Abstract
Excerpted From: E. Gary Spitko, A Reform Agenda Premised upon the Reciprocal Relationship Between Anti-LGBT Bias in Role Model Occupations and the Bullying of LGBT Youth, 48 Connecticut Law Review 71 (November, 2015) (212 Footnotes) (Full Document)
The Green Lantern is a DC Comics superhero who first appeared in July 1940 in issue No. 16 of All-American Comics. Actually, over the years, there have been several incarnations of the Green Lantern. The original Green Lantern was Alan Scott. Scott, like other Green Lanterns, possesses a green power ring and a green power lantern that allow him to exercise a certain amount of control over the physical world. As one might imagine, this power comes in handy when fighting evil.
In June 2012, Alan Scott, aka the Green Lantern, came out as gay. The revelation appeared in the second issue of Earth 2 and came from the pen of Earth 2 series author James Robinson. Robinson told the New York Post at the time, “‘He's very much the character he was. He's still the pinnacle of bravery and idealism. He's also gay.”’ Robinson envisions the Green Lantern as the most powerful member of DC Comics' “Justice Society” and as a positive role model for children. Robinson's hope is that an openly gay Green Lantern will help children who feel different develop a positive sense of who they are and will influence other children to decide that they ought not to bully those children who appear different.
Not everyone, however, felt that the Green Lantern's coming out was super. OneMillionMoms.com was among those wishing the Green Lantern had stayed in the closet. OneMillionMoms.com is a project of the American Family Association. Its stated goal is to impact entertainment media so as to lessen what members of the organization perceive to be negative influences that entertainment media have on children.
In May 2012, OneMillionMoms.com issued an action alert to its members concerning the dangers it perceived that gay comic book superheroes pose to children. DC Comics had announced that one of its prominent characters would come out as gay but had not yet announced that it would be the Green Lantern. Also, several days after the DC Comics announcement, Marvel Entertainment had announced that its gay superhero Northstar would marry his male partner in issue No. 51 of Astonishing X-Men. The June 2012 wedding would be a first for a gay comic book superhero.
In its action alert, OneMillionMoms.com pointed out that children look up to comic book superheroes, desire to emulate them, and even dress up in costumes to resemble them. The group lamented that children were being exposed to homosexuality at an early age and argued that exposure to a gay superhero would confuse children too young to even know what homosexual or coming out mean. The action alert went on to warn that gay men “want to indoctrinate impressionable young minds by placing these gay characters on pedestals in a positive light.” (As an aside, Earth 2 series author James Robinson, whose idea it was to have the Green Lantern openly identify as gay, is married to a woman. The alert further warned that “[t]hese companies are heavily influencing our youth by using children's superheroes to desensitize and brainwash them in thinking that a gay lifestyle choice is normal and desirable.” OneMillionMoms.com urged its members to contact DC Comics and Marvel Entertainment to ask that they not display sexual orientation to readers and to “urg[e] them to change and cancel all plans of homosexual superhero characters immediately.”
This effort by OneMillionMoms.com to closet a fictional gay character is a very real attempt to utilize employment discrimination as a means to inform social understandings. This author has written elsewhere and at some length on the systematic use of sexual orientation discrimination in role model occupations to disassociate gay people from certain positive qualities and values and to maintain and strengthen the associations between these positive qualities and values and the heterosexual majority as well as the institutions that the heterosexual majority holds dear. The case of OneMillionMoms.com and the Green Lantern fits this pattern. The goal of OneMillionMoms.com is to influence negatively how society views gay people. The attempted means is removal of a known gay character from a public social space-“superhero”-that is associated with positive qualities and values such as great bravery, exceptional ability, and selfless and noble intentions.
Indeed, because the target in this case is fictional, the motives that generally ground this and more “real world” attempts to remove lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people from role model occupations as a means to influence social understandings are stripped of all camouflage and complexity. Because neither the Green Lantern nor his job are real, there can be no real concern that the Green Lantern is not suited to perform the job in question. Moreover, because the Green Lantern does not actually exist, there can be no actual concern that he will subordinate the interests of justice to his own interests, cruise fellow superheroes in the group shower, molest children with whom he comes in contact, or engage in any of the other harmful behaviors or exhibit any of the host of undesirable traits that opponents of LGBT visibility regularly have attributed to LGBT role models generally.
