1

Unmasking the Folly of Today’s Emperors

One of my hopes for the New Year is that more people will find the courage to ignore or even speak up against cultural and moral insanity instead of going along with it.

It’s difficult in many circumstances, such as working in a large corporation with “diversity” brainwashing sessions.  Not everyone can afford to ask a question and earn an instant pink slip, especially those with dependents.  But we don’t have to become cheerleaders for things that violate our beliefs.

In Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, a young boy is the only person brave enough to point out the lack of attire on the prancing royal who was sold invisible duds by two con artists.   The rest of the boy’s countrymen fear offending the idiot emperor, and so they abet the illusion.

A similar willingness to deny reality pervades our culture.  We don’t have a monarch with the power of life and death over us, but we do have a decadent ruling elite.  They are tightening the screws on what we can say in public, at work, or even over the Internet if we know what’s good for us.

Take syndicated advice columnist Amy Dickinson, who has appeared on “The Today Show,” “Good Morning America” and National Public Radio and who replaced longtime advice columnist Ann Landers at the Chicago Tribune.

In 150 papers including The Washington Post, Ms. Dickinson, like many of today’s advice columnists, condemns those who resist the latest breakdown in sexual morality.

This past week, she chastised a letter writer for expressing discomfort with a 40-year-old man “seeing” his or her (it’s not clear from the letter) 20-year-old brother.

The writer, who signed the letter as “Dreading,” wrote that “the fact that [my younger brother] is gay isn’t exactly shocking, but it’s something we are all still adjusting to.” The younger brother wants to bring the man to a family gathering (because another brother, after all, is bringing his girlfriend).  The parents are afraid to say anything, and “the whole situation makes me dread going home. I don’t want to be forced into an awkward situation.”

What a delicious dish to serve up to Amy.  Why, it’s so perfect for her purposes that it reads almost as if she made it up herself.

“My first reaction is to wonder why you need so much time to process this simple (and “not shocking”) news, and why this makes you so uncomfortable,” she writes.  “I don’t want to label you as a homophobe, and yet: You are filled with dread and anxiety about the ‘awkwardness’ of your brother’s sexuality.  You have an aversion to it.  This seems pretty phobic to me.”

A phobia is an “irrational, excessive or persistent fear,” according to Webster’s.  It smacks of mental illness.

After hammering “Dreading” a bit more, she concludes with this:  “Grow up!”

Leaving aside her refined argumentation, Amy shows little concern over a guy just out of his teens being pursued by a man 20 years older.  If it were a 20-year-old younger sister who was being hit on by a 40-year-old man, would it be immature to ask a few questions and express some worry? Or would that be “sexist?”

As moral relativism sweeps through the culture, we’re asked more and more to deny obvious truths and instead swallow whoppers like these:

Men and women are interchangeable in all situations, including combat and eventually even childbirth.

The media strive for objectivity and have no discernible political agenda.

All religions equally promote peace, including “the religion of peace,” some of whose adherents are featured in daily news stories about beheadings, public whippings, burnings and suicide bombs strapped to women and children.

Abortion is a minor “procedure” that has nothing to do with taking the life of a uniquely formed human being.

Less snow and ice are the result of global warming.  So are more snow and ice – and colder temperatures.

Democrats have the best interests of the middle class at heart and want to cut taxes and reduce government.

Asking all voters to show an ID is exactly the same as racist Jim Crow laws.

Little boys who think they’re girls should be fed drugs to halt puberty and prepped for surgical mutilation.  Same for girls who think they’re boys.

No culture is superior to another.  America would be America if it had been founded by Buddhist monks instead of the likes of George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Animals should have rights identical to those of humans and even be assigned lawyers.

I could go on.  But so many naked emperors are on the loose that it might make even that little boy in the story think twice before bucking the New Order.


Article originally posted on Townhall.com.




Why Gay Is Not the New Black

Repeating what has been a rallying cry of gay activism for years, the cover of the December 16, 2008 issue of The Advocate announced, “Gay is the New Black: The Last Great Civil Rights Struggle.” Last week, on May 19th, headlines across the nation announced, “NAACP endorses gay marriage as ‘civil right.’” So, is gay the new black?

