Rick Mercer, the Globe, Bullying and Gay Visibility

This post is my response to the recent public debate about Rick Mercer’s Rant and the subsequent Globe and Mail editorial attacking his position on the need for gay adults to come out as part of the answer to fighting homophobia and bullying. If you already know the history of this issue, jump ahead to paragraph six.

I was somewhat surprised to discover that it has now been over a year since Dan Savage launched the It Gets Better campaign, a YouTube-hosted group outreach project where people share their personal experiences and try to offer GLBT youth the message that although it can be very difficult for them right now, their lives can and will get better. In the months that followed, the campaign has attracted a tremendous amount of media and public attention, and there have been productive debates (some of which I discussed in this post last year) over how the campaign could and should go further to not only express a message of hope, but also lead to more direct action about issues such as bullying and depression that can contribute to the plight of queer youth. Savage himself has come out on numerous occasions to strongly support these calls for additional action, beyond the initial awareness-raising outreach efforts of the IGB campaign.

Of course, despite this, there have still been countless numbers of gay youth who continue to be isolated, and some have taken their own lives. Indeed, in recent months, there have been gay youth who have explicitly referenced the IGB campaign, and even made their own videos, but still committed suicide. In a number of these cases, other issues such as depression have been a contributing factor. The result of these incidents, though, has been a revival of the issue in the eyes of the media (with some interesting consequences, like actor Zachary Quinto’s recent coming out).

Over the past weeks, the suicide of a gay youth in Ottawa prompted a group of Conservative MPs to record their own IGB video, with an emphasis on anti-bullying efforts. Some critics derided this effort, citing the vicious anti-gay stance that had been taken by many of these MPs, such as Vic Toews, over the past decade. Others viewed this video in a more positive light, pointing out that this was still a small step in the right direction from individuals who have amends to make. On Tuesday night, comedian Rick Mercer stepped into the fray once again, dedicating his Rant to a call for authorities to take action against these bullies, but also for gay and lesbian adults to step up, come out, and provide much needed role models for gay youth. Although Mercer did not explicitly include himself among that cohort of gay adults in the rant (and I was critical of him at the time for failing to include that important nuance), he subsequently did so on the Thursday morning edition of CBC’s The Current, and discussed how the process of coming out and being out is an ongoing, recurrent one, and that he himself often overestimates the degree to which he is out in public life, given that he has been out to friends and coworkers for a long time now, although many of his viewers remain unaware of his sexual orientation.

This morning, the Globe and Mail attacked Mercer’s position in its lead editorial, which cited a number of reasons why individuals might choose to remain in the closet and not disclose their sexual orientations for personal reasons. The editorialist equated Mercer’s position to a burden being placed on all gay and lesbian public figures, rhetorically asking “Would every gay person now need to hold a news conference?” Calling his position “wrong, terribly wrong,” the editorialist claimed that Mercer was arguing that “it falls to successful gay adults to protect vulnerable gay teens from the problems associated with being different” and argued that instead “the job of protecting gay teens or anyone else from bullying falls to everyone.”

I found myself getting very upset at the dismissive, holier-than-thou stance taken by the Globe’s editorial this morning, and its protestations of outrage of “how dare he” impose a moral obligation on gay men and lesbians, forcing them out of the closet when they have so recently won the right to live their lives without discrimination. As I gave this issue more thought over the course of the day, I realized that the source of my concerns is how this issue has been dealt with by politicians and some media outlets. At issue is the question of linkages. The reason why the IGB campaign got as much coverage as it did is because of the tragedies that have resulted from the plight of gay youth – particularly the suicides of the summer of 2010, and those recently in Canada and the United States. And so, while there was an initial flurry of YouTube videos from gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered adults, this was soon followed by liberal-minded politicians and media personalities.

