Gary Younge (Guardian Utd): Extreme prejudice

[Jack Rabbit]

From the Guardian Unlimited (UK)
Dated Monday March 7

Extreme prejudice
Events in a small Kansas town reflect the close links between the civil rights struggle and gay liberation
By Gary Younge in Topeka

The flat plains and big skies of Kansas serve as a reassuring backdrop to America's emotional landscape. In the national mythology Kansas (the size of Austria; the population of Latvia) is not just any state but a cultural comfort blanket. Like motherhood, apple pie, little league and homecoming, it represents all that is steady, regular, wholesome and decent in America. The state song is Home on the Range. Kansas, writes Thomas Frank in What's the Matter With Kansas? is "where Dorothy wants to return where Superman grew up". When Frank's book came out in Britain its title had been translated to: What's the Matter with America? Kansas is the state of the nation.
In this mythic terrain Fred Phelps, of Topeka (pop 122,377), Kansas, fits in and stands out. He fits in because he is a homophobe who, like most of the country, including the Bush administration, uses the Bible as the source of his bigotry. He stands out because, unlike most of the country, he pursues his agenda with a vicious zeal and animus that not even the White House could match. When Mr Phelps attended the funeral of Matthew Shephard, a young man beaten to a pulp in a homophobic attack, or those of prominent HIV sufferers, he took his "God hates fags" picket signs with him.

Phelp's granddaughter, Jael, inherited his intolerance. "The proscribed punishment for homosexuality in the Bible is death," she told the New York Times last week. "They are worthy of death, and those people who condone that action are just as guilty." Last week, Jael Phelps stood for election against the city's first and only openly gay city councilwoman, Tiffany Muller, in a primary. She also lobbied to defeat a local ordinance making it illegal to discriminate against lesbians and gays who work for the city. She lost on both counts, coming a distant last in the primary while the ordnance was passed 53% to 47%.

The victory was principally due to local factors. With the Phelpses in the frame, the vote became as much a referendum about rejecting flagrant bigotry as embracing equality. A statewide vote calling for a constitutional ban on gay marriage in April is expected to pass easily; Muller came second but enters April's runoff as the underdog. But the process by which it came about illustrates a national trend that has striking parallels with the civil rights period of the 50s and 60s, when Topeka was in the national spotlight.

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[Jack Rabbit]

1. Recalling a story

In 1975, when I lived in San Francisco, there was a municipal election. I went to a candidates' meeting and heard the various candidates for mayor and the city-county board of supervisors speak.

I was quite impressed with a board candidate named Harvey Milk. Since there were two or three incumbents with whom I was not so impressed, I decided Milk deserved my vote. I later found out that Milk was gay; this had no effect on my decision. I voted for him. He lost. Just before I left the service, Milk was assassinated in his office at City Hall.

Several months later, caught in a recession with no good job prospects, I enlisted in the Army. During the time I was in the service, there were new elections in San Francisco and Milk won a seat on the Board of Supervisors.

The US military, at least at that time, deserved its reputation for having a homophobic culture. I took some flack, most of it intended as good natured, because my home of record was San Francisco. I knew I wasn't going to change any prejudiced minds about gay people, but at least I could defend The City's open tolerance of homosexuality by saying that if my companions were afraid of being propositioned by a gay, San Francisco was the least likely place in the world where that would happen. If a gay person wanted sex, he knew where to go to find other gays and didn't need to risk offending the unwilling.

I mentioned that I had voted for a gay candidate for the board of supervisors. A born-again Christian spoke up. "You're a nice guy, Jack, but I don't know about your politics." He went on about homosexuality being a sin and God wouldn't approve.

"If that is so," I said, "then let God damn him. I thought Milk had some good ideas about how San Francisco could be run better and that he should have a chance to put them into practice."

Perhaps no minds were changed, but I could see my born-again friend turning that one over in his.