Prejudice or disagreement? Homosexuals in the military.

I love watching politics from a distance. The distance is that maintained by someone who doesn't care who wins but is fascinated with the way the game is played. (Here, because I know from angry letters that there are readers who seriously think it would have made a major difference to the future of the nation if George Bush had won and Bill Clinton had lost, I must say that if I had thought it would have made a significant difference of the sort I care about, or that a lesser of two evils could have been found during this election, I would have found it morally necessary to vote. Since I didn't, I didn't.) I like how rapidly the press has found out that Clinton--whose victory was so obviously cheered on by the media--is, after all, a waffler, a man who miscalculates, a man of less principle than they had thought, not really the messiah, etc., etc. What do they expect of a man who has to appeal to as many people as possible? Courage? Insight? Boldness? How about vagueness, cloudy good feeling, and all the hard-edged thinking you might expect of a man who would choose AI Gore, Fleetwood Mac, and Maya Angelou as vicars? I'm thinking of a new bumper sticker: Don't blame me. I didn't vote.

Here in New York we are embroiled in a controversy which would seem to have a national analogue, but doesn't. Gay and lesbian Irish and Irish-Americans who insisted on marching under their own banner during the Saint Patrick's Day parade were turned down by the parade sponsors, the Ancient Order of the Hibernians. Mayor David Dinkins favored the gays, the parade was taken from the AOH, given to a group formed for the purpose of accepting the gay marchers, a boycott by people who oppose gays marching under their own banner has been threatened, various moves have been made in one direction or another, and at the time of this writing there is no clear resolution. It seems there will be either a thin parade or a defeat for Dinkins on this issue. (Either way it will be a defeat for Dinkins.) Since in addition to not voting for presidents I don't go to parades, I don't care, but the comparison of this controversy with the Clinton proposal to admit homosexuals into the military-the apparent national analogue--is a false one.

The parade has always been a funny mix of private and public sponsorship, and at least some gays made it known that they worried that an order to force the AOH to accept gay marchers could work both ways: what if gays wanted to celebrate gay pride with a parade, and were forced to accept a contingent from, say, the United Homophobes of America? Isn't there a right to free association, even where we don't like the associations that may be freely made?

The question of gay members of the military seems to me to be a different sort of thing. Obviously, gays have always been in the military. A directive issued during the Reagan years forced the issue: people were asked about their sexual orientation. My own opinion is that a reasonable compromise here would be to drop the question, and enforce a code of conduct that would make any unwanted sexual advance, from or toward people of either sex by either sex, a reason for disciplinary action, and otherwise forget about it and leave people alone.

Some recent polls have revealed what has been characterized as a "split" in the attitudes of most Americans: they seem opposed to discrimination against gays in such matters as employment and housing, but are ambivalent, at best, about what could look like approval of what the press increasingly calls "gay lifestyles." The characterization of this supposed split is accompanied by a rhetoric that offers a similarly simple either/or: you either support the idea that "gay lifestyles" are the equivalent in every way of "heterosexual lifestyles" (faithful fathers and mothers in one home, usually with kids), or you are "homophobic." Those who oppose the correct line on this issue are alleged to be "afraid" of homosexuals or homosexuality, "uncomfortable" with the issue, "bigoted," etc. Some may indeed be any or all the above, but this is too simple by far.

It may seem a rhetorically effective tactic to characterize someone who disagrees with you as someone who does so out of fear, but it isn't really logically compelling. Someone may disagree with you because you are wrong, or because the person who disagrees sincerely believes you are wrong. This isn't cowardice, but conviction, and to be confident of a belief looks like arrogance or fear to people who believe that there is no such thing as a real truth, or who believe that no idea may be more compelling than another idea. In a time when all ideas are seen as opinions, and all opinions are equal, the feelings that are now being characterized as "split" may in fact be the survivals of a more important and deeper and more sophisticated understanding.

It is more sophisticated in that it can accept complication. There is an acceptance of the fact that it is wrong to hurt or despise people whose choices may not only not be yours, but may really be wrong choices. You can disagree and not exclude them from the human community. It is not a sign of a split in their thinking, but rather a sign of some appreciation of complexity, that people can find something objectionable about the equation of homosexual activity and heterosexual marriage, and at the same time agree that homosexuals should not be discriminated against. There also seems to be an appreciation here of the fact that homosexuality is not a choice (which means that in and of itself it is not a moral question), and in this sense homosexuality can be compared with race, and prejudice against homosexuals with racial prejudice.

There is, however, an extreme view found among some gay activists; they would argue that there is no essential moral difference between bathhouse promiscuity and monogamous fidelity-- both are "rights," and to take a different point of view is homophobia. A heterosexual may be willing to accept a monogamous gay couple as neighbors, and to believe that people should not lose their jobs simply because they are homosexuak at the same time, it is not homophobia to believe that faithful heterosexual marriage and parenthood, or the asceticism celibacy involves, are objectively better ways of being.

A gay person who disagreed with me about all of this, but accepted the fact that our disagreement should not lead to my silencing, who thought that my unacceptable view could be tolerated but not necessarily implemented, would not by that token be "heterophobic." He would merely have accepted a certain civilized complication, a right to differ, even about the deepest things, and still live in the same society. His tolerance would not be what I want--I want him, of course, to agree that I am right!--but we all do have a right to expect tolerance, and no right at all to equate it with acceptance.