Dan Schottel And Frank Meliti Should Keep Their Morals In Their Own Pants. By Jeff Smith THE CAPACITY OF the genus homo to amaze and to be amazed is continually, well, amazing. Among the things that seem to amaze us most is the recurrence of intolerance among some of us toward attitudes or acts of others of us that really don't amount to a fart in the wind when it comes to the commonweal of all of us. I allude to the current skirmish in the War For the Soul of Mankind, wherein state Rep. Dan Schottel promises to sponsor legislation outlawing support groups for gays in public schools. Schottel, a third-term Republican from Tucson, did not write the measure--indeed, one wonders whether he has the wit, not to mention the crayons, to draft a piece of legislation--but is carrying water for Frank Meliti of the Traditional Values Coalition. Meliti is a real piece of work and has been running this lunatic crusade against faggotry in all its manifestations for many years. In 1994 he ran a petition drive to force a ballot initiative barring any state or local laws to protect gays from discrimination. He claimed at the time to have nearly twice the signatures needed to put the measure before the voters, but failed to get it on the ballot, and refused to let the press see his petitions, on the paranoid assertion that "militant homosexuals" would exact retribution. The undercurrent of amazement in this episode is essentially twofold: one, that people like Schottel and Meliti reappear throughout history to try shoving their personal vision of morality down the public throat (or up its ass); and, two, that defenders of privacy and personal liberty seem astounded every time it happens. When will we ever learn to accept one another's differences and mind our own business, they ask. I ask, when will we ever learn that we never learn, insofar as any genetically transmittable standard of morality and related behavior is concerned. My point here is that while natural selection keeps tweaking the physical construction of the species, the process does not apply to what we loosely term as morality. Ethical or spiritual values are not inherited, they are learned. Thus we are as likely to encounter a Frank Meliti 10 millennia from today, as we were during the Salem witch trials or the Spanish Inquisition. And they'll be trying to convince us then as now that people who are attracted to others of the same gender are a threat to us all, and that their every thought and deed, their very existence, ought to be prohibited. Of course it won't work; of course it's stupid almost beyond description, but that never has stood in the way of a zealot like Frank Meliti, or a shill like Dan Schottel. Schottel says that the proposed legislation does not specifically allude to homosexuality, but instead bans campus organizations that "support illegal activities." This, he says, takes care of homosexual support groups, because, according to Schottel and his encyclopedia, "You can't be a homosexual unless you're involved in certain activities." The "certain activities" to which Schottel refers come under the heading of sodomy. Setting aside this specious factual assertion for the moment, Schottel's legal foundation is a sort of syllogism that goes like this: You can't be a homosexual unless you practice sodomy; sodomy is against the law in Arizona; therefore if a group supports homosexuals, it is supporting crime. Let's dispense with the literary and legalistic euphemisms, shall we, and get right down to the short and curlies: What Meliti and Schottel are after here is cornholing and cocksucking, the idiot's litmus test for queers. This standard, of course, ignores a wide range of other hydraulic techniques that comprise the well-schooled sodomite's repertoire, and further ignores the plain fact that probably 99 percent of practicing heterosexuals are, by encyclopedic as well as statutory definition, sodomites. Ever kiss your sweetie's cutie, Dan? Frank? Well maybe not, considering your tight-assed demeanor, but I bet your mom and dad did. Would you like to have seen them in jail? Would you have prohibited them from joining the FFA or the Young Homemakers back in their high school years? Each of these extracurricular activities could be construed to support the sort of sodomitic activities your current bill would proscribe. Any student of American culture knows the hoary tradition of farm hands coupling with barnyard animals and fresh melons. Likewise we recognize that pre-feminist homemakers were encouraged to stand by, and lie beneath, their men. They called it "wifely duty." At the other end of the sexual spectrum, Meliti and Schottel, in their boundless and bottomless ignorance, deny the existence of the non-practicing or low-impact lover, be he-she-it homo or hetero. Dan says you can't be a fag without you're a fudge-packer? I beg to differ. Lots of AIDS-aware gays today eschew the more intrusive forms of physical sex. Many more just yearn fiercely but never act on their impulses, either out of timidity, or fear of rejection by the objects of their affection. Just like heterosexuals whose sex lives are largely, if not totally, fantasy. Some folks simply never get laid--or nibbled, licked, kissed or suckled--through no intention, nor any fault, of their own. But this does not alter the undeniable nature of their sexual orientation. And all of the action or inaction in the world pertaining to these acts has nothing to do with a person's morality. It should have nothing to do with that person's legality either.

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