Gay Rights and Authentic Coexistence
Let’s talk about “Coexist” bumper stickers for a second. You’ve definitely seen them around. They’re those blue strips with white lettering that assemble a collection of religious icons and mystical symbols (e.g., an Islamic crescent, a Star of David, a Christian cross, a peace sign, a yin-yang) to spell out a simple message of inclusion and tolerance. Perhaps you instinctively roll your eyes at these advertisements of moral correctness. Perhaps you find the sentiment worthwhile, but you’re not a wear-your-politics-on-your-fender type of person. Or perhaps you actually have “Coexist” bumper stickers affixed to both your Prius and your Beamer. Whatever floats your boat, man; far be it from us to cast stones.
But we bring up these particular morality minibillboards to illustrate a bothersome dichotomy. If we were to draw a Venn diagram of (a) the people who flaunt their socially responsible “coexist” values for fellow motorists, and (b) the people who believe that, say, an evangelical Christian who owns a local flower shop ought to be sued and shamed for politely declining to provide floral arrangements for a same-sex wedding, the resulting circles would more or less overlap.
The coexist message: You people (i.e., conservatives) need to get on board and start coexisting with groups that might make you uncomfortable. It says so right here on my highly enlightened bumper sticker. But don’t you dare ask me to tolerate the “intolerance” of people with whom I disagree. Because that’s different.
Is it, though? We believe that if Americans from across the political spectrum genuinely internalized and lived out the coexist message—rather than leaned on it as a form of social preening—the country would be much better off. Aggressive anti-coexistence permeates our national debate on gay rights, wherein activists on both sides seem to reflexively believe the worst about each other.
These wicked gays are trying to poison our morality, convert The Children, and bring down Western civilization through sexual anarchy!
Traditional conservatives are homophobic bigots who hate gay people and deserve to be drummed out of polite society!
Take a breath, everyone.
Cards-on-the-table time.1 We’re fairly liberal on a number of gay rights issues, including marriage equality—although we believe the right/left dichotomy on these questions is sliding into obsolescence. More on that in a moment. This book isn’t really about policy prescriptions, nor does it fit into the “GOP comeback” genre, but here’s our short pitch for gay marriage from a conservative perspective: conservatives should encourage, not oppose, stable, committed relationships, monogamy, and the family unit. Moreover, from a public policy perspective, a number of long-standing arguments against same-sex unions are less potent and persuasive than ever, including the “sanctity of marriage” slogan.
In terms of optics, it seems like many opponents of government-codified same-sex unions are fixated on blocking the expansion of the definition of what marriage entails vis-à-vis a tiny fraction of Americans. Heterosexuals have done far more to erode the sanctity and seriousness of marriage than gays could ever dream of, whether through rampant infidelity, or the explosion of no-fault divorce. When the vast majority of hand-wringing about “traditional marriage” focuses on roughly 3 percent of the population’s inclusion or exclusion from the institution, rather than a full-blown marriage crisis taking root throughout the West, it smacks of hypocrisy, misplaced priorities, and narrowly tailored judgment.
On the flip side, we’re not especially impressed with the “stop imposing your values!” argument in favor of gay marriage because virtually all laws involve the imposition of values. The people who employ this argument are more than happy to forcibly impose their values on the rest of us on any number of fronts, including this one. Still, we would respectfully challenge religious opponents of same-sex marriage on whether they would favor using the power of the state to outlaw other sexual behavior or unions that offend their moral code. Should there be a renewed push to legally prohibit adultery or premarital sex? If your position is that homosexual activity shouldn’t be criminal, but marriages that codify such relationships shouldn’t be permitted, would you also favor legislation proscribing heterosexual marriages for couples brought together by extramarital affairs? Wouldn’t that marriage be rooted in immorality and sin? We’re not moral relativists, and we obviously agree that some sexual behavior and manifestations should remain illegal (for instance, we’re happy to “impose our values” on pedophilia as a criminal abomination). We’re just encouraging you to engage in some introspection where you draw moral and legal lines, and why.
A final, important point on our own stance on this issue: we respect the fact that the vast majority of traditional marriage supporters are not mean-spirited bigots, and we don’t pretend that society should blindly rush to reimagine a definitional, millennia-old institution without some significant measure of trepidation, reflection, and debate. Decent, kind people can harbor good-faith disagreements on these policy questions, and they should be afforded the space to articulate and advocate their views. This requires a generosity of spirit and actual tolerance.
Regardless of our personal opinions, the overall direction of America’s marriage debate is indisputable. Public polling has measured a precipitous spike in support for same-sex marriage. According to Gallup’s figures, just 27 percent of Americans expressed support for legally recognized gay marriage in 1996, with 68 percent opposed. Less than two decades later, the data lines have crossed; 55 percent of respondents said they favored gay marriage in a spring 2014 survey, with a 42 percent minority opposed. An astounding swing. Self-identified Republicans have adopted an increasingly open-minded posture on these issues, as well. A McClatchy/Marist poll released in late 2014 showed that nearly seven in ten Republicans “would be no less likely to support a well-qualified gay candidate, and 59 percent say they prefer that states decide same-sex marriage rather than the federal government—a stance that effectively is allowing such unions to take hold across the country,” as summarized by the Washington Post. Both percentages were higher among Tea Party supporters. Quite a shift for a supposedly insular, radicalized, aging “anti-gay” party. The same survey revealed that 71 percent of American adults know a “friend, colleague or family member” who is gay. That number was just 39 percent in 1999. There’s your flashing neon explanatory sign if you’re looking for one. The more likely you are to know a real, living, breathing gay person, the less likely you are to oppose gay marriage.
A major underpinning of this sea change in public attitudes is a massive generational shift. Young people are overwhelmingly in favor of same-sex marriage. The numbers are striking and lopsided. A 2014 Pew Research survey of Republican-leaning Americans under the age of thirty pegged support for gay marriage at (61/35), a whopping margin. Young millennials of faith are peeling away from traditional orthodoxy, too. A 2011 poll of Christians conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute found that nearly half of self-identified evangelicals under the age of thirty favor legalized gay marriage. The survey measured “at least a 20 point generation gap between Millennials (age 18–29) and seniors (65 and over) on every public policy measure in the survey concerning rights for gay and lesbian people.”
Our purpose in recapitulating these statistics is not to demoralize gay marriage opponents, or to spike the football, or to, um, end the discussion on the matter. Polling isn’t a reason for people to abandon religious or moral convictions, obviously. But, as we asserted earlier, productive discussions require eyes-wide-open assessments of relevant facts and information. These trends are empirically documented and hugely politically significant.
