IGF CultureWatch

First published in the Chicago Free Press on November 2, 2005.

In mid-September, the National Center for Health Statistics, a branch of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released a 55-page study claiming that 4.1 percent of both men and women ages 18 to 44 labeled themselves homosexual or bisexual.

In addition, the survey found that 6 percent of men 15 to 44 have had oral or anal sex with another man and 11.2 percent of women 15 to 44 have had some sort of unspecified "sexual experience" with another women. For men age 25 to 44 the figure was 6.5 percent and for women 25 to 44 the figure was 10.7 percent.

Finally, the survey found that, depending on age group, between 2.6 and 3.3 percent of men have had oral or anal sex with another man in the last year and anywhere between 2.4 and 7.7 percent of women have had a "sexual experience" with another women in the last year.

As with most such surveys, the study made claims for its rigor and accuracy and was accepted uncritically by the mainstream press. It was, after all, based on information from 4,928 men and 7,643 women and derived "sensitive" information about sex by having respondents enter their answers into a laptop computer rather than telling the interviewer directly.

But careful analysis revealed ambiguities, inadequacies, inconsistencies and omissions.

The most obvious problem was that more than 20 percent of the people contacted refused to participate. Why did they refuse? A distrust of privacy assurances? Shyness about sex? A desire to cover up something? Although women generally tend to be more reticent about sex, a higher proportion of men (22 percent) than women (20 percent) refused to participate.

Another problem was that while only 4.1 percent of both men and women labeled themselves "homosexual" or "bisexual," almost the same number (3.8 to 3.9 percent) labeled themselves "something else" than either of those or "heterosexual."

No doubt some people, especially at lower educational levels, did not understand the terms homosexual, bisexual or heterosexual. Kinsey often pointed out that standardized questionnaires offer no way to clarify meaning or adapt language to the level of the respondent.

Then too, some people may insist on an affirmative term such as "gay" or "lesbian" rather than the clinical sounding "homosexual." Or they may prefer some argot term such as queer, kinky, swinger or polyamorous. Similarly, some African-Americans insist they are not gay, which they associate with whites or effeminacy, but say they are "down low" or "same-gender loving." This latter seems especially likely since a stunning 7.3 percent of Hispanic men and 7.5 percent of black men-more than three times the percentage of whites-said they were "something else."

Other black and Latino men think of sex with other men as just "having fun with friends" but insist that "sex" is only what you do with women, so they might actually think of themselves as heterosexual or "something else."

In addition, a much higher percentage of black (3.2 percent) and Latino men (3.5 percent) than white men (0.7 percent) refused to answer the sexual orientation question at all. So another disadvantage of questionnaires is that there is no way to pressure people to answer. But it is worth remembering that Kinsey pointed out long ago that if he met resistance anywhere it was when he reached questions about homosexuality.

Then there was the problem that the survey asked men only about the disease-transmitting behavior of oral and anal sex, but asked women about any "any sexual experience" at all with another woman-which could include kissing, "making out," body rubbing, or masturbation with a partner.

The study does not explain why it was so much more interested in any sort of female same-sex eroticism. But by refusing to include analogous male same-sex body rubbing, interfemoral (intercrural) sex and masturbation with a partner, the latter a common enough activity among some gay men, the survey artificially depressed the quantity of gay sex, the number of gay men and, accordingly, its reliability as an index of sexual behavior.

There were other problems too. If the survey wanted to find out how many gays there were or how much homosexuality there was, why ask if people had engaged in same-sex sex at least once-which could mean just once or a very few times? Asking, as the survey does, about same-sex sex in the last year is a little more relevant, but you would think the survey would ask something about how frequently with how many partners. But no.

And what about the 23 percent of the self-defined "homosexual" men who said they were attracted only to women? Kinsey would never have let anyone get away with such an obvious contradiction. Did they mean they like women better as friends, or are attractive to women, or want to be attracted to women, or are attracted to the idea of being women? Who knows? With a standardized computer questionnaire, no one could notice the discrepancy at the time and find out.

