Saturday, October 2, 2010

“Revisiting The Wisdom of Molly Ivins On Hatred"

I have recently been engaged in a project that is long overdue. I don’t know if that is because of a homing instinct for the grave or because I have finally come to my senses to the fact that I simply cannot read and re-read all of those long-forgotten treasures I have kept hidden away. However, there are a few that I have re-read that have hit me right between the eyes.

One of my favorite sources of writing has been some of the great syndicated columnists of my time. Two stand out, in particular, as giants among their peers. One was Charles McCabe who wrote a column for the San Francisco Chronicle, titled “The Fearless Spectator.” He was imbued with that rare talent which is surely a gift to the Irish from God Himself. An ability to manipulate the language like no others, and the ability to touch the human heart with the elegance of his prose. Much of his work was published in a few books, all of which I heartily recommend. You might find them available on Amazon.com.

The other who stands tall as my second favorite, was Molly Ivins. She was a syndicated columnist for one of the great newspapers of our time, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Sadly, the angel of death paid his/her visit to her much too early in her life, thereby depriving so many of what had become a regular diet of wisdom and insight. However, thanks to my proclivity for saving newspaper clippings, I found the following among those treasures. What astounded me was how relevant it is today as it was when it was first published. When that was, I haven’t a clue, but I am grateful I had the good sense to save it. Molly had that great gift with which so many of the giants from Texas possess; the ability to tell it like it is and making every word worth savoring.

I hope you will enjoy this column, and will be as moved by her words as I was with my long overdue second reading of her brilliance.


“ENTITLED TO HATE? “
How many straights chose to become heterosexual?

By Molly Ivins

Well, the gay folks had a fine march in Washington, D.C., but I think they missed a couple of bets. Jack Gordon suggests that they should have stopped en route and had a ceremony thanking the feds for naming that fine new building right there on Pennsylvania Avenue after one of their own. That’s the J. Edgar Hoover Building.

Speaking of whom, there was a great example of why we don’t want to force gays to stay in the closet.

And I would have liked to see a banner reading “Ban Heterosexuals from the Military -- Remember Tailhook.” I trust you all took a look at the charming little report on that incident.

I suspect that finally ventilating all the myths and misconceptions about gays is a useful exercise, even for those who would prefer not to think about them. “I have nothing against gays,” my mother is fond of saying. “I just wish they’d stay in the closet.” But we all know by now -- or should -- that that state of affairs was cruel and unjust and led to terrible abuses.

Of all the odd misperceptions current about homosexuality, perhaps the oldest is that it is a choice, that people choose to be homosexual. That strikes me as so patently silly. Did any of us who are straight choose to be heterosexual? When? Did we wake up one morning when we were 15 and say, “Gosh, I think I will be a heterosexual”? For heaven’s sakes, how can anyone believe that people choose to be homosexual? “I think it would be a lot of fun to be called ’queer’ and ’sissy’ for the rest of my life, so I think I’ll be gay.”

Last time I checked, the experts were still leaning toward the view that homosexuality is multicausational (isn’t that a dandy word?). Most gay people I know believe they were literally born that way, that it’s like being left-handed or brown-eyed. But in at least some cases, there is apparently some developmental influence as well.

The best description I ever heard of sexual orientation came from Dr. John Money of Johns Hopkins University, who used to draw it on a horizontal scale going from one to 10, with one being completely homosexual and 10 being completely heterosexual. Money says that very few people are either one or 10 and about as few are five (totally bisexual). Most of us fall into a clump ranging from about six to eight, while there’s a smaller clump of homosexuals ranging from about four to two.

Because homosexuality occurs in many species of animals (stickleback fish always struck me as the strangest case) and because it has appeared in all human cultures throughout history, we must conclude that it is what statisticians call “normal aberrant,” (and isn’t that a dandy phrase?)”

I actually saw a letter to the editor last week declaring that homosexuality is a symptom of the decadence and decline of civilization and that it didn’t exist among primitive people such as American Indians. Au contraire, as we say in Lubbock. Aside from the insult to Indians, there were indeed gay Indians before the white man came, and at least in the Plains tribes they were regarded as sort of endearingly special.

Among the less charming counter-demonstrators at the Washington march was the group from Kansas carrying signs saying “God hates fags” and “Death to fags.” It is true that the Old Testament contains an injunction against homosexuality; it’s in the same list of laws given when the Hebrews were a wandering desert people and were forbidden to eat shellfish. I always thought Christians were supposed to be followers of Jesus Christ, and Jesus’ injunctions to love one another -- to love even the despised and the outcast -- could scarcely be clearer. Hate is not a Christian value.

And, of course, there are the gay fundamentalists. We all know of scandals involving gay preachers, and if you wonder what it’s like to grow up gay in a religious environment that stigmatizes gays, I commend to you a truly funny book called “Strange Angel -- The Gospel According to Benny Joe” by Ben Davis, who grew up near Dallas and would have become a fundamentalist preacher had it not been for his sexual orientation.

As a matter of law, I do not see that we have any choice but to seek to ensure that gays have full civil rights. They are citizens, they pay taxes; as Jesse Jackson said Sunday, no one gives them a break on April 15. They serve honorably in the military, ban or no ban.

It has been my observation that some gay people are absolutely wonderful human beings, and some are complete you-know-whats, and most are somewhere in between. So I suggest we all grow up and get over our small-town prejudices (I can never remember whether it was “Queers wear red on Friday” or “green on Thursday.” Lord, didn’t we grow up with some silly ideas?). In our fair land, no one can force us to be tolerant. But neither can prejudice be allowed to keep people out of jobs for which they are qualified.

I suppose some people will continue to feel entitled to hate gays. As the psychiatrists have been telling us for a long time, hating them seems to be a function of being afraid that you might be one yourself.

---- Molly Ivins


“Man attacks most vociferously that which he most fears within himself.”

Cowboy Bob
October 2, 2010

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