Working Paper 93-29, July 20, 1993(1)
By Ann Sebren
Boulder Organization for Non-Discrimination (BOND)
(1) This paper is an edited transcript of a talk given by Ann Sebren for the Intractable Conflict/Constructive Confrontation Project on April 10, 1993. Ms. Sebren is currently working on a major revision and extension of this paper, which will be available from the CRC in a few months. Readers wishing a copy of the revised version should call or write the Consortium to obtain it when it is available. Funding for this Project was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the University of Colorado. All ideas presented are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Consortium, the University, or Hewlett Foundation. For more information, contact the Conflict Resolution Consortium, Campus Box 327, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0327. Phone: (303) 492-1635, e-mail: crc@cubldr.colorado.edu.
© Conflict Resolution Consortium. Do not reprint without permission.
I'm with the Boulder Organization for Non-Discrimination (BOND). I'm a lesbian member of that organization. I would like to say that as a lesbian I could not and do not speak for the gay and lesbian community because we are an incredibly diverse group of people. We cut across many different lines of the population from class and gender to economic status and religion. There is no way that I could have one voice for that extraordinarily disparate community so I speak as a white, post-Protestant Christian, middle-class, Southern, lesbian academic. That will give you some clue as to why I say some of the things that I do.
This conflict is multi-faceted, multi-layered and multi-colored; it can be seen many different ways depending how it is presented and the social conditions framing it. That it is why it is so incredibly complex. I will outline some of the dimensions that frame this conflict.
Historically, probably the most important dimension of the conflict over homosexuality in this culture has been religious; this particular aspect should not be underestimated. The orientation about homosexuality in this culture has religious roots. People who might say that they are opposed to Amendment 2 because they have a gut reaction to homosexuality and not because they are really religious, have a consciousness that has been passed down through the ages because of a particular religious orientation whether one is practicing religion or not. So the religious dimension is a core aspect of this whole conflict. To do any kind of mediation, this particular facet of the conflict will have to be dealt with.
What this implies are questions and beliefs about ultimate reality: Is there a God? What is God's role in the world? What is God's role in this nation? How is the world supposed to be ordered? How should this culture be ordered? Who decides that? How is that justified? From a religious orientation, often times the conflict becomes one of interpretation of particularly relevant Biblical verses. People often have a very compelling reason not to go further in examining their beliefs about certain topics--they believe they will go to hell. So, the fact that people have that particular practicing religious orientation is another aspect of the conflict that is going to have to be considered. Also, the religious aspect involves the fact that no longer is it just about relevant Biblical verses; it is a question about what role Christianity is going to play in this culture, in this government, and in this nation. That is not an irrelevant question to this issue over the rights of gay and lesbian people. This cannot be overlooked.
There is also a political dimension to the conflict. It is really about the issue of citizenship. We are at a time when we, as a society, are trying to sort out which citizens are going to be granted the right to privacy, which citizens are going to be granted the right to access to the judicial system to make a case on their own behalf, and which citizens are going to be given the right to equal opportunity for jobs, housing, and public accommodations. Who gets to decide these issues of citizenship is also at stake.
Thirdly, there is a psychological dimension. Partially this conflict revolves around our beliefs about what it means to be human. We have an orientation by the majority of the people that to be human is to be heterosexual; therefore, to not be heterosexual is to be less than human. That is a fundamental belief that has to be examined when we talk about this conflict. Again it comes down to who is going to decide that in this culture. Who is going to decide what it means to be fully and acceptably human and how we are going to think, feel, and respond to each other on that basis? The other psychological dimension is the way we emotionally respond to the issue of sexuality. This response surrounds all of our very human fears and joys and the way we engage in being intimate.
There is also the dimension of diversity. The gay and lesbian community is a very diverse group of people. There is absolutely no consensus in our own community about what we need to do in this crisis. We are still in a state of crisis this many months after the election; so we are scrambling individually and as a community to figure out how we need to take care of ourselves and what we need to do to protect ourselves. Consequently, we have many different groups with many different perspectives on how this conflict should be approached in the gay and lesbian community. There are many differences in the heterosexual community opposing Amendment 2 and they, as well, differ in their opinions on how this conflict should be approached.
I had the dubious privilege of going to the Colorado for Family Values seminar held here in Boulder at Bethany Church. What I discovered at that event was that there is a real distinction between those who are leading and those who are listening and following. That seems to indicate that there is a middle group of people constituting the majority on this issue that can create the change. Change will not come from groups existing on the extremes of this matter. Historically, there is some reason to believe most social change has come about through such middle, mainstream groups coming to consensus. That fact should frame a constructive approach to mediation. That will be the target audience.
Finally, from my perspective, I need to talk about deception. In the case of Amendment 2, much of what framed this particular conflict has been an outrageous display of stereotypes, distortions, and lies about the gay and lesbian community. No meaningful dialogue can occur without taking that into account; it is very difficult to further dialogue when there is an entrenched position based upon inaccurate information. Often in such circumstances people have no compelling reason to think otherwise.
All of these dimensions are interconnected and need to be considered in any kind of constructive approach toward mediation or resolution of this conflict. Although there is no way to be certain that this is a conflict that can come to any real resolution, there may be some aspects of it that may be amenable to mediation, but here again, we are not talking about the broader social issues. The places where mediation may be possible is at the very micro, very local level where there exists disputes between two individual parties. Mediation or resolution at the state level will not occur in the near future.
