I knew I was gay when I was eight years old, at least subconsciously. That was the first time I had that feeling, the one deep in my chest that took me decades to understand, for a boy named Ben at summer camp, and his deep blue eyes.
I didn’t know that I was a political conservative for many more years, until I came of age in an era of political correctness and resurgent socialism, developments that pushed me away from modern liberalism. When I realized I was both gay and conservative—that’s when I knew that I was a sort of living contradiction, at least insofar as how much of the world would see me.
The modern conservative movement still isn’t an entirely welcoming home for gay men. That much is widely known. But the true disgrace is that the progressive movement, to which most gays reflexively adhere, is too deeply ensconced in identity politics to reliably champion real progressive values. They see gay people like me who cross party lines not as independent thinkers who must be wooed back with fresh ideas, but as traitors worthy of contempt.
Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the progressive media ecosystem—including LGBT publications such as The Advocate and The Washington Blade. Between promotions for the pro-abortion Women’s March and profiles of gun-control advocates, gay media typically assumes the non-existence of LGBT people who don’t embrace left-wing politics. Queerty describes itself as “the leading gay and lesbian news and entertainment site.” But when you look past the drag queens and gay fanfare to articles calling for Ivanka Trump’s imprisonment and memes mocking the president, it’s clear that this website is no neutral advocate for sexual equality. What disturbs me is how Queerty casually assigns its editors’ beliefs to the entire LGBT community. Their slogan is “Free of an agenda (except that gay one)”—which is clever, but untrue.
Embedded in this media culture is the implicit notion that gay people are monolithic, that they have no individual capacity to reason or hold different values. The progressivism is so performative that pro-Trump groups have been barred from “Pride March” celebrations. How is that kind of insistence on ideological uniformity “progressive?” It signals the very opposite of diversity.
This type of thought can bleed into the personal lives of gay men. When I tried to date during college, liberal gays on campus spotted my record of conservative activism and dubbed me the “Fox News Faggot.” Ostensibly progressive students would message me on dating apps encouraging me to kill myself, or even “match” with me—the way you’d connect with someone on Tinder—just so they could tell me I was an awful person. At a certain point, I gave up.
I deleted all the gay dating apps from my phone and resigned myself to the fact that, at least within progressive Massachusetts circles, gay conservatives like me had little chance of finding a match. Not because I wasn’t willing to date across the political aisle—I was, and did—but because much of the LGBT community-at-large viewed me as a sort of political fifth columnist. Once, a boyfriend of over two months turned to me tearfully and confessed he didn’t think he could date a Republican any longer. The notion of dating someone who was pro-life or favored free markets filled him with shame.
Over the last few years, I’ve met countless conservative gay men—and most have echoed my experiences with progressive intolerance. One recent college graduate who now works in the finance industry recently told me how after one constitutional-law class, in which he debated the legal reasoning behind the gay-marriage landmark Obergefell v. Hodges, an angry gay student told him, “You’re setting us all back. The world would be better off if you killed yourself.” One gay veteran named Marcel said that he and his husband have been called “Uncle Toms” by former friends who found out that they weren’t Democrats. Another man told me he’s had several dates get up and leave when they found out he’s not a liberal.
Is this what passes for “woke” these days?
When someone assumes that a woman cannot be an engineer, that is rightly considered sexist. If it is taken for granted that a black man must like basketball, that is correctly called out as a form of prejudice. Why, then, is it considered acceptable—or even laudable in some circles— to not just assume, but insist, that gay men occupy a certain position on the political spectrum? It’s hardly progressive to declare that one’s preferences for this or that sexual organ must determine the workings of one’s inner mind.
And no, I am not blind to the intolerance on the right side of the spectrum. My father was a stereotypical white-collar Republican, a rough-around-the-edges small-business owner who just wanted the government to leave him alone. When he talked about the perils of excessive taxation or the right to self-defence, my young eyes would light up. But when I watched him cover his eyes whenever two men kissed on TV, I felt myself shrink inside.
It’s true that times have changed, and the modern GOP is much more accepting than the party once was. But the ugly reality remains that 60% of Republicans do not believe I should have the right to marry. As recently as November, a coalition of congressional Republicans protested the inclusion of LGBT protections in the new Canada-Mexico trade deal. This doesn’t make them evil. But it does make me politically homeless. How can I feel at home within a movement that doesn’t always accept an important part of my identity?
Whenever I think about this feeling of isolation, I’m reminded of a dusty, poorly-lit pizza place in Washington, D.C. I was a sophomore in college, hanging out with other young conservatives after one of those political conferences we couldn’t seem to avoid. Many of my Republican friends knew I was gay and didn’t care. But when some guy sitting across from me started talking about how homosexuality was an abomination, no one batted an eye—or even looked up from their iPhones. This hypocrisy shouldn’t surprise anyone. Donald Trump waved the rainbow flag at a campaign rally and promised support for the LGBT community, but then named Mike Pence as his running mate.
Dozens of Republicans I know have warmly embraced me and welcomed me into the conservative media world. Others have left comments on my articles describing their revulsion toward homosexuality, and sent tweets telling me to “sort my sins out before I worry about politics.” Or they shared ridiculous articles blaming homosexuality for pedophilia. At one conservative conference I attended, a speaker spun off into a tangent and wound up spewing nonsense about AIDS and gay immorality.
I expect these experiences will sound familiar to any gay conservative. One gay former student told me that his professor at a religious college spent a class ranting about “the gay agenda,” and insisted that being gay is a choice. In one Facebook group for young conservatives, members make posts comparing gayness to an “addiction” akin to alcoholism. One commentator eloquently implored dissident group members to “stop promoting mental illness.” So no, I won’t be getting an elephant tattoo any time soon—even as I acknowledge that many gay men feel largely welcomed by the Republican Party.
Caught betwixt and between, I don’t know what the solution is for a gay man with conservative inclinations who wants to engage publicly in American politics and policy formation. But I do hope that one day, we will live in an America where the freedom to love whom you want doesn’t come with spurious expectations about what political ideas you must embrace.
Brad Polumbo is an assistant editor at Young Voices. His work has appeared in USA Today, The Daily Beast and National Review Online. Follow him on Twitter @Brad_Polumbo.
Featured image: New York, United States. 14th June, 2017. Gays Against Guns organized a rally and march in New York City’s West Village, starting at The Stonewall Inn.
Brave article.
I will never forget and honour my elementary school teacher (name withheld). A beautiful gay man. Even as a 12yoa i knew that. A serious prancing queen (70’s), in a very conservative community.
Wholly accepted, and a strong influence on my life.
He taught all of us: search beyond the hill.
He was also the principal of the school, and would come in and wrestle with us boys, and individually take us (boys) out for a ice cream, if we did good on some school task. He actually cared. My parents knew how he was, and still said yes.
I got to know him as a adult (me), and he became even more special.
As a long time out front queen in the 70’s, in the 2000’s, he told me about the disgust that he held for these ideologues. Actual hatred.
I will carry on his wish.
I miss him.
Your parents knew he was gay and let him take you out for ice cream. Well, did they think female teachers with boy students or male teachers with female students were likely to assault them sexually?
What you’re suggesting is that all gay men are boy-hungry pedophiles who cannot be trusted in the same room as male children. Grow up.
Tom – rubbish.Adult heterosexual men are regularly chaperoned with young girls. Why should it be any different for homosexuals?
“[He] would come in and wrestle with us boys, and individually take us (boys) out for a ice cream”
Teachers shouldn’t be wrestling with and going out on dates with children of the sex they are attracted to.
It’s called “grooming”. That vile man was pushing the envelope, trying to see what he could get away with. I’d be very surprised if nothing sexual ever happened between him and those boys.
@John…
Suggest you change your last name
I guess my only question would be “why does it matter?”
So the author is gay and conservative, and that’s fine, but so what? Is this an appeal for an atta boy? Or perhaps he’s implying that Mike Pence shouldn’t be VP because he disagrees with homosexuality? As if having disagreements should bar someone from public office perhaps.
The article I want to read is what exactly it is that compels gays to feel the need to always mix their sexuality with their politics. I just don’t understand it or why it seems to always be an issue. Perhaps some things are better left in the bedroom.
People sometimes write essays about their personal experiences. It’s a way for readers to gain insight into lives that might be unlike their own. Also, the author of this piece is saying that his sexuality and his politics are not mixed. If they were, he’d be a progressive.
So sexuality and politics do mix for most? Gays are progressive because that’s how you view it, yet that’s exactly what he’s saying is wrong. It turns out that -isms are everywhere, even among progressives who hate women or homosexuals or immigrants who lean conservative. At least you proved his point.
I think you misunderstood me. Like the author, I consider myself a gay conservative. My sexuality and my politics do not mix. Gay progressives tend to see their sexuality as part of their political identity. There’s no logical reason why homosexuality should influence one’s opinion about gun control, taxation, foreign policy, affirmative action, criminal justice, the death penalty, or climate change, but intersectionality preaches a “seamless garment” view in which one’s identity must align with progressive ideals. Mr. Polumbo rejects this view. I do, too.
This seems harsh. It’s pretty clear to me that the author would rather not mix his politics with his sexuality at all, but that those who share his politics reject his sexuality and those who share his sexuality reject his politics. Constantly being rejected in every realm because of some personal characteristic you thought was extraneous to the issue at hand sounds truly awful. I think it matters a lot that anybody would or could end up in such a position.
“The article I want to read is what exactly it is that compels gays to feel the need to always mix their sexuality with their politics.”
That should be flamingly obvious. Unlike European conservatism, which is largely secular (even in parties with “Christian” in their name), American conservatism is largely religious. That means that in addition to true conservative positions like being pro-free trade and pro-limited regulation, it also contains positions that have nothing to do with conservatism, such as being anti-abortion, anti-premarital sex (hence abstinence-only sex non-education), and anti-homosexuality.
These positions are all born of moralistic religious dogma, not conservative principles — which, if we reduce them down to “freedom of the individual”, should lead to being in FAVOR of any kind of consensual sex and any sexual orientation.But it’s a package deal in America — if you want to participate in conservative politics, you have to get in bed with religious fanatics* and their puritan agenda.
So it’s quite clear why gays’ sexual orientation is inevitably intertwined with their politics — the conservative half of the American political establishment is to a large extent anti-gay. So conservative gays can either go with (a) people who see them as abominations but have similar opinions on economics, social issues and politics, or (b) people who accept them without reservations but whose politics they don’t agree with.
* Of course, not all American religious conservatives are fanatics, but American religiosity is far more extremist than European religiosity. Your average American evangelical churchgoer would be seen as a cult member in much of Europe.
Abortion involves killing a child. People are against murder.
Pre-marital sex and promiscuity have negative effects on the individuals and societies which participate in them. This has been show over and over again in study after study and is well known at the individual level. To my knowledge no conservatives have proposed having a “sex police” go around, but they do have opinions and try to manage their private lives and private institutions in that manner. They also want their schools that they pay for with their taxes to leave such topics to home instruction.
In general conservatives view gay subculture as bad, and they are right to given all of the statistics on gay subculture. It’s also pretty clear that the way gays present themselves (think pride parades) are not an example of the kind of lifestyle and values you want your kids adopting. That being said, conservatives leave gays alone.
