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Time to face facts: Gays gain victory
townhall ^ | June 20, 2003 | Jonah Goldberg

Posted on 06/19/2003 9:18:40 PM PDT by TLBSHOW

Time to face facts: Gays gain victory

The gays have won. The problem is no one will admit it.

The biggest and latest news is that Canada is poised to legalize same-sex marriage. But the signs of the gay victory have been all around for us for years.

The sitcom "Will and Grace" features openly gay characters who joke about their sex lives in ways that little more than a decade ago would have sparked complaints if uttered by heterosexuals, let alone homosexuals. Showtime's "Queer as Folk" depicts random gay sex in precisely the same trivial terms that HBO's "Sex in the City" depicts random heterosexual sex, which is to say with an air of unbridled celebration.

For the popular culture this signals the final stage of mainstreaming homosexuality. After repeated protests from gay groups in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hollywood stopped casting gays and lesbians as villains (think of "No Way Out" and "Basic Instinct"). By the end of the '90s, gays could be found all over movies and TV, but they were depicted as virtuous celibates. In movies like "Sling Blade," "My Best Friend's Wedding" and that execrable drek by Madonna "The Next Best Thing," gays were cast as the only decent and honorable white men around.

My favorite example was the gay character from the Fox nighttime soap, "Melrose Place," which ran for most of the 1990s. Every straight character in the show was having sex at the drop of a hat. Except, for the gay guy, Matt Fielding, played by Doug Savant.

Almost every episode featured the gay pretty boy lecturing his straight friends about their reckless promiscuity or bailing them out from their dysfunctional relationships while he remained as chaste as Greg Brady on "The Brady Bunch."

But the gay victory doesn't just manifest itself in the popular culture. The mainstream media has collectively decided to mainstream gays. The New York Times runs gay "marriage" announcements alongside straight ones in its wedding notices section (aka "the chick sports pages").

On Father's Day, CNN "Sunday Night" ran a long interview with the Asian-American gay actor B.D. Wong about his book Following Foo, which chronicles his efforts as a gay parent. Never raising a hint of controversy, let alone objection, to the issue of gay adoption, the interviewer closed the discussion by noting how much better off the world would be if all fathers were like Wong.

That may or may not be true, but such a comment would be unimaginable in a world where gays were on the defensive.

Indeed, at the same time as all of this, it is all but impossible to say a negative word about gays in public settings (unless you're gay yourself). For example, in March, when Senator Rick Santorum echoed almost verbatim the language of a Supreme Court decision in an interview with an AP reporter, he was widely denounced as a "bigot" and "homophobe."

Earlier this month, Attorney General John Ashcroft reportedly tried to cancel a scheduled Gay Pride Month celebration at the Department of Justice for lesbian and gay employees. He failed. Despite pressure from social conservative activists, DOJ reversed course in the face of protests from gay groups and a sympathetic media (and, probably, pressure from the White House).

When the most famous and powerful member of the Religious Right in the U.S. government can't stop a gay pride event in his own office building, held by his own employees, you know that social conservatives are losing this fight.

And now Canada is moving rapidly to legalize gay marriage from coast to coast above the 49th parallel. Gay activists, liberal legal scholars and sympathetic journalists (i.e. 95 percent of the media) say this will have huge repercussions in the United States for, among other reasons, American gays will marry in Canada and come home with an extra argument for why the U.S. government should honor their marriages.

There may be some wishful thinking in this analysis, but when so many elites offer wishful thinking it often translates into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

It's certainly true that Great Britain is not that far behind Canada on the issue of gay marriage, and the developments in Canada only promise to expedite that process.

In short, it's a global trend and, like it or not, the traditionalists have lost. This isn't a value judgment, it's simply dispassionate analysis. Many conservatives refuse to accept this fact. But refusing to acknowledge a fact doesn't make it any less real.

The challenge for social conservatives, it seems to me, is to make the best of what they consider a bad situation. But that would require making some painful capitulations -intellectual, moral, philosophical and financial. It would also require gay activists to understand that they've won and that the best course of action for them would be magnanimity in victory. Unfortunately, this is all unlikely since both camps are in denial about how far gays have come.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: cabal; catholiclist; conservatives; conspiracy; crunchtime; defeatism; definingdeviancydown; deviancy; downourthroats; gay; gayadvocacy; gays; goldbergisaquitter; homosexual; homosexualagenda; hrc; jonahgoldberg; journalism; journoparaphilia; journopolemicism; lesbian; perversion; polemic; presscampaigns; propaganda; traditionalism; win
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To: gcruse
"Since social conservatives are incapable of letting go of the notion that necrophilia is a 'severe personality disorder', rather than stew in hatred, maybe the best response, "What the hell do I care?"

