Made to Care: The Illiberality of LGBT Politics

 

The subtitle to this piece could have been: We Told You So.

We marriage defenders said, “You can either have religious freedom/freedom of conscience or same-sex ‘marriage,’ but not both.” You may be asking, “Why is she bringing that up again? Does she want to restart the SSM wars?” It’s because the Culture Wars are back in the news, and not just in the US, but throughout “advanced” (beyond the truth) societies of the West.

Here at home, the Colorado baker is going to have his day at the Supreme Court. It only remains to be seen if Justice Anthony “Obergefell” Kennedy will decide in favor of the First Amendment or his own misguided redefinition of marriage. Even if he decides the baker gets to keep his freedom of conscience, he may do so on very narrow grounds that the baker has freedom of “creative expression” as an artist, and not so much freedom of association as implicitly guaranteed by the First Amendment.

And then there’s Rocklin Academy. Even kindergartners must be made to conform to the ascendant transgender confusion. Their teacher read I am Jazz and Red: A Crayon’s Story before the big reveal of their classmate as a trans-girl. Neither the teacher nor the administration thought it important to inform the students’ parents before teaching the kids that blue is red, or boys can be girls, if they feel like it. Notice a trend here?

LGBT politics isn’t about “marriage equality” or transgender rights. It is an attack on objective truth and an empowerment of authorities at all levels to coerce speech and thought. Marriage has always been a legitimization of male/female conjugal unions because it is in the interests of individuals and society to attach the naturally occurring offspring of such unions to their parents in family units. That was widely understood as the truth of marriage – the accepted social reality. Up until Obergefell (and, leading up to it, gay adoption), we, as individuals and as a society, were allowed to remain indifferent to naturally sterile relationships between homosexuals. No more. We are being forced to care.

It’s the same with the minuscule fraction of people with gender dysphoria. While their condition is tragic for these individuals and the people who love them, their impact on society was negligible until now. Now laws are being passed to compel speech in the form of “preferred pronouns” (ref: Jordan Peterson, Canada), and children are having their world turned upside down by the revision of what is so obviously true: a person with a penis (and XY chromosomes) is a boy, and a person without a penis (and XX chromosomes) is a girl. One might even say, “it’s science!”

These are just isolated anecdotes, you say? Ha! Let’s look at what happens when a nation caves to the LGBT agenda.

In Great Britain, the slide into unreality moves apace. The “Ministry of Equality” has expressed support for a proposal to allow gender reassignment surgery without any medical consultation as building on the “progress” of same-sex “marriage.” Also from an “equalities” minister:  “I feel we’ll only have proper equal marriage when you can bloody well get married in a church if you want to do so, without having to fight the church for the equality that should be your right.” The leader of the Liberal Democrats was forced to resign despite voting for SSM, because his Christian belief that marriage is between a man and a woman is intolerable in politics and must be publicly denounced. Further, Christians are being excluded from foster parenting because, “The equality provisions concerning sexual orientation should take precedence.”  You can’t make this shtuff up. So now homosexual couples will be able to foster and adopt, but people of religious conviction won’t. “Family” is now anything but a man and a woman loving their children in a faith-filled home.

We live in such stupid times.

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  1. Nanda Panjandrum Member
    Nanda Panjandrum
    @

    …and then there’s this

    • #31
  2. kylez Member
    kylez
    @kylez

    This pathetic article popped up as click bait along Facebook last night (though it’s more than a year-and-a-half old):http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/glamour-magazine-sexuality-survey_us_56bcad12e4b0b40245c57d6a

    Yeah, women must be homophobes if they don’t want to date men who’ve done it with other men. Somebody took the time to write that, with some absurd statistics from a survey by Glamour magazine.

     

    • #32
  3. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    Dorrk (View Comment):I’m confident that, even though gender/sexuality activists will try to overreach into thought policing and free speech restrictions, they will not succeed. That’s the start of the slope. The rest of it is none of my business.

    They are already succeeding, all around the Western world, the slippery slope is already here.  The OP mentioned just a couple of them.  The American Left is influenced by the international Left, and have no respect for American Constitutional protections or the norms and principles they are based on.  This IS what they will enact if you refuse to join the fight now.

    When they do come for you, you won’t have any allies left who are able or willing to fight.  I believe there is already a famous quote about that……

    You support statutory SSM?  So do I, actually (though looking back I was naive about the intentions of most people on the Left, their motivations on this issue being the exact opposite of the libertarian impulse to leave people the *%#$! alone)…….but literally everything else on the LGBT agenda involves galloping down that slippery slope.

