Time to face facts: Gays gain victory

townhall ^ | June 20, 2003 | Jonah Goldberg

[RinaseaofDs]

No, this is a technique used by communists. Bolshevik means 'Majority'. He's basically saying, 'resistance is futile - we are officially mainstream.' Other vocal socially and politically radical groups have done the same thing as well.

Saying it, however, doesn't make it so. He's using a single measurement - depiction of the affliction of homosexuality on TV, as the single measurment.

It ignores, for example, the latest genetic studies that have preliminarily linked homosexuality to genetic anomalies. There is a lot of science left to do on this, but there is enough evidence out there to indicate that homosexuality is one of a class of disorders such as incest, pedophilia, and other sexual disorders that may have genetic origins.

I hate to say this, but I think it is true. At this point, marriage has devolved to a legal arrangement in our society. The religion left marriage in the fifties and sixties. It used to be a sacrament, or a religious rite that bound souls. God married to his Church - the Bride of Christ. Man married to woman.

This type of marriage isn't gone, it just isn't written about any more. It isn't going to make an episode of Sex in the City, because the four 'heroes' of that story actually know the ending: Their series never ends. They come together and fall apart, and then they get old and they become alone. It's just that they get less beautiful and nobody wants to watch them have sex on TV any more. If any of them actually found real love, God, and real marriage, the rest would sort of, I don't know, just fade away, wondering what happened to their friend that disappeared after getting married.

That's too much like real life.

[Angelus Errare]

Well keep in mind that a lot of Hollywood types like to claim that Buddhism is a "non-theistic" religion for the purposes of bashing Christianity, which is sure as hell news to the Mahayana and Theravada (basically the Catholic and Protestant wings of Buddhism) sects over in Asia, who are presumably in a better position to comment. A lot of the Eastern religious stuff that's been imported to the US over the last 40 years under the auspices of the New Age movement has been so twisted and distorted that its beliefs and teachings are far closer to the ancient pagan mystery cults of Greece and Rome than they are to any serious kind of Eastern religion. Of course, don't count on the Hollywood crowd to tell you that, cause if they were really serious about their faith they would be obliged to adopt a number of lifestyle and viewpoint changes (for example, try and guess how much bad karma the US is racking up according to many Buddhists due to abortion) that would make them rather socially conservative.

I think the answer then becomes clear why they don't.

[Antoninus]

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.

More like a "global fad." Don't count your chickens, Jonah....

[Antoninus]

But if you're focused on social issues--you have a lost cause.

If you believe that America can become morally weak and remain strong militarily and economically, you're a fool.

[Antoninus]

Social conservatives will eventually win all of these issues. It's just a matter of time.

Exactly. How do we know? Because the other side doesn't "breed." Meanwhile, those of us who reject homosexuality, aboriton, and contraception do -- and a lot.

They cling to power by recruiting -- which is why they're so desperate to get the whole "Culture of Death" agenda into schools, boyscouting, churches, etc.

[Ohioan]

Conservatives didn't fold their tents in the Fifties or the Sixties, and you have just reminded us of what character sounds like in action, and of the proud accomplishments of the 50's and 60's conservatives who didn't knuckle under but fought for their principles instead.

Thank you for your comment, and for reminding us of some of the Leftist antics through the decades.

Any Conservative who is afraid to debate the issues with the Left has never really grasped the issues that need debating. The one thing the enemy fears most, is the articulate Conservative who understands the issues on which Leftists usually pull out all ethical stops in their efforts to shout down and intimidate. It has always been the fact that the Left is weakest on those issues on which their rhetoric is most strident. Their tactics have always been the Big Lie, and hatred and envy directed against any social segment that has its acts together.

This is so obvious to any of us who have actually engaged the enemy in the intellectual trenches, that I am finally losing all patience with those who want to continue what, but for a few brief shining moments, has been a 71 year old retreat.

Any Conservative who feels defeated on a particular issue, ought to have the decency to stand aside, and at least listen to those who want to engage the forces of social disintegration and corruption. If one has lost his own fight, at least do not try to undermine the morale of those who haven't.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[sonofron]

"Privately, I've come to a conclusion that the west has become lost. Nothing short of a r*volution will save our country and our culture. "

All my thougts come to the same conclusion. Nothing short of revolution will make right the disasterous course of the last 25 years.

[beckett]

You make a number of good points, especially when you say there is "still more science to be done on [homosexuality]."

Homosexuality is clearly a disorder (isn't any feature of our physiology out of order if it can't perform the function it was designed to do?), we're just not exactly sure where things went haywire yet.

[Ohioan]

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.

I earlier denounced this essay, as an example of "whipped cur" Conservatism, and made the obvious points that we have all the sound arguments that we have ever had against the corruption of our Society, and that we will start to win, when we fully engage. As, stated, that is all perfectly obvious; however lost on some Conservatives, who seem beaten in their very souls.

But there is another point, which should also be made here, because Jonah Goldberg is not alone in the erroneous assumption, that underlies his defeatist attitude. There is a fundamental error here, common to those who pose as hisorians, but lack any perspective on the historical human drama: And that is this--a belief that social history moves in only one direction. Actually, social history--social values, especially on sexual themes--swing far more dramatically than do economic cycles. Even if the acceptance of homosexual claims was as widespread as Jonah asserts, there is no reason to believe that it will last very much longer, before the reaction sets in.

