WASHINGTON, March 18 — The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force applauds the Obama administration for signing the U.N. declaration calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality and condemning human rights violations based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Advocates have tried for years to get the U.S. to endorse it, but the Bush administration had refused to do so.
Not so long ago:
ReplyDelete(From Martin Duberman's _Cures: A Gay Man's Odyssey_, 1991)
Chapter 2, "Education"
I still remember the overwhelming shame I felt when [sometime
in the 1940s] I came across a _Life_ magazine picture gallery
of "criminal types" and saw that the one labeled "the homosexual" --
a sweet, pretty blond -- looked **exactly** like me.
Chapter 4, "Yale"
Public discussion of homosexuality was rare in those years,
and supportive, nonjudgmental discussion almost unheard of.
The representative voice in psychiatry in the fifties was
Edmund Bergler. . . Bergler was as extreme in his denunciatory
rhetoric as he was sanguine in his predictions of cure.
Claiming to have analyzed dozens of homosexuals, he found
them all supercilious, megalomaniacal, and wholly unreliable
as human beings; yet he also claimed a 99 percent cure rate. . .
In describing his homosexual patients, Bergler adopted an
abusive, scornful tone that bordered on professional incompetence,
characterizing the "great percentage" of them as, among
other things, "swindlers, pseudologues, forgers, law-breakers
of all sorts, drug purveyors, gamblers, pimps, spies,
brothel-owners, etc." Yet Bergler's fellow therapists frequently
quoted from his work, covered him with honors -- and never once
rebuked him for the transparent, disabling anger he freely
vented against those who had entrusted themselves to his care.
Alas, I can't exempt myself from that company. Though it
deeply embarrasses me to admit it, I once wrote Bergler (I think
it was after reading his 1956 best-seller _Homosexuality:
Disease or Way of Life?_) asking for his help -- a measure,
I suppose, of my desperation. . .
Police departments, no less than psychiatry, remained immune to. . .
humane views. . . Indeed, there was a surge in police raids
on gay bars, and an ever-present danger developed of being
entrapped by plainclothes detectives on the street. In New York,
under the prodding of the virulently homophobic _Daily Mirror_
columnist Lee Mortimer, a citywide series of roundups in the
late fifties kept us in a state of constant jitters. We went
to the bars anyway -- courage in those years took unfamiliar
forms -- but when we did, my friends and I always carried with
us the name of one of the three lawyers who specialized (to
their own great profit) in getting arrested homosexuals out
of jail; they knew whom to pay off and how much to pay them.
Chapter 5, "Princeton"
1962 saw the publication of a book that confirmed all my self-doubts --
and the psychoanalytic assumptions that had prompted them. The
book was Irving Bieber's _Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of
Male Homosexuals_, a work that was instantly hailed within the
psychiatric profession and was regularly cited (and sometimes is
even today) as authoritative. Contrary to Freud, Bieber **began**
with the assumption, which he took as unarguable, that homosexuality
was pathological. He denied that constitutional factors made
any contribution to a homosexual orientation, insisting that it
developed in boys entirely as a result of a particular family
configuration -- close-binding mothers, distant or hostile
fathers. The orientation, however, could be reversed, Bieber
confidently predicted. . .
Bieber's views (along with those of Charles Socarides, whose
most publicized work appeared a few years later) dominated
psychiatry for a decade, and beyond. . .
Conformist cultures cannot tolerate challenges to social norms
without risking challenges to existing patterns of political
and economic power. . .
. . .American psychoanalysis in these years was doing its dutiful
cultural work of identifying and stigmatizing sexual nonconformity
of all kinds. It had long since put aside Freud's original
mission of challenging mainstream values in favor of winning
acceptance as their guardian. Had American psychoanalysis been
the legitimate heir to Freud's questing spirit, instead of its
perverter, it might have been engaged instead in trying to
understand such matters as why heterosexual Americans are such
limited lovers, and why American men in particular are so
emotionally constricted; in identifying and ameliorating an
American sexual ideology that encourages its citizens to distort
and deny the pleasures of the body; in examining the child-rearing
practices that manage to destroy the capacity of most children
(especially boys) to enjoy intimacy with members of their own
gender. Psychoanalysis could have redefined the "problem" as:
how did homophobia become central to our sexual ideology --
and how can the majority of parents be taught to stop
relating to their children in such a way as to diminish their
affectional and sexual expressiveness? But psychoanalysts
were bent instead on winning their stripes as good Americans.
And thus "Science," even as it once more touted its objectivity,
once more merely subscribed to, and reinforced, popular
prejudice.
