John Corvino

Tag: Marriage

  • A “Gay” Spring

    First published at 365gay.com on April 10, 2009

    Spring arrived for gays this year, not with daffodils and cherry blossoms, but with Iowa and Vermont.

    First Iowa, where the state Supreme Court unanimously struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. (Don’t adjust your screen. The words “Iowa” and “unanimously” are really in that sentence.) Iowa will begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples by the end of the month.

    Then Vermont, where the state legislature passed a marriage bill and then mustered additional votes to override the governor’s veto. Beginning September 1, civil unions in Vermont will be replaced with marriage equality.

    Makes you want to go out and buy some maple syrup, doesn’t it?

    And returning to cherry blossoms, let’s not forget Washington, D.C., where the City Council unanimously passed a bill recognizing same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions. (The bill needs to pass a second time and then be reviewed by Congress, like all D.C. laws.)

    When our opponents pumped millions of dollars into overturning same-sex marriage in California, they claimed that they were worried about it spreading to other states. But their temporary victory in California obviously couldn’t contain the spread. Marriage equality is spreading like wildfire—or to continue the springtime metaphor, wildflowers—and more states will follow soon.

    What’s even better is that, unlike California, Vermont and Iowa seem unlikely to snatch away marriage equality. The Vermont victory happened legislatively—by the people’s representatives—in a state that has had nine years’ experience with robust civil unions.

    The Iowa victory involved a unanimous and tightly argued equal-protection decision, and amending the constitution there is far more difficult than in California. It requires votes in two consecutive legislative sessions, then adoption by voters. The earliest that could happen is 2012.

    Moreover, the Iowa legislature seems little interested in challenging the decision. On the contrary, Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal and House Speaker Pat Murphy issued a strong statement supporting it. They included the following:

    “When all is said and done, we believe the only lasting question about today’s events will be why it took us so long. It is a tough question to answer because treating everyone fairly is really a matter of Iowa common sense and Iowa common decency.”

    Of course, we shouldn’t expect our opponents to roll over easily. A strong chorus is rising to attack the “unelected judges” who allegedly imposed their will on the people. As Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) put it, “Once again, the most undemocratic branch of government is being used to advance an agenda the majority of Americans reject.”

    The problem for Gallagher and her ilk is threefold. First, Americans are increasingly coming around on the issue of marriage equality, as poll after poll demonstrates. As people get to know us, our lives and our relationships, they realize that we pose them no threat. It thus becomes harder and harder for our opponents to make their case.

    Second, this “undemocratic branch of government” did precisely the job that branch is supposed to do—ensure that fundamental constitutional rights don’t get trampled by majority bias.

    Third, with Vermont in the mix, it’s not just the courts: it’s elected representatives, too. The multi-prong strategy works. And as Vermont shows, incrementalism—civil unions, then marriage—can be an effective tactic for some states. I doubt Vermont would have marriage equality today were it not for the civil union compromise in 2000.

    So celebrate these victories. We’ve earned them, and I dare say we need them.

    But we also need to brace ourselves for an ugly backlash, as our opponents become increasingly desperate.

    Indeed, the NOM has already released a “Gathering Storm” ad spreading the myth that marriage equality undermines personal freedom. (Bravo to Good As You, and others, who have quickly responded with counter-ads and parodies correcting NOM’s false claims—you can find them on YouTube.)

    But there’s even more good news. Unlike California, where marriage-equality advocates had mere months to rebut opponents’ falsehoods before the amendment vote, these new developments allow us time to mount a more thoughtful response.

    We need to tell our stories. We need to demonstrate why marriage equality is a basic matter of fairness. We need to listen to our opponents’ concerns and then respond sensitively yet firmly.

    There are those who will frantically work to blunt these victories. They may win a few minor battles. But wildflowers are resilient—and unstoppable once they take root. Happy spring.

  • The Trouble with Common Ground

    First published at 365gay.com on April 4, 2009

    Readers of this column occasionally complain that I’m too nice to our enemies. They may have a point.

    I’m an easygoing person by nature. It’s not a deliberate strategy; it’s just who I am. Most of the time, the trait serves me well, though there are times I wish I had a reputation as more of an asshole. People generally steer clear of assholes, for fear of provoking them, and sometimes it’s good to be feared.

    Even though my being “Mr. Nice Guy” wasn’t chosen for strategic purposes, I try to use it to my advantage. It gives me influence with a certain group of people. And it’s shaped my career as a gay-rights advocate, one who aims for thoughtful engagement with the other side.

    Such engagement can be productive. For one thing, the more our opponents know us personally, the harder it is for them to demonize us. (Not impossible, obviously, but harder.) Part of my life’s mission is to create cognitive dissonance for those who would label all gays as angry deviants.

    But engagement is also important because, like it or not, our opponents still capture majorities in most states. I don’t doubt that the tide is shifting strongly in our favor, but we’ve got a lot of work to do. One effective way to reach the movable middle is to take opponents’ concerns seriously.

