IGF CultureWatch

Originally appeared March 13, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

LAST FALL, the United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism, the largest branch of American Judaism, issued a new Torah and commentary titled "Etz Hayim" - "tree of life" - that includes several background essays discussing recent scholarship on the bible and Near Eastern archaeological findings.

According to the March 9 New York Times account, the new Torah, the first in 60 years for conservative Jews, is particularly notable because the new scholarship shows that the early books of the bible have no historical validity.

The Garden of Eden? An etiological myth. Noah and the flood? A legend that arose in Mesopotamia suggested by the regular flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. Sodom and Gomorrah? Another myth. Abraham? Like most legendary founders, he probably never existed.

The Israelite captivity in Egypt and the Exodus probably never occurred. There are no Egyptian sources mentioning an Israelite presence and no archaeological evidence anywhere for Israelites wandering in the Sinai - "not a pottery shard," as Rabbi David Wolpe put it.

There was no Israelite conquest of Palestine. Instead, there was a gradual and largely peaceful settlement. And Jericho? It didn't have any walls and it wasn't even inhabited when Joshua's "battle of Jericho" supposedly occurred.

King David? If he existed at all, and there is some dispute, was probably a local tribal leader whose importance was later inflated to promote religious pride. There is an "almost total absence of archaeological evidence" for a sizable Jerusalem at that time.

These and other modern findings have long been accepted by most bible scholars and seminary teachers. They are well known by most priests, ministers and rabbis. But they have not been widely shared with the laity in the pews, so they may even come as a surprise to readers here. Nonetheless, they are now the views of most scholars and supported by substantial evidence.

Why clergy are reluctant to share this information with laymen is a topic for another time. But perhaps intelligent laymen will not be so shocked. After I wrote a column on the Sodom legend, a conservative Jewish friend asked why I bothered. "Some people believe those bible stories," I said. He shook his head. "Fairy tales," he said. "They're just fairy tales."

This growing willingness to face historical evidence is significant for gay men because two key texts religious conservatives cite to attack gay men are in the Leviticus "Holiness Code" purportedly given by the biblical god Yahweh to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

Leviticus 18:22 reads: "Do not lie with a man as with a woman. It is an abhorrence" - as the new Torah translates it.

But if there was no Exodus, no wandering in the desert and probably no Moses, then there was no revelation on Sinai and the prohibition of homosexuality lacks divine authority. It is merely the human creation of ancient Jewish scribes.

In fact, so far as biblical scholars can tell, based on internal evidence, the Holiness Code (Leviticus chs. 17-26) was probably compiled no earlier than 750 B.C., and maybe as late as 550 B.C. - far later than the purported revelation on Sinai (traditionally between 1200 and 1450 B.C.) The code was then "backdated" by being inserted into the Moses legend to give it divine authority.

Examined carefully, noting various repetitions and inconsistencies, that section of Leviticus seems to combine at least two sets of laws by different writers who did not entirely agree on what was important and what the penalties should be.

For example, Lev. 18:22 says that anyone who does a number of things including homosexual sex "shall be cut off from his people" because the acts are "unclean." But the scribe who wrote Lev. 20:13, perhaps writing later, had much stronger feelings about homosexuals: "They shall be put to death," he inveighs; "Their blood shall be upon them."

Recognizing that there is no divine mandate to prohibit homosexuality, how do the compilers of the new Torah handle homosexuality? Well, some wanted to preserve the prohibition anyway.

"We couldn't come to a formulation that we could all be comfortable with," Rabbi Joseph Kushner said. "Some people felt that homosexuality was wrong." So the committee ended by saying that the prohibitions on homosexuality "have engendered considerable debate," but that conservative synagogues should "welcome gay and lesbian congregants in all congregational activities."

But while this step forward is welcome, a problem lingers. If homosexuality is wrong, we know from this Torah that it is cannot be wrong for theological reasons but for some secular reasons.

But if the reasons are secular, then people have an obligation to explain them, rather than just asserting their position, so we can examine them. But many people cannot give up age-old habits of thought, even when the rationale for them no longer has any validity.

But having readily dropped the Levitical mandate that gays should be killed, the new Torah would have been well-advised to abandon the idea that homosexuality is wrong and acknowledge that believing so is merely a cultural atavism.