_The New York Times_ in 1963 also lent itself to popularizing
the Bieber line on homosexuality. On December 17 of that
year it published an unusually lengthy article with the banner
headline GROWTH OF OVERT HOMOSEXUALITY IN CITY PROVOKES
WIDE CONCERN. Expressing the general alarm that homosexuality
had become more visible -- a more "obtrusive part of the
New York scene" -- the _Times_ canvassed current opinion on
homosexuality and ended up by giving Bieber's views far more
space than any others. And at the close of the article it
quoted Socarides to the effect that the drive to win social
acceptance for homosexuals was mistaken because "The homosexual
is ill, and anything that tends to hide that fact reduces
his chances of seeking and obtaining treatment."
Chapter 6, "New York"
The 1957 Wolfenden Report in England had recommended the
elimination of criminal penalties for homosexual acts between
consenting adults, but when the report was published in the
United States in 1963, Karl Menninger, the famed head of the
clinic that bore his name, wrote an introduction that
applauded decriminalization but sternly warned that "there
is no question in the minds of psychiatrists regarding the
abnormality of such behavior." The following year, the
New York Academy of Medicine went further. Echoing Bieber,
it insisted that homosexuality was a disease and, going
beyond Bieber, warned that the disease was spreading,
threatening the general welfare.
According to a March 1963 article in _Harper's_, there were
fewer than two dozen gay bars in all of New York City -- as
compared with many times that number today. Yet the police,
as if taking to heart the New York Academy of Medicine's
warning, now clamped down. Even the previously sacrosanct
Exot Ball & Carnival proved fair game. That yearly transvestite
event went back to the late nineteenth century, at at
various times, Vanderbilts, Astors, and _tout le monde_ had
eagerly attended the festivities. . . Now, in the early
sixties, the police turned from protectors to raiders.
Forty-four men were arrested at the Exotic Ball & Carnival
for "masquerading as women."
Chapter 8, "Politics"
[In 1967]. . . I settled on a new project, a history of
Black Mountain College, the experimental community in the foothills
of North Carolina that for over two decades (1933-56) had been
a breeding ground for the alternate culture that emerged in
the sixties. I hoped my research would carry me further into
several matters that had become of absorbing interest to me:
educational innovation, communitarian anarchism, and "group
process"; and I hoped as well to clarify the growing distrust
I felt for traditional academic historical writing, with its
safe subjects and its evasive pretense of objectivity.
Historians, I had come to believe, were inescapably present
in their books (although they preferred denying it), their
values and assumptions shaping the selection and highlighting
of evidence on every page. . .
As I [Chapter 16, "Danny"] started to revise the manuscript in
the fall of 1971, one episode in Black Mountain's history jumped
out at me. . . In the mid-forties, the theater director
Bob Wunsch had become head of Black Mountain. Wunsch had always
done everything possible to conceal his homosexuality,
cultivating instead the image of an asexual loner. But
sometimes, after supper, he would drive off in his small
roadster to the nearby city of Asheville. There, one evening
in mid-June 1945, he was arrested while parked in his car
with a marine. The charge was "crimes against nature."
In those days in North Carolina, that charge carried a mandatory
penitentiary sentence and Wunsch -- with an instinct for
self-punition characteristic of pre-Stonewall homosexuals --
promptly pleaded guilty. Apparently some influential
Asheville friends interceded with the judge, the indictment
was changed to trespassing, and Wunsch was released with a
suspended sentence. But his ordeal was far from over. Instead
of taking Wunsch's side and offering him comfort, most of the
people at Black Mountain -- a place that prided itself on
being "in the vanguard" -- felt he had behaved disgracefully.
When he offered to resign, the offer was accepted. Worse
still, he was allowed to sneak away in the middle of the
night without so much as a kind word, let alone an offer
of assistance.
About damn time!
ReplyDelete> About damn time!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE52H5CK20090318
"[The] Bush administration [had] argued that the broad framing
of the language in the statement created conflict with U.S. laws.
The rationale was that favoring gay rights in a U.N. document
might be interpreted as an attempt by the U.S. federal government
to override individual states' rights on issues like gay marriage."
Also, of course:
"[M]any Muslim countries refus[ed] to sign on to the statement
because of opposition to international attempts to legalize
homosexuality.
A rival statement read out by Syria at the time gathered about
60 signatures from the 192-nation assembly. . .
Division in the General Assembly over the U.N. declaration
reflects conflicting laws worldwide on the issue.
According to the sponsors of the Franco-Dutch text of the document,
homosexuality is illegal in 77 countries, seven of which punish it
by death."
And, from last year,
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/19/world/19nations.html
"[O]pponents criticized [the U.N. declaration] as an attempt to legitimize
pedophilia and other 'deplorable acts.'
