Chapter the First
When I lived in Salem, Oregon, there was
one gay bar in town.
Heterosexual women liked to go there; the place was rife with dance partners. The bartenders were especially astute, assessing customers on visual stereotype, and marking their drinks with admirable accuracy: two pink straws if you're queer, two blue straws if you're straight, or one of each if they think you go both ways. It didn't affect the service, but it certainly let people know who was worth chatting up.
Over time, though, the heterosexual women started bringing their boyfriends along, and over time, heterosexuals crowded up the place. And that was fine, in the context of market dynamics. But gays no longer felt welcome in a gay bar, since they were suddenly outnumbered by a bunch of heteros who were openly hostile to the gays—thinking, apparently, that a queer was so stupid as to walk up to a guy with a woman on his arm and try to hit on him.
When the gay men stopped coming in as much, the place became a meat market for the heteroset. And, as the place didn't have much to offer other than drinks and a dancefloor—at the height of the Macarena, at that—it didn't offer much for the heterosexual guys who were coming along because they felt they owed their girlfriends a night of drinks and dancing.
Business, of course, dropped off. The gays didn't come back. The bar went out of business.
• • •
Chapter the Second
My father was a football coach.
This isn't particularly significant in and of itself, but the implications end up being considerably relevant. Not only did I have in my young acquaintance any number of area sports coaches—some of my fathers' friends have Super Bowl rings; one has taken a team to the Rose Bowl; &c.—but I also saw a number of organizational aspects about competition.
For instance, the Ranger League.
When I was a teenager, living on a lake in Pierce County, Washington, my father ran a racing league for owners of
Ranger 20 sailboats. And here's the important part:
Even though my father started the league, they held officer elections every season.
It was his league, in the sense that he started it. But it was everybody's insofar as all the racers had a stake in it. These elections affected everything from the league newsletter to race sites and course structure, dispute resolution, and specification standards. There was a nice trophy, of course, but the league dues were not returned to anyone in the form of a prize purse.
Elected officers seemed a good idea, especially after the first season, when my father realized he would rather just shut up and sail.
• • •
Chapter the Third
I would ask people to combine these two ideas for a moment.
If you have a denigrated minority group—e.g., blacks, women, homosexuals—the question arises as to how a society might protect that group from being absolutely overrun by the majority. Indeed, the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution protect minorities in the U.S. from the "tyranny of democracy".
In this context, the idea of a gay softball league starts to make sense much like the idea of a gay bar does. The underlying concern is that a heterosexual majority can simply co-opt, by sheer numbers, anything good that gays establish for themselves.
This, of course, raises the question of why gays should have to establish something so exclusive.
Consider, then, a counterpoint: There used to be an all-ages club in Portland, Oregon, called The City. It was a
gay all-ages club that would stage tranny pageants and "debutante balls", and all sorts of high drama. Two of the twenty-some rules posted at the admissions cage were, "No heterosexual activity", and, "No Guns 'n' Roses requests".
While these might seem odd to some today, consider that heterosexual couples are allowed to hug and kiss in SAFECO Field, where the Seattle Mariners play, but all it takes is a
claim that two homosexuals kissed in the stadium, and they will be escorted out. The Guns 'n' Roses thing, especially in the context of some of the things Axl Rose said in the '90s, should be obvious.
Since a gay man has long risked getting punched in the teeth for hitting on the wrong person in a regular nightclub or bar, it seemed reasonable to establish a place where homosexuals could socialize without fear of having their jaws broken.
At The City, of course, there was certain etiquette. Primarily, the one I remember was that available gay boys wore white fabric cinch belts, often with long tails, and how you wore the thing coded whether you were a top or bottom. I never
witnessed a heterosexual male willing to wear a white cinch belt to a nightclub, but the prospect isn't impossible, and there were, of course, stories. I did, once, however, see a fight broken up because a heterosexual guy got upset that the woman he was hitting on was a lesbian. That was hilarious; he couldn't understand why calling a woman a "fucking dyke bitch" in a gay club constituted fighting words.
