It’s amazing, really - for decades the Left has been calling for draconian measures to eliminate the most minute health hazards - if a rat eats a ton of it and dies, it must be outlawed for people, no matter what the cost. Yet the Left also insists that school kids must be brainwashed into accepting activities that do far more physical harm - anal intercourse is “love”, and nothing can be said about the resulting epidemics of hepatitis, aids, colon cancer, etc. Abortion is a “choice”, and, leaving aside the fate of a tiny human being, it is known that women who make this “choice” double or triple their chances of acquiring breast cancer, cervical and other cancers, and of committing suicide.

The Australian public school I teach in has recently introduced the kind of homosexual promotion programme mentioned in the article. I’ve done a little bit to oppose it: I challenged the statistics we were presented with, and I’ve lobbied teachers privately. I think, though, that it really needs parental opposition to scuttle such a programme.

Note too how difficult it must be for the liberal establishment to oppose the gay activists. After all, the activists are presenting their case as an extension of liberal principles: as a removal of “coercive impositions on our individual autonomy” as the article puts it. If you believe in unimpeded individual autonomy and the freedom to create yourself in any direction, then gays are presumably superior to heterosexuals. Gays are the ones with a fluid sex identity and sexual orientation, whose sexuality is in a permanent state of personal redefinition. Heterosexuals, on the other hand, represent a kind of block to the extension of personal autonomy into the realm of sexual orientation.

What I’m trying to say is that homosexuality fits in better with liberal principles than heterosexuality, and liberals are therefore not in a very good position to take a stand against gay activism.

Sorry if I’ve told this anecdote before, but a couple of years ago I pointed out to my mother, a good New York Times liberal, the irony that when she was in college before World War II, everyone smoked, as she had previously told me, while, presumably, homosexuality was totally forbidden. But now smoking is totally forbidden while homosexuality is celebrated. She replied that it didn’t strike her as strange, since homosexuality has to do with one’s personal life and emotions, and smoking doesn’t.

Which is all by way of backing up Mr. Richardson’s point. Homosexual liberation goes naturally with modern liberalism and is intrinsically difficult for liberals to oppose.

Wim, that is an excellent comment you submitted. I agree with the points you are making one thousand percent.

The key word in this disturbing article is INDOCTRINATION - the activists promoting this garbage are good pupils of Lenin who recommended always to start with the young. One big reason why American liberals will always fight tooth and nail against any proposal to dilute the monopoly of the public schools.

Surprisingly, I did find one area of agreement with the promoters of public perversion: the denial of the existence of “sexual identity”. Remember, that used to be the big argument for queer rights even though it lacked any scientific basis and it was well known that virtually every homosexual at some time in his/her life had functioned with a different “identity”, or would switch later on.

So now we’re supposed to celebrate the opposite concept: that fulfillment comes from being open to every kind of sexual experimentation. De Sade must be rubbing his hot hands in Hell. Because it should be clear that, just as in that phony ruckus about the “discriminating” Boy Scouts, the real object is not to create a just society but to get into somebody else’s pants, and the sooner the better because gratification patterns set early may be lifelong.

What should be brought out in the schools - but won’t be - is that people who engage in homosexuality, as a group, commit more crime, get sick sooner, live shorter and more violent lives - in short, are your basic disruptive social misfit. There is plenty of research out on this; see the publications of the Family Research Institute.

pardon me if i’m wrong or assuming too much here, but isn’t one of the instrinsic principles of the united states equality and freedom for all? i believe that would encompass all sexual orientations being equal, and women have the freedom to choose whether or not they want to abort a fetus. the idea that it is justified to discriminate or oppress an individual merely due to their tastes in lovers is absolutely ludicrous.

to wim: on the issue of anal intercourse, you are just as likely to pick up hiv, aids, herpes, or any other std from it as you are from vaginal intercourse. as far as homosexuals committing more crime, i would like to see the actual data of the survey that concluded that, because i think it’s the most absurd thing i’ve ever heard.

