PAGE 6
NORTH COAST TIMES E A G L E , SUMMER/FALL 2000
ANTHONY RUSSO
PETITION OF PREJUDICE
BY MICHAEL McCUSKER
“The debate about whether sexual orientation should be
included in Oregon's civil rights laws is ultimately a debate about
what principles society should be founded upon It is a struggle
to define the social contract that citizens make with one another
to live under one government."
-KATRIN BRIDGET SNOW
Homophobia like alcoholism is a disease, a psychotic
obsession to enforce a mythical moral and sexual purity through
ostracism, oppression and violence to the point of murder and
genocide
Gay men and lesbians, however they might be called in
succeeding eras or separate cultures, are as historical a part of
humanity as heterosexuality. Humanity is probably of a bisexual
inclination, able to find its pleasure with either or both sexes.
Many early cultures were not disturbed by the sexual preferen
ces of their citizens so long as each generation replicated itself
in adequate populations to continue the tribe or society Other
early societies developed traditions of severe sexual condition
ing, however, which spread pervasively more by swrd and fire
than by reason or logic. Sexual tolerance in most areas of the
world was supplanted by rigid definitions of acceptable sexual
practices which were exclusively heterosexual
Religion is of course a doctrinaire force in matters of
sexual subversion, the oppressive arbiter of public morality,
rabidly averse to homosexuality. Christianity in medieval times
burned homosexuals by the hundreds of thousands, buried at
the bottom of stakes among the faggots of wood that would
ignite heretics and women accused of witchcraft, which is the
origin of the term faggot to describe gay men Homosexuals
have long been forced to leave shadow lives, and much to the
contrary of popular fear, it is they who are preyed upon, who
have for centuries been open game for anyone to ostracize or
harm Coming out of the closet most likely meant dropping into
a casket. While heterosexual debauch has generally been
tolerated among successful armies and in aristocratic practices
of incest and rape of peasant girls, homosexuality has been
shunned and homosexuals hunted, tortured and executed.
Gay bashing is old; AIDS is new While thousands
of young men died of the epidemic, ecclesiastical homophobes
declared their deaths as punishment for offending God with their
unnatural acts. The death toll has been staggering, these lines
from a poem by George Meredith provide a collective epitaph:
And we go
and we drop like the fruits of the tree
even we
even so
The extreme prejudice of a conservative government
felt little concern for AIDS until heterosexuals started falling
like the fruits The government's apathy dunng the Reagan/Bush
years could be likened to genocide in a different form than gas
chambers in death camps The attitude was to let the gays die;
and the medical profession, though it has since reacted hero
ically in its fight against AIDS, initially balked and disgraced
its Hippocratic Oath Children with AIDS were dismissed from
schools and neighbors pressed their families to leave town
A part of the reluctance to marshal Red Cross type
epidemic relief during the 1980s was not only a demonstration
of prevalent public revulsion for homosexuality but also a barely
concealed gloating that the immense stndes made by Gay
Liberation in the previous decade were literally being wiped out
by the death toll among its strongest adherents AIDS at first
promised to be a sort of final solution to the rise of gay influence
in the United States: only vtfien vtfiite heterosexuals from the
burbs began to contract AIDS did the government belatedly
creak into action
Though AIDS has taken a staggering toll among the
male gay community (vtfiich is in the aggregate as promsicuous
among its members as other men are with women) and less
among lesbians, it has failed as a final solution to eradicate
their determination to be as free and equal citizens as their
tormentors. So ancient methods of exclusion and repression are
once more revived to inculcate fear and revulsion in both gays
and straights to intensify their mutual antipathy and to ultimately
pacify the public to the process of eliminating homosexuals
both legally and extralegally A Portland wtiite supremacist who
represented an organization he described as "the moderate
force of fascism." told a newspaper a few years ago that homo
sexuals "will either be corrected' by "Skinnerism behavior modi
fication" or "it's the bullet
The Oregon Citizens Alliance is attempting once again
to disenfranchise gay men and lesbians in Oregon, strip them
of all nghts as citizens and as human beings entitled to the most
basic protections of democracy. The process chosen by OCA,
in alliance with the so-called 'Christian Coalition', is again the
