Last fall Breakpoint’s John Stonestreet posted an op ed titled and subtitled, “LGBT Is not a Color: Stop Hijacking Civil Rights,” and here was the introduction: “Are sexual orientation and gender identity the same as race? That message is being snuck in all over the place.”

He writes about the “conflation between skin color and sexual orientation”:

Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of today’s equivalent of the Civil Rights struggle, or to be viewed like racists by future generations.

But the fact remains, the two issues are just not the same. And black leaders—many of whom fought for the right to be treated as equal human beings decades ago—keep telling us this.

Writing at the Charlotte Observer last summer, Clarence Henderson, the chairman of the North Carolina Martin Luther King, Jr., Commission, called it “insulting to liken African Americans’ continuing struggle for equality” to the LGBT movement.

“The language of ‘civil rights’ shouldn’t be hijacked to give privileges to the politically vocal while taking away freedoms” for everyone else, said Bishop Patrick Wooden at a gathering of black faith leaders in Raleigh. And Pastor Leon Threatt of Christian Faith Assembly in Charlotte, agreed: “Restrooms and showers separated by biological sex is common sense.”

. . .

The Civil Rights comparison will continue to crop up, but we’ve got to vocally and repeatedly point out why it’s false. Sexual urges don’t determine who we are, and recognizing the fact that God created us male and female isn’t racism. It’s reality.

“Sexual urges don’t determine who we are” isn’t difficult to understand; no one should be confused. Yet the advance of the “LGBT agenda” owes its success in promoting identity politics to just that kind of lack of understanding.

The premise of this series is that one important way to breakthrough to the confused is to make it clear how many possible “identities” there are, and thus just how many letters follow the first four — “LGBT.” It’s time for our next paraphilia — today let us focus on “fetishism.”

As previously noted, this investigation into the many paraphilias is a remedial education effort to put the discussion of so-called “gay rights” in its proper perspective. Experiencing and acting upon same-sex attraction is not comparable to race, but rather is comparable to the myriad and many ways people experience sexual arousal outside of natural sex between men and women.

Here is the Wikipedia page on fetishism as this article goes to press:

Sexual fetishism or erotic fetishism is a sexual fixation on a nonliving object or nongenital body part. The object of interest is called the fetish; the person who has a fetish for that object is a fetishist. A sexual fetish may be regarded as a non-pathological aid to sexual excitement, or as a mental disorder if it causes significant psychosocial distress for the person or has detrimental effects on important areas of their life. Sexual arousal from a particular body part can be further classified as partialism.

One more note of interest that actually increases our list of possible letters to follow “LGBT” — here is Wikipedia’s paragraph on types of fetishes:

In a review of 48 cases of clinical fetishism, fetishes included clothing (58.3%), rubber and rubber items (22.9%), footwear (14.6%), body parts (14.6%), leather (10.4%), and soft materials or fabrics (6.3%). A 2007 study counted members of Internet discussion groups with the word “fetish” in their name. Of the groups about body parts or features, 47% belonged to groups about feet (foot fetishism), 9% about body fluids, 9% about body size, 7% about hair (hair fetish), and 5% about muscles (muscle worship). Less popular groups focused on navels (navel fetishism), legs, body hair, mouth, and nails, among other things. Of the groups about objects, 33% belonged to groups about clothes worn on the legs or buttocks (such as stockings or skirts), 32% about footwear (shoe fetishism), 12% about underwear (underwear fetishism), and 9% about whole-body wear such as jackets. Less popular object groups focused on headwear, stethoscopes, wristwear, and diapers (diaper fetishism).

Are you overwhelmed with what the future holds as all these categories demand their rights and equality and recognition?

Let’s close with our next question in our long list of questions regarding all the various paraphilias: How will schools respond to requests to start pro-fetishism clubs to support students who experience such feelings and who seek to come out of the closet? Will the Day of Silence expand to include fetishism?

Up next: Leftists Can’t Navigate it Either.

Image credit: Breakpoint.