All that remains in the context of a fictional gay superhero are the fears that OneMillionMoms.com blatantly expressed. When a comic book superhero is identified as gay, children will come to know that gay people exist. Moreover, and more importantly, children who look up to and seek to emulate the superhero may, as OneMillionMoms.com lamented, come to accept that it is “normal and desirable” to be gay. If a character who exhibits great bravery, exceptional ability, and selfless and noble intentions is gay, then it stands to reason that there is nothing inherently defective in gay people. Thus, to fortify the social understanding that gay is not good, the character who exhibits great bravery, exceptional ability, and selfless and noble intentions must not be identified as gay.
This very concern that a known LGBT person in a role model occupation may cause children, and society more generally, to view LGBT people in a positive light most often motivates the use of sexual orientation discrimination and gender identity discrimination in role model occupations as a means to influence social understandings. The history of discrimination against known gay and lesbian teachers is a prime example. Society and courts have long understood primary and secondary school teachers to be role models who instill the basic values of society in impressionable children. Given this role model function of teachers, it is not surprising that gay and lesbian teachers have often been the target of employment discrimination as a means to influence social understandings. Specifically, school administrators have long removed known gay and lesbian teachers from the classroom in order to fortify the social norm that homosexuality is immoral. The concern is that students exposed to an openly gay or lesbian teacher are more likely to come to see homosexuality as morally acceptable. Indeed, when a child comes to know that his teacher is gay or lesbian, that child also may come to accept that a gay person can be a moral and non-predatory mentor-an ethical role model from whose example one might learn moral principles that should govern behavior. Thus, to reinforce the social understanding that homosexuality is immoral, a primary or secondary school teacher who is known to be gay or lesbian must not be allowed in the classroom.
In addition to this fear that a known LGBT person in a role model occupation may elevate the status of LGBT people generally, there is the fear that a known LGBT person in a role model occupation may diminish the status of straight people and the institutions they value. This fear that a known LGBT person in a role model occupation might so tarnish straight people or their institutions also frequently motivates the use of sexual orientation discrimination and gender identity discrimination in role model occupations as a means to inform social understandings. For example, under the “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy, the U.S. military for many years excluded openly gay people from military service as a means to safeguard the masculine identities of both the military and its warriors. Given the popular perceptions that gay men are by turns effeminate and sexually predatory of heterosexual men, the fear arose that the presence of openly gay men in the military would call into question the masculinity of fellow servicemen and the institution of the military as a whole. For this reason, openly gay people were excluded from the U.S. military.
In light of the efforts to remove known LGBT people from a host of role model occupations as a means to influence social understandings, an LGBT person who seeks a career in one of the targeted role model occupations may find himself between a rock and a hard place. He must closet himself or risk exclusion from his chosen profession. Thus, discrimination in role model occupations on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity removes known LGBT role models from public visibility in several ways. First, such discrimination removes those known LGBT people who are denied employment or whose employment is terminated as a result of invidious discrimination. Second, such discrimination removes known LGBT role models by encouraging those who seek to avoid invidious discrimination to hide their sexuality or gender identity.
The exclusion of known LGBT people from role model occupations also removes LGBT role models from public visibility by circumscribing expectations. The immediate consequence of this systematic employment discrimination used as a means to influence social norms is, as intended, that there are fewer visible known LGBT role models. The dearth of LGBT role models may affect how LGBT people come to view themselves and the lives that they might construct.
Particularly for a young LGBT person, a lack of known LGBT people in role model occupations might suggest limitations that will govern his career path and progress. For example, if one has never seen an openly gay major league athlete (and especially if one understands that in the history of major league sports dating back to the first game of the National League of Professional Baseball Clubs on April 22, 1876, there has been only one openly gay person to play in a major league contest then one might come to believe that a career in major league sports is not a possibility for a gay person and certainly not for an openly gay person. Billy Bean, who chose to remain closeted throughout his career in Major League Baseball and who chose to end that career in part because he thought it inconceivable that he would come out while in the major leagues, has explained, “Because young gay athletes have never seen a role model in male team sports, they assume quite logically that they would be unwelcome in that arena, that the competitive disadvantage would be too great and too unpleasant.” Thus, such employment discrimination used as a means to influence social understandings likely has a snowball effect. The lack of known LGBT people in a certain role model occupation might cause a young LGBT person to forgo pursuit of a career in that role model occupation.
The lack of known LGBT people in role model occupations also might cause a young LGBT person to wonder more generally about the qualities and values of LGBT people. A young LGBT person who sees few known LGBT figures of respect-people who have demonstrated qualities and values worthy of respect and emulation-may come to question whether much of the dominant negative portrayal of LGBT people might be true. In this way, a young LGBT person might come to devalue LGBT people, including himself. Thus, the intentional exclusion of known LGBT people from role model occupations would seem to lead in a straight line to lessened self-esteem among young LGBT people.