There are prominent black leaders who say yes, including Congressman John Lewis, who was active in the early Civil Rights movement. There are other prominent black leaders who say no, like Timothy F. Johnson, founder and president of the Frederick Douglass Foundation.

For a number of reasons, I concur with Johnson and others who say that gay is not the new black.

1. There is no true comparison between skin color and behavior. Although gays and lesbians emphasize identity rather than behavior, homosexuality is ultimately defined by romantic attraction and sexual behavior. How can this be equated with the color of someone’s skin?

Skin color has no intrinsic moral quality, and there is no moral difference between being black or white (or yellow or red). In contrast, romantic attractions and sexual behaviors often have moral (or immoral) qualities, and there is no constitutional “right” to fulfill one’s sexual and romantic desires.

Also, skin color cannot be hidden, whereas a person’s sexual orientation is, generally speaking, not outwardly recognizable (unless it is willfully displayed). Put another way, blacks do not have to “come out,” since their identity is self-evident, whereas gays and lesbians have to come out (or act out) for their identity to be clearly known.

2. The very real hardships endured by many gays and lesbians cannot fairly be compared with the monstrous suffering endured by African Americans. Conservative gay journalist Charles Winecoff wrote, “Newsflash: blacks in America didn’t start out as hip-hop fashion designers; they were slaves. There’s a big difference between being able to enjoy a civil union with the same sex partner of your choice – and not being able to drink out of a water fountain, eat at a lunch counter, or use a rest room because you don’t have the right skin color.”

Today, we have openly gay members of Congress, openly gay celebrities, openly gay CEO’s, openly gay financial gurus, openly gay sports stars, openly gay Hollywood moguls, and openly gay college professors, bestselling authors, scientists, and on and on. In the days of segregation in America, there were few, if any, blacks in such prominent positions, not to mention the fact that in many cities in America, even the lynching of blacks was accepted. Where in America are gays and lesbians being lynched today with societal approval? And what is the LGBT equivalent to the American slave trade?

3. Skin color is innate and immutable; sexual orientation is not. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no reputable scientific evidence that people are born gay or lesbian. Even the unabashedly pro-gay American Psychiatric Association stated that, “to date there are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality.” As expressed bluntly by lesbian author Camille Paglia, “No one is born gay. The idea is ridiculous.”

John D’Emilio, a gay activist and a professor of history and of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois, wrote, “What’s most amazing to me about the ‘born gay’ phenomenon is that the scientific evidence for it is thin as a reed, yet it doesn’t matter. It’s an idea with such social utility that one doesn’t need much evidence in order to make it attractive and credible.”

Also contrary to popular opinion, there are former homosexuals; there are no former blacks (despite the best efforts of the late Michael Jackson). This also underscores the fact that skin color cannot be compared to behavior, since even someone who remains same-sex attracted can modify his or her sexual behavior. A black person cannot modify his or her blackness.

Stated another way, genetics determine skin color, not behavior. Otherwise, if genetics unalterably predetermined behavior, then someone with a so-called violent gene could tell the judge, “My genes made me do it!” (For more on this important subject, see the chapter “Is Gay the New Black” in my bookA Queer Thing Happened to America.)

4. Removing the unjust laws against miscegenation (interracial marriage) did not require a fundamental redefinition of marriage and family; legalizing same-sex “marriage” does.Marriage between a black person and a white person always included the two essential elements of marriage, namely a man and a woman (as opposed to just two people), and as a general rule, interracial marriage could naturally produce children and then provide those children with a mother and father. In contrast, same-sex “marriage” cannot produce children naturally and can never provide children with both a mother and father. (Another newsflash: Two dads or two moms do not equal a mom and a dad.)

Removing the laws of miscegenation simply required the removal of anti-black bigotry (since a white man could marry a Native American woman but not a black woman), whereas legalizing same-sex “marriage” requires the redefinition of marriage (opening the door to polyamorists, polygamists, and advocates of incestuous “marriages,” who are already mounting their legal and social arguments) and the normalizing of homosexuality (beginning with elementary school education), among other things.

That’s why many black Americans are rightly upset with the hijacking of the Civil Rights movement by gay activists.