regarding the educational programs in public schools about homosexuality and transgender individuals, i believe that it’s a huge step forward. even for those opposed to homosexuality, it’s important to know about it. the students are undoubtedly allowed the choice of leaving the assembly or lecture; homosexuals, i have found, tend to be more openminded and understanding, not to mention less discriminatory (due to the constant discrimination against them; they know how miserable it feels), and they would most certainly not demand anyone remain in an educational seminar. if students choose to attend, they’ll learn, as they have the freedom to as americans, and if they choose not to attend, then let their minds remain closed.

as a final note, i have to say i can’t decide whether it’s funny or disgusting how so many posters on this forum refer to liberals or “the left” as some kind of alien creature or perhaps something unpleasant they find stuck to the bottom of their shoe. the lack of variety as far as the political spectrum goes is depressing. also, the way so many are so close-minded really limits opportunities for some healthy, intelligent debate.

abby wrote: “pardon me if i’m wrong or assuming too much here, but isn’t one of the instrinsic principles of the united states equality and freedom for all?”

Consider yourself pardoned, not that I believe you truly want to be. Equality is indeed *not* one of the intrinsic principles of American law as envisioned by the Founders and enshrined in the original Constitution, and “freedom” was in fact defined by the Founders in a way completely different from your modern, Orwellian understanding of “license.”

The notion that it is the federal government’s job to enforce equality among the citizens of the fifty states stems only from the end of the Civil War and the passage of the 14th Amendment (it’s actually even more recent than that in practice, but those are the sources). It has nothing to do with the Founders’ original intent, and was in fact a completely impossible fantasy prior to those acts. That this is so doesn’t require any great sleight-of-hand to establish. Prohibitions against interference with the institution of slavery in the South could never have been written into the Constitution if “equality” in the absolutist French sense were the goal.

As for “freedom,” the Founders, being of the Christian tradition, did not see liberty as being something without limits. True freedom, for them, could never obtain without moral restraint to guide it. I won’t bother going into the whys and wherefores of that, as modern man can’t even understand the meaning of such words anymore and it always ends up being a complete waste of time. Guys like you will only learn when you have not only lost everything yourselves, but condemned your own children to death as well by your actions. Suffice it to say simply that you are *not* in the authentic American tradition. You adhere to a foolish modern corruption which is completely disassociated from everything good and wise that came before it.

To Abby: After I wrote this I wondered if it should even be necessary; none are so blind as those that won’t see. Besides, it’s all rather distasteful. But here goes:
Maybe you’ve heard of the 19th-century exclamation that if God had wanted people to fly, he’d have given them wings. Well, we ended up making wings for ourselves, and now we can fly, and whether or not God wanted us to fly has become a moot point. (I may be losing you with all this talk about God; if so, please substitute “Nature” or “Darwin”). Compared with the flying issue, though, it’s much less likely that God meant for people to have sexual intercourse inside colons because He had already provided very adequate bodily equipment for the purpose, and colons were intended for something else. In any case, any medical person can tell you that colons lack the muscle and sturdiness of the proper orifice. True, somebody might invent the b*ttf*ckers’ equivalent of wings, a colon as sturdy as a brick sh*thouse, but I’m not holding my breath.
Mixing fecal waste, intestinal tearing, and other bodily fluids, causes any brief search of the medical literature to reveal the so-called “gay bowel syndrome”, along with the high prevalence of hepatitis, STDs and, of course, AIDS, among homosexuals. By the way, if you can get over your distaste for “rightwing” outfits, I do recommend the publications in the Family Research Report. They are based on pretty solid science and statistical analysis, and will answer all the questions you raise. http://www.familyresearchinst.org/
With regard to the abortion issue, you talk about “rights”, I talked about health consequences for the woman. These are all documented, as is the reluctance of many intimidated scientists to publish such findings: http://www.humanlifereview.com/IanGentles_april2003.html
Coming back to AIDS, another brief literature search will also reveal that it is STILL primarily a disease of homosexuals (I don’t like the term “gay” because it ends up being a grim lifestyle); and that next most at risk are intravenous drug abusers. In both cases, of course, the blood stream has been compromised; in the case of anal intercourse, by tearing of the very thin lining of the colon, in the case of drug abusers by shooting up with dirty needles. Yes, you can get AIDS from heterosexual intercourse, but it’s uncommon and mostly endangers women who sleep with men who have engaged in homosexuality or drug abuse, or both. And yes, unfortunately some hemophiliacs have acquired AIDS from tainted blood, but the mechanism was not basically different; the blood barrier had been broken, albeit not for immoral purposes.
A few years ago I had a discussion about these things with my son – who is even more liberal than I was at his age, but I hope it’s a passing condition – and he got a painful look on his face and proclaimed as fact that the human rectum was “cleaner” than any other part of the body. This is where queer propaganda has brought us. Why do health departments everywhere hound restaurant workers to wash their hands after using the bathroom, and preferably twice? Why are plumbing codes relentless in preventing the mixing of sewer and clean water? The way you’re talking, there is no need for such things, and we can just go back to doing dumps in the creek.

