IGF CultureWatch

First published August 15, 2004, in The New York Times.

What happened to Governor McGreevey - that is, James E. McGreevey, the Democratic governor of New Jersey, who announced his resignation on Aug. 12 because he was secretly gay and had "shamefully" conducted an extramarital affair - was strange, to say the least. Pundits wondered whether there would be broader ramifications for gay civil rights, same-sex marriage or American politics. I doubt it. A rich and seemingly unique concatenation of homosexuality, adultery, suspicions of political featherbedding, and rumors of extortion and sexual harassment made the McGreevey scandal look like an aberration.

What happened to Mr. McGreevey - the man, not the governor - was not strange at all. It was familiar to almost every gay American of Mr. McGreevey's generation. Marriage, not homosexuality, lies at the heart of it.

Mr. McGreevey is 47. I am 44. We have in common being among the early members of the post-Stonewall generation. We came of age in the 1970's, when overt expressions of anti-gay animus were becoming unacceptable in polite company. The worst of official repression was past. Vice-squad raids and scandalous arrests and federal witch hunts were not central fears in our lives. There was still plenty of unofficial discrimination and ugly and ignorant rhetoric, and we all feared the low-grade terrorism known as gay-bashing. But on the whole we were free, as no previous generation had been, to get on with our lives.

There was one thing, however, we knew we could never aspire to do, at least not as homosexuals. We could not marry.

By that I mean not just that gay couples could not marry. Self-acknowledged gay people - coupled or single, adult or adolescent, open or closeted - also could not hope to marry. The very concept of same-sex marriage had yet to surface in public debate. We grew up taking for granted that to be homosexual was to be alienated and isolated, not just for now but for life, from the culture of marriage and all the blessings it brings.

Social-science research has established beyond reasonable doubt that marriage, on average, makes people healthier, happier and financially better off. More than that, however, the prospect of marriage shapes our lives from the first crush, the first date, the first kiss. Even for people who do not eventually choose to marry, the prospect of marriage provides a destination for love and the expectation of a stable home in a welcoming community.

The gay-marriage debate is often conducted as if the whole issue were providing spousal health insurance and Social Security survivors' benefits for existing same-sex couples. All of that matters, but more important, and often overlooked, is the way in which alienation from marriage twists and damages gay souls. In my own case, I did not understand and acknowledge my homosexuality until well into adulthood, but I somehow understood even as a young boy that I would probably never marry. (Children understand marriage long before they understand sex or sexuality.) I coped by struggling for years to suppress every sexual and romantic urge. I convinced myself that I could never love anybody, until the strain of denial became too much to bear.

Others coped differently. Some threw themselves into rebellion against marriage and the bourgeois norms it seemed to represent. Some, to their credit, built firmly coupled gay lives without the social support and investment that marriage brings. And some, determined to lead "normal" lives (meaning, largely, married lives), married.

At what point Mr. McGreevey realized and acknowledged he was gay I don't know. I do know that many gay husbands begin by denying and end by deceiving. Perhaps that was so in his case.

Opponents of same-sex marriage sometimes insist that gays can marry. Marriage, they say, isn't all about sex. It can be about an abstinent, selfless love. Well, as Benjamin Franklin said, where there is marriage without love there will be love without marriage. I'm always startled when some of the same people who say that gays are too promiscuous and irresponsible to marry turn around and urge us into marriages that practically beg to end in adultery and recklessness.

For most human beings, the urge to find and marry one's other half is elemental. It is central to what most people regard as the good life. Gay people's lives are damaged when that aspiration is quashed, of course. Mr. McGreevey can probably attest to that. But so are the lives of spouses, of children. Mr. McGreevey can probably attest to that, too.

The country is still making up its mind about same-sex marriage. Massachusetts has it. Most states have pre-emptively banned it. On Aug. 12, the California Supreme Court invalidated about 4,000 same-sex marriages performed by the city of San Francisco, but gay-marriage advocates hope that this is a temporary setback. Through litigation now working its way through the system, California's highest court may yet overturn the state's gay-marriage ban.

