THE CONTROVERSY serves not only as a template for how not to handle such situations, but as a foreshadowing of what’s to come. On August 22, the Family Policy Network and the American Family Association’s Center for Law and Policy sent out a press release stating that they were contemplating hitting the University of Maryland with a suit similar to the one they brought against the University of North Carolina. The crime? The school chose The Laramie Project, a documentary play about the queer-bashing murder of Matthew Shepard, for a campus-wide reading program in which all the university’s 10,000 students would read and discuss a variety of issues raised by the play.

Stephen M. Crampton, chief counsel for the American Family Association — who argued the North Carolina case — stated in a press release: "The bringing of The Laramie Project to campus sounds for all the world as if the university is attempting to impose an orthodoxy of belief in favor of homosexuality, coercing students to accept one particular side of a hotly contested political and, indeed, religious subject." Joe Glover, president of the Family Policy Network and one of the non-student plaintiffs of the UNC suit, had this to say about The Laramie Project: "This is pure homosexual propaganda, plain and simple. It’s the typical liberal mindset: I will force-feed students my view, give them no other data on the subject, and masquerade as someone who engages in free inquiry and free discussion."

The press release and the flurry of media interviews it garnered were clearly intended by the Family Policy Network to gauge public support for a new, and possibly less media-friendly, lawsuit. Encroachment on students’ religious beliefs is one thing; attacking as pro-homosexual a play that condemns queer bashing is another. But, hey: the press coverage for the UNC case wasn’t all that bad, so why not try again?

Indeed, one of the most discouraging aspects of the UNC case — and the impending situation at the University of Maryland — is that conservative groups, such as the Family Policy Network, Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and American Family Association, that focus on sexuality, cultural, and academic issues have been gaining both cultural power and media prominence. (Check out http://my.ohio.voyager.net/~dionisio/queer/database/.html for a listing of hundreds of the most prominent groups.) Many of these groups had their heyday in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, but they are enjoying a resurgence since the election of George W. Bush, especially in the wake of September 11. Groups such as the Family Policy Network and Family Research Council — which by almost any standard are marginal, super-conservative political-action groups whose views are far outside the mainstream — are once again attracting centrist media coverage. Consistently invited onto mainstream radio and television shows — Glover appears regularly as a commentator on CNN and Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council has appeared in the last two weeks on shows such as The Connection and Donahue — as well as getting quoted in newspapers and magazines such as USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and People — they are given a level of prominence and validation they don’t have politically.

One of the primary markers of their outer-fringe status has always been their rabid, insistent attacks on all manifestations of homosexuality. Touting discounted "scientific studies" — such as those by Dr. Paul Cameron, who has been expelled from the American Psychological Association for his unrelenting presentation of false data about the psychological, social, and physical injuriousness of homosexuality — they have been the major promoters of media misinformation about homosexuality. They have fought this war with great vigor, but they’ve been facing an increasingly uphill battle as the general culture has gradually grown more accepting of gayness.

IN A SURPRISING twist, many of these groups — a prime example being the Family Policy Network, which has always defined itself by its fanatical hatred of homosexuality — have augmented their queer-loathing with an equally dogmatic and intolerant view of Islam. The Family Policy Network Web page is filled anti-Islamic statements, including those by Franklin Graham attacking what he sees as Bush’s soft view of Islam. Graham, of course, is the son of preacher and noted American icon Billy Graham (whose rabidly anti-Semitic remarks on recently released tapes from the Nixon administration have shocked even hardened media commentators). In a series of statements made earlier this year, Franklin Graham called Muslims "wicked, violent, and not of the same God" and commented "I don’t believe [Islam] is a wonderful, peaceful religion." Asked by NBC News on Friday to clarify his statement, he repeated his charge that Islam, as a whole, was evil. "It wasn’t Methodists flying into those buildings, it wasn’t Lutherans," he told NBC News. "It was an attack on this country by people of the Islamic faith."

