Replies

To be entirely honest, I was less put off by Jim’s original post than I was by some of the comments on this thread. To be clear; this is Mr. Robinson’s site and he has every right to manage his property the way he pleases; such is not censorship, it is freedom.

I chose to read every post on thread before offering comment, and have now done so, up to the minute. It is more than evident that emotions are running high on the subject and in such events, it is common to observe far more heat being generated than light.

With that preface, I ask that anyone reading my words here do so as dispassionately as you can. In essence, I believe that the people "yelling" at each other since yesterday both have some valid points to make, but in a way, many are missing the most important point of all, and that involves our essential humanity - all of us.

I, too opposed the repeal of DADT as an unnecessary and provocative act of social engineering in one of America’s few remaining uncorrupted institutions - the U.S. military.

There is, in fact, a radical homosexual agenda being promoted by a powerful and well-funded minority that seeks to undermine our culture and traditional notions of morality. This agenda is being abetted by Progressive organizations seeking to fundamentally transform America into a secular socialist welfare state whose sovereignty is sublimated to an emerging system of global governance.

Among the means by which that is being accomplished is an undermining of our military, primarily by seeking to impede its readiness and morale.

It is my intention to fight the intentional destruction of our economy, our culture and our liberty, and have met many people on this board with whom I have made common cause.

But notwithstanding any of the above - I cannot and will not stand with anyone who promotes hatred, including hatred of homosexuals.

Lest anyone forget, we are talking about human beings here, not animals, not monsters. Not all gay people are radicals, pedophiles or perverts. Some - I would argue a silent majority - are content to live their lives quietly and keep their sexuality to themselves. I know this to be true because I have known so many of them in my 50+ years on Earth that two things have become quite evident to me:

1. Except in rare cases, homosexuals do not choose their identity. They are born the way they are.

2. Most gays do not desire, nor do they deserve special rights or privileges. They do not ask for approval - only acceptance as fellow human beings.

It is the radical homosexual element that provokes strong negative feelings from traditional people - and it should. Anyone who uses their sexual preference to promote bad and dangerous behavior deserves our condemnation and our scorn. It might not be a bad idea to pray for them as well.

But I am repelled by the words of some who preach hatred of an entire class of human beings rather then look at them as individuals, for that is what secular collectivists do, and it is also what radical Islamists do. In my humble opinion, it is not how Christians and Jews ought to behave, especially in this wonderful, joyous season.

-Andy

To be entirely honest, I was less put off by Jim’s original post than I was by some of the comments on this thread. To be clear; this is Mr. Robinson’s site and he has every right to manage his property the way he pleases; such is not censorship, it is freedom.
I chose to read every post on thread before offering comment, and have now done so, up to the minute. It is more than evident that emotions are running high on the subject and in such events, it is common to observe far more heat being generated than light.

Sound as a nut. Though I would ponder myself the question that, if indeed FR is a private property qua private property, instead of a privately-owned forum of public comment, paid membership would not be unreasonable, and restrictions upon certain expression would not be unreasonable as, indeed, any private property owner has the implicit right to bar from his or her home expression he or she deems offencive.

With that preface, I ask that anyone reading my words here do so as dispassionately as you can. In essence, I believe that the people "yelling" at each other since yesterday both have some valid points to make, but in a way, many are missing the most important point of all, and that involves our essential humanity - all of us.

I fear some of the comments since yours indicate that yelling and screaming are considered proper tools of discourse still. Never mind that a valid argument does not require yelling or screaming but that yelling and screaming will often as not provoke the intended recipient to dismiss it more readily than to accept it, whatever the recipient might think of the argument in question.

I, too opposed the repeal of DADT as an unnecessary and provocative act of social engineering in one of America’s few remaining uncorrupted institutions - the U.S. military.

I share that view.

There is, in fact, a radical homosexual agenda being promoted by a powerful and well-funded minority that seeks to undermine our culture and traditional notions of morality. This agenda is being abetted by Progressive organizations seeking to fundamentally transform America into a secular socialist welfare state whose sovereignty is sublimated to an emerging system of global governance.
Among the means by which that is being accomplished is an undermining of our military, primarily by seeking to impede its readiness and morale.
It is my intention to fight the intentional destruction of our economy, our culture and our liberty, and have met many people on this board with whom I have made common cause.

Indeed.

