Faith Based Bull

News for the Week Ended September 28, 2011
BY ANN ROSTOW


Faith Based Bull

The other day I wrote an essay on the shift in the rhetoric of antigay activists, who are switching postures from morality watchmen to victims of religious intolerance. The morality thing hasn’t been working as well as it used to. People aren’t buying the idea that the pleasant soccer moms who live down the street in (Your Suburb Here) are satanic minions in disguise. And with the exception of the bullies on the block, kids in particular cannot internalize the revulsion against gays that characterized another age.

Meanwhile, with all the progress of recent years, more cities, states and companies are requiring businesses and employees to conform to antidiscrimination codes and marriage equality laws. There remain far too many exceptions for religious groups, but in general, such laws require everyone to leave their gay bias at home when they conduct business in a progressive environment.

In the last few months, I’ve covered the New Jersey bridal shop manager who refused to sell a dress to a lesbian and the bed and breakfast in New England somewhere who refused to book a wedding for two men, In the past I’ve covered the bakery that won’t make pride cupcakes and the fertility clinic that cut off treatment for a gay woman. Today’s New York Times has a front page story (below the fold) about a clerk in upstate New York who won’t sign off on marriage licenses for same-sex couples.

The excuse is always the same. The state is making these individuals choose between their faith and these wacky gay rights laws. It’s unconstitutional! And indeed it might be if hostility towards gays had anything to do with Christianity. In fact, that kind of hostility has everything to do with conservative Christians, not Christians themselves--- many if not most of whom have no problem getting along with their GLBT customers and neighbors.

Adding to the far right’s new victim status is the notion that no one can express their antigay political views these days because the unbalanced GLBT community will harass them, start a boycott, maybe even break the windows in their cars!

It’s true there’s now a price to pay for going public with your nasty prejudice. Boycotts and outraged comments ensue. Maybe even protests. But the gay community’s reaction is just as revered under the First Amendment as is the original catalyst. And we don’t break windows.

Nonetheless, the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is still trying to hide their donor lists in violation of election laws around the country, based on this alleged fear of retaliation. And that same straw man is at the heart of the effort to block video release or live coverage of the Prop 8 trial.

(By the way, release of the trial video was put on hold by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, pending an appeal of the decision by U.S. District Court Judge James Ware, who ruled that the show could go public.)

Now, and here’s why I’m bringing up the whole subject this week, NOM founder Maggie Gallagher is forming a new organization devoted to promoting the victimization theme. Called the “Marriage Anti-Defamation Alliance,” her group will apparently rise in defense of the downtrodden Christians who have been forced to toe the gay rights line in violation of their sacred beliefs.

The irritating thing is that until the rest of the country acknowledges that homophobia is not a legitimate tenet of religious faith, this attitude will continue to engender some sympathy. We all support freedom of religion in this country. Well, most of us at least. And as long as the First Amendment debate is seen as a conflict between two well-meaning factions, equality will be the loser.

Conservative Christians once believed that their religion dictated racial prejudice and sexism. It didn’t, anymore than it mandates sexual orientation discrimination. But although we’ve made progress, there’s still a sense in this country that prejudice and disgust against gay men and women are legitimate opinions. Misplaced perhaps, But understandable.

We don’t tolerate public racism, even as we know that many people will remain racist in their hearts and in their homes. We wouldn’t give credence to a group that defends the right of men to discriminate against women without consequence, based on a Christian belief in the subservience of the female sex. Yet even in the GLBT community, there remains a vague feeling that antigay views deserve some kind of respect when cloaked in faith-based garb. That’s nonsense.
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You Must Remember This

In other news this week, we have the L-Word actress, Leisha Hailey, who got kicked off a Southwest plane after causing what sounds like a legitimate stink with the flight attendants. As far as I understand it, Hailey and her girlfriend Camila Grey kissed each other, causing at least one other passenger to complain. They were then given some kind of warning from one of the staff and naturally became upset. They were kicked off the plane for allegedly yelling profanities and causing a disruption, not for the kiss itself, but who among us wouldn’t cause a fuss if we were treated in that fashion?

When I first read this story, like any decent reporter, I wondered whether there was some other factor. Were they making out in a way that would disturb anyone, gay or straight? Were they drunk? Was there something else going on? Because really, what Southwest Airline attendant would handle a simple kiss that way? Southwest has no antigay reputation whatsoever.

Second, the story claimed that the attendant told the women that “this is a family airline,” another anomaly. Was this a rogue staff member? But if so, why didn’t Southwest jump into the media fray, denounce the “misunderstanding” and send Miss Thang to sensitivity training?

And yet, as the story continues, it seems to be a genuine case of severe antigay discrimination. Hailey insists that the kiss was no big deal, a simple gesture and not a make out session. She admits that she and Grey were angry, but as I said before, who wouldn’t be?

