by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH – January 14, 2009
Right-wing
commentators such as the sometimes hard-to-categorize Pat Buchanan, the
comedian Bill Kristol, the still-trying-to-shake-her "Reagan
Hagiographer" label Peggy Noonan, and so-called "even-handed"
cable news personalities such as "Morning
Joe and Mika" of MSNBC were all het-up about why the "left"
(these folks wouldn't know a real LEFT if they saw one) is so het up about
Pres.-elect Obama's choice of Rick Warren to deliver the Inauguration
Invocation. "It's a free country," they say. "There's a wide
range of views on gay marriage" (which happens to be Rick Warren's least
odious on-the-gay-question position) they say. "Obama is showing himself
to be tolerant," they say. Obama is looking for "common ground,"
they say.
"You'se guys" (which is what they would say
to us lefties if they spoke Noo Yawk) are just a bunch of whiners. Or worse, you
are just as bad as the Christian Fundamentalists, except I cannot remember when
any of the above listed "authorities" ever criticized the latter
group for anything. For example, when Gov. Huckabee, the funny man, was riding
high for a bit during the Republican primaries last winter, he was on the cable
news shows a lot. And thus I saw
him a lot. I don’t remember one
question ever being asked him about the fact that he is not just a
run-of-the-mill Right-Wing Christian Fundamentalist (which fact itself never
came up in questions), but that he had major Dominionist backing. (Dominionists believe that Constitutional
government in the United States should be replaced by the “Dominion of God,”
based upon their particular so-called “literal” reading of a particular translation
[usually the King James Version] of the Bible, in other words institution of a
theocracy). No questions there. But that's another story.
These folks then
proceed, not surprisingly, to talk about Warren only in the context of his opposition
to gay marriage. They trot out all
of the traditional arguments in defense of the position (whether it is theirs
or not is often left unclear) that "traditional marriage" is
"between a man and a woman" and thus should not be/cannot be changed.
There are two problems here, folks. First, if that were the only way that
Warren demonstrated his antipathy towards gays and equal civil rights for them,
one could have a rational argument with him and the people he represents, using
one or more of the usual arguments in favor of the gay-marriage-is-just-fine
position.
One could point out
that the "nature of marriage" has changed oodles over the
centuries. For example: under
slavery in this country, slaves couldn't marry each other; in the 19th century,
women were their husbands' property; in many states until various times in the
20th century, women had no property rights; until relatively recently in a
number of states, so-called "mixed race" marriages were illegal (that
one being particularly puzzling: since very few African-Americans are of
"pure" African blood and therefore at least one partner of a proposed
"mixed" marriage was already "mixed" courtesy of a
slave-master or a successor, exactly where and how was the line drawn); in the
present time, although polygamy is technically illegal, it is openly practiced
in various rural areas of certain Western states, with penalties being exacted
only very occasionally, usually only when there is a very big difference
between the age of the "husband" and one or more of his
"wives."
Then one could roll out the big gun (unfortunately very rarely
used by gay marriage proponents who for some reason[s] seem to be afraid to go
there). In my view, the most
important argument in favor of legalizing gay marriage (and I have written
extensively on this one elsewhere, is the Constitutional one. Marriage in this country is a bimodal
institution, civil and religious. Each one of the 50 states has an extensive body of civil law governing
marriage. To prevent persons of
the same sex from taking advantage of the legal protections of the institution
(as well as assuming its legal obligations) violates the equal protection
clause of the 14th Amendment, to wit: “nor shall
any State . . . deny to any person
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
However, there is a
second, and much more important problem with Warren. It is that, as is well known, opposition to the institution
of gay marriage is for him only a cover. This guy is a true homophobe. In one
context or another, for him homosexuality is akin to incest (a matter of
opinion and definition); homosexuals are pedophiles (and surely, let's not let
facts get in the way: the last time I looked, 95% of cases of pedophilia that
come to light are committed by straight men, most often on their own children);
gay marriage is akin to polygamy (with that stretch, was this guy a
first-baseman, even Warren happily allied himself with the Mormon-funded
pro-Prop 8 campaign while the vast majority of practicing polygamists in the
U.S. are Mormons [heaven help the Muslim who tries it]); homosexuality by nature
is in the nature of child abuse; and he may well hold to the James Dobson view
that homosexuality is a choice. This latter one is as if (forgetting about all
of the evidence supporting the in-built explanation) anyone would actually want
to choose to be a homosexual in this most homophobic of societies in the
non-Muslim world, a society in which one of the two major political parties
runs in major part on the prejudice, just as the pre-Civil Rights Southern
Democrats ran on racism and the post-Civil Rights Republicans did too (until
they discovered homophobia and were able to turn down the former, some).