Because Abby takes “freedom and equality” to be the highest principles she pronounces that all sexual orientations are equal.

This is despite any number of indications that homosexuality is a dysfunctional development of both sexual identity (ie. a man identifying as a man and a woman as a woman) and of sexual orientation.

For instance, if you read the biographies of homosexuals it is striking how often there is a major disruption in the relationship with one or both of the parents. Boys typically identify with their fathers and pattern their masculine identity on their fathers, but it is common in the case of homosexuals that they reject the identification with their father (for instance, because of paternal violence) and identify with the mother instead.

In other words, their very identity as a male becomes confused from an early age. No wonder then that they should later be confused as to their sexual orientation.

How can these men develop their higher masculine nature when they are afflicted with such a dysfunction? How can they discipline themselves to the masculine virtues?

It’s not that homosexuals can’t achieve in certain aspects of their lives, or that they can’t be admired for certain aspects of their personalities. But the confusion in their sex identity and the subsequent sexual disorientation is not a good thing and not equal to a more functional development of heterosexuality.

” … isn’t one of the [fundamental] principles of the United States equality and freedom for all?  I believe that would encompass all sexual orientations being equal … ” — Abby

Only a bit of our bedrock was put into our Founding Documents, Abby, and the unwritten part is as real as the written. Most of the U.S.’s fundamental principles — indeed, of Western society’s — weren’t written (and still haven’t been).  Who dreamt they had to be?  Besides, there were too many — no one could count them, let alone write them.  The people who started this country knew what they were and assumed no feds would ever meddle with them (being partly kept from doing so by the few principles which actually did get written down over the long course of English-speaking history).

Of course, our bedrock also has a written part, well-known the world over.

There’s no way someone guided by this bedrock both written and unwritten could conclude, let’s say, that Jeffrey Dahmer’s various preferred sexual acts were or ought to be considered the equal (the moral equal, the legal equal, or the equal in whatever other way) of the ones which give rise to, shall we say, “traditional courtship (including traditional ways of ‘sowing one’s wild oats’), marriage, and family” — there’s no way one can conclude that “the [fundamental] principles of the United States” entail the conclusion that “all sexual orientations [are] equal,” though one might set up some other system in which they were. Ours don’t happen to conclude that.

Abby wrote, ” … women have the freedom to choose whether or not they want to abort a fetus.”

Maybe they do. Maybe they don’t. If they do, maybe they have it totally without restriction. Or maybe they have it, but with restrictions. How come your side’s view, Abby, had to be rammed down our unwilling throats via the calculated-and-planned-long-in-advance tactic of brazen judicial usurpation of legislative powers? Why weren’t we allowed to decide it through public and legislative debate and our legislative process? Did your side have something to hide, Abby? Did it have something to fear?

“The idea that it is justified to discriminate against, or oppress, individuals merely due to their tastes in lovers is absolutely ludicrous.”

