Centerpiece
Provincetown's response to Rev. Phelps shows depth and nuances of homophobia

By JOHN CARUSO

ON consecutive Monday evenings, Sept. 29 and Oct. 6, large numbers of Provincetowners gathered at their town hall auditorium to strategize for the imminent arrival of Rev. Fred Phelps. He and his band of gay-haters have promised to picket Provincetown because of its anti-bias education project.

At the second meeting, one community member blamed the anti-bias project for bringing Phelps to town. While that may be a popular sentiment with anti-bias opponents, it is the logical equivalent of blaming an earthquake on a seismograph. Yet, it took that bit of outrageous denial to prompt others at the meeting to finally indict homophobia in the Phelps protest. Although the Reverend's hate is very gay specific - he's not here to picket people of color or Jews - many in Provincetown would have homophobia become the hate that dare not speak its name.

For clarity's sake, homophobia is defined as a fear, dislike or hatred of lesbians and gays which often results in intentional acts of discrimination - such as physical violence or loss of employment for "out" or suspected gays and lesbians. Heterosexism - a close ally of homophobia - is a system by which heterosexuality is assumed to be the only acceptable and viable sexual orientation. This absolute moral privilege is wielded overs gays and lesbians to perpetuate the hoarding of all the economic rights associated with state-recognized marriage, to justify all manner of institutional discrimination as common sense concern for morality and community safety, and to give permission for violence against gays and lesbians. But heterosexism is seldom identified as such, because it does not discriminate overtly, but through neglect, omission or distortion. It serves as a kind of closet for hate.

Thus, in Provincetown, the fact that gays and lesbians can form and maintain relationships openly is seen by many as a supreme act of tolerance on the part of heterosexuals. In addition, the economic power held by some gays and lesbians in town leads many to posit that equality already exists. The class privilege of some, however, has not changed the status of gays and lesbians within the culture. Their financial security - assured by a strong gay/lesbian tourist industry - merely serves to insulate them as individuals from the effects of institutional oppression; it has not eradicated either homophobia or heterosexism in Provincetown. In addition the high visibility of some is directly related to their economic security, which allows them to speak their minds without fear of financial ruin.

For those who live a more hand to mouth existence, whose tenancy or livelihood - even the sense of physical safety - depends upon "not flaunting it, anti-gay discrimination is a more palpable threat. Homophobia and heterosexism backed by powerful institutions - our own schools for instance - present a very daunting force for gay and lesbian students, educators and parents to confront.

Enter anti-bias education. Immediately after the Provincetown School Committee first endorsed anti-bias education in July, the distortions about the aims of the project started. In a Provincetown Banner story on anti-bias, local parents were allowed to voice anonymously, albeit without substantiation, that the project was only a screen for a "gay agenda" to hire lesbian and gay teachers regardless of qualification. Woven into the homophobic yarn was the shiny gold strand of socioeconomic fear about the scarcity of resources: teaching jobs.

In the same article, an identified school committee member reinforced pernicious stereotypes about gay man [sic] being child sexual predators, saying that in Provincetown gay men often approached teenage boys and that this counteracted anti-bias work and provoked hatred towards a whole class of people. To express a community assumption about gay men, this school official felt no need to back up his statement with documentation. Neither did the Banner. In a hetero-dictatorship these beliefs are held as common sense, requiring no substantial proof. Nobody ever asks why identified straight males - who comprise the vast majority of child molesters - are never stereotyped as such.

Thus the Banner loosed a kind of syllogistic toxin into the community: gay men are child sexual predators; gays have an agenda to get in our schools; therefore child molesters are trying to get into our schools. This logic is intended to maintain a closed school institution, to justify discrimination against hiring gays and lesbians in our classrooms, and thus protect the "limited resource," jobs.

The other perilous consequence of the anonymous and uncritical homophobic disgorge which appeared in the Banner is the justification it gives haters to commit acts of violence - not only against gays and lesbians, but against those in the straight community who offer them support. Already one school committee member has been accosted and threatened by a town employee because of her vote to support anti-bias implementation.

About a month after the Banner piece, the Washington Times coincidentally got wind of the anti-bias effort in Provincetown and, using the familiar tactic of distortion, sounded the alarm: "Provincetown preschoolers to learn ABC's of being gay."

Enter Rev. Phelps, voice of the lunatic fringe - whose website reads like a public toilet stall. His message is so odious, he allows even the average homophobe to express righteous indignation. In opposing him - a stand which requires only a modicum of humanity - some Provincetowners mistakenly think they have confronted homophobia, while they ignore its blatant and insidious manifestation within community institutions.

For instance, The Advocate has acted with unabashed transparency as an agent for Fred Phelps, carrying the content of the town's recent Monday meetings to him and giving him voice in its pages to respond to what has been said about him. How would this appear if they were keeping Nazi skinheads or the KKK informed?

They are not only giving Phelps maximum media coverage, but, by printing volumes of Phelps' more mainstream anti-gay rhetoric - without printing an opposing viewpoint - they support him and legitimize his most repugnant views.

The Banner is either naive or complicitously sympathetic when it describes The Advocate's bald duplicity as "playing right into his hands." The Advocate from the editor right down to its heterosexist cartoonist represents the voice of those who support what Phelps is doing, but don't have the courage to "come out" and say it.

Neither miles of yellow ribbon nor panoplies of equal signs - empty symbols of love and equality - can shield us from real enemies within.

Provincetown's response, like Phelps himself, is a distraction from the deep internal issues of class and homophobia with which it must grapple.

John Caruso is a political writer and novelist who lives in Provincetown. He is a member of the town's anti-bias project.

(NOTE: The Advocate and the Banner are local Provincetown papers)