    I say “one effective way,” not “the only effective way.” There’s a place for militant activism. And I’m not just saying that because I like getting along with people—militant activists included. I really believe it.

    There’s a character type in the GLBT community that I sometimes jokingly refer to as the Angry Lesbian. You know the type. They need not be lesbian, or even female—indeed, some of the best examples I’ve known are men. But they’re angry, and they want you to know it.

    They’re angry at our opponents. They’re angry at me for civilly engaging those opponents. They’re angry at the schools who host our debates—for giving the opposition a platform, as well as for not providing (take your pick): (a) free parking; (b) accessible seating; (c) more Q&A time; (d) universal health care.

    They’re angry at the world generally, and they’re going to let everyone know it.

    There are times when I’m sincerely grateful for Angry Lesbians. They jolt us out of our complacency. They remind us that these issues can have life-or-death implications. Yes, they make us uncomfortable, but sometimes we should be uncomfortable.

    So they have their role, and I have mine. Both have their uses.

    It’s tempting to cast the resulting alliance as a “Good Cop/Bad Cop” strategy. Tempting, but not so easy. For when it comes to moral issues, “Good Cop/Bad Cop” seems unstable—maybe even unsustainable.

    In this debate, the Good Cop tells opponents, “You have reasonable concerns—just like the many other decent people who share your views. Let’s hear those concerns so we can address them thoughtfully.”

    The Bad Cop tells opponents, “Your ‘concerns’ are prejudice, pure and simple. And the best way to stamp out prejudice is to make life as uncomfortable as possible for anyone who tries to express it. That’s how society handles bigots: we don’t accommodate them; we ostracize them.”

    Needless to say, these strategies are at cross purposes. One cannot simultaneous tell people that one wants to hear their concerns and also that they’d better shut up if they know what’s good for them.

    I don’t pretend to have an easy answer to this dilemma. The debate is unlike, say, the health-care debate, where everyone agrees that healing the sick is a good thing, and the disagreement is over who pays for it and how.

    The gay-rights debate is a debate about whether our deep romantic commitments are a good thing. It’s about the nature of family, the authority of scripture, and other core moral issues. It cuts far deeper than “who pays for it and how?” (which, admittedly, has its own moral entanglements).

    I agree with the Angry Lesbians that the other side is wrong—badly wrong, wrong in ways that profoundly harm innocent people. And I can understand their desire to marginalize anyone who doubts the moral value of our relationships. I get it. I get it strategically, and I get it personally.

    But, for reasons both strategic and personal, I can’t join their approach. So I keep doing my “Good Cop” thing, hoping for synergy in this unstable but necessary alliance.

  • Why Not Plural Marriage?

    First published at 365gay.com on March 23, 2009

    Recent discussions of various civil-union proposals have revived some familiar questions, including “Why limit such recognition to couples, as opposed to larger groups?” and “Why limit it to romantic/sexual couples, as opposed to other interdependent relationships?”

    Such questions come from various quarters, including both friends and foes of marriage equality. Although they’re sometimes offered as “gotcha” challenges, they deserve serious reflection.

    I was mulling them over recently when two events occurred that hinted at an answer.

    The first was a phone call from my home-security monitoring company about a false alarm I triggered with smoke from a minor kitchen disaster.

    “While we have you on the phone,” the operator suggested, “can we update your emergency numbers?”

    “Sure,” I said, remembering that some of my listed neighbors had eliminated their land lines.

    After going through the numbers, she said, “So, you’ve given me your community patrol number, and numbers for Scott, Sarah, and Mike—all neighbors. But this Mark person—what’s your relationship to him?”

    “He’s my partner.”

    “Um, roommate?”

    “No,” I replied, “partner.”

    “I don’t have a box for ‘partner,’” she retorted. “I have a box for ‘roommate.’”

    “Fine,” I said, “roommate.” Then I hastily hung up and returned to the kitchen, since I didn’t want my “roommate” to come home to a burned dinner. (Later, I regretted not asking for, and insisting on, the box for “husband.”)

    The second event occurred not long afterward, when my high school called asking for a donation for their “Torch Fund” endowment.

    Some background: I attended Chaminade, an all-boys Catholic prep school on Long Island. For years I notified them of my various milestones for their newsletter, and for years they declined to publish anything gay-related—publications, awards, whatever—despite their regular listings of the most insipid details of my classmates’ lives.

    So now, whenever they ask me for money, I politely tell them where they can stick their Torch. I did so again this time.

    “I understand,” the caller replied. “But while I have you on the phone, let me update your records…”

    Here we go again, I thought.

    Eventually she came to, “Any update in your marital status? Can we list a spouse?”

    “Well, you CAN,” I responded testily, “but I suspect you won’t. My spouse’s name is Mark.”

    “Why not?” she replied, seeming unfazed. “And his last name?”

