What’s Wrong with the World

Well, don't you think the first start in being effective is to give this legislation not only a different name - but to propose something else in its place?

I sympathize entirely with the broad view you're outlining here. But I think this kind of reaction is more and more why the fight against gay marriage and the cultural fight against the LGBT agenda has been a disaster.

* Conservatives get duped into 'fighting anti-bullying legislation', which makes it sound an awful lot like they're fighting for the right of kids to bully gay teens (which then gets blown up into 'they think it should be okay to push gay teens to commit suicide'.)

* They don't have a plan of their own to counteract bullying.

Where is the conservative plan in response? I'll gladly suggest some ideas if those are needed, but why in the world should they be? It's obvious.

I hadn't been following this whole story, but yeah, I agree that putting pro-homomosexual propaganda under the category of anti-bullying is pretty bad (and unlike you guys, I'm not against homosexuality).

I think that you could "design a good, helpful, and effective anti-bullying program for schools," right here in the real world. That would mean emphasizing that although homosexuality is disordered (if that's the school's doctrine), bullying homosexuals is a sin and is completely unacceptable. Teach that from the start, to everyone; don't just react to bullying after the fact. For one thing, that acknowledges that bullying usually goes on with the approval or encouragement of lots of non-bullying students. If authority figures emphasize the unacceptability of bullying, specifically of homosexual or effeminate students, with details of what behavior towards homosexuals is unacceptable, etc., I think it could have some effect. I have no illusions that this would satisfy the gay rights lobby.

My anti-bullying program for the ideal, Platonic world: Teach the victims of bullying how to change their own behavior. Teach them how to (figuratively speaking) take the Kick Me sign off their backs. Teach them how to stop bullying before it starts: to respond to mild insults with mild insults of their own, for instance. I think the bullying victims would really appreciate some practical help like this. But in the real world that approach would be called Blaming the Victim.

I'm going to take a really robust approach and say that you're both wrong. Schools need an integrated approach to bad behavior that includes a lot of kicking-out of badly behaving kids. What schools emphatically do _not_ need is to be responding to laws (laws, of all things) that require them to address interpersonal problems between children of kids' unkindness to each other by behavior and ideological modification "programs" aimed at highly specific unkind behavior by children. And the more targeted the definition of the behavior gets, the worse. If children are saying cruel things to some kid (or, even more so, beating him up) because he wears funny clothes or gets good grades, this isn't somehow "less bad" than their behaving in the same way toward another child because he is "effeminate." It is absolutely disastrous to have specially protected classes in school and to have special programs in which we direct our efforts to stop bad behavior towards *members of those groups*. On a purely ad hoc basis, if you find that in your schools kids are inclined to be cruel to white children, black children, short children, tall children, athletic or non-athletic children, and so forth, *and to leave others alone*, then you can address that problem with those involved. But usually there are going to be more groups than one who are mistreated, or individual children who are mistreated, and for varying reasons, which just points to the utter folly of addressing such a paradigmatically prudential and hands-on issue of child-raising a) by programs designed to help some one identifiable group more than others and b) at the legislative level.

Moreover, I fully believe that ideological programs are going to run off the backs of the real bullies or those inclined that way and are going to help no one. They are either going to simulate compliance while continuing their cruelties in some behind-the-scenes way (one such way would be switching their cruelty to those whom the teachers don't seem especially concerned to protect, because they don't belong to a mascot group) or they are going to ignore it altogether. The compliant kids will get nervous and try to adopt whatever ideology is being promoted (which may be a problem in itself, depending on the ideology), but if there is a ruling clique of nasties, there will be little they can do about it.

One of the major, core problems here is that schools can't permanently kick out enough children (or teens) and focus on those who are both non-violent and willing to behave well toward others and learn. As long as we don't address that core problem, everything else is going to be window dressing or worse than window dressing.

I am particularly moved by indignation at the combination of naivete and narrow focus/lack of perspective I see in those who ask us to "do something" to address (again, at the legislative level, of all things) playground insults and cruel speech against one particular group (students perceived as effeminate or homosexual) while ignoring the very serious problem of generalized, serious violence, as well as other problems (sex in the bathrooms, for example!) in our public schools. When _almost any_ well-behaved child has to worry that he will not come out of a school day without getting beaten up in one way or another, when kids sometimes are even getting beaten into unconsciousness (one little girl, I believe it was, died recently after such a beating) at school, when much of this has precisely zero to do with societal norms concerning homosexuality, then it betrays a kind of...idee fixee for people to be wrinkling their foreheads and asking conservatives "what we offer" in terms of programs and laws to counteract the supposedly widespread problem of specifically anti-homosexual bullying of all kinds in public schools. It really almost rises to the level of absurdity. We have much, much more serious problems we should be worrying about which make too many of our public schools jungles or gauntlets for any student who just wants to be left alone and learn.

By the way, real religion is in a particularly good position to require generally good behavior on all fronts, small and large, of which non-cruelty is just one species, than any secular ideology. Addressing bad behavior based on the latter is, I think inevitably, going to end up sounding shallow and hence ineffective.

While I oppose vouchers for reasons suggested in the main post, it might not be a bad idea to allow religion of some kind back into public schools. It would probably be an improvement over the current situation. Then, whether the bad behavior is cheating, beating the tar out of a kid because you just don't like his face, or swearing at the teachers, students can be told that "We don't behave that way in a _______[Hindu, Catholic, Christian] school" and that he'd better shape up or ship out.

I'm quite willing to be known as being "against anti-bullying legislation." Common sense should tell us (and I think at one time would have told us) that the general category of playground insults and cruel speech is not one that legislators are well-suited or in a position to address. It is paradigmatically a problem that needs to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis by those raising children. Moreover the use of an extremely broad category like "bullying" in legislation blurs the (to my mind) crucial distinction between unkind speech and actual physical assault and battery. The latter is already, and rightly so, the subject of general legislation against attacking people physically. It is also subject to normal categories that apply between adults such as self-defense and questions of who struck first. Putting both this and unkind speech into the same legislative category, any legislative category, both raises the importance and blurs our understanding of mean-spirited speech (verging on making it directly illegal, which is worrisome, if we think of how that might apply to adult behavior) and downplays the seriousness of actual physical violence and the problem that it constitutes in our schools. I'm agin' it.

Moreover, I fully believe that ideological programs are going to run off the backs of the real bullies or those inclined that way and are going to help no one.

Precisely. They are little different from "Zero-tolerance" policies. They are designed to protect the schools from liability and placate a social-engineering government, not actually protect children.

Dealing with bullying problems by putting everybody in the school through some milk-and-water "Be nice and respect everybody, even if they're different" Program with a capital P is a silly and ineffective approach.

I have a modest proposal for you. Let's bring back the stocks as a form of public humiliation. We could place the student offenders behind a glass or clear plastic screen directly over the lunchroom garbage cans. That way they could see the garbage being thrown at them but wouldn't be hurt, except for their pride and sense of smell.

Just to make it clear, I think any anti-bullying program should address all bullying, not just bullying of gay or effeminate kids. No protected groups. But if your school has a teaching that behavior X is a sin, where those engaging in that behavior are often bullied, then you should go out of your way to emphasize that students should not bully people engaging or oriented towards behavior X. Regardless of any legislation. That's part of what I mean by a program.

I don't expect this to get through to the bullies, but I think it might get through to some of the others, the ones who stand on the side and watch or cheer.

Well, Aaron, I have a lot more to say there, too. First of all, in a Christian school, sexual immorality should be grounds for being dismissed from the school. This refers to both heterosexual and homosexual immorality, as well as to the use of pornography. So if students are going around announcing that they are engaging in homosexual acts, a Christian school should kick them out (and the same for boys bragging about having sex with their girlfriends).

Secondly, I believe that it is bad for everyone involved for students to be telling the world at large that they are oriented (which I would instead call "tempted") towards homosexual acts. To my mind, that is more or less a paradigm case of "too much information." Telling a counselor, priest, or close friend from whom one seeks help or prayers is a different matter. But public self-identification of students, and _especially_ of children, as "gay" should be discouraged in the strongest possible terms. Even if this "orientation" is deep-seated, such self-identification means that young people are rooting their identities in their own sinful inclinations, which is extremely bad for them. It fosters a huge confusion for them.

Moreover, I reject the present orthodoxy that every single person either is or isn't "gay" innately. I think there are young people who go through periods of sexual confusion and so forth, and at those times it is _terribly_ destructive to have homosexuality always before their minds and to encourage them to ask themselves, "Am I gay?" as though this is an immutable fact of their nature. I believe there are a lot of happily married people today who "are" heterosexual who might have "been" homosexual if they had grown up in the present atmosphere in the schools where the notion that one might "be gay" is (God help us)introduced to young children in grade school and affirmed as an identity by the schools and the entire surrounding culture all the way through high school. It's absolutely wrong and creates a lot of harm. For this reason as well a Christian school should tell students that they should not go around telling the whole world (as opposed to a counselor or confessor) that they "are" gay, and that doing so will be grounds for dismissal.

Insofar as anti-bullying programs encourage (and believe me, they do, wherever they are introduced) students to identify as gay openly, they are harmful.

As a pragmatic side-effect, such an school policy towards the whole issue would go some distance towards decreasing bullying based on a person's self-identification as "gay." But to my mind, that's only one of its benefits and not by any means the most important.

Step2, what a wonderful idea! Very creative.

Crude, why do we need a "conservative plan" for this? Or, at least, why a conservative plan at the state and (let's hope it doesn't get there) federal level? Part of the point here is that it is a bad idea to criminalize a child's childish bad behavior, not for false reasons that involve acceptance of bad behavior but for respect of the proper venue for dealing with it. When the child is still 3 and 4 and is almost entirely taken care of by parents (oh, back in the ooooollllllddd days before universal child care), it is the parents' situation to deal with, not the state's. When the child is a little older and spends a lot of time in school, it is the teacher's and (eventually, hopefully not until later like 8th or 10th grade) the principal's problem, NOT the state's. The "conservative plan" is to re-empower and expect parents and schools to do their job again without interference from higher levels.

As Lydia alludes to, bullying - along with several other bad behavior types - is a moral problem and is best attended to as a moral issue, but not a "special" problem that is different from all the usual types of children's cruelty to each other. If schools were allowed to push morals and religious principles, they would be better able to address moral problems.

In the vastly horrible old days, schools were expected to apply corporal punishment to misbehaving children, because they acted "in loco parentis". Today, I would be wary of asking schools to use corporal punishment because I wouldn't want any state-taught teacher or principal to use it when they have no conception whatsoever of Christian discipline, but in principle there is no reason a child who is old enough emotionally to be in school is not old enough to have a teacher (instead of a parent) discipline him appropriately in place of the parent doing it, though in the extreme cases they would still have to refer the punishment to the parent in the clear expectation that it will take care of the problem. And one of the ways the squishy milk and water liberals have damaged society is by denigrating the notion of all corporal punishment: the point of being able to use lesser forms of discipline successfully is that there is a physical form to "back it up" when the lesser form is ineffective.

In any case, the likely result of making something like bullying illegal is that the smarter kids who are bullies will do it in such a way that it cannot be dealt with by the teacher and principal, or will target those who are not under special protection. Kids can figure out how to skirt the laws when the laws are clearly foolish.

One part of the law forbids this behavior:

2. has a detrimental effect on the physical, social, or emotional health of a student;

Since "emotional" health is an entirely subjective affair and is open to indefinite extension by the so-called experts, a law written like this is, effectively, an open-ended writ for witch-hunts against students who don't adore the current preferred ideology, whatever that is. (And never mind the fact that this week's preferences are topsy-turvy to last week's, that is no never mind to the students who just have to say "yes teacher" like good little sheep and ignore the contradictions in Newspeak.)

And why, just WHY is it that you never hear of a single case where laws or rules like this are used to protect Christians from abuse? To make sure Christians are free of intimidation? To prevent the deliberate exclusion of Christians from activities (like after-school clubs)? Because, of course, THOSE sorts of behavior are mandated by the school system and the state, are required of teachers, and are expected of students being trained to emulate the teachers in not allowing Christianity to be visible in public. Heaven forbid that Jane be forced (horrors!) to watch a classmate in the cafeteria say a prayer before eating lunch. Think of the emotional trauma that might cause Jane! The people who are in place to enforce these kinds of rules know perfectly well who the rules are intended for (and against), and they aren't likely to let the mere wording of the law get in the way of pursuit of the real agenda. So the real effect of laws like this is to teach bullies to target the same targets the adults do, that kind of bullying gets away with lots more.

Lydia, you understand that I agree with you, right? I agree that Christian schools should be able to kick out sexually active students (gay or straight), that these schools shouldn't let students go around saying, "I'm gay," etc.

So I agree with what you're saying, but I still think it's incomplete. That's because students are often identified as gay not by themselves, but by other students, including bullies. I think Christian schools can and should do something about that bullying, though legislation is really going overboard.

Aaron, thanks, and I do appreciate the extent of your agreement, I think. You say that Christian schools should deal with anti-gay bullying as it comes up, including bullying arising from students' thinking that other students are homosexual, even if the students don't self-identify. Sure, but I would target it as it comes up and if it comes up and only to the extent that it comes up. There's no reason to guess that maybe something is going to happen and be "pro-active" about it when maybe something entirely different is going to be the real problem in your school. (For example, you might instead have problems with students who make fun of others for being academically diligent.)

If I were running a Christian school and kids were running around saying, "You're gay, nah-nah-nah" or even saying much worse things, including real horrors like encouraging kids to commit suicide or whatever, I'd make sure that was dealt with in those cases. For one thing, that kind of _language_ is inappropriate. Why are kids even talking about "being gay," including talking about it as an insult? They should be told, "You're not allowed to talk like that." If they're truly, viciously harassing other children, including trying to induce them to commit suicide, for any reason whatsoever, that needs to be dealt with extremely sternly, up to and including expulsion if necessary or even police involvement if they are, e.g., cyberstalking or leaving repeated, vicious, harassing phone messages. (There are laws against that kind of thing, regardless of motive. If my neighbor starts sending me repeated, vicious, harassing e-mail messages because of a dispute over a dog, I can get the law involved.)

And of course all of that is true if the unacceptable behavior is motivated by a "perception" that the other student "is homosexual." But I just don't think there is any special way of dealing with that any differently from the way you would deal with such mistreatment of another student if it had a totally different motivation. You force them to stop being horribly cruel to Sally or Bill, period.

I will go farther: Sometimes Christians, in our desire to show our compassion for persons suffering from same-sex attraction, will state odd-sounding shibboleths, such as, "I'm opposed to all discrimination against homosexual persons." Well, I'm _not_ opposed to all discrimination against homosexual persons. I can think of a number of places where such discrimination is sensible and appropriate. So that would be one way to try to "deal with anti-homosexual bullying" in a Christian school that I would reject--namely, explicitly teaching the students, "We disapprove of homosexual behavior, but we must oppose all discrimination against homosexual people." I think that sends the wrong message.

Honestly, in general, I don't think Christian schools, or sensible schools of any kind, should be doing a lot of talking about homosexuality at all. There could be discussion sessions where the students might bring it up as a question, because (most unfortunately) it's a "hot topic" right now in the surrounding culture, and then teachers and leaders should address it from within a moral framework. But if students are being mean to other students because they think they might be gay, the way to talk about that and deal with it, it seems to me, is not qua anti-perceived-gay-person bullying but just qua cruel behavior as such. The homosexual angle can and should be downplayed as much as possible.

Lydia,

I'm going to take a really robust approach and say that you're both wrong. Schools need an integrated approach to bad behavior that includes a lot of kicking-out of badly behaving kids.

I agree.

You say that laws like this are needlessly intrusive and are poking the government's nose into areas in a burdensome way? I agree.

I am particularly moved by indignation at the combination of naivete and narrow focus/lack of perspective I see in those who ask us to "do something" to address

I agree. I agree. I agree.

Problem: it doesn't matter that I disagree. Or that you disagree. The public is largely a mass of emotionally manipulable people who very much have a "DO SOMETHING, DO ANYTHING" attitude. And when stories about bullying come up and someone proposes anti-bullying legislation (that may or may not have all kinds of non-bullying-related social experimentation along with it), making the public move of "I oppose anti-bullying legislation!" while offering no alternative makes you sound like you're pro-bullying. When you claim that all this is a front for protecting homosexuals as a special interest group and that is why you're against anti-bullying laws protecting gays, well, now you sound like you approve of bullying gays specifically.

So, I believe the smart thing to do is offer an alternative plan. Which, of course, involves some bending of principles for people who support a small-government, non-intrusive, actually-effective approach to these things. But I think the alternative is yet more loss on the cultural end. Am I the only one tired of losing there?

Tony,

Crude, why do we need a "conservative plan" for this? Or, at least, why a conservative plan at the state and (let's hope it doesn't get there) federal level? Part of the point here is that it is a bad idea to criminalize a child's childish bad behavior, not for false reasons that involve acceptance of bad behavior but for respect of the proper venue for dealing with it. When the child is still 3 and 4 and is almost entirely taken care of by parents (oh, back in the ooooollllllddd days before universal child care), it is the parents' situation to deal with, not the state's. When the child is a little older and spends a lot of time in school, it is the teacher's and (eventually, hopefully not until later like 8th or 10th grade) the principal's problem, NOT the state's. The "conservative plan" is to re-empower and expect parents and schools to do their job again without interference from higher levels.

Because the need is dictated by social reality, not principle. And the 'conservative plan', unless it is actually a competing piece of legislation, seems to most people an awful lot like 'nothing'. And 'nothing' sounds an awful lot like 'playing smear the queer, or smear the fat kid, is an acceptable childhood activity'.

You don't want to criminalize child behavior? Wonderful, very sensible of you. Make sure that's not present in your competing law. Make it heavy on the nice sounding but ultimately useless gestures. But if the public is in such a state that SOME law is going to likely pass when push comes to shove, be there with your own law. Preferably a law which also strikes against attacking students for their religious upbringing or their political views. Criminalize Dan Savage's rants.

Social conservatives need to stop being so overwhelmingly reactive. It is not enough to simply be against everything liberals are for. We have to be for things too. I know, I know, it's been said before. I believe it. And 'being for things' doesn't mean, or largely mean, being for new government intrusion, etc. But when push comes to shove and a law's coming anyway, our attack on the bad law should come with a proposal of our own law with it. Look at the NRA: they've had considerable success recently, in part because they weren't simply responding with 'No to gun laws'. They made up what they had to know was a scapegoat (violent media) and demanded ACTION there. Result? No one says the NRA is sitting on its hands when it comes to gun violence. Banning guns is not seen as the ONLY solution to violent problems by some people.

We should emulate winners in terms of approach and tactic.

Lydia,

I will go farther: Sometimes Christians, in our desire to show our compassion for persons suffering from same-sex attraction, will state odd-sounding shibboleths, such as, "I'm opposed to all discrimination against homosexual persons." Well, I'm _not_ opposed to all discrimination against homosexual persons. I can think of a number of places where such discrimination is sensible and appropriate. So that would be one way to try to "deal with anti-homosexual bullying" in a Christian school that I would reject--namely, explicitly teaching the students, "We disapprove of homosexual behavior, but we must oppose all discrimination against homosexual people." I think that sends the wrong message.

Okay, some questions.

You are really in favor of discrimination against homosexual persons? So a celibate, Catholic gay person who regards same-sex sexual behavior as immoral - you're pro-discrimination there in some cases? If so, I want to know on what grounds, what cases. If not - if what you mean is "I'm against sexually active people who engage in same-sex behavior, particularly ones who are open about and defending of their sexual practices", then you are in favor of discriminating against people because of their behavior. If that's the case, then why in the world would you describe yourself as being in favor of discrimination against homosexuals? Do you have any idea how bad that sounds to most people? You're telling people, 'I think a certain group of people should be discriminated against because they are, quite possibly due to no fault of their own, attracted to people of the same sex.'

You're right that this is a 'hot topic' right now. Which is why avoiding the issue isn't really an option. Social conservatives need to find a way to deal with this issue - and they specifically need a new way to deal with it, because it's clear that their past approaches and methods were failures. Not just on the gay topic, but on a variety of issues.

Well, first of all, Crude, let me introduce you to the American Family Association. It may come as a surprise to you, because if ever there were an organization billed in the public eye as "hatefully homophobic," it's the AFA, but they are doing pretty much _precisely_ what you are suggesting. I almost linked in the main post but decided to leave it out a story on the AFA's site in which they were pleased that here in my own state of Michigan they succeeded in passing a generalized anti-school-bullying law that had been extensively amended to take out all references to protected classes. I'll admit honestly that I have not researched precisely what the law mandated. Were the schools supposed to set up prevention programs or did it directly criminalize the children's behavior? I don't know. But the point is that the AFA responded as you are suggesting to the gullible public's demand that we "do something" while trying to prevent some of the ill consequences of that demand by taking out the more objectionable clauses of the proposed law. Those clauses expressly created a "some are more equal than others" situation.

To be honest, I'm not sure I agree with the AFA here. I'm going to guess that in practice, given the present climate, the public schools are going to use that legislation as a reason to further demonize and indeed bully Christians and to promote homosexual rights and the homosexual agenda. The only good the AFA may have done would be to help individual schools, perhaps in more conservative areas, whose administrators don't want to do that to avoid being further pressured by state law to do it.

In the larger culture wars, I very much doubt if the fact that the AFA supported anti-bullying legislation provided it named no specific groups will gain us any brownie points. (The homosexual lobby, as you can imagine, was furious about the AFA's success in having the law amended before it was passed.) In my opinion, it's pragmatically pointless to do what you are suggesting, because it never works. It's more _practical_ to direct our energies to keeping our own minds and concepts clear and to avoiding sending a mixed message to our own constituents and, especially, to our own young people.

Now, to your second question: Certainly, it's very easy to name situations in which a celibate person who suffers from SSA can reasonably be "discriminated against." Here are just a few:

--As a priest or pastor (because of the very real danger of falling and creating scandal and because of the intrinsic desirability of having priests and pastors who have normal sexuality)

--As a boys' swimming instructor, boarding school teacher, or camping coach (no further comment needed)

--For the military or for any other position that will require living in physically close quarters, predictably involving lack of physical privacy, with other members of the same sex (because the whole point of such sex-segregated set-ups is that people have a right to physical privacy from those who might be sexually desiring them)

--As a prospective roommate (see the previous comment).

Those are just a few. The numbers really explode if the person in question has insisted and continues to insist on making it publicly *known* that he suffers from SSA. I am not saying that there are *no* circumstances in which publicly revealing one's "orientation" would be appropriate. But even a single such revelation, publicly discoverable, could raise questions for the reasons discussed above concerning issues like Christian leadership.

Moreover, continuously identifying oneself in that fashion raises real problems, especially for Christian or conservative organizations, because it seems that the person is (as I mentioned above) identifying himself with his sinful inclinations and insisting on putting those "in the faces" of other people, even if that makes them uncomfortable. A person who goes about frequently referring to himself as "gay" even if celibate has de facto created all manner of understandable tensions and morale problems between himself and potential colleagues in a work environment, even beyond those just named. (And this might be true in a secular work environment as well if it had a significant traditionalist cultural background.) This relates to the fact as well that young people have a right not to be surrounded by the very _thought_ of homosexuality. They have a right to an expectation of normalcy in those around them. This puts a similar requirement of discretion and consideration on those around them, and such a person is not showing that discretion and consideration--which is a relevant hiring issue.

Let me say here that I think there is far too much haste to fall all over ourselves to be solicitous of widely self-identified Christian celibate homosexuals. Nobody ever asks, "Why is this person telling everybody this on the Internet? Did we need to know this?" Worse, there are such people who even have a platform (I'm thinking of Joshua Gonnerman at First Things here) who have _very_ misguided and incorrect ideas and use that platform to promulgate those ideas, and people are more inclined to listen to them because they are allegedly Christian and even Catholic. Gonnerman has made it quite explicit that he regards his homosexuality as a *positive* identity even though he is celibate. He even resists phrases like "suffers from same-sex attraction" for that very reason. That is extremely troubling, yet nobody (apparently) wanted to "discriminate" against him, and everyone was so thrilled that he's celibate and claims that he supports the Catholic Church's teaching (though frankly, I'm not sure where "gravely disordered" fits into this!) so he has this prestigious blogging post.

So, I believe the smart thing to do is offer an alternative plan. Which, of course, involves some bending of principles for people who support a small-government, non-intrusive, actually-effective approach to these things...And 'being for things' doesn't mean, or largely mean, being for new government intrusion, etc. But when push comes to shove and a law's coming anyway, our attack on the bad law should come with a proposal of our own law with it.

OK, Crude, hows about this: we'll pass a LAW that explicitly gives teachers and principals the authority to spank kids for cruelty to other kids (not singling out any special kind of cruelty), and for other behavior that is contrary to good morals or orderly classrooms. We'll include in the LAW limitations on what aspects of school discipline in this way can be reviewed by judges. And we will also put in the LAW that adults (in schools) who are talking about, or allowing students to freely talk about sexual orientation around students before 9th grade are punishable by mandatory loss of job and possible fines. Sound good?

You are really in favor of discrimination against homosexual persons?

I can't tell from your comment, Crude: are you misunderstanding Lydia's use of "discrimination" in this context? Since the 1950s or 1960s, the word "discrimination" has almost completely taken on a connotation of "immoral, illegal, or unsocial behavior of using completely trivial differences to impose grave differences of treatment and behavior." But that's a special contextual meaning for the word, it has a more general and more time-worn meaning, simply "noting a difference". I think that Lydia's use is the second. It makes no sense at all to take note of homosexuality when you are, for example, figuring out the variances of a classroom of students from the "average weight". Whether a student is homosexual doesn't in the least matter to that issue. Similarly, it makes no difference whatsoever to a doctor about to do emergency appendectomy on a 14-year old to know whether he has homosexual leanings, it seems just not relevant. So to USE sexual orientation to decide how to proceed in either of those cases would be a bad way to "note a difference". Just like it would be stupid and pointless to take note of skin color in deciding how to measure the speed with which a racer runs.

But in other cases it is critical to note the differences between people with respect to their sexual leanings, just as it is necessary to note their differences in skin tone. If I run a chemistry shop developing sun tan lotion, I need to know the race or skin color of a person in hiring them to test a new lotion for effectiveness. Likewise, if I am setting up a dating service I sure as hell better be able to note and take into account an applicant's sexual leaning. Well, that applies in other places too, such as finding roommates, and (as Lydia says) any situation with people in close proximity and reduced levels of physical privacy.

Lydia,

Well, first of all, Crude, let me introduce you to the American Family Association. It may come as a surprise to you, because if ever there were an organization billed in the public eye as "hatefully homophobic," it's the AFA, but they are doing pretty much _precisely_ what you are suggesting.

I'd need to see details on the law in question. For one thing, I'm not a fan of what I've turned up about the AFA in my brief googling of them - not because I oppose most of their policy stances, but because they come off poorly. When the AFA Michigan site has an open letter to homosexuals talking about their being hellbound and calling on them to repent, with no arguments given other than biblical references, I immediately yearn for different spokesmen. To judge what position they took on the anti-bullying law, I'd have to see the details. It's being portrayed as 'they fought for an exemption to the anti-bullying law that lets you kick a gay person's teeth in so long as you say your motives are religious', which is utterly ridiculous. But if it's something like 'fighting for an exemption to the bullying law so long as you cite religious beliefs in your doing what would otherwise be called bullying', then that was a dumb move and not what I'm suggesting here.

To be honest, I'm not sure I agree with the AFA here. I'm going to guess that in practice, given the present climate, the public schools are going to use that legislation as a reason to further demonize and indeed bully Christians and to promote homosexual rights and the homosexual agenda.

And christians should be co-opting the fight for homosexual rights by fighting for their own version of such. And you can agree that homosexuals should enjoy many of the same rights that others do without sanctifying their any homosexual lifestyle, supporting gay marriage, etc.

In the larger culture wars, I very much doubt if the fact that the AFA supported anti-bullying legislation provided it named no specific groups will gain us any brownie points. (The homosexual lobby, as you can imagine, was furious about the AFA's success in having the law amended before it was passed.) In my opinion, it's pragmatically pointless to do what you are suggesting, because it never works.

I'm still withholding judgment on whether the AFA even did close to what I'm suggesting. Their public appearance, what little I've seen of it, is certainly negative so far - as in 'counterproductive and probably ineffective'. Nor am I asking to do things that will endear us to LGBT groups. And, no, it does work. See: the NRA. Instead of simply being against gun control, they came out in favor of other (equally useless) policy initiatives. That paid off in spades.

--As a priest or pastor (because of the very real danger of falling and creating scandal and because of the intrinsic desirability of having priests and pastors who have normal sexuality)

Insofar as scandal is concerned, I'm pretty sure that falling to a heterosexual temptation is scandalous as well.

As for your other examples: they come down to pretty long-standing areas (no men in a women's changing room, etc) such that calling them 'discrimination' would be absurd. Right now 'discrimination' is a word like 'bullying'. It's tainted, it's poisoned, saying you approve of bullying some people never sounds good. So why say you're in favor of discrimination? Say you oppose discrimination. Choose another word to describe what you support. One that won't horrify the average person right out of the gates.

Moreover, continuously identifying oneself in that fashion raises real problems, especially for Christian or conservative organizations, because it seems that the person is (as I mentioned above) identifying himself with his sinful inclinations and insisting on putting those "in the faces" of other people, even if that makes them uncomfortable. A person who goes about frequently referring to himself as "gay" even if celibate has de facto created all manner of understandable tensions and morale problems between himself and potential colleagues in a work environment, even beyond those just named. (And this might be true in a secular work environment as well if it had a significant traditionalist cultural background.)

What are those understandable tensions and morale problems? Over in Britain, I hear wearing a cross is taken to sometimes create tensions and morale problems. So what? I think that one unfortunate problem is that 'gay' is now identified as 'member of the LGBT's own private army', and many times that's probably the case. But frankly, the mere fact that someone is same-sex attracted shouldn't be an issue. It's their actions and greater behavior which are problematic. Otherwise, they're just naming one particular immoral behavior they are tempted by, as opposed to all of the other temptations people have and we all know we have, but which go unmentioned.

