Sexual politics and language

The National Post, 31 August 2001

Earl Manners, president of the Ontario Secondary School Teachers' Federation, declared last Friday that private schools are a hotbed of “homophobic beliefs.” Though such an accusation – made, it seems, by a self-righteous union official with a transparent agenda – is easily dismissed, Mr. Manners' usage touches on a larger issue. Of all the words bent with Orwellian cynicism into blunt ideological instruments, “homophobia” is currently the prime example. It is time for a moratorium on its use in any discourse aspiring to intelligent debate on human sexuality.

The word, in its literal sense, refers to an entrenched fear or dislike of the male sex or, more generally, of human beings. The Oxford English Dictionary refers us to Chambers's Journal ( 5 June 1920 ): “Her salient characteristic was contempt for the male sex as represented in the human biped... The seeds of homophobia had been sown early.” By the early Seventies, however, in part under the influence of the Manhattan psychotherapist, George Weinberg, the word was being used to refer to any aversion in the general population to the persons or practices of the homosexual minority.

This redefinition of the word was part of a deliberate attempt to turn the tables on those who believed that homosexual behaviour was itself related to an unhealthy aversion to so-called normal men or women. Indeed it appears that “homophobia” and “homophobic” were semantically retooled for one crucial purpose: to identify those who regarded homosexuality as a sign of psychological or moral difficulty as witnesses against themselves, that is, against their own mental or moral health. In short, if homosexuality were no longer to be regarded as a form of mental illness – it was struck from the list by the American Psychiatric Association in 1973 after a brief but intense form of institutional warfare – another such illness would have to take its place. That illness was homophobia.

Whatever one makes of the arguments about homosexuality, the view that Weinbergian “homophobia” is an illness is highly dubious. No one doubts that that there are people who express their secret fears in the form of social or even physical violence against homosexuals. And such people, whether heterosexual or homosexual, can rightly be said to be ill; in some cases, they might even be said to be evil. But one of the many problems with the current usage of the word homophobia is that it is not being used chiefly to refer to the psychological condition of such people. Rather, it is being applied to anyone at all who is not ready to assent to the proposition that homosexual behaviour is a social good, or at all events good for those who are inclined to practice it.

As a matter of fact, one does not even need to harbour any such skepticism in order to receive a bloody nose from the “homophobia” charge or something very like it. Consider the fate of two of my McGill colleagues, whose only crime was to answer the government's call for an expert opinion on the history and social merits of reserving the category of marriage for stable heterosexual unions. Their email systems were jammed by a risible petition circulated by something called Project Interaction: The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Two-Spirit Initiative of the McGill School of Social Work (a quite unofficial body, I hasten to add, which presumably wishes to see the definition of marriage expanded to include communities of three or more). Neither their academic work nor their personal views would support a charge of homophobia, on any definition, against these scholars. Yet the petition boldly asserts that it is “unacceptable and unethical” for the university even to employ such obvious enemies of the people. So much for civil discourse.

But there are better reasons for a moratorium on the use of this word in good company – heterosexual or otherwise – than the bad company the word itself is in the habit of keeping. The best reason is that the word is designed and deployed to prevent, rather than to promote, reasoned debate about a fundamental aspect of our common humanity, and of the common good.