What's So Bad About Will and Grace:
Tolerance Versus Equality and an Argument for the Future of the Gay Rights Movement

The kinds of confrontation that concern me most are those in which I feel neither socially snubbed nor inconsequentially ridiculed, but legally helpless. My boyfriend became very sick and dangerously febrile, a condition that persisted for an alarming duration. He became delirious, and I had to decide that we should go to the emergency room. The ambulance arrived, he was taken inside, and after I explained our relationship to the EMTs I was told to find other transportation. I arrived at the hospital much later after waiting too long for a cab, and asked to see him. I was met with the usual question of how I was related to the patient, and I saw the subtle recoil in the weary eye of the night nurse when I told her I was his boyfriend. I was told to sit and wait; I was not allowed to see him.

I am sentenced therefore to pass the hours watching the comings and goings of husbands and wives, girlfriends and fiancees who have the liberty to accompany their loved ones. I am one of the anonymous others that populate the particular realm of depression that is a waiting room. Though I am anxious with worry and enraged by injustice, I feel above all else defeated, realizing I have no right to be there at his side. Not in the eyes of the nurse, nor the hospital, nor the law. Not yet. This being a waiting room, however, I'll do just that.

***

A recent article by Ryan Gierach in the popular gay magazine Genre pronounced the gay rights movement dead (43). The alleged cause of its demise? Not the war on terror, not Jerry Falwell, but the gay community itself. In fact, the aftermath of September 11 has brought some gay issues to the forefront of national dialogue, most notably the re-examination of the traditional definition of beneficiaries in survivorship benefits and the distribution of charitable funds. As for the culpability of Jerry Falwell--whose attacks on the gay community have accused us of causing a wide range of society's ills, from Tinky Winky to last fall's terrorist attacks themselves--I won't excuse him or other radical conservatives like him from deterring the advancement of gay rights. But Gierach tells us that, in investigating the death of gay lib, the gay community need only look to itself. The feeling that seems pervasive within the gay community that "we've arrived--we made it!" has left us feeling prematurely satisfied with our place in society. Perceived widespread public tolerance has lulled many gay people into the idleness of perceived comfort and inaction, despite persistent lack of basic equal-rights legislation against job and housing discrimination, or for marriage, civil union, or adoption rights (Gierach, 43-45). In short, complacency killed gay rights. To counteract this torpor, the gay community must rail against indifference. If we are tolerated, then we must remind ourselves we are not treated equally in the eyes of the law. Tolerance is not equality.

In his essay "What's So Bad about Hate," which appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the conservative gay author Andrew Sullivan includes a passage that unfortunately exemplifies what's so bad about some of the ideologies within the gay rights movement of today:

conservative friends who oppose almost every measure for homosexual equality yet genuinely delight in the company of gay friends . . . clearly harbor no malice toward me or other homosexuals whatsoever . . . . They are as hard to figure out as those liberal friends who support every gay rights measure they have ever heard of but do anything to avoid going into a gay bar with me. (668)

Sullivan thinks nongay conservatives who socially accept gays should also vote for gay equal-rights legislation. Sullivan gives as an example their willing patronage of gay bars, accompanying their gay friends. The implication of Sullivan's statement is that social acceptance and legislated civil rights are of equal importance, which is to say that they should carry the same weight within the gay rights movement. According to Sullivan and other gay authors and political leaders, these two ideas should grow out of one another: social acceptance begets equal rights legislation and vice versa. Though this mindset and its resulting social movement strategies have proven effective in past civil rights movements such as African-American civil rights (Cain, 281), it seems unlikely in the case of gay liberation--mainly for the very reasons it has worked for minority groups in the past. In reality, would-be leaders and authors of the gay rights movement should recognize that these two ideas represent two separate fronts of gay liberation--social acceptance and legal equality--that may well be mutually exclusive. Moreover, they should not be approached on equal terms. Emphasis must be placed upon winning legal rights through litigation and public policy, not upon swaying public opinion--social acceptance is no guarantor of legal rights. In fact, the superficial tolerance that gay culture ostensibly enjoys in contemporary media and popular culture--we all know how very cool it is to be gay--points not to genuine social equality but to a cultural and ethnic whitewashing and assimilation that does more harm than good to the movement. True societal acceptance will come, in time, slowly, as old ideas about gender and sexuality die out generationally, but while they die their protracted death, gay rights legislation must be sought to move the gay community toward equal treatment under the law.