A marriage license provided by the government is a privilege, not a right, and nobody was stopping gays from “acting married” on their own time if they wanted.
Europe is dying. People don’t have kids and they are allowing themselves to be invaded by Muslims. Their secularism is a culture of death and they are going to be displaced by some real genuine religious fanatics.
But isn’t the “gay culture” you speak of the same as the “sexualized girls culture” the heterosexual world creates? Sure, promiscuity and infidelity are social concerns that have real negative consequences, but that’s true and exists whether homosexual or heterosexual (or any of the thousands of other combinations that some feel exist out there).
Conservatives don’t like promiscuity amongst girls. I’d say a big reason men go to the church is to find non-promiscuous girls, and a big reason they raise girls in the church is the hope that it will help keep them off the pole.
Even so, nothing got nothing on the gay subculture. GrindR. The enormous prevalence of STDs. The chicken hawking most notably in the Catholic Church. Etc. You just don’t see anything on that scale amongst women.
Amongst lesbians this stuff isn’t a problem, and most conservatives I know really don’t give much of a damn about lesbians (its always gay MEN that are the center of the controversy).
Abortion involves killing a child. People are against murder.
That’s one view. Another is that before a certain length of gestation, the blob of cells in a woman’s uterus is no more a child than an egg is a chicken, and thus killing it is no different than removing a tumor or other growth.
Conservative principles should support abortion before a certain point in pregnancy — there’s nothing wrong or unethical about eliminating unfeeling, unthinking growths, and so women’s freedom to do what they wish with their bodies should be respected. That’s probably the predominant view in European conservatism, though it’s hardly unanimous.
But in American Republicanism, religion poisons everything — many or most of its followers, who have strayed very far indeed from conservatism, adopt the irrational religious belief that every sperm is sacred, as it were, meaning that human beings exist as of the moment of conception”. This contradicts long-established facts in medicine and science — a 1024-cell morule is simply not a human being, and would never be mistaken for one by anyone rational.
Pre-marital sex and promiscuity have negative effects on the individuals and societies which participate in them. This has been show over and over again in study after study and is well known at the individual level.
In general conservatives view gay subculture as bad, and they are right to given all of the statistics on gay subculture.
Utterly irrelevant to conservatism, even if any such alleged studies existed. The individual and his rights are first and foremost — government intrusion into the bedroom is an abomination of the highest order. Friedman, who was a strong proponent of legalizing drugs, would most certainly not have engaged in this absurd, self-righteous pleasurephobia.
But of course this is highly relevant to Republicans and other puritans, who, again straying very far from conservatism, are quite keen to control what goes on in people’s bedrooms (hence abstinence-only sex education, no funding for groups that promote birth control at times, and so on).
It’s also pretty clear that the way gays present themselves (think pride parades) are not an example of the kind of lifestyle and values you want your kids adopting.
You condemn people for dressing up in wild, flamboyant, often sexualized costumes in the public space in their free time, and for making public displays of affection in the same context, and you consider yourself a conservative!? You, sir, are a religious extremist who would like to impose his bronze-age superstitions on the population at large, which makes you an authoritarian schoolmarm in full-on moral panic, not a conservative.
“That’s one view. Another is that before a certain length of gestation, the blob of cells in a woman’s uterus is no more a child than an egg is a chicken, and thus killing it is no different than removing a tumor or other growth.”
I get it. The fetus is inconvenient so it must be designated non-person in order for crimes to be committed against it.
I’m actually not going to argue with you. I’m pro eugenics, and I’m not necessarily against abortion 100% of the time. But its a least a sensible argument. Pro-life is an attempt to extend human rights to a new class of people. Much like they were extended to blacks or other groups. If inconvenience is all we need to declare someone a clump of cells, any of us could be declared a clump of cells.
“government intrusion into the bedroom is an abomination of the highest order”
Nobody is proposing sex police. They do have a point of view which they make known. My understanding is you simply don’t like people pointing out the self destructiveness of your ideals.
“Friedman, who was a strong proponent of legalizing drugs, would most certainly not have engaged in this absurd, self-righteous pleasurephobia.”
Friedmen made a bunch of pragmatic arguments over what laws the government should enforce. I’m unaware of his personal opinions on drug use, but he doesn’t appear to have been a stoner. I doubt he would recommend drug use to his loved ones, but I can’t say.
You seem to be conflated government laws with personal opinions. Libertarianism is a view about government, not necessarily a view about being free to do something means it’s a good thing to do.
You also seem to think that libertarianism means providing government funding to push particular social agendas.
Severine, abortion is exactly about freedom for the individual. The freedom for a human individual to live, even if its parents don’t want to take care of it, and consider its existence an inconvenience. There is no such freedom as the freedom to kill a human that’s dependent on you.
Asdf addresses the other points well, but I will add that the concern about gay marriage is the (justified) concern that churches will be forced to wed gay couples, against their explicit teachings.
There is a “gay agenda,” it’s the naked political activism of the LGBT community. Even if some conservatives can’t articulate it, they fear even reasonable accommodations in line with their values on personal liberty will not be sufficient for this crowd, and the next demand will be tyrannical. They weren’t wrong, as we see with the malicious prosecution of the Christian Baker in Colorado, HRT in Canada, ect.
@Severine Paublanc
YES! YES, American conservatives are weirdly 200 years behind political/economic conservatives of other Western developed nations. They are at the point where they can champion individual rights…until it’s the individual rights of an adult woman who wishes to assert bodily rights for herself. And in that way they are exactly the same as fundamentalist Muslims. Funny, that!
You’re right when you say not all American religious conservatives are fanatics. You’re wrong when you say American conservatism is largely religious. There are millions of conservatives who consider themselves libertarian or who are not religious. Saying someone who is conservative must be “religious” is the same as saying someone who is gay must be a liberal. The complexities and messiness of politics cannot be condensed so neatly.
There are millions of conservatives who consider themselves libertarian or who are not religious.
Those Republicans who are not religious must pander to the fanatically religious if they wish to win elections. Thus, their voting records are virtually indistinguishable from those of religious Republicans. They are like the cowardly silent majority of Muslims who, while not participating in terrorism, do nothing to condemn or fight it. They have few principles of their own, beyond getting reelected, and deserve our derision.
It would seem that a large percentage of American libertarians are free of most of the religious superstition that infects their Republican brethren, yes. That is good. But they are an insignificant minority of voters who probably don’t even sway close elections. Plus, American libertarianism is a very, very strange beast indeed — perhaps the most American of all ideologies after the religious right wing. Their anarcho-capitalist every-man-for-himself ideology is edgy and appealing to a certain type of personality as long as it is merely a protest movement, but the minute we start seeing subscription-based fire departments, the misery that privatized social security begets, producer-“regulated” foodstuffs that sicken and kill theur consumers, and other fantasies they harbor, they will be voted out of office for good, never to return. So it’s a waste of energy to take them seriously.
“Their anarcho-capitalist every-man-for-himself ideology is edgy and appealing to a certain type of personality”
LOL, if you want to know what libertarians believe, ask a libertarian. You are clearly getting your info from Democrats.
@Olivia
“Saying someone who is conservative must be “religious” is the same as saying someone who is gay must be a liberal. ”
So, you’ll be right the vast majority of the time?
That’s… not much of a defense.
@Olivia, Exactly. It’s the MSM that for decades focused on that aspect. For example, did they report that how many democrats in 1992 identified as evangelicals? It was a majority. Or how many in the so calledMoral Majority voted for Clinton? Something like 30%! People have drawn binary conclusions for years because of media indoctrination and their focus.
Here is where the trajectory is going. Many conservatives and libertarian types are leaving “church”. They even have a name: Dones. They are not leaving their belief system. they are simply leaving what they see as corrupt, useless “institutions”. It’s happening everywhere from protestants to Catholics. And it’s not millennial‘s who are leaving. They are going to SJW/PC preaching churches. About a decade ago, books were starting to be published about this phenomena and group of people. Hard to measure except for dwindling numbers and a cursory tracking of who left and why. The worst part about it for churches is that it’s a big loss of money. They are in constant marketing and recruitment mode.
Many churches have become bastions of PC/SJW that Would make the thought policing, sin sniffing Puritans, proud.
You have nailed it with the truth that many on the left won’t settle for living in peace with differing views. They want to shove their beliefs and lifestyles down peoples throats. There are plenty of bakers, florists and plenty of churches who marry homosexuals, etc. School choice would take care of a lot of the problems in the public schools on this issue, etc. but one side insists on conformity and uses the government toward that goal.
my personal opinion is that SJW‘s are in a zealot cultish religion. My conservative gay colleague once quipped that he would rather live next-door to Mike Pence than Antifa. Lol.
Obviously you’re just grossed out, fine. But a society with a long history of lesser rights for gays, to say the least, has only itself to blame for “having to hear about it” or whatever. You reap what you sow. And granted, America is still close to the top of the list of progressive countries, but that’s also the point – we can’t import social conservatives from elsewhere and expect them to integrate, Pulse was a horrific example of how that can play out. At the very least the left runs a real risk of losing the gay vote in favor of those with more minority points, that could be the right’s eventual gain if they’re smart about it.
I will never forget the story about (told decades later) of him getting a impaired (1970’s) on his way from his BFs place.
Prancing (his words) the six blocks from the cop shop in a foot of snow in loafer shoes, wearing pumpkin orange slacks, canary yellow shirt and a half length beaver fur coat.
Having to ask any person pulling up to the pumps….”can you give me a dime?”
Sigh….what has happened to the’world’?
Things I haven’t said today:
At the Mexican Restaurant for lunch: “I would like the enchilada combo. I am a heterosexual male.”
Dinner conversation: “Speaking as a heterosexual male, I am glad they canceled the California bullet-train”
At the petrol station: “$20 please; by the way, I’m a heterosexual male.”
Maybe it’s just me, but how many times during a conversation that isn’t specifically about sexual matters does one’s sexual proclivities become germane to the matters at hand?
That’s an odd comment. The author makes it clear that he has a difficult time dating as a gay conservative. Other times, when he’s with conservatives, someone else will bring up the viewpoint that homosexuality is an abomination. Who you date actually has a decent impact on your social life.
He should check out #walkaway. No one cares there and plenty of gay men leaving the left.
Comment of the day, Barnidge!! 🙂
⚡️Lightning Rosita strikes gold again. And Tom, virtue signalling all over the place is always germane. It’s like dogs peeing on a post— you just got to. It’s as natural as two dogs sniffing each other’s animus. Still, congratulations— good to be first on the post.
Many homosexuals are not easily identified by their dress and behavior, but many are. I doubt homosexuals at restaurants or gas stations mention their sexuality either. You do know that bias occurs by those who judge others by what they think they see and hear.
Thought policing at its best!
Hi Brad- I enjoyed your article and you conveyed a sense of helplessness that moved me to respond. I’m a conservative Christian and recently started listening to Dave Rubin whose commentary and personality I genuinely enjoy. I wrote a letter to him once asking the question of how to be supportive of him and his husband when my religion has taught homosexuality is a sin for millennia. I had an epiphany when I was writing. Jesus’ first and great commandment is to love thy neighbor as thyself. Jesus didn’t tell me to pass judgement, Jesus told me to love. I hope tonight wherever you are, you feel the love from an insignificant nobody who values who you are as a person. I never sent that letter to Dave, but the message is one I’ve passed on to my kids. Thanks for sharing your story, hopefully your story will inspire others to be more loving.
