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Good for Me, But Not for Thee? Paula Martinac, who writes a syndicated column appearing in a number of lesbigay newspapers, may be a writer whose generally on the left, but she scores some excellent points in her Apirl 17 offering, which (in it's Planet Out incarnation) is titled Changing Channels on GLAAD. Taking aim at some of more doctrinaire lockstep thinking on the part of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and others, she declares that "there's sometimes a creepy, doctrinaire undercurrent in the lesbian and gay movement of which GLAAD is only one example." How so? Well, there was GLAAD's attempt to get sponsors to boycott gay-unfriendly radio (and, briefly, TV) personality Dr. Laura Schlessinger, while at the same time criticizing the religious right's efforts to pressure sponsors to stop supporting gay-positive shows. Martinac suggests, not unreasonably, that if you practice the tactic of turing up the heat on sponsors so they'll drop their ads from shows you don't like, then you lose the moral authority to criticize the same tactic when used against gay-themed programming. Better to argue, rather than attempt to silence. Now there's a novel thought.

Martinac also lights into the group "Queers Against 'Queer as Folk,'" which is seeking the cancellation of the popular Showtime series. The group's leader says "We want this show to go away because its portrayals of gay people are 'dangerous.'" Funny, but I think the religious rightists over at the American Family Association are on the same team. Now there's an alliance!

The Case to Overturn "Hardwick"? Just days after the death of Byron "Whizzer" White, the former U.S. Supreme Court justice who penned the infamous "Hardwick" decision upholding laws criminalizing same-sex relations (see item below), Lambda Legal Defense announced it is taking a new "sodomy law" case back to the Supremes, in an attempt to make right what was once done wrong. The new case, "Lawrence and Garner v. Texas," involves two Houston men convicted of violating the Texas "Homosexual Conduct" Law by having consensual sex in the privacy of one man's home. Just as "Plessy v. Ferguson," which upheld segregated public schools, was upturned by "Brown v. Board of Education," it's high time the High Court recognized its error and mended its ways. Hears hoping this is the case to do it.

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A Supreme Injustice Remembered. It's said we should remember those who have died with a certain amount of charity. But that doesn't mean excusing the wrong that they did, especially when their actions have caused pain and suffering. And so let us note that death came this week for Byron R. "Whizzer" White, the former U.S. Supreme Court justice who died Monday at the age of 84. Most of the obits remembered him as the former award-wining college football hero who enjoyed a colorful career on the bench. Lesbian and gay Americans, however, will recall him as the author of the horrific 1986 Bowers vs. Hardwick ruling that upheld state laws criminalizing homosexual sex between consenting adults. On behalf of the High Court's 5-to-4 majority, White wrote that it was appropriate to find Michael Hardwick guilty of having consensual adult homosexual relations in the privacy of his own bedroom because:

"To claim that a right to engage in such conduct is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" is, at best, facetious. -- .The fact that homosexual conduct occurs in the privacy of the home does not affect the result. -- [The defendant] insists that majority sentiments about the morality of homosexuality should be declared inadequate. We do not agree, and are unpersuaded that the sodomy laws of some 25 States should be invalidated on this basis."

It's worth noting that White was not appointed by a right-wing Republican, but by liberal Democrat John F. Kennedy, who praised his nominee as "the ideal New Frontier judge."

One can only imagine what the impact might have been if these so-called "sodomy laws" had been thrown out. Certainly, the fact that several states still have these statutes on their books to this day has aided those who oppose same-sex marriage and support the military's gay ban. The laws also work to deny lesbian or gay parents custody of their children -- or even, in some cases, visitation rights.