The United States refused to support the nonbinding measure, as
did Russia, China, the Roman Catholic Church and members of the
Organization of the Islamic Conference. The Holy See’s observer
mission issued a statement saying that the declaration
'challenges existing human rights norms.'
The declaration, sponsored by France with broad support in Europe
and Latin America, condemned human rights violations based on
homophobia, saying such measures run counter to the universal
declaration of human rights."
and
http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=30881
"What the Vatican wants is to maintain the ‘privileged place’ of
marriage as being between a man and a woman. . .
On December 10, the French will submit to the U.N. General Assembly
a non-binding declaration that would decriminalize homosexuality.
The Vatican is opposed to the document, citing its concerns over language
that could impose same-sex marriage in law."
Now if Obama could only make the United States join the International Criminal Court...
ReplyDeleteAnother quote from Martin Duberman's _Cures_,
ReplyDeleteChapter 19 "In Print":
-------------------------------------------
I took a different and sharper line with a straight colleague --
a prominent historian -- who wrote me a long, pontificating
letter about how every society had to "protect itself against sexual
irregularity." According to him, laws that criminalized homosexuality
were "not merely instruments of repression but a moral and educational
force -- they tell people what society thinks they ought to do and
not do." He acknowledged that "many people will violate the established
norm," but felt that such "purely personal behavior" could be tolerated
"only so long as it does not upset the norm itself." Every society,
he concluded, "has the right to make moral judgments, and I get
alarmed when I hear that it does not."
I tried to deal with him on his own calmly rational terms, not yet
having fully learned the lesson that may blacks had in the early
phases of **their** struggle -- namely, that courtesy and earnestness
rarely succeed either in maximizing outside support or in accommodating
internal rage.
-------------------------------------------
Duberman's remarks about his "calmly rational" interlocutor remind
me of my reactions to a lot of similar stuff I've encountered on
Usenet, which provides an interesting sociological record of the
forms of homophobia characteristic of a certain mostly male,
mostly pretty-well educated, class of mostly well-off people
over the last couple of decades.
From my e-mail archive:
-------------------------------------------
Subject: A third-rate question...
...over which I would be happy to see this guy
get a pie in the face. If not worse.
I've stumbled on another Usenet personality:
Stephen R. Diamond. I wonder if you've encountered
him before. Apparently, he's a lawyer, a
psychotherapist, and a serious amateur economist
and philosopher. Very, very smart, from what I
can tell. Jewish. A Macintosh enthusiast. And
an old-fashioned, serious Marxist who posts a
lot on alt.politics.socialism.trotsky.
And he's a subtle, maddening, oh-so-rational
homophobe of the sort I've encountered in my
brush with the Extropians. Thinks it's fine for
queers to amuse themselves among themselves,
and doesn't think the state should intervene.
Does **not** agree with the politically correct
position that homosexuality has no taint of
psychopathology in it, and is witheringly
disparaging of the intellectual dishonesty of
some "gay lib" types.
So far, so good -- I have often taken pleasure
in such politically incorrect views held by very
smart people. But this guy goes just enough
further for it to really get under my skin.
He takes the old-fashioned leftist view that the gay
rights movement (**and** feminism) are petty-
bourgeois movements that drain energy and
resources from the really important political
issues in the world. And he frankly admits that
he doesn't much like queers -- thinks they're
mostly narcissists who don't have much to contribute
to serious intellectual discourse (at least
politically). Infuriatingly condescending.
Reading this guy, and seeing how hard he is
to get around in argument (he can run circles
around most of his interlocutors) really, really
gets me down -- it makes me realize how limited
a force for (what **I** consider to be) positive
political change is wielded by high brows and
high IQs pure and simple. The only way to get
around this guy would be to hit him over the
head with a brick, or lob a grenade in his path.
Makes me think that maybe that's what it all
comes down to in the end, anyway.
Some representative posts:
From: stephend15@mindspring.com (stephend15@mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: Reform the Fourth International?