The McGreevey debacle suggests why all Americans, gay and straight alike, have a stake in universalizing marriage. The greatest promise of same-sex marriage is not the tangible improvement it may bring to today's committed gay couples, but its potential to reinforce the message that marriage is the gold standard for human relationships: that adults and children and gays and straights and society and souls all flourish best when love, sex and marriage go together. Nothing will ever make the discovery of homosexual longings easy for a young person. But homosexuality need not mean growing up, as Jim McGreevey and I and many others did, torn between marriage and love.

One of the most persistent debates surrounding homosexuality regards whether gays are "born that way" or whether homosexuality is a "chosen lifestyle."

The debate is ill-formed from the start, in that it conflates two separate questions:

1. How did you become what you are? (By genetics? Early environment? Willful choice? Some combination of the above?),

   and

2. Can you change what you are?

The answers to these two questions vary independently. My dark hair color is genetically determined, but I can change it (though I'd make a rather frightful blonde). The fact that my native language is English is environmentally determined, but I can't change it. (I can learn a new language, of course, but at this stage it would never have the character of my native language.)

The fact that I put the last sentence in parentheses is a matter of willful choice, and, like most matters of willful choice, it can be changed (although my editors had better leave it alone if they know what's good for them). Still, some choices are not so easily undone. Having chosen never to practice piano as a child, it would be possible, but rather challenging, for me to become proficient at piano now.

Of course, sexual orientation is not like piano-playing. I never turned down "straight lessons" as a child. ("No, Mommy, I wanna play with my Easy-Bake oven instead!") I never chose to "become gay," and I'm not even sure how one would go about doing so. We do not choose our romantic feelings - indeed, we often find them thrust upon us at surprising and inopportune times. We discover them; we do not invent them.

So we must be born this way, right?

Wrong. For several reasons. No one is born with romantic feelings, much less engaging in sexual conduct. That comes later. Whether it comes as a result of genetics, or early environment, or watching too many episodes of Wonder Woman is a separate question that can't be settled by simple introspection.

Moreover, the fact that feelings are strong doesn't mean that they're genetically determined. They might be, but they might not. Sexual orientation's involuntariness, which is largely beyond dispute, is separate from its origin, which is still controversial, even among sympathetic scientists.

But here's the good news: It doesn't matter whether we're born this way.

A lot of gay-rights advocates seem to think otherwise. They worry that if we're not "born this way," then homosexuality would be "unnatural" in some morally significant sense.

Nonsense. Again: the fact that I speak English rather than French is learned behavior, but it does not follow that my doing so is unnatural or in need of reparative therapy.

But wouldn't a genetic basis for homosexuality prove that God made us this way? No, it wouldn't - at least not in any helpful sense. Put aside the difficulties about establishing God's existence or discerning divine intentions. The fact is that there are plenty of genetically influenced traits that are nevertheless undesirable. Alcoholism may have a genetic basis, but it doesn't follow that alcoholics ought to drink excessively. Some people may have a genetic predisposition to violence, but they have no more right to attack their neighbors than anyone else. Persons with such tendencies cannot say "God made me this way" as an excuse for acting on their dispositions.

"Whoa!" you might object. "Are you saying that homosexuality is a disorder like alcoholism?" Not at all. The difference between alcoholism and homosexuality is that alcoholism has inherently bad effects whereas homosexuality does not. But this distinction just reinforces my point: we do not determine whether a trait is good by looking at where it came from (genetics, environment, or something else). We determine whether it is good by looking at its effects.

Nor does it matter whether sexual orientation can be changed. For even if it could (which is doubtful in most cases), it doesn't follow that it should. Much like my hair color.

Remember: bad arguments in favor of a good cause are still bad arguments - and in the long run not very good for the cause. This is not to say that we shouldn't frequently remind people that homosexuality, like heterosexuality, is a deep, important, and relatively fixed feature of human personality. It's just that those facts can only get us so far.

In a 1964 speech to the New York Mattachine Society, an early gay rights group, activist Frank Kameny announced:

"We are interested in obtaining rights for our respective minorities as Negroes, as Jews, and as Homosexuals. Why we are Negroes, Jews, or Homosexuals is totally irrelevant, and whether we can be changed to Whites, Christians or heterosexuals is equally irrelevant."