(I assume you’re talking here about homosexuality and not such things as, for example, the makers of snuff films or grown men who have intercourse with toddlers.) The homosexual movement wants more than “freedom from discrimination” (something it already had, by the way, since a billion years before the Bible was written as long as it didn’t flaunt it or try to ram it down other people’s throats — frankly, nobody cared about queers, or bothered them, or had the least interest in their doings as long as they kept them to themselves). What the homosexual movement really wants is full acceptance by society at large of the idea that its particular perversion is normal. Complete freedom from discrimination wouldn’t satisfy them as long as we retained our freedom of thought and of speech — the freedom to think and to express thoughts of disapproval of homosexuality.

” … you are just as likely to pick up hiv, aids, herpes, or any other std [from vaginal as from anal intercourse].”

Wim has replied to this. The incidence of AIDS is higher among homosexuals, partly, it is thought, because of tears in the rectal mucosa from anal intercourse (but not all the reasons are fully understood). The rate of STDs in general is astronomically higher among the male homosexual community. Granted, this is not solely due to anal intercourse (extreme promiscuity being more of a factor) but is in part. Disapproval of anal intercourse per se is not anyone’s *main* objection to homosexuality. The main objections are that it is extremely psychologically abnormal, it is extremely immoral, and it is extremely disgusting for a man to have sex with a man instead of with a woman (and it is also condemned unequivocally in the Bible). Some cannot see these objections any more than they can see what’s wrong, for example, with a father having sex with his daughter or a woman walking down the street naked. That they haven’t got the synapses for seeing what’s inappropriate about these things isn’t the fault of those who do. “Ce sont des pauvres gens” — which means, sort of, “They can’t help themselves, and are to be pitied.”

“Regarding the educational programs in public schools about homosexuality and transgender individuals, i believe that it’s a huge step forward. even for those opposed to homosexuality, it’s important to know about it.”

Pro-homosexuality education is wholly inappropriate, even evil, for elementary, junior-high, and high-school levels. Let students learn about it at the college level, those who want to.

“Homosexuals, i have found, tend to be more openminded and understanding, not to mention less discriminatory (due to the constant discrimination against them; they know how miserable it feels), and they would most certainly not demand anyone remain in an educational seminar.”

What you’re saying is that visible male homosexuals often are less likely than heterosexual men to disapprove of sexual perversions they see around them. I agree. (I say “visible” homosexuals because most people don’t have a clear “anecdotal” notion of the ideas of the “invisible” homosexual population.) This doesn’t mean they’re more open-minded or less apt to discriminate. They are less apt to discriminate against the sexually-perverted.

As for male homosexuals’ being the victims of “constant discrimination against them,” this seems far-fetched — no? Is there “constant discrimination” against homosexuals nowadays in this country? I strongly doubt it. (There’s almost discrimination in favor of them.)

As for homosexuals’ “not demanding that anyone remain in a [pro-homosexuality] educational seminar,” that’s false. The homosexual movement both male and female has forced pro-homosexual propaganda on school children of an age where “consent” to their own brainwashing is no more possible than is consent to intercourse by a girl of statutory-rape age. In a stealth way, they are in effect making it so that children are inappropriately exposed to their propaganda by coercion.

“i can’t decide whether it’s funny or disgusting how so many posters on this forum refer to liberals or ‘the left’ as some kind of alien creature or perhaps something unpleasant they find stuck to the bottom of their shoe.”

That’s the left’s fault, for thinking and behaving the way they do.

Great comment, Unadorned, though we may all be preaching to the choir.

You may know that the queer movement has made greater legal progress in what Rumsfeld recently described as “Old Europe”. In continental countries these days, clerics of any persuasion can be hauled into court for disapproving of homosexuality from the pulpit - the crime is known as insulting a “population group.” In spite of Abby’s love of freedom, I suspect she would like to see things arranged that way on this side of the Atlantic.

