Amherst Against Homophobia

By WARREN MERSEREAU, ’70

Introduction

What does Amherst College stand for?

What does Amherst College stand up for?

The answers to these defining questions have evolved over time. And, they will continue to evolve as Amherst College’s leaders make decisions that shape its community, its values, and its integrity.

Standing for Diversity

An important part of this evolution has occurred during the past forty-five years as the College has demonstrated a commitment to diversity.

Amherst College’s student body used to be all male. Today, it is co-ed. Amherst’s students used to be predominantly white. Today, over 40% of the students are “students of color.” The majority of Amherst’s students used to be from prep schools and not receive financial aid. Today, 60% of the students come from public schools and over 60% receive financial aid. Amherst’s students used to be almost exclusively from the United States. Today, students come from over 30 foreign countries.

The faculty has also become more diverse. Once almost exclusively white and male, Amherst hired its first female on a tenure track in 1962, and today the faculty is over 40% female. While the faculty remains over 70% white, there are indications it will be more diverse going forward.

To address the needs of its more diverse student and faculty community as well as promote the benefits of diversity, Amherst now has an infrastructure that did not exist a generation ago, including:

• Student groups representing different religions, ethnicities, nationalities, gender orientations, and social/justice causes.

• Academic majors such as Black Studies, Asian Languages and Civilizations, and Women and Gender Studies.

• Administrative support functions such as the Associate Dean of Students and International Student Advisor and the Coordinator of LGBTQQIAA.

• Resource facilities such as the Amherst College Multicultural Center, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, and the Rainbow Room LGBTQQIA Resource Center.

• Financial aid packages that allow need blind admissions and promote economic diversity.

The Statement on Diversity issued by the Board of Trustees in 1996 summarizes Amherst College’s commitment to diversity:

The College’s commitments both to distinction and to inclusion have brought to Amherst a long line of extraordinarily talented students and scholars who have enriched our campus, our country and the world . . . We reaffirm our goal of fashioning the Amherst College community from the broadest and deepest possible range of talents that people of many different backgrounds can bring to us . . . We reaffirm our commitment to equality of opportunity, and to affirmative action under the law as a means of achieving that goal. We will continue to give special importance to the inclusion within our student body, our faculty and our staff of talented persons from groups that have experienced prejudice and disadvantage.

Standing Up for Diversity

As the Amherst College community has become more diverse, the College has found it necessary to not only stand for diversity but to stand up for diversity. For while Amherst College works to create a positive environment for diversity, sometimes internal and sometimes external influences infringe on that environment. At these critical moments when diversity is threatened, Amherst College has taken action to protect diversity.

Examples include:

• 1946 — The Trustees directed fraternities to drop discriminatory provisions regarding pledging (e.g. Making decisions based on race, religion, or nationality).

• 1968 — Amherst College President Calvin Plimpton appointed The Black and White Action Committee of Amherst College to receive proposals to address economic and cultural disparities at the College.

• 1979 — Ad Hoc Committee on Affirmative Action reported on hiring and wage discrimination against female staff and faculty members.

• 1979 — Two students suspended for burning a cross in front a student residence.

• 1979 — Students occupied Converse Hall for ten-day sit-in to protest elimination of Black Freshman Orientation and other racial issues on campus.

• 1987 — The Trustees voted to divest of all securities in companies doing business in South Africa.

• 1992 — The faculty adopted a revised statement on sexual harassment to appear in future editions of both the Faculty and Student Handbooks.

• 1992 — A group of students occupied Converse Hall to demand a faster pace in the hiring of minorities for faculty and administrative positions.

• 1993 — The College hired its first full-time Affirmative Action Officer.

• 1996 — The Trustees issued a Statement on Diversity at Amherst College reaffirming commitment to equal opportunity and affirmative action.

• 1998 — The faculty approved the revised Code of Conduct.

• 2003 — Amherst College President Tom Gerety coordinated a joint amicus brief among 28 liberal arts colleges supporting the University of Michigan’s race-sensitive admissions procedures

Today, the Amherst College Profile (www.amherst.edu) is unequivocal: “Diversity, as defined in its broadest sense, is fundamental to Amherst’s mission.” And, the Amherst College Faculty Handbook supports the College’s commitment to diversity with firm guidelines, including:

• Diversity and Inclusion: “Amherst College does not discriminate in its admission or employment policies and practices on the basis of factors such as race, genetics, gender identity or gender expression, sex, sexual orientation, age, color, religion, national origin, disability, or status as a veteran of the Vietnam War era or as a disabled veteran.”

• Academic Freedom: “Amherst College subscribes fully to the AAUP statement of principles on academic freedom published in 1940, and assumes that Faculty members know their rights and their responsibilities as members of the academic profession.”

• Statement on Respect for Persons: “Respect for the rights, dignity and integrity of others is essential for the well-being of a community. Actions by any person which do not reflect such respect for others are damaging to each member of the community and hence damaging to Amherst College.”

A Threat to Diversity

Against this backdrop — a commitment to developing a diverse community, providing services and programs to nurture this diversity, and standing up for diversity with policy, political, and legal actions as necessary — Amherst College is faced with the case of Hadley Arkes, a tenured professor, who repeatedly violates the College’s positions on diversity, particularly as relates to sexual and gender orientation.

The Amherst College Faculty Handbook states: “Respect for people involves each person at Amherst College. Respect needs a commitment from the institution as well as from each of us as individuals.” The Handbook then references the “Platinum Rule”: “Treat others as they would like to be treated.”