    I doubt his listing will stand long. But what interested me was this: here was someone representing my conservative high school, and she had a box—in her mind, anyway—for my same-sex spouse.

    For all I know, she might be a paid solicitor with no other connection to the school. But she illustrates a significant cultural shift toward recognizing the reality of gay and lesbian lives.

    The reality is this: like our straight counterparts, we tend to fall in love, pair off and settle down. It’s not for everyone, but it’s a significant enough pattern to merit acknowledgement.

    And that’s at least the germ of an answer to the questions raised above.

    Why do we give special legal recognition to romantic pair-bonds? We do so because they’re a significant—and very common—human category, for straights and gays alike. They benefit individuals and society in palpable ways—ways that, on average, “roommates” and most other groupings can’t match.

    To put it simply, we recognize them because it makes sense for the law to recognize common and valuable ways that people organize their lives.

    Of course, there are other significant human relationships. Some of these, like blood ties, the law already acknowledges. Others (like polygamy) pose serious social costs.

    Still others may deserve more legal recognition than they currently receive, or may be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. (I doubt that we need to change marriage or civil-union law to accommodate unrelated cohabitating spinsters, for example.)

    But none of these other unrecognized relationships holds a candle to same-sex pair-bonds when it comes to widespread mismatch between the social reality and the legal recognition.

    Which brings me back to Mark. Mark is not just some dude I share expenses with. He’s the person I’ve committed my life to, for better or for worse, ’til death do us part. We exchanged such vows publicly, although the law still views us as strangers.

    In short, he is—whether the law or our home-security company recognizes it—my spouse.

    We fall in love, we pair off, we build lives together. The law may be a blunt instrument, but it need not be so blunt as to call that “roommates.”

  • Strange Bedfellows

    First published at Between The Lines News on March 12, 2009

    Recently I wrote about a proposed compromise by David Blankenhorn, who opposes gay marriage, and Jonathan Rauch, who supports it.

    On the Blankenhorn/Rauch proposal, the federal government would recognize individual states’ same-sex marriages or civil unions (under the name “civil unions”) and grant them benefits, but only in states that provided religious-conscience exemptions, allowing religious organizations to deny married-student housing to gay spouses at a religious college, for example, or to refuse to rent out church property for gay-related family events.

    The Blankenhorn/Rauch proposal has prompted much discussion, including a counter-proposal from Ryan Anderson and Sherif Girgis at the conservative website thepublicdiscourse.com.

    Anderson and Girgis—who unlike Rauch and Blankenhorn, come from the same side of the debate—reject the original proposal as granting “too much to revisionists and too little to traditionalists.” As they see it, traditionalists don’t merely seek to secure their own personal religious liberty, but to promote what they see as “a healthy culture of marriage understood as a public good.”

    They believe that the Blankenhorn/Rauch proposal undermines that public good, because

    “it treats same-sex unions (in fact, if not in name) as if they were marriages by making their legal recognition depend on the presumption that these relationships are or may be sexual. It thus enshrines a substantive, controversial principle that traditionalists could not endorse: namely, that there is no moral difference between the sexual communion of husband and wife and homosexual activity—or, therefore, between the relationships built on them.”

    Anderson and Girgis instead propose the following: “revisionists would agree to oppose the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), thus ensuring that federal law retains the traditional definition of marriage as the union of husband and wife …In return, traditionalists would agree to support federal civil unions offering most or all marital benefits.” But these unions “would be available to any two adults who commit to sharing domestic responsibilities, whether or not their relationship is sexual,” provided that they are “otherwise ineligible to marry each other.”

    In other words, there would be federal civil unions for gays—but also for other domestic pairs: elderly widowed sisters, for example, or bachelor roommates.

    At first glance, their claim that Rauch and Blankenhorn base their proposal on “the presumption that these relationships are or may be sexual” seems strange. After all, Rauch and Blankenhorn never mention sex, and the state neither knows nor cares (nor checks) whether people are having sex once they’re married or “civilly united.”

    On the other hand, people generally assume (with good reason) that marriages and civil unions are sexual, or more broadly romantic. Romantic pair-bonding seems to be a fundamental human desire—for straights and gays—and part of what marriage does is to acknowledge pair-bonds. It does so not because the government is sentimental about such things, but because it recognizes the important role such bonds have in the lives of individuals and the community.

    Anderson and Girgis are correct that there are other important bonds in society, and we may well want to extend more legal recognition to them. There is no reason that two cohabitating spinsters shouldn’t be granted mutual hospital visitation rights if they want them.

    But the question remains whether we want to extend “most or all” federal marital benefits to any cohabitating couple otherwise ineligible to marry, as Anderson and Girgis propose.

    And this question prompts additional ones: why limit such recognition to couples? Mutually interdependent relationships don’t only come in twos. Oddly, Anderson and Girgis seem to have more in common with radicals who seek to move “beyond marriage” than they do with anyone in the mainstream marriage debate.

