Author Archives: Stephen Henry Miller

Kevin Hart and Apology Politics

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Comedian Kevin Hart is out as ABC’s Oscar host due to homophobic tweets made in 2009 and 2011. Hart refused to apologize as a condition for perhaps being allowed to host the annual Hollywood self-celebration, and then posted what seems like a semi-apology. One of the controversial tweets from 2011 read: “Yo if my son comes home & try’s 2 play with my daughters doll house I’m going 2 break it over his head & say n my voice ‘stop that’s gay’.” As E Online reported:
In a 2015 profile for Rolling Stone, he once said one of his “biggest fears is my son growing up and being gay.”

“Keep in mind, I’m not homophobic… Be happy. Do what you want to do. But me, as a heterosexual male, if I can prevent my son from being gay, I will,” he previously explained.
Also:
Another Twitter user went to the great lengths of searching every time Kevin used the words “Fag,” “homo” or “gay.” They realized the comedian “seems to have basically stopped tweeting those words after 2011 — i.e. the year his first stand-up movie became a hit.”
As CNN reported, after withdrawing from the Oscars, Hart posted an Instagram video in which he said:
“Guys, I’m almost 40 years old. … If you don’t believe people change, grow, evolve as they get older, I don’t know what to tell you. If you want to hold people in a position where they always have to justify or explain their past then do you. I’m the wrong guy, man.”
Hart’s statement unleashed further controversy over whether this met the demands of a ritual apology, and the consensus was that it did not. The tweets from years past were homophobic and hateful, but Hollywood seems to offer a pass for past homophobia to those who are otherwise active social justice warriors and Democrats in good standing. Also, the issue of homophobia being more acute in the African-American community, perhaps especially among black men, is one about which honest discussion is not allowed (in 2008, when the anti-gay-marriage Prop 8 passed in California, those who pointed out that African-Americans voted overwhelmingly for Obama and for Prop. 8 where denounced for their racism). More. Another day, another black guy who has to apologize: Heisman Trophy winner Kyler Murray apologizes for anti-gay tweets. Is this helping or hurting black support for lesbian and gay equality and inclusion?

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Gay Youth at Risk

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Quillette is one of the few outlets willing to address the issue of how radical transgender activism endangers gay and lesbian youth, in no small measure by promoting the idea that gender nonstereotypical behavior (“effeminate” boys/”masculine” girls) indicates not homosexual orientation but transgender identity, and that these kids should be placed on puberty blockers as the first step to transitioning into the other gender (after which, presumably, they can live heterosexual lives). That sounds a lot like conversion therapy except with surgical finality. And yet LGBTQ movement groups have made transgender theory and activism their new central mission, and woe to anyone who questions the new transgender orthodoxy. Helen Joyce delves into these risks in great depth in her article “The New Patriarchy: How Trans Radicalism Hurts Women, Children—and Trans People Themselves.” Here’s another excerpt from Helen Joyce’s article:
Some gay people think that organizations set up to fight for gay rights made a mistake in throwing their weight behind trans activism. In an open letter in the Times in October, some prominent gays and lesbians accuse Stonewall, Britain’s biggest LGBT charity, of “uncritically adopting a form of transgender politics which undermines…the concept of homosexuality itself.” (It added “T” for transgender to its “LGB” (lesbian, gay and bisexual) mission in 2015.) More than 7,000 people have now signed a petition in support of the letter. Yet Stonewall’s CEO, Ruth Hunt, has denied any need for a rethink, saying that “trans equality is at the heart of our mission for acceptance without exception.”

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Trans Orthodoxy vs. Lesbian-Feminist Heresy

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You don’t have to agree with Meghan Murphy’s critique of transgenderism to see that something is very wrong in the way trans activists and their supporters react to opinions they dislike, especially when it comes to lesbian-feminists who don’t want to share locker rooms and showers with people who have male bodies.

Meghan Murphy writes:

In San Francisco, which one might assume to be a hot spot for lesbian pride, a group of women carrying signs that read, “Proud to be lesbian,” “Lesbian Visibility,” and “Lesbian not queer” were harassed and bullied. Feminist historian Max Dashu, who was in attendance, said she and the other “old lesbians” were surrounded by “young queers” who pushed them and chanted “TERFs, go home.” On Facebook, she wrote: “I’ve been to many marches, including dangerous ones, but this was the most vicious episode I have ever experienced, ever in my life.” As a result of Dashu attending the march alongside these heretic women, she was disinvited as a speaker, most ironically, from a group called the Modern Witches Confluence. When it comes to the campaign against TERFs in trans-compliant progressive circles, even self-described witches now go in for witch hunts.

From Spectator USA, same Facebook photo but a different article, this one by Julie Bindel about Meghan Murphy.

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Racism and Political Correctness Have Much in Common

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Wesley Yang writes:

We wouldn’t even be able to conceive of the microaggression were not the macroaggression stigmatized and on the retreat. My parents’ homes were reduced to rubble in Korea. To speak to them about a microaggression is just not credible, it’s simply absurd.

On the other hand, it’s also true that there’s a lot of pain that goes with being an Asian-American, which I write about. …

But… when one looks at remediating that through a system of policing speech and thought, then you cross over into this whole other territory where you’re talking about extinguishing human freedom for the purpose of pursuing some person’s ill-defined therapeutic grievance.


Similarly:

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Who Are the ‘Haters’?

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From CampusReform:

Following a discussion on the Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling hosted by the George Washington University Federalist Society, the Student Bar Association and law school dean sent emails condemning the invited speaker from the Alliance Defending Freedom.

The event, “Religious Freedom or Discrimination: A Discussion of Masterpiece Cakeshop,” featured American Civil Liberties Union General Counsel Kenneth A. Klukowski and Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Jordan Lorence.

So, according to the lawyers to be and their leftwing administrators at GW, you shouldn’t even debate whether small business owners should be forced by the state to provide creative services for a same-sex wedding, because to defend religious freedom is hate.

But let’s recall the Justices Kennedy, Breyer and Kagan were part of the Court’s majority that found it was the Colorado Civil Right Commission that had shown animus toward baker Jack Phillips’ religious beliefs. So, who is the hater (hint: not those defending religious freedom).

Relatedly:

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