Kameny (who is still going strong at 79) was absolutely right. Too bad people still haven't gotten the message.

First published by Scripps Howard News Service, August 5, 2004. Reprinted by permission of the author courtesy of Scripps Howard News Service.

Missouri voters last Tuesday decided, 70 percent to 30, to ban same-sex marriage in the Show Me state. This, and similar initiatives on 10 state ballots through Nov. 2, will bolster traditional marriage about as effectively as a landlord who battles termites by refusing to rent apartments to gay tenants.

Traditional marriage is being gnawed on by a culture that too often regards "I do" as a punchline. While divorce nibbles away at nuptials, Fox-TV airs "Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy," a show that swaps husbands and wives like baseball cards. The 205,000-member AshleyMadison.com - whose slogan is "When Monogamy Becomes Monotony" - helps people cheat on their spouses. Philanderers.com, one of many more Internet adultery sites, helpfully advises that toothpaste removes lipstick stains.

Padlocking every gay bar from Provincetown to West Hollywood would not slow such outrages, nor would restricting each marriage to one man and one woman make heterosexuals stop behaving badly.

Something as vital as marriage should be out of public hands. Government should exit the marriage business and quit issuing marriage licenses. If you want to get married, get married. Why beg City Hall's permission?

That said, if America must license marriage, there are methods beyond discriminatory constitutional amendments that would preserve traditional marriage and protect children. After all, these are what gay-marriage opponents claim as their real objectives. If so, social conservatives should embrace any of the following reforms to advance their goals:

• Ban divorce. Yes, this would be a drastic measure, but with roughly half of first marriages ending in divorce, it may be time for drastic action. This is the most powerful weapon to defend marriage: Simply make it illegal to break marital bonds. What part of "Till death do us part" do divorcees find unclear?
• Limit marriage licenses to one per person. Everybody gets one chance to get it right. No trial matrimonies, Britney Spears stunts, or Elizabeth Taylor serial husbandry. People might be more careful about pairing for life if they knew they had only one shot at marriage. A common-sense exception could be made to let widows and widowers re-marry.
• Introduce probationary marriage licenses for heterosexuals. Gay-marriage foes say their efforts are "all about the children," as seems to be the case with everything these days. (Homer Simpson last season crisply summarized my opinion of kids: "Children are our future - unless we stop them now!") Each couple would have five years to bear at least one baby of its own or adopt at least one child. This would advance the species, give lots of new kids moms and dads, and also move boys and girls from orphanages into homes.
  
  The marriage license of each childless couple would lapse on their fifth anniversary. This would limit the number of child-free husbands and wives, such as Mr. and Mrs. Patrick Buchanan, who, presumably, remain married to share their love with each other as adults, not to rear children. Straight marriage advocates argue that the institution does not exist to keep adults emotionally satisfied and mutually devoted. Instead, as National Review Online's Stanley Kurtz has written, "the core purpose of marriage is to bind children to their mothers and fathers." The Buchanans and couples like them are entitled to find that sentiment breathtakingly presumptuous.
• The flip side of this notion: provisional marriage licenses for gay couples. They could stay married as long as they remained childless. The moment a gay couple either adopted a child or managed to deliver one naturally through surrogate parenting, artificial insemination, etc., their marriage license would become null and void, and they simply would become two people living together under one roof. This would provide the socially desirable benefits of curbing gay promiscuity while promoting gay monogamy. And who can argue with that? This simultaneously would reduce the odds that gay people would raise children, what with all the challenges this presents. If social conservatives are sincere, they should applaud this compromise.

Any or all of these modest proposals should satisfy socio-cons and the religious right. Why not defend marriage through one or more of these concepts, rather than the irrelevant misstep Missouri voters just showed us?

"There is very much a stifling effect here at the convention," observed Carole Migden, an openly gay California Board of Equalization member and 2004 Democratic National Convention delegate. "But there is an implicit feeling that there is widespread support for our issues that goes unspoken."

