IGF CultureWatch

Originally appeared April 2001 in Miami Weekly News and other publications.

Imagine you're enjoying a romantic evening at home with your paramour. Suddenly, your front door is slammed open and thugs crash their way into your bedroom. But wait, these "thugs" are wearing police uniforms and they're here to arrest you for the criminal activity that you and your love mate are engaged in - so-called "sodomy."

This is not a fictional scenario. In 1998, police burst into a suburban apartment in Houston, Texas, and arrested two consenting adults - Tyrone Garner and John Geddes Lawrence. The men were charged with homosexual conduct and spent the night in jail. The cops were investigating a report of a disturbance involving armed men - a report that later turned out to be false, called in by a neighbor who appeared to have a grudge against gays. The two men, rather than simply paying a fine (the "usual" procedure), submitted to a criminal trial so as to challenge what they regard as an unfair and anachronistic statute. To date, their case is still winding its way through the hierarchy of state courts.

Hard as it is to believe, 13 states and Puerto Rico still have sodomy laws that apply to both heterosexual and homosexual couples (outlawing what used to be termed "unnatural" intercourse, generally oral and anal copulation). Five states, including Texas, target only homosexual activity. Punishments for those convicted vary from fines (it's $500 in Texas) to a theoretical maximum of 10 years in Mississippi, and 5 years to life (yes, life!) in Idaho.

Of course, these laws are rarely enforced and there would be an uproar if a state court actually were to sentence a gay couple to years of imprisonment. However, because the laws remain on the books, they can be used to justify government discrimination against gays and lesbians in a host of areas. Courts in sodomy states routinely deny a gay or lesbian parent custody of their children because he or she is openly engaging in criminal activity (that is, they are involved in a same-sex relationship). Ditto for approval of adoptions. Police departments have refused to hire lesbian and gay officers because they pursue a "lifestyle" that flouts the law.

The news, however, isn't all grim. In March, a circuit judge in Arkansas struck down that state's anti-gay sodomy law, saying it unfairly singles out homosexuals for prosecution (the state had argued that the government had an interest in criminalizing behavior that most of its citizens would find "morally inappropriate"). The decision is sure to be appealed, however, so for the time being Arkansas remains in the "sodomy law" category. In Missouri, an appellate court, adjudicating for a district including only a portion of the state, struck down the sodomy law in 1999, finding that a revision of the state's criminal code had inadvertently decriminalized consensual sodomy in the state. Anti-gay legislators had insisted on an amendment to a law reform proposal that would have maintained the sodomy statute, but apparently botched the job by producing a grammatically inept run-on sentence that was just ambiguous enough to give the court room to conclude that consent was a defense to a sodomy charge.

And in the Texas case of Garner and Lawrence, a three-judge panel of the 14th Court of Appeals ruled last June that the state's sodomy law violated the Equal Rights Amendment of the Texas Constitution by singling out homosexuals (the case is pending before the full 14th Court of Appeals). Suits are also underway in Virginia to invalidate the state's Crimes Against Nature statute. A recent poll commissioned by the gay civil rights group Virginians for Justice found that most residents think the state's sodomy law is unfair and should be eliminated. Interestingly, among male respondents, 48.8 percent said that oral sex between two men should be illegal, but only 26 percent of men felt that oral sex between two women should be prohibited.

An excellent site, by the way, for news and views about current sodomy laws and efforts to repeal them, in the courts and through state legislatures, can be found at www.sodomylaws.com.

In 1987, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld state sodomy laws in its infamous Bowers v. Hardwick decision. That ruling, with a slim 5 to 4 majority, focused on Georgia's statute prohibiting sodomy among both straight and gay couples (although Michael Hardwick and his partner were gay -- the police don't arrest consenting adult heterosexuals in the privacy of their bedrooms).

Since the Texas statute applies only to same-sex couples, there may be an opening for a reversal should the Lawrence/Garner case eventually make its way up to the highest court in the land. While a national victory would be reason to rejoice, if these battles must be fought state by state, so be it.

Originally published April 11, 2001, in the Chicago Free Press.

BACK IN SEPTEMBER 1999, in Bentonville, Ark., two gay men apparently caused the death of a 13-year-old youth named Jesse Dirkhising in what appears to have been an abusive bondage scene.

There is no evidence that the two men intended to kill the youth: They called an ambulance when they found he had stopped breathing.

But their heedlessness, their own use of drugs and their indifference to Dirkhising's safety and well-being suggest a degree of culpability for which "involuntary manslaughter" scarcely seems adequate.

Reflecting on Dirkhising's death, Southern Voice editor Chris Crain recently wondered editorially if there might be some merit to the conservative argument that "the sex-drenched gay culture and the valueless homosexual lifestyle" are bound to victimize young people.

He noted the conservative concern that even though most such young people do not wind up dead, they may become "sexually confused, robbed of their innocence, and torn from the values their parents worked hard to instill in them."

And he concluded, "If the gruesome killing of a gay youth won't at least make us look harder at where our culture might bear some responsibility, what will?"

These are strong, obviously heartfelt words, not lightly written, and they deserve serious consideration.

But I think Crain in large measure not only misplaces blame but fails to give our community credit for the kinds of moral guidelines it provides.

For one thing, there is little evidence that the two men had significant contact with any gay community or gay culture.