The recent death of Sylvia Rivera, an activist drag queen who threw quarters at the police during the Stonewall riot, has prompted much guilt-laden commentary about how the gay civil rights movement has pushed aside "the people who started it all." The commentary is dubious as a matter of history and wrong about the policy conclusions it draws from that history.

Here is the standard story: "On the night of June 28, 1969, the New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar that included a mix of drag queens and lesbians. Led by the drag queens, the patrons fought back, igniting the gay civil rights movement. Yet the new movement soon became overly image-conscious and pushed these brave heroes to the back of the bus. It's high time we repay our debt by fully including transgender issues in gay causes, including proposed legislation."

This fictionalized account of Stonewall and its aftermath has been repeated so many times by gay and transgender activists it now goes almost unquestioned. Typical of the genre is a recent Village Voice column by Riki Wilchins, executive director of GenderPAC. Wilchins describes the Stonewall Inn in 1969 as a "sanctuary" for "genderqueers," who were "unwelcome at the city's tonier gay bars."

Wilchins asserts Rivera "helped [give] birth" to the gay movement at Stonewall. Similarly, in his book The Gay Metropolis, Charles Kaiser says Stonewall was "sparked by drag queens." Despite these contributions, transgender causes are now excluded from the movement because, as Wilchins puts it, gay organizations are "determined to project an image of normalcy."

This is politics-by-guilt-trip, and it has been undeniably effective in redirecting many gay groups' priorities toward transgender issues. The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force has even withdrawn its support of the only federal legislation that would prohibit anti-gay employment discrimination because the bill does not include "gender identity" within its protections.

The standard tale is error piled on error. First, it exaggerates the undeniable importance of Stonewall as a catalytic event. As the careful work of numerous historians has demonstrated, there was an active gay civil rights effort underway long before Stonewall. Gay activists had organized the Mattachine Society in Los Angeles in 1950, and in other cities later; had supported an openly gay candidate for public office; had fought the closing of gay bars; had founded a national magazine, The Advocate; had marched in front of the White House for equal rights; and had picketed businesses that discriminated against gays.

Outside of New York, according to Stephen Murray in his book American Gay, gay activists initially paid little attention to Stonewall. Only through the annual pride parade commemorations that began a year later and spread significantly in the mid-1970s did Stonewall take on the singular importance in gay history it now enjoys. At the time it happened, however, the event simply did not carry the incredible motivating force we now attach to it.

Second, the centrality of transgenders to Stonewall is probably exaggerated. Eyewitness accounts of what happened that night vary, as they usually do, and we have no videotape of the event and very few pictures.

But one thing is clear. It is wrong to characterize the Stonewall Inn as having been a sanctuary for genderqueers (unless that term encompasses non-transgendered gay men). Murray writes that "men familiar with the milieu then insist that the Stonewall clientele was middle-class white men and that very few drag queens or dykes or nonwhites were ever allowed admittance."

But don't take Murray's word for it, consider what Sylvia Rivera herself told the historian Eric Marcus for his book, Making History: "The Stonewall wasn't a bar for drag queens. Everybody keeps saying it was. ... If you were a drag queen, you could get into the Stonewall if they knew you. And only a certain number of drag queens were allowed into the Stonewall at that time." The night of the Stonewall riot was the first time Rivera had ever even been to the bar.

If Rivera is right, it seems likely the Stonewall patrons who rebelled that June night in 1969 included many (perhaps mostly) middle-class, non-transgendered, gay white males. It's possible that the few drag queens present provided all (or most of) the rebellion while the others cowered. But there is no reason to make that assumption unless we indulge stereotypes about the timidity of gay men. So a description of the riot as an uprising of drag queens may be more politically correct, but as history it seems partial.

This point does not deny that drag queens participated in the riot. They did. It only makes the point that their centrality to the event likely has been exaggerated, probably for ideological reasons.

Finally, these historical disputes have no bearing - either way - on whether "gender identity" ought to be included in gay civil rights legislation. Even if Stonewall was the single casus belli of the gay struggle, and even if transgenders were the only people there kicking shins and uprooting parking meters, so what? And even if no drag queens were present that night, what difference would it make now?