@Andrea
Rubin Report is excellent.
Silly comments, not to follow…
Andrea
Jesus said to disdain the sin, not the sinner.
Thus it is possible to believe that homosexuality is wrong, without condemining or disdaining any indiividual homosexual.
Rubin is my favorite interviewer. I love his format.
As a Pro-Trump conservative Republican gay man, who wasn’t always, I can relate to this well written article. In the end I care nothing about what other people think, gay or straight, and I can only live for myself. I dislike the mainstream gay community, and have found my Republican friends to me much more accepting of me as an entire human being, then the liberal ones, who don’t accept my support of Trump. The idea that the mainstream gay community is all inclusive is as phony as the rainbow flag. Before I am a gay man ,I am also a human being, male and white, mixed nationalities with mixed religious beliefs. I refuse to be a follower and being gay is only one small part of my identity. Both parties have their fringe elements, I choose to ignore the Republicans who hate gay people.
Dang, he’s cute too… where were all these conservative gay men when I was in my 20s?
Closeted.
Being a young openly gay conservative is a relatively recent thing. They used to wait until they were older and more established before coming out.
Good luck, Brad. For what it’s worth, I think attitudes are changing very rapidly amongst those ‘in the red’. They no longer have the political luxury of petty bigotry.
The reds are the left.
We conservatives are the blues.
Fuck the Democrats trying to pretend, with the aid of their media mates that somehow they are left-wingers.
I will say what I think though, Brad, and it’s a controversial opinion I’ve never seen argued. The gay male argument to be made against gay marriage is that it’s what caused this to begin with. Legalized gay marriage has sucked all the fun out of being gay. We had this secret society all to ourselves, and it was counter culture, and it was crazy, and it was too much, but it was all ours. Now that everyone feels the need to kiss our butts, it’s just made us the arrogant way people are when they’re the man. It wouldn’t have been your fellow gays calling you a Fox News faggot 20 years ago, that’s for sure (well, it may have been, but it would have been lovingly/as a joke.)
I’ve seen people make this argument before, but it’s important to remember that most gay men don’t want to be counter-cultural. I appreciate the radicals from the ’60s and ’70s, but if that remained the only way to be gay, I would have stayed closeted. That secretive counter-culture led to drug abuse and the AIDS crisis. Assimilating into mainstream society was a much healthier option for gay men and lesbians, especially for those of us who are more politically conservative.
20 years ago you DADT and DOMA recently signed, sodomy laws were still legal and enforced in a baker’s dozen states, and Lawrence v. Texas (2003) was about to get started.
So sure, he wouldn’t have been a “Fox News faggot”. He would either have been liberal or closeted. I’m not sure that’s an improvement.
The problem with this article is the marriage part. Even hetero folks have quit getting married and live together. That fact that marriage has always been a religious rite between a man and women over the years also has something to do with the fact folks don’t ;like the pact being same sex and make the argument of what next, an animal, a house, themselves? All happen and that actually tears down the fabric of the institution.
Then you have the fact that women have used the pact as a way to enslave men with alimony and child support when they mutter the magic words I am not happy and get a no fault divorce with men footing the bill. So marriage no longer being a useful tool to keep men and women together for the social construct of raising kids they made together thus not throwing them on society’s shoulders, become useless for that.
So seeing same sex folks wanting to further undercut what the reason for marriage was in modern society in the first place and then further idiots marrying their cats kinda made the argument for us older folks that what you need is a contract lawyer when you are in the situation that you want your partner and yourself to have rights married folks have including who gets end of life decisions and such and that government can help in that but leave our institution in the religious sector alone.
Marriage is a covenant between your higher power and your spouse and yourself. All getting a license from the state does is giving you permission to do it by the state. But nope, gay folks want to force folks to accept them not only into the society, which is reasonable, but into the religious rites, which is not, though some churches will. Go to them.
But not wanting you to marry is not the issue, not wanting you to use the force of government for it on my church or mosque or what have you. Not being able to use the force of government to make me help you do so against my will such as bake AND decorate a cake for the occasion.
What you want is society to stop on a dime and turn around after 100s of years of tradition, right now, so you can have what you want. Takes time and using the force of government does not help your case, it hurts it
“All getting a license from the state does is giving you permission to do it by the state.”
While I can sympathise (if not agree) with conservative arguments regarding the traditional religious meaning of marriage, this is one point where I notice they nearly always dramatically misrepresent the issue for their own convenience.
If marriage were, in fact, only a covenant with God, then the state would have nothing to do with it. A properly conservative natural rights argument would recognise that the state ‘giving you permission’ to voluntarily enter a private institution is nonsensical. The state could be barred from preventing this association, but not entitled to permit it.
But of course, it is not only this. It is ‘permitted’ by the state so that it can be privileged by the state. It results in the ability to pay lower taxes on earnings, capital gains, transfer of assets, and more, jointly file for bankruptcy, realise joint parenting rights (even in the case of adoption as would obviously happen here), insurance eligibility, inheritance rights, prenuptial agreement accessibility, spousal privilege in court, widowers’ benefits, and many, many more. In fact, the US General Accounting Office identifies 1,138 benefits solely at the Federal level that are given exclusively to married couples.
‘It is just a private institution’ is a bare-faced lie. You might think of it that way, but the legal reality is nothing of the sort. I would much prefer if it were, in fact, a private institution, and the Federal government wasn’t in the business of subsidising weird lifestyle choices, but so long as it is, gay marriage is a crucial civil rights issue. It is by no means asking for the application of special government force; it is asking for equal governmental protection.
Indeed. In many countries (much of Latin America, for example), churches are legally prohibited from marrying people, annulling marriages and running cemeteries, among other things we tend to think of as the domain of religion in the US. These things can only be done by the state in such countries, because they are recognized as being legal matters, not religious ones — they determine things like legal obligations to care for others, legal obligations toward offspring, tax rates and breaks and write-offs, the rules governing inheritance, public health and sanitation, etc.
If you truly see marriage as a covenant between you, your spouse and your god, you will of course get married by your priest, deacon, minister, rabbi, imam or whatever, and eschew all the financial benefits the state provides married couples by not getting married by the state or not reporting your religious marriage to the state. Did you in fact do this? If not, your line about a covenant with your god is just a convenient argument, not a belief you care enough about to follow it.
Marriage tends to increase, not decrease, tax burden. That’s why they call it the “marriage penalty”. Marriage as a legal contract is mainly about the state providing subsidized dispute resolution (i.e. the state enforces divorce rulings).
Generally, marriage is a cost to the state that it takes on because marriage creates family and children. The state can’t continue its existence without children, so it has a reason to take on such a burden. It grants them to childless straight couple because the vast majority of straight marriages result in children and trying to suss out which won’t isn’t worth the underwriting costs. Since the vast majority of gay marriages don’t result in children, there isn’t any reason for the state to take on the burden of marraige.
I don’t care how much of a burden it is to the state, it does grant certain privileges, an example. I as a Belgian citizen will pay absurd (illegitimate) taxes, besides those when you die your heir will only receive a part of your heritage due to taxes. A way to reduce those (privilege alert) is by marrying your heir. Why would certain people be allowed to use this gimmick and others not. Personally I am of the opinion that the state has right to meddle in those affairs and it should be a solely religious/cultural thing without legal benefits and al the arbitrary bigotry attached to it. I say this as a gay male.
What heirs? Quite frankly, gays have very few children (adopted or surrogate).
Anyway, we had this push for “civil unions” in the US a decade ago. The deal was that you could get all of those legal rights, it just wouldn’t be called marriage. The fact that nobody was satisfied with them shows it was never about legal rights. It was about social approval.
The paired religious and legal nature of marofriage is a throwback to a time when we lived in a cohesive society. Gay couples should have all the rights and responsibilities of straight couples, but there was never a need to call that “marriage,” much less to compel religious organisations to conform to this new standard. But since that ship has sailed, younger conservatives like Ben Shapiro are in fact arguing that the state should get out of the business of marriage.
The comment about the state having wrestled control of marriage from the church is disturbing. A relic from socialism?
@asdf
By 2009, over twenty states has passed state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage as well as civil unions, domestic partnerships, and any “similar” union. Interestingly, the earlier amendments just banned marriage, it was the later ones that banned all compromises as well.
So sure, there was a push for a compromise. And it was one conservatives loudly and definitely rejected.
Umm..,
,
” sucked all the fun out of being gay”!?!¿”
That’s not hilarious?
Anyhoo.
My woman and myself are wholly offended!
Sorry couldn’t sell it…. Be back in in two hours ( depending on sandwich thickness)
Such is Life.
Ydsy, that’s how she say’s it.,
My Man.,
When push comes to shove, the fact of the matter is that it can be simultaneously true that there exists an unfortunate and rather significant aversion to homosexuals amoungst religious Republican circles and also that the conduct of progressive LGBT activists is mostly reprehensible, dangerously radical and disingenuous. The two do not cancel each other out.
And it is worth mentioning that a lot of religious Republican prejudice against merely homosexual people is fuelled by a judgement against the entirety of modern ‘gay culture’ which itself is very much worthy of critique with its promotion of sexual hedonism, rampant unrestrained gratification, public displays of vulgarity and nudity etc. This doesn’t remove the fault from those who prejudge on those grounds but more could be done from gays to denounce these cultural practices.
…modern ‘gay culture’ which itself is very much worthy of critique with its promotion of sexual hedonism, rampant unrestrained gratification, public displays of vulgarity and nudity etc.
Not one of the issues you mention here have anything whatsoever to do with conservative principles — they are all religiously motivated moralistic judgments based on primitive brainstem-generated revulsion.
Can you imagine Milton Friedman condemning “unrestrained gratification”? Hell, no! The conservative position is that that’s none of the government’s damned business. The US Republican position, on the other hand, being infused to the core with primitive religious puritanism, is “That kind of thing disgusts me and so it’s wrong. And I’m sure I can find a random Bible verse to justify my revulsion after the fact”.
Sadly, the US is hamstrung by a tens of millions of religious fanatics with a mentality worthy of Salem, and most of them vote Republican.
Conservative views on sexuality have been backed up by research time and time again. They are also backed up by most peoples personal observation. We were right. The hippies were wrong. We have the correct formula for achieving the good life. These impulses are intuitional because intuition is usually accurate, having been honed by evolution for quite some time.
I don’t know Milton Friedman’s views on hedonism. I’m not aware of him leading some wild hedonistic lifestyle, but I never read the guys biography.
The conservative position is sometimes that “its not the governments business”, but that isn’t the same as saying “this is a morally good thing. I would recommend this kind of lifestyle to my loved ones.” Law is on a different plane than morality because it involves entirely different social relations.
Conservative views on sexuality have been backed up by research time and time again.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that such studies exist and have not been refuted by other studies, what do you think of the regimes throughout history, both fascist and communist, which have tried make these views reality through the force of the State?