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 2001-01-26 15:06:48 PST
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=stephend15-2601011606180001%40user-2init2t.dialup.mindspring.com
From: stephend15@mindspring.com (stephend15@mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: Ken McLeod's latest novel
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 2000-12-16 18:19:20 PST
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=stephend15-1612001918220001%40user-2inis0b.dialup.mindspring.com
From: Stephen R. Diamond (stephend15@mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: Castro on Homosexuality
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 2001-06-13 11:53:10 PST
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=stephend15-FF2959.11520913062001%40news.mindspring.com
From: Stephen Diamond (stephend15@mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: Bigot Ashley Jumps In
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 2002-01-19 22:51:02 PST
http://groups.google.com/groups?&selm=stephend15-CEF4E5.22500519012002%40news.mindspring.com
From: Stephen R. Diamond (stephend15@mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: Ruth Leslie = Cut and Paste
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 2001-01-22 10:09:44 PST
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=stephend15-B3C3FF.10085122012001%40news.mindspring.com
From: Stephen R. Diamond (stephend15@mindspring.com)
Subject: Is Diamond a "Homophobe"? Yes and No, as Paris, who thinks this form of response is dialectical, would say
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Date: 2000/03/13
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=stephend15-71E433.16424413032000%40news.mindspring.com
From: Stephen R. Diamond (stephend15@mindspring.com)
Subject: Revisionists hold up psychiatric pathology as force for liberation
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 2000/03/05
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=stephend15-1E308E.12560305032000%40news.mindspring.com
From: Stephen R. Diamond (stephend15@mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: Sverdlov: censor and fraud
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 2000/05/14
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=stephend15-B88218.16220114052000%40news.mindspring.com
From: stephend15@mindspring.com (stephend15@mindspring.com)
Subject: Re: What doctors think of homosexuality
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 2001-01-29 13:15:50 PST
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=stephend15-2901011415140001%40user-38ldmq7.dialup.mindspring.com
From: Stephen Diamond (stephend15@mindspring.com)
Subject: "The Hidden Hitler"
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 2001-12-23 12:40:13 PST
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=stephend15-15ECFE.12383723122001%40news.mindspring.com
From: Stephen R. Diamond (SteveD15@concentric.net)
Subject: Re: Homosexuality is mental illness?
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 1996/07/05
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=SteveD15-0507961222410001%40cnc120031.concentric.net
From: Stephen R. Diamond (SteveD15@concentric.net)
Subject: Re: Sexism, Respect, Discourse: What is "normality," anyway?
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 1996/07/06
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=SteveD15-0507961724450001%40cnc120043.concentric.net
From: w-magd@maroon.tc.umn.edu (w-magd@maroon.tc.umn.edu)
Subject: Tom's Heterosexism Becomes Ever More Obvious
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 1996/07/26
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=55322.w-magd%40maroon.tc.umn.edu
From: Stephen R. Diamond (SteveD15@concentric.net)
Subject: Re: What is a Workers State?
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 1996/07/11
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=SteveD15-1107961928080001%40cnc120038.concentric.net
From: Stephen R. Diamond (SteveD15@concentric.net)
Subject: Re: Stephen Diamond: Are you a LaRouchite?
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 1996/07/05
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=SteveD15-0507961403260001%40cnc80150.concentric.net
From: Stephen R. Diamond (SteveD15@concentric.net)
Subject: Re: Biologist etiology for homosexuality not so expedient.
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 1996/07/30
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=SteveD15-3007960607140001%40cnc120032.concentric.net
From: Stephen R. Diamond (SteveD15@concentric.net)
Subject: Re: Gays: Whose "problem" is it, really?
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 1996/07/24
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=SteveD15-2407961246210001%40cnc120035.concentric.net
From: Stephen R. Diamond (SteveD15@concentric.net)
Subject: Re: Diamond's view of Gays and Lesbians
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 1996/07/17
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=SteveD15-1707961234330001%40cnc120038.concentric.net
From: Stephen R. Diamond (SteveD15@concentric.net)
Subject: Re: Sexism, Respect, Discourse
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 1996/07/05
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=SteveD15-0407962344120001%40cnc120046.concentric.net
From: Stephen R. Diamond (SteveD15@concentric.net)
Subject: Re: Origins of patriarchy, was Stephen Diamond: Are you a LaRouchite?
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 1996/07/07
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=SteveD15-0607961824200001%40cnc120042.concentric.net
From: Stephen R. Diamond (SteveD15@concentric.net)
Subject: Re: Homosexuality is mental illness?: Some Final Thoughts
Newsgroups: alt.politics.socialism.trotsky
Date: 1996/07/08
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=SteveD15-0807960031530001%40cnc120037.concentric.net
-------------------------------------------
and another one:
-------------------------------------------
Net.Legends.FAQ (Noticeable Phenomena Of UseNet) Part 2/4
"Mikhail Zeleny (That goes completely against
the categorical imperative!): Russian philosopher
wanna-be; *his* objection to homosexuality (yes,
I know I have about six in a row here, but
*honestly*, it's one of the big nut-subjects,
no pun intended, on the Net...) seems to be
purely abstract: he can't imagine Kant (I think)
approving of it, thinks it rules out reproduction,
and so tries to show that it's metaphysically
bankrupt. . ."
