Slavery Is Freedom.

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The International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission has issued a statement that's simply Orwellian. According to their release, IGLHRC Opposes Bush's Warmongering:

US actions in the war on terrorism demonstrate a disregard for international law. ... Our position is guided by our sense of solidarity with and accountability to the activists we work with all over the world, and especially those in regions which are greatly impacted by US foreign policies. The US policies of military aggression have served to render those who deviate from sexual and gender norms and people living with HIV/AIDS especially vulnerable to state-sanctioned violence and discrimination.

Just try to parse the meaning here. Not only are they defending Saddam's rule in the name of human rights (quite an obscenity, really), but they"re claiming it's U.S. policy that's responsible for the oppression of gays and lesbians (and the transgendered too, I suppose) in Saddam's Iraq and other tyrannies. This is too loopy for words.

Lies Are Truth.

But the left doesn't have a monopoly on inflammatory positions. The Liberty Legal Institute is one of the rightwing groups filing a brief in support of the Texas sodomy law in the Lawrence case now before the Supreme Court. According to a summary on the group's website:

Homosexual advocacy groups are challenging the Texas sodomy law". If the Court rules the law is unconstitutional discrimination (as they argue), all marriage laws restricting marriage to being between a man and a woman only would also be unconstitutional." LLI is also filing a brief with the Supreme Court of the United States, representing dozens of Texas legislators who are calling for the Supreme Court to uphold the sodomy law as part of the state laws protecting marriage.

Liberty Legal isn't even bothering to argue that ending sodomy laws could be a "slippery slope" toward legalizing same-sex matrimony; they simply assert that if sodomy laws are found unconstitutional, then barring gay unions will ipso facto be unconstitutional, too. Would it were so! Surely this "legal institute" knows that's ridiculous, but in the game of firing up the donor base, truth is a mere abstraction.

Muzzling versus Debate.

The always inflammatory gay columnist Michelangelo Signorile writes in Deflating a Gasbag that advertisers should be threatened with boycotts if they don't stop sponsoring Rush Limbaugh's popular radio show, because of Limbaugh's criticism of anti-war protestors. Signorile doesn't even have a clue as to what a perfect little McCarthyite he's become, or how all this is reminiscent of the 1950s "Red Channels" boycotts of advertisers on radio shows which featured communists (real or not).

Signorile compares boycotting Limbaugh's sponsors to the effort against advertisers of "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger's radio and (now defunct) TV shows. But "Dr. Laura" was an easier target than Rush. Advertisers are more sensitive to accusations they're sponsoring anti-gay or racial/ethnic bigotry than they'll be to a charge of supporting criticism of leftwing anti-war demonstrators.

I didn't support the "Dr. Laura" boycott (though I recognize she is a bigot), and instead urged that the response to bad speech is public argument, not attempting to silence your opponent by threatening sponsors. Targeting Limbaugh's advertisers because of his expressed political views has even less merit. It's the tactic of those who don't believe they can win in the give and take of public discourse.

Tears for Leona?

Having just defended Rush Limbaugh's right to speech, I can just imagine what my critics will make of this item. But here goes: Leona Helmsley is a sad, sick woman. But I"m not cheered by the jury verdict forcing her to pay $11 million-plus for discriminating against a gay employee. Specifically, the jury found she had subjected Charles Bell to a "hostile work environment" when he was general manager of her Park Lane Hotel (for about 5 months). Yes, it's quite possible Helmsley was a boss from hell, used the word "fag," and ultimately fired Bell. Guess what, this is the woman who made her reputation firing staff for the pettiest of reasons, real and imagined.

You take a job with the 'Queen of Mean,' you should know what you letting yourself in for. And Bell, now a restaurant manager, isn't exactly a factory laborer or short-order chef suffering privations because he was let go. Said Helmsley of her jurors, "They"re crazy -- They don't like me, I guess," and it's hard to disagree with that analysis.
--Stephen H. Miller

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Homosexuality and Morality, Part 6: The Virtue of Homosexuality

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I HAVE SPENT my last five columns - and a good deal of my career - defending homosexuality against various moral attacks. Yet sometimes I spend so much time explaining why homosexuality is "not bad" that I neglect to consider why it's positively good. Can I offer any reasons for thinking of homosexuality as, not merely tolerable, but morally beneficial?

