John Corvino

Tag: everyday life

  • No Asians?

    First published at 365gay.com on January 22, 2010

    Not long ago a friend approached me for relationship advice. He’s a white guy who was contemplating dating a black guy, and, as he put it, “I thought you could give me some insight since you’re in an interracial relationship.”

    His query took me by surprise. To be honest, I had forgotten that I’m in an interracial relationship (though I’ve been in one for eight years and counting).

    It’s not because I “don’t see color” or anything like that. Of course I see color. People who don’t see color in this society are blind to an important feature of others’ experience.

    Maybe it’s because I frequently don’t see Mark’s color. That’s partially a function—for better or worse—of our intimacy. But I suspect it’s equally a function of the fact that Mark is Asian.

    Like many Americans, I tend to think of color in terms of a black/white paradigm. Living in Detroit, as Mark and I do, tends to reinforce that paradigm. “Interracial” means “black and white.” I’m well aware that it’s a false paradigm, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t common and powerful.

    It doesn’t follow that people don’t notice Asians, don’t stereotype Asians, or don’t discriminate against Asians. All of the negative stuff still applies (in varying degrees). The difference, I think, is that when we white people make efforts to be more sensitive to race issues, we sometimes forget that there are more than two races. It’s not so much that Asians are invisible; it’s that discrimination against them is overlooked.

    The gay Filipino-American comedian Alec Mapa is currently touring with a show entitled “No Fats, Femmes, or Asians”—highlighting a phrase he sees commonly in personals ads.

    Mapa retorts that he objects to the idea—I’m quoting from memory here—“that belonging to a certain class of people makes you inherently unfuckable.”

    I missed the next ten minutes of Mapa’s routine as I pondered the moral implications of his analysis.

    Put Fats and Fem(me)s aside for the moment, and let’s focus on the “No Asians.”

    Having been with Mark for nearly a decade, I recognize that the sentiment is common. Growing up, Mark was painfully aware of the fact that there were (virtually) no Asians in the Abercrombie and Fitch catalog or other standard markers of our notions of beauty.

    Before we started dating, lots of guys told him, “You’re cute, but I don’t date Asians.” For that matter, people have told *me* that “I’m not into Asians, but Mark’s cute—you’re lucky you found each other.” (Yes we are, thank you.)

    On the one hand, I think personal tastes are just that. For example, I’m not into beefy, muscular guys. Give me a cute scrawny nerdy type over a football player any day. Other people have the opposite preference. To each his own.

    What’s more, there are some guys who are really into Asian guys (the slang term is “rice queens”). More power to ‘em, I say.

    I would add that people get enough grief about their sexual tastes—especially LGBT people—that the last thing I want to do is give them more. Sexuality is a gift to be enjoyed, not an occasion for affirmative-action programs. As I’ve sometimes explained, “I’m not into women sexually, but that doesn’t make me sexist.”

    On the other hand, our notions of beauty don’t arise in a vacuum, and some of our preferences are premised on false—and morally troubling—stereotypes. They’re hurtful. And the social structures that lead to them are an appropriate subject for moral scrutiny.

    So my advice to people contemplating—or consciously avoiding—an interracial relationship? Keep an open mind. Listen and learn. And wherever you find love, celebrate and enjoy it.

  • Don’t Let the Perverted Analogy Trip Up the Gay Debate

    First published at 365gay.com on January 18, 2010

    The Gay Moralist is a philosophy professor by day, and today’s column is a logic lesson.

    Consider the following two exchanges:

    Jack: I can’t support gay marriage because it violates my religion.
    Jill: Some people’s religions teach that interracial marriage is wrong.
    Jack: So, you’re saying that opposing same-sex marriage is just like racism?!

    Jill: I should be allowed to marry whomever I love.
    Jack: What if you love your brother? Should you be allowed to marry him?
    Jill: So, you’re saying that homosexuality is just like incest?!

    Exchanges like these have become familiar—so familiar, in fact, that it would be handy to have a name for the fallacy they contain.

    Take the first exchange: Jill never said that opposition to marriage equality is “just like” racism. Rather, she used the analogy to interracial marriage as a counterexample to the implied premise that “Whatever a religion teaches is right.” In other words, she seems to be saying that citing religion doesn’t exempt a view from moral scrutiny.

    Similarly, in the second exchange, Jack never said that homosexuality is “just like” incest. Rather, he used the analogy as a counterexample to Jill’s premise that people should be allowed to marry anyone they love.

