LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Weekend Beach Bum: Foot In Mouth Disease |
by Eric Morrison |
Amidst ascending anxiety regarding the SARS epidemic, and rising rates of AIDS cases in many non-developed and developed nations, we now have another frightening and damaging disease to fight. Don't worryit cannot be transmitted through the air, food contamination, or the exchange of bodily fluids. It does not wreak havoc on the body's respiratory or immune systems, although it can significantly disrupt the nervous systems of many people. (I, for one, can attest that those who suffer from this tragic plight are on my last gay nerve.) This disorder seems to lodge itself in the brain of ultra-conservative politicians and narrow-minded religious leaders, and, eventually, the sickness forces illogical, harmful words out of the mouths of the victims, and onto the front pages of newspapers across the world, like a putrid, oozing pus.
I have labeled this medical, psychological, and cultural horror "Foot in Mouth Disease." In reality, this condition is neither new nor shocking. Since the beginning of time, some people have always felt the need to criticize and begrudge others of happiness if that happiness does not mirror their own view of the way the world ought to work. Also, since the beginning of time, the GLBT community has served as a prime target for such malevolent and malicious attacks. The very essence of "queerness" disrupts the male/female binary upon which most major religions and thought systems have grounded themselves. But the GLBT community knows very well that sexuality and sexual identity cannot be pigeonholed or easily categorized. Kinsey and his researchers were not the first to realize that sexuality is, and always has been, fluid. And I, for one, think it's time to step up the effort to stamp out Foot in Mouth Disease. Republican Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum seems to have a particularly bad case of Foot in Mouth Disease, although the people exposed to his vitriolic venom are the real victims. In a recent interview, fuming over a landmark gay rights case before the Supreme Court that pits a Texas sodomy law against civil and privacy rights, Senator Santorum ranted: "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.... All of those things are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family." I was pleasantly surprised by most of the news coverage of Senator Santorum's comments. The overwhelming sentiment was, "WHAT did he say?!?" That's a sea change from even a few years ago, when his comments likely would have been presented with a much less judgmental approach. Perhaps more importantly, his comments were reported as near political suicide, not with an air of "freedom of speech." I'm the first person to defend a person's right to speak their mind, but I also support the media's right to point out that such blatantly ignorant and exaggerated comments do not gel with the majority of Americans attitude, even with a conservative Republican sitting in the Oval Office. Reaction to Senator Santorum's comments reminded me of the stubborn, bigoted old goats of the 1960s who refused to accept that most Americans favored equal rights for black Americans and continued to bleat out an anachronistic message of hate and intolerance, ignoring public opinion polls to the contrary. Then, on Saturday, May 3, Pope John Paul II addressed a crowd of 600,000 young people in Spain to urge them, in these turbulent times, not to turn to hatred's ugly bosom. He pleaded with the audience: "Your response to blind violence and inhuman hate should be the fascinating power of love. Conquer enmity with the force of forgiveness...shun every form of exasperated nationalism, racism, and intolerance. Show with your lives that ideas are not imposed but proposed. Do not let yourselves be discouraged by hate." Unfortunately, this time around, none of the media seemed to make a connection between the Pope's pleas for tolerance and the official position of the Catholic Church on homosexuality. Not long ago, the Church announced something similar to the United State's military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, only it is more along the lines of, "don't act, don't tell." The Church now says that having homosexual orientation is not a sin, but to act upon your homosexuality is. Such self-induced suffering reminds me of the times when ascetic monks believed that the greater your suffering is in this life, the closer you would come to Christ in the next life. So they wrapped themselves in inside-out animal furs during the hot summer months, itching and sweating just to ensure a better place behind the pearly gates. Unnecessary suffering should not be a tenet of any religion or government, nor should intolerance or prejudice of any form. Scientific researchers have yet to develop a cure or a vaccine for Foot in Mouth Disease, and in the meantime, millions of people across the world, including the GLBT community, continue to suffer. People do not die from SARS or AIDS. They die from pneumonia and a host of other infections related to the diseases. But if you can destroy the SARS or AIDS virus in the body, no one will die. People do not suffer from words. They suffer when those words turn into laws and actions, and imbed themselves in the minds of individuals and the belief system of a culture. The eradication of Foot in Mouth disease, especially as it manifests itself in regard to the GLBT community, is long overdue. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 13, No. 5, May 16, 2003 |