IGF CultureWatch

Activism has always played a prominent role in the movement for gay civil rights. But now, with the Supreme Court set to hear a case in October deciding the question of whether the federal government can withhold funds to universities whose law schools deny access to military recruiters, the effect of overzealous gay activism has rightfully come into question.

The Supreme Court announced earlier this month that it would hear the appeal of Rumsfeld vs. Forum for Academic & Institutional Rights, pitting the Defense Department against a coalition of prominent law schools. At Yale, one of the institutions which brought the suit and where I am an undergraduate, I have seen the unfortunate effects of the otherwise well-intentioned gay activists' campaign to prevent the military from recruiting law students to serve in the JAG corps and in keeping ROTC off the college's campus, both because of the military's anti-gay, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

I agree, of course, that the military's policy undermines national security by expelling competent individuals, but I cannot bring myself to support an agenda aimed at hindering the armed forces' vital mission of recruiting talented individuals.

Advocates claim that their opposition to the military's presence is not only a moral statement against discrimination but more importantly will work to erode "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Yet since the Vietnam War, when many universities first banished the armed forces, the military has functioned rather well. Seeing that the decisions of individual colleges and law schools to ban recruiting has done nothing to alter the military's policy and shows no sign of affecting military decision making, what does it do?

The unfortunate result is that the people most affected by this posturing - the actual students who make enormous sacrifices to train for the officer corps - are being left out of the debate entirely. Whereas universities that have long prided themselves on providing the country's future leaders used to have a large officer training program in the first half of the century, currently only five students out of a Yale undergraduate class of nearly 5,000 are enrolled in such a program.

To make matters worse, they are often ostracized by liberal students and faculty members, who loathe the military for political reasons unrelated to the ban on service by out gays.

Oftentimes, the best strategy in any fight for gay equality is for people to simply come out of the closet. As homosexuality is an invisible trait, visibility is often the best antidote to ignorant homophobia.

Far more effective than banning military recruiters have been the ever more frequent criticisms of former service members who have since come out and decried "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." The military brass itself is far more likely to empathize with someone who once wore a uniform and risked their life than they are to heed the hectoring of a liberal faculty member.

By making homophobia the reigning issue in the debate over military recruitment, gay activists have fostered a form of group-think that necessarily compels all gay people - and all straight people who do not want to be thought of as homophobes - to support their cause. This tactic turns off many potential allies, who are equally supportive of gay rights and a strong national defense.

Sometimes issues affecting gay and lesbian Americans are more nuanced than morally absolutist activists would like them to be. While I may find "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" to be unjust, it is more important that my straight peers have the opportunity to serve their country and defend the freedoms that gay activists have also fought so courageously to enshrine.

From its inception, the gay civil rights movement has had two basic impulses, both of which I share. One has been equality, holding that gays shouldn't be discriminated against. The other has been liberty, holding that individuals should be largely free of government interference. Together, these impulses have gotten us where we are today: no more bar raids or sodomy laws, the free publication of gay magazines and newspapers, the formation of gay organizations, a smattering of laws protecting gays from employment and other bias. These are large accomplishments.

Yet we have hit a wall of public disapproval on gay marriage and, more broadly, on the morality of homosexuality itself. After moving the polls in our direction for a decade or so, the number of Americans who support gay marriage has now stabilized and even turned slightly against us. The same trend is evident when people are asked about the morality of homosexuality. Republicans, by 68 percent to 27 percent, believe homosexuality is morally wrong. Even Democrats muster only a bare majority for the view that homosexuality is morally acceptable (50 percent approving to 46 percent disapproving).

How do we breach this wall? Not, I think, by more talk of equality and liberty. We have won over just about everyone who will be moved by such arguments. That leaves more than half the public still unpersuaded.

Marriage is the perfect example of why we've hit this wall. Marriage is neither egalitarian nor libertarian. It is practically the opposite of these things and that is why appeals to anti-discrimination principles and individual rights fall flat.

Consider first how inegalitarian marriage is. Marriage, by law and custom, is judgmental. It says that some ways of living are better than others. Some relationships are better than others. Sex within marriage is better for people than sex outside of it. Monogamy is better than promiscuity. People should make babies when they are married, but not when they are not. Children are better off raised by two people than by a single person or by three people or by a commune.

Marriage gives to some relationships, but not to any others, an array of social support, benefits, and legal protections. In other words, marriage creates status hierarchies that are antithetical to the liberal egalitarianism that has dominated the gay civil rights movement for almost 40 years.

One can make an egalitarian argument for gay marriage. This is what many left-progressives have rather uneasily tried to do. One can argue, for example, that gay marriage is justified on the principle that gay couples are relevantly like straight couples and so should not be treated differently. That's right as far as it goes, but it still means we're saying that gay-couple relationships are better than other relationships and many progressives are uncomfortable saying things like that. Gay marriage gives nothing to single people and to relationships - gay and straight - that don't fit the traditional pattern of two-person monogamy.

