Originally printed November, 2000 at technodyke.com
Years ago, in a now long gone comic strip called "Pogo", an old
saying was given a slightly different twist when one of the characters
said, "We have met the enemy, and they is us". I still remember
that line after all these years.
Writer and reporter Donna Minkowitz spent several years going
undercover in various churches and Religious Right meetings to
learn more about them and why they seemed so intent on reversing
many civil rights gained by the gay and lesbian movement over
the years. She visited a meeting of the all-male "Promise Keepers"
in drag, attended a Christian Coalition conference dressed as
a conservative woman, visited the "Focus on the Family" facility
in Colorado just to name a few. What she found out was that she
might have more common with her supposed enemy than she might
have thought possible. Her observations and revelations are detailed
in her 1998 book, Ferocious Romance: What My Encounters With The Right Taught Me
About Sex, God, And Fury (The Free Press).
She now has a series of events planned in New York City for December
and I recently called her at her Brooklyn home to talk about politics,
God, the Religious Right, and her upcoming series of sermons.
All are welcome. Please, read on.
Nicole- Tell us a little about your background and how you got into writing.
Donna- Well, I started writing for the Village Voice when I was twenty-three
years old. How I got into writing is a little hard to answer,
because I felt like a writer for a very long time (laughs).
N- I know the feeling.
D- Uh huh. I'm very glad that non-fiction writing is getting taken
seriously as writing these days, that people think writing can
be literary, even if it's true.
N- In 1998, you put out a book called "Ferocious Romance: What My
Encounters With The Right Taught Me About Sex, God, And Fury".
The book recounts how you went undercover, mainly for the Village
Voice and The Advocate I believe, to report on the Religious Right.
What was the genesis for this exploration?
D- Well, I actually never did this for The Advocate but when I was
at the Voice, there was this period around 1991 to 1993 when there
was all these anti-gay ballot initiatives in states like Colorado
and Oregon. If you remember, these were laws that said things
like, all gay rights laws in every city in the state will be abolished.
Basically, no government agency will be able to spend money to
further any gay rights cause. That means, they can't even fund
a gay group. They can't fund a gay youth group. They can't say
that the health department can make a special program that administers
to the needs of gay and lesbian people in the city and so on.
So they were very frightening laws. The one in Oregon said that
homosexuality was abnormal, wrong, unnatural, and perverse, basically
making the state go on record saying that gay people were monstrous.
I was very frightened by these ballot initiatives and the Religious
Right was behind them. So I started getting really interested
in the Religious Right, kinda wondering why someone would spend
so much energy attacking another group of people, gay people.
What motivated them? So I started going undercover. I went undercover
for Out Magazine to a Christian Coalition convention and that
was very, very interesting for me. One reason was, the piece I
wound up writing was about some things I discovered that I had
in common with them. I realized that, hmm, how can I put this?
When you're dressed up as a Christian Coalition woman and you're
clapping for Phyllis Schafly when she comes into the room or you're
standing there clapping for Pat Buchanan, you approach some things
in your own psyche that might let you explore things emotionally
that you have in common with the far right, things which are really
there. The book is partly about the Religious Right and it's partly
about me and the things I wound up having in common with them
despite being a lesbian radical journalist who opposed all the
things they stood for. I am undercover at some points in the book
but I really wrote the book after I had done most of the initial
undercover work.
N- What experiences did you bring with you from the various publications
that you have written for to help you in your endeavor?
D- Hmm, that's a tough one. I mean The Village Voice in those days
encouraged a very personal, idiosyncratic style in it's writers
and I was certainly helped by that. The idea that journalism should
be personal and that it was a mistake to try and be objective.
What was most helpful to me in writing about the Religious Right,
was looking at my own reactions and my own feelings. The basic
idea in my book is that you are very, very similar to many of
the things you're fighting and that people are often very similar
to many of the things they despise. And I want to write about
some of the reasons why.
N- I spent most of my teen years attending a fundamentalist baptist
church and walked out at age nineteen when I could no longer reconcile
what I felt inside with the image of god that they espoused. And
you were talking how when you were attending these meetings, you
found yourself empathizing with many of the people and the ministers.
Was this very surprising to you?
