GENERAL'S OFFENSIVE: Response to attack shows progress - Reaction to gay slurs is evidence of change

GENERAL'S OFFENSIVE: Response to attack shows progress - Reaction to gay slurs is evidence of change
By Rex W. Huppke
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
Published March 18, 2007

By now, the Pentagon's top general must be feeling a bit lonely atop his moral high ground.

Seemingly unaware of the millions of people he was offending, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated bluntly last week that he believes homosexuals--be they citizens or soldiers--are immoral, and the stretched-thin U.S. military apparently has no room for immorality.

Expectedly, the general's comments didn't go over well in the gay and lesbian community, but what was striking was the awkward thud his words made as they hit the floor in the broader court of public opinion.

Politicians, including several high-profile Republicans, spoke up, saying the general had no business bringing his personal views into a discussion of the government's policy on gays in the military. Many Americans found Pace's words as dated as they were inappropriate, a sad echo from an unenlightened past.

This is a reaction that gays and lesbians should be thrilled about. The insult was no sign of progress, but the backlash that followed certainly was.

"We can sit back and say, `Wow, just a few years ago he could say that and no one would question it and there wouldn't be a brouhaha,' " said Rick Garcia, political director of the gay rights group Equality Illinois. "I think we are at that tipping point where, increasingly, you can't use anti-gay slurs. Anti-gay slurs are being put in the same category as racial and ethnic epithets."

Pace is just the latest high-profile person to prove Garcia's point.

Conservative firebrand Ann Coulter recently used a homosexual slur when referring to Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. She was pilloried--more than usual--in the press, and several newspapers across the country dropped her syndicated column.

Before that, former NBA All Star Tim Hardaway reacted to news that another retired player came out of the closet by saying: "I hate gay people." Hardaway was quickly banished from the NBA's All Star weekend in Las Vegas, lost at least one of his endorsement deals and likely won't be getting much broadcast work anytime soon.

Isaiah Washington, an actor on the hit television show "Grey's Anatomy," put his career in jeopardy last October after he called a fellow cast member who is gay the same slur Coulter used.

This shift in what Americans are willing to tolerate is critical for the gay rights movement, just as it was for blacks in the civil rights era.

Martha Biondi, professor of African-American studies at Northwestern University, recalled the work of Adam Clayton Powell Jr., one of the first blacks elected to the U.S. Congress in the 1940s. At that time, she said, pro-segregation politicians routinely used racial slurs on the floor of Congress, then later had them edited out of the public record.

To put pressure on his colleagues to respect black lawmakers, Powell found a way around the segregationists' trick. When it was his turn to speak, he would recite the names of each politician who made a racist remark and detail what that lawmaker had said, ensuring the public would be able to read his testimony and see exactly what was happening.

"Language is important, and as part of this early civil rights effort, as part of this desegregation of the Congress, it was really, really important," Biondi said. "It means something when slurs become unacceptable."

Today, anyone who makes their racism public comes across as a social pariah, if not simply an idiot. That's called progress, and there are strong signs that those striving for gay and lesbian civil rights are heading down a similar path.

"It's a socialization factor," said Rosalee Clawson, professor of political science at Purdue University. "If it's fine to say negative things about homosexuals, then that's the way you're socialized. But if it's not fine, if it's not acceptable, then people's attitudes change."

A sterling example of change occurred last year in the Philadelphia offices of the gay and lesbian rights group Equality Forum. A teenager who is straight, a typical jock, came to work for the group.

"He was here because he believed in gay civil rights," said executive director Malcolm Lazin. "That wouldn't have happened as little as a few years ago. A straight guy would've been absolutely fearful of stepping forward in terms of what he believed in."

It seems reasonable to expect the younger generation, which consistently demonstrates an almost "who cares" attitude toward homosexuality, will grow into a world where sexual orientation isn't an issue at all.

The National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago has been conducting a general social survey for more than three decades, and data from those surveys indicate that, before long, the Gen. Paces of the world likely will slip into the minority.

In 1973, 72.5 percent of Americans believed sexual relations between two adults of the same sex was "always wrong." As of last year, that figure had dropped to 56.2 percent.

Clearly, the country is nowhere near wholly embracing homosexuality; the flurry of gay marriage bans enacted in states across the country in the last few years proves that.

People will believe what they want and justify it, as Pace did, by saying it's how they were raised or pinning their feelings on religious tenets. The general is a public figure, though, and when he spoke last week, he was not asked to share his personal view.

Perhaps he and others like him should take a page from the military's own policy: If you're not asked your opinion on homosexuality, don't bother telling.

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rhuppke@tribune.com