Fortunately, a 1996 Supreme Court decision by another Kennedy (unrelated to John and his clan) helped lay the foundation to eventually overturn "Hardwick." In Romer v. Evans, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion that found Colorado's constitutional amendment prohibiting gays and lesbians from ever being covered by anti-discrimination laws was unconstitutional. He declared:

"The amendment withdraws from homosexuals, but no others, specific legal protection from the injuries caused by discrimination, and it forbids reinstatement of these laws and policies. -- The resulting disqualification of a class of persons from the right to seek specific protection from the law is unprecedented in our jurisprudence" Central both to the idea of the rule of law and to our own Constitution's guarantee of equal protection is the principle that government and each of its parts remain open on impartial terms to all who seek its assistance". We must conclude that Amendment 2 classifies homosexuals not to further a proper legislative end but to make them unequal to everyone else. This Colorado cannot do. A State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws. Amendment 2 violates the Equal Protection Clause""

Did I mention that Justice Kennedy was a 1987 Reagan appointee?

A question: Just how many hundreds of thousands of dollars will the Human Rights Campaign raise for liberal and left-leaning Democrats, using the specter of the vast danger posed by future Republican Supreme Court nominees (like Anthony Kennedy, or Bush the First appointee David Souter)?

That's not to say I'd support any nominee that Bush the Second might put forward (and I'm very grateful that Robert Bork was Borked, back in Reagan's day). However, it is to argue that nominees should be judged fairly, on their own merits, and that the scare campaign underway over the very idea of a GOP Supreme Court nominee is mostly partisan hyperbole, like so much in Washington these days.

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Hate Crimes Conundrums. Both the liberal Human Rights Campaign and the leftwing National Gay and Lesbian Task Force " the two big Washington-based lesbigay lobbies -- issued press releases on Thursday applauding (yes, applauding!) U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, one of their favorite nemeses. The occasion was Ashcroft's invoking of the federal Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act in the indictment of Darrell David Rice for the 1996 slaying of two lesbian hikers in Shenandoah National Park, in Virginia. The Act mandates sentencing enhancements for crimes motivated by hate that occur on federal land. According to the indictment, "The United States maintains that the defendant hated women and lesbians and that hatred was a motive for his killing""

According to HRC Political Director Winnie Stachelberg, "With this indictment, the federal government has recognized the horrendous nature of this hate crime and that it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law".We are grateful that federal jurisdiction could be exercised in this case." But the HRC release also declares that "If these murders had occurred almost any other place in America, this statute could not have been used." Both HRC and NGLTF have used the indictment to call for passage of a proposed law that would federalize violent hate crimes committed anywhere in the U.S. Without such a law, "many hate crime victims and their families may not receive the justice they deserve," says Stachelberg.

But this "hate crime" was, in fact, a horrendously brutal premeditated MURDER. And had it occurred outside the park, Murder One charges would have been brought in Virginia, and state prosecutors would have sought the death penalty -- regardless of the absence of either a wider federal or statewide hate crimes law. While the symbolism of a broad federal statute that lists gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered in the laundry list of victim categories may have understandable appeal to activists, it's bogus to suggest that violent crimes such as the Shenandoah killings would go unprosecuted without federal intervention. Moreover, hate crime laws that list selected groups as special victims, but not others (conservative Republicans?) are likely to be, like affirmative action's group-based preferences, an ongoing source of conflict regarding whether they guarantee -- or mandate against -- equal treatment for all. And then there's the persistent issue of whether the government should be prosecuting "hate" (what the perpetrator is thinking and feeling) as opposed to the criminal act itself -- a slippery slope, indeed.

And there's another contradiction involved. If a hate crime statute bumps up the penalties for premeditated murder, the only place to go is the death penalty. But NGLTF is on record as opposing the death penalty, as do many other activists. This is what led to a series of bizarre arguments during the Matthew Shepard trial, in which some activists used the slaying to urge passage of a federal statute that would enhance hate crime penalties, but at the same time opposed the death penalty for Shepard's killers. Just what did they think enhanced penalties mean (no workout privileges? going without cable?). Eventually, Shepard's parents asked that the death penalty not be invoked, and their son's killers received multiple life sentences.

At least the Log Cabin Republicans, who also issued a release praising the federal indictment, have the courage of their convictions and are pro death penalty.

