The scariest boogeyman, Jerry Sandusky, sits with a
New York Times' reporter.
When allegations surfaced that Pennsylvania State football coach Jerry Sandusky stood accused of molesting young boys, the LGBT community took a collective breath and braced itself. Though no correlation exists between sexual orientation and pedophilia (see
1,
2,
3,
4) the news story provided a golden opportunity for the most despicable, dishonest and discredited opponents of LGBT equality to revisit their favorite trope: "The gays are coming to get your children!" (Never mind Sandusky was married family man and a devout Christian, they can still get there.)
Many in the LGBT community want very badly to say, "This isn't a gay story." And from one perspective, they are precisely correct.
But strategically it shouldn't be ignored that there is a hardcore industry of people who would (and did) embrace this as a moment to swift boat the entire LGBT community with the alleged crimes of one very sick man. And their message, as repugnant and scientifically unfounded as it is, does unfortunately resonate with some people, perhaps more people than many would care to admit. The LGBT community when deciding how to engage, faces something of Hobson's choice. Is it better to encourage people to "not think of an elephant?" Or to ignore the elephant in the room and depend on clear thinking and enlightenment to prevail?
Engaging the intersection of these topics is so fraught with peril that even the LGBT community itself traded some crossfire. Huffington Post's new Gay Voices ran a post positing a larger societal reluctance to even speak of same-sex behavior, aka homophobia, may have played a part in enabling the Sandusky cover-up. The piece drew fire from the LGBT news outlet Washington Blade who called it a "shameful, reckless take on PSU tragedy." And sadly, author Cindy Abel is no neophyte in the LGBT advocacy circles. She is a former co-chair of the electoral machine The Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund and has long been involved in state and national LGBT advocacy. The piece did have defenders within the LGBT community who considered it thoughtful. Huffington Post made minor clarification edits to the piece in response.
One cannot live in the reality-based community and pretend these connections are not actively being created and reinforced at every juncture or that the meme that pedophile = gay isn't an effective tool the right has used to stymied LGBT progress, for decades. Last year, Rachel Maddow called the zombie-lie "one of the foundational myths of anti-gay activism."
In some ways, the community is called up to engage, precisely because the other side insists on conflating the topics, relentlessly. Completely ignoring the madness is also a lost opportunity for a teachable moment. There is a chance to catch them in the act and say, "There! Do you see what they are doing?"
Rachel Maddow seized the teachable moment in an introductory segment to her 2010 interview with Uganda's "Kill the Gays" bill sponsor David Bahati. There is the transcript available MSNBC's website, but the video's worth watching for the vintage audio and film, Maddow says:
"This is one of the foundational myths of anti-gay activism. Gay people are out to get kids. That's the gay agenda. To recruit kids to be gay because that's how gay people get this way. They're lured into it by recruiters who sexually abuse them as kids and thereby, turn them gay."
Maddow examines the recurrent message: doing anything at all nice for gay people is a "slippery slope" that can only ultimately lead to your own kids being victimized. The message has been recycled over and over and over—by Anita Bryant in the 1970s, Jerry Falwell in the 1980s, Rep. Pete Hoekstra in the 1990s and Prop 8 proponents in California in 2008.
Much gratitude to Carlos Maza of Equality Matters for helping make this clip available.
Viewed through this prism, National Organization for Marriage's (NOM) ubiquitous Prop 8 ad, seen first in California and repeatedly recycled across the country from Maine to New York, was hardly a game-changer but rather, well-traveled terrain. In 30 seconds, the ad features more images of kids than in a typical episode of Sesame Street.
"Please think of the children!"
Their dubious reason to include all these kids is that "Massachusetts public schools teach kids as young as kindergartners about gay marriage." It was
determined by Politifact to be a falsehood. But the falsehood is not important, and not only because NOM operates entirely under a "ends justifies the means" morality, where pathological lying
is the very least of their transgressions.
