Responsible activism

The National Organization for Marriage and American Principles in Action, both founded by George, have authored several worrying advertisements for state elections. In one APIA ad intended for broadcast in Maine, a faceless school administrator takes a kindergartener into a dark room for “counseling” about his sexual orientation. When a reporter asks if such actions are appropriate, the administrator responds, “There’s not much parents can do. It’s the law.”

Another such ad, this one from NOM, depicts small children expressing confusion over gay marriage while a concerned voice says, “If we change the definition of marriage, our kids will be taught a new way of thinking.” “God created Adam and Eve. That was so old fashioned,” sneers one girl, while a smaller boy asks, “If my dad married a man, who would be my mom?” I was unaware that California’s Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in the state, would have mandated the sexual counseling and indoctrination of kindergarteners.

The NOM “Talking Points” encourage the phrase: “Gays and lesbians have a right to live as they choose, they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.” But if gays and lesbians “have a right to live as they choose,” why is it inappropriate for a teacher to say so? Public schools teach Christian children about tolerance for Muslims without preaching Islam, and vice versa.

Could it be that the use of small children and shrewdly phrased talking points is a mere ploy to get voters to act from emotion, rather than reason? Why do none of the advertisements make arguments based in natural law or other areas of George’s scholarship?

The organization’s position on gay parenthood is also interesting. The NOM website claims that “the ideal for children is the love of their own mom and dad. No same-sex couple can provide that.” But what evidence is there for that claim?

The NOM website says that “fatherless children” are more likely to commit crime, citing studies comparing married and single-parent households. Brian Brown, president of the organization, has cited a study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on child abuse that states: “Children living with two married biological parents had the lowest rate of overall Harm Standard maltreatment, at 6.8 per 1,000 children.” However, not once in 455 pages does the study mention gay and lesbian families.

Clearly, to make an academically valid comparison between heterosexual families and same-sex ones, one would need a longitudinal study of such families, such as the National Longitudinal Lesbian Family Study. Now in its 24th year, it has found the rate of abuse in lesbian households to be zero.

It is simply unacceptable to state a belief as fact without sufficient evidence. For instance, I have no way of knowing why George’s political focus is on same-sex marriage, which he says is invalid because it can’t lead to procreation, while he gives an arbitrary pass to infertile and postmenopausal marriages that should logically be invalid for the same reason. Why, in the words of gay Catholic scholar Andrew Sullivan, are gays and lesbians “not worthy of the exceptions made for other people for compassionate, human and convenient reasons?” But of course, I can’t prove that George opposes gay marriage for reasons other than fertility.

George was the spokesman for ousting an openly gay appointee to the U.S. Department of Education. Yet it would be hard to prove that making gay adults and the subject of gay tolerance unwelcome in schools makes gay and lesbian children feel unwelcome, or that it gives straight children license to bully, harass and condemn them. One would need evidence of causality to show that a parent’s impersonal attack on gays at the ballot box tacitly encourages his or her children to attack the actual gays and lesbians that they will inevitably meet in school.

And of course, George is not directly responsible for the homophobia of those who use his words or attend his protests. He certainly is not responsible for one supporter’s sign emblazoned with two nooses labeled “The Solution to Gay Marriage.” In a profile in The New York Times Magazine noting his great influence, George said, “I just hope I am right. If they are going to buy my arguments, I don’t want to mislead the whole church.” One hopes that George realizes that if he is wrong, he has far more than that to answer for.

However, I am not arguing that George is wrong about gay marriage. In academia, propriety of conduct is not measured by correctness, but by methodology: The true crime is intentional misrepresentation of facts and evidence in order to manipulate and mislead. I call on George and his organizations to adhere to that standard.

Allen Paltrow-Krulwich is a freshman from New York, N.Y. He can be reached at apaltrow@princeton.edu.