Author: Jim Maynard

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Opinion Viewpoint

Inequality’s the Issue

Like many liberal Democrats, Ruth Ogles Johnson (Viewpoint, February 7th issue) thinks that the way for the Democratic Party to win the support of white working-class voters is A) to assume they are too stupid or uneducated to understand racism and sexism and B) to win them over by appealing to that assumed ignorance.

Johnson singles out the new national director of the Democratic Socialists of America, Maria Svart, as an example of how liberals have “insulted” white working-class men by speaking out against patriarchy and white supremacy.

She says, “This tired ‘victim class’ rhetoric only exaggerates the caricature of an egghead liberal from the big city. As a progressive, I find this woman’s language silly and offensive, not to mention lazy and anachronistic. If my female, college-educated, solidly middle-class eyes glaze over when I hear this liberal blather, imagine the reaction of a male laborer with only a high school diploma.”

Now who is “insulting” white working-class men? She just asserted that a “male laborer with only a high school diploma” would be insulted by the “egghead liberal” because he is too ignorant and uneducated to understand sexism and racism. But the reason liberal Democrats have lost white working-class male support is not because of “egghead” leftist purists who talk about racism and sexism.

The real reason the Democratic Party has lost white working-class votes is that it has become a corporatist party that has failed to defend the economic interests of the working class — white, black, brown, and yellow. Instead of taking on the corporate elites and the economic and trade policies that have decimated the “middle class” (i.e., working class), the Democratic Party alienated labor by supporting “free trade” and “free market” economic policies, and the result has been the destruction of the working class under both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Liberal Democrats like Johnson assail “ideological purists” on the left while they won’t even address the class war being waged against the working class and seem to talk only about the mythical “middle class.” The reason the Democratic Party has been losing white working-class voters is that they are afraid to talk about the working class and are afraid to address the class war being waged against them.

Instead of attacking the corporatist Democratic elites who have pulled the Democratic Party away from labor and aligned it with Wall Street, Johnson attacks socialists and leftist “ideological purists” for not dumbing down to talk to white working-class males.

Maybe liberal Democrats could learn something from socialists about how to appeal to the white working-class by defending them against global capitalism, which has destroyed the American working (i.e., “middle”) class, betrayed by the Democratic Party time and again: by supporting “free trade” agreements that have destroyed American jobs; by being more willing to bail out Wall Street bankers than workers who are losing their homes and jobs; by caving in to health-care companies instead of pushing a single-payer national health-care system; by depending on labor unions for support to get elected but failing to defend labor once in power.

Maybe the reason the Democratic Party is losing white working-class people is not that they are too dumb and uneducated but that the Democratic Party has failed to represent their economic interests.

Democratic Socialists of America has been urging Democrats to reject Republican-lite policies like neo-liberalism and austerity and to defend the working class. Instead of insulting white working-class men and blaming “ideological purists” on the left for their political difficulties with white workers, maybe liberal Democrats should appeal to all workers, regardless of race, by defending their economic interests instead of those of the white corporate elites.

Jim Maynard is a Memphis organizer for the Democratic Socialists of America.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Still With Us

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the “discovery” of poverty in “affluent” 1960s America by democratic socialist Michael Harrington in his classic work The Other America. That book is credited with drawing the attention of the Kennedy administration to the problem of poverty and helped launch LBJ’s “war on poverty” in 1964.

Contrary to the right-wing attacks on the war on poverty, the poverty rate in the U.S. dropped from 17 percent in 1965 to 11 percent in 1978. The war on poverty created Medicare and doubled Social Security payments, indexing them to inflation, which led to a dramatic drop in the poverty rates among the elderly, from 30 percent to less than 10 percent.

Since 1978, however, things have gotten worse, not better. The poverty rate increased throughout the 1980s, reaching 15 percent, falling briefly back to 11 percent in 2000, rising again to 15 percent. So while the initial anti-poverty programs of the Johnson administration had some success, ultimately the war on poverty failed to erase the scourge of poverty in America.

First, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. pointed out, the Johnson administration waged the wrong war — in Vietnam. Ever since, the U.S. government, both Democratic and Republican administrations, has been more committed to funding the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about than to addressing poverty and its many underlying causes and consequences.

