On Clinton, Gays, and the Truth
On Clinton, Gays, and the Truth Iam writing in response to William J. Bennett's essay "Clinton, Gays, and the Truth" (Nov. 24). I am frankly surprised that a scholar of the caliber of Bennett would...
...Birch and Mr...
...It seems odd that someone who purports to be concerned with gay promiscuity and AIDS vigorously opposes extending to gay people the primary social institution designed to temper promiscuity...
...He offers no empirical evidence for this "fact," which is not surprising because there is none...
...I did not write that homosexuals do not face discrimination...
...If Bennett truly wished to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS, he would embrace prevention strategies and institutions that promote monogamy...
...That is not our argument, and if he were being as honest as he wants the president to be, he would acknowledge that...
...For the words "gay people," substitute the word "Jews" or "African Americans" or "women...
...To claim with pride, as the president does, that "we're spending 10 times as much per fatality on people with AIDS as people with breast cancer or prostate cancer" strains the imagination...
...They express the concerns of many Americans, of compassion and goodwill, who oppose the increasingly aggressive demands of the homosexual movement...
...But to combat this we do not need, as the president says, a new definition of equality and dignity...
...Does Bennett think that only heterosexuals' lives are joyous...
...Not only did both of these black civil-rights leaders agree that our quests have much in common, but Henderson stated that passage of a federal bill outlawing job discrimination against gays "is the missing jewel in America's crown of civil- rights protections...
...Birch cannot then argue that AIDS-related misery and early death are bogus claims made by religious extremists...
...This is caused more by reading articles like Bennett's and by bigotry than from some inherent defect in the homosexual "lifestyle...
...Consider marriage...
...For the fact remains that in 39 states, people can be fired from their jobs merely for being gay or lesbian...
...and those whose survivors would not think to write an obituary, let alone submit it to a gay newspaper...
...McCoy should re-read my article...
...Bennett and other conservatives often argue that the breakdown of marriage among heterosexuals inevitably leads to increased promiscuity and social instability, and that sexual fidelity needs strong social support...
...I certainly agree with Bennett's criticisms of promiscuity, and I share his concern about the health and life-span of gay men...
...Yet he fails to mention that I propose logical solutions to this problem, solutions that he rejects for purely ideological reasons...
...Bennett chose not to mention the fact that also speaking at that dinner were Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and Dorothy Height, co-chair of that umbrella organization and a towering figure in the civil-rights community for more than 40 years...
...This developmental deficit makes it much more difficult to form lasting, stable, adult relationships, and therefore contributes to promiscuity and AIDS...
...Bennett does not provide a cite for this statistic, but it correlates with a widely discredited "study" by a man named Paul Cameron, who has been censured by, and/or kicked out of, several professional associations, including the American Psychological Association, the Nebraska Psychological Association, and the American Sociological Association...
...I also find it odd that Bennett is an outspoken opponent of social changes that would make it easier for gay adolescents to come out of the closet, go to safe schools, and lead open lives...
...Bennett sometimes counters that same-sex marriage wouldn't temper gay promiscuity, because the thing that really civilizes men is not marriage itself, but women...
...It is the only available "research...
...Indeed, Ms...
...Pattullo, formerly associate chairman of Harvard's department of psychology, has written that "a very substantial number of people are born with the potential to live either straight or gay lives...
...or the flamboyant behavior of an employee...
...However, Bennett also presents several arguments and makes broad statements about homosexuals and homosexuality that simply cannot be left uncorrected...
...Let's not talk about whether it's fair or moral to fire someone from his job merely for being gay, or to deny him housing or equal protection of the law, because most people would agree that should not happen...
...Since Bennett is a well-educated man with advanced degrees, I can only speculate that he was not aware that this so-called study took a convenience sample and used it to generalize to an entire population...
...Of course, there is some truth to their claim to victimhood...
...Elizabeth Birch Human Rights Campaign Washington, DC William Bennett writes that AIDS "is far more of a threat to homosexuals than employment discrimination...
...He is a critical thinker with many good ideas about creating a nobler, more ethical American society...
...Color is not something over which people have any choice...
...Clinton drew several important parallels, but was careful not to "equate" the two...
...Bennett's approach does much harm to those of us who are trying to live our lives well, responsibly, morally, and happily...
