by Kimberly Blaker

As June approaches, the gay and lesbian community, and their Christian right adversaries, will be prepping for victory or defeat, accordingly, for a possible Supreme Court decision that’ll finally determine the fate of antisodomy laws in America. Such archaic statutes still exist in 14 states (though not necessarily because they were simply never erased) carrying penalties ranging from 6 months in jail and a $500 fine to the outrageous—life imprisonment.

The case that finally made it to the high court, after a 1986 Supreme Court ruling upholding antisodomy laws, is Lawrence v. Texas; it was heard in late March.

In response, Senator Rick Santorum, a Catholic extremist, told the Associated Press, “if the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”

Such asininity and bigotry from the radical right is hardly new—or surprising to those of us who keep a close eye on it. After all, such ignorance is often catered to, or at the very least disregarded by even those highest in power. President Bush, rather than denouncing Santorum’s statement, had the nerve to refer to Santorum as “inclusive.”

guaranteed payday loans Regardless, early this month (May), a Harris Poll was released which found that 82% and 87%, respectively, of our adult population opposes state regulation of private, sexual relations between same-sex domestic partners and opposite-sex married couples. Given the widespread homophobia that persists, this is a remarkable revelation of the value Americans place on the right to sexual privacy.

While majority rule has no role in issues affecting the freedoms and civil liberties guaranteed by our Constitution and Bill of Rights, in this instance it’s worth noting that antisodomy laws both violate the right of privacy and run counter to the opposition the majority of Americans hold toward government intrusion into private, consensual sexual relations.

What’s unsettling is the effect these statutes have on the gay community. Such laws have been used to criminalize homosexuals to render them “unemployable”; to prevent them from legally marrying; to allow housing discrimination; and to prove them “unfit” for parenting, sometimes resulting in the loss of custody of their own children or the inability to adopt.

Most disturbing is the punishment some Christian extremists hope will ultimately be imposed on those who break these laws—execution.

Christian Reconstructionists, says William Martin, author of With God on Our Side, are striving for a theonomy in which homosexuality (and many other benign or relatively harmless behaviors) is subject to the death penalty.

In 1997, on Crosstalk, a conservative Christian radio program, the now former-host Rich Agozino suggested that homosexuality should be punishable by death. According to Agozino, "Lesbian love [and] sodomy are viewed by God as being detestable and abominable. . . . Civil magistrates are to put people to death who practice these things.” He even urged his audience to contact their legislators to propose antigay laws that would carry such penalty.

As an aside, I found this an interesting gem given that in February, Ingram Shlueter, producer of a nationally syndicated radio program by the same title (Crosstalk) dedicated a 30-minute segment to bashing my recent book, The Fundamentals of Extremism, refering to the authors, and liberals in general, as a menace.

Also, in 2001, Larry S. Kilgore of the Constitution Party of Texas said, “Well, we know punishing homosexuals by death would be extremely hard in today’s society,” adding, “But we hope that we can help to drive it underground so in about twenty or thirty years, the punishment can fit the crime.”

The question that remains is why some Christian conservatives feel such a need to meddle in the private lives of others. Part of the answer was found in a 1996 experiment by Henry Adams, Lester Wright Jr., and Bethany Lohr, of the University of Georgia. Heterosexual men were hooked up to a penile plethysmograph and then watched videos of heterosexual, homosexual, and lesbian sex acts.

The men who were categorized as homophobic prior to viewing the videos were actually aroused while watching them; the nonhomophobics were not. In the end, the homophobic group still denied their sexual arousal, which suggests that homophobics are repressing, or unwilling to acknowledge, homosexual feelings.

I’d venture to guess that some of those protesting loudest against the removal antisodomy laws are really just terrified, maybe not even consciously, that the legalization just might lead them to cave in to homosexual temptations.
 

Kimberly Blaker’s The Wall™ appears weekly. She is editor and coauthor of the The Fundamentals of Extremism: the Christian Right in America. Send your comments to Kimberly Blaker: TheWall@TheWall-OnChurchAndState.com  © 2002, Kimberly Blaker