Capitol Ideas: A Conference on Gayness
Bethell, Tom
CAPITOL IDEAS by Tom Bethell A Conference on Gayness I t's a comment on our times that when a group of academics called the American Public Philosophy Institute sponsored a three-day conference...
...If the conference had been held at Bob Jones University, it wouldn't have registered at all in the newsrooms...
...He had held the conference spellbound with his personal history...
...That gives the flavor...
...Both are now married (to members of the opposite sex...
...lesbian and gay equal rights"), worried that the location would "lend an aura of legitimacy" to the predictable flood of "hatred and ignorance...
...The key point is that some homosexuals want to escape the slavery of sexual addiction, and with the appropriate help find it possible to do so...
...On the gay marriage question, incidentally, Prof...
...Homosexuals effectively claimed that the removal of traditional restraints on heterosexual activity was equally applicable to themselves...
...One of those who stood nearby and watched was Anthony Falzarano...
...The columnist Maggie Gallagher gave an interesting luncheon speech...
...Two of the most impressive speakers at the conference were Anthony Falzarano of Washington, D.C...
...After he had gone to a gay bathhouse and had twelve sexual partners in one night a counselor from whom he sought help told him, "If that is what it takes for you to feel normal, then that's all right...
...Constitution implies that a judicial proceeding held in one state must be honored in all...
...The rise of the gay liberation movement is a part of the more general sexual revolution that began in the 1960's...
...Both she and Falzarano stressed the importance of Christianity in their change of heart and mind...
...George of Princeton seemed particularly adept at getting around the intellectual obstacle course...
...The fine distinctions of the "natural law" panel on the morality of homosexual acts were not exactly the red meat that some in the audience might have expected...
...Warning against its hazards is, for most of us, like the Rockefellers cautioning against extravagance...
...The author of The Abolition ofthe Family, she said that, even though she keeps writing about homosexuality, she senses that every time we do talk about it, meaning conservatives, "we are losing...
...For this reason it is doubly shameful that the regular news media admit into the public prints so little that contradicts the party line...
...They paraded about with their placards: "Georgetown University: Host to Hate...
...Boyer said that trying to normalize homosexuality by showing that it is inborn is a great error...
...In that spirit, the university has approved the use of on-campus space for students, faculty, staff and others to express their views during the time the conference is taking place...
...I t's not too much to say that the taboo that once existed against expressing support for homosexuality has now been replaced by a contrary prohibition against expressing doubts about it...
...It seems that was why he lost his job at the magazine...
...Winnie Stachelberg's prediction of a conference filled with "anti-gay rhetoric, stereotypes, myths and disinformation disguised as scholarship" was not borne out...
...Straights" who had gone along with their own "liberation" knew that they faced hypocrisy charges if they resisted its more general application...
...and Jane Boyer of Portland, Maine, both associated with the ex-gay ministry Exodus International...
...CAPITOL IDEAS by Tom Bethell A Conference on Gayness I t's a comment on our times that when a group of academics called the American Public Philosophy Institute sponsored a three-day conference on homosexuality, they thought it prudent to hire a company of security guards...
...The conference was oversubscribed and a large room was crammed with over 300 people as it began...
...That is one of the main reasons whythe subject is so tricky...
...We don't endorse the views of the organizers or any views that may be expressed at the conference," said the vice president for communications...
...One or two gay-rights activists had registered and spoke occasionally from floor microphones...
...They testified from their own experience, and with rare eloquence, to the ability of homosexuals and lesbians to change...
...In sharp contrast, she pointed out, society recognizes that some people have a much stronger (perhaps genetic) predisposition toward alcoholism than others, but we do not say that nothing can be done and abandon them to their drunkenness...
...The prime mover of the conference was Christopher Wolfe, a professor of political science at Marquette University...
...As valued members of our clinic, it is important to us that you know that the staff of the Division of Infectious Diseases rejects the published claims and content of this conference," said a statement signed by two dozen doctors andnurses...
...This had shown up as a blip on the radar networks that constantly sweep the mainland searching for non-approved speech...
...Several speakers asserted that the "gay gene" is a myth, and one said that the scientist who had promoted it was himself a gay activist...
...When the former editor of the New Republic, Andrew Sullivan, showed up to listen to the panel on gay marriage, I asked him whether he may not have made the mistake of talking about the subject too much...
...The corporation books groups "without any implied endorsement," their spokesman said...
...This will no doubt prove as fanciful as the older and contrary progressive faith that human nature is plastic and amenable to re-education...
...So what, I don't care...
...Some even nodded, as though they knew only too well what he was talking about Oki The American Spectator • August 1997 21...
...Now he has arrived—he's here, he's queer, get used to it—and (to rid his more self-effacing companions of the temptation to hypocrisy) he is even vested with outing rights, trumping privacy...
...The difficulty of arguing against this is the main reason why the gay rights revolution has encountered so little resistance...
...Today we hear about genes for every trait imaginable...
...The Religious Right Is Wrong...
...And the university had its own disavowals...
...He is HIV positive and is taking "the cocktail"-28 pills a day...