We’re the first to admit that we don’t have a neat, turnkey solution for the GOP to move forward in its vote-seeking mission when a sizable portion of its base would sit at home if the party “went wobbly” on marriage, while future generations of voters hold radically different views. For many young people, Republicans’ continued opposition to gay marriage is a barrier to entry, period. They won’t listen to our ideas on taxes, health care, and entitlement reform if they think we’re denying basic fairness and rights to them or their gay friends. Marriage equality opponents’ answers to that core complaint have failed to convince most young people, and the political implications of that reality cannot be ignored.
THE PURGE
While we’ve been pleased to see transformative, empathetic progress on one front of this issue, we’ve been seriously alarmed by what we’d call a malignant strain of gay rights “mission creep.” A big reason why public opinion has moved so dramatically in recent years is that gay marriage supporters have delivered highly effective appeals to Americans’ libertarian sensibilities and innate sense of fairness. Slogans like “our love and our marriage doesn’t affect you” hit the mark. Hey, it’s a free country—whenever possible, live and let live. But now that support for gay rights has claimed the political high ground, some activists’ tactics are taking an ugly turn. The mind-set has moved from a “leave us alone” message of tolerance and equality to a vindictive campaign of score settling and enforced celebration. You will validate our love, or else. This mentality was crystallized by Washington Post columnist and MSNBC contributor Jonathan Capehart (who is openly gay) during the Michael Sam/NFL controversy. He explicitly argued that tolerance should not work both ways, and that dissenters on gay issues will be “made” to change their thinking:
[T]olerance, no, is not—it should not be a two-way street. It’s a one-way street. You cannot say to someone that who you are is wrong, an abomination, is horrible, get a room, and all of those other things that people said about Michael Sam, and not be forced—not forced, but not be made to understand that what you’re saying and what you’re doing is wrong.
“Made to understand.” Does a more Orwellian formulation exist in the English language?
Look, we have no quarrel with the notion that personal slurs and identity-related put-downs aren’t cool (actual homophobic harassment and abuse does exist, and should be roundly denounced), but the Capeharts of the world aren’t merely promoting civility. They want to invalidate and eradicate an entire value set through a confection of lawsuits, shaming, bullying, and mandatory reeducation.2 The laudable “winning hearts and minds” stage has given way to an era of dissent-stomping recriminations and ideological vengeance—which, we might add, serve to validate some of the fears of traditional marriage supporters who predicted it. Illustrative examples of this phenomenon are demoralizingly plentiful.
Among the most alarming examples is the well-publicized case of former Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich, whose unceremonious ouster from the company he helped build was one of the catalysts that got us off our asses to write this book. Shortly after he assumed the chief executive position in March 2014, Eich’s leadership encountered a sustained blitz from gay rights activists and Mozilla employees over a 2008 political contribution. Eich had donated $1,000 in support of Proposition 8, California’s statewide constitutional referendum defining marriage as one man and one woman. That ballot measure ended up succeeding on the very same day that California’s electorate also handed Barack Obama3 a landslide victory. Prop 8 rode heavy support from Hispanics and blacks (just over half of the former group, and roughly seven in ten among the latter, according to exit polls)—among others—to secure passage. For the crime of engaging in political activism on behalf of a mainstream stance six years prior, the mob demanded that Eich publicly renounce his opinion and explicitly endorse gay marriage. “If he cannot,” a petition signed by more than seventy-five thousand people read, “he should resign. And if he will not, the board should fire him immediately.”
Eich pushed back initially, noting that he’d scrupulously left his political and religious views at the office door throughout his career at the tech company. In an interview with CNET, he rejected the comparison between gay marriage opposition and racism, and defended his right to free expression. “It’s still permissible,” he said. “Beliefs that are protected, that include political and religious speech, are generally not something that can be held against even a CEO.” A gay Mozilla executive named Christie Koehler came to Eich’s defense in a post on her personal Subfictional Studios blog, expressing her “disappointment” that he’d donated to the Prop 8 campaign, but praising his nondiscriminatory leadership style: “Certainly [the donation] would be problematic if Brendan’s behavior within Mozilla was explicitly discriminatory,” she wrote. “I haven’t personally seen this…To the contrary, over the years I have watched Brendan be an ally in many areas and bring clarity and leadership when needed.”
Here we have a gay employee vouching for Eich’s character and skill set, while attesting to the fact that his personal beliefs on marriage impacted neither his treatment of colleagues nor his leadership of the company. But his actions and behavior were irrelevant to the purgers. He’d offended them by making a financial contribution that betrayed his privately held moral beliefs on a charged issue. His beliefs differed from theirs. Ergo, they moved swiftly to deprive him of his livelihood—again, not because of his work-related conduct, but because of his thoughts. Under intense pressure, Eich resigned, after which Mozilla quickly released an apparently unironic statement professing their commitment to free speech. GLAAD, a gay rights organization, one-upped them, cheering that the company’s decision helped to ensure that corporate America is “inclusive, safe, and welcoming to all.” The phrase “welcoming to all” did not contain an asterisk. Guy wrote about the episode at Townhall on April 3, 2014:
Are traditionalist religious people now prima facie unqualified to lead companies—or to hold any position of authority in the private sector, for that matter? This is madness. And it’s corrosive to the soul of our country. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not arguing that Mozilla didn’t have the right to bow to a noisy and influential group of customers and investors (addendum: and employees). But the ability to boycott—or the success of a boycott—is not necessarily a reflection of its prudence, justice, or kindness. The impulse to purge and punish divergent political viewpoints does not enrich us as a nation. Nor does it make us more free—and we’re a nation founded on liberty.
I appreciate that many gay people believe their claim on said liberty has been unfairly denied for too long. But most would also surely agree that much progress has been made on that front. The gay rights cause has been best advanced by winning hearts and minds, not by instilling fear or exacting perverse moral retribution. That’s part of why these purges are so troubling. Anyone who values genuine tolerance and freedom ought to reject them. But if one ultimately feels compelled to join the jackals in this spiteful, score-settling crusade, one should at least have the intellectual integrity to permanently surrender one’s “tolerance” card.