    • #33
  4. Phil Turmel Inactive
    Phil Turmel
    @PhilTurmel

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Hoyacon (View Comment):
    It’s in the nature of ideologues who lead movements to always find the next “injustice,” and it appears that those, such as myself, who hoped resolution of the SSM issue would lead to reconciliation, were very naïve.

    Indeed. See subtitle.

    I appreciate you owning, though, H.

    I appreciate it too, Hoyacon. But no need to self flagellate; your strategy made some sense.

    I disagree that it made sense.  One must ignore human nature and the fate of cultures throughout human history that abandoned traditional morals.

    I think my faith proposition still holds true though: the underlying realities will reassert themselves in the form of need looking for solution and something like traditional marriage will step back in to fill the void. Unfortunately it could take some time and tragic suffering before that happens.

    History tells us that the tragic suffering takes a specific form: the overrunning of declining amoral cultures with (reproductively) healthy barbarians.  And from a historical perspective, not so tragic for the barbarians.  If Americans wish to preserve liberty and avoid forced conversion to Islam (as one end-game), we will have to resume discriminating against public immoral conduct (as private individuals) and eliminate our government’s growing pile of impediments to such healthy discrimination.  (Discrimination based on behaviour, that is, as opposed to intrinsic qualities.)

    And no, “born that way” is not an excuse.  It does and should inspire sympathy, but there are numerous other inherited disabilities that we celebrate when overcome, or for psychological conditions, when successfully resisted.

    • #34
  5. Basil Fawlty Member
    Basil Fawlty
    @BasilFawlty

    Had they only been allowed to visit their significant others in the hospital, none of this would have happened.

    • #35
  6. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    DocJay (View Comment):
    I was born in the wrong time.

    Yeah, me too. Maybe I’d go for 1875. Or 1790. Or 1820.

    1900 that way you are hitting your stride as an adult right when the roaring 20s rolls around.

    Just don’t be black or gay or both.

    • #36
  7. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    Basil Fawlty (View Comment):
    Had they only been allowed to visit their significant others in the hospital, none of this would have happened.

    Like with empathy, the Left learned how to weaponize the libertarian impulse (all the while lacking in both).

    But yeah, they really should have been allowed to visit significant others in hospitals.

    • #37
  8. Dorrk Inactive
    Dorrk
    @Dorrk

    lowtech redneck (View Comment):

    Dorrk (View Comment):I’m confident that, even though gender/sexuality activists will try to overreach into thought policing and free speech restrictions, they will not succeed. That’s the start of the slope. The rest of it is none of my business.

    They are already succeeding, all around the Western world, the slippery slope is already here. The OP mentioned just a couple of them. The American Left is influenced by the international Left, and have no respect for American Constitutional protections or the norms and principles they are based on. This IS what they will enact if you refuse to join the fight now.

    When they do come for you, you won’t have any allies left who are able or willing to fight. I believe there is already a famous quote about that……

    You support statutory SSM? So do I, actually (though looking back I was naive about the intentions of most people on the Left, their motivations on this issue being the exact opposite of the libertarian impulse to leave people the *%#$! alone)…….but literally everything else on the LGBT agenda involves galloping down that slippery slope.

    Statutory SSM is fine with me. I don’t think it’s important, and it complicates a whole bunch of established systems, but, shrug. Two (unrelated) adults should be able to make any agreement with each other that they see fit. I think it’s probably better that gay people be allowed to marry than not, as long as the normal legislative process is used to arrive at that point.

    As for other countries, I have more faith in our politics and traditions and Constitutional protections than those elsewhere. As I said, I know the left will TRY to encroach, and that’s where the battles should be fought, not telling a boy that he can’t wear a dress to school, or whatever, that is weird and maybe annoying but not an infringement on anything other than common sense.

    Also, this transsexuality thing is soon going to run into another problem, leftist women, who are not going to appreciate biologically male “women” nudging in on the spaces they’ve established for themselves, including their sports teams, bathrooms and “safe spaces.”

    • #38
  9. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    lowtech redneck (View Comment):

    Basil Fawlty (View Comment):
    Had they only been allowed to visit their significant others in the hospital, none of this would have happened.

    Like with empathy, the Left learned how to weaponize the libertarian impulse (all the while lacking in both).

    But yeah, they really should have been allowed to visit significant others in hospitals.