Anyway, Zeleny floated up when I was
Googling about Wittgenstein. I gather he
doesn't like fags too much, ostensibly based
on some exceeding refined ethical argument
out of Kant, and doesn't mind mixing it up
with folks who dislike his dislike, though
he usually falls, sooner or later, to addressing
them as "sweetie-pie", "honeybunch", "buttercup", and
similar contemptuous endearments. . .
Anyway, he's another case (like that Stephen
Diamond character I mentioned a while back) of
an exceedingly intelligent person (somebody I
couldn't hold a candle to in conversation) who
still thinks Faggots Are Icky (though he, like
Diamond, says he doesn't care what consenting
adults do in the privacy of their own homes).
Highlights -- he's a distant relative of Leon Trotsky;
he restores and drives Maseratis; he's a gun nut;
he was personally involved, in his Harvard days,
with Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation,
he (or a friend, I can't remember which) has had
a movie-worthy run-in with the Russian Mafia.
He's probably some kind of sociopath, but a bright one!
Snottily homophobic, as I mentioned.
Nevertheless -- he's an expert in philosophy and mathematical
logic (he's a protege of Hilary Putnam), **and** he's utterly
contemptuous of naive AI theorists (another hobby-horse of his),
which makes him entertaining to me.
He started his own software consulting company on the
west coast (Ptyx Consulting -- it's a real word) together
with his girlfriend and business partner Erin Zhu (with whom
he later had a messy and public breakup -- no surprise
there).
Oh -- and perhaps his premier claim to notoriety -- he once
challenged Mike Godwin (of "Godwin's Law" fame, former
attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation) to a **duel**
on Usenet. A **real** duel, where they'd meet in person
and have it out with guns or knives. The story actually
made it into the Wall Street Journal.
After Google brought back the Usenet archive, one of
Z's posts contained the remark:
"In grateful recognition of Google's philanthropic
resuscitation of all my sins remembered, a.k.a.
the complete Usenet archive, I attach herewith a
repost of my all-time classic contribution to
this venerable public venue. . ."
From _Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing the Personal, Social,
ReplyDeleteand Religious Pain and Trauma of Growing Up Gay in America_
by Mitchell Gold and Mindy Drucker
http://www.amazon.com/Crisis-Stories-Revealing-Personal-Religious/dp/1929774109
Part 5: What I Know Now: On Losing a Child: Elke Kennedy
pp. 309-310
As a mother you have goals, dreams, and hopes for your
children before they are even born. . . But most of all
I wanted [my child] to feel loved, to be happy about who
he was, and to stand up for what he believed. Years later,
when he had first started living his life as openly gay,
I had worried about others' intolerance of him. But by
then he had become the caring, nonjudgmental person I had
dreamed of. And I thought: **How could anybody hate
him?**
On May 16, 2007, at about 3:45 a.m., Sean [Kennedy] was leaving
a bar in our hometown of Greenville, South Carolina. Three boys
sat in a car outside the front door, and one of them called
Sean over and asked him for a cigarette. Sean gave him one
and was walking away when the guy in the back seat, Stephen Moller,
got out of the car, approached my son, and called him "faggot."
Then he punched Sean so hard he broke Sean's facial bones and
separated his brain from his brain stem. Sean fell backward
onto the pavement, and his brain richocheted in his head.
Sean's murderer got back into the car and left my son to die.
A little later he left a message on the phone of one of the
girls Sean knew: "You tell your faggot friend that when he wakes
up he owes me $500 for my broken hand."
The prosecutors claimed they could not prove malicious intent
on Moller's part, so he was not indicted for murder, which carries
a minimum sentence of thirty years to life in South Carolina.
Instead, he was indicted for the only other charge applicable
in the case, involuntary manslaughter, which carries a sentence
of zero to five years. Rather than the maximum sentence of
five years, Moller received a five-year suspended [sentence]
reduced to three years (with credit for the seven months he
served in jail before he was released on bond); this means
he will only have spent ten months in prison when he becomes
eligible for parole. If granted, he will be on probation three
years. He was also sentenced to anger management classes,
ordered to take alcohol and drug counseling and random drug
testing, and given 30 days of community service.
As a parent, you live in dread of that 4:30 a.m. call. You look
for a safe community in which to raise your children. I thought
Greenville was such a place, but I was wrong.
-----------------------------------
"To paraphrase Wohlforth, the workers don't like homosexuals, and I
don't either."
-- Stephen R. Diamond, Usenet Marxist, in
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.politics.socialism.trotsky/msg/11c4f331b53239f5