Not keen on them? Then you have no alternative than to drop the matter from your politics, lawmaking/advocacy, etc.
What laws have religious conservatives passed?
They want to:
1) Not have particular viewpoints on controversial subjects unrelated to the acquisition of general academic knowledge shoved down their kids throats at school
2) Not want to have people running around forcing them to bake cakes
3) Don’t want to subsidize the costs associated with hedonistic cultural lifestyles (who the fuck do you think is subsidizing all those AIDS meds)
Basically, they want to be left alone.
In the sphere of cultural norms they state their opinions like everyone else. You seem unable to take the criticism.
Benjamin Franklin: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”
You may dispute what constitutes virtue, but in a society built on Christian values, the Bible is an appropriate place to start. If you had read the Bible, you would know that the rule against male homosexuality is sandwiched between verses outlawing incest. It is far from cherry-picked. When Jesus said “with me dies the law,” he obviously wasn’t saying you can fuck your daughters now.
The morals portrayed in the Bible do evolve with time. We should not limit ourselves to a 2000 year old version of morality. But we should be very careful making changes, because these rules were formed by centuries of observation and learning. Much of the early rules involved health and sanitation, so the edict against anal sex is unsurprising. It increases the chances of infection drastically. Have we outgrown the risk enough to bring male homosexuality into the fold? The AIDS crisis rendered gay men more cautious, and increased their desire to assimilate. I think facilitating this assimilation by encouraging gay couples to get married is in everyone’s best interest.
But now we have to hold the line. Here and no further! No polygamy, and no child marriage! And scorn on anyone who pushes either.
If gays had changed their behavior to earn marriage, we’d be having a different conversation. However, there really wasn’t any change in the gay subculture that justified being rewarded with marriage.
There were also those that said that “once we have marriage, the changes will come. we just need encouragement.” There isn’t any evidence of that happening though. Monogamous gay marriage is a statistical fluke. We have to regard this sentiment as proven wrong.
What it has done it radicalize them (history is one our side, destroy the haters). Validated the previous misbehavior, and strengthened the forces of sexual promiscuity and hedonism (who doesn’t see those as also on the “right side of history”).
There was no shortcut to acceptance. Behave acceptably, or don’t get accepted.
You may dispute what constitutes virtue, but in a society built on Christian values, the Bible is an appropriate place to start. If you had read the Bible, you would know that…
“If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife–with the wife of his neighbor–both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death” (Leviticus 20:10, NIV).
Please, leave your bronze-age superstitions out of politics. The Bible is an incoherent mess that promotes abominable behaviour that would –literally– land anyone who follows through on it in jail or on death row.
Cheating on a spouse causes a lot of pain. I assume you don’t actually think it’s a good thing.
That the punishment is harsh is simply common to the pre-modern world. It was a world with few resources, few jails, and the most tenuous of holds on the monopoly of force. Nearly all punishments for all crimes in all cultures were severely harsh because it was the only way to keep order.
I appreciate you sharing your story. It was insightful, to be sure. While I can’t claim to relate to your experience(s) as a gay man, I do believe the recent social phenomenon of anti-white male sentiment is comparable in certain (limited) respects; namely, the overt hostility by a significant minority of society. So, to the extent that it can be said, and said accurately, I feel your pain…
You seem like a bright guy, I’m sure you’ll find your way. Good luck.
Where is the hatred? I hear well-educated, wealthy (aka privileged) people on the Left use gay slurs against political opponents all the time (whether the opponent is actually gay or not), and as the author points out, frequently display actual hatred, threats of violence, and social isolation against Right leaning gays. I also suspect the overwhelming source of actual violence against gays comes from blacks, Hispanics, white Antifas, and Muslims, which are all groups that vote Democrat 80+% of the time.
On the other hand, the most vocal gay “opposition” on the Right tends to come from the “backwoods” redneck types with little education and wealth who were raised in a very socially conservative manner. The more privileged “discomfort” and “lack of support” for gay lifestyles on the Right tends to come out of pity rather than hatred, and thus they look at gay people the same way they might look at someone born without a limb or vision. I’ve never heard Mike Pence say a bad word against gay people, and his lack of support for gay marriage is based on reasonable interpretations of the Bible and Christian traditions, which are themselves based on rules of living meant to foster the reproductive health of future generations (i.e. gay couples can’t biologically have children). Besides restrictions on gay marriage and open gays in the military (based mostly on concerns about military effectiveness not hatred), I don’t believe there is any mainstream viewpoint on the Right that suggests that homosexuals should otherwise not have equal rights in employment, housing, common law spousal privileges, etc.
I’m sorry that you occasionally hear conservative speakers who say things you perceive as non-supportive of your situation, but why should you be specially treated? Don’t you think Republicans or Conservatives frequently hear people in restaurants or conferences or on CNN say nasty, hateful things about Republicans, Conservatives, Christians, Right-to-Lifers, Capitalists, etc. that they feel are hurtful and unfair? I’m sorry, but whatever your station in life, some group or individual is not going to like it, and adults just have to learn to live with the slings and arrows that come from both young and old non-adults without condemning, unfairly discriminating, or violently reacting against entire segments of society. My hope is that someday soon, more of the privileged people on the Left will finally grow up to be adults.
“I don’t believe there is any mainstream viewpoint on the Right that suggests that homosexuals should otherwise not have equal rights in employment, housing, common law spousal privileges, etc.” To the contrary, House Republicans blocked the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act in 2013. Only 22 states have laws that prohibit discrimination against gays and lesbians in the provision of rental housing; unsurprisingly, they’re states which have (or had) Democratic legislative majorities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_Act
https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/discrimination-limiting-lgbtq-peoples-access-rental-housing
Conservatives are generally against non-discrimination laws in general. For good reasons. In the end it turns into witch hunts and affirmative action giveaways every time.
Thank you K for the clarification, although I should have been more clear to state “public” employment and housing. From my understanding, Republican reservations about forcing private citizens and companies to give homosexuals equal rights to private employment and housing is most commonly based on freedom of religion or private property rights rather than gay hatred. Given that homosexuals as a group are very financially successful, it would seem to be bad business practice to openly discriminate against a segment with money to spend, but if religious beliefs compel a baker to politely reject an order for a gay wedding cake the Constitution says they have a right to do so.
Except the Civil Rights movement proves that it’s far more useful for society to ban discrimination in the private sector than allow it.
Does it?
Blacks in the Jim Crow south faced real and pressing deprivations on a daily basis that made just living life very hard. No group today faces anything like that. You can’t really apply their situation to the one faced by a gay dude today. It’s inaccurate and quite frankly insulting.
It’s also worth noting that civil rights really wasn’t all that successful or popular. Shortly after it was enacted most cities experienced violence which drove out the whites and created the ghettos. Most of its ideas were extremely unpopular (think school busing getting reversed everywhere) and on a voluntary basis segregation is now greater rather than lessor.
When MLK died he was very unpopular in both the North and the South because people have gotten a load of what this meant and he had inevitably pivoted from “end Jim Crow because you are good Christians” to “I’m going to peddle a bunch of forced integration and socialism in North and South and you Northern ‘moderates’ are my real enemies.” Only because he died and became a martyr could he be Sainted by the people who were already tired of what he was selling by that time.
The more laws, the less justice. We are seeing that daily.
I didn’t know that I was a political conservative for many more years, until I came of age in an era of political correctness and resurgent socialism, developments that pushed me away from modern liberalism. . . . As recently as November, a coalition of congressional Republicans protested the inclusion of LGBT protections in the new Canada-Mexico trade deal. This doesn’t make them evil. But it does make me politically homeless. How can I feel at home within a movement that doesn’t always accept an important part of my identity?
This confused me. Firstly, I’m trying to figure out how LGBTQ people need protections in trade deal. Is there a provision that mandates or forbids the cross-border trade LGBTQ people. For example, is Canada allowed to export timber, maple syrup, and heterosexuals but not bi- and homosexuals? Or, is Mexico required to export LGBTQ people but not everyone else to the US?
I suppose I need a bit more info re this issue.
I’m a conservative and I have no problems with gays. I’m perfectly willing to tolerate, but when the demand for embracing and celebrating enters the picture, I decline. They, like anyone else, are entitled to the same rights and the same legal protections as anyone else.
Like many conservatives, I object to positive discrimination and other set asides that establish a protected caste in both the private and public sector. I do not support any discrimination of gays in the public sector; gays may teach in public schools, serve in the military, hold elected office, wed, etc. I do object to government set asides in contracts.
Chiefly, conservatives object to excessive government intrusion in the private sector. If gay clubs don’t want to admit groups of straight women out on hen nights because they ruin the evening for everyone else, a club owner should be free to post a sign saying No Women. He should not have to wait around for them to get sloshed, start groping the lads, the clutter the dance floor before tossing them. Same goes for women, lesbians or not, who prefer to run female-only businesses.
Conservatives object to public accommodation laws that compel a business owner to deal with anyone s/he doesn’t want to. Present law infringes on the rights of the owner to establish whatever restrictions he chooses in favour of the customer. Given the business owner has more skin in the game, I think his freedom of association to include the freedom to not associate trumps the consumer’s right to access. FWIW, I think this is bad business decision, but people have the right to make bad decisions. There are almost 28 million businesses in the US, as well as all the online options, so everyone has plenty of choices. If one baker won’t serve you, go to another one.
Perhaps you’re not a conservative, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Maybe you’re a red Tory.
GG – very thoughtful comment. The Left, however, does not generally agree with your statement that people have a right to make bad decisions – they believe that right belongs solely to Left leaning politicians and bureaucrats.
Whaaaaa no one will have sex with me ..,whaaaaaaa
They ain’t gonna budge, nor are you.
Deal with it.
Hello,
Bisexual pagan here. Oh, and a furry, too.
But those things rarely come up when it comes to politics. A vast majority of the time they really just don’t matter. There is no “bisexual stance on taxation,” or a “pagan view on State’s Rights.”
People on the left assume that there is, of course, and since they assume it, a lot of brain dead people on the right assume that too. You just gotta roll your eyes, mumble “we’re not all like that you know,” and move on with life.
It’s true – the Republican party, by and large, has a significant fundamentalist population (though I would argue that they have missed the *most* fundamental part of their faith, which is that Jesus taught love and forgiveness and to leave judgement up to God, but I digress – or do I?). It’s annoying, to be sure, but again – someone not liking where I stick my thingy is rarely a political issue.
The only time it HAS been a significant issue to me is the marriage thing (and SCOTUS screwed that one up, in my opinion – instead of saying, “Yes, the government should approve of gay marriage,” they should have said, “The government has no business deciding who can and who cannot get married, period, so you do you, whoever you are.” Did you know that there was a time before government marriage licenses?).
But that’s been decided. That’s over now. So what is left? Nothing, really. Even “Bake The Cake!” has little to do with homosexuality and everything to do with freedom of religion and compelled speech.
When it comes to politics I don’t bring up my sexuality because it doesn’t matter. And when some conservative says “I don’t like dem dere sissies,” well, I don’t like “dem dere hillbillies” either. So what? As long as they vote for less government intervention in my life, they’re on my side. What I do with my dangly bits is my business. As long as they’re not legislating against it, it just doesn’t matter – nor do they have to even know about it.