As the police affidavit at their bond hearing made clear, the men seem to have been drifters, moving frequently from town to town. So they would have had little occasion to come into much contact with a gay community or discover whether our community had any values to impart.

But to the extent that there might be a value deficit among gays-especially among young gays, people just coming out, and people living in isolation-it is not necessarily the fault of the gay community.

Mainstream culture promotes a sexual morality that focuses on sexual relationships between men and women. Specifically, it focuses on regulating penis-vagina sex to preserve virginity or prevent pregnancy virtually to the exclusion of any other considerations.

But this single-minded focus provides no guidance to people involved in same-sex relationships, for whom penis-vagina sex and pregnancy are not issues. It can even give the impression that there are no "moral" guidelines for same-sex relationships.

Even more, by condemning same-sex activities as immoral in themselves, mainstream culture implies that there cannot be any sexual morality to guide gays in their activities. All homosexual activity is immoral and that is all there is to say.

This can have at least two further implications.

It may lead some gays to think that if they flout the condemnation of homosexuality, they thereby become "immoralists" who have necessarily cast off society's whole structure of morality and have no obligation to pay attention to any other moral concerns either.

And it may suggest that since their sexual partners are also behaving immorally, the partners' well-being need not be an important concern for them. Since the partners are immoral people they probably deserve anything that happens to them.

This is wildly false, but it is understandable how some people, particularly in religiously conservative regions, might think so.

The more a culture insists on the immorality of homosexuality, the more it encourages heedless, irresponsible behavior by homosexuals.

But contrary to what Crain suggests, it is surely not true that the gay community lacks guidelines for sexual activity. In fact, it is probably only by being part of an ongoing gay community that anyone can learn about and internalize regulative principles for gay sexual interaction.

The sexual morality we have is not act-specific but offers guidelines on how to conduct ourselves, how we should treat other people and conditions under which we should engage in sexual activities.

Most of us realize in the first place that this requires a degree of self-reliance, personal responsibility and continuous alertness. People should not put themselves in situations they cannot get out of. People should not drink or drug themselves into a state where they cannot make rational assessments. Prudence is a cardinal virtue.

Second, it involves a clear sense that force or coercion are wrong and that vulnerable people-too young, too drunk, too drugged, too naive-should not be taken advantage of.

Third, perhaps the most highly developed explicit guidelines-sexual ethics if you like-have been evolved by the leather-S/M community. Explicit guidelines are particularly important there because in the intensity of some S/M activities people can be hurt if someone is careless or something goes wrong.

The three preconditions for S/M activity, repeated almost as a mantra, are "safe, sane, and consensual."

A great deal of wisdom resides in those three words. Both parties have to agree voluntarily and unreservedly. They have to be clear-headed, alert and attentive to the other's responses. And there must be no lingering physical or emotional damage.

That may not be all there is to sexual morality, but it is an excellent start for everyone.

Originally appeared March 28, 2001, in the Chicago Free Press.

One of the most interesting and controversial government programs currently being developed is one to provide subsidies to religions to operate various treatment, training, and welfare programs.

President George W. Bush made the proposal a major plank of his presidential campaign, perhaps to appeal to evangelical Christian voters. And he recently established an "Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives" to promote such efforts.

There is a lot to dislike here starting with the sly language of referring not to "religion" but to "faith." As if "people of faith" meant anything else than "people of religions."

Since religions are characterized by their doctrinal claims a better term would be "people of doctrines." But an "Office of Doctrine-Based Initiatives" does not sound quite so warm and fuzzy.

Further, religious doctrines are by nature unprovable claims without rational support - e.g., people rise from the dead, virgins have babies, there is life after death. After all, if the claims were provable, they would simply be part of science - e.g., the earth is round, the sun is hot, light travels fast.

As one early Christian saint blurted out in an exuberant burst of candor, "I believe it because it is absurd!"

So if everyone were candid, they would refer to "people of irrationality" and an "Office of Irrationality-Based Initiatives."

Be that as it may, the question for us is: Is there a gay angle here? I think there are two.

One is that the major recipients of government (taxpayer) money are likely to be Catholic and evangelical Protestant religious organizations. These range from mildly anti-gay to zealously anti-gay.

So there might be some grounds for questioning government subsidies to anti-gay religious groups even if they sometimes do good works.

The second gay angle is that the largest gay and lesbian organizations in the U.S., and the best organized at the community level, is the Metropolitan Community Church.

It might be very interesting to see a gay-oriented church being paid by the federal government to provide welfare, treatment and training services to gays and lesbians as well as other Americans.

There may be a third gay angle hovering in the background. Many government policies that adversely affect gays and lesbians from sodomy laws to the ban on same-sex marriages are based solely on religious doctrine. They serve no defensible secular purpose.

So gays and lesbians might want to be particularly assertive about the separation of church and state. Rather than see the existing separation weakened, they might want to see it enhanced and enforced more comprehensively.

Let us let the Metropolitan Community Church speak for itself and concentrate on the fact that most recipients of government money will be anti-gay religions.

It is important to remember that the fundamentalist Christian worldview is pervaded by a belief in the struggle between their god and Satan. For instance, 84 percent of evangelical Christians believe that "Satan" himself is behind the fight against religion in public life.

With that worldview, evangelicals are not likely to compromise on moral issues since that would mean compromising with Satan.

