A piece mostly critical of the ex-gay movement. On the website of the socially conservative National Review! Some truths just can't be denied forever, I guess.
It also shows that progress can be made when encountering the right, albeit slowly.
Yet with a few notably exceptions (e.g., Soulforce), too many LGBT "progressives" consider conservatives (all conservatives, whether religious fundamentalists or not) a lost cause. They won't deign to debate, much preferring to hold rallies amongst their own in order to better express their rage (and to collectively affirm their moral superiority). They're as benighted as they imagine their opposition to be.
27 Comments for “Conservatives: Not a Lost Cause.”
posted by Bobby on
Good article, it was objective without all the emotional garbage you see in the mainstream press. No bitching against the far right, no attacks on religion, just a \\”here\\’s the facts\\” piece. Fair and balanced as journalism should always be.
And don\\’t assume all conservatives like ex-gay ministries. You should visit tonguetied.us, Mr. Miller, and you\\’ll see plenty that aren\\’t the homophobes you stereotype them to be.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Sorry, but I cannot get all excited over a conservative journal finally deciding to support science over superstition. I’ll come back with some applause when they actually take a risky proposition, rather than simply reluctantly confirm what the science has proven for 60 years now. Nothing to get excited about, really, unless you’d find a social conservative confirming that women do indeed have orgasms (unlike what 19th century “hysterics experts believed) to be evidence of progress as well.
posted by Lori Heine on
When the cow’s tail remembers that it’s part of the cow, and follows Old Bessie North when she goes North, I’m sorry if I don’t consider that cause to cheer.
When the Vatican decided that the world was round after all, I suppose it was good for the Vatican. It was still far too late to do Gallileo any good.
These people have stood by as untold numbers of gays and lesbians have been persecuted — and they have said nothing. Their good, Christian consciences were so dull that they cared for nothing more than their own careers and fortunes. Their political allies tried to push through an amendment that would have destroyed the Constitution, and a pitiful few of them raised a typically tepid and cowardly objection.
They have no credibility with me. Never had and never will.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Yep. If they want kudos, they’re going to have to take risks and actively work to roll back what they and their friends have wrought, not just demand accolades for recognizing basic reality such as “sexual orientation is innate.”
posted by Don "Stuffed Animal" Charles on
The ex-Gay movement can be totally debunked with scripture taken from the New Testament! See how it’s done at:
http://christthegaymartyr.blogspot.com/
posted by Darren on
So a little bit of progress is acceptable. You commenters won’t accept anything short of leather and feather boas.
Sad.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Darren: \\”So a little bit of progress is acceptable. You commenters won\\’t accept anything short of leather and feather boas. \\”
Darren, I think that an article debunking the Ex-Gay movement in a magazine read by social conservatives is a good thing — the movement is wrongheaded and destructive.
But I\\’m not foolish enough to jump to the conclusion that an unbiased news report is a sign that attitudes among social conservatives are changing, or that we can expect the \\”values\\” folk to catch up with the real world any time soon.
Forgive me if I\\’m not properly pumped (!) about the fact that an unbiased article actually appeared in the National Review, and forgive me if I don\\’t care to join into the \\”left-bashing\\” that accompanies the exclamation point in Steve\\’s blog. I\\’ve been around too long.
posted by Avee on
Tom, conservatives live in the same world we do, and our culture/society is in fact shifting toward more acceptance. Steve’s point, I think is that too many activists won’t recognize this (bad for fundraising?) and so refuse to "encounter" conservatives. In this regard, GLAAD and HRC are huge disappointments (the latter now mostly a fundraising arm of the DNC). I think Steve can go overboard with the left-bashing. But with so many mainline LGBT outlets doing nothing but uncritical cheerleading, I find him refreshing.
posted by CPT_Doom on
I certainly don’t disagree that most gay groups are in the “left” camp (liberal and conservative, as political descriptions, are IMHO pretty useless these days), however I cannot understand how Steve could bring Soulforce into this mix. Although Soulforce has engaged in traditional non-violent protest (e.g., at the Catholic Bishops Conference), over the past couple of years they have specifically attempted to engage “Christian” social conservatives on their own turf. The head of Soulforce and his partner moved to Lynchburg Virginia and joined Fallwell’s church, just to be a physical presence in the lives of these alleged “Christians.” And the entire Equality Ride undertaken this spring (in which a group of LGBT youth and straight allies went to religious schools and the military academies that continue to arbitrarily expel gay and lesbian students) was meant to engage “Christians” on their own terms, using kids who were raised in the religious conservative tradition and could “talk the talk.” Certainly some of the students were arrested for tresspass when they entered a few campuses that locked their doors to the group, but for the most part the engagement with students went exactly as planned – an attempt to dialogue and reach common ground.
