Then and Now

Hey, you guys up there—slow down! You’re making me dizzy….

Last June, by one slim vote, the Supreme Court threw out the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). At that point—as I remember it—fewer than ten states allowed gay marriages. Now? It’s 17, and may be 18 if Michigan…

…sometime after five PM last Friday, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman issued a ruling after a two-week trial, based mostly on whether there was any evidence that kids were harmed by being raised in gay homes.

The judge—a conservative appointed by Ronald Reagan—decided no. And so he tossed out the ban on gay marriages, which had popular support a decade ago, though recently more and more people are scratching their heads, wondering what that was all about….

It was a weird time—those years when everybody was up in arms and needing to defend the sanctity of marriage. Was it that the ritual satanic abuse thing had faded? Because, remember—the fear had swept the country, starting out in a California daycare center, run by this woman Virginia McMartin? Here, Dear Readers, I present her fearsome visage—don’t look too long or too intently, lest the sulfurous stench of evil rise up and poison your eternal soul….

Look, she’s clearly not having the best day of her life, but satanic? And here, under the very appropriate heading “Bizarre Allegations,” is Wikipedia’s description of the affair.

Some of the accusations were described as "bizarre",[5] overlapping with accusations that mirrored the just-starting satanic ritual abuse panic.[4] It was alleged that, in addition to having been sexually abused, they saw witches fly, traveled in a hot-air balloon, and were taken through underground tunnels.[4] When shown a series of photographs by Danny Davis (the McMartins' lawyer), one child identified actor Chuck Norris as one of the abusers.[20]

Some of the abuse was alleged to have occurred in secret tunnels beneath the school. Several investigations turned up evidence of old buildings on the site and other debris from before the school was built, but no evidence of any secret chambers was found.[4] There were claims of orgies at car washes and airports, and of children being flushed down toilets to secret rooms where they would be abused, then cleaned up and presented back to their unsuspecting parents. Some interviewed children talked of a game called "Naked Movie Star" suggesting they were forcibly photographed nude.[1][4][21] During the trial, testimony from the children stated that the naked movie star game was actually a rhyming taunt used to tease other children—"What you say is what you are, you're a naked movie star,"—and had nothing to do with having naked pictures taken.

What happened was, according to Wikipedia, “the longest and most expensive criminal trial” as of 1990. The first allegations had arisen seven years earlier, in 1983; the case ended with charges being dropped.

Gay people are used to it—at least those of us who are of a sufficient age. Raf was told decades ago that he couldn’t see his young nephew, who now has a child of his own. Raf and I passed the child back and forth last year at a family reunion.

Oh, and remember Anita Bryant? Who can forget here explanation that gay people—not able to reproduce—had to be out “recruiting” children to keep the pink race going? Presumably, it was like a scene out of Boys Beware, a film from the 1950’s that will shock the hell out of you.

The film starts out well enough, with the cheerful—no, let’s call it peppy—music in the background as we see a police captain leaving the police department, on his way to go speak to some “young people” at the local high school. Along the way, he sees Jimmy Barnes, innocently trying to hitch a ride on the side of the road.

Alas, not all the people in the world are as innocent as Jimmy! Though the person who gave Jimmy the ride seemed nice enough—asking Jimmy questions, and giving him a pat on the shoulder as Jimmy got out of the car.

That’s when we see the driver, who until now has been only in profile. And need I say it? The face is satanic—wait, I’ll be a good blogger and figure out how to take a screen shot:

Jimmy, honey? You were riding home with that?

That, Dear Reader, is a proper 1950’s homosexual—and it’s also what we came out of, or away from. Because I was born in 1956, which meant that for the first decade of my life, this is what society was telling me I was going to grow up to be. Which meant I could repress my entire sexuality, or I could become utterly depraved, as this man was.

Nor are such types subtle—since the very next day, what happens? Yup, there the stranger is, after school, and today he decides to treat Jimmy to a Coke. And then the homosexual told a few off-color jokes—obviously testing the waters.

Look, I saw the clip a year ago, and really, I don’t need to see it again. In fact, having lived through the whole thing, and overcome it, I really prefer not to relive it. Suffice it to say that all turns out well for Jimmy, but that other boy?

“He became a statistic,” intones the 1950’s voice.

If you grew up with this garbage, it took real work to move away from it. It took therapy, group sessions, consciousness raising, activism, marching for the first time in a parade, telling your mother (guess what? It’s always mother first…) you were gay, walking three times around the block of the first gay bar you were hoping / dreading to go into, telling everybody you were gay—and now, how many years have passed? And surprise—you’re not done!

You’re not out of the closet, you see. Sure, you’ve done all of the above—you have weeded that garden as rigorously as you could, and then you get cruised by the pilot who has flown you 1600 miles to New York City. And what do you think, reflexively?

“They have gay pilots!!!”

Down on your knees, pulling more weeds!

There’s a twenty-ish gay guy two tables away talking to his friend, or his lover, or whoever he is or however they’re defining it. And his experience as a gay guy? He probably didn’t have to worry about getting kicked out of school, getting kicked out of his home, about being beaten silly when he left the bar.

