"gay agenda"

[Geoffrey Nunberg]

>---------------------- Information from the mail header
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>Subject:      Re: "gay agenda"
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>At 10:01 AM -0700 7/7/03, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>>...
>>this is masterful, and (to me) scary, and here i speak as a linguist
>>(in the tradition of dwight bolinger, among others) and as an angry
>>faggot.
>>
>
>and speak eloquently indeed.  this is a wonderful analysis-cum-rant,
>and I may borrow (with credit) some of it for my (or for Gregory and
>Sally's) institute course.  Would you mind if I posted it to the
>listserv for their class?  It's just the sort of issue we've been
>discussing.
>
>larry

I second Larry's remarks. For the record, here's the fuller context
of Scalia's remarks in his dissent (case references are omitted). My
sense is that his use of 'agenda' in the first para has more of the
'hidden' or 'implicit' sense, whereas his use in the third para more
straightforwardly refers to a list of things to be accomplished:

        Today¹s opinion is the product of a Court, which is the
product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to
the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted
by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral
opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct. I
noted in an earlier opinion the fact that the American Association of
Law Schools (to which any reputable law school must seek to belong)
excludes from membership any school that refuses to ban from its
job-interview facilities a law firm (no matter how small) that does
not wish to hire as a prospective partner a person who openly engages
in homosexual conduct.
        One of the most revealing statements in today¹s opinion is
the Court¹s grim warning that the criminalization of homosexual
conduct is ³an invitation to subject homosexual persons to
discrimination both in the public and in the private spheres.² It is
clear from this that the Court has taken sides in the culture war,
departing from its role of assuring, as neutral observer, that the
democratic rules of engagement are observed. Many Americans do not
want persons who openly engage in homosexual conduct as partners in
their business, as scoutmasters for their children, as teachers in
their children¹s schools, or as boarders in their home. They view
this as protecting themselves and their families from a lifestyle
that they believe to be immoral and destructive. The Court views it
as ³discrimination² which it is the function of our judg-ments to
deter. So imbued is the Court with the law profession¹s
anti-anti-homosexual culture, that it is seemingly unaware that the
attitudes of that culture are not obviously ³mainstream²; that in
most States what the Court calls ³discrimination² against those who
engage in homosexual acts is perfectly legal; that proposals to ban
such ³discrimination² under Title VII have repeatedly been rejected
by Congress...; and that in some cases such ³discrimination² is a
constitutional right, see Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 530 U. S.
640 (2000).
        Let me be clear that I have nothing against homosexuals, or
any other group, promoting their agenda through normal democratic
means. Social perceptions of sexual and other morality change over
time, and every group has the right to persuade its fellow citizens
that its view of such matters is the best. That homosexuals have
achieved some success in that enterprise is attested to by the fact
that Texas is one of the few remaining States that crimi-nalize
private, consensual homosexual acts. But persuading one¹s fellow
citizens is one thing, and imposing one¹s views in absence of
democratic majority will is something else. I would no more require a
State to criminalize homosexual acts‹or, for that matter, display any
moral disapprobation of them‹than I would forbid it to do so. What
Texas has chosen to do is well within the range of traditional
democratic action, and its hand should not be stayed through the
invention of a brand-new ³constitutional right² by a Court that is
impatient of democratic change.