But we shouldn’t be surprised: pandering to post–September 11 anti-Islamic sentiments is good fundraising rhetoric for these groups — as good as queer bashing. Of course, these sentiments are echoed by other elements in American culture, and they are certainly protected by the First Amendment. But there’s no question that they are outside the mainstream. Their promotion by the more conservative segments of the mainstream media — such as Bill O’Reilly and the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal — has created an atmosphere in which right-wing hate groups have enormous political power to sway the basic ground rules on which these new cultural battles are being fought. The fact that even the more liberal and centrist media, such as CNN, present organizations such as the Family Research Council as reasonable debaters — in a way they never would with a white-supremacist group on a show about affirmative action — increases their prestige and power.

Ironically, one of the reasons these groups even get on television and radio is because their views are so extreme. These days it is difficult to find reasonable, moderate voices to debate gay rights because most prudent, level-headed, or temperate conservatives understand the nuances of the discussion and appreciate that it is not a question to argue in high dudgeon. Blatant queer-hating, in other words, is not only socially unacceptable, but politically stupid. But television and radio talk shows — which across the political spectrum now seem to thrive on verbal fisticuffs, rather like the theatrics of the World Wrestling Federation — cultivate the lowest form of debate and seek out religious fundamentalists who have no intention of engaging in "reasonable discourse" with logical arguments, or even provable facts. By the same token, it takes hate-filled, Christian religious fanatics to attack all of Islam as being hate-filled and fanatical.

BUT IN THE END, the media merely shines a spotlight on the issue. Of far more importance, the response to the University of North Carolina lawsuit by the school’s board of governors, the state judiciary, and the North Carolina state legislature ended up bathing the politics of the Family Policy Network and its ilk in the illusory glow of legitimacy.

On the face of it, the lawsuit was ridiculous and unwarranted. The idea that requiring students to read an academic analysis of a world religion would infringe on their religious beliefs is just plain absurd. If this were the case no college or university would have departments of religious studies or comparative religion, and even many literature and sociology courses would run into serious trouble. The conservative argument that liberals would never defend reading the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament as they would the Koran is idiotic and disingenuous: these books are required reading in any number of classes and academic disciplines. You don’t see liberal groups filing lawsuits to prevent the study of these texts.

Given the insubstantiality of the suit, the federal judge might have easily dismissed it with a summary judgment, claiming there were no legal grounds for proceeding. As for the state legislature, its insistence that the summer-reading program be de-funded unless it represented all religions wasn’t very helpful, especially since the university’s board of governors — running in fear of the legislature — then failed to uphold the basic principles of academic freedom. Instead, the university began spinning and back-pedaling. Its lawyers argued in court that (despite the school’s Web page’s statement that reading the book was required) many students opted not to do the reading or attend the discussion groups and that because no grades were given and because many students didn’t bother to attend the discussion groups, the book wasn’t really "required." Even worse, the university also decided that any student who did not want to read the book for "religious reasons" could write a one-page paper explaining his or her position.

While such seemingly minor retrenchment might appear reasonable as a way of diffusing an explosive situation, it actually made things worse. Now the Family Policy Network is claiming "victory," because the school is no longer "requiring" the book to be read by all students. In the end, the university has not only given the appearance of backing down on the principle of academic freedom, but in hopes of appearing reasonable and avoiding deeper conflict, it actually has backed down. By joining the game with the Family Policy Network, they have made academic freedom a political football. This is all the more dangerous, sad, and unnecessary given that right-wing hate groups are not even all that interested in attacking academic freedom per se — although certainly it is antithetical to their view of the world. Rather, their goal is to whip up public opinion against what they view as the excesses of liberalism, immorality, and even democracy in contemporary US culture.

What the Family Policy Network and American Family Association have done this time — with the help of the University of North Carolina itself — is to chip away not only at the idea of academic freedom but at the institutional structures that are supposed to uphold it. All of the small, seemingly minor, compromises made by the university, its board of governors, and the state judiciary and legislature eventually work in the favor of a deeply right-wing, fanatical agenda. If the university had defended academic freedom forthrightly and unequivocally, it would now be on much firmer ground. We can only hope that others will learn from UNC’s mistakes, just as the Family Policy Network has undoubtedly learned from its own, and apply the lessons learned to the upcoming battle against the University of Maryland — or other targets soon to be named.

Michael Bronski can be reached at mabronski@aol.com