The school buses and small children serve their purpose as a political dog-whistle.
Winking and nodding to bigoted stereotypes.
NOM is participating in the LGBT equivalent of the controversial
Harold Ford "Call me!" commercial, or the Willie Horton ad. On the face of it, they may have found plausible deniability to suggest
that wasn't what they weren't really trying to say ... but sophisticated minds know exactly what they are up to.
As marriage equality battles loom on the horizon in at least five states in the coming year, expect to see this ad again. Maybe this time an effective counter-strategy can finally be created.
The "God Hates Gays" crowd pounces
And surely as the sun rises in the east, the "God Hates Gays" chorus did not let the Pennsylvania State scandal moment pass without rushing to exploit the tragedy for maximum outrage at how the gays are leading America on a path to ruin everything.
Bless Carlos Maza of Equality Matters for slogging through their garbage so you don't have to. He posted a comprehensive overview on Nov. 17: Anti-Gay Activists Turn Penn State Scandal Into Horror Story About Homosexuality. Some excerpts:
• During the Nov. 10 edition of the American Family Association’s (AFA) "Focal Point" radio show, AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer said:
FISCHER: I think the main takeaway from this, and this is what people do not want to focus on, this is what the media does not want any attention drawn to, is that what this illustrates is the truth, it’s a simple stubborn fact, that homosexuals molest children at much higher rates than the heterosexual population. [AFA’s “Focal Point,” 11/10/11]
• WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah wrote:
But now that being accused of homophobia is considered an offense, while practicing homosexuality is considered a virtue, should it really surprise anyone that such behavior would go unreported or unchallenged for so long?
In an age when government schools are actually teaching children how to perform homosexual acts and that there is nothing wrong with them, it would seem that an environment conducive for predators of children is being created under the watchful eye of the state and the media. [WorldNetDaily, 11/16/11]
• In a Nov. 15 column for WorldNetDaily, former Summit Ministries president David A. Noebel wrote:
Could it be that there is still an ethical absolute? Wouldn't it be ironic to witness the demise of moral relativism at the hands of liberalism's most cherished activity – homosexuality? Yes, Virginia, there is truth after all. It is always ethically wrong for a grown man to violate a 10-year-old boy. […] Homosexuality in America is now out of the closet, front and center (and has been for some time). Now homosexual man/boy activity (pederasty) is under the microscope, its normality, genetic implications and social acceptance being examined. [WorldNetDaily, 11/15/11]
• In a Nov. 10 press release, Peter LaBarbera, president of the ironically named Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, wrote:
Sandusky was married but was he really “straight” (sexually or morally)? Some inner demons or life traumas – probably in his own youth – caused him to lust for boys, wrecking untold misery in the lives of his victims. Behavior is the issue, and this was a case of a serial homosexual predator raping boys. [AFTAH press release, 11/10/11]
• American Family Association of Pennsylvania's Diane Gramley blames the slippery slope of an "anything goes" culture, which means anything outside of the "traditional" values of practicing only procreative sex within a marital relationship:
"They also had [...] sex fairs [...] They had Larry Flynt come in. Of course, he's the publisher of Hustler magazine, and he came in as a speaker."
Now, as the school searches for new leadership, Gramley says it is not enough to find a new president who merely has lobbying and fundraising skills, but it is important to find one who recognizes the dangers of permitting an "anything goes" attitude. [OneNewsNow, 11/15/11]
Of course, one can't hope to live to see the end of haters hating. And in general, it's best to recognize there's little that can be done, and to ignore such people to the best of one's ability. Much of this was delivered within their echo chambers, often with omnipresent pleas to donate generously to help these organizations fight the radical homosexuals and save the children and the world. This is how Homophobia, Inc. stays in business.