Let me say here that I think there is far too much haste to fall all over ourselves to be solicitous of widely self-identified Christian celibate homosexuals. Nobody ever asks, "Why is this person telling everybody this on the Internet? Did we need to know this?"

What we need are visible people with SSA who are demonstrating a commitment to living a moral life, who show that it's possible to have SSA and still be a Christian or a Catholic, or who can criticize the LGBT lobby despite being gay. We need to know this so other gays can see that they have more options than 'pretend you have no SSA' or 'join the LGBT organizations in their lunatic goals'. We need to show that Christians welcome gays who resist and oppose their SSA, rather than doing exactly what the media portrays us as doing: thinking gays and the like are hellbound purely because of the fact that they have SSA.

What did Gonnerman say that's objectionable? At a glance - I could have missed something - I see nowhere where he bucks Catholic teaching, or anything close to that. He claims to be Catholic and orthodox, and argues against people who are trying to find same-sex sexual behavior moral or somehow blessed by God. He regards his sexuality in a positive light insofar as it gives people like him, as near as I can read, a unique cross to bear and a unique perspective to go with it. Where is the great offense?

He also seems to be a good writer.

Tony,

OK, Crude, hows about this: we'll pass a LAW that explicitly gives teachers and principals the authority to spank kids for cruelty to other kids (not singling out any special kind of cruelty), and for other behavior that is contrary to good morals or orderly classrooms. We'll include in the LAW limitations on what aspects of school discipline in this way can be reviewed by judges. And we will also put in the LAW that adults (in schools) who are talking about, or allowing students to freely talk about sexual orientation around students before 9th grade are punishable by mandatory loss of job and possible fines. Sound good?

Do you think this law will appeal to most people? Do you think you could persuasively argue its merits for a majority of voters? Or did you come up with an imaginary law that you like, but which doesn't have a chance in hell of catching support?

I can't tell from your comment, Crude: are you misunderstanding Lydia's use of "discrimination" in this context? Since the 1950s or 1960s, the word "discrimination" has almost completely taken on a connotation of "immoral, illegal, or unsocial behavior of using completely trivial differences to impose grave differences of treatment and behavior." But that's a special contextual meaning for the word, it has a more general and more time-worn meaning, simply "noting a difference". I think that Lydia's use is the second.

Lydia has explained what she means. I know what the word means, of course. I know that I discriminate against some kinds of cuisine. I know that if I'm trying to hire someone for a job and person X does not meet my entirely fair standards, I have discriminated against X. If X is a black man, well, I've discriminated against a black man, in some technical sense. I also know that saying "I discriminated against a black man" is inane, and should not be done. Saying 'but it's technically correct!' is no defense, when I'm factoring in public perception.

As for your other examples: they come down to pretty long-standing areas (no men in a women's changing room, etc) such that calling them 'discrimination' would be absurd.

Total and utter baloney. That is not a correct interpretation of what I said. What I was saying was that it would be *right* and *correct* to discriminate against people with SSA even if they are presently celibate in situations like the military or other sex-segregated barracks, showering, or bunking situations. What I mean is, male homosexuals shouldn't be allowed with other _men_ in those circumstances, or lesbians with other women. So for example all-male groups that travel together and have to shower together, or jobs that involve the same, would be doing something legitimate in refusing to have people with SSA involved, for the privacy reasons I cited. This isn't some weird thing where I'm calling what I support "discrimination" just to be edgy. This is straightforwardly saying, "Oh, you are homosexually oriented? Then you can't be a soldier [you can't be on our basketball team, you can't be part of our traveling singing group, etc., etc.]. Next!" If that isn't "discrimination" on even a very broad modern interpretation, I don't know what is. It would block people with SSA from participating in these activities, either for pay or not for pay. Like the Boy Scouts, for example.

Look, Crude, I can tell that we very widely disagree, so I don't know that it's worth my time to keep going with this. (Just going back to something you keep saying: I think it's positively wrong to support a policy one knows is a bad and useless idea just to make oneself "look good" or just to appear to support the public's hysterical desire that we "do something." That is acting in bad faith, and no one should do that. Period.) So whatever I cite from Gonnerman you're presumably going to find some excuse for. Nor do I want to put a lot of time into it. I already summarized the problem. He sees same-sex attraction as a *positive identity*. Just how much clearer do I have to make it?

Here are a couple of quotes. This one is particularly...icky.

http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare/2012/05/why-i-call-myself-a-gay-christian

People with same-sex desire experience a kind of attraction that, when not concupiscent, is a gift to the Church—a sign of contradiction.

That's sick. As I wrote to someone in an e-mail when I first found this, what Gonnerman is talking about here is, at the best, a homosexual man's joyfully (but without actual lust) appreciating the physical beauty of other men. Presumably this "non-concupiscent attraction" is supposed by Gonnerman to be similar to the way that (if I may say this) one finds our [mutual male friend X] sometimes speaking with hearty appreciation of the beauty of women in an occasional blog post. The difference, which Gonnerman deliberately obscures, being that a man's appreciation of female beauty is normal (hence, it can be something to smile about, something a woman can accept as a compliment, and so forth) and this "kind of attraction" of a man for another man is abnormal. Hence, _not_ something to smile about. (I would add here that Gonnerman's use of "sign of contradiction" in this particular context should make anyone who isn't a b.s. artist positively writhe.)

There's also this explicit analogy between homosexuality and ethnicity--an extremely poor analogy--and the resistance to the phrase SSA. Emphasis added.

More than any of these, homosexuality is about a sense of self, in ways far broader than simply “experiencing same-sex attraction,” particularly if these same-sex attractions are reduced to the level of desire.

Since it boils down, not to a sin or an addiction, as the homophobes claim, but more to a sense of self, the closest analogue would be to ethnic communities

I go to great lengths to avoid calling someone who rejects their homosexuality “gay,” out of a respect for their own sense of self. I wish that Courage would extend the same respect to me, rather than throwing their hands in the air and squealing frantically if I ever identify as “gay,”

All found in this thread.

http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/09/quaeritur-masses-parishes-for-homosexuals/

The evidence is unequivocal that Gonnerman thinks that homosexual identity is a real, positive form of personal identity and that there is nothing wrong with having a person who suffers from SSA _not_ call himself "a person who suffers from SSA" but rather embrace his sSA as, instead, a positive identity of "being gay" which is similar to ethnic identity. If you can reconcile this with Catholic Church teaching about being objectively disordered, then you win the pretzel prize for the year 2013, and as a Protestant, I don't much care what you're able to do. But it doesn't fit. And it's wrong, and dangerous, and totally misguided.

As for SSA priests and pastors, I believe (and you should too) that priests and pastors ought to be modeling well-rounded and healthy masculine identity for our young people (and for older men as well). People who have the disorder of SSA are not fully able to do that. Whether one takes this to be entirely "through no fault of their own" doesn't matter. The SSA is in itself a disability, perhaps all the more so if you have a celibate priesthood. There is a reason why priests are called "Father." (It's my recollection that the Catholic Church came out with a document to that effect in recent years, but if I'm remembering incorrectly, they should have.)

I second what Lydia says in her 7:13 here. And yes, the Catholic Church (in a document by JPII) specifically indicated that seminaries should not be accepting SSA candidates.

What we need are visible people with SSA who are demonstrating a commitment to living a moral life,

It goes further than that. What we need are people with SSA accepting and admitting that the very attraction they undergo is both inherently disordered and is ABNORMAL. And that normal society is not required to accommodate them "testifying" to their SSA problem out in public if it means destroying the latency and (potentially) the normalcy of children and youths. That children have a positive right to perceive normalcy and not be required to recognize and "deal with" abnormalcy in this matter as a general standard.

There are SSA young men who have overcome the problem. There are other SSA young men who have partially overcome their problem, sufficiently enough to have attractions to women, and who want to have normal marriage and family. I have heard of one such young man wishing to know whether marrying a woman would be morally licit in that situation.

Lydia,

Total and utter baloney. That is not a correct interpretation of what I said.

I can understand your meaning while still questioning your presentation. And this isn't some moral condemnation either - it's about communicating effectively, little more, especially given what you've said. That's why I'm focusing on the word so much. My experience is that too many social conservatives pay little attention to what they say, or sometimes take a joy in saying something they know will tick off or put off most people. So when you talk about supporting discrimination - when you don't find another way to say that - I get reasonably worried.

Look, Crude, I can tell that we very widely disagree, so I don't know that it's worth my time to keep going with this. (Just going back to something you keep saying: I think it's positively wrong to support a policy one knows is a bad and useless idea just to make oneself "look good" or just to appear to support the public's hysterical desire that we "do something." That is acting in bad faith, and no one should do that. Period.)

If you want to persuade the public, then you have to deal with the public. Quite literally, deal - negotiate with them, keep in mind their desires when proposing or responding to policy, and tailor your responses and suggestions accordingly. That doesn't mean run out and pass gay marriage laws because the public wants that right now. It doesn't mean only picking up causes that are sure winners. It does mean realizing that when you're in public, you're conversing with the public, like it or not - particularly when you're a politician or a leader. When the public demands a law against bullying and there's a terrible law coming up that WILL pass if you do not offer an alternative, then it's time to offer an alternative. You do what you can.

You disagree with this?

So whatever I cite from Gonnerman you're presumably going to find some excuse for. Nor do I want to put a lot of time into it. I already summarized the problem. He sees same-sex attraction as a *positive identity*. Just how much clearer do I have to make it?

Presumably why? Because I'm incapable of disagreeing with people I otherwise agree with? I have disagreements with Ed Feser - I think he's brilliant and right most of the time. I have disagreements with you despite being in large agreement with most of your political positions. I can't really think of anyone I agree with across the board. Why in the world would I try to justify something someone said?

As for your Gonnerman quote, yes, if he is saying that he finds sexual attraction to people of the same sex a 'gift to the Church', then I disagree with him. I don't find it particularly sick and twisted and warped - merely wrong, along the lines of how liberals who think socialism is "Christian" are wrong. For all I know, he's saying something more nuanced and complicated, and I won't speculate definitely here as to what he possibly could be saying on that front. Maybe I'll shoot him an email and ask - it seems related to Elizabeth Scalia's writing about her view that gays can channel their desires into great art when they control said desires. He also responds that he thinks homosexual desires are disordered in the comments, though he's short on specifics.

But again, if he's saying that same-sex attraction in and of itself is some kind of good thing - 'it's good for a man to sexually desire a man' - then yes, I think he's wrong. I also think he's right on other things, since he endorses the Catholic Church's teaching on these subjects.

If you can reconcile this with Catholic Church teaching about being objectively disordered, then you win the pretzel prize for the year 2013, and as a Protestant, I don't much care what you're able to do. But it doesn't fit. And it's wrong, and dangerous, and totally misguided.

Again, I've already made it clear I'm more than happy to disagree with Gonnerman if I think he's wrong. Once again, Gonnerman is speaking too vaguely for me to comprehend and fully judge what he's saying. The fact that Gonnerman is saying that homosexuality goes beyond same-sex attraction makes it particularly difficult to figure out his meaning here. He may be saying that 'being gay' isn't just about sexual attraction, but typically is tied to other traits, and that said traits can be on the whole positive, even if they're rarer among heterosexual males. Too cloudy for me to pass fast judgment on.

As for SSA priests and pastors, I believe (and you should too) that priests and pastors ought to be modeling well-rounded and healthy masculine identity for our young people (and for older men as well). People who have the disorder of SSA are not fully able to do that.

And here's where a puzzle comes in. You say 'identity for our young people'. Does a young man with SSA need a Christian role model? If you say no, then I wonder if you aren't making a considerable mistake. If you say yes, I will ask if said role model should be someone he can relate to. Regardless, if you're arguing that people with SSA should exist exclusively in the shadows (unless they're of the idiotic out and proud group), again, I think you are making a mistake. People need role models for how to cope with temptation.

(It's my recollection that the Catholic Church came out with a document to that effect in recent years, but if I'm remembering incorrectly, they should have.)

I recall they did, and that's a pastoral guideline. One I happen to support at the moment, because the cultural factors have to be taken into account.

I thought Detective Stabler said it best in "Law and Order: SVU" (which makes valiant attempts to be apolitical but has a liberal bias slip through on occasion).

In an episode about a homosexual girl being bullied mercilessly in Catholic school with the parents clamoring for the girl's removal, feminist Detective Benson talks about how horrible it is and all of that, yada yada yada.

Stabler says this: "If you're a pacifist you don't enroll in military school."

I really liked that quote.

Tony,

It goes further than that. What we need are people with SSA accepting and admitting that the very attraction they undergo is both inherently disordered and is ABNORMAL. And that normal society is not required to accommodate them "testifying" to their SSA problem out in public if it means destroying the latency and (potentially) the normalcy of children and youths. That children have a positive right to perceive normalcy and not be required to recognize and "deal with" abnormalcy in this matter as a general standard.

Wait, what? I agree that we need Christians with SSA acknowledging that their desires are not to be acted on, that acts of sodomy (which, btw, go well beyond merely gay sex) are immoral, etc. But, what - are you saying that they shouldn't even appear in public whatsoever? I am seriously having trouble understanding with what you're objecting to here. Are you saying that a man with SSA should never even mention he has SSA, even if he's celibate, Christian, a proponent of natural law, etc? I don't want to guess here - I would like to know your reasoning.

There are SSA young men who have overcome the problem. There are other SSA young men who have partially overcome their problem, sufficiently enough to have attractions to women, and who want to have normal marriage and family. I have heard of one such young man wishing to know whether marrying a woman would be morally licit in that situation.

Great, and I actually agree that men like that deserve more attention. Of course this gets into all kinds of psychology pandora's box stuff of 'maybe he was just bisexual' and all that. However, what about young men who have not managed to come over these problems? What if they've managed to remain celibate, and that seems to be the 'best' they can do? Also, is celibacy outside of the clergy (I ask this to you since I believe you're Catholic? Correct me if I'm wrong) verboten in your view?

Crude, I think I gave a pretty good (and believe it or not, on the whole charitable) interpretation of G.'s comment about homosexual men's attraction to other men that is non-concupiscent and somehow good. He's making an *extremely* strong analogy between heterosexual attraction and homosexual attraction. You may know some heterosexual man who says, "Wow, that lady is really beautiful." And you may imagine that in the context, perhaps because you know him or perhaps because of what he goes on to say, you interpret this not as reflecting lust (though it might be an occasion to lust, and he should be careful) but rather a healthy, and distinctively heterosexual, appreciation for the beauty God has created, an appreciation that would not be quite the same coming from a heterosexual woman. It could even be very chivalrous. There is that in-between area in normal relations between the sexes where a man shows that he, as a man, appreciates a woman's beauty, but where he doesn't lust after her. He may even compliment the lady (with appropriate gentlemanly care), and she may receive the compliment with pleasure. We all know what that is like. We know that it can even be one of the enrichments of life, provided it is handled with grace and care on both sides. G. is implying that there is a _parallel_ to this between homosexual men and other men. That is, as far as I'm concerned, an interpretation of the line that probably gives it more care and credit than it deserves but that is extremely plausible as an interpretation. It also shows that the line is...completely wrong. Badly wrong. Badly confused. Badly misleading.

As far as whether SSA young people need role models, it's my opinion that they, more than anyone else, need same-sex role models who are sexually normal. No, I don't think they chiefly need homosexually oriented role models. Moreover, our clergy (which should be all-male anyway) should be role models of godly manliness per se, for all young men, not narrowly targeted sub-group role models.

I won't speak for Tony, but I think the world would be a lot better off if a lot more people with SSA did "live in the shadows." And, yes, this includes those who are celibate and even Christian. In fact, those who are celibate and Christian should know, or should be taught, the value to others of their exercising discretion. Discretion--what an old-fashioned word. What an undervalued virtue. The sad fact is that instead both Catholic and Protestant Christians alike are doing a disservice to everyone involved by telling SSA people who are celibate that they owe it to the world to exercise indiscretion! That they can "help so many people" by writing tell-all columns and by talking (and talking and talking) about their life and experience as "gay Christians" and advice about how we can reach out, and on and on and on. Almost nobody (here I heartily exempt a few people, such as the estimable Tony Esolen) suggests that they can "help people" most by shutting the hell up about their abnormal desires, that by talking about it they are doing their incremental part to decrease the expectation and rootedness of normalcy in the culture and especially in the young of the culture. The circumstances in which they should "speak out" are, I believe, far, far narrower than commonly believed nowadays, even among Christians.

Lydia,

Crude, I think I gave a pretty good (and believe it or not, on the whole charitable) interpretation of G.'s comment about homosexual men's attraction to other men that is non-concupiscent and somehow good.

I didn't say you were uncharitable. I am saying that we're picking out a few sentences of what he wrote, and that his meaning is vague. Especially in light of him regarding homosexuals *acts* as disordered. I will write an email to him and see if he responds. If he thinks that sexual attraction to men by men is some kind of 'gift from God', then I will disagree with him and that's about the end of it.

If he replies, I'll report back here I suppose.

As far as whether SSA young people need role models, it's my opinion that they, more than anyone else, need same-sex role models who are sexually normal. No, I don't think they chiefly need homosexually oriented role models.

I agree that same-sex people who are 'sexually normal' can serve as role models. But I think a gay man who properly lives with his same-sex attraction can also serve as a role model, and an important one. In fact we desperately need this *now*, for more than just people with SSA. We need the greater public to see that men and women can live like this, properly. We need to show they can be accepted by the Christian community. And really, this is more than PR. We should have a good attitude towards such people from a purely Christian point of view.

Moreover, our clergy (which should be all-male anyway) should be role models of godly manliness per se, for all young men, not narrowly targeted sub-group role models.

I am hesitant to endorse the idea that someone having SSA cannot be a role model of manliness in other ways, especially when he controls his sexuality. This isn't to say I think SSA is a matter of 'Well, this guy is 100% typical of a heterosexual male except he just likes men sexually!' - no, I think there's more going on there, not all of it positive. Bisexuals as well come to mind here.

Nor do I endorse 'narrowly targeted sub-group role models'. But I likewise do not think that someone having SSA cannot serve in principle as a role model.

Lydia,

I won't speak for Tony, but I think the world would be a lot better off if a lot more people with SSA did "live in the shadows." And, yes, this includes those who are celibate and even Christian. In fact, those who are celibate and Christian should know, or should be taught, the value to others of their exercising discretion.

And here I conditionally disagree - and I don't think my disagreement extends merely to people with SSA. I approve of certain kinds of discretion, certainly where the media is concerned. But A) when the world is the way it is, we have to react to it, to a degree, on its terms. That means that when gays and gay rights and gay lifestyles are so openly public and a topic of discourse, such that discretion is not even an option, that is what we now have to work with - and we need voices. B) Far too much emphasis is put, at times, on false appearances. I think people should be more open about their failings, not in the sense of perpetually creating more and more subgroups, but precisely to help eliminate them

Almost nobody (here I heartily exempt a few people, such as the estimable Tony Esolen) suggests that they can "help people" most by shutting the hell up about their abnormal desires, that by talking about it they are doing their incremental part to decrease the expectation and rootedness of normalcy in the culture and especially in the young of the culture.

I conditionally agree. It can be overdone. But this is a case by case issue, and a contextual issue.

If he thinks that sexual attraction to men by men is some kind of 'gift from God', then I will disagree with him and that's about the end of it.

Do you think that a chivalrous, heterosexual man who says, "Wow, that lady sure is beautiful!" is expressing "sexual attraction to" the woman in question? See, I was trying to be nuanced. I suppose we could say that he is and he isn't. If we stipulate that he isn't lusting for her, then we might not want to call it "sexual attraction." OTOH, it's an appreciation of her beauty that has a special quality we could not attribute to a person, such as a heterosexual woman, who would never be sexually attracted to her. It's what we might call "distinctively male, though respectful, appreciation of a woman." Which can be a kind of nice part of the natural world. There just is no parallel good thing in the homosexual case, even if we try to nuance it this much.

That means that when gays and gay rights and gay lifestyles are so openly public and a topic of discourse, such that discretion is not even an option,

But for any particular person X who experiences SSA, discretion is an option. And he should very seriously consider exercising it.

that is what we now have to work with - and we need voices.

Part of what we need voices to do is call for more silence--less "coming out." To reintroduce these old-fashioned virtues and a vision of a very different world.

But A) when the world is the way it is, we have to react to it, to a degree, on its terms. That means that when gays and gay rights and gay lifestyles are so openly public and a topic of discourse, such that discretion is not even an option, that is what we now have to work with - and we need voices.

No. If a man is attracted sexually to other men, he can and should live in such a way that few of his regular acquaintances realize it clearly. For, if most of the people he runs into realize it clearly, then children and youths will also realize it, and this interferes with their view of normalcy. The very possibility of abnormal sexual attraction shouldn't rear its ugly head in a child's mind generally. If a Christian is intent on being just and charitable to all of the people around him including children, he will be discrete enough, and reticent enough, that NONE of the parents in his neighborhood or family or church groups need "explain" him to their children. That he remains single should be simply that - he is single. There is nothing wrong with being single. Nothing abnormal about it per se. THAT's what I meant about not being public. I didn't say he shouldn't BE in public, I said his sexual problem shouldn't be brought out in public.

Are you saying that a man with SSA should never even mention he has SSA, even if he's celibate, Christian, a proponent of natural law, etc? I don't want to guess here - I would like to know your reasoning.

A man can be discreet and still show forth his Christianity, his support of natural law - all without declaring to everyone and his brother "by the way, I have homosexual leanings". Having that latter propensity means that he is ending up identifying himself with his sexual orientation, instead of identifying himself as - a Christian, a son, a steel worker, a lover of Bach, etc. It is not well ordered. A man can even say in the rare situations when this is called for "I know someone quite well who has homosexual leanings who is celibate, who supports natural law," etc without identifying himself. After all, think about the number of times a single man NEEDS to say "I am celibate until I marry". Virtually never in regular daily life - though he may need to mention it to his date. Why then does he need to declare the homosexual leanings?

When the public demands a law against bullying and there's a terrible law coming up that WILL pass if you do not offer an alternative, then it's time to offer an alternative. You do what you can.

You disagree with this?

If that means promoting something as a good idea that I think is a bad or even a stupid idea, then, yes, I disagree. Ultimately, it's a form of bad faith, a kind of deception, a lack of integrity.

When I spoke of tensions and morale problems in the workplace, you asked, incredulously,

What are those understandable tensions and morale problems?

See, to me, this argues a lack of imagination. There are such things as unit cohesion and even male bonding in other contexts than military contexts. A bunch of steel workers could understandably work better together as a group without a person they knew to be homosexually oriented on the team for several of the same (legitimate) psychological reasons that they could understandably work better together as a group without a woman on the team.

And let's face it: It's all in never-never-land where we're talking about being allowed to exclude people from a job you're offering (if you prefer that phrase to "discriminate" for some reason) on the grounds that they are _active_ homosexuals or on the grounds that they promote homosexuality as normal but simply don't block these celibate, faithful homosexuals. Non-discrimination laws _do_ apply to behavior and opinions and attitudes as well as to feelings or temptations.

Lydia,

If that means promoting something as a good idea that I think is a bad or even a stupid idea, then, yes, I disagree. Ultimately, it's a form of bad faith, a kind of deception, a lack of integrity.

You don't have to lie to be pragmatic. But you do have to be pragmatic, to a point, if you want to accomplish anything politically and, very often, socially.

See, to me, this argues a lack of imagination. There are such things as unit cohesion and even male bonding in other contexts than military contexts. A bunch of steel workers could understandably work better together as a group without a person they knew to be homosexually oriented on the team for several of the same (legitimate) psychological reasons that they could understandably work better together as a group without a woman on the team.

I'd rather hear what you actually have to say than imagine what you have to say, especially in a conversation where I'd like to consider and respond what you're saying. That was also not me asking 'incredulously'. It was simply me asking for more detail, period. (See the problems of imagining what someone is thinking rather than just asking them?)

You'll note that in my reply, I pointed out where 'unit cohesion' means squat. If someone objects to having a Catholic or a Protestant or just a 'Christian' on their team - say, the faculty of a university - they can, quite simply, get used to it or get lost. I'm not saying it's so clear cut in this case. I am tempted to say that someone who has SSA but who conducts themselves properly and keeps their lifestyle, on the job, to themselves should not be fired or what have you just because someone on the team just doesn't like being around people like that. No more than I think someone who, say, is tempted by alcohol should be fired just because they have that temptation and some teetotaller on the team can't stand that.

It's all in never-never-land where we're talking about being allowed to exclude people from a job you're offering (if you prefer that phrase to "discriminate" for some reason) on the grounds that they are _active_ homosexuals or on the grounds that they promote homosexuality as normal but simply don't block these celibate, faithful homosexuals. Non-discrimination laws _do_ apply to behavior and opinions and attitudes as well as to feelings or temptations.

'Never-never-land' was where gay marriage was 20 years ago. I have a longer view of these matters, as should everyone at this point. Culture wars take place beyond flashpoints.

It's what we might call "distinctively male, though respectful, appreciation of a woman." Which can be a kind of nice part of the natural world. There just is no parallel good thing in the homosexual case, even if we try to nuance it this much.

I'm having trouble finding this guy's contact information, so emailing him may be difficult - ah well. Anyway, I'm not so sure. For one thing, a gay guy can find a woman aesthetically beautiful, unless the ones I've spoken to have been uselessly pulling my leg. (Obviously they don't find them sexually attractive, or at least it's more complicated, etc.) It doesn't need to be a parallel good to be a good. Again, I'd need to read more of what he has to say to understand it. He absolutely has written that homosexual sex acts are immoral in his view, and he's occupying a so-far rather small niche in his view. So, I'm hesitant here.

Part of what we need voices to do is call for more silence--less "coming out." To reintroduce these old-fashioned virtues and a vision of a very different world.

Again, I do not disagree that there is a time for discretion, and that we could use more of it. But that becomes a matter of context and degree and the culture of the moment. I'd rather actually make some progress in these culture wars rather than keep losing because people will settle for nothing less than the ideal right now.

Tony,

No. If a man is attracted sexually to other men, he can and should live in such a way that few of his regular acquaintances realize it clearly. For, if most of the people he runs into realize it clearly, then children and youths will also realize it, and this interferes with their view of normalcy.

As with Lydia, I agree to a point about discretion. But this starts to get into degree issues, etc. I would much rather have it, in a culture where gays are every-freaking-where as far as the media is concerned, that people be exposed to celibate gays and religiously conservative gays rather than just the LGBT crowd. In part because ceding the exposure to the LGBT crowd results in people seeing gays as being locked in eternal torment and unhappiness if everyone around them doesn't celebrate their sexual preferences, and the conservative and celibate gays can be there to show that's a complete load.

We have the culture that we have, and we have to deal with it on terms other than the ones were prefer, at times.

Why then does he need to declare the homosexual leanings?

Sometimes, it's necessary and important. Sometimes, we need to chuck discretion aside, even on a cultural level. We need young gays to know that they have more options before them than the ones the LGBT lays out. We cannot inform them of that if we're obsessed with being discreet. This isn't to say that it cannot be overdone, or that there cannot be problems even if someone is celibate. But sometimes that identification and public presence is necessary.

You do not want the LGBT groups to be the only ones who present an image of what homosexuality is and what homosexuals need, do you?

I am tempted to say that someone who has SSA but who conducts themselves properly and keeps their lifestyle, on the job, to themselves should not be fired or what have you just because someone on the team just doesn't like being around people like that.

Well, first of all, I thought we were talking about a best case scenario, where they don't have a "lifestyle," because they're celibate, faithful, etc. So you're already compromising even worse. Now, the steel workers are supposed to accept not only a person they _know_ thinks of himself as "gay" but also one who has a lover and a lifestyle. Because it's irrelevant to the job, etc., etc. (Just how irrelevant is it when he brings his lover to the yearly company party, because everyone was _told_ to bring their "significant other"?) But even beyond that, if he keeps everything (be it lifestyle or orientation) so much to himself, how the heck do they all know about it? See, we always have this tension, which sounds to me a bit like a reductio ad absurdam in Euclid. First we're supposed to imagine a person who is a model of discretion and good behavior such that he "keeps things to himself." But in the next premise we're asked to think ill of his fellow workers because they (by ESP, perhaps?) know all about the "kind of person he is" and don't want to work with him despite his good behavior and discretion! But, again, I really don't think you grok the notion of bonding _specifically_ among heterosexual males, here, especially those who are doing a physically difficult or dangerous job. To characterize it as simply "not liking" or "not wanting to be around" this or that person is just...shallow. And odd. Don't you have any experience of heterosexual men doing a difficult job together, especially one that involves physical labor, and bonding in a unique way because of it? Heck, I'm a woman and I feel like I have a clearer imagination of what this involves, and of its value, than you do.

But I suspect that I'm in general more tolerant of intolerance at the private employer level. If only it would just be _allowed_ across the board (really allowed across the board), I'd prefer that someone who wants to set up an atheist-atmosphere health-food store were able to act accordingly in his hiring (and, yes, that could mean not hiring someone who wears a cross) and that someone who wants to set up a robustly heterosexual, Christian contracting and building firm were able to do the same. The problem is that we always get the worst of both worlds. Conservatives, traditionalists, or just normal manly men are never allowed to set up "their kind of place," while virulently anti-Christian, self-righteous atheists get to do it all the time. Since this is the case, I'll support a Christian in a religious discrimination lawsuit. Discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation, however, just is a different sort of thing altogether, and I will argue to my last breath not to have that distinction blurred. In any event, my ideal world is more broadly libertarian.

But sometimes that identification and public presence is necessary.

You do not want the LGBT groups to be the only ones who present an image of what homosexuality is and what homosexuals need, do you?

There are groups that offer help to people wanting to leave the homosexual lifestyle. I don't claim to know much about them in detail or to know just to *what extent* the work of a group like Courage depends on asking real individuals to abandon their discretion and come out to the world at large, nor how many such individuals are really necessary to their work. I do, however, know that Gonnerman doesn't like them much, because they don't affirm the "gay identity" enough. So that speaks well of them. But in general, I don't think either Tony or I is saying that people who want to live faithful lives though they experience SSA should not be pointed to people who can help them. Of course they should be. But I'm much less concerned than you are that such people (the helpers) be publicly identifiable people with SSA who are trying consciously to present some kind of public image.

