Amanda points us to this Clownhall column from our old friend Kevin McCullough.
There is a big “no-no” in America today – under no circumstances is a person who engages in homosexuality allowed to be ‘pro-choice.’ It is of the utmost threat to the elite radicals that are guiding the homosexual agenda, and it is the fundamental issue on which the rest of the entire house of cards is built. One person engaging in homosexuality suddenly making a decision to choose – and the total lie is unwrapped – warts and all.
“Pro-choice,” as used here, refers not to abortion but to sexual orientation. Or, rather, in Kevin’s formulation, “slavery” to homosexual activity. See, Kevin thinks that Rosie O’Donnell is pushing the idea that queers are on autopilot, fucking everything that moves (and quite a bit that doesn’t) because she maintains that she did not choose to be a lesbian, she just is and always has been. And, according to Kevin, That Just Ain’t Right:
It is this fundamental view of homosexual activity that the activists must keep alive in order to stake the rest of their claims as to the need for “rights, fairness, and non-discrimination.”
You see this kind of thing a lot with the wingnutteria (you see it a lot with Kevin, too, who had that whole deliciously batty “Diabolical Dagger Society” theory about the shadowy forces who are outlawing spanking and mandating butt sex). There’s a huge resistance to the idea that certain characteristics, like sexual desire, might be innate. Why? I have a few theories: First of all, for those wingnuts whose children are queer, the idea that they were just born that way is anathema because it means that there’s something about them that had something to do with it, and that just can’t be. Second, there’s the whole Prodigal Son thing: if the kid’s queer, maybe it’s just a phase, maybe it’s just willfulness, and maybe the kid will come to his or her senses and become Ex-Gay. Then there’s sin and repentance: gays are sinners, but can repent. I suppose that for those who are into the whole “I’m saved!” thing, being gay is a block to being saved. Think about it: people who say that they’re saved sin all the damn time and it’s a get out of jail free card, but do you ever hear about gay people being saved? And…and….if they’re just born that way, then maybe God made them that way, and maybe…..
But of course, the big one — the one that Kevin addresses above — is that, if being queer is no different from having brown hair or dimples, there’s no real justification for discriminating against queers.
Something that always seems to elude the wingnutteria when discussions of whether being gay is innate come up is the idea that being straight isn’t a choice, either. You are or you aren’t. I certainly never had to make any sort of decision or choice to be attracted to men. On the other hand, I know plenty of people who certainly tried to make that choice — because they were really attracted to women. The difference between me and a lesbian is that my natural inclinations are socially supported and there is no penalty for following them. I don’t have to think about whether it’s natural for me to be attracted to men, because the entire freaking culture is set up to reinforce the idea that it is natural. I have never had to second-guess my sexual orientation.
But there’s something else about Kevin’s argument that is telling: a profound misunderstanding of the difference between sexual orientation and sexual activity. See, what Rosie O’Donnell is saying is that her being sexually attracted to women is no more a choice than my being attracted to men. But what Kevin takes from that is that Rosie is saying she’s a slave to her hormones and can’t help engaging in sexual activity. And he thinks that’s just some sinister plot to get “special” (otherwise known as equal) rights.
In Rosie’s mind she is in fact a slave – without choice. She is facing an increasingly depressive scene in which what she sees to be true all around her – somehow does not apply for her. In the realization of such a world’s existence it becomes necessary for her to defend her condition, her compulsion; her believed “state of being.” And that is the truly sinister part…
In order for homosexual activists to make the case for special rights to be made for them as some sort of minority legal protection status, they must first convince the world that when it comes to their actions of engaging in homosexual behavior – they are compelled to do so. This is also a common belief amongst liberals when it comes to sexual behavior in general. There is no such thing as brake with liberals when it comes to sex, only a gas pedal. . .
If Rosie is right about being enslaved to her own homosexual behavior then she is also right in arguing for special rights, special ideas of fairness, and preferential treatment.
