IGF CultureWatch

WHEN GEORGE W. BUSH finished his GOP acceptance speech, with its stirring proclamation, "I believe in tolerance," the first song to play was a Latin tune recently popularized by Ricky Martin. It was the perfect ending to the closet convention.

Bush never spelled out who should be tolerated or what form that tolerance should take. It wasn't a line meant for women or racial minorities, since Bush's party had already openly embraced them and it would be odd for a modern politician to say he "tolerates" women and racial minorities. That leaves gays to be tolerated. Gay Republicans welcomed yet another in a parade of subtle signs that their party wants them. Others were free to interpret it differently.

"I believe in tolerance" is a long rhetorical distance from Pat Buchanan's declaration of a "culture war" at the same convention just eight years ago. But there is something peculiar and halting about this new brand of GOP tolerance. It asks gays to come inside - but to sit still once there.

Tolerance doesn't hate gays. In fact, it loves them - in the closet. Despite all the hoo-ha from skeptical gay organizations and activists, that is progress.

Under Bush's tolerance, gays will not likely be arrested in their homes because the anti-gay Texas sodomy law he supports is only a "symbolic gesture," he says. The new tolerance preserves symbols of disapproval but is embarrassed to act on them.

So gays can serve in the military as long as they keep quiet. Bush and Cheney Don't Ask as long as you Don't Tell. That's the bargain the military struck with gays under President Clinton. It has written the closet into American law. And after a fashion it suits the new Republicans just fine.

The closet, often defended as a situs of "privacy," is prized real estate for both moderate homophobes and ashamed gays. It is a space in which the former may declare he's tolerant and the latter may pretend he isn't despised.

The closet is detested by true-believing gay-haters who would prefer to pursue and punish the homosexuals they find there. The military's anti-gay witchhunts are a model for this. So are strictly-enforced sodomy laws. Bush is not a true-believing gay-hater.

So Republican Jim Kolbe, the most respected and respectable openly gay member of Congress, was allowed to speak to the delegates. It was better than eight years ago, when no openly gay person spoke to the convention. It better than four years ago, when a gay person whose homosexuality was known to his friends but not to delegates, spoke.

Kolbe's speech was purchased at the price that he could not acknowledge his homosexuality, or talk about gay issues, or even use the word "gay," from the lectern. Tolerance could let an openly gay man speak under the illusion that he isn't gay. He could be out and in the closet at the same time.

So Mary Cheney, the openly gay daughter of the party's vice presidential nominee, was allowed to sit with her parents and watch the convention festivities. Gay activists, in an understandable but somehow pathetic yearning for affirmation, scoured seating charts to determine whether Mary's partner had been allowed to sit near her. She wasn't there. That would have put Mary on a par with her sister, whose heterosexuality was shamelessly paraded before TV cameras in the form of her two children. Tolerance isn't ready for equality.

Lynne Cheney, Mary's mother, announced how proud she was of her "hard-working" and "decent" daughter. But then she denied her daughter had ever publicly acknowledged her homosexuality, an assertion so contrary to the public record it had the ring of pathological self-delusion. Tolerance prefers not to acknowledge publicly what everyone knows. If it can't have the reality of the closet it will have the form.

Here's how one tolerant observer described the new ethos in a message posted to a Website: "Most of us don't care what they [gays] do in the PRIVACY of their own homes. We do care when they get in our faces about it and [we] wish they would shut the hell up and mind their own business!!!"

Here is the same idea stated more delicately: Gays should have "no standing in law." That assertion, from the Republican platform, states the doctrine perfectly. It's not really that gays should be persecuted; it's that they shouldn't be recognized at all.

The Republican Party, the organizational embodiment of conservatism in this country, has learned a valuable lesson from its two consecutive defeats in presidential elections. Homosexuals are among us and they will not be eliminated by any means acceptable to the American people. The question now is, what is to be done with them?

One option is to pursue a religious crusade against gays, arresting them in their homes, investigating them, praying for their souls when they speak, and calling them "errant," as Jerry Falwell put it. Another option is to welcome gays into the institutions of American life, like the military and marriage, connecting gays with mainstream values. Bush hinted at the latter option when he said that his "tolerance" came from, not despite, his religious faith.

For now the party has decided to rest on an unstable middle ground. Like the closet itself, it's better than some conceivable alternatives, and it's an undeniable improvement over where we were, but it's not a stopping place.

Originally appeared August 9, 2000, in the Chicago Free Press.

As the Mary Cheney affair reveals, many reporters and opinion leaders aren't sure it's right to describe anyone as gay unless they've made a "formal public statement" to that effect. Our author realizes that he's never issued such a formal public statement, and tries his hand at composing one.

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I JUST HAVEN'T MANAGED TO GET ANY WORK done for the last few days. I've spent all my time trying to write my announcement that I am gay.

I didn't even know I needed one. You would think someone would have mentioned it before now. But then I was alerted to my oversight by former National Endowment for the Humanities chair Lynne Cheney. Mrs. Cheney's husband, you will recall, was recently nominated for Vice President by the Republican Party.

When Mrs. Cheney was interviewed on ABC's Sunday morning talk-show "This Week," reporter Cokie Roberts started to ask her about her daughter Mary: "You have a daughter who has now declared that she is openly gay."

Mrs. Cheney immediately exploded, berating Roberts for even broaching the subject:

"Mary has never declared such a thing. I would like to say that I'm appalled at the media interest in one of my daughters. I have two wonderful daughters. ... And I simply am not going to talk about their personal lives. And I am surprised, Cokie, that even you would want to bring it up on this program."

