The Right Can't Win This Fight

LA Times ^ | May 20, 2004 | Max Boot

[neverdem]

With gay marriage on a roll, it's time to move on to another battle.

For decades, social conservatives have been fighting and losing culture wars. Contraception and abortion — once taboo topics — have been enshrined into law. The rates of premarital sex, out-of-wedlock births and divorce have soared since the 1950s (though lately most of these indexes have leveled off or declined slightly). In school, prayer is out; sex education is in. On TV, characters used to say "gee whiz" and sleep in twin beds; now they curse as if they had Tourette's syndrome and flash skin as if they were Gypsy Rose Lee.

This doesn't mean that America is in cultural decline; no one who saw the response to 9/11 can think we are soft or decadent. It does mean there is little mystery about how the latest culture war — over gay marriage — will turn out. Opponents of same-sex marriages may have most of the public on their side for now, but they've already all but lost this battle.

How do I know? Simply by looking at the arguments being advanced by both sides. Advocates of same-sex marriage speak in the powerful language of civil rights and liken their cause to that of African Americans fighting anti-miscegenation laws in years past. And what do opponents say in response? Once upon a time, the case would have been open and shut: Sodomy is a sin, period. Many people may still believe that, but that's no longer a tenable argument in our secularized politics.

[gcruse]

Brought on by a court that chooses to make Law, not enforce it.

Yet, I have seen times when better law comes from reasoned consideration of the issues involved instead of whichever special interest paid the legislators last.  And since case law is comprised of judicial precedence, courts have been making law since the country's founding.

[neverdem]

I checked your link. The most common cause of the spread of HIV is gay male sex; second most common cause (35% v. 42%) is heterosexual sex. Meanwhile, lesbian sexual contact isn't even on the chart; presumably lost in the 1.8% "other". By your logic, we should ban all sex except for lesbian sex.

Be advised these 29 states do not include most states with the largest cities where gay folks tend to concentrate, and that many folks now believe that the actual number of gays in the total population is 2 - 3%. The "logic" I'm advancing is that promiscuous behavior can lead to a death sentence.

[EdReform]

Bump & Ping

What We Can Do To Help Defeat the "Gay" Agenda

Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Version 1.1)

Myth and Reality about Homosexuality--Sexual Orientation Section, Guide to Family Issues"

Bump & Ping

What We Can Do To Help Defeat the "Gay" Agenda

Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Version 1.1)

Myth and Reality about Homosexuality--Sexual Orientation Section, Guide to Family Issues"

[Lib=Liar]

This is crazy. This type of sexual perversion is not a civil right but a violation of God's laws and no court (no matter how enlightened you think they are) can ever convince God otherwise. Have your fun now, but the supporters of this will be on their knees at the final judgement saying --- "but but but Ruth Bader Ginsberg said it was ok...." Not going to fly.

[EdReform]

Consider this excerpt from Culture of Vice:

"The homosexual cause has moved naturally from a plea for tolerance to cultural conquest. As Robert Reilly notes a society can withstand any number of person who try to advance their own moral disorders as public policy. But it cannot survive once it adopts the justifications for whose moral disorders as its own. This is what is at stake in the culture war...

For any individual, moral failure is hard to live with because of the rebuke of conscience. Habitual moral failure, what used to be called vice, can be lived with only by obliterating conscience through rationalization. When we rationalize, we convince ourselves that heretofore forbidden desires are permissible. We advance the reality of the desires over the reality of the moral order to which the desires should be subordinated. In our minds we replace the reality of moral order with something more congenial to the activity we are excusing. In short, we assert that bad is good...

It is often difficult to detect rationalizations when one is living directly under their influence, and so historical examples are useful. One of the clearest was offered at the Nuremberg trials by Dr. Karl Brandt, who had been in charge of the Nazi regime's Aktion T-4 euthanasia program. He said in his defense: “...when I said `yes' to euthanasia I did so with the deepest conviction, just as it is my conviction today, that it was right. Death can mean deliverance. Death is life.”

Unlike Dr. Brandt, most people recover from their rationalizations when remorse and reality set back in. But when morally disordered acts become the defining centerpiece of one's life, vice can permanently pervert reason. Entrenched moral aberrations then impel people to rationalize vice not only to themselves but to others as well. Thus rationalizations become an engine for revolutionary change that will affect society as a whole.

The power of rationalization drives the culture war, gives it its particular revolutionary character, and makes its advocates indefatigable. It may draw its energy from desperation, but it is all the more powerful for that. Since failed rationalization means self-recrimination, it must be avoided at all cost. For this reason, the differences over which the culture war is being fought are not subject to reasoned discourse. Persons protecting themselves by rationalizing are interested not in finding the truth, but in maintaining the illusion that allows them to continue their behavior. For them to succeed in this, everyone must accede to their rationalization. This is why revolutionary change is required. The necessity for self-justification requires the complicity of the whole culture. Holdouts cannot be tolerated because they are potential rebukes. The self-hatred, anger, and guilt that a person possessed of a functioning conscience would normally feel from doing wrong are redirected by the rationalization and projected upon society as a whole (if the society is healthy), or upon those in society who do not accept the rationalization.