Articles in this series, from oldest to newest:

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Introducing a Series

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Incest

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Body Integrity Identity Disorder

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Impact & Transgenders

Transgenderism a Choice or Disorder?

Why the Term “Sexual Orientation” is Nonsense

Identity Politics and Paraphilias: Man’s Search for Meaning

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I just saw a commercial during a football game that inspired me, and then irked me. A young black girl is shown growing up in the Civil Rights era, watching the achievements of African American athletes, political activists, and religious leaders. Believing she can become anything if she sets her mind to it, she fights for acceptance in financial firms, eventually graduates with an MBA, and becomes a Wall Street executive. “You may trod me in the very dirt,” she says, “but still, like dust, I rise.”

It’s a great message. But halfway through this ad for the University of Phoenix, alumna Gail Marquis is shown marching hand-in-hand with LGBT activists and waving a rainbow flag. The implication is crystal clear: The fight of African-Americans for equal rights is the same one LGBT Americans are fighting today.

Unbelievably, this conflation between skin color and sexual orientation surfaced during the recent unrest in Charlotte, North Carolina. In an interview with historian Brenda Tindal, Public Radio International’s John Hockenberry suggested that protesters and rioters who took to the street following the police shooting of Lamont Scott were actually angry about—get this—the new transgender bathroom law!

Are you kidding me?

This kind of race-exploitation has infected even the highest levels of government. Back in May, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch filed a lawsuit against North Carolina to force accommodation on the transgender bathroom issue. “It was not so very long ago,” she then lectured the nation, “that states, including North Carolina, had other signs above restrooms, water fountains and public accommodations, keeping people out based on a distinction without a difference.”

It’s a line that has won the LGBT movement virtually endless mileage. Nobody wants to be on the wrong side of today’s equivalent of the Civil Rights struggle, or to be viewed like racists by future generations.

But the fact remains, the two issues are just not the same. And black leaders—many of whom fought for the right to be treated as equal human beings decades ago—keep telling us this.

Writing at the Charlotte Observer last summer, Clarence Henderson, the chairman of the North Carolina Martin Luther King, Jr., Commission, called it “insulting to liken African Americans’ continuing struggle for equality” to the LGBT movement.

“The language of ‘civil rights’ shouldn’t be hijacked to give privileges to the politically vocal while taking away freedoms” for everyone else, said Bishop Patrick Wooden at a gathering of black faith leaders in Raleigh. And Pastor Leon Threatt of Christian Faith Assembly in Charlotte, agreed: “Restrooms and showers separated by biological sex is common sense.”

Other African American leaders upset with the attorney general have pointed out something I told you here on BreakPoint recently: Research shows the vast majority of gender dysphoric children will later abandon those feelings, and transgender individuals who “transition” from one sex to the other frequently have second thoughts.

One of those folks is Walter Heyer. Writing at Public Discourse last Tuesday, Heyer insists based on his own experience that in contrast to race, “people are not born transgender. And those who “wholeheartedly believe that they need a sex change…often…change their mind and go back.” He adds that the emotional devastation of buying the transgender lie can take a lifetime to heal.

The Civil Rights comparison will continue to crop up, but we’ve got to vocally and repeatedly point out why it’s false. Sexual urges don’t determine who we are, and recognizing the fact that God created us male and female isn’t racism. It’s reality.

LGBT Is not a Color: Stop Hijacking Civil Rights

As John affirms, these two issues are not comparable. One is based on biological reality, the other is based on the shifting sand of personal choice. For more discussion, check out the resources linked below.

I fought for civil rights. It is offensive to compare it with the transgender fight.
Clarence Henderson | Charlotte Observer | May 19, 2016

Comparing HB2 with Civil Rights Movement ‘offensive’
Elaina Athans | ABC11.com | May 24, 2016

Born This Way is Shaky Science: The Truth Comes out of the Closet
John Stonestreet | BreakPoint.org | August 31, 2016

Transgender Identities Are Not Always Permanent
Walt Heyer | Public Discourse | September 27, 2016

This article was originally posted at BreakPoint.org