What Did They Fight & Die For?

Today is Memorial Day, when we’re supposed to honor those who have fallen in defense of our great nation and its principles. Many will do this by participating in a parade, going to a cemetery, or looking through photos of loved ones buried across the globe.

There are other ways to celebrate the sacrifices that have made America the world’s most radical experiment in free speech and free thought. Remember, it’s not the fact that you were born here that makes America great. It’s the principles that America stands for, struggles with, and protects.

So this week you’ll be honoring those who have fought and died for America when you:

* Use birth control
* Download porn
* Watch the Sopranos or South Park
* Go to a raunchy comedy club or listen to a raunchy CD
* Have non-intercourse sex
* Get a lapdance at a neighborhood club
* Read a gay magazine
* Have sex with someone of a different race
* Write a letter to the editor about same-sex marriage

Every single one of these acts took a court decision to affirm its legality. Many of these required Supreme Court action. Yes, the same historic court that decided the fate of racial segregation, “one man, one vote,” and the 2000 presidential election was needed to decide that whites and blacks could have sex together, and that Americans could legally purchase contraceptives.

When you live your normal life this week—using condoms, watching grownup TV, shopping in private on the internet, enjoying oral sex, ignoring ads for massage parlors in your local newspaper—you’ll be honoring the lives and hard work of thousands of plaintiffs, lawyers, judges, clerks, and volunteers.

These men and women may not have died in the line of duty, but they are on the front lines, serving our country. We have no medals for Bill Baird, Phil Harvey, Mildred Loving, or other heroes who have risked their lives, freedom, and sanity to protect our sexual expression. They fought not against a foreign enemy, but against tremendous pressure right here at home—from tyrannical majorities, powerful minorities, vindictive government agents.

These same elements threaten our basic American rights today.

Like other freedoms, sexual freedom isn’t free. Today, on Memorial Day, let’s remember those mostly-anonymous people who struggled and suffered to make America safer for sexual expression and the commercial and intellectual activities needed to support it.

Some will say that granddad or the local barber didn’t die in Flanders, Gettysburg, or Vietnam so that his neighbor could go see a stripper, or his nephew could buy rubbers or hear Jon Stewart say “dickhead.” I say that that’s exactly why people died to defend America—a special country in which people have the extraordinary right to do, say, and think things of which their neighbors disapprove.

---

Technorati: sexual freedom, sexual repression, censorship, sexual intelligence, sexual censorship, sexual politics, war on sex, America’s war on sex, sexual rights, sex education, pornography

Time for Non-Gays to Come Out of the Closet

Same-gender marriage is not a “gay issue.” “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is not a “gay issue.” Parity in child custody decisions is not a “gay issue.”

These aren’t “gay issues” because compromising the civil equality of any group in America compromises everyone’s civil rights. A government that can discriminate against a parent just because he’s gay can (and of course does) discriminate against a parent just because she’s a stripper or she’s into bondage. A government that criminalizes the consensual sex acts of gays can (and of course does) criminalize other private consenting sex acts, such as the use of vibrators and teens’ right to have sex with other teens.

The more that legal questions about gay rights are in the news, the more we’re told to fear the monstrous Gay Agenda. So it’s time for those pushing the Gay Agenda to stand up and make it clear who most of its supporters are: non-gays. Heterosexuals.

Yes, the vast majority of Americans who support the full civil equality of gay people are straight. True enough, much of the passion, the money, the time, and the creative political will is coming from gay men and women. But tens of millions of straight Americans are spending their money and their time supporting the legislative, corporate, and cultural changes so neatly summarized by terrified, angry people as the Gay Agenda.

Because gays are a numerical minority in the U.S., more straight people celebrated the end of laws criminalizing gay sex than gays did. More straight than gay people celebrated the California court decision legalizing same-gender marriage. More straight than gay people are working hard to change county bureaucracies across America that currently discriminate against gay parents.

When you hear Focus on The Family or Concerned Women for America or Morality in Media decrying “those” people pushing “their” Gay Agenda, stand up and make it clear: the problem isn’t “those” people and “their” goals—it’s “me” and “my” goals. It’s “us” and “our” goals.

