Frontlash

Religious and social conservatives generally present themselves as vigorous opponents of homosexual sex, gay visibility, gay equality and "the gay identity."

They attack the political left for encouraging gays to become more visible and providing an incentive to adopt a "gay identity" by passing gay non-discrimination legislation, supporting gay marriage and creating "special protections" for gays that create a safer space for them to come out of the closet and promote their own equality.

Yet one of the ironies of politics is that the Law of Unintended Consequences means that people's efforts often have results directly contrary to their goals. In this instance, religious and social conservatives turn out to be among the primary generators and firmest support of gay visibility and "gay identity."

Here's why.

Christian churches for centuries have condemned, persecuted and promoted hatred of homosexuals. This meant that homosexuals had to disguise their fundamental erotic and emotional nature from church, state, neighbors, and blackmailers, evade detection and prejudice, yet contrive somehow to find partners who shared their desires. So instead of being just another moderately interesting minority attribute, a person's homosexuality became a very significant part of his or her life and self-concept.

In the same way current attacks on gays and gay equality by religious or political leaders are an affront to every gay person's sense of his own dignity and self-worth. And eventually they make most gays realize that their homosexuality is an important part of their lives, induce closeted gays to come out and make gays who were not politically involved become more assertive.

Social conservatives still haven't quite grasped after more than 40 years of gay liberation that gays are not going back into the closet, abandon their dignity and self-esteem, or succumb to political suppression or religious calumny. The more they attack gays, the more they increase our visible numbers.

Some empirical evidence for this is provided in a new study by researcher Gary Gates of the UCLA Law School's Williams Institute based on data from the Census Bureau's 2005 American Community Survey sample of 1.4 million Americans.

The survey found that 30 percent more gay and lesbian couples identified themselves to the Census Bureau in 2005 than in 2000: 594,000 in 2000, and an estimatd 777,000 in 2005, a remarkable increase. Gates allows the possibility that more gays are forming committed same-sex relationships, but says that even if so, it hardly explains such an increase.

Gates says a more likely explanation is a greater willingness of existing same-sex couples in 2005 to acknowledge their relationship-and thus their sexual orientation-to the Census Bureau.

Even more significant for our purpose is the fact that states which have or had in 2004 and 2006 battles over Constitutional amendments to prohibit gay marriage had greater than average percentage increases in gay couples. Arizona, Colorado, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Wisconsin, Ohio, Missouri all had increases above the national average. Wisconsin showed a stunning 81 percent increase in the number of acknowledged same-sex couples.

People can get used to a certain level of discrimination, but the breaking point seems to be when someone tries to take away something people already have-as the state constitutional bans of gay marriage do. It is not true that they change nothing: They remove the possibility of electing sympathetic officials and lobbying the legislature for the right to marry. In other words, they make it much harder to achieve one of our ultimate goals-as they are intended to. That plus the indignity of having their relationships designated as not equal to heterosexual relationships made a lot of people angry enough to stand up and acknowledge themselves.

I am far from asserting that the more gays are attacked, the better it is. Obviously verbal and political attacks can fuel hostility and even promote hate crimes. In politics, however, any attack can produce a counter-reaction, and that reaction may turn out to be more significant in the long run.

If in virtue of being attacked and insulted more gays come out, then more people will get to know gays, more skeptics will gradually decide that we are decent people who should be treated equally, and little by little prejudice will be chipped away.

Spooked by Gay Republicans

Don't look now, but there are gays and lesbians in the GOP.

That's right, friends. Gay men and lesbians not only vote Republican, they work for Republicans, too.

Spooky, huh?

I know. Not really. We've known that for a while. We ourselves know that gays and lesbians are a diverse people. We don't all look alike, talk alike, think alike. We have different perspectives, different priorities, make different choices. That's all good. Being gay and lesbian doesn't define everything about who we are.

And yet it seems that certain types of Republican voters are, in fact, spooked.

I guess they haven't been paying attention on Pride, when we march down the streets of American cities, chanting things like, "We're here, we're queer," and carrying signs that say, "We are everywhere."

National Republican leaders, of course, have known that there are gay staffers and officials in the GOP. And it seems that some of them-even publicly homophobic officials-may, in fact, be supportive in private.

The Washington Post notes that when Robert Traynham, chief of staff to Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), confirmed a rumor that he was gay, Santorum responded by calling him "a trusted friend�to me and my family."

This from a man who had compared homosexuality to bestiality.

