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PDF versionWhat Planet is Gerson On?
by Michael Sean Winters on Mar. 12, 2010
I want to like Michael Gerson’s writings. His essays are always well written and his overall ideological perspective - center-right, religiously inflected views – are rarely obnoxious even if they are wrong. Then, every once in awhile he writes a column that forces you to ask: Excuse me, but what planet have you been living on for the past few decades, Mr. Gerson?
Today he writes about how the pro-life movement and the pro-gay rights movement have grown in the past few decades. He attributes the advances of the pro-life movement to advances in technology and to a change in political rhetoric, for which he gives a nod to the late father Richard John Neuhaus, in which pro-lifers “began talking of an expanding circle of legal inclusion and protection that includes the unborn…” Actually Neuhaus, to his credit, used such language before Roe, during the debate in New York state over the Blumenthal bill which liberalized abortion laws in 1970. That rhetoric was not the cause of the change. The technological advances in embryology are undoubtedly a more likely explanation: once you have seen a sonogram, your own or a friend’s, it is hard to de-humanize the unborn child. A related development, the push for bans on late-term abortions had a similar effect. In both cases, the culture was forced to ask: What is actually going on here? Abstract legal theories were not so persuasive when looking at a sonogram or reading about the grisly details of late-term abortions. So, Gerson scores a C+, right about the role of technology, wrong about Neuhaus, and a sin of omission about the partial birth abortion debate.
Then, Gerson goes on to consider the advancement of gay rights since the 1970s. He notes that many gays have come out of the closet since the 1970s, and that “[a] human face always makes harsh judgment more difficult.” But this is a cart-horse observation on its face. But, what is stunning is that Gerson never mentions AIDS. Gays came out of the closet and organized politically because they had to, they had to secure funding for AIDS research, they had to raise money for clinics, they had to build support networks for those afflicted with the disease. And, one of the big reasons it became harder to make harsh judgments was not that you had a gay man to tea, but that your gay neighbor was suddenly dying a horrible and untimely death.
To write sweepingly about gays in the last quarter of the twentieth century and not to mention AIDS shows an ignorance that does not befit the pages of the Washington Post. Why don’t they publish me on the subject of Tasmanian soup making methods. Gerson wants to be compassionate, and I applaud that, but a writer has an obligation to be informed too.
Sean, I'm not gay but if I
Sean, I'm not gay but if I were I'd be pretty offended at your assertion that GLBT people "came out" because AIDS forced them to. The assertion defines the politics of sexual identity, and indeed gay people themselves, primarily in terms of a virus. It reminds me of any one of several really offensive jokes that still go around.
History lesson:
Harvey Milk was elected in 1977--- and murdered in 1978. Those of us who were there remember it as a galvanizing moment, one which occurred about a decade following another event you should look up, called "Stonewall."
AIDS was not clinically observed until 1980 and 1981, well after GLBT people had begun to publicly claim their places in society, at least within major urban centers.
HIV/AIDS was one, just one, issue in the panoply of issues around sexual orientation and gender identity that came to the fore in the final decades of the last century. I for one firmly believe that the same progress would have been made in its absence. Perhaps more progress: we wouldn't have lost so many good people and we wouldn't have had to contend with the unfounded fears engendered by HIV in those who are, or choose to be, ignorant.
To cast gay rights movement primarly in terms of the virus, however, is to trivialize the fundamental issue that is there and has always been there:
the right of GLBT persons to the same dignity as others in the society.
Harvey Milk, another
Harvey Milk, another politician that achieved absolutely nothing in his lifetime! His only claim to fame is that he was loud and gay and then got killed by an angry coworker- Like Obama and Kennedy these icons of the looney left do absolutely nothing and somehow are sold to the ignorant public as some kind of fighters fro freedom. The Gays didnt come out because of aids, they came out because society was falling apart, and as usual ( please see the history of the fall of empires) the gays,lesbians, sexually deviate disenfranchised rise up to fill the gaps. And so society keeps crumbling now being led down the path of dissolution by great living queer icons like Gaga, Sir Elton, and Rosie Odonell
"To write sweepingly about
"To write sweepingly about gays in the last quarter of the twentieth century and not to mention AIDS shows an ignorance that does not befit the pages of the Washington Post. Why don’t they publish me on the subject of Tasmanian soup making methods."
Actually, Mr. Gerson is merely reflecting a 21st century more enlightened position of not automatically equating GAY = AIDS. To write dismissively about someone who writes sweepingly about gays in the last quarter of the twentieth century and to castigate him for not immediately mentioning AIDS shows an operant stereotypical pen and an ignorance that does not befit the pages of the NCR. It's a VIRUS, Mr. Winters, not a group identity. Now, WHICH planet are you on?
p.s.
"Why don’t they publish me on the subject of Tasmanian soup making methods."
If and when they do, I hope you include one of my favorites:
http://www.abc.net.au/local/recipes/2010/03/02/2834127.htm
Winters' snark here makes me
Winters' snark here makes me reflect on how very often I have mentally asked myself the question as to what planet HE is on. Yes, Gerson should not have omitted AIDS, but Winters clearly over-emphasizes AIDS in an ahistorical way that ignores the actual timeline of gay rights activism stretching back to Stonewall. AIDS was coined in the early 1980s, Stonewall was 1969, and Gerson clearly references the 1970s. I would argue that gay right mobilization was advancing from 1969 to the assassination of Harvey Milk in 1978 (which sent the message that gays could work for their rights and still be murdered for their trouble). I agree that AIDS certainly helped re-mobilize gay rights, but so did the reactionary conservatism of Ronald Reagan, which did nothing to stop AIDS and made "morning in America" seem like a scary time for lots of minorities in addition to gays.
What both Winters and Gerson miss is how important coming out to the gay community was through all this; gay kids infected with HIV were kicked out of their homes and into the arms of a community that nursed them till they died. The paradigm shift here involved two movements; gays being willing to cut-off contact with abusive families and take the gay community as their chosen family, and straight families horrified at what other families were doing and vowing never to do the same. As a result, coming out increasingly meant 1) the support of a loving gay community, and 2) the continued support of a loving straight family (not for everyone, but for many). The coming out process is ultimately a lot more important than AIDS in the history of gay rights.
" . . .a writer has an
" . . .a writer has an obligation to be informed too."
Amen to that!
frère charles du désert OSB OBLAT (Congrégation de Subiaco)
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