    Also, why limit such recognition to couples “otherwise ineligible to marry”? Can’t an unrelated man and woman have an interdependent relationship that’s not sexual/romantic?

    Anderson and Girgis write that, “Our proposal would still meet the needs of same-sex partners—based not on sex (which is irrelevant to their relationship’s social value), but on shared domestic responsibilities, which really can ground mutual obligations.”

    And there’s the crux: Anderson and Girgis assume that sex has social value only when open to procreation. But that’s just false, and most Americans know it. We acknowledge sexual/romantic relationships not merely because they might result in children, but also because of their special depth. Sex doesn’t merely make babies; it creates intimacy—for gays and straights alike.

    The problem is that Anderson and Girgis divide couplings into two crude categories: (1) married (or marriageable) heterosexuals, and (2) everyone else: committed gay couples, elderly sisters, cohabiting fly-fishing buddies, what have you. They then implausibly suggest that those in column two are all of equal social value.

    As David Link writes at the Independent Gay Forum, “The authors of this proposal are quite honest that they find it impossible to view same-sex couples in the category of marriage. But if these are the two categories offered: aging sisters or married couples, I’m betting more Americans who don’t already have an opinion, would view same-sex couples as more like the married couples than the sisters. With apologies to the traditionalists, the days when a majority of Americans simply closed their eyes to the loving—and sexual—relationships of same-sex couples are coming to an end.”

    As they should.

  • Can We Find Common Ground on Gay Marriage?

    First published at 365gay.com on February 28, 2009

    There is something very satisfying about ideological purity and the righteous indignation that often accompanies it. It can be fun to paint one’s opponents as crazy and stupid (and sometimes they make it all too easy to do so).

    Less fun, yet potentially more productive, are attempts at common ground. As much as I enjoy a good zinger, I’m a conciliator by nature. And so I was intrigued by a recent proposal [http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/opinion/22rauch.html] by Jonathan Rauch and David Blankenhorn seeking compromise on same-sex marriage.

    Rauch is one of gay marriage’s sharpest defenders; Blankenhorn, one of its ablest critics. The two have clashed on multiple occasions. If I had to recommend only two books on this subject, one from each side, they would be Rauch’s and Blankenhorn’s.

    In last Sunday’s New York Times, the pair co-authored a surprising proposal. The crux is this:

    “Congress would bestow the status of federal civil unions on same-sex marriages and civil unions granted at the state level, thereby conferring upon them most or all of the federal benefits and rights of marriage. But there would be a condition: Washington would recognize only those unions licensed in states with robust religious-conscience exceptions, which provide that religious organizations need not recognize same-sex unions against their will.”

    Currently, various states offer some sort of legal recognition to same-sex couples. The idea would be to provide federal recognition to these arrangements while allaying opponents’ fears that doing so would erode their religious liberty.

    So under the proposal, no church would have to rent out its parish hall for a lesbian wedding; no religious college would have to provide married student housing to a gay couple, and so on. Any state that insisted on such requirements would be ineligible for federal civil union recognition.

    Let’s be clear on what the proposal would NOT do. It would not create legal statuses for same-sex couples in states that did not already have them.

    It would not prevent gay-rights advocates from continuing to press for full marriage rights, or gay-rights opponents from continuing to make the case against them.

    Nor would it “downgrade” Massachusetts and Connecticut same-sex marriages to civil unions. States would continue to recognize same-sex relationships in whatever ways they choose—as long as they don’t require religious organizations to do so. But the federal government, which currently recognizes NONE of these statuses, would recognize them all under the common name “civil unions.”

    What the proposal would do is allow the federal government to say, “If your state recognizes you as a couple, so do we.” It thus takes federalism seriously, with the federal government deferring to the states on the issue of who’s legally united—as it usually does.

    The proposal has already generated a good bit of discussion in the blogosphere. Some of it simply misunderstands the proposal; much of it—not surprisingly—is critical.

    Certainly, the proposal deserves a rigorous discussion from all sides. In order for that discussion to be more productive, I’d like humbly to suggest some guidelines:

    Rule #1: Do not criticize the proposal by saying, “The other side is not going to like it because…” Let the other side speak for the other side.

    Rule #2: Do not respond to an admirable attempt at peaceful negotiation by immediately ratcheting up the rhetoric. For example, at the National Review Online Maggie Gallagher writes, [http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=OTllZTZjYmQ4NzlkZGNiMTkzYTNiYzIyNTM3N2ZlZDQ=]

    “From where I stand, it looks like the progressive/democrat position states: If you believe marriage means a husband and wife, you are not just wrong, you are downright wicked and deserve to have your home address put up on the internet so strangers can harass you.”

    Oy. That violates Rule #1 and Rule #2—in one sentence!

    Nobody doubts that there has been excessive rhetoric on both sides. There are advocates who claim that anyone who opposes marriage equality is a hateful bigot; there are opponents who hold that gays by their very existence offend God.

