The premise is faulty. A person can be “gay” without being part of the gay rights movement, or associated with “gay causes”.
Saying there are no gay conservatives is akin to saying there are no black conservative simply because black organizations are almost all liberal political organizations which fight against conservative causes.
That analogy only extends to the concept of attaching to the name the organizations which carry it, not to the underlying and obvious difference between a person being “gay” and a person being “black”.
It has yet to be proven that being “gay” is not in the end a choice (again, to be clear, being “gay” is not the same as acting “gay” — one always has the choice of action, regardless of one’s “proclivities”).
I have no trouble believing that men who believe they are attracted to other men could also hold to conservative principles, any more than I believe that men who have any attraction to any sin could also have conservative principles.
I don’t think that this principle, as I have narrowly defined it, is a controversal one, even among the conservative activists. I think the problem is that we are using the term “gay conservative” as a placeholder for the more accurate “conservative gay activist”.
I would agree that it is unlikely that a gay activist will also be a conservative, because in my opinion the principles of conservatism would speak against the idea that a person’s sexual characteristics were of interest or concern of the government, or that they should receive special or disparate treatment.
But if we misuse terms, we once again appear to be defining “conservative” membership down to a small minority of the population.We exclude people of certain faiths, we exclude people of certain national origins, we exclude people of certain sexual orientations, we exclude and exclude and exclude, and eventually we have a dozen people in a room, looking at each other, and trying to find some other defining characteristic that 11 of them can use to get rid of the 12th.
I’ve got little use for gay political organizations like Log Cabin or GOProud; but I’m not ready to write off every person who is afflicted with the sin of same-sex attraction, regardless of whether they practice that sin or not.
Well said!
People who struggle with same-sex attractions are not politically problematic: we all have our struggles to live justly and decently with our particular temptations. That doesn't mean we start groups like "Adulterers Proud" or "Serial Divorcers Come Out!"
Star Parker isn't asking for a test to determine who is "privately" afflicted with a disordered sex drive, and who is not. She's drawing the line at the advocacy groups.