PERSPECTIVE
union
Fkrson or the Yeah
1
by Shannon Gilreath
Right-wing gays and the dangerous
appeal of Guinani
Some gay people, for reasons inexplicable
to me, vote Republican. This is so, notwith
standing the fact that, at least since 1996, the
Republican platform has endorsed an anti-gay
Defense of Marriage Act and has called efforts
to include gays and lesbians
in anti-discrimination laws a
“distortion” of such laws.
Some of these gay voters
are the true gay ri^t-wing —
gays and lesbians who vote
Republican because they
believe that stances on tax pol
icy, for example, are more
important than basic human
dignity. They beheve, I can
only surmise, that the
Republican commitment to
rewarding the rich at the
expense of the poor somehow
benefits them. Or perhaps they
are, deep down, self-haters.
Their self-loathing mani
fests itself in decision-making
that is against their own
meaningful inclusion in the political process
and ultimately contrary to their own equality.
They act bn behalf of a hierarchy that openly
despises and degrades them and that often
claims religion as the transcendent authority
for its abuses.
Other gay Republican voters seem less sin
ister to me. These voters have struck a spiritu
al compromise of sorts. They have in effect
said: “We will continue to support you and
your evil pronouncements in the hope that
you will stick to your end of the bargain and
leave us alone if we do not oppose you. We will
stay in the closet, reject marriage rights and
renounce our inherent equality i/you will just
stop your campaign to annihilate us!” It is a
compromise that I can understand intellectu
ally, even though I believe that it is ultimately
misguided and dangerous.
The 2008 election promises a much more
attractive danger for gays disposed to the right.
Election 2008 offers Ae promise of Rudolph
Giuliani. “RudyJ’ as most American’s know
him, professes to believe in gay rights; after all,
he was mayor of the gay Mecca — New York
Giuliani was TIME magazine’s
2001 person of the year.
City. Giuhani may be attractive to gay
voters disposed to other Republican
hes: the War on Terror, reducing the
tax rate for the super-rich in order to
benefit the economy or the lie that
health insurance for low-income
famihes is the first nudge in a slide
toward Communism in the United
States. If you are gay and want to believe these
things — for whatever reason —^ yet you have
refrained from voting Republican because you
somehow can’t stomach voting for a party that
believes you are subhu
man, Giuhani may seem
like a God-sent solution.
Don’t bet on it. If you
listen closely enough to
Giuliani and you are
familiar enough with
the legal struggle for gay
equality, you wiU under
stand that Giuliani is
very dangerous indeed.
Giuliani says he sup
ports gay rightsrbut he
also says that he will
appoint justices in the
model of Antonin Scalia
and Clarence Thomas to
the United States
Supreme Court.
Justices Scalia and
Thomas, both Republican appointees to the
court, are among the staundiest opponents of
gay equahty. They dissented bitterly from the
2003 Supreme Court decision Lawrence v.
Texas, which held that it is unconstitutional
for states to criminally punish gay adults who
engage in consensual sex in private. Justice
Scdia argued that, if the citizens of a state
decide that gay sex is immoral and they want
to imprison gay people for having sex in their
own homes, lio federal constitutional right
exists to save gays from the gulag.
Incidentally, Lawrence v. Texas topped a
recent survey of archconservative lawyers as
the case they would most like to see over
turned by the Supreme Court.
They may get their wish. Since Lawrence
was decided in 2003, the make-up of the
Supreme Court has shifted dramatically, placing
the right of basic sexual autonomy for gay peo
ple in jeopardy. Justice Sandra O’Coimor, who
sided with the moderate majority in favor of gay
rights, retired and was replaced by archconserv
ative Samuel Alito. Justice John Paul Stevens, a
dependable proponent of gay equality, is now
over eighty years old and is expected to retire
after the 2008 election. The Repubhcans on the
court now need only one more vote to overturn
the Lawrence decision. Giuliani has promised
that he would give it to them.
There is a true yearning, I admit, to
believe that the Republican establishment
has finally wised up. There is real appeal in
the idea that a viable candidate for the
Republican nomination for president sees
gays as something other than pond scum.
But things are not always what they seem.
Giuliani is not what he seems. He is not a
savior for gays. Do not be fooled. #
info: Shannon Gilreath is a law professor at Wake
Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. and the author
of Sexual Politics: The Gay Person in Amelia Today.
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JANUARY 12.2008 • Q-NOTES I I