Lydia,

Well, first of all, I thought we were talking about a best case scenario, where they don't have a "lifestyle," because they're celibate, faithful, etc. So you're already compromising even worse.

No, that's exactly what I was talking about. 'Conducts themselves properly' was meant strongly here. So the scenario about the 'gay lover and lifstyle' was not what I was discussing here.

But even beyond that, if he keeps everything (be it lifestyle or orientation) so much to himself, how the heck do they all know about it? See, we always have this tension, which sounds to me a bit like a reductio ad absurdam in Euclid. First we're supposed to imagine a person who is a model of discretion and good behavior such that he "keeps things to himself." But in the next premise we're asked to think ill of his fellow workers because they (by ESP, perhaps?) know all about the "kind of person he is" and don't want to work with him despite his good behavior and discretion!

Past indiscretions? Being outed by a third party? When they ask him who he's dating and he never has a response? When he SEEMS gay? When they google for him and find out he contributes to a Christian group for people with SSA?

It's not exactly an outlandish scenario, unless your definition of 'discretion' is a whole lot more radical than what I think a normal view is. You make it sound as if proper discretion for a gay male involves going home and walking through a security system similar to the opening of Get Smart before he opens his triple-locked briefcase to read the letter he got from Exodus International.

In fact, there's another problem. Let's say an out and proud gay ends up reversing themselves, and now they're celibate. Well, their history is out there already, like it or not - especially with how the internet is nowadays. He can move to another country and try to be as discreet as he can and his past may well quickly catch up with him in a job situation.

But, again, I really don't think you grok the notion of bonding _specifically_ among heterosexual males, here, especially those who are doing a physically difficult or dangerous job. To characterize it as simply "not liking" or "not wanting to be around" this or that person is just...shallow. And odd. Don't you have any experience of heterosexual men doing a difficult job together, especially one that involves physical labor, and bonding in a unique way because of it? Heck, I'm a woman and I feel like I have a clearer imagination of what this involves, and of its value, than you do.

Must be that ESP you were just talking about, eh?

Here's my experience with people in groups: sometimes they do bond, and this has value. Other times, someone is left out of the group or doesn't fit in. This doesn't have to have anything to do with being gay. Maybe he's just odd compared to the rest. Maybe he's more introverted or self-conscious. Maybe his interests are too different from the rest of the group's. Maybe people just don't like him and they can't explain why, or the reasons are more shallow - ranging from 'his appearance' to 'disability' to who knows what. In some of these situations, it's the excluded person who is at fault. In other situations, the problem is more with the group.

These scenarios have a lot of different questions I'd have about them: how a Christian should respond in that context. What should be legal in that context. What is practical to make legal or illegal. Whether the Christian ideal is a very high, hard to reach ideal, or a more reasonable one to expect out of typical people - and so on, and so on.

But I suspect that I'm in general more tolerant of intolerance at the private employer level. If only it would just be _allowed_ across the board (really allowed across the board), I'd prefer that someone who wants to set up an atheist-atmosphere health-food store were able to act accordingly in his hiring (and, yes, that could mean not hiring someone who wears a cross) and that someone who wants to set up a robustly heterosexual, Christian contracting and building firm were able to do the same. The problem is that we always get the worst of both worlds. Conservatives, traditionalists, or just normal manly men are never allowed to set up "their kind of place," while virulently anti-Christian, self-righteous atheists get to do it all the time. Since this is the case, I'll support a Christian in a religious discrimination lawsuit.

Wonderful. Then apparently you understand what I mean when I talk about having to set standards and support laws that fall short of the ideal based on the time and place you happen to exist in, and engaging the culture as it is, not as you'd like it to be. At the same time, while you may legally tolerate, say, a guy who wants his business to be all white on libertarian grounds, on Christian grounds you may well find that practice rotten. So there's more than one perspective to consider these questions with.

But in general, I don't think either Tony or I is saying that people who want to live faithful lives though they experience SSA should not be pointed to people who can help them. Of course they should be. But I'm much less concerned than you are that such people (the helpers) be publicly identifiable people with SSA who are trying consciously to present some kind of public image.

I'm concerned about this for more than one reason. First there is the general Christian 'how do we act towards others' aspect. For another, it's because the current methods of fighting this culture war are not working. We need to examine why that is the case, and I'm arguing that one reason is because social conservatives routinely shoot themselves in the foot on this subject, allowing themselves to act in ways that make them easy to caricature and easy to paint as villains. I do not think the proper response to this is to bitch about how wrong everyone is and then keep doing the exact things that haven't been working. We should ask what we're doing right, what we're doing wrong, and how we can improve getting our message out - and that does mean encouraging 'publicly identifiable people with SSA', offering avenues for people with SSA, etc.

I am going to go all Foucaultian and deny the objective existence of SSA, LGBTQ, and other politicized versions of sexual desire and perversion.

Behavior is all we can worry about. Now if an individual does have a serious problem controlling immoral urges, then yes, he probably should isolate himself and others should be wary of him. But I do wonder if people over emphasize the difficulty of controlling sexual urges. People have plenty of perverse urges out there, but traditionally homosexuality was not any more privileged or worried about than desires for bestiality, rape, etc.

After some thought, I think I have to agree with Crude for the simple reason that we're losing. We need to try something different. Our current rhetoric may be accurate, but it certainly hasn't gotten us anywhere.

One rhetorical advance would be to stop using the term 'homosexual agenda'.

Whatever this agenda is, it is a small compared with the OSA agenda (other-sex attracted).

What have SSA done that OSA have not done a hundred times worse?

The OSA wrecked the marriage at the time when SSA marriage was unheard of. Millions of children they punished with lack of a father or a mother, compared with a few thousand children with a superfluous father or mother.

Crude, I think you're wrong that the Christian world isn't trying anything like what you are suggesting. Now, please, it will make our conversation much more profitable if you don't say, as you did about the AFA, "Hey, I've googled this, and they still have a 'homophobic' reputation, and I don't like their rhetoric, so they can't really be doing what I'm suggesting," or whatever. I was making a _specific_ point there about supporting alternatives, and you ignored it. Whatever else you may say about the AFA, they enthusiastically supported a piece of anti-bullying legislation once they had convinced the legislature to amend it in the way they wanted--not just involving some sort of religious exemption but also taking out the references to specially protected classes. This is _one_ of the things you're suggesting, but it got them nowhere.

But far more than that: There are Catholic churches all over this country who hold "gay masses" as an outreach. There are Catholic churches that have openly gay people in leadership positions, because they know *or assume* that they are celibate and don't want to "discriminate." There are Christian Protestant, previously conservative, colleges that have LGBT (or whatever it's called) *student clubs* and that explain/excuse this when people are perturbed by saying (just as you would presumably want them to) that they are trying to "reach out" and "help people" with these desires, that we need a new image, that we don't want to force people to live in the shadows, and so forth. There is a Christian college not far from me that _twenty years ago_ took the position that it would not discriminate against professors in hiring because of only homosexual "orientation" and, guess what? Now they have a problem with professors who openly teach in support of homosexual "marriage," and the board of trust caused a huge uproar over "academic freedom" with the whole darned faculty when they tried to say that this was unacceptable (and my impression is that the faculty have just gone on teaching it, too). The whole school has been liberalized. I could go on and on. The fact is that _many_ Christian organizations, schools, and churches have tried to do _very much_ what you are talking about. They have encouraged ex-gays to be "out" so as to be a witness to others, they have had open ministries and clubs and so forth within their organizations for open gays within their organizations. They have hired leadership that are openly gay on the "understanding" or even with the express claim that they are celibate. Every single one of these moves has been intended to provide precisely the new look and new approach and "we've gotta do something different" that you are talking about.

Frankly, I have to wonder where you've been for the last twenty years. You remind me of a pro-life (but otherwise somewhat liberal) friend of mine who literally tried to tell me one day that pro-lifers never do anything for the mother and need to "try a new strategy" of caring for the mother! It was sadly amusing. It was as if he'd never heard of Crisis Pregnancy Centers and the "love them both" campaign and thought he was teaching us something new! When I told him that he was behind the times and that pro-lifers had taken his "advice" long, long ago, he tried to tell me there was no CPC in _his_ city. Two seconds googling turned one up!

But unlike Crisis Pregnancy Centers, which have worked extremely well for their purpose, this sort of "accepting outreach" to homosexuals, the encouragement of Christian homosexuals to be "out," the "new image" and all of that in Christianity have _not_ helped us succeed in this area of the culture war. On the contrary, they have merely had the bad effect of confusing our own people about the wrongness of homosexual _acts_. They have liberalized the churches and the colleges on this issue. They have created utterly absurd and scandalous "don't ask don't tell" situations where a man can live openly with his homosexual lover, be the music director of the church, and be eulogized to the skies by an erstwhile conservative blogger after he dies as a "saint." (The blogger tells people not to be nosy and crude when they ask about his openly homosexual partnership. We're supposed to _assume_ they were celibate!) These policies have resulted in increasingly liberal graduates from Christian colleges, and ultimately, however noble and carefully understood the original intention, the unwisdom of the policies has resulted in Christians (both heterosexual and homosexual) who don't really believe homosexual acts are wrong, or not all that wrong, etc.

Am I saying you're advising everything that has been done in these churches and colleges? No, I'm not. I'm saying what you are advising is just where it starts, and it has been tried, and it _has_ created a slippery slope and a blurring of distinctions, muddle-headedness and mess.

So, no, thanks. I think we need to go in the _opposite_ direction. If I were to say "we need to try something different" I would mean it, but I would mean the opposite from what you mean. We need to save our own institutions, and we're not doing a good job on that.

Oh, and many years ago, I don't even remember how many, but more than ten years ago, Focus on the Family tried _exactly_ this kind of focused, accepting-of-homosexuals-but-not-of-their acts position. They deliberately employed open ex-homosexuals in order to show the world that leaving the lifestyle "can be done." They said that they were opposed to "discrimination" against homosexuals, without defining what the word meant in this context or qualifying this rejection of "discrimination." (After all, taken at face value, this could have meant early support for the military's "repealing of DADT," couldn't it?) This was, mind you, under the allegedly "hateful, homophobic" leadership of none other than James Dobson. When one of their public ex-homosexuals (I believe his name was Palk) was caught falling back and cruising gay bars and admitted that he had succumbed to temptation to do so, they forgave this and kept him on.

Now, did all of this do any good? I'm not going to say that I know it didn't. Perhaps Mr. Palk and others as "role models" were able to help some people.

But I am going to say that it scarcely got noticed. I don't think the public at large saw a "new image" for Christianity because of it. And let's face it, that was a big part of the whole point. Crude and others still seem to be under the impression that nothing of this sort has ever been tried and that they have some brand-new advice to give us: "Don't say you're in favor of discrimination. Get visible ex-gays on-board for role models and outreach. Have them be new voices. We need to try something different." And of course all the publicity was negative. I half expect Crude to come back here and go, "Weellll, I did some googling, and Focus on the Family still had the image of being homophobic, and this is what people are going to think and,..." etc. See, the carefully pericopated "accepting" position and "anti-discrimination" position wasn't enough, was it? That's just my point.

And I'm also going to point out that when Dobson retired he appointed a replacement who has liberalized the organization and rather radically changed its focus. Now one _never_ gets letters from them about the anti-family leftist agenda in the United States or abroad. It's just turning into a generalized Christian "do-gooder" organization that wants to promote TOMS shoes in Africa. I've blogged about that here at W4.

It's pointless to say that in some Platonic, non-existent realm someone could maybe design a good, helpful, and effective anti-bullying program for schools. I'm not even sure that is true.

Sure there is. Let the victims fight back. It worked right up until the early 1990s when every mamby pamby, limp-wristed school board decided to violate state law by imposing zero tolerance policies. Bullying is only an issue now because every public school is in de facto conspiracy with underage bullies to harass and aggress against the victims of bullying.

The conservative anti-bullying platform: each time a school board or principle punishes a student for self-defense, send the state police there to arrest the school officials for violating the student's civil rights.

Hah, I don't think that's what anyone means by a "program," Mike T. :-)

What was that old black and white movie where the nun teaches the bullied kid to box? Was it The Bells of St. Mary's?

Was it The Bells of St. Mary's?

Yes:

http://youtu.be/0AspXDFcGlw

Thanks, Scott. Aaand the fight scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d4Zddhcqbc&list=PL2B598D8B7B964719&index=4

Hah, I don't think that's what anyone means by a "program," Mike T. :-)

I know, I know. If it doesn't involve at least twelve steps, a bad facsimile of an ethics system and a morality tale requiring the indoctrination of the student body, it just isn't worthy of "our children."

This, I think, is very much related:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/02/25/education-failing-boys-column/1942991/

Seems studies are showing that boys are being systematically held back in school by teachers punishing them for not being like girls. We have a school system that systematically attacks boys ranging from classroom settings to their conflict resolution methods. That's just the reality of it. Zero tolerance is a quintessentially female approach to boys fighting.

There is a bit of dark irony in this in that female bullying tends to be both far nastier and far less easy to control. Female bullies don't typically use violence, they are masters of psychological warfare and society has few tools for stopping this.

I know, I know. If it doesn't involve at least twelve steps, a bad facsimile of an ethics system and a morality tale requiring the indoctrination of the student body, it just isn't worthy of "our children."

Yes, that, for sure, and I like your phrases "bad facsimile of an ethics system" and "morality tale requiring the indoctrination of the student body," because that is very similar to what I was getting at above when I talked about ineffectiveness, shallowness, milk and water, etc.

But besides that, these Programs are also meant to a) blur the distinction between actually hitting people and verbal insult and b) cover or address or fix the problem of verbal insult as well. Self-defense with one's fists doesn't work quite as well as a response to verbal insult. I myself have to admit that I'd be less sympathetic to a boy I found beating the tar out of another boy who said, "He called me a _____" (even if it could be verified that this was true) and a boy doing the same who said, "He attacked me first" (when that could be verified or I had independent reason to believe it). The same is true of adults. Generally in society we would prefer that you not respond to any verbal insult with your fists.

Self-defense with one's fists doesn't work quite as well as a response to verbal insult.

I wouldn't categorize that as self-defense. Provocation, though, is something our system doesn't handle well anymore. If your conduct provokes a reasonable person to violence, their act ought to be diminished in legal liability accordingly. If a man were to brutalize your reputation unjustly in his presence, your husband ought to be presumed legally incapacitated to some meaningful degree if he beats the hell out of the individual. That's an obvious example of fighting words in a civilized society.

I think such a case among boys would be well used as a means to punish both of them. You would punish the one who threw the punch for not engaging his higher faculties first and really punish the one who instigated. The latter in particular because such conduct is generally completely uncalled for and because it is unacceptable to lead others to commit acts against their normal judgment.

I keep wondering if we lost something when men could no longer fight duels....

But that's only in my more anarchistic moments. Then I recover my law-and-order persona.

Lydia,

Crude, I think you're wrong that the Christian world isn't trying anything like what you are suggesting. Now, please, it will make our conversation much more profitable if you don't say, as you did about the AFA, "Hey, I've googled this, and they still have a 'homophobic' reputation, and I don't like their rhetoric, so they can't really be doing what I'm suggesting," or whatever. I was making a _specific_ point there about supporting alternatives, and you ignored it. Whatever else you may say about the AFA, they enthusiastically supported a piece of anti-bullying legislation once they had convinced the legislature to amend it in the way they wanted--not just involving some sort of religious exemption but also taking out the references to specially protected classes. This is _one_ of the things you're suggesting, but it got them nowhere.

I'm getting the impression you take a lot of my responses as definitive positions when instead I'm just giving honest appraisals on information I acknowledge up front to be thin, or take my questions to be rhetorical traps rather than honest requests for more information. 'I googled around for a few minutes and found this' is the truth - that's the extent of my AFA knowledge. Maybe they're better represented in some places. Maybe they're not.

My point about the AFA, and my point about moves like supporting anti-bullying laws, was about public impression. What I've seen of the AFA's public front, in general and with regards to that bullying law, is not impressive. To their credit, they apparently amended that law and defanged it - LGBT groups were furious, so clearly they accomplished something. To their detriment, it looks like (you know more - correct me if I'm wrong, point me at more information if you have it) their move was to get explicit exceptions to the anti-bullying law for religious reasons. I think that could have been done better. On the other hand, they got those exceptions in - so hey, partial success, and I'm having trouble figuring out on what grounds you'd say 'it got them nowhere'. I think a closer evaluation is 'mixed bag'.

But far more than that: There are Catholic churches all over this country who hold "gay masses" as an outreach. There are Catholic churches that have openly gay people in leadership positions, because they know *or assume* that they are celibate and don't want to "discriminate." There are Christian Protestant, previously conservative, colleges that have LGBT (or whatever it's called) *student clubs* and that explain/excuse this when people are perturbed by saying (just as you would presumably want them to) that they are trying to "reach out" and "help people" with these desires, that we need a new image, that we don't want to force people to live in the shadows, and so forth.

Here's another thing I think is going on. You read me writing about changing approaches, the need to express our ideas in new ways, try different tactics, and you think 'Liberal in sheep's clothing' or 'Duped by liberals.' Totally understandable, because RINO and CINO stuff happens. I acknowledge up-front that they say similar things, and frankly they often do so with a motivation, unstated, to undermine the traditional or conservative view. I am not that. Yeah, I know - not the most convincing words, but it's the case.

I reject LGBT clubs on campus, unless they are explicitly something close to Courage International. Standard LGBT organizations are a bane, and trying to appease or negotiate with them is idiotic. I despise 'reaching out' for the sake of reaching out. I reject 'dialogue' with groups that are not open to anything but concessions, which is what LGBT groups are. Just because I'm talking about finding ways to better appeal to the public, and pointing out the necessity of having some kinds of avenues for gay people who are Christian to live a Christian (and celibate) life, does not mean I'm a sucker who thinks the Pope should be hugging Elton John in public appearances. Nor does it mean, when such stupid moves are made, that they're ones I endorse because you could broadly categorize them under 'reaching out'. Anymore than I could categorize Westboro Baptist under the strategy you seem to generally adhere to.

Frankly, I have to wonder where you've been for the last twenty years.

Spending it watching politicians and social conservatives blunder, stumble and fail on this issue. Getting sucker punched left and right because they do things like announce they're 'anti-gay-rights' or 'pro-discrimination', regularly talking as if 'homosexuals' were a monolithic group when they speak (and thus seeming like they're against gay people for being gay, rather than against gay behavior), failing to tweak and update their message because talking in detail about such things is icky or scary and thus they can't even begin to discuss some things they need to, and more.

In twenty years we went from a country that was practically ocean to ocean against gay marriage, to a 50-50 split and laws being passed in favor of it. Conservatives made mistakes, and yes, some of those mistakes have been 'trusting liberals' in some capacities. Others have come down to the conservative messages.

Am I saying you're advising everything that has been done in these churches and colleges? No, I'm not. I'm saying what you are advising is just where it starts, and it has been tried, and it _has_ created a slippery slope and a blurring of distinctions, muddle-headedness and mess.

It has not been tried, because what I'm advocating isn't something as stupid as 'let GLAAD open a group on campus' or 'encourage active homosexuals to identify as Christian to show how tolerant we are' or other such. I appreciate the fact that you've been burned by some people. Well, probably not burned - I bet you never fell for it to begin with. I am not them. My advice may be wrong, but don't point at these actions and tell me 'see, your actions have been tried'. They have not.

Crude and others still seem to be under the impression that nothing of this sort has ever been tried and that they have some brand-new advice to give us: "Don't say you're in favor of discrimination. Get visible ex-gays on-board for role models and outreach. Have them be new voices. We need to try something different."

I nowhere said 'get ex-gays on-board', because right now 'ex-gays' are toxic in a PR sense, and I am not convinced that the therapies touted to 'de-gay' them work at all or are reliable. A celibate gay is not an ex-gay, and not every celibate gay is a good candidate for a role model.

In fact, my suggestions were far more broad. You were the one who brought up celibate gays and insisted they needed to shut up, and I disagreed. I think the actions that are necessary will come far more from heterosexuals than homosexuals - it's simply that I think celibate gays need to be seen, and can be effective to a point, whereas you seem to think they should just disappear from the public eye entirely.

I half expect Crude to come back here and go, "Weellll, I did some googling, and Focus on the Family still had the image of being homophobic, and this is what people are going to think and,..." etc. See, the carefully pericopated "accepting" position and "anti-discrimination" position wasn't enough, was it? That's just my point.

You're acting as if I'm of the opinion that, when a conservative gets bashed for being 'anti-gay' in the media, that the conservative automatically must have done something wrong. That's simply not true. I am very well aware that the media distorts things. I am under no delusions that the path I am broadly advocating will win hearts and minds at the New York Times, or that a celibate gay who opposes same-sex marriage is going to get cheered by MSNBC. How stupid would that be?

The best way to make an effect is going to be on the grass roots level, the direct communication level. Rather like how the NRA operates. The media despises them. They found ways to deal with that, ways that have actually been effective despite media opposition. We can learn from them, and part of what I'm advising here is based on their success, and some of the success pro-lifers have had.

MarcAnthony,

After some thought, I think I have to agree with Crude for the simple reason that we're losing. We need to try something different. Our current rhetoric may be accurate, but it certainly hasn't gotten us anywhere.

Well, I'm glad someone agrees, so thank you for this. I would hope that, even if all my ideas are being shot down, we could all agree here that the strategy and tactics of the past have not worked, we have lost ground and we bear some of the blame for that in an approach/payoff sense. We can't just keep doubling down and hoping that THIS time, the same moves will have a better result. We need to ask why we've lost ground, why the opposition gained ground, what our blind spots are, what to do differently in the future.

Gian,

One rhetorical advance would be to stop using the term 'homosexual agenda'.

Whatever this agenda is, it is a small compared with the OSA agenda (other-sex attracted).

What have SSA done that OSA have not done a hundred times worse?

I think I agree, if I understand what you're saying correctly. I think it's a mistake to talk about the 'homosexual agenda' at this point, because A) it's a term which makes it sound like gays are a monolithic group who all move in lock step - even if most do, they shouldn't be approached like this, because it ends up sounding like an attack on all gays rather than the sources of the problem on that front (LGBT groups, etc) and B) it makes it sound as if the lion's share of sexual immorality and marriage abuse is coming from gays, when it frankly isn't. Those groups represent a new breakdown and problem in a way, but it's largely the continuation of a problem that started elsewhere.

Except that there actually is such a thing as a homosexual agenda. We all know what it is and many of its aspects. If changing our public face has to mean that we can't even talk to fellow conservatives about a real phenomenon that we know exists and about how to resist it, then we need to ditch the attempt to somehow improve our public image. These are real movements out there, they exist, we need to resist them and respond to them. I, for one, am not going to stop talking about "the homosexual agenda" because it might bother some people or because there are also other problems in the world (like heterosexual promiscuity and no-fault divorce).

Gian is (as you'll discover elsewhere on this blog) a mere heckler who always wants us to be doing something different, anything different. In this case, something other than opposing the homosexual agenda. The heck with that.

No, Crude, I don't think you're a tree-hugger. However, I do think that plenty of Christians have tried things that, whether you agree or not, are the kinds of things you do have in mind. Always saying that you're "against discrimination against homosexuals," for example. That's been standard fare among even conservative Christians for umpteen years, now. About a couple decades. Yet you're coming along telling us to be sure to stand up and utter anathemas against discrimination against gays. Well, pretty much everybody does this. And it doesn't seem to have helped much in the PR war, but it sure has confused plenty of people. Giving ourselves "voices" in the form of celibate homosexuals. (Please don't nitpick on the term "ex-gays," it was just a convenient term.) Well, lots of Christian groups, etc., have tried that. And you know what's odd: It's surprising to see how liberal some of those people are. There's a former lesbian English professor now that I think is a good example. Believe me, they _are_ advocating exactly the kind of hugging "outreach" that you are not wanting to be associating with. And Christians are so eager to listen to their advice and to have them as spokesmen and as "voices" in the public eye that they don't criticize this, and they go on inviting them to speak everyplace. Joshua Gonnerman is another such example. I think he's a bad influence. You haven't made up your mind. But you can't deny that the position he occupies (heck, he didn't even graduate from college all that long ago! It's not like he's some kind of scholar or something who has paid his dues; he's just some very young guy) is due to his being--gasp!--a celibate Catholic who says he celebrates the Church's teachings! But isn't seeking such people as "voices" the kind of thing you were talking about above? Holding them up as role models, etc.? Yes, it was, and you shouldn't deny it. Yet doing so lets people like Gonnerman have a platform they haven't particularly earned where people listen to them with bated breath and keep repeating over and over again, if anyone ventures to criticize, "But he's celibate, and he says he supports Church teaching." (It's a lot like token blacks in that respect.)

So, I say: One doesn't have to go whole hog with the tree-hugging to subject the Christian community to bad influences. And I further say that as far as anyone can interpret the kind of advice you are giving to mean _anything_, my evidence suggests that following it does bring in such misguided, liberal influences and even magnifies their impact.

Lydia,

Except that there actually is such a thing as a homosexual agenda.

That doesn't matter. If talking about 'the homosexual agenda', if using the words 'homosexual agenda', immediately conjures up too strong of too negative connotations with too many people, out it goes as a word and a new approach is found. The ideas and communication are what matters. Specific terminology, less so.

I agree there's a homosexual agenda. I agree it should be talked about. The term in question simply won't work anymore - there's other ways to talk about it. It's probably not even a 'homosexual agenda' in fact - it's an agenda that goes well beyond that.

I do think that plenty of Christians have tried things that, whether you agree or not, are the kinds of things you do have in mind. Always saying that you're "against discrimination against homosexuals," for example. That's been standard fare among even conservative Christians for umpteen years, now. About a couple decades.

What's your definition of 'standard fare'? Some conservative, somewhere, saying it? Stating it when backed in a corner in a discussion? No, I don't think this has been 'standard fare' in any meaningful way.

What's more - 'uttering anathemas against discrimination against gays'? No, the only anathema I've discussed here is on the word itself. I think saying "I'm pro-discrimination" or "I'm anti-gay-rights" is tremendously short-sighted. I see many conservatives who do this. I see some conservatives say "I'm against equal rights for gays!" Or, who when asked, "Sir, are you in favor of equal rights for gays?", they say 'no' (and let the label stand) rather than challenging the question. Call a pro-lifer anti-choice and most of the time they're at least smart enough to attack that term.

Believe me, they _are_ advocating exactly the kind of hugging "outreach" that you are not wanting to be associating with.

Right, they're CINOs or RINOs playing a game. You won't have to force me to admit this - I already said, they exist and they're not doing things I endorse. I already said, being celibate and gay (or saying you're celibate and gay) doesn't automatically make a person a great role model.

Joshua Gonnerman is another such example. I think he's a bad influence. You haven't made up your mind. But you can't deny that the position he occupies (heck, he didn't even graduate from college all that long ago! It's not like he's some kind of scholar or something who has paid his dues; he's just some very young guy) is due to his being--gasp!--a celibate Catholic who says he celebrates the Church's teachings! But isn't seeking such people as "voices" the kind of thing you were talking about above? Holding them up as role models, etc.? Yes, it was, and you shouldn't deny it.

What I've seen so far of Gonnerman has been positive. He explicitly denounces same-sex sexual behavior as sinful. He adheres to Church teaching. He's made it clear he's not waiting out the Church to become 'accepting' of same sex marriage or same-sex sexual behavior, etc. So no, I don't deny that Gonnerman specifically seems to be one example of what I think is a positive development. I will say that what I've seen so far, even if potentially problematic, does not strike me as a huge concern in and of itself from him. Newt Gingrich, to use a convenient example, doesn't exactly have the most upstanding life from a marriage perspective, and I don't agree with him on all issues. I still want Newt on my side - the benefits outweigh the deficits. God knows I have my own failings.

Yet doing so lets people like Gonnerman have a platform they haven't particularly earned where people listen to them with bated breath and keep repeating over and over again, if anyone ventures to criticize, "But he's celibate, and he says he supports Church teaching." (It's a lot like token blacks in that respect.)

I'm not repeating that over and over again. If I disagree with him, I'll say I disagree and I'll dispute what he says. What more should I do? What more should anyone do? You say stuff I disagree with. You don't become 'Lydia, hidden bane to Christendom!' or something. You're just 'Lydia, who I think is wrong on this subject, and who is right on many other subjects.'

Did his perspective as a celibate gay who supports Church teaching perhaps make it easier for him to become a more prominent voice online? Sure, I bet it did. So what? I can understand the concern from a 'what if he turns out to be a disaster' perspective - that's a risk taken with anyone. I can also understand the benefit of trumpeting someone like that, specifically on this issue. And he does seem to at least be an interesting writer.

So, I say: One doesn't have to go whole hog with the tree-hugging to subject the Christian community to bad influences. And I further say that as far as anyone can interpret the kind of advice you are giving to mean _anything_, my evidence suggests that following it does bring in such misguided, liberal influences and even magnifies their impact.

What you're telling me here is that there's a potential for mistakes to be made if my advice is followed. Sure, I'll grant that. Of course, mistakes have been made by people sticking to the more standard conservative line too. Mistakes and missteps are going to happen no matter what, but that shouldn't spook us from trying new approaches and correcting ourselves when we make mistakes. Sometimes determined conservatives screw up like Akin or Mourdock and harm their cause. Sometimes the big gay push against the restaurant chain results in severe blowback for the LGBT groups. I sure am not arguing that the advice I'm giving here holds no potential for mistakes or is some guaranteed plan. I think I'm asking the questions that need to be asked, pointing out flaws and mistakes that really are flaws and mistake, and holding up successful examples that are, in fact, successful and that we can learn from.

As for Gonnerman, his stance seems to be extremely problematic in the sense that he doesn't regard homosexuality as gravely disordered, in the sense of wanting intercourse with the same sex.

I wouldn't call the desire to masturbate a positive part of my identity, even if it coincides with, say, sexual potency-a good thing. I'd call it disordered and try to avoid masturbating, and if the question ever came up (what a bizarre context that would be) I'd tell people I was struggling with the desire, not going around talking about how awesome it is to be a Catholic who wants to masturbate but doesn't.

