From: Bryan J. Blumberg <bjb@macsch.com>
Subject: PHOBE ALERT:  American Family Assn comments on Schlafly outing
X-Xxdate: Tue, 17 Nov 92 22:24:34 GMT
Organization: Systems Integration Branch
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d9
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 22:25:31 GMT

LIBERALS GIVE HOMOSEXUALS SILENT APPROVAL
By Joseph Sobran, Universal Press Syndicate

This article was taken from the November/December 1992 issue
of the Journal of the American Family Association.

Address:  P.O. Drawer 2440
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Subscription Rate:  $15 per year

     I recently mentioned the great silence of liberal opinion on the 
subject of "outing"--the malicious exposure of homosexuals by gay 
militants.  You'd think people who are still warning us against 
McCarthyism, 40 years later, would feel moral qualms about a current 
form of political blackmail.

     Well, take a look at the September 28 issue of Newsweek.  An 
unsigned article cackles about the newly revealed fact that John 
Schlafly, son of the conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly, is a 
homosexual.  The anonymous author tells us gleefully that "[Mrs.] 
Schlafly's own family life has been something less than the Ozzie and 
Harriet ideal so righteously extolled by conservatives."

     If I wrote like that, I wouldn't sign it either.  (And to think 
Newsweek used to bill itself "the one news weekly that separates fact 
from opinion.")  I'm getting the feeling that Ozzie and Harriet have 
become the liberals' Willie Horton.

     What's the point?  That you can't uphold an ideal unless you and 
your whole family exemplify it perfectly?  Few ideals of any kind can 
meet that test.  Most of us do things we wouldn't want considered 
normative; or if we don't, some of our relatives are sure to.  Mrs. 
Schlafly rejects the political demands and moral claims of the gay 
lobby, and it's totally irrelevant that her son is homosexual.  As he 
would agree.  You don't shift your principles because someone close to 
you doesn't observe them.

     The article does mention in passing that Mr. Schlafly was "outed" 
by QW, "a New York-based gay weekly."  But it sees nothing amiss in this 
naked attempt to hurt his mother by hurting him.  No, the whole story is 
just an opportunity for some cowardly fun at Mrs. Schlafly's expense.  
Someone ought to "out" the writer who did it.  Or would that be a 
violation of privacy?

     The columnist Richard Cohen likewise berates Mrs. Schlafly for what 
he calls her "silence."  She "runs with an ugly crowd" and gives her 
"silent approval" to gay-bashing, he asserts, without specifics or 
evidence.  Mr. Cohen seems to write on the assumption that he was born 
on the Moral High Ground, and that the only reason others disagree with 
him is that they are less decent than he is.  If so, his attack on Mrs. 
Schlafly makes a sorry case for his superior virtue.

     In the course of that attack, he puts out a fascinating fact:  "A 
gay publication, New York's QW, had done a story [on John Schlafly], and 
certain journalists, myself included, had been sent anonymous 
announcements."

     Really!  An anonymous announcement!  And why didn't this favored 
recipient write one of his patented jeremiads against the scurrilous 
tactic he was privy to?  He was in a position to expose the exposers.  
But he said nothing.  His own silence implies that it was all right by 
him.

     Thanks for the moral guidance, Mr. Cohen.  You're an accessory 
after the fact to this operation.

     Liberals did express a few misgivings a few years ago when Barney 
Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat, hinted that he would expose a few 
closet homosexuals in the House who weren't voting his way on gay 
issues.  Under fire, he quickly said he hadn't really meant it the way 
it sounded.

     But the tactic is now widely used by gay militants, and the 
liberals who used to yak about "privacy" don't seem to mind.  The gay 
militants have become a kind of vice squad against the common enemy.  
And the eligible targets now include close relatives of political foes.

     Let's be very clear about what this means.  In the national debate 
over gay rights, one side can argue its case only under the standing 
threat of "outing."  Anyone who has a vulnerable child now has to think 
twice about opposing gay demands.

     This is the latest twist in the increasingly nasty politics of 
group victimhood.  Self-pity can breed viciousness.  People who claim to 
be oppressed often manage to convince themselves that anything they do 
for the cause is somehow licit.  Demanding rights for themselves, they 
come to feel that their opponents have no rights.  Eventually they 
decide that their opponents' next of kin have no rights either, and may 
in fact make useful hostages.

     The very purpose of outing, and especially outing relatives, is to 
intimidate opposition.  What else?  People who treasure free speech and 
civil conversation don't do things like this.  And they don't tacitly 
encourage it by their silent approval.

========================================
Bryan  J. Blumberg, The MacNeal-Schwendler Corporation
815 Colorado Boulevard, Los Angeles, California  90041-1777
(213) 259-4914, B_BLUMBERG@MACSCH.COM