Policymakers did latch onto one concept from Harrington’s book: the culture of poverty. Harrington painted a bleak picture of the lifestyle and living conditions of the poor, but while he saw the culture of poverty as the consequence of deprivation and a lack of resources, American elites saw something else: a culture that creates and reproduces poverty. The problem, they determined, was not a lack of good jobs, money, or resources or the growing inequality in U.S. society. It was a lack of “good values.”

Thus, since the 1980s, the U.S. government has been engaged in a war on the culture of poverty, not a war on poverty and its real causes.

Today, nearly 16 percent of the U.S. population (49 million people) are poor, according to the official government definition of poverty ($22,811 annual income for a family of four; $18,000 for a mother and two children). Nearly half of those official poor have incomes less than 50 percent of the official poverty level.

If we define poverty as half of the median household income ($25,000), more than 19 percent of Americans are poor (it’s less than 10 percent for most western European countries). In the U.S., 22 percent of children live in poverty (compared to less than 5 percent in western Europe), and one in four African Americans and Hispanics are poor. According to the Brookings Institute, one-third of Americans live in or near poverty.

We were led to believe that with the economic growth of the 1980s and 1990s a rising tide would lift all boats. It did not. While productivity increased dramatically over the past 30 years, wages have not. For most U.S. workers, wages have been flat or have declined over this time. So where did all the rewards of that productivity go? For the last 25 to 30 years, more than 90 percent of total growth in income in the U.S. went to the top 10 percent of Americans (mostly the top 1 percent), leaving the other 10 percent of income growth to be shared by the bottom 90 percent. The wealthiest 400 people in the U.S. have more net worth than the bottom 50 percent of the country’s population.

U.S. policymakers should be looking at the growing concentration of wealth, income, and power, which has crippled the U.S. economy and produced policies that benefited the top 1 percent over the bottom 99 percent.

Instead, we have more calls to cut top tax rates further, from 70 percent before Reagan down to 25 percent or less! Instead of more investments in successful social programs like Medicare and Social Security, we are being told that the bottom 90 percent must sacrifice their “entitlements” to fund more tax cuts and reduce the national debt.

The “invisible poor” of The Other America are now very visible — they are working-class families losing their jobs and their homes. They lack money, not values. We lost the war on the culture of poverty. It’s now time to focus on the root causes of poverty. The working class, including the working poor, has been losing the class war, and it is time to fight back. 

Jim Maynard is an activist in the Memphis chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

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Opinion Viewpoint

The Real “Class War”

The current debates surrounding cutting the deficit and the mounting national debt underscore class struggle and class conflict at the heart of capitalism. Addressing the mounting deficit will require reversing over 30 years of supply-side economics, which has slashed taxes on the corporate rich and, along with unpaid wars and out-of-control military spending, has left the U.S. $14 trillion in debt, three-fourths of it from Republican presidents.

But instead of addressing the real causes of the deficit and national debt, the corporate elite — and their allies in both political parties — are targeting Medicaid, Medicare, and even Social Security, which has nothing to do with the deficit or debt and has a $3 trillion surplus!

Why is Congress making severe budget cuts when hundreds of profitable corporations are paying extremely low taxes or none at all? Fortune 500 companies like General Electric, Boeing, Verizon, Bank of America, and Citigroup pay no federal taxes. If you paid as much as $10 in taxes this year, you paid more than these pampered behemoths.

These and hundreds of other American companies use overseas and offshore tax havens to shelter their profits while claiming losses here in the U.S. These companies shift the responsibility to pay for our shared defense, roads, bridges, education, and public services onto small businesses and individuals. According to a recent report by the Institute for Policy Studies, over the past 50 years there has been a decided transfer of the tax burden away from the wealthy and multinational corporations onto the rest of us small fry.

The wealthy are paying the lowest tax rates in 50 years. A report by Wealth for the Common Good shows that the 400 richest people in America control more wealth than 150 million of their fellow citizens. And they are effectively taxed at just a 16 percent tax rate, while the working class pays up to 35 percent. These oligarchs’ effective tax rate has dropped by two-thirds since the Eisenhower administration.

