Very queer, indeed

The post below, in a dark green sans-serif typeface, written in the spirit of mockery, may have been a mistake. I have decided not delete it, however, but to let it stand as literary evidence.

I originally wrote it because the arguments that Andrew Seal attributes to me in his latest post on Death Comes for the Archbishop are so illogical and extreme as to be beneath refutation. As a friend put it to me, something in the mode of “Swiftian satire” seemed the more appropriate response. Since some readers have objected, though, I have included both—a logical refutation and the original satire.

The logical first. Seal grants my assertion that the doctrine of celibacy is crucial to the novel, but then he goes on to put an argument into my mouth: “Myers doesn’t just insist that this sympathy with celibacy is crucial; he argues that it excludes the possibility that these two male characters were in love.”

This is a falsehood, of course. Nowhere have I said any such thing. What I would argue is that a Catholic priest’s vow of celibacy, especially on the part of a nineteenth-century priest like Latour, who was “[e]mpowered by long training” to blot himself out of his own consciousness and meditate “upon the anguish of his Lord,” excludes the possibility of same-sex attraction. I would add that love between two men does not necessary imply same-sex attraction. The connection must be argued for, and not merely—on the basis of current opinion—assumed.

Seal, however, assumes that friendship between two men and same-sex attraction are one and the same thing. If Latour and Vaillant had something more than “the camaraderie of co-workers,” they must have shared a “very queer love story.” He believes that he is being logical and intellectually scrupulous when he goes on to say that such a “love relationship” between them does not, however, necessitate “the presumption that it is sexually active or even physically expressed.” Yet somehow the relationship still deserves the epithet queer.

Now, I do not believe that all love relationships necessitate the presumption of sexual consummation either. I love my children, but I am not sexually active with them.

Somehow, though, the onus falls upon me. For me, “adding a love story is literally sacrilegious,” Seal says; “assuming that the two priests have stronger feelings than camaraderie means assuming they’re having sex, that they’re breaking their vows of celibacy.” Seal argues that the friendship between Latour and Vaillant is a same-sex attraction, but I am the one who holds that, if there is love between them, it must be sexual. Is there any basis for such an assumption?

Well, yes. And here is where it gets tricky. Bear with me: “Since Myers is very upfront about his conservative credentials, I don’t think it’s out of bounds to draw a connection between common conservative views on the ‘inherent’ promiscuity of homosexuality and Myers’s interpretation of the novel.” If that connection is not out of bounds, there are no bounds. Notice that Seal does not even bother to corroborate his claim that “the ‘inherent’ promiscuity of homosexuality” is a “common conservative view.” Even if it were, however—and even if Seal accepted the responsibility of providing evidence that it were—that I hold the view, simply because I hold “conservative credentials,” is valid only under the logic of McCarthyism.

Seal’s effort to connect me to “common conservative views on the ‘inherent’ promiscuity of homosexuality” is a classic attempt to assign guilt by association. Thus he thinks that, for me, a queering of the relationship between Latour and Vaillant would entail a reinterpretation of the entire novel, “because these men are now completely different characters from their normal heterosexual interpretations.” But Seal understands priestly celibacy about as well as he understands male friendship and conservative thinking—that is, not at all. The celibate priest is neither heterosexual nor homosexual; he stands outside the sexual order altogether. The possibility of sexual attraction, to whatever sex, never arises, because he has decided not to respond to other human beings in that way.

My objection to a queer reading of Death Comes for the Archbishop is not that it is “literally sacrilegious,” but that it is an ignoratio elenchi. It is beside the question. It shoots eight or nine yards left of the mark.

On one point, though, Seal is correct. I cannot bear to see Cather’s novel, or any other novel for that matter, misinterpreted. I cannot bear to see error paraded as the truth.

And now the satire as originally written. I reproduce it verbatim.

Abandoning any defense of “experiencing” Death Comes for the Archbishop as a “very queer love story,” Andrew Seal goes on offense. My interpretation of the novel is the objectionable one.

His logic goes something like this:

Love between men is good. It is queer. The men are not gay, but they love each other. So their love is queer. Two men don’t have to go bed to have a very queer love story, even if they are not gay. But Myers is a conservative. Conservatives do not like gays. What do you mean, he favors gay marriage? He is a conservative and all conservatives hate gays. They think all gays are promiscuous. No, no: the men are not gay; I just said so. Don’t interrupt me again. For a conservative like Myers, two men in love cannot stay in love unless they go to bed. But queer love can still be queer love even if the men do not go to bed, although they are not gay and though conservatives think all gays are promiscuous, which is beside the question in their case since they are not gay. (Am I making sense?) Hey, look at their pictures. Myers thinks they cannot be in love because they are ugly. What? You are more immediately struck by their ecclesiastical garb? You think I am only revealing something about myself by calling them ugly? WOULD YOU PLEASE STOP INTERRUPTING ME! Myers thinks that ugly men cannot be attracted to each other, even though they are not gay. Myers is a conservative. He would call their love story a very queer love story, which says a lot about him when you think about it. Even though the phrase is mine.

For the record, I do think that Death Comes for the Archbishop is a terrific story of a friendship. I believe that’s what non-sexual love between two men is called.