To the contrary, Arkes is an advisor to the Family Research Council, an organization that the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies as an active hate group because the Family Research Council is a group with “beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.”

For example, in 2012 while lobbying Congress to oppose a bill against the further criminalization of homosexuality in Ghana, the Family Research Council stated that it wanted “to remove sweeping and inaccurate assertions that homosexual conduct is internationally recognized as a fundamental human right.”

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council claimed in a 2010 interview on National Public Radio: “There’s no correlation between inacceptance of homosexuality and depression and suicide.” This is a falsehood. A U.S. government study, “Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Youth Suicide,” found that LGBT youth were four times as likely to attempt suicide as their heterosexual peers. As Dr. Judith Kovach, director of the Michigan Project for Informed Public Policy states: “A member of any group that experiences discrimination, stigma and oppression is going to react to that stress with higher degrees of anxiety, depression and hopelessness.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s research shows that the Family Research Council is “. . . among the chief purveyors of lies about LGBT people . . . regularly pumped out propaganda asserting that gay men molest children at far higher rates than their heterosexual counterparts — a claim that has been debunked by virtually all the recognized scientific authorities in the field . . . ”

The Amherst College Faculty Handbook states: “Each member of the community should be free from interference, intimidation or disparagement in the work place, the classroom and the social, recreational and residential environment.”

To the contrary, Arkes, in writing for the “The Weekly Standard” as the “Ney Professor of American Institutions at Amherst College and a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center,” disparages homosexuals: “Do liberals want to break through conventions with ‘sex education’? Then education it should be: The life-shortening hazards of homosexual behavior should be conveyed, along with information about the other hazards of incautious sex; the record of conversions from homosexual life should be put in texts along with the inconclusive arguments over the ‘gay gene.’”

Arkes’ assertions unfairly “malign(s) an entire class of people” (e.g. “The life-shortening hazards of homosexual behavior”), and Arkes is intellectually dishonest in so doing (e.g. “the record of conversions from homosexual life”).  As the American Psychiatric Association states: “There is no published scientific evidence supporting the efficacy of ‘reparative therapy’ as a treatment to change one’s sexual orientation . . . “

The Southern Poverty Law Center points out the dangers of promoting “conversions from homosexual life”: “Conversion therapy has been discredited or highly criticized by virtually all major American medical, psychiatric, psychological and professional counseling organizations. People who have undergone conversion therapy have reported increased anxiety, depression, and in some cases, suicidal ideation.”

If anyone doubts actual harm can be caused by platforms of disparagement such as those developed by Arkes, they need only read the letter shared on the 1970 listserv by classmate Eric Patterson. Eric wrote: “. . . and people like Hadley Arkes, his friend Antonin Scalia, his friend Rick Santorum, and many, many others who share their belief that Terry’s love for me (Eric), and mine for him, are comparable to child rape, animal rape or corpse rape, continue to treat millions of same-sex couples as inferior and undeserving of all the rights and benefits that heterosexual couples take for granted. Some may tell me to just forget about it, and some may claim that they can’t understand in what way Arkes’ statements possibly could constitute hate speech; I do not have the luxury of the indifference.”

The Amherst College Faculty Handbook states: “Amherst College does not condone harassment of any kind, against any group or individual, because of race, religion, ethnic identification, age, handicap, gender or sexual orientation.”

To the contrary, Arkes has offered an argument that attempt to mitigate the consequences of rape, an extreme act of harassment: “. . . the number of pregnancies resulting from rape in this country is miniscule . . . (since) . . . the fear induced by rape may interrupt the normal operation of hormones in the body of the woman which in turn may prevent ovulation and conception.” (“First Things: An Inquiry into First Principles of Morals and Justice”, 1986, by Hadley Arkes).

There is no scientific evidence to support this claim promoted by Arkes. Rather, research published in the “Journal of American Obstetrics and Gynecology” indicates over 32,000 pregnancies result annually from rape, which means about 5% of rape victims become pregnant.

However, Arkes has offered no retraction and Amherst College has unwittingly promoted Arkes’ “First Things” as recently as this (2013) spring:

Amherst College website (https://www.amherst.edu/alumni/events/calendar/rsvp/professor_hadley_arkes_event_in_ny_5.8.13)

Thank you for your interest in participating.  
As this event has already occurred, we hope you will join us for a future event.

AN EVENING WITH PROFESSOR HADLEY ARKES: REFLECTIONS ON FIRST THINGS

Wednesday, May 8, 2013
5:30 – 8:00 p.m.

Penn Club
30 W. 44th Street
New York, NY

Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres

This event was organized by Peter Ezersky ’82 and Kevin Conway ’80

———————————————

First Things website

(http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/05/01/professor-hadley-arkes-reflections-on-first-things/)

Hadley Arkes: Reflections on First Things

Wednesday, May 1, 2013, 4:18 PM

Katherine Infantine | @KatieInfantine

The Amherst College alumni program will host:

An Evening with Professor Hadley Arkes:

Reflections on his book First Things

Wednesday, May 8, 2013
5:30-8:00 p.m.

Penn Club
30. 44th Street W
New York, NY

Hadley Arkes, a member of First Things’ advisory council, is the Ney Professor in American Institutions at Amherst College.

The 1940 Statement of Principles on Academic Freedom and Tenure, to which Amherst College subscribes, states:  “As scholars and educational officers, they should remember that the public may judge their profession and their institution by their utterances. Hence they should at all times be accurate, should exercise appropriate restraint, should show respect for the opinions of others, and should make every effort to indicate that they are not speaking for the institution.”