Off the top of my head, here are five:

First, homosexuality can be a source of pleasure, and pleasure is a good thing. Too often we act as if pleasure needs to be "justified" by some extrinsic reason, and we feel guilty when we pursue it for its own sake. (How often has someone told you that he or she had a massage, only to add quickly, "I have a bad back"?) This is not to say that pleasure is the only, or most important, human good. Nor is it to deny that long-term pleasure sometimes requires short-term sacrifice. But any moral system that doesn't value pleasure is defective for that reason.

Second, homosexuality can be an avenue of interpersonal communication, and this too is good. Few would deny the moral value of human interaction, including sexual interaction. Yet many of our opponents argue that we ought to forsake sexual intimacy in favor of celibacy. Forced celibacy robs people of an important form of human connection.

Third, homosexuality can be a source of emotional growth. Romantic and sexual relationships force us to "get outside of ourselves" in a powerful way. They foster sensitivity, patience, humility, generosity - a whole host of moral virtues. When Jack Nicholson tells Helen Hunt in As Good As It Gets "You make me want to be a better man," the line is moving because it strikes a deep and familiar chord. This is as true for homosexual people as it is for heterosexual people.

Fourth, and related, homosexual relationships promote personal and social stability. This is why people in relationships frequently live longer, report greater personal satisfaction, and are physically and psychologically healthier than their single counterparts. This is not to say that coupling is right for everyone: some people are happier alone, and we do them no service by pressuring them to pair off. But most people at some point want to find "a special someone." Doing so is good for them, and what's good for them is good for the community, which benefits from the presence of happy, stable, satisfied individuals. This is a worthy moral goal if anything is.

Some might object that I'm equivocating on the term "relationships" here. For our critics do not object to our offering each other emotional support, or setting up house together, or having deep conversations, or shopping at IKEA. What they object to is homosexual sex. These other activities might be morally unobjectionable, the critics concede, but they are entirely separable from the relationship's sexual aspect.

Nonsense. There is no reason to assume - and there are good reasons to doubt - that one can remove the sexual aspect of relationships and have all others remain the same. Sex is a powerful way of building, celebrating, and replenishing intimacy in a relationship. To assume that one can subtract sex without affecting the rest of the equation is to take the kind of reductionistic view of sex that critics often falsely attribute to us.

All of the reasons I've mentioned thus far apply equally well to homosexuality and heterosexuality. (The fourth applies mainly to relationships, whereas the others could apply even to "casual sex".) But someone might wonder whether there are any benefits unique to homosexuality (apart from doubling one's wardrobe).

And so, let me suggest a fifth reason: insofar as homosexuality challenges deep-seated and irrational prejudices, embracing your homosexuality can be a powerful act of moral courage. It forces you to think for yourself, rather than simply parrot what others have claimed. Moreover, it invites you to transcend rigid gender expectations.

When I came out to my grandmother, one of her first responses was, "But who's going to cook and clean for you?" Her marriage was premised on such strict gender roles it was difficult for her to conceive of alternatives.

It was then that I realized that the gay community has a great gift to give the straight community: a lesson about egalitarian relationships, where tasks are divided according to ability and interest rather than gender. Insofar as being gay within a heterosexist culture sharpens our focus on such inequalities and pressures us to confront them, it is not merely a challenge but a blessing.

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The Ultimate Sanction.

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Attorney General John Ashcroft has authorized federal prosecutors to pursue the death penalty against a man charged with killing two women at a secluded campsite in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park -- slayings seen as an anti-gay hate crime, reports the Washington Post. Darrell Rice is charged with capital murder in the deaths of Julianne Williams and Laura "Lollie" Winans, two victims who, prosecutors have quoted Rice as saying, "deserved to die because they were lesbian whores." Since the grisly crime was committed in a national park, federal prosecution was triggered. According to the Post:

Although bias against gay people is not an aggravating factor under the terms of the federal death penalty law, prosecutors are permitted in general to seek harsher penalties in crimes that are shown to be motivated by such bias. Rice's case marks the first time that prosecutors in Virginia have invoked a 1994 law making it possible to seek the harder penalties for crimes motivated by bias against gay people.