Certain members of the GOP, it seems, have a tangled relationship to actual, living gay people, treating individuals one way in private and talking about us as a group another way in public. That is, the GOP leadership was operating on a more viperous version of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." As long as people didn't ask them whether they knew and liked gay people as individuals, they weren't going to tell anyone they did.

But what I wonder is what's going on with the conservative, Republican "values voter." Did they really think that the only gay people in power in America were Democrats? Did they actually think that all gay people can be boxed in a container labeled "progressive"?

Maybe they did.

Maybe a significant part of anti-gay sentiment among conservatives stems from the idea that being gay automatically means we have values different from their values. Maybe they don't quite understand that, yes, there are gays and lesbians who are pro-choice, liberal, atheist Democrats-and then there are gays and lesbians who are pro-life, conservative, church-going Republicans.

We're on both sides of the aisle, and on both sides of many, many issues, from global warming to the Iraq war. We really are everywhere.

And so maybe the Foley scandal, awful as it was, will lead to something good.

Maybe with the Foley scandal, and the circulation of The List-a list of Congressional staffers rumored to be gay-and all the talk in the media about gay GOP staffers, maybe all those things together will lead to a values voter realization that the fact that someone is gay or lesbian tells us absolutely nothing else about them.

"Gay" doesn't tell us what someone's politics are. "Gay" doesn't tell us what someone's life is like. "Gay" doesn't tell us how much money someone has, or how they vote, or what newspapers they read, or what clothes they wear or what they look like.

Really, "gay" tells us nothing about someone except-well, that they're gay.

In November, voters might kick out Republican legislators partly because of Foley fallout. It will be hard to tell whether they are reacting so strongly because of the growing revelations that Foley himself and some key GOP staffers are gay, or because of the constant media connection made between the words "Republican" and "pedophile."

But I hope there will come a time when voters won't react negatively when they find out someone in power is gay. In fact, I hope that they won't react at all.

I hope someday that the fact that someone-even an elected official; even a staffer-is gay will just be treated as something interesting about them, like the fact of left-handedness or of a preference for chocolate ice cream.

I hope someday that the fact that there are gays and lesbians in the GOP will be unremarkable.

I hope someday that when gays and lesbians spook others, it's because we're wearing fabulous Halloween costumes, not because we happen to be gay.

NJ Day.

The New Jersey marriage decision is handed down:

Denying committed same-sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. The Court holds that under the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, committed same-sex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes.

The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to same-sex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.

Looks like a Vermont solution! We'll soon see how this plays out in the political process.

More.

Time magazine asks, Will the Gay Marriage Ruling Rally the Base?

Rick Sincere blogs from Virginia, a state facing a fierce ballot initiative over a state amendment to ban same-sex marriage, civil unions, and even contractual same-sex partnerships. Wanting to make sure that the anti-gays don't spin the decision to their advantage, he weighs in with New Jersey Court Rejects Same-Sex Marriage Rights.

Those with the luxury of living in true-blue states where such amendments aren't conceivable may have wished that the N.J. court had, like in Massachusetts, mandated full marriage equality delivered on a platter the legislature be damned now. But the rest of us would have paid dearly for such a fiat.

Prior posting:

The liberal-learning New Jersey supreme court announced that on Wednesday at 3:00 pm eastern time it will hand down its decision on the question: Does the New Jersey Constitution require the State to allow same-sex couples to marry?

Sadly, if the ruling finds that the state constitution grants gays full marriage equality, we can say goodbye to any slim chance of winning anti-gay-marriage referendums in Virginia and Wisconsin. If the court rules that same-sex couples are entitled to the rights, benefits and obligations that the state grants/expects of married couples, but allows for these to be accomplished through civil unions, the immediate political repercussions could, arguably, be less severe. And if the court finds no right to spousal equality, it could bolster the argument that we don't need to keep amending state constitutions to defend against so-called "activist judges."

But why, oh why, couldn't the New Jersey court just wait till after the election to hand down its ruling?

Worth noting. Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, on Democratic politicos' quite obvious nonsupport of gay marriage.

The political process is where the battle for marriage equality should be fought, not the courts. Through the political process, the public could be educated, and hearts (and minds) changed. But one party is actively hostile, and the other is missing in action.

How Things Have Changed.

Flashback: In 1989, on ABC's thirtysomething, the hint of intimacy within a relationship between recurring gay characters Russell (David Marshall Grant) and Peter (Peter Frechette) was enough to trigger an advertiser boycott, led by the anti-gay American Family Association, which in turn led ABC to pull the episode from its re-run schedule. Russell and Peter, although once shown lying in bed together, were not allowed to share a romantic kiss (a later episode did feature a quick peck on the cheek at a holiday party).