    I’m not sure that was ever as big of an issue as the agitators made it out to be. I remember asking about whether our local Catholic hospital would allow lesbians to be at the bedsides of their significant others, and the response I got from the workers there was a confused “Of course.” And that was a couple decades ago.

    • #39
  10. Ed G. Member
    Ed G.
    @EdG

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    DocJay (View Comment):
    I was born in the wrong time.

    Yeah, me too. Maybe I’d go for 1875. Or 1790. Or 1820.

    1900 that way you are hitting your stride as an adult right when the roaring 20s rolls around.

    Just don’t be black or gay or both.

    Check and check – I’m covered. Thanks Zafar! Although my buddies have called me gay about a zillion times since 1985. Hopefully word won’t get around. I know how people so dislike bright and exuberant dispositions.   ;D

    Oooh, but my folk are Polish and Catholic, so I’ll be in for some trouble there.

    • #40
  11. DrewInWisconsin Member
    DrewInWisconsin
    @DrewInWisconsin

    Dorrk (View Comment):
    Also, this transsexuality thing is soon going to run into another problem, leftist women, who are not going to appreciate biologically male “women” nudging in on the spaces they’ve established for themselves, including their sports teams, bathrooms and “safe spaces.”

    That’s already happening, of course, which is why we are hearing about those horrible “TERFs“.

    Internecine battles on the left were inevitable, but so much fun to watch from the sidelines.

    • #41
  12. Richard Fulmer Inactive
    Richard Fulmer
    @RichardFulmer

    If there is no objective truth, then we can still pretend that communism and socialism work and capitalism fails.

    • #42
  13. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Richard Fulmer (View Comment):
    If there is no objective truth, then we can still pretend that communism and socialism work and capitalism fails.

    Yes, exactly!

    • #43
  14. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    Dorrk (View Comment):
    Also, this transsexuality thing is soon going to run into another problem, leftist women, who are not going to appreciate biologically male “women” nudging in on the spaces they’ve established for themselves, including their sports teams, bathrooms and “safe spaces.”

    That’s already happening, of course, which is why we are hearing about those horrible “TERFs“.

    Internecine battles on the left were inevitable, but so much fun to watch from the sidelines.

    I’m trying to find it, but I saw link earlier today that showed a riot between trans and lesbian.

    • #44
  15. Judge Mental Member
    Judge Mental
    @JudgeMental

    Judge Mental (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    Dorrk (View Comment):
    Also, this transsexuality thing is soon going to run into another problem, leftist women, who are not going to appreciate biologically male “women” nudging in on the spaces they’ve established for themselves, including their sports teams, bathrooms and “safe spaces.”

    That’s already happening, of course, which is why we are hearing about those horrible “TERFs“.

    Internecine battles on the left were inevitable, but so much fun to watch from the sidelines.

    I’m trying to find it, but I saw link earlier today that showed a riot between trans and lesbian.

    Found it.  Maybe less than a riot, not sure if the one beaten up was lesbian or not.  It was at a debate between trans and a lesbian.  The beating was done by trans activist protesters.

    • #45
  16. Mitchell Messom Inactive
    Mitchell Messom
    @MitchellMessom

    So one the on of the major failings was the right wing pettiness, resistance and plain old hate towards LGBT+.   This has driven the majority of the LGBT+ community into the hands of left.  The left are the only ones willing to listen never mind champion their cause with any energy.  So of course they LGBT+ issues have weaponized.  A lot of the right has woken up to fact that a lot of their resistance was just petty bigotry and anti-liberal.

    If you are a LGBT+ activist and want to see improvement for your community where you going to go to a left wing politician or a right wing? Is it really worth talking to the majority of people on this site?

    The irony of it all, is it was the state that was responsible for the oppression of the LGBT+ community, now the LGBT+ community seeks to empower the state.

    • #46
  17. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Mitchell Messom (View Comment):
    A lot of the right has woken up to fact that a lot of their resistance was just petty bigotry and anti-liberal.

    Yes, that’s the narrative.

    • #47
  18. kylez Member
    kylez
    @kylez

    Mitchell Messom (View Comment):
    So one the on of the major failings was the right wing pettiness, resistance and plain old hate towards LGBT+. This has driven the majority of the LGBT+ community into the hands of left. The left are the only ones willing to listen never mind champion their cause with any energy. So of course they LGBT+ issues have weaponized. A lot of the right has woken up to fact that a lot of their resistance was just petty bigotry and anti-liberal.

    If you are a LGBT+ activist and want to see improvement for your community where you going to go to a left wing politician or a right wing? Is it really worth talking to the majority of people on this site?