Creeping out of the wingnut echo chamber …
The problem is more dangerous to ignore when media outlets or figures with supposed creditability as knowledgeable sources echo these themes and ideas. Or when networks invite these people on the air and allow their testimony to go unchallenged. American Family Association's Bryan Fischer, the first quote above, is frequently invited on supposedly credible news outlets, like CNN, specifically to discuss LGBT issues, unfortunately.
Why is Pat Buchanan still on my TV?
Perennial embarrassment, Pat Buchanan discredited his affiliated network MSNBC
—yet again—in a radio appearance. Pat Buchanan argued:
BUCHANAN: Let’s take this Penn State thing. Of course it’s a horrible disgrace for someone who is a national icon – Joe Paterno – to have remained silent in the face of these horrors that were going on but, you know, these horrors – there’s an organization that marches in the gay pride parade in New York called, used to, called the North American Man Boy Love Association, which advocated voluntary sex along the lines of exactly what was going on at Penn State. And we had many of our icons – political icons have marched in that parade right behind that NAMBLA float. And this is America. Now that would not have occurred in the 1950s in America. It would not have happened. People would have said ‘what kind of idiocy, insanity is this. But this is now, I mean homosexual marriage is now the civil rights cause of the decade. [TruNews Radio, 11/15/11]
Buchanan is mining ancient history here, it would take an 18th century relic like Buchanan to even remember NAMBLA. If this tiny fringe group NAMBLA even still exists, rest assured it was swiftly banned from appearing in any North American pride celebrations as they matured from grassroots street parties into formerly organized events they are today.
The LGBT community has been abundantly clear they abhor this group, which Buchanan would know if he were familiar with anything but stereotypes and demagoguery. GLAAD and the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) issued statements of condemnation 17 years ago.
In 1994, GLAAD said it "deplores the North American Man Boy Love Association's (NAMBLA) goals, which include advocacy for sex between adult men and boys and the removal of legal protections for children. These goals constitute a form of child abuse and are repugnant to GLAAD." NGLTF adopted a resolution on NAMBLA that said: "NGLTF condemns all abuse of minors, both sexual and any other kind, perpetrated by adults. Accordingly, NGLTF condemns the organizational goals of NAMBLA and any other such organization." Way back in 1997, Human Rights Campaign said that "NAMBLA is not a gay organization [...] They are not part of our community and we thoroughly reject their efforts to insinuate that pedophilia is an issue related to gay and lesbian civil rights."
Radio listeners heard nothing of that, and are left with the impression Buchanan was speaking authoritatively of the LGBT community's values. Though not an MSNBC interview, it is to MSNBC's shame Buchanan continues to be presence on that network when he has repeatedly shown himself to be such a deeply flawed and bigoted pundit on whole host of issues.
To no one's surprise one of the most egregious mainstream media attacks came from right-wing extremist
Cal Thomas. The Tribune Media Service's syndicated columnist appears in countless major newspapers around the country. In his Nov. 15 column, "Penn State's shame and ours," Thomas could not contain his own glee as he explained to his readers
how Fox's LGBT-friendly, TV show Glee enticed a married, devout Christian man to allegedly rape a young boy in a locker room. Thomas also railed at scientists for failing to recognize that Thomas' moral disdain should be sufficient evidence to earn anyone a diagnosis of mental illness.
On its website, the American Psychological Association brags, "Since 1975, the American Psychological Association has called on psychologists to take the lead in removing the stigma of mental illness that has long been associated with lesbian, gay, and bisexual orientations."
It once considered such behavior otherwise, and while even most conservatives no longer regard homosexuality as a mental illness, many still regard it as sinful.
Of course, Thomas is the real victim here. His consistent displays of egregious homophobia, have now unjustly saddled him with the label of "-phobe," he laments. How unfair the world is to him.
Actually, almost no one was surprised by Cal Thomas' rant.