To the contrary, Arkes is not “at all times” “accurate”, exercising “appropriate restraint”, showing “respect for the opinion of others”, or making “every effort to indicate that they are (he is) not speaking for the institution.”

With regard to Arkes’ being inaccurate, classmate John Greenberg offers the following:

“. . . Arkes’ recent contribution concerning the oral arguments in the Proposition 8 case: “Marriage in the Court” by Hadley Arkes (http://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/344001/marriage-court-hadley-arkes)  Again, let’s examine 2 sentences (written by Arkes): “The main point of concern for traditional-marriage advocates was Kennedy’s musing about 37,000 children living in households headed by gay or lesbian couples: Were their parents to be denied the standing of marriage, and they in turn branded as offspring of some sub-legal ménage? But of course the question is no different here from the plight of children in polygamous unions.”

Here, Mr. Arkes, a tenured professor of political science equates polygamy, which is illegal, to marriage, which isn’t, without mentioning the difference, in the context of the 37,000 children about whom Justice Kennedy expressed concern.  These are the children who HAVE been adopted — perfectly legally under CA law — by gay parents in civil unions, whose fate WILL be affected by the Court’s decision, however narrowly tailored.  Arkes’ dismissive phrase: “But of course the question is no different here from the plight of children in polygamous unions” not only conflates all these things and is completely false from a legal standpoint, but totally ignores the gaping differences between the legal issues of same sex vs. polygamous marriage.  The give-away here is that slipped-in little phrase: “of course.”

Note too that the REASON Justice Kennedy raised the issue is that it was prominently discussed in the lower court, where, after listening to voluminous testimony, Judge Walker concluded: “The sexual orientation of an individual does not determine whether that individual can be a good parent. Children raised by gay or lesbian parents are as likely as children raised by heterosexual parents to be healthy, successful and well-adjusted. The research supporting this conclusion is accepted beyond serious debate in the field of developmental psychology.”

With regard to Arkes not showing restraint, his inference that homosexuality is similar to heinous, illegal acts is anything but restrained:

“…[T]he key abstraction, settling [sic] off ripples of self-deception, is that term ‘sexual orientation.’  The term is broad enough to encompass sex with animals, pedophilia, even necrophilia …

[T]he notion of ‘sexual orientation’ is quite unstable: Many people shift back and forth across a spectrum that may now include the bisexual, fetishistic, transvestic, zoophiliac (sex with animals.) …

How is anyone’s marriage affected if two men or women are allowed to marry?

 A while back, a 42-year old woman was barred from living in Stafford, Virginia with her 19-year old son as man and wife.  And Philip Buble in Maine was denied a marriage license for himself and his 37 pound dog Lady.

 Now how would anyone’s marriage be impaired if these people were allowed to marry as they wished?”

(From “The Supreme Court Hears the Cases on Marriage”, www.thecatholicthing.org , March 26, 2013, by Hadley Arkes, the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence at Amherst College)

With regard to Arkes showing disrespect for the opinion of others, he is again willing to dismiss rights for members of the LGBT community by inappropriately comparing them to illegal extremes:

“We will leave to another time the account of why marriage simply could not preserve its coherence and durability if the notion of marriage were stretched out of shape to encompass same-sex marriage. We have already seen the claims emerging for polyamorous groups, whose loves are not confined to couples, and indeed, once we admit gay marriage, we would not stand on any principled ground for confining marriage to two people or fending off the claims for all of the exotic ensembles of people who insist that their love, too, ought to be recognized in a marriage.”

(From “Gay Rights and Federalism”, National Review Online, August 6, 2001, by Hadley Arkes, a professor of American Institutions at Amherst College & an adviser to the Alliance for Marriage.”)

With regard to Arkes not making every effort to make it clear that he does not speak for Amherst, the citations throughout this paper demonstrate that Arkes regularly uses his affiliation with Amherst College as his primary credential when presenting his homophobic views and he does not provide any qualifying language (e.g. “The views expressed by the author are his alone and do not represent those of Amherst College”) to indicate that he does not speak for Amherst College.

When is Enough Enough?

In April (2013), Dr. Ben Carson, a tenured faculty member at Johns Hopkins University mimicked Arkes while being interviewed on national television. In response to a question about gay marriage, Carson said: “Well, my thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It’s a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality. It doesn’t matter what they are. They don’t get to change the definition. So, it’s not something that is against gays, it’s against anybody who wants to come along and change the fundamental definitions of pillars of society. It has significant ramifications.”

What followed was a swift, public reprimand from Dr. Paul Rothman, CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine and Dean of the Medical Faculty, which said it part: “Controversial social issues are debated in the media on a regular basis, and yet it is rare that leaders of an academic medical center will join that type of public debate. However, we recognize that tension now exists in our community because hurtful, offensive language was used by our colleague, Dr. Ben Carson, when conveying a personal opinion. Dr. Carson’s comments are inconsistent with the culture of our institution . . . Johns Hopkins Medicine embraces diversity and believes that the same civil rights should be available to all regardless of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation . . .

While his recent comments are inconsistent with our core values, Dr. Carson has the right to participate in public debates and media interviews and express his personal opinions on political, social and religious issues . . . It is clear that the fundamental principle of freedom of expression has been placed in conflict with our core values of diversity, inclusion and respect . . . Commitment to diversity, inclusion, and freedom of expression is at the heart of our standing as a world leader in medical care, research and education.”