But the good news? Other people have been pulling weeds, too, including conservative judges in Michigan, who got asked if he really would like to affirm a law that says that some people can get married, others cannot.  Here’s what  Friedman said:

In attempting to define this case as a challenge to “the will of the people,” state defendants lost sight of what this case is truly about: people. No court record of this proceeding could ever fully convey the personal sacrifice of these two plaintiffs who seek to ensure that the state may not longer impair the rights of their children and the thousands of others now being raised by same-sex couples.

So last Friday, Michigan had allowed gay marriages. Saturday, everybody ran down to City Hall to get hitched. Then the ax fell—the state’s attorney general asked for a stay, and so now gay marriages aren’t legal in Michigan. See?

It occurs to me—there’s something a little sad about how so many of us have done it: rushed frantically to get hitched before some hack of  a DA or AG runs off to the next court up to block it. Parents living the next state over don’t get to see the ceremony. Musicians who would have chosen Monteverdi’s Si dolce e’l tormento have to live with Whitney Houston.  The superb cooks are eating a store-bought cake and drinking champagne and grinning like fools and rubbing their eyes and calling their distant family.

One Michigan couple who got in under the wire was my old friend Geek, the celebrated chap who—having outwitted and outlasted Fred Phelps—took his lover of 27 year to the courthouse or city hall or wherever it was and brought him back as his husband.

And now, having scared the hell out of you by showing you a proper 1950’s homosexual—as well as that satanic grandmother—let me show you the updated version—considerably less menacing….

Congratulations, Geek and Martín!

A middling Enemy

Well, I voted “no,” on the general belief that it has to stop somewhere—and for once I was on the winning side. But then I had to wonder—should the Satanic Temple perform a ritual on Fred Phelps ’s gave, in order to turn him into a gay man in the afterlife? Here’s Lucien Greaves on his promised Pink Mass:

The Satanic Temple exercised its own right to offensive Free Speech in our performance of the Pink Mass at Fred Phelps’s mother’s grave this past summer. After having two same-sex couples (one male, one female) engage in homoerotic activity at the gravesite, we declared Fred Phelps’s mother a post-mortem homosexual conversion. At the time, I predicted that Fred hadn’t too much longer till he would pass, and I stated –- in a direct tweet to the WBC -– that I would be presiding over Fred’s own Pink Mass before too long. As I have made a promise to a dying man, I fully intend to do my very best to see it through, and the pomp and circumstance of this Pink Mass will surely far, far exceed that of the original event in Meridian, Mississippi.

I would have said “no” to this one, too, before I saw the video clip below of documentary filmmaker Michael Moore confronting Phelps. Because it’s one thing to read about the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) and their odious “God hates fags” protests—it’s another thing to see and hear it. There, the emotion is visceral—the loathing and fear are as palpable as a slap in the gut.

As I contemplate the death of Phelps, I wonder if any good came out of Phelps’s life. He was, in fact, an admirable enemy to have—virtually impossible to like, completely absurd, outrageous. How much different than some of our other enemies!

There was Anita Bryant, for starters, who admittedly was no intellectual goliath, but who certainly had that Southern charm, as well as a megawatt smile. “I don’t hate homosexuals,” she said, or words to that effect, “I love them enough to tell them the truth….”

And we all knew what that was….

For all her wholesomeness, for all the cloy she exuded, the message was pretty bitter. At issue was Dade County, Florida, which in 1977 had approved a resolution that—grab ahold hard onto your seats, friends—prohibited discrimination based on sexual orientation. So what did Bryant do? She started a campaign called Save our Children, and went around the country whipping up the crowds. Want a sample of the intellectual fiber of the debate? Consider these statements, from the Wiikipedia article linked with her name, above:

"As a mother, I know that homosexuals cannot biologically reproduce children; therefore, they must recruit our children" and "If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters."

Bryant’s life went downhill rapidly—she divorced her husband and manager, which alienated her from her hardcore religious base. As well, she declared bankruptcy a couple of times, and her career languished.

Bryant was one thing—Falwell, another. Remember this one, immediately following the September 11^th attacks?

"Throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools," he said. "The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad.

"[T]he pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way — all of them who have tried to secularize America," Falwell continued, "I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

"Well, I totally concur," responded Robertson.

Then the predictable happened:

Angel Watts, a spokeswoman for Robertson's Christian Broadcast Network, said Robertson "of course" did not blame gays or atheists for the attacks.

Right—mopping up after the damage has been done.

Then there was the pope, or the Pope Emeritus, who came out and let us know that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and therefore homosexuality could never be moral. 

All of this leads us very comfortingly to the smarmiest lie of all—that these people who condemn us are condemning the sin, not the sinner. Yeah? And if I said that “Christian acts are intrinsically disordered?” Would anyone believe that I didn’t have a little grudge, a little axe to grind?

For all his extremism, Phelps may have done considerably less damage than more mainstream, less visibly crazy people. Quick—who is the president of the Mormon Church, which threw more money into California’s Proposition 8 than Phelps and the Westboro Church could ever dream of?

Will Phelps be missed?

Of course not…

Was he our worst enemy?

Absolutely not.