It remains to be seen if invoking the death penalty will prove controversial. In the Matthew Shepard slaying case, some gay groups that support hate crimes legislation, which increases penalties for crimes motivated by bias, also belonged to liberal coalitions opposed to the death penalty. (See, for example, Death Penalty in Shepard Case Slammed by Activists.) Even before the Shepard trial, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force had passed a resolution opposing the death penalty as a criminal sanction because, among other reasons, they claimed it's "disproportionately applied to poor people and people of color."

The conundrum: If the penalty for premeditated murder is either life in prison or death, and if hate crime laws bump up the penalty, you wind up with death. When progressive gays support hate crime bills but oppose capital punishment (often labeling it inherently racist), it parallels their call to let gays serve in the military while opposing U.S. military action as imperialist and (again) racist. Let's add lobbying for private-sector anti-discrimination laws but finding capitalism so objectionable that corporations are condemned, for their corrupting influence, when sponsoring floats in gay pride marches. Or demanding an AIDS Cure Now while trying to limit the incentive of drug company profits. And, of course, supporting the right of gays to wed while holding that marriage is an oppressive patriarchal institution. Somehow, they don't see that you can't have it both ways.

I generally oppose hate crime laws and believe it is criminal acts that should be prosecuted, not the underlying thought of the perpetrator. As it happens, I also oppose the death penalty, but not because I think it's a tool for class oppression. In fact, I find it persuasive that executions serve some role as a deterrent. But I can't get beyond the belief in my gut that killing killers who are not currently trying to kill you is morally indefensible -- and also gives the state too much power. You may disagree with me on that, but at least my dual opposition is not inconsistent.
--Stephen H. Miller

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War Talk.

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Syndicated "Lesbian Notions" columnist Paula Martinac took both myself and IGF contributing author Dale Carpenter to task in her Jan. 24 column "Speak Out Against War." Martinac quotes me as labeling those who question American foreign policy as "extremist, infantile, America-hating whiners." What she doesn't say is that my remarks are from an essay titled "What's Left?" published one month after the Sept. 11 attacks. I was castigating ad hoc groups of leftwing gays who had taken to the streets against America's pursuit of Al Qaeda terrorists and the liberation of Afghanistan from Taliban rule. While I am also critical of gay groups that recently joined the coalition against military action in Iraq, I have not done so with language as harsh as I used to describe protestors who blamed America for Sept. 11 - a fact Martinac obscures so she can dismiss my views as anti-anti-war extremism.

Meanwhile, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which recently announced its anti-war position, is spending time and energy defending itself against those even further to the left who accuse it of not being anti-war enough. And the Audre Lorde Project (which describes itself as a center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two Spirit and Transgender people of color communities) and the LGBT Programs Community Relations Unit of the American Friends Service Committee have been sending a statement around the Internet that reads in part:

we know that militarism and war rely on and promote many forms of oppression -- including homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and racism. As LGBTST people, we know what it means to be targets of hate and violence. We understand what it means to be scapegoated. -- With care and respect, we call on LGBTST organizations and communities to join national and local coalitions to struggle for peace with justice -- and actively and creatively oppose U.S. policies and actions of military/economic/political aggression and war.

You see, I don't demean, I just let the gay left speak for itself. ("Two-spirit," by the way, is what the politically correct crowd now considers acceptable labeling of Native American gay folks.)

Less Regulation, More Gay Inclusion

Back in the real world, Virginia Log Cabin spokesman David Lampo has this op-ed published in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, arguing that Virginia law hurts the state's economy by prohibiting (yes, prohibiting) private businesses from granting health insurance to anyone who isn't the spouse or child of an employee, effectively barring benefits for same-sex partners. It's another case where government isn't the solution, it's the problem, holding back a private sector that wants to move forward.