In reporting this exchange the Chicago Tribune seemed to accept this idea. "Although she has never made a public statement about her sexual orientation. ..."

So we need not just a statement but a "public statement."

The Los Angeles Times went further: "Although Mary Cheney has apparently never made a formal public statement about her sexual identity. ..."

So we need a "formal public statement" as distinguished, I suppose, from an informal public statement.

Let's see now. Mary Cheney has lived for years with a woman whom she describes to friends as her "life partner." She wears a gold wedding band on her left ring finger.

Cheney worked at Coors as their corporate advocate to the gay community. College classmate Catherine Pease told USA Today "It didn't go unnoticed that the daughter of the Secretary of Defense was a lesbian."

And just a few months ago in an interview with the lesbian magazine "Girlfriends" Cheney said, "The reason I came to work here [at Coors] is because I knew several other lesbians who were very happy here."

The Chicago Tribune quotes this very sentence just two brief paragraphs after claiming that Cheney has never made a public statement about being a lesbian.

So I realized that I needed to make some sort of very explicit, formal public statement. What if I died suddenly before making it? My obituary might read, "Paul Varnell. Deceased writer for gay press. Never declared if he was gay."

The Tribune might print an old photo of me holding a large sign saying "I AM GAY" with a caption reading "The late Paul Varnell, shown here maintaining his personal privacy."

And after all my efforts, too! Here I worked for a gay advocacy organization. I talked about gay issues on radio and television. I gave statements to newspapers. I walked in gay pride parades. I write for gay newspapers. I co-edit a gay website.

A few years ago on National Coming Out Day, I realized that I had no one left to come out to. So in a playful mood I called a reporter at the Sun-Times I had worked with on some gay news stories.

"Suzy, It's National Coming Out Day," I announced brightly. "So I just wanted to tell you that I'm gay."

"Oh, Paul!" she laughed, "The whole City Room knows you're gay."

So I thought I was on the right track. I thought this would be enough. But no; I was deceiving myself, living in a fool's paradise. So I began drafting my official, formal, definitive statement, per Cheney's stipulation.

"I, Paul Varnell, am gay."

Short, efficient, to the point. But it could be misunderstood. Lynne Cheney might say that I only alleged I am gay and did not actually "declare" it, to use her words. I tried again.

"I, Paul Varnell, hereby declare that I am gay."

Better, but still not sufficient. I realized this did not make clear that I am "openly" gay, which is what Roberts asked about and Cheney denied. I tried again.

"I, Paul Varnell, hereby declare that I am openly gay."

Hmm. Still not good enough. You see why this has taken me so much time? It isn't as easy as it looks. I forgot to say "publicly" that I am openly gay. I tried again.

"I, Paul Varnell, hereby publicly declare that I am openly gay."

Now this might actually satisfy Mrs. Cheney. But of course, I have not really publicly declared anything until I send this statement to someone. But who do I send it to?

The Mayor? The Governor? Mrs. Cheney? Maybe the local papers - the Tribune and Sun Times. Maybe the New York Times and the Washington Post. Should the Associated Press and Reuters get a copy?

Maybe the Associated Press could keep a data base of all of us who file declarations of being gay. Then it could safely refer to us as gay in its articles and Mrs. Cheney wouldn't get angry.

But there is something wrong here. Nobody talks about his or her sexuality this way. Real people do not "announce" or "declare" or issue "statements," much less "public statements." People just "tell" others they are gay or "indicate" or even "let people know" they are gay.

Only inside the D.C. beltway is something not definite until it is announced in an official statement by some agency spokesperson and confirmed by an official press release on embossed letterhead stationery.

Lynne Cheney and Cokie Roberts have both been in Washington too long. Way too long.

Originally appeared July 2000 in The Weekly News (Miami) and other publications.

WHEN I FIRST HEARD about the group Soulforce, a network of lesbian and gay (and, yes, bisexual and transgendered) activists with plans to protest homophobic doctrines and policies at various Christian denominational gatherings, I was dubious. I remembered all too well ACT-UP's 1989 protest inside New York's St. Patrick's Cathedral. Chanting "You say don't fuck, we say fuck you!" the demonstrators sought to counter the Catholic Church's anti-gay dogma - and opposition to safe-sex education - by running riot during Holy Mass. Notoriously, one protester threw a communion wafer on the floor and stamped on it. Take that, Christ.

Needless to say, no anti-gay hearts and minds were swayed that Sunday in New York. In fact, many who had originally been supportive of an action were appalled at what occurred. Members of Dignity, the gay Catholic group, had hoped for a more, well, "dignified" witnessing, rather than a raucous tantrum that only served to confirm the traditionalists' view that homosexuality and violent amoral anarchism were one and the same. Moreover, the communion-stomping incident has been cited by anti-gay conservatives over and over again in their diatribes and fund-raising appeals.

So, again, I was dubious about what the Soulforce demonstrations might be like. But I can now say, following several recent actions, that they seem to have found an appropriate form of spiritual protest, with a nod to Gandhi and King instead of the kindergarten bolshevism that too often characterizes gay acting up.

That's not so say that Soulforce doesn't lay it on the line. On July 4th, some 200 protesters planted themselves at the Episcopal Church USA's General Convention, held in Denver, for a 45-minute silent vigil. According to the activists, they "peacefully and symbolically" blocked the entrance to the convention center. Some 73 protesters were then handcuffed and arrested without resistance, in a bid to influence Episcopal Church rules regarding homosexuality. At issue: the 2.4 million-member denomination's unofficial policy of letting each diocese decide the role of gays and lesbians in the church. Conservative Episcopalians say the rule violates biblical morality and want it overturned. Some gays feel it isn't sufficiently gay-accepting.

