IGF CultureWatch

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO I was a candidate for the Roman Catholic priesthood. One night during a candidate retreat I was alone in a monastery rec room with a youngish priest - let's call him Fr. Jack - who was attempting to counsel me as I struggled with the difficult decision of whether to enter training that year. Fr. Jack, who seemed genuinely concerned about my emotional state, offered to give me a massage. The proposition was simultaneously strange and appealing, and I nervously accepted. He began with my back and proceeded slowly to cover virtually every inch of my body - except, notably, my genitals and buttocks. Fr. Jack then looked at me in an eager and suggestive manner and asked, "Is there any part of you that is still tense?" Quite uncomfortable at this point, I blurted, "Um, yes - my mind!" and then quickly gathered my shirt (which one of us had removed) and excused myself.

The current pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church reminded me of this event. I do not mean to suggest that Fr. Jack was a pedophile. The massage, though sexual at some not-very-hidden level, was not tantamount to sex. More to the point, I was about eighteen years old at the time - not a child, and not incapable of granting or withholding consent. But the story involves a number of issues that have been raised, often confusedly, in discussions of the ongoing scandal: priestly sexuality; priestly homosexuality; authority, secrecy, and vulnerability.

The scandal by now is familiar to anyone paying attention. In brief, there has been a disproportionately high incidence of sexual abuse among Roman Catholic priests, and the Church hierarchy have been going to great lengths to cover it up. These things by themselves would be bad enough, but in fact it's worse: Not only have the hierarchy covered up the scandal, but they have repeatedly reassigned known pedophiles to posts which put them in contact with children. These reassignments are perhaps the most inexplicable aspect of the scandal. The pedophilia can be explained (to an extent) as a psychological disorder combined with moral weakness. The cover-up can be explained as a misguided attempt at damage-control. (To say that these two things can be explained is not to say that they should be excused - both involve culpable behavior.) But the reassignments are sheer reckless stupidity. The current priest-shortage notwithstanding, there are plenty of posts within the church that do not involve youth ministry. (Next time you're in Church, consider the ratio of blue hair to baseball caps and you'll see what I mean.) If these known pedophiles were to be reassigned at all (and that's a big "if"), why not restrict them to working with older parishioners?

The Vatican's response to this and other difficult questions has been - you guessed it - to change the subject and scapegoat gays. In a recent interview Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls contended that most of the sexual abuse cases involved teenage boys, not children, and thus did not really constitute pedophilia. He then inferred that gays must be unfit for the priesthood: "People with [homosexual] inclinations just cannot be ordained," he concluded, suggesting that ordinations of gay men should perhaps be invalidated.

Navarro-Valls' proposal, if implemented, would eliminate about half of the priests in the United States. (As a former candidate who spent a lot of time with priests and seminarians, I can confirm that this oft-repeated estimate is a reasonable one.) But does his argument for the proposal work? Even supposing (what seems likely from the reports) that the majority of the victims have been male, Navarro-Valls' conclusion doesn't follow. For the question to ask is not what percentage of sexual abusers are gays, but rather, what percentage of gays are sexual abusers. Consider an analogy: The vast majority of rapists are male. But it does not follow (and it is not true, pace Andrea Dworkin) that the vast majority of males are rapists. Thus, eliminating males from a given population would not be a fair or appropriate way of curtailing rape. Analogously, even if most sexual abusers within the priesthood were gay, it would not follow that most gays within the priesthood were sexual abusers. Eliminating gays from the priesthood would be horribly unjust to the vast majority of gay priests, who are innocent of sexual abuse and as horrified by it as the rest of us.

Thus, Navarro-Valls' point about gays is a red herring. It is one thing to be attracted to persons of the same sex; it is quite another to be inclined to abuse persons of the same sex, be they children or otherwise. Conflating these distinctions not only slanders gays, it misdirects our attention away from the real problem, which is sexual abuse. Such scapegoating is a familiar tactic, sadly, and it is morally repugnant - far more so, I would contend, than the clumsy advances of Fr. Jack when I was eighteen.

Which brings me back to the age issue. Navarro-Valls is correct that in some of the cases, pedophilia is not the real problem. (It is difficult to know the percentages, since the Church has been stubbornly uncooperative in releasing data.) There's a big difference - legally, psychologically, morally - between sex with an eight-year-old and sex with a seventeen-year-old. Cases of the latter type, which often involve seminarians and seminary candidates, may be an abuse of power and a violation of priestly vows, but they are not pedophilia.