For an obvious example of my point, consider the Victorian era, which was a dramatic 180 degree reversal of the easy going Regency era, that extended through the actual reign of George IV and into that of William IV. The openly indulged sport--along with gambling, roadside fisticuffs and racing--was promiscuous seduction of any thing within reach. While that, for all its bad points, may not have been as repulsive as flaunting deviant behavior, it still triggered a reaction, which brought the most restrictive era, ever, in the Anglo-Saxon world. One suspects that what will be coming, fairly soon, may make Victorian England appear to be very tolerant indeed by comparison.

There were, of course, other such swings both in the English speaking world, and in other lands, at various times in human history. All of which just demonstrates how absurd the idea that certain issues are somehow over, simply because one side is less popular at a give moment in time.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[lentulusgracchus]

....(for example, try and guess how much bad karma the US is racking up according to many Buddhists due to abortion)....

Look at that! This is rare -- a complete surprise!

Nobody has ever so much as whispered that thought to me -- nobody. And I play poker with a Buddhist once a month or so.....but he's pretty low-key about his beliefs.

Very interesting, and something to think about. Thanks for mentioning it. It had never occurred to me even to wonder about that.

[lentulusgracchus]

There were, of course, other such swings both in the English speaking world, and in other lands, at various times in human history. All of which just demonstrates how absurd the idea that certain issues are somehow over, simply because one side is less popular at a give moment in time.

More damage from Marx, I suppose, and his fanciful cavalcade of dialectic progress. The "forces of history" and all that -- I wonder, why hasn't Marx ever been called for promoting teleology?

Social historians of the United States note how much colonial mores and values differed from those which gave birth to the religious reformism of the 1830's and 1840's, whose handy label I forget at the moment. Was it "the great reawakening"?

Likewise, there is a course taught at the University of Houston that emphasizes the differences in thinking (and in values) promoted by visual media -- primarily the movies, and later on TV -- from the usual word-based and audio-based thinking of the nineteenth century. I guess you could call it gestalt thinking versus rationalism, or something like that. Someone who's studied these topics formally could supply the vocabulary.

Most posters here are familiar with the modern reaction -- and I like now to emphasize its reactiveness to the destructiveness of the Great War -- and the change in mores, styles, and standards of behavior that took place 80 years ago, and were basically incumbent up to, and arguably past, the Counterculture challenge of a generation ago.

Discussion?

[lentulusgracchus]

Homosexuality is clearly a disorder ...

Yes, but a gay cabal in the American Psychiatric Association got it delisted as a paraphilia from the standard Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ("DSM") in 1973, and they have stood guard over that delisting ever since, using certain gay-dominated standing committees to cut off and throttle dissenters' attempts to discuss it. Research, however, continues.

Notwithstanding the gay propaganda within all three APA's (the aforementioned APA, plus the American Psychotherapy Association and the American Psychological Association, which pilloried and expelled dissenting researcher Paul Cameron 20 years ago), a survey of opinion within the American Psychiatric Ass'n. a few years ago, which was posted on their site until a year or so ago, showed that in the debate over essentialism (nature versus nurture), large pluralities of mental-health professionals continue to believe that there is a large, and possibly critical, psychological element in homosexuality. In other words, there remains, despite organizational and political pressure, a substantial dissent within the first professional bodies that the gays "went after" in their campaign to "overhaul America" on the subject of homosexuality.

[lentulusgracchus]

Man, heterosexuality is a more fragile reed than I thought.

Hi, nice of you to come troll FreeRepublic today.

Is that what keeps people from being homosexual, the fact that they can't marry?

No. Try:

1. Moral injunction against abomination.

2. Hygiene.

3. Disinclination.

4. Self-respect in the face of attempts to demoralize.

5. Desire to build strong, healthy families with strong, healthy, unmolested children.

Want more?

[gcruse]

Well, it seems that homosexuality, being a choice you make (so they say, anyway), is held back only by law. And something as innocuous as granting to homos the same rights and privileges the rest of the citizens enjoy, is going to bring about, so they say, an avalanche of new gays. A tipping point towards depravity. There can't be much holding back heteros from switching if that's all it takes.

Maybe that explains some of the homophobia one sees. Is it a reaction against what the 'phobes think they might do themselves? "Oh, man, did I get drunk last night...."

[Angelus Errare]

Well I'm not certain whether or not your poker buddy is going to share that opinion, but if you go to any number of English language Buddhist websites that are frequented by people who aren't basically "cafeteria Buddhists" as well as reading the statements of people like the Dalai Lama and others (remember, communist China, which robbed the Tibetans of their homeland and has been utterly merciless in trying to eradicate their religion, also promotes a rigorous abortion policy) you'll see that a lot of the differences between Eastern and Western religions lie in the area of theology as far as what we believe about God, not what He commands us to do. There are a number of differences, but opposition to abortion, homosexuality, and euthanasia are not one of them.

[biffalobull]

I agree, which is why we need to focus on the solution, preferably before we are stuck in the same situation that Canada currently is.

Angel; How can you fight it. "The Boy Scouts of America" won all the way to the Supreme Court. What did that do. All the major Corp.quit funding them, they were banned at the Olympic Games in Salt Lake, and I understand a lot of the public venues they were allowed to use for meeting halls, have now been denied.

When you have the entertainment media promoting the likes of michael jackson and the rest of the TV trash shows, you are done for.

Regards

[HumanaeVitae]

Because the other side doesn't "breed."

Yep. It took us 300 years to take over the Roman Empire. It'll be a little less difficult to do the U.S., I think.

[jwalsh07]

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

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.

OK Jonah, if it's good enough for the Canadians and Europeans, it's good enough for me!