The homosexual movement's rationalization is far more widely advanced in its claims. According to Jeffrey Levi, former executive director for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, “We (homosexuals)_ are no longer seeking just a right to privacy and a right to protection from wrong. We have a right - as heterosexuals have already - to see government and society affirm our lives.” Since only the act of sodomy differentiates an active homosexual from a heterosexual, homosexuals want “government and society” to affirm that sodomy is morally equivalent to the marital act. “Coming out of the closet” can only mean an assent on the level of moral principle to what would otherwise be considered morally disordered.

And so it must be. If you are going to center your public life on the private act of sodomy, you had better transform sodomy into a highly moral act. If sodomy is a moral disorder, it cannot be legitimately advanced on the legal or civil level. On the other hand, if it is a highly moral act, it should serve as the basis for marriage, family (adoption), and community. As a moral act, sodomy should be normative. If it is normative, it should be taught in our schools as a standard. In fact, homosexuality should be hieratic: active homosexuals should be ordained as priests. All of this is happening. It was predictable. The homosexual cause moved naturally from a plea for tolerance to cultural conquest. How successful that conquest has been can be seen in the poverty of the rhetoric of its opponents. In supporting the Defense of Marriage Act, the best one congressman could do was to say, “America is not yet ready for homosexual marriage,” as if we simply need a decent interval to adjust ourselves to its inevitable arrival.

The homosexual rationalization is so successful that even the campaign against AIDS is part of it, with its message that “everyone is at risk.” If everyone is at risk, the disease cannot be related to specific behavior. Yet homosexual acts are the single greatest risk factor in catching AIDS. This unpleasant fact invites unwelcome attention to the nature of homosexual acts, so it must be ignored."

[Ben Chad]

Bumper sticker seen recently:

SUPPORT AIDS

[Agnes Heep]

If you had told me in 1980 that the Soviet Union would be gone in less than a decade, I'd have said you were off your rocker.

[Brandon]

Be advised these 29 states do not include most states with the largest cities where gay folks tend to concentrate,

I don't know of any evidence to support this. It may be that gays are more likely to be "out" in big cities.

and that many folks now believe that the actual number of gays in the total population is 2 - 3%.

The numbers are all over the lot on this. I've seen anything from 2% (the number you cite) to 10%. Not to be Clintonian, but it depends on how you define "gay".

The "logic" I'm advancing is that promiscuous behavior can lead to a death sentence.

That's a rather scary way to put it. I'd say that promiscuous behavior makes it a lot more likely that you'll pick up one or more nasty diseases, and that some of them are fatal. But that applies to straights as well as gays, so why single out the gays?

And in any case, lesbians are still completely off the radar screen, so if your only concern is public health, they should be completely exempt from any concern.

[Brandon]

This is crazy. This type of sexual perversion is not a civil right but a violation of God's laws and no court (no matter how enlightened you think they are) can ever convince God otherwise. Have your fun now, but the supporters of this will be on their knees at the final judgement saying --- "but but but Ruth Bader Ginsberg said it was ok...." Not going to fly.

You may be right. But if so, right along next to them will be the people who thought it was fitting for them to be the judges.

[Ken H]

Premarital sex/out-of-wedlock births/divorce = Vagabond, fatherless children/spiritual vacuum/increased susceptibility to sexual immorality and perversion.

There is simply no substitute for the traditional mom/dad family. Anything else puts the kid at much higher risk for poor school performance, delinquency, and other social pathologies.

IMO, a large share of the blame goes to Federal programs over the last few generations. We have rewarded out-of-wedlock births and subsidized sloth.

This in turn required higher taxes on traditional families making it harder to get by on a single income.

You can thank liberal contempt for the Constitution for turning the General Welfare Clause into the Santa Clause.

[Democratshavenobrains]

Everyone here can call Boot a social liberal, but he is right. Most ordinary people either don't care very much about gays marrying or they are too scared to speak out against it.

[gcruse]

God doesn't vote.

[scripter]

The numbers are all over the lot on this. I've seen anything from 2% (the number you cite) to 10%. Not to be Clintonian, but it depends on how you define "gay".

The numbers may be hard to pinpoint, but the 10% is from a very flawed Kinsey study. From what I understand, a 2.1% figure includes bisexuals. I have a link to it somehere here but don't have the time to look right now.

[davidtalker]

Sorry to say Boot is correct.

The Left is relentless. We are sitting back watching this unfold. The only way to beat this effort is with a Constitutional Amendment. That's not going to happen. In the past few weeks States have rejected a "Defense Of Marriage Act." States such as Kansas and Georgia. If they can't pass these rather bland bills now they will never vote for a Constitutional Amendment. Remember, it takes 38 States.

The only question will be how many States move to full fledged Gay Marriage. How many opt for "Domestic Unions" and how many outlaw both.

