OF BULL, PAPAL AND OTHERWISE

© 1986 by Stuart Norman

Appeared in RFD #49, Winter ‘86, “Reimbursed For Dreaming.”
At the time I wrote this I thought that the conservative leanings would not last as long as they have. We have not yet seen the end of it, and it appears to be growing. The floundering economy and other world conditions have frightened the American people into a conservative stance. And the Catholic Church is as bad as ever.

        Once again America has gone through the biannual craziness that characterizes an election. This past November 4, we hit an all time low in voter turnout and in negative campaign advertising and rhetoric, which may have been a reason for the low percentage of voters at the polls. For the gay community and other progressive causes the wins/loses look about 50-50 - a decided improvement over the past few years, with some positive indications of a brighter future.
        The U.S. Senate is now firmly in Democratic hands with a 55 to 45 majority; more than expected. California Senator Alan Cranston won his fourth term by a slim margin, defeating Republican Assemblyman and challenger Ed Zschau, a popular moderate. Cranston has been a longtime friend of the gay community and a supporter of the national Gay Rights Bill. At least Democrats will now head committees. Ted Kennedy, current chair of the Senate Judciary Committee, wants to chair the Labor Committee, leaving the Judiciary to Sen. Joseph Byden. The question arises as to whether Byden will be able to focus as strong an opposition to the Meese (In)Justice Department.
        It appears the “Reagan Revolution” is over. I considered it a devolution. So is Reagan a Iame duck president or is he a dead duck? And with the furor over clandestine arns sales to Iran, Reagan is definitely on the downhill slide. Has Reagan all along been an aberration in American politics because of his popular image and personality and not because of his ideological and partisan views? The American people haven’t supported his issues. Ony by his force of personality and popularity has he been able to make any ideological/legal gains. But he has been the most partisan and unyielding of presidents. Only with a Republican controled Senate could he have achieved his goals. Now that is at an end. The people have spoken against his party.
        The House still has a comfortable Democratic majority, yet they only picked up 5 seats. But now the Democrats are more conservative than at the time of the last election. The party has moved away from minority issues toward a moderate mainstream.
        In state politics there were seven Republican governorships gained so that there are only 25 Dems. to 24 Reps. in office.
        The greatest achievement for our community was the overwhelming defeat by a four-to-one margin of Proposition 64, the LaRouche sponsored anti-AIDS initiative in California. Had this passed it would have sent a strong message to the nation that gays and others carrying the HIV and all PWA’s could be deprived of their rights; put in quarantine.
        Up until election day returns began coming in there was unsureness over how the vote would turn out due to the large number of undecided voters in polls taken over the past few weeks. Apparently the No on 64 campaign paid off, plus the negative publicity over grand jury indictments in Boston of LaRouche organization officials accused of defrauding elderly people of many thousands of dollars, among other crimes.
        The gay community in California led the fight, but it could not have been won without the support of the medical profession, politicians of both parties, and concerned people of all persuasions. The defeat at least demonstrates gay political clout. That is another strong message to the nation that we can justifiably be proud of.
        But yet another message was sent to the nation by the defeat of liberal CA Supreme Court justices Elizabeth Rose Bird, Joseph Grodin and Cruz Reynoso in a right-wing campaign over their apparent laxity in interpreting the death penalty. That law is an unclear statute written by CA state Senator John Briggs, who is infamously known for sponsoring the anti-gay Proposition 6 against gay school teachers, defeated nearly ten years ago. Now Republican governor George Dukemejian, elected to a second term, will appoint three supreme court justices of conservative leanings, but those appointments are expected to be filled by those of impeccable legal credentials. This is important because in the past as goes the CA Supreme Court also goes the nation’s high court. And with Rhenquist and Scalia already on the court, there will be increasingly conservative and perhaps blatently discriminatory opinions handed down. Thus we have our work cut out for us to convince legislators to pass progressive laws circumventing the Supreme Court rulings.
        Another potentially dangerous initiative that passed in CA, is the English Only, which makes English the only official state language. It will make life difficult for non-english speaking minorities which will soon make up a majority of residents in the state. It’s all part of an anti-immigration feeling growing in the nation. And with the recent passage of the Simpson/Rodino Immigration Bill the Immigration and Naturalization Service regulations are becoming stringent and discriminatory.