I do agree, by the way, that the article was good – particularly in showing how the public “change” rhetoric of the “reparative therapy” movement is belied not only by the experience of “ex-gays,” but also by the more private conversations that “ex-gay” leaders have, when they acknowledge that lifelong celibacy is really the goal for “ex-gays.”
posted by Ed Brown on
It appears that the California Log Cabin Republicans have are celebrating the fact that Arnold vetoed the gay marriage bill…
posted by Bobby on
I always tell those who support ex-gays.
“Would you let your daughter marry one?”
posted by Lori Heine on
“You commenters won’t accept anything short of leather and feather boas.”
Why the insistence, I wonder, on inane stereotyping? Are some people actually so afraid to deal with real human beings that they must try to reduce everybody to a caricature?
Supporting an amendment to the Constitution that would severely undermine the very authority of the Constitution is treason against this country. And that would be the case no matter what group supported such a boondoggle, or what its aim happened to be.
The framers built into the Constitution itself a means of amending it that would reinforce, rather than undermine, its existing contents. The charlatans who pushed the FMA chose to disregard that, banking instead on the notion that most Americans would be too pig-ignorant of what the Constitution actually says to even know this.
I’m not merely alarmed that they came anywhere near succeeding because I am gay and the particular proposed amendment in question happened to be hostile to me. I am alarmed simply because I am an American, and because I have actually bothered to read the damn Constitution.
If I was skeptical of the Republican Right before this, I certainly have every good reason to be even more so now. If someone wants to pass this off with some cutesy bullshit about leather and feather boas, that says very little about me but volumes about him.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Ironically, many defenders of social conservatives defended them as just ignorant folks who needed “enlightenment and education on our issues” (sounds like what Diane von Furstenburg says about Hillary Clinton doesn’t it?)
This article more or less suggests to me that social conservatives actually know the score — that “ex-gay” stuff is nonsense — but persist in telling these lies at every opportunity anyway (or benefitting from these lies without challenging them). That would actually make them worse than people who are simply misguided or misinformed.
Get back to me when a prominent Republican social conservative leader publicly and unambiguously condemns this crap as false. And no, I’m talking about Patrick Guerriero or Alan Simpson.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
I meant to say that I am NOT talking about Patrick Guerriero or Alan Simpson.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Lori: “Supporting an amendment to the Constitution that would severely undermine the very authority of the Constitution is treason against this country. And that would be the case no matter what group supported such a boondoggle, or what its aim happened to be.”
It seems to me that the people of the United States have the right to change the Constitution, so I don’t think that it can ever be treason to propose an amendment to the Constitution. But as you, I and others have pointed out, eroding the reserved powers and equal protection clauses of the Constitution is playing with fire, and an abuse of our social compact.
It now appears that the loudest mouths on the social conservative right aren’t willing to take “No” for an answer on the federal amendment, and are now pushing a constitutional convention to write discrimination into the Constitution. Good God.
NEL: “This article more or less suggests to me that social conservatives actually know the score — that “ex-gay” stuff is nonsense — but persist in telling these lies at every opportunity anyway (or benefitting from these lies without challenging them). That would actually make them worse than people who are simply misguided or misinformed.”
I would suggest two books to all and sundry. The first is Bruce Bawer’s “Stealing Jesus: How Fundamentalism Betrays Christianity” (1998) and the second is Didi Herman’s “The Antigay Agenda: Orthodox Vision and the Christian Right” (1998).
Both books are serious examinations into the history and nature of the religious right’s antipathy to gay and lesbian equality, and both make clear that “selective knowledge” is at the heart of the social conservative approach to the issues at hand.
Anyone who is familiar with “proof-texting” of scripture by the religious right will not be surprised that social conservatives ignore facts “known” to them — the essence of social conservative thinking is to ignore facts that do not fit into their world view.
posted by Lori Heine on
“It seems to me that the people of the United States have the right to change the Constitution, so I don’t think that it can ever be treason to propose an amendment to the Constitution.”
Tom, the Constitution provides means to change it which are, themselves, constitutional. Remember prohibition? It was enacted by an amendment, and had to be repealed by yet another one. The framers intended for the process to be handled in a way that acknowledges the authority of what’s already there, even as it amends it.
Passing an amendment that simply ignores existing amendments — pretending they’re not there instead of honestly and frankly dealing with the fact that the new legislation would be changing something that’s now in the Constitution — is a sloppy, slapdash and thoroughly dishonest way of doing legislative business.
