By Perry Brass

A couple of years ago, I published a novel called Albert or The Book of Man. It takes place in the year 2025, when the White Christian Party has taken over America. Their spokesman is Brother Bob Dobson--whom some people seem to feel eerily reminds them of Pat Robertson, in his constant, mealy-mouthed self-righteousness. The President of the U.S. at this time is Rich Quilter, an opportunistic dork whom some people (again seem to) feel reminds them of ducky old Dan Quail, George Bush's always-the-Veep-never-the-Pres Disneyworld wax dummy, who today is kind of waiting like the croc in Peter Pan for the Right hand to be thrown to it. At a huge media event of the White Christian Party, this exchange happens between the two ol' politico fuckbuddies, Dobson and Quilter. Vincent Lanier, Albert's lover, has managed to sneak into a convention hall to present the case for what Quilter expects to be "gay conservatism." From Albert or The Book of Man, 1995: Then Quilter got up to speak. After praising the decent people of San Francisco, the WCP, and Bob Dobson many times, he announced: "Now, folks, I want to introduce a young man who comes from a different point of view. All this talk about 'gay reserves'"-hissing and boos from the audience-"I know, friends, this is not a pleasant topic among Christians, but we have to face it. This young man wants the New Conservatism to embrace homosexuals and allow them in, as long as they give up any special status. What do we think of that?" "NO QUEERS!" rang out from the audience. "No Queers in the WCP-Christ does NOT bless QUEERS!" The din went on for several minutes. Dobson and Quilter looked at each other and slowly nodded. . . . Dobson said, "We Christians listen to all sides, don't we? Don't we always say 'Love the SINNER, but hate the SIN!'" Steady rhythmic, clapping went up; Brother Bob smiled. He nodded his head, then added, "But remember this, friends and neighbors: Hate in the name of Jesus is better than Love in the name of anybody else! That's something I am not ashamed of, and I call that the truth!" A huge cheer followed. "Now, let's hear once more from Brother Rich, who is still, with our help, the President of this Christian country!" For a moment Quilter looked dazed; almost off balance. Then he called Vincent forward to the camera area. "I want to say," Vincent began, "that a lot of us are not in favor of any special rights. We don't want special rights at all. All we want is to be able to live our lives with the same dignity that everybody else wants. We want to be able to walk down the streets without fearing abuse and we want not to have to blend in--that is, we don't want to have to fear just being ourselves. We don't feel these are special rights, just human rights--the right to have our own families, the right to love and be cared for-these are not special rights. They are only human rights, or you can give them any other name you want." "You stated your point well, brother," Quilter chimed in. "And I'm sure you don't want 'special rights.' But, remember, the true family values of Christ and these United States do not recognize your desire for what you call 'human' rights, either. That's part of the old humanism, and look where that got us!" (The audience began booing again.) "Our Christian world, brothers and sisters, wants Christian rights, not 'human' rights!" The audience began to cheer, and Quilter added: "Especially, if those same rights lead only to your own selfish happiness!" The audience booed again . . . without a single cheer. It went starkly quiet. For the first time, Quilter looked disturbed, even slightly bilious. He'd wanted them to cheer, and he didn't like at all what Vincent had said. Indeed, Vincent had surprised him. The President put on his best, pasted-on smile, which, truthfully, he knew he had never been able to do as well as Dobson. "We're going to give up this godless idea of happiness for real GODLINESS, aren't we, Brother Vincent?" So that was published in 1995-pre-Monica Lewinsky, before Newt Gingrich had stuck his foot so far down into his mouth that it came out another orifice; okay, it seems like light years ago. Then I picked up The New York Times this morning to read that on February 11, Maine defeated its "gay rights" law. The Christian Coalition and its various minions won the vote against "gay rights" by 52%. A small but not exactly paper-thin margin, even though voter turnout by Maine standards was low. The voters of Maine had repealed the law, even though the Maine's Governor Angus King had spoken in favor of it and pro-gay activists has assembled a half-a-million-dollar political "war chest" to fight the repeal-thus vastly outspending the Christian Right, which spent about $150,000 on the campaign. So most of-for want of a better word-"gay" Maine was counting on the fact that somebody else would win the fight for them. The new law for gay human rights had the Governor on its