If you spend your time focusing on what we have in common you’ll be a lot happier.
Something to keep in mind – for many of these heavy anti-gay types, the most exposure they’ve had are those creepy, hyper-sexualized parades in San Francisco where people run around in pink sparkly bondage gear with dildos strapped to their heads while shouting “communism is wonderful!” So it’s up to people like you and I to show them that we are not all like that. In fact, I would venture to say that there’s a majority who aren’t like that – once you get away from the cities, which are always toxic leftist cesspools anyway.
The Republican party could be a bit less hostile, but it is quickly moving in that direction. It’s already FAR more welcoming to bisexual and gay folk today than it used to be, and it’s only going to get better from here. The most important thing is to keep your eye on the ball (or balls, as it were) – low taxes, small government. And if that means standing shoulder to shoulder with some bible thumping preacher who says your soul is going to burn in hell – well, I’m okay with that. Just vote against those school levies, thanks, and we’ll go our separate ways.
Speaking of, the most welcoming conservative movement I’ve ever been involved with was the Tea Party movement… Sad that both the Democrat -AND- Republican parties did all they could to squash that one.
Anyway, that’s my commentary.
P.S. I guess I have one bit left. If you replace “gay” with “black” in your article, the experience is very similar. Something to think about…
Good comment Bear – I think you are totally correct that the anti-gay intolerance is heavily driven by “the creepy, hyper-sexualized parades in San Francisco where people run around in pink sparkly bondage gear with dildos strapped to their heads while shouting “communism is wonderful!”” Most would be willing to tolerant homosexuality as long as the “gayness” isn’t flaunted, and overly sexualized/politicized, and most “anti-gays” are almost certainly also unhappy with overly sexualized public displays of heterosexuality as well.
“Most would be willing to tolerate homosexually as long as it isn’t flaunted”. I don’t think the vast majority of history, or the majority of current cultures, or a good proportion of those even within tolerant cultures, backs up this statement. On the contrary, the vast, vast majority of the reaction to homosexuality has been at best critical and disgusted, and at worst murderously judgemental. By all means make good arguments against what you might see as something unseemly, but the counter argument might be that flaunting gayness (and taking pride in it) is something that normalises the expectation that folk don’t have to hide their sexual preferences because you find them distasteful
I recall an old Onion headline from back when they were still occasionally funny: PRIDE PARADE SETS MAINSTREAM ACCEPTANCE OF GAYS BACK FIFTY YEARS. Does taking pride in one’s sexuality and refusing to hide in the closet really necessitate the kind of displays put on at the Folsom Street Fair? People aren’t overwhelmingly inclined to look at all that and assess the participants as upstanding members of society — and that includes several LGBT people I’ve known. One gay acquaintance of mine went absolutely livid with embarrassment every time the subject of pride marches came up: “Don’t they REALIZE how it looks?!”
There is much truth in Mr. Bear’s words.
I remember in the late 1990s we in Massachusetts were working on initiative petitions to make same-sex marriages legal. It had failed twice but support was growing and it would have passed on the next try but Margret Marshall and the Supreme Judicial Court, may they all rot in hell, jumped in and took it out of our hands.
They never should have done that. It would have been much better if the support for same sex marriages had emerged from the electorate and not been imposed by the judicial fiat.
@EK
Would you also have suggested Lawrence, of Lawrence v. Texas (2003) fame, have waited on the “electorate” (which continues, to this day, to stand by their sodomy law) instead of fighting for justice?
Justice delayed, justice denied and all that jazz.
The best thing for a liberal is to befriend a conservative. The best thing for a conservative is to befriend a liberal.
I seek to understand, in order to be understood…as long as you stay off Twitter.
I would have thought the history of conservative opinion regarding homosexuality makes it quite understandable why few gay people gravitate to that side of politics.
Yes, conservative opinions change significantly over time (no matter how much many of them may fiercely deny it) but that side of politics certainly hasn’t shifted enough for most gays to regard it as less potentially dangerous, and this is very much reinforced by this writer’s accounts of conservative bigotry.
He should therefore be able to grasp that for many gays, conservative politics is associated with a real and understandable sense of personal threat. There are plenty of conservatives who mean us real harm.
Given the normally close relationship between the conservative parties and homophobic religion, that’s not likely to change before religion itself fades further into the social fringes. That’s happening now, even in the US, but it will probably take several generations before homophobes are no longer commonplace amongst mainstream American conservatives.
@Bubblecar
You stated: “He should therefore be able to grasp that for many gays, conservative politics is associated with a real and understandable sense of personal threat.”
Were you under the impression that the author had failed to grasp this? That was not my understanding.
You are sadly mistaken if you think there aren’t plenty on the left that hate gay people.
As I said further up, currently the problem seems to be that homosexuality is kind of a settled issue in the west, and the left’s sympathies now lie with more exotic causes like Islam and immigration. Which immediately produced murderous results, and to no revision of progressive strategy. So that’s no small problem. But that aside you’re making a false equivalence, SO FAR. Give this trajectory a little more time, and we may very well have leftists speaking out against homosexuality because President Sarsour won’t have it.
The remarkable transformation of the Right’s viewpoints on homosexuality is largely driven by the increasing realization (based on medical research) that homosexuals are born and not made. Thus rather than being a “rebellious or reckless choice” that should be minimized and/or reversed via public shaming and disapproval in a manner also utilized in the past against single motherhood, premarital sex, or drug abuse, homosexuality is increasingly seen as a genetic or birth defect that is unfair to discriminate against.
As for the need for religion to fade away to before true equality can be achieved, it should be noted that many mainstream Christian denominations already allow full gay participation, although not without scandal, as the recent Catholic priest sexual abuse of alter boys seems to be a largely homosexual crime (apparently the priestly vow of chastity has been interpreted by homosexuals to mean no sex with women). Thus the people that the gay community might wish to emulate for wider acceptance would be someone such as Peter Thiel or Dave Rubin rather than a child molester priest or half-naked gay pride parade participant.
“homosexuality is increasingly seen as a genetic or birth defect”
The Right have always falsely claimed that homosexuality is “defective” in one sense or another, which is another reason why “right-wing gays” are regarded as incomprehensible by many gays.
“Thus the people that the gay community might wish to emulate for wider acceptance”
We don’t actually need “wider acceptance”. The traditional homophobia of the Right is now a liability for the Right, and this will increasingly be the case as older generations of homophobes die off. Your inability to to keep pace with mainstream society in accepting homosexuality is very much your problem, not ours.
@Bubblecar
Your insistence that the Right is not changing in the direction of both tolerance and acceptance of homosexuality doesn’t carry much persuasive weight anymore.
The author of this article is a good example of what you have been missing.
The author himself points out that vocal and politically active homophobia is still commonplace on the Right.
Sure, things are changing, but there’s still a long way to go.
If you don’t need wider acceptance, why is it a life of death struggle to pass laws favoring you, destroy everyone who criticizes you, and make them “bake the cake.”?
All of this is about shoving “acceptance” down peoples throat. Mature gays just got on with their lives before any of this.
You’re confusing “acceptance” with equality before the law. We don’t expect religious fundamentalists to accept us – we do expect them to abide by non-discrimination laws that apply to running businesses.
Why do you need non-discrimination laws?
Blacks in the Jim Crow south couldn’t buy a fucking sandwich. You guys have all the power and all the elite backing. You’ve got to track down friendly people minding their own business and try to destroy their lives. That fucking baker was nice to those people, baking them cakes for years, and provided them the information of dozens of other people nearby that could provide the service they requested. Why the fuck do you need to go out of the way to ruin this persons life. He’s not hurting you. He’s not stopping you from doing anything.
You have NOTHING in common with black dude in 1950s Alabama.
You’re a nihilistic vindictive bully and you know it. You revel in your power to destroy.
@asdf
“Why do you need non-discrimination laws?”
We need anti-discrimination laws because of people like you, who believe we’re not entitled to equality, and who believe that gays are “nihilistic vindictive bullies” because we don’t bow to your shitty homophobic religion.
Mainline Christian denominations that have been on the forefront of leftist issues like gay marriage have been in decline for decades. They have low and decreasing attendance and their adherents tend to have low fertility rates. To be blunt, the experience of leftist churches shows that there is no such thing as leftist christianity. Especially as regards sexual matters.
The absolute core of what the church does it provide a life script for the successful formation and maintenance of families. If a stance helps that, it’s good for the church. If it hurts it, it’s bad for the church.
Being gay may not be a choice, but we don’t let anyone do anything. We don’t let retards in the armed forces because they are a danger to themselves and others. I’m sure if we did there would be a retard or two with a touching story, but we disallow it based on it being a statistically bad bet.
Similarly we shouldn’t have let gays be priests because of their likely behavior at the statistical level.
People have to deal with their birth defects all the time. It’s part of life. We’ve all got something wrong with us. You deal with it, not demand society be turned upside down instead.
All religion is dying out in the West, and yes, “progressive” religion appears to be dying out the fastest, presumably because its followers are not really very religious and eventually abandon such pretences.
But the religious homophobes are dying out too – their offspring are much less likely to be religious than they are, presumably because they recognise that religious belief is a serious intellectual and ethical disability.
@E.Olson @Bubblecar
What I don’t understand though is if homosexuality isn’t a choice, why are heteronormative masculinity and femininity then seen as social constructs? Why does the one need to be promoted and the other eradicated?
I’ve been an educator at all levels of education and seen positive examples of masculinity and femininity being treated as anathema to social development, while teaching elementary school kids how to have gay sex is seen as completely acceptable.
I rather suspect that as ‘acceptance’ of homosexual lifestyles has increasingly made its way into our public institutions, tolerance for homosexuality has actually decreased among the actual public. I wasn’t aware of this problem until two of my students at the teaching college I worked at were given an assignment which was to discuss homosexuality (ie put a positive spin on it) with a class of eight year-olds. They felt deeply uncomfortable doing this and were concerned that the teacher would fail them if they didn’t comply. It was at this point for the first time in my life that I began to wonder if there actually was a ‘gay agenda’, and if so, who’s designing it and to what end?
I must admit a certain fascination over the question of whether homosexuality is a choice or immutable.
If homosexuality is a product of one’s DNA wouldn’t natural selection have bred the gene out by now?
Homosexuality as immutable rather choice currently has certain sociological advantages. If homosexuality is immutable that fact bolsters the claim that homosexuals are a “suspect class” in need of special legal protections or scrutiny.
However with current innovations in DNA identification and research, is homosexuality as an immutable trait desirable? If the gene can be identified, is there not a risk heterosexual parents could elect not to have homosexual children? Witness what is occurring in Iceland with Down syndrome infants.
Is homosexuality diminished, if it is a preference, no different than preferring blondes, tall men, redheads, ect…?
From my questions, I do not mean to infer a position on the genetic viability of homosexuality. I honestly find the question interesting.
Farris – I don’t think the DNA angle has been ruled out entirely, but from what I understand the more likely explanation for homosexuality is hormonal imbalances during pregnancy. I also believe there is some reason to believe unidentified childhood experiences (e.g. environmental factors) might “set off” homosexuality among people with the “gay” gene or hormonal imbalance gestation.
