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As Gay Becomes Bourgeois
Townhall.com ^ | December 29, 2010 | Jonah Goldberg

Posted on 12/29/2010 11:03:28 AM PST by Kaslin

So now openly gay soldiers get to fight and die in neocon-imperialist wars too?

David Brooks saw such ironic progressive victories coming. In his book "Bobos in Paradise," he wrote that everything "transgressive" gets "digested by the mainstream bourgeois order, and all the cultural weapons that once were used to undermine middle-class morality ... are drained of their subversive content."

Two decades ago, the gay left wanted to smash the bourgeois prisons of monogamy, capitalistic enterprise and patriotic values and bask in the warm sun of bohemian "free love" and avant-garde values. In this, they were simply picking up the torch from the straight left of the 1960s and 1970s, who had sought to throw off the sexual hang-ups of their parents' generation along with their gray flannel suits.

As a sexual lifestyle experiment, they failed pretty miserably, the greatest proof being that the affluent and educated children (and grandchildren) of the baby boomers have re-embraced the bourgeois notion of marriage as an essential part of a successful life. Sadly, it's the lower middle class that increasingly sees marriage as an out-of-reach luxury. The irony is that such bourgeois values -- monogamy, hard work, etc. -- are the best guarantors of success and happiness.

Of course, the lunacy of the bohemian free-love shtick should have been obvious from the get-go. For instance, when Michael Lerner, a member of the anti-Vietnam War "Seattle Seven," did marry, in 1971, the couple exchanged rings made from the fuselage of a U.S. aircraft downed over Vietnam and cut into a cake inscribed in icing with a Weatherman catchphrase, "Smash Monogamy."

Today Lerner is a (divorced and remarried) somewhat preposterous, prosperous progressive rabbi who officiates at all kinds of marriages -- gay and straight -- and, like pretty much the entire left, loves the idea of open gays becoming cogs in the military-industrial complex.

The gay experiment with open bohemianism was arguably shorter. Of course, AIDS played an obvious and tragic role in focusing attention on the downside of promiscuity. But even so, the sweeping embrace of bourgeois lifestyles by the gay community has been stunning.

Nowhere is this more evident -- and perhaps exaggerated -- than in popular culture. Watch ABC's "Modern Family." The sitcom is supposed to be "subversive" in part because it features a gay couple with an adopted daughter from Asia. And you can see why both liberal proponents and conservative opponents of gay marriage see it that way. But imagine you hate the institution of marriage and then watch "Modern Family's" hardworking bourgeois gay couple through those eyes. What's being subverted? Traditional marriage, or some bohemian identity politics fantasy of homosexuality?

By the way, according to a recent study, "Modern Family" is the No. 1 sitcom among Republicans (and the third show overall behind Glenn Beck and "The Amazing Race") but not even in the top 15 among Democrats, who prefer darker shows like Showtime's "Dexter," about a serial killer trying to balance work and family between murders.

Or look at the decision to let gays openly serve in the military through the eyes of a principled hater of all things military. From that perspective, gays have just been co-opted by The Man. Meanwhile, the folks who used "don't ask, don't tell" as an excuse to keep the military from recruiting on campuses just saw their argument go up in flames.

Personally, I have always felt that gay marriage was an inevitability, for good or ill (most likely both). I do not think that the arguments against gay marriage are all grounded in bigotry, and I find some of the arguments persuasive. But I also find it cruel and absurd to tell gays that living the free-love lifestyle is abominable while at the same time telling them that their committed relationships are illegitimate too.

Many of my conservative friends -- who oppose both civil unions and gay marriage and object to rampant promiscuity --often act as if there's some grand alternative lifestyle for gays. But there isn't. And given that open homosexuality is simply a fact of life, the rise of the HoBos -- the homosexual bourgeoisie -- strikes me as good news.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: homosexualagenda
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To: Sherman Logan; DJ MacWoW; Darksheare
Never said otherwise, regardless of what some have read into a post.

Then why are you trying to legitimize homosexuality by talking about "consensual" relationships?

The medical and mental health field is supposed to be about getting people to END deviant and abnormal behavior. But you seem to say that it's okay because the person desires to do it, the problem is that their desire is a major symptom of a mental illness.

121 posted on 12/29/2010 12:56:56 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: Darksheare

Disingenuous. Just because one recognizes there are other cultures, doesn’t mean they are better (or worse) than one’s own.


122 posted on 12/29/2010 12:57:04 PM PST by TexNewMex
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To: TexNewMex; DJ MacWoW

But if the age of consent is magically reduced via government fiat as the recent push tried to do, what happens to those children?


123 posted on 12/29/2010 12:57:04 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: TexNewMex

A chicken hawk RECRUITS. That’s what homosexuals do. RECRUIT. I used to bar hop with my homosexual brother who himself was recruited by a rich, old chicken hawk. Most people have NO idea what the truth is.


124 posted on 12/29/2010 12:57:10 PM PST by DJ MacWoW (If Bam is the answer, the question was stupid.)
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To: Sherman Logan
Please see post 112.

I did. I laughed.