Likewise, as far as etiquette is concerned, Robert Julian, in his droll memoir,
Postcards From Palm Springs describes the scene at a bar in that city called the Tool Shed:
Perusing the ad in the Desert Daily Guide, I discover that tonight the Tool Shed is sponsoring an "RHSD—Red Hankies Sand (sic) Diego—Beverage Benefit." Those unfamiliar with the gay tradition of colored hankies may not be aware that men who sport red hankies dangling from the rear pockets of their jeans are people who receive sexual gratification through a fist shoved up an anus. If the hanky is worn on the left side, the person identifies as the dominant partner; if the hankie is placed on the right side, the person is receptive. I do not gravitate toward this particular sexual practice, and having seen it performed I cannot explain its attraction to anyone. I do find it somewhat urious that a Palm Springs bar is sponsoring a "Beverage Benefit" for men from "Sand" Diego who want to place their fists up men's anuses. Do the proceeds go toward towels and latex gloves? Is there a reserve fund for emergency proctology? In any case, the benefit tonight is from 7 to 10 p.m. I will be elsewhere ....
.... Thursday evenings there is a pool tournament; Saturday afternoons at the Tool Shed are reserved for guys who want to drink brewskies while wearing black engineer boots and black leather boxer shorts; and Wednesdays from 9 p.m. are known as "Wet Wednesdays." The advertisement below the Wednesday night headline suggests, "Wear your yellow hanky!" Hanky placement for dominant and submissive positions follows the methhodology previously described, but in this case the desired activity of the hanky-wearer involves urination. You can choose to piss or be pissed upon and devotees of this practice are known colloquially as "golden shower queens," hence the Tool Shed's sponsorship of "Wet Wednesdays." God I love a parade.
(42-43)
Now, let us just ask ourselves how it would go over if some oblivious farmhand or mechanic walks into a place like that with his handkerchief innocently hanging out of his back pocket. There is a reasonable chance that he would not take well to an invitation to drink someone's piss or take a fist up the ass.
I'm just sayin' ....
It's like any proposition where one walks into an unfamiliar culture and is offended that people read the cues he unwittingly gives. Or even the proposition that people are going to interpret certain behavior in certain ways. To wit, if I get nose to nose, shouting and cursing at you, and telling you I ought to beat your skull in because you're so fucking ugly, by what custom do you expect that to mean, "Welcome! We're so happy to have you here. How can I make your day better?"
Or should I complain if someone decks me while I'm shouting in their face?
Which, of course, brings us back to gay softball.
In the U.S. military, it took until 2011 before the rule known as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was finally put to rest. Just consider the context. Raunchy talk is a long tradition in military life, predating the U.S. or its armed services. Yet, while the guys might talk about some women they were banging, and that's all supposed to be good, talking about wiping male ejaculate out of your beard is the kind of thing that would get one drummed out of the service, and if he's lucky, that would be the worst of it.
Sports talk is often risque, to say the least.
Maybe homosexuals want to play softball in an environment where they can ask one another for a phone number, or talk about circle jerks and fellatio, or simply not hear another complaint about faggots.
That, in and of itself, seems reasonable. Unless, of course, one thinks that being homosexual obliges a person to face open hostility no matter where they go.
• • •
Chapter the Fourth
Intuitively, this part ought to be extraneous:
Do you get it yet?
I don't think NAGAAA is necessarily in a position to be buried by numbers, but the reality is that it is possible. One of the functional limits of democracy in this Republic is that the majority cannot arbitrarily decide to harm a minority. Without those limitations, the infamous "Sunset Laws°" could still exist. Anal and oral sex between consenting adults in private space could still be illegal. Wives could still be obliged to service their husbands' sexual needs.
Even that gem of gems, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, has the effect of limiting the tyranny of democracy. Zsusanna Budapest was arrested in California for practicing witchraft in public, and that happened during my lifetime.