So. Despite all of this, the supporters of Pres.-elect Obama's position, from
within his Campaign-soon-to-be-White-House staff, and from within the Commentatariat,
say that what he is doing is showing that he is "open to other points of
view." That "he wants to bring us as a people together, not divide
us." That "we need to find the middle ground." Well, I see two
problems with that one. First, what is happening here is that homophobia is
getting a pass; it is being treated as just another "point of view,"
another "perspective." After all, “there are indeed many voices in
the United States. They should all be heard.” Oh really? There are many
anti-Semitic preachers in our Nation. They too have "another point of
view." Showing his "openness" to "other ideas," why
should Obama not invite one of them to give a prayer at the Inauguration? There
are many racist preachers in our Nation. (Although we don't hear much about
either group, The Southern Poverty Law Center could tell you a bunch about
both.) How about inviting one of them?
"Well that's different," many folks would say. And aye, folks,
there's the rub. Homophobia has now replaced anti-Semitism and anti-black
racism as the "OK" prejudice in this country. And in the name of
"openness to other ideas," it is being promoted by all sorts of
folks, such as the aforementioned "authorities." What we as a nation
have to realize and realize very quickly is that there is no DLC-type
"middle ground" on questions such as the
“on-first-appearance-not-in-any-way-homophobic” gay marriage one. “Civil unions” don’t solve the
problem. They still violate the 14th Amendment. Denying the Marriage
Right to gay couples still makes gays and lesbians into second-class citizens,
deprived of a basic CIVIL right. Denying
that the anti-gay marriage movement is homophobia-in-full is to deny reality.
We are moving quickly
in the direction of having an officially approved prejudice, one approved in
search of that mythical "middle ground," by oh-so-ironically the
first African-American U.S. President. HOWEVER. You either are a homophobe or
you ain't. Just like in Harlan County, Kentucky, in the famous Depression-era
United Mine Workers song: "They say in Harlan County, there are no
neutrals there. You either are a union man or a thug for J.H. Blair."
There is no "middle ground." In Nazi Germany, before they came for the Jews, they came for
the Gays. In "The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism,
2001-2022" published by its pseudononymous author Jonathan Westminster in
1996, first the "Christian Republicans" came for the gays. It was
only when they were all killed or expelled form the country that they returned
to the blacks. As for the Jews, the antifascists among them were classified as
"Renegade Jews.” The fascist
government went after them too, as Jews. Beware America, beware. It is a very
slippery slope that we are now collectively sliding down.
When the First Civil War
began, Abraham Lincoln thought that it was about the Constitution (no provision
for secession there, and no provision for necessary expansion of slavery into
the Territories). By the time he
wrote his Second Inaugural he had learned that the Civil War had been about
slavery all the time: “One-eighth of the whole population were colored
slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern
part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew
that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war.” Obama may think that there is some
“middle ground” on gay marriage, or on abortion rights, or separation of church
and state, or on the Rule of Law and Constitutional government. Just as there was no middles ground on
slavery, there is none on the matters just above either. “You either are a union man or a thug
for J.H. Blair.” If he learns the
latter lesson, his election will mark a true political turning point in the
history of our country. If he does
not, his election will just have given us a four-year pause on the steady, slow
march to fascism which began with the election of Ronald Reagan. 
This column is based in part
on one of mine by the same name published on BuzzFlash on Dec. 30, 2008.