    The irony of it all, is it was the state that was responsible for the oppression of the LGBT+ community, now the LGBT+ community seeks to empower the state.

    No, I think it is because their agenda is inherently radical. Maybe you can explain to us just what exactly “+” is supposed to mean. Since the old argument is that homosexuality is fixed and not a choice, “+” seems to go against that, and now they are saying sexuality is “fluid”.  Whatever they need to say this year, I guess.

    It’s funny seeing the language change every couple of years and people start using the new terms as if they have been all along.
     

    • #48
  19. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    DocJay (View Comment):
    I was born in the wrong time.

    Yeah, me too. Maybe I’d go for 1875. Or 1790. Or 1820.

    1900 that way you are hitting your stride as an adult right when the roaring 20s rolls around.

    Just don’t be black or gay or both.

    Yeah… for any early American decade, I wouldn’t be surprised if gays had a bit of fun in the 20s. It was pretty permissive.

    • #49
  20. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    Dorrk (View Comment):
    Also, this transsexuality thing is soon going to run into another problem, leftist women, who are not going to appreciate biologically male “women” nudging in on the spaces they’ve established for themselves, including their sports teams, bathrooms and “safe spaces.”

    That’s already happening, of course, which is why we are hearing about those horrible “TERFs“.

    Internecine battles on the left were inevitable, but so much fun to watch from the sidelines.

    Forget the liberal women, I am insulted by it.

    Its the most bizarre thing… men can’t comment on abortion because they aren’t women and just don’t get it. Whites can’t comment on blacks because its a diffetent culture and you just have to live it.

    But somehow, someone who has never been a woman, does not biologically comport with female somehow knows enough to claim to think like a woman?

    It is politically correct “mansplaining”. The worst of it is that they overwhelmingly portray themselves as a stereotype of women, which tells me they actually don’t think like a woman.

    • #50
  21. Western Chauvinist Member
    Western Chauvinist
    @WesternChauvinist

    Stina (View Comment):
    It is politically correct “mansplaining”. The worst of it is that they overwhelmingly portray themselves as a stereotype of women, which tells me they actually don’t think like a woman.

    Yeah, only trannies make a free choice to wear pantyhose. That’s how you know they’re not real women.

    • #51
  22. MarciN Member
    MarciN
    @MarciN

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    lowtech redneck (View Comment):

    Basil Fawlty (View Comment):
    Had they only been allowed to visit their significant others in the hospital, none of this would have happened.

    Like with empathy, the Left learned how to weaponize the libertarian impulse (all the while lacking in both).

    But yeah, they really should have been allowed to visit significant others in hospitals.

    I’m not sure that was ever as big of an issue as the agitators made it out to be. I remember asking about whether our local Catholic hospital would allow lesbians to be at the bedsides of their significant others, and the response I got from the workers there was a confused “Of course.” And that was a couple decades ago.

    I agree.

    In fact, hospitals want patients to have significant others involved in the patients’ care, especially for the moral support they provide patients. Nurses don’t have time, and they are grateful if anyone shows up because when there is a visitor, it is the visitor who takes care of those little needs that patients have like help getting out of bed or getting a drink. Hospitals also need a helpful caregiver to assume responsibility during the discharge planning. The whole system depends on someone taking the patient home and filling prescriptions and getting the patient to follow-up care appointments and being there for the patient. Hospitals just want a warm body to sign their forms. :)

    This was always an imaginary issue.

    • #52
  23. Nanda Panjandrum Member
    Nanda Panjandrum
    @

    MarciN (View Comment):
    This was always an imaginary issue.

    Inheritance was one, too, it seems…Contracts between people (with or  without covenant) can deal with all sorts of things.

    • #53
  24. Mitchell Messom Inactive
    Mitchell Messom
    @MitchellMessom

    kylez (View Comment):
    No, I think it is because their agenda is inherently radical. Maybe you can explain to us just what exactly “+” is supposed to mean. Since the old argument is that homosexuality is fixed and not a choice, “+” seems to go against that, and now they are saying sexuality is “fluid”. Whatever they need to say this year, I guess.

    It’s funny seeing the language change every couple of years and people start using the new terms as if they have been all along.

    I guess radical is a matter of perspective, there are certainly radical elements.

    “+” Is just short hand for anything else that may be tagged on such as queer, pansexual and what not.  Its just an acknowledgment that there is and may be others who don’t necessarily fall into the category L,G,B OR T category.

