% IssueDate = "9/15/03" IssueCategory = "Viewpoint" %>
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On May 15, Republican Representative Marilyn Musgrave of Colorado sponsored a Federal Marriage Amendment defining marriage for all federal, state and local government entities as "only of the union of a man and a woman." Right-wing politicians climbed all over themselves this summer to sign on. On June 17, the Southern Baptist Convention had announced that its new initiative would be to convince gay people to reject their "sinful, destructive lifestyle" and become heterosexuals just like them. Saying their public face message should be "love the sinner but hate the sin," America's largest protestant denomination, founded in 1845 to maintain slavery, continued to preach morality to the rest of us. It took the SBC 150 years from their founding, safely after it could have made a difference during the civil rights era in the south, to finally come to the conclusion that slavery is wrong. At their 1995 Atlanta meeting, they appeared to apologize, pledging to devote the first ten years of the new millennium to eradicating racism and ethnic conflict. Only 7 more years left and then they're done, I suppose.
Simultaneously on July 31, the Republican Policy Committee released a policy paper prepared by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona entitled "The Threat to Marriage from the Courts." It presents the official Republican strategy for preventing marriage equality, warning that nothing "will stop determined activists and their judicial allies [but] a constitutional amendment." Meanwhile, July polls reflected the barrage of negative attention the issue was getting following the Supreme Court decision. A CNN/USA Today poll reported that 48 percent of the respondents agreed that homosexual acts should be legal and 46 percent did not. The news headline was that public approval of homosexual activity was down from a May poll (60% approved, 35% disapproved.) Two separate July Gallup polls detected the shift against gay rights in those who tended to be conservatives, moderates, and people who attend church. Such blips in polling aren't unusual when an issue attracts attention, and probably less significant in the long run. The long-range picture is reflected in the fact that the polls also showed that people under age 50 are significantly more accepting of gays than their elders. Up north, on June 18 Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretian, after provincial courts rejected discrimination against same-sex unions, announced his party would draft a law legalizing same-sex marriage. Canadian right-wingers vowed to fight. On the religious front, on July 4 a leading Thai Buddhist monk, Phra Payom Kalayano, called for more rigorous testing of monastic candidates to screen out homosexual men. Thai leaders, official spokesmen said, are looking into Buddhists laws to eliminate monks with "sexual deviation," declaring they "cause trouble in the temples." On July 31, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, took time off from dealing with the Church's own on-going, multi-million-dollar-settlements, sexual abuse mess to release a twelve-page edict condemning "homosexual unions" and anyone who supports them. "Legal recognition of homosexual unions would obscure certain basic moral values and cause a devaluation of the institution of marriage.…To vote in favor of a law so harmful to the common good is gravely immoral," the document pontificated. A week later, the President of Dignity/USA, a national organization of people who are gay and still Catholic, labeled the Vatican's actions "spiritual terrorism," an action by "the elite old-boys-club." Not to be outdone, on August 7, right-wing televangelist Jerry Falwell announced that he was drawing a "line in the sign" and would put aside everything to devote time to passage of the constitutional ban on gay marriage.
So, it's already been quite a summer. And there's more to come. The movement for full acceptance and affirmation of LGBT people will continue to be successful if it sets the agenda. It can't merely find itself responding to the right wing. There must be a gay agenda. And it will be successful if those of us who think all is well, the fight is over, and we just need to get along, pay attention to what's been happening. Denial didn't get LGBT people this far. The events of the summer of '03 tell us we've come a long way. But, they also tell us we can't settle down now. Though we're getting closer, there's still a long way to go. ![]() |