    Analogies can be tricky. They compare two things that are similar in some relevant respect. That does not mean that the two things are similar in EVERY respect, or “just like” each other. In both examples above, the second party is misreading the first’s analogy to have far broader implications than intended. This is a fallacy, whether the misreading is deliberate or just careless.

    Although people sometimes use the term “fallacy” to denote any false belief, philosophers reserve the term for faulty (but plausible-looking) patterns of reasoning. We give fallacies names to make it easier to spot and avoid these faulty patterns.

    As far as I can tell, the specific fallacy described here doesn’t have a name. But it’s common enough to merit one. Some colleagues have suggested “Fallacy of Misreading,” which seems too broad, or “Fallacy of Being a Dumbass” which probably won’t catch on well.

    I’d like to propose “Fallacy of Perverted Analogy.” The name captures the central problem: twisting an analogy to mean something broader than intended. In addition, “perverted” suggests something potentially non-consensual—which is appropriate here, since the fallacy is committed not by the originator of the analogy but by a second party. (Beyond that, I relish the thought of accusing certain marriage-equality opponents of perversion.)

    It’s worth distinguishing this fallacy from others in the vicinity. This is not the fallacy of “false analogy,” which involves the analogy’s originator comparing two things that are NOT similar in the intended relevant respect.

    It’s related to “Straw Man,” insofar as the person committing the fallacy now attacks the bad misreading (i.e. straw version) of the opponent’s argument rather than the actual argument. But it seems that “Perverted Analogy” occurs before “Straw Man.” Moreover, even if “Perverted Analogy” is a subspecies of “Straw Man” it’s specific enough to deserve its own name.

    Same with “Red Herring,” which refers to an irrelevant point that throws one off the track of the main argument. That’s surely happening here, but in a precise way worth naming separately.

    So, by definition, one commits the Fallacy of Perverted Analogy when one misreads an opponent’s analogy to make a far more sweeping comparison than the opponent needs or intends.

    A nice example appeared at Mirror of Justice, a Catholic legal theory blog, last month. In a Christmas Eve post, Michael Perry observed that moral theology must take experiential evidence seriously, even though doing so is often difficult because of visceral reactions to the unfamiliar:

    “I fully understand that for many of us this is hard to do–for some of us, impossibly hard: those whose socialization and psychology have bequeathed to them a profound aversion–I am inclined to say, an aesthetic aversion (though, of course, they do not experience it that way)–to unfamiliar modes of human sexuality. (Black bonding sexually with white? Yuk! Female bonding sexually with female? Or male with male? Yuk squared! ….)”

    http://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2009/12/page/5/

    Perry was using aversion to interracial coupling as a familiar historical example of how visceral reactions make it difficult to appreciate the unfamiliar. But Robert George wasted no time in accusing Perry of tarring gay-rights opponents as “the equivalent of racists.” Only by perverting Perry’s analogy could one infer such an equivalence assertion.

    There are, no doubt, many other examples of the fallacy—on both sides of the debate. Because I’m eager to name and fight the fallacy, it would be useful to collect these. Readers can post links to their favorite examples in the comments section.

  • A Story of Comfort and Joy

    First published at 365gay.com on December 18, 2009

    Allow me to share a favorite holiday story.

    It was late-November 1989, a year after I first came out. I had been dating a guy named Michael for over a month, which made him (in my mind, at least) my first “real” boyfriend. I was twenty and he was turning twenty-two, and we decided to drive into the city to celebrate his birthday.

    “The city” was Manhattan. I was living with my parents on Long Island while going to college; Michael lived nearby. Together with his cousin and his cousin’s boyfriend, we piled into my 1985 Camry and made the trek west along the Long Island Expressway, crossing the Williamsburg Bridge into the Big Apple.

    Dinner, then drinks, then dancing—or more accurately, sitting in the corner flirting while other people danced. It was the kind of young love (lust?) that makes one largely oblivious to one’s surroundings.

    So perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised, upon exiting the club, to discover that it had been snowing for several hours—hard. No one had predicted a blizzard that night, and it wasn’t as if we could check the weather on our iPhones. (Remember, it was 1989.)

    We rushed back to the car and headed slowly home. About a third of the way across the Williamsburg Bridge, traffic stopped.

    We waited a minute, then five, then ten—and still no movement. The snow around us was blinding. Meanwhile, the cousin and his boyfriend were soundly asleep in the back seat.

    So Michael and I did what any two young lovebirds would do in such a situation: we started making out in the car.