"The time has come for you to stop the debate, open your arms and welcome all God's children in full acceptance, full inclusion," said Soulforce Chairman Jimmy Creech, a former Methodist minister who was defrocked after performing a holy union ceremony for a gay couple.

One of those arrested in Denver was retired Episcopal Bishop Otis Charles, who said, "After being true to myself and my church that I was gay, I came to understand that God loves me just as I am. There is no place I can be except with Soulforce, speaking the voice of truth about God's children."

Founded by Rev. Dr. Mel White and his partner, Gary Nixon, Soulforce is an interfaith network "determined to help change the minds and hearts of religious leaders whose anti-homosexual campaigns lead (directly or indirectly) to the suffering of God's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered children." So says the group's website (www.soulforce.org). White detailed in his book "Stranger at the Gate" his journey from an associate of, and ghost writer, for Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and other religious rightists to a self-accepting gay Christian and minister in the predominantly gay Metropolitan Community Church.

Soulforce seeks dialogue with its adversaries. But when push comes to shove, its members are willing to follow in King's footsteps and practice nonviolent resistance. In June, Soulforce made its presence felt by submitting to an "arrest action" at the Presbyterian General Assembly in Long Beach, California, and at the Southern Baptist Convention. In November, a Soulforce delegation will conduct another civil disobedience at the meeting of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C. Participants in all direct actions are required to sign, wear, and uphold the Soulforce "pledge to nonviolence" used by Dr. King and his marchers in 1963.

While there are some signs that established lesbigay denominational groups - Integrity (Episcopalian), Lutherans Concerned, More Light Presbyterians, and the like - are sometimes uneasy with Soulforce's more aggressive though nonviolent actions, Soulforce points out that a large percentage of its delegations at its protests consist of denomination members, and that "we are people of faith coming in search of reconciliation, not conflict." They also promise they will not "disrupt, anger, or embarrass" as they hold their silent vigils and "revival and renewal" services.

And, unlike secular-political activists, Soulforce members do seem to be infused with the spirit. "I believe I experienced the presence of Jesus on the exit ramp outside the General Conference of the United Methodist Church and in the cells of the Cleveland City Jail," one member notes on the group's website. "What I felt today," writes another, "is that sometimes we need to not only insist on greater and more complete change, but we must celebrate and center ourselves in the wonder, the joy, the love and miracle that we are changing the world."

White himself states that "Unfortunately, our religious adversaries are not being changed by our current approach to activism. One-day marches, rallies or demonstrations do not convince them they are wrong. In fact, too often our public actions convince them they are right." He adds, "We no longer believe that what happens in Congress or the courts will change the minds and hearts of our adversaries nor lead to the understanding and full acceptance that we seek."

That's truer than most lesbigay activists are willing to admit. While legislative lobbying and court suits are important, in many ways they avoid the real challenge - changing attitudes by direct human encounter. As the Supreme Court's recent decision allowing the Boy Scouts of America to discriminate against gay men shows, the fight often must be waged on the level (again) of hearts and minds, appealing to the better angels of human nature, where true - and truly radical - transformation occurs, rather than simply by appeals to judicial fiat backed by state power.

But this will be no easy task. In the same week that Vermont's civil union law took effect, granting same-sex couples state recognition of the relationships, with all the rights and responsibilities the state grants married couples, the Presbyterians approved an amendment to their church's constitution forbidding ministers from conducting same-sex unions.

Religious homophobia remains the bedrock and rationale behind so much of the "secular" discrimination that gays and lesbians face in all walks of life. The curious thing is that religious denominations, if they were consistent, would support gay unions. They represent the loving commitment to maintaining stable relationships that religion otherwise upholds (which is why lesbigay cultural leftists also oppose the idea of gay marriage). Somehow, religious leaders and their flocks must be reached and addressed in the language they understand - as when Rev. White says, "We are your neighbors, and your organists, and your clergy, and your Sunday School teachers, and your deacons, and your ushers, and God's children."

Ultimately, our religious adversaries must be shown that spiritual principles do not support, but oppose, excluding God's lesbian and gay children from this flock. Soulforce could wind up making an important contribution to that effort.

Originally appeared in the Chicago Free Press July 26, 2000.

The considerable impact achieved by the StopDrLaura.com website campaign illustrates not only the remarkable powers of the Internet as an organizing tool, but also the ways in which the economic marketplace can be more sensitive than the political one.

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IN 1993, DURING THE CONTROVERSY over allowing gays to serve openly in the military, congressional offices were flooded with cards, letters, faxes and telephone calls from angry voters urging that the ban be retained.

For its part, the pro-gay side managed to generate only a comparatively small number of supportive messages; some congressmen said they received virtually none at all.

Now contrast: In 2000, advertisers on "Dr. Laura" Schlessinger's projected television show and her current radio program have begun to withdraw under pressure from gays-among them Procter and Gamble, Geico Insurance, Skytel and most recently TCF Bank.

A spokeswoman for Skytel said the company had been "inundated" with messages expressing opposition to its advertising on Schlessinger's program.

What changed in the intervening seven years? What is different here?

Probably the chief factors are: the rapid spread of Internet use, particularly by gays; the one-stop shopping convenience of a dedicated anti-Schlessinger website; the fact of a small number of targets; and the pressure-sensitivity of the economic marketplace compared with an almost pressure-impervious political system.

