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Loading ...Corvino: Are our opponents like segregationists?
In terms of gay-rights progress, brace yourself for a difficult year.
This is not because things are getting worse. It’s because the national conversation on gay-rights issues is getting harder.
One reason is that, as cliché as it sounds, we are more polarized than ever. Gone are the days when House Speaker Tip O’ Neill could lambaste President Reagan by day and play cards with him after 6 p.m.It has become too easy to surround oneself solely with like-minded people. (The internet is one key factor.) The result is a bunch of echo chambers, where opponents seem not just wrong, but borderline-insane.
The second reason is that the gay community’s specific goals have shifted. We are no longer asking merely to be left alone, as when we were fighting sodomy laws and police harassment. Our central political goal, for better or for worse, has become marriage.
Marriage is not merely a private contract between two individuals. It is also an agreement between those individuals and the larger community. It requires, both legally and socially, that community’s support. And so the old “leave me alone” script no longer quite works.
A third reason the conversation is getting harder is that the gay community is at a crossroads regarding how we treat our opponents.
On the one hand we talk about reaching out, promoting dialogue, emphasizing common ground. On the other hand we are quick to label our opponents as hate-filled bigots.
This combination obviously won’t work. A bigot is someone whose views, virtually by definition, are beyond the pale of polite discussion.
One sees this contrast in the fracas over Obama’s choice of Pastor Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration.
Compared to most evangelical pastors, Warren is a moderate, who focuses on common-ground issues such as poverty over the usual culture-war stuff.
But Warren supported Prop. 8, the California initiative that stripped marriage rights from gays and lesbians. (He has since suggested some possible support for civil unions.)
Obama’s camp is taking the “big tent” approach, acknowledging differences but emphasizing shared values. In a similar vein, Melissa Etheridge has opened a dialogue with Warren.
Most gay-rights leaders, by contrast, have decried Obama’s choice of Warren. As one friend put it, “it’s like inviting a segregationist to lead the invocation. I don’t care what other good things the guy has done.”
And there’s the rub: Warren does indeed espouse a “separate but equal” legal status for gays and lesbians (at best). Should we treat him the way we treat segregationists?
Before answering, remember that the majority of Californians, and a larger majority of the rest of the country, hold the same position as Warren on marriage. So does Obama himself (though he did oppose Prop. 8).
So in asking whether inviting Warren to lead the invocation is akin to inviting a segregationist to do so, we are also asking whether the vast majority of Americans are akin to segregationists.
It’s a painful question to confront. And the only fair answer is “yes and no.”
On the merits, yes. For practical purposes, no.
From where I stand, the arguments against marriage equality look about as bad as the arguments for segregation. They commit the same fallacies; they hide behind the same (selective reading of) scripture; they are often motivated by the same fears.
But I’m mindful of the fact that “from where I stand” includes decades of hindsight regarding segregation. The nation isn’t there yet on gay equality.
Today, nearly everyone finds the following sentiments repugnant:
“I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with White people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the White and black races which will ever FORBID the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.”
The segregationist who wrote that? Abraham Lincoln.
It is easy now to paint all segregationists as hatemongers, waving pitchforks and frothing at the mouth. Easy, but quite wrong.
The fact is that most segregationists were people not unlike, say, my grandmothers, both of whom were wonderful, loving, decent human beings, and both of whom – much to my embarrassment – opposed interracial marriage.
Their reasons had to do with tradition and the well-being of children. Sound familiar?
My grandmothers were not hatemongers. They were products of their time. So was Lincoln, so is Rick Warren, and so are you and I, more or less.
I don’t mean for a moment to let Rick Warren off the hook. He ought to know better. Maybe someday he will.
In the meantime, prepare yourself for a challenging 2009.
John Corvino, Ph.D. is an author, speaker, and philosophy professor at Wayne State University in Detroit.
For over fifteen years he has traveled the country speaking on homosexuality and ethics. His writing has been featured in regional and national periodicals, at the online Independent Gay Forum, and in numerous scholarly anthologies. His column “The Gay Moralist” appears Fridays on 365gay.com.
For more about John Corvino, or to see clips from his “What’s Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?” DVD, visit www.johncorvino.com.
I think that, by focusing on marriage as central, you’ve created a needlessly gloomy scenario. If everyone who opposes marriage is a bigot, then yes, we’re calling most Americans bigots. But most Americans support all of our other goals – employment nondiscrimination, the freedom to serve openly in the military, hate crimes legislation, and even civil unions.
Warren isn’t like them. He doesn’t simply oppose marriage equality while supporting gay rights in other respects. He argues shrewdly against marriage equality in ways that stoke intolerance of gay people themselves. He compares same-sex marriage to child abuse and polygamy. I doubt that most people would agree with him.
Warren is also dishonest. He says “the Bible is clear” on stem-cell research, abortion, and same-sex marriage. He’s an intelligent person. He must know that what he’s saying is nonsense. His views and his untruths may be typical of many evangelicals, but they are not typical of Americans as a whole.