Societal pressure to be straight has historically led many homosexuals to mate with the opposite sex and hence have children, which would be one way that a “gay” gene would not die out, and this hypothesis might be tested soon as more widespread gay acceptance means much less cross-gender mating among homosexuals, which might also lower societal IQ since homosexuals tend to have higher than average intelligence.
Science will no doubt eventually find the “gay” gene (if it exists) or be able to correct any gay producing hormonal balance problem, and thus present parents with the opportunity to make sure they do not have a homosexual child. Assuming a DNA cause, gene therapy might eventually also be able to “correct” existing homosexuality, which will also present an interesting decision – how many homosexuals would opt to become straight if given the opportunity? A possibly corollary is deaf community, which has viewed recent surgical advances in curing deafness with alarm as a threat to the deaf “way of life”.
Throughout most of history, most people with a sexual orientation favouring their own sex have nonetheless felt obliged to follow convention, marry a member of the opposite sex and procreate. There have been various cultures that accommodated homosexual preferences “privately”, while outwardly the individuals lived conventional lives.
These days, an increasing number of lesbian and gay couples raise families using various means, often involving gay sperm donors etc. And in the future, if any genetic link with homosexuality is established, it may be possible for any couples to actually choose to have gay children, via biotech intervention.
If prospective parents were given a choice regarding the sexual orientation of their offspring, we would expect the statistical ratio of gays to actually increase, as many people enjoy diversity and will choose, for example, to have one straight kid and one gay kid.
Some people are probably “very gay” and would be gay in almost any situation.
Some are “situationally gay”. I.E. They can be attracted to women but if stuck in a situation like all male prison or away at sea…sex finds a way.
In fact a lot of gayness in Ancient Greece was seen as a sort of side hobby that you were expected to “grow out of” and not interfere with your finding a wife and creating new male citizens.
Ken – there certainly is a gay agenda, which started as a means of trying to get some legal rights and social acceptance, but as with feminism has evolved into a more militant identity politics agenda that wants to force everyone to celebrate homosexuality and make it a part of school curriculum. And as with all other identity politics groups who try to force their “tragic” history and non-mainstream habits into school curriculum they definitely desire the positive spin treatment. This means avoiding much of the reality of homosexuality, such as it is likely a genetic or birth defect, is associated with high levels of mental illness and suicide, highly promiscuous sexual behavior among male homosexuals (which is why AIDS spread so rapidly), and high rates of statutory rape (not just limited to priests). On the positive side, homosexuals as a group have been quite successful in entrepreneurship, the arts, and tend to have above average IQ and incomes.
Quite why sexual preferences and gay sex techniques need to be part of school curriculum is beyond me, however, but then again I grew when school textbooks told me that George Washington was great general and outstanding president with nothing at all about his sexual preferences, Andy Warhol was a strange looking guy that made a fortune painting Campbell soup cans with nothing at all about him be homosexual, and sexual education was about learning how not to have any accidental pregnancies, which is seldom a problem for homosexuals. I do expect that Bubblecar will have a different opinion.
@E. Olsen
“such as it is likely a genetic or birth defect”
Your use of the term “defect” is of course completely unscientific, reflecting your own inability to accept human diversity without making erroneous and defensive “value” judgments that place you (somewhat laughably) above everyone else.
Homosexuality is recognised as a normal and quite common sexual variation and no scientist these days would classify it as a “defect” in any sense.
Bubblecar: Species or groups that don’t reproduce – die off, and hence natural selection favors characteristics that increase reproduction and survival of children into adulthood. Since the biological purpose of sex is to reproduce, and box sexes are needed to complete the transaction, homosexuality is necessarily a defect because two men or two women cannot naturally create a child.
E. Olsen: Homosexuality hasn’t “died off”, so your thesis is defective.
One day you might read a basic introduction to biology, and you’ll find that “natural selection” is not a conservative political manifesto.
Human nature is what it is, and science seeks to accurately describe it, not cross out this or that characteristic because it doesn’t conform to right-wing “political correctness”.
You’re confusing sexual orientation with gender roles. You’ll find that the latter is a much more contentious subject these days, with strong disagreement for example between traditional feminists and the weirder transgender activists, who take a line much closer to the conservatives (who don’t seem to realise that radical trans activists are essentially on their side).
My own view is that while hormones play a role in traditional categories of masculine and feminine behaviour, those traits touted as positive or virtuous examples of masculinity and femininity are actually attitudes and behaviours to which everyone should aspire, regardless of their sex.
Question for you: which party would more likely attract party members and votes from those emigrating from the developing world? Will immigrants from Somalia, Bolivia, Nigeria, China, Egypt, and Pakistan align with the Democrats or the Republicans?
We ought to look at the cultural baggage these groups bring with them.
Does a homophobic immigrant lose his/her homophobia upon naturalisation?
Why should gays support a party that seeks to increase the number of immigrants from deeply homophobic countries?
Given the normally close relationship between the conservative parties and homophobic religion, that’s not likely to change before religion itself fades further into the social fringes.
Interesting that religion is not pluralised. Seems something is missing, yeah? Or is it only one religion that’s homophobic?
Of the world’s major religions (Catholicism, mainstream Protestantism, evangelical Protestant, Orthodox Christian, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism) presently, which are the most and the least homophobic? You may order them from most to least left to right.
Which political party attracts adherents of these religions?
Assuming you’re correct that religious conservatives (of any religion) pose the greatest risk to gays, why would gays support a party that seeks to increase their number through immigration? Don’t gays have enough on their plate with the Evangelicals?
In a Pew survey” of US Catholics, white mainstream Protestants, white Evangelicals, and black Protestants (no reason provided why black Evangelicals were not surveyed), it found Two-thirds of Catholics now support same-sex marriage, as do a similar share of white mainline Protestants (68%).
Support for same-sex marriage among black Protestants and white evangelical Protestants remains lower than it is among other religious groups. However, the share of white evangelical Protestants who support same-sex marriage has grown from 27% in 2016 to 35% today.
The same Pew survey of whites and blacks opinions on gay marriage: Today, 64% of whites support same-sex marriage, as do 51% of blacks.
Democrats attract much greater support from blacks than do the Republicans. Given Democratic candidates routinely win more than 90% of the black vote, is it advisable for gays to find a home with a Party that relies on overwhelming black support when that group is more hostile to gay rights?
Sometimes you have to ask who your fellow travellers are, yeah?
Do you think gays are deluding themselves a bit about the Democratic Party? Both Obama and Clinton opposed gay marriage until just few years ago, and though the Democrats like to see themselves as the party that gave gays equal marriage, really it was the Supreme Court, wasn’t it?
Turning our attention outside the US, in the UK it was the ruling Conservative Party that introduced legislation and voted in equal marriage. In the 2017 general election, the majority of CoE supported the Tories.
Amongst Methodists, Baptists and those who identified as Church of Scotland, pluralities supported the Conservative Party. Amongst other Christians, support for Labour eclipsed that for the Conservatives (42% versus 38%).
Muslims voted overwhelmingly for Labour, with 85% having preferred for Jeremy Corbyn’s party, and 11% supported the Conservatives. Majorities, albeit somewhat reduced, voted Labour at the 2005-2015 general elections. Amongst Jews, a strong majority expressed support for the Conservative Party (63%), with around a quarter (26%) saying they voted for Labour. (Source: brin(dot)ac(dot)uk/religious-affiliation-and-party-choice-at-the-2017-general-election/
Why should gays support Labour when it failed to provide equal marriage when in power and presently receives such overwhelming support from one of the nation’s most homophobic religions?
In the US I’d imagine most gays vote Democrat because the alternative is usually worse, not out of any deep commitment to the Democrat party.
In the UK there’s presumably less Labour loyalty amongst gay people these days, particularly now that Corbyn is leader.
So, given the choice of more and hostile and fewer and violently hostile, you’d go with the latter and also prefer to see the increase of team violently hostile. You have a peculiar way of protecting yourself, if your worries about “real and understandable sense of personal threat” are genuine and not an over-egged larp.
Jews in both the UK and the US have awaken to the left’s anti-Semitism. I reckon gays, especially white gays, are next in line for their awakening.
Anyway, enjoy your sleepwalking whilst it’s still unmolested.
Thank you for the analysis, ga gamba. I suspect you know the answer to this question. Everyone possible must team up against the white people to wrestle “power” away from them. After that they can move on to their next enemy, probably the Jews and Asians, since they are too successful.
From there, who will win out? LGBT is kidding itself if they think they’ll beat the Muslims. They’re going to (obviously) be outbred and outnumbered, and don’t have the warrior culture to draw from, not to mention the ideological revulsion. Reactions to the Pulse shooting demonstrate Muslims are above LGBT on the intersectional pecking order.
I bet we’ll see a Latin/African front open, too. Latin people often can “pass” for white (I gripe I’ve heard SJWs express about Jews), but Africans have language privilege.
In any case, this coalition is metastable, and will collapse the moment white people are taken care of.
Muslims are a small minority in Western countries and realistic population forecasts expect them to stay that way. Also, Muslims living in the West can be expected to gradually adopt Western attitudes to many issues, as many already have.
But you’re clearly hopelessly paranoid. It’s amusing the way you people accuse minorities of “victim politics” while projecting yourselves as the victims of “anti-white genocide”, no less.
Bubblecar – wrong about so many things, but at least you are consistent. Muslims are not small minorities in much of Western Europe, and there have been substantial Muslim populations there since at least the 1950s when they were imported as “guest” workers. Assimilation has been terrible – they still live in their ghettos, and 2nd, 3rd generation are less likely to do well in school, work, and more likely to be radicalized than the original immigrants. This is why there are so many cases of “UK” or “Swedish” or “German” citizens fighting for ISIS (see today’s Quillette article as an example).
Bubblecar, remember this:
“The popular Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, was recovering from emergency surgery yesterday after being stabbed in the stomach during an all-night cultural festival in the capital, allegedly by a man who said he did not like politicians and gays.
A spokesman for the Pitié Salpetrière hospital said Mr Delanoë, 52, France’s most senior openly gay politician, was in a satisfactory condition. He is expected to remain in hospital for at least a week.
The man being held for yesterday’s attack is Azedine Berkane, 39, a computer specialist from the northern suburb of Bobigny.”
Do you know what the reaction in Bobigny was? Muslims clapped their hands and cheered and said “We don’t like f*gs.”
But sure, buddy, keep telling yourself we’re being paranoid.
Latin people don’t just “pass” for white, Latin people are white. All of the Latin peoples e.g. Italians, French, Portuguese, Spaniards became accepted as “white” in America decades ago. Only in more recent times have Spaniards (and sometimes Portuguese), solely because of the language they speak, suddenly become non-white due to the US Census/media invention of “Hispanic/Latino” identity, which means nothing from a racial/ethnic viewpoint.
Whites make up over 1/3 of Latin America’s population, and also a decent-sized chunk of the “Latino”(americanos) living in the US.
In the latest US Census 2017 ACS data, Non-Hispanic Whites make up 62% of the US population, but altogether Whites make up 73% of the US population including the 40 million “Hispanics/Latinos” of primarily European ethnic ancestry who identify as White.
