For the past five years those who seek power and influence have used every imaginable specter to engender fear among their followers and the nation at large. At some point much of this ‘wolf crying’ becomes a parody of itself, and frequently it has become so hyperbolic that many of us just snicker to ourselves and walk away. Pam, at Pandagon, documents one such recent extraordinary warning. The pronouncement of peril comes from Americans for Truthiness:
Men are having perverted ’sex’ with other men all over America–in parks, public restrooms (at places like department stores) and highway rest stops–i.e., in your community “backyard.” There is a well-organized Internet networks that guides men on where to engage in their anonymous, sodomitic [sic] acts. Many of these men are not publicly “gay,” or do not identify as homosexual, so they put their unknowing [sic] wives or girlfriends in danger of contracting sexually-transmitted diseases.
We’ll tell you where these homosexual “public sex” spots are in your state, and what you can do about it.
Yes indeed, the greatest danger our country – nay our civilization – faces is the prospect of men having sex in a Walmart bathroom. Nonetheless, this type of statement is so outrageous and hyperbolic, that it almost borders on camp. If we simply replace the words ’sex’ with ‘plot’, and ‘gay/homosexual’ with ‘communist’ we have a nice piece of cold war propaganda. Take for instance the following paragraph from “Communists Should Not Teach in American Colleges” (1949):
The real issue between Communism and education is the effect of Communist Party membership upon the freedom of the teacher and upon the morale and professional standards of the profession of teaching. Many would have us believe that it is an issue of civil liberty. This, I believe, it is not. No man has a constitutional right to membership in any profession, and those who maintain that he has are taking a narrow, legalistic point of view which sees freedom only as a privilege and entirely disregards the duties and responsibilities that are correlative with rights and privileges. The lack of freedom permitted the Communist has a great deal more than a mere passing or academic bearing upon the duties of a teacher.
If we simply make the object of this paragraph homosexuals instead of communists, we have a contemporary conservative argument. One which has been used to force teachers out of public education.
Of course, when the statements, like AFT’s, are so blatant in their bigotry and fear mongering it is easy to walk away from them. However, like all propaganda, the need to re-define language and control any debate has become more sophisticated in these diatribes. Take for instance a recent Agape Press article about a North Carolina school district’s ban on Gay-Straight student organizations:
A Christian attorney says, contrary to the claims of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a North Carolina school board’s policy banning sex-based student clubs is clearly constitutional and within the boundaries of the law.
The Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education enacted the ban in response to the formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club at South Rowan High School. The new policy is based on the school district’s existing abstinence-only sex education policy.
In order to insure that high school teenagers remain unaware of real gays and lesbians in their schools, the author has redefined GSA student organizations as ’sex clubs’; conjuring up the absurd notion that these clubs exist to provide a gathering for student engage in sexual activity and erotic banter. For UN-scrutinizing moderates this argument carries significant weight — who for instance would like their child to participate in a ’sex club’?
GSAs, and similar student led organizations, serve a vital purpose when formed and run by students. They help to educate students about their classmates and the issues facing gay and lesbian teenagers; but more then anything else they allow students to see one another as individuals and not as a demonized monolithic groups. This, most of all, is what drives the opposition to these types of groups.
The rates of suicide and depression among gay and lesbian teenagers are staggering. For those of us who can remember the awkwardness and anguish of our teenage years, it is difficult to imagine how much worse it would have been had we been taught to fear and hate our own identities.
The propaganda released daily by these groups may at times seem silly and even campy, but we should all remember that it is designed to have real world effects and consequences.