* * *

THE MR. CELLOPHANE SYNDROME
I have a sixth sense both for tolerance and conflict. I instinctively know with whom I can discuss issues pertaining to my sexuality, my life, and my significant other; similarly, I've learned to pick out people who would be likely to take offense to such talk. Being a member of the class of gay urbanites, I feel a certain sense of freedom of disclosure, movement, and self-expression that comes with some measure of security from overtly hostile prejudice, though there are many circumstances that are charged with conflict and seem ripe for confrontation. I'm constantly on the lookout for such potential confrontation and try to steer clear whenever possible, but this vigilance is tiresome, and there are unavoidable situations. By confrontation, I don't mean fisticuffs, but that culminated moment when a heterosexual person must face my homosexuality head-on, with no apologies or room for interpretation. In polite society, I know the most likely result from direct confrontation of this sort is to have my sexuality blatantly ignored. Some heterosexuals go about ignoring the existence of a gay man. They would rather (and this part I can only guess) fashion me in their mind into something else that would more neatly reconcile with their worldview.

This type of behavior is mostly seen at social gatherings like weddings or holidays with family. As an example, a plausible scenario set in a buffet table line at a pretend wedding reception would go something like this:

RELATIVE 1:	(between munches of celery) What a lovely wedding! You know, my youngest, Jessica, has been engaged for two years now to Michael--he's the schoolteacher--and they still haven't set a date yet.
ME:	(acknowledging with mock horror) That's funny. John, my boyfriend, is a schoolteacher too. You know, coincidentally, we've been seeing each other for two years. (lightly) No plans for marriage yet, though.
RELATIVE 2:	Oh, I think I met your friend John earlier at the bar. Smart young man. You're college friends, right?
ME:	Well, yes, we went to school together, but we also live together right outside Boston now. Like I said, we’ve been together for two years.
RELATIVE 1:	(to RELATIVE 2) Have you tried the salmon mousse yet? It's yummy.
RELATIVE 2:	Hmmm. (pretends to see acquaintance, walks away quickly)
ME:	Anyway, John really enjoys teaching, but I know it's difficult as well--his school has a lot of disciplinary problems with their students. . . (RELATIVE 1 and COMPLETE STRANGER arch eyebrows and look away, pretend not to have heard, reach for same broccoli spear)

and so the evening goes. . .

My presence can be acknowledged, but any intimation of my personal life, or my partner's, is met with blank stares. The ramifications of these minor transgressions are entirely manageable, and I can make my way through an entire evening with civility and come away feeling, if anything, slightly invisible, a condition which sparks only minor indignation. Besides, after the evening is through, I can retreat to the comfort of my cool existence. This transparency of being calls to mind a song entitled Mr. Cellophane, from the Kander and Ebb musical Chicago. The song recounts the trials of a man who is ever present but largely ignored, rendering him essentially ineffectual.

* * *

In his article questioning the continuing viability of gay lib, Gierach points to the mass media's mainstreaming of gay culture as a major contributing factor to the movement's decline. Quoting Michael Weinstein, director of a leading gay organization, Gierach writes, "Before Will and Grace, it was easier to see our enemies. Now we are in the classic mind-fuck--gay is hip, but the culture hates gays themselves" (45). Urvashi Vaid echoes this sentiment in her book Virtual Equality, saying that gays and lesbians "are in a paradoxical spot: we are mainstreamed at the same instant that we remain marginalized" (205). Daniel Harris has written the book on the mainstreaming of homosexuality, The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture, and points mainly to the mass marketing of gay culture as its downfall. A simple TV viewing is all that's needed to learn that camp is cool, acerbic cattiness is the wittiest of repartee, and the gay aesthetic is high art. I'm referring to NBC's Thursday night comedy, Will and Grace. Though the show's main characters are gay and thereby marginalized by definition, the comedy occupies the most coveted television timeslot for sitcoms and is wildly popular, enjoying an extremely large audience. Arguments have been made that this translation of gay culture into media commodity promotes the gay rights movement with efforts to show heterosexuals how much we gays really are like them, with the same problems, same joys, same ups, same downs, same this, same that, ad infinitum. The idea of this is, as one may guess, a problem for some in the gay community. One reason for this is that the mass marketing of the gay culture is prepackaged for nongays, with the less desirable aspects excised, most notably the sex. Harris writes that the gay liberation movement itself has also contributed to this assimilation of gay culture into the mainstream:

It is not just economic forces that are to blame for the decline of the subculture but gay liberationists themselves, who are in some sense at war with the gay sensibility, anxious to tone down or eliminate altogether our idiosyncrasies as a minority, which some activists treat as the necessary casualty of progress, the price we must pay for social acceptance....We have seen that the obliteration of the gay sensibility, of our effeminacy, campiness, promiscuity, and aestheticism, is actually built into the program of the gay movement, which, far from being an ally of traditional gay culture, is its worst enemy, a savior that will ultimately strip us of our distinctive ethnic features. (269)

Though I'm unconvinced that the gay movement is the worst enemy of gay culture (never forget those fundamentalists), the problem of assimilation should be a real fear in the gay community. It is tantamount to ethnic whitewashing: it does away with the very aspect of ourselves that makes us a community. And rather than ensuring equal rights, it fosters complacency. Highlighting sameness tends to erase the important differences of sexuality and of sex itself. Thereby, the disparity of treatment between gays and nongays (I prefer "nongay" to "straight," which implies a crooked counterpart) is ignored--the main differentiator is taken out of the equation. Once inequality is ignored, change is unlikely; homeostasis is assumed and the status quo remains unchallenged.

So, is the gay rights movement really dead? It's a matter of perspective and definition. If gay liberation is superficial tolerance and assimilation into mainstream society, then its death knell is its resulting irrelevance. If liberation strives for legislated equality, then a revival and redirection of the movement is in order. Gierach quotes activist Ivy Bottini from the National Organization for Women (and a gay and lesbian activist) speaking about such a redirection:

We need to be affirmationists, not assimilationists. When we live and work with our neighbors as openly gay, we affirm to ourselves and to them that we are whole and healthy members of society. We don't have to conform to their norms; we must live our own unique and full human lives as gays and lesbians. (54)

* * *

WORKING WITH THE SEXBLIND
I've enjoyed working in several liberal and socially progressive companies, a few of which even extend limited benefits to same-sex domestic partners. I've also enjoyed the acceptance of my coworkers and peers, and with only a few exceptions, being "out" at the workplace has not been cause for any discomfort--I've been able to forge many comfortable, open relationships with coworkers. Though this interaction is more desirable than the sort previously described as the Mr. Cellophane Syndrome, these so-called open relationships give rise to another interesting issue. Like anyone who is a member of a majority group, heterosexual people can only guess at what it's like to be gay, in the minority. Many choose to ignore differences in the name of friendship or tolerance, choosing instead to see a coworker only as an individual, separating him from his sexuality. This is the sexual equivalent of being "colorblind" (borrowing a term from another realm of social struggle). The problem with this approach is that though it is well intentioned, it ignores important differences between majority and minority groups and moves toward assimilation rather than equality. Many nongay people have applied such an invented view toward a universal erasing of differences between gays and nongays, and assume that great strides have been made in the world toward sexual equality because they've already made them in their minds. I'm always slightly amused at their surprise to find they work at a company that doesn't extend its benefits to same-sex domestic partners, or that there isn't a federal law that could protect me from being fired just because of my sexuality. The federal government leaves it up to the states to decide whether to include sexuality in equal employment legislation, and most states do not. In fact, Massachusetts is one of only 13 states that provides protection for gays and lesbians with anti-discrimination laws that apply to private employment--the remaining 37 states have no such legislation.

* * *

It occurs to me that equal treatment under the law for gay people became inevitable when homosexuality was declassified as a disorder or sickness by its removal from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders by the American Psychiatric Association in 1973--until then it was classified as a sexual deviance, a mental disease--and has also begun to be decriminalized throughout the United States (at a regrettably slow rate: at the close of 2001, 13 states still have anti-sodomy laws on the books. Massachusetts is one of these states). From these concessions made by major institutions that contribute to and regulate public policy, a logical argument can be made. If an action isn't sick, or perverse, or criminal, then it follows that it should fall within accepted limits of normal behavior.

