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HIGH GEAR/MAY 1978

A DISTURBED PEACE

By Brian McNaught

The greatest threat to the full liberation of gay men and lesbians is self-hate. More frightening than any loss we may suffer in a public vote; more intimidating than the antics of the vice squad, the pervasive lack of self-love in the gay community promises to keep us in our place.

Self-hate is not unusual for minorities. it merely means that we have subconsciously accepted all of the garbage which has been heaped upon us since we were children. Blacks, Jews, women, the aged and the handicapped have done the same. Look at the statistics on deaths in the black community. The overwhelming majority of deaths result from black men killing black men. The handicapped are far more critical of each other than are the non-handicapped.

In his latest book The Gay Theology, fundamentalist minister Kent Philpott insists he hears from thousands of gay men and lesbians from across the country who want to be saved from the horrors of being gay through the "Love of Jesus." Anita Bryant has announced that she, like Philpott, will set up centers across the country to help homosexuals help themselves.

Are these lesbians and gay men who write Bryant and Philpott "phoney" homosexuals? No. They are people like you and me who mistakenly believed the dehumanizing elements of gay life were intrinsic of their sexual' orientation. They decided there must be something a little "queer" and "unnatural" about being gay for why else would gay people treat each other with such disrespect. Why do they never see gay men or lesbians smile in the bars? Why are they always treated as a sex object rather than a whole person with feelings and interests? Why do their friends not offer them the

same courtesy on the phone, in their home or at a party as they would straight friends? Why else do "faggot" and "dyke" sound

like "dirty words" when gay people use them against each other?

Organizers of some gay protests against obviously blatant police entrapment, such as in Boston and Cincinnati recently, have suggested the reason for the poor turnout is the feeling among many gay people that we deserve anything we get in terms of punishment. The self-hate, they suggest, prompts an emotional masochism.

If the people who testified in Philpott's book or who wrote to Anita Bryant for help loved themselves they would see clearly that all of the horrors they experienced in gay life were the result of ghettoization, not a sign of their sickness or an indication of God's wrath.

One of the most meaningful messages being presented today to minorities throughout the world is the Theology of Liberation. Its proponents insist that truth can only be seen through the spectrum of everyday activities. They say that interior liberation is far more important than the fight against repressive laws.

Eric Fromm, in The Art of Loving, says that self-love, the key to interior liberation, requires: Care, Respect, Responsibility and Knowledge.

Before a person can love himself or herself they need to know themselves. They need to strip away years of brainwashing so that they can come to grips with the truth of who they really are. For gay persons this means taking the trouble to read some of the many books which show conclusively that homosexuality is not a mental disorder nor condemned by God. The facts are there to be digested and until they are consumed we starve ourselves to death on a diet of negativism.

Once a person develops a healthy appreciation of their basic goodness and normality, they are lovable. As is true with all things we love, when we begin to love ourselves we begin to care for ourselves, respect ourselves and take responsibility for ourselves. From that moment on we will never be oppressed. People are not oppressed without their consent. In respecting our basic goodness we begin to insist that other people treat us with the respect due every living thing. We refuse to be used as a sex object which is tossed aside when the mission has been accomplished. We insist friends respect our privacy and the rules of decorum. You don't let people call you in the middle of the night. You insist they arrive

on time for dinner when the dinner hour has been announced. You guarantee that you will be paid at least as much as heterosexual counterpart for speaking engagements or professional tasks performed and you make sure you are paid on time. Not to do so is to communicate loudly "I am unworthy of respect."

Once you have affirmed your basic goodness, the atrocities being perpetuated in the United States with our silent consent become intolerable. And that's when the movement begins to take form.

More powerful than orange juice or beer boycotts; more meaningful than ordinances which withstand public referendum, self-affirmation is our most potentially-effective instrument for liberation. As such, it has to become our top priority.

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