David Hart Interview

David Hart is a semi-retired CEO and quality-management consultant. He has served as a senior executive in not-for-profit and for-profit enterprises. His experience includes being an expatriate executive for a Department of Defense contractor in Asia and Central America. He has been an executive, director or adviser to a wide variety of organizations including those in financial services, post-secondary education, retail, and IT. He is currently Executive Editor of "Gay News Service" and can be reached through www.Gaynewsservice.com.

Q1 Thanks for taking the time to doing this interview, David. It's interesting how radically different various cultures have related, or continue relating to, to the reality of sex/love between men, on the one hand, and sex/love between women, on the other, and also polyamorous sex among three or more consenting adults. The barbaric biblical god commands that if a man has sex with a woman and her mother-in-law, all three are to be burnt alive (Leviticus 20:14), and men who make love are likewise to be executed (Leviticus 20:13). But in the classical pagan culture of ancient Greece and among certain Native American tribes, male homosexuality was proudly considered the norm and, although it has been considered 'physiologically' abnormal in certain Taoist traditions of the Far East, this hasn't been the case regarding female bisexuality. It fact it's been considered quite normal and desirable.

My first question is: what is it going to take to help move American society towards understanding that, issues of faith or doubt in various religions aside, sexual orientation, and the responsible expression thereof, are best perceived as matters of sacred freedom and equal protection under the law?

A- I answer this in more detail below but the key to mutual respect is the dialog. I realize that I will never get the approval of the religious right - nor do I seek it. On the other hand, we are not a threat to people of faith. We can be very reasonable. We don't have some sinister common agenda. A married Mormon columnist recently wrote in the Salt Lake Tribune that the greatest threat that gay marriage poses to my family is that one of our friends will register somewhere that is too pricey.

We can also be very unreasonable. Call me an evil pervert enough and I am going to react in kind. I heard a sermon by Rev. Peter Anderson the other day. It included:

"The sodomites are recruiters and you know who they are after? Your children. They are being recruited by the sodomites. They are being molested by the sodomites. They recruit through rape, they recruit through molestation, they recruit through violation.

"Our country is run by faggots. You know who was the man who was the architect of the bailout? His name is Barney Frank, he is a pedophile..."

"That's who just sold our country into fascism. That's who just sold our corporations to the government. That's who sold out our country, a faggot!"

By his own admission, Anderson is an uneducated man. I am not at all sure what value he is providing to his congregation with such hatred and ignorance. It is even harder to reason with the unreasonable.

Q2- The argument made by world renowned scholar, Dr. Morton Smith that Jesus could have been gay or bi (see 'The Secret Gospel of Mark') may be shocking to some, especially those like Rev. Ted Pike (also interviewed on this site), but it is an argument worthy of consideration, and Smith's alleged discovery at Mar Saba Monastery in 1958 of an ancient manuscript fragment as much as suggesting this is utterly fascinating! As Rev. Pike would like to see gays in America imprisoned, would a time traveling Jesus be in as much trouble in Pike's America as a time- traveling Oscar Wilde?

A- I wouldn't presume to speak for Rev. Pike. Furthermore, what he thinks and what his public persona says or writes might be two entirely different things. He claims that, today, Jesus would be a "hate criminal." I don't think so.

Q3- Michael Marcavage and other members of the obnoxious organization 'Repent Now' have been a thorn in the side of the gay and Lesbian communities, as well as those of circuit courts around America, but aren't you as concerned as I am that Orwellian hate crime legislation is a potential HUGE threat (as Rev. Pike claims) to the First, Fourth, and Fourteen Amendments in The Bill of Rights, and thus to our way of life as a nation?

A- We need to first appreciate what The Matthew Shepard hates Crimes Act is. The legislation simply extends existing hate crimes laws to sexual orientation and sexual identity in addition to race, religion and national origin. Moreover, the act doesn't criminalize any conduct that is not already a crime. With respect to certain violent crimes, the act might result in a change of venue, from local to federal, or it might provide funds and other assistance to local law enforcement. If an act of violence is determined to be a hate crime and the offender is tried in federal court, then the offender might be subject to sentencing enhancements.

Religious conservatives seem to be most concerned about the liability for inducing violent crime as a result of preaching that homosexuality is a sin. If jeopardy exists then it exists with or without the hate crimes act. State laws on aiding and abetting closely parallel federal law. Where are all the jailed ministers?

Intent or knowledge is a Key factor In third-party responsibility for crimes (aiding and abetting - USC 18:2).

Conviction in such cases typically requires intent or knowledge of the ensuing criminal actions. Indeed, it would constitute an insult to the First Amendment if speakers or publishers could unwittingly cause crimes for which they then could be held responsible.

Q4- There's no doubt that the real Ted Pikes and Michael Marcavages of the world are ultimately interested in iron- fisted Christian theocracy with a heterosexual, but celibate Jesus at the helm, and so, in an ultimate sense, they are probably best understood as enemies, not friends, of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. And yet it seems to me that, in one respect at least, these guys are currently doing us all a favor, acting out as rabid, stricken dogs who are biting the right group, the Orwellian control freaks who continue snatching our freedom. Can you comment on the relative positive and negative value of people doing the right things for the wrong reasons?