But along the way, the emphasis of the media message shifted, and it has continued to shift. Because the focal issue became less about a systemic culture that is not gay positive (or to get jargon-y, is homophobic and/or heteronormative), into a focus on the supposed proximate causes of the suicides – bullying and depression, although this latter issue shows up much less in the speeches and videos. And so it has become possible for those who want to appear sensitive to recent events to put most of their efforts on the more universally accepted issue of fighting bullying, while avoiding the particular challenges of gay youth that are rooted in the broader culture of North America (and elsewhere) which is often one that teaches that their sexual orientation is abnormal, deviant, a sin, and the list goes on. So, in the minds and messages of many politicians and public figures, the challenge became how to fight the symptom of bullying, and create safer schools. This has had the positive effect of creating a dialogue about how to foster safer schools for all who are bullied, and serving as a call for all adults, both gay and straight, to take direct action rather than just espousing a message that change will come. And this is the zone in which the Globe’s editorialist has positioned their contribution – a message that “bullying is bad, and all people have a responsibility to fight it”.

But where Mercer’s Rant is aimed is at a different core issue, which is the particular combination of challenges facing GLBT youth. They do not just have to face a climate of bullying in high schools (which many other youth so as well), but a society that still has some pretty deeply entrenched anti-gay attitudes, and shockingly few high profile gay public figures. It is a society in which it is well-known that Hollywood is chock-a-block with gay actors who are told to remain the closet to protect their careers, and that the halls of Parliament and Congress are littered with closeted gay politicians, who only seem to come out when forced to do so by an affair (a slight exaggeration admittedly, and less true in Canada). It is a society where, as the Globe dodges, but implicitly admits, it might be harder to live your life if you are open about your sexual orientation and your career prospects might be hindered because of the prejudice of others. Mercer’s rant argues that more gay and lesbian adults need to come out – and keep coming out, rather than just doing it once to friends and family – in order to normalize homosexuality, to make it part of the common fabric, and to make it part and parcel of what it means to be a public figure. He knows, as so many gay men and lesbians do, that our governments, media and businesses are filled with high-powered gay men and lesbians who are not “publicly” out, although many may be to their close acquaintances. But this does little to demonstrate to those struggling with their sexuality and feeling isolated in high school that our society is thoroughly permeated by the presence of gay men and lesbians at all levels.

Mercer is not calling for a press conference for all of these individuals. Although it might not hurt if a few more highly placed individuals in Canada did make a point of doing so. But coming out publicly can take different forms. It can be a matter of a politician, when speaking on the campaign trail, of casually referring to their partner (or wife, or husband) by name – just as any heterosexual politician does all the time – rather than letting it be thought that they are single and straight. It could be openly attending public events with one’s same-sex partner. There are numerous ways in which straight politicians and public figures “come out” as straight all the time by virtue of who they are seen with, how they speak about their relationships and the mere fact that they do speak about their relationships. What Mercer is calling for, if I understand his message correctly, is for gay adults to do more of this. Because while the issue of bullying can be fought by all adults, only gay men and lesbians can take steps to provide visibility of gay individuals in public life to combat the assumption that everyone in the adult world is straight.

And in case you’re wondering, I do try to walk the walk on this issue, in my semi-public life as a professor. I don’t just blog about issues related to my sexuality where those “in the know” will find out. I try to be visible within the university, but without being aggressive about it. So if I’m chatting with students on a break partway through class, I will make reference to “my husband”. Because many of my courses do deal with recent political history, I can incorporate references to gay and lesbian rights in Canada in a fairly natural way, and I’ve often picked those classes as an opportunity to make a casual reference to how those social movements made it possible for me to marry my husband (prompting a flurry of Google searches of “matthew hayday gay” that land on this blog). I don’t jump up and down in my students’ faces making all my courses about my personal life and my politics, but nor do I shy away from making references to my personal life if it is appropriate – just as many, many other straight colleagues of mine do all the time when they illustrate contemporary issues, or make a casual, conversational aside in the middle of their lectures. It is surprising how often one’s personal life does come up in casual conversation, if you let it. But as many gay men and lesbians will tell you, if they are honest about it, they also clam up or evade the specific details on a regular basis, depending on their audience. A good first step to changing that, and being more out, is to stop self-censoring as often. That alone will start a broader process of raising the visibility of gay adults, and hopefully have trickle-down impacts to allow others to take the bolder step of the public declaration, should they wish.