Flash forward: This week, on ABC's Brothers and Sisters, Kevin (Matthew Rhys) was allowed a full mouth-on-mouth kiss with his boyfriend. That this kiss seemed entirely unexceptional (there have been other prime-time same-sex smooches over the years) brings home just how far things have progressed on TV and in American culture generally.

Also a plus for Brothers and Sisters: Kitty (Calista Flockhart) is a pro-free-market pundit constantly at odds with her liberal, anti-business mom, Nora (Sally Field), and it's liberal Nora who intolerantly can't abide the thought that anyone in her family might have a right to disagree with her leftwing politics.

Still another sign of the times: T.R. Knight, who plays George on ABC's Grey's Anatomy, has become the first actor to publicly come out while appearing on a top-rated television show.

Udate: Some background comes to light:

In a statement of apology jointly issued to Entertainment Tonight and People Magazine, Grey's Anatomy star Isaiah Washington is clearing his conscience after an on screen fight with co-star Patrick Dempsey in which he allegedly referred to co-star T.R. Knight as a faggot.

He issued his apology to People and ET! Got to love Hollywood.

The Pedophilia Smear

The recent scandal involving Rep. Mark Foley sending sexually explicit text messages to sixteen- and seventeen-year-old former congressional pages has resurrected the ugly stereotype of gays as pedophiles. I am no longer surprised when I hear this sort of garbage from the Family Research Council or Paul Cameron. But when the Wall Street Journal links the two by criticizing those "who tell us that the larger society must be tolerant of private lifestyle choices, and certainly must never leap to conclusions about gay men and young boys," it makes me nervous-not to mention angry. (Congressional Democrats have been no better, playing the "child predator" card for all it's worth.)

First, a little bit of perspective on the scandal driving this. The young men whom Foley courted were sixteen and seventeen-not adults, but not children either. The age of consent in Washington, D.C. (and many other places) is sixteen. Issues of potential harassment aside, had Foley had sex with these young men in Washington, it would have been perfectly legal.

Yet as far as we know, he did not have sex with them: he e-mailed and text-messaged them. Foley may be a jerk, a hypocrite, a creep-even a harasser-but there's no evidence that he qualifies as a child molester.

Research shows that gay men are no more likely than straight men to molest children. Moreover, mental health professionals are virtually unanimous in recognizing that most males who molest boys are not "gay" by any reasonable definition of that term: they have no interest in other adult males and often have successful relationships with adult females. This fact should not be surprising, because a young boy is at least as different qua sexual object from an adult male as an adult female is. In other words, it's one thing to be attracted to adults of the same sex, it's quite another to be attracted to children of either sex. Lumping these categories together not along maligns innocent people; it distracts us from the real threats to children. (For a useful analysis of the research in this area, see this article by Mark Pietrzyk.)

But it gets worse. For the pedophilia myth is yet another case of right-wingers arguing from what is not true to what does not follow. Suppose, purely for the sake of argument, there were a higher incidence of child molestation among homosexual males than heterosexual males. Should gay men no longer be permitted to be teachers? Pediatricians? Day care providers?

Be careful how you answer. Because one thing the research does clearly show is that men are far more likely to be child molesters than women. So if you think gay men should be restricted from these positions under the hypothetical (and false) assumption that they are more likely to be child molesters than straight men, you should conclude-in the actual, non-hypothetical world-that straight men should be thus restricted, and that all such jobs should go to lesbians and straight females. We know for a fact that men pose a higher risk of child molestation and other crimes than women do.

Yet somehow, when it comes to straight men, we are able to distinguish between those behaving well and those behaving badly. This double standard was quite apparent as the Foley scandal broke. Around the same time, admitted heterosexual Charles Carl Roberts walked into an Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania and fatally shot five female students. It turns out that Roberts told his wife that he had previously molested young girls. Yet no one took this story as tarnishing heterosexuality. No one concluded, "Aha! Can't trust straights." That would be a foolish inference.

Just as foolish as making inferences about all gays from the case of Mark Foley-who, it is worth repeating, did not even have sex with the pages (as far as we know), much less kill anyone.

The point is that some gays, just like some straights, behave badly. This is not news. Nor is it a reason to draw blanket inferences about gays.