side, Maine's reputation as an independent-thinking state, money in the war chest; and it flunked. What gay activists, liberals (God, isn't it great to get that old word out the closet again), and other thinking people overlook is the vast power of fear, hate, and the right buzz words in the right places. In this case, as Randy Tate, executive director (okay, why not just say it: Grand Vizer) of the Christian Coalition, which helped plan and finance the repeal campaign, said, "The American people rejected the notion of special rights based on sexual activity behind closed doors." Of course, every word Tate said, including "the," "on," and "behind," were lies-but the CC is packing out that old buzz word, "special rights," and they know how far they can get with it. For a long time, it was pretty far. When I was a kid growing up in Savannah, Georgia, the Randy Tate vizers used the term "state rights" to cover up what they wanted-basically to bar other people their rights. Now they use "special rights" to keep people from having the "rights" that Vincent talked about in Albert. "All we want is to be able to live our lives with the same dignity that everybody else wants," Vincent said. If this is special rights, then I guess every human being in America wants special rights, and deserves to get them. If all we are is simply something we do behind closed doors in our bedrooms, then what are "straights"? Actually, a lot of people are asking that question today, but the wrong people can't seem to get to the answers. So, while I was reading this in today's Times, and thinking, Wow, this is basically what I wrote about in Albert a few years ago, what a smart kid I must be, this other thought came into my head: You idiot--what did you do, work real hard and invent the wheel? Those thumbbutts from the Christian Coalition, or the White Christian Party, or whatever they want to call themselves, have been using the same rhetoric since the year Gimmel. Hitler used it, too. So every now and then, like most writers, all I do is stick a wet finger in the air and catch which way the wind is blowing. The great majority of Maine residents, according to polls (whatever the hell that means; polls lie a lot faster than voters, who will do things in the privacy of their voting booths they would not do in their bedrooms) had "no problem" with the Maine law that gave regular human rights to gays and lesbians. This was according to Christian Potholm, a prof at Bowdoin College who's been studying Maine voters for years and does regular polls of their viewpoints. Approximately 55% of the actual voters of the state thought that the law was both fair, adequate, or not adequate enough in protecting the citizens of the State. But many of those 55% slept late on election day. So what we are left with are the usual hard core of Christian Right fear-scatterers, the ones who said that the law would "force" school systems to hire "homos," etc. And who resort to the old "special rights" b.s. and would Bible-thump for Jesus till the moose came back out, even though Jesus, who loathed hypocrites and the know-nothings, would have found the thumpers damn repugnant. But even the Christian Coalition admitted something in this Maine campaign, and reading the lines in The Times, I saw it pretty quick. I didn't even have to read "between" the lines to see it. Gary Bauer, Pres. of the "Family Research Council" in Washington (another Christian Coalition front), said it: "There is increasing cultural acceptance of homosexuals and support among political elites for the gay-rights agenda, but at the grass roots level among average Americans, there is a tremendous amount of resistance." Wrong. Hate to tell ol' Gar' boy this: there ain't. The amount of resistance has gone down in atomic numbers since I was that kid in Savannah. The idea that approximately 20% of the people staying home on that election day would be for "gay rights," whatever the hell that means-as opposed to human rights, and we know what they are-and those 20% will swing Maine well over towards human rights for gays and lesbians, must shock the doody out of the Christian Coalition. So they know that the only thing they have going for them now is apathy, fear, and the usual old buzz words. "Special rights," as Brother Bob knew, just ain't enough. And anyone who's had his own rights taken away from him (or her), knows there is nothing special about that. They-and we-will work very hard to get them back, and when we do, maybe those people who slept late on February 10, election day in Maine, for a plebiscite on "gay rights," will wake up. Perry Brass's latest book is The Lover of My Soul, a collection of poetry and other writings that would cause Gary Bauer to throw up the neck of the Easter Bunny he's just bitten into. His thriller, The Harvest, has just been nominated for a Lambda Literary Award for gay science fiction. He can be reached through his website, www.perrybrass.com