Gay Culture and Political Correctness

James Webb, of Brainrage, has asked of me repeatedly: "I'm just curious as to your views on gay marriage if one of your own boys wanted the same rights that many gays are now denied by yourself and others of your ilk."

I've yet to respond to such questioning because of the implicit reverse-bigotry of the underlying assumption: "Donald, you're a homophobe and I'd like to see how you'd handle it if one of your own kids came out as homosexual"?

Putting aside James' obnoxiousness, the short answer is that my kids are free to do as they please on matters of love and marriage; and if they choose or find that they are gay, I'll love them just as much as I do now, and I'll support them in whatever they want to do. I will do this - as my current political inclination insists - without changing my views on same-sex marriage as a social institution, because, as I've suggested repeatedly, I don't consider gay marriage a civil right and I'm bothered by the idea that a tiny minority of the U.S. population can use the politics of grievance to bully a traditional majority into changing a longstanding cultural and religious practice that is the basis for social stability and spiritual unity. My logic is explained in more detail in my recent essay, ""No Faggots, Dykes or Trannies"?"

I raise the issue tonight in light of the controversy surrounding Rod Dreher's comments today on the tragic small-town murder story at Dallas Morning News.

I WANT TO BE AS CLEAR AS POSSIBLE HERE: Dreher screwed up big time in writing this post. He essentially posed a moral trade-off between murder and bisexuality, an unconscionable lapse, since the taking of human life is morally incomparable in its criminal depravity. Tom Maguire, at Just One Minute, rightly called out Dreher for his infelicity, if not outright stupidity. I reject Dreher's comparison - his COMPARISON - altogether, so again, I WANT THE POINT TO BE AS CLEAR AS POSSIBLE!

My interest here is the response to Dreher across the leftosphere, and what this response tells us about the left's politics of grievance and political correctness. Dreher began by rightly noting the "Horrible story in today's Dallas Morning News." The dad who survived the attack lamented his daughter's alleged participation in the killings, while adding that in her peer group it is "was almost cool to be bisexual." But Dreher then suggests that "the killings aren't what shocked me about this story. What got me was ... there's a bisexual culture ... among the teenagers?"

And there you go: That set off the attacks from the left-wing blogs. Note that even in a separate context, Dreher would have been attacked as a troglodyte by the gay-rights hordes for criticizing "bisexual culture." But by admitting his prejudices in the context of the killings opened him to a mercilessly opportunistic (denial-of-service) assault by Andrew Sullivan as "clinical."

Amanda Marcotte joined the lynch mob, excoriating Dreher, saying "I suspect that Dreher, in his heart of hearts, thinks that you spend more time in hell for violating patriarchal gender roles than for killing."

What is it with people and gender roles, anyway? But besides that, Marcotte herself is notorious for politically incorrect attacks on the Roman Church's abortion policies, saying at one point, "the Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics." Thus, for Marcotte, it's unacceptable for Rod Dreher to repudiate a culture of bisexuality in the context of a murder story, but she's completely fine with attacking the Catholic Church's pro-life stance when those very policies would in fact save lives!

But for the full pallette of left-wing, politically-correct grievance-mongering, check out Lawyers, Guns and Money's attack on Dreher:

The nature of the typical experience of non-heterosexual adolescents in our schools and our society is hardly a secret. The ostracization and bullying of those suspected to be non-heterosexual takes an enormous pyschological toll, and has life and death consequences, as evidenced higher rates of depression and suicide amongst non-heterosexual youth. They typically live in fear: fear that something is horribly wrong with them, fear of being rejected by their friends and family, and fear of violence. But: in one small town, at least for some non-heterosexual youth, there's a chance this status quo might be changing. For anyone whose moral worldview contains any compassion, changes to this horrific status quo are a sign of hope. For Dreher, it's the precise opposite.

Lord knows that the U.S. is far from overcoming homophobia, but Dreher's not advocating violence against gays. He's worried about the moral decline of society, and he vows at his post that he's "not going to give my children over to this culture, if I can help it." Dreher's crime here is his naiveity, even stupidity, for not realizing he'd be excoriated not just for offering these views, but for offering them in the most indefensible way, in a situation of human tragedy all around.

Dreher is not wrong, however to worry about the moral safety of his own kids. And if he believes that a "culture of bisexuality" goes against his values and his family's measure of what's morally right, he's entitled to those views. Unfortunately, Dreher was so hammered by the demon trolls at his post, he offered three updates to his essay and backtracked as far as he could, while still failing to actually save much face in the process.

So note something here: This is how the left wins. This is the culture of demonization that has grown to such a scale of heinous enormity that people of good faith and values are afraid to openly discuss their beliefs. Traditionalists will be targeted and blackballed, which is all the more funny since leftists don't make MORALLY PURSUASIVE aguments. They BULLY and make FALSE HISTORICAL anologies to the crimes of slavery and Jim Crow, while gays and lesbians today are a protected class under U.S. constitutional law. (But remember, the Constitution does not explicitly guarantee gays the right to marry, much less a right to be free from other forms of discrimination. And while the Supreme Court, in fact, has recently interpreted the 14th Amendment as prohibiting disparate treatment against gays, it has yet to decide a gay marriage case; and no one can argue that such a right would be envisioned in a jurisprudence of original intent.)

So, back to James Webb: The possibility of my boys coming out as gay will have little affect on my substantive positions on gay rights. I love my kids, and I'll be there for them if life takes them down that road. But I also love people, irrespective of sexual orientation. Arguing in favor of a traditional conception of marriage does not make me a bigot. Even poor old Rod Dreher doesn't come off as one. He just had the unfortunate chance to be caught in the crosshairs of a nihilist-left hypocritcal jihad against moral conservatism.