Some years ago I was invited to Nevada to debate a Mormon minister on same-sex marriage. One of his central arguments-I am not making this up-was that we should not support same-sex marriage because research shows that gays are more likely to engage in domestic violence than straights. I had never heard of the studies he cited, so it was difficult to challenge him directly on his sources. Instead, I asked, "So, because some asshole beats his husband, I'm supposed to stop loving mine? And everyone else should stop supporting me in my loving, non-abusive relationship? Is that what you're arguing?"

He never had an answer to that.

The Rift Widens.

From the Oct. 19 Wall Street Journal story, "Uphill Hike for Republicans in Colorado":

In the Fifth District, retiring Rep. Joel Hefley refuses to endorse the Republican running for his seat. And in the vast rural Fourth. . .the national party is spending heavily to save [anti-gay stalwart] Rep. Marilyn Musgrave. . . .

Ms. Musgrave, a star to the Christian right but a lackluster campaigner, is proving to be costly. Not only has she required sizable aid form the national party, but her actions helped to jeopardize the race for the seat from the neighboring Fifth District, by aggravating the divide between traditional Western conservatives such as Mr. Hefley and a more aggressive type of conservative identified with her national campaign against same-sex marriage.

"I wonder if they are going to get tired of saving Marilyn and look at somebody they don't have to save every time," Mr. Hefley says.

The Journal reports that Musgrave was instrumental in lining up money and support for fellow wingnut Doug Lamborn, who took the August primary in Hefley's district, accusing GOP rivals of "supporting a radical homosexual agenda." Hence, Hefley's declaration "I will not vote for Doug Lamborn, I will not."

A couple of welcome GOP House losses (starting with Musgrave and Lamborn) along with senators such as Rick Santorum (R-PA), is sorely needed to flush these toxins out of the party.

More. OK, maybe pollution metaphors are a bit too much like the fascistic and dehumanizing slurs often thrown our way. Maybe Rick Santorum really is a nice guy who actually fears that gay marriage will lead to man-on-dog sex. Could be (though I'd argue Musgrave and some others do, in fact, come across as haters seeking political gain by scapegoating a vulnerable minority). In any event, the GOP would be better off without them.

Marriage Bans Have Consequences.

Ohio's top court must decide if the state's gay-marriage ban negates protection for unmarried couples, according to the Dayton Daily News.

Two years ago, Ohio voters approved a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage by nearly a 2-to-1 ratio. Now, the Ohio Supreme Court will hear a case that argues the state's 27-year-old domestic-violence law conflicts with the new gay-marriage ban. If the state Supreme Court strikes down part of the domestic-violence law, "t could wipe out longstanding legal protections for unmarried Ohioans in abusive relationships."

Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values, which worked to pass the marriage amendment, filed an amicus brief arguing that the marriage amendment should be broadly applied and part of the domestic violence law that applies to unmarried couples ruled unconstitutional.

More on 'judicial strategy.' In Virginia, 53% of likely voters said they would vote for the amendment. According to the Washington Post:

The lower numbers in Virginia reflect a national trend of weakening support for state efforts to ban same-sex marriage, several experts said. Twenty states have passed similar measures since 1998, many with about 75 percent support. The lowest level of support an amendment received was 57 percent in Oregon in 2004.

But this year, poll results in several states with similar ballot measures show weaker support than in 2004, when 11 states passed constitutional amendments. Polls in Colorado and Wisconsin show results similar to Virginia's; poll results in South Dakota are mixed.

John C. Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum for Religion and Public Life, said the momentum for such amendments at the ballot box has been hurt by recent court cases that have upheld bans on same-sex marriages.

Which is another sign of the wrong-headedness of activists who prefer judicial decrees to winning popular support. Unless, of course, their strategy was to lose their legal suits.

And on the diversity front: "The only group to significantly cross party lines was blacks. In the poll, blacks supported [Democratic senate candidate Jim] Webb by 81% to 11%, but they favored the amendment 61 percent to 34 percent."

Gay Men Vs. ‘MSM’

In the early 1980s when the Centers for Disease Control created the term "Men who have sex with men" (MSM) to refer to an AIDS risk group, many of us criticized the term as a euphemism for gay men. Now, however, a new survey of "MSM" in New York City shows some important differences between gay men and non-"gay" MSM. That suggests that we were wrong to reject the term entirely, but that the CDC was also wrong to lump us all together.

Our objection to "MSM" had a good deal of merit. It seemed like a social conservative attempt to deny that men could actually be constitutionally oriented toward love and sex with other men, instead treating our orientation as just a succession of sexual acts.