In a recent poll by Public Agenda, only 36 percent of evangelicals said that deeply religious (i.e., evangelical) elected officials should be willing to compromise on gay rights issues, compared with 68 percent of non-evangelicals who urged compromise.

So it is worth wondering what kind of social and ideological environment these groups would maintain in their government-subsidized programs.

The concern is less their impact on gays and lesbians who might be in the programs than the possibility that such programs might lure other participants toward an evangelical/fundamentalist worldview and reinforce or create more anti-gay prejudice.

For example, more than half (61 percent) of evangelical Christians believe that "deeply religious people" (such as themselves) should spread their religious views - whenever they can. Fewer than half that proportion (26 percent) of non-evangelicals feel that way.

And critics have already pointed out that some drug treatment programs include "intense Bible study."

It is telling that television evangelist Pat Robertson recently said he was concerned if groups like the neo-Hindu Hare Krishnas, or Rev. Moon's Unification Church or L. Ron Hubbard's science fiction Church of Scientology were to receive subsidies.

It is telling because if Robertson did not expect their programs to influence participants' religious and social views he would presumably have less objection to them.

Robertson is certainly aware that religious welfare programs provide those religions with access to vulnerable and potentially malleable clients.

It is natural for people who feel they are being benefited to be grateful to whoever is helping them. And if they make friends among people running the programs, then they may wish to continue in the same social and religious milieu.

That would certainly be a potential source of new members who would likely adopt the religion's position on gay equality and other social issues as well as its theological perspective.

That may be just fine for the new convert, but it may not be so fine for gays and lesbians.

Originally appeared March 26, 2001, in the author's "TRB From Washington" column, The New Republic.

Let's see if I can paraphrase the current consensus about drug companies and AIDS in Africa. Oh, why bother when I can simply quote Anthony Lewis? Here he is:

In the United States and Europe, the anti-retroviral drugs that have made AIDS a containable disease for many sufferers cost either the patient or the society $10,000 to $15,000 a year. It has been widely assumed that poorer countries cannot afford them, and in any event do not have health systems that could use them effectively. ... [Tina Rosenberg in The New York Times Magazine] showed that those assumptions are false. Brazil now makes the drugs itself and has cut the cost by nearly 80 percent; government commitment has produced clinics to supervise the treatment effectively. Many lives, and much money, have been saved. The big drug companies are frantically resisting the precedent. And they have great lobbying power in the United States, achieved by campaign donations.

Voilà! AIDS in the developing world, described by Lewis as "the most profound and immediate threat to life on earth," is easily solved. Only the evil drug companies, abetted by evil Republicans, stand in the way - companies whose only argument is their ability to buy politicians using campaign cash. The only problem with this line of thought is that the drug companies, not all of which are "big," actually do have an argument, and the closer you look, the stronger it is.

Start with a simple question: Ever wonder how we have drugs to treat HIV in the first place? Lewis doesn't address this, but those of us who are alive today because of those drugs have had reason to figure it out. You could argue that anti-AIDS drugs are the gift to the world of legions of brilliant scientists and researchers. But that misses the point. The reason we have a treatment for HIV is not the angelic brilliance of anyone per se but the free-market system that rewards serious research with serious money. Ever wonder why the vast majority of such treatments come from U.S.-based companies? Because European pharmaceutical companies have been clobbered by socialized medicine and have moved much of their research and production to the United States. (Ten years ago, half of the ten top-selling drugs in the world were made by European companies. After a decade of price controls and regulation, Europeans now make only three of the top 25.) Ever wonder why Indian scientists are working in U.S.-based labs rather than in India? Because our free-market system gives them incentives to discover rather than reasons to flee. The knockoff companies in India and Brazil so beloved by the left are at best copiers of American products and at worst thieves. They're the Napsters of the drug world - only worse, because they charge for what they steal rather than give it away for free.

So the hard question is: How do we maintain the system that gave us these drugs in the first place while getting them to the largest number of infected people? It seems to me that the recent offer by Merck to sell key anti-retrovirals at one-tenth their Western price is an admirable, if partial, answer. HIV, after all, is not like cancer. It is an epidemic, spreading exponentially across the globe. Waiting for patents to run out and prices to drop in the natural course of events is a death sentence for a generation or more. As long as the domestic markets remain unmolested by populists and regulators, a massive discount from the major pharmaceutical companies for poor countries overseas is actually a stunningly generous gesture. Drug companies, after all, are not designed to cure diseases or please op-ed columnists. They're designed to satisfy shareholders. At least that was the shareholders' assumption when they invested.

What if the drugs are still too expensive? Well, that's where governments and international organizations come in. If we wanted to, we could go a long way toward funding discounted HIV meds for the developing world from Western taxpayers' pockets. In saved lives and rescued economies, it would pay for itself. Besides, in times like this it's simply the right thing to do. But such aid should come with realistic caveats. It's vital to ensure that these meds are taken in the right amounts at the right times - or else they will be ineffective in the patient and generate incurable viral strains in the process. Believe me, ensuring this is harder than it sounds. For almost eight years now I've juggled more than 30 pills a day - with food, without food, at night, in the morning, and on and on. Every year or so the regimen changes. I have more than ten prescriptions to keep track of. Most of the time, you feel sick and exhausted after a dose - a subtle but deep incentive to put off taking it, forget, or just give up. I'm not whining, I'm just making a point. Even with educated, motivated patients, 80 percent adherence is an achievement - and 80 percent still means new drug-resistant viral strains gain a niche in the population at large.