I like the way Amanda put it, because it really gets at what’s wrong with this guy and his theories:
Reading Kevin McCullough’s latest drivel at Townhall, I had a sudden insight into why there is an endless stream of people who are willing to bloviate endlessly in the tireless promotion of conservative asshattery—it all comes down to a misunderstanding of the concept of freedom. See, it seems that some people mistake the freedom to do something with a mandate to do it. You are free to be a bloviating conservative asshole, of course, and some very dim-witted people seem to think that means you have to be.
Why not? McCullough’s thesis is that liberal support of sexual freedom means that people don’t have the right to say no thanks to Teh Sex and especially not to Teh Homosex.
He really seems to have a problem with the concept of free will. From his earlier column discussed here:
For people of common sense there is a second war that we are engaged in and like the first it was not a war that we started – but like unto the first it is one that we must fight, and more importantly one that we must win. It is a near daily assault on our sensibilities as people. It is an all out blitz-kreig on our families, faith, and value system. It is requiring that our 1st and 2nd graders identify their sexual organs and feelings to strangers who parade about as public educators. It mandates that we sacrifice our under-age daughters’ wombs to the butchers of Planned Parenthood. It outlaws the ability of parents to teach their children the lessons of right from wrong as my parents did with me via a firm swat on my overly plump backside. And it is attempting to brainwash our youngest with the cursed idea – that men and women are not equal – but rather the same. It is an agenda that seeks to keep mankind from being treated equally regardless of the color of his skin – unless it can be manipulated to benefit a political party.
It is mandating that we ignore what our faith leads us to believe while being forced to accept an evil, deceitful agenda from the godless in elite places who ignore moral absolutes and force their view onto us from their lofty towers in Hollywood, the Judiciary, the halls of Congress, and the lecterns of Academia. We call these elitists – The Diabolical Dagger Society!
. . .
In our counter-attacks we must commit ourselves to some simple principles – things like recognizing the origin of morality and common sense. When society says, “If it feels good – do it,” sometimes we need to say – “no.”
Like I said then, nobody’s stopping you, Kev. Say no. Don’t have sex with men. Nobody’s forcing you. You’re right that consensual sexual activity is a choice, but you’re confusing that with preference. I can’t choose to be attracted to women (I’ve tried), but I can choose to have sex — or not — with men to whom I am attracted. See how that works?
And nobody’s forcing you to wear condoms, either. Kevvy is terribly, terribly offended that Barack Obama — who knows a thing or two about Africa — is appearing at Saddleback Church, home of Rick “I not only wrote ‘The Purpose-Driven Life,’ but I put a warm and fuzzy, Hawaiian-shirt-clad face on dominionism” Warren, to talk about AIDS initiatives in Africa and the importance of condoms to same. I have my issues with Warren, one of the financiers of the “Left Behind” game, but he does put his money where his mouth is on this issue. But Kevin doesn’t want to hear that condoms are effective, he doesn’t want to hear that human beings like to have sex, he doesn’t care that the majority of AIDS sufferers in Africa contracted the disease through heterosexual sex — even married heterosexual sex. Nope. Black people + “gay disease” + sex = OMG!!!!
If Obama is right – and in his view – the uneducated natives of the African continent can not in anyway control their sexual compulsions then condoms would have to be considered the gold standard in fighting AIDS. . .
Instead of insisting that Barack Obama come to his church to preach the gospel of irresponsible sexual behavior and condoms, imagine if Rick Warren would devote the same monies he is spending to put on the affair to create positive initiatives in Africa? He could model them after the Ugandan program which has dramatically cut the AIDS numbers in recent years – specifically through the emphasis of “choice” and “abstinence.”
No this could never be allowed. Homosexuals, and truly anyone who chooses to live the “if it feels good do it” mentality to its fullest could never allow such a truth to become known.
