BOB NOWLAN -- SPEECH, BOOKS NOT BUSH RALLY, UWEC CAMPUS MALL, THURSDAY OCTOBER 28, 2004: "GLBT ISSUES AND THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION"


    Andrew Werthmann asked me to speak to you today about gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues.  I am glad to do so.  I have now spent close to twenty years as an openly, proudly gay man as well as one continuously, actively involved, throughout that time, in diverse organizations and movements dedicated toward seeking freedom, justice, and equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people by way of progressive social change.   


    As a socialist, I believe that the achievement of progressive social change comes about, most importantly, through organized mass action conducted from the bottom up, from the grassroots, and from outside of government.  I believe that we need to mobilize continuously, not just at the time of elections, to pressure our government to respond to our needs.   We need to work, and to struggle, to gain effective, collective, self-control, in our communities and in our workplaces, over the determination of our own lives’ well-being, and to secure substantial economic and political democracy throughout our social relations as well as by securing genuine ownership over the means, processes, and ends of our own labor.  I believe that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, along with our straight allies and supporters, must win our own liberation, as we have been doing, and we must take charge of this effort ourselves, pushing steadily onward to the point where we have transformed our society such that we have eliminated the material basis by which any one, or any group, can derive economic, political, social, cultural, or ideological benefit from our oppression.   


    So we will need to struggle onward, against many obstacles ahead, no matter who wins this upcoming U.S. presidential election.   And we will welcome the active support in this effort of all people of genuine good will, and sincere moral conscience, of all who truly believe in, and who truly support, the equal right of all human beings to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness–the equal intrinsic dignity and value of all of us, and the equal opportunity for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and straight to enjoy access to, as well as means of exercise over, the natural and cultural resources, powers, and capacities available in our society.    


    Nevertheless, the Bush administration constitutes a serious obstacle in our quest for freedom, justice, and equality.  All gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people, along with all our straight allies, supporters, friends, and families maintain a definite interest in Bush’s defeat and removal from power.  


    Despite the pretense of ‘compassionate conservatism’, President Bush and his administration not only oppose marriage equality for same-sex couples but also support the prospective Federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.  This amendment would not only deny same-sex partners access to the over one thousand legal benefits of civil marriage, but also prevent state legislatures or courts from mandating more limited benefits through civil unions or domestic partnerships.  President Bush supports state anti-marriage amendments, like that under consideration right now in Wisconsin, and has even bowed to the pressure of 29 arch-conservative political and religious organizations, all of which spend four times as much of their financial resources focused on homosexuality as opposed to all other issues affecting marriage and family life, in sponsoring “Marriage Protection Week” last October.   These organizations, including the Traditional Values Coalition, Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family, and the Family Research Council, also all comprise key players in a growing right-wing movement to eliminate the separation of church and state in order to install an evangelical fundamentalist ultra- conservative Christian theocracy in this nation–a movement with which the Bush administration maintains multiple close ties.


    President Bush and his administration oppose the adoption of children by gay and lesbian families, even at times suggesting that children already legally adopted by gay and lesbian parents should be taken away from these parents.  At the same time, Bush and his administration promote heterosexual marriage and the reinstallation of the traditional place of fatherhood within the classic ‘nuclear family’ as necessary solutions to child poverty, yet once again clearly indicating that they consider only heterosexual married couples as fully suited for raising children.