This is what the CDC offers as state of the art sex research.

Much criticism has been leveled at gay organizations for their reluctance to make much ado about the Iranian government's public hanging of two gay youths this past summer. The incident was not a rarity in the Islamic world, but the availability of photographs documenting the murder stunned a gay community complacent when it comes to the rights of gays abroad-perhaps because of our own, relatively tame, struggles here at home.

While the outrage over gay organizations' indifference to the plight of Iranian gays was necessary, it ought to be directed toward a political situation where gay Americans can have more influence: the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In this tumultuous dispute, there is plenty of room for debate about the control of land, whether or not Israeli responses to terror are too aggressive, and what the final political settlement should entail. But let there be no mistake: In Israel, gays enjoy the freedoms and tolerance of a liberal, Western democracy. In the disputed territories run by the Palestinian Authority, gays are routinely harassed, tortured and murdered.

A 2002 article in The New Republic documented the dire predicament of several gay Palestinians. A 21-year-old recalled that he "was forced to stand in sewage water up to his neck, his head covered by a sack filled with feces, and then he was thrown into a dark cell infested with insects and other creatures he could feel but not see." One man fled to Tel Aviv, only to be captured by the Palestinian police upon his return to Nablus, a city in the West Bank.

"They put him in a pit," a friend of the man recalled. "It was the fast of Ramadan, and they decided to make him fast the whole month but without any break at night. They denied him food and water until he died in that hole." Tel Aviv, Israel's flourishing gay hub, has become for Palestinian gays what Miami is for Cubans: a refuge of freedom from tyranny.

In August, Israel evacuated settlers from the Gaza strip, helping to make way for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state. But what would a Palestinian state actually look like? That is a question that the United States and Israel must ask before acceding to its creation. Surely, the United States should not expect Israel to agree to live alongside a neighbor that is highly militarized, territorially aggressive, and run by Islamic extremists. Imagine if Canada fit this profile: would we not have serious problems with such a prospect?

Comments earlier this month from Hamas's man in Gaza-newly emboldened by the Israeli pullout-are not encouraging. On the question of gay rights, Mahmoud Zahar recently said, according to the Times of London, "Are these the laws for which the Palestinian street is waiting? For us to give rights to homosexuals and to lesbians, a minority of perverts and the mentally and morally sick?" Hamas is a major player in Palestinian politics; in January, it won 76 out of 118 Gaza municipal council seats in the first-ever election held in the territory.

Granted, gays are oppressed in most areas of the world, so why should the United States pay any particular attention to Palestinian ones? Because our involvement in the Arab-Israeli peace process gives us the ability to influence Palestinian politics.

Advocating that the creation of a Palestinian state be conditioned on human rights, and specifically gay rights, is one step gay groups can take. The United States is intimately involved in the creation of a two-state solution, and it would be an affront to the ideals of this country were we to encourage, never mind preside over, the creation of an Islamist regime intent on murdering gay people.

For the same reason that we must see democracy through in Iraq-in order to leave that country behind in a better state than in which we found it-the United States and the international community have the exact same obligation in helping Israelis and Palestinians.

Not surprisingly, gay rights groups have ignored gay Palestinians, as has the pre-eminent human rights organization, Amnesty International. The Palestinian "struggle" has long been a cause celebre for the left and it is tempting to view the Palestinians as an oppressed underdog fighting the imperialist, apartheid Israeli state.

As difficult as life may be for the Palestinians (a predicament caused almost entirely by their support for terrorism and corrupt leaders), nothing can excuse their systematic oppression of gays. By standing up for the rights of gay Palestinians, groups like Amnesty and the Human Rights Campaign may lose support from their more radical members. But these organizations are worth nothing if they remain indifferent to the fates of people they are intended to protect-all for the purpose of maintaining harmony on the left.

During a recent debate in Bar Harbor, Maine, I was confronted with a seemingly novel argument against same-sex marriage. Rev. John Rankin of the Theological Education Institute of Hartford, Connecticut, claimed that same-sex marriage, far from being a civil right, actually undermines the very foundation of civil rights.