But notwithstanding any of the above - I cannot and will not stand with anyone who promotes hatred, including hatred of homosexuals.

I stand with that.

Lest anyone forget, we are talking about human beings here, not animals, not monsters. Not all gay people are radicals, pedophiles or perverts. Some - I would argue a silent majority - are content to live their lives quietly and keep their sexuality to themselves.

This is my own experience as well. I have known gays over my life and those I have known are precisely as you say. They are also far less comfortable than portrayed with the radicals, the pedophiles, the perverts. They are quite committed to living precisely as some would sneer at to be a false premise: they practise their quiet declaration that they are as they are and wish simply to live, if you'll pardon the expression, unmolested. Not merely by the heterosexual world in which you and I live, but by the radicals, the pedophiles, the perverts, who have---perversely enough, if you'll pardon the expression---this much in common with the haters among the non-gays: a refusal (for quite different reasons) to let them live unmolested. When this silent majority says it's nobody's business how they live behind closed doors, the haters and the radicals alike rejoin, and quite violently, "That's what you think!"

For myself, I don't care who does what with whom behind closed doors, however abominable I think their sexual tastes and practices may be, so long as it is kept there and not flaunted in the faces of those who reject them. (Just for the record, I've known heterosexuals who have sexual tastes and practises that damn near make homosexual sex seem the essence of cleanliness by comparison. [BDSM anyone?] Perhaps only by comparison, but there you have it.) The silent homosexual majority of whom you speak would agree to that and, indeed, ask little more than that of anyone---including of the radicals, the pedophiles, and the perverts within the homosexual world.

The very silence of that silent majority can be deafening; one wishes more of that silent majority would speak and/or write forthrightly enough against the radicals, the pedophiles, the perverts. Some do so, only to be drowned by the radicals. And, concurrently, by the kind of hater to which you refer.

I have known so many of them in my 50+ years on Earth that two things have become quite evident to me:
1. Except in rare cases, homosexuals do not choose their identity. They are born the way they are.
2. Most gays do not desire, nor do they deserve special rights or privileges. They do not ask for approval - only acceptance as fellow human beings.

I could not vouchsafe authoritatively point number 1. (I simply do not know, and I don't pretend otherwise.) But I think I've made plain enough that with point number 2 I concur.

It is the radical homosexual element that provokes strong negative feelings from traditional people - and it should. Anyone who uses their sexual preference to promote bad and dangerous behavior deserves our condemnation and our scorn. It might not be a bad idea to pray for them as well.

Sound as a nut, again. Well worth the repetition you offered.

But I am repelled by the words of some who preach hatred of an entire class of human beings rather then look at them as individuals, for that is what secular collectivists do, and it is also what radical Islamists do. In my humble opinion, it is not how Christians and Jews ought to behave, especially in this wonderful, joyous season.

I am repelled likewise.

But I fall back upon the counsel of one Frank Chodorov. He wrote in 1949 about Communists, specifically, but what he said could well enough apply to just about anyone with an animating agenda---or anti-agenda, if you will---and a concurrent hunger for its adoption or imposition: The danger, for those who hold freedom as the highest ideal, is not the ideas (held) but the power (sought). Let them rant their heads off---that is their right, which we cannot afford to infringe---but let us keep from them the political means of depriving everybody else of the same right.

This is my concurrent problem with the radical gay agenda. Taken strictly as an agenda it is of no concern to people such as ourselves; taken strictly as an agenda, it is nothing more and nothing less than an ideal and a hope onto which a certain group of people hold. So long as they do nothing more than hold it, it is no danger to us. When they graduate from holding it to hungering and working for its imposition upon everybody else, it becomes a danger to us and, in fact, is.

Let them rant their heads off. Let us keep from them the political means of depriving everybody else of the right to challenge, oppose, and defeat their aim.

As also the haters. (I know, I know, there are those who would consider any opponent to the radical gay agenda a "hater," but let's set that to one side for the moment.) Let them rant their heads off. Let us keep from them, too, the political means of depriving everybody else of the right to challenge, oppose, and defeat their furies. Because those furies, I fear inevitably, leave us in the very danger you and I would not wish and they profess to fear. A danger upon which the very radical agenda (not merely the radical gay agenda, but the radical collectivist agenda) you and I would oppose, feeds ravenously, at the expense of one and all to whom freedom is so precious.

I applaud your commentary, even as I mourn that to some it must have seemed like bravery to comment as you did.