Eliminating gays from the priesthood would, indeed, eliminate many of these latter cases. But it would also eliminate a good many decent priests, and needlessly so. For the real culprit here is not homosexuality, but rather the Church's refusal to address the issue of sexuality directly and realistically. Human beings are sexual, and priests are no exception. Celibacy is demanding, and repression and denial are not helpful in mastering it. If the Church is serious about addressing sexual misconduct, it should focus on healthy ways for its priests to manage their sexuality, which does not disappear once they take vows.

Fr. Jack is a prime example, and my memory of him reminds me of the saying "There but for the grace of God go I." Had I decided during that retreat to enter religious life, I would have done so as an eighteen-year-old with no sexual or romantic experience to speak of. I would have been thrust into an all-male environment where I would be forbidden not only to have sex but also to masturbate. And sooner or later my sexuality would have asserted itself - doubtlessly in the awkward manner characteristic of the sexually immature. Perhaps I, too, would have eventually found myself attracted to a naive and fresh-faced seminary candidate, and perhaps I too would have behaved like a creep. (For the record, I decided to enter when I was nineteen and then withdrew almost immediately, correctly believing that I needed more "life experience.") Navarro-Valls' scapegoating of gays doesn't solve such problems; it perpetuates them - while ignoring far more serious ones. It is time for the Church to worry less about protecting its image and more about protecting the people it serves.

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

Editor's note: Pim Fortuyn, 54, was assassinated May 6, 2002, outside a radio studio in Hilversum, The Netherlands.

Dutch politics has recently been roiled by the emergence of an openly gay candidate who denounces Islam as backward, wants to limit foreign immigration, curtail street crime, improve public services, cut back a welfare state often labeled "bloated," and shake up the bland "old boy network" of Dutch politics.

Pim Fortuyn is generally described as an author, television personality, and former professor of sociology with a Marxist perspective. He has attracted much media attention for employing a butler and traveling in a chauffeur driven Mercedes.

But his ideas are what have aroused most interest. Journalists have difficulty finding an accurate label for him. "Populist" seems the safest, non-polemical term. But his detractors, mostly on the political left, frequently denounce him as racist, fascist and other terms of abuse.

But judging from a New York Times article, those claims seem counter-intuitive, slanderous, even crazed. And it may be Fortuyn's opponents who better deserve the labels they use.

Fortuyn points out, for instance, that many Muslim immigrants do not learn Dutch and refuse to adopt the Dutch national culture of tolerance and equality. The immigrants' version of Islam is backwards, he says, because, among much else, there is no equality between men and women and because Muslim clerical leaders attack homosexuals.

It does seem clear that many Muslim immigrants come from historically sexist and homophobic regions such as Morocco, Turkey and Indonesia, bringing their cultural views with them. And Muslim Imams in Rotterdam have repeatedly denounced gays as immoral. Rotterdam Imam El Moumni said on Dutch television that homosexuality is "a disease that threatens society."

There is a fascinating phenomenon here. A man who urges immigrants to embrace their adopted nation's liberal values of political tolerance, women's equality and respect for gays is the one denounced as a racist and fascist.

Yet insofar as immigrants suppress women, denounce the very existence of gays, and, we may reasonably suppose, are hostile to Jews, the immigrants seem far closer to those who originally bore the labels now being applied to Fortuyn.

At this point we can begin to suspect that terms like "racist" and "fascist" are just empty rhetoric, swear words, with no cognitive content. They are designed merely to delegitimize someone without taking the trouble to provide evidence or argue against their ideas.

One of the deepest political problems for any open, free society is what measures it must take in order to preserve its fundamental values of openness and tolerance against counter-pressures from people who reject those very values. But the problem is scarcely solved by denying the problem exists or by denouncing people who try to preserve a free society as racists or fascists.

The Dutch, with their historical experience of real fascism, can surely recognize and reject any politicians who threaten any sort of authoritarianism. Gays in particular, as targets of fascist oppression, would presumably welcome a politician, gay or not, who wanted to preserve a society where they are accepted.

And sure enough, when a Times reporter visited a gay bar to ask for opinions about Fortuyn, the bar-owner said, "Oh course most of my clients voted for the prof. His ideas about what's wrong are crystal clear."

Most of Fortuyn's other policy ideas don't seem fascist or racist either. Rather the opposite.

He wants local mayors to be popularly elected rather than appointed. Generally, people on the left view democracy and fascism as opposites. But in this case the man who wants to expand democracy is the one labeled racist and fascist. Does this fit a pattern of dissimulation and obfuscation by Fortuyn's critics?

