Yale Professor Rejects Claim At Prop 8 Trial That Brokeback Mountain Proves Homophobia Doesn’t Exist
Posted: 14th Jan 2010 Author: Michelle Penny Topics: Gay Marriage, News
Yesterday saw David Thompson cross examine Professor George Chauncey, a History and American Studies Professor at Yale, on the progress that he believed LGBT people had made both in the area of popular culture and politics over the last 20 years. Being well qualified to speak on the issue, having written the book, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, Chauncey did agree with Thompson that non discrimination employment bills, a growing number of elected gay and lesbian official and increasing support for domestic partnerships and civil unions by national Democratic leaders did show progress politically. In terms of popular culture, Chauncey also agreed that exposure of the LGBT community in both film and on television with Thompson using Will and Grace and Brokeback Mountain as two such examples when posing the argument.
However, whilst Chauncey did acknowledge the strides had been made, the professor was also keen to stress that the reality is progress has been rather limited with discrimination and homophobia still a big issue in society for the LGBT community, with the reality being there are still few openly LGBT characters on mainstream television and film, something which Thompson was trying to prove otherwise, using the argument that films like Brokeback Mountain act to show the LGBT community is not discriminated against.
It would not be an understatement to say that many of the LGBT community have been angered by this rather naive argument, however there is a reason for doing do it, and that is an attempt by the legal team acting to defend Proposition 8 to prove to the court that homophobia doesn’t exist. And the reason why is this. If Thompson and his team aren’t able to prove that homophobia is no longer an issue, then the the history and amount of discrimination that the LGBT community has faced becomes important legally as it acts to bring into question the amount of protection that should be awarded to them under the constitution. If the court was to believe there has been a strong bias which has prevented a section of society from being able to properly protect itself it could see that group afforded increased constitutional protection under the federal equal protection clause.
Whilst testifying, Thompson also asked Chauncey to analyse some of the literature and messages produced by Proposition 8 supporters with Dr. Hak-Shing William Tam’s work being the main focus. Stating that if Proposition 8 didn’t pass, Tam had claimed in one document that other states would “fall into Satan’s hands” and would lead to the gays then looking to “legalize having sex with children”. Chauncey’s response was that they were just another example of a long history of attempts to demonize the LGBT community and were an attempt at scare-mongering.
Via Pam’s House Blend (story) and CarbonNYC (photo)
