LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Should Gay Papers Accept Anti-Gay Ads? |
by Mubarak S. Dahir |
Readers of the gay and lesbian press may soon be opening the pages of their local gay papers and finding something astonishing: advertisements by conservative groups that hope to convince gays and lesbians they can and should change their sexual orientation. That's exactly what readers of the Bay Area Reporter found when they flipped through the pages of the San Francisco weekly recently. The paper carried a 4-inch by 5-inch advertisement for a conference aimed at counseling gays and lesbians how to become straight. The conference, called "Love Won Out," was organized by Focus on the Family, a right-wing religious organization notorious for its anti-gay propaganda and rhetoric. Focus on the Family has long held that homosexuality is a choice, and a sinful one at that. The organization preaches that gays and lesbians can mend their sinful ways if they turn to God, repent their wicked ways, pray hard, and submit to a host of counseling strategies that boil down to conversion and reparative therapy. Indeed, the ad placed in the Bay Area Reporter was for a conference specifically aimed at teaching parents and teachers how to "help" gay men and lesbians turn into heterosexuals. And this could be just the beginning. Focus on the Family says with their success at placing an ad with the Bay Area Reporter, the organization might begin approaching other gay and lesbian papers around the country to place similar ads in the future. No big shock that both the move by Focus on the Family, and the decision at Bay Area Reporter, has both editors and readers of gay and lesbian publications scratching their heads and wondering what is the ethical thing to do. It's not an easy answer. There are plenty of strong arguments for denying ad space in a gay and lesbian paper to the anti-gay religious right. But there may be an even stronger argument to support it. Those who say gay and lesbian papers shouldn't accept ads that essentially try to break down the gay and lesbian community are right when they say the ads could have real consequences. The fact that such an ad runs in a gay and lesbian publication may give credence to its message, especially for those gay men and lesbians just learning to cope with their sexual orientation. That affect may be further magnified for young people. There is no denying the special social contract that exists between historically persecuted groups and the publishers that serve them. If there wasn't the need for that special, unwritten relationship, gay and lesbian papers (and Black papers and Latino papers and Jewish papers) would never have risen to fill the void readers feel when they open the general-audience daily newspaper. It's hard to imagine a black newspaper running an ad for the Ku Klux Klan, or a Jewish newspaper running an ad for neo-Nazis. Doing so feels like a serious violation of that special social contract inherent in community-based newspapers. Opponents also have a valid point when they say papers are responsible, to some degree, for flagging ads that amount to false advertising. While the issue of what causes people to be gay and lesbian remains a point of political contention, all the respected scientific and psychological research on the topic indicates that it is either an innate trait or one that is solidified extremely early in life. No reputable scientific evidence exists to demonstrate that a person can change his or her sexual orientation, either by hormones or prayer. People opposed to the running or these anti-gay ads by Focus on the Family might make a convincing argument that a newspaper has the ethical, if not legal, responsibility not to publish the false claims the ads project. The most frequently-used argument in favor of running the ads is the line that it is all about free speech. But that's not quite true. Any gay and lesbian paper in the country could refuse to run the anti-gay ad without running afoul of Constitutional issues of First Amendment free speech. What people tend to forget whenever the "free speech" argument is bandied about is that the Constitution protects against government infringement on freedom of speech by individuals or groups. Private companieslike gay and lesbian newspapershave every legal right to refuse such an ad. In fact, there is a strong moral argument to be made that the papers have responsibility to refuse such ads. There's a real difference between an ad that promotes, say, a specific brand of fried chicken, compared to an ad that promotes hate towards an entire group of people. Ironically, it's doubtful that the Bay Area Reporter or any other gay and lesbian paper would accept an ad from the KKK, for example. And yet, when you start rejecting ads that are about viewpoint rather than products, where do you draw the line? Does a paper refuse ads that promote certain diet plans that might be unhealthy? Does it refuse ads by political candidates who don't hold the views of the editorial staff? Ah, the slippery slope. For its part, the Bay Area Reporter accepted the ad, then ran an editorial making clear it opposed the viewpoints of Focus on the Family and the goals of its "Love Won Out" workshop. It also donated the proceeds of the ad$231.60 to a local AIDS organization. Gays and lesbians angered by the Bay Area Reporter decisionand possibly a similar decision by their own local gay and lesbian paper in the futureshould keep in mind our own history. For years, gay and lesbian groups were denied advertising access to papers and magazines because editors and publishers labeled us immoral deviants. Cynthia Laird, the Bay Area Reporter's editor, perhaps said it best when she told Press Pass Q, an electronic newsletter about the gay and lesbian press, "I couldn't reject the Focus on the Family ad when we're combating censorship by newspapers that refuse to run gay ads." Mubarak Dahir is a new contributor to Letters from CAMP Rehoboth. He receives e-mail at MubarakDah@aol.com. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 9, No. 15, Nov. 24, 1999 |