Now think of the consequences of doling out hundreds of pills to people who can barely afford a decent meal or a regular trip to the doctor. Keeping track of the drugs will be hard enough. If Western food aid results in massive theft, corruption, and re-exportation, can you imagine what Africa's kleptomaniac dictators could do with expensive HIV meds? Sure, Brazil has shown that drugs can be successfully administered in controlled circumstances. But Brazil is currently an exception to the rule. Elsewhere our best bet is modest, controlled treatment centers where anti-HIV drugs are delivered with medical monitoring and advice. If these work, let's expand them.

For those without access to these drugs, we can also do a lot, and quite cheaply. For people with AIDS there are plenty of relatively inexpensive post-patent drugs with simple dosings to treat the opportunistic infections that prey on depressed immune systems. This can relieve at least some of the pain and suffering, even if it cannot solve the underlying problem.

This means, tragically, that most people with HIV right now will die of it. That is an appalling prospect - as appalling as the thousands who die of dysentery for lack of clean drinking water or who are killed in war, lost in childbirth, or ravaged by malaria. In the face of this, there is the duty to do all we possibly can. But there's also an imperative not to engage in rituals of easy blame, or to attempt something that cannot realistically be achieved, or to demonize those who are a critical part of the solution. In the current debate, it's worth remembering one simple thing: Most African and Western governments have done virtually nothing to halt this global epidemic and are still balking at major aid. The American private sector, which has been responsible for the lion's share of HIV research, is now offering to pay for 90 percent of the cost of drugs for the developing world at the expense of future profits and research. Now you tell me who the real villains are.

WHEN TWO STRAIGHT MEN in Laramie, Wyo., singled out for violence a young gay man in October 1998, the resulting murder made national headlines for weeks. The words "Matthew Shepard" became synonymous for "hate victim" and his murder the inevitable product of a homophobic culture.

When two gay men in Bentonville, Ark., singled out a 13-year-old in September 1999 for violent sex play, the resulting murder made local headlines and a glimmer of national coverage. But "Jesse Dirkhising" isn't synonymous for anything, except in conservative circles.

Among the right wing, "Jesse Dirkhising" stands for two battle cries: the double standard practiced within the "liberal media" and, at a more subtle level, deviant gay sexual culture and its violent consequence.

It's a little too easy to dismiss the media double standard by pointing out the obvious differences in the killing of Matthew Shepard and the killing of Jesse Dirkhising.

The national media fixated on the Shepard murder because the evidence suggested that the two perpetrators were motivated by anti-gay hate. Instead of stealing the pocket change in Shepard's wallet, they pummeled him with a pistol and left him to die, tied to a fence post.

Beyond the sheer brutality of the crime and the "group prejudice" that played a role in it, the resulting cries for hate crime legislation, in Wyoming and elsewhere, were legitimate news stories.

The Dirkhising killing no doubt matches the Shepard murder in brutality and ugliness. He was a teenager far too young to consent to any sort of sexual encounter; he was heavily drugged, his own underwear placed in his mouth and held in place by duct tape, and repeatedly sodomized.

When police arrived at the chaotic scene, his body was smeared in feces and he had only a faint pulse. The two gay men only called an ambulance after one took a break from the "sex play" to eat a sandwich and noticed the youth was not breathing, according to the police report.

But even taken at its worst, gay activists are right to point out, there was no "group prejudice" behind the Dirkhising killing. No one is alleging that the two gay men deliberately planned the teen's abduction to "get" a straight kid. In fact, the available evidence suggests that Jesse was gay, or at least questioning his sexuality.

Without the presence of prejudice based on sexual orientation, or any other sort of "ism" or "phobia," the Dirkhising story doesn't have the same public policy legs as the Shepard killing. To the mainstream press, it's just another brutal crime, this time committed by two gay men.

But are those distinctions, while important, enough to shrug our shoulders and file away Jesse's murder as the random act of twisted minds that just so happen to be gay?

Almost anytime a gay person is victimized these days, our activists are quick to call upon society to recognize its complicity in the crime. What messages are we communicating, they inevitably ask, that might have led those involved to lash out in this way?

In the case of Jesse Dirkhising, the only ones taking the time to look for larger lessons are social conservatives. And that's truly unfortunate.

For one thing, they've got an axe to grind. Social commentators from the right are snooping for evidence to make a broader social point: Gays are social deviants who engage in behavior that is repugnant to mainstream America. And just by publicizing the story, they purposefully feed the claim that gay adults are out to "recruit" wayward youths, with disastrous results.

Before you sniff at such morbid opportunism, admit to yourself that gay activists did much the same thing, though for a cause you support, after Matthew Shepard's death.

Decent conservatives would acknowledge that no gays would take matters so far as they went in Bentonville, Ark., but that wouldn't end the comparison for them - just as most reasonable gay activists allowed that few heterosexuals were waiting to tie us to fence posts.

Conservatives would argue, however, that the sex-drenched gay culture, and the value-less homosexual lifestyle, were bound to victimize someone like Jesse Dirkhising. And while most youths tricked and trapped by predatory gay men don't wind up dead, they do wind up sexually confused, robbed of their innocence, and torn from the values their parents worked hard to instill in them.