Fortuyn also addresses popular concern about rising crime rates and street violence. According to the Times, police attribute both to "gangs of immigrants from Morocco, Turkey, and the Caribbean." If true, it hardly seems racist to say so. And Fortuyn apparently has support from many earlier immigrants who fear street crime as much as anyone else.

The crime problem may be exacerbated by an inability or unwillingness of more recent young immigrants to acclimate to Dutch culture, even to act out their rejection in anti-social ways. If so, the problem is to foster cultural integration in some way. But vigorous police vigilance can help in the meantime.

Fortuyn also says he would like to revive military conscription. Since The Netherlands is not surrounded by foreign enemies, we can speculate that Fortuyn hopes to draw young immigrants into Dutch culture by requiring common service in the national military.

We can oppose conscription as hostile to personal liberty and believe there are better ways to integrate immigrants, but urging it is hardly fascist. Conscription was supported by U.S. Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson. Even now proposals for mandatory national service come more from the left than the right.

It is worth recalling which U.S. president ended conscription: Richard Nixon. And what presidential candidate first urged an end to conscription: Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964. Both men were viewed as on the political right.

History is often embarrassing to facile polemics that way.

Originally appeared March 20, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

The recent disclosure of improper sexual contacts between Catholic youths and Catholic priests in the Boston archdiocese and elsewhere is what journalists call a "developing story" - one that is still unfolding, in which new information can be expected on a weekly if not daily basis, and whose implications have not yet fully been grasped.

Yet even at this early stage it seems worthwhile to try to separate out some of the basic issues involved, if only to avoid succumbing to the enormous amounts of "spin" promoted by the archdiocese, the Vatican and various interest groups.

Sexual contacts between priests and young people seem improper for at least three reasons:

1. Priests, as priests, promise to live a life of celibacy, commonly understood by laymen to mean abstinence from sexual relations or sexually arousing contacts.

Sexual contacts with young people seem to violate the very letter of that promise. In addition, they seem to do so in a clandestine, even secretive fashion, targeting those who are not only the most pliant and suggestible, but also the easiest to intimidate, shame or bribe into silence. More than one accuser has told of a priest blessing him after their sexual contacts.

To be sure, we all know of Catholic clerics who interpret the promise of celibacy more narrowly to mean abstinence from sexual intercourse proper, or abstinence from intercourse with women or simply remaining unmarried. And, to be sure, clerical celibacy was originally imposed primarily to prevent priests from having (legitimate) children they might wish to pass on property to.

But to the extent that the church promotes or allows a sharp divergence between lay and clerical understanding - on this as on so many other matters - instances where priestly behavior publicly contradicts popular understanding are an understandable cause for that gravest of all clerical sins, "scandalizing the faithful."

2. Priests are in a position of responsibility, delegated by parents, when dealing with young people.

Catholic parents often teach their children to trust and obey the priest, confident that priests have their children's interests at heart as much as the parents do, will treat the youths with respect and dignity, and will do their best to guide and protect them.

When parents find that priests' behavior with youths are for their own benefit - viz. erotic gratification of whatever sort - rather than for the children's benefit, parents justifiably feel that priests have betrayed their trust, the more offensively so because the parents taught it to the youths, never thinking that they needed to warn or caution their children about priests.

3. Priests are in a position of authority when dealing with all parishioners, but especially young people in their charge.

Many Catholic youths are taught that the priest is the person who can teach them what is right and moral, perhaps even more reliably than their parents, and who is obligated in his own conduct to exemplify those virtues, even more reliably than their parents. We might say that that is pretty much the basic job description for a priest; the rest is ritual and ceremony.

If young people feel a priest's conduct toward them violates that assumption, then their whole idea of who and what is a valid source of moral and ethical information seems falsified, in fact, completely reversed. Either the authority of the teachers or the teaching is called into question, perhaps both in a mutually destructive contradiction.

Specifically, just as parents resent their children being imposed upon, so too young people must find it deeply disturbing to realize - either gradually or in a sudden realization - that the priest is not treating them as a person for whom he has concern but as a means for his own gratification. This can hardly fit with the view of a priest as caring and benevolent.

In addition, people such as priests can, merely by virtue of their authority but also because of their greater age, be felt as applying great pressure to do as they say even against a younger, more vulnerable person's better judgment and personal inclination. That perceived pressure to violate one's own judgment and inclination is what can harm young people psychologically.