Called on the carpet, his syndicator, Tribune Media Services tapped out a hasty, if disingenuous, apology (emphasis mine):
A column distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc., by Cal Thomas, for release Nov. 15, 2011, headlined "Penn State's Shame and Ours," contained questionable analogies between the Penn State child-sexual abuse scandal and the lives of gays and lesbians. TMS in no way sees a connection between the two and regrets that the column could be interpreted in this fashion. Society's evolving and enlightened view of gay men and lesbians has no connection with any potential trend in attitudes toward child sexual abuse; nor should any suggestion be made that homosexuals are likely to be pedophiles, which is refuted by research. The rigorous checks and balances at TMS normally in place to review the accuracy and suitability of column material did not work in this case. TMS apologizes for the error.
The apology rings as disingenuous because anyone familiar with Cal Thomas' history of
racism,
misogyny,
xenophobia and
homophobia could not possibly imagine his column is ever subjected to even the most forgiving of editorial oversight.
This is a cute game Tribune Media Services is playing: profit from a bombastic, demagogue to pander to the cheap seats and readers' basest instincts. And when he really hits a good one out of park, express your shock and dismay that he successfully delivered exactly the sort nonsense he is paid to deliver.
… And onto public radio.
More surprising and disappointing was the incident with Public Radio International's Warren Olney on his syndicated radio show,
To The Point. Olney unfortunately committed two distinct errors. The first was his choice of using the Penn State news peg as an introduction to discuss the topic of triumphs and difficulties LGBT people face in the foster-parent and adopting process. The adjacency of the topics was very unfortunate, however well-intended Olney may have been.
Recall the Bush administration's penchant for using "9/11" and "Saddam Hussein" or "Iraq" in the same sentence? Without specifically saying Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, the Bush administration managed to use his name in close approximation frequently enough that it gave the impression to many low-information Americans that there was something going on there. Mission accomplished, by 2003, 69 percent of Americans believed Saddam Hussein had a hand in 9/11. Imagine how easy it is to just reinforce an idea people have been hearing all their lives.
Olney inadvertently participated in this same sort of rhetorical trickery with his ill-advised news peg introduction. Moreover, the Sandusky incident is a particularly incendiary idea to place into listeners' heads moments before discussing LGBT rights. Olney had essentially done the equivalent of opening a discussion by saying:
"Today we learned that overwhelmed divorcee Susan Smith drove her two adorable kids into a lake drowning them to death. My guest is a Congressman sponsoring a bill requiring poor, divorced women to place their children in protective foster care until they can remarry. Let's discuss."
Olney's second error was his decision to include Jerry Cox of the Arkansas Family Council in the discussion. With this inclusion Olney fell prey to
Homophobia, Inc.'s concerted efforts to link this story. This was warned against in a media advisory that The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation
(GLAAD) subsequently sent out specifically to their press contacts. It read, in part:
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) today is urging local, national, and sports media covering the ongoing sexual abuse scandals at Penn State University and now Syracuse University to refrain from linking the LGBT community in their stories, and to not give a platform to anti-gay activists who seek to make an unfounded connection between the two. [...]
Anti-gay activists who attempt to make connections between these stories and the LGBT community are being fraudulent. All legitimate science says there is absolutely no connection between the two. The APA calls these claims that gay people are more likely to sexually abuse children “generally grounded in prejudice against, and stereotypes about, gay people.”
GLAAD urges the media to ignore the attempts by anti-gay activists to use these scandals to spread lies and misinformation about the LGBT community.
Cox was indeed quick and enthusiastic to create a link:
COX: I find it interesting that we talk about the Penn State situation and then we talk about other situations where certain categories of people say ‘it’s alright to adopt, it’s alright to be a foster parent. In both of those situations, the rights of the children seem to have been put second place. [...]
If you have a same-sex couple with an adoptive child, what you’re in effect saying is that moms don’t matter or dads don’t matter. You’re saying that one of the genders doesn’t matter. And the research is really to the contrary. The research seems to indicate that children fare much better if they are much better if they are in a stable home, male mother and father.
