The first night I went to college in 1960 a gang of us who had
just arrived for freshman orientation decided to cross the quad and
challenge the incoming freshmen in another dorm. When we got there
it turned out the only resident was an upper-class dorm proctor who
also happened to be a huge football player. He came out in response
to our taunts, some words were exchanged and before anyone knew it
the mob of us had pinned the football player to the ground,
somebody produced a scissors and we cut his hair down to the
scalp.
I don’t know whether you could call it “bullying.” The huge
football player could have taken any one of us. I cringed the next
day when I saw the shaven warrior crossing the campus, fearing he
might recognize me. It was the kind of outpouring of exuberance
common on all-male campuses of that era.
Little did any of us realize that such an incident might one day
disqualify any of us from running for President.
The Mitt-Romney-at-Cranbrook issue and President Obama’s awkward
embrace of gay marriage have quickly turned an election that was
supposed to be about unemployment and the ailing economy into a
debate over the fate of people who believe they were socially
abused while young. It seems almost absurd that such a pivotal
election is even discussing such an issue but as long as we’re
addressing the subject, let’s face up to a few things.
First of all, let’s admit it — childhood is a jungle. We come
into this world not entirely civilized and childhood and youth is
the period when these things are thrashed out with a vengeance. I
remember during my first three years of grade school the consuming
issue not learning to read or fashioning clay ashtrays in art class
but who had the “cooties” of a girl two years ahead of us. She was
a big, raw-boned girl whose name “Elizabeth” had been shortened to
“Lizard.” The most terrifying thing that could happen was to be
given “Lizard’s cooties.” The rumor was that she went to the
bathroom like a boy.
Sexual ambiguity is something that has always frightened
children and primitive societies. Tribal cultures usually have
elaborate taboos about what men and women can do, which building
they can enter, even what they are allowed to touch. Such societies
have elaborate initiation ceremonies to make sure young people
assume the proper sexual roles as they reach maturity. It was
Margaret Mead who in a moment of weakness once said, “The most
stable societies are those that make the clearest distinction
between men and women.”
Yet every society also produces a small number of people who
feel uncomfortable with traditional roles and incline toward what
early 20th century anthropologist Edward Carpenter called “the
intermediate sex.” Most societies have created a place for them,
often one of considerable honor. Men who feel uncomfortable with
the traditional male role often become witchdoctors or priests or
scholars, shunning the traditional male role but revered for their
differences and respected for their wisdom. Women have done the
same thing. Athena, the patron goddess of Athens, was born directly
out of the head of Zeus without a trace of motherhood in her and
was always represented as armed with a helmet and a sword. The
Delphic Oracle, who virtually ruled Classical Greece, was a farm
girl who had heard voices telling her to shun the female role and
live among vestal virgins (or temple prostitutes, no one has ever
decided which) spouting prophecies. Joan of Arc was another young
heroine whose inner voice told her to assume the male role and
rescue France. She became the national symbol.
Altogether, the progressiveness of a society can probably be
measured by its ability to tolerate sexual ambiguity and grant
flexibility in sexual roles. We are probably as tolerant as any
society has ever been in this regard. But putting homosexual
marriage on a par with traditional marriage is an entirely
different thing. Marriage is a ceremony designed to bind the two
halves of humanity together. Homosexual marriage leaves them
further apart and isolated. Few societies have ever granted it, yet
alone celebrated it, as we appear to be on the verge of doing.
There is very good reason. Every society blesses the yoking of
male and female together as the crucible for the propagation of the
species. This is no small thing. The Theory of Evolution is based
on the premise that all organisms are driven by an irrational
imperative to reproduce themselves and “spread their genes.”
Parents and other relatives do not want to see their children or
nephews or nieces becoming homosexuals because it means they are
not likely to have grandchildren or other closely related kin. This
will be the basic biological response no matter how many
“Proud-Parents-of-Gay-Children” organizations are formed.
But of course we are a super-progressive society that can
by-pass all this biology with the simple question, “Who says you
have to be married to someone of the opposite sex to have
children?” And this is why homosexual marriage, no matter how
innocently intended, inevitably challenges the whole principle of
marriage itself. If any two people can yoke themselves together in
an institution created for the nurturing of children, then why not
any three or four or even one? With male homosexuals this may
involve some complicated ju-jitsu but for lesbians and even for
women who just don’t have much tolerance for men, it all becomes
surpassingly easy. Why not just pick an attractive man, get
pregnant, have a baby and forget about all this social convention
about getting married?
You don’t have to look very far to see the results. It’s on the
cover of Time magazine this week. The controversial
picture shows a blond young supermom breast-feeding what appears to
be four-year-old boy. The headline claims it all has something to
do with “Are you Mom enough?” but the subliminal message is clear.
This is the new American family. This woman is “Julia,” the
Obama-administration-conjured “new woman” who needs no parents or
husband or supporting relatives but can marry the government
instead.
And who is this young man? Why he’s the New Woman’s sexual
counterpart, an infantilized, totally dependent male. (It’s no
accident that it’s a boy in combat fatigues she’s nursing. If it
were a girl in a tutu, the whole message would be lost.) This is a
feminist dream, a world without adult men. And is there the
slightest chance this little boy is going to grow up to be a
husband and a father? Forget it. We’ve already created this kind of
matriarchy in the African-American subculture through the welfare
system. Now let’s do it in society at large.
And this gets to the heart of the sickness in the Obama
Administration. It is why the President and his crew will go on
embracing gay marriage and single motherhood and every other form
of deviance from the traditional husband-and-wife family, showering
them with government blessings. Together they form a constituency
that can overthrow the basic adult male-female relationship that
has been at the core of every society in human history.
Homosexuals and people of ambiguous sexuality can and do play
successful, even leading roles in traditional heterosexual society.
Rock Hudson played a leading man and heartthrob for millions of
women even though he was personally gay. Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen
DeGeneres entertain millions in largely heterosexual audiences.
Elton John and Lady Gaga have made their fortunes singing about
heterosexual love. The whole arts community has always been filled
with people who played one role in public while living entirely
different private lives. But the question is not whether any
individual should be praised or condemned for their sexuality. The
question is whether the homosexual norm should stand on a
par with the heterosexual bond. When any society reaches this point
of challenge, it’s worth pushing back.
So yes, let’s forget about the economy for a while and conduct
an election campaign over whether tradition sex roles can be
defended — whether boys can be boys or whether candidates should
be ostracized for exhibiting traditional male behavior in their
youth. It’s probably more important anyway.