D- Yes! Initially, it was definitely surprising. I mean the Christian
Right is both politically and culturally about the furthest thing
from me and my background. I mean, I was raised by Marxist, Jewish
intellectuals in Brooklyn. In a way, that's why I enjoy writing
about the Religious Right so much because even though they were
really the "Other" to me, I mean they couldn't be more different
in a lot of ways, they were so similar. One of the things I felt,
from the beginning, was that their intensity was very similar
to my own and to the intensity of things in my background. For
example, the part of the gay movement I came from. I used to be
very active in Act-Up and Queer Nation and a lot of the energy
in those groups, I found something very much like that when I
went to the Pentecostal churches.
N- So you're saying that you compare the fervor of the Religious
Right with the fervor of many Gay and Lesbian activist groups?
D- Right. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I mean, in a lot
of ways, the intensity of right-wing churches is one of the best
things about it. I mean, both them and the left movement and the
gay movement are different from the mainstream culture we get
on T.V. which basically tells us, it's not important to care about
anything, it's just important to buy stuff. So in a sense, we
are saying a similar thing. We're saying it's important to care
about something and some things really are important and worth
fighting for. It's just, what we believe, the specifics that we
believe will make the world better, are very different.
N- It seems to me that the Religious Right has been very effective
for the past twenty years in influencing the Republican Party.
In the light of American history, I find this to be very fascinating
since Abraham Lincoln, who's considered the great emancipator,
was also a republican. Do you have any views on this?
D- I'm afraid I don't. I don't know all that much about the evolution
of the republican party. I would say that now, at least, the republican
party is certainly on the side of those who want to restrict freedom.
I often find myself pretty critical when say, gay groups like
the HRC, want us to embrace republicans who are okay on gay rights
when they're still really bad on other things like economic matters.
I mean, they still want to roll back social services and make
good trade relations with human rights abusers overseas. So I
don't think that we should love republicans who are good on gay
rights, when they are still really bad on other issues.
N- Well, I'm a liberal democrat but I know that the democrats have
been pushing for trade with China, who I consider one of the biggest
human rights abusers.
D- I agree. In fact, I was reporting on this year's Republican Convention
for POZ magazine and I went to several receptions that was given
by gay groups in honor of Representative Jim Kolbe, who is openly
gay and a congressman form Arizona, and they praised him so much
for restoring normal trade relations with China. I thought that
was a terrible thing to honor him for. I mean, I would think that
was something that should go to his shame, not his credit.
N- One other political issue, seeing as how I'm in Vermont, I was
wondering how you feel about the Civil Union law that was enacted
here?
D- I think it's great. Unlike a lot of other gay leftists, I think
it's fine to fight for gay marriage. I think it's important to
have equality with the straights in any sphere we want and because
some gay people do want to get married, they should be able to.
I was very angry actually because Ralph Nader, when he ran in
the last election, was asked what he thought of gay marriage and
he said, "That's not an important issue". That's one of the reasons
I didn't vote for him.
N- Have your experiences changed you in any way and if so how?
D- Yes, they have changed me. They've made me a lot more introspective.
I'll never be able to decide again that somebody deserves pain
just because they're my political enemy. It was very easy for
me in the past, when I was fighting on one issue or another, to
decide that my political enemy was just a despicable human being
who did not deserve any compassion. I think that's the way, for
the most part, in american politics that we're taught to believe
and act. One thing that my experiences spending so much time with
the Religious Right taught me was that, a lot of people who believe
terrible things, including terrible things about people like me,
and a lot of people who do terrible actions, like trying to take
away civil rights from gay people, are not in fact, completely
despicable human beings. Sometimes, it's hard to face that. It
would be easier if they were just monstrous and there was nothing
good about them, but there are some good things about them. There
are some admirable things about them. I was surprised that some
of them were very smart. I was certainly surprised when I liked
some of them. So it was very instructive.
N- I understand that you have a performance piece about people and
faith issues that is to be performed on December second and twelfth.
It is to be a collaborative effort as well between you and others.
Can you tell us about this project and where it is to be performed?
D- Yes. It's actually two separate pieces. One on December second
and one on the twelfth. It's to be at "The Kitchen", which is
a performance space in New York City. It's in a series called
"Poets and Preachers" which is essentially about bringing down
the barriers between clergy and artists. This is an idea that
interests me very much as someone who always has kinda wanted
to be a pastor but, unfortunately, I don't believe in God or Christ.