Yeah. Well. About that Uganda program. Not exactly a rousing success for abstinence-only strategies, particularly since the government’s statistics have been called into question and, you know, WHO has found that without condoms, infection rates have shot up. But that probably doesn’t matter to Kevin and the religious nuts who want to use Africa as a laboratory for their magical-thinking experiments.
When people are given choice and freedom, they’re going to choose things that make them feel good. One of those things is sex. And they’re not always going to wait for some kind of official seal of approval, and sometimes they’re going to take risks. Wouldn’t it be better to give them the tools to make responsible choices and protect themselves (like PRRRRONTO Condoms!) and just back the hell off?
Oh, silly me. If we just let people alone to please themselves without harming others, the folks at Townhall would have to go back to standing on the corner and ranting. Especially now that the “MuscleHead Revolution” seems to have hit the remainder bins.
Note that one of the arguments wingnuts field against SSM is that it’ll encourage straight people to be gay. If it’s so great that gay people try becoming straight, what’s so wrong about the opposite?
Ok, I’m a total dick and didn’t read the post before replying. But here goes.
My central objection to the gay rights movement’s adherence to the “it’s not a choice” argument is that it accepts the anti-gay premise that homosexuality isn’t a valid choice.
It also conflates choice of attraction with choice of behaviour. People don’t get to choose who they’re attracted to. They do get to decide when and how to act on that attraction. People – gay, straight, or otherwise – can decide whether or not to pursue the people they find attractive. Attraction is not a choice. Action is. And I think the most productive way to get to a happy free society is to affirm that all choices in line with the consent model of sexuality are valid and should not be shamed or attacked.
I think the truth lies somewhere in between – or rather that it varies. I am myself a hopelessly lefthanded guy. Came that way from the manufacturer. I write, I throw, I cut onions – I’m lefthanded. Deeply grateful that my lefthanded mom did not try to change me, as her parents tried unsuccessfully to change her. No stammering for me! There are also folks who are irrevocably righthanded, and some who could go either way and, if they are in childhood always given the fork, paint brush, etc., in the right hand will go forward that way and never look back.
It’s good to be righthanded, in the main: some drills and saws are sort of dangerous to lefthanded people. Rifles, scissors: if you are lefthanded you buy the ones made just-for-you, and you pay extra. Still, no one is stringing us lefties up, or stoning us, it’s a good thing!
If you’ve read this far obviously you can see where I am going with this – there are folks who can be shifted, I think, in handedness and in sexual orientation. Probably not a lot, and it gets harder in adulthood than as a malleable child. And that some folks can shift doesn’t mean others can, so one guy pulling back from gayness somehow and marrying and having six kids and never straying doesn’t mean that another guy could – or could even want to.
It’s a bad idea to base arguments on the idea that gays are wholly determined and cannot change, or on the idea that they are all making choices all the time and of course they could swing the other way if they but tried.
And certainly I think folks who are doing what they are built to do and not harming others should be left unmolested to cut onions, drill holes, and throw baseballs as they wish.
During the last election in Canada, I sat down and wrote a fairly lengthy set of articles on the notion of choice and elasticity in sexual (and by implication) gender identity.
It starts here, and I actually attempt over the course of things to come up with a view that is reasonably reflective of the overall spectrum of described experiences. (Including the evangelical “ex-gay” – who would probably fall somewhere in the bisexual realm on the Kinsey scale.)
I won’t claim it’s “good psych” – it’s mostly my own view based on a combination of literature research and thought on my part, but I certainly found it interesting to write.
It never fails to amaze me how letting grown-up people make their own decicions about their lives somehow equals a “compulsion” to sexual activity. Yeesh.
But this is coming from a man who thinks condom use is “irresponsible.” Does willfull ignorance ever become exhausting, you think?
Damnation, damsel! This title drives my desire to develop the diatribe to its devish, nay, dystopian, denoument: D for Dentata!
/geek mode off >
I’m surprised any anti-gay folks are still making the “gay is a choice” argument. Who believes that shit?
