Dr. Laura's radio diatribes against sexual freedom are enough to make any red-blooded queer choke. Is that reason to gag her?

By Jim D'Entremont

If she can't be contained, she must be stopped," insists Joan Garry, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Discrimination (GLAAD). "At what point," asks Mark Leno of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, "do her words become the equivalent of yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater?" In the weeks since remnants of homosexual murder victim Steen Fenrich's body were found in a New York park, some gay activists have barely stopped short of saying, "Dr. Laura did it."

Laura Schlessinger, "Dr. Laura," the reigning queen of tabloid radio, is preparing to expand her advice-chat empire into TV by means of a syndicated talk show soon to be produced by the Paramount Television Group. But the path to its fall premiere leads through a gauntlet of censorious hostility. The rhetoric and strategies of the "Stop Dr. Laura" movement recall efforts mounted in 1989-90 by homophobic reactionaries to halt The Perfect Moment, a traveling retrospective of Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs. The major difference is that this time, the censors have left-wing alignments.

Schlessinger became anathema to gay men and lesbians everywhere by describing homosexuality on the air as "a biological error" and "deviant sexual behavior." She promotes the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), a group of conservative psychotherapists claiming homosexuality is a behavioral disorder treatable by methods of "reparative therapy." An implacable opponent of gay marriage, she has campaigned against civil union legislation in Vermont and championed the anti-gay Proposition 22 in California. She has called gay parenthood "despicable." In an August 1999 monologue, Schlessinger referred to "the major [gay] agenda-- which wasn't civil rights, it was about normalization of all forms of sexuality."

GLAAD has been urging Paramount to retract its $3 million Dr. Laura production deal-- or, failing that, demanding assurance from Paramount Studios that its TV division will exercise "zero tolerance for defamation directed at the gay and lesbian community (or any group) by Dr. Laura Schlessinger." Presumably, GLAAD expects production executives, left to guess what minorities might consider "defamation," to stifle all criticism. "Without an assurance of this sort," says Joan Garry, "we'll call on Paramount to pull the plug on Dr. Laura."

A barrage of faxes, phone calls, and e-mail messages has been lobbed by GLAAD supporters into Paramount Studios, particularly targeting CEO Sumner Redstone of Viacom, Paramount's parent company, and Paramount Television Group Chairman Kerry McCluggage. In response, Paramount executives affirmed their "commitment to present society's issues without creating or contributing to an environment of hurt, hate, or intolerance."

On March 10, Schlessinger issued a quasi-apology. "Regrettably," she said, "some of the words I've used have hurt some people and I am sorry for that. Words that I have used in a clinical context have been perceived as judgment. They were not meant to characterize homosexual individuals or encourage others to disparage homosexuals."

GLAAD was not placated. On March 21, the group protested at the gates of Paramount Studios in Hollywood. In addition to Ms. Garry, speakers included Rev. Troy Perry of the Metropolitan Community Church and writer/producer David Lee of the popular Paramount TV series Frasier.

But some are puzzled by the vehemence of the anti-Laura effort. Her anti-gay riffs notwithstanding, Schlessinger has never been so focused on the homosexual menace as many of her allies. Karen Jo Gounaud of Family Friendly Libraries, a group Dr. Laura has joined in opposing the American Library Association, is more fixated on gay issues. Beverly LaHaye, the hard-right leader of Concerned Women for America, is a more virulent homophobe. Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council (FRC), whose propaganda Schlessinger often cites as fact, was aggressively marketing anti-homosexual "Action Kits" in the early 90s. Schlessinger's mean-spirited homophobia is no worse than that of fellow talk-show host Rush Limbaugh, but seems to elicit more passion.

Some have responded to Schlessinger's statements with reasoned expressions of protest stopping short of censorship. But many among the anti-Laura brigade have spent little time listening to what she actually says. With the certitude of Shiite mullahs casting Salman Rushdie into the outer darkness, they seize on homophobic sound-bites, often taken out of context. It's easier to shut Dr. Laura down than to respond directly to what she says, some of which is not ridiculously off-base. Before it was recast as a tale of squeaky-clean monogamous same-sex couples in suburban bungalows with 2.2 children, gay liberation was indeed about sexual freedom and a challenge to traditional Judeo-Christian interdictions.