    We kissed; we caressed; we cuddled. It felt like we were there for an hour, though again, we were largely oblivious to time and space. It was joyous.

    Eventually the traffic flow resumed and we made it home okay.

    Michael dumped me a few weeks later (Merry Christmas, indeed) and what remained of our relationship was more disastrous than that night’s weather. But two decades and numerous boyfriends later, I still count that bridge experience as one of the magical moments of my life.

    It wasn’t just because it was new and exciting, or because of the Frank Capra setting (Snow on a bridge? Seriously?).

    It was because, at a time in my life when I still struggled to make sense of being “different,” the experience sent a powerful, visceral message: Gay is good.

    The message didn’t arrive by means of a philosophical argument or someone else’s testimony. It came through direct experience. Those once-scary feelings were suddenly a font of great beauty, and intimacy, and comfort. I had previously figured it out in my head. Finally, I knew it in my heart.

    In this column I have often extolled the virtues of long-term relationships. I believe in those virtues—and am ever grateful for my eight-year partnership with Mark, the love of my life.

    But I don’t believe that homosexuality has moral value ONLY in the context of long-term relationships—any more than heterosexuality does. That quick flirtatious glance across a crowded room; that awkward kiss with the cute stranger at the party—such moments make life joyful, and there is great moral value in joy.

    And so, this holiday, I wish my readers joy.

    It has been an incredible, fast-paced year on the gay-rights front. We gained marriage equality in several states only to lose it again in Maine; we had ballot victories in Washington State and Kalamazoo, MI; we elected a lesbian mayor in Houston and a gay City-Council President in Detroit.

    There are reasons to be hopeful, and there is much work left to be done. We will keep fighting the good fight.

    Yet let us also step back and enjoy the simple yet profound joy that is part and parcel of why we’re fighting. Kiss someone under the mistletoe, and remember that life is good.

    Wishing you all the best in 2010.

  • Taking a Break Until Next Year

    First published at 365gay.com on November 19, 2010

    This column will be my last for a while. I’m taking a break—maybe for a month, maybe longer—to recharge my batteries and focus on some other projects. So I wanted to take an opportunity to say “thank you” to my regular readers and to let you know what to expect in the meantime.

    I’ve been a columnist for eight years. I started with occasional contributions to Between the Lines (www.pridesource.com), Michigan’s LGBT weekly. Those turned into a bi-weekly column there, which occasionally was picked up by other regional papers, as well as the Independent Gay Forum (www.indegayforum.org).

    The early columns manifested both my training as an academic—I’m a philosophy professor by day—and my lack of training as a journalist. The paragraphs were excruciatingly long, and you could tell I was just itching to throw in footnotes. (I still have a habit of too many parenthetical asides, like this one.)

    Slowly, thanks to practice and the critical commentary of several friends, I found my journalistic “voice.”

    In 2007 Jennifer “Jay” Vanasco showed me great confidence by inviting me to become a regular opinion writer for 365gay.com. Soon thereafter the column (which by then had adopted the title “The Gay Moralist”) went from bi-weekly to weekly, a schedule I find both invigorating and daunting.

    I still work full-time as a philosophy professor, teaching every Monday and Wednesday at Wayne State University in Detroit, as well as speaking on gay rights at about two dozen other campuses annually. Increasingly, I find myself writing columns on planes (this one is being completed while en route to the Skepticon convention in Missouri), my elbows pressed against my seatmates while I type. I’m also working on a book project, and I should be working on a (now overdue) encyclopedia entry on homosexuality and ethics.

    I don’t offer any of this as a complaint. Quite the contrary: I get paid to think and speak and write about stuff that excites me, and that’s about as cool a job as one can have. But the schedule (especially the travel) has been draining me lately, which makes it harder to produce good work.

    My fatigue also turns me into Cranky McCrankmeister, as my very patient partner Mark can attest. It seems like a good time for a hiatus.

    Here’s the exciting news: while I’m gone, this space will be taken over by Chase Whiteside, the 22-year-old journalist best known for his “New Left Media” interviews at Tea Party rallies, Sarah Palin booksignings, and similar events. (Watch them at http://newleftmedia.com/)

    I’ve met Chase on a few occasions, and I can tell you he’s smart, charming, incisive, and wise beyond his years. His videos, created with Wright State classmate Erick Stoll, have been viewed by millions on YouTube, and he is fast developing a reputation as a journalist to watch.

    You can watch—or rather, read—him here, on Fridays at 365gay.com beginning December 3.

