|
Why is this liberal insanity worse than all other liberal insanities?
Ken Hechtman, VFR’s leftist Canadian reader, asks me why I said that the institutionalization of homosexual rights and homosexual “marriage” would be the deal killer that would drive conservatives to secede from society, and I reply. (The Hechtman-Auster exchange was originally in another thread; I’ve moved it and the subsequent comments here.)
Ken Hechtman writes:
You wrote:
I think that of all the issues that may force conservatives to start looking for ways to secede—literally—from American society, the forced approval of homosexuality and forced association with homosexuals is at the top of the list. When a society not only approves homosexuality, but approves it officially and requires approval of it (as happens symbolically in Chapter 19 of Genesis) that society has passed a line into sheer evil that spells its doom and makes it impossible for decent people to support it.
I’ve said a few times on a few other threads that gay rights (including marriage) is the defining which-side-are-you-on issue of our decade, the way abortion was in the 1980s and Vietnam was in the 1960s. I can tell you why it’s that important to us. We frame it as science vs. superstition. We believe homosexuality is a condition, either inborn or else imprinted so early in life as to make no difference. It’s not a free-choice decision and it’s not contagious. Therefore morality doesn’t enter into it and only benighted, primitive superstition would say otherwise. Can you explain why it’s equally important to your side, why of all the hundreds of Biblical injunctions this one is the hill you’re ready to die on?
LA replies:
I think your question shows how, notwithstanding your seeming reasonableness, you (like many others) live inside the assumptions of the left-liberal freak show, and regard anything outside that freak show as, at best, strange and in need of explanation. In fact, you are actually more moderate than many of your fellow liberals, since you don’t automatically regard opposition to the homosexualist agenda as outright evil.
Imagine the society you are seeking to create, with the central institution of human society turned on its head, with same sex “married” couples, with the words husband and wife, father and mother prohibited because they privilege normal parents over homosexual parents, or, alternatively (since the left has things every which way it wants), with male-and-male and female-and-female couples referring to themselves as “husband and wife,” in social situations, in work situations, and not only with this off-the-planet madness accepted as normal, but with no objection to it possible without putting at risk one’s property, business, job, career, or liberty, because it becomes a career-killing and likely a criminal offense not to want to associate with such couples, not to rent a room to them, not to use the prescribed proper terms for describing them when encountering them in social and business situations. And I’ve only touched on one-hundredth of the things that will become normal and required, under pain of punishment, in the totalitarian freak-show world you seek to create.
You seek to impose this intolerable sickness and evil on us, yet you wonder why we wouldn’t accept it. You think that there is NOTHING you might do that can fundamentally harm the society. You have no idea why the things you demand might not lead to such internal conflicts within the society that the society is killed as a society and separation becomes the only option.
April 12
Ken Hechtman replies to LA:
Well of course I need an explanation. If I didn’t need one I wouldn’t have asked. There’s a distinction between allowing gay marriage as Canada and half-a-dozen American states have done and the Orwellian thought-control regime you assume must inevitably follow. [LA replies: But the Orwellian thought-control regime is what I’m talking about. Remember: I didn’t say that the legitimization of homosexuality in and of itself would lead to secesssion by conservatives (though it might); I said that “the forced approval of homosexuality and forced association with homosexuals” would lead to secession Further, aren’t you aware that the ordination of a publicly practicing homosexual as a biship in the Episcopal Church USA has led to a schism in that church, with many dioceses and parishes seceding from the Episcopal Church? Forcing the acceptance and approval of homosexuality on people divides like nothing else. Colin Powell said the same in 1993 concerning the effects of allowing homosexuals in the military. Soldiers, sailers and marines don’t have free choice of association; to permit homosexuals to express themselves openly as homosexuals in the military is to force everyone else in the military to accept homosexuality and homosexual behavior.] Most of the measures you describe don’t exist here and aren’t going to and the ones that do exist aren’t necessary. Once it gets through my side’s heads that we’ve won, we’ll care a lot less about who doesn’t like it. But back to my question: Why is this more intolerable and more sick and more evil than everything else we’re trying to do? I honestly don’t get that part. I get abortion. I get a few other conservative causes. I don’t get this one.