Everyone is aware of the enormous growth of Internet use; it is one of the most remarkable social facts of our time. And no one doubts the substantial Internet use by gays. At this point, it is rare to meet any gay person who is not online at home or at work. Usually both.

Much of the opposition to Schlessinger has been generated by a website called StopDrLaura.com, founded by gay Internet consultant John Aravosis, who heads Wired Strategies.

Aravosis says that his website has received million of "hits," representing perhaps hundred of thousands of unique visitors.

Aravosis' very useful website offers a generous serving of abrasive quotations about gays from Schlessinger's own program and her interviews elsewhere.

But, more important, it also provides telephone, fax and e-mail contact information for Paramount, which is producing her television show, and for executives at some of Schlessinger's advertisers, urging people to write and express their concern.

In the old days, just a decade ago, people had to gather the facts themselves, try to compose a cogent letter, hunt down the right person and the address to mail it to. No longer. StopDrLaura.com does much of the work for them.

How far can this model of activism be generalized? Would specific websites devoted to other topics be as effective? What about StoptheScouts.com or, since no one really wants to stop the Boy Scouts, maybe DefundScouts.com? Or Gaysinmilitary.com? Or Endsodomylaws.com?

In Schlessinger's case there was one specific target so it was comparatively easy to gather the relevant information about her. And there were only a few people or companies to contact with expressions of disapproval.

It might be possible to generate, say, 20,000-30,000 messages to Paramount or "inundate" Skytel with 5,000-10,000 messages over a short period of time. Those are a lot for a medium-sized company to receive.

But if we are trying to influence a national policy such as the military gay ban, remember that there are 435 U.S. Representatives. Even 30,000 messages dispersed among 435 congressmen comes to fewer than 70 messages per congressman. Not an impressive number.

Since the Boy Scouts is not likely to change its policy in response to outside criticisms, activists would have to put pressure on the numerous United Way campaigns, corporations and foundations that support the Boy Scouts.

Determining which ones provide support, finding contact information for the right executives, and so forth would be an enormous labor, something no volunteer activists like Aravosis and his colleagues could reasonably undertake. And again, there is the problem of a multiplicity of targets, even if the total number of messages were large.

An even more important factor here is that advertisers, as actors in the economic marketplace, are more sensitive to the pressures of small change in sales and support than are politicians.

Most legislators are from so-called "safe" districts, meaning that a modest amount of pressure is not going to influence them one way or the other. They can easily risk the loss of 5 to 7 percent of the vote and still win re-election. All they need is 50 percent plus one vote.

And, of course, they risk losing an equal or larger number of votes on the other side if they alter their position, a serious disincentive for change.

By contrast, most companies would strongly prefer not to lose, or even risk losing, 5 to 7 percent of their sales or market share. That could make the difference between overall profit and loss.

And unlike politicians who risk losses on the other side if they change positions, corporations as advertisers have the option of simple neutrality, avoiding controversy entirely and choosing non-controversial venues for their advertising.

Accepting these provisos and potential limitations, the StopDrLaura.com idea is well worth trying for other purposes. Aravosis himself probably does not have the time to pursue such an endeavor, but if any of the lackluster national gay organizations were smart, they would hire him as a consultant to teach them how to reproduce his efforts.

SEVERAL YEARS AGO, one of the religious right organizations produced and distributed a film called The Gay Agenda. The 20-minute video featured lurid scenes from a San Francisco gay pride march and interviews with doctors who had less than enlightened views about gay men and women. I can't say I remember much from that video other than the image of a leather-clad, bare-chested, sweaty man licking the front tire of his motorcycle. But that image is enough to remind me how enraged I was at the time by the crude attempt to tap into the basest fears many people have about those of us who are gay.

The Gay Agenda was intended to scare Americans into believing that if they didn't do something - and do it fast - these outrageous, devil-worshipping, motorcycle-licking hedonists would be moving in next door, invading their children's classrooms and dismantling the very foundation on which our society was built.

Well, that hasn't happened. What happened instead, as evidenced by the video images coming out of Vermont these past couple of weeks, is that the two lesbians who already live next door and have done so without creating a fuss for the past 2 1/2 decades decided to get married. Because they live in Vermont, they went to a justice of the peace and legally tied the knot by getting a "civil union." And as far as I can tell, the ground beneath our feet hasn't yet given way. Yes, gay people want to get married. This shouldn't shock anyone any more than the fact that some gay people behave outrageously - just as some heterosexual people behave outrageously (have you ever been to a football game?). As most of us have been saying for a long time, we gay folks are human beings with the same feelings, desires, weaknesses and strengths as everyone else.

When my significant other and I decided to have a commitment ceremony four years ago, our goal wasn't to undermine society, to destroy the American family or to recruit children into sinful behavior. Our goals were much the same as any two people in our society who love each other and plan to spend their lives together. We wanted to share our happiness with friends and family and to state publicly our commitment to one another, and we wanted our loved ones to know that we considered each other partners for life. Not incidentally, they have treated us this way ever since. To them, we are a couple like any other married couple, with one big exception: Our relationship isn't legal. We live in New York, where we don't have the option of doing anything about that.

Vermont has taken a monumental step in the right direction by giving gay and lesbian couples the rights and privileges they need to care for one another and their families. But Vermont's civil unions, which are not yet recognized outside the state of Vermont or by the federal government, are just the beginning. Gay men and lesbians won't be satisfied with anything less than the same legal rights that non-gay married people take for granted in every state in the union. So if you're already tired of hearing about gay marriage, brace yourselves.

