This is a fascinating emotional appeal from conservative columnist Piers Akerman. He throws out a populist line about the Australian public, who will soon vote on marriage equality, having a longer memory than gay rights advocates credit them. There is some irony here, since he goes on to make a number of arguments that anyone paying attention to the gay rights debate could easily debunk.
a) Marriage equality is equivalent to discarding traditional marriage
He cites Masha Gessen (mistakenly printed as Marsha in the article) and her ideas about how marriage should change or be discarded. To my eye, Masha is advocating for typical feminist/leftist ideas. Conservative news sources pounced on this and interpreted it as the MYSTERIOUS AND POWERFUL GAY LOBBY admitting their true intent. Assuming that support for gay marriage is equivalent to extreme feminist propaganda is naive at best.
Support for marriage equality is an expansion of the definition of marriage. It does not nullify or discard traditional marriage. Indeed, if traditionalists were a bit smarter, they could easily ride the marriage equality train with the goal of strengthening all marriages, lowering the rate of divorce, and advocating for responsible sexual conduct.
b) Gay marriage will have impending negative consequences
The consequences he cites are other western nations have enacted laws "to restrict freedom of speech." Naturally, if a law truly does that, it should be regarded with deep mistrust, but many measures that the right sees in this light don't do much to restrict religious freedoms, much less freedom of speech (more on this later). Blaming these kind of laws on gay marriage misses the deeper problem of authoritarianism.
c) Gay marriage leads to Marxism in schools
Cultural Marxism is stupid. Saying that all gay rights advocates believe what some far left nut-job thinks is misleading. Don't equate the two.
d) Pride is obscene, so how is it about love?
Yes, pride parades can be gross. I don't have any interest in them myself. But that doesn't change the overall fact that gay people shouldn't be treated differently. You can't take marriage away from straight people because lots of them get divorced. The whole point is you can't discriminate against minorities, even if some of them are jerks, et al.
Article 2: "Biological Argument for Homosexuality Examined"
Forget that even minor new discoveries point to homosexuality as primarily a fact of nature. We have a small study that we can tenuously warp to fit our narrative! Apparently, "greater promiscuity and pregnancy rates [among LGB people] are not surprising – given that most homosexuals admit being molested as young people." The APA declares outright that there is no such trend of gay people being abuse victims. But this article puts its faith in a pro-family attorney. Lawyers > Scientists confirmed?
The kicker is that it's this observation of promiscuity that “completely destroys the myth that people are born homosexual.”
When you've been taught your whole life to come to a specific conclusion - in this case, "homosexuality is a wrong choice" - you can twist observational science in spectacular ways to support that conclusion. Or that's my experience, at least.
If this evidence is compelling, I certainly don't see it.
If this evidence is compelling, I certainly don't see it.
Article 3: "In major Supreme Court case, Justice Dept. sides with baker who refused to make wedding cake for gay couple"
The concept of public accommodations is by no means bizarre. It is the concern of the author of this article that giving accommodation exceptions for sincere religious beliefs undermines the laws that are in place to protect people of immutable attributes like race, as well as mutable ones like religion.
We literally have a law in place that protects Christians from being treated like the more extreme of them want to treat gay people. I think this article has some good thoughts on why cakes do not constitute a form of speech in the same way a political speechwriter's speeches would count.
Article 4: "Giving the 'gay cure' quack a TV platform is an abuse of free speech"
Don't think I forgot about the left. This lovely trinket form the BBC argues that Good Morning Britain has transgressed the leftist orthodoxy by letting an advocate of conversion therapy have an appearance on their show.
While I agree that with Owen's comments that people with anti-gay sentiments should find no legal punishment or silencing for their opinions, I find that he goes too far in calling out a TV show for bringing on what is today a fun curiosity for the more liberal audiences to shake their heads at while Piers Morgan rips his ideas asunder. Unless these anti-gay advocates are tackled head-on, what's to keep impressionable people from assuming they're telling the unvarnished truth? News organizations are by no means obliged to give both extremes of any debate equal airtime, but discouraging intellectual public debate isn't healthy.
In another fun bit of the same article, the author recolors the sacked model Munroe Bergdorf's blatantly racist comments as "demanding white people tackle a systemic racism." He presents L'Oreal's correct response to blatant bigotry as a reason why LGBT rights are under attack. You're the mainstream now, buddy. Time to buck up and recognize that plenty of people are sick of being told they're awful because they don't exactly line up with your moral code of race, sexuality, and speech.
Article 5: "Pretty and Witty and Gay: Tolerance isn’t enough"
You read that right. Tolerance isn't enough. But at least the author, Mac Ploetz, has the guts to admit it, because, "declaring your tolerance without your acceptance is still harmful to my safety and wellbeing and that of the LGBTQI community."
Having an opinion that he disagrees with and is contrary to his identity somehow harms his safety and well-being. The former doesn't make sense unless you make very broad, communistic arguments. The latter has a bit more credence, but how is it healthy to project your insecurities onto everyone else? If someone calls me a fag, I might say, "Well, that's rude." And I probably won't befriend that person if it's meant as an insult. At the same time, however, I'm not going to broadcast on the internet that everyone else needs to start advocating for something they may take no interest in just to make me feel better. Nor will I, like Ploetz, major in gender studies.
The author also contends that "political neutrality only allows institutional homophobia to worsen," and saying you don't agree with the gay lifestyle is "oppressive." Again, the former only makes sense if you hold to the social justice hang-wringing that is social systems. Any legal rights denied to gay people are falling away, and really very little remains that makes LGBT people legally different from their straight counterparts.
God, even saying LGBT people are somehow counterparts to straight people plays into their depressing narrative. Divisive identity politics drives gay and straight people into camps, when in reality they have just as much in common. I've met a lot of straight and gay people in my life. They're all people. And in the end, our commonly held humanity is what ties us together, not what drives us romantically.
I'm going to let Henry David Thoreau handle this one: "It is not a man's duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even the most enormous wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support." - from Civil Disobedience
And that, I say, is enough.
And finally, disliking an imagined lifestyle is about as oppressive as disliking a color is oppressive. You're the one in charge of how you react to opinions, not those who hold them. They will answer for being right or wrong when the time comes, but if you place your emotions and happiness in the minds of other people, you're going to be miserable. And I for one, would rather enjoy myself.
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