    But thankfully, there are also those like Blankenhorn and Rauch who are interested in moving us past such conversation-stoppers. Let’s take the cue.

    Rule #3: If you don’t like the proposal, suggest a better idea.

    Note: “Give us full marriage equality!” is not what I mean by a better idea. Sure, that’s what would happen in my ideal world. Rauch’s too. And no one is saying that we should stop making the case for it.

    But in the meantime, there’s a proposal on the table that would provide federal rights and benefits to those in state-issued same-sex unions. Moreover, it’s a proposal that one major same-sex marriage opponent has endorsed.

    I don’t doubt that the proposal prompts some legitimate concerns on both sides. But if we can discuss those concerns with the same spirit of cooperation that Blankenhorn and Rauch have demonstrated, we might actually make some progress.

  • The Power of Words

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

    Two decades ago, when I first came out of the closet, my mother had an irritating habit of referring to my boyfriend as my “friend.”

    You could almost hear the scare-quotes around the word as she would speak it. “This is John’s, um, ‘friend.’”

    When I complained to her about it, she feigned innocence. “Well, he is your friend, isn’t he?”

    “No, Mom, he’s my boyfriend,” I retorted.

    “Isn’t that based in friendship?” she tried.

    “Mom, how would you feel if someone referred to Dad as your ‘friend’?”

    “That’s not the same thing!”

    Which was true, as far as it went. Mom and Dad had been together for decades; the boyfriend and I had been together for mere weeks. Still, he was my boyfriend, not my “friend,” and I bristled every time she would use the latter term to refer to him.

    Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when Mark (my partner of seven years) and I were visiting my parents in Texas. We stopped by the large salon where Mom recently started working.

    I’d visited the place before, but Mark hadn’t, so Mom grabbed him by the hand and started introducing him around. “Hey, everybody—I want you to meet my son-in-law.”

    I smiled to myself.

    Mind you, there’s no “law”—either where we live in Michigan or where my parents live in Texas—that recognizes the relationship Mark and I have. We have a big fat expensive binder full of powers of attorney and what-not, but legally speaking, that’s it.

    But “son-in-law” wasn’t about legal reality. It was about our familial reality, which is far more important to Mom. (Us, too.)

    The funniest part of it is that she often didn’t even bother to mention his name. This pleased me. My family has a longstanding habit of referring to family members by roles instead of names. So Mom will say, “Your sister called” instead of “Jennifer called;” “It’s your uncle’s birthday” instead of “It’s Uncle Raymond’s birthday.” This never struck me as odd until a high-school friend pointed it out. It’s certainly inefficient (“Which uncle?”) but it nicely expresses the tight fabric of our family.

    Mom’s comfort-level transformation happened years ago, and I wouldn’t have even noticed “son-in-law” were it not for the occasional perplexed reaction it evoked. (Jennifer, who lives near my parents, is unmarried.)

    “Your son-in-law?” her co-workers would ask, wondering if there was another daughter they hadn’t met.

    “Yes, my son’s partner!” She now says it without batting an eyelash.

    Notwithstanding the importance of law, these kinds of shifts will do more to bring about marriage equality than any court decision or legislative initiative.

    That’s not just because black-robed justices are no match for red-aproned Brooklyn-Sicilian mothers. It’s because marriage is, at some level, a pre-political reality. Yes, the law creates something, but it also acknowledges something that’s already present. Both roles are important.

    In calling Mark her “son-in-law,” Mom is saying something that is false legally but true socially. The fight for marriage equality is largely a fight to align the legal reality with the social one. And the more often ordinary people refer openly to that social reality, the easier it will be for the legal reality to catch up.

  • Hospitality, not Homosexuality

    First published at 365gay.com on February 6, 2009

    I’ve written in this column of my friendship with Glenn Stanton [http://www.365gay.com/opinion/corvino-friends-with-the-enemy/], a Focus on the Family employee whom I regularly debate on same-sex marriage.

    There are different kinds of friendship, of course, not to mention different levels and layers. We’re not “best buds,” but we’re not merely work acquaintances either. Despite our deep disagreements—which we express publicly and vigorously—we genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

    And so I looked forward to Glenn’s recent Michigan visit to debate me at Saginaw Valley State University. Glenn would fly into Detroit on a Monday night and depart on Wednesday morning; on Tuesday we would drive the 100 miles to Saginaw together.

    Naturally, I invited him to stay with my partner and me. Mark and I have two guest rooms, each with a private bath; we often entertain houseguests.

    “You invited WHO to your house?” another friend asked incredulously. “The religious-right guy? I can’t believe you’d welcome such a person in your home.”

    But I couldn’t imagine doing otherwise. Even if Glenn were not a friend—even if he were just another debate opponent with whom I was traveling—I would have extended the invitation. I come from a family where hospitality is second nature. And while I am not a Christian, I find Jesus’ lessons on hospitality to be some of the most moving parts of the Gospels.