Ken Hechtman replies to LA’s points:
Imagine the society you are seeking to create, with same sex “married” couples,
I don’t have to imagine it. I live in it. Canada’s had gay marriage for four years now. Granted, I know more people who have benefited from the change than suffered from it but that’s the circles I move in. Whaddaya want?
with the words husband and wife, father and mother prohibited because they privilege normal parents over homosexual parents, or, alternatively (since the left has things every which way it wants), with male-and-male and female-and-female couples referring to themselves as “husband and wife,”
Most common convention I’ve seen, two married men will call each other “my husband.” A man doesn’t call another man “my wife” outside prison. And nobody actually likes the word “partner.” It’s awkward and irritating and confusing. No small part of the motivation to get gay marriage was the promise of being able to stop saying “my partner.”
in social situations, in work situations, and not only with this off-the-planet madness accepted as normal, but with no objection to it possible without putting at risk one’s property, business, job, career, or liberty, because it becomes a career-killing and likely a criminal offense not to want to associate with such couples, not to rent a room to them, not to use the prescribed proper terms for describing them when encountering them in social and business situations. And I’ve only touched on one-hundredth of the things that will become normal and required, under pain of punishment, in the world you seek to create.
This opens up a larger can of worms—when is it OK for a businessman to discriminate between customers? You probably know the classic Canadian case, the Christian printer who wouldn’t produce flyers for a gay organization. If it was up to me I’d rule in favor of the printer. There are other printers in town the group could use. But I’d come down on the customer’s side if it was about renting an apartment. Housing is different. It would take me a while to articulate why, but it is.
Van Wijk writes:
Ken Hechtman writes: “We believe homosexuality is a condition, either inborn or else imprinted so early in life as to make no difference. It’s not a free-choice decision and it’s not contagious. Therefore morality doesn’t enter into it and only benighted, primitive superstition would say otherwise.”
There are also many people who are genetically predisposed to alcoholism. By Mr. Hechtman’s logic, picking up a bottle is not a free-choice decision and morality doesn’t enter into it, and no one should be allowed to criticize the drunk or his lifestyle.
Unfortunately for him and his, picking up the bottle does involve free choice, and society expects the drunk to take responsibility for his actions regardless of genetic predisposition. And so being “born gay” is not and never has been a valid argument because engaging in homosexual acts IS a matter of free choice and society (a real society, that is) reserves the right to condemn or approve of it.
It’s always amazed me that the genetic argument has gotten so much traction for being so hollow.
LA replies to Van Wijk:
Even more so, the assumption that homosexuality is an inborn condition does not lead to the idea that two people of the same sex must be able to “marry” each other.
Adela G. writes:
Ken Hechtman writes: “[Homosexuality is] not a free-choice decision and it’s not contagious. Therefore morality doesn’t enter into it and only benighted, primitive superstition would say otherwise.”
I imagine there are some very creepy men hanging around playgrounds telling themselves the exact same thing about their very creepy urges, albeit in less lofty language than Ken uses.
But even the combination of “I can’t help being this way” and “It won’t rub off on anyone else” so appealing to the left-wing faithful really isn’t sufficient to ward off any and all claims morality may make on a given behavior. Not yet, anyway.
By the way, every time Ken’s surname goes through Spellcheck, the program suggests “Change to Henchman.” And I bet Ken thought he couldn’t bring a smile to my face. :)
Tim W. writes:
Mr. Hechtman says that for the left, the same-sex “marriage” issue (and the homosexual agenda overall) comes down to science vs. superstition. I find it interesting that when leftists decide that a particular revolutionary change needs to be made in society, they assume the burden of proof is on their opponents to explain why the change shouldn’t be accepted. They assume this despite the fact that they themselves weren’t demanding this change just a short time earlier.
Until the past few years, every human society on earth reserved marriage to people of the opposite sex. No one objected, not even liberals or even the most hardcore leftists. The most liberal legislature in America would have unanimously rejected same-sex “marriage” thirty years ago. No judge would have dared order such a thing even twenty years ago. What’s changed since then isn’t the arrival of a scientific epiphany but the degeneration of society toward accepting things previously considered unthinkable by virtually everyone. The same argument used by Mr. Hechtman on same-sex “marriage” could be used to permit a brother to “marry” his sister. The couple could merely claim they were born with an innate sexual desire for their sibling. But liberals aren’t championing that because there is no heavily financed incest movement with political clout built up by a sympathetic media.