Dr. Carson then apologized and withdrew as Johns Hopkins’ commencement speaker, offering: “As you know, I have been in the national news quite a bit recently and my 36 year association with Johns Hopkins has unfortunately dragged our institution into the spotlight as well. I am sorry for any embarrassment this has caused. But what really saddens me is that my poorly chosen words caused pain for some members of our community and for that I offer a most sincere and heartfelt apology. . . “

Whereas Johns Hopkins quickly admonished its faculty member for “hurtful, offensive language” that was “inconsistent with the culture of our institution”, Amherst College has done nothing to denounce Arkes or distance itself from Arkes as he has engaged for years in developing a broad, public platform, including organizations and communications vehicles such as “First Things”, “The Catholic Thing”, the “Family Research Council”, the “Ethics and Public Policy Center”, and the “Alliance for Marriage”, to disseminate his homophobic and defamatory commentaries using his affiliation with Amherst College as his primary credential.

In addition, Arkes, unlike Carson, has issued no apology for causing pain to members of the Amherst College community. Rather, Arkes has been comfortable throughout:

“Yes, I’ve been quite at odds politically with the currents at Amherst.  But if it’s suffering, it has been stylish suffering:  I’ve been sustained by the affection of friends who are not exactly with me on the issues of the day, and I’ve been supported generously by this College, even though its President has had to fend off, even now, the complaints of alumni who think that a self-respecting liberal college should not have to suffer my presence.” (From “Scenes from an Academical Life,” The Catholic Thing, June 4, 2013, by Hadley Arkes the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence at Amherst College)

Consciously Causing Pain and Conflicting with Amherst College’s Values

There is little reason to doubt that Arkes recognizes that his homophobic commentaries both conflict with Amherst’s community values, including diversity, and purposely hurt members of the LGBT community. In “Swastikas, Burning Crosses, and ‘God Hates Fags’” (Published by Public Discourse: Ethics, Law and the Common Good, October 13, 2010), Arkes explores legal interpretations of classes of speech that have and have not been given protection under the Constitution.

In this article, Arkes quotes Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy (1890 – 1949) on speech that is not protected: “These (classes of speech) include the lewd and obscene, the profane, the libelous, and the insulting or ‘fighting’ words — those which their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of peace.” Arkes then writes: “’Chaplinsky’ (the case Justice Murphy was writing about) was simply based on that common sense about language, and with that sense of things we were able to give juries of ordinary working men and women these instructions: Convict only when people used gestures and words clearly understood as terms of assault. In case of doubt—if the words are less clear or at the borderline of derision, just hold back from convicting. I’ve found in my own experience that people never suffer doubt in applying that rule to a list containing words of this kind: Kike, bastard, nigger, faggot, meter maid, urologist, hero. People in Washington may stop for a while at ‘meter maid,’ but they have no trouble in recognizing the terms clearly established as terms of insult.”

Certainly, therefore, Arkes knows that he is assaulting Amherst College’s values by inflicting injury on members of the LGBT community when he states: “…[T]he key abstraction, settling [sic] off ripples of self-deception, is that term ‘sexual orientation.’  The term is broad enough to encompass sex with animals, pedophilia, even necrophilia …[T]he notion of ‘sexual orientation’ is quite unstable: Many people shift back and forth across a spectrum that may now include the bisexual, fetishistic, transvestic, zoophiliac (sex with animals).”

The Need to Stand Up for Diversity Today

So, what is Amherst College to do about Arkes?

Take action.

Stand up for diversity today.

Amherst College has developed a set of values for its community. These values include diversity and the guidelines necessary to support diversity. These guidelines include demonstrating respect for all members of the Amherst community.

Arkes violates Amherst College’s values by being disrespectful to members of the College community. He does this willfully and knowingly, including linking Amherst College directly to his disparaging and injurious commentaries.

In repeatedly and publicly linking Amherst College to his assaults on the LGBT community, Arkes further violates his responsibilities as defined under the auspices of academic freedom.

As Amherst College has evolved over the past almost two hundred years, it has increasingly made a commitment to diversity. And, at times, Amherst College has been called to take firm, public stands to protect the diversity it embraces.

Today, Amherst College is called to take another such stand; this time involving one of its own. It is time for Amherst College to:

1. Publicly denounce Hadley Arkes’ assaults on Amherst College’s values.

2. Demand that Hadley Arkes no longer reference affiliation with Amherst College when he writes commentaries on social issues that disparage members of the Amherst College community.

Cover Letter to President Martin in preparation for  Sept. 13 meeting

From: etacraige@mindspring.com
Sent: Aug 26, 2013 9:01 AM
To: bmartin@amherst.edu
Cc: sgenglehardt@amherst.edu
Subject: September 13, 2013 meeting with members of the Class of ’70

August 25, 2013

Dear President Martin,

We look forward to meeting you at noon on September 13, 2013. Attached are documents that have been previously posted to the Class of 70 listserv, in the order in which they were posted, plus an essay by Warren Mersereau. If you have materials you would like us to read, please send them prior to our meeting.

Our goals for this meeting are straightforward:
1. We would like you to issue an explicit dissociation of Amherst College from Professor Hadley Arkes’s defamatory writings about same-gender relationships.
2. We would like to know how we and other alumni might support you and the College in this effort.

We view these as the core agenda items for discussion.

Although we graduated 43 years ago, we continue to believe that Amherst will stand up for what is right. We therefore urge you not to wait for our meeting to issue a statement.

