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Rendezvous in the Ramble

Gay-Bashers: The Exorcist Syndrome

The behavior of those East Side street toughs arrested in the July 5 episode of park violence gives possible clues to the social circumstances that fostered these beatings.

"I talked to those kids through the barred windows of their cells as they were being held in the Central Park precinct," recalls photographer Allen Tannenbaum. "They seemed proud and unrepentant about what they'd done. As they were being transferred for booking, one of the young men—his T-shirt hiding his head—clowned for the media and cops as he was led away. Lewdly grabbing his crotch and exposing himself, he sneered: 'You wanna have some of this? C'mon an' get it.' The whole atmosphere was not just repulsive, it was frightening."

"They knew exactly what they were looking for—'queers,' " says sex researcher Dr. John Money of those responsible for the Ramble gay bashing. "In every case of this type I've seen in 30 years of work in this field, I have found such young men, on the one hand, attracted to homosexuality and acting it out. On the other, they try to destroy it. I call this the 'exorcist syndrome.' "

"I had a patient with a history of queer baiting. After each assault he'd go home and put on his mom's clothes. He's the type you're dealing with."

Dr. Money, a pediatrician and past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sex, is professor of medical psychology at Johns Hopkins University, chief of its Gender Identity Clinic, and co-editor of the five-volume Handbook of Sexology.

"The folkways of our culture fill our young people with images of homosexuals as sick, evil, less than human. There are so many signals from the home, the school, the church—and from the media—which make homosexuality the daily butt of television humor and have given such publicity to Anita Bryant and her gays-are-child-molesters campaign as to legitimize her views in the eyes of our youth," says Money, recalling the gang-stabbing murder of a San Francisco gay not long ago by youths who shouted, "This is for Anita!" "At the same time, the law itself epitomizes this attitude. The very fact that our laws make homosexuality a crime validates the idea that 'queers' are animals.

"So," says the doctor, "when teenagers see something evil about themselves, one way to get rid of the evil is to destroy it. It's an old story, isn't it?"

Dr. Money recounts a case he encountered in Boston, at the beginning of his sex research, when a gang of youths were involved in a series of attacks on lone gay men. "These kids had already had sex with the men, but those who serviced them were objects, not people. By the way, I have stayed in touch with those kids, now men, for a quarter of a century. They are married with children, and their families do not know to this day that these men still seek out and engage in homosexual activity."

Money believes the assumption that homosexuality can be "taught" or is contagious is "part of the pernicious myth that makes gays sick in the eyes of our kids. It's a silly, simpleminded idea—monkey see, monkey do. If this theory of learning were true, children would come home from Sunday school and crucify their dolls." Or, as comedian George Carlin puts it, "If my teacher could have influenced my sexuality I would have turned out to be a nun."

"Look," sighs Money, "it's like a farm kid who proves his manhood and gets rid of his hostility by going out and shooting a deer. There are no wild animals in New York or any other city; however, the society's values make the 'faggot' easy prey, an urban animal.

"I am presently treating a married man who is a transvestite. Macho by day, a cross-dresser at night. He had a history as a young man of queer-baiting and -beating. And after each beating, he'd go home and put on his mother's clothes. That's the type of person you're dealing with in the beatings in Central Park."
—D.I.

Doug Ireland is a frequent contributor to New York. Certain details in this article have been changed to protect the identities of some people quoted.