If we learned the Stonewall police had busted up a meeting of gay white racists, instead of drag queens, we wouldn't say that should make us more attentive to the concerns of racists. These matters rise or fall on their own merits, not on the relative role groups played in distant and disputed events.

And speaking of the merits, drafting legislation is an immensely complicated task that involves putting together a coalition of supporters. Gay civil rights legislation would be stalled or effectively killed in many places if transgenders were included. The choice is often between a more inclusive bill that goes nowhere and a less inclusive bill that actually becomes law. It is not "transphobic" to make this point; it is pragmatic.

These are hard realities that some people do not want to hear. We should not feel guilty because we want to make progress, least of all because someone is telling us fairy tales about our past.

Originally appeared March 6, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

IF WE HAD TO NAME one American composer whose music is sure to be played for the next hundred or two hundred years, it would have to be Samuel Barber (1910-1981), whose 92 birthday anniversary we celebrate on March 9.

From his earliest compositions Barber showed that he was able to write in his own recognizable melodic style while preserving a linkage to European romantic musical tradition. Without using jazz or folk tunes or experimental techniques, he managed to sound identifiably American simply by being himself.

"My aim," he once explained, "is to write good music that will be comprehensible to as many people as possible, instead of music heard only by small, snobbish musical societies in the large cities."

Even people who care little about classical music have probably heard Barber's most famous piece, the seven minute "Adagio for Strings." It was used in the film "Platoon," in a perfume advertisement and even as part of a rock album. There are almost 40 performances on CD.

When he finished the original string quartet version in 1936, Barber realized that he had written something remarkable. He wrote to a friend, "I have just finished the slow movement of my quartet today--it is a knockout!"

Because of its unhurried pace, the Adagio is sometimes played at memorial services. But it is far from a lament. It is abstract music, a careful interweaving of melodic lines that slowly rise to a high pitch of emotional intensity followed by a return to calm.

Composer and critic Virgil Thomson once insisted, "I think it's a love scene ... a detailed love scene ... a smooth, successful love scene. Not a dramatic one, but a very satisfactory one." Thomson may be on to something.

Barber did not publish much music, fewer than 50 works. He was a painstaking craftsman, waiting for inspiration, prone to making repeated revisions. But a higher proportion of his works probably deserve to be called "great" than is true for almost any other modern composer.

He wrote one piano concerto, one violin concerto, one cello concerto, one piano sonata, two short ballets, two symphonies, two major operas. Many have become part of the standard repertoire and most deserve to be recognized as among the best works in the last century.

Barber is particularly interesting, of course, because of his long relationship with fellow composer Gian-Carlo Menotti after they met in 1928 as students at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music.

People who say a composer's sexuality has no influence on his music are wrong. By conditioning whom he has relationships and friendships with, a composer's sexual orientation can influence the kinds of pieces he writes, the texts he sets to music, the instrumentation, even the musical style itself.

Menotti and Barber interacted constantly, encouraging each other, offering suggestions on each other's work. Barber dedicated his first symphony (1936) to Menotti. Menotti wrote one opera text for Barber and helped revise another. The undulating beginning of Barber's "Knoxville" (1948) is reminiscent of Menotti, as is some of his ballet "Medea" (1947). Or vice versa.

Then too, the beautiful slow movement of Barber's piano concerto (1962) started as a piece for a young flute player Barber had a brief affair and long friendship with. Another man Barber had a relationship with introduced him to Pablo Neruda's love poems which Barber used for his orchestral song-cycle "The Lovers" (1971).

There is no space to discuss many of Barber's works. But three deserve mention.

Symphony No. 1 (1936), a condensed, 20-minute symphony, is Barber's first obvious great work and one of the first important American symphonies. It has enough flash and dissonance to be recognizably modern, but is romantic at its core, especially in the beautiful, sad-sounding theme in the slow section.

The Violin Concerto (1939) is Barber's most lyrical, romantic work, full of warm melodies and rich harmonies. By contrast, and this became typical for Barber, the last section is a tumultuous, fiendishly difficult "perpetual motion," a challenge for violinists but exciting to listen to.

Although the concerto fell into disfavor during the 1960s, and '70s when many academic composers and critics promoted intentionally dissonant styles, the "New Romanticism" of the 1980s and '90s led to its revival and there are now at least ten recordings.