Other topics of interest include:
1. Cessation of events sponsored by Amherst College promoting Arkes;
2. A disclaimer attached to Arkes’s articles whenever his association with the College is mentioned, pointing out that his writings do not represent the College;
3. A critical evaluation of Arkes’s writings on same-gender relationships, rape and pregnancy.

Amherst College cannot credibly maintain its professed commitment to be an inclusive community as long as it chooses to remain silent while Arkes disparages members of that community in the various media platforms he utilizes. Accordingly, and because we believe in the values of inclusivity and truth that Amherst College represents, it is urgent that you dissociate Amherst from Arkes’s defamatory comments. Arkes’s homophobic writings are contradictory to the mission of Amherst College. Arkes is to scholarship and sound scientific methodology what astrology is to astronomy.

While we speak only for ourselves, the attached communications demonstrate that many find Arkes’s views abhorrent and his intellectual integrity wanting. Indeed, several members of our listserv have expressed substantially harsher views than those you see here. Some have also suspended contributions to the Amherst Annual Fund pending action by the College.

We attach documents to elucidate these points.

Document 1 is a statement by Robert Nathan in which he writes about Arkes’s effects on gays and lesbians not just at Amherst but in other states and countries, as well. This email, written shortly after our 40th reunion, launched a passionate discussion on the class listserv, and awakened many members of the class to realize that this issue goes well beyond the narrow confines of one professor and Amherst College.

Document 2 consists of electronic communications to you from Dr. Tito Craige and Warren Mersereau, co-signed by 63 members of the class of 1970, asking that you disassociate Amherst College from Arkes’s defamatory statements. Craige and Mersereau refer to Dr. Paul Rothman, dean of the School of Medicine and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine, who dealt directly and decisively with a strikingly similar matter, respecting Dr. Ben Carson’s right of free expression and simultaneously condemning his “hurtful, offensive language.” Dr. Rothman publicly stated that homophobic comments are “inconsistent with the culture of our institution.” Amherst College must do no less. Indeed, it is shameful that it has not done this much already.

Document 3 includes analyses and summative comments by John Greenberg. He writes a detailed and damning indictment of Arkes’s intellectual integrity, concluding that Arkes has either engaged in a conscious design to deceive naïve readers or that he is incompetent. Greenberg’s analysis is confined to just a few sentences of two articles; similar analysis of the whole Arkes oeuvre would produce similar, but far more plentiful examples.

Document 4 is Dr. Eric Patterson’s discussion of the destructive impact of Arkes’s writings on sexual and gender-minority people and explains how heterosexuals can begin to understand the profound distress caused by Arkes’s hate language, followed Dr. Patterson’s brief explanation as to why he no longer contributes to the Alumni Fund.

Document 5 by Warren Mersereau shows that academic freedom does not protect hate speech, defamatory comments and lies by faculty members. Mersereau argues that the concepts of academic freedom and free speech do NOT preclude taking action to institutionally dissociate the College from Arkes’s abhorrent views.

We are confident that many other alumini/ae would be offended and appalled if, to cite just one example, they became aware that Professor Arkes likened homosexuality to “sex with animals, pedophilia, even necrophilia”. http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/the-supreme-court-hears-the-cases-on-marriage.html

Statements like this from Arkes, on the one hand, and your indication of openness to discuss distancing Amherst from them, on the other hand, motivate the six of us to travel from all over the United States to meet with you. However, before we spend the money and time for a trip to Amherst, we would like to have a better idea of your current thinking on this issue and what you see as possible outcomes of this meeting. If this is just a pro-forma meeting rather than a time to develop “next steps” to defend Amherst’s values, some of us do not want to make the lengthy trip. We look forward to an update from you in the coming days.

Respectfully,

Ronald Battocchi, retired lawyer, Washington, D.C.
Ernest “Tito” Craige, history teacher, Chapel Hill, NC
John Greenberg, Bear Bookshop owner, Marlboro, VT
Warren Mersereau, marketing consultant, Kiawah Island, SC
Robert Nathan, novelist and screenwriter, Hollywood Hills, CA
Eric Patterson, American Studies/English/LGBT Studies, Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Geneva, N.Y./Ithaca, N.Y.

From: Patterson, Eric
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 11:10 AM
To: annualfund@amherst.edu
Subject: Why Amherst’s failure to disavow hate speech prevents me from making a financial contribution.

Dear Amherst Annual Fund,

Although I value my education at Amherst very highly, as well as some of the friendships that I made there, I am unable, in good conscience, to contribute to the College as long as it fails to publicly disavow the hateful, defamatory public statements about sexual and gender minority people which repeatedly have been made by a senior member of the faculty, Hadley Arkes.

I recognize and respect the fact that the principle of academic freedom permits Arkes to say what he believes, but Amherst, as an institution which claims to include and respect all people, including sexual and gender minority people, has a responsibility to make it clear to the general public that it does not share the views that he has expressed and publicly disseminated, particularly his contentions that same-sex relationships are akin to polygamy, incest, pederasty, zoophilia or bestiality, and necrophilia.  In publishing these statements, Arkes repeatedly associates himself with Amherst College.  These defamatory statements directly contradict the College’s claim to welcome and respect sexual and gender minority people, and the College must make it clear to the general public, especially to people who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender, and most particularly to vulnerable young people who may be considering applying to Amherst, that the College does not share the views expressed by Arkes in these repugnant and hateful insults.

Until that is done I am unable to contribute to the College, or to recommend that anyone attend it, and I have a responsibility to point out to others its failure to address this deeply troubling problem.

