Can traditionalists find common ground with homosexuals?

A reader writes:

Sir,

As a gay man with deep misgivings about the whole push for homosexual marriage, I find myself sympathizing with what you have to say on the issue. But you do yourself and your movement no favors by publishing the likes of Spencer Warren.

I have no issue with one who might ask me to forego government recognition of my gay relationship for the betterment of all society, for I am a Westerner who loves his civilization and will gladly sacrifice personal convenience to defend it. I have no respect, however, for someone who opposes my right to be treated as an equal—as Spencer Warren obviously does (read the first sentence of his fourth point)—and refers to how I express my love as a “disgusting perversion” or “unnatural.”

Homosexuality is no more unnatural than albinism—another statistically deviant biological condition. The fact that it disgusts people does not mean that it exists outside the will of nature, and those who presume as much are intellectually lazy at best, hopelessly narcissistic at worst.

People like me, gay or straight, who are sympathetic to conservatism but also sympathetic to gays, are not going to be won over by the likes of Spencer Warren who seem to be motivated primarily by their own visceral reaction to homosexuality. Why should we be? There is no call to nobility in his words, just base revulsion.

My reply:

The passage of Mr. Warren’s that you objected to was:

Homosexuals should be tolerated in their private conduct, but when they demand recognition as equals, they must be strongly opposed and denounced for promoting their disgusting perversions. The legalization of their adoption of children is barbaric, an unimaginable assault on the innocence of the young—just for the pleasure of homosexual extremists.

Apart from Mr. Warren’s language that you object to, “disgusting perversions,” I’m not sure that his position is substantively different from yours. You say that you are willing “to forego government recognition of my gay relationship for the betterment of all society.” Mr. Warren objects to homosexuals “demanding [public] recognition as equals.” The question is one of private tolerance, in which homosexuality has no more public status than, say, the relationship between an unmarried man and woman had prior to the sexual revolution, versus public or government recognition of a homosexual relationship. Now maybe these are not the same things. Maybe you are willing to forego government recognition of your relationhips, but not non-government public recognition of your relationship. However, I return to my example of the pre-sexual revolution world, in which a relationship between an unmarried man and woman had no public recognition. If, say, an actress were living with a man, she wouldn’t be talking about it in a print or broadcast interview; no one would know about it. I think society would be better off if we returned to that older standard for heterosexual relationships, so I obviously think the same should apply to homosexual relationships as well. I don’t think society should publicly recognize or approve homosexual relationships. Further, if there is no public recognition of the relationship, the question of the equality of the relationship with other types of relationship does not arise.

At the same time, I agree with you that in a public discussion such as this, references to “disgusting perversions” are not helpful. The point is to arrive at common principles of public order on which we can agree. As I recently said on another subject, expressing vehement personal feelings against Islam, as Orianna Fallaci does, is not helpful, as it makes the speaker’s feelings the main issue, rather than common truths of social order.

On another point, Mr. Warren’s comment about “the pleasure of homosexual extremists” seems to imply that homosexuals adopt children in order to use them sexually. While I oppose the adoption of children by homosexual couples, I’m not aware of any cases of legal adoption by homosexuals that involved sexual abuse of the children.

However, even if you agree with me so far, I realize I have avoided the tougher issue. Public recognition does not merely mean having a relationship recognized and accepted publicly. It means the freedom to express one’s relationship in public. Again, let’s take the pre-sexual revolution world as our baseline. In that world, men and women would show affection, hold hands, and occasionally kiss or embrace in public. Should society allow homosexuals that freedom? Any traditionalist society would have to say no; it cannot accept homosexual behavior as normative; it cannot accept it at all. In that older world, homosexuals might pursue their relationships in private, they had no freedom to express their homosexuality in public. It was understood that they had to be publicly discreet. Further, the enforcement of such rules was only possible because society most definitely frowned on homosexual acts and relationships. It did not regard them as equal to the relationships of unmarried heterosexual couples.

I realize that this position will probably seem unacceptably harsh to you, but the reality is that there is a zero sum game here. If society drops its basic disapproval of homosexual relationships, then there is no point where the demand for homosexual freedom will stop short of the current radical homosexual liberation and even the demand for homosexual marriage. If a traditional Western form of society is to survive or be restored, the disapproval of homosexual behavior must remain in place. At the same time, there could still be a private sphere where people are left alone.

Another reader writes:

You argue against a “visceral reaction” towards homosexuality. However in my opinion, there is no other basis for coming out against homosexuality.

What, at the root, is fundamentally the objection against homosexuality? A social critique—for example that homosexual relationships cannot produce children? Any social critique can lose its force if a society changes its objectives. Thus in America, child-bearing is no longer a priority for the Caucasian female and the social critique that homosexuality produces no children is an argument without force.

