George Will supports homosexuals in the military, says that homosexual conduct is no more significant than left-handedness, and declares that only “unintelligent” people fail to understand this

Because George Will has a pompous, prissy, insufferably stuffy, intellectually authoritative demeanor, he fits people’s notion of what a conservative is, and therefore he is thought of as a conservative. But if he is a conservative, it is only in the questionable small “c” sense that he upholds the prevailing beliefs and practices of our society. The problem is that since our society is a radicalized liberal society, the beliefs and practices Will upholds are radical-liberal.

To repeat: Will’s non-empathetic, all-knowing manner gives him the appearance of being conservative; but what his superior knowledge actually consists of is not knowledge of the good and the true; not knowledge of what is naturally right because it is in conformity with man’s nature; and not knowledge of (let alone attachment to) the tradition of our civilization; it is the “knowledge” of what the dominant social attitudes of the moment are, accompanied by the authoritative assertion that since those attitudes are the dominant social attitudes, superior wisdom consists in getting behind them. Thus in 2003 he came out in favor of the states experimenting with homosexual “marriage,” because that was where the society was tending. Once a person supports the most radical social innovation in the history of the world, he ceases by definition to be a conservative; but of course the world went on calling Will a conservative.

And now the Will supports open homosexuals in the military. In a discussion about ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy last Sunday on This Week, he said:

For people of [Matthew Dowd’s] son’s generation, being gay is like being left-handed…. The Supreme Court has a famous phrase it used in some opinion, the evolving standards of decency that mark a maturing society. Clearly these are evolving, and the case is over, basically.”

Of course, Will’s “evolving” moral standards are indistinguisable from progressivism, as Richard Brookhiser defined it in his 1991 book The Way of the WASP:

Progress was not progress toward anything definite…. It was going with the flow, waiting in the baggage-claim area of history to see what rumbled up the belt next.

And what has rumbled up the belt this time is the idea that homosexuality is the moral equivalent of left-handedness. When the New York Times in an editorial on a “gay pride parade” twenty years ago said that that homosexuality is no more significant than left-handedness, that was still a radical thing to say. But by now it has become the established view, and so George Will—who as a “conservative” upholds the established views of his society—is saying that same. Nor does Will have the honesty and decency (remember: standards of decency have “evolved”) to correct the misconception that he is a conservative in any real sense of the word. He doesn’t say, “Look, I’m a liberal on these social issues.” No. He wants the world to believe that the complete normalization of homosexuality is conservative, in order to get conservatives to go along with it.

Writing in the Washington Post about Will’s discussion on This Week, Robert Knight, a prominent social conservative, comments:

Not to be outdone, ABC correspondent Jake Tapper chimed in: “The case is over. But why is there such a fight by Republican officeholders? If you look at polling … the public is overwhelmingly supportive of lifting the ban. Conservatives support it. Republicans support it. White evangelicals support it. What’s going on with the Republicans in Congress?”

This is based on loaded polls by liberal media. But let’s go back to George Will, who gives the answer: “They’re not being very intelligent.”

Ah, that’s it. Those of us who believe that God created male and female and that sex outside marriage—adultery, fornication and homosexuality—is wrong and harmful, are just not being intelligent. It’s apparently not enough to love friends and family who are into homosexuality; we have to love the behavior that threatens their bodies and souls.

The four Joint Chiefs of Staff and the 1,163 retired generals and admirals who warn against lifting the ban are similarly not intelligent. Nor are the majority in the armed forces who oppose the change and will be guinea pigs for this experiment in sexual anarchy.

And what about the Creator of the Universe? It is God’s moral code that has undergirded Western society for more than 3,500 years. God’s intelligent design—marriage—is the glue that holds it together. Even Chinese philosopher Confucius called marriage “the foundation of civilization.” What a moron. If only he could have lived in our day and evolved.

What we are witnessing among the intelligentsia is a catastrophic case of groupthink: Because they all repeat the same thing, it must be true. They ignore biology, morality, history, common sense and grim health statistics because they are smarter than anyone.