What to make of the Boston Democrats? They really like gay people, but they'd really rather the American public didn't know that. And what of gay Democrats? They're high-minded idealists when they criticize gay Republicans for working within a party that doesn't much like gays; but they're sober-minded pragmatists when assessing their own party's treatment of gays. Yes, they acknowledge, the Boston convention was a retreat from gay visibility at past conventions. But, they quickly add, that's necessary to defeat the evil Republicans.

The contrast to the three previous Democratic conventions was remarkable. In 1992 and 1996, Bill Clinton actually used the word "gay" in his convention speeches. In his 2000 acceptance speech, Al Gore specifically endorsed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act and hate crimes legislation. In 1996 and 2000, rainbow flags were clearly visible in the convention hall, waving in front of the TV cameras during prime-time speeches.

This year, no rainbow flags on the convention floor in prime time. There were six openly gay speakers, which is good and certainly better than what we'll get at the Republican convention. But none of them appeared during the hours when Americans would actually see them. If you're not heard in prime time, do you make a sound?

I heard "gay" mentioned exactly once in four nights of prime-time coverage. If you didn't know better, and confined your convention-watching to the 8-11 p.m. time slot, you wouldn't have known gays even exist.

Most striking was the complete omission of anything gay in the acceptance speeches of John Edwards and John Kerry. Neither man mentioned gay Americans or gay-related legislation. There was no promise to do anything about lifting the ban on gays in the military, no pledge to work for legislation to protect gay people from employment discrimination or from hate crimes, not a word about lifting the ban on HIV-positive immigrants (a ban Kerry voted for), not one syllable devoted to the recognition of civil unions.

Kerry announced his obligatory respect for diversity in language so general President Bush himself could have used it. He also tried to undermine Republican moralism by claiming to support "family values," which for Democrats means raising taxes to pay for social programs and government-controlled health care.

Then there was Kerry's promise not to "misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States." This passage caused much mirth among gay Democrats, who clung to it as possibly a reference to the Bush-supported Federal Marriage Amendment. That's certainly a reasonable interpretation, and no doubt it's what Kerry wanted gay Americans to understand it to mean.

But, in context, it was oblique. To the casual listener, who heard Kerry denounce Attorney General John Ashcroft, it could have been understood as a critique of the Bush administration's overall record on civil liberties. And, since neither Kerry nor Edwards could be bothered to show up to actually vote against the FMA, why give them the benefit of the interpretive doubt?

It's true the 2004 Democratic platform mentions a few of these things, and that's nice. It's also true that Kerry and Edwards announced gay-supportive positions on these matters during the Democratic primaries, and that's even nicer. But in the months since he secured the Democratic nomination, Kerry has hardly mentioned gay Americans or his supportive stands on gay issues.

To many gay Democrats, none of this matters. Typical was the reaction of D.C. delegate and longtime gay activist Phil Pannell, as quoted in the Washington Blade: "The times are different now from what they were when Clinton and Gore gave their speeches. People who typically would be mad about certain policies or certain omissions in speeches are so determined to defeat Bush that they are willing to not let that bother them."

But it does matter. If Kerry shies away from gay issues now, Republicans will justifiably argue that he has no mandate on them once he's elected.

And if fear of political consequences is enough to silence Kerry and the Democrats now, the same reasons will be used to justify their silence later. Before he's elected, we are told, candidate Kerry must do nothing substantive on gay rights so he can get elected. In 2005 and 2006, we will be told, President Kerry must do nothing substantive on gay issues so the Democrats can win the 2006 congressional election. In 2007 and 2008, we will hear, Kerry must do nothing substantive on gay issues so he can be re-elected. And so on.

What I see developing with the Kerry/Edwards no-show at the FMA vote, with the failure of Kerry and Edwards to discuss any gay-related issue since the primaries, with the relative invisibility of "gay" at the Democratic convention, and now with the gearing up of the old excuse factory for them, is a replay of those halcyon years that gave us "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and the Defense of Marriage Act.

But, bless his heart, Kerry does have an implicit feeling for us that goes unspoken. He is promising us nothing and it's starting to look like that's just what he'll deliver.