If we turn to various explanations of how these incidents come about and how to prevent them, we face a babel of opinions.

Pope John Paul II's personal spokesperson Joaquin Navarro-Valls has tried to place the blame on homosexual priests, claiming that gay men should not be priests at all. But if estimates of the large proportion of homosexuals in the American priesthood are anywhere near correct, even if "homosexual" priests were involved, it would be only a small proportion who behaved improperly.

But more to the point, and contrary to Navarro-Valls, it seems likely that priests who are attracted to other adult men, to say nothing of priests actually involved with other adult men, are not likely to seek involvement with immature males.

Some liberal critics suggest that an (ostensibly) celibate priesthood is somehow responsible. That may be true but not because self-aware, self-accepting robustly heterosexual youths are unlikely to volunteer for a celibate priesthood. After all, self-aware, self-accepting homosexual youths would seem no more likely to be drawn to a celibate priesthood.

The Catholic church will have to search wider and deeper into its doctrines and its history for the sources of its current troubles.

Originally appeared March 20, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

I have seen the post-gay world, and it serves really good beer.

My girlfriend and I were having dinner at a restaurant and bar nestled on the edge of the gay-friendly Chicago neighborhood of Andersonville, when we looked around.

The barkeep was a transwoman. There was a gay waiter and a lesbian chef. A group of gay men were flirting on the high barstools.

But something was missing.

There was no rainbow sticker on the door. Or neon rainbow in the window. Or anything external to denote this establishment as a gay bar.

And do you know why?

It isn't one.

T's calls itself a place "for everyone" and surprisingly, it really is. The same night we were there, two straight couples were playing pool. In fact, T's manages to be a place where it is as comfortable to bring your parents for dinner or straight friends for a drink as it is to flirt with a same-sex stranger or kiss your girlfriend. Perhaps even more amazingly, it is equally welcome to men and women-unlike a majority of places in gay ghettos, where gay men are often made uncomfortable in lesbian bars and vice versa.

T's is able to be most things to most people because it intentionally reaches out to all of its constituencies. It hosts regular womens' nights, sponsors gay sports teams and employs gay staff - but it also employs straight staff, and has events that also appeal to straight folks, such as Superbowl Sunday parties and the recent run of a quirky play devoted to drinking and writing.

In fact, T's is a pretty good representation of what it might be like to live in an (ideal) post-gay world.

What do I mean by post gay? I mean a world where gay couples aren't stared at, commented on or (heaven forbid) battered as they walk down the street holding hands or kissing.

I mean a world where being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered is interesting in the same way that learning that someone is left-handed or a twin is interesting - it is a fact about the individual that affects their worldview, but says nothing about his or her character, interests or politics.

By post gay, I mean a world where a lesbian marriage or a gay man in the military or a transgendered president is barely even remarked upon by the media gauntlet.

I first started imagining a post-gay world when I learned that a friend who worked part time as an advisor to a lesbitrans community at a Boston-area women's college no longer had a job.

"The students decided there was no need for an advisor anymore," my friend's life-partner told me. "They fit in fine and they just want to be students, not lesbian students or bi students."

The lesbians at this particular college can do this because their needs are being met. They face little discrimination or prejudice from the student body or administration. In fact, there is constant outreach to their community from faculty, staff and administrators. If students need something or are concerned about something, it is not difficult to find a friendly ear tuned to their frequency. They don't have to stay in their emotional or physical gay ghetto to be safe, because they feel safe where ever they are on campus.

For these lucky students, there's nothing to fight for and so they don't have to fight - they can just be.

There are pockets of places around the world like this - not only my own neighborhood of Andersonville (and upon closer reflection, most of it seems to be post-gay, not just this one bar), but also the Chicago suburb of Oak Park, the small college towns of Northampon, Mass. and Madison, Wis., parts of New York and Paris and most of San Francisco, Amsterdam and Stockholm.

The entire world, unfortunately, will likely never be post-gay. There will always be small redneck towns and large, unfriendly cities where gay people are not welcome. That's because post-gay places need a combination of things to make them possible: anti-discrimination laws, a strong gay and lesbian community, and a marketplace and political establishment that's responsive and pro-active to our needs. Being post-gay is more than cold tolerance; it is an understanding that GLBTs offer unique contributions that benefit everyone and should be sought out.

A post-gay world, which can only happen after the end of discrimination, isn't a place where we are all the same - it is a place where the needs of each of us are met equally. A place where we all feel safe and welcome. So in a post-gay bar, a lesbian might come to play pool after softball and a gay man might be flirting with his new lover while sitting next to a straight man doing the same thing.