At the same time, there is room for a role model to show people that you CAN be gay and celibate, so there's that at least.

MarkAnthony,

As for Gonnerman, his stance seems to be extremely problematic in the sense that he doesn't regard homosexuality as gravely disordered, in the sense of wanting intercourse with the same sex.

I'm still not clear on what the Gonnerman is saying. I'm not sure he'd say "the desire to have intercourse with the same sex isn't gravely disordered".

In the comments, someone point blank asked him:

"2. Are homosexual inclinations disordered?"

He replied:

"When they are instantiate properly sexual desire, yes; on which, see the post on Melinda Selmys' blog Sexual Authenticity, which is linked under Resources."

It seems like he typo'd there. Anyway, he links to a blog entry here which reads in part:

Secondly, hard-line traditionalists tend to assume that same-sex attraction is fundamentally objectively disordered in all of its aspects. The Canadian Council of Catholic Bishops, in their recent document on Youth with Same-Sex Attractions, were very careful to explicitly spell out the fact that homosexual inclinations are objectively disordered in so far as they concern the desire to have same-sex genital relations. That is, in so far as same-sex attractions are concupiscent, they are objectively disordered: a nice little tautology which only stands in need of clarification because it is counterintuitive to contemporary secular culture. What this means is that same-sex attractions, in so far as they are not concupiscent, are not disordered: another tautology, but one that is equally counterintuitive to many moral conservatives.

and

I'd like to apply the same hermeneutic to same-sex attraction. When I look at a woman, and see that she is beautiful, that she is desirable, that she is enticing, I'm seeing something that is objectively true: she is objectively a manifestation of the imago dei, she is objectively attractive, and it is objectively legitimate for me to desire to be united with her in the vast communio personarum which is constituted by the Church and by the whole human race. My desire is not disordered in and of itself: it becomes disordered when I direct it, or allow it direct itself, towards something which is forbidden. If it leads me to fantasize about homosexual acts, or to think of the woman as a sex object, then it becomes disordered, that is ordered towards an end which is not in conformity with Truth and with the dignity of the person. But what if I make the act of will to redirect that desire, to use it as an opportunity to give glory to God for the beauty which He has made manifest in that particular woman? Or to meditate on my desire for the one-flesh union of the entire humanum in the Eucharist where there is neither Gentile nor Jew, slave nor free, woman nor man? Or as an opportunity to contemplate the relationship between the doctrines of the Communion of Saints and of the resurrection of the Body? What if, by an act of will, I take that desire and order it towards its proper end: towards the Good, the Beautiful and the True?

So, no - in the sense of wanting intercourse with the same sex, it seems like Gonnerman thinks that IS objectively disordered. But there's some subtlety when it comes to 'attraction' going on here. Now, he could be right or wrong on that, but I don't think he's saying 'it's GOOD to want [edited] sex with a man' or anything.

I already explained Gonnerman's comment about "not disordered attraction" in a carefully nuanced way about five times. And everything you quote here, Crude, just confirms it. He doesn't *have* to be saying something about wanting sex with the person as in your last line (in fact, he expressly excludes that) to be saying something *badly wrong-headed*. Look, don't you guys understand what it means for a man, qua man, to be attracted to a woman, qua woman, without lusting after her? I think I get that. I think I know what that's like. And it can be a nice thing. Nor is it merely "aesthetic appreciation." It's something more than that, but not lust. And the same, mutatis mutandis, for a woman's complimentary appreciation of a man. It involves the legitimate interplay of the sexes. It's an appreciation that simply wouldn't be the same if it were the, shall we say, cold-blooded aesthetic appreciation one would get from a person who could never be sexually attracted to that person. It procedes from the male-female dynamic. But it isn't concupiscent. I think I understand what he's describing as applied to a male-female case very well.

But that's just the problem. When you try to port that over and talk about a homosexual man's distinctive (remember, it's distinctively homosexual, so not just aesthetic) but non-concupiscent attraction to another man, but you try to make that out to be a good thing, you are trying to apply a category that can never and should never apply to male-male relationships. Period. There is no area what-so-ever in which one should say, "Distinctively as a homosexual male, Bob is attracted to Joe, and this is a positive thing, a gift to the church, because it is not concupiscent." Even if one were to be as generous as possible and to grant that Bob is not desiring or lusting after Joe, this is completely wrong. There is simply no category of Bob's distinctive attraction to Joe that falls into an in-between area between lust and mere aesthetics and that, as in the heterosexual case, is a good thing.

But, listen, Crude, I just don't think there's much common ground here. As far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much a disaster for First Things that they have someone like that blogging for them, and it's a sign that we need to be *way more* careful with finding these celibate homosexual "voices" than we already are. So, again, the opposite of the direction you want to go.

As for "standard fare," yes, I meant that it is standard for the majority of self-identified Christian conservatives, at least those who write publicly or are in *any* sort of leadership positions, to say that they are opposed to discrimination against homosexuals. And it's standard fare especially for Christian non-profits, such as AFA and Focus. When AFA organized my local town's opposition to a homosexual and transsexual rights ordinance (which passed, by the way), they literally had the "no" signs worded incredibly confusingly. The yard signs (on our side of the issue, mind you) said, "Vote NO to discrimination." Their reasoning was that in actual effect there would be more "discrimination" against Christians and so forth if this ordinance passed, so that was why the signs said that!

Whatever this agenda is, it is a small compared with the OSA agenda (other-sex attracted).

Gian, that's the purest bullsh*t. Those who are attracted to the other sex do NOT have an agenda - precisely insofar as being so attracted - of damaging the institution of marriage and wrecking kids' lives, as you imply. That's just obfuscation, nonsense, and belligerancy. We have taken immoral heterosexuals to task here many times, don't start lecturing us on that score.

Lydia,

And everything you quote here, Crude, just confirms it. He doesn't *have* to be saying something about wanting sex with the person as in your last line (in fact, he expressly excludes that) to be saying something *badly wrong-headed*. Look, don't you guys understand what it means for a man, qua man, to be attracted to a woman, qua woman, without lusting after her?

I think I'm starting to see where one source of disagreement we're having stems from.

I am concerned about (among many other things) gay marriage and the public's perception of sodomy generally. My focus there is on political and social success, stemming from both Christian and general Natural Law and secular considerations. When I discuss what we should and shouldn't be doing as social conservatives, it's with success on those fronts in mind - and 'success' is not measured in terms of rapt agreement. If we can get more people to acknowledge that marriage should not be extended to gay couples, if we can get more people to acknowledge that sexual behaviors can be immoral or wrong and that they should abstain from such or expect others to abstain from such, I consider that a victory. If someone is advancing the idea that a man finding a man attractive may be able to give him some kind of unique perspective on art and may be channeled in a positive way so long as it's devoid of sexual temptation, that's an interesting thing to discuss and I may disagree with them. But if we can see good gains on the fronts I've mentioned, it is far, far less of a concern to me. In fact, if it hits the point where we're disarming ourselves from making good arguments, persuasive cases, etc, because of a worry that this ultimately far smaller issue may not be given the absolute best treatment - unless I can be convinced that it will lead to a serious problem, and I'm open to that - I'm going to find the people focusing on it to be counterproductive, and will argue as much.

But, listen, Crude, I just don't think there's much common ground here. As far as I'm concerned, it's pretty much a disaster for First Things that they have someone like that blogging for them, and it's a sign that we need to be *way more* careful with finding these celibate homosexual "voices" than we already are. So, again, the opposite of the direction you want to go.

What we have in common is I'm against gay marriage, even against civil unions at this point, I assume you're against the normalizing of sodomy generally, and would like to change the culture in a more conservative direction. I think that's quite a lot. You say 'way more careful', but from your writing here it sounds almost as if that 'way more careful' would mean 'don't pick any writers who let anyone know they're gay and celibate, because now it's in your face and annoying' or 'even if they're gay and celibate and say same-sex sexual behavior is intrinsically disordered or oppose gay marriage, if they regard their situation as at all unique, they're a threat and should not be listened to'.

What is your opposite direction? Do you acknowledge that we've been losing on this issue? Do you acknowledge that mistakes were made? Or are you going to say that no mistakes were made, the culture just sucks, let's keep doing the exact same things we've been doing and hope things improve somehow? How would you go about trying to convince people who don't already agree with you? Because if you have no plan for that, I think your approach is sadly deficient.

That, by the way, is another difference between myself and no doubt a lot of liberals who talk about language changes. I am not advocating what I am in some attempt to endear myself or the socon movement to intellectuals, LGBT groups, determined liberals, etc. I am giving criticisms and my own perspective based on what I think will help us not only stop losing ground, but actually gain some. I really don't care if Andrew Sullivan likes what I have to say, for example. I do not want approval from people who are diehard gay marriage supporters. I would rather love getting some people who are currently for gay marriage to reverse. I would like fence sitters to jump on my side of the fence.

When AFA organized my local town's opposition to a homosexual and transsexual rights ordinance (which passed, by the way), they literally had the "no" signs worded incredibly confusingly. The yard signs (on our side of the issue, mind you) said, "Vote NO to discrimination." Their reasoning was that in actual effect there would be more "discrimination" against Christians and so forth if this ordinance passed, so that was why the signs said that!

Great. Sounds like they fumbled poorly and did some stupid things. It happens. It no more reflects poorly on what I'm suggesting here than Mourdock and Akin's blunders reflect poorly on pro-life rhetorical strategies broadly. They were dumb blunders, but they didn't stem from dumb positions or general approaches. (Maybe a bad approach of 'backing politicians who are dedicated, but not savvy'.)

Tony,

Gian, that's the purest bullsh*t. Those who are attracted to the other sex do NOT have an agenda - precisely insofar as being so attracted - of damaging the institution of marriage and wrecking kids' lives, as you imply. That's just obfuscation, nonsense, and belligerancy. We have taken immoral heterosexuals to task here many times, don't start lecturing us on that score.

They may not have an agenda as widespread among themselves as homosexuals do, but I think there's an agenda all the same. You have it on the premarital sex front, the sodomy front, the pornography front, the divorce front, the single parent front.

On the flipside, though they're a minority in a minority, there are gays who oppose same-sex marriage. Did you see some of the quotes that came from France's big march? Some of it was encouraging, especially consider it's France.

Do you think this law will appeal to most people? Do you think you could persuasively argue its merits for a majority of voters?

Just because I'm talking about finding ways to better appeal to the public,

You seem to be speaking at cross-purposes to the framework of Lydia's main point, and definitely at cross-purposes to mine. G.K. Chesterton, in his book titled "What's Wrong with the World" insisted on STARTING the discussion with getting out in front what kind of society, what kind of state we would like to have, regardless of whether you can get it (today, next year, whenever). Only after you have stated clearly and achieved some level of understanding of that ideal does it make sense to then delve into what is achievable in the here and now and consider what compromises you are willing to make in sacrificing A to get B. For, without knowing what is the truly good society, the compromising can only take place against a shifting background that will always given an inch, then a mile, then a parsec, etc. You are doomed to get farther away over time, not nearer.

First off, we do not believe that society ought in principle to be molded around special rules protecting gays as a distinct problem group. Secondly, we do not believe that in principle society needs an intensely public presence of "homosexuals who are going clean" to minister to the 2 or 3% of gays occurring typically in each generation. Any more than we need a highly visible public program to deal with those saddled with necrophilia, bestiality, SM, and a host of other perversions of human drives. If you want a gay to be able to "be forthright" in public about his problem, do you similarly want those suffering from bestiality to do so? And on, and on...

Now as to what is politically feasible and likely to "work", Crude, you have left out of the equation 2 major realities: (1) the moral and political problem isn't simply that of unfortunate people who are tempted by a particularly difficult sin. The root source of the social and political aspect of this problem is not found in man, but in "principalities and powers" with whom we contend. There is true malice at the root of it, real hatred for man, for society, and for Christianity. These powers are not interested in a "fair exchange of ideas" or "majority rule" or anything of the sort. And they are fully willing and able to use unwitting dupes (or knowing ones) for pushing a strategy that is not in the least bit susceptible to an "appeal to the public" of temperate, carefully parsed messages (such as love for homosexual persons with rejection for their sins). You can see this in the way that the media pundits very deliberately and knowingly craft a message that DEFINES rejection of homosexual acts themselves or lifestyle as "intolerant, bigoted," etc. They simply don't want any open discussion of the possibility of accepting the sinner but not the sin, the necessary preliminaries of such a fair discussion are rejected out of hand. The techniques employed by the liberaligentsia knowingly exploit their opposition's attempts to engage in fair, temperate discussion and attempts to "meet them halfway" etc. (These techniques were grasped by Pope Pius X as far back as when he wrote Domenici Gregis (On the Modernists) a century ago.

(2) The long range consequences of "adjusting" the message by true Christians to make it "appealing" to the rest of society is fraught with an inherent danger: that of corrupting the message itself. Which basic truth has been revisited thousands of times since Christ preached the unvarnished truth to pharisees, calling them liars, whited sepulchres, etc. YES, we can indeed seek a format of "the message" that poses the least number of extraneous, non-necessary emotional hurdles. NO, WE DEFINITELY CANNOT reduce the message to the point of being free of all those hurdles, the Christian truth itself IS a stumbling block to the worldly, inherently so. At some point we have to preach the truth and just rely on God's grace to move people, and let the chips fall where they will.

I think I have to agree with Crude for the simple reason that we're losing. We need to try something different. Our current rhetoric may be accurate, but it certainly hasn't gotten us anywhere.

MarcAnthony, I honestly don't think there is any humanly plausible way of changing our tactics that has even a slim chance of turning this around successfully. NONE. Among other things, we need to be focussed on the long haul, like after the fall of the American enterprise (just for example). And raising our children to recognize that they will live in a society that definitively and directly opposes Christianity, in which they are going to have to learn to steadfastly live contrarian lives like the early Christians. And showing them that keeping on saying the truth even when you don't actually convince many is still valid and worthwhile. So, I don't think rejecting an approach because it hasn't "gotten us anywhere" is an adequate analysis. If there IS an approach that is likely to succeed in converting people to the truth, by all means we should be using it. But Christianity has never been a religion that expects to find most people ready and waiting to give up the world for its message of self-denial, suffering, and love of your enemies. In this post-Christian society, finding a version of the Christian message that is appealing is not particularly plausible.

In the meantime, we can try to succeed with holding actions, temporary repulses of the forces of evil, as long as we don't let them in the back door while fighting them off from the front gate.

Crude, I know of one homosexual named Douglas Mainwaring who "opposes same-sex marriage" but _totally_ supports civil unions and is positively enthusiastic about affirming "gay families" with children! There are conservatives who think he's a valuable ally. Some even call him a conservative. Um, no.

Presumably they think they're being politically savvy and not nitpicking.

My "opposite direction" is getting more savvy precisely in a different sense, in the sense of not confusing our own people.

You can't take these things as little things. Someone like Mainwaring or someone like Gonnerman is basically having the effect of changing the "hearts and minds" of _our own young people_ so that they become confused and compromised. I know of an otherwise orthodox Catholic, influenced by someone much like this, who now supports homosexual civil unions. Support for homosexual civil unions is becoming more and more a default position *even among those who think of themselves as social conservatives*. The very definition of "social conservative" on these issues is changing. I myself believe that allegedly conservative but actually rather liberal not-presently-sinning homosexuals are advancing that change as they are hailed as valuable political allies.

This is a _pragmatic_ matter and as such should interest you. If our base is lost or compromised, we don't have somewhere to work outward from. It would be like going out intending to be a missionary to the Muslims and ending up instead changing your own lifestyle so that others think you are a Muslim. (I actually know of one missionary family that happened to. Their women word hijab, they kept Ramadan, etc.) The question is, "Who is evangelizing whom?" Let's make no mistake: The really rabid leftists on these issues are eagerly evangelizing our own people, young and old but especially young. It ought to be a major priority, for political reasons as well as for spiritual reasons, not to aid and abet them by encouraging them to look up to people as spokesmen and allies who have wrong-headed ideas. As far as I'm concerned, when you bring people in who gas about the beauty of homosexual identity, that's a warning sign right there that this is exactly such an influence. When you bring people in as allies who support civil unions, so much the more. When you bring people in who blah-blah about the evils of homophobia and past discrimination against gays and the importance of outreach, there's another example.

One reason we're losing this war is because we're losing our own. Start there. Teach young people who encounter this issue a clear-headed, principled stance across the board. And in the service of doing so, don't be afraid to teach them specific, clear-headed things that are very politically incorrect. (And, yes, that's going to include the idea that it's not only right but even *very important* that people with sexually perverse desires not be hired for certain jobs, regardless of whether they act on them.) If your slogans are going to muddle your own kids, they're stupid slogans, even if you think they're politically clever. By teaching clear-headedness on these types of issues, you insure a base for the future. Compromise that in the name of political strategy, and you lose everything.

Lydia,

Crude, I know of one homosexual named Douglas Mainwaring who "opposes same-sex marriage" but _totally_ supports civil unions and is positively enthusiastic about affirming "gay families" with children! There are conservatives who think he's a valuable ally. Some even call him a conservative. Um, no.

The civil unions talk is complicated. Frankly, given that you're all in favor of quite a libertarian view of the country (complete with atheists firing Christians for being Christian, so long as Christians can fire atheists for being atheists), I'm surprised you yourself don't support civil unions. That's no slight - it seems like a very immediate, natural outcome of a libertarian view. Make contracts with whoever one pleases, and a civil union is just a contract, on my understanding.

My reason for opposing civil unions is because I'm currently convinced no one actually wants them, or will be satisfied with them. The point of them seems to be to serve as a stepping stone to gay marriage, and unless the prevailing argument becomes that gays should NOT be married, but that people should be allowed to make whatever contracts they wish, my view on that will stand. More below.

You can't take these things as little things. Someone like Mainwaring or someone like Gonnerman is basically having the effect of changing the "hearts and minds" of _our own young people_ so that they become confused and compromised. I know of an otherwise orthodox Catholic, influenced by someone much like this, who now supports homosexual civil unions. Support for homosexual civil unions is becoming more and more a default position *even among those who think of themselves as social conservatives*. The very definition of "social conservative" on these issues is changing. I myself believe that allegedly conservative but actually rather liberal not-presently-sinning homosexuals are advancing that change as they are hailed as valuable political allies.

There is an argument that can be made for civil unions, given the current climate and a certain (not necessarily liberal) view of the country. I used to be more inclined towards them - now, I'm not. If the situation changed such that the prevailing attitude became 'Yes, marriage is for a man and woman, particularly a man and woman who will have and raise children together - but it's a free country, and people should be allowed to make whatever contracts they wish', I'd consider changing my view. Part of that change would be with the mandated treatment of civil unions as broad contracts that were not specifically for gays or lesbians. Let whoever wants to make that contract, make them. No state ceremony. Certainly no religious ceremony in our respective churches.

To give another example: I know of some social conservatives who think that abortion should be a state's rights issue. If some state wants to pass a pro-abortion law, let them - and if another wants to ban it, let them. I don't think someone who embraces that view is necessarily falling prey to liberal thought.

This is a _pragmatic_ matter and as such should interest you. If our base is lost or compromised, we don't have somewhere to work outward from. It would be like going out intending to be a missionary to the Muslims and ending up instead changing your own lifestyle so that others think you are a Muslim. (I actually know of one missionary family that happened to. Their women word hijab, they kept Ramadan, etc.) The question is, "Who is evangelizing whom?" Let's make no mistake: The really rabid leftists on these issues are eagerly evangelizing our own people, young and old but especially young. It ought to be a major priority, for political reasons as well as for spiritual reasons, not to aid and abet them by encouraging them to look up to people as spokesmen and allies who have wrong-headed ideas.

The pragmatic matter does concern me - but it's also exactly where I think mistakes are being made. But frankly, our current path is resulting in a whole lot of bleeding of the young. The rise of gay celibates as spokespeople seems to be by and large a recent thing, and still not anywhere near to widespread or even very noticeable. People are being evangelized in video games, TV shows, books, comics... and you know why that evangelization is working? Because our arguments and approaches are flawed. It doesn't matter if we get to our young and arm them with ideas and messages if those approaches, summaries and messages are easily countered. If they are, we have to start changing our approaches, summaries and messages - even without changing our core views. It is entirely possible that we have made some mistakes on practical matters.

As far as I'm concerned, when you bring people in who gas about the beauty of homosexual identity, that's a warning sign right there that this is exactly such an influence. When you bring people in as allies who support civil unions, so much the more. When you bring people in who blah-blah about the evils of homophobia and past discrimination against gays and the importance of outreach, there's another example.

Even with Gonnerman, I haven't seen much talk of 'the beauty of homosexual identity'. Now, if Gonnerman ends up being someone who does nothing but talk about the evils of people who are against gay marriage and who only condemns LGBT groups or same-sex behavior briefly and when he's backed to a wall, then I'll agree he's a mistake to have as a representative or someone to look to on these issues. So far, that doesn't seem to be the case. Civil unions, I've covered some of.

Now, the evils of homophobia? Here this gets tricky. I think the 'homophobia' level is toxic, and should not be used by social conservatives - it's used to describe people who merely considered homosexual activity to be immoral or even unhealthy. I think many, many of the cries about the past discrimination of gays are overblown, or are ill-considered. Was there some past discrimination against gays? Sure. Is some discrimination against gays wrong? I think so. As for 'outreach', that really depends on what's meant. I think 'outreach' is 100% about rhetoric and emphasis. Not, say, 'let's support civil unions so people will like us more!' or something similarly idiotic. "Attempting to reach and intellectually capture people who are not already conservative"? I support that entirely.

One reason we're losing this war is because we're losing our own. Start there. Teach young people who encounter this issue a clear-headed, principled stance across the board. And in the service of doing so, don't be afraid to teach them specific, clear-headed things that are very politically incorrect. (And, yes, that's going to include the idea that it's not only right but even *very important* that people with sexually perverse desires not be hired for certain jobs, regardless of whether they act on them.)

We're losing our own for more reasons than you seem to concede in these comments. Our emphasis and rhetoric and even some of our positions are lacking force. I've recently run into a critic of the LGBT lobby who thinks a great idea is to emphasize that homosexuals tend to be child molesters. I asked for the data that supports this, he called me naive and refused to give any. I'll tell you right now - if he goes out there and makes that argument, he's hurting the socon view on this one. Almost all but the already convinced will either laugh him off, or think that social conservatives = Westboro Baptist in mentality and approach.

I am entirely in favor of teaching specific, clear-headed things. I think that can be done while taking the route I'm broadly illustrating here. In fact, I think we should be more direct than we are on some issues. I'd much rather we discuss, frankly, why [edited] sex is a health and a moral problem, rather than dancing around it with 'desires' or other language. I think we're going to have to start talking about sexual behaviors frankly instead of trying to be polite and gentle - both on the hetero and homo topics. [I'm editing you to be more "polite and gentle" right here because of some atmosphere standards we've already set up which I think are good ones concerning specifics of sexual acts. LM]

It's an appreciation that simply wouldn't be the same if it were the, shall we say, cold-blooded aesthetic appreciation one would get from a person who could never be sexually attracted to that person. It procedes from the male-female dynamic. But it isn't concupiscent. I think I understand what he's describing as applied to a male-female case very well.

To flesh (ahem) that out a little more: take an example of a desire that isn't in the realm of sex. If a man has just finished eating a full meal and has fully sated his desire for food, he can still know and feel the attractiveness of a piece of pie, even though he doesn't desire the pie. His inner "sense" or appetite is still capable of responding to the pie as "that's a desirable thing" without actually inclining him to want it right now. On the other hand, if a man watches a monkey picking lice out of a mate's hair and eating it, he isn't going to FEEL any correspondence of desirability in the lice - even though he knows with his mind and understands with his reason that the monkey feels such an inclination, and that for the monkey it is a suitable one. The man has a rational appreciation for the good as good FOR ANOTHER BEING without actually feeling it AS good himself. And, if the man did actually feel a desire to eat the lice, we would say his feeling was a disordered desire. Likewise, we can see an alligator mating with another alligator and understand that the she-gator is attractive to the he-gator, without feeling any portion of that attraction. And it would be a very strange (disordered) man indeed who either felt that attraction or saw any reason to justify a person feeling it as a "positive".

Likewise between men and women. A woman is fully capable of knowing and understanding another woman being physically desirable to men without actually _feeling_ that desirability herself. The faculty of understanding things rises above the appetite and grasps universal truths abstracted from particular instances. She knows what it feels like to find a man physically attractive, and she can use that knowledge to understand a man finding a woman physically attractive. That understanding is not in the senses or appetites at all, it is a perception ABOUT another woman, it is not actually feeling the attractiveness itself the way she feels it for an attractive man. But there is nothing about the sheer perceiving a member of the opposite sex as "that person is attractive" that itself implies the moral disorder of concupiscence. Even when a man is fully and completely sated sexually, and has no actual desire for sex with ANYONE right now, he is capable of feeling a woman as being attractive physically and not having that perceptive feeling be a movement of concupiscence. But if he feels that same sort of attraction to a man, his feeling is disordered. Not morally disorder (and thus not falling under the term "concupiscence" in its sinful meaning, but physically disordered.)

were very careful to explicitly spell out the fact that homosexual inclinations are objectively disordered in so far as they concern the desire to have same-sex genital relations. That is, in so far as same-sex attractions are concupiscent, they are objectively disordered: a nice little tautology which only stands in need of clarification because it is counterintuitive to contemporary secular culture. What this means is that same-sex attractions, in so far as they are not concupiscent, are not disordered:

It's an appreciation that simply wouldn't be the same if it were the, shall we say, cold-blooded aesthetic appreciation one would get from a person who could never be sexually attracted to that person. It procedes from the male-female dynamic. But it isn't concupiscent. I think I understand what he's describing as applied to a male-female case very well.

Gonnerman's mistake is in an equivocation: he equates "disordered" with "morally disordered". It is true that morally disordered sexual desires are sins, but that's not the only kind of disorder. A person can be morally upright and still be suffering under a disorder. The rare mental disorder in which you want to eat dirt is a disorder, but having the feeling isn't a sin. Sin always involves a movement not merely of the appetite, but of the will, and the sinfulness resides in the disorder of the will.

The Church's extremely forthright position, which Gonnerman wants to not be true, is that for a man even feeling the attractiveness of another man is to be suffering a disorder of the inner sensibilities. This disorder has nothing special to offer the Church that is a positive in itself, only in what the Christian does with his defect - offering it up to Christ, for example. It is no more a positive to the Church than is the desire for bestiality, sado-masochism, or any other disorder of the human being.

Gonnerman's "cold blooded aesthetic appreciation" is EXACTLY THE RIGHT sort of appreciation a male is supposed to feel for a male, or a female for another female, and not the warm-blooded feeling of the attractiveness itself. The warm-blooded appreciation is EXACTLY the sort of movement of the interior sense that belongs solely and strictly to a normal object of the sexual appetite. Since a man cannot be a normal object of the sexual appetite for a man, the movement of feeling attracted is a disordered one. He is trying to find a middle way where none can possibly exist. He wants a different faculty besides the sexual appetite, besides the aesthetic appreciation, besides the rational understanding, that is capable of moving toward the object as finding it sexually attractive without that attraction being a sexual appetite, and there cannot be such a faculty.

Bingo, Tony, precisely.

Crude, you either are uninformed about civil unions or you and I are _way_ far apart. They aren't just some contract or other. They are specific set-ups by the state to be equivalent to marriage in all legal respects except for the name. Please see my extensive coverage on this site concerning the horrible injustices of the Lisa Miller case, which arose out of the marriage-simulating legal background of a civil union. Civil unions influence child custody and the ability to form so-called homosexual "families," which are just as much of a horrible injustice to the child as if the connection between "mommy and mommy" happened to be called by the name of "marriage." It is because they are deliberately set up to have all the legal status of marriage that they have always been, as you have seen, the stepping-stone to homosexual "marriage."

Parenthood should never be reduced to a contract, yet civil unions relate instantaneously to parenthood. (Viz. If a woman in a civil union gets pregnant via sperm donation and has the baby while the civil union holds, then the other member of the civil union, male, female, shemale, or whatever, has automatic parental rights by a direct porting over of the notion of "presumed paternity" from marriage law to civil union law.)

They aren't just contracts, and they never have been just contracts.

Take intestacy: A civil union presumably sets up the same presumptions as marriage in cases of intestacy. But that isn't a contract, per se. In fact, if you wanted to bother to make something like a contract, you wouldn't die intestate! You'd make a will. Instead, it's a special state status for the relationship which raises that relationship across the board to a special, higher level and causes that relationship to supersede the otherwise normal inheritance rules in cases of intestacy. (E.g. Joe has kids from before he "came out." He doesn't bother to fill out a will, but his homosexual lover gets everything when he dies rather than his kids because they had a civil union.)

If you want to designate this or that person as your heir, you can do that. Write a will. If you want to own a home with this or that person, you can do that. Purchase it in both your names. If you want to provide for another person's living expenses, go ahead. Nobody's stopping you. That's my version of libertarian-sympathetic talk. And if your elderly mother lives with you and makes less than $3800 per year and receives more than half of her support from you, she's even your dependent for federal tax purposes, so there's a bonus for ya'.

But there is no good reason whatsoever for the common good for the government to set up a new, non-marital connection between two people (and why only two, anyway?) that gives them a quasi-familial connection, with the perquisites thereof, "just because." Nothing positive is gained by such a special state recognition for non-married pairings, and it simply provides a venue in which homosexual pairs can present themselves as "families" with some kind of legal sanction and, worse, force employers who might be conscientiously opposed to include homosexual lovers as family under employer healthcare plans. (You think someone with libertarian inclinations is going to support that? Nuh-uh. If employers don't want to provide health benefits for anyone as your family member but your spouse and children, where "spouse" means *one member of the opposite sex legally married to you*, this seems perfectly sensible to me, and the state should leave it alone.)