When the day finally comes - and I'm confident it will - that gay and lesbian Americans have the same rights and privileges as everyone else, including the right to legally marry, you won't hear much from us anymore. We'll go about our business and live as conventionally or outrageously as the average Joe and Jane.

And as disappointing as it may be to those who claim that gay men and women are up to no good, given the choice, most of us will opt for legal marriage over tire-licking any day.

WHEN THE SUPREME COURT held that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) may exclude openly gay scoutmasters, many gay civil rights advocates howled. One writer said the result "lent legitimacy to the bigotry of ... institutions all over America." That's one way to describe the function of the First Amendment. I prefer to think of it as something free people should cherish.

The First Amendment protects people, like me, who say and believe good things. It also protects people, like the BSA, who say and believe some bad things. It guarantees freedom of speech, and the concomitant freedom to choose your friends and associates in order to promote your views. It doesn't say, "You have freedom of speech - unless a majority of a legislature in some state can be persuaded otherwise." It doesn't "lend legitimacy" to any belief. Only we, as a people, can do that, through our own words and actions.

Why would we protect a freedom to say and believe bad things? It's not because there's no difference between saying and believing bad things and saying and believing good things. One reason we protect people who say and believe bad things is that we're not very confident about our ability to distinguish between good things and bad things for all time. We should pause when we reflect that, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once wrote, "time has upset many fighting faiths." Ideas once thought unassailable are now heretical.

Here's an example: New Jersey once had a law forbidding private, consensual gay sex. It was considered a good thing. But because of the First Amendment, those who disagreed were able to persuade New Jersey that the law was wrong. Now the old state sodomy law is considered bad, even terrible.

In fact, New Jersey has stood the old sodomy law on its head, forbidding discrimination against the very people it was once confident were criminals. It is that anti-discrimination law that brought the Scouts to the Supreme Court.

The BSA disagrees with New Jersey's new, improved view of gays. It also disagrees with New Jersey's egalitarian views about females and atheists because it doesn't welcome them, either.

If the Constitution is to protect us, it must protect people we don't like, too. Otherwise, its protections are a lunchtime snack for democratic majorities.

There's self-interest in this high-minded devotion to the BSA's right to discriminate against us. In the past century, democratic majorities have given us sodomy laws, a ban on military service, gay marriage bans, anti-gay adoption laws and much else. With a nod from those same majorities, the police have used their power to raid gay bars, censor gay publications, and harass law-abiding citizens for dressing the wrong way.

Gay equality advocates, as we have learned repeatedly from painful experience, are not often in firm control of the outcomes of democratic decision making. We may have our way today, but tomorrow the barbarians will be back at the gates pressing in.

The remedy for this uncertainty is to withdraw from democratic decision makers certain spheres of private life they have no business regulating. So commercial establishments, as public accommodations that have always been regulated by law, may properly be told not to discriminate. But non-commercial private membership organizations - like the BSA, or the HRC, or the NGLTF - should be allowed to further their missions as they see fit without state interference.

What's most culturally interesting about the case is that the BSA sought constitutional protection from the proponents of gay equality. The constitutional shoe is on the other foot. It's not gays seeking protection from raiding police officers now; it's homophobes seeking protection from raiding gay rights laws.

We should never confuse having a right with what is right, however. People should have the right to burn an American flag as political protest, but I don't think it's ever right to do so. The BSA may have a right to discriminate against gays, but that does not make their discrimination right.

As in the controversy over Dr. Laura, it's the role of conscientious people to expose bigotry. In fact, it's their right to do so. Just as we may urge sponsors not to subsidize a television program we think is wrong, we may urge local governments and charities not to sponsor a private membership organization that has fought tenaciously to discriminate against us.

In the short run, the BSA won't likely fold under such pressure. The group's membership is up and withdrawing sponsors have so far been replaced by new ones. There are probably still more parents out there who would prefer BSA to keep its anti-gay policy because they fear their children will be molested by gay scoutmasters than there are parents who think that fear is irrational and don't want their children to be taught to prejudge.

But, as even the supposedly anti-gay majority Supreme Court decision recognizes, "the public perception of homosexuality in this country has changed" in the direction of "greater societal acceptance." If we keep exercising our rights, our First Amendment rights, to move the country our way, the BSA won't be turning to courts to keep us out - they'll be turning to us to keep them around.

Originally appeared July 12, 2000, in the Chicago Free Press.

SUDDENLY, for a few weeks in late spring and early summer, religious denominations became a major source of gay news.

United Methodists, Presbyterians and Episcopalians all held annual or biennial conferences during which each tried to reach some sort of consensus on issues such as gay sex, gay clergy and gay marriage or union ceremonies.

During the same period, more than 100,000 European gays attended World Pride 2000 in Rome, an event which Vatican hostility transformed from an ordinary Pride celebration into a vigorous condemnation of Vatican homophobia.

Taken together, these events demonstrate the continuing importance of religion in the lives of many gay people and underscore the role of religion in shaping public attitudes toward gays.

Since many people associate their moral and ethical views with some religious doctrine or other, trying to alter their views of homosexuality requires an empathetic understanding of their religious views and a search for ways to encourage them to re-examine their thinking.

For some people, of course, religions merely provide a rationale, a rationalization, a justification for attitudes they absorb from their social surroundings. Religions may even be just a support for attitudes generated by people's psychological and emotional needs, insecurities and conflicts. For them we can do little.