The fact that Warren is moderate on other issues doesn’t make him any less a bigot toward gay people. I can support conservation and fight poverty while still being intolerant toward gays.
So, are we labeling most Americans bigots by labeling our opponents bigots? No, because again, most Americans support most of our rights. Depending on the issue, we may be labeling as bigots about 30% of Americans (employment nondiscrimination) or, say, 10 or 15% (freedom to serve openly in the military).
That’s still probably too many to be labeling that way. I agree with you that it’s important to educate others, and we’re not doing that if we drive them away by calling them bigots. How about calling people like Rick Warren bigots? Well, the shoe fits. He’s deliberately demagoguing his followers into harming gay people. On the other hand, maybe some of those followers can be saved if we don’t alienate them by calling their leader a bigot.
So, most Americans agree with us on most of the rights we’re fighting for. Even on marriage equality, there’s a good chance for progress in the next couple of years on the East Coast. Overall, I think the situation is much more optimistic that you suggest in this article.
This has been commented on previously, but it’s worth repeating. John, you completely miss the point about Warren. He’s not a bigot simply because he takes the same position on gay marriage as Obama and many Americans do. He’s not a bigot simply because he was in favor of Prop 8. He’s a bigot and a hatemonger because he publicly equated gay marriage with incest and pedophilia, and in doing so clearly indicated that there is something criminal and abhorrent about two people of the same sex wanting to enter into a committed loving relationship with one another. When a preacher spreads this particular message, he becomes complicit with the violence perpetrated against gays. In this regard, his is not, I repeat NOT, to be compared either to Obama or, I would hope, the majority of Americans.
Here, Here, I am complete agreement!
Sometimes I just cannot believe how far off the path the gay community has wandered. When I read articles and opinion columns in the gay press I sometimes forget it is the gay press. What have we become? I’ll tell you. Faux heterosexuals. Makes me sick. They talk about gay rights and equate that with marriage, a broken heterosexual institution. SICK! They talk about having kids and settling down in a nice house with a white picket fence. SICK! Let’s do the whole get married, buy house, have 2 ½ kids, dog…etc. Sound nice?
Don’t get me wrong. If that is truly your idea of happiness, more power to you. Just make sure it’s YOUR idea. Every since the Stonewall Riots there have been people like the Mattachine Society telling us to be like the heteros. We are just like them and we need to show it. We now follow gay rights organizations that espouse this same philosophy. BULLSHIT!! Let me be clear. WE ARE NOT LIKE THEM!
WE ARE FABULOUS! We are queer. We are men that suck cock and women that eat pussy and we should be damn proud of that. Did you get that word? PROUD? What happened to gay pride? Where did we loose our way? I’ll tell you. We sold our collective gay souls for acceptance. Acceptance by secular society, acceptance by the government, acceptance by organized religion. We have become a bunch of assimilationist fags that can barely be distinguished from any heterosexual on the street.
We need to remember those who have come before us and DIED for being fabulous and gay. We need to take back our gayness and tell those who would have us mimic heterosexuals WE WILL NOT! We will not be quieted, we will not be patient, and we will not assimilate. TRUE PRIDE IN 2009!!
It’s not our enemies that worry me. We know what we can count on from them. It is our “friends” such as the Obama administration that I fear will sell us down the river in the spirit of making nice with the right. Why is it that liberals have to make nice when they are in power but the right can tell us to go to hell when they are?
The issue is more complex than red meat conflict ISSUES. It is not just “playing nice.” It is knowing Who you are playing against. It is knowing that Gay PACS are businesses and live on creating conflicts. No conflict, no no product.
I read “the author” since he puts forth reasonableness, rather than confrontation. BOTH have a purpose. The problem is our gay politics are off the tract.
Let’s get the hell off “marriage.” With struggle, we may win. But so what next?
Let’s back get to the core: “Get off my back, you buggers.” I do not care a damn about marriage or civil unions. I care about RIGHTS. I do care about you folks needlessly sticking us into those culture wars.
Interesting. The author poses a plausible argument. However, historically – as we look to other civil rights struggles – they were not won by “playing nice”. Each fight had their group of radicals – making the moderates appear more tolerable to negotiate with… and in all cases the moderates probably delayed the win of the struggle by years… if not decades. People talk about polarization as if it were a bad thing? Counterproductive. In fact it isn’t. By creating a social atmosphere where espousing views that a segment of the population should be second class citizens is considered unacceptable – most bigots – like bullies tend to retreat. This leaves the apathetic middle and liberals left in the game. While I do believe promoting positive imagery of gay families is a good tact without engaging the right in a fight – I disagree with the “reach out” strategy. We should however, be promoting alternatives – like the numerous churches that do support gay marriage, gay episcopal bishop Gene Robinson would have been a “more” balanced choice to offset a Warren – had Obama done that – I would not be upset.