Love the left-handed analogy, particularly since I discovered at age 26 that my childhood “lack of coordination” was not really that, but the fact that I’d always been given softball gloves and such for a right-handed child. It’s a whole new world now that I’m doing things the way I was probably meant to. I still write with my right hand and use scissors and knives the way I learned (safer than relearning) but I’m much better at athletic skills now that I’m following my natural instincts and not doing them the way I was told. The first time I put on (ice hockey) goalie equipment meant for a left-handed goalie, I said, “Oh, yeah, I could do this!” Now I know why I was lousy at field hockey, which has only right-handed hockey sticks. Lefties need to adjust or find another sport.
meh. i’m with knifeghost. it’s asinine to buy into the central arguments of the smear the queer crowd and then wonder why the movement has issues. persons with more fluid sexual identities are essentially being reminded that they’re not “real” queers because they are making choices, and that that choice is an insane one.
“Who, in this world of all this discrimination, ya, ya, ya…would *choose* to be gay?”
yes, this buys your a certain amount of protection and sympathy from persons who would otherwise start talking about reparative therapy and a whole bunch of shite. but can we at least agree that in the post-repressive gender-sexual utopia, nobody is going to say that “you can’t help” being queer?
and G*d help you if you’re trans…because then you have to “really” be the opposite gender, because if you had a creative role in shaping your gender identity…then it’s a choice.
yes…i understand the differentiation between action and worldview. but these concepts get regularly conflated, and help lead to crap like KMC’s article. honestly, even if he misread the arguments…maybe even a little willingly, there’s a point in there about what we conceded before the fight ever started.
You have to accept one premise or another. Saying “it’s not a choice, but if it were, it would be totally valid” is rhetorically weak. You have to choose between arguing for your right to choose homosexuality and arguing for the scientific fact that homosexuality is not a choice. Most gay rights activists opt for the latter, because apparently it works better. The ex-gay Evangelism is big enough a problem that it deserves to be eliminated with that.
Maybe I’m just being clueless, but has anyone actually said that to you or to anyone you know or have heard of? I know about crap like the womyn-born-womyn thing in the Michigan Womyn’s Festival, but have you had to take shit from more mainstream feminists or gay rights activists?
I’m in the position of agreeing with KnifeGhost, which is a difficult and strange place for me to be frankly. ;)
Seems to me that if even if being queer is very different from having brown hair or dimples, there’s still no real justification for discriminating against queers. At least, I haven’t seen any arguments that are convincing. None of which takes away from your analysis of why people on the right who oppose gay marriage and the like, but I think it’s important to point out that some of us think that those people don’t have a leg to stand on whatever the degree of choice that one has in one’s sexuality.
Bisexuals get this all the time: you can choose to be straight, i.e. partnered with someone of the other sex, ergo you do not experience oppression and are a fair-weather freak. With transpeople, it’s not so much non-queer because it is a choice, but because we are assumed to be making a conformist choice. (Although there is the frequent implication that transpeople =! oppressed class because transition is a bougie consumerist need and not a real one.)
I second knifeghost and sly civilian.
I’m not convinced that sexual preference is as hard wired as some folks think it is. After I transitioned from male to female, I felt a much stronger attraction to men. My changing perceptions of myself, my changing perceptions of men, and other’s changing perceptions of me led to this shift. I still prefer women, but even that comes with a detailed awareness of what feelings, prejudices and experiences are responsible for that preference.
Yes, I know that most people don’t really experience sexual orientation in that way. Nevertheless, I do know that I’m not alone.
Anyway, I’ve yammered on and on about some of these ideas in comment threads of the past, so I’m gonna close my trap now.
What I really want to know is this: is there anyway I can get a Diabolical Daggers Decoder Ring ™? Do I have to save up a bajillion box tops from my favorite cereal or something?
I second piny, too. :)
Or maybe, just maybe, because it’s true?