Is a critique against homosexuality then to be based on “tradition”? That “traditionally” homosexuality is not a public, American phenomenon? Well even “tradition” changes such that one cannot posit “when” a tradition began. For example, blacks now observe Kwaanza and have turned it into a “traditional holiday”. When did that “tradition” begin—in the 1980’s. Homosexuals can do the same—turn homosexuality into an American phenomenon and “tradition”. In any case, gays look for traditional underpinnings for homosexuality in Greek culture and history to assert that homosexuality has a history, a tradition, a continuum in the stream of time.

Is homosexuality then “unnatural” in that different species of animals do not behave in a homosexual manner? Is that an argument? But homosexuals have begun to assert that genetics shows homosexual patterns encoded in genes. Once again, nature does not provide an argument against homosexuality.

So why is there anyone “against” homosexuality? It comes down to one thing and only one thing—God. Any critiques against a “nature” or a “relationship” ultimately come down to what did God think when he created the human being. Every other critique against something has to be derived (of necessity) from that position. What occurred at the beginning. One can’t evade this line of reasoning for the beginning determines of necessity everything coming after it.

So what is God’s view of homosexuality? On what basis did he reject it? And if his rejection of homosexuality as a “norm” for human nature and conduct was visceral, then one is only reflecting one’s god. And frankly my reaction against homosexuality is visceral—it is an ugly thing to see two men kissing. I really don’t care what other “rational” arguments there are pro and con…

To rationally discuss homosexuality in the public square is to admit that there may not be something wrong and disturbing about it! And this is how all liberal argumentation begins—“let’s discuss this issue openly and rationally.” Every single liberal issue has hit the American consciousness with a plea for “open and rational discussions”. Where does that lead? To a public acceptance of “that thing” and then to a legal defense of it. Rationalism can rationalize anything and everything. Once you admit something into the public square to any degree (even mere discussion), you have essentially lost. It’s called letting something out of Pandora’s Box. No going back. That has been the pattern for every liberal “advance”.

Explain to me why homosexuals were to be stoned in the Old Testament. Was God a primitive being then who has since evolved? Or did he know that if we allowed ourselves to privately and publically entertain “that thing” it would inevitably lead to a social affirmation of “that thing”. And then to a legal definition and defense of it. In other words, that thing had to be stopped in its tracks—not pushed back, or closeted, or whispered about, or reviewed and debated.

Obviously we are not in a theocracy in the US. But a visceral reaction against homosexuality is very much an approved instinct flowing from the nature of God. When asked about human relationships and divorce, Jesus went back to the beginning where and how it all started. The argument against homosexuality is not a social, historical, natural, scientific or traditional critique. All of those fail one way or another and rationalism (or rationality) will ensure that they fail thus paving the way for a liberal victory on this issue. Once you bring something to the forefront of your consciousness and begin mulling over it in words and concepts, you and society are basically done for—toast! That’s the essence of liberalism—“let’s rationally discuss it”.

My reply:

This is very well reasoned but I’m not sure I can go all the way with you when you say that the only effective basis for banning homosexuality is God’s banning of it, which is then enforced by our visceral reaction against it which is the expression of God’s banning of it. I agree that the Old Testament’s utter condemnation of homosexual acts is central to a traditionalist view of homosexuality, but I’m not convinced that it is the only reason for the traditionalist view. I think that natural and social factors are also an important reason for rejecting homosexuality, and rational speech is the proper medium for conveying these ideas. However, I need to think further about this (including going back to previous VFR discussions on this topic that may have gone into it more thoroughly than I have done in this post).

But for the moment, I want to make it clear that I was not arguing against a visceral reaction against homosexual behavior. I agree that a visceral reaction is right and proper and needed if society is not to end up accepting homosexual behavior. (One of the best comments I ever read about the subject was in a Patrick Buchanan column in the late 1980s where he defended the rude behavior of some protesters against a homosexual pride parade, saying that it was the normal reaction of a society that wants to survive—that was the old Buchanan, before hatred of Israel and neocons became his central passion.) Rather, I was arguing against the use of certain kinds of language in an intellectual, public discussion about homosexuality. Also, I think it’s important to remember that we are not functioning in a traditionalist society but in a radical liberal one, and the use of certain kinds of language will just get us dismissed. I had just given a talk on homosexual marriage to a group of college students at New York University. Should I have used the kind of language Mr. Spencer used, speaking of homosexual behavior as a “disgusting perversion”? Would that have helped advance my argument in that setting?

Yet another reader writes:

With respect to the discussion at VFR concerning homosexuality, I wanted to entitle my email “Liberalism & Homosexuality” but stayed with “Rationality & Homosexuality.” I’m responding to the second part of that discussion.

Your correspondent writes:

“Every single liberal issue has hit the American consciousness with a plea for ‘open and rational discussions’. Where does that lead? To a public acceptance of “that thing” and then to a legal defense of it.”