...Chris Wolfe, mild-mannered but quietly determined, demanded civility on all sides...
...perhaps the most important part of the conference dealt with the supposedly irreversible, genetically determined character of gay identity...
...Hmmm, appeals to authority are not normally allowed in natural law debates...
...But Boyer warned against the standard therapeutic model of tolerance: "In those areas that are most accepting of homosexuals—West Hollywood, San Francisco, New York City—there is the highest percentage of death in the gay community...
...The stories that ex-gays have to tell are not only dramatic and riveting, but they are inherently newsworthy in that they contradict the established stereotype...
...The HIV Clinical Trials Unit of the Division of Infectious Diseases also made haste to reassure its clients that it wasn't responsible for this breach of political etiquette...
...We Are Your Kids...
...Apparently 70 percent of the residents of Hawaii oppose the measure...
...A mode of retaliation was quietly suggested, however...
...He has gained 15 pounds, feels okay, and is writing a book about friendship...
...But Jane also said that "those of us from a background of hurt, when we hear 'God loves you,' we cringe...
...A few yards from the conference center is the Georgetown University Medical Center...
...Georgetown plays uneasy host to some straight talk...
...You could see that the parading students —so young, so shockingly young...
...Speakers and attendees were glad of the protection, too...
...In Puritan America acts of sodomy existed, endangering the soul but not altering the identity of the perpetrator...
...A psychologist who interviewed Boyer after her exodus from lesbianism said that it was people like her who caused homophobia...
...from suicide, from chemical dependency, from the AIDS virus...
...And I am worried about that because I love the homosexual...
...Asked about the possibility of change, Andrew Sullivan applied (consistently) the conventional litmus test: That's okay if that's what feels right for you...
...were not inclined to listen to anyone except their bullhorn-wielding leader...
...Sauce for the goose and the gander was sauce for goose and goose, gander and gander...
...Before you could say Woodward and Bernstein, two Washington Post reporters were on the case...
...Prof...
...But when Falzarano came over and told them that his childhood molesters had been homosexuals in every instance, it did sink in...
...APPI's early press release had boldly called homosexuality "a tragic affliction, with harmful consequences for both individuals and for society...
...The homosexual is an invention of the late nineteenth century...
...Marriott promptly sued for peace on grounds of neutrality...
...Richard Neuhaus) also participated last fall in the First Things symposium about the Supreme Court's recent usurpation of power (see Capitol Ideas, TAS, January 1997...
...This is a remarkable transformation, and it has taken place within little more than twenty years...
...There was a certain amount of backlash," he told me...
...Several of the speakers (Robert George, Russell Hittinger, Hadley Arkes, Fr...
...At the first hint of conflict it must trump other identities, such as the married state, now increasingly seen as amorphous and privatized...
...Exactly how it happened is a complex story, of course, but one thing is clear...
...Gerard Bradley of Notre Dame Law School said that when (not if) Hawaii begins to issue same-sex marriage licenses, we should make the argument not that the definition of marriage has been broadened but that it has been abolished...
...How had the organizers managed to insinuate themselves into President Clinton's alma mater...
...But only a small minority of gays want to change, he said (perhaps five percent...
...She disputed the reality of the transition from verb to noun, from doing to being...
...The best solution to such situations ["controversial" speakers appearing on campus] is more speech," the university press release said...
...Winnie Stachelberg, legislative director of the Human Rights Campaign ("working for TOM BETHELL is The American Spectator's Washington correspondent...
...On cue, after the first day of the conference, there was a demonstration of gay and lesbian activists on Reservoir Road...
...We also strongly encourage you to express your views...
...how he had been molested several times as a child, had entered the homosexual lifestyle, had sunk into "the pit" of promiscuity, with over 400 sexual partners, and had encountered en route nothing but "sloppy Agape" ministers and counselors with their never-ending tolerance and "lifestyle affirmation...
...As with real estate, it all seemed to come down to location, location...
...We lose by accepting the gay demand that homosexuality be viewed as a sovereign and imperious fact...
...Joseph Nicolosi, who has written of "reparative therapy" for homosexuals, and whose public speaking tends to be accompanied by storms of protest, jokingly commented that "never have beefy men with walkie-talkies looked so good...
...20 August 1997 The American Spectator How do you establish the immorality of homosexual acts without recourse to revelation...
...Falzarano agreed, but said that most have been so brainwashed and intimidated by the gay rights propaganda that they are not aware of their possibilities...
...Gays will be able to get their marriage licenses in Hawaii and return to the mainland, and the "full faith and credit" clauseof the U.S...
...If you were thinking of using the "sterility" argument, then why is intercourse between man and wife okay even when they are infertile...
...The gains made by the gay rights movement in the 199o's have exceeded those of all others, he said...
...God Loves Me As I Am...
...Conservative preachments against homosexuality from those who have never experienced it as a temptation seem facile and glib to those who have...
...But this was planned for the campus of Georgetown University, run by those up-to-date Jesuits...
...Quite a few sentences began, "Aquinas said...
...The venue, it turned out, was a conference center on campus, run by the Marriott Corporation, not the university...
Vol. 30 • August 1997 • No. 8
