At the Core, Not on the Fringe

September 1998

Elizabeth Birch, head of the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), a gay rights organization, has been quoted calling Sex Panic a "kind of lunatic fringe group." Birch may have been referring to a recent conference called Sex Panic which addressed issues of sexual freedom. Or she may have been talking about Sex Panic!, a New York-based group resisting efforts to eradicate, police, and criminalize ever more sexual expression. Whichever "Sex Panic" Birch was criticizing, her comments were meant to suggest that the gay cause was being hurt by those focusing on basic sex issues.

And Birch is not alone. Any sort of non-traditional sexuality upsets straight society, so we are constantly told that if only we would be "more discreet" and less offensively sexual, acceptance would be ours. Yesterday's closet cases saw those who "flaunted" their homosexuality as a threat to be shunned. And today, many– like Birch– still seek to ostracize those who openly challenge prevailing sexual values.

But trying to win straight approval by refusing to confront current fearful sexual attitudes accomplishes nothing that lasts. The root of gay oppression lies in the destructive belief that sexual expression that deviates from narrow boundaries is profoundly harmful. Such phobic thinking breeds the discrimination, violence, and judicial oppression that beset queer people and limit us all. Any "acceptance" won by refusal to expose corrupt prevailing sexual attitudes creates the mere illusion of progress. True gay liberation comes only when we root out destructive, fearful notions about sex and replace them with loving and life-affirming sexual values.

Far from being a "fringe" group, Sex Panic(!) and all those who challenge condemnation of sexual deviants are, thus, actually at the heart of the gay liberation struggle. From Harry Hay's agitation to Stonewall drag queens' rebellion to ACT UP's militant tactics, our lasting advances have come from those willing to confront society's ill-ease with sexuality. The ability of any gay group to function today in "the mainstream" has been made possible by confrontationalists willing to suffer scorn from more fearful contemporaries. Indeed, it is our "respectable" institutions that exist on margins created by the sacrifice and insight of those more radical.

Of course, it's reasonable to debate which tactics are wisest. We can also agree that achievements will come not necessarily in the order of their political importance. But let us be clear on our strategic goal: we must rid the world of the destructive notion that tragedy awaits us unless we rigidly control sexuality with harsh, arbitrary rules; instead, we must demand that sexuality be governed by love and responsibility. This is gay liberation's enduring message.

Armed with this understanding, it is vital that groups– like the HRC– that operate on the "fringe" made possible by more radical antecedents, do not undermine their own foundation. We must not be seduced into seeing access to politicians, election to office, passage of legislation, or approval from "the powerful" as ends in themselves. To do so inevitably leads to ill-considered and ultimately self-destructive attempts to brand as "lunatics" those better labeled as prophets.

Pasted from <http://guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=064C635F-125A-11D4-A7AB00A0C9D84F02>