Schlessinger's opponents are fond of citing disciplinary actions aimed at Cincinnati Reds owner Marge Schott, commentator Andy Rooney, and others for "defaming" minority groups. Free-speech arguments against such punishments appear to them to be beneath consideration. When activists claim that no one in broadcasting would be allowed to call African-Americans or Jews "biological errors," they are also prone to ignore the ease with which broadcasters like Don Imus get away with disparaging racial minorities every day.

Much of Schlessinger's anti-gay rhetoric has been elicited by the attacks of gay activists; baited, she usually fights back. Her four bestselling pulp self-help books deal only glancingly with homosexuality. Her on-air diatribes reflect her religious conservative opposition not only to gay sex, but to abortion, Planned Parenthood, and all forms of sex outside marriage. Her belief that marriage must by definition be a "union of a man and a woman in the sight of God," the source of her opposition to state-sanctioned domestic partnership arrangements and her support for ballot initiatives seeking to prevent gay marriage, is inseparable from her identity as an orthodox Jew.

No one has seen so much as a pilot version of Schlessinger's forthcoming TV show, scheduled to premiere in September on affiliates of CBS, the Fox Network, and a range of additional stations. Its format is under development. But according to a Paramount press release, it would offer "many points of view derived from a variety of sources, guests, and a studio audience."

Such an approach would dilute the show's effectiveness as a bully pulpit for Schlessinger. Despite the occasional presence of guests, her sparely formatted, commercial-ridden radio program mainly functions as exposure for its star. The three-hour show begins with a Schlessinger monologue of up to 15 minutes, followed by one-on-one exchanges with a succession of callers whose sometimes harrowing problems are neatly disposed of with short, punchy hectoring. Her advice is grounded in folksy common sense, irrational personal bias, conservative ideology, and old-time religion.

Pots and kettles

Schlessinger's self-described approach to personal advice is to "preach, teach, or nag" in the service of "character, courage, and conscience." She brings passionate conviction to a simplistic, black-and-white world view. Her manner is essentially anti-therapeutic; she's a cross between Ann Landers and a testy dominatrix. Denouncing the weak and the spoiled, she stresses personal responsibility. In How Could You Do That?!, she writes, "We've become like little children refusing to take fault or responsibility for what we damn well want to do." Her appeal transcends the political right. Her perception that child molesters lurk behind every tree, for example, is shared by many on the left.

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In a style that on the surface can seem refreshingly blunt, she expatiates on subjects ranging from vegetarianism to teen pregnancy with a frequently wobbly command of the facts. She claims that anyone who questions the practice of circumcision is "anti-Semitic," that the point of kosher butchery is that "the animal isn't hurt," and that Wicca "isn't a religion."

Warts and all, Schlessinger is the only woman to enter the verbal mosh pit of AM talk radio and achieve national recognition on a par with Don Imus, Howard Stern, and Rush Limbaugh. She began her five-day-a-week broadcasts from KFI in Los Angeles in 1990; her program went into syndication in 1994, the same year she formally converted to orthodox Judaism. Her show, now heard on over 450 stations, reaches 20 million listeners as far afield as Johannesburg.

Chutzpah is her strongest qualification. Dr. Laura wields her Ph.D. in the biological science of physiology as if it confers on her the status and expertise of sage or psychologist. She is actually a licensed counselor whose academic credentials in psychology are scant. (See "Who is Dr. Laura.") Her technique makes mental health professionals wince. She scolds and browbeats. She advocates giving short shrift to those who don't measure up to one's high standards, and is routinely uncivil.

