A Splendid Little War!

Over the past couple of weeks, radically conservative Christians tried to create a brouhaha over advertising for the Folsom Street Fair. For those who don’t know, the Folsom Street Fair is an event in San Francisco to mark the end of Leather Pride Week. Basically, it’s just a big adult dress-up party, only the costumes require a great deal of talc.

As you can imagine, radical Christians are predisposed to dislike Folsom. Queer Folk? Sex-related paraphernalia? San Francisco? Fun???? “No way, man,” the evangelicals cried out to heaven, “that’s just too much.”

This time around, though, they were particularly peeved over the official poster for the event. It satirized Leonard da Vinci’s Last Supper, only with a cow-hide theme. Spokesmen for the Concerned Women of America expressed their outrage – OUTRAGE! In the end, almost nobody took notice of the radical Christians’ rambilings except (ironically) the queer folk (like myself).



So much of the controversy confused me. For instance, the spokesman for the Concerned Women of America was, well, a man. Actually, I don’t think that I have heard any concerned women speak for the organization. Maybe they are living out the ideal that the radical Christians really want for women. Women shouldn't actually be out in public in their own organizations. No, no! Radical Christian women should be locked away in their houses making Jell-O all day (in a concerned sort of way). And they say we are the kinky ones.

Then I was confused that radical Christians had decided that a fifteenth-century Italian painting had become biblical. The do know that Jesus didn’t actually pose for that drawing, right? When did they start considering it sacred? I can’t be sure, but somehow I think Dan Brown is to blame for this.

Perhaps the most baffling element in the whole story was that the radical Christians threatened to boycott Miller beer for sponsoring the Folsom Street Fair. Isn’t “not drinking” one of the deals about being a radical Christian? So, their boycotting a brewery is a little like Mary Cheney boycotting Trojan Condoms or George W. Bush threatening to boycott the local library. They don’t seem to understand that you have to actually buy the product in the first place for a boycott to be effective.

Whatever the case, radical Christians have been itching for a Culture War for decades now. I say that we give them one. If there is any type of war I condone, it’s a cultural one. It always conjures images of a battlefield strewn with oil paintings and garden fountains.

Well, if the Christians want to claim da Vinci’s Last Supper, I say we give it to them. We will keep our first-amendment right of free speech off of it. That means, however, that they have to agree to hand over several queer sacred objects to us as well. These are some of our most holy relics and they must no longer be profaned by the heathen and undeserving right-wing hetero Christians:

Gloria Gaynor's “I Will Survive”

Sure, other disco songs would have made more sense as an acknowledged queer anthem (“I’m Coming Out,” for instance). When one thinks about it, “I Will Survive” is basically a rant about how horrible relationships usually end up. The sacred queer apostles, however, decided that “I Will Survive” was the queer gospel. As a result, it must be played at least once per night at every queer club from Lubec, Maine to Ozette, Washington. It’s simply no use for us queer folk to like or dislike the song. We are required to acknowledge the ritual without question. Kind of like most religion.

From what I understand, radical Christians have brainwashed Gloria Gaynor with their message. We’re going to require that they hand her over to us queer boys. She will also need to convert to atheism. Radical Christians, though, are more than welcome to listen to Tobey Keith. He’s all yours.

Midcentury Lesbian Pulp Fiction

These novels first appeared as something marketed to titillate hetero men. Their miraculous nature was only discovered later when lots of lesbian women used them as a means to break free of their suburban closets. Now they are part of the lesbian exodus story.

As part of our queer purification of society, we are going to need all of these texts turned over to the holy Sisters of Cunnilingus for safe keeping. Actually, while we are the subject, all lesbian sex is strictly the intellectual property of actual lesbians (or the otherwise queer-identified). Take heed, hetero men: No more porn, jokes, or fantasies about lesbians having sex. They didn’t invent it for you.

Mr. Clean

Some claim that Mr. Clean is the Messiah. Others argue that he is just a prophet who brought forward an important message from the goddess. Whatever the case, we all worship at his feet. He is kinky like that.



Radical Christians must henceforth live in filth in recognition that they are not worthy enough to emulate Prophet Clean. They aren’t fit to lick his lemony-fresh boot.

Gyms

Let’s be honest, it’s only the queer boys and the ‘roid heads who keep any gym financially afloat. Often times, those two groups are really the same people anyway.