Honest progressives have long understood this and for that very reason have resisted the gay-marriage movement. They do not like status hierarchies and correctly see gay marriage as reinforcing them. They want everyone to be given legal protections and benefits, regardless of the form, nature, and numerosity of the relationships they enter.

Now consider how unlibertarian marriage is. Nobody is literally forced to get married. But civil marriage, as an institution shaped by the state, puts the government in the position of backing some relationships at everyone's expense. Each of the various legal benefits associated with marriage carries a price that is borne through taxes by everyone, including those who don't want to marry. Marriage is a tax on being single or polygamous.

One could make a libertarian case for marriage by arguing that marrying is a choice that should be freely open to autonomous individuals. But this view misses the point of marriage, which is not a celebration of individual autonomy. Marriage is about duty to others, not freedom for oneself. Further, in marriage, the state is hardly neutral about the choices made by individuals. It encourages people to make the marriage choice and then, once they've made it, regulates the choice by conditioning their conduct in it and their exit from it (through divorce).

That's why some libertarians eschew gay marriage in favor of abolishing marriage altogether and replacing it with a system of allowing people to enter enforceable private contracts for mutual care. Under this arrangement, individuals would choose the terms of their own relationships, not have those terms imposed by the state through marriage. One would "contract" a relationship as one contracts a business deal. This proposal is completely utopian (or in my view, dystopian), since abolishing state-sanctioned marriage after centuries of state involvement is even less likely than the election of a Libertarian Party president. But for a libertarian it has the academic virtue of consistency.

Marriage is founded on neither equality nor liberty. It is in some ways the negation of these. It is a way of binding people together in a union that is thought to benefit the couple, any children they raise, and the community around them, to an extent that other relationships simply do not. That's why it is a social institution. It is shaped by and helps to nurture the society in which it arises.

If we are to get gay marriage, we must be able to appeal to the bulk of the country that properly understands marriage in this way. We must argue for it not primarily on the basis of anti-discrimination principles, or on the basis of individual liberty, but on the basis of community. It is like nothing else we've fought for.

First published May 25, 2005, in the Chicago Free Press.

The celebration of gay pride originally confined to the end-of-June Gay Pride parades has now expanded to include the entire month of June as Gay Pride Month, so it seems appropriate to say something about the celebration of gay pride and how to do it better.

Over the years I have held a variety of views about gay pride:

1. Being gay is simply a natural characteristic like having blue eyes or brown hair. There is no rational basis for feeling pride about things that are just the way we turned out and that we had nothing to do with accomplishing.
2. Gay Pride is a healthy and reasonable response for gays in a society where many people still view being gay as something to be ashamed of or embarrassed about or discreetly silent about. It promotes a positive message to closeted gays and skeptical heterosexuals to counter and neutralize the negative messages promoted by anti-gay elements.
3. Although being gay is not itself a valid basis for pride (see No. 1), people can take legitimate pride in how well they handle being gay: How comfortable they are with being gay, how well they integrate being gay into their character and daily life, how adeptly they deal with other people, how much they achieve as an openly gay person.
4. Gay Pride is so 1970s. The slogan was invented back when the main gay activist goal was to lure gays out of the closet and promote a healthy self-esteem. But our current goals are civic and social equality for gays and gay relationships. The old slogan doesn't address those newer goals. Instead it sounds as if we were stuck in some sort of narcissistic time-warp.

Take your pick.

But what I miss in most organized Gay Pride celebrations is any real effort to go beyond the mere assertion of gay pride, any sense that something follows from that either to solidify the gay pride we assert or to give gay pride some focus or direction. It is as if we satisfy ourselves with shaking our pompoms and shouting "Gay Pride." But what follows from that?

So it seems to me that our gay communities should make some effort to use Gay Pride Month to promote our goals, increase our effectiveness, heighten our awareness, lure people into greater involvement and promote community contacts.

I was led to this line of thought when a friend recently asked if there were any Gay Pride Month events that were "must see." I honestly could not think of any. That surprised me. And I think we are missing an opportunity. For instance:

• Some political, business or social service groups could invite a well-known gay or gay-supportive figure to give a speech on an important current gay issue. Think, for instance, of Barney Frank, Camille Paglia, Gavin Newsom, Andrew Sullivan or Evan Wolfson. The idea is to have an event that would draw a large number of people, stimulate thought and add to their political/social awareness.
• Gay and gay-friendly religious groups could join together to hold an ecumenical Gay Pride Month religious or "spirituality" service. Many people are religious or "spiritual" and such an event might help people find ways to integrate their religious beliefs and their sexuality. It might also foster a willingness by the various religious groups to work together toward common goals.
• Gay Pride Month would be a good time to hold an annual community forum featuring four or five prominent local gay community functionaries - political activists, business owners, heads of social service agencies - to discuss "The State of the Gay Community," share their concerns, answer questions about their businesses or organizations, listen to suggestions and criticism and so forth.
• A few years ago Chicago started a program designating one book that it encouraged everyone to read. Gay communities could do the same thing. The idea is to give everybody one thing in common to provide a basis for conversation. Possibilities: Mary Renault's The Persian Boy, Sheila Ortiz Taylor's Faultline, Eric Marcus' Making Gay History, or George Weinberg's timeless Society and the Healthy Homosexual. I think all of these are in print and in paperback.