Of the handful of gay people I’ve known well enough to discuss this with, EVERY SINGLE ONE of them has said they knew they were gay since puberty, if not before. Either they’re all engaged in a remarkably well-coordinated lie, or they’re telling the truth.
As for “compulsion,” please. Yes, we’re all free to act or not act on our sexual impulses. I’ve been attracted to underage girls, married women, business colleagues, and other females with whom it would be totally inappropriate to have/attempt to have sexual relations. The attraction neither legitimizes nor delegitimizes the appropriateness, and vice versa. Conflating the two, as KnifeGhost said, is intellectually dishonest.
You only have to make this choice if there is the possibility/actuality of lots of scientific evidence that shows that for everybody, all of the time, everywhere, heterosexuality, bisexuality or homosexuality are each completely, utterly separate from the others (not likely) and completely, utterly hard-wired or not hard wired (also not likely).
The point that sexuality might be (in various ways) a choice and still be valid isn’t rhetorically weak, in my opinion–what it does is point out that there isn’t anything inherently immoral about various sexual choices, if and where they exist. Where sexual choices can become immoral is exactly where other sorts of choices become immoral (i.e. issues of consent apply both to sex and to, say, private property); sexual choices aren’t moral or immoral by virtue of being about choice as regards sex, as people who champion gay rights only because it’s “not a choice” may have us believe.
It very well may be the case that for some people, being straight, bi or gay (or some combination of any or all) is more of a choice, and for some people, it’s not so much of a choice. Genetic triggers are rarely as simple (!?) as eye-color, especially as regards desire/behavior, and treating them as such probably isn’t helpful for anybody’s arguments.
Oh, hell yeah, all the time. I’m a flavor of sexual that doesn’t fit dominant models (I like pretty, but “pretty” is a dynamic and shifting category) and a flavor of trans that isn’t predicated on binary extremes or the linear spectrum between them. I’ve been told I can’t be a proper feminist, heterosexual, homosexual, transgender person, etc., because I can’t be “dedicated” to a position unless I line up behind someone else’s idea of how the world should be lined up.
I have to agree with knifeghost, slycivilian and piny above. Choice may not be a factor in everyone’s sexual/gendery life, but it is in mine, and I’d rather not be thrown under the bus by others allegedly on my side just to bolster the “it’s not my fault because it’s natural” argument.
This is very true. For example, statistically, identical twins are more likely to have the same sexual orientation than fraternal twins, no matter whether they’re raised separately or together. They still don’t always have the same orientation, though. I don’t remember the numbers, but if you have access to psychology journals online the articles are pretty easy to find. So there’s evidence that genes play one part, but not necessarily a large part, in determining it.
In my experience, the people who are more deeply entrenched in their orientation (can’t imagine changing or having a choice) started having sexual desires at earlier ages than more “fluid” folks. Does anyone else notice this?
Why?
Seriously, why? And do you really think that gay rights rhetoric is working especially well?
That attraction isn’t a choice is pure and simple fact. That’s not to say it’s hard-wired and immutable. That’s a load of bullshit, too. Attraction is part genetic, part socialized, and had a little sprinkle of choice. You’re attracted to who you’re attracted to, and you can cultivate or ignore certain kinds of attraction, but fundamentally it’s there or it isn’t. Not a choice.
Whether to act on that attraction is 100% a choice. It may be a really terrible and hard choice — the choice between living a lie about who you are and what you want, and taking the change of being jailed or killed for coming out. Or it might be a relatively simple choice — the choice between living a lie about who you are and what you want, and being out about it in a supportive family and community full of people who want you to be happy. But it’s a choice. Any choice, assuming consent, is valid and should be affirmed.
I think the most rhetorically and scientifically and philosophically strong position we can take is that attraction isn’t a choice, action is, and if you can’t handle the consent model that’s your problem, not mine.
