Independent Article Titled "If the 'Gay Lifestyle' Bothers You"

1 6 THE INDEPENDENT AUGUST 15-28, 1986 IN FRONT OF YOUR NOSE GARRETT EPPS - : • IF THE “GAY LIFESTYLE” BOTHERS YOU I don’t fully understand anybody’s sexuality, including my own, and I sometimes find the issue of homosexuality disturbing. A lot of people in the Triangle area seem to feel the same way. For me, this effect is particularly strong after I’ve just read something about gay issues in Time or Newsweek. The magazines, and the TV news programs, like to talk about some¬ thing called the “gay lifestyle.” I’m not com¬ pletely clear what that “lifestyle” is, except that it seems to take place in big cities and involve drugs, “odd” clothes, and promiscuity. There are usually some lurid pictures with these arti¬ cles, and when I read them I feel quite sure that this “lifestyle” is a monolithic thing, not as worthy as— indeed, possibly a threat to — my “normal” lifestyle. As long as the “gay lifestyle” is an abstrac¬ tion-something delivered by the mass media — 1 find it strange and sometimes scary. Judges often live in an abstract world, imag¬ ining the people before them as exemplars of impersonal concepts — the Right to Counsel, or Social Disintegration, or Freedom of Speech or The Free Market. Maybe the U.S. Supreme Court was thinking of the “Gay Lifestyle” when it recently ruled that states had a right to outlaw gay sexuality as “sodomy” or “crimes against nature.” Can I be forgiven for doubting that some austere vision of the Constitution was really uppermost in the judges’ minds when they ruled that gays could be forced outside the law? I don’t believe the Constitution has some “meaning” that judges dispassionately deci¬ pher. I’ve read enough Constitutional law and history to know that each generation rewrites that ancient parchment in its own image. Human wish is the father of constitutional interpretation; when liberals give in to it, it’s called “judicial activism,” and when conserva¬ tives succumb, they call it “strict construction.” And if the Constitution is rewritten, what Who knows where sexuality comes from? All of us are desperately vulnerable at the place where society meets sex. Pass laws against people’s deepest selves and you are sowing hatred and despair. about the Bible? Many of the leaders of the recent movement to recall Durham Mayor Wib Gulley sincerely believe that the Bible “liter¬ ally” tells them to believe. This notion of “lit¬ eralness” (or “inerrancy”) is relatively new, dating from the early years of this century. “Literalists” in fact believe in one human, fal¬ lible interpretation of Scripture, not a literal reading at all. Does the Bible “literally” forbid abortion, for example? Not a bit. It does have harsh words for homosexuality; but it’s also pretty tough on usury. When will we see Don¬ ald Fozard picketing NCNB? All of us— progressives, strict construction¬ ists, fundamentalists— are prisoners of our own fears, prejudices, and ignorance, and many of us can think of good reasons why everybody else should bow down in front of our particular set. So I’m not really surprised that judges and preachers can, in all sincerity, find reasons to ban the “gay lifestyle.” But the problem is that when you look be¬ hind a media image of “lifestyle,” what you find is lives. And those lives usually resemble the media images about as much as my life re¬ sembles Father Knows Best. When I put down my Newsweek and go back into the world, I meet individuals. Some are gay men and les¬ bians. In their behavior, they cover about the same spectrum that my straight friends do — some are happy, some are troubled, some are flamboyant, some are quiet, some are promis¬ cuous, some are monogamous. Who knows where sexuality comes from? Is it inherited, is it a result of childhood experi¬ ence, do we form it from role models or does it well up irresistibly from within? I don’t know, and neither do the shrinks, or the preachers, or the Supreme Court. But I do know that all of us are desperately vulnerable at the place where society and sexu¬ ality meet. A quick and easy way to break a person is to crush or ban or stifle that deepest part that no one chooses or can fully control. Pass laws against it— or make it an issue on the streets of Durham — and you are sowing hatred and despair. Now we learn that the anti-gay forces couldn’t get enough signatures to force an election. I’m relieved— but we shouldn’t forget that some people will be carrying scars for life they got in the last few weeks. When I look at the gay people I know, I don’t see a lifestyle. I see a brave and diverse band of people who are making the best of a very difficult situation. Facing ridicule, discrimina¬ tion, and now (for men) the threat of AIDS, gay men and lesbians make their contributions to society with a dignity and courage I can only envy and admire. When I think how badly I behave when I have a toothache or a brief set¬ back at work, I wonder how gay people bear their pain so well; and I wonder at any legisla¬ tor, judge or preacher who can twist the law or the Prophets into an excuse to heap new coals of fire upon their heads.