The situation is complicated by the fact that, all things being equal, every airline has the right, and possibly the obligation, to remove unruly screaming passengers. Indeed, Southwest says the women yelled obscenities and were kicked off for this reason alone.

But this is disingenuous. Once again I go back to my racial analogies and ask what would happen if a flight attendant told a mixed race couple that they were on, let’s say, “a traditional airline,” and then asked them not to touch or show affection in deference to other passengers. Would the couple then be blamed for their outrage?

I’m sure Hailey and Grey could have handled this differently. They could have displayed maturity and discretion by waiting until after the flight to blast Southwest. They could have gone the passive aggressive route and kissed the whole way to El Paso or wherever, daring the staff to stop them. They could have berated the flight attendant in no uncertain terms, using their inside voices and demanding a full apology for the entire incident. But they didn’t.

That doesn’t mean that they were not the victims of a disturbing piece of antigay prejudice that seems lost in the confusion of the story. And try as they might, Southwest can’t neatly sever the outcome from the onset of this situation. It’s all of a piece and must be evaluated in its full context.

Meanwhile, in the last few months we saw a couple of women told to behave after brief kiss in a baseball stadium and we saw two lesbians asked to stop holding hands at a San Francisco museum, of all places.

You know what this does? It makes all of us wary. Every time we unthinkingly throw our arms around our partners, take their hand, give them a kiss, a little voice in our heads chimes in to say “you’re in public! Is someone coming to get you, say something to you, give you the evil eye?” It’s just a split second. But it’s a pervasive sensation.
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Guys: You Know Patti’s Right!

So here’s what’s on my list of GLBT stories this week.

Google has an ap to help you figure out whether your son is gay. Does he care about his skin and have a penchant for musical comedies? You know what? Some stereotypes are based on reality and if your son is sitting in front of his vanity belting out “Oh my man I love him so,” he’s gay. But did you really need an ap for that?

The millionaire matchmaker, Patti Stanger, is eating her feet this week, after telling large TV audiences that gay men can’t be monogamous and have no control over their, shall we say, baser instincts.

Hey guys, I hear you out there. “Jim and I have been together for 23 years and we have always been faithful!”

Yes, but I know your rules. Every other Tuesday, Jim can stray. You are allowed to step out, but never more than once with the same guy. Threesomes are OK as long as neither one of you sleeps with the third guy behind the other’s back. Oral sex is allowed, intercourse is not. You’re not allowed to fall in love with anyone else, but cruising is OK. When you go on vacation, each guy is allowed one fling. Anything goes on a business trip, but you can’t ever mention it to your partner. You can sleep with someone else as long as you never exchange names.

Of all my gay male friends in relationships, every one of them has enforced some weird little “monogamy” rule that would set your average lesbian couple on the road to divorce court. I love you guys, but Patti’s right, You’re not the monogamous types. That said, I’m sure there are a few monogamous gay men out there, just as there are certainly a few lesbian couples with their own special rules of the road.

The underlying problem is that Patti made a generalization about all gay men, even though that generalization only applies to, um, 90 percent of gay men. I say, give her a break.
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Sense Us

And what else? There’s a couple of 80-something gay tortoises in a zoo somewhere. Do you care? Me neither. I read about an antigay billboard somewhere. I wrote down “billboard,” but I don’t recall the details and don’t feel like looking them up.

The census is going back and forth about how many married gay and lesbian couples might be living in the U.S.. I worked for the census last year, which was fun, but I can tell you that there’s no box for “gay.” Yes, a female head of household can list her significant other as “wife,” but you could also pick unmarried partner or roommate. Living in Texas, I almost put unmarried partner on my form even though Mel and I were married in California. I didn’t know whether the census would accept “wife” and I didn’t want our relationship to be discounted.

In other words, the census is useful, and it’s nice that same-sex couples are somewhat recognized and counted, But it remains ambiguous and fails to count gays who don’t want to tell the government they’re gay, can’t figure out the forms, or are not sure of their census status. Are there a million gay couples living together, or half a million? Who knows? Maybe somewhere in the middle. Maybe more. Does it matter? Yes and no. Civil rights do not depend on numbers. But numbers put the world in context.

I’m almost out of space, so let me get something off my chest.

I can’t stand the commercial for the gout medication that shows a guy wandering around with a large vial of green uric acid. You know the one. The vial gets smaller when he uses some drug, but it’s still visible, sloshing around in his knapsack as he checks in at the airport and heads out to the trout stream. Gross! I don’t want to see your uric acid. Just tell us about the gout and the drug, but use a different visual aid, please.

What’s next? A cancerous tumor in a little plastic bag around your neck? Congealed yellow fats hanging from your belt buckle? Can we not start a movement to keep disgusting symptoms and images off our TV commercials? That goes double for the woman who goes on and on about “bad gas,” bloating and diarrhea. Is there a “good gas?” Shut up already! And I think I’ve said enough in the past about the cartoon bears who can’t take a dump without leaving bits of toilet paper on their little butts. Take ‘em off the air.