Andrew Sullivan is a prominent gay blogger who was an impassioned advocate for gay marriage long before it was cool. We have strenuous disagreements with Sullivan on many issues,4 but he’s written with admirable moral clarity about the Eich affair. Reacting to the CEO’s departure, Sullivan fired off a cutting blog post at The Dish entitled “The Hounding of a Heretic,” raising a number of how-far-does-this-go? questions. “Will [Mr. Eich] now be forced to walk through the streets in shame? Why not the stocks?” he asked, rebuking fellow gay rights champions. “The whole episode disgusts me—as it should disgust anyone interested in a tolerant and diverse society. If this is the gay rights movement today—hounding our opponents with a fanaticism more like the religious right than anyone else—then count me out. If we are about intimidating the free speech of others, we are no better than the anti-gay bullies who came before us.” We could do without the contemptuous shots at the “religious right,” but that’s how Sullivan rolls. Responding to incensed liberal readers, Sullivan expanded on the point Guy made about the distinction between rights and what’s right:
…Of course Mozilla has the right to purge a CEO because of his incorrect political views. Of course Eich was not stripped of his First Amendment rights. I’d fight till my last breath for Mozilla to retain that right. What I’m concerned with is the substantive reason for purging him. When people’s lives and careers are subject to litmus tests, and fired if they do not publicly renounce what may well be their sincere conviction, we have crossed a line. This is McCarthyism applied by civil actors. This is the definition of intolerance. If a socially conservative private entity fired someone because they discovered he had donated against Prop 8, how would you feel? It’s staggering to me that a minority long persecuted for holding unpopular views can now turn around and persecute others for the exact same reason. If we cannot live and work alongside people with whom we deeply disagree, we are finished as a liberal society.
Amen. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. Sullivan captures the essence of End of Discussion in a single paragraph of distilled truth. But while Sullivan forswears some gay rights activists’ fanatical hounding impulses, others seem hungry for more. Richard Kim, the (obviously liberal) executive editor of the Nation’s website, appeared on the MSNBC show All In with Chris Hayes shortly after Brendan Eich was forced out at Mozilla. He recounted the following story, with some degree of concern, about a conversation he had with his “gay activist friends” after they’d whacked Eich:
Here’s a disturbing thing. I did ask some of my gay activist friends, I was like, “Look, here’s a list; 6,500 people gave the same amount that he did or more in California. Should we go down the list and sort of start targeting all these people?” And I asked this facetiously, and people were like, “Let’s do it! Let’s find out where those people live!”
We’re not in Equalityville anymore, Toto.
The gay enforcement squad also set its sights on two reality shows in recent years, yielding mixed results. In December 2013, the Internet basically exploded when A&E announced its suspension of Phil Robertson, star of the cable network’s runaway reality hit Duck Dynasty. Robertson is the family patriarch on the show, known for his camo-patterned bandannas, flowing gray beard, and devout Christian faith. He credits God with plucking him from a dark path earlier in life and leading him to salvation and redemption. Phil Robertson’s blunt, take-no-prisoners approach to life isn’t much of a secret. It’s part of the reason he has a show, in fact. He doesn’t think much of political correctness, an attitude he made abundantly clear in an interview with GQ magazine. When asked about the nature of sin, Robertson included homosexuality in a long list of sexual behaviors forbidden in biblical passages, including adultery and bestiality.
Later, he expressed personal puzzlement over how any man could prefer—shall we say—men’s nether regions to women’s, but added that it’s not his place to judge: “We never, ever judge someone on who’s going to heaven, hell,” he averred. “That’s the Almighty’s job. We just love ’em, give ’em the good news about Jesus—whether they’re homosexuals, drunks, terrorists. We let God sort ’em out later, you see what I’m saying?”
We do, actually: Love thy neighbor as thyself, and judge not, lest ye be judged. Perhaps lumping gays in with alcoholics and terrorists isn’t the most artful phrasing of all time, but we suspect Phil Robertson isn’t overly concerned with artful phrasing. This is an old-school man of the bayou, saved through grace, articulating traditional Christian doctrine with his own inimitable verve. We may disagree with some of his beliefs and wince at some of his answers, but we understand that this is an authentic person being authentic. You know, actual reality. Others weren’t as understanding. Following an orchestrated outrage campaign—petitions, blog posts, press releases, tweets, and so on—A&E condemned Robertson’s comments and placed him on indefinite hiatus from the show.
The network’s official statement assured the grievance mongers that A&E has “always been strong supporters and champions of the LGBT community,” adding that Robertson’s opinions “in no way reflect those of A & E networks.” Well, yeah. Is there a solitary person in the world who would assume that an unscripted, un-PC statement from a Louisiana swamp person/reality TV personality might somehow represent the views of Manhattan-based executives of the channel that airs his show? C’mon. The outrage SWAT team at GLAAD, ever at the ready to take offense “on behalf of” an entire community, weighed in with a rote denunciation from spokesperson Wilson Cruz:
Phil and his family claim to be Christian, but Phil’s lies about an entire community fly in the face of what true Christians believe. He clearly knows nothing about gay people or the majority of Louisianans—and Americans—who support legal recognition for loving and committed gay and lesbian couples. Phil’s decision to push vile and extreme stereotypes is a stain on A&E and his sponsors who now need to re-examine their ties to someone with such public disdain for LGBT people and families.
As Mary Katharine quipped at the time, that statement “doesn’t really seem to match Robertson’s actual comments, but I’m guessing they’re just in cut-and-paste mode at this point.” The suspension and apology triggered a furious backlash from Duck Dynasty fans, who melted down social media in support of Robertson. Amid threats of boycotts and counterboycotts, and public complaints from public officials like Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, A&E reversed its decision after nine short days. It took an organic tidal wave of fury to beat the outrage machine, and sanity eventually prevailed—but not before an outpouring of outrageous outrage from all sides. Is this what “victory” looks like?
In 2014, David and Jason Benham—twin brothers tapped by HGTV to cohost a new home renovation show—were dropped by the network when a left-wing website, called Right Wing Watch, attacked David for holding “anti-choice, anti-gay extremist” views. Benham reportedly took part in a prayer vigil outside the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte in which he decried “homosexuality and its agenda that is attacking the nation.” Benham was also active in the campaign for North Carolina’s sweeping ban on same-sex unions.5 The usual suspects came out of the woodwork, scandalized that someone with an opposing viewpoint (expressed in caustic terms) would have an opportunity to host an entirely apolitical television program. HGTV, seemingly caught flat-footed by the controversy, severed ties with the duo in a tweet: “HGTV has decided not to move forward with the Benham Brothers’ series.”
But Jason Benham told CNN’s Erin Burnett that HGTV was absolutely aware of his brother’s comments, having raised them during the vetting process many months earlier. “When [the network]—a year and a half ago—saw some of the footage where my brother was saying the things he was saying, they spoke with us,” Benham said. “They got to know us a little better and then they made a judgment call, recognizing that David and I have no hate in our heart for anyone. We’ve been running a successful real estate company for the last 11 years and we help all people. There is no discrimination.” But as we’ve seen, a dearth of tangible acts of bigotry and discrimination isn’t sufficient anymore. The punishment crowd kicked up the decibels, and the Benham brothers lost their show. Here’s how HGTV once promoted the erstwhile program in a press release:
After a decade of flipping houses for profit, brothers David Benham and Jason Benham now help families buy the homes they never thought they could afford. In each episode, the guys help a deserving family find a fixer-upper and transform it into their forever home—with a healthy dose of sibling rivalry between the brothers along the way.