His argument is detailed in his document Yes to Man and Woman in Marriage, No to Same-Sex Marriage or Civil Unions, published in the Hartford Courant in April 2005. It reads, in part:

1. In the United States, the civil rights which we all enjoy are rooted in "the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," in the unalienable rights to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness.
2. The unique source for unalienable rights is the Creator, the God of the Bible.
3. The Creator defines true marriage as one man and one woman in mutual fidelity. The health of society and well-being of children are rooted in this foundation. Thus, the Source for unalienable rights also gives us the true definition of marriage.
4. In human history, no society rooted in the approval of homosexuality has ever produced unalienable rights for the larger social order.

(The full text is available at Rankin's website.)

The core of Rankin's argument is the second premise: the unique source for unalienable rights is the God of the Bible. From this, he derives the conclusion that we ought to define civil marriage according to biblical teaching.

If I understand Rankin's argument correctly (and during our debate he admitted that I did), then it's the worst kind of argument: it proceeds from what is not true to what does not follow.

It is not true that the unique source for unalienable rights is the God of the Bible. The notion of "unalienable rights" was introduced during the Enlightenment, when philosophers and politicians rejected appeals to biblical revelation in favor of the sovereignty of human reason.

Among those philosophers and politicians were our nation's Founders, who quite deliberately made no mention of God in our Constitution. Indeed, when Franklin (himself quite skeptical about religious authority) proposed during the Constitutional Convention to begin each session with a prayer, Alexander Hamilton reportedly quipped that this was no time to seek "foreign aid."

While the Founders were not atheists in our sense of the term, neither were they biblical literalists. Quite the contrary, they considered much of the Bible to be, in Jefferson's words, "defective and doubtful." Which is why, even if one grants Rankin's historically confused premise about the source of unalienable rights, it does not follow that we ought to define civil marriage according to biblical teaching. For it could be that the Bible is right about unalienable rights-or would be, if it actually contained that notion-but wrong about various other things, such as slavery, or homosexuality, or the status of women.

More generally, Rankin's inference is an example of the genetic fallacy, which confuses the historical source of an idea with its justification. Thus, for example, from the fact that many abortion-clinic bombers have been inspired by biblical teaching, it does not follow that the Bible actually provides any support, much less the sole support, for abortion-clinic bombing. Same for unalienable rights.

Besides, the Bible has historically inspired as many rights-abusers as rights-supporters. One could just as easily argue that the unique source for the divine right of kings is the God of the Bible, and then advocate replacing our democracy with a monarchy.

Rankin's argument also depends on a suppressed premise, namely, that if the Bible teaches a doctrine, it ought to be made a matter of civil law. Put aside debates over whether the Bible actually contains a blanket condemnation of homosexual conduct. Taken to its logical conclusion, Rankin's position entails that I have no right to sleep in on Sunday, since the Bible clearly teaches us to keep holy the Sabbath. Yet Rankin claims (inconsistently) that he supports freedom of religion.

One premise I do accept is Rankin's fourth: no society rooted in the approval of homosexuality has ever produced unalienable rights. But that's because no society has ever been "rooted in the approval of homosexuality." One might as well argue that no society rooted in the approval of left-handedness has ever produced unalienable rights-or anything else, for that matter. Non-existent societies don't produce anything.

If, however, Rankin means that societies tolerant of homosexuality have been more hostile to unalienable rights than those intolerant of homosexuality, then his claim is simply false. If there is any correlation between tolerance of homosexuality and respect for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the correlation is a positive one.

A resounding lesson of history is that we ought to be very careful when people try to make their interpretation of God's commands the basis for civil law. In that sense, Rankin's position is unfortunately not very novel at all.

If we do better than expected when Texans vote on an anti-gay marriage amendment on November 8, much credit should go to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. NGLTF is airing seven ads on Houston-area television stations. They are the first-ever to defend the idea of gay marriage, and they do so on essentially conservative grounds.