A- While it is popular in the gay community to suggest that people like Peter LaBarbera or Ted Pike have done more for gay rights than the Human Rights Campaign, I disagree. The vitriol eliminates honest debate and people become misinformed. Every year, children kill themselves because parents believe that their son or daughter can change their sexual orientation. They force their child into "therapy" and the kid fails to change, becomes depressed and self-loathing. Clergy need to understand that their angry messages could be responsible for very harsh consequences.

I find it hard to find a redeeming value in this. Furthermore, these folks do a disservice to religious conservatives. The GLBT community wants equal protection under the law. Nothing more- nothing less.We are willing to work with people of faith to ensure that our rights are not at their expense. The Vermont marriage equality legislation was carefully crafted to assuage concerns. In New York, Tom Duane, an openly gay Assemblyman, is reaching out to conservatives to create fair marriage legislation. This can only occur when there is good will and an honest dialog.

Q5- In your view, what is the primary root cause of homophobia and heterophobia, and what are the best ways to disarm these?

A- With respect to "heterophobia" I will defer. Homophobia is used to describe various forms of sexual intolerance. The true meaning of homophobia is an irrational fear of homosexuality. As a society we place a great deal of importance on traditional male and female roles. It is understandable that people feel a significant need to fit into predefined slots. However, nature is rarely that simplistic (or cooperative). There are endless combinations of sexual orientation and sexual identity - each having an infinite number of gradients.

I suspect that the pathology of homophobia is often a result of insecurity, something that we have in abundance.

I lived in the Kingdom of Thailand for a few years where people are far more accepting of whatever nature doles out. There is far less homophobia.

Assuming that you are asking about the broader definition of homophobia, at the core of sexual intolerance is ignorance. There are 15 to 20 million gay people in the USA. Of these, there are, perhaps, a thousand or so "ex-gays," many of whom are actually celibate. The number is statistically irrelevant.

The twin studies and the male sibling effect provide a compelling argument for a biological connection to sexual orientation. The so-called "search for a gay gene" is just rhetoric. A biological association to sexuality does not require a genetic correlation and absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence.

Yet, even if you dismiss biology, if you injected all 15 to 20 million of us with truth serum, I doubt that anyone will profess having made a decision to be gay. Given repression, it also challenges common sense.

So the first truth is that sexual orientation is not a sexual "preference" or choice. Nor is it a "behavior." People who accept this basic fact are far less likely to be homophobic.

The second important truth is that the "homosexual lifestyle" is fiction. People are not defined by how they have sex. I have had the same monogamous, committed partner for almost 30 years. He is (gasp) a Republican. I am addicted to large-ring premium cigars and I have run some rather macho enterprises. Do I know some gay hairdressers? Sure. But I also know more than one gay professional boxer, some gay NFL players and a number of gay executives.

Then there is the "political collection;" a boutique of discriminatory and inflammatory stereotypes that have been used by political operatives for electoral gain as wedge issues. The most offensive and dangerous of these is the conflation of homosexuality and pedophilia. This has no basis in fact. Numerous published and peer reviewed studies conclude that gays are no more likely to be attracted to children than heterosexuals. In fact, the Jenny Study determined that gays are less likely to be attracted to children.

Sally Kern and others often claim that there is a correlation between declining civilizations and the acceptance of homosexuality. Apparently, Ms. Kern has never actually read Gibbons' "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Gibbons writes of the Machiavellian notion of "civic virtue" and its decline which has nothing whatsoever to do with sex. In fact, Gibbons lays most of the blame for the fall of Rome on the rise of Christianity.

The point is that we are not responsible for collapsing civilizations nor comets, tornadoes, hurricanes, floods nor the 911 attacks (although we have been blamed for all of these and more).

That brings us to health, specifically AIDS. Worldwide, AIDS is not a gay disease. In 2007, 75% of AIDS deaths were in sub-Saharan Africa. Almost all of these deaths were the result of heterosexual sex. The virus doesn't care. Safe sex is an imperative for gays and straights.

inally, there is the role of religion. Literalists baffle me. At the time of the Second Temple, there were several conflicting scrolls and the differences were essentially decided "by committee." The oldest Masoretic manuscripts date back to the ninth century CE. There is some evidence that these were translated from Greek to Hebrew. We don't have thousands of years of translations and mutable analysis due to the fact that the Torah was scribed without vowels, diacritics and word spacing. But I digress.

Even if one accepts the notion that the Bible explicitly condemns homosexuality and even if one disregards the fact that we do not obey things like the obligation to murder children who curse their parents, that does not lead us to the expressions of hatred that we see today. This, I think, is due to the politicization and monetization of religion. Groups like Family Research Council aggregate political power by delivering votes. FRC's constituents see this power as a means to an end and donate accordingly. Focus on the Family, FRC and other groups have changed the nature of discourse. While it is more artfully constructed, the vitriol from Focus on the Family and FRC is no less vitriolic than Ted Pike's. It contains the same gaps in logic, the same lapses in truth and the same gratuitous hyperbole.

Ultimately, the one thing that we should all be able to agree on is the importance of the golden rule. There is also a pragmatic reality because the most rabidly anti-gay, angry preacher has the same potential as anyone else to have a gay child.