Also in a libertarian vein, IGF contributing author David Boaz has an op-ed exposing the pro-choice hypocrisy of some big-name Democrats running for president. He writes:

what question of choice -- other than abortion -- does Gephardt think should be answered "not by the state but by the individual"? Like Kerry, he opposes Social Security choice, school choice, and the right of individuals to choose what drugs they will use, either for medical or recreational purposes. He voted to deny gays and lesbians the right to marry the person they choose.

Meanwhile, our friends on the left dream of an even more intrusive regulatory state that would, of course, only do good, progressive things. Naturally.
--Stephen H. Miller

Recent Postings

01/31/2003 -- 01/26/2003

01/23/2003 -- 01/20/2003

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More Pro-Gay, More Libertarian

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First published January 29, 2003, in the Chicago Free Press.

AN ANNUAL SURVEY of college freshmen found that last fall's entering freshmen were more accepting of gays and gay relationships than previous freshmen classes have ever been, despite the fact that they describe themselves as somewhat more moderate or conservative than the previous year.

Each year since 1966 the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at the University of California, Los Angeles, has surveyed college freshmen about their background, educational and career plans and social attitudes. The results for fall 2002, just released, are based on 280,000 students at 437 colleges and universities.

This time, asked their opinion about the statement "Same-sex couples should have the right to legal marital status" (i.e., gay civil marriage), 59.3 percent of the freshmen said they agreed, an increase of 1.4 percent over last year and an all time high since the question was first asked in 1997, when only 50.9 percent agreed.

Interestingly enough, although opinion surveys uniformly show that men are less accepting of gays, this year for the first time freshman men's support for gay marriage rose above 50 percent: it stands at 50.8 percent, a two point increase over the previous year. And support by women reached almost two-thirds: 66.3 percent.

On the other gay-related question, the survey asked whether students agreed that "It is important to have laws prohibiting homosexual relationships" (i.e., sodomy laws). Fewer than one-fourth of the freshmen agreed: 24.8 percent. That figure is virtually unchanged from last year's 24.9 percent, but still represents an all-time low since the question was first asked in 1976.

Here too, there was a marked male/female difference: Fewer than one-fifth of the women (18.5 percent) supported sodomy laws, while nearly one-third of the men (32.6 percent) did so. The male/female differences on gay marriage (15.5 points) and sodomy laws (14.1 points) are, except for a question about gun control, the largest in the survey.

As in previous years, freshmen at schools with high entrance standards were far more gay supportive than freshmen at schools with lower entrance standards. That suggests that the better educated, better informed students are, the more likely they are to be accepting of gays.

And freshmen at private universities are more gay supportive than those at public universities. That suggests that parents who are financially better off are able to give their children wider social, cultural and travel experience, increasing their comfort with social and cultural variety.

Both the greater support for gay civil marriage and the sustained high level of disapproval for sodomy laws takes on additional significance since this year's freshmen seem, at first glance, slightly more conservative than last year's.

This year 27.8 percent of freshmen described themselves as "liberal" or "far left," a decrease of 2.1 points from last year's 29.9 percent. And 21.3 percent of the freshmen described themselves as "conservative" or "far right," an increase of 0.6 points. Most freshmen said they were "middle of the road."

With some reason, the HERI analysts attribute this slight political shift to the impact of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. For instance, this year 45 percent of the freshmen agree with the statement "federal military spending should be increased," more than double the 21.4 percent who agreed when the question was last asked in 1993.

But the gay supportive results are anomalous only if "conservative" necessarily means "anti-gay," something that, contrary to progressive left rhetoric, seems less and less true among younger people. Another national survey conducted last year found the same result.

Perhaps more to the point, if this survey's answers are analyzed not as "liberal" versus "conservative" but as "authoritarian" versus "libertarian" - i.e, government intrusion versus leaving individuals alone - then the shifts on gay issue are consistent with many of the other shifts.

For instance: more freshmen this year think marijuana should be legalized and more of them support legal rights for those accused of crimes. At the same time, fewer of this year's freshmen support gun control, campus speech codes, or higher taxes on "wealthy" people.

