The "Gay Mafia" and Time Magazine

A friend of mine recently sent me an article from Time, "The Gay Mafia That's Redefining Liberal Politics".

I just don't know what to think of this article.  I knew that this was going on, and certainly it's not something that needs to be kept secret.

But I can just imagine the right wingers using this now.  Along the lines of, "HO-MO-SEX-UAL billionaires are giving millions of dollars to defeat traditional values in your state.  Fight back against the outsiders!"  (Because, God knows, that the right wing crazies NEVER do anything akin to that.) Actually, I've read several missives of exactly this nature already. But now--oh goody--they have an article in a big-name news magazine to point to!

Beyond that issue, I think there are several stylistic issues plaguing the article. For starters, I don't much care for the tone that the article takes, incessantly referring to LGBT people as "gays".  The gays this, the gays that, the gays the other thing.  That's rather dehumanizing, not to mention exclusive of other parts of the movement.  But most people in the general public don't see the finer distinctions, so the latter's not as large an issue to me, at least. (Then again, I fall under the gay "category" in my self-identification, so, I'm a bit biased in this respect.)

The former concern is pretty big, though.  I mean, if you just go along using that dehumanizing, or at least de-personizing, language, it makes it easier for other folks to do it too.  I mean, they could at least use "gay people" throughout.  I mean their choice of language just sounds awkward to me; the only time I ever use "gay" as a noun is when I'm making fun of right-wing rhetoric or ignorance in general--and, of course, the poor word choice resultant from either.  

Just look at it:  "candidates critical of gays", "Gays may see", "they could accomplish more for gays", "and gays in particular", and, well, you get the point.

He also makes it seem incredibly shady, like it's an evil conglomeration.

The Cabinet spends at least as much each election cycle as does the PAC run by the Human Rights Campaign, the world's largest gay political group. And yet the Cabinet has operated in stealth, without accountability from watchdogs. (The Cabinet does not subject itself to MAP analysis.) [Emphasis mine]

Really??  It makes it sound like some sort of shady super-secret machine fabricated from darkness and oiled by sinister plans.

And there's this one, which, after an obligatory statement their actions are entirely legal, continues,

And yet as the National Review's Byron York has pointed out, Americans were horrified to learn during Watergate that Richard Nixon's friend Clement Stone had donated an outrageous $2 million in cash to the President's campaign. Cabinet members have spent at least five times that amount in various races in the past four years.

Again, REALLY?? They're being compared to NIXON????  Clearly these people, fighting for the civil rights of their community, are quite analogous to the enablers and friends of the biggest sleazeball ever to inhabit the Oval Office.  How ever did I miss that??

Beyond that aspect, it's not that "we" want to go around putting our thumbs on the political donation scales, but when people want to treat us as less than pets in some cases, and when they generally want to deny us full and equal citizenship of this country, then we have to fight back.  The article makes it sound as if "the gays" are the instigators, here.

And don't even get me started on his treatment of Stonewall,

...the Stonewall riots, the 1969 Manhattan demonstrations that began when cross-dressers angry about police raids at the Stonewall bar began throwing bottles and punches.

Oh, yeah, that sums up Stonewall completely.  OR NOT.  Maybe it sums it up from a completely biased and oversimplified view, an ignorant view, but not a real one.  For one things, it wasn't just transvestites (a term at least somewhat less loaded that the pejorative "cross-dressers"); there were plenty of gay men who dressed more or less in the "gender norm", too.  And they weren't just police raids (makes it sound like something illicit was going on); it was repetitive and persistent police harassment of the establishment for and only for the reason that the patrons were gay identified.  A better way to put it succinctly might have been,

…the Stonewall riots, the 1969 Manhattan demonstrations that began when LGBT persons, angry about police harassment of the Stonewall bar and its patrons, including raids and arrests based only on sexual orientation, began throwing...

Not sure I care much for the last part of the sentence (that I omitted above), either, but it's at least more or less accurate, if sensationalist.  But really, the way they treat it would be like saying, "...the LA riots of 1992, which began when a bunch of blacks, angry about the arrest of Rodney King..." Well, it would be similar treatment, at least, if the incident weren't so well-known that people associate the event automatically with police brutality.

And, of course, neither simplified treatment could address all the complex underlying factors, but this is an article about something else, so that's pretty much forgivable in this case, or would be if they at least gave it a fair simplified treatment.

But then, reading on, we find another charming reference to LGBT activism,

…worries that rank-and-file gay people — the ones who might have picked up a rock at Stonewall — are increasingly relying on billionaires to cut checks.

Yes, because that's the form that LGBT activism takes--the gays go out there and throw rocks at things.  Is there no better example that the author could have culled?  Maybe, going out and campaigning door-to-door?  Or how about writing their own, albeit much smaller, checks?  Or phone-banking?  Nope, clearly it's rock-throwing for the win on descriptors for LGBT activism.  At least he used the term "gay people" this time.

If they're going to cover LGBT activism of any stripe, the least they could do is use responsible language and portrayals of we the LGBT people.  This is simply not acceptable for a "reputable" news organization.

For more information on Stonewall, have a look at Wikipedia's article.

This originated as an email to a couple friends, but has since been revised and cleaned up considerably. Thanks to J for sending it to me originally, and R for reading it.

Also, this post goes out to my friend who writes at Life’s too short to be normal, for prompting me to start blogging again.