It's revealing that if described as "vitriolic," Dr. Laura becomes weepy and condemns the fascism of name-calling. On August 3, 1999 a relatively moderate "GLAAD Alert" urged people to write to Schlessinger to protest her dependence on right-wing sources like the FRC. In an August 11, 1999 monologue, she described the resulting onslaught of messages as "an extraordinary attempt by so-called liberals who don't believe in censorship and who believe in the First Amendment to shut down the ability of an oppositional point of view to be heard."

Like most censors who believe God is on their side, GLAAD included, Schlessinger is selectively pious about freedom of expression. "The First Amendment is not the Eleventh Commandment; it does not protect all speech," she recently admonished 14-year-old Sara Miller, 1999 winner of an annual free-speech essay contest sponsored by the state of Connecticut. Schlessinger deplored Miller's support of free expression in cyberspace, saying that "If she was my daughter, I'd probably put her up for adoption."

Schlessinger has put that perspective on free speech into practice in her opposition to broadcasts of Debra Chasnoff's documentary It's Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School; to the anti-censorship efforts of the American Library Association; and to the existence of "Go Ask Alice," a teenagers' informational website based, ironically, at Columbia University, Schlessinger's alma mater. When Schlessinger speaks of her "deep respect for freedom of speech," she is holding her opponents to a higher standard than that which she lives by.

GLAAD and its cohorts could not, of course, be accused of aspiring to such a standard. Much of the campaign against Schlessinger is being conducted in the open forum of the Internet, where activists are taking advantage of unbridled freedom of speech to promote censorship. On March 1, 2000, a group led John Aravosis of Wired Strategies launched stopdrlaura.com, a website set up to act as a clearinghouse for anti-Schlessinger activism. By March 21, stopdrlaura.com had received a staggering one million hits. When Schlessinger's dicier monologues began cropping up on sites all over the Internet, Dr. Laura's own webmaster shut down her online archive and stopped making transcripts of programs available.

Boycott fever

Many veteran gay activists and free-speech advocates are disenchanted with the anti-Laura juggernaut. "They're conflating words with action," says Bill Dobbs of Queer Watch, "and promoting the idea that everything we dislike must be snuffed, silenced, or censored." Michelle Coffey, director of the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression, adds that "What is really disturbing about GLAAD's approach is that they're not allowing individuals to make choices on their own."

The anti-Laura camp's advocacy of boycotts also presents problems. Using a technique that could have been borrowed from Rev. Donald Wildmon's arch-conservative American Family Association, the "Stop Dr. Laura" website congratulates "good" sponsors, like BoxLot.com, who have dropped Schlessinger's radio show, and promotes economic pressure against "bad" sponsors, like Excedrin, who have not. Yet while encouraging product boycotts, GLAAD has managed to rationalize its acceptance of funds from Coors Breweries, a generous donor to right-wing causes.

Steve Rendell of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) questions the tactic. "We think sponsor boycotts legitimize the idea that sponsors get to choose what's acceptable on the air," he says. "Sponsors already have too much power. This narrows the range of debate and guarantees that fewer minority viewpoints will be heard."

FAIR is less critical of boycotts aimed at major media outlets like Paramount. But such boycotts also contribute to the dumbing down of discourse. When a media conglomerate like Paramount is confronted with boycotts, its impulse is not to rush toward enlightenment but away. Ultimately, gay expression suffers from the cultivation of an atmosphere that dampens controversy.

Homos and 'phobes converge?

Some gay organizations have been fomenting Dr. Laura hysteria for purposes of fundraising, recruitment, and a simple-minded call to arms. The "Stop Dr. Laura" campaign has given rise to ad hoc organizations in major cities and mobilized fledgling activists from coast to coast. Many local organizations are targeting radio stations that carry Schlessinger's program, and using those campaigns as wake-up calls for apathetic gay communities.

While these efforts bear comparison to right-wing organizations' use of Mapplethorpe in the early 90s, a closer parallel might be the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights's mobilizations against the ABC television series Nothing Sacred, whose protagonist was a troubled priest, or the Manhattan Theater Club's production of Terrence McNally's "gay Jesus" play Corpus Christi. When GLAAD's Steve Spurgeon says it's acceptable to squelch Schlessinger because "Paramount is just out to make a buck by endorsing a woman who defames a whole category of people," his words echo Catholic League leader William Donohue's fulminations against ABC, the Manhattan Theater Club, and other arts and entertainment outlets for profiting from "anti-Catholic hate speech."