Income and wealth have become extremely concentrated in the hands of the super-rich. The richest 1 percent own nearly 40 percent of all wealth and get 25 percent of all income. The top 10 percent own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent, and they are taxed a lower rate for wealth than workers pay on wages. While CEO pay has skyrocketed, wages have declined, and the number of unemployed and working poor continues to grow. Just who is it that is waging class warfare?

If we are serious about addressing the deficit and paying down the debt, we have to repeal the Reagan and Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and cut corporate welfare and military spending — not, as the Republicans keep demanding, Medicare and social programs.

The Republicans want to cut gaping holes in the safety net to allow for more tax cuts for the corporate rich. The current GOP budget proposal includes $4.3 trillion in program cuts but offsets those cuts with $4.2 trillion in tax cuts, leaving only $155 billion in real budget cuts over the next decade.

Contrary to the propaganda of the Tea Party and its corporate sponsors, we are not broke. If corporations and households with $1 million of income paid the same tax rates they did in 1961, we would collect $716 billion more a year — $7 trillion over a decade. That is more than all the budget cuts proposed by the Republicans.

The American people seem to be ahead of their representatives in Congress. Vast majorities, even of Republicans and Tea Party supporters, oppose cutting Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid and support cutting military spending and raising taxes on the corporate rich. The Progressive Caucus — the largest in Congress, believe it or not — has proposed a “People’s Budget,” which takes a top-down approach to cutting spending and raising taxes, but it is being ignored by the corporate media. I wonder why.

There is indeed a class war, but it is being waged by the oligarchs and corporate rich against the working class. Let’s stop all the talk of budget cuts until corporate tax dodgers and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes.

Jim Maynard, a well-known local activist, is the organizer of the Memphis Coffee Party Progressives & Democratic Socialists of America.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Not Our Party


Several important news items in the past week underscore the dire situation of the poor and the working class in the United States, but they got little attention from the corporate media or the political elite. The number of Americans in poverty has climbed to 44 million, the highest number in 50 years. In 2009 alone, 4 million people fell into poverty, and it would have been higher without the extensions in unemployment and other benefits Republicans opposed.


The number of people without health insurance climbed to 50 million. The health-care crisis continues to worsen, while the right wing calls for repealing the health-care program that will cover 30 million more people. Health insurance companies already are gouging people and dumping children and sick people before the law is fully implemented, while Republicans want to cut all public health-care programs and throw us all at the mercy of insurance companies.

While corporate profits and CEO pay continue to skyrocket, even after the Great Recession they created out of greed, the wages and income of working-class Americans continue to decline. There is a class war, but it is a war of the corporate rich being waged on the working class.


What I don’t understand is why the Tea Party, which claims to represent “we the people,” is taking the side of the corporate rich. They defend private insurance companies which are rationing health care based on the ability to pay while increasing their profits and CEO pay. They are siding with corporations against unions and the right of workers to organize and improve their working conditions.

Instead, the Tea Party is following millionaire corporate lobbyists like Dick Armey and corporate front groups like “Freedom Works” and “Americans for Prosperity,” which are nothing but cover groups for insurance companies and energy companies that oppose “regulations” which would protect the environment and increase access to health care.  


Tea Party members want to reduce the deficit and cut government debt, but they also want to continue to cut taxes on the corporate rich, without any cuts to pay for them. It is this combination of careless tax cuts favoring the rich, along with unpaid wars and increases in military spending, that has caused the explosion in the deficit, all the result of the policies of George W. Bush, which they want to continue.

The Tea Party is taking over the Republican Party, pushing a radical agenda to impose corporate and theocratic rule over the United States. They want to cut or eliminate Social Security, the most successful social program in history, which has nothing to do with the deficit. They claim to be opposed to “big government,” but they want to impose their religious beliefs on everyone, and they seem to love big business.

The Boston Tea Party was a revolt against unfair tax cuts for a multinational corporation, the East India Tea Company, which undermined the small businesses in the colonies. The British were imposing taxes on the colonies, while cutting the taxes of the East India Tea Company. We need a real Tea Party revolt against tax cuts and corporate welfare programs that favor the corporate rich and put the interests of Wall Street “banksters” over the interests of the American working class.

We need to pay more attention to the common good and less attention to the whining of rich people who don’t care about the general welfare of “we the people.”


