The Hysterical Fundamentalist Agenda
Some years back there used to be much more rhetoric from the fundamentalist reactionaries about the "homosexual agenda", a big part of which was that we (i.e., the perverts) were planning to take over the US government. How, I wondered at the, could anyone possibly believe that? After all, who would want the government, and for what conceivable use?*
Well, if only we'd known then what we know now: that the right-wing wackos were already speaking a kind of newspeak in which they projected all of their own nefarious desires onto others. Noticed how Bush always blames somebody of wanting to do something like bust the budget, or kill social security, or ruin senior-citizen health care when he's doing it himself? So, we can easily see that loud accusations that the militant homosexual lobby was trying to take over the government was really a cover for the pathological longings of the right-wing wackos to sieze power. Why? To recruit, of course! If they ran the government, then they could do wonderful things for their god like punish women for having sex and convert all the gays to carefree heterosexuality and make the US the Christian nation they've always believed it to be, so that we can tidy things up and get ready for Jesus, who's on his way.
I begin to feel like a modified Will Rogers: I wish I could say I was making all this stuff up, but all I can do is read the headlines.
All of these skirmishes in the name of morality and against rationalism that have been going on probably for my entire lifetime but which are painfully evident now for what they are, tie together and flow from this same source. We'd like to think — and are often led to think — that they are isolated and separated from each other, so that the women don't rush to the aid of the jews who don't rush to the aid of the blacks who don't rush to the aid of the gays who…, but that's just a divide-and-conquer strategy.
Shakespeare's Sister is understandably irked by those (to use a Bush straw-man construction) who keep demanding more "civil dialogue" in their attempts to proclaim homosexuality an egregious sin to be punished with death. Some of us feel that such hysterical proclamations already go a bit beyond "civil dialogue". And, she sees the connection between the anti-gay actions and the anti-science actions.
I am, as ever, irritated by the subtle implications that this debate [over the "homosexual lifestyle"] comes down to the morality firmly rooted in religion versus immorality rooted in religion’s void. Religion is not the singular source of morality, and so it should not be given special dispensation for its insertion into public debates, as if leaving out religion leaves out morality altogether. Civil dialogue would indeed be great, but in reality, it simply cannot include allowing students to parade around in “Day of Truth” t-shirts, handing out literature about the homosexual agenda, or giving “diversity week” speeches about how the Roman Catholic church thinks homosexuality is wrong. There’s nothing “civil” about any of those things, no matter how politely the shit is shoveled.
Perhaps what bothers me most, however, about this whole thing is the notion that has reared its ugly head in the evolution v. intelligent design fight, too—that religion has just as much place in public schools as science. Religion—and religion only—tells us that homosexuality is an immoral choice. Science tells us that homosexuality is natural and immutable. Public schools are meant to be interested in science, not religion. And as science does not accommodate this debate, neither should our public schools.
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*Apparently we needed to take over the government to implement our nefarious plans to recruit children to the homosexual lifestyle: as everyone knows, since we can't reproduce we must recruit!
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Friday, 24 March 2006 at 19.24
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Just looking at nature — God's handiwork, if you will — it's impossible to avoid noticing that diversity and variety are the rule. As surely as there are steamy tropics, there are frigid polar regions. Birds and other critters of every color of the rainbow. Critters as slow as turtles and as fast as cheetahs.
Why wouldn't humans, who come in a range of every other characteristic, come in a range of sexual characeristics as well? That variability, of course, would logically include orientation.
The thing about religion is that its chief strength is at the same time its chief weakness. You're just supposed to believe, not intuit, question and reason. To do any of that is to be labeled a cafeteria Christian, or whatever.
That thing about religion makes it entirely too tempting a vehicle for harnessing power and exerting control.