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| ] is a ] created by ], which some gay and lesbian people have been interested in for its celebration of personal freedom and individuality at the expense of government power |
] is a ] created by ], which some gay and lesbian people have been interested in for its celebration of personal freedom and individuality at the expense of government power. | ||
| ===Ayn Rand=== | ===Ayn Rand=== | ||
| ====Public statements==== | ====Public statements==== | ||
Revision as of 06:45, 2 March 2006
Objectivism is a philosophy created by Ayn Rand, which some gay and lesbian people have been interested in for its celebration of personal freedom and individuality at the expense of government power.
Ayn Rand
Public statements
Rand said very little publicly about homosexuality, and did not seem to have put much thought into considering it in terms of Objectivism. Although her philosophy strongly endorsed the rights of individuals, she did not seem to find commonality with the ideas of the early gay rights movement, which she considered collectivist.
As part of the liberalization of sexual attitudes, the gay rights movement became increasingly visible in the late 1960's and early 1970's. However, two years after the Stonewall Rebellion, Rand attacked the feminist and sexual liberation movement in her book, The New Left (1971). She called these movements "hideous" for what she saw as their use of government power to gain "special privileges".
That same year, at the Ford Hall Forum Lecture at Northeastern University, Rand was asked about the issue by an audience member and addressed it directly. She stated that Objectivism supports the legalization of homosexual relations between consenting adults in private, but added that it "involves psychological flaws, corruptions, errors, or unfortunate premises". Rand concluded with the assertion that homosexuality, "is immoral, and more than that; if you want my really sincere opinion, it's disgusting."
On sex roles
Some suggest that Rand's negativity towards homosexuality may well have stemmed from her belief that "Men are metaphysically the dominant sex". She asserted that the "the essence of femininity is hero worship—the desire to look up to man" and that "an ideal woman is a man-worshiper, and an ideal man is the highest symbol of mankind". In other words, Rand felt that it was part of human nature for a psychologically healthy woman to want to look up to a man worthy of reverance.
As part of her anti-feminist view of gender roles, Rand asserted that it would be "metaphysically inappropriate" for a woman to serve as President because the role is "inherently unfeminine" and would lead to "psychological torture". (Ayn Rand, "About a Woman President," in The Voice of Reason, ed. Leonard Peikoff , 268) To many, this polarized view of men as sexually dominant over women did not seem to have left much room for homosexuality.
Reactions
Psychiatrist Nathaniel Branden, Rand's former "intellectual heir" and extra-marital lover, said in 1983 that she was "absolutely and totally ignorant” about homosexuality. He added that he considered her perspective "as calamitous, as wrong, as reckless, as irresponsible, and as cruel, and as one which I know has hurt too many people who ... looked up to her and assumed that if she would make that strong a statement she must have awfully good reasons". To support the claim that Rand's views have caused harm, Branden offers the example of a Rand-influenced psychiatrist who tried to "cure" a client of homosexuality.
Barbara Branden, wife of Nathaniel Branden's and Rand's authorized biographer, "considered her profoundly negative judgment to be rash and unreasonable." Noted gay Objectivist writer Arthur Silber summed the issue up by saying, "Rand did have an extremely unfortunate tendency to moralize in areas where moral judgments were irrelevant and unjustified. ... especially in ... aesthetics and sexuality."
However, Harry Binswanger, of the Ayn Rand Institute, has an unconfirmable but more positive posthumous spin on Rand's views. Binswanger writes that, while Rand generally condemned homosexuality, she would adopt a more tolerant view of it "when she was in an especially good mood". He also says that he "asked her privately (circa 1980) specifically whether she thought it was immoral. She said that we didn't know enough about the development of homosexuality in a person's psychology to say that it would have to involve immorality" (emphasis added).
Post Rand
After Rand's death in 1982, Objectivist organizations have generally had little to say about homosexuality or gay rights. While some notable Objectivists believed that homosexuality was a mental illness that needed to be cured, being homosexual was never grounds for exclusion from the organization, and contemporary Objectivists continue to support the generally minarchist view of gay rights.
For example, according to Objectivist Damian Moskovitz:
- While many conservatives believe that homosexuality should be outlawed and many liberals believe that homosexuals should be given special rights, Objectivism holds that as long as no force is involved, people have the right to do as they please in sexual matters, whether or not their behavior is considered by others to be or is in fact moral. And since individual rights are grounded in the nature of human beings as human beings, homosexuals do not deserve any more or less rights than heterosexuals.