I agree with that viewpoint. To accept an issue into public discourse opens it up to the possibility of it being “natural,” “lawful,” and socially “acceptable.” This IS THE LIBERAL WAY. To open up issues and viewpoints for acceptability.

Now once an issue is on the table for discussion, your correspondent goes on to say,

“Where does that lead? To a public acceptance of ‘that thing’ and then to a legal defense of it.

Isn’t that the way most things that are peripheral to our society (but central to liberalism) work their way into the mainstream? For example, abortion, which is certainly not historically a mainstream phenomenon, has worked its way into the American public consciousness and then from there into our legal structure. Once liberals gain acceptance from society that a particular issue belongs conceptually on the table for public discussion, there is a move afterwards to formalize it in linguistic terms—which sets the stage to encode it in legal terms.

Your correspondent goes on to say, “Rationalism can rationalize anything and everything.” And gives examples from the realm of science and history. French rationalists such as Diderot did just that—opened up rationality to every possible phenomenon in an “encyclopedic” way. Isn’t one of liberalism’s tenets that there are no constraints on language and concepts? So to use rationality with which to debate homosexuality may be self-defeating.

To give you an example, I belong to a conservative branch of Judaism. Several months ago we had a discussion on homosexuality in our synagogue with guests representing the “more progressive, more open” view. The debate came down to what do the books of Moses say. Our guests proceeded to do a linguistic analysis and tore down one by one the Mosaic injunctions against homosexuality. Each word written in the Pentateuch was systematically dismantled in cultural terms. In the end they felt they had “rationalized” away the injunctions against homosexuality. And they may have when words are used to undermine other words…

I empathize with your correspondent’s view that,

“The argument against homosexuality is not a social, historical, natural, scientific or traditional critique. All of those fail one way or another and rationalism (or rationality) will ensure that they fail thus paving the way for a liberal victory on this issue.”

In the next few weeks we will be hearing about a film called “Brokeback Mountain.” It is being hailed as probably an Academy Award winner, a groundbreaker (in that one sees two accepted Hollywood male actors kissing each other explicitly). Why is it called “brokeback”? In my mind the mainstream’s back (or resistance) to the gay culture has been broken. It is now an acceptable part of American social behavior. Once that line has been crossed, the legal ramifications are all but certain (if not in this generation, then in the next).

That is why I found that correspondent’s view interesting. He delineates not only an argument against homosexuality (from a Biblical perspective) but addresses the issue of what happens when a we admit to an “open and rational discussion” of something that was peripheral. The peripheral becomes central and in that case the liberal has won.

The reader makes a powerful point, which is also the theme of a book that was very influential for me, Henry Bamford Parkes’s Gods and Men: The Origins of Western Culture. Parkes argues that no society can survive on the basis of pure rationalism . All societies are based on truths (or “myths” if you’re not a believer) that transcend rationalism. Once a society subjects its own central truths to a purely rational analysis, it starts to destroy itself.

To me, this doesn’t mean that the truths on which society is based are not true. which is the Straussian position. Rather, it means that rationalism is an incomplete and imperfect instrument for determining truth.

Getting back to the question of the place of visceral reactions in this debate, if traditionalists are to have any chance of prevailing in this battle, the most important thing is not visceral reactions but good arguments. In our liberal society, visceral anti-liberal feelings in the absence of good arguments always lose. We must be able to make general arguments showing why homosexual rights are bad for society. For example, in this thread at VFR in 2002, I explained to a pro-gay rights conservative why homosexual liberation is incompatible with our political order. I stated this in terms of general social and political principles, not in terms of feelings.

In this connection, a reader tells me that William Kristol at the Miami Book Fair two weeks ago dodged a question from a homosexual who asked him how he posed a threat to anyone. It’s a question that is often used in this debate, and it’s a phony question. The issue is not how any individual poses a threat to anyone, but how the normalization of homosexuality threatens the whole society. Either Kristol hadn’t thought through the problem, or he has no objection to homosexual liberation. In any case, his failure to respond doesn’t speak well of him. Unless our side has ready answers to such challenges, we are sunk. For example, if a conservative responded to the question by saying, “What you do is a disgusting perversion,” the questioner could ask, “But what difference does it make to you if I engage in that disgusting behavior in private?” At this point, it becomes evident that one’s disgust at homosexual behavior is not going to be sufficient to carry the debate. To the contrary, it will appear to many people as a mere prejudice without reason behind it.

That is why it is essential that our side have well-reasoned arguments covering all sides of the issue, arguments based on God, the Bible, religious teachings, nature, society, traditional morality, and the family, as well as empirical social-science evidence about what happens in societies where homosexuality is normalized (e.g. further breakdown of marriage, ill-treatment of women, development of homosexual power groups, entrapment of boys), to demonstrate why homosexual liberation is ruinous for individuals and society.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at December 06, 2005 12:36 AM | Send