Richard Mohr, a philosophy professor from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, argued that political change can only result from reformed cultural attitudes towards homosexuality in a speech titled "Special Rights? A Gay and Straight Agenda."
Mohr, who is gay, spoke yesterday afternoon as students crowded the aisles of Room 3 of the Rockefeller Center for Social Sciences.
Mohr said equality has been defined as equal opportunity for all, when it should really mean "people should not be held at a morally lesser regard based on anything other than their actions."
He said equality of justice requires looking to history and seeing "obviously gays have been treated wrongly and deserve special rights against degradation."
Mohr said the gay rights movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s meant legislated civil rights, as if "gayness doesn't matter."
"Gay arguments often have equality and not gayness in mind," Mohr said.
He said what the gay community needs now is a "broad program to change the culture rather than a narrow program to change the legislature."
There will be "consistent political progress only when we change the feeling of the common man fed by stereotypes and taboo," Mohr said.
Mohr said the "gay taboo" is ending, mostly due to the influence of the mass media.
Less than a decade ago the New York Times refused to print the word "gay," according to Mohr. Recently, the newspaper printed 60 articles on the Gay Games that "weren't even about politics or rights" he said.
Gays are portrayed in comic strips, television shows, movies and even serve on the New York City school board, Mohr said.
When the television comedy show "Friends" featured a lesbian wedding last fall, it was the most watched show of the week, he said.
Mohr said gays and lesbians are becoming less like "monsters and demons in society and more like hippies and Mormons; it is okay to be around them."
He added without this demonization it is less easy to think of homosexuality as "contagious."
In modern society it is increasingly acceptable for straight men to be friends with gay men without worrying about "guilt by association," Mohr said.
He said the current gay youth are important culturally because more people know someone who is gay.
Quoting Will Rogers, Mohr said, "People's minds are changed through observation, not argument."
Mohr cited anti-gay military policies and housing and job discrimination as examples of degradation of gays and lesbians.
It is the status of gays and lesbians in society that needs to change, he said.
He said status, not action, is the focus of the military ban on homosexual activity.
A person in the military can be caught in a gay sexual act, claim he was drunk and not be penalized, according to Mohr, while a man who has never had gay sexual contact, but claims to be gay, will be "booted."
Mohr said Canada is a perfect example of how a changed culture will bring about political reforms.
In Canada, gays serve openly in the armed forces, there are no sodomy laws and there is legal civil rights protection for gays in all but one province, he said.
Although many students in the audience disagreed, Mohr said he thinks there should be affirmative action for gays and lesbians to achieve the "social goal of fair administration of justice."
He also said he thinks there should be more gay teachers and police officers.
Mohr said nearly half of the states in the country have sodomy laws, but it has never been a part of gay rights movements to reform them.
"Sex is one of the chief portals of human life and a necessary part of marriage," Mohr said.
Sex is the reason why friendships lack the form and depth of love relationships, Mohr said.
Gay and lesbian marriage and domestic life is moving to the top of the gay agenda, he said.
Mohr said society makes gay coupling very difficult, but marriage "fulfills the definition of love in an exemplary manner. It improves intimacy and gives love the proper weight."
Studies have shown lesbian relationships have a great deal of equality between the partners, according to Mohr.
He said he thinks straight people could learn a lot from lesbian relationships.
"Maybe the ideal model [of marriage] will change because of an outside perspective," Mohr said.
He also said studies have shown that after five years in a relationship, gay men have a high level of emotional attachment to their partners but are not often monogamous.
He added, "Most people think monogamy is a central component of marriage, I'm arguing it's not."