As liberals deconstruct our society and take us toward the one-world, one-party dictatorship, they pick their battles and inch us there one destructive practice at a time. Homosexuality thus precedes incest. If they thought they could’ve “normalized” incest more easily, they’d have pushed it first, presented their support for it as being scientific, and demanded that opponents explain (to the satisfaction of the leftists making the demand, no less) why we shouldn’t allow close blood relatives to “marry.” Speaking of which, by Mr. Hechtman’s reasoning, why shouldn’t a man be allowed to “marry” his brother, or a man be allowed to “marry” his mother who is past child-bearing age? I specify the age issue to exclude the escape route liberals might have when dealing with offspring, not that that should make any difference since the whole “marriage” issue is about personal gratification according to their definition.
Anthony Damato writes:
Hechtman writes:
“I’ve said a few times on a few other threads that gay rights (including marriage) is the defining which-side-are-you-on issue of our decade, the way abortion was in the 1980s and Vietnam was in the 1960s. I can tell you why it’s that important to us. We frame it as science vs. superstition. We believe homosexuality is a condition, either inborn or else imprinted so early in life as to make no difference. It’s not a free-choice decision and it’s not contagious. Therefore morality doesn’t enter into it and only benighted, primitive superstition would say otherwise. Can you explain why it’s equally important to your side, why of all the hundreds of Biblical injunctions this one is the hill you’re ready to die on”?
Are you, Mr. Hechtman, aware that there are those (and their numbers are not insubstantial) who struggle against their homosexuality and do not wish to see civilization redefined to placate those who seek to pervert all that is holy and good?
In reality Mr. Hechtman, homosexual “marriage” is not really about marriage—calling a jackass a horse does not make it a horse. It’s about stripping away the meaning of marriage from time immemorial, while simultaneously re-educating opponents and indoctrinating children to accept this disordered condition. Sounds awfully like an attack on God first, then civilization, to me.
In schools across America, so many of which are sadly besieged by homosexual activists, homosexuality need not be “contagious” Mr. Hechtman. It need merely be promoted as normal, to all children, as young as possible. Mix this with the anything goes morality of the engineered lost generation of which you are a creature, and, in time, the last vestiges of your age old enemy, God and his laws, will once and for all eased from the collective memory. Then the party will really begin, won’t it? Isn’t that the plan? And in private you call us “evil”?
You see, Mr. Hechtman, I think the homosexual agenda, civilization and godliness just don’t mix. I remind you what our civilization owes to Christ. Christianity is our foundation. Reject him, and our civilization loses its essence. Examples abound today. Look at Europe, on the fast track to Islam, which I’m sure will make you and your ilk long for the good old days of Christian, Western Civilization once it reaches our shores.
Terry Morris writes:
Ken Hechtman wrote:
We believe homosexuality is a condition, either inborn or else imprinted so early in life as to make no difference. It’s not a free-choice decision and it’s not contagious.
For the sake of argument I might be able to go along with Hechtman’s and the left’s assertion that homosexuality is a condition that the victim homosexuals can’t help, but I could never go along with the implications of that assertion—that homosexuals are somehow less than human and thus cannot control their impulses. Thus society should not require them to control their impulses to any degree whatsoever.
But even if that were the case with persons with certain other “conditions,” say people who are “imprinted” with the impulse to steal, or to rape or murder, or to have sex with children, etc., civilized society would never allow such things to go on unchecked. Nor would civilized society ever allow rampant homosexuality and homosexual behaviorisms to go unchecked.
If and when it becomes criminal for persons merely to separate themselves from and to have no dealings with homosexuals, that society has defacto become uncivilized. And civilized people cannot, in good conscience, contribute their wealth and talents to uncivilized society. Period.
Laura W. writes:
“For us, it’s a case of science vs. superstition,” says Ken Hechtman. Yes, and the superstitions are on the left. Liberals not only exaggerate the degree to which homosexual desires are innate and their prevalence, but make the unfounded assumption that because something is innate it must be good. Some people are predisposed to alcoholism. Should the government provide them with free booze? Others are born with a tendency toward violence, should we give them guns? Liberals disregard the other genetically determined characteristics of the person with homosexual tendencies, such as his innate need to achieve an integrated personality, to flourish physically, and to participate in society through parenthood and other family bonds, none of which can be supplied to him by the farce of “marriage” to someone of the same sex. The homosexual is a person, not simply the sum of his sexual urges, and the left declines to look at him in his totality. It deliberately disregards the inconvenient truth that many people throughout history and in present times have overcome strong homosexual desires and lived satisfying normal lives. For a thorough examination of this, I recommend Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, by Jeffrey Satinover, a psychiatrist who has taught at Harvard and Yale. He looks at the science—and not the superstitions—behind the practice of homosexuality today.