Before you dismiss that conservative diatribe, conjure in your head the mental image of Judy and Dennis Shepard, grieving the loss of their son. The sympathy you feel is likely to overwhelm the stubborn "gray zones" of Matthew's murder - especially the mixed motive of his killers and the extent society is really to blame.

Now imagine the parents of Jesse Dirkhising, sitting in court while prosecutors played tapes of his accused killer, telling police, "Jesse really didn't have anything to offer, except maybe sex now and then." Could you stand in front of them and disclaim any responsibility for gay culture in his killing?

As a minority group, we homosexuals have perfected the art of deconstructing mainstream society for its conscious and subconscious homophobia. Our "gay studies" scholars write treatise after treatise on the topic, and our civil rights groups wear out fax machines with press releases on the subject.

But when it comes to examining whether gay culture plays a role in societal ills, we are sometimes as willfully blind as our conservative foes. We are so defensive about "bad press" and passing judgment on anything sexual, we resist the question at a visceral level.

If the gruesome killing of a gay youth won't at least make us look harder at where our culture might bear some responsibility, what will?

Originally appeared March 18, 2001, in the Los Angeles Times.

RIGHT NOW, there's a teenager somewhere in this country standing in his parents' basement holding a homemade noose. He's already tied it to one of the rafters, and he's working up the courage to hang himself. Somewhere else, maybe a mile away, maybe a thousand miles away, another kid is sitting in a closed garage in the driver's seat of her parents' SUV with the windows down and the engine running. Waiting to die. She, like the boy with the noose, is just one of thousands of American teens who will take their lives this year. Almost a third of them are gay and have been driven to this act of desperation because they think this condemns them to a lonely, miserable life on the fringes of respectable society.

As the Academy Awards approach, it might be nice to pause for a moment and remember those kids because they, like us, are watching the stars, looking to them as role models. They're looking for a signal from idols that will tell them they aren't doomed to be outcasts all their lives. This alone might give them hope enough to stay alive.

For generations, Americans have looked to celluloid celebrities to learn everything from how to fall in love to how to rebel against authority. Naturally, our obsession with the actors we see on-screen spills over into real life, making it almost impossible for Tinseltown's leading ladies and men to have anything resembling a private life. Some celebrities squawk about this, but most of them concede, good-naturedly, that they are in the business of public image-making. In exchange for fabulous wealth, worldwide fame and the public's undying adulation, they've got to put up with the paparazzi following them into the toilet. This seems a fair, if Faustian, bargain.

Given this, it's always seemed laughable that some celebrities - when asked about their sexual orientations and why they aren't explicit about them - say that their sex lives are nobody's business. This is a convenient lie. They know all too well that being a public figure makes everything about them everyone's business. Moreover, they know that their celebrity grants them great power in influencing the public on matters of political import. Hollywood stars often take great pride in being poster people for a good cause, but rarely when it might cost them something personally.

Hollywood has been tormented by homophobia for decades. Everyone knows that Ellen DeGeneres is not the only gay person in Hollywood. But most Americans would be amazed to learn just how many of the stars being held up to them as heterosexual icons are really gay. The fact that they would be amazed is exactly why it's so important that the celebrities concerned publicly acknowledge their sexual orientation. Doing so would shatter the prevailing notions of what a gay person looks like, acts like, sounds like, lives and loves like.

And there are few things that would make a bigger difference in the lives of young gay people, especially those who are driven to despair by the ingrained prejudices of their families and communities. Imagine what it meant when Rock Hudson was outted, and finally boys whose fathers had ridiculed them as sissies could point to this archetype of masculinity and say, he and I are the same.

There are also few things that could do as much to change the public's fears of and distaste for gays, especially now, when activists are pushing so hard for the right to marry, to be open about sexual orientation in the military and to be able to visit their loved ones in the hospital.

Bigotry has power only over perceived outsiders. When the myth of gays as the "other" is eradicated and when gays are seen as part of the mainstream, prejudice against them will of necessity abate.

And so I challenge any and all conscientious stars to take their same-sex lovers, companions, partners or "friends" to the Oscars this year as an act of solidarity.

Will it compromise their box office appeal? Maybe. But wouldn't it be worth it if it saved someone's life? Besides, how rich do you have to be before you'll consider it an acceptable risk to do the right thing and make a powerful statement about something as odious, rampant and downright deadly as homophobia?

C'mon Hollywood, show us you're not just limousine liberals. Do something more than wear a ribbon on your lapel. Stand up and be counted.

JUST WHEN YOU REFLECT on how bad things have been for gays in the United States, something reminds you how much worse it could be. Not long ago, a small town in Mexico barred "dogs and homosexuals" from the local beach. President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has banned gays from his country's book fairs and publicly calls us "dogs." In some Islamic countries, homosexual acts are still punishable by death. It puts in perspective Congress' failure to pass the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.

Now comes the Oscar-nominated film Before Night Falls to expose the horrific denial of individual rights in Cuba since Fidel Castro seized power 42 years ago. A few stalwart admirers of Castro in the U.S. have demonstrated against the film (which is, if anything, too easy on the dictator). One protestor told a newspaper that, while he hadn't actually seen the movie, he had been informed it contained "lies" about Cuba. The irony is that such unauthorized protest in Cuba itself would have landed him in jail.