But a substantial number of decent men and women, particularly those active in religious denominations, remain engaged in trying to develop reasonable and thoughtful moral valuations. These are people it is worthwhile trying to reach.

Just prior to the United Methodists' general conference, the church's publishing house Abingdon Press issued a valuable little book titled "Where the Spirit Leads" by former Indiana University sociology professor James Rutland Wood. The subtitle is "The Evolving Views of United Methodists on Homosexuality."

Barely 135 pages long, the book sets out a traditional Methodist basis for openness to fresh understanding of scripture and several factors that might lead Methodists to a fuller appreciation of gays and lesbians.

Although Wood writes about Methodists, one need not be a Methodist to learn from his book. Presbyterians and Episcopalians will find much of value. Many Catholics and Southern Baptists could learn from it as well.

Wood begins by pointing out that Christian churches must be open to theological and social diversity, as the early church was, and discuss those differences that are based on people's own experience and their thoughtful reflection on it. (Vatican please note.)

Methodists must remain aware, Wood says, of the culture-boundedness of the ancient writers and be open to new formulations of earlier ideas. Wood refers to this as "loving God with our minds" rather than letting controversial issues evoke an ideological response.

"God cannot," he explains, "at any given time reveal all truth to any particular culture. New capacities (or incapacities) to comprehend truth and new situations to apply it may emerge with each new generation or each new society." (Southern Baptists please note.)

And Wood especially urges Methodists to enlarge their networks of personal relationships in accord with the ancient gospel's mandate "to widen our circles of caring and concern. As we do so," he adds, "we often find our ideas and behavior profoundly change." (All religions please note.)

One of the book's greatest contributions is the responses Wood offers from 1996 General Conference delegates about what influenced or changed their views of gays and lesbians. Some said they changed their views at the conference itself.

A conservative delegate said the "general tone of homosexual interaction made me more accepting of homosexuals." Another conservative said the "(personal) witness event was very powerful. It made me rethink and hear other people's pain."

Yet another said his anti-gay attitude "softened" after he read a position paper that traced the biblical history of homosexuality. And a fourth said she "moderated" her position after talking with delegates who had gay and lesbian ministries in their congregations.

A number of other delegates suggested how change would come about within the church generally. Most emphasized personal contact and friendship with gays.

One woman said, "When more of us get to know marginalized people more personally, our prejudices are challenged."

A male delegate said "as more and more United Methodists 'discover' homosexuality among their family members, close friends and church members, this problem will go away."

Another man said that "sharing personal stories (and) struggles is important and life changing."

Throughout the book Wood cites surveys that show a growing acceptance of gays, gay marriage and gay ordination among Methodists. He points out that Methodists, like other Americans, are becoming more comfortable with gays.

More specifically, he notes that women are generally more gay supportive than men and that women are becoming a larger proportion of delegates to Methodist conferences.

In the same way, younger conference delegates and younger Methodists generally are more gay supportive than older Methodists, so as they take their place in church leadership, the church will become increasingly gay affirming.

Since many of these same factors - theological, pastoral, and social - are at work in other churches as well, the lessons to be learned from the Methodists have far wider application.

Originally published July 5, 2000, in the Chicago Free Press.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Boy Scouts of America's right to exclude gays, but in so doing it strengthened a right - that of "expressive association" - which benefits us all. And gays are well situated to win the forthcoming Scouts battle where it should be won - in the court of public opinion, rather than the courts of law. What positive actions can gays take?

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THE BOY SCOUTS WON? Only seemingly. It would be better to say that the Boy Scouts prevailed with a good constitutional argument, supported by weak evidence, craven apprehensions and unthinking hostility.

And gays lost? Not quite. It would be better to say that gays failed to compromise important constitutional principles they themselves depend on and should now concentrate on the effort to prevail, as they deserve to, in the court of public opinion.

Begin at the beginning. The U. S. Constitution enshrines, says the U. S. Supreme Court, a principle of "expressive association," a sort of hybrid of free speech and free association.

Just as we have free speech to express our opinion, and freedom of association to associate with people we like (and exclude people we do not like), so we have a right to implicitly express our views by the very fact of whom we choose to associate with and exclude.

Each of these principles is important for all of us, gays included.

Early in the gay rights movement, the constitutional right of free association was the basis for legal challenges to states that refused to allow gay organizations to incorporate and colleges that sought to bar campus gay organizations.

Had there been no guarantee of free association, most of those groups would never have been allowed to exist.

Expressive association is the principle that allows gays to exclude homophobes from gay organizations such as gay political advocacy groups or gay counseling services.

It also allows gays to exclude neo-Nazi and Klan groups from gay Pride parades. For that matter, expressive association is also the basis for excluding pederast and pedophile groups such as NAMBLA from gay parades.

No thoughtful person should want to see these constitutional principles seriously compromised.

In the case of the Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, the question was whether the Scouts had defensible reasons for arguing that including gay scout leaders (and, implicitly, gay scouts), was contrary to its principles and its associational message.

The Boy Scouts arguments were tenuous. It tried to argue, for instance, that "morally straight" excluded homosexuality. Today "straight" is indeed a kind of slang for "heterosexual." But the word was not used that way more than 80 years ago when the scout oath was written. "Straight" then meant virtuous, decent, law abiding.

Even less likely, the Boy Scouts said "clean" in the scout law excluded homosexuality. But most scouts have always assumed that "clean" refers to taking regular baths or showers. Even if the word has an overtone of moral purity, it is far from clear what it would include.

Nevertheless, the Boy Scouts had a defensible point. The Boy Scouts had always accepted the traditional religious view of sexual morality which includes the idea that homosexuality is improper, immoral, wrong.

