Disestablishing covert American state religion: a sexuality freedom fighter's tactical manual.

Love the Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Sexual Tolerance. By Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini. New York University Press, 2003, 152 pages. Cloth, $21.95.

Sexuality activists who are targeting American cultural sex discrimination, First Amendment abuses, and covert social religious-political alliances will find compelling new arguments to add to their rhetorical quivers in this carefully argued volume. In Love the Sin, Jakobsen and Pellegrini boldly nail a 21st-century version of their own "ninety-five theses" to the door of an American Wittenberg church-state. They call for a reformation in the traditional ways Americans think about the relationships among church, state, and the freedom of sexual diversity. The book suggests reframing and reforming biased religious influence by linking sexual freedom and religious freedom under support of the First Amendment.

In their literary collaboration, the authors challenge the traditional "love the sinner, but hate the sin" arguments of popular morality culture. Jakobsen and Pellegrini start by examining the history of how the American secular state regulates the sexual life of its citizens. They argue that such regulation historically has merely been religion by other means. They further identify this particular religious influence as American Protestantism and support their argument by mapping out how certain Protestant theological values became institutionalized in the official and legal life of the nation. They then ask why a nation that proclaims religious freedom allows its highest courts to hold its citizens to the standards of a particular religious tradition and, while asking, proceed to demonstrate how many of our democratic rights have actually been narrowed in unjust and exclusionary ways.

In the book's five chapters, the authors argue there is a vital interdependency that links sexual freedom to religious freedom. The early chapters outline how the American courts, under the influence of Protestantism, came to chip away at our freedom and discuss how and why religion provides the context for sexual regulation. The authors then move to an insightful critique of the public debate of our sexual rights, with a particular focus on the popular assumptions that underlie public discussions of homosexuality.

The first chapter, "Getting Religion," constitutes a review of two vital, precedent-setting United States Supreme Court decisions concerning homosexuality: Bowers" vs. Hardwick (1986) and Romer vs. Evans (1996). The authors suggest that decisions in these cases poignantly expose how the foundational democratic ideal of church-state separation is chronically underealized in practice. In Bowers vs. Hardwick, the court ruled that the constitutional right to privacy did not protect homosexuals in their sexual acts. However, Justice White frankly revealed the court's covert religious values bias favoring only heterosexual protection of privacy. In writing the majority opinion, White implied that the law applied to only homosexual sodomy when he stated it did not necessarily apply to "other acts of sodomy."

Although Romer vs. Evans upheld the constitutionality of Colorado's state laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual "orientation, conduct, practices, or relationships," the authors emphasize that it also created a double bind for homosexuals by blatantly ignoring the privacy issues raised in Bowers vs. Hardwick. By so doing, this silence effectively reinforced the government's ability to regulate sexual acts. For Jacobsen and Pellegrini, these cases clearly represent a secular and even "court-certified" version of "loving the sinner, while hating the sin."

In chapter 2, "What's Wrong with Tolerance," the authors offer arguments describing the practical limitations of currently popular homosexual tolerance rhetoric to truly establish freedom. Here they point out how tolerance rhetoric actually sets up a counterproductive "us versus them" mentality, wherein "we" tolerate "them," and where hate actually thrives. Jakobsen and Pellegrini trace how homosexuality is represented and talked about in public venues, and how the logic of tolerance actually restricts and shapes conversations and policies toward homosexuality. The authors note that the problem with being the object of tolerance is a lack of lull inclusion in American life, and that even though tolerance may be generous and open-minded, it is also by definition exclusionary and therefore cannot act effectively to eradicate hatred.

Jakobsen and Pellegrini want to move beyond the framework of tolerance into a new framework of freedom. Within this new framework, individuals could stand up for victims of homophobic violence regardless of the belief that homosexuality is or is not a sin. By shifting the rhetorical paradigm from tolerance to religious freedom, the authors suggest it would become "possible for those who believed that homosexuality is a sin to embrace the religious freedom of those who thought otherwise" (p. 56). Toward this end, the authors question the popular perception of what really constitutes an American "general public" and what "they" want. The authors argue that the majority of Americans already are potential if not actual objects of discrimination and suggest socially reconstructing views of public life so that everyone is included in rhetorical categories like the "general public" or "all Americans."

