Generally speaking, I would probably say that the most organized threat to our civil rights, although not the only threat, comes from the religious right. The religious right is what I call the Moralists because they are anti-gay. These same Moralists also emphasize cultural issues and social issues over economic concerns too.

Specifically, I would not agree that all Republicans must be homophobic just because the religious right or moralists constitute a small segment of that party.

Sad to say, the gay civil rights movement has always been seen as being on the political left, as one more whining special interest group claiming entitlement to all sorts of special treatment from the government. Or we have been seen as having a simply grand old time cavorting at Gay Pride parades and throwing condoms at Catholic services. Whether as crybabies or as Dionysian celebrants, we always appear as outsiders or misfits. I cringe at both images. Most gay men and women do not go around demanding government favors or living a hedonistic "gay lifestyle" which is code for irresponsibility. But just enough of us act out these images, or tolerate them, that they become real in the public mind. I think Middle America feels uncomfortable about this, at the very least. Our right-wing homophobes love it, because it gives them someone to hate and someone to use as a foil for attracting mainstream support to their own causes. In this respect, by accepting, and in some cases cultivating, these negative images of the gay lifestyle, we lose friends and help our enemies.

One last word on the religious right. I don't hate Jesse Helms, Pat Robertson and their allies. Let's leave the hating to them. They will eventually destroy themselves, as Joe McCarthy and other haters did.