You don’t have to be Black to promote racial equality. You don’t need to be a woman to demand total access to Emergency Contraception. And you don’t need to be gay to support gay rights.

You just need to appreciate the urgency of guaranteeing that all Americans enjoy the same civil rights. And you need to appreciate that your rights are best protected in a country that protects everyone’s rights.

So the next time Jerry Falwell—or your neighbor—goes off about the Gay Agenda, smile and say “Yes, our Gay Agenda. Isn’t it wonderful!”

---

Technorati: sexual freedom, sexual repression, censorship, sexual intelligence, sexual censorship, sexual politics, war on sex, America’s war on sex, sexual rights, sex education, pornography

Anti-Gay-Marriage Activists—I Feel Your Pain

The California Supreme Court has just overturned the state’s ban on same-gender marriage. People (gay AND straight) who support full civil rights for all Californians are celebrating; those who believe people forfeit their routine civil rights if they have same-gender sex are outraged.

Memo to this latter group:

I’ve read your denunciations of this court decision. When I look beyond the lies and distortions, I see your fear and anger. And I sympathize. Appreciating your pain helps me forgive—well, at least understand—your destructive, undignified lying, your desperate cries that civilization is collapsing.

So let me address some of your lies:

Lie: “These are liberal, activist judges inventing new laws.”
Fact: You know that three of the four judges affirming the decision were appointed by Republican governors. They describe themselves as conservatives who consider the Constitution the final authority, not themselves.

Lie: “This will destroy traditional marriage.”
Fact: You know it hasn’t done so in Massachusetts, or in Spain, an even more traditional society. Traditional marriage has been destroying itself quite energetically in America for years, BEFORE gays could marry.

Lie: “Marriage is intended to facilitate procreation.”
Fact: You know that if this were true, marriage would be denied to couples who were infertile, post-menopausal, or committed to being childless. The state doesn’t do fertility tests before issuing marriage licenses.

Lie: “Children are better off with a heterosexual couple.”
Fact: You know there are no reliable studies showing that kids do better with straight parents. You know there are LOTS of studies showing that kids do as well with gay parents as with straight parents with similar incomes and education. And you know that half of all heterosexual married couples get divorced. Do you argue that having divorced heterosexual parents is good for kids?

You tell these degrading lies because you’re afraid. Afraid of this homosexual “other,” this monster you’re convinced is different from you. If you knew how many gay people you saw today at Starbucks or Target or the gas station you might not be so afraid. If you knew that that helpful woman three cubicles down from yours is gay you might not so easily deny her the basic rights that you enjoy.

Being a psychologist, I have to add that you (or your best friend) tell these lies because the whole idea of a man kissing a man’s penis is creepy. A creepy idea that you (like ALL men) think about once in a while—which is way too often for your comfort.

You tell these lies because you’re angry. Things are changing way too fast for any of us to absorb. Everyone who isn’t young feels old. It seems like no one’s really in control. We can’t blame the Communists, and the terrorists aren’t molesting our kids, or demanding we commute 90 minutes to work everyday in horrible traffic.

Your churches and political leaders are telling you who’s ruining America—gays. You can’t kill them or deport them, so you try to limit their rights and their impact. You’re failing. You’re getting angrier.

And now it looks like gays are going to share what you value most—the right to love, and the right to have that love blessed by the state (with, of course, the tax advantages and hospital privileges that come with that blessing).

I understand your pain.
But quit lying.

Gays don’t want to seduce you or your spouse, don’t want to molest your kids, don’t want to undermine your marriage. Each gay man and lesbian has their own life to lead, their own petty little problems to work out. It’s not all about you and your little marriage, which NO ONE except you cares about.

So I understand your pain.
But quit lying.

---

Technorati: sexual freedom, sexual repression, censorship, sexual intelligence, sexual censorship, sexual politics, war on sex, America’s war on sex, sexual rights, sex education, pornography

Memo to Indiana: Porn=Shakespeare=Free Speech

Count Indiana among the hated Axis of Evil.