Thank goodness that hate fest got the axe. Kudos, outrage fomenters, for sparing all those needy families from being exposed to such bigots. So what if they’re also being deprived of a transformational home construction experience? It’s for the greater good.
Incivility as a Virtue
Some gay rights proponents are pleased as punch with the imposition of this emerging, toxic environment of viewpoint punishment. Acerbic New York Times blogger Josh Barro, son of famed economist Robert Barro, made this explicitly clear in a series of online exchanges with Heritage Foundation scholar Ryan Anderson. Barro is gay6 and an atheist; Anderson, a Catholic, is one of the country’s leading academically oriented opponents of same-sex marriage. Both are bright, erudite, young men who disagree profoundly on public policy questions in this vein. The latter engages (persuasively, and otherwise) in respectful discourse on these issues; the former, not so much. “Anti-LGBT attitudes,” Barro declared on Twitter, are “terrible,” so “we need to stamp them out, ruthlessly.” He later magnanimously clarified that he wasn’t advocating killing people, just casting their opinions as “shameful, like segregation.” These people should be made pariahs, not made dead. How generous.
In a string of back-and-forths, Barro taunted Anderson, asking him why Anderson would expect him “to be civil toward you…[since] you devote your life to promoting anti-gay public policies.” Anderson countered, “I think even in the midst of disagreement we should treat all people with respect.” Barro disagreed. “Some people are deserving of incivility,” he shot back, citing the hypothetical of shunning someone promoting the reinstitution of slavery. “You just don’t like where I’m drawing the line,” he concluded. True enough, and neither do we. There are millions of kind, caring, compassionate people in this country who may oppose altering the institution of marriage, and who are worthy of respect and civility. These people do not deserve public shaming, nor have they earned the dishonor associated with having one’s values “stamped out.” We may be quite a bit closer to Barro than Anderson on several of these policy questions, but we’re on Team Ryan regarding the manner in which these debates ought to be conducted. Anderson wants to have the conversation, treating participants on all sides with basic courtesy and respect. Barro and others like him are hell-bent on ending the discussion. “Ruthlessly.”
The ideological retaliation against the Benhams wasn’t quite through. Having their dream show yanked away by a craven television network, the brothers returned to their successful renovation business, only to discover that their longtime banking partner was dropping them as clients. The Daily Caller reported, “The brothers confirmed that SunTrust Banks has pulled all of its listed properties with the Benham brothers’ bank-owned property business, which includes several franchisees across four states.” In an interview with the publication, David Benham admitted to feeling shell-shocked by the turn of events. “We were caught off-guard with this one,” he said. “Keeping us off television wasn’t enough, now this agenda to silence us wants us out of the marketplace.” Brother Jason added, “If our faith costs us our HGTV show and our business, then so be it.”
It didn’t come to that. An irate response from conservative and Christian customers led the bank to reverse its decision within hours, pointing the finger at a third-party vendor. Again, via the Daily Caller: “We clarified our policies with our vendor and they have reinstated the listings with Benham Real Estate,” SunTrust spokeswoman Beth McKenna said. “While we do not publicly comment on specific vendor relationships, we don’t make choices on suppliers nor base business decisions on political factors, nor do we direct our third party vendors to do so…SunTrust supports the rights of all Americans to fully exercise their freedoms granted under the Constitution, including those with respect to free speech and freedom of religion.” In another big “win,” conservative Christians who’d been dumped from their forthcoming television show weren’t also stripped of the small business they’d spent years developing. The bar for victory is getting awfully low. And the price for holding mainstream beliefs is getting awfully high.
MANDATORY CELEBRATION
As we’ve demonstrated time and again, the outrage brigade doesn’t train its fire exclusively on public figures. Whether it’s the guy who tweeted a quasi-defense of Donald Sterling’s right not to be secretly taped in private, or the college town DJ booted from a gig for playing a major billboard hit, ordinary people aren’t immune from the circus’s wrath. Coercing an average Joe is, in many respects, much easier than targeting someone with a major platform from which to fight back. This has been true on the gay rights front, as local business owners have been forced to enlist the assistance of pro bono advocacy groups like Alliance Defending Freedom to fend off and combat lawsuits filed by celebration-imposers. Here’s how ADF describes one of the most well-known cases in this legal struggle, which has dragged on for years (the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case in its current iteration in the spring of 2014):
Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys represent Elane Photography and its owners, Jonathan and Elaine Huguenin. In 2006, Elaine received an e-mail from a woman about photographing a “commitment ceremony” between her and her same-sex partner and asking if Elaine would be “open to helping us celebrate our day…” Elaine politely declined to use her artistic expression to communicate a message at odds with her beliefs. The woman who approached Elaine, Vanessa Willock, easily found another photographer for her ceremony—and for less money. Nevertheless, Willock filed a complaint with the New Mexico Human Rights Commission. After a one-day administrative trial in 2008, the commission ruled against the Huguenins and ordered them to pay $6,637.94 in attorneys’ fees to Willock. The case then made its way through the New Mexico state court system, and the New Mexico Supreme Court upheld the ruling. In a concurrence accompanying the court’s opinion, one of the justices wrote that the Huguenins “now are compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives,” adding “it is the price of citizenship.”
Violating one’s core beliefs, rooted in religious teachings, is now “the price of citizenship” for any person of faith who decides to enter the marketplace, according to New Mexico’s high court. We’d imagine that would be news to the Founders. The Huguenins have learned firsthand how quickly the coexist crowd’s message (“Our love doesn’t affect you!”) can morph into, “You must betray your beliefs and actively validate our love, or we’ll sue your ass.”
A judge and a “Civil Rights Commission” in Colorado issued similar rulings against Masterpiece Cakeshop, whose religious owner declined to bake a cake for a gay couple’s commitment ceremony in 2012. Jack Phillips was “ordered to change his store’s policy, and revamp training for his staff” forthwith, according to National Review. A sad conga line of similar cases is snaking its way through the courts, featuring family businesses from a florist in Washington State to a print shop in Kentucky.
Then there’s the husband and wife from New York who were fined $13,000 by an administrative law judge and the state’s Human Rights Commission in 2014 for declining to host a lesbian wedding at their home two years prior. The couple lives at the farm, which they sometimes rent out for events. “Cynthia Gifford, who along with her husband offer a corn maze, market and events at the 100-acre farm, told Melisa McCarthy her same-sex marriage would cause ‘a little bit of a problem’ because the Giffords have a ‘specific religious belief regarding marriage,’ according to court papers,” reported Capital New York. The judgment required the Giffords to pay the couple $1,500 each for “mental anguish,” and an additional $10,000 “for the goal of deterrence.” That’s a direct quote. “Let this be a warning to the intolerant fanatics who continue to labor under the ludicrous misconception that they’re free to live out their religious beliefs within the confines of their own personal homes.” Thus is the state of “freedom” in America today.