    So I extended the invitation, and Glenn accepted immediately. We talked about checking out the Henry Ford museum and other Detroit landmarks. I asked him, as I ask all guests, whether there was anything special he’d like us to have on hand for breakfast.

    Then, on the day of his planned arrival, I got the phone call.

    Glenn explained that he felt unable to stay with us, and so he had booked a hotel instead. On the advice of his colleagues he decided that staying at our home wouldn’t be “prudent.” It might suggest the endorsement of our relationship, and thus send the wrong message to Focus constituents.

    This struck me as nonsense, and I told him so. Glenn has expressed his moral disapproval of homosexuality in his writing, in our public debates, and in our private conversations. Staying under our roof could hardly eclipse all of that. His disapproval is beyond dispute.

    For example, in his Christianity Today article [http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/january/1.38.html?start=1] about our friendship, he affirmed his “opposition to all sexual relationships that are not between a husband and wife,” and argued that whatever virtues might exist in a gay relationship (honesty, kindness, dedication), they did not redeem homosexuality itself.

    But in the same article, he also described us as “dear friends.” He elaborated:

    “John and I constantly hear disbelief at how we can be so opposed on such a life-shaping issue yet remain friends…John has hosted me at his own campus and had me to his beautiful home.”

    Indeed I did. That visit was for a meal. This one would be for a place to sleep. I couldn’t see the substantive difference.

    Of course, I can speculate. A meal takes place in the dining room, whereas sleeping takes place in bedrooms, where you-know-what occurs. Glenn would be just yards away—albeit past thick plaster walls and behind closed doors—from whatever it is that Mark and I do in bed.

    FYI, here’s a play-by-play account of what Mark and I do in bed, at 1 a.m., after a two-hour post-debate drive: (1) I climb in trying not to wake him. (2) He grunts and rolls over. (3) We sleep.

    I’m not naïve about the culture at Focus on the Family, but I was still angered and hurt by that phone call.

    That’s partly because of my family’s culture of hospitality. Glenn’s decision to stay at a hotel was like telling Grandma that you’d rather go to a restaurant than eat her food. Italian-Americans (like many other cultures) take such things seriously.

    It’s partly because I’ve defended both Glenn and Focus against charges of hypocrisy and have taken a lot of flak in the process. “Sure, John, they claim to be your friend. But just wait…”

    It’s partly because of the gross incongruence of calling someone a “dear friend” but not being able to stay in his home.

    And it’s partly because it underscores the ugly myths that I fight against every day, even in my debates with Glenn.

    The opposition claims that they’re interested in truth. But the reality of our lives—the fact that we brew our coffee and toast our English muffins just like everyone else—seems too much for them to handle.

  • Gay Sex Isn’t Weird. Sex Is.

    First published at 365gay.com on January 16, 2009

    Why are our opponents so obsessed with butt sex?

    I’ve personally pondered this question more times than is probably healthy. It occurred to me a few weeks ago when a poster on a conservative blog complained that gays “expect us to approve of butt sex and call it marriage.”

    Really?

    Then last week I was reading an essay by the philosopher Michael Levin. After denying that homosexuality is immoral, he goes on to describe it as “disgusting, nauseating, closely connected with fecal matter. One need not show that anal intercourse is immoral to be warranted in wanting to be as far away from it as possible.”

    I think I would have liked “immoral” better.

    Then, yesterday, I received an e-mail from a 15-year-old living in a small UK village. He’s thinking about coming out to his “mum and dad,” so he asked them what they thought about homosexuality. They told him, in no uncertain terms, that it was “wrong, unnatural, and disgusting.” He continued,

    “But one major point they kept pointing out was… ummm… well they said it was gross how a man would stick his… yeah up another guys… ummm… yeah. And they said it’s where they sorta… yeah I ain’t going into much detail….But what I really want to know is how would you respond to someone who thinks like that?”

    You mean, aside from telling them that they could probably use a big fat one up the bum themselves?

    That’s not what I actually replied.

    Instead I wrote, in part,

    “In the abstract, of course it’s weird (and from some perspectives, gross) to think of a man sticking his penis up another man’s bum. But isn’t all sex weird in the abstract? Sticking a penis in a vagina, which bleeds once a month? Sucking on a penis, something both straight women and gay men do? Pressing your mouth—which you use for eating—against another person’s mouth, and touching tongues, and exchanging saliva (i.e. kissing)? Weird! Gross! (In the abstract, anyway.)”

    Sex makes no sex in the abstract. But then you have urges, and you eventually act on them, and what once seemed weird and gross becomes…wow.

    Our opponents recognize this in their own lives, but they can’t envision it elsewhere. It’s a profound failure of moral imagination—which is essential for empathy, which is at the foundation of the Golden Rule.