The Piano Concerto (1962) is certainly the best American piano concerto, and probably the best in America or Europe in the latter half of the 20th century. Many critics think it is Barber's finest, most important single work. It is hard to disagree.

Listening again to these and other Barber pieces before writing this column reminded me once again what a great composer Barber was and how lucky we are that he refused to be unduly influenced by transitory fads in contemporary music.

Late in life, Barber commented that some composers "feel they must have a new style every year. This, in my case, would be hopeless. ... I just go on doing, as they say, 'my thing.' I believe this takes a certain courage."

Originally appeared Feb. 27, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

Gay rights activists and national editorial writers are calling for Alabama's Chief Justice Roy Moore to be removed from the bench.

That's exactly what they should do. But in some ways, we are lucky that Justice Moore spoke up.

Two weeks ago, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the heterosexual father of three teenagers (ages 15, 17 and 18) should be granted custody over their lesbian mother, who lives with her partner in California. The mother petitioned for custody in 2000, because the father, she said, was abusive.

Custody decisions are made for all sorts of reasons, including financial status and ability to care for a child. Eight of the justices, overturning a decision of an appellate court, seemed to have made their ruling based on legal principles. But Justice Moore made it clear in a concurring opinion that when he voted with the court, he wasn't just thinking about mundane legal details.

Instead, in his mind, custody was awarded to the father on moral principles - the mother, he believes, is an unfit parent simply because she is a lesbian. And he evidently felt the need to expound on this in detail, because his concurring opinion, which quotes the Bible and legal statutes, takes great pains to pronounce his views.

He writes, "... the homosexual conduct of a parent ... creates a strong presumption of unfitness that is alone sufficient justification for denying that parent custody of his or her own children or prohibiting the adoption of children of others."

He continues, "Homosexual conduct is, and has been, considered abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature and a violation of the laws of nature. ... Such conduct violates both the criminal and civil laws of this State and is destructive to a basic building block of society - the family. ... [Such behavior] is an inherent evil against which children must be protected."

These are heartbreaking words, but we should be grateful that he said something this explicit about how he views gays and lesbians.

Yes, it is horrific that a state's Chief Justice would declare homosexuality to be "an inherent evil." Yes, it is unfortunate that his words are now entered into law as unbinding precedent.

But just think - he was on the bench a month ago, a year ago, and this was his position. He thought these things before - worse, he probably has acted on these things before, to the detriment of those in our community. The public just didn't know.

We could have guessed, perhaps. We already knew that Moore is no liberal. As a trial judge, he tried to keep a plaque of the Ten Commandments in his courtroom. Last year, when he became Chief Justice he made national news by placing monuments of Ten Commandments (AP called them "washing-machine sized") in the state judicial building.

But his words now give us something to point to. Even if he isn't ousted from the bench (and will he be, in conservative Alabama?) at least lawyers for gays and lesbians know what they are dealing with when they enter his courtroom. His homophobia is officially confirmed.

And the homophobes we know about are slightly less dangerous than the ones in hiding. Because it is not Moore, now, who is a wild card - it is the canny jurist who thinks that gays and lesbians are evil but is too savvy to say it; the jurist who denies a lesbian adoption rights because he thinks all lesbians are unfit parents, but couches his opinions in innocuous legal rigmarole; the jurist who sets low bail for a gay-basher because he secretly believes the victim got what he deserved.

After all, now we know how Moore thinks about gays and lesbians. We know that gays and lesbians can't get a fair trial in his courtroom. And the rest of the country knows that, too - which may mean that gays and lesbians who aren't given their full rights in the Supreme Court of Alabama may find refuge in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Also, his words give an edge to gay activists, who have something they can rally around that will help them raise funds and change minds as they battle homophobia in Alabama and elsewhere. Who can deny that homophobia still exists, when the chief justice of a state supreme court, who is supposed to be impartial, says that gays and lesbians are 'abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature and a violation of the laws of nature'?

So yes, the words of Chief Justice Roy Moore are horrifying. But we knew that there were people in power who felt that way. It is no surprise to us.

We just don't always know exactly who they are. So let us call for his removal. But let us also be relieved that at least we know that the snake is there on the bench in Alabama, ready to bite. At least we can protect ourselves accordingly, the best we can.