We’re aware that we’re entering a thorny legal thicket as we explore these questions. Equal protection and public accommodation laws prevent discrimination based on specific factors (sexual orientation isn’t covered in many states), which most people agree should almost always be illegal. There is a libertarian argument to be made that private businesses should be permitted to discriminate as they see fit, and that the market has every right to react accordingly with boycotts and protests. But an endless cycle of boycotts and protests by aggrieved parties doesn’t sound like an appealing outcome to us, especially since our general message is “Relax with the constant outrage, America!” Clearly, circumstances exist wherein the State does have a moral imperative to intervene aggressively (Alabama in the mid-1960s). Such governmental action should be limited to extraordinary and extreme circumstances, in our view. But once again, we find ourselves in a murky, subjective area. What constitutes “extreme,” and who gets to make those decisions? Jonah Goldberg tried to address these philosophical questions in an eloquent August 2013 “The Goldberg File” column:
The market’s not perfect, to be sure. Sometimes the state does need to break down illegitimate barriers or, you know, crush slavery. But such intrusions should be for the really important cases, not the trivial ones. Instead, what we do today is make the trivial cases into important ones. Indeed, we’ve turned vast swaths of the government into an industry that searches out boutique and often ridiculous arguments for new “civil rights” and then mints them accordingly. Each newly minted coin diminishes the value of more legitimate rights and trivializes the responsibility of liberty.
Speaking of trivialization, can we please dispense with the melodramatic fiction that if a same-sex couple “only” has access to 98 out of 100 area flower shops in planning their wedding, that’s somehow indistinguishable from Jim Crow? The hyperbolic heavy breathing is ridiculous.
Nevertheless, forging balancing tests that grapple with “where does it end?” questions is real, and difficult. Should a devout Muslim caterer be legally required to provide her services at a gay couple’s wedding? Should she be coerced into violating her conscience and/or religious edicts, in order to preclude the possibility of a punitive lawsuit? Must a Jewish pastry chef bake a cake for a wedding between two Palestinian Hamas supporters? And what if the couple wanted “Free Gaza” and “death to Zionism” inscribed in the frosting? Yes, these are far-fetched hypotheticals,7 by design. But what are the outer limits of what a free society will accept, in the name of “tolerance”? Where does the reasonable protection of one group’s rights cross a threshold into the trampling of another’s?
It occurs to us that there’s a meaningful distinction to be drawn between issuing a blanket denial of service (no, black/gay/white couple, you cannot stay at this hotel, or eat at this restaurant) and seeking an effective waiver from being forced to actively participate in a wedding or commitment ceremony, specifically, the purpose of which is to celebrate the consecration of a union. The editors of the Los Angeles Times, editorializing in favor of Elane Photography in 2013, frame the argument less through a religious lens, and more as a free expression issue. “Compelled speech is a bad idea,” they wrote, referring to photographers, graphic designers, and others, whose work cannot be separated from artistic expression. After reiterating their commitment to legalized gay marriage and opposition to discrimination, the Times editors concluded by exhorting the Supreme Court to “find a way to protect” people like the Huguenins.
In spite of the dramatic uptick in public support for gay marriage, most Americans agree. A 2013 Rasmussen poll found that “if a Christian wedding photographer who has deeply held religious beliefs opposing same-sex marriage is asked to work a same-sex wedding ceremony, 85 percent of American adults believe he has the right to say no.” Eighty-five percent of Americans might not be able to agree that the sky is blue, yet an overwhelming supermajority coalesced on this question to come down on the opposite side of New Mexico’s Supreme Court and Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission—each of which issued unanimous rulings. (We should note that a September 2014 Pew survey found a much closer split on the religious liberty issue, while a 2015 Associated Press poll fell somewhere in between Rasmussen and Pew; question wording and emphasis were definitely a major factor in these disparities.)
The jaw-dropping legal reasoning from the New Mexico decision included this brief lecture from Justice Richard Bosson: The case “teaches that at some point in our lives all of us must compromise, if only a little, to accommodate the contrasting values of others.” He’s obviously directing his lesson at the Huguenins, but doesn’t that sentence apply perfectly to the gay litigants? If that couple had “compromised, if only a little, to accommodate the contrasting views” of Elane Photography, they would have found another photographer who was delighted to commemorate their special day (which they did), and left the Huguenins in peace to conduct their business in accordance with their sincere convictions (which they did not). Contra Jonathan Capehart and Justice Bosson, genuinely progressive tolerance is a two-way street.
We’re not constitutional lawyers and we don’t pretend to have clean solutions for these challenging gray areas. But we don’t view the First Amendment, the first clause of which enshrines religious freedom, as a mere legal nicety, subservient to stacked commissions’ whims. Defining down and severely limiting the scope of our religious freedoms betrays our founding and isn’t healthy for the country. And we’re pretty confident that we’d be a lot better off as a society if people of all backgrounds resisted the temptation to act like litigious, trolling assholes upon experiencing even an inkling of offense. Tolerance. Let’s try it. How might such a nonoutraged, shrug-it-off mentality manifest itself? Here’s one example, selected for reasons that will become immediately clear. Over to you, Washington Times (in a January 23, 2014, article by Valerie Richardson):
Alan Sears doesn’t know what it’s like to be refused service for being gay, but he does know what it’s like to be refused service for being a conservative…[A] Southern California photographer turned him down flat when he asked her to take a Christmas card photo of his family, explaining in an email, “I oppose the goals and objectives of your organization and have no interest in working on its behalf.” That was fine with Mr. Sears, CEO and general counsel of the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, who is leading the legal battle on behalf of photographers, florists, cake decorators and others sued for refusing to create products for same-sex weddings. What applies to wedding cake designers asked to violate their core beliefs, Mr. Sears argues, applies equally to liberals who decline to fill certain orders to conservative customers.
A lawsuit would have escalated the outrage arms race. Instead, Sears adopted a “suit yourself” posture, found someone else to snap the Christmas pics, and left the liberal photographer to stew in her principles. More of that, please.
TRANS-GRESSIONS
We’re going to go ahead and guess that many Americans aren’t entirely sure what “transgender”—the T in LGBT—actually is. The transgender community, for its part, demands to be understood and respected. But confused parties may not ask certain questions of the “T” group, no matter how innocent their intentions, nor may they use incorrect terminology (mastering the rules for which requires an advanced degree in queer studies from Wellesley), lest they be denounced as “transphobic.” Infractions can include such horrors as adding a superfluous “-ed” to the end of words.8 For a basic primer, please consult the “transgender terminology” online guide, published by the National Center for Transgender Equality. It defines nearly two dozen phrases and words, such as “genderqueer, gender non-conforming, bigendered, and two-spirit.” The list we’re working off is actually labeled “updated January 2014,” suggesting that these permissible working definitions may be, let’s call it, permanency nonconforming.