If anyone had asked a scout or scout leader 80 years ago if the Boy Scouts viewed homosexuality as moral behavior, they would have emphatically said, "No." The reaction would have been the same 50 years ago or 30 years ago. Most American citizens would have reacted the same way.

The only reason the Boy Scouts never made opposition to homosexuality an explicit part of its "core" message was that there was never any doubt about the moral status of homosexuality, so it did not need to. Only in recent years has the moral status of homosexuality become a matter of dispute in our society.

None of this means that the Boy Scouts' position is written in stone. The Boy Scouts will eventually change on its own, but probably only after most Americans have changed.

The Boy Scouts, after all, has a strong organizational incentive not to lead social change on the issue. So long as it has a quasi-custodial role over young people, it has to take into account the views and concerns of parents.

Even if Boy Scout officials viewed homosexuality as morally neutral, they would feel a need to accede to the sizable number of parents who think otherwise. And so long as some parents fear their children might be "recruited" by gay scout leaders, officials will feel a need to take that fear into account.

What can gays do then?

We can encourage gay scouts and former scouts to come out and put a wholesome public face on gays in scouting in order to hasten a shift in public opinion.

Gay adults, especially former Boy Scouts, could help form scout-like boys clubs to give young gays-and any other interested youths-some of the same experiences the Boy Scouts offers exclusively by and for heterosexuals. The troops could explore affiliating with the Canadian Scouts, which now accepts gays.

We can begin a concentrated effort to persuade United Way campaigns to exclude local Boy Scout troops as funding recipients.

We can lobby corporations that include gays in their non-discrimination statements to stop supporting the Boy Scouts or apply pressure on the group to change its policy.

We can try to persuade churches that sponsor Boy Scout troops to protest the exclusion of gays and re-evaluate whether to continue sponsoring troops. Gay-supportive troops could march in the gay Pride parades.

We can sue to prevent governmental entities (cities, park districts, schools, police and fire departments) from sponsoring or subsiding Boy Scout troops or permitting the use of government facilities not open to other religious groups.

Change will come when the Boy Scouts sees it as necessary.

Originally appeared June 28, 2000, in the Chicago Free Press.

We go through this every year. The annual Gay Pride parade brings on the same old chest pounding, breast beating, or tub thumping about diversity, normalization, inclusion, representativeness, self-expression, flamboyance, and much more.

Even as gays and lesbians make economic and social progress in society at large, we seem to make no progress in our internal arguments or rhetoric. Most gays just tune it out - probably rightly.

A favorite current target for the socio-cultural left is the menace of gay "assimilation." "Sex Panic" founder Michael Warner has written of "the trouble with normal." Activist Urvashi Vaid has written of the hostility she feels for bourgeois gay men.

Many other have gleaned in this same field. The latest to add his voice is Mattachine Society co-founder Harry Hay who told the San Francisco Chronicle, "The assimilationist movement is running us into the ground. Most gay people want to be like everyone else."

Hay thinks this is A Bad Thing.

But it is not very clear what Hay means by the "assimilationist movement." There is no organized movement telling gays and lesbians to move, say, to the suburbs and behave like heterosexuals. Besides, that is not really what is happening.

And who is this "us" Hay refers to? It cannot be gays because they are the ones doing it. Hay himself says "most gays" want to be like everyone else.

The point Hay is missing is that it is false to say that gays want to be like everyone else. Gays are already pretty much like everyone else. And this is what Hay, Warner, Vaid and so many others on the cultural left are really unhappy about. And it is why they constantly denounce most of the actually existing gay community.

Their disappointment probably derives ultimately from the ancient Marxist beliefs that the proletariat was the natural vehicle of revolution.

Since the gay left views gays as marginalized and oppressed in the same way classical Marxist thought the proletariat was, they have the same expectations for gays. So when gays do not live up to those expectations, they denounce gays as traitors to, uh, well, the expectations of the gay left.

(The proletariat similarly disappointed classical Marxists: It turned out to be the most conservative social class of all. The workers did not want a revolution; they wanted higher wages and shorter hours.)

The gay left assumed (or hoped) that coming out was a politically transformative act that would somehow (it was never quite clear why) transform torpid, bourgeois closeted gays into zealous out-of-the-closet social radicals. Their message was not simply "Come out" but rather: "Come out and adopt our beliefs and act the way we think you should."

It turned out, of course, that coming out was a transformative process, but psychologically transformative, not politically transformative. Coming out acted along vectors of increased self-esteem, enhanced personal integrity, and a sense of individual empowerment.

Gays who came out of the closet were the very last people willing to be told what to do with their lives. On the contrary, most of them felt more capable of self-determination than they had ever felt before. Trying to tell gays how to act out their liberation just does not work.

There are plenty of ironies here. Harry Hay, long a member of the American Communist Party during its most Stalinist phrase, says he has always been seeking brotherhood.

Referring to a 1930s labor strike he participated in (on Party orders) he told the Chronicle, "The brotherhood was intense. You couldn't be a part of that and not have your life changed."

Hay apparently hoped to find something similar among gays. But as a leader of Mattachine, Hay apparently carried over the Communist Party tendency to be directive and controlling. He claimed to be seeking universal brotherhood, but there are hints he did not always get along so well with actually existing individuals.

If so, it need not be surprising. It is a common enough syndrome among highly ideological people. If you have specific aims and expectations for how people should be, most people are going to disappoint your expectations and turn out to be unworthy. And if they fail to move toward your dream then, of course, they are traitors.