Taken together these all suggest a slight shift away from reliance on governments or authorities and toward personal autonomy and liberty of action. The slightly increased opposition to sodomy laws and the greater demand for ending government discrimination against gay partners (i.e., government preferential treatment for heterosexual partners) fit with that trend.

Even the new support for higher military spending could be seen as a deeply felt desire to protect traditional American civil, economic and religious liberties from further assault by a violent, authoritarian religious sect.

There may be ideological changes slowly taking place that cannot be captured by the old left/right or progressive/conservative distinctions. If so, we need to avoid letting political labels do our thinking for us. As old Thomas Hobbes once said, "Words are the counters of wise men, but the money of fools."

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Art, Not Propaganda.

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Gloria Steinem doesn't get "The Hours." Neither do her critics. The Oscar-contender, based on the prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham, is a meditation on Virginia Woolf's novel "Mrs. Dalloway" and, for most folks, a thought-provoking two hours of cinema -- unless you happen to be an ideologue of left or right. Writing in the Los Angeles Times on Jan. 12 (not available without a fee), all Steinem sees is feminist propaganda, which makes her glad. She's especially fond of the storyline set in the 1950s about a suicidal housewife trapped in suburbia with spouse and child (and another one on the way) -- prime Steinem territory. She writes:

"Some male moviegoers emerged bewildered about why Laura wasn't happy with just her nice house, nice marriage, and nice son -- as if they would have been."

This provoked conservative columnist Rod Dreher, writing in National Review Online to comment:

"Well, call me a caveman, but yes, I did wonder why Laura (Julianne Moore)"with a loving husband and a small boy who adores her, was made so miserable by her existence.... It's telling that Steinem"assumes that all women naturally understand Laura's decision (guess what, they don"t)."

I"m not going to give away Laura's "decision," put you get the point. Dreher, who labels the film an "apologia for evil," buys Steinem's interpretation and rejects both the film and Steinem.

But neither grasps the movie I saw. Consider the two other storylines in the film. In the earliest, Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman) has been free to rebel against Victorian repression with her Bloomsbury Set colleagues and a husband who is willing to sacrifice his own career to support her life of artistic self-expression. She's miserable and suicidal. In the present-day story, Clarissa (Meryl Streep) is a lesbian mother (via a sperm donor) with a loving partner (Allison Janney) and a rewarding career as a Manhattan literary editor who throws parties for the avant garde. She's miserable and suicidal.

If Laura is depressed because 1950s conformism clashes with her, as they say, lesbian tendencies, Clarissa is unhappy because, as it turns out, the true love of her life was a poet, Richard (Ed Harris), who after one blissful summer left her for a man. In sum, the film, like "Mrs. Dalloway," is a reflection on why people can't be happy, always pining for what they don't have or think they"ve lost. Ultimately, Clarissa in the movie, as with her namesake in Woolf's novel, finds that it's the small, fleeting happinesses of life that are to be treasured.

But if Gloria Steinem wants to see a feminist anthem, and if Rod Dreher wants to condemn it as such, then I hope they enjoy themselves. But they've missed out on a truly interesting film.
--Stephen H. Miller

Recent Postings

01/31/2003 -- 01/26/2003

01/23/2003 -- 01/20/2003

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Bye, Bye, Bigots.

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Much press coverage last week about the withdrawal of Jerry Thacker -- the head of a Christian right AIDS ministry who had been nominated to the presidential advisory AIDS council, and then withdrew under pressure when it came to light he had called AIDS a "gay plague" and referred to the gay "deathstyle." As reported in an article by Carolyn Lochhead in the San Francisco Chronicle:

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer quickly and adamantly disavowed Thacker's views and his nomination, saying the selection was not made at the presidential level but came instead from the Department of Health and Human Services.

Let's also point out that of the 7 new nominees to the 35-member advisory council, 4 are openly gay -- including long-time Log Cabin Republican activist David Greer.