Lydia,

Crude, you either are uninformed about civil unions or you and I are _way_ far apart. They aren't just some contract or other. They are specific set-ups by the state to be equivalent to marriage in all legal respects except for the name. Please see my extensive coverage on this site concerning the horrible injustices of the Lisa Miller case, which arose out of the marriage-simulating legal background of a civil union. Civil unions influence child custody and the ability to form so-called homosexual "families," which are just as much of a horrible injustice to the child as if the connection between "mommy and mommy" happened to be called by the name of "marriage." It is because they are deliberately set up to have all the legal status of marriage that they have always been, as you have seen, the stepping-stone to homosexual "marriage."

There's a third option: there are a variety of in-principle 'civil union' options that could be cooked up, and there are therefore some better and some worse ways to do it. You can, on one extreme, have a civil union that comes with all manner of state-sanctioned pomp and intentionally dressing it up to seem exactly like a marriage on the one hand. On the other extreme, it can be nothing more than a contract, not even limited to two people. It's possible that the best way to deal with civil unions is to attack the legal specifics rather than the grand concept, which - ultimately - is nothing more than a legal contract.

(You think someone with libertarian inclinations is going to support that? Nuh-uh. If employers don't want to provide health benefits for anyone as your family member but your spouse and children, where "spouse" means *one member of the opposite sex legally married to you*, this seems perfectly sensible to me, and the state should leave it alone.)

That's shifting the discussion from the civil union itself to an employer's legal obligations to a civil union. Are you going to tell me that a libertarian is not going to support the idea that two people can make whatever contracts they want between each other, and enmesh themselves of the own free will in whatever legal and personal obligations?

Now, this is an example of a situation where someone can end up being too clever by half. I can imagine a justification of endorsing civil unions as a way to defang gay marriage pressure - "Look, here is your civil union. It is, in essence, a kind of contract. Have as many or as few people as you want in it. You can make a contract with a statue if you so choose. You get these, these, and these rights. You lack these, these and these compared to a marriage. But it's still a civil union, it's some kind of legal recognition of your binding or whatever. Enjoy." It would only work in tandem with a big public push towards understanding an appreciating the purpose of marriage, which should ultimately address some heterosexual abuses of it as well.

But without that in place, you run risk of after-the-fact alterations. Because now, there are civil unions in place, and no matter how hobbled they are, it's an easy fly-under-the-radar thing to amend them after the fact and grant CU people the legal recognitions, etc, that you've outlined (relating to reproduction, etc). Of course, that's an advantage too - you can make a joke out of civil unions far easier than you can make a joke out of marriages, in some senses.

Really, some of this swings right around to the OP and the anti-bullying laws. If you're getting an anti-bullying law no matter what, then it's time to either offer one up, or intelligently amend the one you're getting. If you're getting a civil union no matter what (or you have to choose between a civil union or a marriage law), get in there and offer one of your own. You said yourself that CUs are an attempt at marriage simulation. Take a wrench to that if you can. I can imagine passing a CU law that defangs it of the intention of LGBT and like-minded groups, just as the Michigan law apparently did so (despite my criticisms of how that was apparently handled).

I'm not endorsing any of this, by the way. As I said, right now I disapprove of civil unions for various reasons. But, it's worth thinking about. Creative ways to oppose things and to advance the socon ideas and all, and if I'm wrong or miscalculating something, well, finding out where I'm screwing up can only help me think about this clearer.

People are being evangelized in video games, TV shows, books, comics... and you know why that evangelization is working? Because our arguments and approaches are flawed.

No, that just doesn't follow. The problem isn't with the arguments, it is with the prevalence of the opposing influences surrounding our kids. See: Ransom and Weston in Perelandra, and Ransom's eventual realization that it's not a matter of merely having the truth and better "arguments", the devil will wear you down until you are too tired to argue anymore regardless of how good your arguments are. Eventually you need to get out from under being subjected to the pressure at all. THAT's where we are failing out next generation, we are letting them be in school where the message is continuous, we are letting them watch TV where it is unremitting, etc. We cannot win by having better arguments, we need to (for our children) simply silence the opposition.

That's shifting the discussion from the civil union itself to an employer's legal obligations to a civil union. Are you going to tell me that a libertarian is not going to support the idea that two people can make whatever contracts they want between each other, and enmesh themselves of the own free will in whatever legal and personal obligations?

But that's just it, Crude, the state is up-ending those contracts and re-writing them at will. In Massachusetts, employers had contracts that said "we'll provide you and your spouse & family with health insurance" where "your spouse" meant someone of the opposite sex. Along comes the state supreme court and decides on their own that "spouse" shall now mean gays as well, and all of a sudden every employer contract for family insurance was re-written without the employers having any say about it whatsoever.

There's a third option: there are a variety of in-principle 'civil union' options that could be cooked up, and there are therefore some better and some worse ways to do it. You can, on one extreme, have a civil union that comes with all manner of state-sanctioned pomp and intentionally dressing it up to seem exactly like a marriage on the one hand.

Now who is refusing to note and deal with the actual state of affairs on the ground? Even in theory, the term "civil unions" is taken to grant to gays an immediate recognition of status that amounts to a social recognition more than a mere contract, (we don't generally grant social status to having formed a contractual arrangement) and in actual practice all of the civil union laws that passed granted to gays a list of benefits that put them very nearly on a par with married couples.

Now who is refusing to note and deal with the actual state of affairs on the ground?

we don't generally grant social status to having formed a contractual arrangement

Precisely, Tony. This happened once before in this thread, too, about something else, though at the moment I'm a bit too tired to remember what the subject was. And honestly, I'm getting tired of it, and bored, and it isn't worth my time anymore. Crude claims to be this pragmatist and that we're living in purist-land, and then we point out actual facts to him, and he says that's pragmatic in a different way or something. I dunno. It begins to be just a time-waster.

And how did we get into this discussion of civil unions? Because I gave *yet another* real world example of the dangers of "making common cause with gays who oppose homosexual 'marriage'" in the person of Douglas Mainwaring, and I made it *extremely explicit* about him that he is talking about homosexual civil unions *connected with children* and is enthusiastically in favor of this. Which pretty much defines "not being a conservative" on this cluster of issues. Crude sailed right by that and instead started this abstract discussion of heaven-knows-what (stupid, pointless) legal thingies, state recognition of some kind, involving possibly fourteen people of all genders and familial connections, called "civil unions," that might [though he's not advocating it right now] be used to "defang" homosexual marriage. Please.

Crude, see, I care about advocating laws that advance the common good. Civil union laws don't. I can't imagine one that does. I don't carry a libertarian card, and I've always worded my statements very carefully. God knows, I don't think people should be able to set up _any_ contract (e.g., a contract to kill another person who willingly offers himself to be used for an experiment or something like that). But as a sheer legal matter, this isn't just a matter of setting up contracts anyway, and I'm not going to advocate something I don't think is a *good idea*, including an anti-bullying law or a civil union law or whatever.

An I'm going to argue points on that basis. So, y'know, maybe I'm just wasting _your_ time. Hint, hint.

The problem with the "Conservative Plan" approach is that it doesn't really matter that much what the law says. Once it is passed, it will be handed over to (e.g.) DOE bureaucrats to flesh out, disseminate, and enforce. We all know who runs the bureaucracy, and no matter how much you tailor the law to not create victim groups, in the minds of the leftie bureaucrats there are indeed victim groups, and oppressor groups, and they know who they're going after.

It is true, as Crude says, that the masses are generally stupid and easily manipulated, and that's why opposing an anti-bullying law looks like you are pro-bullying. The actual conservative position on bullying is something like "bullying is an inescapable fact of social life and can only be dealt with as it happens". To that extent, one might roll back the bureaucracy itself that has over time made most forms of school discipline unsavory if not outright prohibited. But lefties would oppose this, and DC Conservative INC types wouldn't want it either. Their goal is to gain control of and manipulate the bureaucracy for their own ends, not eliminate it.

The great majority of the success of the gay rights agenda is driven not by some strident leftist principles, but rather the desire to see gays normalized. No more anonymous sex in public bathrooms, or freakish pride parades, but rather a nice settled bourgeois life of marriage, kids, and a full-time job. Gays are almost there, and are a model minority in many ways, which is why they've mostly replaced African Americans in the leftist mind. They're largely white, well-educated, epicurean, SWPL, etc. It's ironic that the left is now driving the expansion of the bourgeois mentality they once opposed, but it resonates with Americans because that's the dream. The right, on the other hand, is in the position of defending the bourgeois status from the incursion of new members, which looks like hate.

The great majority of the success of the gay rights agenda is driven not by some strident leftist principles, but rather the desire to see gays normalized. No more anonymous sex in public bathrooms, or freakish pride parades, but rather a nice settled bourgeois life of marriage, kids, and a full-time job.

I'm not quite sure to whom you're attributing this desire, Matt. Certainly the people "driving from behind," as it were _are_ actuated by strident leftist principles. And in fact, there has been no reduction in freakish pride parades as homosexuality as become more normalized. There is, of course, an ambiguity on the word "normalized." Does one mean "accepted as normal by the public" or does one mean "behavior changed to make it appear less bizarre." What we have happening is the former, not the latter.

Here's an anecdote for you that has to my mind a lot of different morals:

During my town's debate three years ago over a homosexual and transsexual rights ordinance, a city not far away in the state began cracking down on homosexual liasons in public parks. The homosexual rights people in that town literally criticized the police for doing this and defended sex in public parks. When this news item, including reports of homosexual spokesmen criticizing the police attempts to stop sex in parks, was read at one of the hearings on the ordinance, it apparently made *zero impact*. It probably goes without saying that not a single member of the coalition arguing for our town ordinance stood up and said, "I disagree with the leaders of the homosexual community in X town. I think we need to denounce sex in parks, because that is just wrong. I support the police of X town in what they are doing. This should show you that sex in parks isn't what we're all about." More than that, I saw no evidence that this made any impact on the public mind.

I take from this several morals:

1) Those lobbying for homosexual rights ordinances mostly want the freakish behavior to continue and laws against it to remain unenforced or actually to be repealed. They simply want ordinary people to shut up about it.

2) Ordinary, "bourgeois" (if you will) people are so bullied and harried and so concerned about being called "haters," and are so disgusted by the freakish and bizarre behavior, that they will vote for what the homosexual lobby demands and simply close their eyes and ears to the freakish and bizarre public behavior, even if it increases. They just don't want to talk about it or to think about the consequences of their votes. They keep hoping to be left alone if they do what they are told, and they are in denial about the evidence that in fact the opposite is true--that they'll be left alone _less_ the more they normalize this behavior. That even more crazy stuff will be put in their faces in one way or another.

If nothing else shows us all this, the increasing success of the "trans" agenda should do so. It turns out that homosexuality by itself isn't "in your face" enough. Trans people, most of the time, are pretty much in your face. So that's the next battle to bully the bourgeois.

After the ordinance was passed, two men walked into a local J.C. Penney and began harassing the salesgirl working in the women's clothing section. One of the men got a skirt off the rack, went into the women's changing room, and put it on. He then pointedly asked the salesgirl (who was quite young and utterly flabbergasted), "How does it look on me?"

The only people who are getting "tamed" here are people like the salesgirl. "Tamed" to shut up or to speak on demand, and to say what they are told, nothing more, nothing less. Even in response to more and more bizarre behavior.

I take from this several morals:

1) Those lobbying for homosexual rights ordinances mostly want the freakish behavior to continue and laws against it to remain unenforced or actually to be repealed. They simply want ordinary people to shut up about it.

2) Ordinary, "bourgeois" (if you will) people are so bullied and harried and so concerned about being called "haters," and are so disgusted by the freakish and bizarre behavior, that they will vote for what the homosexual lobby demands and simply close their eyes and ears to the freakish and bizarre public behavior, even if it increases. They just don't want to talk about it or to think about the consequences of their votes. They keep hoping to be left alone if they do what they are told, and they are in denial about the evidence that in fact the opposite is true--that they'll be left alone _less_ the more they normalize this behavior. That even more crazy stuff will be put in their faces in one way or another.

These are excellently articulated observations that I really need to bookmark and remember if I'm ever pressed on the issue.

@Matt:

Gays are almost there, and are a model minority in many ways, which is why they've mostly replaced African Americans in the leftist mind. They're largely white, well-educated, epicurean, SWPL, etc.

This isn't true, you know. The minority of gays that well-educated people know are like this, but reality is a different animal. I'll never forget the guy I saw at an STD clinic who came in to have [a medical procedure for an STD, ed.]. His main concern was, "So, how long till I can go back to random sex with dudes I meet online?"

@Crude:

I've recently run into a critic of the LGBT lobby who thinks a great idea is to emphasize that homosexuals tend to be child molesters. I asked for the data that supports this, he called me naive and refused to give any. I'll tell you right now - if he goes out there and makes that argument, he's hurting the socon view on this one.

I don't know about that. Smearing homosexuals with an undeserved reputation may be immoral but nonetheless an effective strategy. It's certainly a mirror image of the strategy leftists have used to attack conservatives.

Does one mean "accepted as normal by the public" or does one mean "behavior changed to make it appear less bizarre." What we have happening is the former, not the latter.

What people are hoping is that the former leads to the latter. They hope that if their gay son is accepted and treated as normal, then he will want to get married and settle down rather than visit the local park bathroom every Thursday. Perhaps they might even forget to some degree that he is even gay.

This is nothing new, it has been the basis for the opposition to gay marriage from the left since the beginning. Justin Raimondo, IIRC, takes this line. He is also skeptical, as am I and I think you are as well, that A will necessarily lead to B in this case, leading him to label it "lesbian marriage".

But the inclusion of more people in the American Dream of bourgeois normality with a house in the suburbs, spouse, and maybe a kid or two is a powerful motivator, and hits across all party/ideological lines. Gay marriage is at best at 50/50 support, and probably holds an outright majority at this point. Strident leftists make up maybe half of that support.

Smearing homosexuals with an undeserved reputation may be immoral but nonetheless an effective strategy. It's certainly a mirror image of the strategy leftists have used to attack conservatives.

Samson J.'s point here underscores something that I think needs to be said:

We conservatives are far too beset by would-be pundits giving us strategy advice. I believe we don't actually have Clue 1 what is going to "work," and I mean to include all the clever-clever strategists in that "we." Half the time they are telling us to do stuff where one can spin out a just-so story in which it's effective, but one can equally well spin out a just-so story where it's ineffective. In many, many cases the strategies they are suggesting are exactly the *opposite* of what our opponents are doing, but what our opponents are doing seems to "work." For example, we're constantly being told to burnish our image and appear nice. If our opponents followed that strategy, they would have _hastened_ to condemn gay sex in parks in the anecdote I told above. But they didn't. I can think of example after example in which our opponents have been strident, angry, condemnatory, and obviously hate-filled--all the things we're being told to compass land and sea to avoid. And guess what? For them, it _works_. Everybody's afraid of them. Nobody condemns their strident tactics.

Well-behaved? Hah! What about the "protest" groups that hold "kiss-ins" to stop unwanted speakers on college campuses? Oh, you didn't hear about them? Yeah, you didn't. What about the threats against supporters of Proposal 8 in California? What about the church trashings and vandalism? I could go on and on. No, they are not in general well-behaved. But it works, mate. And I don't think it works merely because they also have their "well-behaved" arm that presents them as the "people down the street." I think it also works because people are afraid.

So why is it that when conservatives practically apologize for existing, they're still perceived as hateful bigots, and when the leftists behave like jack-booted thugs and threatening bigots, they are still the victims?

I'll tell you why: Because the media owns the majority of public opinion. They own it, folks. Let's stop beating up on ourselves and asking, "What can we do differently?" Let's consolidate whatever is left of our own position and start thinking more clearly for ourselves (about things like discrimination, for example). Let's stop dreaming that if we just have some brilliant new idea, some brilliant new strategy, some ever-more-winsome way of talking, we can "win hearts and minds." That's as dumb here as it is with worldwide Islam. Only in this case, it's as though the jihadis are in charge of all the American MSM outlets.

It's true that no one knows what is going to work, probably because nothing will work. The left is in charge now and is completely unscrupulous. If this were 2003 I would say that we should play dirty politics, threatening politicians and businesses with reprisals if they go against us. Even now there is enough economic clout in the Republican base that they could practically hold some businesses hostage. Instead, we went with the strategy of making arguments, as though arguments ever convinced anyone of anything. People respect strength, not eggheads theorizing about natural law.

But in any case, the only thing to do now is try to keep at least some sphere intact (don't take government money!) and wait for the end. The end is when the Republicans drop their opposition for good, which might come as early as 2016.

Tony,

No, that just doesn't follow. The problem isn't with the arguments, it is with the prevalence of the opposing influences surrounding our kids. See: Ransom and Weston in Perelandra, and Ransom's eventual realization that it's not a matter of merely having the truth and better "arguments", the devil will wear you down until you are too tired to argue anymore regardless of how good your arguments are. Eventually you need to get out from under being subjected to the pressure at all. THAT's where we are failing out next generation, we are letting them be in school where the message is continuous, we are letting them watch TV where it is unremitting, etc. We cannot win by having better arguments, we need to (for our children) simply silence the opposition.

Well, you're not going to silence the opposition barring some kind of amazing and tremendous disaster, which you can't exactly plan for. And yes, the problem is with the arguments, not to mention with the perception. If children are told to expect gays to be complete perverts who are vile, and then they keep running into ones who are superficially nice and seem no worse than all of their straight friends in large part (accent on the superficially), they're going to think they were lied to.

I agree entirely that 'having better arguments' only works so well, and won't be turning this around. 'Having a better perception and image' is where most of the action is. Even that isn't a guarantee, but at least it's a new attempt.

But that's just it, Crude, the state is up-ending those contracts and re-writing them at will. In Massachusetts, employers had contracts that said "we'll provide you and your spouse & family with health insurance" where "your spouse" meant someone of the opposite sex. Along comes the state supreme court and decides on their own that "spouse" shall now mean gays as well, and all of a sudden every employer contract for family insurance was re-written without the employers having any say about it whatsoever.

Right, and this is exactly why I said you are talking about a different problem. I was pointing out that a libertarian would seem in principle to be willing to allow people to make whatever contract they wish amongst themselves. Lydia is libertarian to the point where she thinks employers should be able to hire and fire whoever they choose on the basis of religion, and possibly anything else they so choose too. So for her, at least in an ideal sense, she can't really have a problem with people enmeshing themselves in whatever contracts, having whatever ceremonies, including ones that are awfully marriage like in their provisions.

Now who is refusing to note and deal with the actual state of affairs on the ground? Even in theory, the term "civil unions" is taken to grant to gays an immediate recognition of status that amounts to a social recognition more than a mere contract, (we don't generally grant social status to having formed a contractual arrangement) and in actual practice all of the civil union laws that passed granted to gays a list of benefits that put them very nearly on a par with married couples.

I said explicitly that I was just openly speculating about possible ways civil unions could be responded to, despite the fact that I do not endorse them. I already said I find them to be a bad move right now for a number of reasons. Hence that bit at the end about how I don't endorse civil unions, but I think the topic is worth thinking about in a strategic and tactical sense, precisely to see if such a thing could be made into a viable option - or if flaws can be pointed out. You found what you think are flaws? Great. If so, I'm glad you did, because I'm not here to push civil unions, or push much of anything other than 'changes I think need to be made in order to better help us win on these and other issues.'

As for social status, sure, that's absolutely part of it. But you know what? I think, if it could be guaranteed to stop there, it would be better to give them the social status of a civil union (complete with all the flexibility and limitations of a civil union that I mentioned here) than the social status of a marriage. I agree absolutely that 'all of the civil union laws that passed granted gays' benefits nearly on par with married couples. I was wondering if changing that part of things was a viable strategy. Give not just gays, but just about every other pairing the possibility of having a civil union. Amend it to be different than what it is now - remove adoption rights, etc.

I want to stress again: if you think that idea is entirely bad and wish to shoot it down, I encourage you to do so, because it can only help things. I'm interested in making changes that will help us achieve some progress on these issues in the public arena and on a societal level - period. A desire for success on socon issues is what motivates me here, and it's what should motivate you here too in large part.

Matt,

The problem with the "Conservative Plan" approach is that it doesn't really matter that much what the law says. Once it is passed, it will be handed over to (e.g.) DOE bureaucrats to flesh out, disseminate, and enforce. We all know who runs the bureaucracy, and no matter how much you tailor the law to not create victim groups, in the minds of the leftie bureaucrats there are indeed victim groups, and oppressor groups, and they know who they're going after.

Agreed, to a point. I even mentioned that this was a problem in another way - pass a civil union law, and now you have a civil union law, for better or for worse, and it can be updated and altered and amended in the future.

It is true, as Crude says, that the masses are generally stupid and easily manipulated, and that's why opposing an anti-bullying law looks like you are pro-bullying. The actual conservative position on bullying is something like "bullying is an inescapable fact of social life and can only be dealt with as it happens". To that extent, one might roll back the bureaucracy itself that has over time made most forms of school discipline unsavory if not outright prohibited. But lefties would oppose this, and DC Conservative INC types wouldn't want it either. Their goal is to gain control of and manipulate the bureaucracy for their own ends, not eliminate it.

To be completely honest, I don't really trust teachers with much of any authority where discipline is concerned. Hell, I hardly trust them much where teaching is concerned. The school system we have is archaic and out of date, and home schooling should be advocated above all else, with minimal controls there.

Either way, I don't think it's that 'the masses' are stupid per se (a good share of them are.) It's that they're just ignorant of details. They operate largely on emotion and perception, and that has to be kept in mind when dealing with laws and policies and social issues. I believe that sometimes that's going to mean backing an alternative law instead of simply opposing one.

The great majority of the success of the gay rights agenda is driven not by some strident leftist principles, but rather the desire to see gays normalized. No more anonymous sex in public bathrooms, or freakish pride parades, but rather a nice settled bourgeois life of marriage, kids, and a full-time job. Gays are almost there, and are a model minority in many ways, which is why they've mostly replaced African Americans in the leftist mind. They're largely white, well-educated, epicurean, SWPL, etc. It's ironic that the left is now driving the expansion of the bourgeois mentality they once opposed, but it resonates with Americans because that's the dream. The right, on the other hand, is in the position of defending the bourgeois status from the incursion of new members, which looks like hate.

I agree partially, but not entirely. I don't think this is a 'desire to see gays normalized', because I think most people who are pro-gay-marriage are under the impression that gays are already normalized. All the anonymous sex, bath house antics, etc are taken to be part of a mere few, and the ones who do take part in it tend to do a good job of pretending they don't. A gay friend of a relative years ago approached me about gay marriage, insisting that he and his partner 'were a monogamous couple for years now' and how most gays were like that. The thing is, he didn't realize the relative told me an awful lot about what they talked about - stuff like 'well, he was volunteering at an AIDS clinic and was [engaging in sexual acts with, ed.] some of the patients' and 'they have an open relationship, but the rules are you can't do anything romantic with your partners, it has to all be anonymous sex'. So he was lying. But man, he knew exactly what sort of image to put up to try and make himself sound entirely normal and just like the Cleavers but with two guys instead of a man and wife.

It's true that no one knows what is going to work, probably because nothing will work. The left is in charge now and is completely unscrupulous. If this were 2003 I would say that we should play dirty politics, threatening politicians and businesses with reprisals if they go against us. Even now there is enough economic clout in the Republican base that they could practically hold some businesses hostage. Instead, we went with the strategy of making arguments, as though arguments ever convinced anyone of anything. People respect strength, not eggheads theorizing about natural law.

But in any case, the only thing to do now is try to keep at least some sphere intact (don't take government money!) and wait for the end. The end is when the Republicans drop their opposition for good, which might come as early as 2016.

I don't think 'theorizing about natural law' is some kind of strategy for changing public opinion. I think it's worth it for its own sake, because the arguments are powerful in their arena. I wouldn't advocate 'trying to convince the public with natural law arguments' more or less for the reasons you've already covered: arguments had little to no role in advancing these aims to the point they're at now, and will have little to no role in rolling them back. That would require people listening to and carefully considering arguments in a level-headed manner. With rare exception, they will not do that.

But I can't get behind the 'we've lost, so let's give up' response either. I think it's true that the media is overwhelmingly in favor of gay rights. I also think the traditional media is becoming more and more obsolete, and the internet now screws up that progression to a point. I think even if all the odds are against us, it's still worthwhile to try and change things - it wasn't long ago where all the odds were against gays on this one (or gun owners, for that matter). I simply want to do it intelligently and in a way that maximizes our odds at success. If a strategy is failing or won't work, we ditch it.

Samson,

I don't know about that. Smearing homosexuals with an undeserved reputation may be immoral but nonetheless an effective strategy. It's certainly a mirror image of the strategy leftists have used to attack conservatives.

The problem from a practical standpoint is that it's not one which is likely to succeed. LGBT groups and people sympathetic have worked overtime to portray gays as people who are utterly normal except they like to hold hands with people of the same sex in public and they'd like to have a nice happy marriage that is utterly 100% traditional looking aside from the two guys or two women in tuxes. It's also likely to backfire, because, lacking some amazing scientific-seeming evidence of this, 'gays are super-likely to molest kids!' is more likely to get the person saying it branded as a nut among the wider populace.

Lydia,

Crude, see, I care about advocating laws that advance the common good. Civil union laws don't. I can't imagine one that does. I don't carry a libertarian card, and I've always worded my statements very carefully. God knows, I don't think people should be able to set up _any_ contract (e.g., a contract to kill another person who willingly offers himself to be used for an experiment or something like that). But as a sheer legal matter, this isn't just a matter of setting up contracts anyway, and I'm not going to advocate something I don't think is a *good idea*, including an anti-bullying law or a civil union law or whatever.

You described yourself as libertarian - not me. Your example was a brand of libertarianism that made it so you believe atheists should be able to fire Christians on the grounds of their Christianity, so long as Christians can fire atheists on the grounds of their atheism. You also said that, given the current context, you will support Christians in a religious discrimination lawsuit. So you're pretty well willing to pragmatically fight for laws and law enforcement as it stands.

An I'm going to argue points on that basis. So, y'know, maybe I'm just wasting _your_ time. Hint, hint.

But you're not wasting mine, which is why I'm responding to you. If you don't want to respond to me anymore, I won't complain - do as you will.

Samson,

I don't know about that. Smearing homosexuals with an undeserved reputation may be immoral but nonetheless an effective strategy. It's certainly a mirror image of the strategy leftists have used to attack conservatives.

The problem from a practical standpoint is that it's not one which is likely to succeed. LGBT groups and people sympathetic have worked overtime to portray gays as people who are utterly normal except they like to hold hands with people of the same sex in public and they'd like to have a nice happy marriage that is utterly 100% traditional looking aside from the two guys or two women in tuxes. It's also likely to backfire, because, lacking some amazing scientific-seeming evidence of this, 'gays are super-likely to molest kids!' is more likely to get the person saying it branded as a nut among the wider populace.

Lydia,

Crude, see, I care about advocating laws that advance the common good. Civil union laws don't. I can't imagine one that does. I don't carry a libertarian card, and I've always worded my statements very carefully. God knows, I don't think people should be able to set up _any_ contract (e.g., a contract to kill another person who willingly offers himself to be used for an experiment or something like that). But as a sheer legal matter, this isn't just a matter of setting up contracts anyway, and I'm not going to advocate something I don't think is a *good idea*, including an anti-bullying law or a civil union law or whatever.

You described yourself as libertarian - not me. Your example was a brand of libertarianism that made it so you believe atheists should be able to fire Christians on the grounds of their Christianity, so long as Christians can fire atheists on the grounds of their atheism. You also said that, given the current context, you will support Christians in a religious discrimination lawsuit. So you're pretty well willing to pragmatically fight for laws and law enforcement as it stands.

An I'm going to argue points on that basis. So, y'know, maybe I'm just wasting _your_ time. Hint, hint.

But you're not wasting mine, which is why I'm responding to you. If you don't want to respond to me anymore, I won't complain - do as you will.

Chaps, could you _please_ internalize the rules here that I'm enforcing through my editing out of descriptive comments about sexual acts? They aren't very hard rules to figure out, and you'd save me time. Thanks.

Crude, I've said it already, and it rolled right off. Water, duck's back, etc.: If we become unclear in our own minds and unprincipled, if we stop arguing for policies we actually think good but rather for "some policy or other" because it's "less bad than what the other guys are arguing for," if we fuzzify our own political descriptions (like refusing to use a perfectly good phrase like "homosexual agenda"), if we refuse to acknowledge the very real problems with full integration of homosexually oriented people into all areas of society (that is, if we are just across the board against "discrimination against homosexuals"), if we don't staunchly and clearly and unequivocally oppose all talk of "gay families" and the like, including those assembled via civil unions, if we accept as allies people who aren't really our allies on important issues (such as the fact that homosexuality should not be a person's identity and that "gay families" are an extremely bad idea and are to be discouraged)...

this will constitute an important practical loss. In fact, it will mean digging down under our own base and sapping it. Doing the other guys' work for them. That's not just wrong. It's also dumb. That way, we stand to lose everything and to be unable to rebuild later. Let's not do that.

Lydia,

Crude, I've said it already, and it rolled right off. Water, duck's back, etc.: If we become unclear in our own minds and unprincipled, if we stop arguing for policies we actually think good but rather for "some policy or other" because it's "less bad than what the other guys are arguing for," if we fuzzify our own political descriptions (like refusing to use a perfectly good phrase like "homosexual agenda"), if we refuse to acknowledge the very real problems with full integration of homosexually oriented people into all areas of society (that is, if we are just across the board against "discrimination against homosexuals"), if we don't staunchly and clearly and unequivocally oppose all talk of "gay families" and the like, including those assembled via civil unions, if we accept as allies people who aren't really our allies on important issues (such as the fact that homosexuality should not be a person's identity and that "gay families" are an extremely bad idea and are to be discouraged)...

"Homosexual agenda" in many people's minds makes it sound like it's an agenda that you're born with because you have SSA, and thus sounds like a silly conspiracy theory. The people who use that term also tend to, especially among young people, come off as a bad variety of religious stereotype. 'Fuzzifying' is a two-way street. I don't care what you think you mean when you use word X: if other people have a different perception or association, unless you have a good chance of convincing them your use is better, you're dead in the water.