I leave aside a wider analysis on the general merits of hate crimes statutes (or the death penalty, for that matter) for another day.

Whose False Consciousness? As the AP reported earlier this month, the Florida Supreme Court has allowed convicted serial killer Aileen Wuornos to fire her attorneys and drop all appeals to her upcoming execution. Wuornos, a lesbian who received multiple death sentences for fatally shooting six middle-aged men along a central Florida highway in 1989 and 1990, last year admitted the truth about her motives. Writing to the Florida Supreme Court and expressing her desire to drop all appeals and be executed, Wuornos said, ""I am a serial killer. I would kill again," and "I"ve come clean. All were"murder to rob." Wuornos had previously claimed that her victims had tried to rape or kill her. And a host of national feminist and lesbian rights groups affiliated with the Aileen Wuornos Defense Committee had come to her aid, claiming the murders were ALL self defense (theory one), or else justifiably triggered by her years of abuse by men (theory two). Now that Wuornos has dropped her appeals, accepted her sentence, and admitted her guilt, don't expect her activist supporters to have the grace to apologize (they"ll probably claim the patriarchy has brainwashed Wuronos into falsely blaming herself!).

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Notes from the Culture Wars. The school board in Torrance, California, has voted to ban a gay rights group for speaking at an annual high school event intended to promote understanding and fight bigotry. As reported in the local Daily Breeze, the board voted 3-2 to ban Gays and Lesbians Initiating Dialogue for Equality (GLIDE) from, well, initiating dialogue for equality, at least at the annual North High Human Relations Convention. A staff attorney for the Anti-Defamation League called the decision an "abomination" and said she would urge the ADL not participate in order to protest the gay group's exclusion. To which one anti-gay school board member, Joseph Bonano, responded, "If they [the ADL] want to pull out and make one less presenter, that's fine. They showed their true colors." Sounds like this will be some anti-bigotry lesson for the kids.

The article reports that an anti-gay group called Parents United to Stop Homosexual Education on our Schools (PUSHES) has been agitating against gay inclusion. Please note this is not a parody. Another interesting tidbit: the gay group, GLIDE, is a Beverly Hills-based nonprofit that makes 200 presentations each year on homophobia. It says the school board's decision has denied them their rights. But I wonder if a local gay group might not have been able to make its case more effectively than professional activists visiting from Beverly Hills.

An alternative conference may be held by organizers in a facility not under the jurisdiction of the Torrance school board.

Say What? The Washington Post ran a feature last week about a deaf lesbian couple that is hoping their newly born baby will also be deaf. One of the lesbians was inseminated with the sperm of a deaf male friend to make this outcome more likely. According to the article, the two mothers

"see deafness as an identity, not a medical affliction that needs to be fixed. Their effort -- to have a baby who belongs to what they see as their minority group -- is a natural outcome of the pride and self-acceptance the Deaf movement has brought to so many."

Reading this, you begin to understand why so many Americans are in backlash against anything that smacks of identity politics. But having said that, there is something fascinating about the radical deaf subculture that's emerged in recent years, and the parallels between deaf culture and gay culture as responses to alienation would be interesting to explore.

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The Mistake of ‘GLBT’

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Every movement struggles with the desire for the ideal and the need for the practical. A column I recently wrote addressed the fallacies in the argument that the gay civil rights movement must include protection for gender identity in gay civil rights laws because gays "owe" transgender activists some debt for drag queens' participation in Stonewall. I made three points:

  1. the importance of Stonewall has been exaggerated;
  2. the importance of drag queens to Stonewall has been exaggerated; and
  3. even if I am wrong about #1 and #2, that doesn't mean we must include transgenders in gay civil rights laws, since there are numerous considerations of practical politics here.

Most replies to that column, as usually happens when one writes critically about the "T" in "GLBT," consisted of name-calling. Many responses called the column "transphobic" or "elitist" because it would "leave some people behind," as if every law doesn't do that in some fashion.

