A few hours after midnight one early morning during Yale University’s Pride Week, students on campus encountered a flurry of pink flyers with black triangles and the words “Celebrate Gay Pride Week.” But there were also several other nearly-identical flyers that read, “Celebrate Gay Sloth Week,” “Celebrate Gay Envy Week,” etc.-each enumerating one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Two queer students who saw them recognized the insidious message of these flyers and immediately called up a few friends, canvassing the campus and taking down all the flyers they could find before the sun rose.
 
In the following days, the actions of these students as well as the intent of the posters in putting up the flyers became the subject of debate in the campus newspapers and amongst both administrators and students. While both campus papers condemned the anti-gay message of the flyers, the daily newspaper, The Yale Daily News (YDN) also took a stance in chastising the queer students for removing the flyers. The News' View, the YDN’s editorial column, couched the issue as a problem of free speech and championed the right of the anonymous posters to spread their message, even if their method was “cowardly.” The News’ View described the removal of the posters as an act of silencing akin to the silencing of a gay and lesbian presence on campus and elsewhere. However, the View failed to realize that there is a fundamental difference in these acts of silencing.
 
The effect of the flyers, more than anything else, was to make every gay person feel uncomfortable with being open about her/his sexuality. The flyers presented a clear message of threatening violence and condemnation. They are not simply and harmlessly “hateful,” as the News’ View suggests. The flyers attack the very sense of safety and acceptance of any queer student who comes across them. They are especially harmful to the closeted gay man or lesbian who is unable to come to terms with his or her sexuality because of homophobia. The initiative of the queer students in taking down the flyers helped to thwart the intent of the flyers in creating immediate discomfort with our self-identity and sexuality. Their actions, however, unlike the actions of the posters, did not threaten the physical safety of the posters or other people.
 
Yet, why is it that many students seemed to be so concerned with the removal of these flyers? The challenge of free speech is in understanding what constitutes the kind of dialogue that everyone so readily champions. That the posters of the flyers refused to acknowledge ownership of authorship is only one step in their refusal to engage in dialogue. The message of their flyers is in essence an attack on gay persons’ very right to exist. The posters are not attempting to discuss what disturbs them about homosexuality-whether it is the act of sex, the disturbance of gender roles, or a putting into question their own desires and understandings of sexuality. Their simple statement is that homosexuality is evil-a sin.
 
Whether or not the flyers had been taken down, it is still the queer students who would have been the ones to raise the red flag about them. Although the News’ View felt that the chance for open dialogue was lost because “the silent majority” did not have a chance to experience the flyers first-hand, that chance for dialogue lay in the newspaper coverage, editorial columns, and the response of queer students in letters to the editor as well as in the spoken dialogue initiated by queer students in talking with their friends, deans, and professors about the flyers. The problem was also brought up at the Pride Week rally with the Student Coalition for Diversity. These actions are what create dialogue, not the closed words of the flyers.
 
The News’ View claimed that “the silent majority would have challenged homophobia” should we queers have left the signs up. But it is precisely because the members of the “silent majority” do not perceive themselves to be directly affected by the flyers nor are silenced by fear of the flyers that they do not understand why queer students cannot abide these flyers. Heterosexuals on campus who say they disapprove of the flyers would not experience the profound sense of hate directed towards them. They are not the ones directly threatened. The majority of silent (and silenced) gays and lesbians, too, would be uncomfortable in speaking up about the hate in the message of these flyers. The “silent majority” that so many people assume would provide an anti-homophobic response is the greatest weapon of homophobia.
 
In fact, it is the “silent majority” that is the greatest source of homophobia. These are the people who say they accept gay people. They even have gay friends. Maybe even a gay sibling or parent. But please, whatever you do, don’t flaunt your sexuality. We will protect you from physical violence and murders as long as we don’t have to deal with your sexuality on a daily basis. More than overt acts of violence against and the brutal killings of gay persons, this sort of silencing of a queer presence is what constitutes homophobia and creates the atmosphere for violence. Why does it disturb this “majority” for queers to be visible? Why, when queer activists take proactive measures to counteract anti-gay rhetoric, are we often censured for infringing on others’ free (hate) speech?
 
It is this “silent majority’s” brand of homophobia that defines gay and lesbian activism on such narrow terms. While the possibilities of “queering” the country could in fact make everyone’s lives more free and open, it is the “normalization” of gay and lesbian identity that makes strides in the gay and lesbian rights movement. Headlines in today’s papers cover same-sex marriage legislation, domestic partner benefits, and adoptions by gay parents. While it is upsetting that gay men and lesbians are denied the opportunity to create their own “traditional” families, there is also something missing in this scramble to erase new understandings of sexuality and human rights. In all of this push to disappear into traditional values, we have tacitly accepted the “silent majority’s” condoning of homosexuality. What we forget is that in order to be condoned, we must have sinned or erred first. Do we believe we are wrong in our desires? Is homosexuality OK only because it may be a biologically pre-determined fact? What about the right to choose our sexual partner? To be free of discrimination based on your sexual preference? All of these questions are crucial in the understanding of queer activism and the homophobia that we all must confront.

04/03/99