In the wake of last week's failed motion to reopen the SGM debate, I found myself wandering around the right-wing of the blogosphere, and it dawned on me what I really despise about the so-called "SoCons" - more realistically called "TheoCons", or even Regressives (IMO).
I don't give a damn about their religion - that's their business, I don't particularly have any interest in what fuzzy cloud being they choose follow, or what that being is purported to have said. As long as they don't insist that I follow their particular brand of worship, I'm fine with that. If it helps them find a grounding in the world, that's great.
Rattling around out there is a lot of "quiet discussion" around how they (the TheoCons) are going to proceed forward in their fight against the evils of "The Gay Agenda(tm)". Mostly, it's the usual claptrap about organization, fundraising, and "getting the message out" there. Even that doesn't bother me - although I certainly found Ted Morton's favourite tactic during the Provincial PC leadership race distasteful (He would campaign to church congregations and try to sign up as many of the congregation as he could). I'm personally a strong advocate of keeping church and state well separated - and that goes as far as being absolutely clear that a Church should never be used as a campaigning spot by politicians.
No, none of that is what bugs me. It is the insistence that these groups have in declaring someone else's life invalid somehow. I've had more than a few hostile commenters on this blog claim that as long as one homosexual "changes" their orientation, that all homosexuals should change. Worse, they argue in essence that sexuality is purely a matter of "moral choice", and disregard a plethora of evidence that suggests that such a simplistic view is inappropriate.
My problem with this is twofold. First of all, on most fronts, human behaviour is highly variable. For example, I may love to eat Asparagus, others may tolerate it to varying degrees, and my brother utterly loathes the stuff. Take just about any other example, and you will find that it follows a similar pattern. What on earth would make me believe that human sexuality would be any different?
The second point is one of validity. We all experience the world around us in sensory isolation to our companions. You cannot "look inside" my head and understand how I am responding to what is around me. I may provide external behavioural cues (facial expression, words, whatever) that give you a clue, but you have no real idea precisely how I experience a given sensation. (Try, for example, relating to how someone who is colour blind sees the world) Therefore, whatever I express of my experiences is valid - at least to the degree that I am able to articulate it.
It is this second point that draws the line in the sand. I do not accept that because one person has reported that they can "change" that all similar people should change - we are not all "the same", and what applies to one person does not apply to everybody equally. I certainly do not solve problems anything like the way most of my co-workers do - for example! The learning and solving techniques that work for me don't work for everybody else.
Worse, the TheoCon movement has taken it upon themselves to claim that that they are justified in judgmental bigotry. In fact, they want to go so far as to enshrine that right in legislation.
Perhaps even more objectionable is the fact that from these same people, we find an ethnic nationalism that would make this guy proud.
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1 comment:
Grog, you have articulated exactly the way I view this stuff. These groups don't believe that gay people exist, that we are just badly behaved heterosexuals. I concur with what you said but will add one more point that absolutely burns me. That is the incessant, obsessive, unrelenting focus on gay people. Their attacks are almost entirely unprovoked and I have yet to hear an instance where gay individuals or groups have cattle prodded these people into a defensive mode. It totally comes out of nowhere. To read anything from Focus on the Family, Lifesite, even the Vatican, one gets the impression that the entire bible was about hating gay people. Sure they claim not to hate gay people but I find that to be insultingly dishonest, even from the Pope. I find Fred Phelps to be the most honest of the many disgusting homophobes coming out of the US. At least he says he hates fags, the others sugar coat it with crap like family values. Little is said about any other people in society and we are supposed to accept that this drivel somehow represents religious freedom? If their vile rantings were about a certain race of people, it would clearly be socially unacceptable. Even though we have achieved equality in Canada, it is still acceptable to slam dunk gays and that's wrong.
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