The point of "reverse discrimination", as the topic post has it, or "legal discrimination" as Will phrased it, is generally to protect against the overextension of a majority's vice.
The functional problem with the word "discrimination" is that it has a longstanding and persuasive negative connotation. But, to the one, the question of chocolate or vanilla ice cream is a matter of discrimination, though hardly an issue of profound societal implication. Does one buy a cheap digital watch, or have they more "discriminating" tastes? Again, it's not an issue of particular importance in terms of law, governance, and society.
The term "reverse discrimination" is most commonly applied by people who argue for the continued supremacy of a given class of people. The idea of "legal discrimination" is closer to being accurate, but it still strikes some as a problematic term. The problem is that some discrimination is required in order to heal the damage done by past discrimination.
That's why the only people who really have a problem with entities like the NAACP, the ever-expanding acronym of LGBTQA, or even the idea of feminism are generally some sort of supremacist. Equality is a step up for those discriminated against. The privileged class, of course, loses some of its power to hurt people arbitrarily, and for those, of course equality seems a curse.
• • •
Epilogue
Up here in the Seattle area, where this case was tried, we're all chuckling at the whole spectacle. The idea that a queer catfight has made its way into federal court is genuinely worth a laugh.
A particular gem from the
Associated Press:
U.S. District Judge John Coughenour ruled this week that the organization has a First Amendment right to limit the number of heterosexual players. However, the judge did say that questions remain about the way the softball association applied its rule, and so the case can proceed.
No, really, the question of whether or not someone is gay enough to be gay has actually made it to federal court.
Another irony, of course, is the Boy Scouts of America. From
Judge Coughenour's order:
Even if NAGAAA appears to be a public accommodation under WLAD, the Court’s analysis does not end there. NAGAAA’s next argument is that Rule 7.05 is protected by the First Amendment. The First Amendment guarantees the “right to associate with others in pursuit of a wide variety of political, social, economic, educational, religious, and cultural ends.” Boy Scouts of Am. v. Dale, 530 U.S. 640, 647 (U.S. 2000). In Dale, the Supreme Court observed that when laws and regulations intrude into the internal affairs of an organization, or force a group to accept members it does not desire, these laws might be unconstitutional. Id. at 648. In essence, “[f]reedom of association . . . plainly presupposes a freedom not to associate.” Id.
The decision also looks to
Christian Legal Society v. Walker, a 2006 federal decision. ("
It would be difficult for [a student group] to sincerely and effectively convey a message of disapproval of certain types of conduct if, at the same time, it must accept members who engage in that conduct.")
In other words, there doesn't seem to be much about this decision that the Boy Scouts of America or the Christian Legal Society—which runs student groups in public universities—don't already enjoy. What's fair for the homophobic BSA or CLS is also fair for the NAGAAA. The decision that the state has no compelling interest in getting involved is, at least consistent.
Still, though, the case is going to go forward in order to argue about who is gay enough to be called gay.
____________________
Notes:
° Sunset Laws — A Sunset Law was a municipal code that would either restrict people with dark skin to certain areas of a town, or else ban their presence altogether, after dusk.
Works Cited:
"Ranger 20". (n.d.) SailboatData.com. June 3, 2011. http://sailboatdata.com/viewrecord.asp?class_ID=107
Julian, Robert. Postcards From Palm Springs. La Vergne: Ingram, 2007.
Associated Press. "Federal judge in Seattle OK’s gay softball organization’s limit on number of straight players". Washington Post. June 2, 2011. WashingtonPost.com. June 3, 2011. http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...raight-players/2011/06/02/AGLoaWHH_story.html
Coughenour, John C. Apilado et al. v. NAGAAA. United States District Court Western District of Washington at Seattle. May 27, 2011. TheStranger.com. June 3, 2011. http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2011/06/01/1306949109-69_-_sj_order.pdf