The intentional exclusion of known LGBT people from role model occupations also would seem to lead in a straight line to lessened respect for LGBT people among straight people. The exclusion and closeting of LGBT people from role model occupations also means that straight people know fewer openly LGBT figures of respect. It stands to reason that this lack of known LGBT figures of respect will increase the likelihood that a straight person will come to devalue and disrespect LGBT people.
When a black politician like President Barack Obama, a Latina jurist such as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, or an Asian-American and evangelical Christian major league athlete like National Basketball Association player Jeremy Lin reaches the top of his or her chosen field in a highly visible way, each serves as a role model not just for black people, Latinos, women, Asian-Americans, or evangelical Christians respectively. Rather, each serves as a figure of respect for all people. Thus, their examples should tend to prompt persons from outside these groups to reconsider prejudices that they might harbor with respect to people who belong to these groups.
So it is also with known LGBT figures of respect. Consider, for example, Minnesota state senator Allen Spear, who in 1976 became the first publicly out gay man to be elected to a public office anywhere in the United States. Nearly a quarter century later, in May 2000, on the occasion of Senator Spear's retirement from the Minnesota Senate (and as president of the senate), one of his colleagues remarked, “[Spear] did a great job in the educating process. Homosexuality was something I'd barely heard of in my little town. It wasn't talked about. Here we had Allen Spear. He was a good person, no different from the rest of us. We all needed that education.” Another colleague-a conservative Republican from the opposite end of the political spectrum as Spear-reiterated this point: “Such a competent senator who's openly gay contributes to the understanding of everybody.”
LGBT youth, and straight youth especially, need such education and understanding. More precisely, LGBT youth in particular would benefit tremendously from straight youth gaining this education and understanding. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that the lack of this education and understanding contributes to the bullying of LGBT youth and of young people perceived to be LGBT.
This Article next considers in detail the mutually reinforcing relationship between employment discrimination against known LGBT role models and the bullying of LGBT youth. Part II of this Article discusses the prevalence and consequences of the bullying of LGBT youth. Part III of this Article then proposes a reform agenda grounded in an understanding of the interconnections between anti-LGBT discrimination in employment and the bullying of LGBT youth. Specifically, this Part argues that an optimal reform agenda to combat the exclusion of known LGBT people from role model occupations as a means to influence social understandings should include not only direct efforts to reduce sexual orientation discrimination and gender identity discrimination in employment but also direct efforts to reduce the incidence of bullying of LGBT youth and young people perceived to be LGBT
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Teaching tolerance of LGBT people and families as well as teaching LGBT history in primary and secondary schools, including teaching about the contributions of LGBT role models and the discrimination that they have experienced and overcome, will lead to greater awareness among youth of the positive qualities and values of LGBT people. Thus, these lessons should raise self-esteem in LGBT youth as well as tolerance of LGBT people by their straight peers. In promoting such self-esteem and tolerance, these lessons will make it easier for those LGBT youth who choose to do so to come out as gay or transgender. Similarly, anti-bullying programs and bans on sexual orientation discrimination and gender identity discrimination in employment will make it easier for LGBT youth and adults to come out as gay or transgender not only because the programs and bans proscribe actions that intimidate LGBT people, but also because they send a message that LGBT people are valued.
Facilitating the coming out process is critical to combating attempts to exclude known LGBT people from role model occupations. Those exclusionary efforts, at their core, aim to make LGBT people invisible, particularly where LGBT people might be seen in a positive light. Thus, the ultimate goal of any strategy to undermine such efforts must be to have LGBT people come out as gay or transgender visibly in their communities. While the government, school, and employer initiatives discussed above should be made to protect those who come out, ultimately progress toward ending the exclusion of known LGBT people from role model occupations will always depend upon LGBT people taking personal and professional risks by coming out.
Thus, a final and critical component of any strategy to combat the efforts to exclude known LGBT people from role model occupations should include specific efforts to encourage LGBT people out of their professional closets. Such encouragement need not rely on any government legislation or program. Rather, such encouragement can be undertaken at the individual and firm level. Individual efforts might be as simple as coming out professionally oneself if one is in a relatively secure set of circumstances to do so, or mentoring and taking a special interest in protecting the careers of LGBT people who make the decision to be visible as LGBT role models.
Professor of Law, Santa Clara University.
