abortion and gay rights. He was one of those Republicans that Log Cabin used to tout as a model. In a 1994 Senate race debate, Romney even argued he'd be a better advocate for gays than would Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.). As governor of Massachusetts, Romney hired openly gay people to serve in his administration and on state commissions. He supported the state's law protecting gays from discrimination.

Then came the Massachusetts high court decision in 2003 ordering the state to recognize gay marriages. It would have been one thing for Romney to oppose such an important decision being made by judges. But Romney went much further.

Already thinking about running for president and thus about the Republican electorate he'd have to face, he came out swinging in full traditional-values mode. He not only supported a state constitutional amendment reversing the decision but favored a ban on civil unions. Unlike McCain, Romney supports a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. It's not clear that he supports any kind of legal protection or standing for gay families. It's his signature issue with religious conservatives.

At the same time, Romney's reversed himself on civil rights laws for gays. He now opposes laws that forbid employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

How does he square the old Romney - left-of-Kennedy gay-equality champion - with the new Romney - traditional-values guru?

In a recent interview with National Journal, Romney was asked to explain his shift on gay issues. His answers deserve a close look, both for what they say about him and for areas that need to be further explored.

Here is his current view on laws forbidding anti-gay employment discrimination:

I do not support creating a special law or a special status. I've learned through my experience over the last decade that when you single out a particular population group for special status, it opens the door to a whole series of lawsuits, many of them frivolous and very burdensome to our employment community, and so I do not favor a specific law of that nature. What I do favor is people doing what I did [as Massachusetts governor], or what I tried to do, and not discriminate against people who are gay.

So he opposes discrimination but not a law forbidding it. There is nothing necessarily inconsistent in this. There are many people who believe homosexuality is unrelated to job performance but who question the wisdom of antidiscrimination laws. They do so on the grounds that such laws invite not just meritorious claims but also false and strategic ones. That's costly to business and thus to the economy, and thus to all of us.

Now, there are two fair lines of questioning in response to Romney's stated position.

First, is it sincere? Or is it cover for bigotry or for a politics-driven conclusion? I don't get the sense that he's a committed bigot, but it might be unprincipled opportunism on his part. He might be opposing gay civil rights laws because he knows this is what the Republican primary electorate will demand. That's not exactly bigotry, but it's soft-on-bigotry. It would not augur well for a President Romney.

So, let's hear an answer: Does he oppose laws that forbid discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, disability, age, etc.? These laws can also be abused and thus be costly to us all. If he doesn't oppose them, and I'd guess he doesn't, he should explain why he draws the line at protecting gays from discrimination.

Second, if he's sincere about his reason for opposing laws that protect gays from discrimination, what is his evidence for the harm they cause? He was governor of a state that has long had such a law. What is the "experience" that led to his change of heart? Where available, anti-gay discrimination claims are such a small part of discrimination claims overall that it's hard to believe they've been very burdensome in relation to the rest. Perhaps Massachusetts has attracted unusually litigious homosexual employees. I don't know.

What about it, Governor?

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.

I've been watching with interest the uproar around the (now pulled) Snickers ad that appeared during the Super Bowl.

You know the one: two men are in a garage; one guy, who is hungry, I guess, from slaving over a car engine, pulls out a Snicker's bar and starts eating; the other, looking at it lustfully, starts chomping from the other end, until they end up in a liplock worthy of Lady and the Tramp.

After a brief-but endless-pause, they jump away from each other, and one yells, "Quick! Do something manly."

So they each rip out patches of their own chest hair.

Gays and lesbians-led by our tigers at GLAAD-weren't pleased by this ad. Nor were folks on the Right, who protested because they found it homoerotic.

Honestly? I found the ad funny.

I mean, not funny in a laugh-out-loud kind of way, but funny-cute. And funny-sexy. And funny-interesting. It was something that caught one's attention, which is the point, really, of ads.

But most people just found it uncomfortable and not funny at all.

Which is telling.

To me, the Snicker's ad was not making fun of gay men as much as it was making fun of homosexual panic, that strange mental condition that forces otherwise sane, rational men into making fools of themselves in order to prove that, really, they're not gay!

"Those silly men!" the ad exclaims. They're so cuckoo that they'll mutilate themselves--or drink engine oil, as they do in an alternate ending-in order to avoid the appearance of enjoying the lips of another man. But we're not fooled, because that second of lust, of erotic interchange, seemed so real, that we know they're trying to blind themselves to the obvious. After all, they don't wipe their mouths. They don't spit. They don't even look disgusted, or shamed---just shocked.

So maybe they're not gay. But for that one moment, each of them sure was turned on by another guy. And we were turned on by them being turned on-which is why anti-gay groups had a problem with the ad.

So why did gays and lesbians have a problem? Hmmmm.

Well, sometimes, I think that we gay and lesbian people can be a little-shall we say-defensive. As soon as something seems kind-of-gay, or sort-of-lesbian, our antenna go up. We watch more closely. We look for others' reactions. We wonder: What should I think about this? What is this saying? Is this good for our community, or is it bad? Is this pro gay or against? How will it affect how the culture sees us? How is it playing in Peoria?

We have good reasons to think this way. Our American culture can be homophobic, as we all know. And that homophobia can turn to violence and discrimination, which are the twin devils we are really concerned about when we splatter the H word around in the media. Here, though, that sensitivity is misplaced.

The real problem with the ad was not the ad itself, but the Snicker's website, which for a while showed videos of famous football players watching the ad and wincing when the men kissed. In some ways, of course, these clips just reinforced the ad's point-straight men are pansies when they see men kissing. They can't handle it, it makes them act stupid and immature, and that's a crazy and strange reaction.

But what those added materials really did was completely subvert-that is, turn around-the ad.

The ad by itself? Actually pretty gay positive.

The ad with the additions of squinch-nosed football players? Clearly not gay positive at all.

This makes me think that the ad in itself was gay positive enough-and uncomfortable enough-and ambiguous enough-that someone at Snickers thought that we ought to be told how to feel about the ad. Because otherwise we might find it homoerotic.

So they put in these clips of football players-real manly men, as we all know-making disgusted faces. That way, it would all be clear. Snickers wasn't for men kissing! Snickers thinks that men kissing is goopy! Blech!

I wish that Snickers would have pulled the video clips of the football players and kept the ads. The clips told us what to think. But the ads spark an important discussion. And we should have let that discussion happen.

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.