Dornan Shows Only Himself in Portrayal of Pro-Choice Males

Since I’m deeply into self-awareness, I find it instructive and sometimes helpful to weigh what other people think of me. That’s why I’m especially grateful to our soft-spoken Orange County Congressman Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove). Speaking the other day to an anti-abortion rally in Washington, D.C., he described in graphic detail a rather large group of people to whom, I fear, I belong.

Said Dornan: “I tend to trivialize the men (in the pro-choice movement). They’re either women trapped in men’s bodies, like Alan Alda and Phil Donahue, or younger guys who are like camp followers looking for easy lays. Those males don’t vote. And when they do, they’re starry-eyed liberal Democrats who subscribe to Playboy.”

Well, now, since--with a few cavils here and there, something the pro-lifers never concern themselves with--I consider myself pro-choice, I have to accept the fact that Rep. Dornan is talking about me. If I were less self-assured, I suppose I could get defensive and perhaps a little hostile at this point.

I could say something like: “I tend to avoid playing tennis or attending baseball games with the men in the pro-life movement. They’re either frightened out of their wits by the prospect of a woman taking charge of her own body, or they’re older guys whose heads have hardened sufficiently that a contrary idea or point-of-view couldn’t be implanted with a hammer and chisel. They vote for single-issue candidates who support their prejudices and tend to subscribe to Reader’s Digest, which they frequently have difficulty in reading.”

But, of course, I wouldn’t do that because 1) I don’t need to, and 2) I don’t believe it. The anti-abortion people have a perfectly legitimate point of view with which I don’t happen to agree. But that doesn’t make them bad people, except when they act like storm troopers or sound off from what they consider a safe seat in Congress.

However, being a pointy-headed liberal who wants eternally to be liked, I took Rep. Dornan’s words to heart and measured them against what I know of myself to see how I could change--short of switching to the other side--so Dornan would like me better. And I found this exercise troubling because his description didn’t seem to fit all that well.

Taking it point by point, I’d like to put in a word for Alan Alda. I don’t know Phil Donahue, but I do know Alda from my Hollywood beat writing days, and if Dornan is suggesting that Alda is effeminate, he’s wrong, and if I were Alda, I’d be a little bit irritated at Dornan.

But I suspect Alda (along with anyone who has ever studied Psychology I) recognizes that all men--to varying degrees--have women in them, and vice versa. We’re all a mix of male and female qualities up and down the register, and the people who function best in this world are the people who recognize that and make the best they can out of both sides of themselves.

And the people who function least well are those who are so frightened at this prospect that they compensate by mindless tough talk--or by applying a necktie chokehold on those who don’t agree with them, a tactic Dornan has apparently found to be persuasive.

Now since, along with Donahue and Alda, I don’t qualify as a “younger guy,” then I don’t have to ask if I’m a “camp follower looking for an easy lay.” Two implications here bother me a little: first that Donahue and Alda and I are no longer interested in or of interest to the opposite sex, and, second, that the pro-choice women are ready to jump into bed instantly with any “younger” men who show support for their cause.

I don’t think either assumption holds up very well.

Lack of specific knowledge in the cases of Donahue and Alda and modesty on my part prevent me from exploring the first any further--although I strongly challenge it.

As for the second, Dornan offered no evidence of promiscuity on the part of pro-choice women, and my own observations and a quick survey I made of a half-dozen such women resulted in indignant denials followed by a high degree of hostility toward Dornan and some anatomical suggestions that he might find awkward.

As for “those males” not voting, again Dornan offered no evidence to support his thesis. I haven’t missed voting--including elections on bond issues, vacuous referendums and obscure public officials--for more decades than I care to remember. I will admit that I frequently, but not always, have voted for the more liberal candidate of position (which is sometimes hard to figure out in Orange County). Whether I was “starry-eyed” is doubtful since in about 78% of the cases, I found nothing attractive about either candidate and was reduced to voting for the one least objectionable.

And, finally, I have never subscribed to Playboy, although I have read their front-of-the-book interviews as often as possible ever since President Jimmy Carter admitted in that space that he had been known to “lust” after women, an admission that might have made things easier for Richard Nixon a few years later.

Under close analysis, what all this seems to add up to is not very much. I was hoping it might tell me some helpful things about myself, but it would appear that the only person it really tells us very much about is Rep. Dornan.

I hope his constituents are listening--and that Alan Alda has a chance to get him by the necktie some day.