On Saturday, October 2nd, in the “One Nation Together March” in Washington, D.C., thousands of people from labor, environmental, peace, and civil rights groups will stand up for “we the people” and demand the change we were promised and voted for.

Jim Maynard is a member and organizer of the Democratic Socialists of America.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Incomplete Victory

Most gays and lesbians joined in the celebration of the historic election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president of the United States on November 4th. Obama received 70 percent of the LGBT vote because of his support of equal rights for everyone and his inclusion of gays and lesbians in his vision of a more perfect union.

Late that night, however, our celebration turned to shock as the results of the California vote on Proposition 8 came in. After the California Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that it was a violation of the state’s constitution to deny same-sex couples the right to marry, the voters of California rescinded the marriages of nearly 20,000 gay and lesbian couples. While 61 percent of Californians voted for Obama, who opposed Proposition 8, 52 percent of them voted for the anti-gay proposition.

The real shock is that 70 percent of African Americans voted yes on Proposition 8. According to exit polls, 52 percent of Latinos and about 49 percent of Asian and white voters supported the anti-gay measure, but seven out of 10 African Americans, who supported Obama by a 94 to 6 margin, sided with the anti-gay religious right to deny gay and lesbian couples the right to marry.

The “Yes on 8” campaign, funded largely by the Mormon and Roman Catholic churches, used quotes from Obama opposing gay marriage to mislead African-American voters into thinking Obama supported Proposition 8. They played to homophobia and anti-gay prejudice in the black community.

It was a painful slap in the face to gays and lesbians. Gays and lesbians played important roles in the struggle for African-American civil rights. A gay black man, Bayard Rustin, organized the 1963 March on Washington. He was attacked by the FBI and conservative black preachers, but Martin Luther King stood by him.

Nearly every major black civil rights leader today supports equal rights for gays and lesbians, including Julian Bond, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and civil rights hero Congressman John Lewis. Bond and Lewis have been vocal supporters of marriage equality for gays and lesbians as well.

One of the highlights of my life was attending the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s “Creating Change Conference” in 2000. The keynote speaker was Coretta Scott King, who reminded us that King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” and called upon everyone who believed in his dream to “make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.”

King was a religious man, but he also believed in the separation of church and state and opposed using government to impose religious beliefs on others. He respected and studied other religions, including Ghandi’s teachings on non-violence. He offered a vision for equality for everyone in the United States. He would not have condoned the anti-gay bigotry or the conservative political agenda of the religious right.

Most Americans now agree with the principle that gays and lesbians should be treated fairly and have the same rights as everyone else. Many even support “civil unions” and domestic partnership benefits for gay couples. But these “separate but equal” compromises are not adequate. They do not provide all of the hundreds of federally recognized rights that married couples have in the United States. Only civil marriage can provide equal rights for everyone.

Many religions will not recognize marriage between same-sex couples, and, like other groups, some African Americans struggle with their religious beliefs about marriage and their desire to support equal rights for gay people. Allowing gays and lesbians to legally marry, to have the same rights of civil marriage as straight couples, will not require anyone to change their religious beliefs.

By continuing to equate civil unions and domestic partnerships with civil marriage and claiming to support one but not the other, liberal Democrats are reinforcing the public misunderstanding and fear of same-sex marriages.

It is time for the political rhetoric of liberal politicians about equality and social justice to be matched by political courage, the kind of courage JFK and LBJ had to exercise when they supported civil rights for African Americans, even if it cost the Democratic Party the South, which it did.

Sometimes standing up for one’s political principles may have a short-term cost, but it is rewarded in the long-term.

Jim Maynard is a gay activist in Memphis.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Without Foundation

Terry Magnum believed he was doing God’s will when he stabbed gay Southwest Airline flight attendant Kenneth Cummings Jr. in the head with a six-inch knife. “Sexual perversion is the worst sin,” he told reporters from the jail in Brazoria County, Texas, where he is charged with a hate crime in the June 4th slaying. Cummings’ charred body was found days later.

The James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act passed the Texas legislature in 2001, over the objections of conservative religious groups and Republicans. The bill allowed Texas crimes motivated by “sexual orientation” to be prosecuted at the highest level of severity. That can mean more years in sentencing or a lesser chance of parole. The family of James Byrd, the black man who was brutally murdered in Texas, and the family of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was brutally murdered in Wyoming, joined together to fight for the law.