    How can one “love thy neighbor as thyself” without any real effort to understand thy neighbor?

    Our opponents contemplate our lives, our love, our longing, and what do they see? “Butt sex.” Such obtuseness is depressing.

    Of course, not all gays engage in “butt sex”—some of us never do—and not only gays engage in “butt sex.”

    Of course, most of what we do in bed is exactly the same as most of what they do in bed: cuddling and touching and caressing and kissing and sucking and rubbing and so on. (Not to mention sleeping, which when shared regularly can be beautifully intimate as well.)

    What we do is the same not just in terms of formal acts. It’s the same in terms of being weird, and silly, and messy, and sublime.

    Yes, Virginia, we make funny faces when we come, too.

    It’s always easier to criticize the weirdness in others than to confront the weirdness in the mirror. (Perhaps that’s why mirrors in the bedroom are thought to be kinky.)

    Our opponents take anxiety about sex—a natural and virtually universal human phenomenon—and wield it as a weapon against us. Shame on them.

    As for the marriage-equality fight, what do you say to someone who thinks that we expect her “to approve of butt sex and call it marriage”?

    Thankfully, another poster responded to that one more effectively than I ever could.

    The respondent described herself as a lifelong Christian, daughter of a conservative minister, and “personally against gay marriage but passionate about gay civil rights.” (This description will strike some as paradoxical, but bravo to her for understanding the difference between personal beliefs and public policy.)

    She then warmly depicts a gay couple she knows who have adopted two special-needs children. The children, she writes, “RADIATE happiness at each other, their parents, and the people around them. Somehow ‘butt sex’ doesn’t seem to neatly contain all the emotions, commitment, and wondrous devotion that their parents’ relationship has provided them with.”

    She concludes by chiding her fellow Christian, “Please think carefully before you speak.”

    Amen to that.

  • Margie Christoffersen’s Freedom – and Ours

    First published at 365gay.com on December 19, 2008

    Marjorie Christoffersen seems like a nice enough person by all reports, including those of gay friends and acquaintances.

    But Christoffersen made a $100 donation to Prop. 8, which stripped marriage rights from gays and lesbians in California. Now some customers of El Coyote, the landmark Los Angeles restaurant where she worked for two decades, are boycotting.

    After angry protests, Christoffersen has tearfully resigned. Meanwhile, some of the other 88 employees have had their hours cut, and business is down about 30%.

    Is this outcome the predictable result of taking rights away from a community that has been burned once too often? Collateral damage in an ugly culture war?

    Or is it a step too far—punishing an entire business (and a gay-friendly one at that) for the private act of one employee, a generally decent person who can’t quite yet wrap her mind around gay marriage?

    A few facts are worth noting as we ponder these questions.

    Christoffersen’s small contribution was a personal one, not supported by the restaurant (except rather indirectly, insofar as it pays her salary).

    True, she is the owner’s daughter and a familiar fixture there, but at El Coyote she kept her Prop. 8 support to herself (unsurprisingly, given the sympathies of her coworkers and patrons). It became known only as activists scoured donation rolls for “hypocritical” Yes-on-8 donors.

    Indeed, in the wake of the controversy over Christoffersen, El Coyote has given $10,000 to the efforts to repeal Prop. 8—a substantial public penance for their employee’s private $100 “sin.”

    El Coyote has many gay employees, including managers. While they were aware of Christoffersen’s Mormonism and her conservative political beliefs, they got along well with her. They report that (apart from the marriage issue) she was supportive of her gay friends and coworkers.

    Some of those gay coworkers are now hurting. And it’s not just because they miss Christoffersen or hate seeing her so upset—she can’t discuss the incident without crying—but also because, with business slowing down, they fear for their jobs.

    Meanwhile, opponents of marriage equality have begun to use Christoffersen as an example of how gay-rights advocates want to destroy freedom of religion, speech, and conscience.

    What do I think?

    I think Margie Christoffersen sounds like a basically good person, someone who is wrong on marriage equality but is (or at least was) possibly winnable on that point someday.

    I also think the simplistic black-and-white approach that suggests “You’re either with us or against us” works even less at the level of day-to-day life than it does for, say, George Bush’s foreign policy.

    I think punishing El Coyote for the contributions of a single employee—one whose views on this subject hardly seem representative of its management or staff—is certainly overbroad and probably counterproductive.

    And yet I also appreciate the outrage of those who want nothing to do with anyone and anything even remotely associated with “Yes on 8”—a campaign which not only took away marriage rights, but did so by despicably portraying gays as a threat to children.

    Against that ugly backdrop, it’s hard to get worked up about a diner’s business slowing down.

    What concerns me most, however, is not misdirected punishment of El Coyote, or the occasionally harsh words for Christoffersen.

    What concerns me most is the right wing’s misusing this case as Exhibit N in their ever-growing catalog of alleged threats to their freedom.