Sincerely,

Eric H. Patterson,

B.A. Amherst, summa cum laude, 1970;

M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Yale.

Edited version of message sent by Eric Patterson, ’70, to Class of 1970 Listserv on Saturday, June 8, 2013, 1:54 p.m., regarding Hadley Arkes’s published statements about sexual minority and gender minority people.

A note on the context of my message: In the recent 1970 class listserv discussion of Hadley Arkes’s repeated public statements defaming sexual minority and gender minority people, two members of the class dismissed the concerns that others had expressed, advising them to “just forget about it.”  Another member of the class who shared the concern about Arkes’s defamatory statements pointed out that to make sweeping negative generalizations about groups of people based on sexual orientation, as Arkes has done, was as inappropriate as to make them about groups of people based on their shared participation in a religion, such as Roman Catholicism.  In my message, I agreed with this point, but also observed and explained in detail that a different analogy, making negative generalizations about heterosexuality, might be more accurate and useful to consider, in order to understand how deeply offensive Arkes’s defamatory statements are to many sexual minority and gender minority people.

The particular statements made by Arkes to which I referred were published on March 26, 2013, in his article “The Supreme Court Hears the Cases on Marriage,” in “The Catholic Thing”  The article reiterates yet again the defamatory statements about sexual minority and gender minority people that Arkes has published numerous times in the past.  Regarding the term “sexual orientation,” Arkes states:

“…[T]he key abstraction, settling [sic] off ripples of self-deception, is that term ‘sexual orientation.’  The term is broad enough to encompass sex with animals, pedophilia, even necrophilia.”  Later in the same article, Arkes returns to the implication that same-sex attraction and relationships are comparable to such depraved, brutal, and criminal forms of abuse, asserting that “…

[T]he notion of ‘sexual orientation’ is quite unstable: Many people shift back and forth across a spectrum that may now include the bisexual, fetishistic, transvestic, zoophiliac (sex with animals.)”

He concludes the article with a rhetorical question, which he “answers” by citing what apparently are implied to be instances of the supposedly possible consequences of adjusting marriage laws to legalize same-sex marriage:

“How is anyone’s marriage affected if two men or women are allowed to marry?  A while back, a 42-year old woman was barred from living in Stafford, Virginia with her 19-year old son as man and wife.  And Philip Buble in Maine was denied a marriage license for himself and his 37 pound dog Lady.  Now how would anyone’s marriage be impaired if these people were allowed to marry as they wished?”

 At its close, the article states that “Hadley Arkes is the Ney Professor of Jurisprudence at Amherst College.”

My message below was a direct response to Arkes’s profoundly disturbing and offensive insults.  I have edited it slightly to clarify some points and to make it accessible to a general audience which was not part of the original Class of 1970 listserv discussion.

Eric Patterson, B.A. Amherst, summa cum laude; M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D. Yale.

Dear Classmates,

During our recent discussion of the public statements defaming sexual minority and gender minority people repeatedly made by Hadley Arkes, one member of the class who is critical of Arkes drew an analogy comparing Arkes’s broad negative generalizations about homosexuals to the hypothetical case of a faculty member making broad negative generalizations about members of a religion, using the example of the religion to which Arkes presently subscribes, Roman Catholicism.  Certainly if a prominent academic at an institution like Amherst made degrading generalizations about Roman Catholics, it would be deeply offensive to anyone who participates in that religion, and to anyone who cares about freedom of religion.  Yet the generalizations that Arkes makes about same-sex relationships in his publications are about an element of human identity– sexual orientation– that is even more profoundly a part of who human beings are than their religion.

Heterosexuality is a more apt analogy than religion.  Those who casually dismiss Arkes as irrelevant might find it useful to consider what effect it would have on them if someone with Arkes’s position and influence attacked heterosexuality in the ways that he has attacked homosexuality  An almost unimaginable thought for those who treat Arkes as trivial, I suppose, but perhaps a way to begin to think about what it’s like to be one of the targets of what he says.

Arkes implies that feeling sexual and emotional attraction to others of one’s own sex, and building mutual relationships on those feelings, is comparable to imposing oneself sexually on children, to forcing oneself sexually on animals, and to sexually desecrating dead bodies.  All of these constructions attack what many believe to be one of the deepest and most important parts of a person’s being– his or her ability to love others emotionally and physically– by comparing it to conduct that is filthy, disgusting, violent, and destructive.  In all of the situations to which he compares same-sex attraction and relationships, the object of attraction is helpless and vulnerable and is subjected to the selfish and depraved will of another, with the aim of horrific acts of domination and exploitation.  Child molestation coerces children and does infinite emotional and physical damage to them, which then can continue throughout their lives.  Animals deserve to be cared for in responsible and humane ways, and so imposing oneself sexually on them would be brutal and destructive in much the way that forcing oneself sexually on a child would be.  Sexually violating the dead is so profoundly repugnant and offensive that there are almost no words for it– that someone could compare it to a mutual physical and emotional attraction between two people is shocking, and says nothing valid about the attraction between people, but tells much– disturbingly much– about the extreme feelings of contempt and hatred in the mind of the person making the comparison.

All three disgusting situations to which Arkes compares same-sex relationships are fundamentally violent, and are predicated on a complete lack of respect or consideration for the object of violence.  The perpetrator of violence considers only selfish, disturbed desires and subjects vulnerable others to the domination of personal will.  Arkes’s construction of same-sex relationships thus negates all aspects of mutual attraction and compassion between men who love men and women who love women.

