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Moralizer Meets the Rainbow Community

by Ed White

More than 20 representatives of our local “LGBTQIP” community showed up last week at the Pizza Kitchen on Northshore Drive, to meet Rep. Bill Dunn, the Knoxville Republican who’s the author of Tennessee’s marriage amendment resolution.

That’s the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, Questioning, Intersexed, and Polyamourous” community, in case you’re wondering—or the Queer Alphabet, as some call it. Awkward as it is, the value we place on inclusion keeps us busy adding letters, while Dunn’s politics seem intent on closing the big tent down.

We asked at least a dozen times: “how does a marriage between two women or two men hurt yours or any other heterosexual marriage?” Never did he answer. The final time someone asked that simple question, as the restaurant was trying to shut down, he threw up his hands and said, “I guess I’ve utterly failed to explain myself.”

No. We got it.

What gay marriage would hurt, it turns out, is a definition. Goodness knows, along with the unborn, words are helpless and in need of protection, too. Dunn repeated the line: “I’m not doing this to ban Gay Marriage” a gazillion times, at least when he wasn’t saying, “Follow the logic now....”

Huh?

Or maybe what gay marriage would hurt is tradition. Or maybe it’s our moral fabric, as it were. It was hard to tell just how he thought gay marriage would hurt anything, the way he took a different tack each time.

Oops! That’s right, it wasn’t about gay marriage. It was about sticking it to those uppity “activist” judges. We legislators have to show them who’s boss, usurp them before they can usurp us. No offense to the lavender crowd, but if the judges can uphold abortion rights, they might legitimize degeneracy, too.

At one point, he actually did say that if gays marry, he’s afraid heterosexuals will lose respect for the institution and fewer would be married. Ridiculous, but finally, it was honest!

The rowdiest moment came when he got to the slippery slope. He was smart enough not to use the “people will want to marry dogs” canard, but not smart enough to stay out of the doghouse. He launched this tale of an owner and his dog, and the horrific day that person wanted to ADOPT his dog. How can the man not understand such an insulting analogy, to use a dog at all?

When asked if there were anything he would support that would actually help our community, he said, “I don’t like setting things up by sexual orientation,” saying his amendment is only about “gender.”

That’s where Carla Lewis of the Tennessee Transgendered Political Action Committee queried, “what’s gender?” If it’s genital, how do you do justice to the marital needs of the Intersexed, formerly known as hermaphrodites? Are they not human with human needs, too?

I’m sure he learned many new things (as we nearly all did), and he did agree on a whole range of points. He admitted that, unlike Massachusetts’ judges-for-life, ours can be replaced every eight years. He granted that, since most big corporations affirm gay unions, his resolution “might” drive them away.

He accepted that there are gay and lesbian families with children who could be hurt without the proper protections. He even admitted he could see the need for health care, inheritance and parental rights, etc., for gay couples.

He heard stories of injustice from various people, emergency-room nightmares and the like—including stories from two of our more elder members whose relationships have lasted a combined 65 years. When pressed whether or not he cared about these injustices, he admitted that he did.

But for all his “voting his conscience” rhetoric, he also admitted he’s not willing to help make things right for any of us. He explained by saying Republicans follow the big numbers, while the Democrats love the underdogs. In other words, political calculations trump his political philosophy, not conscience, no matter how pious his rhetoric.

Oh well. We did the best we could. At one point, a straight 17-year-old named Savanah calmly explained to Dunn that the majority of people her age don’t have a problem with gay marriage, and that he’d better think twice about his legacy because they’d be running the show some day. He was also warned that he’d better think about what to say to that gay child or grandchild, niece, nephew, etc., who will inevitably come along.

A demagogue is a leader, according to Merriam-Webster, “who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power.” A definition of prejudice, meanwhile, is “an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge.”

Try as I might to be “fair,” I can only conclude those words apply to Rep. Bill Dunn, and to the whole cabal rushing to “defend marriage.” If our country’s moral fabric is in trouble, look no further to see why.

July 1, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 27 © 2004 Metro Pulse