Subject: Fwd: "Conformity, Not Change" -- by Patricia Nell Warren
From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1996 09:59:04 -0400

******************************************************************************
********************

NEWS YOU DIDN'T SEE ON TV

A commentary by Patricia Nell Warren

******************************************************************************
********************

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONFORMITY AND CHANGE

A few days ago, one Diane Parker wrote to the Journal American with her own
argument that homosexuality is not genetic.  She believes that the "reformed
homosexuals" now visible in certain videos, programs and organizations is
compelling proof that homosexuals can really change.

I am always amazed at the power of wishful thinking in people like Parker.
 Their whole position is based on a fierce belief in this alleged capacity of
homosexuals to "change."  The videos, programs, etc. represent  a 2000-year
effort  by Christianity to wish away the existential fact of homosexuality,
whatever its root cause.  The fact is: in repressive times, homosexuals do
not change.  They conform.  

Gay people disagree about many things, but this is one area where we agree --
because so many of us have lived face-to-face with our own "is-ness" through
long decades of pretense.   I, for one, did a terrific job of conforming to
the heterosexual canon, as a wife for 16 years.   I even tried both
Protestantism and Catholicism in a desperate effort to transmogrify my
conformity into change.  But it didn't work.  

The conformity goes so deep that it can masquerade brilliantly as change.
 Unlike leopards, homosexuals can make their spots look like tiger stripes.
 The penalties for being fingered as gay -- loss of family and job, assault
and battery, long prison sentences, incarceration in mental hospitals, to
name a few -- cause many of us to drive that conformity as deep as we can.
 We fool a lot of people, including the wishful thinkers.  Some of us even
manage to fool our own mothers.  For a time, we even fool ourselves.  But it
is still conformity.   It is not change.

Acting straight when you know you're gay is not change.  It is not a moral
act.  It is not reform.  It is not healing.  It is a living death. In the
Sixties, a whole generation of youth rose up against all kinds of forced
conformity in American society, and their protest embraced this deadly
conformity demanded of gay people.  Yet today the wishful thinkers among us
are trying to engineer the re-imposition of their wishes.  They demand it in
the name of "saving marriage."   What they want, in many marriages,  adds up
to shape-shifting of the spookiest kind.  It adds up to acting performances
that will never get an Oscar.

Those who settle for our conformity get it at an appalling cost to
themselves.  The wishful thinkers lose their power to see what is real.  They
can look into the eyes of a homosexual who is living in deep cover, and
utterly fail to see that person's true spirit.  Even in the eyes of their own
children, parents, closest friends, the wishful thinkers see only what they
choose to see.

Heaven help the American marriage if it is "saved" by people who can't tell
the difference between conformity and change.

*************************************************
Patricia Nell Warren is the author of "The Front Runner" and other
bestsellers about gay life.  Her publisher is Wildcat Press.  She is a
plaintiff in ACLU vs Reno/ALA vs Department of Justice.  Her Web page is
located at
http://www.gaywired.com/wildcat/wildcat.htm.

All materials in this column are copyright (c) 1996 by Patricia Nell Warren.
 Permission is granted to repost this column on the Internet...just notify us
by email so we know who's posting it.   For print media, prior permission
must be obtained to reprint.  Please email [email-masked] or fax
213/933-0999. 

*************************************************