Becoming addicted to the gym is one of the queer sacraments. Then we get over it and go soft and squishy again. In the meantime, though, I am sick and tired of homophobic straight men cluttering up my gym space. Yeah, I am speaking about the bizarre guy who showers at my gym wearing shorts. For him, it’s all about his fear of gay men checking him out. What he doesn’t realize, though, is that we are much more likely to be judgmental about his chest, arms, and legs before we would even consider his penis.

All of that unpleasantness could be avoided, though, if gyms became queer-only spaces. Let us worship in peace.

Mary Tyler Moore

Yes, the show centered on a heterosexual woman. We all know, though, that it is one of the most sanctified images for queer men (of a certain age). Mary lived the perfect gay man's life. She had a kickin' apartment, drove a hot Mustang, and dated lots of men. So, she didn't have a penis. Must gay men always be defined by their genitalia?

Gay men (of a certain age) hold Mary in high esteem indeed. Need evidence? I remember one incident from Torn's blog. Rummage through comments in one of his older posts and you will find a lively debate over the exact words to the theme song that transpired among queer male readers. It almost turned into a Thirty Years War when the literalists demanded perfect recitation.



For gay men (of a certain age), singing the Mary Tyler Moore theme song is like doing the stations of the cross. It's ours. Besides, I am pretty sure that a radical Christian never turned the world on with his or her smile.

The U.S. Navy

In the world of queer religion, the U.S. Navy is like our religious order. It’s killing me not to make a joke about “seamen,” but this cultural war stuff is serious business. I will restrain myself.

When I was in grad school, I went with a friend to her brother’s graduation from the Naval training camp outside of Chicago. From that ceremony, it seems that naval training involves learning to sing, dance, tie festive knots, and dazzle crowds with silk flags. Plus, the Navy has more costume changes than a Cher concert. It’s all very queer already. Let's make it official! Radical Christians can keep the guns, though.

Any Image of Naked Men Produced Ever, Ever

That’s right – From the first caveman’s scribble of his dangle on a wall, to Michelangelo's David, through beefcake mags from the fifties, all representations of naked men belong to us, the practicing queer men of the world.



Such images of male beauty should not be dishonored with radical Christians' unappreciative eyes. Who churned out all of those priceless works of art? The heteros? I.Don’t.Think.So. It was us queer men who devoted ourselves to lovingly studying every detail of men’s anatomy. The world of art owes us a debt for mapping men's bodies. Come to think of it, any man who looks at himself in the mirror should pay us a fee.

Virgin Mary

Radical Christians are more than welcome to keep Jesus. Why would we want to hang around that closet case and have to deal with his martyr complex? B - O - R - I - N - G.

Mary, though, is one of us! Let’s see – A young woman who never had sex with men and yet still gave birth? Then she took a tour of Egypt? I can only imagine that it was an Olivia Cruise that sailed her down the Nile.

From my perspective, it seems like Mary was the first lesbian to open a spermbank. Granted, it was a cosmic spermbank, but she knew what she wanted. Radical Christianity is just going to have to do without Jesus's mom.

Wages of Straightness

Comments from Harry Jackson (which I first saw mentioned by JMG) caught my attention the other day. Jackson, a diva religious zealot, is looking to build his reputation as an African-American leader by disparaging gays and lesbians. So far, he has received a great deal of attention due to his outspoken opposition to hate-crimes legislation currently pending in Congress.

It is already a federal crime to violently assault an individual based on race, religion, color or national origin (all of these laws require, though, that the victim be engaged in a federally monitored activity when the attack occurred (such as voting or pursuing interstate commerce)). The new measure, which passed in the House of Representatives, expands those existing federal laws by adding sexual orientation and gender. Jackson opposes the measure because he believes that it will threaten radical Christians’ ability to harass gays (which it doesn’t – the measure is about violence, not speech).

Jackson has been explicit about his disdain for gays and lesbians. In particular, he feels gays and lesbians should not be welcomed in African-American churches. Using the old double-speak of “loving the sinner, hating the sin,” Jackson stops just short of calling for a witch-hunt within black churches. He argues that African-American churches have traditionally followed a “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” about gay and lesbian Christians. “In my view,” Jackson writes, “the ‘don’t-ask-don’t-tell’ approach to this problem is the height of hypocrisy . . . The Church, on the other hand, should be a place of conviction and truth. The Bible is clear in its statements against gay sexual activity.” Like so many religious zealots, Jackson imagines that the nation needs to regress to the times of the Old Testament. If people would go Biblical with their sex lives, he promises “there would be fewer out-of-wedlock births as well as fewer practicing gays in the black church.” Hey, what doesn't say "Christian love" like driving people out of the Church?