    I am not sure how “+” goes against any argument. Kind of odd that you didn’t know what it meant yet felt able to proclaim on its meaning in regards to gender and sexuality.

    • #54
  25. Mitchell Messom Inactive
    Mitchell Messom
    @MitchellMessom

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):
    I’m not sure that was ever as big of an issue as the agitators made it out to be. I remember asking about whether our local Catholic hospital would allow lesbians to be at the bedsides of their significant others, and the response I got from the workers there was a confused “Of course.” And that was a couple decades ago.

    I mean you can Google cases of it happening.  So its a rather large injustice to the people it happens too.  How wide spread, I dunno.  But here lays an interesting problem. This is an easy win instead of saying its not a big problem or whatever the right can say “That should not happen.” and pass legislation accordingly, if it barely happens no worries if does happen well we empower people to correct an injustice.  Instead we let the left make a show out of it.

    • #55
  26. I Walton Member
    I Walton
    @IWalton

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):

    I Walton (View Comment):
    How did we get here? Slime flows down hill so slopes always get slipperier. If one doesn’t stand for principle when the principle seems a little judgmental and self righteous, you lose. Doesn’t seem fair, but that’s why those principles, mores and notions of good and bad evolved and took hold in the first place.

    How? By the same people who claim to stand on principle and yet give us Leftist policies whenever we aren’t looking. We got here by our political and social leaders abandoning the field because they didn’t want The NY Times and the WaPo calling them names

    thats a sub set of what I said.

    • #56
  27. MJBubba Member
    MJBubba
    @

    MarciN (View Comment):

    DrewInWisconsin (View Comment):

    lowtech redneck (View Comment):

    Basil Fawlty (View Comment):
    Had they only been allowed to visit their significant others in the hospital, none of this would have happened.

    Like with empathy, the Left learned how to weaponize the libertarian impulse (all the while lacking in both).

    But yeah, they really should have been allowed to visit significant others in hospitals.

    I’m not sure that was ever as big of an issue as the agitators made it out to be. I remember asking about whether our local Catholic hospital would allow lesbians to be at the bedsides of their significant others, and the response I got from the workers there was a confused “Of course.” And that was a couple decades ago.

    I agree.

    In fact, hospitals want patients to have significant others involved in the patients’ care, especially for the moral support they provide patients. Nurses don’t have time and they grateful if anyone shows up because when there is a visitor, it is the visitor who takes care of those little needs that patients have like help getting out of bed or getting a drink. Hospitals also need a helpful caregiver to assume responsibility during the discharge planning. The whole system depends on someone taking the patient home and filling prescriptions and getting the patient to follow-up care appointments and being there for the patient. Hospitals just want a warm body to sign their forms. :)

    This was always an imaginary issue.

    No.  This was a real thing.  It is a sad and complicated story.  It reached zenith in the mid-1980s, when fear driven by AIDS made things worse, just as the gay activists had got the attention of Leftists who realized how useful gay could be as a weapon against churches.

    But it goes way back.  Hospitals were never friendly to gays, ever since the beginning of hospitals.

    Just consider this scenario, which played out in similar ways in a small but significant number of cases.  A family has a son with a colorful “friend” and the nature of the friendship is a dark secret to be protected, lest it sully the family’s standing in the community.  If the family had been a donor to the hospital, or was a member of a church that supported the hospital, it was not hard for the family patriarch to put a word on the hospital, and the “friend” would find himself prevented from visiting the ill son.  Gays never had an easy time visiting their partners, until the 1990s.

    • #57
  28. Mitchell Messom Inactive
    Mitchell Messom
    @MitchellMessom

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):
    Yeah, only trannies make a free choice to wear pantyhose. That’s how you know they’re not real women.

    Try no to use “trannies” it makes you look like a bigot.

     

    • #58
  29. JamesAtkins Member
    JamesAtkins
    @JamesAtkins

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    DocJay (View Comment):
    I was born in the wrong time.

    Yeah, me too. Maybe I’d go for 1875. Or 1790. Or 1820.

    1900 that way you are hitting your stride as an adult right when the roaring 20s rolls around.

    If you avoid the draft of 1917-18

    • #59
  30. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Robert McReynolds (View Comment):

    Ed G. (View Comment):

    DocJay (View Comment):
    I was born in the wrong time.

    Yeah, me too. Maybe I’d go for 1875. Or 1790. Or 1820.

    1900 that way you are hitting your stride as an adult right when the roaring 20s rolls around.

    I like antibiotics.

    • #60
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