The three brutal, criminal situations to which Arkes compares same-sex relationships also fundamentally imply that he is largely, perhaps only, considering male homosexuality, since all apparently presume an aggressive sexual actor engaged in penetration of the object, whether child, animal, or corpse.  The fact that female-female attraction and relationships appear to be relatively invisible to Arkes indicates on his part a notable lack of awareness of female sexual agency as well as suggesting that the sources of his anxiety have much to do with a personal perception of penetrative male sexual activity as threatening.  In relation to this indication of lack of consideration of women, it must be noted that Arkes also has been instrumental in propagating the bizarre allegation, refuted by professional organizations of obstetricians and gynecologists, that rape seldom results in pregnancy; according the Arkes, “the number of pregnancies resulting from rape in this country is miniscule” because “…the fear induced by rape may interrupt the normal operation of hormones in the body of the woman which in turn may prevent ovulation and conception.” (Hadley Arkes, First Things: An Inquiry into First Principles of Morals and Justice, Princeton, 1986, pp. 403, 404.)  Politicians influenced by Arkes, such as Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) and Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), recently have been widely condemned for repeating these pseudo-scientific fantasies (Tim Townsend, “The Roots of Todd Akin’s ‘Legitimate Rape’ Remarks,” USA Today, August 8, 2012; Catalina Camia, “Remark Made During Discussion of Abortion Bill Remind[s] Some of Controversial Comment Made During 2012 Senate Race,” USA Today, June 13, 2013.)  Arkes’s allegations about sexual matters not only falsify lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender experience, but also female experience.  The false ideas that he disseminates thus impose a double burden of damaging misrepresentation and prejudice upon women who identify as lesbian or bisexual, slandering female-female relationships and also trivializing the possible consequences of rape.

As I see it, the most accurate parallel, if a public intellectual were to attack heterosexuality through implied comparisons of the sort that Arkes has constructed for understanding homosexuality, would be to equate heterosexuality with the male rape of women.  Certainly we all know that there is a shockingly high incidence of rape in this country; all decent men are disgusted by this, and support efforts to prosecute rapists and to provide support for rape victims.  How would decent heterosexual men, who are disgusted by men who rape women, feel if their relationships with their wives or female partners were compared to rape?  How would they feel if the mutually loving and caring relationships which many of them have with women were publicly degraded in writing as being equivalent to rape, by an intellectual who held a prestigious position at the college that they had attended?  How would they feel if the relationships with women that they, their fathers, brothers, and sons had with women were described as rape by prominent politicians directly referring to that public intellectual?  How would they feel if that intellectual publicly complained that he had “suffered” from unjust criticism for having publicly described their loving relationships with women as rape?  And how would they feel if that public intellectual had played a central role in formulating federal laws which defined their relationships with women as being inferior and undeserving of the legal status and benefits of marriage, using rhetoric which presented those relationships as being like rape?

In considering the analogy that I propose, and trying to imagine the impact that statements similar to those made by Arkes would have on the heterosexual majority if they were made about heterosexuality rather than about homosexuality, it is important to recognize the very wide public visibility of Arkes’s statements.  They have been made repeatedly in major journals of political conservatives, have been widely circulated in the media, and have influenced many with great political influence and visibility.  A highly publicized presidential candidate, former Pennsylvania Senator “Rick” Santorum, speaking in a 2003 interview which was widely quoted in newspapers, on television, and on the internet, explicitly referred to Arkes’s repeated argument that same-sex marriage would promote pedophilia and bestiality (or zoophilia.)  According to Santorum: “in every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality.  That’s not to pick on homosexuality.  It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be.”  (Hendrik Hertzberg, “Dog Bites Man,” The New Yorker, May 5, 2003;  Max Blumenthal, “Rick Santorum’s Beastly Politics,” The Nation, Nov. 13, 2006.)  Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has echoed some of Arkes’s hate rhetoric in legal rulings in which he suggests that same-sex relationships are comparable to polygamy, incest, bestiality, and murder.  When Scalia spoke at Princeton on December 10, 2012, he was challenged by a courageous first-year Princeton student, Duncan Hosie, who cited Scalia’s comparison of “gays to people who commit murder or engage in bestiality” and who then came out as gay before the eight hundred people present, rebuking the judge: “Justice Scalia, I’m gay, and as somebody who is gay, I find these comparisons extraordinarily offensive.”  (Amy Davidson, “The Animus of Antonin Scalia,” The New Yorker, December 12, 2012.)

