Scandal’s Shame, Massachusetts’ Pride

by Robert Scheer

What a wonderful image of democracy and tolerance the
Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has presented
to the world by allowing same-sex marriages. At a time
when elements of the U.S. military machine have
perverted homosexual acts into a form of torture, the
sight of responsible and joyful gay adults freely
choosing the commitment of marriage could not be more
timely.

The lesson is that freedom is indivisible. In
Massachusetts, it is up to the individual and not the
state to define the essence of the human experience
when it comes to love and marriage. It should make us
proud patriots that the battle for freedom has won new
ground and that full human rights are sacred in at
least one state of the nation that claims to lead the
free world.

Yes, human rights, for unless homosexuals are granted
full civil rights, no other rights are secure. Hitler
proved that by exterminating the "abnormal ones," whose
pink triangles marked them for death, alongside the
Jews. Homosexuals were a favored target of the Taliban
goons in Afghanistan, who routinely crushed gays to
death under a wall of stones. And they were once
interned in camps in Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

Sexual fascism — the violent denial of the fundamental
right of human beings to define their essential nature
in an open and accountable manner — is at the heart of
totalitarianism, whether in an Islamic, a Christian or
a Marxist context.

Yet, despite living in a democratic society, we are not
immune to exploiting sex as a means of social control.
U.S. sodomy laws — until last year’s Supreme Court
ruling in a Texas case — made gay sex between
consenting adults illegal. At the same time, the U.S.
prison system practically institutionalizes
male-on-male rape as a form of punishment and
intimidation.

And now comes the scandal of Abu Ghraib, which appears
to go far beyond a few reservists on an S&M power trip.

Because of the severe psychological consequences of
sexual humiliation for conservative Muslims, U.S.
military jailers have been routinely stripping Arab
prisoners and taking nude photos of them in camps and
prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. According
to Seymour Hersh in the May 24 New Yorker, this
practice was not devised by deranged reservists at the
bottom of the military hierarchy at Abu Ghraib but came
from the top — from Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld.

"Rumsfeld and [Undersecretary of Defense for
Intelligence Stephen] Cambone ... expanded the scope of
[a top-secret intelligence-gathering program], bringing
its unconventional methods to Abu Ghraib. The commandos
were to operate in Iraq as they had in Afghanistan. The
male prisoners could be treated roughly, and exposed to
sexual humiliation," reports Hersh, relying on insider
intelligence sources. The Pentagon denies it authorized
abuse but has admitted to having a policy of routinely
allowing prisoners to be stripped naked and in other
ways humiliated.

If the goal in Iraq was really to win hearts and minds
to the American model of democracy, why would Rumsfeld
impose such a shortsighted policy of torture? Was this
ends-justify-the-means cynicism or just an act of
desperation to save a tragically stupid war?

In the end, the irony is grim: The U.S. military bans
openly gay soldiers but apparently does not effectively
screen out heterosexual sadists. Meanwhile, at home the
president tries desperately to make an election-year
issue out of preventing free adults from civilly
consecrating same-sex partnerships.

Unfortunately, there are many in this country, at least
in the political class, who claim to support the rights
of the individual abroad while struggling to limit them
at home. Yet, as with classic images from earlier civil
rights movements, such as that of a poised black girl
walking to school through a jeering crowd, the dramatic
scenes of joy and love now unfolding in Massachusetts
are likely to be looked back upon by future generations
with a "what took us so long?" relief.

Bush has condemned the Massachusetts high court for
tampering with the "traditional values" enshrined in
the Constitution. But we should be grateful for such
tampering, or we would still have slavery and women
still would not be allowed to vote.

Robert Scheer writes a weekly column for The Times and
is coauthor of "The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us
About Iraq"

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