The most important gay rights struggles in 2009 will happen in Congress, not at the ballot box. They will be about employment discrimination, both civilian and military, not about marriage. We don’t have to win over the hearts and minds of the American public. (On this issue, we already have.) We need to get 217 representatives and 51 senators, or 60 senators if the Republicans filibuster, to vote for ENDA and against DADT. With a recession and two wars going on, some fair-weather friends of the LGBT community won’t want to spend the time or the political capital needed to make the these changes happen. How do we persuade them to get the job done?
I think we need to convince the Democrats in Congress that we’re angry and fed up, and this time around, we won’t keep supporting them if they don’t deliver. If a Democratic Congress and a Democratic Congress can’t give us non-discrimination laws, which over 60% of the population supports and which we’ve been asking for since 1974, we are not going to give them a dime in political contributions in 2010 and 2012, and a lot of us won’t vote.
In order to persuade Congress that we’re this angry, we’re going to need to indulge in some harsh rhetoric. I don’t approve of all the things that were said after Prop 8 passed. (In particular, the signs making fun Mormon polygamy were bigoted and unfair, since the LDS church has prohibited polygamy for over a century.) Overall, though, I think the anger we’ve expressed about Prop 8 and about Rick Warren has helped our cause.
P.S. when I wrote “It will be nice to see people suffer for a change” I meant “it will be nice to see STRAIGHT people suffer for a change”.
Even the “shut up, you have civil unions” argument used by the religious right is wrong, as most gay people don’t have access to anything even remotely close to a civil union. My partner and I have decided to be stop being nice.
Let me tell you, after 35 years of being picked on and belittled, it feels GREAT to stop being nice and start doing it to other people. Our homophobic neighbors recently lost their home to foreclosure. I told them it “serves you right” and I could see the anger rising in them. Just a small taste of what we feel every day, but to be honest it will be WONDERFUL if they end up homeless.
The BEST thing about the current U.S. economy is that the people most affected are going to be those who are most against us. The cities are holding up fairly well. As someone with plenty of money socked away to weather the storm, it will be nice to see people suffer for a change.
Carvino; You yourself are a segregationist. Your softball handling of those who are afraid of us is ridiculous and counter-productive. I know a family in New York City whose daughter was recently raped and killed by four of the people YOU think we should all just ‘understand.’
The ‘other’ has had plenty of time to adjust to our presence (for thousands of years). The ‘other’ is shielded by their ‘religious beliefs’ and mob rule. They act with mob-impunity and you think we should just accept their ways????
Since they will strip our rights from us with mob rule, the time has come to demand the passage of federal hate-crime laws waiting in the wings. The time has come to take DOMA to the Supreme Court. The time has come for Us LGBTQA to act as a solid and determined force and demand that the constitution, it’s laws and processes, are ours too. You sir, would have us continue to whistle dixie down a river why the ‘other’ continues their intergenerational turkey shoot out of our lives.
And for God’s Sake; wake up!Your ‘grandparents’ were liars. Sure your little tale makes for warm and fuzzy press; the guys up top just love you for it, don’t they? Clue: Your grandparents’love’ for you was conditional. It started when you were born and, as for most of us, ended when they found out their grandchild was ‘gay’. They live a lie and you recite the lie by painting them as good people who were merely caught up in their time.
Most of all, Dr. Carvino, you are acting like a self-loathing 1940’s era German-Jew, who in order to please his masters in the third reich guarded the Ghettos of his people which eventually led to their and his own death.
Come out from behind your soft-ball essays. Grow a pair. stop acting like an Uncle Tom.
Or do us all a favor and turn in your Pen, your Diplomas and all the pretty accolade that say you’re smarter than the rest of us, and get the heck outta Dodge. We need real Gay Leaders with the stomach to say what is right – Right Now!
Thank you Dr. John Carvino for your comments. Your words have been the best spoken in a very long time coming from the gay community. Hatred and resentment seems to be “our” only goal today with very few accomplishments. We have strived to be and do better, only to be set back by the same thing most of us feel sometimes, by also hating and resenting being oppressed and pushed back into a closet. I don’t agree with the Rev. at all. In fact, very few ministers of today preach anything that is biblical but have joined the forces of ‘evil” preaching hatred and destruction of lives. All these so called preachers will some day reap what they sow and all burn in hell as they have condemned us to damnation. Looks like hell is going to be full! Obama, trying to unite our divided country, by inviting this preacher was only trying to unite as many as he can. Let’s all get behind our President and hope that he can lead us all into some sort of freedom that we have all strived for so many years. Don’t let another preacher divide us again.
Reading has always been a passion of mine, Anonymous.
I stand by what I said. How anyone can consider that Rick Warren is “moderate”, even compared to other evangelicals is beyond me.
I can only assume that neither you nor Corvino have any knowledge of what Rick Warren and his fellow “moderate” evangelicals have been doing in Africa. Please use the Google to inform yourself.
To answer your question, yes the anti-gay opponents are like segregationists. They support gays not having the same rights as everyone else. How more obvious can they get? It’s just a different minority this time. It was once the blacks, now it’s the gays.
Warren is a spiritual terrorist and anti-American – he should not be ‘leading the Nation’ (the ‘majority’, but obviously not the oppressed) in prayer.