In chapter 3, "Not Born That Way," Jakobsen and Pellegrini identify what they see as dangerous in the popular debate over the origins of homosexuality. They suggest recasting the public debate between "chosen" and "inborn" orientation to one instead of sexual ethics: "In our view, it does not matter how one becomes homosexual, because there is nothing wrong with homosexuality." They also argue for an entire conceptual shift toward winning sexual freedom by connecting it with religious freedom.

Rethinking freedom in terms of sexual practices becomes the major topic of chapter 4, "The Free Exercise of Sex." Here the authors argue that the two First Amendment principles (the free exercise of religion and the disestablishment of a state religion) are fundamentally dependent on each other. The authors propose that one of the reasons genuine freedom is lacking in America is that there really is not a genuine disestablishment of religion as required by the constitution, and consequently, there also cannot be authentic free exercise of religion. Inasmuch as Americans have failed to completely disestablish a state religion, they have succeeded in effectively establishing state religious regulation by default, and by extension, a state sexuality. They point out that ethnic religious minorities such as Jews, Muslims, and Native Americans advocating religious practices outside the values of mainstream Protestantism have never prevailed in a free exercise claim before the Supreme Court.

In the final chapter, "Valuing Sex," the authors make their case for sex as the site for the production of values. To support their claim, the authors examine how lesbian, gay, and transgender communities succeed and thrive by constructing their own varied forms of social belonging. The argument is that the authentic, broad range of human sexuality ultimately succeeds in being healthy because it is deeply embedded in interpersonal relationships, which model positive alternative views of what can constitute a more comprehensive and inclusive paradigm of a healthy American morality. The authors call attention to the various religious dietary regulations that exist and remind us that, just as variation in diet is a private and not a public moral concern, nor state regulated, variations in ways that individuals find consensual healthy expression of adult pleasure should also not be a public moral regulatory concern.

Due to the authors' clearly stated and unabashed homosexual human rights agenda, Love the Sin will have primary appeal to lesbian, gay, and transgender human rights activists. Consequently this book could be simply viewed as a tactical manual for a new wave of arguments for gay human rights, but the book presents the insightful reader with much more. Scholars will also appreciate its thoughtfully researched clarity that reveals fundamental ways that current American culture uses hidden agendas and popular religious bias to undermine basic human sexual rights. Additionally, it suggests insightful solutions to reframing our public dialog so we can better establish the essential American ideal of individual freedom.

There are few flaws in Jakobsen and Pellegrini's well-defended arguments for establishing freedom. They have a timely new perspective, but they are not the first to argue for sexual freedom based on the Bill of Rights. The greater question about this book is really whether it is written persuasively enough to influence any meaningful social and legal change. It is one thing for sexual human rights activists to have a great idea, and another to win strong public and political support.

Our right to sexual freedom found within our First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom is a compelling and promising argument, but I could not help wondering how much more persuasive this book would be if perhaps it had focused more on the wider premise of all sexual human rights in addition to the specific issues of homosexuality. I was reminded of how, in the early 20th century, Van de Velde (1930) influenced a significant social paradigm shift in America's moral view of previously forbidden oral sodomy and masturbation behaviors by reframing them as the "genital kiss" and "autotheraputic genital friction" and promoting them as essentials of healthy intimate functioning. He even converted the hearts of many of the most sexually reserved by the sensible persuasiveness that they were spiritually superior in his book Ideal Marriage. Unlike Van de Velde, Jakobsen and Pellegrini have taken a more direct and narrower approach. The clever title and classical nude cover art set an unapologetic and intentionally confrontational tone, but this packaging of their patriotic rhetoric runs the risk of backfiring by being perceived as an offensive oxymoron and alienating more literal-minded moralists. With this approach, Love the Sin may fail to appeal to, let alone convert, the entrenched gatekeepers of religious bias that need to hear its message most.

The authors have utopian faith in the First Amendment and rely on the hope that, in the end, Americans will rise up and join their fight to establish sexual freedom. It will be left to others to more persuasively market their rhetoric and genuinely convince any voters and public officials who continue to justify covertly legislating their private religious sexual beliefs. For now, Jakobsen and Pellegrini have skillfully struck the gauntlet for freedom across the face of America's covert state religion. They have brilliantly exposed our failure to disestablish religious legal bias and offer a viable and intelligent rhetorical alternative for establishing the rights of all citizens to enjoy healthy sexual freedom.

REFERENCE

Van de Velde, T. H. (1930). Ideal marriage, New York: Random House.

Mark Kim Malan, Ph.D., M.P.H., 208 Ogden Canyon, Ogden, UT 84401; e-mail: malanmedia @aol.com.