In thinking about what constructive approaches might be possible, sometimes I may seem quite optimistic and naive about the actual possibilities. But, it is necessary to state those ideas even if they may not be truly possible in a real world. First, before any constructive approach to mediation is possible, we have to define what is debatable. From a gay and lesbian perspective our right to exist and our right to full citizenship in this country is not a matter for debate. For us to even engage in debate with groups like CFV on that issue is to legitimize the view that perhaps our right to exist and our citizenship is a matter for debate. It is not debatable, that is a given. I would suggest that the gay and lesbian community take a position that says that this is not debatable. That is part of the intractability of this conflict because those opposed to gay and lesbian rights think that our forthright and accurate existence, much less our citizenship, is much disputed. Defining the debate and defining what is debatable must be part of any constructive approach.
Also, language must be defined in any constructive approach to this conflict. Language has played such a powerful, powerful part of this issue that it can't be overlooked. For example, both sides, in some context or another, talk about the issue of family or use the word "family" but no one is really defining what they mean by that. Does family really mean male, female, and child--that's a family? Or does family mean the qualitative aspects of relating? How are we going to define that language? We have the same word being used on both sides without any real way of getting to what we are actually talking about. So, when we can get some distinct definition of what family means we can start talking about what the important, definitive characteristics of family are.
This issue of language is even more important when the same accusations are being hurled in both directions. For example, it would be very easy for me as a lesbian to say, "Oh, describing this conflict is real simple. It is between those that want to do harm and those being harmed." Listen carefully to the rhetoric of those supporting Amendment 2 and you will hear the same thing. They oppose gay and lesbian rights because their perception is that they are going to be harmed in some way. What we don't have is a discussion about what "harm" means and the difference between perceived harm and actual harm. One of the core deceptive features of the pro-Amendment 2 argument is that granting gay and lesbian people their right to exist as full citizens is the same as giving gay and lesbians license to have sex with children. That is a core emotional piece of their argument and it can't be disregarded. There is abundant evidence to demonstrate that this is a falsehood; but, it is a perceived fear supported by information that has no basis in reality.
If Amendment 2 is allowed to stand, gay and lesbian people in this state will not have full participation in our government. It will be legal to discriminate against us: we can lose our jobs; we can lose our homes. In turn, we will have no legal recourse in the court system to make a case on our own behalf. That is actual harm. There must be a discussion about perceived harms and actual harms so that we can bring this to a state of reasonable dialogue.
In terms of strategies from a gay and lesbian perspective, I would love to speak about what I think the other side could do, but I think that is their responsibility. I can't speak to that, but I can speak about my views about what the gay and lesbian community can do. I would again like to say that a lot of my views will not be shared by everyone in the gay and lesbian community, so these are thoughts from my own lenses.
The first strategy, as gay and lesbian people, involves the fact that we have to start speaking our lives. We must start telling our stories, be out, and be visible. This means being present both personally and, when we can, publicly. Of course, that needs to happen only when gay and lesbian people can do so without severe risk or retribution, because we should not demand of ourselves that we put ourselves at more risk.
Secondly, and I have been thinking about this aspect since I went to the Colorado for Family Values seminar, there is especially a need to start defining common ground. There are some people in the gay and lesbian community who would suggest that finding common ground with the CFV types is a matter of selling-out and trying to make ourselves like them so they will like us. But, I believe that finding common ground doesn't mean pretending to be like someone. Finding a shared commonality is absolutely a precondition for any kind of communication. We have many things in common with the people who voted "yes" on this Amendment. We have shared pains and experiences, we are as afraid of job loss as they are, we have all lost people to death, we all, as humans, have the experience of what it feels like to ostracized. There ought to be a way that we can begin to talk about this in some way. We should have some shared beliefs because we are all American citizens. We should at least have some shared rhetoric about democracy, about the right to individual privacy, the right to individual choices, and in some cases, gay and lesbian people are going to have shared religious beliefs with those who voted "yes" on the Amendment. We have shared social concerns about violence and crime and child abuse. At the CFV seminar a core piece of a film that they showed and a core piece of their rhetoric was the issue of gay and lesbian sexual molestation of children. I realized then that we are all very concerned about the abuse of children. What would happen if we approached the members of Bethany Church with a plan that would incorporate gay and lesbian organizations in working with the church to address child abuse in Boulder? They wouldn't know how to respond to that. But there has to be some place where we can invite them to come work with us on a shared social issue.
Lastly, we have to begin to reframe the issues. This entails the role of the media. We have to start holding the media, and those in influence, accountable for actual and not stereotypical portrayals of the issues. For example, the issue of child molestation is an issue of abuse, it is not an issue of sexual orientation. Also, there is the issue of the images broadcast from the San Francisco gay pride march containing what most of us would call bizarre behavior. But they are no different than heterosexual behavior during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. This then becomes a cultural commentary about what we think about in engaging in sexual relationships. The issue is not about sexual orientation, yet, you never see those parallels made in the media.
Also, gay and lesbians need to determine if there are some legitimate criticisms that we need to be willing to look at. For example, there is an organization that CFV uses in their rhetoric. This organization is a group of men who engage in child sexual abuse. Not all gay and lesbian publications allow this group to advertise in their publications but some do and when gay and lesbian publications allow that in their publications, we are implicitly condoning such behavior. That is a legitimate criticism we need to consider. But, because our community is so diverse we are not yet at a stage within our own community and development that we can even begin to talk to each other about that. While some things are not a matter for debate, we also have to be willing to examine our actions to see whether or not we are contributing to the derogatory perspectives about gay and lesbians.