Knight makes an interesting point which is more critical of Will than my own. Will’s superior knowledge does not consist (as I said above) in knowing and following the dominant trends of society, since the fact is that most of the society opposes the normalization of homosexuality, and Will blithely ignores that fact. His superior knowledge consists of knowing and following the dominant trends among the liberal elite. And, according to Will, those who lack that knowledge and refuse to get on board with it are “not intelligent.”

Knight, sounding like VFR, then points out several more “conservatives” who favor admitting homosexuals into the military:

Charles Krauthammer, who has written some of the best critiques of Obamacare and the rest of the left’s assault on America, is also aboard the gay express. He’s smarter than God. So, too, are Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman, Weekly Standard columnist Stephen Hayes, Fox News analyst Margaret Hoover and American Spectator columnist Phillip Klein, all of whom have called for repealing the military ban. Mr. Klein called it a “no-brainer.” No arguing with that.

The silence of other talking heads is deafening while Democrats ram through their immoral assault on our military. So I have a couple of questions for these pundits: First, given that you’ve warned us repeatedly about many dangers of the left, why are you embracing the centerpiece of their war on American values? Homosexual activism is the spear point of the larger cultural blitzkrieg. Without Judeo-Christian morals, liberty and freedom cannot thrive, as observers from Tocqueville to Adam Smith to George Washington have warned. Or just visit any inner city where socialist sexual values have prevailed.

Socialists have been at war with sexual morality since the French Revolution. It’s at the heart of their strategy to destabilize society in order to foment political revolution. So why is this totem of the left untouchable? Is Barney Frank wrong when he orchestrates bigger government but right when he promotes sexual immorality? It creates even more victims for a growing government.

Second, this one goes to Mr. Will. You have bravely stood in the gap on The Washington Post’s Op-Ed page against the global warming mob. You did so even before Climategate. You insisted we scrutinize their data before acting rashly. Why, then, aren’t you exhibiting similar caution when confronted with the claims of homosexual activists? They have ridden a boatload of junk science for the past 60 years, beginning with the fraudulent Kinsey sex studies, from which they manufactured the false claim that 10 percent of the population is homosexual. They went on to misrepresent the studies of UCLA psychologist Evelyn Hooker to “prove” that homosexuality was not a disorder, and threatened violence against the major psychological guilds until the American Psychiatric Association cried uncle and rewrote the diagnostic manual in 1973.

They persuaded the media to highlight some studies “proving” there was a “gay gene.” Each of these studies has been refuted or has been unreplicated, but the myth persists that science has established that people are “born gay.” Meanwhile, the media ignore the testimonies of many former homosexuals.

Given that this junk science makes global warming data look solid by comparison, why don’t Mr. Will, Mr. Krauthammer and others question the presumptions drawn from it?

Perhaps the answer lies in the Book that they now find quaint: “Professing to be wise, they became fools … who exchanged the truth of God for a lie.” (Romans 1:22, 25)

Someday, the smartest folks in America will wonder how they could have been so foolish.

[end of Knight article]

- end of initial entry -

Gintas writes:

You wrote:

Knight makes an interesting point which is more critical of Will than my own. Will’s superior knowledge does not consist (as I said above) in knowing and following the dominant trends of society, since the fact is that most of the society opposes the normalization of homosexuality, and Will blithely ignores that fact. His superior knowledge consists of knowing and following the dominant trends among the liberal elite. And, according to Will, those who lack that knowledge and refuse to get on board with it are “not intelligent.”

Will is part of our opinion elite, which means he has the gnostic knowledge. In simpler terms he’s an alienated sneering snob. Most of society is opposed to the normalization of homosexuality for a variety of reasons, but not because of Ivy League-approved rationalistic methods, which are beyond the ken of the rank and file of society. Thus he looks on us with horror and fear and loathing, not with sympathy or concern. He knows that if there is unrest, he goes up against the wall. He lives intellectually in a gated community.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 05, 2010 01:07 PM | Send