There may be people who are fans of the "let them hang themselves with their own rope" interview strategy, but Olney was weak in correcting Cox's misstatements of fact. If Cox is not fabricating whole-cloth, be sure he's citing studies that compare single parent versus two parent households. This is a common intellectually dishonest tactic social conservatives use. Senator Al Franken recently,
famously embarrassed another social conservative on exactly the same point at a Senate DOMA hearing. Regardless, Olney did not challenge Cox on his false claims.
And while Cox's success at passing a bill aimed at stemming LGBT adoptions in Arkansas was mentioned, Olney failed to inform his listeners the very law Cox championed was subsequently found unconstitutional by the Arkansas State Supreme Court. In other words, Cox's brand of bigotry doesn't even pass muster in an Arkansas court room.
To be fair to Olney, he was perhaps attempting to illustrate an ironic injustice. A devout Christian married man is afforded wide latitude and unsupervised access to children and allowed to commit such crimes for years, even in the face of allegations and evidence. Meanwhile, all gay, lesbian and transgender people live under near constant suspicion and du jure discriminatory laws and policies, despite no actual evidence it should be so. This is a dangerously nuanced point to attempt to make, and it was communicated poorly, if that was the point.
GLAAD worked with Olney and a taped apology ran during the next airing of To The Point. KCRW:
But we failed to point out explicitly that pedophilia and homosexuality are not connected, and that led some listeners to think we were buying into an infamous falsehood.
Over the weekend, we received a lot of critical comments from people who thought that, by discussing both topics in one show, we had equated the two. We respect our listeners, and we want to respond. There is no connection between pedophilia and homosexuality, and we never intended to say or imply there is. But our failure to make that crucial distinction explicit was a serious oversight. We regret it, and we apologize.
The sad part of what went wrong for Olney is there was never any need to create a hurtful and far afield current event news hook to discuss the issue of LGBT parenting in the first place. This is a topic currently of great interest entirely on its own merits. New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand recently introduced the Every Child Deserves A Family Act to alleviate many impediments LGBT families face in adopting and fostering children and expand the number of homes available to children in the system.
Former New York Times writer Chandler Burr is currently involved in an international custody battle with Columbia to reunite with the two sons he has already adopted, but was barred from the bringing home when the Columbian government learned he was gay (Columbia supposedly has no legal ban on LGBT adoption). He spoke to CNN about it last week.
Members of the LGBT community are more than happy to be invited on media outlets and embrace any chance to demonstrate that LGBT families are, self-evidently, as inherently wholesome and loving as any other family. Critics are also likely to find the real lives of LGBT families are often disappointingly ordinary. No sex fairs or virgin sacrifices, but rather the tedious packing of school lunches, doing homework and car-pooling to soccer practices.
These few incidents notwithstanding, in general, the media missteps with regards to the Penn State story were mercifully few and far between. There's still the presumptive trial to get through, but as a whole the media behaved more responsibly than they probably would have in another time, which speaks well to the education of the news on LGBT issues over the years. Mike Wallace's 1964 documentary, The Homosexuals, is gratefully a distant shame in CBS's rear-view mirror.
The biggest problem the media faces discussing LGBT issues is its constant need to get "both sides" of any story. Increasingly, it is only bad faith actors, like Cox, who have only demagoguery and lies to peddle, that will step up to provide the supposed much-needed counterpoint for treating all citizens equally under the law. As long as news outlets give an unchallenged platform to liars and bigots they can expect to be hearing from the community about their failure to convey accurate information about the real lives of LGBT Americans.
And ultimately the point of this story isn't about Warren Olney, and it isn't even about Cal Thomas or Pat Buchanan. It's about communicating to the media, they are being watched, and when they disappoint, better, more responsible, more ethical coverage will be demanded.
And as great work as they do, and as much as we appreciate them, no one needs an advocacy org to do this work for them. They just need a sense of outrage, a phone or a keyboard.
Or a stamp if you're old school.