In contrast to the badly flawed, Texas-based "No Nonsense in November" campaign (which I criticized in detail two weeks ago in this column), the NGLTF ads are right both tactically and substantively. They could provide a template for future marriage-amendment campaigns.

Tactically, the ads are exactly right. They are being aired in Houston, which should be the center of efforts to defeat Amendment 2. All of them depict actual Houston residents speaking against the amendment.

Turnout in the state for this election is expected to be very low, perhaps under 10 percent of registered voters. Yet turnout in Houston, where municipal elections are being held the same day, should be disproportionately high. Urban Houston voters are somewhat more socially tolerant than voters elsewhere in Texas. Four years ago, they almost defeated an effort to ban same-sex domestic partners benefits for city workers.

NGLTF's limited resources are thus being spent wisely. By contrast, the No Nonsense campaign is based in Austin, 160 miles away from the center of the action. Yard signs produced by No Nonsense have been scarce, even in Houston's gay neighborhoods.

Substantively, the NGLTF ads are impressive. Four of the seven feature gay couples. In one, a woman identified as a "Reverend," sits beside her partner in their home. She says: "God loves us like everyone else, and wants the same thing for us as God wants for God's straight children." Her partner adds that when she proposed, she intended a "long-term commitment." The picture fades to black and the following message appears in stark white letters: "How would you feel if you couldn't marry the person you love?"

In another of the gay-couple ads, two men are described as "Together for 18 years." A third gay-couple ad describes a woman as "Committed to partner, Anita, for 21 years." She tells us hers is a family "in every sense of the word."

The two most effective of the seven ads feature parents talking about their love for their gay son and their hopes for his future. In one, the mother emphasizes her religious beliefs. "My entire Christian faith can be summed up with Jesus Christ's two new commandments," she says, "which was to love God and to love each other. He didn't say, 'Love each other unless they're gay.' "

In the other ad, the same mother delivers an eloquent description of the meaning of equality. "My children want the same thing their father and I wanted," she begins. "A home, a community, a church, friends, a job. . ." Here the father chimes in, "and someone who loves them." "And someone who loves them," she repeats. Describing her son's relationship with his partner, she closes by saying, "I hope they're together forever." The screen fades to black with the message, "Gay people want what we all want."

The NGLTF ads are simple and powerful. They don't talk about abstract "rights." They don't list all the legal benefits of marriage, as if this were a struggle over the tax code. There is nothing post-modern about them. There's not a single sexual liberationist in sight.

Instead, the ads emphasize the needs of real gay families, including the children they're raising. They highlight long-term commitment by gay couples. They use religious faith, spoken by religious people, as an argument against the amendment. And they focus on the similarities-not the differences-between gay and straight Americans.

Most significantly, they begin to make the positive case for gay marriage. They are not shy or apologetic about it. They do not say that the amendment is "unnecessary" because gay marriage is already banned (although that's true). They don't complain about how broad the amendment is (although it is very broad). They don't warn about Machiavellian politicians pushing the amendment (although that's a big part of the reason this is even on the ballot). They are not in the least politically partisan.

Like it or not, when these anti-gay-marriage amendments reach a ballot, most people do not vote on these sorts of legal and political-insider issues. They vote on marriage.

NGLTF's strategy is a dramatic-and needed-departure from the losing anti-amendment campaigns everywhere else in the country. By contrast, the No Nonsense campaign has avoided the "M" word like the plague and has been partisan Democratic in an overwhelmingly conservative and Republican state.

Where the state-based campaign is a tired rehash of losing themes from other amendment fights that have danced around gay marriage and left our side dispirited, NGLTF's ad campaign is refreshingly honest and principled. The amendment, it says simply, should be defeated because gay marriage is good.

For Texas, it may be too little, too late. But if tried elsewhere, this straightforward message might help us pull closer. At the very least it begins the long-term process of convincing Americans there is nothing to fear from gay marriage.

Marriage. Commitment. Families. Children. Faith. I never thought I would see this day, but NGLTF is making the conservative case for gay marriage.

The NGLTF ads can be viewed here.