Even more, it rejected our self-affirming label "gay." After all, one of the first steps of the ex-gay process is to persuade gay men to stop thinking of themselves as "gay" or "homosexual"--i.e., to reject the identity.

Whatever the CDC's reasoning, it is certainly true that during the Reagan administration, when social conservatives began to wield a great deal of influence, any attempt by the CDC to talk about "gay men" or "gay and bisexual men" would have met vigorous criticism and objection.

However, over the years, "MSM" came to have a sort of plausibility. There are large numbers of men who have and may well prefer sex with other men, but who use a variety of rationalizations to evade acknowledgment of their homosexuality or bisexuality, and the CDC's MSM designation did manage to include them without seeming threatening.

How many? A 2003 telephone survey of more than 4,000 men conducted by the New York City public health department just published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that MSM who deny being gay are more numerous than self-acknowledged gay or bisexual men.

According to Reuters, fully 10 percent of the men in the survey who identified themselves as "straight" said in the past year they had sex with one or more men but no woman. And that figure is undoubted low since telephone surveys traditionally encounter the greatest degree of cover-up of homosexual activity.

Since only 9 percent of the men acknowledged being gay or bisexual (or "unsure"), that means that more straight men are engaging in gay sex than gay and bisexual men are, although further questioning determined that they have fewer partners than the gay/bi men.

They use a variety of rationalizations to deny being gay. They may think "gay" designates a specific set of social behaviors or "lifestyle"--regularly going to clubs, taking drugs, attending parties, obsessing with fashion, etc. That most gays do few or none of these things is irrelevant if the "straight" men have accepted that stereotype.

Or they may think "gay" designates men who act publicly in a feminine (or effeminate) manner--a stereotype left over from the 1950s and still common enough among some males at lower educational levels. They may feel that if they act in a traditionally masculine fashion, they are not "gay."

They may believe that "gay" men are the ones who take the receptive or "insertee" role in sexual behavior. If they prefer the inserter role, then they don't think of themselves as gay. That many openly gay men also prefer the inserter role, and many others switch roles easily--thus being alternately gay and not gay--may not make sense to them. This view seems to be particularly common in third world countries.

Then too, some men make a radical distinction between their sexual and emotional desires and deny being gay if, while enjoying sex with men, their only emotional relationships are with women. Maybe they never allow their succession of sexual contacts to develop an emotional connection. But it would also apply to the significant number of men whose self-image and self-esteem largely depends on being loved and needed by a women.

Not surprisingly given these rationalizations, the "straight" men who had gay sex were more likely to belong to a racial or ethnic minority, to be born in a foreign country, and to have a lower educational level. They were also less likely to have used a condom during their most recent sexual activity with a man. But if they think that by denying that they are gay or bisexual they are protected from AIDS, they are denying reality. And denying reality invariably has a cost.

The CDC may not be doing anyone, including itself, a favor by using a single term for gay men and for "straight" men who have sex with men. They are different populations with different attitudes and behaviors. So whatever the CDC wishes to call those "straight" men, maybe after more than two decades it is time for the CDC to start calling gay men by our own name.

Homophobia-Fueled Politics.

The Foley hysteria continues to be fanned by Democrats and the liberal national media at one end and social conservatives at the other. And, as with all politically generated hysteria, the consequences are not good.

Example: According to the Washington Blade, as of a few days ago: "Some Arizona gay rights advocates say the increased opposition among state residents to a constitutional ban on gay marriage, as reflected in recent polls, is attributable to Rep. Jim Kolbe (R), the state's retiring gay congressman, who is a vocal opponent of the amendment."

Now, of course, the unholy left/right alliance is fueling a rush of attack stories slandering Kolbe, based on politically motivated allegations by our old friends "unidentified sources." The likely result: to ensure passage of the Arizona amendment.

Gay Patriot has more.

Democrats are in a bit of a bind, praising the late Gerry Studds as the first out gay Congressman while downplaying the fact that, unlike Foley, he actually had sex with a page. Fortunately for them, outside of the obits the media is pretty much ignoring Studds' passing.

Foley and the Homophobic Mind

There are many things one could say about the scandal involving disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley (R-Florida). It is foremost a tale of an individual's misuse of power and trust, a willingness to disregard the vulnerable position and psychology of eager-to-please youths.

It is a tale of self-abasement, a 50-something male trying desperately to sound cool and hip to the 16- and 17-year-olds he's attracted to. The puerile internet messages allegedly sent by Foley to the pages are painful to read. They make you cringe in embarrassment for the man.