There was a story this past week discussing how little response there has been by Social Conservatives in organizing an opposition. Rev. Lou Sheldon said his phones were quiet. The fact is, we just don't believe it will directly harm ourselves and our families. This is wrong. However, by the time people wake up it will be too late.

[Integrityrocks]

"God doesn't vote."


Ha!!! I love it!

I read everyone's posts and I think just about everyone is right. But, this line says it all. God IS in control.. He has His ways in His time.

[vanmorrison]

In a few hundred years, when what's left of our collapsed society ponders what were the causes of the dissolution of the US in what few hamlets and villages are left, after the great conflagration of WWIII brought upon the western world by the Moslem hordes, and all that remains of our Christian civilization goes underground, the main reason given for our destruction will be FEMALE SUFFRAGE!!!

Sorry to say, ladies, but all of the destructive and degenerate evils that we see tearing our culture and society apart, like out-of-control nanny welfare statism, unfettered abortion, and a free-and-easy attitude toward rampant homosexuality, has been the result of idiotic and naive policies foisted on this country largely by the female segment of our society. And this Abu Ghraib lunacy is the result of relying on females for the defense of this country!

We ARE doomed, and at the hands of our own "better half"!!!

[neverdem]

"Be advised these 29 states do not include most states with the largest cities where gay folks tend to concentrate",

I don't know of any evidence to support this. It may be that gays are more likely to be "out" in big cities.

Gays migrate to large cities for a number of reasons, e.g. getting lost in the anonymity, more easily meet other gays, getting away from home where their behavior would be ostracized, etc. I live in NYC. Can't you take anything from anecdotal experience? "Try googling" gays+cities.

"and that many folks now believe that the actual number of gays in the total population is 2 - 3%."

The numbers are all over the lot on this. I've seen anything from 2% (the number you cite) to 10%. Not to be Clintonian, but it depends on how you define "gay".

I believe it was "Masters and Johnson" who generated that 10% number quite a while ago, and that their methods used to generate it have since come into question. Gays are the only ones who still quote it. You can go to the website "PubMed" and enter sexuality AND demographics or sexual orientation AND demographics. AND needs to be capitalized there to function as a Boolean operator.

"The "logic" I'm advancing is that promiscuous behavior can lead to a death sentence."

That's a rather scary way to put it. I'd say that promiscuous behavior makes it a lot more likely that you'll pick up one or more nasty diseases, and that some of them are fatal. But that applies to straights as well as gays, so why single out the gays?

I wasn't necessarily singling out gays from straights. I was trying to show their disproportionate effect on the HIV/AIDS problem from the public health angle. Many of those folks who engage in MSM are also bisexual and transmit it to heterosexual females.

And in any case, lesbians are still completely off the radar screen, so if your only concern is public health, they should be completely exempt from any concern.

They are reported to have their own psychopathology, but that's another problem. Be my guest and check out PubMed. That's how I found my link. Adios

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

He sure as hell voted in the 2000 Presidential election.

[neverdem]

BTTT

[Brandon]

Gays migrate to large cities for a number of reasons, e.g. getting lost in the anonymity, more easily meet other gays, getting away from home where their behavior would be ostracized, etc. I live in NYC. Can't you take anything from anecdotal experience? "Try googling" gays+cities.

No, as a matter of fact, you cannot take anything from anecdotes. Unless you have some hard data to back you up, your suppositions are of no value.

I believe it was "Masters and Johnson" who generated that 10% number quite a while ago, and that their methods used to generate it have since come into question. Gays are the only ones who still quote it. You can go to the website "PubMed" and enter sexuality AND demographics or sexual orientation AND demographics. AND needs to be capitalized there to function as a Boolean operator.

As I said, I've seen numbers all over the place on this -- and not just M&J. I do think it depends to a significant extent on how one defines "gay" (Does a one-time drunken encounter in a fraternity make you "gay"? Is someone who is celibate his entire life, but fantasizes exclusively about other men, "gay"? Is someone who sleeps with both men and women "gay"?), and both the pro- and anti-gay people have reasons to skew the numbers.

I wasn't necessarily singling out gays from straights. I was trying to show their disproportionate effect on the HIV/AIDS problem from the public health angle. Many of those folks who engage in MSM are also bisexual and transmit it to heterosexual females.

I'm not sure you've demonstrated a disproportionate effect. Nearly as many people contracted HIV through hetereosexual contact. Your theory that it was men getting it from other men and then passing it on to women is a plausible theory, but it is only a theory. But if all you're saying is that you want to treat this as a public health problem, and teach safe sex and encourage gays as well as straights to enter into monogamous relationships, I'm all for it.

"And in any case, lesbians are still completely off the radar screen, so if your only concern is public health, they should be completely exempt from any concern."

They are reported to have their own psychopathology, but that's another problem. Be my guest and check out PubMed. That's how I found my link. Adios

Reported by whom? Sorry, do your own research. If your concern is that gay male sex is disproportionately responsible for the spread of HIV, you may be right, and there are public health measures that can be taken. But you've presented zero evidence that lesbianism contributes to the problem.