In the final analysis, a healthy society has an interest in the sexual choices of its members. In France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, partly thanks to the queer movement, people are no longer reproducing to maintain the native population. The only ones who are breeding like crazy are the sullen crowds of Muslim immigrants who accept all the benefits of those welfare states while refusing to assimilate. What will eventually happen over there, I shudder to imagine. But that may be another story.

What is very clear from the article is the real underlying intent of the “Queer” movement: the utter destruction of traditional western society. This movement is yet another of the many heads of the multi-headed hydra we call leftism, or liberalism or Transnational Progressivism. It is in fundamental rebellion against all created order, be it gender, race/ethnicity, natural law, etc. The thing that struck me the most was the drive to abolish ‘heterosexism.’ We now see the shift from the appeals to equality to the ubermensch/untermensch model, with heterosexuality labeled the oppressor. Hence the need to reconstruct heterosexuality into something new. The old lie about homosexuality being an innate, inborn charcteristic has fallen away (though it’s still used when thought to be convenient) to the idea that sexuality or gender is something the new, liberated person can create themselves.

Thanks Wim for pointing out how far down the road things have gone in Europe. I wonder if Muslim pronouncements against homosexual behavior fall under the laws against insulting a ‘population group’? Somehow, I doubt that we’ll be hearing news of Imams being hauled before the ‘Diversity Directorate.’

Carl wondered “…how far down the road things have gone in Europe. I wonder if Muslim pronouncements against homosexual behavior fall under the laws against insulting a ‘population group’? Somehow, I doubt that we’ll be hearing news of Imams being hauled before the ‘Diversity Directorate”

Well, yes and no. Imams HAVE been prosecuted, but with little success because the Europeans have been so keen to guarantee all sorts of “human rights”, they can’t decide which one comes first (except that the European liberal mentality tends to favor multiculturalism.) As a result, they leave it up to the courts. Last year an Imam from Rotterdam (I’m no poet, don’t you know it) had called homosexuality a disease that was harmful to society: if it spread, he warned, society might “die out”. For American standards hardly a sensational statement, and certainly not actionable. But in Europe aggrieved parties can “notify” the public prosecutor who then initiates a prosecution; in this case, a Dutch homosexual activist got the ball rolling but the judges said the imam’s statements were based on Islamic doctrine and hence protected by freedom of religion. The prosecutors appealed the acquittal but it was upheld.

Ironically, the shoe is more often on the other foot; Muslims are quick to lodge complaints against people who insult Islam. Last year the French writer Michel Ouellebecq had called Islam “a stupid religion”. He was prosecuted for inciting “religious hatred” but Ouellebecq was acquitted on freedom of speech grounds. A Dutch TV program called Nova had broadcast excerpts of sermons by imams in several Dutch cities who had called on Allah to “deal with enemies of Islam”. The Dutch Secretary of “Big Cities and Integration”, belatedly aware of Islam’s potential for violence, called on local mayors and city councils to “deal with” these imams and their mosques, writing that “this is the place to clarify limits to the freedom of expression and of religion.” In turn, Muslim organizations called for prosecutions of Nova and of the Secretary, for libeling their beloved imams and Islam itself. Apparently attack was the best form of defense.

No doubt European laws carry limits on free speech that would be unacceptable in America. The Neo-Nazis were allowed to march in Skokie, Ill; in Germany, France and Italy such marches are not only forbidden, it is illegal to own or trade items that carry Nazi symbols. Also on the forbidden list are Holocaust deniers; Le Pen, the maverick French politician, was prosecuted (and convicted) for stating that the Holocaust would merely be “a footnote in history”. A Dutch law professor recently claimed that Europe favors these types of restrictions because that’s where the Holocaust occurred, but I sense an unsavory connection between today’s rules and the Nazi book burnings of the past.

The European “system”, if it can be called that, could be severely abused given the right political conditions. In March 2001, the European Court of Justice ruled that the European Union could suppress criticism of its activities in order to protect its “image and reputation”. It could do so by resorting to a legal device used by fascist governments to suppress dissent several decades earlier: “the protection of the rights of others”.