Here's what I care: I care that an objectively disordered behavior has come to be accepted as normal by mainstream society, and that this trend will continue and accelerate until the fundamental ties that have bound our civilization together dissolve in a sea of libertarian decadence, at whch point social order will collapse. Since "man is a political animal", social order will then be reimposed at bayonet point -- but who will be holding those bayonets?

Homosexual acts are wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong -- and they will remain wrong no matter what the Canadians and the newspapers and the psychologists and even the bishops say. I will never change my belief on that point -- and if that makes it B-chan vs. the Universe, then you tell the Universe to bring it on.

101 posted on 06/23/2003 9:30:47 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: gcruse
Maybe that explains some of the homophobia one sees. Is it a reaction against what the 'phobes think they might do themselves?

Now you're getting nasty. Are you gay yourself? Because that's the stuff the gays throw out all the time: it's a taunt, not an argument, and I'll treat it as such by sweeping it aside with the rest of the trash.

So talk to us. Where are you coming from? You certainly seem to be willing to talk out of the side of your mouth about where I'm coming from. What's your deal, Neal?

102 posted on 06/23/2003 9:45:29 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: B-Chan; EdReform; Bryan
Agree completely. Affirm and support bump.

Pinging.......

103 posted on 06/23/2003 9:48:18 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: jwalsh07
The biggest and latest news is that Canada is poised to socialise health care. But the signs of the socialist victory have been all around for us for years.

There has been socialized medicare in Canada for years. As a single person(widower) I pay 44.00 per month. That covers everything including 75% of drugs with a maximum cost of 25.00 per presciption.As far as waiting for care, if you want elective surgery, such as a hip replacement ect. you will have to wait six months to a year. My wife was diagnosed with cancer as I was, we were in the hospital two days later.

Also there is no limit to your stay or cost. I have a friend who has been on a kidney dialyis machine for eight months now. He will be there as long as he lives, three times a week.

Really what this amounts to is the Govt. returning some of your tax money.

Regards

104 posted on 06/23/2003 9:50:52 PM PDT by biffalobull
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To: B-Chan
libertarian

God forbid consenting adults be allowed to run their own lives.
From this beginning stems right-wing statism and loss of freedoms.
From gungrabbing/drugwarrioring/lifestylepolicing zealots,
dear lord, deliver us.
105 posted on 06/23/2003 9:52:39 PM PDT by gcruse
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To: gcruse
And what god might you be pleading with?
106 posted on 06/23/2003 9:54:38 PM PDT by Kevin Curry
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To: lentulusgracchus
Yes, it's a taunt. You won't face up to your own beliefs.
If homosexuality is a choice and homosexual marriage is allowed, the predicted increase in homosexuality can only
mean that sexual identity, in this case, was closeted by the illegality of homosexual marriage. If you really believe
any of that, then the warp and woof of sexual identity is a thin tissue, restrained only by cultural rejection. And as the degree of rejection is lifted, a large chunk of the population will decide it is not hetero at all.

107 posted on 06/23/2003 9:59:07 PM PDT by gcruse
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To: Kevin Curry
It's a figure of speech, Kevie.
108 posted on 06/23/2003 9:59:44 PM PDT by gcruse
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To: gcruse
It's a vain figure of speech from an empty libertarian head.
109 posted on 06/23/2003 10:02:24 PM PDT by Kevin Curry
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To: Kevin Curry
Got to you, huh? Good.
110 posted on 06/23/2003 10:05:12 PM PDT by gcruse
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To: gcruse
Taunt right back to you. You wouldn't know society's better interest if it walked up to you and bit you.

And as the degree of rejection is lifted, a large chunk of the population will decide it is not hetero at all.

And all this is a compelling societal interest how?

You haven't answered my question yet.

You brought up my motivation. What's yours?

111 posted on 06/23/2003 10:05:55 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: gcruse
You won't face up to your own beliefs.

I face up to my beliefs every morning. And I don't cut myself.

So where do you get off calling me a hypocrite?

112 posted on 06/23/2003 10:08:17 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: lentulusgracchus
Well, that's not something you're going to hear about on 20/20, is it?
113 posted on 06/23/2003 10:08:43 PM PDT by RinaseaofDs
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To: gcruse
If homosexuality is a choice and homosexual marriage is allowed,....

