Homosexuality and the world

I've been thinking about this topic - a lot! In fact, I've been thinking about it for decades, trying to understand it in ways other than the superficial and/or obvious. And I've hesitated to publish my thoughts, but perhaps someone needs to examine this without the trappings of political correctness and just with some cool logic, but not without sensitivity.

What brought this to a head for me was the very strident and loud voices I heard criticizing President Obama for not moving more quickly on this agenda and actually threatening him with loss of support if he does not (get a grip!). I had been put off by the utter selfishness and clanging demands for attention for some time, but this was really the last straw. So let's see if we can get some perspective.

First, the President's priorities. Let's see, at the time I first heard this demand for attention, North Korea was threatening to blow up a nuclear warhead and has not ceased being a dangerous distraction since. Iran's pursuit of nuclear capabilities continues to be an ever more serious threat, and then there was the violent and clumsy election that has riven the country and exposed the schisms that were not evident to westerners before. Pakistan does have nuclear capability and is in a terribly fragile state which is increasingly violent and threatening. Afghanistan seems to be a virtual football in the area and has been badly handled for decades as well as unstable. Relations with Russia are critical to progress in these areas and must be cemented. China is increasingly unstable but virtually "owns" our economy (and yes, we'll get to that topic) and must be placated and strengthened in partnership. Israel is throwing temper tantrums and insisting on its way, as usual, but with an American administration that is not willing to cave to its pressure in the accustomed way - oh and it also has nuclear capabilities. Relations with European allies are dicey post-Iraq and financial meltdown - and that subject (Iraq) is far from closed as a tricky withdrawal of troops begins. The entire Muslim world resemble an angry hornet's nest, and for good reason. Other regions, areas, and countries pose significant challenges and demand attention as well, but nothing aces The Economy which has basically collapsed and is being artificially sustained on life support by the flimsiest of sources - the American working public - whose prospects for financial stability are increasingly endangered by the very source of the financial collapse (Wall Street and corporate greed!), but whose "recovery" depends on their financial "success" (I use that term loosely because the burden of debt makes any real success in the ways that we have known it post-WWII a mere illusion, and that for generations to come) - and this has had a ripple effect among every significant player in the world. These are a few of the more pressing issues, as well as health care reform, jobs creation, examination of crippling entitlement programs and other pressing domestic issues. Given these, I find it very difficult to understand why our Prez has not moved the gay agenda to the forefront for this would surely have a salubrious affect on these other, more minor issues, would it not? (Forgive my sarcasm...)

Perhaps I should say upfront that I have many years of very intimate experience within the gay community as an open-minded and much-loved friend and associate. It is not at all a cliche or an exaggeration to state that some of my best friends have been gay ("have been" because many of them are now dead of AIDS) and one is a hugely loved, adopted son. So in addition to observing on a very intimate level, I have also had very probing and honest conversations over the years.

My first observation is that I do not understand how sexual preference can be elevated to the importance the gay and lesbian community afford it. In the entirety of the sexual spectrum there are many, shall we say, subsets. Does each deserve its own political movement and public acclamation? Or is this not a very private matter, such as religion and politics? Why is this even a public issue? By this I mean particularly those very pushy people who demand that it be an public issue, who won't stop talking about it, who see homophobes where none exist, who have lost all sense of proportion and discretion, who advertise in effect and who seem to demand attention that goes beyond that of other people, that makes them a cut above perhaps, and who place sex and their choice of expression as the salient feature of their lives - before work, play, food, recreation, sleep, or any other feature of their lives, though I suspect that the percentage of their time devoted to this activity is relatively small in comparison to other items, just as it is in everyone else's life.

I mean, what is "gay lifestyle"? What a strange phrase! Do gays not eat? sleep? buy houses? drive cars? drink water? listen to music? wear clothing? shop? Do they not live like other humans? Is the way one prefers to express sexuality so life-changing that it becomes a "lifestyle"? I think not. Having experienced gay and/or lesbian people in every walk of life, I would say that the true "lifestyles" are as diverse in that community of folk as it is anywhere else.

Frankly I am offended by the in-your-face activists. I don't try to cram my own peculiar eccentricities or preferences down their throats (or anyone else's, and I might add that as an iconoclast I take personal responsibility for the consequences of my choice to be different) and I have never found people secure in themselves who are this strident about a cause - I mean a personal cause such as this. I don't care what you do with your sex organs, I just don't want to hear about it or to have it put entirely out of proportion in the culture in which I live, anymore than I want a similar movement from, say, sado-masochists, or lovers of bestiality, or whatever is the particular personal expression of the libido. In a culture already obsessed with sex, or so it would seem, do we need just one more example of that strange public sense of proportion? This assumes the similitude of religious fundamentalists, and is equally irrational and distasteful.

Which brings me to some root musings. There is a very strange dichotomy in this entire posit. First, marriage as we know it in our western culture (and elsewhere) is based entirely on the religious authority and precepts as practiced in our Judeo-Christian traditions. That same source for authority unequivocally condemns homosexuality. Period. I find it very odd that people who choose to live so untraditionally would demand public acceptance on the basis of tradition that is based on authority that condemns their practice. What? Perhaps we can force God to change His mind, inspire an addendum to the Bible for the 21st century, explain why He does not share His authority with a Goddess? I mean, what?