...What I said was that amidst all the talk of homo-sexuals-as-victims, we should recognize the privileged position that many homosexuals occupy in America...
...If I were more cynical, I might think he was aware of how flawed this study is, which could explain why he called it "the best available research...
...Birch proceeds to cite figures from her own organization that demonstrate homosexuals are, as a group, wealthier and better educated than other Americans...
...They make many gay people extremely defensive and thereby assist gay-sex radicals in equating our arguments with homophobia...
...Bennett then goes on to say that gay people "exercise enormous influence in the worlds of higher education, art and theater, literature, the news media and entertainment," as if that proves we do not face discrimination...
...If opposing the homosexual-rights movement causes some people to become "extremely defensive," then so be it...
...Unfortunately, in 39 states I could be fired legally from my job solely because I am gay...
...They're right, and the same is true for gay people...
...Jeffrey Satinover, formerly of Yale and author of Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth...
...It is critical to the Bennett method to tear down our lives and claim that we are miserable, all the while ignoring an increasing body of evidence that more and more of us are leading happy, honest lives...
...There are portions of the homosexual community that may live discontented lives, but arguing that the whole group lives in misery is absurd...
...If Bill Clinton has a genuine concern for the well-being of homosexuals, why doesn't he speak out against the promiscuous lifestyle that is devastating so many of them...
...My "method" is not to tear down the lives of homosexuals...
...And let's never talk about the millions of gay people who are living happy, productive lives, many in long-term committed relationships even without the sanction of legal marriage...
...Gabriel Rotello New York, NY Iread William Bennett's article with mixed feelings...
...There are circumstances in which reasonable people may want to do so: a Boy Scout leader...
...The problem of promiscuity among male homosexuals is one of the subjects of his book, and something to which his own letter attests...
...Feelings of discontent and lack of fulfillment are not as contingent upon sexual orientation as Bennett suggests...
...Birch knows this...
...Just ask Generation X. Homosexuals do deserve the same rights and compassion owed all Americans as Americans, as Bennett argues...
...I do agree with Bennett that AIDS has taken a devastating toll on the gay male community, but I would point out that he served in the cabinet of a president who refused to address publicly the AIDS epidemic, and who suppressed those health officials in his administration who advocated for strong prevention messages that included information about using condoms...
...The problem with the Employment Non-discrimination Act is that its passage would mean you could almost never take a person's sexual orientation, or behavior, into account...
...If he truly feels this way, he would agree that homosexuals deserve protections against employment and housing discrimination...
...So it should have, in my view, the same priority that those diseases have, based on its impact on life years...
...Scott D. McCoy Alexandria, VA If his speech to the Human Rights Campaign is any indication, President Clinton puts a lot of store in the expanding imaginations of the American people...
...Twenty-one percent of the gay populace earns more than $50,000 per year, compared to 13 percent of the general population...
...The current debate about AIDS and sexuality is being fostered by honest homosexuals all over the country...
...He even calls me an "honest homosexual...
...For many gay activists, the very essence of gay liberation is promiscuous sex...
...Since this is a point of sincere accord, I would hope that we could in the future use that premise as a starting point and work to find means by which those promises could be fulfilled...
...Furthermore, to put gay rights on a par with civil rights, as President Clinton did, is to preempt the conclusion in the still unresolved debate about the origins of sexual orientation...
...They are not the same, but they are similar, and President Clinton is hardly the first person to see this...
...What they do not have, as homosexuals, is the privilege we now accord to individuals against discrimination based on their race, sex, religion, or national origin...
...But by framing his arguments against gay civil rights almost completely in the sensational terms of alleged gay male promiscuity and the spread of HIV, Bennett is trying to divert people's attention from the core issues...
...Perhaps Bennett could use his soapbox to help to rectify that situation...
...Another reputable study, "Economic Evidence of Sexual Orientation Discrimination," by Professor Lee Badgett (then at the University of Maryland), found that lesbian, gay, and bisexual workers earn less than otherwise identical heterosexual workers...
...The premise of the highly successful campaign to increase AIDS funding is, after all, that AIDS has devastated the gay population across the board—not that it has taken its toll primarily among senior citizens...
...This includes the work of Dr...