Counterfeiting is a choice. If counterfeiting is allowed....BZZZZZZT!!

Oops! Guess not.

114 posted on 06/23/2003 10:12:37 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: lentulusgracchus
You wouldn't know society's better interest if it walked up to you and bit you.

              That's because I believe in  individual, not group, rights. The interests of society concern me very little.

And as the degree of rejection is lifted, a large chunk of the population will decide it is not hetero at all.

And all this is a compelling societal interest how?

This outcome is based on the assumptions of social conservatives, not mine.
I believe there is a genetic component to homosexuality, and to discriminate
against people for what they are is wrong.  Allowing gay marriage is no where
near the catastrophe being posited.

My motivation is keeping government out of the private
lives of consenting adults, while granting every American
the full complement of citizenship and its responsibilities.

115 posted on 06/23/2003 10:15:58 PM PDT by gcruse
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To: gcruse
The interests of society concern me very little.

Oh, then you'd never run for public office, return a survey questionnaire to county government, or serve in a constitutional ratification convention?

The interests of society brought the Framers together.

This outcome is based on the assumptions of social conservatives, not mine.

Social conservatives are not required to theorize why society shouldn't accept a change. A vast change in the institution of marriage, particularly a deracinating and morally corrupting one such as is now on offer, requires its advocates to argue the reasons for its adoption, not the other way around.

It's telling that the Canadian court that passed that decree law allowing homosexuals to pretend to marry people of the same sex couched its argument in the same terms you do: asserting rights nobody has ever claimed over the interest of society, and pretending to see no compelling reason why their decree shouldn't be promulgated. Classic intellectual dishonesty, and very well done as one would expect from trained jurists.

What social conservatives expect is that more boys will grow up educated to be gay. More preteen and teenaged boys will be deflowered by pederasts and trained to be practicing homosexuals themselves. Gays have always replenished their tribe with acculturated, victimized, and heedless straights (ego-dystonic homosexuals in the jargon of DSM III, before even that phrase was taken down by propaganda-sensitive gays), and this is what they have in view.

Gay men are male first and foremost, and they don't care about the orientation of someone they want to have sex with. They just want the sex, and as long as they score, they'll tell society anything they think people will put up with. Right?

I believe there is a genetic component to homosexuality, and to discriminate against people for what they are is wrong.

Essentialism. "We're like black people. We yam what we yam and that's all what we yam." Yeah, well, we don't let pyromaniacs run around loose with matches, either.

Teenaged boys think they need sex with teenaged girls. That doesn't mean we don't impose draconian arrangements to make sure they don't have sex with teenaged girls. Social constructs. Rulesville.

Allowing gay marriage is no where near the catastrophe being posited.

Again, the argument is backward. Onus yours to prove the benefit. I said prove it, not just claim it.

116 posted on 06/23/2003 10:49:10 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: B-Chan
Your posts are consistently impressive B-Chan. Cheers.
117 posted on 06/23/2003 10:51:40 PM PDT by HumanaeVitae (Catholic Epimethean)
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To: gcruse
God forbid consenting adults be allowed to run their own lives.

God does forbid it. Our lives do not belong to us; they belong to God, and He has every right to tell us how to run them. I realize that in our secular culture the only gods allowed are Reason and Liberty, but nevertheless these are false gods; the narcissistic illusion of reason and the sensual slavery of liberty only entrap men -- they do not exalt him.

The liberal and atheistic idea of unlimited personal freedom is alien to truly conservative, Judeo-Christian culture. As a Christian and a conservative, I worship the only and true God, not the false goddess of Liberty, and I support the preservation and promotion of our culture's Judeo-Christian ethical traditions, not their abolition. The sort of "liberty" that advocates the freedom of consenting adults to do whatever they wish is and has always been a lie. Any attempt by humans to pridefully "run their own lives" on their own terms will end in failure, misery, and death, because happiness, success, and life comes only from humbling oneself and acknowledging the Fatherhood and authority of God.

The idea that we as humans are competent to "run our own lives" is what got humanity in this mess to begin with.Instead of trying to be God, we ought to obey the God That Is.

118 posted on 06/23/2003 11:09:58 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: HumanaeVitae
Thanks for the kind words.
119 posted on 06/23/2003 11:11:36 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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To: lentulusgracchus
Thanks, and the same to you.
120 posted on 06/23/2003 11:12:11 PM PDT by B-Chan (Catholic. Monarchist. Texan. Any questions?)
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