Why do I call it treason? Because it would undermine the authority of the very Contitution itself. A few more “amendments” like that, and we will have damaged it so badly it can no longer function.
Politicians proposed this nonsense because our ignoramus, fast-food, me-first, gimme-it-all-now culture does not want to bother with the deliberately slow, ponderous, thoughtful process the framers put in place for amending the Constitution.
If we keep voting for these frauds, then we deserve them. But if we love our country, standing up against this chicanery is very much a patriotic act.
It sounds harsh to call people traitors because they support a particular act of legislation. But treason can come about as much through simple negligence to civic responsibility as it can through any deliberate plot hatched out in some smoke-filled room.
posted by Randy R. on
Okay, okay. Let’s all applaud the conservatives for finally recognizing reality about sexual orientation. And let’s agree that most liberal gays are not really willing to engage conservatives in the debate.
But let’s put the shoe on the other foot. How many conservatives are willing to engage gay people? After decades of calling us the worst of names, describing our sexual activity as vile and filthy, stating that whatever we say is false, and basically accusing us of being spawn of Satan, we are supposed to just stand up and cheer when they recognize simple facts? I should mention that in the latest book by LaHaye in the Left Behind series, the anti-Christ is born of gay men. I mean, really!
There are hurt feelings all around. There are plenty of conservatives who can’t even deal with our presence. Just last week, a philosophy professor at Brigham Young University was fired for expressing writing that the FMA should be defeated, on the grounds that his views of gays contradicts the mormon church.
So yes, let’s applaud them for recognizing reality. But how can you engage in with someone who really really hates you?
posted by Ed on
But Randy, if we are nice to anti-gay
conservatives they will give rich gays a tax cut :).
posted by raj on
The NRO article was half-way decent, but I was disappointed that Tushnet left unchallenged Haley’s comment that suggested that homosexuality is a result of father-son estrangement. If she had bothered doing a little research over the Internet, she might have found Is Homosexuality Caused by Son-Father Estrangement? which more suggests that it is not.
posted by raj on
CPT_Doom | June 16, 2006, 3:46pm | #
I certainly don’t disagree that most gay groups are in the “left” camp….
Probably true, and whenever I see complaints on “right” gay web sites about that, I often ask why the complainers don’t form their own “right” gay groups. Apparently, they are too lazy to do so. Or maybe they just like bitching and moaning.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
They form their own “right wing gay” groups, and invariably get screwed over. See Log Cabin Republicans and the Austin 12 for more information. I remember back in 2000, Republicans were falling all over themselves to tell me and other libertarians that George W. Bush didn’t actually mean what he said, he had gay friends, and he even promised them that he’d never do anything to hurt them.
Then came the FMA, reclassification of homosexuality as a security risk in government employment, etc., etc., etc. What the “right wing” gays don’t seem to understand is that the right wing just doesn’t like gays. Period. It’s very similar to left wing gays who don’t understand that minimal “support” for some gay issues by the left is just a technique to add to their “coalition” to get things which actually harm most gay people — higher taxes for social programs devoted to irresponsible parents, massive welfare payments to the indolent, etc., etc., etc.
posted by Ed Brown on
Ah, the looneytarian platform; screw the rich and let them sell their babies to the rich.
posted by Ed Brown on
(1) I believe that GLBT left, center, right, libertarian, socialist groups should work together when they have common ground. (2) that major LGBT conferences should try to have partisan diversity.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Ed, the grownups are talking here, might I suggest a trip to Disney?
posted by Ed Brown on
Libertarian, did you know that you party opposes the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all similiar anti-discrimination laws?
How do you feel about being a part of a political party that wants to return to the days when signs were outside business windows that said, \\’no Irish\\’, \\’whites only\\’, \\’restricted\\’?
posted by Lori Heine on
“Ah, the looneytarian platform; screw the rich and let them sell their babies to the rich.”
That comment is so nonsensical, it ought to win some sort of a prize.
It must be assumed that Mr. Brown was foaming at the mouth so badly at that moment that in the place of the first “rich,” he probably meant “poor.”
But even given that, the comment is ridiculous.
Of course those who have no logical argument frequently resort to cheap ad hominem attacks instead of attempting reason.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Ed’s intemperate rants are nothing new.
Ironically, a couple of years ago on various other political boards, he’d postured himself as a gay libertarian activist and even used the Libertarian Statue of Liberty logo as an avatar. Someone at Outright must have turned down his advances or something, because he wastes an awful lot of time trolling message boards about how awful his former political party is.