Florida and Wisconsin and double standards

This is not one of those issues I've been dying to jump right into. Like any other World War I buff, I get nervous around people who are sure that God is on their side. I'm always afraid that somehow or other they'll send me to the trenches.

In any case, there were some advantages to having been an observer while the argument over gay rights rotted away in the Florida sun. When the vote was in, I remembered why the founding fathers never held a referendum on the Bill of Rights. Since then it's become clear that Anita Bryant's main victory has been to single-handedly coax the bigots out of the closet.

As an observer, it's also been fascinating to compare the attitude of the homophile electorate of Dade County, Florida, with that of the sexist judge of Dane County, Wis.

In Florida, a civil rights question -did homosexuals have equal rights to work and housing? deteriorated in public to a sexual pervert question: Should homosexuals be allowed to convert or seduce small boys? Having so redefined the question, it's no wonder that the voters came up with such a definite answer.

But wrapped inside the hysteria were some odd assumptions, not the least of them being that all homosexuals were male. (At issue was clearly the vision of a flamboyant, promiscuous and dangerous gay male. The children to be saved were boy children.)

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The Save Our Childrenettes seemned to have accepted the idea that sexual-

ity is a matter of choice. This is an idea pushed, curiously, only by the most ardent gay activists.

They feared that heterosexual boys could be converted by the mere presence of a gay coach of the high school football team. Their attitude suggested that sexuality, one of the most deeply rooted aspects of personality, was as trendy, as open to chance and change, as taste in clothes.

The facts, of course, are to the contrary. Dr. Mary Calderone, the president of the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, says that "no one, who was programmed by five years of age to be heterosexual can be seduced to be homosexual any more than the reverse. Think of the efforts that have been made through the ages by heterosexuals to seduce homosexuals.”

But the second gut fear promoted in Florida was that the average male homosexual was at least a potential child molester if not a downright rapist. In fact, child molesters and rapists are pariahs to the gay community, just as they are to the "straight" community.

Moreover, the homosexual child abusers just don't hold a chance against the heterosexual competition. Statistically speaking, child molesting begins at home. But even outside the family, the victims are, by a vast majority, girls, abused by men.

'I would have been a great deal more impressed with the sincerity of the Save Our Childrenettes if they had been more concerned with the major

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Ellen Goodman

sexual crime in the country: heterosexual rape.

Which brings us back to Dane County, and the courtroom operated by Judge Archie Simonson. While the referendum beat went on in Florida, in Madison, Wis., this purveyor of blind justice let off a 15-year-old rapist who had joined with two others in assulting a 16-year-old girl.

His reasoning, if you may call it such, was that the misguided young. fellow had merely been reacting "normally" to the provocative, scanty clothed lasses frolicking about these days. As he told People magazine: "My gosh, even in court they appear in seethrough blouses without bras. You can see their nipples!"

In short, the judge ruled that girls. are asking for it. Now, close your eyes for a moment and imagine him still on the bench if the victim had been a 15year-old boy well known for wearing. his jeans too tight.

The comparison between the northern and southern counties tells us something. In Dade County, a homosexual is considered a pervert in the act of looking for a job and he's a potential rapist if he wants housing. In Dane County, a heterosexual is considered normal even if he's a rapist.

This double standard is explained most appropriately by our friendly neighborhood judge, who is, of course, convinced that God is on his side. "I've struck a raw nerve," he admitted. "But women are sex objects. God did that; I 'didn't."

I guess it's back to the trenches.