Directed by Julian Schnabel, Before Night Falls chronicles the life of the gay Cuban writer Reinaldo Arenas (played superbly by Javier Bardem). Arenas, born into poverty in 1948, initially supported the Cuban revolution with its promises of free education and medical care. His first book even won a prize from Castro's cultural watchdogs.

But the romance of revolution soon died. One of the regime's first acts was to prohibit assemblies of more than three people. The news media quickly came under state control. The government recruited a network of spies in neighborhoods across the country to report dissident activity. Those who dared to criticize the government - even if they were generally sympathetic to communism - were imprisoned. Denounced as "counter-revolutionaries," some were forced to admit guilt for their political "crimes" against the state in show trials worthy of Stalin.

The Castro regime has also been ferociously anti-gay. As early as 1965, the Cuban government began sending homosexuals to prison farms and labor camps where they were brutally mistreated. According to early gay-rights activist Frank Kameny, newspaper accounts of these camps triggered the first pickets in front of the White House by gays, who held up signs asking, "Cuba persecutes gays; Is the U.S. much better?" Repression in Cuba was thus used to shame the U.S. government into treating gays more tolerantly.

Nevertheless, in the 1960s and 1970s Castro had his devotees among American gay civil rights activists allied with the New Left. Some even went annually to Cuba as part of the "Venceremos Brigade" (VB) to help harvest the country's sugar cane crop.

While assistance was welcome, officials openly worried about the inclusion of gay Americans in the VB. A 1972 policy statement described gay Americans as "particularly dangerous at this time because they join a cultural imperialist offensive against the Cuban revolution."

The same policy statement denounced homosexuality within the country as "a social pathology which reflects leftover bourgeois decadence" that "has no place in the formation of the New Man which Cuba is building." In other words, homosexuality was an artifact of capitalism that had to be purged.

Arenas himself felt this turn of the screws. As an associate informed him, the Castro government distrusted artists and writers because they create beauty and totalitarians cannot control beauty. Arenas' work was soon censored by authorities. He was forced to rely on literary admirers to smuggle his manuscripts out of the country for publication. Arenas and his circle of gay intellectual friends were closely watched by informers and frequently harassed by police.

Before long, Arenas was imprisoned on false charges of molesting a child. After managing to escape, he was captured and returned to prison, where he was tortured and placed in solitary confinement.

Such experiences have not been unusual for gay Cubans under Castro's rule. In 1970, an anonymous group of gay Cubans managed to sneak out a letter to gay civil rights activists in the United States. In the letter, they revealed how Cuban authorities persecuted gays through methods ranging from "physical attack to attempts to impose psychic and moral disintegration upon gay people." These facts, the letter noted, were "quite in contradiction with the success stories being told abroad" by some of Castro's left-wing gay apologists.

Of course, life for gays in the U.S. was no picnic in the 1960s and early 1970s. But the deprivations, punishments, and denials of basic liberties in Cuba went far beyond anything experienced here. As the gay Cubans' letter concluded: "If in a consumption society, run by capitalists and oligarchs, like the one you are living in, homosexuals experience suffering and limitations, in our society, labeled Marxist and revolutionary, it is worse."

Arenas tried desperately to escape his nightmarish country, once attempting unsuccessfully to float to Florida on an inner tube. Others have used makeshift rafts and even balloons for the same purpose. Arenas himself finally fled to the United States during the 1980 Mariel boat-lift along with thousands of other "criminals," including many gay Cubans, released by Castro.

So while we bemoan the remaining barriers to full equality in the U.S., we are fortunate to live in a country where the basic guarantees of free speech, free press, assembly, and due process apply even to us. As bad as it might seem sometimes, nobody is jumping on driftwood in the open seas to get out.

Originally appeared Feb. 22, 2001, in Update and other publications.

NO DOUBT ABOUT IT, white rapper Eminem has incited widespread anger among gays and lesbians of an activist bent with his anti-gay, anti-women lyrics. So, why would Elton John, the openly gay superstar and AIDS philanthropist, agree to share a song with him at the upcoming Grammy Awards show, where Eminem is nominated for four awards, including Best Album? And is the rap that the rapper, and his new duet partner, are getting deserved, or just more activist hysteria?

Before trying to answer those questions, let's take a look at the lyrics of the 28-year-old singer, who was born Marshall Bruce Mathers III, to see why the activists are so upset. From "Criminal": My words are like a dagger with a jagged edge/That'll stab you in the head/whether you're a fag or lez/Or the homosex, hermaph or trans-a-vest/Pants or dress - hate fags? The answer's 'yes.'" Another verse goes "Hey, it's me, Versace/Whoops, somebody shot me?" More ambiguously, he sings "C'mon! - Relax guy, I like gay men/Right, Ken? Give me an amen (AAA-men!)"

Then there's the song "Kill You," which goes "You faggots keep eggin' me on/til I have you at knifepoint, then you beg me to stop?/SHUT UP! Give me your hands and feet/I said SHUT UP when I'm talkin' to you/YOU HEAR ME? ANSWER ME!"

On the other hand, some defenders have interpreted support for gay marriage in these lines from "The Real Slim Shady": "But if we can hump dead animals and antelopes/then there's no reason that a man and another man can't elope." But I think that's a stretch.