One YUGE factor the Democrats/liberals who dream of “DEMOGRAPHICS IS DESTINY” delivering them permanent supermajority rule of the US fail to take into account is…uh…ALL of American history during which the definition of the “White” majority expanded to include many new groups outside of the original Anglo-Saxon English colonial founders…while continuing to always exclude blacks as permanent underclass minority.
There is absolutely no reason to believe that second and third generation US native-born English-speakers whose “Hispanic/Latino” parents or grandparents came from Latin America, of primarily European ethnic descent, would not choose to integrate into the White majority as so many other groups have done before them.
Sounds like the author is more libertarian than conservative.
The Left is incapable of debating ideas. Why? Because they will lose. So many of their ideals have played out into failures over the last century. Unable to debate the Left has become all about the Tribe. It has position itself as the spokesperson for all nonwhite male tribes. Therefore it can not tolerate dissension from any select tribe members. The author’s existence defies the presumption that the Left is the spokesperson for his tribe. The same article could have been written by a black conservative, a Hispanic conservative, or a female conservative. Women who voted against Hillary were branded traitors.
Mr. Polumbo, you gave the game away with “Massachusetts.” In Massachusetts, conservatives are pariahs, gay bi or straight. Worse, the locals believe their own BS. This is not a rant from a red state denizen. I grew up in Boston and know from where I speak.
As political tribes shrink to smaller and smaller groups, you will find that there is no one place that you feel comfortable. Pick you battles carefully. Turns out, that for most thinking people, there is no one place they are completely at home.
Why do anti-gay conservatives routinely sound like closeted homosexuals who wish they could come out? It’s this “choice” that you therefore must be refusing to indulge, like drinking? FFS, even if it was a choice, so what? Is this a free country or isn’t it? I don’t hear the same people complaining about beer ads running every 7 minutes.
Great article – really shows the struggle the economic and political conservatives face in a two-party systems… luckily in Alberta we have political parties that are economic and political conservatives but socially live in the modern world. You could probably find a home here.
Aside from the SJW Handbook …
Is it written somewhere that a gay man cannot love capitalism and the right to work?
What ever happened to the Log Cabin Republicans?
Oh, BOO HOO HOO, I can’t have my cake and eat it, too! (No pun intended about the cake baker and gay cake.)
I fled the left and I’m politically homeless because many (not all) conservatives – like religious fundamentalists – wish to enslave women through their biology. I’m on side with those who confirm that a woman has the right (indeed, it’s a basic tenet of classic liberalism) to decide what she does with her body without interference by the state or church.
Conservatism in the US (happily less so here in Canada) is full of anti-choice freaks and weirdos obsessed with controlling women (Islam, anyone…?). So I don’t have a political ‘home.’ Get over it.
I run across a fair number of conservative gay men on Twitter. It seems lesbians are in a tougher position than you. They’re really stuck, and especially so now that they’ve discovered how they’re being undermined by the gender grift of the trans world. I’d love to see a conservative gay woman (apart from Camille Paglia) pen a piece here about her experience.
We are all slaves to our biology; we don’t get to choose the biological sex we are born.
Female bodies have the capacity to carry & bear another distinct body forming inside them, which is not spawned by any law of the state or church, but rather is a consequence of what happens if a woman chooses to have unprotected sex with a man, which she has the right to do-but not the right to shirk the consequences of her actions by punishing another human being with the death penalty.
Male bodies are enslaved by biology in being unable to bear children no matter how badly a man wants to get pregnant & give birth. C’est la vie.
I don’t see a lot of sympathy or empathy here in the comments…I do see a lot of weird blame. Being politically homeless kind of sucks…and it’s further isolating when people who would nominally see you as in their tribe reject you because of ideological differences…but the authors experience isn’t different than many libertarian atheists…Take a look at some of the rhetoric aimed at libertarian atheists and you’ll see many similarities to what the author has experienced.
“I don’t see a lot of sympathy or empathy here in the comments.” Welcome to Quillette!
Brad— you’re not homeless, you just got home ahead of some of the rest of us. Put the coffee on, we’ll join you soon.
And check the closet— that where too many conservatives are hiding with their hats these days.
“The modern conservative movement still isn’t an entirely welcoming home for gay men. That much is widely known”.
Dave Rubin says otherwise.
Why would anyone support the LQBTQIMARTIAN+ movement, Brad? It’s out of control. Radical gender ideology being taught in schools, pseudo-religious claims of “social constructionism”. The LGBT movement has been taken over by radicals, and it’s become a complete joke.
I don’t support the movement, and I’m tired of having LGBT nonsense forced in front of my face. I was far more tolerant of your movement when it didn’t involve children being indoctrinated or near-continuous promotion of LGBT events.
What support does the LGBT “community” need!? You all have equal rights under the law.
What does “the LGBTQIMARTIAN+ movement” have to do with gay men…?
“LGBTQ” refers to a sexist homophobic “Transgender” cult run by heterosexual men with autogynephilia/transvestic fetishism, infamous for fighting against gay rights along with harassing gays & lesbians to sleep with them…
Back in 2007, “LGBT” activists scored a YUGE win in US Congress successfully defeating the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) that would have prohibited employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. As of 2019, the opportunity to protect gay men, lesbian women, and bisexuals from being fired for their sexuality has never again come up. Today a gay man can be fired if his boss finds out if he is gay in the US with no federal legal protection, 100% thanks to “LGBT” activists who lobbied Congress to defeat ENDA when they had the votes to pass it.
Not true. The trans-inclusive version of the bill was passed by the Senate in 2013 but died in the House.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Non-Discrimination_Act
Sorry, WTF does that have to do with what I said? Who cares about a 2013 Senate vote? How does that make what I said not true? I am very well-acquainted with this issue & the history of ENDA, thank you very much.
In 2007, openly gay Rep. Barney Frank had the votes in the House of Representatives to pass ENDA to protect lesbian, gay, and bisexual Americans from employment discrimination based on sexual orientation. He did not have the votes to pass a bill for Trans & their “gender identity” bathroom bullshit.
So “LGBTQ” i.e. Transgender activists leaped into action to defeat ENDA to make sure that gay, lesbian, bisexual people SUFFER.
A 2007 Washington Post piece covered the whole sordid affair:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/17/AR2007101702164.html
“LGBTQ”/Trans/Queer activists have taken all LGB Americans hostage: we aren’t allowed to make any progress on our own fights just to achieve basic equal civil rights & protections under the law so we can be left alone in our private lives-UNLESS & UNTIL we meet ALL Trans demands sacrificing our own basic right to secure the unrestricted “right” of men to hang out in the girls’ washroom, and eliminate any government recognition or protections based on scientific biological SEX (and by logical consequence, SEXUAL ORIENTATION).
“LGBTQ”/Trans/Queer activists are public enemy #1 to the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community.
“You all have equal rights under the law.” Not in the U.S. — at least not in states controlled by Republicans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_employment_discrimination_in_the_United_States
“The modern Nazi movement still isn’t an entirely welcoming home for gay men. That much is widely known”
“Ernst Julius Günther Röhm says otherwise”
Brad, thanks for a well-told story of your experiences. I recognise that you find the ‘insensitive’ assertions of religious people and gay-marriage opponents to be hurtful, and will in personal interactions try not to be offensive to the gay and lesbian people I know. That won’t change my beliefs though; I know the history of queer politics a little, I know that what is today treated as pdf-file behaviour was mainstream only a few decades ago and experienced as a teenager being hit on by gay men myself.
I am reminded of some powerful handicapped-person viewpoint songs of the 1970s, pointing out they are not ‘woolly bears’ – talking about disabled people as though they were inherently ‘cute’ when they have shit and pus and blood to deal with that are definitely not cute, and their emotions are not cute either. In the same way, mandatory expressions of approval of gay lifestyles and gay marriage is debasing the image of gays as only cute, stylish couples – airbrushing out the nasty parts because you are not allowed to speak of them.
For instance, the 1960s and 70s gay men that colonised the Catholic Church as a hunting blind for underage victims are presented to be outside the gay mainstream.
There are many of us much more ‘politically homeless’ than the established clique of “Log Cabin Gay Republicans” who agree with the entire right-wing neoliberal Republican Party platform-EXCEPT for the part where they hate you for being gay. Especially amidst the modern US two-party system of odd coalitions with a political divide increasingly driven by pure identity politics…many people do not feed represented at all by either branch of the duopoly.
(Try being in that peculiar subset of young white males under 30 derided as “bros” who powered the quixotic campaigns of the oldest grandpas in the race against both party establishments, i.e. Ron Paul in 2008/2012 and Bernie Sanders in 2016; fake Republican to fake Democrat. As a collective we appear to have decided on Tulsi Gabbard in 2020, although we don’t even have an ideological label much less an organizational party structure. Ron Paul-Bernie-Tulsi Bros I think are a much better example of “politically homeless” in the US system.)
With the current state of identity politics:
The Republican Party still hates lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.
The Democratic Party now hates white males.
So where does that leave gay and bisexual white males, knowing that a hardcore base of each party basically wants them dead?
The Democrats’ anti-white/anti-male antagonism at least makes sense; they see ‘diverse’ demographics as the future of their party & the country.
The Republicans cling to an enduring anti-gay animus basically to placate a shrinking bloc of old white Evangelical fundies, at the long-term expense of severely damaged party perception among younger generations.
How many registered members of the Democratic party are literally subscribed to a religion (not a “religion”, an actual religion) that says white men need to be killed, as they’re an abomination in the eyes of God? How long is the Democratic party’s history of throwing people in jail because they’re suspected of being white males, forcibly outing them, banning them from getting married?
I don’t know what sort of arbitrary distinction you’re trying to make here in defense of the Democrats; religion instead of “religion”?
Mainstream American liberals and the Democratic Party embracing “woke” intersectional SJW identity politics ideology, complete with a deranged violent venomous hatred of white males, is a relatively recent development, after long being a racially diverse but largely united coalition. But it’s happened; this is the reality of 2019 Democrats & the American New Left.
In 2019, watching some wrinkly old grey Bible-thumper who barely knows how the interwebs work rant in ALL CAPS about putting sodomite abominations to death cuz Leviticus 18:22 says so really isn’t worth much more than a laugh & an eye-roll.
But I am genuinely horrified watching mainstream liberals/Democrats-including many prominent media figures, politicians, celebrities-openly fantasizing about graphic bloody violence punching, beating up, murdering 16-year-old white Catholic schoolboy Nick Sandmann for the crime of SMILING WHILE WHITE…plus slaughtering all of his fellow young teenage classmates from Covington Catholic High School in small-town Kentucky for the capital offense of just BEING WHITE MALES, making all of them deplorables who deserve to DIE, DIE, DIE.
CNN anchor Reza Aslan, Bill Maher, Trevor Noah, among many in the digital lynch mob who expressed desire to punch an innocent child in the face for smiling while white. A Disney writer got more creative fantasizing on Twitter about throwing all the Covington boys into a woodchipper to turn them into bloody dead pulp. Others suggested locking all Covington students in the school & setting it on fire so they all burn to death.
