IGF CultureWatch

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.

A few weeks ago I was in Ripon, Wisconsin, for a same-sex marriage debate with Glenn Stanton of Focus on the Family, when the Ted Haggard story broke. Haggard, then president of the National Association of Evangelicals and pastor of the massive New Life Church in Colorado Springs, was being accused by former Denver prostitute Ted Jones of having regular drug-fueled gay trysts with Jones over a period of several years.

"So, do you think there's anything to this?" I asked Stanton, who told me that Haggard was not only his pastor but also a friend.

"No way," he replied. (At the time no tapes had yet been released, and Haggard was denying the story.) "It's just incongruous. John, it would be like finding out that you secretly have a wife and family in the suburbs. No."

(Betty, if you're reading this, be sure to get Timmy a haircut before his little-league game this weekend, and give Mary Jane a kiss from Daddy.)

Kidding aside, my reaction to the story's unfolding was marked more by sadness than schadenfreude. I could see the shock on my friend and opponent Glenn Stanton's face the next day, as further revelations made it increasingly clear that Haggard was pretty much guilty as charged. I was sad for Haggard, sad for his family, and sad for all the people he had mislead.

But he deserved his downfall, didn't he? Certainly. Here was a leader in a movement that actively fights gay rights. Haggard openly proclaimed that the Bible tells us everything we need to know about homosexuality -- namely, that it's just plain wrong. And as president of the National Association of Evangelicals, he helped to spread this view far and wide--apparently carrying on an affair with a male prostitute all the while.

So I wasn't surprised that many relished his fall from grace. A few days after returning from my trip I ran into a friend who, upon my mentioning Haggard's name, gleefully started dancing and singing "Another one bites the dust…" Schadenfreude--taking pleasure at the misfortune of others--is a natural human tendency, especially when those others are royal hypocrites. And it's not just schadenfreude, it's relief: one less person will be out there spreading lies about gays (though others will doubtless take his place).

Haggard is Exhibit N in a recent line of examples of the dangers of the closet. Some of them are Republicans, some Democrats; some are religious leaders, some not. While their stories differ in detail, they all highlight a major pitfall of trying to fight one's gayness, rather than embracing it openly.

I am of course not saying that when heterosexually married people act on homosexual desires, it automatically proves that they ought to have been doing so all along. Whether they ought to have been doing so depends, crucially, their own predominant sexual orientation, as well as on the moral status of homosexual conduct.

Nor am I saying, "If you don't let us be gay, then we will become lying, cheating, predatory assholes." I am saying that a world that doesn't provide healthy avenues for gay people to pursue intimacy should not be terribly surprised when some turn to unhealthy ones. Barney Frank put it well in a Newsweek interview regarding the Mark Foley scandal: "Being in the closet doesn't make you do dumb things, doesn't justify you doing dumb things, it just makes them likelier."

Of course, there are non-closeted people who (like Haggard and former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey) commit adultery or (like Foley) chase after sixteen-year-old employees. But it doesn't follow that the closet is not a contributing factor, any more than non-smokers with cancer disprove that smoking increases cancer risk. It's common sense, really: double lives are a recipe for danger. There are other recipes, to be sure, but this one's pretty reliable.

Partly this is because the closet demands, not just a lie, but an entire pattern of lies, which in turn make deception easier in other areas of life. Partly it's because this pattern is emotionally and spiritually draining. And partly it's because deception poisons relationships, cutting one off from the friends who could otherwise monitor one's behavior, offering support, guidance, and an occasional good smack upside the head when needed.

Haggard's much-needed smack did not come from his friends: it came from a public scandal. In response, he plans to begin a lengthy process of "spiritual restoration," which begins with owning up to one's sins. And that saddens me too--not because I'm against his (or anyone's) acknowledging fault, but because there's good reason to believe that Haggard and his advisers will miss the key ones. Homosexuality is not a sin. Making the world needlessly more difficult for gay and lesbian people surely is.

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?