In countries like North Korea, Iran, and Libya, individuals and organizations have been required to register communication tools like modems and cell phones with the government. Such countries want to know exactly who has the capacity to express “dangerous” ideas.

The state of Indiana has recently added itself to this illustrious honor roll. The legislature has passed a law requiring businesses to register and pay a $250 fee if they sell any “sexually explicit material.”

That would include Salinger’s “Catcher In the Rye,” episodes of “NYPD Blue” the FCC has labeled indecent, and reproductions of Michelangelo’s “David,” whose world-famous arms, legs, face, and hands come burdened with a world-famous penis.

The law’s sponsor claims that it’s intended to reduce the availability of porn—a dubious goal at best (and unconstitutional, according to a group suing the state, including the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the National Association of Recording Merchandisers). So busting the ballet or opera shouldn’t be a problem, says State Representative Terry Goodin, because “Individuals, corporations, companies know whether or not they’re selling pornography.”

Tell that to broadcasters who wouldn’t air “Saving Private Ryan” last Memorial Day for fear the FCC would bankrupt them with “indecency” fines.

But the inclusion of high-class erotic stuff isn’t what makes the Indiana law destructive and unAmerican—it just highlights the problem of deciding which expression deserves legal protection whenever a legislature attempts to say that some of it does and some of it doesn’t.

The answer, according to our Constitution, is that it all does, or none of it does.

This is hard for some people to understand or approve of. So let’s say it clearly: in the radical American political system, the right to express ideas is singled out as sacred, protected above all others.

Every American’s right to say, write, paint, dance, sing, film, and otherwise express an idea is protected, regardless of the content of the idea. And the more people object to the content of the idea, the more firmly it must be protected.

All the rest, as Rabbi Hillel said 20 centuries ago, is commentary.

---

Technorati: sexual freedom, sexual repression, censorship, sexual intelligence, sexual censorship, sexual politics, war on sex, America’s war on sex, sexual rights, sex education, pornography

London Fears Pics of Really Big Ben

I generally don’t talk about repressive legislation or sexuality witchhunts in other countries, where adulterers can be stoned to death, gays can be executed, consumers of porn can lose their jobs or kids, and artists creating “blasphemous” art can be jailed.

But when our cousins across the pond threaten the fundamental rights of their citizens to own sexy pictures, we should care. Especially when their proposed laws sound very, very close to ours.

The British Parliament is set to approve a law next week that would criminalize the mere possession of images which the government deems “too extreme.” These would include images depicting acts which “threaten or appear to threaten a person’s life” and which “result in or appear to result in serious injury to a person’s anus, breasts or genitals.”

You could go to jail for owning a picture of people play-acting a scene of rape.

The new law gained traction after the murder of a British woman whose killer frequented websites depicting violent sex. Members of Parliament seem uninterested in the much, much larger number of people who go to those websites without murdering anyone.

The new law will forbid couples from sharing images of themselves engaged in consensual sex if a court decides it’s too rough. As one Lord Wallace said during the bill’s debate, “If no sexual offense is being committed, it seems very odd indeed that there should be an offense for having an image of something which was not an offense.” Translation into American: this bill creates a crime out of nothing.

The prospect of a thousand-year-old democracy forbidding people from owning pictures of legal activity is extremely disturbing. What’s even more disturbing is that similar laws already exist in the U.S. (e.g., 17-year-olds having legal sex can’t own photos of their lovemaking because it’s considered child pornography)—and every year, our Justice Department attempts to criminalize larger and larger categories of pornography.

The U.S. and U.K.—two countries divided by a common language? It’s looking more like two countries united by a common fear: the fear that pictures of sex have some magical power to destroy people’s minds. London Bridge is indeed falling down—not from porn, but from the fear of porn.

---

Technorati: sexual freedom, sexual repression, censorship, sexual intelligence, sexual censorship, sexual politics, war on sex, America’s war on sex, sexual rights, sex education, pornography