Privileged elite washed-up “celeb” Kathy Griffin demanded “NAMES, I WANT NAMES” to dox & destroy the lives of all of these kids.
The SJW New Left/liberals/Democrats have made it crystal clear that they just want all evil white boys to die ASAP.
Sorry but appears there’s no turning back for Democrats at this particular juncture. I voted for Bernie in the 2016 Dem primaries, then very reluctantly voted for Hillary over Trump in the general election. I am not at all happy with Trump supplying Saudi terrorists with weapons to slaughter Yemeni children, nor Republican economic policies like the $2 trillion deficit-exploding corporate tax cuts for the rich. I will vote for Tulsi Gabbard in the 2020 Dem primaries, though the DNC will make sure she is not the nominee.
If 2020 Democrats are going to continue to escalate the anti-white/anti-male antagonistic identity politics to fire up their own base full of hatred, they may force me into doing the unthinkable in the 2020 voting booth.
Let me apply the SJW New Left’s own made-up theoretical re-definition of “racism” as “prejudice+power”…between anti-gay Republicans vs. anti-white/anti-male Democrats, which group is aging & shrinking in size, power, influence vs. which group is ascendant & rapidly growing in power?
I didn’t vote for Republicans who hate me for being gay…why would I vote for Democrats who hate me for being a white male? I could just have easily been in Nick Sandmann’s place as in the place of a victim of an anti-gay hate crime (a real one, not Jussie Smollett’s “racist MAGA country” hoax embarrassment).
Now who is the lesser evil? It’s unfortunate this is the decision I am reduced to, “politically homeless” in the miserable morass that is US identity politics.
Maybe this issue will fade somewhat as the SSM fades into history.
The two most well known gay conservatives in Australian politics are Tim Wilson and James Ashby (who is merely a staffer). No chance of me ever respecting these guys.
Thanks for writing this. And sorry to hear you’ve faced so much cruelty and discrimination from both sides. It is indeed a lonely and frustrating situation to be in.
I don’;t have a problem with a gay person having some conservative ideals. I do have a problem with a gay person being a member of the Republican party, especially in its current status under Donald Trump.
It is a complete betrayal of every gay person in the world.
@Paul
The Republican party is not “under” Donald Trump.
He is not the leader of the Republican Party, although if you are a Canadian or a Brit, you can be forgiven for not fully understanding how this works in the US.
Specifically, what has Trump done against gays (not trans people)?
BERLIN — The Trump administration is launching a global campaign to end the criminalization of homosexuality in dozens of nations where it’s still illegal to be gay, U.S. officials tell NBC News, a bid aimed in part at denouncing Iran over its human rights record.
U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump administration, is leading the effort, which kicks off Tuesday evening in Berlin. The U.S. embassy is flying in LGBT activists from across Europe for a strategy dinner to plan to push for decriminalization in places that still outlaw homosexuality — mostly concentrated in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean.”
What a homophobic monster Trump is!
For Chrissake, did anybody EVER describe Trump as homophobic before he ran for president? He supported gay marriage before Obama and Hillary did. He is not a Christian conservative, but leftists will cling to their silly narratives.
Well, that seals it then. Trump’s a homophobe.
I agree with the other sane comments here. Homosexuality is a mental disorder and a sin in the eyes of God. I hope you get help but you won’t have any support from me and I hope you have none from other actual conservatives, whether secular or religious, who actually want to preserve Western society.
You’re 1% of the population anyway so no one cares.
Of course you can be gay and conservative. Your problem is that you want to be part of a club that won’t have you. The GOP is not really “conservative” in the traditional sense anymore. They’re just a party of white supremacists and religious hypocrites who only care about money. So, you have my sympathy, but liberals are not the problem here.
I left England just before Parliament made homosexual acts between men in the privacy of their own homes legal. My Australian friends joked that I had left in case they made it compulsory. It seems there was an underlying accuracy in their jest.
Sorry buddy, but that’s the Free Market of Social Circles (also known as “Free Association”) at work. Simply put, a specific brand (Republicanism) has a toxic reputation in a minority community (LGBT crowd). You then keep going to social events with that minority community, while proudly wearing the toxic brand, to predictable results.
Is the community intolerant of Republicans/conservatives? Sure. Does it suck for you? Sure. Is anyone here acting irrationally? Sure: you. Knowing the earned reputation of conservatives/Republicans, you keep going where you know it’s not wanted. You’re basically a party-crasher.
And sure, a lot of stuff markets itself as LGBT-focused when it’s not really “politically neutral”… because something like 70% to 80% of LGBT folk are liberal/Democrats. That’s the kind of gross majority (of a minority group) that means you can make assumptions and normally be right. Again, that’s not any malicious conspiracy, just Free Market at play. Once conservative gays start to number high enough that it’s no longer a good heuristic to assume “gay = liberal”, businesses will stop making that assumption.
Uggh, looking at some of the hateful comments made me want to comment.
I had read about 12-15% of gays voted for Trump in the 2016 election. Not a scientific study, but it’s something to go on. I’m not sure this study included bisexuals, as most bisexuals don’t even identify with the label bisexual. But, had you included them, I’m sure the percentage would be even more who are NOT “Democrats”.
Gays are not a “community”. We are pluralistic. We all don’t believe in the same things.
I don’t believe in 3rd wave feminism or abortion. And we shouldn’t be believing in the same things. Where I stick my penis has nothing to do with economics or immigration. Unfortunately, many gays have reduced their politics to identity politics. In that case, you really shouldn’t be voting.
Put in perspective your problem is absolutely minor compared with where you would have been 60 years ago. At some point you have to acknowledge that pushing into the mainstream behavior condemned for millennia could not possibly give perfect results overnight. Political alliances also cannot be grounded in perfect alignment on every possible issue. As things stand at the moment, you have the upper hand because your thirst for equality including the right to marry has been forced into law by the progressives. Therefore, you are free to get married whether your conservative acquaintances and friends approve of that practice or not. Also, you may want to examine a little closer your expressed desire for access to a millenary institution designed and aimed at encouraging procreation, and question whether a reflexive need for equality in that regard is not destroying the very concept. I completely understand that gay couples would want to enjoy certain rights associated with the institution of marriage, but they are not asking whether society as a whole shares that interest. They are simply demanding it and are happy that progressive courts are happy to oblige. I am not in any way discounting your dilemma, but you seem focused on externalities and complain that they are not conveniently aligned. I am sorry, but life is like that. Your problem might simply be that you were born too early. Maybe, in some not too distant future, humanity would adopt a sexless reproductive model and will have zero interest in supporting one type of union over another. As things stand right now, the so called progressive societies failed to develop such a sustainable model and are literally erasing themselves demographically. It is possible that reproduction is not a real concern for you, but you might agree that a conservative viewpoint might have some legitimate concerns on that front. I do not support gay marriage, even if I sympathize somewhat with the need for the emancipation and certainly the physical and social safety and acceptance of gay people. I do not think that a society that drives decent people underground and forces them to hide in the shadows is a decent society. We are, however, way past that point and the demand for acceptance morphed into a demand to change fundamentally and to revamp millenary social institutions. It is hardly surprising that a conservative would watch such developments with suspicion. It may well be that your problem will be a long forgotten thing and that history will validate many changes conservatives resist. Until then, keep calm and carry on, and by all means marry (though I have to tell you that being married to a brainwashed progressive is not a recipe for happiness). You might want to follow up with an essay explaining the social benefits of gay marriage on the reproductive and child rearing future of the species. I am open to be persuaded.
@ Brad (the author),
You berate the Left for ideological diversity, then you berate the right for ideological “hypocrisy.” You say:
“Many of my Republican friends knew I was gay and didn’t care. But when some guy sitting across from me started talking about how homosexuality was an abomination, no one batted an eye—or even looked up from their iPhones. This hypocrisy shouldn’t surprise anyone.”
Why is that hypocrisy? It sounds exactly like the ideological diversity you claim you want. They accept you, and they accept “some guy.” You want your friends to pile on him and create an ideologically uniform environment – like the one you just bemoaned? Or, you want your friends to rally around you and make you and your gayness the center of their attention?
You’re never going to be happy, because it sounds like the political home you want is a contradictory Neverland that doesn’t exist.
That first sentence should say “lack of ideological diversity”.
As a conservative, it’s not a problem with your natural impulse, it’s a belief that men sticking their whats-its in other men’s who-ha isn’t as good for society as men and women creating children in committed relationships. For tens of thousands of years, in every human culture, marriage has meant a man and a woman partnering to create and raise children. Two men deciding that each other are the last holes they will stick their thing into is not marriage and never will be. If a man a woman have extra-marital sex or only have anal and oral sex I consider that the same as two men doing so, it contributes nothing to society and is a hedonistic relationship
I’d like to hear about what being conservative means to you. You include a brief line about choice and markets, but it might help me understand you better if you explained what makes conservative principles your principles. And your liberal friends can explain why they believe what they believe. Then you can have a conversation. Those liberals cutting you off because you’re conservative might well find some commonality in thinking if they actually asked you what you believed, or if you talked about it here. For example, do you believe gay marriage is a right? It might be for a different reason than a liberal take, but you’re both arriving at the same place.
Please do not feel isolated or alone. I am not gay but am a centrist and find the rhetoric of both extremes offensive. There are many of us who are happy to listen to you and wish you well, not least because of your rigor and honesty.
Long may you thrive.
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Brad, I don’t know if you actually read these, I’m sure you would get tired of the bashing you take sometimes and just ignore the comments (I wouldn’t blame you). I am a Christian male and married to my wife for 10 years. I just wanted to applaud you and say thank you. I spend much of my “political” time trying to learn how to converse and get along with others that I don’t agree with, I hate the fights. Reading your articles and listening to one of your interviews, it is easy to see that you and I would probably agree on 99% of our political stances. Keep writing, your love and logic really shows.
What I see in most of these newer movements is that everyone involved wants result today. I’m a firm believer that we all have the same rights. With that being said, let take a look at gay marriage. Do I believe in gay marriage? No. Do I believe gay partners have the same rights as a married couple? Absolutely! Now I’ve made this argument a few times and been call a racist, homophobic, hater among other things. The issue is that no one seems to want to sit down and have a discussion or have an understanding of the other side’s views. Can you imagine if Martin Luther King came across like some of these so called leaders of these newer movements and said “It’s my way or the highway”. (I say newer. I’m an old geez and remember whispers in the 60’s) I’d say that blacks would still be fighting for civil rights. Point is, at least in my way of thinking, right or wrong. The person that feel they possess something sacred, feels like the other person is ripping it out of their hands. Then you have the other side saying I have just as much right as you do! Then you end up like two kids fighting over a stuffed animal and after all is said and done there’s not much left of what you were fighting for. I guess what I’m trying to say is like what’s going on today. We’re not going to get North Korea to give up their nukes in a weekend. There’s got to be some meeting of the minds and it’s going to take some time. But I believe we’ll get there with good kind conversations. Not with insults and anger. As GNR would say, “Just a little patience”
Just become a libertarian. It its quite a diverse aray of thoughts. Most likely generally agreeing with your thinking. I’m somewhat surprised it wasn’t brought up. Interesting read though. Thanks.