If you are not impressed by any of these ideas, create your own. The point is to use Gay Pride Month to create circumstances where gays and lesbians get to know a few more people, learn a little more, develop a greater appreciation of the community they are a part of and experience something in common beyond the mere datum of being gay.

Aristotle observed that statesmen rightly try to promote friendship more than anything else. That would be good advice for our community leaders. People who may not be moved to do anything on their own or for themselves may be more likely do things with their friends and for their friends.

First published May 18, 2005, in the Chicago Free Press.

Recently, our fair city of Chicago issued a report by an ad hoc group calling itself The Chicago Task Force on LGBT Substance Use and Abuse.

The original advocates of the report deserve credit for wanting to address a long-standing problem in the gay community. But the final report, long-delayed and over-edited in order to offend no one, was so infected with drug treatment industry myths, mealy-mouthed social worker jargon and such feeble suggestions for dealing with the problem that it was almost useless.

The report called for a "safe, visible, sustained and supportive dialogue on the topic of substance use and abuse." It confidently asserted that "not all substance use is problematic." It preachily admonished us all to be "supportive and nonjudgmental about ... substance use and abuse" and urged us to "find common ground on which to define when substance use becomes abuse."

Well, no. I don't plan on being "supportive and nonjudgmental" or to regard "substance use" as non-problematic, or to try to "find common ground" with users who disagree. Here is what we know: Many drugs can and do cause long term physical and mental damage to the user, damage not immediately apparent. And some drugs increase a person's desire to engage in sexual behavior with high risk of HIV infection.

One recent study in the Journal of Urban Health as summarized by the Gay Men's Health Crisis newsletter found that "Drug use was significantly associated with higher numbers of sex partners, higher social isolation scores, and participation in unprotected receptive anal intercourse."

Another study found that people who used meth with other drugs such as cocaine and ketamine "reported more unprotected sex with more partners of ... unknown status. Heavy drug users also had higher scores on tests of impulsivity and negative self-perceptions."

A third study of meth and cocaine use concluded: "During periods of drug use, high risk sexual behavior increased along with the increasing frequency of drug use. ... To reduce and prevent risks of HIV, no level of use of these drugs should be considered 'safe.'"

What is the solution? There is no solution. Drug use is not going away. All we can do is promote strategies to limit the wider use of drugs. Clearly, we must find out what messages can best persuade current users to stop, discourage young people from starting and break the connection between drugs and the social aspects of being gay. Important steps to take include:

• Publicize - without exaggeration - the effects of the various drugs.This includes the biochemistry of how they work, the physical effects they produce, the behaviors they can lead to, and long term physical and mental impact. Drug dealers seldom provide that information.
• Be judgmental! Instead of being "supportive and nonjudgmental," be judgmental and non-supportive. The capacity for judgment is why God - and evolution - gave you a brain. Use it or lose it.
• Don't let people get away with the fiction that they are not responsible for their drug use. "Addiction" is a loaded word used to convince people that they are not responsible for their actions - that it is the drug's fault. But when we say people are "addicted" to a drug we only mean they like to use it and don't want to stop enough to actually stop. The same is true of the so-called "disease" of "alcoholism."*

In fact, people on their own can and do stop using drugs all the time. Cigarette smokers stop smoking, heavy drinkers cut down or stop drinking entirely, cocaine users stop using cocaine and meth users stop using meth. They just have to want to enough.

For many people, drug use as a way of avoiding coping with other problems in their lives: a hostile or unsatisfying home environment, stress at work, boredom due to a lack of any real interests or goals, personal fears or insecurities, a failure to develop enjoyable social contacts.

As psychologist Jeffrey Schaler pointed out five years ago in Addiction Is a Choice (Open Court, 2000), "I've witnessed over and over again that focusing on clients' drug-using behavior is no way to help them give up drugs. ... It's only by talking about their problems-in-living and encouraging them to confront and solve those ... that the drug use subsides."

Making this more widely known might encourage people to address their problems instead of using drugs as a coping or avoidance technique. The more that people understand their own motivations - and know that we are on to them - the more likely they are to act rationally.

Finally, young people have had too little time to learn from painful experience that the seeming benefits of drug use are immediate and the costs tend to be in the long run. And, of course, some adults never seem to learn. How we communicate that information effectively is a problem. But weak, permissive task force reports seem a counter-productive way to start.

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*See, for elaboration, Herbert Fingarette, Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease (University of California Press, 1988).