Now, the religious right and conservative Republicans have been fighting against adding sexual orientation and gender to the federal Hate Crimes Enhancement Act (H.R.1592). A group of Memphis pastors, predominantly African-American, are targeting Representative Steve Cohen for supporting the bill.  

The “Memphis City Churches” organization spent thousands of dollars on full-page newspaper ads opposing the rights of gays and lesbians to marry. Having successfully amended the Tennessee constitution to prohibit gays and lesbians from marrying, the group is now opposing the hate-crimes bill because, they argue, such legislation would infringe upon their religious beliefs and freedom of speech — freedom to preach against homosexuality. Their Web site proclaims, “Any sermons against homosexuality will be a crime. Telling a person that he or she can come out of the gay life will be a crime.”

Evidently, these pastors have not actually read H.R. 1592, which clearly states, “Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct.” That includes preaching against homosexuality. H.R. 1592 would simply expand the current federal hate-crimes law to provide federal assistance to local governments in investigating all hate crimes based on race, religion, color, disability, gender, gender identity, or sexual orientation. It has widespread support from civil rights leaders.

So why does the Memphis City Churches group oppose the hate-crimes bill? Where did they get the erroneous claim that the bill would make it a crime to preach against homosexuality and gay rights? From the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, and the Traditional Values Coalition, all extremist anti-gay political organizations.  

These Republican political groups are targeting Democrats who support the hate-crimes bill by fanning the flames of homophobia and anti-gay prejudice, particularly in African-American churches. These groups are opposed to any recognition of the human rights of gays and lesbians. Even protection from hate crimes goes too far in granting gays and lesbians the “special rights” of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Memphis City Churches Web site has links to all of these anti-gay groups and has lots of talking points against homosexuality and gay rights. There is no mention of AIDS, drugs, poverty, poor health-care, or crime affecting the African-American community. Shouldn’t these Christian ministers focus on the problems in their own community instead of attacking the civil rights of gays and lesbians?

It is sad that a group of pastors would spend so much of their resources and energy to attack gays and lesbians and completely ignore the issues that Jesus Christ focused on. Jesus didn’t teach his followers to build multimillion-dollar churches or attack the civil rights of others. He told them not to accumulate wealth and to give to the poor. Maybe this is not a Christian group at all.

In the meantime, a lesbian was attacked at a club in Dyer County on July 15th. Miranda Greer told Jackson, Tennessee, police that a man approached her when he saw her dancing with a male friend. The man thought she was a gay man because she looks masculine and started calling her names and telling her to leave. When she told him she was a lesbian, he responded by punching her in the face and then used a beer bottle to jab her in the eye four times before smashing the bottle over her head. I wonder if he thought he was also doing God’s will?

Jim Maynard is a Memphis gay leader and political activist. 

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Politics Politics Feature

VIEWPOINT: Without Foundation

Terry Magnum
believed he was doing God’s will when he stabbed gay Southwest Airline flight
attendant Kenneth Cummings Jr. in the head with a six-inch knife. “Sexual
perversion is the worst sin,” he told reporters from the jail in Brazoria County
Texas, where he is charged with a hate-crime in the June 4 slaying. Cummings’
charred body was found days later.

The James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Act passed the Texas legislature in 2001, over
the objections of conservative religious groups and Republicans, allowing Texas
crimes motivated by “sexual orientation” to be prosecuted at the highest level
of severity. That can mean more years in sentencing or a lesser chance of
parole. The family of James Byrd, the black man who was brutally murdered in
Texas, and the family of Matthew Shepard, the young gay man who was brutally
murdered in Wyoming, joined together to fight for the law.

Now, the religious right and conservative Republicans have been fighting against
adding sexual orientation and gender to the federal Hate Crimes Enhancement Act
(H.R.1592). A group of Memphis pastors, predominantly African-American, are
targeting Rep. Steve Cohen for supporting the bill.