    President Bush opposes federal nondiscrimination laws and hate crime legislation that include gender identity and sexual orientation.  His administration also opposes state and municipal initiatives to the same purpose.  In short, Bush believes it is and should be perfectly all right for any company to not hire or to fire an employee simply on account of the fact that she or he is gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.  And the Bush administration takes no more progressive a stand in relation to discrimination in housing and public accommodation; likewise, Bush supports the position that it should be legally OK to deny housing to glbt people or to kick them out of their housing simply on account of the fact that they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender–and Bush likewise supports the position that it should be legally OK to deny glbt individuals and groups the right to gather and meet in public places or to make use of public resources.  Bush has also refused to take up a Clinton administration proposal to add gender discrimination to the list of guidelines governing immigrants seeking asylum from persecution in the United States.  Ever since the U.S, Supreme Court decision to strike down state sodomy laws, and the advent of legal civil marriage in Canada, hate crimes against glbt people, and people suspected of being glbt or associated with us, have risen significantly, according to reports from organizations such as the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects.  But the Bush administration has done next-to-nothing to quell this rise in fear and hatred; instead, it has repeatedly, cynically, and opportunistically exploited it to its own advantage in strengthening its support among the Far Right.  This is not compassionate conservatism, and this is not government of steady and consistent support for high moral principle.


    On an international scale, the Bush administration has repeatedly refused to support United Nations Human Rights Commission resolutions condemning discrimination and violence perpetrated against glbt people, and women in general, in countries where record of extreme persecution and subjugation has been extensively and credibly documented.  The Bush administration has offered no assistance, not even verbal support, to glbt people suffering from extremely brutal oppression in nations ranging from Zimbabwe to Jamaica, and from Russia to Saudi Arabia.


    The Bush administration also supports allowing federally funded religious groups to hire and fire workers strictly according to their faith, sexual orientation, or gender identification.  Bush proposes to transfer up to $8 billion a year in federal funds to religious service providers without placing any restriction on their hiring and firing practices, and exempting them from virtually all forms of regulatory oversight over professional training standards.  Bush administration officials on repeated occasions have directly indicated that these recipients of federal funds should be free to deny employment to glbt people, even to deny assistance to glbt people, and also, potentially as well, to limit employment, and assistance, to those who subscribe to the same faith as the service-provider.


    Bush further continues resolutely to support the U.S. military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy that prohibits gay and lesbian people from openly serving in the armed forces.  Since this ban was implemented in 1994, over 9,000 gay and lesbian soldiers have been discharged, at a rate of almost three per day.  Even after 9/11, as of January 2003, the Bush administration decided to halt the discharge of military personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines in all cases other than that of discharge due to sexual orientation.  Even in the midst of a national crisis, and a severe shortage of translators, the Bush military at the same time assiduously conformed to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by firing 9 gay and lesbian Arabic language specialists, 8 gay and lesbian Korean language specialists, and 3 gay and lesbian Farsi language specialists.  


    The Bush administration opposes age-appropriate, research-based sex education, and has increased funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage sex education programs that essentially tell gay and lesbian people we should remain abstinent throughout our lives because we cannot, and according to the Bush administration, should not, ever marry.  After only three months as director of the Office of National AIDS Policy, Scott Evertz was forced out of this position because of his advocacy for the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS and for criticizing Bush’s abstinence-only-until-marriage policy.  At the same time, under Bush, the federal government has sharply increased its support for HIV/AIDS prevention programs focusing solely on promotion of abstinence-only-until-marriage while simultaneously sharply decreasing support for programs that involve promotion of safer sex education and distribution of forms of contraception.  Internationally, the Bush administration has maintained the same restrictions as well–sharply increasing funding for abstinence-only-until-marriage HIV/AIDS prevention programs while sharply reducing funding for all other kinds of prevention–including in African and Caribbean nations suffering a disastrous extent of illness and death due to the spread of this epidemic in these countries.  And, despite his frequent claims of increased financial support to combat HIV/AIDS, Bush has cut back funding for programs targeting gay and bisexual men as well as other men who have sex with men, along with funding designated directly to assist racial and ethnic minority populations and the poor.  Bush has, moreover, ignored the express request from 151 leading national, regional, and local AIDS service organizations urging the need for significantly increased funding to respond to current domestic HIV/AIDS needs.  And, as if that were not enough, the Bush administration has exerted repeated pressure on the CDC and the NIH to defy peer-reviewed scientifically credible recommendations in order to instead emphasize abstinence-only-until-marriage prevention efforts while simultaneously purporting to discredit the scientific effectiveness of alternatives to this religious-based position.  And the Bush administration has pressured the same agencies to eliminate language from documents and other provisions that specifically recognizes and targets same-sex sexual practices.  Beyond this, the Bush administration has forced costly audits upon over 250 recipients of federal support for HIV/AIDS service provision and related research where the recipients refused to sign a pledge recognizing that abstinence-only-until-marriage is the only viable means to prevent and respond to the HIV/AIDS crisis. These audits took away a considerable amount of the time, energy, and money the organizations otherwise could have spent on providing and researching support for those in need.