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It Gets Better Project - Visibility and Affirmation

By now, you have probably heard of the It Gets Better Project, a YouTube campaign of videos launched by Dan Savage in September 2010 to raise awareness of gay bullying and to provide support and hope for young people facing harassment. If you haven't already heard about it, Savage and his partner Terry launched the campaign in response to a wake of gay teen suicides, in the hopes that he, and those who would make similar videos, could provide the message that if teenagers held on, their lives would eventually get better. It's a very simple, direct message, and one that has inspired thousands of people to record and post their own messages.

The campaign is not without its detractors. A columnist in Toronto's Xtra! accused the campaign of vastly oversimplifying the issues facing the queer community, and perhaps facilitating complacency or sidestepping the real social challenges facing gay and lesbian youth that require new policies and programs. Musician Owen Pallett observed that for him there were other issues, most notably clinical depression, that would not simply get better on their own. Many have been openly critical of senior US administration figures, such as Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who participated in the campaign, but have done little to take advantage of their political power to make meaningful changes.

For what it's worth, I tend to come down on the side of those who praise the campaign as just one piece in a larger campaign of social activism, and one that can work alongside and in conjunction with campaigns for political, legal and social change.

Which brings me (finally) to the main point of this post. Many of my gay and lesbian friends, and I am not an exception to this rule, have observed that when they watch these videos, they tend to get really emotional and teary-eyed. And that's not a sentiment which is limited to those who felt suicidal or attempted suicide as teenagers - it's a much broader phenomenon. For me, it's not unlike the feelings that I had at my first few Pride parades as a young man just coming out of the closet. It invokes a sense of community, of shared experience, of support, and also of joy at having been able to make it through the difficult coming out process and accept one's sexuality. And to my view, that speaks to a much broader and more subtle impact of the It Gets Better project. Because while the immediate message is targeted at those facing harassment, in many ways this is an echo of 1970s (and later) gay liberation messaging about the need for visibility, for having large numbers of open gay men and lesbians to create a sense of community, and to raise awareness of their existence among the greater population.

I've been really enjoying some of the new "second wave" videos that are being created by workers in organizations like Pixar because of how it puts a human face on co-workers at an organization. I also liked this Canadian group video of celebrities, politicians and artists for the impact it had of a whole group of reasonably high-profile gay and lesbians all telling their stories at once. That latter video probably had its greatest impact because of Rick Mercer's openness about his experiences. Mercer is a household name in Canada, but few outside the gay community really were aware that he's gay, despite how candid he has been. And that's one of the impacts that the homemade videos are having as well by putting a very diverse human face on gay and lesbian life - young, old, married, single, from a host of different religious and ethnic backgrounds. It's almost like the story-telling complement to a Pride March, where all the diversity that you see briefly in the parade gets a chance to tell their human stories, so that you can hear from the gay father, the dyke on a bike, the leatherboy, the drag queen, and the politician in their own words about what growing up gay or lesbian was like, and how their lives are now. They are everyday role models from all walks of life, which is really important not only for youth, but for adults who continue to struggle with homophobia (both internalized and in the world around them) in their daily lives.

The fact that, like Pride Parades, the It Gets Better Project is attracting such high-profile support from politicians, celebrities and straight allies is indicative of the impact that it is having in raising visibility of these issues. I think it's a good thing that high profile British, American and Canadian politicians think they need to participate in this movement. But moreoever, to me it suggests that, although the legal and political campaigns are far from over, there is a real need to spend more time on the social side of raising the visibility of the human face of gay and lesbian life in order foster more grassroots support in our broader communities for the political, social and legal changes that are also needed.

Kudos to Dan Savage for launching this initiative. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get a box of Kleenex and watch a few more videos.

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