And as much as I hate to be the guy that draws simplistic parallels between the gay rights and civil rights movements, I think this is similar to the progression from “fuck them, they’re black” to “it’s not their fault they’re balck, so we should be sympathetic” to “and what’s so wrong about being black?”
What’s so wrong about chosing to be gay?
OK, I lied. I’m going to open my trap again.
Something just popped into my head this afternoon. Whatever forces come to bear in shaping a person’s sexual orientation, these forces seem to finish up their work for most people before they hit adulthood. So, whatever happens generally occurs before people have an adult’s understanding of emotions and cause and effect. So, in that situation, who can be said to have had a choice in guiding the outcome of their sexual orientation? Doesn’t matter if it was nature, nurture, or space aliens, really.
However, what about those few people whose orientations don’t fully develop until later in life? What about those whose orientations shift in different directions throughout their adult lives? For some of those people these shifts in orientation occur in a very mindful way. There’s the potential for an awareness of the events taking place that children do not have at their disposal. Hence, there’s the opportunity for some of us to have an active hand in guiding this process. Those few have a responsibility for how their orientations develop.
What about people who are nearly equally attracted to women and men and other genders? That implies that a person can choose to ignore the attractions that are at odds with society’s expectations. Even though they may have had no control over the development of their sexual orientations, they still have the option of choosing only heterosexual relationships.
Are any of these people immoral because they choose to ignore society’s dictates?
Of course not.
However, by the logic used by both sides of this conflict, they might very well be held morally culpable. The homophobes say that queer folk can control what kinds of people they feel love toward. The folks on the other side say that queer people don’t control this aspect of self. Both side’s arguments turn on the notion that volition implies responsibility and responsibility implies the potential for moral culpability.
While it might be politically expedient to claim that people have little control over the development and expression of their sexual orientations, it excludes a bunch of us out here on the margins. In the long run, how healthy is it to collectively embrace an understanding of human sexuality that is inaccurate? How healthy is it to embrace an understanding that pays attention to the experiences of the majority and excludes minority experiences at odds with this understanding?
Isn’t that how we got into this whole mess in the first place?
the shadowy forces who are outlawing spanking and mandating butt sex
You mean, outlawing spanking of children by their parents as a form of punishment (in wingnutteria: Good Thing). The aforementioned shadowy forces, along with mandatory buttsex, are firmly in favor of requiring spanking of adults by other adults as a form of mutually consensual sexual behavior (all of which, in wingnutteria, is a Bad Thing).
I, for one, eagerly await the coming of our buttsex-dispensing overlords.
Darnit. I was writing this up, but KnifeGhost more or less beat me to it. But, yeah: the crucial battle is that of morality. If minority sexualities are morally neutral, questions of choice become trivia. And so long as everyone accepts some degree of free-will in actions, people’s willingness to be mean is going to depend on how wrong they judge homosexuality.
Another thing to add to this debate is that the moral and political objections people have to certain acts are closely tied to their hangups. Hangups preceed moral and political objections. Moral and political objections are constructed to support hangups.
For example, if I’m attract to a slim indie-rock atheist Latina with a professional degree, and a plump working-class blue-eyed blonde with conventional cultural taste as is an active member of her church, who I choose to pursue a relationship can be read in any number of uncharitable ways. If I go for the white girl I’m racist, the Latina I’m exocticizing her. The girl with the professional degree I’m an elitist, the girl with a high-school diploma I’m trying to exploit the lower classes by trying to recruit a wife/maid. The slim girl I’m reinforcing conventional patriarchal beauty standards, the plump girl I’m an objectifying chubby-chaser. So on.
As far as I’m concerned, the solution is to lay the fuck off and mind our own business. While upholding the consent model. ;)
“Maybe I’m just being clueless, but has anyone actually said that to you”
In my undergrad, the phrase was “diet queer.” here at grad school, i’ve heard talk of the difference between the “lifers and the tourists.”
for a lot of folks, orientation is immediate, immutable, and clarifies early. but i think the monotone on that story of coming into queerness is a product of our discourse, and not a real revelation. it’s a focused look at one aspect, and mistaking it for a universal. And it has a really shady relationship with moral agency, one that has anti-queer rhetoric lurking around in the back.