I also find it quite strange in the gay community that certain types would seek to elevate the role and attributes of the gender (female) that has a tradition of suppression and sexism in our culture and others, to demand rights and approbation in that guise, and to do so based on the assumed sense of entitlement that comes from being born male in such a society. These are issues I have yet to hear addressed by the gay men I have known or to whose concerns I have turned my attention. In this context we must then examine the traditional roles of male and female in much greater depth than is usual and look at a much larger picture for understanding of the problems inherent in the demands of certain types of practicing and very vocal gay men. (The issues of lesbians is of another sort and as they are fewer in number, I will only address their issues in principle.)

Let's get back to marriage again: why marriage? What is the hope implicit in that act? Oh yes, I know very well the issues that are practical in nature: health care, spousal support, various legal rights, etc. But it is not necessary to "marry" to have those issues resolved. In fact, I would argue there are better, more rational means to that end. I suspect that at least for some there is some cachet attached to the idea of "marriage," some romantic notion or expectation, that the facts alone should enlighten. What are the marriage statistics among straight people? What are the statistics regarding stability in the relationships of gay and/or lesbian couples? Is this an attempt to force a public acceptance that, in principle, has now the authority of "God" because the relationship has been legalized? Is this merely psychological in effect? And this in a time when many, many American couples choose not to marry, and for very good reasons. And is anyone examining the history of the marriage ceremony and its rites and actually proposing that we continue this archaic (and one might add, very expensive) tradition into our current age for any set of people in an enlightened era? Or this merely an attempt to force public acceptance in the face of very real obstacles that are not altogether without basis, but perhaps in a context that is subliminal?

Now, let me say that I have known any number of truly remarkable gay people whose impulse and impression was not one of their sexuality. I have known fewer who were successful in a long-standing relationship, but I think this is equally true of the population at large. Marriage will not change this for anyone, of any persuasion. I have gay friends who are terrific parents (haven't seen as much success among my lesbian acquaintances, I'd have to say, but that could be merely circumstantial based on my data base). I have gay friends who suffer because of the lack of legal mechanisms marriage would grant. But even as more and more couples who choose not to marry devise legal means for enabling their relationships, these same issues can be addressed by "civil unions" or whatever designation we wish to bestow. Let's not confuse legal protection with "marriage" and all the real and imagined associations it carries.

My bottom line is related to two issues: first is that highly personal issues such as sexual orientation, religion and political affiliation have no place in the public square, and second is that the entire issue of "marriage" needs to be examined in a much larger, rational context before a decision is made with regard to legal options for the traditions that accompany "marriage" in our culture hardly work for ordinary people, much less people who aspire to any type of relationship that is out of the ordinary and nontraditional (and this applies to many more people than those who choose to express their sexuality in a different way from the majority).

I might also add that though the kind of discrimination expressed, even violently, in some quarters is truly reprehensible (though nothing compared to that to which our black community has been subjected and that just for the color of their skin - a truly genetic condition that is fixed in the DNA, or women, whose DNA is just as incontrovertible), inviting that violence through baiting and in-your-face confrontation is really quite juvenile and distasteful, and one would do well to compare the freedoms we all enjoy, in any of our differences, in this culture as opposed to others in this world so as to put the issue in perspective - something that is very sorely lacking in this debate, and that on all sides.

We might also consider that at any time any one of us chooses to embrace an aspect of life that is out of the mainstream and/or controversial, we must be prepared to accept personal responsibility for the consequences. In this I have some experience and am intimately familiar with both the pain and the reward of unconventionality. Anyone, in any culture, one who would choose to digress from the status quo will experience repercussions. Sometimes it is not even a matter of choice, but inherited difference, or handicap, or ethnicity. These are simply facts that the mature person must consider.

For those whose violence expresses itself irrationally against people whose private practices do nothing to impinge on their lives in any way, one might ask why they even make it their business and what rationality there is in that. Prejudice of every kind is irrational. And I have yet to see it come from a source of personal security and self-acceptance. A level of maturity we have not seen would shed fresh light on a topic that could be put into far better perspective and result in a better society for many oppressed minorities, many of whom have suffered far more and for less cause than militant gays and/or lesbians, some of whom can appear to be quite self-serving and rather audacious in their assumption that all members of the gay/lesbian community share their values and desire their voices and leadership. Certainly, those whose demands fault our President for his inattention to their "plight" have no sense of proportion whatsoever and stumble over their hubris if nothing else, thus serving their own cause and that of other more rational and thoughtful members of this community very poorly and projecting an image of gays that is not at all in keeping with the majority, which is a real shame. Frankly, far many more Americans suffer for lack of health care (for instance) than do gays suffer from discriminatory practices, and this is particularly painful when we examine cases of children, elderly and those with catastrophic illness. Again, perspective - and compassion for all, not just our personal causes.

Finally, I hope that with all the issues that are on the table in a crumbling society that is frightened and insecure, all of us will find a way to put sex into a proper context, restore its dignity without stripping it of its allure, protect it with the privacy it deserves to be at its best, and address with all our energies the much larger issues that threaten our way of life as we have known it, that will affect all of us, regardless of differences, in ways much more damaging than mere lack of freedom of sexual expression (and really, who is stopping anybody short of pedophiles from expressing themselves as they wish in our society?). We are more than our sex organs, however we choose to use them in the privacy of our own boudoirs. That's why we have brains.