The extraorinary thing is the way the homosexuality enthusiasts have "centered" gayness, not as a behavior, but as an identity; hence, one cannot oppose it without being the equivalent of a Ku Kluxer.
Thanks for that insight. I hadn't thought of it in that way, but it makes perfect sense.
Sandy, this is the heart of the whole matter. Leftists are primarily and above all followers of the German pantheist Hegel,who believed the universe was creating G-d rather than the other way round. History does this by means of the dialectic: a "thesis" pushes history forward, while an "antithesis" pushes back. The result is a "synthesis" which is somewhere between the two but which always results in history being pushed somewhat "forward."
Marx was a Hegelian for whom the "thesis" was the proletariat/workers and the "antithesis" the bourgeoisie/ capitalists (ironically, in the earlier French Revolution the bourgeoisie had been the "thesis"). But much of Marx (with his economism and doctrine of classes) has been jettisoned by the Left and more Hegel than Marx remains. One reason for this is that the working class stubbornly refused to permorm its great "historical mission."
So the "Marxists" on the Left replaced the working class as the "thesis" with a new cast of characters: Blacks, Hispanics, women, gays, moslems, etc. Their counterparts as antitheses are whites, Anglos, males, "straights," Israelis, etc. It is the Great Historical Destiny of the "oppressed" groups, by continually clashing with their "oppressors," to push history ever forward until "G-d" is fully realized at the "end of history."
This dualism between thesis and antithesis explains the otherwise maddening hypocrisy of the Left with regard to the "rights" and "freedoms" they allegedly defend. The Left supports no right as an end in itself, or for everyone. To the Left "freedom of speech" exists only for the thesis, and its sole purpose is to push history forward to its conclusion. Hence Leftists support the rights of the groups that make up the thesis while demanding the suppression of the freedoms of those groups that make up the "antithesis." For a Leftist advocating free speech for gays but not for opponents of homosexuality, or defending the right to burn the American flag while advocating the criminalization of the burning of the homosexual "rainbow" flag as "hate," is not contradictory at all. Freedom exists only for the purpose of enabling the "thesis" to perform its "historic mission." Any such freedoms for the "antithesis" are "self-evidently" wrong.
Another side-effect of this thesis/antithesis dualism is that all groups on the side of the "thesis" are considered satisfactory just as they are. There is no need for illiterate peasants from the Yucatan or Fundamentalist African-Americans to alter their religious beliefs, and the Left makes no such demands. They are sufficiently "subversive" just as they are. Hence there are no conflicts (according to the Left) between Blacks and gays, or moslems and gays. All groups on the side of the "thesis" sort of merge into a single figure. The fight for "gay rights" is simply the natural successor to the anti-slavery movement, and to oppose "gay rights" is identical to advocating slavery. To halt, much less reverse, the teleological course of history will inevitably result in the return of slavery, the inquisition, serfdom, the whole schmeer. To the Left a victory for Blacks is a victory for "gays" and a victory for "gays" is a victory for Hispanics and a victory for Hispanics is a victory for women. It's all one big happy family. After all, you'll never have to confront the Devil if you're marching side by side with him, will you?
The replacement of economic classes with ethno-nationalist groups (and women and "gays" are treated as "ethnic groups" by the Left, make no mistake about it) leads to even more interesting "contradictions." The Left basically advocates what we recognize as "leftism" for the antithesis--pacifism, self-criticism, universalism, etc. For the "oppressed" it basically advocates right wing extremism--national sovereignty, militarism, ultra-patriotism, even the "indigenous" religion. Blacks are sold on a "blood and soil" pan-African nationalism that sounds like it came straight out of Austria. Ditto for Hispanics. And what is "gay pride" but "right wing nationalism" for homosexuals? Thus the "commie wimp" exists only among the guilt-ridden members of the "antithesis." Commies among the favored groups are anything but wimps.
So yes, the whole point of the Left's campaign is that rights exist only for the "thesis" and opposition to any of the Left's "chosen peoples" is identical to the Holocaust (the Jews were the thesis back then, but they have since been replaced).
There is nowadays an interesting contradiction between the every forward progress of history and the Left's current mania (adopted from the nineteenth century romantic German right) of environmentalism. On this issue the Left literally advocates "turning back the clock;" deindustrializing, reintroducing formerly exterminated species to their previous habitat, and generally making the air as clean as it was in the days of slavery and the inquisition. How the Left exempts these "backward steps" from their dire warnings about the inevitable return of the Dark Ages is a mystery. However, they apparently believe that they can "turn back the clock" ecologically without doing so sociologically. Whether or not this is possible is yet to be seen. But it is interesting to note that there are to this day "palaeoconservatives" who advocate a similar "return to the land" even as they advocate sociological "regression."
I hope this helps explain things. At least I hope it explains how I interpret these phenomena.
My apologies for any mistypes and errors in this post.
Good analysis, although I have one quibble: Hispanics, per se, should not be included in the “thesis.” What the left is trying to do is create a brand name, so to speak, and also to refine the idea of Hispanic so that it refers not to someone with Spanish (i.e., European) roots, but to someone with South American Indian (”idigenous peoples”) roots. They haven’t quite figured out how to get around the Spanish part of it, but they’re working on that. People like Chavez and Garcia go on and on about how they are really products of some indigenous group, and in Bolivia, the government has even revived a native llama-worshiping religion. The Catholic Church is rejected and, as we see in Mexico, even attacked, and the Spanish language is also rejected. Many rural Mexicans cannot speak Spanish because the left has been insisting on reviving the indigenous languages and trying to restrict instruction or education in Spanish.
So I think rather than “white,” you’d have to say that the antithesis is European. In the case of Latin America, this is difficult for leftists to achieve, but they have whipped up enormous hatred of all Spanish symbols or historical figures associated with Spain, such as Columbus and the Spanish explorers. And of course, to the left. one of the great evils the Spanish brought was the power of the Church to convert people and overcome the native religions, which had all those charming cultural features such as human sacrifice, cannibalism, etc.
The left really has only two hatreds, and of these, one is greater than all the others: It hates European culture and history, but it hates them specifically because they project Christianity. Anglo-Saxon is not the key word. The left would be perfectly happy to bring back delightful Anglo Saxon cultural practices such as burning people in wicker baskets or painting oneself blue. The thing it really hates more than anything else is Christianity, and it will ally with anything it perceives as an enemy of Christianity.
I think you could say that German romanticism - which you have accurately identified as the source - was visible not only in the thought of Marx, but that of Hitler as well. And Hitler wanted to get back to a pre-Christian German “identity,” trying to dream up practices that expressed the glories of the (pre-Christian) German peoples and basically trying to start his own nature-worshipping, old-gods Germanic religion, which would supplant his arch-enemy, the slave religion of Christianity.