LA replies:
Several commenters have asked the same questions as Laura, and I think Mr. Hechtman ought to answer them directly. Here I put to him the questions about alcoholism and incest that have already been raised, plus further questions that logically follow from the same premises:
- Should society say it’s ok for alcoholics to drink, since their need for alcohol is innate?
- If it’s determined that some people have an innate need to commit incest, should the taboo against incest be dropped?
- If the answer is yes, and incestuous relationships are allowed, should two incestuous partners, whether of opposite sex or same sex, be allowed to marry? After all, why should non-incestuous sexual partners be allowed to marry, and not incestuous partners? That would be a violation of equality.
- If it’s determined that some people have an innate desire to have sexual intercourse with animals, should the laws against bestiality be repealed?
- If the answer is yes, and sexual relationships with animals are allowed, should marriage between humans and animals be allowed? After all, why should human/human homosexual and incestuous couples be allowed to marry, and not human/animal couples? That would be a violation of equality.
- Further, if some people find that sexual relationships among three or more persons are natural and innate for them, should the definition of marriage be expanded to include the union of more than two persons?
Stewart W. writes:
A further question for Mr. Hechtman:
If, as some studies have already suggested, it is determined that negative attitudes toward homosexual behavior are substantially inherited, what are we to do? If science says we must remove morality from the equation and thus must legitimize homosexual “marriage,” must we also remove morality from the equation and allow discrimination, or even violence, against homosexual men?
After all, we “breeders” just can’t help ourselves. It’s in our genes.
Adela G. writes:
Ken Hechtman writes:
No small part of the motivation to get gay marriage was the promise of being able to stop saying “my partner.”
Proponents of traditional marriage are equally reluctant to refer to homosexual men and women as “husbands” or “wives.”
Homosexuals and their advocates are perfectly willing to impose a semantic elasticity on words they have co-opted for their own idiosyncratic use. And they also insist on the right to dictate to the rest of us how we will refer to them. Thus, “husband” and “wife” no longer mean what they have always meant, they now mean what homosexuals and their advocates have decreed they mean. But homosexuals also want the traditional respect and acknowledgment that accompany these words they have decided to use not only in non-traditional ways but in anti-traditional ways.
As usual with the left, it’s a case of respected—and legally protected—sensibilities for me but not for thee.
Ken Hechtman replies to LA’s questions:
Q: Should society say it’s ok for alcoholics to drink, since their need for alcohol is innate?
A: I’ll be pedantic here. The “need” isn’t what’s innate,. The susceptibilty to dependence is what’s innate.
Q: If it’s determined that some people have an innate need to commit incest, should the taboo against incest be dropped?
A: If it’s between consenting adults, it’s not my problem. If there’s coercion of a minor involved, that’s something else.
Q: If the answer is yes, and incestuous relationships are allowed, should two incestuous partners, whether of opposite sex or same sex, be allowed to marry? After all, why should non-incestuous sexual partners be allowed to marry, and not incestuous partners? That would be a violation of equality.
A: We already have to deal with this one: WASPs and Jews consider first-cousin marriages incestuous. Greeks and Italians don’t. The black letter law allows them but WASP-driven social convention does not. How I see it, marriage presumes consenting adults so without compelling evidence otherwise, I’d let it go. Not my problem. [LA notes: Ken Hechtman is saying that he would allow not just the marriage of a brother and sister to each other, but the marriage of two brothers to each other, or of two sisters to each other, or of a mother and a son to each other, or of a father and a daughter to each other. The sole criterion of marriage is that the partners be adult and consenting.]
Q: If it’s determined that some people have an innate desire to have sexual intercourse with animals, should the laws against bestiality be repealed?
A: Yes. To the extent that bestiality is a problem, it’s not the criminal justice system’s problem.
Q: If the answer is yes, and sexual relationships with animals are allowed, should marriage between humans and animals be allowed? After all, why should human/human homosexual and incestuous couples be allowed to marry, and not human/animal couples? That would be a violation of equality.
A: I’m a bit old-fashioned about this one. Until an animal can say the marriage vows, it’s out of luck.
Q: Further, if some people find that sexual relationships among three or more persons are natural and innate for them, should the definition of marriage be expanded to include the union of more than two persons?