If Jackson is really concerned about decreasing the number of out-of-wedlock births, shouldn't he be encouraging more homo sex? Homo sex is the best and most reliable form of birth control (aside from masturbation).

From my vantage point, if there were fewer practicing gays in the black church, then they would have more time to practice being gay. Let’s be honest, you are never going to learn how to give a great blow job sitting in church.

Too much? Hey, Center of Gravitas isn’t a blog for kids. Go somewhere else for coloring books and lollipops.

While I think Jackson a bit looney, I really don’t care that he preaches such dribble. If that is his religious belief, so be it. Perhaps he and Jerry Falwell can swap stories when Jackson’s time for hell arrives.

What does bother me, though, is the way that Jackson and similar conservative minority figures help undermine civil rights in this nation even as they claim to be the inheritors of the movement. News media love the idea of presenting civil rights as if it is a limited commodity. They know it makes a compelling story if one oppressed group wrestles with another. In the meantime, the injustice that both groups suffer is sidelined. Giving disproportionate attention to somebody like Jackson also perpetuates the notion that gays and African Americans don’t have common goals or work cooperatively (either historically or in the present). Gays are presented as defacto “white” and African Americans as defacto “straight.”

Jackson likes to point out that Black churches historically served as places where African Americans organized and fought for civil rights. Truthfully, religious imagery was often critically important to many (but not all (more in a moment)) of the campaigns in the twentieth century. Of course, Jackson has decided to ignore Coretta Scott King or the recently deceased Yolanda King, who both advocated for gay rights as part of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s legacy.

Likewise, Jackson conveniently ignores that religious imagery was also critically important to the opponents of desegregation as well. Southern whites used their own churches and vision of “Biblical” morality to justify the inhuman treatment of their fellow citizens based on race.

Indeed, even some conservative African-American religious leaders used their positions to advocate against Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil-rights leaders at mid-century. According to some sources, for instance, Rev. John Wesley Rice, Jr. (father of the current Secretary of State) either ignored or, much worse, disdained the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties. Rice, according to one Birmingham resident, called preacher and civil rights leader Fred Shuttlesworth and his congregation "uneducated, misguided Negroes.” This explains a lot about ol' Condi.

Religion can be tricky like that. Both sides on the civil rights moment believed they were right – both claimed moral authority – and both found their answers in the same sacred texts. Why, one could almost question their validity in deciding civil matters.

Some, however, did not find religion important to their sense of social justice at all. Jackson would probably be loathe to acknowledge the role of African Americans who were gay and/or not religious. Perhaps the most prominent example is Bayard Rustin, a gay African American leader. For all of his adult life, Rustin worked tirelessly as a civil-rights advocate for African Americans as well as queer folk. During his early life, Rustin was a committed socialist. He participated in the first “freedom rides” that challenged segregation on transregional buses. For his trouble, North Carolina rewarded Rustin with thirty days on a chain gang.



In 1963, Rustin was the principle organizer of the famous March on Washington where King gave his “I Have a Dream Speech.” Neither the alleged handicaps of being non-religious or non-straight kept Rustin from making a difference for this nation's pursuit of social equality. I am also going to go out on a limb and suggest that all that practicing Rustin did at being a homo didn’t radically impair the African-American community. And, let me tell you, he practiced a lot.

Near the end of his life in 1987, Rustin stated, “"The barometer of where one is on human rights questions is no longer the black community, it's the gay community. Because it is the community which is most easily mistreated." While I might not fully agree with that assessment (race still seems a darn easy way for people to be denied their rights in this and other nations), one could hardly refute Rustin’s credentials in making it.



We should interrogate claims that those who are religious have the exclusive ability to decide moral issues. This should especially be the case when such religious claims are accompanied by attempts to curtail the rights of entire groups of people.

Perhaps Jackson could learn something from another major African-American figure in U.S. history: W. E. B. DuBois. At the turn of the twentieth century, DuBois became one of the most well-known African-American intellectuals in the nation. In particular, he often wrote about social injustice in this nation's history.



DuBois wisely recognized that poor whites faced harsh conditions in the U.S. and had many legitimate grievances with the status quo. Yet, he argued, poor whites did not revolt because they received a “public and psychological” wage of imagined racial superiority. In other words, DuBois suggested that poor whites were given the illusion of better social standing against an oppressed African-American population rather than improved economic conditions. When monetary wages fell short, they could at least claim to have the nonmonterary compensation of social superiority over African Americans. Modern-day historian David Roedirger would use this idea to discuss the “wages of whiteness.”