...To the extent that homosexuals do experience feelings of angst and ennui associated with the human struggle for fulfillment, it is precisely because we are human, not because we are homosexual...
...So logic would suggest that anyone who truly cares about gay promiscuity, as Bennett claims to, ought to be working to make it possible for gay teens to come out and integrate their sexuality into the larger fabric of their lives...
...That would be true if marriage were strictly or primarily about harm reduction...
...Cameron's so-called study of the life expectancy of gay people was based completely on obituaries placed in gay community publications...
...Birch write that my article is a logical argument for "same-sex" marriage...
...Both Mr...
...He characterizes the "waverer" argument as "dubious...
...But marriage is about much larger, and even sacred, things...
...If Bennett really cared about promiscuity and AIDS, he would support same-sex marriage and other social changes that might genuinely reduce gay promiscuity, and stop undermining "honest homosexuals" by selectively citing our work to support his argument that homosexuality "should not be socially validated...
...The pro-gay group warmed to the president's obvious delight in being able to advance the cause of a group that, despite its affluence, media support, and endorsement by the intellectual elite, still manages to portray itself as victims...
...Some of Bennett's assertions are almost true...
...Nothing justifies the cruel treatment they often receive from their peers and from the wider society...
...Birch questions the life-expectancy figure of Paul Cameron, but she chooses to ignore the large body of evidence that supports my point that male homosexuals live in a world filled with much early death...
...Of course I have "selectively cited" Mr...
...Arguments made in opposition to the gay-rights movement are not "ideological broadsides" by "homophobes...
...But ideological broadsides like Bennett's hinder us...
...As for me, I am going to get on with my hopeful, fulfilling, middle-class, homosexual existence with the rest of my well-adjusted friends and colleagues, both homosexual and heterosexual...
...Rotello's work, but I did not misrepresent it...
...I welcome further dialogue with Bennett on this and other subjects...
...Surely Ms...
...To buttress his contention, he cites one of the most bogus statistics in the anti-gay arsenal of religious political extremists: Gay men have an average lifespan of approximately 43 years...
...If not, she should read Gabriel Rotello's book and the CDC figures he cites...
...For gay men, the wage differential was between 11 and 27 percent less...
...The sentence remains true, but so do the realities of anti-Semitism, racism, sexism—and homophobia...
...Satinover agrees that the life span of homosexual men is approximately three decades shorter than that of heterosexual men...
...But let me ask Bennett this: If he believes that gay people are living unhealthy, sexually promiscuous lives, why doesn't he come out in favor of same-sex marriage...
...There is market research that shows this, but using this information to describe the entire gay community would be like using a reader survey conducted by Architectural Digest to describe all Americans...
...On a final note, I agree wholeheartedly with Bennett when he says that gay people are "entitled to compassion, as well as the rights owed all Americans as Americans...
...Contrary to what Ms...
...Indeed, if men are naturally more promiscuous than women, then gay men probably need more socially sanctioned supports for their relationships, not fewer...
...Rotello and Ms...
...But it doesn't take much imagination to see another side to the story...
...I certainly agree with his statement that "homosexuals are entitled to compassion, as well as the rights owed all Americans as Americans...
...a day-care provider...
...In particular, Bennett addresses the issue of my happiness...
...I did not write that the "whole [homosexual] group lives in misery" or that "only heterosexuals' lives are joyous...
...Birch recently called AIDS "the worst epidemic of the century...
...And 35 percent of both the gay and the general populations earns $25,000 to $50,000 annually...
...To bolster his argument, Bennett cites my book Sexual Ecology, which details the terrible damage that promiscuity has wrought on gay men...
...If Bennett really wants to help, he should foment opposition and hysteria not against homosexuality, but instead against the radical leftist "anything goes" mindset and agenda...
...He may have lived a charmed and joyous life in his conservative ivory tower, but the rest of us—gay and straight—probably have hit a few bumps along the way...
...We need a civil, honest, forthright debate, because a lot rests on the outcome...
...But conservatives know that this is only partly true...
...Yet Bennett is an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage...
...To put 10 times the resources toward the eradication of an almost wholly preventable disease as toward those over which humans have no control indicates that our priorities are being driven by something other than pure compassion...
...Or, as Bennett would have it, none at all...