Every human being is imbued with inherent dignity, and people should make an effort to be caring and compassionate to those who are different from themselves. This applies to the transgender community as much as anyone else; their struggles, frustrations, and feelings of exclusion are difficult for most people to grasp. What makes empathy more difficult to achieve, though, is the ultrasensitive manner in which questions and discussions of that community’s collective and individual experiences are regulated. Even as we write these words, we aren’t entirely sure which of our insights will be deemed “acceptable” versus transphobic by the people who adjudicate this stuff hyperzealously.
Kevin Williamson, a conservative author and National Review editor, published a provocative and blunt piece in May 2014 entitled “Laverne Cox Is Not a Woman.” Cox is an actress who stars in the Netflix original series Orange Is the New Black and who was featured on the cover of Time magazine, accompanying a feature story called, “The Transgender Tipping Point.” Cox was born as a male, but identifies as a woman. Based on “do unto others” ideals, we refer to “her” and “she” in describing Cox, out of respect for her self-conception, but we also cannot contend that Cox is, as a matter of biological fact, a woman. It’s complicated. Williamson’s column, though nuanced and forgiving in many respects, refused to refer to Cox as anything other than “him” and “he.” These excerpts may not be diplomatic, and they may make you squirm in your chair, but they make serious points:
Regardless of the question of whether he has had his genitals amputated, Cox is not a woman, but an effigy of a woman. Sex is a biological reality, and it is not subordinate to subjective impressions, no matter how intense those impressions are, how sincerely they are held, or how painful they make facing the biological facts of life. No hormone injection or surgical mutilation is sufficient to change that.
…As a matter of government, I have little or no desire to police how Cox or any other man or woman conducts his or her personal life. But having a culture organized around the elevation of unreality over reality in the service of Eros, who is a sometimes savage god, is not only irrational but antirational. Cox’s situation gave him an intensely unhappy childhood and led to an eventual suicide attempt, and his story demands our sympathy; times being what they are, we might even offer our indulgence. But neither of those should be allowed to overwhelm the facts, which are not subject to our feelings, however sincere or well intended.
For writing this candid defense of empirical reality—perhaps at the expense of subjective sensitivity, which isn’t unimportant—Williamson was immediately reviled as a transphobic hater. The Chicago Sun-Times, a newspaper that printed the syndicated column, was excoriated by groups like GLAAD, which wrote that Williamson’s piece was “dangerous” and amounted to “ugly and insulting propaganda.” BuzzFeed reported that after more than six hundred people signed a petition circulated by a group called WAM! (Women, Action and the Media), the Sun-Times pulled the column from its website and apologized for publishing it in the first place. “VICTORY!” exclaimed WAM!’s website. GLAAD posted a comment from a Sun-Times editor explaining the paper’s decision to spike the piece, which happened to parrot several points from GLAAD’s original statement protesting the existence of Williamson’s column. The editor wrote that Williamson had “failed to acknowledge” various facts related to transgender issues, few of which were germane to the point of the column. “Offensive” content → complaints to the exclusion of tangential qualifiers dressed up as “factual errors” → 600 signatures → BANNED. End of discussion. Also known as “VICTORY!”
But Williamson is a knuckle-dragging right-winger. Such antediluvian h8norance is expected of him. Surely liberal personalities who’ve warmly welcomed transgender guests onto their television shows to discuss their identities and personal journeys would fare better, right? Wrong, even if you’re Katie Couric or Piers Morgan. “Transgender advocate” Janet Mock (who was born a male but now identifies as female) appeared on Morgan’s since-canceled CNN show in February 2014, only to complain afterward that the host and producers had “sensationalized” her story. Among Morgan’s grievous errors were (a) listing Mock as “a boy until age 18” in an on-screen graphic, and (b) referring to an anecdote in Mock’s book in which she relays the story of informing a man she was dating that “You used to be yourself a man,” as Morgan put it to her. But Mock has “never identified as a man,” explained BuzzFeed’s Chris Geidner, so in her mind, she never was one. Even though she was, physically. Which was presumably the whole point of sharing this anecdote. Which, again, appeared in the book she was on the show to promote. How is it offensive to ask about an incident she herself has raised?
Couric fell into a similar trap when interviewing two transgender guests, the aforementioned Laverne Cox and Carmen Carrera. Couric was slammed online for using the word transgenders as a noun, and was literally shushed by Carrera as she stammered through an awkward question about Carrera’s surgeries and “private parts.” We get that these matters are both awkward and private, but…when you’re on a television show to talk about your transgenderism, is it unreasonable to anticipate curious and confused questions about such matters? Does hissing “shhh” at the host who’s stiltedly trying to figure things out really help “educate” the people whose ignorance you lament? Or does it feed the ignorance? For her efforts on a segment branded “Transgender Trailblazers,” Couric was treated to the following Slate headline: “Laverne Cox and Carmen Carrera Endure Transphobic Katie Couric Interview.”
Okay, but even if a conservative like Williamson and well-meaning but underinformed mainstream lefties can’t get it right, surely someone like gay activist and sex columnist Dan Savage9 “gets it.” He resides in the LGBT space for a living, so he’s safe. Yeah, nope. We’re going to just go ahead and let the University of Chicago’s student newspaper, the Chicago Maroon, do the heavy lifting in describing the following May 2014 incident, followed by our analysis (emphasis ours—also, “T-slur” means “tranny,” which the carefully parsed report goes to great lengths to avoid spelling out for readers):
After a terse exchange about the use of a transphobic slur between a guest speaker and student at an Institute of Politics (IOP) event last week, students in the LGBTQ community have started circulating a petition calling for a formal apology from the IOP. At press time, the petition had more than 1,100 signatures. The event was an off-the-record Fellows seminar held by Ana Marie Cox, a political columnist on U.S. politics for The Guardian. It featured Dan Savage, a relationship and sex advice columnist and founder of the It Gets Better project, as a guest speaker.
The incident occurred when, according to several sources, Savage and Cox began discussing his personal history as a gay man. According to a first-year student and member of the LGBTQ community who asked to be identified as Hex, Savage used the slur t– as an example in an anecdote about reclaiming words. Cox then added, “I used to make jokes about t-ies,” audience members recounted. “That was one of the most hurtful parts,” Hex said, explaining [that] the perceived insult was that Cox used the slur to refer to the group of people she joked about.