In much the same way, conservatives like Jackson offer the “wages of straightness.” Rather than addressing unfair racial, economic, and social structures in the U.S. that affect the African-American community, Jackson suggests that real satisfaction can be taken in not being one of those sinful homos. As long as gays are disempowered, he reasons, African-American heteros are empowered.

We saw this same notion used triumphantly in the 2004 election. Bushie and crew (especially Karl Rove) understood the wages of straightness. Pollsters and social scientists scratched their heads at why so many poor whites and a few Latinos and African Americans voted Republican when the party was clearly against their personal economic interests. One of the answers centered on “gay marriage.” By placing anti-gay measures on the ballot, conservatives promised heteros a nonmonetary wage instead of actual economic security. Claiming that their relationships/marriages were “special” and needed “protection” gave those who voted against gays a sense of purpose (if not also a sense of moral and religious duty). Much like the wages of whiteness, however, it did little to improve their actual daily lives (With Haliburton, tax cuts for the wealthy, soaring gas prices, and a decrease in social services all thanks to the Bush administration, it probably made most straight people’s daily lives worse. Thank God, though, that Tim and Frank can’t be legally acknowledged as a couple!).

Figures like Jackson remind us why coalition building and a unified sense of social justice is critical to continuing the fight for civil and human rights. Though imperfect, many of the legendary social movements of the 1960s and 1970s had a language of solidarity across race, gender, and sexuality (even if they fell short in practice). The Black Panthers, for instance, aligned with the Gay Liberation Front out of a sense of shared commitment to social justice.

Today, though, I would suggest that Jackson has not faced significant challenge from the GLBT community because the existing queer organizations in this country no longer consider issues of race or racism as a core part of their agenda. Groups like HRC and others operate with a distinctly white, middle-class agenda and have proved unable to engage or understand the needs of queers of color (much less the larger hetero communities). When asked to explain why African Americans should support the hate-crime protection legislation for queer folk, HRC comes up blank.

Understanding and fighting all forms of social injustice must become part of our daily lives if we want to counter conservative ideologies. The reality is that the queer community includes people across racial and class lines. Supporting and defending the African American community is supporting and defending the queer community and vice versa.

Immoral Minority

Jerry Falwell is dead. One can’t turn on a television or a computer without seeing his rotund face. I personally take no satisfaction in his death, though I can understand why many queer people might do so. My personal (though largely undeveloped) belief in karma makes me inclined not to wish harm on anybody. Of course, I also suspect that at about this time Falwell is awakening to find that God is really a Latina Lesbian and that she’s kinda pissed with him.

Falwell’s death, I am sure, is hard for his three children and the friends who will miss him. I can’t fathom that anybody thought that he had more sex appeal than Jabba the Hut, but he apparently also had a wife. They all cared for him and they are probably mourning now.

That was the problem with Falwell, though. While I recognize that he had value to those who surrounded him, he never recognized the same in me as a gay man. I (and other people like me) existed as merely an abstraction to him. Apparently it did not occur to him that I also had a life, people who cared for and loved me, and my own ambition in life. Instead of that, he saw all queer people as an indistinguishable group that was responsible for bringing God’s punishment to this nation on September 11 (along with feminists, anybody who had an abortion, and “Pagans”).

Though I wished him no harm, I also don't want it to be forgotten that Falwell created a tremendous amount of pain and misery for queer people in this nation. His rise in power came from tapping into people's worst homophobia. Because of his status, many people listened intently to his rambling. His religious message likely resulted in some casting out their own sons, daughters, or other loved ones.



Jerry Falwell and his cronies provided a critical lesson in why we need to be vigilant in guarding our civil rights. Not only did he prevent our attaining basic civil protections, he and his friends actually worked to rollback already established laws.

During the middle of the 1970s, many communities started to listen to gay activists' concerns for their safety and security. Indeed, by 1977 more than three dozen states or local governments had added sexual orientation to civil rights statutes that protected citizens against discrimination. Many people expressed optimism that queer people might actually be treated like humans in the United States. The Religious Right, however, would put an end to all of that.

Unexpectedly, Dade County, Florida became a battleground. Why do so many bad things happen in that county? Is it cursed? Was the whole county built on a cemetery? Did they only move the tombstones and not the bodies?

In 1977, Dade County passed an ordinance making it illegal to discriminate against an individual based on their sexual orientation. Suddenly a woman appeared on the national scene who would make Darth Vader seem like my Aunt Molly. Anita Bryant created a massive campaign to take away civil rights that had already been protected by law. While many people credit Falwell with launching an era of extremist-religious driven political organizing, it was really Bryant who taught him some critically important tricks.