125 posted on 12/29/2010 12:58:12 PM PST by DJ MacWoW (If Bam is the answer, the question was stupid.)
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To: Darksheare

What reduction in the age of consent?


126 posted on 12/29/2010 12:58:27 PM PST by TexNewMex
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To: TexNewMex

Nope, not disingenuous at all.
This is America.
We are a cultural melting pot.
You assimilate with us, or GTFO as Teddy Roosevelt said.
And I noticed you are mostly posting to me.
Did you get a “help me” note?


127 posted on 12/29/2010 12:58:30 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Graybeard58

I’ve known a couple like that, who at least had the sense to keep it to themselves. Then when it becomes a political movement, here came the outing and the accompanying promiscuity.

Both are now deceased from AIDS.


128 posted on 12/29/2010 12:59:22 PM PST by A_Former_Democrat (NO MOS-que AP: It's the "GROUND ZERO MOSQUE")
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To: DJ MacWoW

I believe I know exactly what you’re talking about. But if you think I’m mistaken, could you explain more fully? What exactly did your brother do?


129 posted on 12/29/2010 1:02:36 PM PST by TexNewMex
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To: TexNewMex; Darksheare; DJ MacWoW; little jeremiah; trisham; scripter; metmom
Disingenuous. Just because one recognizes there are other cultures, doesn’t mean they are better (or worse) than one’s own.

You've been here seven months (or maybe longer, who knows), so I'm a bit curious about your commments on this thread.

130 posted on 12/29/2010 1:03:06 PM PST by wagglebee ("A political party cannot be all things to all people." -- Ronald Reagan, 3/1/75)
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To: TexNewMex; Sherman Logan

I don’t know, but one thing’s for certain. If anyone wishes to support homosexualism or the homosexual agenda, they’ll have to do it elsewhere. FR is 100 percent opposed to the homosexual agenda and we don’t want it on FR.


131 posted on 12/29/2010 1:03:33 PM PST by Jim Robinson (Rebellion is brewing!! Nuke the corrupt commie bastards to HELL!!)
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To: Darksheare

Didst thou note the smiley? Even if I made it backwards by accident.

Anybody who claims that it is beyond the pale to even discuss other cultures and values, without claiming they are superior to ours, is more or less by definition xenophobic.

–noun
an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange.

Reasonable people can disagree on what is “unreasonable fear or hatred” in a given case, but claiming it is inappropriate to even discuss other groups would certainly seem to qualify.


132 posted on 12/29/2010 1:03:56 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: TexNewMex

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2578788/posts
http://www.article8.org/docs/general/platform.htm
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2578788/posts?page=7#7
Ruth Bader Ginsberg wrote in an opinion that the age of censent should be lowered to 11.
Others said 14 [planned parenthood if memory serves]


133 posted on 12/29/2010 1:04:58 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Darksheare

Sorry — when? Can you be specific?


134 posted on 12/29/2010 1:04:58 PM PST by TexNewMex
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To: TexNewMex
What exactly did your brother do?

You mean besides be recruited by a rich old chicken hawk? He's a homosexual. What do you think he was doing? The nights he was with me, nothing but drinking.

135 posted on 12/29/2010 1:06:04 PM PST by DJ MacWoW (If Bam is the answer, the question was stupid.)
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To: Sherman Logan

Smiley means nothing in the context of your actions.
Many trolls over the years have thought that using smiley would hide their intent.


136 posted on 12/29/2010 1:06:37 PM PST by Darksheare (I shook hands with Sheryl Crow and all I got was Typhus and a single sheet of toilet paper.)
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To: Sherman Logan
Not all consensual sexual relationships are morally right. Notably all those involving children, but there are other examples.

It is not legally consensual if the person is not of the age of consent.

137 posted on 12/29/2010 1:06:39 PM PST by SeeSac
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To: wagglebee

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

Consensual: existing or made by mutual consent

That a given relationship or activity is consensual says nothing at all about whether it is right or wrong, only about whether the parties involved are engaged in it voluntarily.

People very frequently engage in wrong behavior consensually. For instance, if you and I agree to hold up the liquor store, our doing so is consensual between the two of us. It is not generally, of course, consensual on the part of the liquor store owner.

All I asked, originally, is what actions should be taken to enforce our moral opinions of homosexuality against those who voluntarily (perhaps you prefer that term) engage in it. Above the legal age of consent, of course.


138 posted on 12/29/2010 1:09:55 PM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: Darksheare

I was posting to you because I answered one of your comments, and now wevare having a conversation. ; ). There are so many topics involved; regarding assimilation, immigrants have brought a lot of traditions to the American culture, like Christmas trees (German). That made me think aboutbwhat other, not “cutesy/quaint/food” ideas immigrants may have introduced. I’d like to see if I can think of some. I’ll bet there are some. What do you think?


139 posted on 12/29/2010 1:10:18 PM PST by TexNewMex
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To: AEMILIUS PAULUS; onyx

The CA legislator is Mark Leno. He’s now in the state senate.


140 posted on 12/29/2010 1:10:48 PM PST by newzjunkey
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