This seems to be the source of Hay's current animus as well as that of the others.

Most gays and lesbians, it seems, want to live happy, healthy, prosperous, fulfilled lives, pretty much the way their friends, relatives, and neighbors do. This perfectly reasonable desire is what is denounced as "assimilation."

But the word "assimilation" is somewhat disingenuous if it is meant to imply that gays are thereby sacrificing something that is part of their natural character or essential nature. No one is urging gays to sacrifice anything inherent in or natural to being gay or lesbian, and clearly gays do not see themselves as doing that.

Much the opposite, in fact. More and more gays are insisting that they be accepted for who they are wherever they happen to be and however they want to live.

Better words for this process might be "inclusion" or "integration" - words that suggest that a person is regarded and treated equally at the same time he remains fully himself. Whatever you call this, it would seem to be not a betrayal of the gay movement, but its triumph.

Originally appeared June 21, 2000, in the Chicago Free Press.

Destructive religious and psychiatric doctrines have far less power to hurt us now than they did fifty years ago. Here's a list of some of the people to thank for that progress.

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EVERY YEAR DURING Gay Pride Week, there is an upsurge of exhortations to exhibit pride, demonstrate pride, feel pride.

Fair enough. Only I would add this. We should temper our pride with gratitude - a deep sense that we as individuals and as a community owe a great deal to the people who made it possible for us to feel proud.

If there are now an unprecedented number of gays and lesbians who are comfortable with themselves, open about their lives and prepared to assert their full moral legitimacy and legal equality, all this we owe to the people who gave us the tools to work with.

By "tools" I mean the ideas and images we use to create a positive self-concept, the language we speak about ourselves with and the arguments we use to immunize ourselves against destructive religious and psychiatric doctrines.

If gratitude is the proper response when someone does something for you, think of them with gratitude. When you are celebrating your pride, whether you realize it or not, you are exhibiting the results of their work.

There is no room for a complete list, but here are a few of the people who promoted these ideas or helped give them institutional structure.

Alfred C. Kinsey was a pioneer sex researcher and author of "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" (1948) and a companion volume on women (1953). Kinsey startled postwar America with his finding that large numbers of men engaged in homosexuality.

Just as important, the books also conducted a running critique of sex-phobic psychiatric (especially Freudian) doctrines from psychiatry never really recovered.

The book was a best seller. Tens of thousands of gay men read Kinsey and took heart that they were essentially normal. It would be fair to say the modern gay liberation movement found its impetus, its bearings and its energy directly from Kinsey.

Mary Renault was an English novelist who emigrated to South Africa in 1948 with her lifelong lover Julie Mullard and began writing a series of highly regarded, exhaustively researched novels set in ancient Greece.

The novels often focused on gay men and their relationships, making the point that gay men were accepted as an ordinary part of the social landscape in Greece. That seemed an almost utopian vision for gay men in the 1950s and 1960s, but it gave visible form and encouragement to gay men's aspirations.

Rev. Troy Perry was one of the first people to assert that his Christian God loves and accepts gays and lesbians and fully accepts their sexual behavior. As Perry put it in his book title, "The Lord Is My Shepherd and He Knows I'm Gay."

That thought was wildly implausible in 1968 when Perry founded his Metropolitan Community Church. If it is more widely accepted now, that is a measure of Perry's work and his example which resonated far beyond his own denomination.

Ron Gold is one of the unsung heroes of the gay movement. As a leader in the effort to change psychiatrists' view of homosexuality as a disease, Gold drafted statements, conducted negotiations, managed demonstrations and argued with psychiatrists. One important speech was titled, "Stop It! You're Making Me Sick!"

The resulting 1973 decision by the American Psychiatric Association to reverse itself not only meant that gays and lesbians did not have to wonder if they were somehow mentally ill, it also meant that no one could ever again use that argument to deny us legal, social or moral equality.

"Tom of Finland" was the pen name of a real Finnish graphic artist named Touko Laaksonen. In a world and an era when most of the visible gay men were effeminate (think of Liberace), Tom's high quality drawings of well-muscled, extravagantly endowed, masculine men cruising or engaging in sex was a revelation for many gays.

For men wracked with guilt or shame about their homosexuality, Tom's drawings of handsome men enjoying one another presented an alternative model of how to think about themselves and their sexuality. Any one of Tom's drawings is worth 1,000 words of argument or 100 hours of psychotherapy.

Barbara Gittings was one of the most important leaders in the effort to move the conservative American Library Association to a pro-gay position - banning discrimination against gays, fighting anti-gay censorship, and encouraging libraries to stock gay-related books.

Gittings lobbied ALA officials, compiled booklists for libraries to use, helped set up an award for the best gay books of the year, even sponsored a gay kissing booth at ALA conventions to get attention for the gay demands. As a result, the ALA is now one of the most gay-affirmative professional organizations in the country.

There are many heterosexuals who also deserve our gratitude for their efforts on our behalf. To choose just one: Psychotherapist and author George Weinberg, best known to gays and lesbians for his little book "Society and the Healthy Homosexual" (1972).

In less than 150 pages, Weinberg set out the reasons why psychoanalysis is biased, conversion therapy does not work, gays are healthy, and homosexuality is not a problem.

Even more important, Weinberg explained why the real problem is homophobia because homophobic people have irrational fears and beliefs that are inconsistent with mental health. Weinberg, in fact, seems to have invented the term "homophobia" and put it into general use.

So when you think about gay pride, keep in mind your debt, direct or indirect, to some of these people who made it possible.