    For example, in the National Review Online, Maggie Gallagher refers to the protests and boycott as “extraordinary public acts of hatred” and criticizes “the use of power to silence moral opposition.”

    But nobody “silenced” Margie Christoffersen. She expressed her viewpoint by contributing; others expressed theirs by boycotting. That’s how free expression works.

    So call the boycott counterproductive if you like, or reckless, or even mean-spirited. I might quibble with some of your characterizations, but I see your point.

    But please don’t call it a violation of anyone’s rights. Neither Christoffersen nor El Coyote has a pre-existing right to anyone’s patronage.

    Don’t call it a violation of her religious freedom, unless religious freedom means the freedom to strip away others’ legal rights without their being free to walk away from you.

    And for heaven’s sake, don’t call it a violation of her freedom of conscience.

    Christoffersen is free to think, speak, or vote however she likes. Others are free to avoid her.

    In the culture war, as elsewhere, freedom is a sword that cuts both ways.

  • The Odd Couple

    First published at Between the Lines News on December 18, 2008

    Glenn Stanton is a friend of mine. He’s also badly wrong about same-sex marriage, and I tell him so—frequently, publicly, and sharply.

    Glenn works at Focus on the Family, a premier organization of the religious right. He and I regularly debate same-sex marriage at campuses around the country.

    Glenn has written about our relationship in the January issue of Christianity Today (available here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/january/1.38.html), where he describes us as “highly unlikely but dear friends.” It’s a good description.

    “Unlikely,” because Glenn is not just wrong, but wrong about an issue that’s deeply personal for me. His work hurts my people. Nevertheless, we’re probably closer than you think.

    Glenn was the first person to call to congratulate me when I received tenure at my university. While traveling, we share our “down time” in spirited conversation about politics, family relationships, work challenges, and so on. We often joke with each other.

    I’m sure that more than one waiter, observing us out for a post-debate snack, have wondered whether we are business partners or boyfriends. If they were to eavesdrop, they’d know: when Glenn takes a call from his wife Jackie, I always say “hi”; he does the same for my partner Mark (whom he graciously describes in the article as “the kind of man many fathers would want their daughters to meet”).

    How can I be friendly with a card-carrying member of the religious right? My facetious answer: I drink. My serious answer: it’s a complex and sometimes tense relationship, but it works for us.

    Gay people should know better than anyone that personal affection doesn’t always conform to socially expected patterns. Yes, he’s a right-winger, but I genuinely like the guy.

    And I don’t merely like him in spite of his professional mission. Alongside our differences, Glenn and I have a shared mission as well. We believe that serious subjects deserve a thoughtful public dialogue, not soundbites and personal attacks. We want to promote by example a better conversation.

    Some people wonder how we can debate the same issue over and over without our events becoming scripted or phony. Good question.

    First, this is a multi-faceted issue, and there’s always something new to talk about. Second, much of our program consists of audience Q&A—an element that changes each time.

    Third, knowing each other’s fundamental position allows us continually to hone our presentations, cutting right to the heart of the matter. We don’t spend lots of time trying to figure out where each other is coming from—although we still have misunderstandings, which we aim to use constructively.

    Why do we debate? It’s not so that we can ambush each other with unexpected zingers (although we keep trying). It’s not even to convince each other—although I’d like to think, in the years we’ve been doing this, I’ve had some positive effect on him, and thus on Focus.

    We do debates to convince our audiences. He wants them to oppose same-sex marriage, I want them to support it, and we both want them to talk about it, civilly but nonetheless rigorously.

    Do I worry that our mutual graciousness makes it too easy for him to feel “open-minded” and “tolerant” while maintaining an anti-gay stance? I would, were it not for the fact that I remind him regularly of how wrong and hurtful that stance is. In my view, such reminders have more weight coming from a sincere friend than a hostile enemy.

    We don’t pull punches. As Glenn writes, “We have no interest in maintaining a lowest-common-denominator, kumbaya civility.” At times we genuinely annoy each other. If we think the other is being disingenuous or unfair, we say so.

    We also occasionally surprise each other. Glenn recounts some of these moments in his article, but he misses my favorite. One day when we were driving back from an event, I told Glenn that Mark and I had decided to exchange vows in a commitment ceremony.

    He said “Congratulations.” I nearly swerved off the road.

    That led to a long, challenging, and emotional conversation about how to appreciate others’ values even while sharply disagreeing with key aspects of them.

    Glenn made it clear that he disapproves of “homosexual conduct.” And I made it clear that my partnership with Mark is not just an ordinary friendship with romantic intimacy added on as an optional, freestanding feature. Our so-called “homosexual conduct” is integral to the relationship.

    I think Glenn sees my point, though I’m not sure he’s fully resolved the dilemma it poses.

    Then again, I’m not sure I’ve fully resolved the dilemma of how to cherish Glenn without endorsing problematic aspects of his personal and professional goals.

    It’s a friendship in process, and I’m grateful for it.