Never forgetting the fundamentalists, I feel compelled to point out here that I am omitting a most obvious caveat in this argument of what society considers normal behavior. Since the capitulation of psychiatry and criminal law, radical religious groups threaten the current gay rights movement as they threaten no other organization. In brief, it is evident that political groups with religious motivation--the so-called religious right, consisting of the Christian Coalition, et al.--seek, solely because of their religious beliefs, to gut the gay rights movement. Urvashi Vaid renames these groups "The Supremacist Right," and classifies them as the enemy of gay equality (307).

Once a person is recognized as normal, then equal treatment under the law should follow. There is legal precedent in this area. When "separate but equal" became the accepted legal stance for the treatment of African-Americans in society, proponents of racial equality had the opportunity to push the civil rights movement forward more rapidly because, while separation was indeed enforced, the courts had to recognize that the races were not treated equally (Cain, 278, 282). As Patricia Cain states in Rainbow Rights: The Role of Lawyers and Courts in the Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights Movement, "sameness" arguments were able to push the civil rights movement forward in the courts (277). Under this argument, if it is recognized that X is the same as or equal to Y, then constitutionally both X and Y shall have equal treatment under the law. Though this proved effective to the civil rights movement in the '60s, the sameness argument is less effectively applied in the gay rights movement. For many in the gay community, sameness means assimilation, and, as discussed before, assimilation is, to many of those struggling both for gay rights and to preserve a gay identity, untenable. So we must seek alternative arguments for equal treatment. Cain suggests that "our argument, as with race, should be that gays are fully human, not despite our gayness, but because of it" (285 [emphasis added]). The direction of this argument is toward a discussion of difference rather than sameness, which would necessitate a discussion of that very aspect which has been intentionally purged from the gay public image: sex. I'll refrain from diving into the finer points of gay sex here, but because it really is at the heart of this issue, in order to advance gay rights our national discomfort of talking about it must be overcome. As Cain states, "We need to make the private more public" (286). I'm not suggesting that a Westheimer-esque narrative about gay sex needs to be read in the caucuses, but I do think the nation's policy makers would be better served if they undertook the dialogue in a mature manner with adult understanding rather than regressing to a playground mentality in which the reality of homosexuality is the unmentionable equivalent of the cootie.

* * *

ESCALATION
The population of Boylston Street near Berklee College of Music at noon (during warmer months) is an eclectic mix of executive types, students, and tourists, congregated for the purposes of lunching, talking, and sightseeing. On such a noon, walking down toward Mass. Ave. on my way to wherever, I noticed in my periphery a young couple, a high school- or early college-aged young man and woman, walking toward me on the sidewalk. As we met and passed each other, a bit of their conversation stuck in my ear. He turned to her and said clearly enough for me to hear: "Why are there so many faggots in Boston?" She laughed, perhaps out of embarrassment. Reflexively not turning my head to acknowledge the statement, I felt my face flush not in shame but in anger at the knowledge that this was an accusation intended to invoke shame. I'm familiar with that twinge at the pit of my stomach when some middle-aged yahoo yells slurs from his perch inside his SUV (it's happened to me on more than one occasion); I'm less prepared for someone younger than I to call me a faggot. What struck me most was his youth. What scared me most was what was behind the words. Though I can say that this was a rare, isolated incident, I'm left wondering if such behavior or the motivation behind it will ever pass away.

* * *

In addition to those who feel that social acceptance equals or is as good as legal acceptance, there are those who feel that the latter is the less urgent of the two, and suggest that only through social acceptance will laws be passed that secure gay equality. In an article titled Gay Civil Rights Strategy Won't Work, Walter Davis and Bill Fields write, "We can never be fully accepted and full civil liberties can never be granted unless all rigid sex roles assumed by patriarchal capitalism are challenged" (4). I can almost hear a blase chorus of, "Oh, is that all?" in response to their reductionist statement. The authors advocate a change brought about by the individual's fight for social acceptance and that these ripples of warm fuzzies will result in wide sweeping pro-gay legislation. Is challenging the sex roles of the patriarchy really the silver bullet for unequal treatment? While I do agree that the traditionally rigid ideas of sex and gender as established by our male-dominated society should be challenged whenever possible, this is an enormous struggle that can only be won as old prejudicial ideas about sexuality die out over time--and this sort of death is a hopeful assumption. From personal experience, I know the knee-jerkingly visceral revulsion that some heterosexuals (I'm especially aware of this reaction in men) have when confronted with a gay man, however censorial they try to be of their reaction. It is manifested in many ways: a beat of silence, a flash of the eyes, a halting hiccup in conversation to list just a few. This reaction can't be unlearned, and no amount of exposure to positive gay role models will undo it. I have no idea who or what this positive gay role model would be; it just seems that the best way to fight reflexive prejudice is with positive reinforcement. I--as a gay man--could be accepted in theory, and reasons for tolerance can be argued, but true social acceptance will not come until the old ideas about sex roles are not only challenged, but also overcome. I don't have time to wait for that to happen--not if I want equal treatment in my lifetime.