    Meanwhile, I want to say thanks. Thanks to Chase for taking over and lending his fresh perspective to these pages. Thanks to Jay Vanasco for her ongoing faith in me.

    Most of all, thanks to you, my readers, who have inspired me to do this for so long. The relationship between writers and readers is a strange one: I’m speaking to you, but I don’t know you; you may feel you know me, but you’ve (typically) never met me. I’m the tired-looking stranger in the airplane seat, putting his laptop away.

    But I’ll be back soon.

  • On Not Being Like Other Boys

    First published at 365gay.com on November 13, 2009

    It’s November, which means bookstores have next year’s calendars on display.

    When I was a teenager, this annual occurrence unnerved me. The “male interest” calendars”—think “Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Model of the Month”—held no appeal for me. Instead, I would nervously reach for a Chippendales calendar, hiding it behind something innocuously themed (race cars, puppies, whatever) so that I could stare admiringly at half-naked men. As soon as I noticed anyone approaching, I would throw both calendars back on the shelf and dart out of the store.

    I laugh now at the thought that I could ever find the overly pumped and coiffed 1980’s Chippendales dancers appealing. But when I see these calendars on the shelves today, I still feel a residual emotional tug. Like the underwear models in the J.C. Penney catalog (and so many other ordinary features of American life), the calendars were a painful signal: you are not like other boys.

    I noticed a calendar display in a bookstore the other day just shortly after receiving an e-mail from a reader complaining that I waste too much time trying to win over straight society’s approval. “When are you going to stop seeking other people’s acceptance?” he asks.

    My answer? I’ll stop seeking it once we get it.

    The calendars reminded me of why. It’s not because I’m still scared that other people will know my “secret.” Today, I can walk into a bookstore and look at whatever I want. Indeed, I sometimes make a point of picking up the “female interest” calendars just to remind myself—and anyone else watching—that I can. It’s my way of saying: No, I am not like (most) other boys, and I’m okay with that. Honestly, I really don’t give a flying fig whether you give me a dirty look when I do it.

    But there are plenty of boys and girls growing up who are not there yet. They still get unnerved when they see the calendars, or the catalogs, or countless other possible triggers. They still feel that nauseous shame and isolation. They have yet to learn that the feelings they dread can eventually be a source of great joy, and beauty, and comfort.

    Social approval can make a huge difference in the lives of these kids, not to mention those who come after them.

    This is one significant way in which LGBT people differ from most other minority groups. Whereas black children generally have black parents, Jewish children generally have Jewish parents, and so on, LGBT people can have any sort of parents—and most often have straight ones. Far from being able to take for granted our parents’ understanding of the discrimination we face, we often have to struggle for their acceptance, too.

    So while their parents’ opinion on homosexuality may not directly matter to me, you can be damn sure it matters to them.

    I don’t mean that they can’t go on to have happy, fulfilling, successful lives even if their parents ultimately reject them. I just mean that doing so will be harder—needlessly, sometimes tragically so.

    Moreover, it’s not as if I have no stake at all in their parents’ opinion. As we’ve seen over and over, their opinion affects how they vote. And their votes make a difference to our legal rights, whether we like it or not.

    Of course it isn’t fair. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

    So I’ll stop seeking their approval when we get it, and not a moment sooner. Because their approval helps make our political struggle easier. Because it’s crucial to the lives of their kids, some of whom are LGBT. And because it’s the right thing.

  • A Personal Tragedy

    First published at 365gay.com on October 2, 2009

    Chad and I met on my first visit to Detroit, back in the spring of 1998. “Damn, he’s good-looking,” I thought to myself–a familiar reaction for those who met Chad. He was thin then–he didn’t become a gym bunny until a few years later–but it was his handsome face and his unassuming manner that captivated me. He had piercing blue eyes and a gentle, welcoming voice. I was in town to look for an apartment, but I remember hoping that we would meet again upon my return and that the “boyfriend” he introduced me to was merely a temporary fling (I was single at the time).

    As it turned out, his relationship with the boyfriend grew stronger and I acquired one of my own in the months prior to relocating. But Chad and I became friends, and a year later we decided to buy an old duplex together and move in with our respective partners. Within eighteen months both relationships soured, a development we always jokingly blamed on the house. Nonetheless, Chad and I kept things platonic. He seemed to have difficulty being single, and no sooner did he break up with one boyfriend than he would cling to another.

