Back in the 1970s, Anita Bryant waged one of the most strident antigay campaigns of all time. Bryant supported her antigay agenda with arguments such as: “If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail-biters.“
Almost as ludicrous are the arguments made by our elected officials in support of their own antigay agenda.
While the sponsors of the antigay agenda aren’t revealing the names or sources of the studies that have convinced them that only heterosexuals are fit to marry, enter civil unions, adopt children, or even serve as foster parents, they do offer some alarmingly simplistic explanations for their antigay legislation.
They claim the proposed adoption ban has nothing to do with discriminating against a minority group and everything to do with preserving the traditional family. While Sen. Black and her cohorts claim to have the interests of children at heart, the feeble arguments they muster in defense of their antigay bills invariably center not on the children, but on the preservation of the traditional family.
Despite the state’s dismal record in the business of taking care of children, Sen. Black would rather see a child remain in state custody than be adopted into the home of a nontraditional family. Presumably she will soon amend her bill so that it also bars adoption by nontraditional heterosexual families. Unfortunately for Black, the traditional family is on the decline. Only 25% of all households in the nation fit the traditional model of one man, one woman and children.
Punishing children and would be adoptive parents for the demise of the traditional family is not going to bring it back.
If lawmakers were actually quoting studies on the well-being of children instead of defending tradition, we might hear them admit that all major research studies find that a parent’s sexual orientation is irrelevant to the development of children’s mental and social development. An analysis of two decades of studies on the topic, published in the prestigious American Sociological Review, supports these findings.
Among the many Professional organizations (too numerous to list here) that support adoption by gays are the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the National Association of Social Workers and the Child Welfare League of America.
When it comes to the rationale behind the marriage ban, legislators make the same feeble claims. They insist it has nothing to do with discrimination; rather it is about the traditional definition of marriage. “For thousands of years,” they argue, marriage has consisted of “one man and one woman.”
Actually, for thousands of years, marriage has consisted of one man and his chattel. Married women had no rights because law defined them as the property of husbands. As late as 1981, the Supreme Court overturned state laws designating a husband as “head and master with unilateral control of property owned jointly with his wife.” Moreover, until the 1970s, states did not even consider spousal rape to be a crime.
The tradition of one man and his chattel has been a hard one to change. It was not until the 1990s that the 50 states recognized that married women have the right to say no to their husbands, or that marital rape is indeed a crime.
Thankfully, traditions do change. Legislators should get used to it.
If lawmakers hope to be viewed with even a modicum of respect they need to come up with some credible evidence to support the argument that their antigay agenda is based on something other than old-fashioned bigotry. Obviously when legislators suddenly file twelve separate bills, all aimed at depriving a minority group of citizenship rights, they appear to be bigots.
Regardless of whether all or some of the antigay agenda becomes law, the fear and distrust provoked by the actions of our elected representatives will have consequences.
Anita Bryant’s antigay campaign was short-lived. She became the laughing stock of the nation; her successful career went down the drain at about the same time as her marriage. There are moments in time when we do appear to live in a just world. Let’s hope the current rash of bigotry in the legislature will soon provoke another such moment.