This White House is trying to both court gays in a subtle way and still placate the religious right, and sometimes you just can't do both. But when push comes to shove, they are distancing themselves from bigotry even at the cost of upsetting religious conservatives, and that's a major development. If you think my observation na"ve, read this attack on Bush by the American Family Association, Bush White House, Clinton White House ... No Difference on Homosexuality. According to this prominent religious conservative group, the Bush Administration is accused of "having a blind spot on an issue of critical importance to Christians: the homosexual movement," as evidenced most recently by its failure to support Thacker:

presidential spokesman Ari Fleisher publicly condemned Thacker, saying his views are "far, far removed from what the president believes," that the president has a "totally opposite view," and that Bush did not choose Thacker personally.

AFA chairman and founder Don Wildmon says while he was disappointed in the turn of events, he was more surprised at how quickly they happened.

"The homosexuals raised an objection, and Mr. Thacker was gone -- and that really surprised me," he says. "I was surprised by the strong comments from the White House saying the president did not share any of the views that Mr. Thacker holds."

Wildmon says he is tired of the apparent powerful influence exercised on the president by the Log Cabin Republicans, a homosexual lobby group -- and is concerned the Thacker incident could be a signal that the Administration may cave in to demands for pro-homosexual legislation. The White House, he says, is misguided in its attempts to appease homosexuals.

More evidence of the new thinking: Last week, the Washington Post reported that Peggy Neff, the lesbian partner of a woman killed in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon, has been awarded more than $500,000 from a federal fund created to compensate victims:

Unlike gay couples in New York, Neff was not eligible for state aid from Virginia. Virginia law limits the benefits to spouses, parents, grandparents, siblings and children. But the master of a federal fund established by the Department of Justice after the terrorist attacks concluded that Neff, who is in her mid-fifties, was entitled to compensation.

"This is a huge step forward for the federal government," said Jennifer Middleton, an attorney for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, which represented Neff.

Under a GOP administration, the federal government is increasingly recognizing that gays deserve to be given equal treatment. Much remains to be done, of course (the military and partnership recognition/marriage being the biggest hurdles), but the whines of our opponents are warranted; we"re continuing to move forward at a pace many activists had doubted was possible.

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Defending Lambda Legal Defense.

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California attorney David Link, an IGF contributing author, emailed to support Lambda Legal Defense's brief in the Lawrence sodomy law case (after I had taken Lambda to task for citing Roe v. Wade as a precedent). David writes, in part:

Amicus briefs can (and should) be much more focused than the briefs of the parties, which have an obligation to address all the legal issues in the case. ... [T]he substantive due process issue is necessarily implicated if we want to have the court overturn Hardwick -- since it was based on substantive due process.... The court could distinguish Lawrence from Hardwick on equal protection grounds, leaving Hardwick standing, but applying to all sodomy laws as long as they treat all citizens equally irrespective of sexual orientation. That's one way to go.

But some think the better approach is to have the court overturn Hardwick entirely, and that requires addressing the question of constitutional privacy. (Unless, of course, the court were to strike off on some completely novel direction, like a more narrow focus on constitutional liberty, which, I think, is unlikely from this court). Thus, Lambda had a responsibility to brief the right to privacy, and that logically includes Roe. It would be possible to cite all the other privacy precedents, from Griswold v. Connecticut on, skipping over Roe, but that would be disingenuous. I think I'm safe in saying that the members of the US Supreme Court would probably be smart enough to notice the elephant that isn't in the room.

Well stated, but as a non-attorney court-watcher I still have doubts. I replied as follows:

It's been said that the majority in Hardwick delivered the opinion they wished they could have given to overturn Roe. If anything, Roe's reasoning is held to be even more suspect by the court majority today. So it sure seems like an extremely bad tactical move -- and really, for what end?

O"Connor and Kennedy may not want to unleash the furies by overturning Roe, but they certainly hold its reasoning in disdain and don't want to grant Roe any added credibility. And the response from Thomas, who some felt was reachable with limited-government-intrusion arguments (as in the Institute for Justice amicus brief, which argues for overturning Hardwick without staking a claim to the elusive "privacy right") would be likely to react even more negatively. So from this layman's perspective, it was a firecracker that shouldn't have been tossed.

I realize the folks at Lambda are extremely dedicated and hardworking. But their staff attorneys, with only a few exceptions, are from the liberal to left side of the spectrum, as they too often demonstrate. Wooing the center-right justices should have been the obvious goal, but one that may have clashed with their cultural milieu (i.e., NARAL and pals), so I stand by my criticism.