I agree that the problems of 'full integration' should be discussed, explicitly. I agree that we shouldn't count as allies people who aren't really our allies - but I also think your definition of what qualifies as an 'ally' leaves a lot to be desired. You've come across as someone who thinks that the very idea of someone being public about their same-sex desires as a tremendous mistake and that they should, I don't know, completely obscure that fact about themselves or something - I think that's insane, and would deprive us of good voices on this subject. And a 'good voice' is one that overall helps us. It is not a 'perfect voice'.

Oh, by the way? That whole 'we'll lose if we aren't utterly true to our principles and always advocate for the purest form of legislation and social position' thing? I'd just like to point out that many, many liberal politicians opposed gay marriage, on the record, until quite recently. (In the case of Clinton and Obama, in the past year.) They favored civil unions, etc. They did what you would call "sending out a confusing, conflicting message" - and those sorts of moves helped them advance to the point where, just as they are now, they can now come out and be fully in favor of gay marriage. Because, instead of being overly concerned with total clarity of their issues and positions and goals at each and every point, they instead focused on incremental gains. It paid off extremely well.

So no, a failure to be crystal clear and thoroughly support your explicit ideal does not always lead to a practical failure. In fact, in a practical sense, it can often be quite smart.

this will constitute an important practical loss. In fact, it will mean digging down under our own base and sapping it. Doing the other guys' work for them. That's not just wrong. It's also dumb. That way, we stand to lose everything and to be unable to rebuild later. Let's not do that.

Did you see the news yesterday? 58% support for gay marriage. Among adults 30 and younger, the support is 81%.

You are losing your base already, and a good portion of the reason for that loss comes down to how the issue is handled in terms of perception and approach. You're worried that by changing our approach on these issues, we run risk of losing people. But we also run risk of losing people (in fact, we have experienced extremely heavy losses) by going with the old 'don't talk graphically, wish they would all just disappear, do nothing but oppose' method that the opposition, quite frankly, thrives on.

Chaps, could you _please_ internalize the rules here that I'm enforcing through my editing out of descriptive comments about sexual acts? They aren't very hard rules to figure out, and you'd save me time. Thanks.

This sort of attitude hasn't helped. It's a minor thing here on this blog, but an unwillingness to talk specifically and descriptively about sexual acts is another thing that has been hurting us. To hear most people talk about it in public, the big problem with sodomy is due it being terrible that two people of the same sex hold hands in public. It's also part of the reason why communicating the actual problems with the LGBT groups has been so difficult - squeamishness over explaining what's wrong and what's going on. Decrying 'homosexual relations' and even 'sodomy' doesn't cut it.

I want to repeat a point I just made to Lydia, because it's important enough to be more than just a response to her.

Take a good look at the recent (in fact, according to that survey, 10 year) history of gay marriage and LGBT social issues. 10 years ago, the situation was essentially the reverse of what it is now. 55% thinking gay marriage should be illegal, 37% thinking it should be legal as of 2003. Now in 2013, it's 58% for legal, 36% for illegal. Quite a reversal for ten years' time.

You'll also remember, especially if you go back further in the recent history, that this was not accomplished by an explicit push for gay marriage from start to finish. Obama was against gay marriage publicly. Hillary Clinton, until the past week, against gay marriage. Bill Clinton, against gay marriage. The list goes on. Now, they're all switching, and chances are they were all in favor of gay marriage to begin with. They did not get to where they are now by deciding, 'Okay, most of the public is against gay marriage. But I'm going to be in favor of it because it's important to communicate with clarity on this issue and if I oppose gay marriage I run risk of confusing by base and obscuring the issues and...' etc. They took what they could get, they focused on public perception, and they worked incrementally.

So when I start reading too much worry about how we need to be crystal clear and only support the most thoroughly pure laws and measures and approaches so as not to confuse anyone, I'm skeptical. If someone is absolutely frantic at the prospect of a 'gay christian' arguing against same-sex sexual activity, arguing in favor of celibacy, arguing against gay marriage, etc, on the grounds that he's identifying as a 'gay christian' and that should never be tolerated and no one who is gay should be publicly identifying themselves as such, I'm going to question whether they really are capable of coming up with ideas that will actually allow us to gain ground in the current climate. I'm doubly going to question it when I think their attitudes and their tactics were tried back when the majority of the country was opposed to gay marriage, and the result has been a direct flip of voter support in the span of ten years.

So when I start reading too much worry about how we need to be crystal clear and only support the most thoroughly pure laws and measures and approaches so as not to confuse anyone, I'm skeptical

Crude, you are mischaracterizing the problem of "dealing with" the trend. The source of the trend being pro-gay never did come from successful arguments in favor of gays, it came from lies and emotional claptrap, false representations of reality, etc. And some tools cannot be used equally by both sides (Just as we cannot use rape and torture to battle against those who use rape and torture in warfare). We cannot choose to use lies to advance our agenda just because it would be effective. And if we employ emotionally laden obfuscation and confusion, we play into the hands of the father of lies and deceit. We cannot succeed by making people confused about the truth, for even if that meant success on one front, it would undermine the greater battle, the battle for truth itself in the name of Jesus Christ.

I agree that it would be acceptable to use an "incremental" approach to moving the line of battle toward our long-term goal, an inch-by-inch strategy, if there existed one that would work. NOTHING you have laid out is such a strategy. Virtually all of your so-called pragmatic steps are merely what they gays themselves were suggesting 8 years ago: civil unions instead of marriage, less toothsome anti-bullying laws, or anti-discrimination laws. Yes, returning to the status quo of 8 years ago would be better than being where we are now, but the steps they were proposing 8 years ago ARE JUST HOW THEY GOT US HERE. Those conditions had within them the propensity to lead to where we are now. So, no thanks for re-introducing those ideas for how to restrain their current momentum, I don't think that's going to help. Do you have an overall strategy that you can point to as being LIKELY to work?

But on a larger view, the pro-life movement has been using an incremental strategy for at least 30 years, with such slim, modest gains that one is hard pressed to be certain this represents a win in terms of strategy. Yes, we have achieved a slim majority of people who want abortion to have some limits, but with (a) the limits they want are so useless, and (b) their willingness to PUSH for those limits against the vociferous rabid minority who take even limits against partial birth abortion to be verbotten is virtually non-existent, and (c) the repeated striking down (and back) of the incremental state laws, it is problematic to call this an improved situation. So, why would you claim a vision that an incremental approach will work with gay "marriage"? Taking a small step that is an instance of "taking what we can get" that is highly incomplete and imperfect is fine - if you aren't shooting yourself in the foot in the process. But when some of us take an incremental step in the right direction like successfully watering down an anti-discrimination law, and OTHERS of us criticize that very incremental success as bad positioning because it is antagonistic to vocal gays and meanies in the media, who is to say what kind of incremental steps are worthwhile?

Finally, although we are clearly gradually losing the issue in the minds of the majority, we have NOT YET lost the major legal and cultural constraints to gay "marriage" just yet. The fact that we still hold these bulwarks means that we have an asset in place that we DON'T have with respect to the abortion war. We cannot calmly turn to a strategy that gives up on some of these bulwarks in the hopes that doing so will position us for a better long term strategy, unless that hope is clear and convincing. And it just isn't. Given that there is NO existing plan of action that has a likelihood of winning this war, (regardless of who is proposing it or what it is) taking a slowdown attrition approach to losses is a legitimate strategy - it may help MY children, and that's better than nothing.

With all due respect, Crude, I would take these statistics with a rather large grain of salt.

First, I'm sure more people support same-sex "marriage" today than ten years ago, but there is absolutely no guarantee that the shift is as large as these statistics suggest: see this study on ballot/poll discrepancy concerning this issue. We all know first-hand how effective scare tactics are on this issue, especially among the young.

Secondly, even if a majority of people support "marriage equality", it does not follow that as many support "redefining marriage" or "purposefully depriving children of a mother or a father". For exemple, in France, where a same-sex marriage law is being debated, 60+% supported same-sex marriage in May 2012. Today, after months of opponents advocating the clear, pure, unconfused solution of no marriage, no adoption, nohow, that statistic is reversed: 39% support the projected law. I doubt it is very different here. So this support is very, very shallow. (I can link to the actual studies in French if you wish).

On another note:

It seems that most people are simply very confused about these things. The link shows how much people overestimate the prevalence of homosexuality; I don't think it helps having many high-profile homosexual/SSA/whatever Christians.

And in a democracy, having a nuanced position mostly means fewer people will understand it, and fewer people will support it.

Tony,

Crude, you are mischaracterizing the problem of "dealing with" the trend. The source of the trend being pro-gay never did come from successful arguments in favor of gays, it came from lies and emotional claptrap, false representations of reality, etc. And some tools cannot be used equally by both sides (Just as we cannot use rape and torture to battle against those who use rape and torture in warfare). We cannot choose to use lies to advance our agenda just because it would be effective. And if we employ emotionally laden obfuscation and confusion, we play into the hands of the father of lies and deceit. We cannot succeed by making people confused about the truth, for even if that meant success on one front, it would undermine the greater battle, the battle for truth itself in the name of Jesus Christ.

Lies? No. I wouldn't advocate lying, even if it worked. I will, however, advocate 'emotional claptrap' that works, I will advocate incremental moves when they work and are appropriate. I will also advocate avoiding the use of language and methods that shoot us in the foot, miscommunicate our message, etc, even if someone is convinced that what they're saying is the blunt, unvarnished truth. If you're telling me that you will not make appeals to emotion, that you will not try to present your message in the best possible way that minimizes negative reactions and emphasizes positive reactions, then you are committed to social and political suicide. And hey, you are welcome to that. But at that point, please don't even imply that you're advocating some way to win back the public, to make advances in the culture war, etc. If you want to, for example... defend Mourdock's reply about pregnancies resulting from rape - if you want to go 'I support what he said, I support that he said it, I wouldn't have wanted him to say things differently than he did' - then stop talking about the importance of fighting or winning any culture war. Instead say that the war is probably lost, and that's okay - you're dedicated to convincing, at best, a small minority of people and to hell with everyone else.

I agree that it would be acceptable to use an "incremental" approach to moving the line of battle toward our long-term goal, an inch-by-inch strategy, if there existed one that would work. NOTHING you have laid out is such a strategy. Virtually all of your so-called pragmatic steps are merely what they gays themselves were suggesting 8 years ago: civil unions instead of marriage, less toothsome anti-bullying laws, or anti-discrimination laws. Yes, returning to the status quo of 8 years ago would be better than being where we are now, but the steps they were proposing 8 years ago ARE JUST HOW THEY GOT US HERE. Those conditions had within them the propensity to lead to where we are now. So, no thanks for re-introducing those ideas for how to restrain their current momentum, I don't think that's going to help. Do you have an overall strategy that you can point to as being LIKELY to work?

First off, I haven't pretended that I'm offering up some great battle plan to help us change direction. I've mostly been pointing out the absolute failures of the past ten years, and bad arguments in this exact thread. You clearly haven't been reading what I've written here anyway, since I've repeatedly said that I oppose civil unions. At best I can understand why someone would support them from a socon angle, and I've pointed out some of the flaws with them.

Otherwise, yes, I am explicitly taking pages out of the NRA's handbook, the pro-lifer's handbook, and even the LGBT handbook precisely because they have done things that have resulted in *success*. The 'status quo of 8 years ago' was short-sighted socons standing in opposition to anti-bullying laws without offering alternatives. It was railing against 'the gays' and not singling out LGBT groups, refusing to talk about Christians with SSA except in terms of 'they can be cured!' in public, and talking about the 'homosexual agenda' when it's an agenda that has always had to do with far more than gays. It was getting suckered by the media into describing themselves as 'anti-gay-rights' and 'pro-discrimination'. There was a lot more that went wrong, but those were the strategies and tactics by and large, and they have been disastrous failures. And it's no surprise WHY they were failures, because even if they were failing, the prevailing attitude among some is that there's no reason to change that if the alternatives are better rhetoric, coming across as opposing discrimination, etc. We've seen the mistakes in this very thread.

Go ahead: try the 'employers should be able to fire anyone for any reason, including people they think are gay, even if the person is closeted' line out on public. Right now, we have a poll showing that 81% of people under age 30 support gay marriage. But once they hear the firing line, I'm sure we can inch that up to 84% or 85%.

But on a larger view, the pro-life movement has been using an incremental strategy for at least 30 years, with such slim, modest gains that one is hard pressed to be certain this represents a win in terms of strategy. Yes, we have achieved a slim majority of people who want abortion to have some limits, but with (a) the limits they want are so useless, and (b) their willingness to PUSH for those limits against the vociferous rabid minority who take even limits against partial birth abortion to be verbotten is virtually non-existent, and (c) the repeated striking down (and back) of the incremental state laws, it is problematic to call this an improved situation. So, why would you claim a vision that an incremental approach will work with gay "marriage"? Taking a small step that is an instance of "taking what we can get" that is highly incomplete and imperfect is fine - if you aren't shooting yourself in the foot in the process. But when some of us take an incremental step in the right direction like successfully watering down an anti-discrimination law, and OTHERS of us criticize that very incremental success as bad positioning because it is antagonistic to vocal gays and meanies in the media, who is to say what kind of incremental steps are worthwhile?

Actually, the pro-life movement is torn between incremental strategies and total strategies. They absolutely engage in appeals to emotion. They've been pretty good about resisting manipulative language (they don't describe themselves stupidly as 'anti-choice' and they tend to describe their opponents as pro-abortion or pro-death, not pro-choice.) They also make mistakes with their candidates at times, and as the last election helped show, sometimes pick candidates who aren't particularly skillful in their discussion of the issues so long as they have the right 'total opposition' commitments.

Oh, and over the spread of those same 10 years, let's take a look at how they've performed according to this poll.

24% of people think abortion should be legal in all cases, 32% in most, 25% illegal in most cases, 14% illegal in all cases. That's 2013.

As of 2004? 20%, 35%, 26%, 14%.

10 years, and they managed to at least hold their ground. And that's on the heels of Akin and Mourdock's disastrous comments last election. It's in a world where the media is not exactly kind to the pro-life message. Clearly they're doing a lot more right than the people fighting against the 'homosexual agenda' are.

Finally, although we are clearly gradually losing the issue in the minds of the majority, we have NOT YET lost the major legal and cultural constraints to gay "marriage" just yet. The fact that we still hold these bulwarks means that we have an asset in place that we DON'T have with respect to the abortion war. We cannot calmly turn to a strategy that gives up on some of these bulwarks in the hopes that doing so will position us for a better long term strategy, unless that hope is clear and convincing. And it just isn't. Given that there is NO existing plan of action that has a likelihood of winning this war, (regardless of who is proposing it or what it is) taking a slowdown attrition approach to losses is a legitimate strategy - it may help MY children, and that's better than nothing.

Gradual? You think a 56-35 flip in the span of ten years is gradual?

But really, you illustrated the major problem here with your last line: you've given up. You've decided that we've lost, you don't think changing strategy or tactics will win, so... what, you'll support the proven losing methods? Better yet, you'll support the proven loser rather than change tactics or try something new, because... I don't know, it's better to commit yourself to a losing strategy than try a new one which may also lose?

I suppose all I can say is, keep being explicit with that. Because you just cast this fight as choosing between A) the person who is convinced the fight is lost, who acknowledges their methods won't work, but who won't change their methods unless they're certain of victory in doing so (and victory is never certain), and B) the person who still wants to fight and win, who is willing to try new approaches and communication strategies if they have a chance at succeeding, and who thinks that - if they fail - that there was no great loss, because the current strategy is losing anyway.

Jane,

First, I'm sure more people support same-sex "marriage" today than ten years ago, but there is absolutely no guarantee that the shift is as large as these statistics suggest: see this study on ballot/poll discrepancy concerning this issue. We all know first-hand how effective scare tactics are on this issue, especially among the young.

Fair complaint, but I have to go with the data that's available. The shifts were taken by the same polling company with the same question wording over a 10 year span, apparently. I think chancing that the statistics are relatively accurate is a risk I'm willing to take.

Secondly, even if a majority of people support "marriage equality", it does not follow that as many support "redefining marriage" or "purposefully depriving children of a mother or a father". For exemple, in France, where a same-sex marriage law is being debated, 60+% supported same-sex marriage in May 2012. Today, after months of opponents advocating the clear, pure, unconfused solution of no marriage, no adoption, nohow, that statistic is reversed: 39% support the projected law. I doubt it is very different here. So this support is very, very shallow. (I can link to the actual studies in French if you wish).

I agree that if you ask if someone 'supports marriage equality' versus if you ask if they 'redefine marriage' or 'deprive children of a mother and a father', you'll get different results. (Back to the 'pay attention to the wording when talking to people' issue.)

Please do link the actual studies. Maybe I can chug through it with an online translator. However, France just had an absolutely, positively amazing march against gay marriage. That alone is amazing, because it's freaking France. They pulled, what - some estimates say a million marchers? Tell me that didn't shock anyone.

Here's the thing. You said months of opponents 'advocating the clear, pure, unconfused solution of no marriage, no adoption, nohow'. But one thing that surprised me was that there was a noticeable turnout of gays siding with the marchers. See here. A quote from it:

“The rights of children trump the right to children,” was the catchphrase of protesters like Jean Marc, a French mayor who is also homosexual.

Even though France is known for its laissez faire attitude toward sex, pro-family leaders were quick to organize huge numbers. When President Hollande announced his intentions to legalize homosexual marriage last November, a demonstration against the proposal gathered 100,000 protesters. And then what started as a debate about homosexual rights changed to one about a child’s right to a mother and a father, and the numbers in opposition exploded and has come to include unlikely allies.

I suggest we could learn some lessons there. Do people here think Jean Marc and the rest weren't valuable in this fight? Do they think this march would have gotten the numbers and sympathy if it was a march against gays or even purely a march against gay marriage, rather than a march for a view of marriage that even some homosexuals found themselves sympathetic to?

One would almost suspect that in France, this issue was tackled very, very differently than it was here. If there really has been a collapse in support for gay marriage, then they achieved something we should consider copying immediately - and I don't think we're going to find that it was the methods Tony and Lydia seem sympathetic to.

It seems that most people are simply very confused about these things. The link shows how much people overestimate the prevalence of homosexuality; I don't think it helps having many high-profile homosexual/SSA/whatever Christians.

And in a democracy, having a nuanced position mostly means fewer people will understand it, and fewer people will support it.

I am not advocating complicated, hard to understand messages. But yeah, the overestimation of gays in the country is amazing. 25%? People watch too much TV.

Crude, I completely agree that the facts about "what homosexuals do" are relevant, but people nowadays know far more about those facts than they ever did. I don't need to have them recounted here. If the public at large wants to pretend that they just "hold hands," that's because de Nile isn't just a river in Africa. People who are very well-informed sexually (because our culture insists on making them so at a very early age) then _willingly cooperate_ in the hearts-n-flowers picture of homosexuals as just "people who love each other."

There may be fora in which that can be shocked out of them by graphic description. I prefer to keep the conversation fit for a lady's ears and to transfer the fact that those who are pro-homosexual rights *know perfectly well* what we're really talking about to the level of willingness to betray disgust rather than acceptance, and to imply that others should do the same.

But really, you illustrated the major problem here with your last line: you've given up. You've decided that we've lost, you don't think changing strategy or tactics will win, so... what, you'll support the proven losing methods? Better yet, you'll support the proven loser rather than change tactics or try something new, because... I don't know, it's better to commit yourself to a losing strategy than try a new one which may also lose?

You have mistaken me: I have not given up. I have committed to keeping on fighting even though I see no likely prospect for a win. I also do not oppose changing tactics. For example, I have been telling republicans in local office that they need to change tactics in the party, for years and years, because they are just hurting the effort for truth and being dumb about short-term goals as well. There is nothing wrong with re-packaging when the package (not the message) is itself the problem.

I am also in favor of using emotional appeals but only when those emotions are, themselves, the appropriate and rightful ones to begin with. I favor getting people riled up about patriotic things, because people ought to be patriotic. And I favor people getting indignant about things that are indignities. What I don't favor is appeals to emotionalist slogans that are just that, mere slogans that don't have any real substance behind them. This is an example of the sort of tool suited to the hands of deceivers and flatterers, not ours.

But whatever else is the case about what we can prudently expect might be good, successful tactics, none of that invalidates Lydia's main point here to begin with: anti-bullying campaigns are designed to foster a whole panoply of newspeak and newthink distortions of reality, and they should be opposed. If you want to turn your local anti-bullying campaign into something different, say a pro-decency, pro-Christian dignity program, go for it, that's going to do some good. Rip up the anti-bullying campaign's
premises from the ground up, and reformulate the whole notion to be pro-Christian in content even if not in name.

Tony,

You have mistaken me: I have not given up. I have committed to keeping on fighting even though I see no likely prospect for a win. I also do not oppose changing tactics. For example, I have been telling republicans in local office that they need to change tactics in the party, for years and years, because they are just hurting the effort for truth and being dumb about short-term goals as well. There is nothing wrong with re-packaging when the package (not the message) is itself the problem.

Well, great - then we agree. I'd like to know what tactics you want to change, what mistakes you think have been made. Seriously, please tell me. Maybe we're in agreement on those as well.

I am also in favor of using emotional appeals but only when those emotions are, themselves, the appropriate and rightful ones to begin with. I favor getting people riled up about patriotic things, because people ought to be patriotic. And I favor people getting indignant about things that are indignities. What I don't favor is appeals to emotionalist slogans that are just that, mere slogans that don't have any real substance behind them. This is an example of the sort of tool suited to the hands of deceivers and flatterers, not ours.

Again - great, I agree. What slogans and emotional appeals would you like to see on this issue? I think the French (for once) have something they can teach us here. If I took Jane correctly and there was a collapse in support for same-sex marriage, then we really have to analyze what they did right.

But whatever else is the case about what we can prudently expect might be good, successful tactics, none of that invalidates Lydia's main point here to begin with: anti-bullying campaigns are designed to foster a whole panoply of newspeak and newthink distortions of reality, and they should be opposed. If you want to turn your local anti-bullying campaign into something different, say a pro-decency, pro-Christian dignity program, go for it, that's going to do some good. Rip up the anti-bullying campaign's premises from the ground up, and reformulate the whole notion to be pro-Christian in content even if not in name.

Are you saying that one good response to 'anti-bullying campaigns' would be to offer one with 'pro-Christian content'? An alternative anti-bullying measure that we can say cracks down on school bullying and discrimination, but one which happens to be drawn up in a way that better reflects our own values?

If so, then we are again on the same page. But the initial reaction I got was not this. It was 'no, we should just oppose these anti-bullying laws, we have no need to pass any other laws or respond with legislation of our own, the whole idea is broken from the start' or words closer to that.

Tony, if THAT'S been your position this whole time then in that case I could not possibly agree more. This wasn't clear to me though, since what it seemed like was that Crude was advocating a change in tactics and you and Lydia were just saying no.

But honestly it looked to me like you just supported everything Crude has been supporting the whole time. You just nuanced it more, and Crude agreed that nuancing his position was what he needed anyway.

I'm not speaking for Crude here. I'm just telling you what it looked like to me. Crude may very well say no, that's not what he meant at all. But if this is your position Tony I agree with you.

Ha, Crude and I seem to be on the same page here.

Here is a study from 2012 showing 65% support for marriage, and 53% support for adoption; it also shows 58% support for adoption in june 2011. This one from a few weeks ago shows 39% support for marriage (the pollster notes that marriage necessarily includes adoption rights). It is from the same polling institute. So yes, a rather large drop. I have seen the same kind of results in other polls. Opposition to artificial insemination and IVF for lesbian couples runs at something like 65%.

Note also in the first document that the 1999 civil-union law drastically increased support for same-sex "marriage".

There will be a third demonstration this Sunday in Paris, though the government has attempted to impede it by all available means.

MarcAnthony, I'm not "just saying no." What's obvious to me is that Crude and I have rather radically different visions of the world. That may seem odd, since on some measures (e.g., a poll question, "Do you support homosexual 'marriage'?") he and I would probably come out alike. Probably on several poll questions. But if you read through the entire thread, as well as if you read what I write on this blog generally, I'd like to think that you would see a _positive_ vision. For example, even here I have suggested, briefly, but still suggested, how schools should be run and the kind of extremely broad approach they can and should take to expecting generally good behavior from children. Maybe "letting kids fight back, teaching a Christian worldview across the board, and kicking out real bullies [and cheaters and sexually misbehaving and...] en masse" doesn't sound like a very winsome "alternative anti-bullying program." In a sense, it's not meant to be. It's certainly not meant to be winsome, and it's not a "program" in the usually accepted sense. But that doesn't mean it isn't a *positive vision* of education, child-rearing, and what schools should be. And a positive vision of how to address bullying, as well.

As far as changing things, you know well from reading me in many places that I think conservatives need to change! I think they need to become more blunt on all sorts of issues, more clear-minded, further (if I may say so) to the right. And I think they almost certainly should home school and should raise their kids with beauty, innocence, scholarship, etc., etc. They should "teach young birds to fly," as C.S. Lewis said in _The Abolition of Man_. In doing so, they should be willing to be extremely clear and unequivocal in their rejection of perversion. When the "young birds" are old enough that discussing such things with them is even on the radar (and it needs to be put off for a good, long time), they should be taught a unified worldview that will allow them to understand why "discrimination" (that is, blocking from jobs, refusing to hire, etc.) is an extremely sensible idea even merely for perverse "orientation" and is _imperative_ for outright behavior. They should be taught to be what I might call intelligent, principled, and savvy culture warriors.

Crude's idea that this somehow means teaching your kids that self-identified homosexuals are always going to seem grotesque and dislikable interpersonally is just plain dumb. Nothing I've said has indicated that.

But, again, I certainly do have a positive vision.

It just happens to be a different one from his. For example, it doesn't involve saying, "Oh, they're going to pass a ______ law. I must quickly find something that *I* can call a _______ law so I don't just look like I'm against things. I must do this even if I think anything that anyone would recognize as a ________ law is a stupid idea at best and a dangerous idea at worst. But we must, must, must do this." That isn't my positive vision. I oppose that. Does that mean I'm "just saying no"? Of course not.

And it is indeed, unfortunately, a change of direction--back to our roots, as you might say--from where too many conservatives are now going.

MarcAnthony, I also feel (and this does frustrate me a little) that you've just ignored all the trouble I put into pointing out in this thread the history of the pro-family movement and the various ways in which it has *already* (indeed, for a long time) tried to incorporate those things that prima facie might not sound unreasonable in what Crude is suggesting. I talked about Focus on the Family for example. They adopted even under Dobson this sort of "kinder, gentler" approach to the homosexual rights movement and did indeed bring on-board people who had come out of the homosexual lifestyle as spokesmen. I'm not saying that to disparage Focus here, though I don't think it had all the effects they hoped. I'm saying it as a matter of setting the historical record straight. They, and other pro-family activist groups, have said that they "oppose discrimination against homosexuals." These sorts of moves which allegedly don't compromise our core moral principles but are meant to give us a better public face *have been done*, sometimes by groups that you've heard of as the most hard-line, conservative groups. It just wasn't publicized widely by the media, and you guys haven't studied and followed the history as I have.

In fact, that desire to be politically careful and not look "homophobic" is constantly before the minds of the leaders of an activist group like AFA. I can attest to that in the local fight they led that I was involved in several years ago. Those leading that fight carefully instructed us "troops on the ground" to emphasize the trasnssexual aspects of the law and not to look like we opposed homosexual rights! Even if we did. There was even one young woman who was interviewed randomly by the media and said something extremely obvious like that she "opposed the homosexual lifestyle," nothing "worse" than that, and I kid you not, there was head-banging in the command room that that "made us look homophobic."

Now, if you guys want to give these sweeping pronouncements like, "We need to change, because look at the opinion polls and look at the success the liberals are having, so we need to do something different," then you need to *listen* to people like me who have been politics-watching at the grassroots on this issue for a few decades and can tell you information you didn't know before about what has and hasn't been said and tried. Maybe you shouldn't be blaming conservatives' alleged failure to do x and y for our "losing" on this issue. Maybe, instead, you should stop this frantic search for a magical winning strategy, because maybe such things are impossible to predict and the things Crude is talking about have been tried and haven't been effective at making the public at large think differently. Maybe we need a different *meta-strategy* that involves less fretting over strategy and more nourishing the roots. Don't just ignore this stuff. I'm giving you facts.

I talked about Focus on the Family for example. They adopted even under Dobson this sort of "kinder, gentler" approach to the homosexual rights movement and did indeed bring on-board people who had come out of the homosexual lifestyle as spokesmen. I'm not saying that to disparage Focus here, though I don't think it had all the effects they hoped. I'm saying it as a matter of setting the historical record straight. They, and other pro-family activist groups, have said that they "oppose discrimination against homosexuals." These sorts of moves which allegedly don't compromise our core moral principles but are meant to give us a better public face *have been done*, sometimes by groups that you've heard of as the most hard-line, conservative groups. It just wasn't publicized widely by the media, and you guys haven't studied and followed the history as I have.

Focus on the Family is an interesting organization in general. Your "buddy" Dalrock has a post up pointing out how the head of their family formation focus group (I think that's the right group within them) has basically said that if Christian women cannot find good men, they'll just have babies out of wedlock because well golly... you can't expect Christian women to not have babies! With organizations like that on our side, who needs enemies? Focus on the Family seems to think hugging and out-tolerating the Left is the solution.

* I bring that up to point out in case someone wants to defend FoF that they seem to be dropping the ball across the board on social issues (with abortion perhaps an exception). They seem to be well past the point where someone can say they're generally good with a few blind spots.

I also don't know many religious conservatives (genuine ones) that like Dobson and people of his persuasion.

I liked and respected Dobson very much. Most of the worst from _my_ perspective (though perhaps not from yours, Mike, but we're not going to get into that) has happened since he retired, and that's been a very deliberate change of the organization. They've talked openly about how they are changing their emphases and directions, and I've been critical of that here at W4. For one thing, even practically, do we really _need_ another Christian organization for giving money to the poor abroad and talking about the environment? Focus had a specific so-con niche and now no longer fills it, scarcely even pretends to fill it. But these previous things I'm mentioniong were under Dobson, and I'm not even criticizing them all that harshly. I'm just saying it *was tried*, so people who say this is something conservatives aren't doing are historically wrong. Moreover, it's not clear to me that it had much of a positive effect.

though perhaps not from yours, Mike, but we're not going to get into that

I see it as a general abandonment of those principles. I could grudgingly look past that one issue as a blind spot if the indications were that it really was a loose canon in their organization.

