On Morals and Marriage 


Why denying gay and lesbian marriages Is a selfish act. 

We don't have to compare Fred Phelps to Hitler. We don't have to demonize the Republicans. We don't have to accuse George Bush of political opportunism. We don't have to suspect that Bill Frist desperately would like to be president in 2008. We don't have to wonder at the hypocrisy in the organizational title "Focus on the Family." Why not? Because democracy, after all, is political, and it isn't illegal in a democracy to go after what you want. We don't have to make monsters out of selfish people. But I think we do have to be honest, and call a selfish person a selfish person.

I've been in the business of speaking up for gay and lesbian rights since I came out of the closet in the early 1970s. The fight has certainly changed since that time. Phyllis Schlafly and her ilk warned the USA about the homosexual agenda, and it turns out they had reason to be concerned. By and large, the medical profession no longer recognizes the state of being gay or lesbian as a mental disorder. Our Supreme Court has decriminalized private, adult, consensual homosexual acts. One state, Massachusetts, has legalized same-sex marriages, and a few others recognize same-sex unions. Public opinion is steadily changing to include homosexuality within a range of "acceptable" lifestyles. There really was and is a gay agenda, supported by both gays and straights, and let's face it, people, we are being moderately successful in achieving our goals.

Let's go ahead and talk about selfishness and fear. Yes, the gay agenda is selfish. It asks for full acceptance in this democratic society. It asks for gays and lesbians to be given the benefit of the doubt, just as straight people are given the benefit of the doubt, that until proven otherwise, they be regarded as first class citizens. And many of us are still afraid that we won't achieve this status, or that some of what we have won through our gay and lesbian agenda will be lost. We are selfish enough to have the perfectly understandable belief and faith in ourselves that we are just as good as the next person, all things considered equal.

And the George Bushes and James Dobsons and Midge Decters of this nation are selfish. They do not want to share what they perceive as their exalted status (sometimes even before God) with these, well, really, shameful, immoral, indecent, second-class citizens. And they are fearful, too. They see the advance of the gay agenda, see its success, and they are fighting with all the passion, money (and they have a lot of it), and conviction that they can muster to turn this agenda around and defeat it. They do not want to share their lives, the nation's resources, or the blessings of God with these, as they see it, undesirable individuals. They selfishly and somewhat fearfully want to preserve their privileged position, or at least restore the privilege to what it used to be.

However, the funny thing about believing that a whole group of people are undesirable or immoral is that you don't trust them, don't want to know any more about them than you have to, and really, wish they would just go away and stop bothering you. And when they do keep on asking for equality, then you start doing your best to silence them. You don't care that you are insulting them to their faces. 

Conservative people and groups have always made up fear-driven lies about homosexuals. I grew up in a small town in the 1940's and I thought I was the only gay boy in the world. Then I learned about a handful of "town queers" that were universally derided by the local populace. There was Regis Waxler, who rode a bicycle around town and was alleged to do horrible things to men in restrooms. There was Jack Steadman, who was "sent up the river" for eight years with a "ring" of men who "lured" young men into their back rooms with money and favors. There was effeminate Jackie Edwards, unfortunately born with a cleft palate, who was stigmatized as an undesirable by most of his classmates. These were my role models. And I KNEW that I didn't want to be like these people. It was so unsafe to be honest about your alternative sexual orientation in the 1940s that you had to live in total fear and denial of what you were.

Conservatives have always told us that we were perverts, unnatural, against God's will, seducers of young men and women, inappropriately effeminate or masculine, weak-willed and weak-moraled, doomed to hell, weakeners of the moral fiber of society. Well, one by one, these fear-driven over-generalizations, these stereotypes, have been shown to be false. It has become known that, just as not every straight person is a pedophile, so is not every gay person. We know that most lesbians and gays are actually not cross-gender identified. We know homosexual people have courage in good measure, just as do straight people. We see that many gays and lesbians want to uphold the moral fiber of our society by raising children in loving homes, going to church, serving in the military, working hard on the job. The fear-driven stereotypes have now clearly become lies. It is much harder for those with an anti-gay agenda to tell these bold-face lies. Only the more crude and dull intellects still try.

Now all that is left of the anti-gay agenda is to pretend that they are the upholders of the moral fiber of society, and that somehow admitting gays and lesbians into this cherished group will weaken it. It's really sad and laughable, comic and tragic at the same time. I really don't know whether to laugh or cry. Think of it. They are trying to blame their broken marriages, their lousy child rearing practices, indeed, their lack of love and compassion, and even hurricanes and earthquakes on us. It's pathetic, people. I guess the only consolation I can think of is that God loves you, too, and hopefully some day a little bit of the Christ Consciousness that you are so zealously trying to protect will shine through your own eyes and illuminate your world in a bit more peaceful way.

I wish I could say, "In the name of common human decency, George Bush and Bill Frist, spare us this embarrassing display of blatantly political manuvering that says more about who you are than who we are." But, like I said at the beginning, there is no law against being selfish. They are just exercising their political rights, just like we with our homosexual agenda are. Nope. I'm not going to try to take the high moral ground. It gives me the heebie jeebies. I'd just settle for equal rights.  

Posted: Tue - June 6, 2006 at 05:26 PM          

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