So (laughs), it wouldn't quite work in the traditional sense.
The first piece is called "Violent/Christ" and it is me and two
pastors including Reverend Pat Baumgarder from the Metropolitan
Christian Church in New York, the big gay and lesbian church.
The other pastor is The Reverend Annie Ruth Powell from Union
Theological Seminary. The fourth person is a pacifist activist
from The War Resisters League named Sam Diener. This event consists
of the four of us giving sermons about some of the most frustrating
issues relating to violence and justice. Essentially, the frustrating
fact that it's very difficult to fight violence without engaging
in violence yourself. So anyone who has ever struggled with questions
of non-violence, and why say, fighting hate crimes seems to require
putting people in jail where they will suffer terrible, violent
crimes to their person, might like to come to this event. The
idea also is that we will give paradoxical sermons. Traditionally,
sermons are not supposed to be paradoxical. They're supposed to
just say one thing and try to push the point home but I'm hoping
in both these events that I and the other speakers will give sermons
that are not afraid to be paradoxical, not afraid to bring in
things that make the opposite point from what we're arguing, and
that we won't be afraid to hear each other say contrary things.
Then, we're going to try and discuss with each other, and let
the audience discuss too, these very thorny issues about ethics
and violence.
The second event is also uses this idea. Basically, what I wanted
to do is bring together people who don't usually get to talk to
each other about religion. For example, people who believe in
God and people who don't or people who believe in God in very
different ways. In some ways, I am religious but the views I have
are different from those felt by people with more traditional
beliefs. And I wanted to make a space to ask questions about religion
like: What if I love and hate God at the same time? Can you feel
religious feelings but also not want to worship God? The title
of the second event is: "Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy and Cruel". The
big question of the event is whether cruelty is implicit in the
idea of the holy. Whether religious feelings come from an ecstatic
sense of terror, which some people have written about but religious
people very rarely talk about. So, that event is me, a writer
named Peter Trachtenberg who wrote a brilliant memoir of his heroin
addiction called "Seven Tattoos", and a writer named Ann Powers
who is a rock music critic at the New York Times and also a contributor
to a book of essays about the New Testament called "Joyful Noise:
A New Testament Revisited". That's the second event and the audience
is invited to debate and discuss with us.
N- Moving on to something political again. I am from Florida and
this week Florida has been thrown into the spotlight as the state
that will probably decide who will be president for the next four
years. What are your observations about all of this?
D- I'm pretty tickled by it I have to say (laughs). I'm happy to
see so many people care about this process. I was very moved actually
to see the strong turnout in my district in Brooklyn when I voted.
There seems to have been an usually strong turnout nationwide
and the fact that people who are not usually that political seem
to really care about the election being fair and really care about
who becomes president, gives me hope. It makes me think, that
possibly, there will be another strong activist movement in the
next ten years.
N- Do you think that Bush will still get it?
D- I'm not going to predict that one. I hope not.
N- I hope not either. So, what else can we expect from you in the
future? Any new books?
D- Yes. I have something that I've really just started working on,
which is a memoir about my teenage years, which has the tentative
title of "A Javelin Through My Body".
N- And what would that be a reference to?
D- (Laughs) You'll have to read the book to find out.
Donna Minkowitz's book Ferocious Romance: What My Encounters With The Right Taught Me
About Sex, God, And Fury was released in 1998 by The Free Press (New York) and is distributed
by Simon & Schuster. It can be found through many book stores
or on-line.
To learn more about the series that she discussed or for information
on attending, you can call "The Kitchen" at 212-255-5793 extension
11. It will be held in New York City on December Second and Twelfth.
Nicole Blizzard is a published poet whose poetry has appeared
in such publications as "Illya's Honey" and "The Open Window II"
(Hidden Brook Press) as well as in TechnoDyke's writer's forum,
"The WriteDyke". She is also a freelance writer exclusively for
TechnoDyke.com on a variety of subjects. She can be contacted
at nicole_b92@hotmail.com
Copyright 2000, Nicole Blizzard/ technodyke.com. Reprinted by permission. |