So much for a quick sample of Eminem's wit. As noted, he has incurred the wrath of enraged activists. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), along with the National Organization of Women (NOW) and a host of other acronym groups, will be protesting outside the Grammys over Eminem's nominations. Well and good - America's all about freedom of expression. But it's disconcerting to see the direction that some of the anti-Eminem activism is taking. As reported in Rolling Stone, the student union at Sheffield University in England has banned the rapper's records, claiming that they violate the school's anti-homophobia regulations. Eminem t-shirts also have been forbidden, as has reviewing his work in the school's student newspapers.

So, the students can't even pan Eminem's music; instead, they mustn't mention it at all!

Predictably, Elton John, despite his pro-gay advocacy and AIDS-relief work, is now being labeled a traitor. "By agreeing to appear on stage as back-up singer to Eminem at the Grammys, you are spitting on the grave of Matthew Shepard," writes lesbian activist Robin Tyler, who, fresh from the Stop Dr. Laura campaign, is now spearheading the Anti-Eminem Coalition. She writes, "Eminem's speech is not 'free' to those of us and/or our families who have been brutalized, beaten, murdered, and raped." She ends her "open letter" with a threat: "If you do this, despite your prior advocacy, activism and philanthropy, we will consider you a collaborator in our war against injustice. ... Your choice is clear: Resign from your commitment to appear with Eminem at the Grammys, or go down in history as a gay Uncle Tom who foolishly allowed himself to be used as a tool against 'his own' people."

GLAAD also turned on Elton. Last year, the media group gave him their Vito Russo Award (named after the noted gay film critic and GLAAD co-founder). Now, GLAAD's director, Joan Garry, says Russo would be "appalled that John would share a stage with Eminem, whose words and actions promote hate and violence against gays and lesbians."

And what does Elton say? That he is "offering an olive branch" by asking for the duet. He also admits, "I know I'm going to get a lot of flak from various people. ... I'd rather tear down walls...than build them up. If I thought for one minute that he was a hateful bastard, I wouldn't do it."

Which brings us back to Eminem himself. Aside from his lyrics, the singer hasn't engaged in any anti-gay crusade. Some of his defenders say he's playing the role of the thug to shed light on the deranged. That's probably too charitable. But as Holly Bemiss, manager of A Different Light Bookstore in the Castro, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "If Eminem was really homophobic, would he really agree to perform with Elton?"

In an article titled "Bum Rap" that appeared in Reason magazine, Brian Doherty writes that "More than his detractors recognize, Eminem is openly torn between conflicting desires to say whatever he wants, especially if he knows it will upset all the right people, and to do the right thing and live a normal life." He adds that the singer repeatedly "recognizes his own persona's sickness," and that "Eminem presents such a grotesquely self-hating and negative image of himself that it's almost too obvious a joke when he mocks the idea that anyone would want to emulate him."

Frankly, I can't see into Eminem's soul. But to me, his lyrics are obviously cruel and dehumanizing towards gays and others, and raising a howl seems perfectly appropriate. At the same time, the righteous activists have - quel surprise - gone into such hyperbolic overdrive that it makes me want to defend Eminem's right to express himself despite the phalanx of would-be censors.

As for Elton John, if he believes that reaching out with love, rather than countering hate with hate, might be a productive effort, then he does not deserve the vilification of those who purport to speak on behalf of the entire gay and lesbian community. Didn't someone once say that to love your enemy and turn the other cheek could change the world? Guess he was just another "traitor" to the cause of zealotry, too.

Originally published February 9, 2001, in the Fredericksburg (Va.) Free Lance-Star under the title "Crimes Against Nature law allows Virginia police to target gays."

WHEN REPUBLICANS DISCUSS the proper role of government, most agree that it should be low-cost, limited in scope, and nonintrusive in the lives of citizens.

Rank-and-file Republican voters, for the most part, stand by the words of the late U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater:

"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden.

"I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."

Do Virginia's Republicans live up to this Goldwaterite ideal? Not always, but the impulse remains. Evidence for this is found in a recent poll from an unlikely source on an unlikely topic.

On Jan. 16 and 18, Rasmussen Research, an independent polling organization, conducted a statewide survey to determine knowledge and attitudes about Virginia's Crimes Against Nature statute. This statute forbids certain intimate sexual activity, even in private and even for married couples. To be blunt, the law prohibits oral sex for any Virginian, whether they are gay or straight, married or single.

The law is enforced selectively. It is used to target gay men in public places who discuss having sex. It is used as a fallback when prosecutors cannot prove that a sexual assault has taken place, so the alleged perpetrator is accused and convicted of consensual sodomy instead.

And it is used as a pretext to deny child custody to gay or lesbian parents-for example, in the case of Richmonder Sharon Bottoms, which achieved nationwide infamy when the government forcibly took her son, Tyler, from her because she is a lesbian.

The Rasmussen Research poll found that, across the board, Virginians want the CAN law repealed. Large majorities in almost every conceivable category say they want to see the law eliminated, that they want their legislators to vote for repeal, and that legislators who support repeal will not be adversely affected at the ballot box.

This is true for Democrats, Republicans, and independents; it is true for men and women; it is true for whites and African?Americans.

In this random survey, Republicans showed clear consistency in their view that government should stay out of the private lives of citizens.

Asked "Should it be against the law for an unmarried man and an unmarried woman to have sex in the state of Virginia?" 67.4 percent of Republicans answered "no," compared to 71.1 percent overall.

Asked "Should it be against the law for a married couple to have oral sex in the privacy of their own home?" 78.9 percent of Republicans answered "no" (81.7 percent overall).