initiative petition which gives the public the opportunity to oust
crooked politicians or change bad laws but which can also be
an instrument to discriminate against troublesome or disaffected
minorities. This time the attempt is to eliminate any support or
positive mention of "sexual minorities" in public schools. Titled
'The Student Protection Act1, this initiative calls for banning
"public school instruction encouraging, promoting and sanc
tioning homosexual/bisexual behaviors." as well as makes the
contradictory assertion that teaching about "sexual orientation"
is divisive to society
In the Past the OCA sponsored statewide initiatives that
attempted to amend the Oregon Constitution to declare homo
sexuality "abnormal and unnatural" and required state and local
governments to not "promote, condone, encourage or facilitate
abnormal behavior "
OCA spokespersons deny they are setting up gays for
extralegal persecution, yet claim homosexuality defiles the eyes
of God and threatens children who are. they say, exposed to
perversion as long as gays dwell openly in society (they claim
their petition is for "child protection"). They say homosexuals
should not be given special privileges or be protected by laws
The OCA has dropped some of the earlier controversial
provisions from its original ballot measure of 1992 that lumped
bestiality, sado/masochism, pedophilia and incest with homo
sexuality, which Damon Edwards, cofounder of the Clatsop
County AIDS Coalition, wrote in an article that appeared in the
August 1991 NCTE (Stop the Witch Hunt), "cunningly lumped
homosexuality in the middle of all these activities."
Edwards asked, "Do they (OCA) really think homosex
uals belong in this group? Don't they realize there are straight
peoaje out there who partake in these activities every day?
.Andxtoti't th4y know (he’1 vast majority of gay people think these
actions are just as disgusting?"
What the OCA won’t tell you, Edwards wrote, "is that the
vast majority of child molesters and rapists are heterosexual, not
homosexual." The OCA, he said, seem to think that a heterosex
ual molester is somehow not as evil or perverted as a gay one.
'Tell it to the thousands of little girls w4io are ravaged and raped
by heterosexuals each year"
The Oregon Citizens Alliance was started in 1987 as a
backlash against Governor Neil Goldschmidt's order that state
workers who were gay should enjoy the same protection and
rights of all citizens OCA claimed gays were a special interest
group being accorded privileges greater than the rest of the
citizenry, and although the simple justice of the governor's
position should have been evident, enough people accepted the
patent absurdity and fear mongering of OCA to defeat Gold
schmidt's reform. Within two months the OCA gathered nearly
double the signatures needed to get their antigay initiative on
the 1988 state ballot. The measure successfully rescinded the
governor's executive order that banned discrimination based on
sexual preference in public employment, but was struck down
by the Oregon Supreme Court in 1993
The OCA is immersed in ultraconservative issues
besides its assaults on gays In 1987 it opposed legislation for
pre-kindergarten programs on the grounds that they were anti
family. OCA opposed parental leave which they claimed was
anti-business and fought state divestment from South Africa.
Some other OCA activities included organizing the
Homefront Coalition in support of the Persian Gulf War; involve
ment wth rightwing women's groups that attempt to undermine
the feminist movement; support of prayer in public schools; and
the OCA rabidly attacks the reproductive rights movement. The
OCA has mounted several local antigay campaigns in cities and
counties in Oregon, though the state supreme court has ruled
them unconstitutional and discnminatory
In 1992 the OCA's infamous "Abnormal Behaviors
Initiative" (then Measure 9) was defeated in Oregon, though
a Colorado version passed and was subsequently ruled
unconstitutional The OCA publicly backed off from its bestiality
stance in 1994 in hopes of attracting moderate bigots to its rank
and file of radical homophobes who were not enough in number
to swing the 1992 vote Despite toning down the measure (13)
it was decisively defeated (OCA attempts to grassroots their
prejudice at local levels were collectively known as "Son of 9 ")
Despite its losses, court reversals and rejection by
mainstream politicians, the OCA remains a dangerous spoiler
not only to moderate Republicans and liberal Democrats but
especially to gays and lesbians w4io have openly struggled for a
generation to overcome prejudice and be allowed to at least live
in peace
HOPE L. HARRIS
218 WEST MARINE DRIVE
ASTORIA, OREGON 97103
(503) 325-8708
LICENSED
MASSAGE
THERAPIST
503/325-2523