    Seldom did his friends approve of the choices. The bolder ones would tell him what the rest of us were thinking: “You’re good-looking, you’re an attorney, you’re charming–a total ‘catch.’ Why are you dating this mooch?” Chad’s good nature sometimes got the better of him; besides, he seemed desperately afraid of being alone.

    He was also deeply closeted. Having grown up with a fundamentalist upbringing, attended school at Hillsdale College, and chosen a fairly conservative profession, he was terrified of people–and in particular, his family–finding out that he was gay. Once, when we were walking through a suburban downtown with our boyfriends, he suddenly disappeared. A few minutes later we discovered that he had ducked into a store after spotting some law-school classmates across the street and fearing that our presence would somehow “out” him.

    While the dual life he led took an emotional toll on him, it also created (or perhaps exacerbated) some unfortunate character traits. To put it bluntly, Chad was someone too comfortable at lying. This manifested itself not only in his closetedness, but also in his cheating on his boyfriends, and ultimately, in his gradual spiral into drug use, which he kept largely hidden from those friends (like me) he knew would object.

    Of course, it’s hard to keep some things hidden for very long. I had heard from mutual acquaintances that Chad was using crystal meth, though he denied it (and later, when that became too implausible, falsely claimed that he had since stopped). Eventually he lost his job, not to mention many of his friends.

    I tried to remain close with him, even after I moved out of the duplex, but it became increasingly difficult as his drug use increased. One day a routine check of my credit report revealed missed payments on our mortgage. Chad, I discovered, had not paid for months, even though he continued to collect my contribution. I will never forget the look of shame and despair on my friend’s face when I confronted him: he had hit rock-bottom, and he could no longer conceal it.

    We met for lunch about a month after that. I urged him (as many times before) to get counseling, and for the first time he seemed somewhat open to it. He claimed that he was taking several steps to get his life back on track. I was reminded that day of the reasons I had grown to love him: his gentle, reassuring manner; his endless well of charm; his fundamental kindness. Maybe, I thought, he could get treatment for his depression, stop self-medicating, and tap into his enormous potential. I felt hopeful.

    Two weeks later, I stopped by the duplex to pick up a check from my tenants. Chad was outside, pleading with the electric company not to turn off his power. I called him later, but he never answered my call or returned my message (it had become a familiar pattern). That was the last time I saw him. The following week, on September 29, 2004, Chad committed suicide, hanging himself in the basement of the home we had once shared. My tenants found him. He was 32 years old.

    At the reception following his memorial service, the boyfriend I had met on my first visit to Detroit turned to me and said, “We failed him.”

    “Yes,” I replied, “but he failed us too.” Five years later, both claims still pierce me.

  • Coming Out Advice

    First published at 365gay.com on September 25, 2009

    One of the best bits of advice I ever received while coming out was from a nun.

    That’s right—a Catholic nun. Not even a lesbian nun, as far as I can gather. Sr. Julie was one of my theology professors in college, and she was one of the first people I confided in after busting open the closet door.

    She had the sort of reassuring demeanor that inspired confidence, in both senses of that term: I shared secrets with her, and her support emboldened me. Looking back, I suspect that some of my candor was excessive, but Julie never let on if it bothered her.

    The advice in question regarded a crush I had on a straight neighbor named Neil. I had a penchant for crushes on straight guys then—probably because I knew so few gay ones. Hoping to see more of him, I would ride my bicycle repeatedly up and down his street so that I might “accidentally” catch him venturing outside to fetch the mail. I would write about him in my journal at night, and my heart would leap every time he would call—which was never often enough. When I did get to spend time with him, I would fret for days beforehand about what to wear, how my hair looked, etc.—things that I knew he never noticed, or cared about.

    In short, I was a twenty-year-old behaving like a 12-year-old—and a pretty desperate one at that.

    I knew how silly I was acting, and in fact I was quite ashamed of it—though apparently not too ashamed to tell Sr. Julie.

    “Julie,” I fretted, “I’m a college student—an adult!—and I’m acting like an adolescent.”

    She looked at me with her serene eyes and said firmly, “But you are an adolescent…”

    “No,” I interrupted—I mean I’m acting like I’m in Junior High.”

    “Of course,” she explained gently. “Because, when it comes to dating, that’s precisely where you are. In Junior High, when your straight friends were all dating, what were you doing? Keeping to yourself. You never had those adolescent experiences that others did. They’re silly, sure, but they’re part of the process. You’re just starting out. So be patient with yourself.”

