Don't Ask; Tell If You Want

So after 17 years, despite McCain's whining, Don't Ask, Don't Tell is finally being repealed.

A woman I work with has an interesting take on issues of gay rights. She thinks that gay people should have the right to be gay and even to be in long-term monogamous relationships. She just doesn't think that it's something that she should have to explain to her children. She would be uncomfortable if a gay pride parade went through Bakersfield because then she would have to tell her children what "gay" means. She doesn't think gay people should be able to marry, but that they should have domestic partnerships. The word "marriage" is only for straight couples. It belongs to the religious (she's catholic), and if gay people change what the word means, she'll have to explain it to her children. She doesn't have any problem with gay couples, as long as they keep it to themselves.

I strongly disagree with this view. She has the right to be a bigot (just to be clear, she's a very nice woman, just bigotted on this issue). She even (in our society) has the right to shelter her children from all outsiders and train them to be bigots. She can homeschool her children, only taking them out to go to church, where they will continue to hear nothing of gayness, except maybe to denounce it as a sin. What she does not have the right to do, is have her beliefs enshrined into law and inflicted on everyone else. She doesn't have the right to create a double standard where gay people have to keep it to themselves, but nobody else does. When a gay couple kisses in public, they have not shoved-it-in-your-face anymore than a straight couple doing the same. When a gay man mentions that he has to hurry home, because he has a romantic evening planned with his husband, he has not done anything wrong. If you are offended by this behavior, you are the one that needs to change.

43 years ago, anti-miscegenation laws were making biracial marriages illegal in some states. Imagine replacing "gay" with "biracial" in the above paragraphs. How well do you think those views would go over? "I don't have any problem with biracial couples as long as they keep it to themselves." "Marriage is for racially pure couples."

When I was at my mother's the other day, someone (either my wife or I) mentioned that our minor daughter is growing to be so beautiful, she sometimes gets mistaken for 20. My sister commented on what a shame that was.

Now, I know what she meant. My family is very conservative. If a young girl is beautiful, they do not think she should be proud and show off her body. Above all, they do not think that young people should have anything to do with sexuality. They believe that here should be a concrete wall between youth and anything sexual.

I also know that my wife has dealt with serious emotional issues from being told similar things when she was a child. So I figured I should call this out and see if she could rationally explain why it is that being young and beautiful and looking adult were such horrible things for my daughter. I asked what she meant. And she said she didn't mean anything and tried to drop it. My mother tried to rescue her by saying that "there are a lot of predators out there" and that they were only concerned for her welfare.

I've been trying to puzzle out the connection between the gay rights thing and this incident with my family. I think I've finally got it. They both rest on unspoken assumptions.

"When they kiss in public, or want to serve the military openly, gay people are doing something wrong and straight people are not." You can't get there without one more piece, an unspoken assumption. The unspoken assumption: gay people are different, and what they are doing is wrong in the first place.

"When a young girl is beautiful and adult-looking, it is unfortunate." The unspoken assumption: she's going to get raped, or she will have lots of evil consensual sex as a direct result of being beautiful; if she didn't hide her beauty, it will be her fault when these things happen.

The biggest problem is that these views aren't challenged. When religious conservatives say these sorts of things amongst each other, they are reinforced. They can pass these things off as true. They don't need to state the assumption, because they all know it's true. When they say them in the public arena they need to hear the other side, and they need to be prepared to defend their views. And they need to state the unspoken assumption out loud. Because the unspoken assumption is the weak link. The unspoken assumption is the part that makes them sound like a bigot to the moderates. There's a reason it's unspoken.

Civil Rights and the Echo Chamber

This weekend, I was trying to engage my mother and sister in polite conversation about current events (politics). I brought up Rand Paul, the senator-elect from Kentucky. I figured they might not have heard about his stance on civil rights. I had listened to an interview with him recently. The discussion had been focusing on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that ended segregation in the south.

For those of you that haven't heard, Rand Paul's position is that no one should discriminate against anyone, that the government should not legally be allowed to discriminate against anyone, but that business owners should have that right. To be clear, Rand Paul thinks that WalMart should have the legal right to hang up a "No Blacks Served" sign. Listening to him, he's not going to say those words on camera. It would be political suicide. When he's asked a question like that, he repeats "I am against discrimination. And I believe that the government should not be involved in any institutional discrimination."

This seemed like such a far right (almost crazy) position that even my family would not support it. Sadly I never got to find out. My mother's been on this kick lately to limit discussions about issues on which we might disagree. Since I'm an atheist Democrat and she's a fundamentalist christian Republican, this covers quite a lot. She mentioned something about how I'm entitled to my opinions, though she thinks many of them are wrong. So I dropped the subject and we spent the meal discussing how tasty the food was (prime rib, mmm).

Flash forward to this morning. On the radio, NPR was discussing the Ugandan "Kill the Gays" Bill. A member of the Ugandan parliament, David Bahati, has authored a bill that will make it a capital crime to be gay. If it is passed into law, people who engage in homosexual touching will be sentenced to life in prison, while repeat offenders will be executed. There are additional provisions in the bill for prison time for those that talk about homosexuality or who know a gay person and don't turn them in.

The connection for me is what I've heard Bahati say in interviews. Here's an excerpt:

"We know that homosexuality is a human right here (in the US) in Uganda, but also we need to appreciate it is not a human right across the world, and certainly in Uganda, we don't take it as a human right. And as we debate this issue, it is important that we do tolerate one another, listen to one another, understand the background of one another, and respect one another. And the background that I come from is that 95% of population does not support homosexuality. We believe that man was created to marry a woman, and that's the purpose for which God created us, the purpose of procreation, and that's the higher purpose that we believe in."

What I hear from Bahati and my mother*: You're entitled to your opinion that homosexuals should have human rights, but I think you're wrong. You won't convince me that this is not the case. I've been instructed by my religious indoctrination to ignore anything you say that might call this into question. You just need to leave me alone. I have a right to be sheltered from public opinion or the pain I am causing those harmed by my political views. Let's tolerate one another, at least those of us who are straight or white or male. You must tolerate (not speak out against) my intolerance (harmful, divisive legislative action).

My mother wants to live in an echo chamber. She doesn't want to have disagreements with people. She doesn't want to hear conflicting points of view. I hate to Godwin, but if you were a Nazi, and all you listened to was Nazi propaganda, how would you find out if you were wrong?

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*I don't know what my mother's position is on this particular issue.