I wasn't aware that Dobson had retired, and personally don't know enough to really have a strong opinion on him. That said, I was very angry with him when he nearly sabotaged Rand Paul's candidacy before he realized that he had nearly destroyed the candidacy of the actual conservative in that race and did an immediate, aggressive about face.

do we really _need_ another Christian organization for giving money to the poor abroad and talking about the environment?

Well, obviously we've made fatherless, poor children such a statistical oddity in the US that it would be a waste of money to devote resources to them. Sort of like giving money for Appalachian lepers. Who needs an organization for them? (*hushed voice* Please ignore the inner cities, trailer parks and many middle class homes....)

In fact, that desire to be politically careful and not look "homophobic" is constantly before the minds of the leaders of an activist group like AFA. I can attest to that in the local fight they led that I was involved in several years ago. Those leading that fight carefully instructed us "troops on the ground" to emphasize the trasnssexual aspects of the law and not to look like we opposed homosexual rights!

Conservatives did this with women and homosexuals in the military. Some of the problems you've cited such as privacy issues apply equally to both, but the fact is that a homosexual man is still capable of being a red-blooded, sturdy male serviceman his sexuality aside. Conservatives ignored this and tended to focus on gays instead of pointing out that every issue with gay men applied to women, and that women in the military had a host of severe issues gay men did not have. So in the end, we ended up with DADT being repealed, women going into combat arms and conservatives scratching their heads wondering why the Left got a two-fer.

But that is really the natural end result of this head in the sand approach. Wars are not won by ignoring a powerful nation's army and trying to defeat its junior allies instead. What conservatives are doing here is akin to trying to defeat Romania, Croatia, Finland and Spain and declare the Axis defeated.

MarcAnthony,

Yes, you read me right. :) We'll see what Tony has to say, hopefully.

Jane,

Here is a study from 2012 showing 65% support for marriage, and 53% support for adoption; it also shows 58% support for adoption in june 2011. This one from a few weeks ago shows 39% support for marriage (the pollster notes that marriage necessarily includes adoption rights). It is from the same polling institute. So yes, a rather large drop. I have seen the same kind of results in other polls. Opposition to artificial insemination and IVF for lesbian couples runs at something like 65%.

Alright. Well, first, I think this is generally encouraging news. However, I have some questions about this study. Not with the results, but with what I'm piecing together from them via translation, and with the presentation you're giving.

The most recent result shows 39% support for gay marriage with child adoption rights. 36% support for civil unions without adoption rights. 21% opposition to both. Assuming I haven't screwed up translation, that is. That's encouraging in a way. The problem is, it's also (based on what you gave me) new wording on this question - the previous polls were phrasing everything differently. I'm not going to pretend this necessarily makes a huge impact - in fact, mere 39% support for gay marriage as opposed to civil unions still shocks me. But when you change the wording, it becomes harder to clearly tell what's gone on with the support over time.

Note also in the first document that the 1999 civil-union law drastically increased support for same-sex "marriage".

I don't see this anywhere in the documents you provided. You could just as easily make the claim that civil unions are, right now, sapping support for gay marriage and gay adoption - 36% of the country is backing them in your latest poll.

There will be a third demonstration this Sunday in Paris, though the government has attempted to impede it by all available means.

Great, we'll see what happens there. I still stand in awe of what they pulled off with that first march.

Lydia,

Maybe "letting kids fight back, teaching a Christian worldview across the board, and kicking out real bullies [and cheaters and sexually misbehaving and...] en masse" doesn't sound like a very winsome "alternative anti-bullying program." In a sense, it's not meant to be. It's certainly not meant to be winsome, and it's not a "program" in the usually accepted sense. But that doesn't mean it isn't a *positive vision* of education, child-rearing, and what schools should be. And a positive vision of how to address bullying, as well.

I am all in favor of making appeals and pursuing change in non-legislative ways. In fact, I think one of the biggest modern problems we have is this habit of treating every problem that exists as a problem to be solved by legislation. But that problem happens to be the reality right now. You admit that your positive vision is 'not very winsome'. Well, we need something winsome. Anti-bullying laws have been passed in how many states now? Answer that, and you can answer in how many states 'a positive vision, and by that I mean offering a general worldview and some ideas of how to approach this, rather than a law' worked out.

As far as changing things, you know well from reading me in many places that I think conservatives need to change! I think they need to become more blunt on all sorts of issues, more clear-minded, further (if I may say so) to the right. And I think they almost certainly should home school and should raise their kids with beauty, innocence, scholarship, etc., etc. They should "teach young birds to fly," as C.S. Lewis said in _The Abolition of Man_. In doing so, they should be willing to be extremely clear and unequivocal in their rejection of perversion. When the "young birds" are old enough that discussing such things with them is even on the radar (and it needs to be put off for a good, long time), they should be taught a unified worldview that will allow them to understand why "discrimination" (that is, blocking from jobs, refusing to hire, etc.) is an extremely sensible idea even merely for perverse "orientation" and is _imperative_ for outright behavior.

Crude's idea that this somehow means teaching your kids that self-identified homosexuals are always going to seem grotesque and dislikable interpersonally is just plain dumb. Nothing I've said has indicated that.

I agree kids should be home schooled - that should be touted as the gold standard. Conservatives should be fighting for mandatory early graduation pathways in schools as well, if the student can pass appropriate tests. (Kind of shocked this isn't a bigger issue in a way.)

But unless I read you wrong, you just wrote that anyone who is same-sex inclined should, what... be blocked from being hired for jobs regardless of their behavior or stance? And you're not even limiting this (as you at least implied before) to sensitive same-sex jobs with youths, like perhaps a gym teacher? I think that's a mistake not just in a PR sense, but in a Christian moral sense. Go for it if you believe in it, I guess. You may well be in a considerable minority even among conservatives for all I know.

It just happens to be a different one from his. For example, it doesn't involve saying, "Oh, they're going to pass a ______ law. I must quickly find something that *I* can call a _______ law so I don't just look like I'm against things. I must do this even if I think anything that anyone would recognize as a ________ law is a stupid idea at best and a dangerous idea at worst. But we must, must, must do this." That isn't my positive vision. I oppose that. Does that mean I'm "just saying no"? Of course not.

Actually, yeah - it does mean you're just saying no. I appreciate your libertarian leanings and your vision of the world - but I didn't roll in here trying to suggest ways to advance that. I want to roll back gay marriage, and get people discussing sexuality in ways that may renew a sense of necessary responsibility and decency. I want people to start realizing that their sexual preferences and habits have a cultural and real and personal effect. I am not pursuing a Perfect Society, at least in the sense that I'm willing to deal with the culture and the public as they exist in order to make advances.

I'm sitting here discussing ways to win, ways to persuade people with regards to social conservative views. You're responding with ideas that you yourself say 'aren't winsome' and really aren't going to appeal to the public, and for which that isn't even a goal. That's not what we need.

I am tired of losing ground to liberals in these debates. Aren't you?

MarcAnthony, I also feel (and this does frustrate me a little) that you've just ignored all the trouble I put into pointing out in this thread the history of the pro-family movement and the various ways in which it has *already* (indeed, for a long time) tried to incorporate those things that prima facie might not sound unreasonable in what Crude is suggesting. I talked about Focus on the Family for example. They adopted even under Dobson this sort of "kinder, gentler" approach to the homosexual rights movement and did indeed bring on-board people who had come out of the homosexual lifestyle as spokesmen. I'm not saying that to disparage Focus here, though I don't think it had all the effects they hoped. I'm saying it as a matter of setting the historical record straight. They, and other pro-family activist groups, have said that they "oppose discrimination against homosexuals." These sorts of moves which allegedly don't compromise our core moral principles but are meant to give us a better public face *have been done*, sometimes by groups that you've heard of as the most hard-line, conservative groups. It just wasn't publicized widely by the media, and you guys haven't studied and followed the history as I have.

If Dobson was touting ex-gays, then again - that's not what I suggest they do. It's not as if you cannot screw up with a 'kinder, gentler approach' in my view; that's entirely possible to do. Further, saying that 'we oppose discrimination against homosexuals' is a positive thing, but it's only the barest step in the direction I'm talking about. Are you honestly getting the impression that I think if CPAC has a 'we are against discrimination of homosexuals' that that will turn the tide on all this?

In fact, that desire to be politically careful and not look "homophobic" is constantly before the minds of the leaders of an activist group like AFA. I can attest to that in the local fight they led that I was involved in several years ago. Those leading that fight carefully instructed us "troops on the ground" to emphasize the trasnssexual aspects of the law and not to look like we opposed homosexual rights! Even if we did. There was even one young woman who was interviewed randomly by the media and said something extremely obvious like that she "opposed the homosexual lifestyle," nothing "worse" than that, and I kid you not, there was head-banging in the command room that that "made us look homophobic."

This gets into a touchy area. I oppose gay marriage, civil unions (given the stated caveats), and I think same-sex sexual behavior is wrong on moral, religious and secular grounds. I am, by many definitions, therefore 'homophobic'. I don't care, and that doesn't give me any pause on holding or fighting for those positions. I am not concerned with 'not appearing homophobic' in that sense. That's just intellectual bullying.

I am opposed, pure and simply, to language which will turn off most people, people sitting on the fence, etc. I can't judge the soundness of the AFA's actions by a paraphrased quote from several years ago. It's entirely possible she said something that was going to reflect on them poorly.

Now, if you guys want to give these sweeping pronouncements like, "We need to change, because look at the opinion polls and look at the success the liberals are having, so we need to do something different," then you need to *listen* to people like me who have been politics-watching at the grassroots on this issue for a few decades and can tell you information you didn't know before about what has and hasn't been said and tried. Maybe you shouldn't be blaming conservatives' alleged failure to do x and y for our "losing" on this issue. Maybe, instead, you should stop this frantic search for a magical winning strategy, because maybe such things are impossible to predict and the things Crude is talking about have been tried and haven't been effective at making the public at large think differently. Maybe we need a different *meta-strategy* that involves less fretting over strategy and more nourishing the roots. Don't just ignore this stuff. I'm giving you facts.

What you're giving us are some anecdotes about 'what has been tried at the grass roots level' while acknowledging we probably never heard of this because there's been next to no media coverage of it and a good share of it hasn't been very public at all. What very public examples you are using, on the other hand, have typically been things that I think are mistaken - the 'kinder, gentler' Focus on the Family, as near as I can tell, offered up ex-gays and conversion therapy. I think the Michigan AFA's move was a mixed bag based on what you told me about it, but even that mixed bag actually accomplished something, whereas the response of 'pass no law!' hasn't really accomplished much of anything.

I look at a massive anti-gay-marriage march in France, and I see homosexuals - not even exclusively celibate ones! - having a front and center role. I see indications that in the wake of that march, support for gay adoption and gay marriage has dropped like a stone in France (with the caveats I mentioned earlier.) I see reason to believe they have done something right there. I see gun rights and gun ownership being absolutely hated by the media, and the NRA - in the wake of, quite possibly, the worst gun-related mass-massacre in the US - increasing their membership by hundreds of thousands and accomplishing major, major pushback against gun control advocates, after making 'alternative laws' part of their response strategy. I see liberal politicians who *opposed* gay marriage, or signed the DOMA, being able to come out as being in favor of gay marriage in the span of a decade - apparently they worried more about convincing people and handling the issue intelligently rather than fretting over whether anyone would get confused by their stances.

I would like to have some of their success. I do not think it's wise to sacrifice chances at that success because it entails some tactical compromise and, darn it, we should only advocate the purest positions and understandings. I see under-30 support for gay marriage at 81% according to the latest poll. I would like to take actions that are more likely to make that drop.

Buddy, you say I'm offering anecdotes. You're offering slogans and yearning talk about "wanting more success." People can take their pick, I suppose.

And, no, I didn't mean block all homosexually oriented people from all jobs. I was summarizing something I've said at much greater length up-thread. Please, I don't have to repeat myself every time. Considering that you never acknowledged a single reasonable point I made in that area but just indicated you think homosexually oriented people should be full candidates for the priesthood and pastorate and otherwise kept sloganizing about "being opposed to discrimination," there's certainly no point in my repeating myself to you. After all, I *don't actually care* whether you think open homosexuals should serve in the military or be Boy Scout leaders. If you do, then those are not very conservative positions by the standpoint of, oh, ten political minutes ago. Yet you want conservatives to go around telling the world without qualification that they oppose discrimination against homosexuals! And you regard that as a kind of pons asinorum of conservative winsomeness, despite the fact that, taken literally and in the unqualified terms in which I gather we're supposed to state it, it would have implied all along support for those hiring decisions. So you'll excuse me if I'm such a so-called "purist" that I don't think your advice is what we're looking for.

just indicated you think homosexually oriented people should be full candidates for the priesthood and pastorate and otherwise kept sloganizing about "being opposed to discrimination,"

Why stop there and not say that literally no sexual orientation issue is a disqualification? Oriented toward dead children of the same sex? No problem. We're all sinners.

Oh, and on the matter of whether Focus somehow didn't "do it right" because they featured, heaven forbid, formerly homosexual people who had allegedly changed and married members of the opposite sex and because they (I gather--haven't checked this out recently) advocated conversion therapy, what if they believed that that worked? What, are we now _also_ supposed to just shut up about therapies even if we think they work because they are politically incorrect and anathematized by the left? No, I'm not initiating or encouraging a debate about conversion therapy, because frankly I don't know enough to evaluate it. But the fact that California outlawed it recently hardly tells against it.

Lewis warned long ago about teaching people to evaluate propositions based not on whether they are true or not but on whether they have some other, utilitarian feature--being progressive or expedient, for example.

When the response to Dobson's use of formerly active homosexuals is to say that it was somehow un-strategic because it used "ex-gays and conversion therapy," that's a perfect example. Because it's obviously not saying, "Wait, what if they were offering people something that really could help them?" Rather, it's just, "Oh, the left thinks conversion therapy is horrible and hateful." So basically, you want Christians to have spokesmen who are now faithful but used to live the gay lifestyle, but only the *right ones*. Not any of those ex-gays who say they profited from conversion therapy. No, they're not PC enough, so _they_ aren't the kind of public "voices" we should be looking for. It's fine to ignore _their_ existence. That's pretty telling about the effects of overly strategic thinking.

MarcAnthony, I also feel (and this does frustrate me a little) that you've just ignored all the trouble I put into pointing out in this thread the history of the pro-family movement and the various ways in which it has *already* (indeed, for a long time) tried to incorporate those things that prima facie might not sound unreasonable in what Crude is suggesting. I talked about Focus on the Family for example. They adopted even under Dobson this sort of "kinder, gentler" approach to the homosexual rights movement and did indeed bring on-board people who had come out of the homosexual lifestyle as spokesmen. I'm not saying that to disparage Focus here, though I don't think it had all the effects they hoped.

I don't think Crude was talking about a "kinder, gentler" approach, though. He's talking about an approach that will convince people, and he's said repeatedly that he's willing to discuss what that means, but part of it is not letting liberals control the rhetoric. I agree-saying we're for discrimination against homosexuals, no matter how nuanced we make it, is not going to convince anybody. That's not to say I don't agree with it.

Saying, "No, I'm not for discrimination, I'm against giving a small percentage of the population the right to put themselves into obviously inappropriate situations" is just as accurate, and certainly not kinder or gentler. I grant that it's probably too wordy, but then I just came up with it on the spot.

Lydia,

Buddy, you say I'm offering anecdotes. You're offering slogans and yearning talk about "wanting more success." People can take their pick, I suppose.

I am not 'saying', that is precisely what you're doing. What's more, I've pointed at examples - successful examples - of issues and groups that have had success, despite considerable media opposition, despite starting out with public opposition. You, meanwhile, seem to think about convincing people as a far, far secondary concern as opposed to never altering a message, or heck, even actively trying to appeal to people who may not wholly be on board with you already.

And, no, I didn't mean block all homosexually oriented people from all jobs. I was summarizing something I've said at much greater length up-thread. Please, I don't have to repeat myself every time. Considering that you never acknowledged a single reasonable point I made in that area but just indicated you think homosexually oriented people should be full candidates for the priesthood and pastorate and otherwise kept sloganizing about "being opposed to discrimination," there's certainly no point in my repeating myself to you.

You've said that having same-sex attraction is acceptable grounds for firing someone. You haven't limited this just to more reasonable cases like 'coach who will be in the men's locker room' or the like, nor have you limited this to outspoken people. Just plain having SSA, period, is something you presented as reasonable grounds to fire someone, practically without regard to any context. If you think otherwise, you haven't defended that.

As for the bar on people with SSA in the priesthood, I frankly support the current bar on that for a variety of reasons. I am hesitant to say it completely disqualifies someone for the priesthood or pastorate, if they are celibate and uphold Christian/Church teaching on such - partly because I do not know the point at which a temptation should become a barrier to such a thing for a man.

After all, I *don't actually care* whether you think open homosexuals should serve in the military or be Boy Scout leaders. If you do, then those are not very conservative positions by the standpoint of, oh, ten political minutes ago. Yet you want conservatives to go around telling the world without qualification that they oppose discrimination against homosexuals!

Without qualification? Where did I say this? I oppose gay marriage, I oppose civil unions, I think same-sex sexual behavior (and quite a lot of opposite-sex sexual behavior) should be discouraged. I 'discriminate' in the technical sense of the word. I know better than to offer myself up as 'supporting disrimination'. I thought 'don't ask, don't tell' was a good idea - I question whether it would have been politically sustainable, and on those grounds it may have been better to oppose it. I recognize these issues are complicated. With boy scouts, I think 'open homosexuals' should be practically excluded, since I think the only leaders should be parents, and the only parents should be people who at the very least have normal heterosexual desires.

So you'll excuse me if I'm such a so-called "purist" that I don't think your advice is what we're looking for.

Who's "we"? People who don't care a whit about actually having social or political success on these issues and are apparently content to have 95% of the population against them so long as they can cling to purity not only on these issues, but of society generally with the remaining small group? Great. I'm not going to convince people like that. Now, people who are actually interested in fighting a cultural war and are concerned with winning and making gains? Those are people I may actually make a reasonable case to.

Oh, and on the matter of whether Focus somehow didn't "do it right" because they featured, heaven forbid, formerly homosexual people who had allegedly changed and married members of the opposite sex and because they (I gather--haven't checked this out recently) advocated conversion therapy, what if they believed that that worked? What, are we now _also_ supposed to just shut up about therapies even if we think they work because they are politically incorrect and anathematized by the left? No, I'm not initiating or encouraging a debate about conversion therapy, because frankly I don't know enough to evaluate it. But the fact that California outlawed it recently hardly tells against it.

If they believe that works, fine. If they want to fight for that, fine. But that is then off into a different fight, even if it's still under the general heading of 'gay and sexual issues'. If I am trying to build up opposition to gay marriage, that is what I am focused on. Not 'legitimizing conversion therapy' - that is an option that I will either bring up or not bring up based on the public mood at the time. And if the public is largely opposed to it or has a negative view of it that I don't think can be easily fixed in the time and context of the debate that's under way, I will weigh against it at that time.

When the response to Dobson's use of formerly active homosexuals is to say that it was somehow un-strategic because it used "ex-gays and conversion therapy," that's a perfect example. Because it's obviously not saying, "Wait, what if they were offering people something that really could help them?" Rather, it's just, "Oh, the left thinks conversion therapy is horrible and hateful." So basically, you want Christians to have spokesmen who are now faithful but used to live the gay lifestyle, but only the *right ones*. Not any of those ex-gays who say they profited from conversion therapy. No, they're not PC enough, so _they_ aren't the kind of public "voices" we should be looking for. It's fine to ignore _their_ existence. That's pretty telling about the effects of overly strategic thinking.

As someone who has argued in this thread that gays should keep their SSA utterly silent, even if they're celibate and support Church teaching, you're really not a person who can play the 'ignore their existence' card. Nor am I saying to stop fighting for 'ex-gays and conversion therapy' if you believe it works. Hey, maybe it does - I actually think such therapy has some value. But it is a different fight, even if it's broadly related to the subject of gay marriage or the morality of sodomy. Just like I am entirely in favor of promoting intelligent design and questioning reductionist, materialist Darwinism - but that does not commit me to a fight about the legitimacy of the Omphalos hypothesis or baraminology, nor do I have to become a standard bearer for either.

Likewise, if I am fighting against gay marriage, if I am trying to advance the socon cause there, that does not immediately commit me to a libertarian desire to be able to fire people I suspect of having SSA. Maybe I agree, maybe I disagree. But it's a different fight, and deserves a different arena unless advocating it will help the cause against SSM.

MarcAnthony,

I don't think Crude was talking about a "kinder, gentler" approach, though. He's talking about an approach that will convince people, and he's said repeatedly that he's willing to discuss what that means, but part of it is not letting liberals control the rhetoric. I agree-saying we're for discrimination against homosexuals, no matter how nuanced we make it, is not going to convince anybody. That's not to say I don't agree with it.

Saying, "No, I'm not for discrimination, I'm against giving a small percentage of the population the right to put themselves into obviously inappropriate situations" is just as accurate, and certainly not kinder or gentler. I grant that it's probably too wordy, but then I just came up with it on the spot.

Yes, exactly. I am not trying to appeal to determined liberals - liberals will hate the message I'm putting out, just like they continued to hate the NRA when they made the 'it's not guns, it's our sick movie/game culture' play. But you know what? That worked for them, and it worked fast.

I asked Tony to tell me what slogans he would, what laws he'd advocate, what approaches he thinks we should focus on because I really do want to actually have success here, and fix what's broken. Again I point out that France, if those polls are right, has just experienced a collapse in support for gay marriage and gay adoption. Maybe they did something right that we can emulate. And maybe we've done a few things wrong in the past.

I haven't investigated the France situation, and I frankly doubt that the data are available to answer the questions I have. But I have to really wonder if all or even most of these homosexuals marching against homosexual "marriage" are actually in favor of laws banning homosexual adoption or even widespread spontaneous refusal of adoption agencies to place with homosexuals. Or other ways in which homosexual "families" might not be accepted as families. Seriously? Because this is all being portrayed in extremely rosy terms, and I have to admit to being a bit dubious.

As for the NRA, yeah, my baloney-meter goes off when it's implied that somehow they had a massive rise in membership because they advocated banning violent video games. Um, yeah, I can just imagine all the people sitting around.

Day 1: "Y'know, I don't think I'd join the NRA. It's not that I'm against guns, it's just that they seem so *negative*."

Day 2: "What? The NRA says they're in favor of stopping violent video games and movies? Now you're talkin'! At last, they are supporting a real _plan_. Where can I get an NRA membership card?"

I don't buy it. So, yeah, I'm not impressed by your...anecdotes.

And honestly, why the heck would I listen to strategy advice from someone so lockstep that he casually tossed off the claim that Richard Mourdock made a blunder? Like we're all just expected to agree with that without question. It's oh, so simple.

MarcAnthony, if I were actually asked a question about "discrimination against homosexuals" by someone whom I suspected to touchy about it and whom I wanted to influence, I probably wouldn't say _either_ "I favor discrimination against homosexuals" _or_ your suggested phrase. I'd probably say something like, "Well, I do think there are jobs, activities, and living situations where it's important that all the people involved be heterosexual." Then when they ask for examples, I would give them what I consider to be good paradigm examples.

Nobody's going to like that if they're already inclined to be really touchy. But it's utterly clear and simple without being said in any insulting manner. And someone who is fence-sitting might find the examples intriguing.

Also, the phrase "discrimination against homosexuals" often (usually) means something about openly and actively homosexual people. If that were clearly what was meant, I would probably talk about how I found it understandable that a person renting his property would not want to rent to couples who made it clear to him that they would be using his property for what he considered to be sexually immoral actions. I would also add something about how this should also apply to renting to unmarried heterosexual couples.

I might also say something about how I think it makes sense that a Christian small business owner would want a particular atmosphere in his company. (Implication which doesn't have to be stated outright: Having a flaming out-and-proud whose lover picks him up affectionately every day from work isn't going to foster the atmosphere the Christian car dealer is understandably looking for.)

In other words, I'd try to get to the concrete examples pretty fast. I wouldn't spend much time trying to find a super-tactful or roundabout way to characterize my own position in broad, general terms.

Lydia,

I haven't investigated the France situation, and I frankly doubt that the data are available to answer the questions I have. But I have to really wonder if all or even most of these homosexuals marching against homosexual "marriage" are actually in favor of laws banning homosexual adoption or even widespread spontaneous refusal of adoption agencies to place with homosexuals. Or other ways in which homosexual "families" might not be accepted as families. Seriously? Because this is all being portrayed in extremely rosy terms, and I have to admit to being a bit dubious.

Go read the quotes for yourself. When you have an openly gay mayor saying things like "The rights of children trump the rights to children" and some organized gays explicitly endorsing the idea that children should grow up with a mother and a father, not two mothers or two fathers, that seems like something to take notice of. When the gay presence in an anti-gay-marriage march is sizable enough that it's getting reported on, that's something to take notice of.

I already aired some of my problems with the data Jane cited, but there's enough there to at least warrant some cautious optimism and encourage some research and consideration. Why are you so opposed to the idea that it's possible there are better methods to fight against gay marriage? Or is it that you don't care if those other methods are more successful if it doesn't involve a package deal where everyone either agrees with utter dedicated to your view of how these issues should be dealt with culturally?

As for the NRA, yeah, my baloney-meter goes off when it's implied that somehow they had a massive rise in membership because they advocated banning violent video games. Um, yeah, I can just imagine all the people sitting around.

No, what the NRA did was successfully change the argument from 'What can we do to stop crimes like this? Ban guns!' to 'What can we do to stop crimes like this? Attack a perverse culture!' They didn't stonewall and try to simply say 'no, no, no' to the anti-gun laws. Instead they offered up other explanations for gun violence, ones that had nothing to do with gun ownership, AND they defended gun ownership like crazy. Overnight they changed the terms of the debate.

Meanwhile, they've spent over a decade doing more than just saying 'We oppose gun control!' They make sure to make positive cases in language people care about. They talk about God-given rights and duties. They talk about equalizing force. In a culture that gets worked up over female issues, they made a big push about the right of women to defend themselves from attackers (and the liberals who tried to attack them on this got burned, BADLY.) They did quite a lot we could learn lessons from. THAT contributed to their, while under heavy fire, gaining hundreds of thousands of new members. Also, I see they have a black spokesperson now. Let me guess: a big mistake? It's racial pandering? If people are going to say the NRA is racist, well, let them say that, only idiots will buy it, they shouldn't be actively trying to defuse that by selecting the spokesman they did?

Also, the gay marriage people themselves took steps we could learn from. While you talk about the importance of not confusing our base and never altering our message, politicians embraced civil unions while opposing gay marriage until the time was right. As a result, they helped make gains for themselves, and in pretty short order. They took the crazier aspects of gay culture (that they nevertheless approve of) and obscured it as much as they could. And, frankly, they played rope-a-dope with a lot of conservatives, doing what they could to egg them on to make them seem like bullies picking on people who they despised regardless of how they acted or conducted themselves, due a condition that they had possibly through no fault of their own.

Yes, we have things to learn from them as far as media savvy goes. I can point at successes all over the place. And no, what I am saying is not an anecdote - I'm pointing at established track records. Not 'I was at a meeting years ago and heard this'.

And honestly, why the heck would I listen to strategy advice from someone so lockstep that he casually tossed off the claim that Richard Mourdock made a blunder? Like we're all just expected to agree with that without question. It's oh, so simple.

Lockstep with what? Common sense? Recognizing the obvious?

Yes, it is pretty simple. I notice you're not questioning whether Akin made a blunder. Hey, it's just a coincidence that the money he made the comment he did about rape, his poll numbers sank. Correlation does not equal causation and all that.

And Mourdock? Sure, he got slaughtered in the press for the comment, he was made a national joke and he lost his election. But because we agree with his sentiment broadly, we can't say that he made a mistake in saying what he did, when he did, the way he did it? That attitude kills us. It's bad enough to make the mistake to begin with, but not to learn from it? That's insanity.

Note that I'm not saying Mourdock should have become pro-choice, or even that he should have changed his actual stances on abortion. He said something dumb that he shouldn't have said in the situation he was in, and certainly not the way he said it. Do you object to the very idea of being savvy and well-spoken in politics? Do you think planning and figuring out ways to win more support, as opposed to just 'stating what you think is true, as bluntly as you wish, with no care of how anyone takes what you say', is a mistake?

MarcAnthony, if I were actually asked a question about "discrimination against homosexuals" by someone whom I suspected to touchy about it and whom I wanted to influence, I probably wouldn't say _either_ "I favor discrimination against homosexuals" _or_ your suggested phrase. I'd probably say something like, "Well, I do think there are jobs, activities, and living situations where it's important that all the people involved be heterosexual." Then when they ask for examples, I would give them what I consider to be good paradigm examples.

Nobody's going to like that if they're already inclined to be really touchy. But it's utterly clear and simple without being said in any insulting manner. And someone who is fence-sitting might find the examples intriguing.

Excellent, well said. No argument here.

Crude, I've seen what Mourdock said. I see no "bad way" he said it, and as reports had it, he was responding to questioning, so he didn't bring it up out of the blue. The "when" was chosen for him by the question asked. What he said was just clear and not harsh; he didn't say anything dumb. And, no, I don't think "God" is some kind of taboo word and that saying that a child conceived in the course of a rape is a gift from God, or bringing up God at all, is a blunder or dumb or contrary to common sense. At all. You just sound like a press-parrot. Your sort is always wise after the fact and ready to throw anybody under the bus if he doesn't win, win, win. Really, there's not much more to be said between us.

Are you saying that one good response to 'anti-bullying campaigns' would be to offer one with 'pro-Christian content'?

Not quite. Not an "anti-bullying campaign with Christian content", but a general pressure for Christian standards (that happens to include bullying) with general focus on behavior insofar as that comes before the school venue.