Vaid writes in Virtual Equality, "civil rights are principally mechanisms to gain access, not means to implement fundamental social change" (180). In keeping with my argument, I agree with her statement but differ in my sentiment. Vaid implies that the civil rights paradigm loses its impact if applied to the gay rights movement (179), that equal access is less than--or at least should follow, and not lead--social change. As for me, give me equal access and protection now, and I'll wait for the social change. I can tolerate people's jeers if I have to, and the barbs of homophobes, and even condemnation from religious fundamentalists. If I can walk into a hospital room to be with my sick boyfriend, if I know that I'm guaranteed not to be fired simply because I'm gay, if I know that the benefits of insurance claims and tax breaks apply to me and my partner the same as to a married, nongay couple, I'll weather society's intolerance.

And what of Andrew Sullivan's dilemma? As a gay man who also has friends, I empathize with the statements Sullivan makes in his essay. I have friends who consistently vote conservatively though I know they would only want for me to prosper in life with my gay identity intact--and who, coincidentally, have gone with me to gay bars. I also know self-purported liberal advocates of the gay rights movement who would have an unfortunate and serious attack of hives if I were to ask them to accompany me to Ramrod on a Friday night. To be sure, the mere fact of this incongruity (hypocrisy?) bothers me, but unlike Sullivan, who views both with equal frustration, I can honestly say that supportive conservatives offend me more than "bigoted liberals" (668)--at least the liberals are voting for gay rights measures. Were I to fret about them both with equal dismay, I would fall into the same trap as Sullivan.

Authors, political leaders, and individuals in the gay community have differing opinions on the current state of gay liberation and the best direction for its future. In the ongoing dialogue about social tolerance and legislated equality, Sullivan seems to choose to treat both with equal importance. Others assert that social tolerance must first be gained and then equal legal rights will result. In summary of my response I offer Urvashi Vaid's succinct statement: "we need political power to protect and defend ourselves as we work to eradicate homophobia" (212). Unlike Sullivan, I don't care if some of my liberal friends won't go drinking with me at gay bars. What matters most to me and to the gay community as a whole is our equal treatment under the law. So, my friends can harbor latent homophobia and refuse to go out with me to gay bars--I'll go without them. And if they, being true to Sullivan's definition of "bigoted liberals," vote to ensure my equal rights as a gay man, then maybe I'll stay home and do something even more productive, like plan my wedding with my husband-to-be.

WORKS CITED

Cain, Patricia A. Rainbow Rights: The Role of Lawyers and

Courts in the Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights Movement. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2001.

Davis, Walter and Bill Fields. "Gay Civil Rights Strategy

Won't Work." Canadian Dimension. Jan.-Feb. 1994. 46-48.

Gierach, Ryan. "Is Gay Liberation Dead?"

Genre. Dec. 2001. 42-45, 54.

Harris, Daniel. The Rise and Fall of Gay Culture.

New York: Ballantine Books, 1999.

Sullivan, Andrew. "What's So Bad About Hate." Fields

of Reading: Motives for Writing. Nancy R. Comley et al. 6th ed. Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001. 664-679. Originally published in The New York Times Magazine. 26 Sept. 1999.

Vaid, Urvashi. Virtual Equality: The Mainstreaming

of Gay and Lesbian Liberation. New York: Anchor Books, 1995.

WORKS CONSULTED

"Homosexuality and the DSM-IV." Updated May 2001.

Cited 7 Jan. 2002.

"Summary of States Which Prohibit Discrimination

Based on Sexual Orientation." Updated 4 Jan. 2002. Cited 7 Jan. 2002.

Copyright © 2002 The President and Fellows of Harvard College.
All rights reserved. Comments. Last modified Wed, Dec 18, 2002.