    It was one of those “lightbulb moments”: You’re new to this; be patient with yourself. I had only been out about a year, without any real dating experience, and yet I was beating myself up for failing to handle my crush like an “adult.” (Eventually I would learn that even adults don’t necessarily handle their crushes like adults.)

    Then Sr. Julie sang “Climb Every Mountain” and sent me on my way.

    Okay, I made that last part up. But the rest of the story is true, and the exchange has stuck with me for two decades.

    I should mention that it came as no surprise to me that a Catholic nun could give such good relationship advice—to a gay guy, no less. The priests, nuns and brothers I knew in college were sensitive, humane individuals. It saddens me that, in the minds of the public, their humanity is often eclipsed by the misdeeds of the hierarchy.

    Still, even though I no longer share their Catholic faith, I carry their lessons with me.

    I remember Julie’s insight, for example, each time a young gay person comes to me for relationship advice. “You’re new to this; be patient with yourself,” I tell them.

    I remember it, too, when I reflect on the various ways in which homophobia harms people. It is difficult to exaggerate the enduring damage done by robbing youth of key formative experiences. And while I’m grateful that more gay youth today can experience their adolescent growing pains alongside their straight peers, we still have a long way to go.

    And I remember it when, even now, I notice myself replaying the scripts learned in Junior High. It’s not just about romantic life—though I sometimes suspect that, contra Freud, it’s really 7th grade that holds the key to one’s sexual psyche. It is, rather, a more general insecurity, a nagging doubt: “Will they really like me?” followed by the vestigial coda, “But what if they knew my secret?”

    It is no longer a secret, of course. I’m an out gay man happily in an eight-year relationship. Neil is a distant memory. Sr. Julie, whom I have not spoken to in decades, is now a high-ranking university administrator. I owe her a thank-you.

  • Other People’s Judgments

    First published at Between the Lines News on September 3, 2009

    “You don’t just want us to tolerate what you gay people do,” my skeptical questioner announced, “you want us to think that it’s RIGHT.”

    Whenever I hear this point–and it’s pretty often–I always think to myself, “Duh.” Of course I want that. Why would anyone think otherwise?

    Actually, the latter question is not entirely rhetorical. Even my fellow gays ask me why we should care about other people’s moral approval. Beyond the obvious pragmatic advantages–for example, more moral approval means more favorable voting attitudes, means more legal rights, means an easier life–why should we give a damn what other people think? And while we’re on the subject, why should THEY care? Why are our lives any of their business?

    There’s a myth circulating among well-meaning people that “morality is a private matter,” and that therefore “we shouldn’t judge other people.” This is nonsense of the highest order. Morality is about how we treat one another. It’s about fairness and justice. It’s about what we as a society are willing to tolerate, what we positively encourage, and what we absolutely forbid. It is the furthest thing from a private matter.

    There’s a (wholly fictional) story I tell in my introductory ethics classes about a freshman who wrote a paper defending moral relativism. His paper was laden with references to what’s “true for you” versus what’s “true for me,” what’s “right for you” versus what’s “right for me” and so on. The professor gave the paper an F. Surprised and angry, the student went to the professor’s office demanding a justification.

    “Well,” the professor carefully explained, “I graded your paper the way I grade all papers. I stood at the top of a staircase and threw a batch of papers down the stairs. Those that landed on the first few stairs got A’s…then B’s, C’s and so on. You wrote a long, heavy paper. It went to the bottom of the stairs. It got an F.”

    “That’s not right!” the student blurted out.

    “You mean, that’s not right…FOR YOU,” the professor responded, grinning.

    The moral of the story (aside from, tenured professors do the darndest things) is this: despite all of our talk of “right for you,” deep down we believe in public moral standards. We may disagree about what those are, and about what actions fall under their purview–but we still believe that right and wrong aren’t entirely relative.

    One might object that grading affects other, non-consenting people, whereas relationships affect only the people involved. There are two problems with this objection. The main one is that the latter point is just false. Unless one endorses a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” secrecy, relationships have a public presence and thus public consequences. Gays aren’t waging the marriage battle just so we can all go back in the closet. Like most people, we want to stand up before family and friends, proclaim our love, have it celebrated for the beautiful thing that it is. (At least, that’s what many of us want.) We want to send the message to young gays and lesbians that there’s nothing wrong with them; that they, too, deserve to love and be loved, and that there’s nothing sinful or wrong about that. We want to be treated equally in the eyes of the law. All of these aims affect other people in various ways.