It is a tale of a political party hoist on its own petard of anti-homosexual moralism and opportunism. However, celebration of this irony among gay-rights advocates is misplaced. In the short-term Republicans will lose a seat, Foley's own. But in Foley's Republican-leaning district the likely long-term effect is the loss of a pretty reliable pro-gay vote. Foley consistently scored well with gay political groups, almost certainly higher than his eventual (post-2008) Republican successor will. In a larger sense, revving up anti-gay sentiment, as the Foley scandal has done, is not likely to benefit Democrats, who are rightly seen as more favorable to gays.

It is a tale of closets, of Foley's and of many of the gay Republicans who work in Washington, and of the terrible costs that maintaining these closets can exact on everyone, straight and gay. This is not to say that Foley-who was really more openly closeted than closeted-was led to his behavior simply by his shame and fear. But Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) is right that the closet makes these episodes more likely.

It is a tale of what NGLTF's Matt Foreman called "blood libels" reaffirmed for those inclined to believe them-of gays as alcoholics, as damaged and twisted sexual abuse victims, and as child molesters themselves.

Any of those story lines could make a column, but I am interested here in something else. The Foley mess reaffirms some things we have long known about the nature and characteristics of anti-gay prejudice.

William Eskridge, a Yale law professor, has written that anti-gay prejudice has been marked historically by three characteristics. These are: (1) "hysterical demonization of gay people as dirty sexualized subhumans"; (2) "obsessional fears of gay people as conspiratorial and sexually predatory"; and (3) "narcissistic desires to reinforce stable heterosexual identity . . . by bashing gay people." The primary historical traits of homophobia are thus hysteria, obsession, and narcissism.

We can see the first of these characteristics, hysteria, in some of the reactions to the Foley scandal. "While pro-homosexual activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two," declared Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council.

There is no good evidence of a link between homosexual orientation and pedophilia. Professional anti-homosexuals, like Perkins, often cite junk science to support their hysterical views of dangerous and hypersexualized homosexuals.

Ken Lucas, a Democrat running for Congress from Kentucky, said that Republican leaders should have closely monitored Foley simply because he's gay. There was no more reason to watch over Foley because he's gay than there was to supervise the other 530 or so members of Congress because they're straight, but hysteria sees no inconsistency.

The second characteristic of anti-gay prejudice, obsession, has been on full display. Some Republicans in Congress and religious conservatives told reporters that they suspect a "gay subculture" has infiltrated the party. This "Velvet Mafia"-as some have called it-allegedly consists of a number of gay Republican congressional staffers and other personnel. A conservative website asserted that the gay conspiracy includes nine chiefs of staff, two press secretaries, and two directors of communications for prominent congressional Republicans.

The conspirators, the story went, included several gay Republican staff members who personally handled the Foley case. An especially irresponsible report by CBS News's Gloria Borger recounted how the scandal had "caused a firestorm among GOP conservatives." Without any rebuttal or fact-checking, Borger reported that conservatives "charge that a group of high-level gay Republican staffers were protecting a gay Republican congressman." There is no evidence for this charge, and some pretty good evidence against it, but anti-gay websites quickly praised Borger for breaking the "PC barrier."

This baseless fear of a gay mafia wielding enormous power undetected has a certain obsessional quality. It is deeply conspiratorial, fed by fantasies of gays as sexual predators.

Others-including Perkins, Newt Gingrich, Patrick Buchanan, and even the Wall Street Journal editorial page-suggested that Republican leaders were paralyzed from acting against Foley early on by fear of a pro-gay backlash. To believe this of GOP leaders-who have opposed every measure for gay equality-requires obsessional and conspiratorial delusion about the power and influence of the gay civil rights movement in America.

Finally, the Foley mess has demonstrated the third characteristic of anti-gay prejudice, narcissism. If the GOP loses one or both houses of Congress in November, one supposed lesson will be that the party was too lenient on homosexuals-turning off the party's base of religious conservatives. Some thus see the scandal as a chance to cleanse the GOP of the impurity of homosexuality, to reassert the party's stable, pro-family heterosexual identity.

Chances are that most Americans, including most Republicans, will reject the hysteria, obsession, and narcissism of anti-gay prejudice this mess has loosed upon us. Most GOP leaders have been careful to avoid drawing any of the "larger lessons" about gay people that professional anti-homosexuals would like us to learn.

The Foley scandal doesn't say anything very important about America's gays. But it says a lot about America's anti-gays.