The “Memphis City Churches” spent thousands of dollars on full-page newspaper
ads opposing the rights of gays and lesbians to marry. Having successfully
amended the Tennessee constitution to prohibit gays and lesbians from marrying,
the group is now opposing the “Hate Crime Bill” because, they argue, such
legislation would infringe upon their religious beliefs and freedom of
speech–freedom to preach against homosexuality. Their website proclaims, “Any
sermons against homosexuality will be a crime. Telling a person that he or she
can come out of the gay life will be a crime.”

Evidently these pastors have not read H.R. 1592, which clearly states, “Nothing
in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit
any expressive conduct.” That includes preaching against homosexuality. H.R.
1592 would simply expand the current federal hate crime law to provide federal
assistance to local governments in investigating all hate crimes based on race,
religion, color, disability, gender, gender identity or sexual orientation. It
has unanimous support from civil rights leaders.

So why do the “Memphis City Churches” oppose the Hate Crime bill? Where did
they get the erroneous claim that the bill would make it a crime to preach
against homosexuality and gay rights? From the Family Research Council, the
American Family Association and the Traditional Values Coalition, all extremist
anti-gay political organizations.

These Republican political groups are targeting Democrats who support the Hate
Crime bill by fanning the flames of homophobia and anti-gay prejudice,
particularly in African-American churches. These groups are opposed to any
recognition of the human rights of gays and lesbians; even protection from hate
crimes goes too far in granting gays and lesbians the “special rights” of
“life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

The Memphis City Churches website has links to all of these extremist anti-gay
groups, and has lots of talking points against homosexuality and gay rights.
There is no mention of AIDS, drugs, poverty, poor healthcare or crime affecting
the African-American community. Shouldn’t these “Christian ministers” focus on
the problems in their own community instead of attacking the civil rights of
gays and lesbians?

It is sad that a group of purported “Christian” pastors would spend so much of
their resources and energy to attack gays and lesbians and completely ignore the
issues that Jesus Christ focused on. Jesus didn’t teach his followers to build
multi-million dollar churches or attack the civil rights of others. He told
them not to accumulate wealth, to give to the poor, etc. Maybe this is not a
Christian group at all.

In the meantime, a lesbian was attacked at a club in Dyer County on July 15.
Miranda Greer told Jackson police that a man approached her when he saw her
dancing with a male friend. The man thought she was a gay man because she looks
masculine, and started calling her names and telling her to leave. When she
told him she was a lesbian, he responded by punching her in the face, and then
used a beer bottle to jab her in the eye four times before smashing the bottle
over her head. I wonder if he thought he was also doing God’s will?

(Jim Maynard is a Memphis gay leader and political activist.)

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Opinion Viewpoint

Choosing the Gay Option

The religious right has traditionally argued that homosexuality is a choice and that gays and lesbians can, and should, “change” (i.e., become heterosexual through reparative therapy or religious conversion).

In response, liberal advocates for gay and lesbian civil rights argue that homosexuality, or sexual orientation in general, is not a choice and that gays and lesbians should have civil rights protections because they are born gay or lesbian and cannot change their sexual orientation. Both of these arguments are misleading and oversimplify scientific facts and research on sexual orientation.

The argument that human sexuality is biologically determined is contrary to social scientific research, which suggests that sexuality is largely socially constructed. It ignores not only the sociological evidence against an innate, unchangeable sexuality but also the radical insight of Freud that humans are not born “heterosexual” or “homosexual” and that the development of an exclusive “heterosexuality” requires the repression of homosexual desire.

Even Kinsey, the much misunderstood and misquoted sex researcher, rejected the concept of an innate sexual orientation, preferring to categorize people based on their sexual behaviors.

Kinsey never argued that heterosexuals and homosexuals were two separate innate sexual orientations. Like Freud, he believed that all human beings were potentially bisexual.

Why do many in the mainstream gay movement argue that it is impossible to choose to be gay or lesbian? Many radical feminists argue that women can choose to be lesbian — that identifying as a lesbian is a social and political choice available to women to liberate themselves from patriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality.

The early radical gay liberationists argued that gay liberation requires the sexual liberation of everyone from the socially constructed hetero/homo dichotomy. They believed that everyone could be “gay.” They rejected the scientific claim that homosexuality was a biological or psychological pathology or that same-sex desire was even “abnormal.” The gay rights movement created a modern “gay” identity.