There were, however, a couple of rational responses that challenged me on substantive grounds. These responses argued that there is a close connection between gay and transgender issues that ought not be ignored by gay civil rights laws. These responses raise important issues.

There are two separable questions when it comes to inclusion of gender identity in gay civil rights laws. First, is inclusion warranted as a matter of principle? Second, if it is warranted as a matter of principle, is it sensible as a matter of practical politics?

On the first question, I am not convinced that gay and transgender issues are so connected that principle dictates they be dealt with together in all legislation. The standard argument from principle seems to be that gay issues are a subset of all gender issues because gays, by having same-sex mates, transgress traditional gender/sex boundaries.

There are many things to say about this argument, but let's focus on one basic point. Since the beginning of the gay civil rights movement, there have been people trying to claim the cause is really about something other than homosexuality. For some 1960s and 1970s activists, it was really about ending an unjust capitalist system, or supporting movements for national liberation, or ending racism, or eliminating poverty. For many (especially male) activists, it was really about sexual liberation generally, as if we were fighting for the right to fornicate in the streets or with children.

I distrust claims that gay civil rights is really about something else (like poverty or gender). To me, such arguments seem like another way of erasing gay lives and concerns by subsuming them to some other cause favored by the advocate.

Such arguments are also reductionist: they reduce the gay experience to one aspect of life. Take the issue of our supposed "gender transgression." Many gay people see themselves in gender-conforming terms and seek gender-conforming traits in their mates. Is this in itself wrong? I don't think so, any more than it's wrong to prefer tall lovers to short ones or brown-haired ones to blondes. Does having a same-sex mate transgress traditional gender expectations? Of course, but this singular act of rebellion does not make a gender revolution of the type transgender activists seek.

On the second, practical issue, even if I were convinced that as a matter of principle gay and transgender issues are linked, I would still hesitate before adding "gender identity" to gay civil rights legislation.

As a legislator, I might personally support protecting transgenders from much private discrimination. But unfortunately, very few of my fellow legislators (in most places) would share my view. I could, of course, take the time and effort to explain it to them, but that period of education might add years to the final passage of my gay civil rights law. In the meantime, gay people will continue to face discrimination.

Not every law has to address every problem. Progress means that you get what you can while you can get it. Then, when you can get more, you do so. Progress comes by degrees, not (usually) by revolutions. The black civil rights movement did not fight to protect people from age discrimination. Was that ageist?

In almost every jurisdiction in the country where both gays and transgenders are protected, the protection for gays preceded the protection of transgenders by many years. This gap allowed people an opportunity to see that the world didn't end by protecting gays and that taking the additional incremental step of protecting transgenders also wouldn't cause it to end. This pace may be unsatisfying but it's preferable to waiting for a perfectly inclusive law that may never come.

I suppose one could respond that there is a very practical concern for gays involved here: if gender expression is not protected by law some gays will face discrimination for their gender presentation (butch women, effeminate men) rather than for their sexual orientation (gay) and yet will not be protected by the law.

This scenario is theoretically possible, but is not very likely. Almost any gay person subjected to discrimination for being gender variant will have been subjected to explicitly anti-gay abuse and thus will have some legal recourse under a law that protects sexual orientation but excludes gender identity. I certainly would not hold up the passage of a gay civil rights law to reach extraordinary cases.

We need to begin a reasoned, substantive, open discussion of these issues. The inclusiveness of "GLBT" might make us feel good, but it shouldn't become a talismanic barrier to progress.