Bryant, who had been a beauty contestant (for the scholarship money, I am sure) and also the pitchwoman for Florida Orange Juice, proved immensely shrewd at manipulating the media. Bryant told eager reporters, "I will lead such a crusade to stop it as this country has not seen before." Man, she wasn’t foolin’.

The Dade County ordinance seemed innocuous enough. More or less, it said that treating queer people unfairly was bad and would be illegal. Stop the bus, cried Bryant. She authoritatively stated that the civil rights measure was just an elaborate trick to launch a more sinister agenda. Bryant claimed that “hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that there is an acceptable alternate way of life.” Yes, Bryant suggested that evil gay folk had the audacity to say that it might be okay to not live your life like your parents lived theirs. Wouldn’t somebody think of the children?

Well, Bryant thought of the children – She thought they made a great centerpiece for her campaign as she organized a massive grassroots organization. Bryant knew the importance of the soundbite and quickly steered the debate away from civil rights. Instead, she created a distinction between people whom she personally saw as “normal” and her opponents, whom she dubbed “those people.” According to Bryant, the very fabric of society hinged on being sure that queer people could be fired from their jobs or deprived of housing (She would later ensure that queer people in Florida would not be able to adopt children).



Bryant milked homophobic stereotypes for every drop of attention she could squeeze out. Incendiary statements became her forte, especially as she exploited (unsubstantiated) claims about child abuse. The former Miss Oklahoma argued that queer people, allegedly cursed by not being able to have their own children, wanted everybody else’s. Once safely in our clutches, we would make short work of turning those children gay (I am guessing through a daily regiment of disco music, decorating courses, and fern gardening). The general public ate it up. When Bryant said things like “Some of the stories I could tell you of child recruitment and child abuse by homosexuals would turn your stomach,” nobody ever asked her to prove it.

She ultimately named her campaign “Save Our Children.” I guess calling her organization, “Treat Queer People Like Garbage” didn’t test well (though she did often refer to us as “human garbage.” Wasn’t she a delight?).

In the midst of all that circus, who should appear on the scene but Jerry Falwell? Already a well-know Baptist preacher, Falwell flew to Florida to add religious authority to Bryant’s histrionics. The press dutifully quoted everything that Falwell said about queer men and women. “So called gay folks,” Falwell warned, would “just as soon kill you as look at you.”

Isn’t that the truth? All that anal sex just drives us to kill, kill, KILL!

More importantly, though, Falwell took a look at Bryant’s success at building a massive grassroots political organization (not to mention raising a handsome amount of cash) based on the hatred of others. He figured he could do likewise. In 1979, he founded the Moral Majority (which was neither). Using his Old Time Gospel Hour television show, Falwell eventually enlisted seventy-two thousand ministers and four million lay members. He claimed that he and his loyal followers battled “secular humanists and amoralists [who] are running this country and taking it straight to hell.”



Who were these people who fastracked the nation to sulfur and brimstone? Falwell frequently named the true culprits as gays, feminists, and (sometimes) Jews. He said that he was fighting a “holy war” and never shied away from talking about his hatred of people like me. In 1981, he also learned that he could literally raise a quick million dollars by asking his followers “Do you approve of known practicing homosexuals teaching in public schools?” Practicing homosexuals? Silly, Jerry – If we don’t practice, how will we ever be any good at it?

Some twenty years later, Falwell continued to make the same types of statements and usually found success. “If we do not act now,” Falwell told his frantic audiences in the late nineties, “homosexuals will 'own' America!” Yeah, gays owning America would have been a real travesty given the great shape that heterosexual people have left it. We would have gotten away with it, too, if he hadn’t uncovered our secret operative, Tinky-Winky.

Of course, I don’t at all begrudge Falwell his religious beliefs. If he wanted to imagine me burning in hell for all eternity, so be it. My vision for his afterlife might be comparable. What I did mind terribly, though, was that he confused his personal religious beliefs with civil government. I also really, really, really minded that the mainstream media often gave him a free pass and rarely bothered finding counter voices to his message.

It is interesting to me that Falwell and his kindred spirits like to claim that being queer is a matter of “choice.” From my perspective, it is they who have a choice. They are actively choosing to believe in a hateful form of their religion. Clearly Falwell made conscious decisions about which elements from Christian texts that he wanted to believe and the others that he disregarded. Given his appearance, for instance, I am guessing that the sin of gluttony hit the cutting room floor.

To me, Falwell represented the worst elements of this nation. He used religion to tell people that it was okay to hate. In doing so, he made a fortune.