There have not always been “gay” people, so it is erroneous to claim that people are “born” gay. Bisexuals are also left out of the “sexual orientation is not a choice” paradigm, since they can choose their sexual identity. If we base gay/lesbian rights on the argument that it is not a choice, then we exclude bisexuals and deny their right to choose.

Why all the focus on the question of can gays change? Why not ask, “Can straight people change”? Both questions focus on the same issue: If we could change our sexual orientation/identity, do we have a right to make that choice? This is the important issue.

The purpose of the “ex-gay” ad campaign (and the public focus on whether gays can change) is to undermine the central claim of the gay/lesbian rights movement that people are born gay or lesbian and that it is not a choice since no one can change their sexual orientation. The religious right is exploiting an opportunity handed to them by the misguided strategy of the liberal/mainstream gay movement.

We should focus the political debate on the freedom of people to be gay, lesbian or bisexual regardless of how or why they arrive at their sexual identity, not wasting time on the futile “nature vs. nurture” debate.

The argument for “gay rights” should not be based on questionable scientific claims of the biological immutability of  “sexual orientation” but rather on the right of gays and lesbians to CHOOSE their sexual identity! This argument sets aside the biological argument and bases gay rights upon the constitutional right to speak and the freedom of conscience guaranteed to religious groups.

Our right to be gay or lesbian or bisexual is the right to be free from religious and government interference in our private lives, to make our choices about who we have sex with and who we want to have intimate relationships with (as long as they are consenting adults). Let’s not let those opposed to sexual equality take away our right to choose.

To be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight involves making a series of choices. Those choices should be a right like any other basic human right and not dependent upon scientific opinion about how and why a person arrives at their sexual identity. Let’s defend the freedom to choose our sexual identity and quit hiding behind questionable scientific dogma.

Jim Maynard is a local gay activist. This piece is a modified and abbreviated version of a longer essay.

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Opinion Viewpoint

VIEWPOINT: “Christians” and Gays

   The Religious Right has been singing their
annual “War against Christmas” carol, claiming that they are the victims of
intolerance from  “godless” liberals and secular humanists.   I haven’t seen any
evidence of such intolerance, but I have seen a lot of a different kind
ofintolerance — intolerance of gays by the Religious Right.

The anti-gay Christian Right has been targeting gays and
lesbians for a long time, and “gay marriage” has now become as important as
abortion to their“family values” political agenda, which attacks the family
relationships of gays and lesbians. What is striking about the Christian Right’s
attacks on gays is how intolerant they have become of any civil acceptance or
sympathyfor gay and lesbian people and their family relationships.

Over the past few years, conservative Christian
organizations have called for (unsuccessful) boycotts of businesses that offer
any benefits to gays and lesbians or their partners.  The Southern Baptists
recently ended a long boycott of Disney for its policies supporting gay and
lesbian employees.

The American Family Association recently threatened Ford
Motor Company with a boycott for advertising in gay publications, and the Focus
on the Family has withdrawn its money from Wells Fargo because of that
institution’s support of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

Keep in mind that none of these businesses did anything to
attack Christians.  They did not promote discrimination against conservative
Christians.  Their offense was simply to treat gays and lesbians with respect in
their workplace or to support organizations that promote the social well being
of gays and lesbians.

What the Christian Right opposes is any social acceptance
of gays and lesbians, or any recognition of the legitimacy of their family
relationships.  According to the Christian Right, only families and
relationships that follow their narrow interpretation of the Bible are eligible
for civil protections or social acceptance.

The critically praised and successful movie  “Brokeback
Mountain” (a ground-breaking western with a love story between two cowboys) is
sure to fuel the Religious Right’s attacks on the “liberal elite’s” promotion of
the “homosexual agenda” (i.e., love and social acceptance). The movie may help
to humanize gays and their struggle for love and social acceptance, if enough
theatres will allow the public an opportunity to see it. Conservative religious
groups may try to prevent the film from even being seen in many cities.