A post-gay world is one where we are all just folks, sitting around talking and having a really good beer.

Originally appeared March 20, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

Celebrities, like ordinary folks, come out for a variety of reasons.

Some do it because they are tired of hiding and the psychological pressure of concealing their true identity becomes too much.

Some do it because they have no choice-they were outed.

Some do it to seem cooler to younger people, or to give a shot of adrenaline to a faltering career.

Some do it because they have been swayed by the strong argument that America's comfort with gays and lesbians is dependent on our visibility. And then we have Rosie.

For years, many of us have been calling on Rosie O'Donnell to come out. We mentioned the sly way she alluded to being a lesbian; we noted that she appeared with her partner in public. People like her, we said. With Rosie on our side, people might not be so quick to say that they don't know any gays or lesbians.

Yet for the longest time, Rosie didn't come out. She wouldn't come out. She would joke and hint and wink, but the word "lesbian" didn't cross her lips when she was speaking to the public.

And so we were mad at her.

But it seems that Rosie knew best all along. Because by picking her moment, she has sparked a national conversation about gay and lesbian adoption. Now she is proving that if anyone can change hearts in the heartland when it comes to adopting children, it is Rosie.

Last week, Rosie, who has three young, adopted children, spoke honestly and openly to Diane Sawyer about why it is unfair that gays and lesbians can't adopt children in Florida.

"I don't think it negates your skills as a parent if you1re homosexual," she said in her friendly, straightforward way. "I do think the kids will get teased and in some capacity that's very sad, and eventually I think that it will stop. ... Would it be easier for them if I were married to a man? It probably would. But as I said to my son, Parker, if you were to have a daddy, you wouldn't have me as a mommy. Because I'm the kind of mommy who wants another mommy."

Rosie is coming forward now because she recently learned that even though she can parent foster children in Florida, where she keeps a second home, a 1977 law prohibits adoption of those same children by any gays and lesbians, including herself.

Then she learned of a gay couple, Steve Lofton and Roger Croteau, who are in a similar predicament.

Lofton and Croteau are raising five HIV-positive children. Three of those are foster children; two were adopted in Oregon. But one of the foster children, Bert, 10, no longer tests positive for HIV. And because he is under 14, says the ACLU, "he is now considered �adoptable." Which means that the state of Florida is actively seeking another home for Bert, even though he has been raised by Lofton and Croteau since he was nine weeks old.

Lofton and Croteau have joined other parents in a lawsuit fighting against Florida's law against gay adoption, the most conservative adoption law in the country. Now, "for the first time ever," says an ACLU statement, "a federal appeals court is weighing the constitutionality of banning gay adoption."

Florida's law against gay and lesbian adoption - even when those same gays and lesbians are approved foster parents - would be simply silly if it didn't break so many hearts and break up so many loving families.

There are a half million children in foster care in the United States, and 3,400 who are waiting for adoption in Florida. Nationally, 25,000 kids a year leave the foster care system not because they were adopted, but because they became too old. Few people want to adopt physically or mentally ill children.

Croteau and Lofton are two of those few. There is no logical reason why they can't adopt the children they have raised. It is simply anti-gay bigotry.

In her interview, Rosie made this clear. "It takes a lot to become a foster parent," she told Sawyer. "You have to really want to save a child who others have deemed unsaveable. And for the state of Florida to tell anyone who's willing, capable, and able to do that, that they're unworthy, is wrong."

Rosie's interview has already changed minds.

On ABC's web page, one viewer commented, "Before tonight's show, I would say I was definitely against gay adoption. I do believe the gay life style is a sin. However ... I believe [some] sins do not carry more weight than others. So with that in mind, carrying out Florida's thinking, people who commit adultery are not fit to be parents, people who take the Lord's name in vain should not parents. Ideally, I would like to see kids with a mom and a dad, but it doesn't look likely for most foster kids. So any permanent loving and nurturing home is better than none."

That someone who seems to be a Christian fundamentalist would move that far in his or her position on gay adoption in the space of a two-hour interview is nothing short of a miracle.

By waiting to come out until she felt like she had a compelling reason, by worrying less about her public than about a vital cause, Rosie O'Donnell has done a great good. She has taken it upon herself to give the abstract idea of "gay parents" a human face - and better, a beloved face.

"I don't think America knows what a gay parent looks like: I am the gay parent," Rosie said.

All we can hope for is that America will take her message to heart the way they have taken her television show into their homes.