    Second, the objection invites the response, “Says who?” Who decides that only actions affecting other people are appropriate targets of moral scrutiny? Who determines that that’s the right way to look at morality? And there’s no way to answer such questions without engaging in a bit of moralizing. Value judgments are inescapable that way. Those who claim that they’re not taking any moral stances about other people’s lives are, by that very claim, taking a moral stance about other people’s lives–a “tolerant’ one, though not necessarily a very admirable one. Sometimes, other people’s behavior is horrific, and we should say so.

    “Saying so” is part of the confusion here. There’s a difference between MAKING moral judgments and OFFERING them, not to mention a difference between offering them respectfully and wagging your finger in people’s faces. The latter is not just self-righteous; it’s generally counterproductive. I suspect when people say that “we shouldn’t judge other people,” it’s really the latter, pompous kind of moralizing they’re concerned to avoid. But we shouldn’t confuse the rejection of bad moralizing with the rejection of moralizing altogether.

    In short, we should care what other people think and do, because the moral fabric touches us all.

  • ‘Safe’ Doesn’t Mean ‘Shut Up’

    First published at 365gay.com on August 21, 2009

    A friend writes, “I’m coordinating a safe-space training at [an urban public university]. One participant stated that she felt she was a strong ally, but her religious beliefs dictate that homosexuality is a sin. What should I do? Can I deny her a safe-space sticker, or ask her not to advise students on religious issues?”

    This is a hard question.

    It’s hard partly because of its legal implications. Georgia Tech, another state school, recently lost a lawsuit because its safe-space program distributed literature uniformly criticizing traditional interpretations of the Bible. Not surprisingly, a federal judge ruled that this practice violated the First Amendment by favoring particular religious viewpoints. (Georgia Tech has kept its safe-space program but dropped the religious literature.)

    Legal matters aside, the question raises difficult policy issues. What counts as “safe”?

    Safe-space programs generally involve a school-sponsored diversity training focusing on LGBT issues. Upon completing it, participants receive a sticker to display on their office doors announcing their “ally” status.

    Given how often religion is used as a weapon, I can understand why many LGBT students would not feel “safe” while being judged as sinners. We should never underestimate the potential damage done by telling youth, at a delicate stage in identity formation, that acting on their deep longings could lead to eternal separation from God.

    In contemplating my friend’s question, I mainly thought of those vulnerable students, and how best to protect them. I also thought of my friend John.

    John is a faculty member at a small private liberal arts college. He is an evangelical Christian who believes that homosexual conduct conflicts with God’s plan as revealed in the bible. And yet John defies easy stereotypes. He supports civil marriage equality, decries the various ways religion is used to harm LGBT people, and avoids “heteronormative language” (his words) in his classroom.

    While he believes that homosexual conduct (not to mention plenty of heterosexual and non-sexual conduct) is sinful, he also believes that all humans–himself included–have an imperfect grasp of God’s will, and that we should generally strive to respect other people’s life choices and give them wide latitude in forging their own paths. John and his wife have welcomed me in their home, and during grace before the meal, his wife asked for God’s blessing on me, my partner Mark, and our relationship. (For the record, I did not take the latter to imply approval for every aspect of our relationship.)

    In light of all I know about John and his loving treatment of LGBT persons, I can think of few spaces “safer” than his office. Any program that would disqualify him draws the circle of “safe spaces” too narrowly.

    Moreover, there are good strategic reasons for wanting to make the circle of self-proclaimed allies as inclusive as possible, consistent with the well-being of LGBT students. We need people like John to make their presence known.

    Yet I am not suggesting that we draw the circle so broadly as to rob “safe space” of any real meaning. Any student in any campus office–stickered or not–should expect to be treated with respect and professionalism. Presumably, the safe-space sticker denotes venues that substantially exceed that bare minimum (as John’s office would).

    So how does one draw the circle broadly enough to include John and other conservative religious allies while excluding those who might rant about gays burning in hell?

    As with any policy question involving human beings, there’s no perfect formula here (just as there are no perfect people). To some extent, the desired group will be somewhat self-selecting. Those interested in condemning LGBT people to hell generally don’t attend voluntary pro-gay diversity trainings.

    Yet there are also steps one can take to tailor the circle. My recommendation would be to include, among various other elements of a pledge taken by safe-space training participants, something along the following lines:

    “I understand that my own values and beliefs may differ from those of students who seek me out for a ‘safe space,’ and will refer students to appropriate resources given their particular values, beliefs, interests and desires.”