...Here are some empirical facts surrounding gay people, wealth, and education: •In September 1996, the Human Rights Campaign released the first nationally statistically valid survey of America's gay and lesbian population, which found that gays and lesbians earn wages similar to those of most Americans...
...the points I made about homosexual promiscuity and misery are supported by the evidence and by the testimonies of many homosexuals...
...In terms of education, HRC's survey of lesbian and gay Americans found that 39 percent of self-identified gays and lesbians have a high-school degree or less...
...Rotello write, homosexuals currently have the rights owed to all Americans as Americans...
...But AIDS kills its victims a lot younger...
...Because AIDS is heavily concentrated on the (relatively) small homosexual male population, heart disease and cancer kill many more people...
...He also writes that 30 percent of all 20-year-old homosexual males will be HIV-positive or dead of AIDS by the time they are 30...
...This study—conducted by the respected firm of Lake Research, Inc., and reviewed by the University of Chicago's Tom W. Smith, one of the foremost statisticians in America— found 40 percent of the gay community earns under $25,000 a year, compared to 45 percent of the population as a whole...
...Sadly, homosexual teens do experience a suicide rate three times as high as straight teens...
...Indeed, after writing that there is no empirical evidence to support my statement that homosexuals are, as a group, wealthy and well educated, Ms...
...Nothing could be farther from the truth...
...In an effort to prove that gay people are privileged compared to the nation at large, Bennett asserts that gay people "as a group [are] wealthy and well-educated...
...In any case, as Mark Steyn has written, if a grisly plague hasn't furthered the cause of homosexual monogamy, why should a permit from the town clerk...
...The legal union of same-sex couples would shatter the definition of marriage, which is based on natural teleology and the different, complementary natures of men and women...
...For example, it is not quite true that in his November 8 speech at the national dinner of the Human Rights Campaign, President Clinton "equate[d] today's homosexual movement to the struggle of blacks during the civil-rights movement...
...those who were not active in the local gay community...
...A total of 26 percent have some post-high-school education, but only 35 percent are college graduates...
...By Bennett's account, one would be led to believe that we spend every waking moment fighting the urge to slit our wrists...
...Peter C. Moore Dean and President Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry Ambridge, pa William J. Bennett responds: MMs...
...I am a young, Republican homosexual with solid conservative credentials, including work on the Hill and in the last presidential campaign...
...The claim offends non-white Americans who believe that their struggle involves deeper principles of justice and liberty than struggles involving sexual preference...
...There are myriad reasons why a self-selected sample like this cannot be extrapolated to the whole population of gay people, but let me list just a few: Such obituaries would tend to exclude people who did not live openly gay lives...
...Nobody wants to minimize the pain experienced by boys and girls who grow up in our society feeling "different...
...In other words, society needs to stigmatize gay people in order to make examples of them to children...
...The Rev Dr...
...Bennett is correct about one thing...
...Bennett opposes these changes on the dubious basis of the "waverer" argument—namely, that some kids waver between gay and straight, and that society ought to send a clear signal that it prefers heterosexuality...
...I am frankly surprised that a scholar of the caliber of Bennett would rely on myths, stereotypes, and bad research to make his points—which would not be valid even if his facts were correct...
...Bennett then argues that "the real threat to homosexual Americans is not discrimination but physical devastation" in the form of AIDS...
...What I wrote was that the homosexual lifestyle is not, in general, a contented and fulfilling one—for the reasons I laid out in my article...
...But the most recent scientific studies, including studies of twins, support that argument...
...Tragically, however, psychological studies repeatedly show that social stigma directed toward gay teens prevents them from going through the normal developmental stages of dating, going steady, and so on...
...William Haseltine, formerly of the Harvard Medical School and now editor-in-chief of the Journal of AiDs, has said, "AIDS ranks right up there with heart disease and cancer as a major source of loss of years of life, because it affects, predominantly, younger people...
...The fact is that women may well moderate men, but marriage certainly doesn't hurt...
...the adoption of a child...
...Instead we need to apply the old and basic truth that people are to be valued because they are created in God's image, and yet are still responsible for their behavior...
...After all, if it were entirely true, why worry about the breakdown of marriage, since (unmarried) women can still civilize (unmarried) men...
Vol. 3 • December 1997 • No. 13
