SODOMIZE FOR FREEDOM

© 1986 by Stuart Norman

Appeared in RFD #48, Fall ‘86, “Risking Federal Disapproval”
In the Bowers Vs. Hardwick case the majority opinion is a legal disgrace. The dissenting opinion is a masterpiece of reasoning, five times longer. But our country doesn’t operate on reason.



        “This is a day that will live in infamy.” was spoken by President Franklin Roosevelt when he announced to the nation the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Then on June 30, 1986, another war was launched on sexual freedom by the Supreme court. In the decision on Bowers vs. Hardwick the court ruled 5 to 4 by a default of principle to allow state sodomy laws to stand, not on the grounds that the state may have a compelling interest in violating privacy, but according to traditional Christian morality. This decision is a great blow to the time-honored concepts of privacy, separation of church and state, and to gay rights. It made the following July 4th weekend celebrating the refurbishing of the Statue of Liberty and all the media hoopla surrounding it ring hollow. Lady Liberty should have been crying.
        The court’s majority decision, written by Justice White, is a bigoted and cowardly way out. Recent polls, such as in Newsweek, show a majority of Americans oppose the decision. They understand that it affects everyone. Other polls demonstrate that tolerance for the gay lifestyle has grown in the past few years to a majority, but acceptance as a valid and equal lifestyle has not grown.
        The dissenting opinion by Justice Blackmun was unequivocally a devastating criticism of the majority decision, chiding the Court for not addressing the right to privacy and ignoring equal protection for minorities.
        It is clear that a majority of Supreme Court justices are homophobic or are being pressured by the Reagan administration to be so. Yet the 5 - 4 decision is close and the dissent is clear, opening the way for the Court to reverse itself should another similar case be brought before it in the future. Surely there will be another case, this time from a heterosexual, unmarried couple that is even a more clear cut case of violation of privacy. Then the court will have to rule, providing it agrees to hear the case, that hetero sodomy is not protected by the constitution or else the court violates its own decisions on equal treatment for all people.
        The Supreme Court is being politically stacked by the Reagan administration toward staunch conservatives. The confirmation hearings for Chief Justice Renquist and Antonin Scalia, no friend of gay people, are a case in point. But not in 50 years have appointments been made so blatently without a sense of fairness to balance the Court, opinionwise. However, even conservative judges can make solid, constitutionally based, unbigotted decisions against the wishes of an administration, demonstrating the traditional independence of the judiciary still lives. The Court has recently ruled progressively on abortion rights and on affirmative action, contrary to the wishes of the Reagan administration.

        The ramifications of the sodomy decision may not change anything immediately. States still have the right to have sodomy laws or repeal them. 25 states still have sodomy laws with various interpretations of this “Crime against Nature", and varying penalties. Two states, Texas and Montana, specifically state only homosexual sodomy is prohibited, a clear-cut case of discrimination. Our best move now is to go back to grassroots activism to repeal sodomy laws in those remaining 25 states and to ensure that the free 25 will not reinstate such laws. In most of those 25 states sodomy is defined as oral and anal intercourse, thus mutual jack off or body rubbing (frottage) may be legal if the law is narrowly interpreted.
        It is also highly probable that law enforcement officials will not want to spend time and money investigating the private lives and the activities in the bedrooms of citizens. Only if the political climate becomes conducive to such raids are we likely to experience such totalitarian actions.

        On top of the nastiness over sodomy, the Meese Commission on Pornography released its report in June, linking violence and pornography; a foregone conclusion what with the commission stacked with biased conservatives who only sought information upholding their views. Two female members renounced the report findings in disgust and lambasted the commission’s tactics handling witnesses. Even under the conservative Nixon administration 20 years ago a pornography commission could find no connection between violence and porn. What is so dangerous about this conclusion is that some feminists have joined with the New Right and conservative attempts to define and prohibit pornography as inciting violence toward women.
        This anti-sex position will hamper and tend to stifle debate and protest over rape, spouse abuse, child abuse, teenage pregnancy and contraception. It will promote sexual censorship and the ignorance that has kept women in inferior power relationships to men. Still, the issue of violence in our society has not been addressed, but that would indict the very structure or beliefs and behaviors which conservatives and fundamentalists wish us to return.
        Then in California, there is an AIDS quarantine initiative by the followers of Lyndon LaRouche on the November ballot. Were this ultra right-wing measure to pass, anyone testing positive for the AIDS antibodies, as well as those having AIDS or ARC could legally be quarantined indefinitely, fired from jobs, in short, a prison sentence. It would also send a message nationwide that such discrimination would be tolerated and would be the beginning of a reign of terror not seen since Hitlerian Germany in the late 30’s .It is fortunate that most politicians, Democratic and Republican, are coming out against the measure.

        These decisions against us may tend to repoliticize our movement just as Anita Bryant’s campaign in Florida did in 1977. It is again time for civil disobedience and nonviolent protest. Perhaps we had become too comfortable with our gains of the late 70’s and early 80’s, making the assumption that we had won our rights and we would move steadily forward, knocking down discrimination everywhere. Not so, bigotry lies deeply in the American soul. Yet our movement is well established, entrenched, out of the closet too long to be easily forced back in. Some of us have never experienced the closet. So now it is the time to again be active whether it means to support the political institutions of our society and change them or to oppose them altogether. Each of us needs to become involved in some group working for our rights. It gives us a feeling of strength and accomplishment, the support of like-minded people in trying times. And we must make the commitment to make ourselves known as openly gay to all who know us. That in itself can change minds. They will see our strength and solidarity and perhaps realize because they have known us as people rather than a stereotyped gay image that we are just like them, only different, but not a difference to be feared and hated.
        The gay agenda must be wider than the specific interests of our own community. Gay men and lesbians need to work out their differences and seek coalition with heterosexuals who support humane behavior and laws. Now heterosexuals have a stake in working with us for their sexual freedom as well. We will need the persistence of New Right groups not to be disheartened. What we must do is learn to love each other, love heterosexuals, but we don’t need their acceptance. We have our own and our own inner strengths. We can’t be just like them.
        We have made mistakes in our movement. We were politically naive, but we have learned much in the past few years. Yet we should realize that ours is not really a political movement as political movements are defined. Ours is a moral movement which can be stronger than any political movement and can encompass justice for all people. That is our greatest strength and will potentially unite us with others to increase our power.