The courage of Duncan Hosie points to one of the most troubling effects of the hate rhetoric propagated against sexual minority and gender minority people by Arkes, Santorum, Scalia, and others who share their hatred.  Such rhetoric fails entirely to recognize the loving and committed relationships between partners of the same sex, and functions instead to negate the humanity of those who experience same-sex attraction and thereby to legitimate hostility, discrimination, harassment, and violence against them.  All sexual minority and gender minority people are affected by this climate of hatred, but it is those who are most vulnerable, young people in the process of understanding their sexual orientation, who are most at risk.  Many adolescents who may identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender must endure continuous hostility from peers, teachers, coaches, and from their own families.  Some are so tormented by this hostility that they are driven to suicide.  Reliable estimates are that, in the United States today, approximately 30-40% of adolescents who identify as sexual minority or gender minority have attempted suicide.  (Suicide Prevention Resource Centre, Newton, Massachusetts, 2008; www.sprc.org.  Research in coordination with U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.)  For specific instances of the cost in human lives exacted by  this hate rhetoric, one need only consider the recent series of tragic, heartbreaking suicides of young sexual minority or gender minority people that have been widely reported over the past several years.  Just as racist rhetoric legitimated lynching, just as anti-Semitic propaganda legitimated the Holocaust, so rhetoric suggesting that same-sex orientation is similar to the crimes of raping and murdering, and particularly to targeting helpless children and animals and to desecrating the dead, functions to legitimate homophobic hatred– and to cause the destruction of the lives of young people such as Lance Lundsten, 18; Samantha Johnson, 13; Justin Aaberg, 15; Jeanine Blanchette, 21; Chantal Dube, 17; Raymond Chase, 19; Haylee Fentress, 14; Paige Moravetz, 14; Asher Brown, 13; Seth Walsh, 13; Jack Reese, 18; Jeffrey Fehr, 18; and Tyler Clementi, 18.  The names of these young people, and of the many, many others who have killed themselves because of unendurable homophobic hatred, may mean nothing to Hadley Arkes, but they mean a great deal to me, and to anyone else who opposes the climate of hatred that Arkes and those that he influences perpetuate.  The fact that someone engaged in the teaching of vulnerable young people contributes actively and directly to the climate of hatred that damages and destroys many young lives is shocking and deeply disturbing.

Thus, an accurate analogy through which to understand the significance of Arkes’s attacks on same-sex relationships is one that, rather than comparing his statements with attacks on a particular religion, compares them directly with what it would be like if he had attacked the sexual feelings and relationships of the heterosexual majority.  How would the straight men in our class feel if he said about them and their loved ones and families what he says about me and mine?  Or my gay classmate, Robert Nathan?  Or any of the other gay men in the class?  Or the many gay men who have graduated from Amherst before and since our class?  Or the many lesbians who have graduated from Amherst since our class?  Or the millions of gay men and lesbians in America and around the world?  Or, indeed, the members of their own families– sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, in-laws– who are gay or lesbian?

My partner, Terence Forbes, and I met twenty-five years ago this Memorial Day; we’ve rarely spent a day apart since, except when he has gone to visit his sisters and brother in California.  He has been chronically ill for nearly two decades.  He never has made a trip to the doctor for treatment of his illness alone, and when he has been hospitalized at Upstate Medical Centre in Syracuse, I have visited him every day, even during the teaching semester, although our home and Hobart and William Smith Colleges, where I teach, both are fifty miles from Syracuse, in opposite directions.  I love him, and he loves me.  But we had to go to great lengths with lawyers and hospital administrators to assure that I had the same access to him, and ability to make decisions to help him, that married couples had automatically.  That’s finally changing, but there is intensely hostile resistance from those who slander same-sex couples by equating them with depraved, brutal criminals.  The Defense of Marriage Act, which Hadley Arkes played an important role in formulating, and public figures who repeat his defamatory rhetoric against same-sex couples, such as his friend Antonin Scalia, his friend “Rick” Santorum, and many, many others who share the belief that Terry’s love for me, and mine for him, are comparable to child rape, animal rape, or corpse rape, have treated millions of same-sex couples as inferior and undeserving of all the rights and benefits that heterosexual couples take for granted.

Some may tell me to just forget about it, and others may claim that they can’t understand in what way Arkes’s statements possibly could constitute hate speech; I do not have the luxury of their indifference.  Neither do the thousands of others driven by such hatred to take their own lives.

The necessary requirement of empathy is to be able to put one’s self in another’s place, to think about what it must be like to be him or her, even if he or she is much different from one’s self.  Empathy is one of the most fundamental elements of literature, and one of its greatest powers — whereas minor writers are limited to the confines of their own personalities, great writers have the ability to imagine what it is like to be someone other than themselves, even someone with a different sexual orientation– and to show others what it might be like.  It’s fundamental to any religion worthy of the name.  It’s fundamental to being someone’s friend.  And I think it’s fundamental to trying to have a relatively civilized society.

I remain deeply grateful to Tito Craige, Warren Mersereau, John Greenberg, Ron Battocchi, and the many other straight men in our class who have done that, who have made the effort to put themselves in the place of their gay classmates, and who haven’t just forgotten about what it’s like for them.

I also remain very grateful to Robert Nathan, for helping to educate me and many others about the significance of Arkes’s destructive influence.

I invite other members of the majority to try to imagine what it is like for sexual minority and gender minority people to witness their love and relationships being repeatedly traduced and defamed in print by someone who continually invokes the prestige of Amherst’s name.  As one who has been engaged in college teaching for the past thirty-nine years, I am well aware of the importance of the principle of academic freedom, and I accept that this principle assures that any faculty member, including Arkes, may publish what he or she believes.  But I also am well aware that Arkes’s defamatory statements about sexual minorities and gender minorities are in stark contradiction to the equally important principles of inclusion, respect, and equality publicly affirmed by enlightened academic institutions, such as Amherst claims to be.  Thus far the College shamefully has failed to make any comment about the glaring contradiction between the progressive values that it claims to uphold regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and the dehumanizing, demonizing rhetoric being directed against them by Arkes in the College’s name.  I believe that it would not fail to do so if a faculty member were publishing analogous defamatory falsehoods against African-Americans or Jews, or any other group that has been attacked with hate speech.  Why does the College not do so when one of its faculty publishes such falsehoods against sexual minority and gender minority people, explicitly associating these falsehoods with the College’s name?  Amherst has a profound and urgent responsibility to inform the public that the hateful falsehoods propagated by Arkes in published statements identifying himself with the College are in explicit contradiction to its values.

Best,

Eric Patterson, ’70