StacyM said: “Both side’s arguments turn on the notion that volition implies responsibility and responsibility implies the potential for moral culpability.”
That’s the game, folks.
“I, for one, eagerly await the coming of our buttsex-dispensing overlords.”
That’s gonna be one weird-lookin’ Pez . . .
“I think this is similar to the progression from “fuck them, they’re black” to “it’s not their fault they’re balck, so we should be sympathetic” to “and what’s so wrong about being black?””
That’s what I’m thinking. Insofar as “not a choice” appears to be true in many (if perhaps not all cases), it frames “stop being gay, damnit!” as being the same as yelling at a black guy to turn white. Once people get to “well, it’s not their fault, how they were made,” their only rational antigay refuge is “they’re made wrong, like (ie) child molesters or something” – and it’s getting harder and harder for people to convince themselves that the neighbor/relative/child/coworker/sitcom character/etc. is a hapless but dangerous monster that must be controlled for the good of the community . . .
Have you read it since? Because I don’t know where you’re getting some of the stuff you’re reading into the post. Or maybe you just assumed they were there.
Because I thought I was pretty clear in making a distinction between having attraction and acting on it. Acting on it is always a choice. So in your example of the chubby blonde and the skinny Latina, your bringing the baggage of all the political implications of acting on one or the other doesn’t change the fact that they’re both female. And since you don’t claim to have experienced any conflict in being attracted to women, I’m not sure what the problem you’re having with the post (or, since you didn’t read it, the broader question of innateness of broad attraction).
I’m also not quite sure where the idea that this can’t apply to bisexuality is coming out of my post. I limited the post to homosexuality because that’s what this dork was clenching his butt about.
Outlaw spanking? Who wants to outlaw spanking? I LOVE…oh. they mean “unconsensually, with little kids.” Well, no, that, i’m not in favor of, no.
Or maybe, just maybe, because it’s true?
Well, both of them are. It’s morally wrong to discriminate against people based on consensual sexual choices they make. It’s also a scientific fact that by and large sexual orientation is not a choice.
Seriously, why? And do you really think that gay rights rhetoric is working especially well?
The latter question first: American gay rights activists have managed to pull the median American voter left of things that were considered extreme and depraved 15 years ago, despite the Democratic Party’s earnest efforts to derail them. I can’t think of a single liberal movement in the first world in the last 15 years that has been as effective as the American gay rights movement.
As for “why,” it’s mostly a question of branding. “It’s factually wrong, but even if it were right, it’s still a violation of equal rights” could sway a judge, but not the public. It’s perceived as waffling and as scrambling to find a real justification. Bush managed to segue on Iraq once and got away with it only because he had the “We’re at war” card; once he stopped having a consistent message that sounded in touch with reality, the Iraq occupation’s support started tanking.
Part of it is that when you’re arguing out in the open, it tends to work better to have one main point and expand on it rather than a bunch of talking points. Especially but not only when it’s a bilateral debate, your entire position will get evaluated based on your weakest argument. If you field five different arguments, and your opponent drags you into a back-and-forth about just one and wins, you’ll be perceived as having lost even if your other four arguments were solid.
And as much as I hate to be the guy that draws simplistic parallels between the gay rights and civil rights movements, I think this is similar to the progression from “fuck them, they’re black” to “it’s not their fault they’re balck, so we should be sympathetic” to “and what’s so wrong about being black?”
The rhetoric that won the day was “Beneath our skins we’re all the same,” but to say anything like that about homosexuality, especially if you want to cover not just G and L but also B and even more so T, requires you to decenter sex probably more than is possible in the foreseeable future.