“In that context, it was like being applied to all transgender people,” it said. (“It” is Hex’s chosen pronoun.)
…Hex asked Savage and Cox to use the term “T-slur” instead of the actual word. According to second-year Sara Rubinstein, an executive director of QUIP (Queers United in Power), and Hex, Savage then named other slurs, asking if they were suitable to use instead. “Obviously [he attempted] to threaten me and make me feel uncomfortable in that space, which was pretty successful,” Hex said.
So Dan Savage behaved, in some people’s eyes, like a provocative jerk—as is his wont and his reputation. He offended a handful of students at the off-the-record fireside chat–style seminar by using the term tranny in a historical context (see Savage’s explanation to follow). When he was scolded by “Hex”10 for doing so, he rattled off some other “offensive” terms to drive home the point that he wasn’t about to be censored, and to prove a separate point about “reclaiming” slurs (again, stay tuned). Being an in-your-face discusser of sexual issues is what he does. Sarcasm, needling, and general assholery are sort of his thing, so none of this should have shocked anyone. In fact, Savage was “glitter-bombed” (in which a bucket of glitter is poured over the head of a gay rights opponent) by LGBT activists (!) in 2011 for alleged transphobia, and emerged from the experience unbowed—although he stopped using tranny around the same time.
We repeat: Nothing about his behavior in this little kerfuffle should have been surprising to anyone. But gripped by a fresh bout of outrageous outrage, several students crafted a Change.org petition insisting that the Institute of Politics program issue a formal apology and make “a commitment to preventing the use of slurs and hate speech in the future.” They also asserted that the tacit confidentiality agreement of the off-the-record session was made null and void by Savage’s commission of a “hate crime.” To the school’s credit, administrators greeted the petition with a swift back of the hand:
By definition, views will be expressed on occasion with which some will strongly disagree or even find deeply offensive. But we cannot remain true to our mission and be in the business of filtering guests or policing their statements to ensure they will always meet with broad agreement and approval and will not offend.
Thank you, University of Chicago.11 Savage reacted to the contretemps in a withering blog post at the Slog, the meat of which we’ve reproduced below. To paraphrase Dos Equis’s Most Interesting Man in the World, we don’t often agree with Dan Savage, but when we do, we prefer that our concurrence take the form of exquisite awesomeness like this (per usual, emphasis ours):
I never suggested that the trans community ought to reclaim “tranny.” I wasn’t giving orders to the trans community. Just sharing a little queer history with IOP students in a confidential, off-the-record conversation.
During this part of the talk a student interrupted and asked me to stop using “the t-slur.” (I guess it’s not the t-word anymore. I missed the memo.) My use of it—even while talking about why I don’t use the word anymore, even while speaking of the queer community’s history of reclaiming hate words, even as I used other hate words—was potentially traumatizing. I stated that I didn’t see a difference between saying “tranny” in this context and saying “t-slur.” Were I to say “t-slur” instead of “tranny,” everyone in the room would auto-translate “t-slur” to “tranny” in their own heads. Was there really much difference between me saying it and me forcing everyone in the room to say it quietly to themselves? That would be patronizing, infantilizing, and condescending. Cox gamely jumped in and offered that she had used “tranny” in the past but that she now recognizes its harm and has stopped using it. The student who objected interrupted: as neither Cox nor I were trans, “tranny” was not our word to use—not even in the context of a college seminar, not even when talking about why we don’t use the word anymore. I asked the student who objected if it was okay for me to use the words “dyke” and “sissy.” After a moment’s thought the student said I could use those words—permission granted—and that struck me [as] funny because I am not a lesbian nor am I particularly effeminate. (And, really, this is college now? Professors, fellows, and guest lecturers need to clear their vocabulary with first-year students?) By the not-your-word-to-use standard, I shouldn’t be able to use dyke or sissy either—or breeder, for that matter, as that’s a hate term for straight people. (Or maybe it’s an acknowledgment of their utility? Anyway…)
This student became so incensed by our refusal to say “How high?” when this student said “Jump!” that this student stormed out of the seminar. In tears. As one does when one doesn’t get one’s way. In college.
Michael Sam and the Right to Say “Meh”
Michael Sam’s journey to becoming the first openly gay player in NFL history was a legitimate news story. Some conservatives who insisted that the development wasn’t worthy of any significant attention seemed cranky and out of touch. Others’ critique that the resulting media coverage dwarfed the importance of the actual news itself might be closer to the truth. We’re happy for gay people and their allies who were excited and empowered by Sam’s blazing of this trail. We couldn’t help but smile when Sam sacked Johnny Football in the 2014 preseason, leaping to his feet after the whistle to taunt the quarterback with his own, obnoxious “dollar bills” hand gesture. We’re also fine with others who thought the whole thing was overblown. It seemed for a while as if everybody on planet Earth was required to state their opinion on the entire episode—the more dramatic, the better. We just wanted to say that it is an entirely reasonable course of action to have witnessed the spectacle, shrugged, and gone on with your life. Exercising the right to say “meh” is what separates us from those who live the soul-sucking politicized life, as described in chapter 2.
We can’t help but wonder if Savage might actually enjoy chapter 5 of this very book! But in light of his “transphobic” history, requisite glitter-bombing (heretofore reserved for the Michele Bachmanns of the world), and subsequent “hate crimes,” he’s quite clearly not the man to offer tips on avoiding the silencing mob’s wrath, since they’ve nailed him, too. There must be a better choice to help us navigate these confusing cultural waters.
We’ve got it! How about cross-dressing pioneer RuPaul, arguably the most famous drag queen in the history of the planet. Though RuPaul doesn’t identify as transgender, she’s12 been at the forefront of introducing mainstream American culture to alternative gender constructs and lifestyles for decades. Her current show, RuPaul’s Drag Race, premiered in 2009 on Logo, a cable network geared toward LGBT programming. It’s featured dozens of contestants over a halfdozen seasons—a mix of gay men and transgender women. When the show aired a “minichallenge” in season six called “female or she-male?” LGBT activists protested, calling the latter term “transphobic.” The uproar resulted in a spate of bannings by Logo, which pulled the offending episode altogether and scuttled a long-running gag called “you’ve got she-mail.” RuPaul’s catchphrase “Grrrl, you got she-mail,” was also forcibly retired, according to Vox.13 Evidently mystified by accusations of transphobia from ever-enraged “activists” (do these people ever sleep?), RuPaul took to Twitter to vent. “I’ve been a ‘tranny’ for 32 years. The word ‘tranny’ has never just meant transsexual. #TransvestiteHerstoryLesson,” she tweeted, adding, “The absurdity! It’s as if Jay Z got offended by Kanye using the word ‘Nigga.’ ”14
That’s right, RuPaul—Ru-f***ing-Paul—was forced to fend off transphobia allegations and was compelled by her network to abandon a silly branded segment on her own show. We’re all the way through the looking glass, guys. If RuPaul can’t approach these issues without being dragged under by the Outrage Circus, what chance do the rest of us stand?
