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By BuckcuB
Ms. Hart, well known for her right-of-center views on life in America and her rigid interpretations of what constitutes family values, took what she terms the "homosexual movement" to task for its alleged campaign to remove Dr. Laura Schlessinger from the nation's television airwaves. You all remember Dr. Laura, don't you, readers -- the unpleasant self-appointed moral arbiter who terms homosexuality a "biological error" and claims that many gay men are pedophiles, and who recently segued from talk radio to a Paramount television show? Ms. Hart is angry about that anti-Dr. Laura campaign. Although, she confesses, Dr. Laura's comments "...sometimes make even her admirers wince...", Hart writes that she was simply expressing her opinion that gay "behavior" is morally wrong. Just as patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels, BuckcuB would like to point out that hairsplitting is the last refuge of bigots. It is not homosexuality itself which Betsy Hart condemns, oh my no. It's "behavior," it's the "homosexual lifestyle" to which she objects. In a column which takes a breathtaking leap from insincere defense of civil rights to ancient justifications for denying those same rights, Ms. Hart contradicts herself again and again, and shows herself apparently ignorant that she is repeating the same hollow bombast used over the years to justify prejudice.
No, Hart tells us, gays and lesbians now demand "moral endorsement." And that is wrong, she says, because while sexual orientation may be "deeply ingrained," behavior on the other hand is not ingrained. To illustrate this apparently-vital point, Ms. Hart likens sexual orientation to "original sin...the sin with which we all struggle." How, exactly, one moves from defending the equal rights of gays and lesbians under the law, to defining those same citizens in terms of the most basic and inescapable of Judeo-Christian sins, is a puzzle BuckcuB would dearly like to see Ms. Hart unravel. And though she trumpets her belief that gays and lesbians should be treated fairly and equally, in the same column Hart decries "...practicing gays forcing themselves into the ranks of the Boy Scouts of America." Well -- common sense would dictate that in a nation of decent Americans who all embrace citizens being treated equally under the law, no one would have to "force" their way into a national service organization. They would be welcome -- equally. This bizarre dichotomy is apparently lost on Hart, who like many homophobes brushes annoying logic aside in her zeal to make her point. Now, BuckcuB would like to point out that Betsy Hart appears to be possessed of a fair amount of education and intelligence, based upon the wordsmithing in her column -- or maybe she just has a great copy editor. But Hart embarrasses herself and her employers by brainlessly repeating the same set of absurd cliche's used by bigots of the past to justify their discrimination. Gays, Ms. Hart writes, seek to "...ride roughshod over deeply held religious beliefs and freedom of association and expression." It was not so long ago that racists professed their deeply held religious belief in the curse of Ham, a Biblical circumstance which espoused the idea that blacks' skin color was a punishment from God, and a badge of their sin so that the rest of us God-fearing folks could readily identify them. Segregation, the racists argued, was not a matter of individual hatred, but a circumstance ordained by God. This being the case, BuckcuB expects shortly to read Ms. Hart arguing that Dr. Martin Luther King rode roughshod over deeply held religious beliefs. Except she won't. She'd be fired, and rightly so. And any editor with an ounce of guts would fire her for making that same absurd case to defend antigay discrimination. "Freedom of association," eh? Perhaps Ms. Hart would like to open a country club and deny membership to Jews? Or -- and wouldn't the irony be delicious -- she might meekly accept being rejected for membership in a traditionally all-male journalists' club? The right to freedom of association has never been used as an argument for inclusion by the accepting -- it has, invariably, been used as an argument for exclusion by bigots. Like many in the right wing, Hart seeks to turn the intent of freedom of association on its head. She and her fellow-thinkers are free to leave organizations when they disapprove of the membership -- not to attempt to control that membership so they need only associate with those of whom they approve.
What Hart seeks to defend as "traditional moral beliefs" are prejudices which are used every day to deny gays and lesbians the rights to which they are unquestionably entitled under the Constitution. Tradition is not, and cannot be, immutable. It was traditional, once, for women to be the property of their husbands both in thought and in fact. It was a traditional moral belief that women existed for the purpose of begetting children, regardless that they might die in the attempt. It was traditional for blacks to use public facilities segregated from whites. If one wants to argue tradition, it might be pointed out that it was once traditional for black slaves to serve the needs of a white upper class; to burn heretics at the stake; to imprison people who held unpopular political views without a trial; to cruelly beat one's children and wife. Shall we bring back all those cherished traditions too? Tradition changes when we, as a nation, mature. Morality is not weakened by that change; instead it is defined more clearly and more strongly. We discard that which is unfair, cruel, bigoted, and in theory we replace it with acceptance and tolerance and egalitarianism -- all of which are bedrock principles of morality. A nation, a society, is a living thing. Like all living things, it must adapt to new conditions, or die. Yet for all its hypocrisy, Betsy Hart's column is a note of encouragement to those who fight every day for gay rights. Read her column dispassionately, and it's clear -- this is the last gasp of the old order, the final desperate attack made without a battle plan, without concern for logic or common sense, a naked appeal to hysterical fear too-thinly veiled as political commentary. Ms. Hart writes as if somehow she alone can bail out the sea with a sieve, though the tide overwhelms her. It is sad to see promise and intelligence wasted in the championing of bigotry, and Hart has BuckcuB's sympathies. There is no defensible line of argument, moral or otherwise, which can ethically justify homophobia and continuing anti-gay discrimination. And so in these last danse-macabre days of the homophobes, it is the Betsy Harts of the world who continue to offer one pathetic excuse after another for their bigotry. Gay citizens are entitled to equal rights -- neither because of their orientation nor in spite of it. We are entitled to rights as citizens,, regardless of orientation. And once Betsy Hart accepts that, she is going to need to make a major shift in her rhetoric, for there is nothing so sacredly conservative as our Contitutional rights. This nation's founding fathers did not make those rights conditional -- they were in fact quite clear that those rights are the due of every citizen, without exception. Twist and squirm through contradictory mazes of grandiloquence though she may, Ms. Hart cannot refute that irrefutable truth. The champions of "family values" need to begin showing the same respect for gay and lesbian families. Those who trumpet the sanctity of marriage must recognize the equal sanctity of the committment between two men or two women -- a committment which endures far greater daily challenges without the legal and social support afforded to heterosexual marriage. The right wing, which avers its love and care and concern for America's children, must stop teaching hate to those children -- senseless, groundless, pointless hate: homophobia. The wall of antigay discrimination is coming down, slowly, stone by stone, as more Americans recognize the injustice of that wall and the hysterical hatred which forms its foundation. Meanwhile, homophobes like Betsy Hart rush frantically to each new breach, shrieking at America to pick up a trowel and plug the gaps with fresh hate and stronger fear. It's a pity that Hart can't see the folly of that course -- for a wall built on the wobbly foundation of prejudice and bigotry cannot stand for long, in a nation which at its core is about liberty and justice -- for ALL. |
Betsy Hart 
In her recent column, Betsy Hart defended the statements made by Dr. Laura against homosexuals 
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