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Look Who's Talking. "The Log Cabin Republicans' ... primary emotional commitment is to the conservative-dominated Republican Party, rather than to the fight against homophobia." So said gay U.S. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., in an April 1 press release. Frank, who never misses an opportunity to promote his "one party only" view of gay politics, condemned the moderate Republican Log Cabiners because their latest newsletter ran a toss-away item which, as the Washington Post reports, was titled "Rhymes with Abercrombie and . . . -- Cutting to the chase, it expressed support for a Los Angeles police official who called U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., a "bitch." Waters, of course, is one of the most far left members of the House and has shown no hesitancy to condemn the police, the U.S. military, and anyone else to the right of Fidel. Nevertheless, Log Cabin spokesman Kevin Ivers said that "the staff has been told that in the future they need more careful about what is written in the newsletter," and that the comment on Waters is not the official position of LCR.

This, however, did not appease Barney Frank, who wrote that "Log Cabin's smarmy encouragement of this sort of attack stands in drastic contrast to the National Stonewall Democrats, which at its most recent event honored the Congressional Black Caucus".The distinction between Stonewall's expression of gratitude to a group of members who have been our strongest allies and Log Cabin's endorsement of a nasty personal attack on one of the most important members of that group says a great deal about the role the two organizations play." Ah, there it is -- the always useful race card, which is clearly something that Barney Frank and other liberals love to play.

Memo to Barney: it's not ONLY about gay issues, which is a fact to bear in mind given that Frank supported legislation in 1995, 1996, and 1997 to cut back the funding of U.S. intelligence agencies during a period in which attacks against the US were increasing, and also moves to cut the military's budget as well.


A Vast Gay Rightwing Conspiracy? The April 16 issue of The Advocate has a good cover story on "The Gay Right" that prominently features out-and-proud GOP officeholders and powerbrokers, though in the Advocate's eyes even liberal Republicans are "conservative" and part of "the Right." And wouldn't you just know it, for the sake of "balance" the magazine features a full-page opinion piece (not available online) by gay leftist and self-proclaimed "anarcho-syndicalist" Urvashi Vaid attacking (yep) welfare reform, which, we"re told, has "ideological roots [that] lay deep within the antigay, racially bigoted far right." Yawn. Ms. Vaid also argues that not making opposition to welfare reform a priority for the GLBT community "is a huge mistake." Of course, when you believe that the goal of progressive politics is to redistribute wealth from those who worked for it to those who simply want it, her perspective becomes clearer.


Disheartened Reactionaries. A story from the Baptist Press News recounts that religious conservatives are lamenting that "Christians" are no longer protesting gay characters on TV. "Christians voiced their outrage when ABC's "Ellen" featured a lead lesbian character in 1997," said Focus on the Family's Mike Haley, who continues, "That outrage, five years later, has dissipated -- even though there are now more than 20 homosexual characters on television." Guess who's winning the culture war!

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Reason and Liberation

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Originally appeared April 3, 2002, in the Chicago Free Press.

The New York Times published a dispiriting little article recently about how college students tend to be "guarded and private about their intellectual beliefs." According to one college dean, "Students are interested in hearing another person's point of view, but not interested in engaging it, in challenging it, or being challenged."

Part of the reason must lie in the way that the humanities and social sciences are frequently taught these days, particularly the deadening influence of doctrines such as deconstruction and multiculturalism.

With deconstruction, the point is not to learn about ideas in order to assess their merits and figure out which ones are better and worse, but only to "deconstruct" them - to see where they come from, how they are used and whose interests they serve.

Similarly, multiculturalism teaches students to see all cultural outlooks as self-contained wholes, presumably internally coherent and largely incommensurable with other views. Thus all views are immune to criticism from other views, and therefore, by default, equally valid.

Both doctrines fall prey to severe criticism and each can easily be turned back upon itself: "Deconstruction" can be deconstructed (as excellently by Prof. Stephen Cox in "Critical Review," Winter 1989); and, "multiculturalism" is, after all, just one viewpoint among many, no more valid than some opposing view.

But students probably do not think their own thoughts out to that "meta-analytical" level and their professors are not likely to teach any analysis that calls their teaching into question.

In any case, both doctrines are profoundly anti-intellectual. Neither provides students with any way to discover or develop reasons why they should accept some views and not accept others. They leave the impression that it is impossible and somehow even wrong to try.