By the way, Lambda Legal Defense's website now includes its brief as well as all supporting amicus briefs.

To tell the truth, I couldn't bear to read what the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Center for Lesbian Rights, Human Rights Campaign, People for the American Way, Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, AFL-CIO, and other activists on the liberal left had to say to the court, but I doubt they've presented arguments that might effectively convince conservative justices to find sodomy laws unconstitutional. Far more likely, they"ve compiled legal theorizing that's anathema to the center-right swing votes on the court, but red meat to their own members and donors.
--Stephen H. Miller

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Homosexuality and Morality, Part 5: Retaining the Moral High Ground

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OVER THE LAST MONTH I've been exploring various attempts to show that homosexuality is morally wrong. Not surprisingly, I've concluded that these anti-gay arguments don't hold much water.

At this point in the debate opponents usually try to change the subject. "Oh yeah?" they say. "Well what about incest or bestiality?"

The proper response to this so-called argument is an incredulous stare. "Excuse me," you should say politely but firmly, "but I have no absolutely idea what the hell you're talking about. For I was talking about homosexuality, and now you are talking about incest, and I don't see what one thing has to do with the other. You might as well ask me about tax fraud or nuclear proliferation - equally irrelevant topics to the issue at hand."

Many gay-rights opponents seem to think of the "What about incest?" argument as a kind of trump card. Their idea is that if one accepts homosexuality, one gives up on the idea of drawing moral lines altogether.

Nonsense. Gay people, like everyone else, can make judgments about which kinds of relationships are conducive to human well-being and which aren't. Besides, unless one assumes from the outset that homosexuality is immoral, there is no more reason to group incest with homosexuality than with heterosexuality: after all, there is far more heterosexual incest than homosexual incest.

Why, then, do critics continue to press this objection? Perhaps it's because accepting homosexuality requires them to give up their favorite argument: it's wrong because we've always been taught that it's wrong. This "argument from tradition" has an appealing simplicity. It is easier to accept the status quo than to make fine-grained, well-reasoned distinctions between those sexual acts which contribute to human well-being and those that do not.

But easier is not always better. And in this case, the cost of simplicity is too high: it involves denying fulfilling relationships to gay and lesbian people without any better reason than "that's how we've always done things." This is moral complacency, and it deserves not merely to be rejected but to be harshly condemned. If one is going to condemn people for the loving, affectionate relationships in their lives, one had damn well have a better reason than that. The same reason was once used to oppose interracial relationships: it was a lousy reason then and it's a lousy reason now.

The so-called moral case against us is in fact deeply immoral. There's something rather perverse about condemning people because of whom they love. And the effects of such condemnation - the pain and suffering and fear, the talent and energy wasted by the devastating oppression of the closet - are a far greater moral tragedy than consensual sex could ever be.

Please remember this: morality is not the exclusive domain of our opponents. Exhausted by the mistaken moralizing of Dr. Laura, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and the like, gays and lesbians are sometimes tempted to reject the practice of moralizing altogether. And then we start to believe the fallacy that "Morality is strictly a private matter."

This is a serious mistake. Whatever morality is, it is not "strictly private." It's about how we treat one another. It's about fairness and justice. It's about what matters most to us - not just as a personal preference, but as a standard for public behavior.

The problem with our opponents is not that they make moral judgments. Everyone makes moral judgments, and those who think they don't are either confused or depraved. The problem with our opponents is that their moral condemnations of homosexuality lack good grounds. Insofar as this mistake involves misinformation or confused reasoning, it is a logical error. Insofar as it involves indifference to the experience of gays and lesbians, it is a moral one. It is high time we stood up and identified it as such.

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Lone Star Hate

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AS A NATIVE TEXAN, I know good and well why Texas has an anti-gay sodomy law - the one now being challenged in the Supreme Court. It's not because the state wants to protect the grand traditions of our moral heritage passed down from millennia of human experience and teaching, as Texas is now claiming before the Supreme Court.

