Mind Your Manners

WITH THE ARRIVAL of BGLAD week, Harvard can look forward to those depressingly juvenile exchanges between gay activists and their erstwhile opponents, the Association Against Learning in the Absence of Religion and Morality (AALARM).

I can hardly wait.

Remember last year when Harvard hosted a conference on the future of gay studies? While anonymous provocateurs were plastering the campus with lewd depictions of gay sex, members of AALARM were busy launching a pro-family counteroffensive with those rarely seen but still infamous blue square pins. The combined nonsense of the whole affair was enough to prompt the formation of SEXS (Students Exasperated by eXcessive Symbolism).

The clash between supporters and opponents of gay rights has produced a frustrating dilemma for me--and probably for a lot of other curious spectators too. As a heterosexual who sympathizes with the plight of gays in America, I am embarrassed by the sophomoric and sometimes downright sadistic campaign against them launched by my fellow right-wingers. At the same time, I am similarly repelled by the antics and outrages of the Gay Left that, I fear, will ultimately doom the entire movement.

IT IS DIFFICULT to establish blame for the current hostilities between family-firsters and gay activists because, in many respects, the feud is self-perpetuating: a revolting action by one side provokes an even more offensive gesture by the other. Although the conflict can claim deep historical roots, by now it has degenerated into a fruitless exercise in competition as both camps swap insults and accusations.

Take, for example, the recent St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City. Reluctant to disturb the predominantly Catholic flavor of the event, organizers rejected a request by a small group of Irish gays to appear in the parade. After threatening to disrupt the parade, the group was allowed to participate provided they not use their appearance to promote any partisan agenda. A victory for inclusion?

Hardly. As John Leo pointed out in U.S. News & World Report, the contingent featured many non-Irish gay militants wearing familiar trademarks of gay radicalism like pearls, motorcycle jackets and T-shirts reading "QUEER BOY." Joined by Mayor David Dinkins, the group was welcomed with a boorish display of upraised fingers, loud epithets and one full can of beer.

The New York incident demonstrated the intolerance of many straights. Finger-waving and beer-throwing are not befitting a country that just won a noble war in the Middle East. Many of those who were hurling insults on St. Patrick's Day will probably blow kisses to our returning trooops when they march in this summer's victory parade down the same avenue.

Equally reprehensible, however, has been the behavior of gay activists who pick the wrong forums to air their grievances. Something more than just a natural uneasiness about homosexuality (or a few St. Patty's Day beers) must have aroused that kind of crudity from a crowd composed largely of mothers and fathers. That something is the explosion of anti-Catholic rhetoric from the gay community in recent months.

The gay campaign against the Catholic Church contains countless examples of insensitivity and sometimes pure hatred. As Leo notes, an art exhibit funded by the National Endowment for the Arts labeled New York Cardinal John O'Connor a "fat cannibal in skirts" and his cathedral a "house of walking swastikas." Moreover, condombrandishing gay militants have stormed a number of Catholic services, including a mass at St. Patrick's.

But the efforts of radical gays are not limited to anti-religious theatrics. ACT-UP fire-eaters like Larry Kramer have declared war on virtually every government institution and figure. Their latest target has been Secretary of Health and Human Services Louis Sullivan, whom they accuse of insufficienty funding AIDS research. (Ironically, when compared to heart disease and cancer, AIDS already receives far more funding in proportion to the number of victims it claims).

And here at Harvard, groups like the Organization for the Advancement of Sexual Minorities (ORGASM) and the newly formed chapter of Queer Nation have succumbed to this self-destructive zeal to offend and outrage. To their credit, these groups have largely abandoned the dining hall kiss-ins and other inflamatory tactics of years ago. But their presentation of the film, "Stop the Church," as well as their well-publicized protest of Secretary Sullivan's visit to Harvard last year were tasteless and needlessly offensive.

THIS REJECTIONIST POSTURE seems all the more irrational when one considers America's inclination toward tolerance and inclusion. As Harvard sociologist Nathan Glazer has observed, the American polity has "been defined by a steady expansion of the definition of those who maybe included in it to the point where it now includes all humanity."

Well, not quite. But Glazer's broader message is right on the mark: the American experience has been characterized by a gradual but continuous acceptance of different people. When the Student Senate at Southern Methodist University moves to prohibit anti-gay harassment, then the rest of America can't be far behind.

But that acceptance will never come unless gays rethink their strategy. Here's some friendly advice from a sympathetic hetero:

First, throw out the militants. Recall that it was Martin Luther King Jr., not Malcolm X, who best articulated the moral soundness of equal rights.

Second, drop the radical smear campaigns aginst Christianity and stop annoyingly disruptive stunts like blocking traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge. Angry motorists can become angry voters.

Third, don't allow the Left to subvert your broader fight for respect and equal rights to suit its own narrow purposes. Realize that reasonable people can disagree on issues like gays in the military and AIDS funding.

Finally, and most important, market yourselves as normal people who lead normal lives outside the bedroom. In other words, do not promote your sexual identity as wholly central to your individual character. Doing so only reinforces the impression of gays as perverted and licentious creatures. Posters should depict gays in sport jackets and football jerseys, not leather, chains and high heels.

In short, appeal to American ideals by embracing the American way of life.

CONSERVATIVES must also rethink their objectives. By marginalizing gays, society denies them the chance to affirm community values--the very values we claim to uphold. For example, logic would hold that, as champions of faith and fidelity, AALARM should advocate legal gay marriage. The prospect of legal same-sex marriage would, as Andrew Sullivan has brilliantly argued, "traditionalize" gay life by removing one of the many barriers now preventing gays from entering the social mainstream.

The Right should also realize the not-so-obvious political costs of opposing gay rights. We risk alienating the more conservative, yet more tolerant, generation of younger voters who vote Republican in greater numbers since Ronald Reagan. I also suspect that religiously inspired tirades against tolerance of gays weaken our case against abortion, for they make us seem like Bible-thumping absolutists on a witch hunt. Which is wrong, because there's a big distinction between the two issues. Thanks to groups like AALARM, that distinction is being obscured.

But until gay activists learn their manners, I'll pass on the pink triangles as well as the blue squares.

Conservatives should drop their ridiculous anti-gay stance ...

... but gays need to change their tactics if they hope to gain equal rights and respect.