This discourages reasoned discussion: It creates a disincentive for students to express any opinion about whether something is good or bad, true or false, right or wrong, if they have been taught that, in the nature of things, their opinion cannot have any justification.

But this means that anyone influenced by these ideas is left without a way to explain to critics why democracy is good, why a free press is good, why individuality is good, why free-market economy is good or why religious freedom is good.

Thoughtful people, philosophers even, once offered persuasive arguments for each of these ideas, and the force of the arguments actually prevailed since each of these institutions we now enjoy constitutes a major change from earli er authoritarian regimes where they were entirely absent.

Even today we face assault from people, Old Testament-minded "Christian Reconstructionist" at home and Islamic militants abroad, who oppose these institutions, so we had better be prepared to argue for them anew rather than treating those other viewpoints as "interesting" but immune from criticism.

As with many issues in the general culture this has direct relevance for gays and lesbians as we seek acceptance as legal and moral equals. Most obviously, both "Christian Reconstructionists" and Islamic militants want homosexuals to be executed.

But even more, we need to be able to prove the merits of our claims to skeptics, the "undecided," and those who are new to our issues. And we need to be able to reassure ourselves, particularly those many of us still in the closet, that our cause is just.

We must be prepared to offer reasons why homosexuality is good: why being gay is not pathological or a psychological defect; why homosexuality is legitimate no matter whether it is genetic, chosen, or the result of obscure psychological processes; why homosexual sex has value and what it contributes to our well-being.

For instance, one of the prominent claims of the religious right is that the American Psychiatric Association simply yielded to political pressure when it removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses in 1973.

But in fact there were a large number of cogent arguments for the change, based on numerous psychological studies and rooted in good psychiatric and psychological principles. We need to be able to reproduce those arguments and show people the religious right is wrong.

What will not work is the kind of response we often hear from gay organizations, that anti-gay claims are "hateful and divisive rhetoric and all fair-minded Americans will reject these hateful and discriminatory words that promote hateful, anti-gay violence," etc., etc. That is just hot air, convincing no one, and implies that we have no good arguments for our side.

Similarly, since our sexual relationships are as valuable in our lives as they are in everyone else's, we must defend our sexual activity as healthy, self-actualizing, fostering relationships, expressing affection, and sometimes just extremely entertaining.

In the face of an artificial distinction between homosexual orientation and homosexual activity, we need to develop and promote a public language to help people see why defenses of our "orientation" but not our "activity" simply grant victory to our opponents.

Humans are not pure spirit and celibacy is contrary to human nature. For us to seek acceptance or inclusion based on the idea that sexual activity is separable from our "selves" is deeply demeaning to the bodies that we are. But most of our gay organizations are silent about sexual behavior while our opponents condemn it as their rhetorical trump card.

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Stupid Bigot Tricks. An AP story reports that a California father doesn't want his daughter sharing high school restrooms with lesbian students. To protect his daughter's modesty, he filed a discrimination complaint against the local school district, alleging

""discrimination and intolerance [by] not addressing a very clear right of privacy violation that requires my child to share restrooms, dressing rooms and showering facilities with those who by their own, and societies (sic) definition, are attracted to the same gender (homosexual students and staff)."

After receiving this complaint, the school district conducted an investigation (yes, money was spent!) but, shockingly, found no discrimination. Moreover, there was no evidence that any lesbian student or staff member had ever made sexual advances toward students in the restrooms.

End of story, though I can't really blame both the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) for trying to make some hay out of it. It's not like this crazy suit was going to actually lead to segregating gay/lesbian students from their straight peers in school restrooms and locker rooms (would all gay students mind?), but it's such a lunatic demand that the urge to draw attention to it is too much to resist (hence this item).

Surprise! Black Gay Republicans Exist! NGLTF has released a national study of black gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender people. Titled "Say It Loud: I'm Black and I'm Proud," the report found half of the respondents say racism is a problem in "the White GLBT community" while two-thirds report that homophobia is a problem within the black community. That's not unexpected, but this is: the respondents' political affiliations were "slightly less Democratic, and more Republican, than the Black population as a whole."

