Final frontier

Dr. Laura's success shows that homophobia is the last acceptable prejudice

Will WCVB-TV air Dr. Laura Schlessinger's new talk show this fall? We hope not. Although debate around Schlessinger's show has veered uncomfortably close to calls for censorship, it's clear that Schlessinger has a right to say what she says on her radio program. It's also clear that Channel 5 has a right to air her television show (though we're not sure why station managers would want to). And if Channel 5 resists the efforts of activists trying to persuade the station to dump the show from its fall line-up (see "This Just In"), we still have the option of not tuning in. The question we should be asking is how Schlessinger managed to get a nationally syndicated television talk show in the first place. Is Howie Carr next?

It's hard to imagine that a radio-talk-show host who articulated viciously racist or anti-Semitic views would be offered a great television deal. And yet Schlessinger, who spews vitriolic homophobia under cover of religious principles, is a national phenomenon. Take this example from her radio show last December 21 on the Vermont gay-marriage case: "Man-on-man and woman-on-woman sexual activity is a deviant sexual orientation, and it does not promote any of the values set forth biblically." During her February 10 show this year, she warned: "Once the homosexual barrier [to marriage] is down, the incest barrier goes down." And last November she said, "When you have . . . gays and lesbians adopt newborns, as though a father and a mother were irrelevant to the human species, it's all gotten out of hand."

What would the reaction be if Schlessinger compared interracial marriages to incestuous pairings? Or if she railed against the legality of allowing Jewish couples to adopt children? She'd be dismissed as a kook. Or roundly condemned. But Schlessinger has ridden cultural discomfort with changing sexual mores to the top of the Arbitron ratings and parlayed this success into a sweet television-syndication deal.

If Schlessinger's stardom has taught us anything, it's that anti-gay prejudice is truly the last frontier in this country's fight against discrimination. Our culture has made progress in dealing with racism. In mainstream debates about race, you simply don't hear anyone advocating for a ban on interracial marriages or calling for segregated schools. Are some people racist? Of course. But legally, the playing field has been leveled. As a culture, we now agree on the need for equal rights. The same goes for the fight against sexism and the fight against anti-Semitism. But that can't be said for the struggle against homophobia. We're still debating whether gay men and lesbians deserve basic human rights: the right to marry, keep a job, and raise children.

Incredibly enough, it's still illegal for two people of the same gender to have sex in Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Twelve more states specifically prohibit sex between men. Two lesbians or gay men who have lived together for 20 years have fewer rights and protections as a couple than two heterosexuals who've been married for 20 minutes. In 30 states, it's impossible for both members of a lesbian or gay couple to adopt the same child, so that one parent is prevented from forming a legal relationship with the child. In 39 states it's legal to fire gay men and lesbians from their jobs on the basis of their sexual orientation.

In the public debate on these issues, insensitive things are said and ignorant decisions are made that have a profoundly negative impact on gay lives. On the presidential campaign trail earlier this year, for example, then-GOP candidate Gary Bauer compared the Vermont Supreme Court's decision to give gay and lesbian couples marriage rights to an act of domestic terrorism. During a Father's Day interview two years ago, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott compared homosexuals to alcoholics. And when WCVB-TV was planning its fall line-up, someone in programming thought it would be a good idea to devote airtime to a talk-show host with a penchant for describing gay men and lesbians as "biological errors."

Although it's tempting to champion the actions of the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council, which ruled that Schlessinger's statements about gay men and lesbians were likely to incite anti-gay violence and thus shouldn't be aired, the answer does not lie in censorship. It lies in education and legislation. Homophobia is this country's last socially sanctioned prejudice. It's time that changed.

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