    The idea here is that students who wish to retreat to a “narrower” circle will be assisted in doing so. Note that religious people offer such assistance all the time. Think, for example, of the Christian who helpfully directs a student to the Buddhist Student Center, despite her personal conviction that eternal salvation is through Christ alone.

    On this approach, students who want pro-gay religious literature can receive it and evaluate it for themselves. At the same time, those who want the advice of fellow conservative evangelicals, for example, or fellow Orthodox Jews, can receive it and evaluate it for themselves.

    Admittedly, my recommendation would allow conservative religious students to request and receive–in a designated “safe space”–literature of a sort that’s often deeply damaging to LGBT people. But the approach is preferable to the alternatives: a public university’s (illegally) favoring particular religious viewpoints, on the one hand, or its becoming silent on religious issues–the Georgia Tech solution–on the other.

    Universities are places for free exchange of ideas. As long as that’s done in a compassionate manner that respects student autonomy, it should never be considered “unsafe.”

  • What’s Real

    First published at Between the Lines News on July 16, 2009

    Recently I’ve been reflecting on mentoring, and the various ways we introduce newcomers to aspects of gay life—the good, the bad, and the ugly—in an effort to help them navigate their own path. This brought to mind two stories, both involving gay bars.

    The first happened about twenty years ago, when I was a volunteer for the AIDS Center for Queens County. My “buddy” and I were enjoying drinks at Uncle Charlie’s, a (now-defunct) Greenwich Village watering hole. I was 20, fresh out of Catholic school, and still pretty conservative. Uncle Charlie’s was known as the “S&M” (“Stand & Model”) bar for preppy youths like me.

    “I need to take you to a REAL New York gay bar,” my buddy announced.

    So he took me to the Spike, a notorious leather bar. At the time I was wearing pressed khakis and a pastel multi-striped Ralph Lauren Oxford shirt, and I couldn’t have stuck out more if I had walked in dressed as a nun. (Actually, there may have been someone there dressed as a nun, but the details of the night are blurry.)

    The second happened a decade later. By then I was a recently hired professor at Wayne State University in Detroit. I was enjoying drinks at Pronto, a suburban gay bar not unlike Uncle Charlie’s, when an African-American friend turned to me and said, “I need to take you to a REAL Detroit gay bar.”

    “Here we go again,” I thought.

    So we left the bar and drove over to the east side of the city. I was the only white person in sight, and as we stood in line I focused intently on my friend so as not to look overly curious. We reached the door, and the bouncer, who towered over me like a sequoia tree, leaned down to give me a hug.

    “This is weird,” I thought, but not wanting to appear conspicuous I went ahead and wrapped my arms around him. My friend started laughing hysterically.

    Suddenly I realized that the bouncer was not trying to hug me. He was patting me down for weapons. So much for not looking conspicuous.

    There are several lessons here—aside from, watch what the other people in line are doing.

    First, there’s the common human tendency to have strong feelings about what’s REAL, whether we’re talking about a REAL bar, or the REAL Detroit, or REAL sex—whatever.

    Yet Uncle Charlie’s and Pronto felt (and were) perfectly real to me. There’s a danger in confusing what’s personally comfortable with what’s authentic. And while there’s nothing wrong with sharing one’s likes and dislikes, we shouldn’t dismiss others’ preferences simply because they’re different.

    Take, for example, the tendency of some gays to consider anal sex “real” sex, and other forms as mere foreplay. This mirrors the heterosexual tendency to do the same with penile-vaginal sex. As a result, some deep, meaningful, exciting, positive sexual experiences get dismissed as less than real, and some people routinely engage in forms of sex that they don’t really enjoy. How foolish.

    Second, because there’s value in expanding one’s horizons, and because new territory can be fraught with risk—even if only risk of embarrassment—ambassadors are crucial. I never would have explored those other places had those friends not taken me. And even though I decided that the places weren’t my scene, my friends helped expand my notion of what’s possible.

    Of course, this is true not just for bars—which are (for me) a relatively minor part of gay life—but also for political and charitable groups, art openings, public lectures, dinner parties, sports events, whatever.

    It isn’t just true for gay life, either. For example, my identity as a Detroiter has become important to me, and it’s been formed largely thanks to the people who have introduced me to the city in all its aspects—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

    And so, those who mentor have a delicate job—inviting but not pushing (at least, not beyond a gentle nudging); advocating but not forcing; witnessing but not indoctrinating. I’m grateful for the many who have done it for me. I hope I can pay their effort forward.