Nobody could possibly argue that blackness was immoral. People said black people were naturally inferior, prone to crime, lazy, hypersexual, dirty. The only one of the five that’s said about gays is hypersexual, and even then it’s as much in a “they’re all immoral” context as in a “they want to rape you” one.
The original civil rights movement did a lot of your work for you. Evidently, convincing people that homosexuality is inborn helps convince them that things like SSM are good policy. When it comes to political activism, this is all that counts.
zuzu, nothing I’ve posted here has been intended in any way to be a response to your post. Which I still haven’t read. I’ll comment _after_ a post I haven’t read, but not _about_ a post I haven’t read. It was intended as a more or less on-topic semi-derailment. I know it’s a dick thing to do, but it’s somethingt hat’s been bubbling in me for months, if not years, and I had to get it out in front of an audience.
As soon as I hit “submit”, I’ll read your post as actually comment on-topic.
That’s more or less what I’ve been getting at with my tangent. You were right on with the rest of your post. Kevin McCullough has a sad and dangerous way of looking at the world.
OK, ZuZu, I’ll help in trying to re-rail the thread.
McCullough’s bio describes him as a “widely respected evangelical voice.” Consequently, I’m guessing that his objection to homosexuality is at least partly motivated by his religious beliefs. So, I’m confused over his objections to the implications of Rosie O’Donnell’s ideas. He’s critiquing Rosie and the left for implying that human beings have no control over the expression of their sexuality. And yet, I often hear religious bigots using this quote to justify their condemnation of queer people:
As I understand their interpretation of this biblical passage, it indicates that god doesn’t much like homosexuality and that homosexuality is intertwined with at kind of curse that leaves queer people unable to control themselves.
Since the collective opinions of queer supportive people are being challenged, I think it’s fair to challenge McCullough on the collective inconsistency of anti-gay Christian views of homosexuality. Some people say that we can control the expression of our sexuality and should be condemned for our choices. Others say that we can’t and consequently, can’t be trusted. Collectively, religious homophobes use both opinions to condemn us.
So which is it? Are we so inflamed by our passions that we are flawed and evil… or do we have the capacity to reign in our sexuality and choose to be heterosexual? On one hand, we’re condemned as immoral hedonists who can’t be trusted around children and members of the same sex. On the other hand we have the ex-gay ministries crap. Are we uncontrollable deviants, or are a bunch of sad individuals who have chosen a path of depravity?
I’m guessing that consistency isn’t important here. This is about hatred and control rather than logic.
While I’m trying not to do my verbatium, I’d like to note that one’s impression of whether sexual orentation or one’s gender idenity(sp?) is a choice or not may in fact depend on the environment around them. I was a psych major, which as you know is a field obsessed with the brain, so I’m going to lean towards biology as my first choice, just because I’m ‘imprinted’ with that sort of world view.
So our tendency to embrace either nature or nurture as an explanation is itself a product of social forces. In a way, that appeals to my perverse sense of humor: it’s a kind of theoretical mobius strip. :)
Yes, because we construct what we think is true from information we get from others. I hear leading theorists think it’s the interaction between nature and nuture, and because I have been socialized to think that experiments and cutting open people’s brains and looking at them are valid ways to gain knowledge, I tend to listen to them.
Note: nobody’s brain is cut up while they are alive! Don’t worry about it! We use brain imaging and measures of electrical signals in the brain if you’re alive!
Shannon: The biggest point I would make on that is not to mix up cause and effect when looking at the structure of the brain. I’ve come tot he conclusion that nature is a big influence, but there’s not much in nature that strong enough nurture can’t overcome.
Exactly true. That’s what I was trying to get at with my “hangups preceed justification” thing. Certain people thing Teh Gays are icky, and construct religious justifications for their hangup. Or they construct political justifications for it, like the (thankfully not especially common) Marxist claim that homosexuality is bourgeois.
Generally, the people who point to others and say “what they’re doing is bad” aren’t comfortable pointing at themselves and saying “what I’m doing is good.”