Hollywood doesn’t seem too comfortable with same-sex
relationships between men either. The movie “Troy “totally erased the homosexual
relationship between Achilles and Patroculus. “Alexander” more accurately
included the male love interests of Alexander, but when the movie bombed at the
box office, the “gay” scenes were blamed.  The new “director’s cut” on video cut
it out.   So much for history. While “Brokeback Mountain” is receiving lots of
critical praise,  many theater owners are fretting over showing it.

Why does our society have such a difficult time accepting
same-gender love and relationships? Why can this society tolerate, even reward,
men who fight and kill each other, but cannot accept two men loving each other
or expressing that love in the same manner that men and women are allowed to
express their love for each other?  What is the source of this homophobia?

Part of the intolerance toward same-gender love is
religious, but part of it is about gender and power.  Love between men or women
threatens the traditional gender roles, and their unequal power in society,
which have been the bedrock of the patriarchal Christian ideology which keeps
men and women in their respected (unequal) places in the family and society.

What the Christian Right fears, and what they cannot
tolerate, is equality between men and women or between gay and straight
relationships in civil society. Sexism, homophobia and heterosexism haven long
been the linchpins holding patriarchal societies together, and roadblocks to the
liberation of women, lesbians and gay men.

“Brokeback Mountain” is another reminder of the personal
costs of the social intolerance of gay and lesbian relationships.  That is why
the Religious Right does not want you to see it.

Jim Maynard is a Memphis gay activist and former
congressional candidate.

 

 

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COMMENTARY: A LESSON FOR DEMOCRATS

COMMENTARY: A LESSON FOR DEMOCRATS

The conservative media is arguing, as usual, that the Democrats lost the

Presidential election because they were too liberal and too far to the left.

So-called “moderate” democrats are going to make the same worn-out argument.

The argument is fallacious for many reasons. First, John Kerry did not run

as a liberal; he tried to run as a “moderate,” and in some cases he tried to

go to the right of George W. Bush. Like every Democrat since LBJ, the

Democrats have tried to distance themselves from liberalism and endorsed

many conservative Republican positions.

There is much talk about “moral” issues, particularly gay marriage, as a

reason for the Democratic defeats. However, neither Kerry nor the

Democratic Party endorsed “gay marriage.” In fact, Kerry emphasized that he

agreed with Bush that gays should NOT be allowed to marry. (Another example

of Democrats trying to blur the differences with Republicans.)

While the Republicans may have successfully used gay marriage as a wedge

issue to motivate their conservative Christian Right base, it is not so

clear that it was the main reason most voters supported Bush. Exit polls

show that while a majority of voters opposed gay marriage, almost half

supported “civil unions” for gay couples, a position endorsed by George W.

Bush just before the election.

(I might point out that the Republican Party has attacked every Democrat who

supports “civil unions” as enemies of marriage and family values. RNC Chair

Ed Gillespie has said that civil unions are just another name for gay

marriage.)

The real lesson of this election is that the Democratic Party has no clear

identity. Most voters, like the Democratic Party itself, have no clue what

they stand for. The lesson should be that when Democrats try to look and

sound like Republicans, they usually lose. When people have a choice

between an imitation and the real thing, they usually pick the real thing.

Two examples prove my point. Tom Daschle, former Democratic minority leader

from South Dakota, distanced himself from liberals and Kerry and emphasized his

affinity for President Bush. Daschle was a weak candidate and an extremely

weak minority leader in congress. He lost. On the other hand, Illinois

Senator-elect Barack Obama ran in Illinois as a progressive, with a vision and message

that voters could embrace, against a right-wing conservative Republican,

Alan Keyes. He won.

Here’s another example of what is wrong with the Democratic Party–our own

Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. What does he stand for? Does anyone know? I watch

him speak and never can tell exactly. Before the election he took the same

position as John Kerry that while he opposed gay marriage, he also opposed

amending the Constitution to write discrimination into our sacred document.

Then he switched his position and voted for the anti-gay Federal Marriage

Amendment. In doing so, he went across party lines to vote with the radical

right Republicans in congress! He took a position at odds with the

Democratic Party platform and its Presidential candidate!

Perhaps the Democratic Party should follow the example of progressives like

Barak Obama instead of the losing example of Republicrats like Tom Daschle.

(Jim Maynard is a Memphis gay activist who recently ran an unsuccessful write-in campaign against 9th District U.S. Rep. Harold Ford Jr.)