That's just window-dressing for the real reason. It's an attempt to make the law look respectable, to divert attention away from what's really going on in Texas and in other states that have anti-gay sodomy laws.

No, the real reason legislators keep their anti-gay sodomy laws is simple: they just hate "queers." They have a sodomy law criminalizing gay people to express that gut reaction. But passing laws to express hatred against a group of people is unconstitutional.

How do we know the Texas law is an expression of hatred?

Here are five reasons we know the Texas sodomy law is infected with unconstitutional "animus" - simple spite against a group of people. (Disclosure: The discussion below is based on a Supreme Court brief I helped write for the Republican Unity Coalition urging the Texas law be held unconstitutional.)

First, sodomy laws historically prohibited anal (and later oral) sex for both heterosexual and homosexual couples. Traditional morality, which objected to all non-procreative sex, condemned sodomy for all persons regardless of the sex of their partners. No state had any objection to homosexual conduct as a category unto itself until 1969 when Kansas became the first state to adopt a law targeted solely at gays. The Texas anti-sodomy law itself applied to both heterosexual and homosexual sex until the law was changed to target only gays in 1973.

Texas thus offers a novel moral regime whereby conduct once condemned is now legally acceptable, but only for the political majority, while the identical conduct is prohibited only for the political minority. By taking the uniform historical prohibitions on sodomy and abolishing them for all but the small political minority of gay couples, Texas betrays an animus toward gay couples rather than a concern for preserving "traditional" morality.

Second, in the recent past, objections to homosexuality have been based on a variety of now-discredited harm-based concerns thought to justify repression. For example, those seeking to restrict or punish gays have variously asserted that homosexuality is a sickness, that it is chosen or changeable, and that it could be discouraged or stamped out by repressive laws. Gays also were tarred as child molesters.

These and other myths have been debunked. Indeed, even Texas no longer pretends that there is any material harm to homosexual conduct or that its law can alter the incidence of homosexuality, but instead asserts only a moral interest conveniently immune from empirical falsification. The collapse of excuse after excuse for discriminating against gays and the recent manufacture of a novel, selective, and non-falsifiable "moral" claim indicates a lingering animus likely born of the old substantive libels against gays.

Third, even as it targeted gay sex alone for the first time in 1973, Texas also legalized bestiality. A Texan may have sex in private with an animal or an opposite-sex partner he met ten minutes ago, and the law will take no heed. But let a Texan have sex with even a committed same-sex human partner, and the criminal law cries foul. Whatever morality Texas purports to protect with that regime, it is not traditional sexual morality.

The message sent by the patchwork of Texas sex laws is that gay citizens are less worthy of a life of physical intimacy than are animals and those who molest them. If that is not an expression of animus against a class of persons, nothing is.

Fourth, like other states, Texas rarely prosecutes people for actual violation of its sodomy law. This suggests the state has a minor concern at best with the conduct at issue. The primary practical use of the statute seems to be to justify discrimination against gays in unrelated contexts, like employment or marriage.

The infrequency of the direct enforcement of the law against specific conduct combined with its invocation to deny gays equal treatment in areas unrelated to the prohibited conduct reflect animus toward gays as a class rather than a moral disapproval for specific sexual practices.

Fifth, the broad and harsh consequences of the law, combined with the fact that these consequences fall solely on gay people, suggest animus. If he obeys the sodomy law, the gay citizen, and the gay citizen alone, must forever forego a life of intimacy. However, if he disobeys the law, the gay citizen flouts the criminal code and must live with the knowledge and fear that, in the eyes of the state, he is but an as-yet-undiscovered criminal.

And, if convicted of disobeying the law, he then faces a daunting series of obstacles throughout his life. He must, for example, reveal his conviction on applications for public and private employment. Evidence of his criminal conviction may be used against him in a child custody dispute. In some places he must register as a sex offender. The list goes on.

Sweeping and fundamental are the consequences of this law to gay persons and to gay persons alone. If it is not a tool to deny gays a life of physical affection with another human being, it is a sword hanging over our heads threatening us with discrimination in obtaining life's necessities.

While morality has its place in law, hatred has none.

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