Obama’s “Evolution”
On May 9, 2012, President Obama made history by affirming his support for same-sex marriage. This is stunning, groundbreaking news, said nobody who’d paid any attention to his “evolution” on the issue. Running in the 1996 Democratic primary for a state Senate seat in Chicago’s ultraliberal Hyde Park district, Barack Obama unequivocally asserted his strong support for gay marriage. Responding to a candidate questionnaire from Outlines newspaper, Obama wrote, “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.” By the time he needed to win statewide in his epochal 2004 U.S. Senate run, Obama had “evolved” into opposing same-sex marriage. “What I believe is that a marriage is between a man and a woman,” he stated in a televised debate.
Four years hence, Obama’s progression was frozen in place, as he ran for president. “I believe marriage is the union between a man and a woman. As a Christian, it’s also a sacred union,” he said to loud applause at a candidate forum hosted at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church in California. As we mentioned earlier, Obama carried that deep blue state easily several months later, among the same electorate that approved Proposition 8 on the same day. By 2010, with pressure mounting from gay megadonors, Obama pronounced himself “evolving” on the issue. Two years later, with public support for gay marriage maintaining its steady upward climb—and after Vice President Joe Biden prematurely let the cat out of the bag—the White House orchestrated an interview with ABC News to seal the deal. Obama sat down with host Robin Roberts and offered this verbose and self-referential endorsement of gay marriage:
At a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.
Obama later intoned that his experience meeting the mother of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man murdered in Wyoming in 1998, helped inform his change of heart on gay rights. May we remind you that he was on the record as favoring same-sex marriage (the first time) two years before Shepard’s death, but pulling that heartstring was a classy touch. And that, friends, is how Barack Obama’s sixteen-year metamorphosis on gay marriage reached its completely inevitable (if premature) conclusion. The various twists and turns of this special journey, oddly enough, directly coincided with the immediate political interests of Barack Obama. Positively heroic. His closest adviser, David Axelrod, confirmed this cynical “bullshit,” as Obama reputedly labeled his official position in private, in his 2015 memoirs.
And by the way, we should also note that Barack Obama is by no means the first politician to exploit gay issues for political gain. For instance, the 2004 Bush/Cheney reelection campaign was given a strategically choreographed boost in the form of antigay marriage ballot initiatives in eleven states, including the key battleground of Ohio. The idea was to generate a surge in turnout among social conservatives who weren’t necessarily reliable voters. If your gut reaction to this maneuver is, Hey, it worked, keep that feeling in mind the next time you’re on the brink of castigating Democrats over ends-justify-the-means politics. For the record, no, we’re not the least bit regretful that President John Kerry was never a thing.
1 Guy here. So, I’m gay. Friends and family have known for a number of years now, but I haven’t mentioned it publicly for two reasons: First, I don’t think it’s most people’s business, to be perfectly frank. Second, I didn’t want my emerging career to be colored by identity politics. My aim was to allow my work and my character to speak for me, as opposed to some category into which I could be lazily pigeonholed. The thought of my sexuality hindering or helping my career trajectory is anathema to me, so I’ve chosen to remain strategically quiet. Why “come out” now? Because I’m coauthoring a chapter that addresses gay rights at length. I decided that I owed readers this relevant piece of personal context; it’s the correct and respectful thing to do. And it’s literally a footnote. So there you have it: I’m a Christian, an American, a conservative, a sports fan, a son, a brother, and a friend—who happens to be gay.
2 Miami Dolphins defensive back Don Jones was fined and suspended for tweeting “horrible” as Michael Sam kissed his boyfriend on live television. The public display of affection came as Sam reacted to being drafted by the St. Louis Rams, becoming the first openly gay player in NFL history. The Dolphins said Jones would not be reinstated until he underwent “sensitivity training.” We agree Jones could have been a lot more sensitive, but to put his sanctions in perspective, the League initially fined and suspended Baltimore Ravens star Ray Rice for just two games after he…severely beat his then fiancée, dragging her unconscious body out of an elevator in Atlantic City, on camera. The proportionality of NFL justice is a mysterious beast.
3 Obama himself was “against” gay marriage at the time.
4 His infamous and extended theorizing about the contents of Sarah Palin’s womb was singularly bizarre, for example.
5 Amendment One passed overwhelmingly (61 to 39 percent) on May 8, 2012. The state constitutional amendment prohibited gay marriages and civil unions. We would have voted “no.”
6 Barro has written and tweeted separately about gay people’s “duty” to come out, and he was critical of NBA player Jason Collins’s “belated” decision to do so. We anxiously await Mr. Barro’s all-important verdict on the timing and nature of Guy’s “duty fulfillment,” or whatever—which transpired several pages ago, in case he missed it.
7 Far-fetched, but not ludicrous. In 2008, a supermarket in New Jersey refused to decorate a child’s birthday cake with his given name: Adolf Hitler. But that’s what the poor kid’s parents—trolls and bigots extraordinaire—demanded. Were they entitled to that cake? If the point of public accommodation laws is to protect unpopular or minority groups, wouldn’t…white supremacist anti-Semites fit the bill for a protected class? And no, we’re not comparing gay couples with skinheads. Stop it.
8 No, really. Mary Katharine has a friend, a gay liberal man, who has worked on behalf of the LGBTQ community in myriad ways, who was nonetheless castigated for saying “transgendered” instead of “transgender.” He was mildly distraught at the upbraiding, blaming himself for insensitivity. Mary Katharine asked him, “If your friend can’t give enough grace to quickly forgive a misplaced ‘–ed’ from a friend and political ally, doesn’t the problem lie with your friend, not you? Tolerance should cover suffixes, at the very least, or we’re in very serious trouble.”
9 President Obama’s antibullying “czar” who, well, bullied Christian high school students during a profanity-laced, Bible-attacking presentation. He then reportedly ridiculed them as “pansies” as they walked out of the seminar. You had one job, Dan.
10 How is it not a dehumanizing, offensive pronoun? And, if the “rules” are entirely subjective from person to person, how are people supposed to navigate this stuff without a personalized style guide? Is this not insanely unreasonable? Good luck in the real world, Hex!
11 As a graduate of Northwestern—Chicago’s much more well-rounded and fun “elite” university—Guy doesn’t frequently dish out compliments to U of C. Savor the moment, Maroons.
12 He wrote in his autobiography that he doesn’t care whether people refer to him as “he” or “she.”
13 We know, we know.
14 RuPaul is black, so this is okay.