Asked "Currently, according to Virginia law, it is illegal for consenting adults to have oral sex in the state of Virginia; a proposal has been made to eliminate the Virginia law; should the Virginia law be eliminated?" 61.4 percent of Republicans answered "yes" (65.2 percent overall).

Now, some members of the General Assembly say privately that they would support the repeal of the CAN law, but that they would have hell to pay on Election Day if they did. This is simply not true.

Survey participants were asked:

"Suppose your representative in the House of Delegates or the State Senate voted to eliminate the Virginia law. Would that make you more likely to vote for that person, less likely to vote for them, or would it have no impact on your vote?" Overall, 82.9 percent of Virginians said that they would either be more likely to vote for that representative, or it would have no impact on their vote; 83.5 percent of Republicans answered the same way, as did 77.5 percent of Democrats.

In other words, state legislators who vote to repeal the Crimes Against Nature law will have little or nothing to worry about in their re-election bids. The fear they cite is a red herring.

Republicans are part of a broad "leave us alone" coalition that wants the government to stop breathing down our necks. As speaker of the House of Delegates Vance Wilkins told The Washington Post, "It's simply a matter of individual liberty versus not having the government be a nanny." We don't trust the government to run our businesses, and we certainly don't trust it to run our sex lives.

The spirit of Barry Goldwater lives on in Virginia.

ONE OF THE ENDURING HOPES of my life is to find an issue about which the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force is right. But life, being a vale of tears, has confounded me. So it is that NGLTF has reacted to President Bush's proposals on education with error not matched since the group declared its solemn opposition to the Gulf War ten years ago.

Bush's education reform package includes two features designed to give parents greater choice about whether to send their children to private schools rather than to failing, violence-ridden public schools. One part of the package would give families vouchers in the form of coupons or checks to pay for attendance at private schools or better public schools. Similar vouchers are now available to 25,000 students in local school districts around the country, including in heavily Democratic cities like Cleveland and Milwaukee.

The other part of the reform package would allow parents to deduct up to $5,000 of their annual income to pay the educational expenses of each of their children attending private elementary or secondary schools. Some combination of tax deductions and/or tax credits for private schooling is now available in four states, including liberal-leaning Minnesota.

The basic idea behind these school-choice measures is simple. First, parents concerned about the quality of their children's education should have a meaningful opportunity to send their kids elsewhere. Second, because more parents will have more choice, schools will have to compete for students and for the dollars those students bring. Competition, the theory goes, brings excellence.

The jury is out on whether the theory meets the reality, in part because there have been so few school-choice experiments and in part because they have been on such a small scale. One concern is that vouchers and tax credits will have the effect of draining money and the best students away from the poorest school districts, making them even worse than they are now.

A second concern is that such experiments violate the principle of separation of church and state. Many parents, after all, will undoubtedly choose to send their children to private religious schools.

While the first concern about potentially harmful effects on public schools might be valid, I confess I am mystified by the second. How can it violate the Constitution to let parents use their own money to send their own children to schools of their own choice? We might as well say it offends the Constitution to let people drive to Sunday worship service on public roads or with government-subsidized ethanol in their fuel tanks.

Least compelling of all are the concerns about school choice expressed in a recent press release from NGLTF. "Funneling public tax dollars to private schools," the press release begins, "poses risks to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students and teachers as well as the children of GLBT parents." Bush's program, it hyperventilates, "threatens the safety" of gay students and gay parents and endangers the "job security" of gay teachers.

NGLTF Executive Director Elizabeth Toledo points out that vouchers will often be used to send children to religious schools that are free to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. In most states, gay students can be banned altogether from private schools and gay teachers can be fired. Toledo adds that "public schools are accountable to the public, to parents, to elected school boards and ultimately to the U.S. Constitution," whereas private schools are not.

Just where has all of this public accountability gotten us? It's true that private schools, including sectarian ones, might not be ideal for gay students, teachers, and parents. But, one always has to ask, compared to what?

Public schools in this country have not exactly been havens of tolerance and understanding for gay folks. Most public schools, even in some of the nation's largest cities, like Houston, do not forbid discrimination against gay students or openly gay teachers. Vicious taunting and teasing of kids thought to be gay are typical in public schools. Worse than that, gay kids are often pushed, hit, and spat upon. Many school districts and administrators are immune (or nearly immune) from lawsuits when they ignore anti-gay abuse, which, of course, they commonly do. A religious school that teaches the sanctity of traditional marriage but that at least guarantees the physical safety of a gay child is surely preferable to a public school where he is beaten on the way to the school library to peruse "Heather Has Two Mommies."

Private schools are accountable to a force that can be far more pervasive and powerful than government in a free society: the marketplace. Gay parents are free to withdraw their children from schools that aren't sufficiently tolerant. Parents of children being taunted or beaten for suspected homosexuality can take their money elsewhere. Schools will have to compete for the best teachers by giving them better salaries, regardless of sexual orientation. The market for private education will respond to these preferences by providing venues more hospitable to gay concerns.

It's no accident that private business has been far ahead of national, state, and local governments in barring discrimination against gays and in offering health and other benefits to gay couples. The market doesn't care much about sectarian morality. It cares about money, and money knows no sexual orientation. There's every reason to believe that a freer market for education, as Bush proposes, would provide a happier and safer environment for us all.