    Finally, not only has Bush appointed numerous judges and other administration officials well-known for their open, and repeated, proclamations of public hostility toward, and denigrative dismissal of, glbt people, and our rights, but also his educational policies, including those of which he is seemingly the most proud,  promote yet further discrimination, prejudice, and abuse of glbt people as well.  No Child Left Behind removes federal funding from local public school districts that bar the Boy Scouts of America from meeting in school facilities before or after school hours, and the Act does the same for school districts that bar U.S. Armed services recruitment activities on public school grounds.  Local communities cannot thereby register their opposition to the discriminatory practices of these two organizations, or others like them, without losing federal funding support.  No Child Left Behind also allows for the expenditure of federal dollars to support private schools not mandated to follow state or local education policies designed to protect youth from harassment, discrimination, and abuse on account of sexual orientation and gender identity.  No Child Left Behind further fails to include glbt students in its ‘Safe Schools Initiative’ despite the fact that, according to a recent study conducted by the Gay-Lesbian-Straight Education Network, 69% of glbt students report receiving significantly damaging amounts of verbal, physical, and sexual harassment--or physical abuse--in school.  And the overwhelming emphasis No Child Left Behind places on standardized tests ignores the extent to which glbt students, as frequent victims of harassment and abuse as well as corresponding low self-esteem (not to mention heightened tendencies toward suicide and other forms of self- and other- destruction), tend to miss school more often while scoring lower on homogenously-designed measures and  indicators of school performance, such as standardized tests.  


    In conclusion, we only need revisit the celebrated Mary Cheney incident to see where the Bush administration stands on glbt issues.  Mary Cheney is a thirty-five year old adult, who not only long has been publicly out as a lesbian, and is, in fact, frequently seen in public with her partner, including at her father’s campaign appearances, but also she is one who has worked as a liaison to the glbt community for the Coors Brewing Company.  Dick and Lynne Cheney have frequently talked about their daughter as a lesbian in public; the fact that she is and has been a lesbian is nothing they have, at least until recently, pretended to try to hide.  So when the Bush administration attacks John Kerry simply because he mentioned, in the final presidential debate, that Mary Cheney is a lesbian, suggesting he committed a seemingly horrific violation of proper decorum while viciously insulting the Cheneys, the Bush administration is, at its best, engaging in cynically opportunistic hypocrisy.  At its worst, however, this response shows us what the Bush administration really thinks about glbt people, and especially about our gayness, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgenderism–that we suffer from embarrassing, even shameful, afflictions best kept tightly hidden away, “in the closet.”  Obviously, if they think this way about us, they do not consider us their equals.  In returning us to the closet, where we can’t be seen or heard as who we are, no one has to confront the discrepancy between ignorant prejudice and actual reality; they can freely condemn caricatures of glbt people while acting as if the glbt people everywhere around them–including among their family members, friends, co-workers, and service providers–are different from these caricatures, because those hurling this verbal abuse against us will never have to face up to the fact that when they condemn glbt people they are condemning us, and that when they claim that “it’s nothing personal” they have to recognize that their antagonistic positions do in fact exert personal consequences.  Four more years of the Bush administration in power will only give greater impetus to yet all-the-more extensive, as well as substantially intensified, fear, hatred, and violence directed against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

*    THANKS TO THE NATIONAL GAY AND LESBIAN TASK FORCE FOR FACTS AND OTHER REFERENCES CITED IN THIS SPEECH.   *