To get specific, on p.45 of the Black Pride Sample (of black GLBT respondents), it states that 65% are Democrats, 10% Republicans, 8% independent, and 7% other (although, we're told, "only 6% of transgender respondents were Republican"). The report compares these figures with the findings of the 1996 National Black Election Study, which found that 72% of overall black respondents were Democrats and only 5% were Republicans (half as many, percentage-wise, as in the GLBT survey). Talk about shattering a stereotype!

Now, to be fair, the Black Pride sample did find that 85% of GLBT blacks identified as "liberal or moderate" and 15% as "conservative," as compared with overall black respondents in the 1996 National Black Election Study who were 59% "liberal or moderate." But given the party affiliation finding, it's not unlikely that the reason they're more "liberal" is that they're pro-gay and anti-homophobia.

In any event, don't expect NGTLF to shift to the right to better represent this under-represented black GOP demographic. After all, a previous NGLTF report, titled "Leaving Our Children Behind: Welfare Reform and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community," examined the effects of welfare reform on GLBT families and concluded that the push away from dependency and toward self-sufficiency was a bad, bad thing.

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You Go, Girl. Rosie O"Donnell is proving impressive on some unexpected fronts. Not only is she spearheading the fight to overturn Florida's noxious ban on gay adoptions, but she's taking on some of the most bile-filled luminaries of self-righteously mean-spirited gay Left as well. In an interview with the gay website PlanetOut, she was asked, "What do you make of gay journalist Michelangelo Signorile's assertion that it was your desire to silence your gay critics that made you come out?" Responded Rosie:

"He is a moron. His idea of gay America consists of only those he deems worthy enough. I do not enjoy him, his point of view or his rhetoric. (He isn't even funny.) One reason I did not come out sooner, I didn't want anyone to associate me with Signorile in any way. Same goes for Musto" [Michael Musto, of the Village Voice].

But as good as she was on the viciousness of the Left, she also knows how to win hearts and minds on the Right (where the struggle MUST be won). Last Monday, O"Donnell appeared on Bill O"Reilly's Fox News Channel talkshow, and -- rather than shouting propaganda points, as many professional activists would have done -- she actually engaged in real dialogue. According to an AP story on their encounter, O"Donnell, who "went on the show against the advice of everyone close to her," began by voicing "qualified support for O'Reilly's crusade against celebrities for not making sure that donations to Sept. 11 relief funds that they pitched for quickly found their way to the intended hands." Imagine, finding something to compliment a conservative about! The AP story continues:

"The noted Democratic activist said Sept. 11 had changed her. She praised former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, a Republican, and said she had gone too far in making anti-gun statements after the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. 'Before Sept. 11, I was definitely mildly myopic in terms of my political agenda,' O'Donnell said. 'If you were a Democrat, you were probably right. If you were a Republican, you were probably wrong. Everything changed for me.' ''

During the interview, O"Reilly expressed views such as "Nature dictates that it's better for a child to be in a heterosexual home, again, with good, loving, responsible parents, than a homosexual home, because nature says the best way for a child to be raised is with a mommy and a daddy. That's nature." O"Donnell stood her ground, but she also said, repeatedly, "I can understand your opinion". You grew up around the block. I know where you're coming from. I don't think you are a mean-spirited guy." That let her connect with O"Reilly (and his conservative audience), even as she disputed his views. I can't recall ever seeing a professional activist be as sincere -- and as savvy.

A postscript: The following night, O"Reilly praised O"Donnell for having the gumption to come on the show (which many liberals refuse, flatout, to do). Better yet, he noted she had no doubt changed a great many minds with her appearance, and predicted that Florida's gay adoption ban will end, that "it's only a matter of time."

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Pedophilia in the Priesthood: Are Gays the Problem?

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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.

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