"GLAAD's tactics are precisely the same as the Catholic League's," says Joan Bertin, director of the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). "They try to silence individuals and cow institutions, and they characterize forms of expression they don't like as 'hate speech.'"

The leadership of the "Stop Dr. Laura" movement demonstrates a breathtaking capacity for doublethink. "Freedom of speech does not give one license to denigrate and defame a community," GLAAD's Joan Garry told a CNN reporter covering the March 21 Paramount rally. (First Amendment scholars would disagree.) "I'm not against free speech," lesbian political organizer Robin Tyler told a reporter from Bay Windows, New England's gay and lesbian paper of record. "[Schlessinger] has a right to say what she wants, but the Constitution doesn't guarantee you a platform like a TV show," Tyler insisted.

Bay Windows editor Jeff Epperly complained in a March 30 editorial about gay members of the Libertarian Party who "express discomfort over the 'censorship' that gay activists are allegedly trying to exercise over Dr. Laura's would-be handlers, Paramount Pictures. Yet these same Libertarians would never think of trying to stop private citizens from stopping any other private company from putting out a defective product-- which is exactly what Schlessinger's TV program represents."

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But to characterize Schlessinger's TV program-- which does not yet exist-- as "defective product" echoes right-wing statements that Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs-- or, more recently, expression ranging from It's Elementary to art works in the recent Young British Artists show at the Brooklyn Museum-- were harmful "commodities," not speech, and therefore not subject to free-speech protections.

And Epperly is wrong about libertarians-- while it is true they have no problem with private censorship, state censorship cuts to the heart of what they oppose. GLAAD has been encouraging government to take notice of Dr. Laura. In February, the West Hollywood city council passed a resolution demanding that Schlessinger apologize to her listeners. In March, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an ominously righteous resolution against the broadcast of "inaccurate statements about gays and lesbians that incite violence and hate." Many activists and elected officials would welcome any legal means to muzzle the anti-gay rhetoric of Schlessinger and others on the Right. Hardly anyone seems to think of the extent to which such a mechanism for curtailing speech might be applied to gay men and lesbians.

As the Laura wars escalate, Schlessinger is being portrayed by the Right as a heroine and martyr. The Family Research Council, whose 1998 ad campaign in support of "ex-gay" ministries drew the wrath of GLAAD, took out a full page ad in the April 10 Washington Times with the headline "The Thought Police Are Out to Silence Dr. Laura." She is also receiving support from National Religious Broadcasters, an organization representing 1250 Christian media outlets, communications groups, and individuals. As conservative supporters rally around Schlessinger, anti-Laura activists are turning up the volume.

"It would be better to have her television show go on and no one watch it," says David Greene, who heads an Oakland, California-based legal resource called the First Amendment Project. "Any cancellation now will only reflect the financial pressure of the campaign against the show and not the American public's rejection of her noxious ideas-- a lost opportunity for a free-speech victory."

"We don't reap the benefits of a free society when we react to speech that we don't like by seeking to suppress it," says Greene. "The good ideas can only prevail when they are used to challenge bad ones. As long as our response is to merely shut the bad ones up, the bad ones will always be lurking out there essentially unchallenged, or at least underchallenged."

The price of freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom of conscience is that some people are free to make statements, entertain thoughts, and hold tenets that we may abhor. Many gay men and lesbians forget that they owe their present clout and visibility to free-speech victories. Laura Schlessinger and her would-be censors occupy opposite sides of the same bent coin of intolerance. "Making Dr. Laura the butt of jokes, the subject of Saturday Night Live skits, is fine," says Bill Dobbs, "but working to stop her show from being broadcast diminishes all of us."

Editor's Note: See our editorial on the efforts to silence Dr. Laura, Dr. Laura's Right

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