Dartblog

I believe that South Park has already furrowed its comedic brow in exploration of this rarely understood bifurcation, but when I read the headline, “Lambda 10 works to erase homophobia” in The Dartmouth this morning, I suddenly felt the urge to proselytize.

I’m going to preach on the wrongness of proselytizing. I hope you’ll excuse the catch twenty-two—after I’m done with this post, the rule will go back to being in effect.

Most people take as axiomatic the individual man’s right to self-determination, to individual thought, and to personal preference. In resisting orthodoxy of any nature, left-liberals, to their due credit, are the most ardent resistors of the horde. In many situations, the end result of a broadly heteodoxical philosophy is negative, in that it ends up supporting change-for-change-sake policies and is too quick on the trigger in discarding the collective wisdom of grandfathers and societies past. But the wider advantage, through all this, is the open-mindedness that has always been a prerequisite for innovation. In this sense, liberal thinkers—and I use ‘liberal’ in the Enlightenment sense—have been variously proved right as the years have marched on. It is a boon to the free-thinking collegiate majority that individualism is still so wholly respected.

With one exception: homosexuality. From the pro-gay viewpoint no derogation is permitted. To defect is to hate. To disagree intolerance. To do anything but wear the appropriate rubber wrist band and fly the right rainbow is a tacit admission of the most dreaded of all appellations on the campus in our time: homophobia.

No single topic—not war, peace, economics, religion, or haircuts—births so much fiery e-mail from my contemporaries. Yet never have I written against homosexuals themselves or homosexuality writ large. I’ve argued against gay marriage as a matter of social good and sound policy. This makes me a homophobe, which means I am frightened by sameness. On the contrary, I adore sameness. The choice of word, actually, is interesting in itself. The gay lobby—and there is a large and powerful one—invented it in order to have a unique name for their particular oppression. ‘Bigot’ would have sufficed, or ‘anti-homosexualism’. Instead forged was a nonsensical Latin Frankenstein, used to accuse opponents of hating all things and persons gay. Homophobia. For a lobby intent on destroying preconceived sex assumptions, the strategy behind accusing men of being frightened of homosexuals is a quite revealing one, all the more because what is meant by homophobia never involves fear, but a varying combination of intolerance, rejection, hate, or unease. Anything from a feeling of unease to the serial street beaters of decades past.

The calculation was that men would as a matter of course reject being afraid of anything, and thus would denounce homophobia writ large. Every interest group, of course, can make these calculations. Some prove savvy and others do not. It’s probably too early to deliver a verdict on the effectiveness of homophobia.

But there is something very wrong with that word. It glosses over an important distinction society has made in combating these plurality problems. There is tolerance, and then there is adoption. Intolerance is a word so watered-down by overuse that its real meaning has been buried deep. Intolerance means an inability to live among, to withstand the existence of, a certain type of person. Islamism is intolerant. The Klan is intolerant. Gay beatings are perpetrated by intolerant people. Disenfranchisement, employment discrimination, harassment, and abuse: these are all examples of intolerance, of men’s inability to maintain rationality and peace confronted with persons different from them. A peaceful society must be tolerant of all law-abiding constituents.

Minority groups have a basic human right to demand tolerance. To some very small extent anti-homophobia campaigns are geared to fomenting tolerance. To that extent, and not past it, they are necessary and just. What no community has a right to do, however, is evangelize captive audiences. Espousal, adoption, underwriting, support: these are elements of one’s personal value system. At Dartmouth and I would venture to say at all colleges, gays are tolerated. And more than that, there is a club and any number of academic courses devoted to homosexuality. And, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, plans are in the works to permit gay alumni to elect two representatives to the Alumni Assembly rather than the one representative that most alumni get. There is no argument to be made that the Dartmouth community is intolerant to gays, and therefore no cause for something like Lambda 10 which, if it is honest, wants merely tolerance. Judging from the article, though, it is an activist group dedicated to changing peoples’ minds. In that respect it should be considered an affront to individualism. Tolerance, as I hope I have enough times here, is crucial. Let’s not confuse hurt feelings or personal opinions with intolerance.

UPDATE: George Richardson e-mails: “You could go further in criticizing the word “homophobia.” Phobia is an irrational fear; therefore, a form of mental disorder. The lamdas are trying to portray those who express any opposition to their agenda as suffering from a mental disorder.”

CORRECTION/AMPLIFICATION: After some debate, a reader and I have resolved that homophobia is not a Latin Frankenstein, but a Latin/Greek Frankenstein, which of course makes it ever more the Frankenstein. While ‘phobia’ is Latin (after the Greek ‘phobos’), the ‘homo’ in question is the Greek ‘homo’ meaning same, not the Latin meaning man. I had forgot the dual meanings of the word. My apologies.