A: I’ve stated my position on this one before. I want to see multiple marriages made legal. This is important to me and always has been.
LA replies:
Mr. Hechtman’s replies to my questions confirm my reply to him at the beginning of this thread:
“[Y]ou … live inside the assumptions of the left-liberal freak show….
You seek to impose this intolerable sickness and evil on us, yet you wonder why we wouldn’t accept it. You think that there is NOTHING you might do that can fundamentally harm the society. You have no idea why the things you demand might not lead to such internal conflicts within the society that the society is killed as a society and separation becomes the only option.
LA to Ken Hechtman:
I’ve posted your answers, but you avoided an answer on alcoholism, so I’ll restate it according to your requirement:
Should society say it’s ok for alcoholics to drink notwithstanding their susceptibility to dependence on alcohol, since such susceptibility is innate?
Ken Hechtman replies:
OK, you caught me on that one … Alright, as always, the defining criteria is harm to others. If a drunk is causing it, the criminal justice system has the right to step in. If not, not. “Society,” to the extent the word means anything, can look down their noses and wag their fingers all they want. It’s a free country.
LA replies:
Except, of course, for people who don’t want to let a room in their house to a homosexual couple, right?
April 13
Ken Hechtman replies:
Like I said, housing is different. I can hear about discrimination in any number of other lines of business and not get worked up about it. But somehow housing is different. It’s one of the necessities of life. You don’t get to posture and play games with that.
LA replies:
Right, so a couple renting a room in their house will be committing a criminal offense and go to jail if they don’t let to a homosexual couple.
Not such a free society, is it?
KH replies:
Hardly that. It would work the same as it does with racial discrimination in housing. It’s a civil offense, not criminal, and the maximum fine (where I live) is $5,000 for big property-management companies, less for private individuals. I’m not even sure the courts would touch the kind of case you’re talking about, where there’s no fornal lease and the landlords are sharing the common space of their own home with the tenants. The courts might let that slide. I might too.
But if you rent housing for a living, you advertise it to the public and you protect yourself with a legally-enforcible lease, then you follow the law yourself.
LA replies:
This is not about what YOU would do, it’s about what is already happening and must happen by the logic of non-discrimination.
“But if you rent housing for a living, you advertise it to the public and you protect yourself with a legally-enforcible lease, then you follow the law yourself.”
Lovely how the leftist mind works. By the fact of operating in a society under the law, a person automatically gives up all his freedom and becomes an instrument and creature of the state.
Dimitri K. writes:
Sexual fertilization is such a basis of life, that it is hard to find anything more basic. There is not a single species on Earth that can exist relying on homosexual marriage. Those fools want to redefine the origins of life. It is above arrogance. I believe that they are actually waiting for someone to stop them, because they cannot stop themselves. And I am afraid, the reaction may be too harsh and terrible, for those who did it first of all, but also for all of us.
LA replies:
“I believe that they are actually waiting for someone to stop them, because they cannot stop themselves.”
That’s a profound statement.
Ian B. writes:
After being questioned, Ken Hechtman states:
OK, you caught me on that one … Alright, as always, the defining criteria is harm to others. If a drunk is causing it, the criminal justice system has the right to step in. If not, not. “Society,” to the extent the word means anything, can look down their noses and wag their fingers all they want. It’s a free country.
This gives away the entire store. If an exception can be made whenever there is “harm to others,” then it is justified to have laws against homosexual marriage, and that discriminate against homosexual practice (as well as bestiality, incest, etc). The reason those things have historically been discriminated against, by society and by law, is precisely the harm they cause. The entire argument of leftists is that the harm to society (i.e., “others”) that is caused by homosexuality is of less importance than the all-encompassing imperative of “equality.” If Ken gives up that, he gives up everything.
April 14
Oz Crusader writes:
I completely disagree with Ken Hechtman and everything he says—but at the same time I applaud his willingness to enter into debate on a site that is hostile to his views. Unfortunately rational debate between right and left is a rarity on the net.
LA replies:
I agree with you that Ken Hechtman is unusual in being willing to enter into a debate like this at a website hostile to his views. But what about applauding my willingness to enter into debate with a commenter who opposes everything I believe in? The willingness goes both ways, you know. :-)
Oz Crusader replies:
Of course, Lawrence—but you are on “home ground” as they say!
Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 11, 2009 04:30 PM | Send
|