        Why this growing conservatism? There are several reasons. Natural political swings occur when a prevalent ideology runs out of answers or when people who support the ideology tire of promoting it. When problems aren’t solved, when a power group becomes complacent, then a disenfranchised group may become sufficiently motivated to promulgate its ideas and gain strength. Or fear is a great motivator. This scenario is occurring now.
        It seems that the gay movement and other progressive movements ran out of practical ideas, became demoralized and tired, energies no longer focused. And the American people were ready for a change, wanted new ideas. There is distention among us and a clear agenda hasn’t been brought forward. But when conservative solutions no longer work or cause more problems, then other groups will be listened to.
        Also, this new conservatism is rising alongside declining expectations for the current generation to be economically better off than their parents. That knowledge can be of no comfort to anyone. The economy is not good even under pro-business Republicans. The national debt is at an all-time high despite the budget-cutting measures enacted by Congress at the behest of the Reagan administration. This administration has been seen as anti-environment, anti-poor, antiabortion, pro-military, pro-big business, war mongering and interventionist, having contempt for the World Court over aid to the Contras in Nicaragua and El Salvador. It is almost surprising that it has taken an antiapartheid stance toward South Africa.
        Our society has a war mentality. If not real war, then a war on poverty or a war on drugs, etc. A war on disease is our medical model. War is a symptom of social illness by which only force is seen to solve problems. But the real illness is a refusal to examine the basis for our problems. That is what this conservative administration represents: a turning back of the clock to simpler, clearer values no matter how wrong they are.
        We live in an economic climate in which feudal fiefdoms of power are being created by conglomerates, holding companies, by mergers, takeovers, buyouts. The middle class and poor are being forced out of the economic picture, losing power to control their lives. Is it conspiracy or just blind economic forces? Family farmers going out of business and their land being taken over by big agribusiness is a good example. Our intervention in South America is primarily to protect our business interests, not to protect their people from communist totalitarianism. Yet we might ask if there is a conspiracy behind the Reagan administration. The President appears to be senile. If so, who is the power behind him? And why such high pressure tactics to force their beliefs onto the entire nation? Theirs’ is not an American way and represents an ominous erosion of freedoms.
        We must watch closely the fundamentalists. TV evangelists such as Pat Robertson of the 700 Club, watched by 16,000,000 viewers, may run for President in the Republican primary. He is a Yale Law School graduate, and obviously smart. What would his election hold for this nation? The cherished concept of separation of church and state would be in jeopardy. Another TV evangelist, Jimmy Swaggart, is waging a one-man war against liberal bias in the news media, his attempt at censorship and mind control. Some guerrilla tactics can be used against them. We gays have been credited with putting Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority 800 line out of business by calling and using up valuable time for which he received no contributions. We can do the same for the 700 Club.
        The fundamentalist bigotry is coming out in the open. It will be seen for what it is, and most Americans won’t tolerate it. Fundamentalist is becoming a derogatory word. They are turning people against them by their intolerance. And they are associated with Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, bombers of abortion clinics. If that isn‘t the antichrist, what is? Yet they prey on our guilts and fears to gain their power. Those are their fears, too.
        The fundamentalists fear cultural change and want to turn our society back to known, established values. But it is those values, the very cultural premises, which are the problem. Our culture is disintegrating around us. No one can stop it. Values must change for a culture to grow.
        To achieve certain goals every culture promotes and limits some behaviors. We are educated by example, by religion and morals and guilting to conform. This works, but the goals may be too much of a tradeoff, too costly in terms of humane life. Such is the history of Western culture. The fundamentalists may have their day, but it will be short. How many will have to suffer for it?

        This November we have a chance to vote once again. The question is whether more conservatives will be elected or will there be a swing towards liberal Democrats? Will the U.S. Senate return to a Democratic majority? Will LaRouchies use more of their chameleon techniques to get on ballots? And what further political disruption will they attempt to cause?
        Americans vote for the lesser evil, not for the best candidate. Often it is the only choice we have considering those who survive in the political arena do so by less than honorable means. Politics defies facts, as is expedient for power. That is the game. Principle is out. Yet most Americans don’t agree with the Reagan administration’s policies, but they will go along with them if they are not too adversely affected. There needs to be an incentive for them to commit to political involvement. The Reagan image apparently fulfills a need in the American psyche. Why else could he have such a high popularity rating? But what happens after his lame-duck Presidency? Political winds can change quickly. The climate may get worse before it gets better.
        Political backlashes always occur sooner or later. That may seem a platitude, but there will be a liberal/progressive backlash when this political climate goes too far. Mark my words, the Reagan administration will be seen infamously in historical perspective. Our hopes lie in that someday the patriarchal/war mentality of power/force/might-makes-right will only be a nightmare from which we have awakened. In the meantime assert your right to sodomize for freedom!

Contents A New Spirituality for Gays Sick of Politics