        On the positive side, CA senator, Republican Pete Wilson took a stand in support of the national Gay Rights Bill after seeing the discrimination around the Prop. 64 campaign. And there were recent hearings in the U.S. Congress on anti-gay violence at which our national organizations presented documentation on this form of discrimination.
        A few months ago the American Civil Liberties Union set up a Lesbian/Gay Rights Project headed by Nan Hunter in Washington. They are working for equal partners benefits legislation and legalization of gay marriages.
        Finally, Surgeon General Everett Koop’s report to the nation on AIDS recommended sex education in the public schools to prevent this deadly plague. Perhaps the tide has turned.
        Now for the bad news. After the ridiculous Meese Pornography Commission Report, the head of the Justice Department has called for a Pornography Task Force and Information Center to be set up. Now the witch hunt begins. I surmise that anti-pornography campaigns keep the political energies of the people distracted and directed away from important issues.
        On top of that, the Pope issued a letter on October 30, strongly condemning homosexuality, even to the very orientation, thus giving homophobes excuses for anti-gay violence. The letter was clearly aimed at the American Catholic Church and gay Catholic groups. Now we have a known enemy. In Christian theology the Pope could be called a false Prophet. He certainly is making way for anti-Christian sentiment. This put the american Catholic Church in a quandary. Perhaps there is a chance of a split away from the Vatican by some bishops and an attempt at reform, bringing the church into the 20th century as a force for moral social change.
        I’ve always known why those declarations of the Pope were called Papal Bulls. But politics, the state and organized religion are one, so what do you expect? Aren’t you glad there’s a non- discriminating Goddess to Worship?

        We should also be aware of an essential unfairness in American elections such that third party and independent candidates are restricted by state ballot access laws. Usually an inordinate number of signatures are needed on petitions to get a party or candidate on the ballot, usually several times more than for Democrats and Republicans. Both the left and right support this political status quo. However, the New Alliance Party and the Rainbow Alliance lobbying group are mounting support for election law reform, gay rights legislation to thwart the conservative Supreme Court decision on sodomy.
        What the right wants is cultural preservation - a homogenous society, not a multiplicity of lifestyles and a plurality of beliefs. They see individual differences as a threat to the nation, the society, themselves. Ronald Reagan represents their feelings and fears. He wants a Norman Rockwell picture vision of America, an early 20th century view, part of a dead, nostalgic past when America was a land of limited vision and eternal hope, but still a dictator to and exploiter of the world, building an empire.
        Now again we are readying for war. Current society predicates on wars against symptoms, whether medical, political, psychological, etc. Symptoms are seen as the problem by men who should know better, and some of them probably do, but use the symptom to hide the cause in the name of political power. Reasons are ignored because they might indict our culture as the cause. So the problems remain, grow stronger, multiply, causing ever stronger resistance from society and government and thus rationale for war and political oppression. This hiding the head in the sand approach will eventually create a crisis that will probably overwhelm all of us. Unless we can educate our people for cultural change, hope remains small.
        The ultra right and Christian fundamentalisms raising their ugly heads could burn itself out as people see its bigotry, defensiveness, fanaticism, intolerance, narrow-mindedness. It is a sickness of the social psyche. Tactics we can use against this mass psychopathology are to bring out the bigotry underlying their issues, strip away their rationalizations and expose them for all people to see. Then it will be rejected by most people. If we show people the raw hatred lying underneath their rhetoric, it will not be accepted. I have that faith in humanity. As in the No on 64 campaign, the far right will lose if vigorously opposed by reason.
        For gays, we need to have wider interests and involvements than only in gay issues. There are many things equally or more important for humanity than gay rights alone, such as eliminating hunger, the nuclear threat and ecological problems.

        Someday the National Gay Rights Bill will pass. There will still be discrimination against us, just as with blacks today years after the Civil Rights Act. And there will be suits and court proceedings over discrimination. Society is slow to change, and rational prescriptions do not significantly budge it. Laws do not end prejudice. But the move to the right with its disregard for the underprivileged is beginning to show the American people how bankrupt is its “moral” philosophy, one of a dark age no longer relevant.
It is time we wake up to world problems, and this political milieu is a lesson for us in changing our consciousness toward the world.

Contents The Deadly Game Where Has Our Goodwill Gone?