I am all in favor of making appeals and pursuing change in non-legislative ways. In fact, I think one of the biggest modern problems we have is this habit of treating every problem that exists as a problem to be solved by legislation. But that problem happens to be the reality right now. You admit that your positive vision is 'not very winsome'.

My idea is to fight with things that go much deeper than the superficial aspect of the "problem", but not necessarily in a way that appears to be directly responsive to THIS BRIGHT NEW "PROBLEM". If the liberals are trying to foist an anti-bullying program on us, pull the rug out from underneath the entire concept and its false premises by getting deeper: in reality, bullying is a failure to act with Christian charity between children. The proper location of the authority to deal with misbehaving children is at the family and school level, and they DON'T need a legal framework to deal with it, to tell them that bullying is illegal. So instead of pushing an anti-bullying law, instead push a campaign of "empowerment for teachers" which, instead of laying down new obligations at high level, removes the walls, obstacles and problems which prevent teachers and principles from exercising their proper authority to teach Christian kindness. Although at home and with friends I will call it Christian virtue, out in the street of course I will call it by another name, like "common courtesy and decency" or something. (My county has a monthly "program" which is a "virtue of the month" in which they highlight things like respect, obedience, kindness, etc. I can piggy-back off those.) What I won't do is buy into the false premises that bullying is a state matter that needs state enforcers as such. Or that bullying for reasons of sexual appearance is something that needs a special standard of intolerance compared to bullying because someone is small for their age, has acne, or likes the wrong team. At the same time, behind the scenes I will be homeschooling, will be pushing for getting rid of state secular public schools, pushing for tax credits for the costs of school tuition, pushing for competition between school systems, and generally undermining the notion of a "system" of education that casts standards of behavior at a level far removed from my neighborhood. While I don't need there to be a current push for an anti-bullying program to push for said Christian standards of behavior in schools, an anti-bullying law effort would provide an apt moment to attempt to try to pull the rug out from underneath by undermining its premises in the public forum.

No, what the NRA did was successfully change the argument from 'What can we do to stop crimes like this? Ban guns!' to 'What can we do to stop crimes like this? Attack a perverse culture!' They didn't stonewall and try to simply say 'no, no, no' to the anti-gun laws. Instead they offered up other explanations for gun violence, ones that had nothing to do with gun ownership, AND they defended gun ownership like crazy. Overnight they changed the terms of the debate.

So, Crude, what "change the terms of the debate" do you offer for gay "marriage"? What do you propose that is going to make a difference? Show us a prospect that looks likely to work.

Lydia,

Crude, I've seen what Mourdock said. I see no "bad way" he said it, and as reports had it, he was responding to questioning, so he didn't bring it up out of the blue. The "when" was chosen for him by the question asked. What he said was just clear and not harsh; he didn't say anything dumb. And, no, I don't think "God" is some kind of taboo word and that saying that a child conceived in the course of a rape is a gift from God, or bringing up God at all, is a blunder or dumb or contrary to common sense. At all. You just sound like a press-parrot. Your sort is always wise after the fact and ready to throw anybody under the bus if he doesn't win, win, win. Really, there's not much more to be said between us.

You do not distill down into a 30 second response what cannot be distilled down into a 30 second response. Yes, what Mourdock said was dumb and it was a blunder by any reasonable measure. If he found the question too complicated to properly explain there, he should have said as much. It hurt him, badly, in the election. It isn't "God" that was the problem - and when the Democrats tried to take "God" out of their platform, they were rightly attacked for it. Another blunder and mistake on their part.

But hey, you've made one thing clear: you do not care about actually changing people's minds or even winning elections or votes. You regard criticizing candidates who made dumb moves as 'throwing under the bus' if they're ideologically pure, not just on these single issues, but across the board. The idea that they made mistakes that they or others should learn from is verboten. Which, really, is quite a lot of the problem here: you care more about defending the like-minded at all costs than actually getting results. Good luck with that. At the rate we're going, in a couple decades, it'll easy to look after all the like-minded people in the country. You'll probably be able to fit them all into a single gymnasium.

Unless, of course, people get tired of losing and decide that they're going to communicate in ways and champion laws and frame issues in ways that are actually effective, convince people and get results. At which point, feel free to speak up and denounce the new law that limits adoption to a married heterosexual couple, because one of its most vocal proponents happened to be a celibate gay and the fact that you know what his sexuality is is just infuriating.

Tony,

Not quite. Not an "anti-bullying campaign with Christian content", but a general pressure for Christian standards (that happens to include bullying) with general focus on behavior insofar as that comes before the school venue.

Great, a general pressure and a general focus on behavior. No, seriously, that is a great thing to emphasize if what we're talking about is how to advance basic culture changes.

And what do you do when voters are asked 'Do you think we should pass a new law which punishes bullies, or do you think we should attempt to pray the problem away' and they overwhelmingly go with the former? Say "Well at least I went down fighting"?

My idea is to fight with things that go much deeper than the superficial aspect of the "problem", but not necessarily in a way that appears to be directly responsive to THIS BRIGHT NEW "PROBLEM". If the liberals are trying to foist an anti-bullying program on us, pull the rug out from underneath the entire concept and its false premises by getting deeper: in reality, bullying is a failure to act with Christian charity between children. The proper location of the authority to deal with misbehaving children is at the family and school level, and they DON'T need a legal framework to deal with it, to tell them that bullying is illegal. So instead of pushing an anti-bullying law, instead push a campaign of "empowerment for teachers" which, instead of laying down new obligations at high level, removes the walls, obstacles and problems which prevent teachers and principles from exercising their proper authority to teach Christian kindness. Although at home and with friends I will call it Christian virtue, out in the street of course I will call it by another name, like "common courtesy and decency" or something.

'Removes the walls, obstacles, and problems'? Then you're talking legislation again. Which one is it? Are you making a general cultural push, or are you trying to pass a competing law?

If you're talking about a competing law, you're saying what I'm saying - even if YOUR law is substantially different in content from the law you're competing with. If you're not talking about a competing law, you're talking about a cultural push - which is laudable, but it's a non-response to the law scenario.

So, Crude, what "change the terms of the debate" do you offer for gay "marriage"? What do you propose that is going to make a difference? Show us a prospect that looks likely to work.

For starters, let's look at how they handled it in France. So far, from what I've read, it looks like they shifted their arguments from an 'anti-gay' argument to 'pro-family', almost exclusively - to the point where they actually got gays supporting them, because many of those gays grew up in families with mothers and fathers. At least one of them grew up in a lesbian household and felt damaged for it. Argue that even a gay child deserves a mother and a father both. Ask critics if they regard mothers as 'optional' when it comes to raising a family.

Right now, it looks like that kind of approach - and this is just one idea, one example - paid off well in France, and may have paid off quickly at that. Do you think their march - their march with possibly a million people in freaking FRANCE of all places - was a mistake? Do you think their message is wrong, because they relied in part on the voices of gays who agreed that a family should have a mother and a father?

Tony,

You asked me what I'd change in terms of approach on this issue. Here's another example.

There's a singer by the name of Michelle Shocked. I never heard of her until recently. Apparently she's a born-again Christian. Well, she had an on stage rant against homosexuals in San Francisco. I'll pull some choice quotes. Warning, I suppose there's graphic language there. Plus it's Huffington.

"I live in fear," Shocked said, as reported by SFist, "that the world will be destroyed if gays are allowed to marry."

"You can go on Twitter and say Michelle Shocked said ‘God hates fags,'" the 51-year-old alternative-funk musician told the crowd, according to Queerty.

So, tell me. Does anyone here think Michelle Shocked just help the anti-gay-marriage cause? Is anyone here of the attitude "woo, hey, she went onstage and blasted gays - score one for Team Anti-Gay-Marriage"?

But I have to really wonder if all or even most of these homosexuals marching against homosexual "marriage" are actually in favor of laws banning homosexual adoption or even widespread spontaneous refusal of adoption agencies to place with homosexuals. Or other ways in which homosexual "families" might not be accepted as families.

Well then you would be surprised, because that is exactly what they are marching against. Currently, only (married) couples and, rarely, single people can adopt in France, so it is not a question of "banning homosexual adoption".

And the slogans for the march are "made in Papa+Maman", "un père, une mère, c'est élémentaire"(a father, a mother, that's easy to understand/elementary), "papa, maman, y'a pas mieux pour un enfant" (mom, dad, nothing better for a child), etc... If homosexuals supporting the march supported same-sex pairs adopting, they would be completely schizophrenic. No one on the political scene today in France is suggesting opening up adoption without opening up marriage.

Crude,

Your point about the question being slightly different is valid-- however, I think my point stands:

1) support for homosexual adoption has dropped enormously (58% to 39%).

2) when you let people know what marriage would imply in the law, they no longer support it (hence the "shallow" support).

Of course, statistics only go so far.

Another point: in French law, politics, even in the popular psyche, there is currently NO question of opening up adoption without marriage. This is very different from what happens in the US, and you need to take it into account when looking at the data.

'Removes the walls, obstacles, and problems'? Then you're talking legislation again. Which one is it? Are you making a general cultural push, or are you trying to pass a competing law?

No law even needs to be passed. Most aggressive bullying could be stopped if some conservative prosecutor or state attorney general would swoop in with criminal charges on a public school official who violated a victim's right of self-defense. Zero tolerance is already deprivation of civil rights under color of authority since both state law and SCOTUS precedent affirm a lawful right to self-defense. Any bully who gets physical automatically is a violent criminal and state law supercedes school policy.

Emotional bullying is another issue, but a lot of that is already a form of harassment that is criminal. Most cases of that could be solved if the local authorities would simply enforce the law and make an example out of a few bullies.

Jane, but in that case, you beat me to it in your later comment: The situation is vastly, vastly different than it has been in America for many decades. The homosexual rights movement in the U.S. was pro-homosexual-adoption long before homosexual "marriage" was even on the radar.

Nor is this a matter of the conservatives somehow having some rhetorical magic in France that they lack in America. It's just a cultural difference across the board. In the U.S., the homosexual rights activists got homosexual adoption, parenthood, and "families" accepted (via civil unions, among other things, but also just adoption generally) well _before_ broaching the marriage issue.

It's not as though if we just could think of some brilliant rhetorical thing to say, homosexuals in Boston would come out and march in support of Catholic Charities, which was driven out of Boston because of non-discrimination laws and their refusal to give children to homosexuals to adopt.

Presumably, the reason the "children deserve a father and mother" thing is having more effect in France is because more people in France than in America, including more homosexuals, actually have believed all along that children need a father and a mother! That idea hasn't yet been undermined there as far as here in the culture at large. This isn't just a matter of some clever political strategy the conservatives in France have thought of now to oppose homosexual "marriage" that conservatives in America haven't yet dreamed up.

But hey, you've made one thing clear: you do not care about actually changing people's minds or even winning elections or votes. You regard criticizing candidates who made dumb moves as 'throwing under the bus' if they're ideologically pure, not just on these single issues, but across the board.

No, I just *disagree* with you that Mourdock said something dumb. As for refusing to answer the question, I think _that_ would have been a worse move. It was a question posed in a debate. That's part of what happens in a political debate--you do your best to give the short version of your positions. Nor is it impossible to give a good short version of one's answer to the question of whether it should be legal to abort babies conceived in rape. He didn't need to refuse to answer the question. I don't think he gave a dumb or blundering answer. It sounded like a good answer.

But to you, it's axiomatic that if he lost he must have done something dumb. That characterizes your whole approach here. And it's also axiomatic to you that if some group is doing well, they must have come up with some smart political strategy, and then you go fossicking around to conjecture what it could be. Your conclusions about these things are sometimes quite implausible, to put it nicely--as when you attribute the NRA's membership gain to their attack on video games rather than to a far more *obvious* sufficient cause, namely, the leftists' hysterical anti-gun moves, talk, and laws in the wake of the Connecticut shootings. As when you assume that conservatives in France must be "doing something better" than conservatives in America. When American conservatives have been calling their groups "pro-family" for umpteen years and have been emphasizing that children need a mother and father, crying it from the mountaintops. It just happens to be that they aren't heeded. But to you, it's always gotta be, "They must be doing something right that we're not doing, if only we could find out what it is." "He must have done something wrong, he must have blundered, because he lost."

This is just shallow thinking, even in political terms. It's out of touch with reality in some very real and practical ways. It sees political events only in terms of one set of narrow categories.

So far, from what I've read, it looks like they shifted their arguments from an 'anti-gay' argument to 'pro-family', almost exclusively - to the point where they actually got gays supporting them, because many of those gays grew up in families with mothers and fathers. At least one of them grew up in a lesbian household and felt damaged for it. Argue that even a gay child deserves a mother and a father both. Ask critics if they regard mothers as 'optional' when it comes to raising a family.

But that won't work here in America, for two reasons. One is that in America bourgeois normalcy is defined partly as "having a family", meaning that the push for gay marriage is a push to extend the advantages of taking part in the normal bourgeois current of American life to a currently categorically excluded group. In America you really almost aren't seen as "doing it right" without living this lifestyle. The inevitable riposte to a pro-family argument would be that gays are trying to have families and live out "conservative values", the bigots just won't let them.

The second, which is kind of in tension with the first and has arisen partly as a reaction to it, is that America is just more radical than France on the questions of family and children. You certainly won't find anyone in America, gay or no, saying that children "deserve" a mother or father--as though children who didn't have one were deficient in some manner. You won't find too many even willing to consider the idea that children growing up in lesbian households are "damaged" for it.

This method has had success in France perhaps because in France, gays don't feel marginalized or disadvantaged in any way by being excluded from bourgeois normalcy as it is defined here in America, which makes sense because it isn't America, but it does mean that here the hurdles are a bit higher. Ironically, France might be less liberal by virtue of being more leftist.

On bullying in particular, and laws to deal with it, a large part of the problem is that bullying is viewed as a problem that must be solved with some plan or another. But the truth is that there is just no "solution" to bullying. Conservatives should point this out, while asking what particular cases are supposed to be driving the push for a "bullying law" and investigating whatever particular institutional failures or oversights occurred in those cases that allowed the bullying to take place and cause whatever tragic eventuality. These laws are more a (probably unintentional) attempt to change the targets of the bullies. Instead of bullying the gays, bully the "homophobes" or something. They're evil anyway.

It plays into the question of discrimination. It is possible, in theory, to design some perfect social arrangement whereby no one is discriminated against unjustly. In practice, it ain't gonna happen, and society is going to "go overboard" in some sense.

Ah, Matt, we're in agreement on something. Now you can join the "party of no" on this thread. Allegedly, we are guaranteeing a conservative loss in the country if we point out that there is no solution to bullying and that sweeping plans are a bad idea. Instead, we're supposed to pretend that _we_ have a plan, because the people are going to demand a plan. Then we are supposed to come up with a law/plan that we hope will do less harm than whatever the leftists want to pass. If we speak the truth about these things--that they are grassroots problems that need to be dealt with by prudence at the level of the specific institutions and problems, not rightly addressed by legislative "plans"--we're allegedly being dumb and un-strategic.

I'm sorry, I could have sworn Crude said that Mourdock (Mourdock! who wasn't even excoriated by the left the way Akin was) made a blunder. But that would be idiotic so I'm sure he must have meant something different.

But to you, it's axiomatic that if he lost he must have done something dumb.

I think that's unfair because, I'm sorry, I thought it was a dumb comment. There are a billion other things he could have said that would have been just as accurate and made just as good of point without saying it in a way so ridiculously easy to be exploited by the media.

I mean, you can say that I only think this because it's axiomatic in my worldview or something...but if you did, you'd just be wrong. There's no way for me to convince anybody of that though.

Lydia,

No, I just *disagree* with you that Mourdock said something dumb.

I am using the yardstick of 'did what he say help out at all' with "helping out" measured in terms of winning minds or at least votes. His response did neither - he lost both. He did something dumb.

If you want to measure in terms of "whether he said something I agree with and to heck with anyone who disagrees!", oh sure, he won. That's a terrible measure to use.

As for refusing to answer the question, I think _that_ would have been a worse move. It was a question posed in a debate. That's part of what happens in a political debate--you do your best to give the short version of your positions. Nor is it impossible to give a good short version of one's answer to the question of whether it should be legal to abort babies conceived in rape. He didn't need to refuse to answer the question. I don't think he gave a dumb or blundering answer. It sounded like a good answer.

So long as you don't care whatsoever about the effect it had on winning people over to our position or getting us votes or helping us win an election, sure, it was a fantastic answer. And if it's not impossible to give a good short answer, tell Mourdock, because he didn't manage this.

But to you, it's axiomatic that if he lost he must have done something dumb. That characterizes your whole approach here. And it's also axiomatic to you that if some group is doing well, they must have come up with some smart political strategy, and then you go fossicking around to conjecture what it could be.

No, it doesn't. My approach is characterized by realizing that you can do stupid things even while having the 'right' view. In fact, you can do something stupid even while in the process of defending that view. I asked a question about Michelle Shocked. Did she make a stupid move or a wise move? Let's hear it.

And yes, I happen to think that if a group is having some considerable political and social success, that the odds are rather high that they are doing something - intentionally or not - which contributes to political and social success, and that it may be a good idea to emulate that. With that in mind, I start to ask what they're doing right, and I give my views on what I think they ARE doing right. On the flipside, if a group is losing dramatically, I start to question whether or not they're doing anything wrong, and give my views on that.

I know. Crazy thinking on my part.

I assume you endorse more of a 'Say whatever you think is right, who cares about convincing anyone or advancing, and if you lose and lose terribly that's just illustrating why everyone sucks'?

Your conclusions about these things are sometimes quite implausible, to put it nicely--as when you attribute the NRA's membership gain to their attack on video games rather than to a far more *obvious* sufficient cause, namely, the leftists' hysterical anti-gun moves, talk, and laws in the wake of the Connecticut shootings.

You are confused. I said that the NRA managed to *change the terms of the debate* by going after video games and violent media. That's not under dispute - the moment they made that push, immediately the conversation about how to approach the question and perception of violence in this country changed from 'what should we do about guns' to 'should we do something about violent media'.

When talking about what the NRA did right, I talked about them spending years doing vastly more than the 'party of no' stuff. Instead of just becoming the party that opposes any and all gun control, they aggressively pushed people on a philosophy and approach, including things that had nothing to do with gun control directly. It's not a single move, and I have not pretended that solving our loss problem is easy.

As when you assume that conservatives in France must be "doing something better" than conservatives in America. When American conservatives have been calling their groups "pro-family" for umpteen years and have been emphasizing that children need a mother and father, crying it from the mountaintops. It just happens to be that they aren't heeded.

Oh boy, they called themselves pro-family. As opposed to the liberals, who run with that ever-popular 'anti-Family' slogan.

Yeah, maybe those cries weren't heeded because they're drowned out by 'An open later to homosexuals: Look, you're all hellbound unless you stop your wicked, sinful ways' and other things which get amplified, just as Mourdock's bad response got amplified. Possibly it got amplified because of the mistaken insistence to make these discussions principally about gays and 'the homosexual lobby'.

But to you, it's always gotta be, "They must be doing something right that we're not doing, if only we could find out what it is." "He must have done something wrong, he must have blundered, because he lost."

This is just shallow thinking, even in political terms. It's out of touch with reality in some very real and practical ways. It sees political events only in terms of one set of narrow categories.

No, it doesn't "always gotta be". It "can be", and in this case, I think the evidence indicates that it is. You, meanwhile, want to argue that Mourdock's statement wasn't even a blunder. How can it be? He said something you agree with, after all. No, the problem is we're *not blunt enough*.

Speaking of that, again: Michelle Shocked. Did she make any mistakes, in your view? Should social conservatives be rushing to embrace and defend her comments?

Elephant,

I'm sorry, I could have sworn Crude said that Mourdock (Mourdock! who wasn't even excoriated by the left the way Akin was) made a blunder. But that would be idiotic so I'm sure he must have meant something different.

I know, I'm just that stupid. I think when you say "even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen." it's a dumb move. Clearly Mourdock is idiotic as well. Can you believe the next day he actually attempted to CLARIFY his position? I mean, why? What's there to clarify? He was crystal clear and said nothing wrong. I'm sure this had nothing to do with his losing. No, that had to be that he wasn't conservative enough.

Mourdock was 'excoriated' not just by the left, not even just by the media generally, but also the voters. That he, by some measures, didn't get it quite as bad as Akin isn't saying much.

Jane,

Your point about the question being slightly different is valid-- however, I think my point stands:

No, I'm sure it does. I simply am pointing out a worry I have, nothing more.

Another point: in French law, politics, even in the popular psyche, there is currently NO question of opening up adoption without marriage. This is very different from what happens in the US, and you need to take it into account when looking at the data.

Sure, I'll take that consideration into account - I realize they are different cultures. But they're also different cultures shaped by different approaches to these issues. I'm not talking about a single flashpoint, but a process in both countries going back years. Thanks for the data, by the way. I'll await with baited breath for the US media to report the collapse in support for gay adoption in France.

Matt,

But that won't work here in America, for two reasons. One is that in America bourgeois normalcy is defined partly as "having a family", meaning that the push for gay marriage is a push to extend the advantages of taking part in the normal bourgeois current of American life to a currently categorically excluded group.

I don't think America, either in terms of its general cultural or even many of its individuals, always operates with a very monolithic or consistent view. I think a largely latent conviction that normalcy = "having a family" can be successfully short-circuited in large part by framing the question in terms of gender. Ask if an ideal family excludes a female or a male head of household. That's a very obvious, relevant question, and one that I think can be hammered home.

It plays into the question of discrimination. It is possible, in theory, to design some perfect social arrangement whereby no one is discriminated against unjustly. In practice, it ain't gonna happen, and society is going to "go overboard" in some sense.

If you're telling me that no laws are likely going to 'solve' bullying, I agree. I'm not arguing that conservatives should push their own laws on this question because the problem can realistically expect to be solved in this way. I'm arguing that when some law is going to pass no matter what because the public demands a law, it's time to offer them a law.

Here's the thing about the "party of no" stuff: when your saying "no" results in the law being passed anyway, your "no" is meaningless, unless you can count on the whole project to wildly short-circuit and have everyone switch to "yes" in relatively short order anyway.

From the wikipedia on anti-bullying laws in the US: Forty-nine states in the United States have passed school anti-bullying legislation, the first being Georgia in 1999. The one state without anti-bullying legislation is Montana. A watchdog organization called Bully Police USA advocates for and reports on anti-bullying legislation.

So much for saying no.

Michelle Shocked. Did she make any mistakes, in your view?

Crude, at this point I'm going to tell you to go to hell. I've had it up to here with you.

I have *never* in this thread said *anything* that a reasonable person would take to mean that I endorse someone's saying, "God hates f____s." You think somehow that's a relevant question to ask me because you've got a kneejerk response to what I did say. I spent pixels and pixels explaining my views at some length to you, taking you seriously, giving examples, and your idea of a clever response to all that is to find some woman saying, "God hates f---s" and to make a blustering, repeated demand that I respond to that and condemn it or endorse it. Yeah, because somehow there's a prima facie case based on my comments here that that's the kind of statement I endorse.

What a waste of time it's been trying to have a reasonable conversation with you. I see that now.

Lydia,

I have *never* in this thread said *anything* that a reasonable person would take to mean that I endorse someone's saying, "God hates f____s." You think somehow that's a relevant question to ask me because you've got a kneejerk response to what I did say.

Again, here's what Michelle Shocked said:

"I live in fear," Shocked said, as reported by SFist, "that the world will be destroyed if gays are allowed to marry." "You can go on Twitter and say Michelle Shocked said ‘God hates fags,'" the 51-year-old alternative-funk musician told the crowd, according to Queerty.

Yes, I think it's a relevant question to ask. I assume that no one is going to say "Yeah, what she said was smart and right and a good move!"

Because guess what? If you think it's a stupid, wrong statement, I'm going to up the ante: I'm going to say that social conservatives should be rushing to *condemn* her statement. Publicly. Saying that what she said has nothing to do with our view of gays, or of marriage, or of God. That we oppose same-sex marriage, that we regard abuses of sex (whether hetero or homo in nature) to be things that should be condemned and discouraged, but that Shocked's reaction is a mockery of what we stand for.

And yet - even with the SCOTUS hearing a relevant case right now - that's not going to happen. Even though it should. I want to know why, and I want people to realize a missed opportunity when they see it.

I spent pixels and pixels explaining my views at some length to you, taking you seriously, giving examples, and your idea of a clever response to all that is to find some woman saying, "God hates f---s" and to make a blustering, repeated demand that I respond to that and condemn it or endorse it. Yeah, because somehow there's a prima facie case based on my comments here that that's the kind of statement I endorse.

What I've seen is you defending Mourdock's statement as not even a blunder, trying to suggest that I thought the NRA got 200k+ members owing exclusively to their decision to attack violent media, and other such. I've seen you defending the 'party of no' approach on an issue where saying 'no' has resulted in anti-bullying laws in almost every state in the US.

As I said before, if you don't wish to discuss this, I won't hound you to. But I'm going to keep talking about this. That question about Shocked, by the way, is also directed to anyone who cares to answer it. I say it was a stupid move on her part, and that the proper response of social conservatives should be to condemn her for saying it. Does anyone disagree? If so, I'd like to know why.

Well for one thing it's not clear that she actually said "God hates f--s." I think she was referring to the kind of reaction she would get but saying to hell with the reaction, she wanted to take a stand. What confuses me more is her odd statements about being proud to be considered an honorary lesbian and being a Fornicator with a capital "F." I have no idea what she's talking about there. She seems like an eccentric outlier. Not worth bothering about either way.

Elephant,

Well for one thing it's not clear that she actually said "God hates f--s." I think she was referring to the kind of reaction she would get but saying to hell with the reaction, she wanted to take a stand. What confuses me more is her odd statements about being proud to be considered an honorary lesbian and being a Fornicator with a capital "F."

She said the honorary lesbian and Fornicator bit years ago in an interview, not at this venue.

She said that she thinks the world will be destroyed if gays are allowed to marry, and that people can go ahead and tweet that she said 'God hates fags' on stage.

Granting that she said what she's reported to have said, I think the answer is clear: condemn her, cast her as a fringe lunatic.

She seems like an eccentric outlier. Not worth bothering about either way.

Not worth bothering about? Why? Because attacking eccentric outliers doesn't resonate with the public? It doesn't help public image?

Making it clear she's an eccentric outlier is exactly why she's an example of someone worth bothering about.

Lydia-- just to be clear, I agree that many of the methods used in France would not work in the US. I was shocked when I heard Mitt Romney saying he was for adoption but against marriage. In fact, many of the methods the gay lobby uses in the US can't be used in France--like those bullying laws and "gays are victims" and suicide rates blather.

My original point was that support for the homosexual agenda in general is very shallow, even in a country like France where homosexuality has been mainstream for decades if not a century and where at least two mainstream politicians are notoriously pedophiles (ephebophile is probably a more correct word).
That drop in support for adoption is real. There are people out there, many people, who have not thought it through, are not too emotionally invested in this sort of perversity, and can be convinced. Natural law does not depend on culture.

I think you may be right about that, Jane, but I'm not sure of how to access that in the U.S. What I would like to do is take the offensive and advocate a return to state laws banning homosexual adoption such as Anita Bryant famously supported decades ago. However, even if we crawled over glass and got them passed, using that previously untapped popular support, I can't help wondering if the SCOTUS would strike it down.

I'm not arguing that conservatives should push their own laws on this question because the problem can realistically expect to be solved in this way. I'm arguing that when some law is going to pass no matter what because the public demands a law, it's time to offer them a law.

What if we don't accept you premise that "some law is going to pass". If libs are gung ho on "a law", when no law is the better answer, then being the better answer there are presumably REASONS why that is so. And if we can convince people of the better answer through more true reasons, then no law is "going to pass". So, if you convince the public to stop demanding a law, no law will pass. Why are you assuming the game is over, defeatist-wise, instead of fighting the RIGHT battle which is to aim for the true good instead of a lesser good.

Tony,

What if we don't accept you premise that "some law is going to pass".

Then oppose the law. However, I ask you to do me a favor: count how many states now have anti-bullying laws.

And if we can convince people of the better answer through more true reasons, then no law is "going to pass". So, if you convince the public to stop demanding a law, no law will pass.

If. If.

Why are you assuming the game is over, defeatist-wise, instead of fighting the RIGHT battle which is to aim for the true good instead of a lesser good.

According to the wikipedia, 49 states now have anti-bullying legislation. Exactly how much of an election ass-kicking do you need before you wonder if your position, or at least your approach in handling it, is a losing one?

Sometimes it's right to go to the wall in defense of an issue. Other times it's better to compromise. Other times the right thing to do is change tone. Still other times the right thing to do is rally the base. I am pointing at issues and methods I think have cost us, and am arguing for what I think are better ways.

And I am saying that other than not making obvious gaffes like using the "n" word in a discussion of race, there isn't a perfectly clear way to determine the smart methods and the poor ones, until you see which ones failed, AND SOMETIMES not even then, given there are times when it is better to try and fail than to switch to a compromise position. There just ISN'T a clear, definite 'right' way to go about it, that's why politics is not a science. Oh, and even when you DO know that something is clearly and definitely the wrong way to go about it (say, as above using the "n" word on a racial issue), how are you going to make sure that everybody on your side follows your lead and sticks to the best approach? You cannot by your own choice decide that the only people who are heard are the smart, clever, forward thinking ones.

Tony,

And I am saying that other than not making obvious gaffes like using the "n" word in a discussion of race, there isn't a perfectly clear way to determine the smart methods and the poor ones, until you see which ones failed, AND SOMETIMES not even then, given there are times when it is better to try and fail than to switch to a compromise position. There just ISN'T a clear, definite 'right' way to go about it, that's why politics is not a science.

Sometimes that's true. You can't necessarily tell what will fail and what will succeed until after you try it, barring the obvious. Of course, I've been spending this thread largely pointing at past results, good and bad. People have trouble conceding Mourdock made a blunder even now, after the fact. Sorry, I think it's crystal clear that he did. People actually seem to have trouble admitting the NRA handled themselves remarkably well not just recently, but over the years.

Oh, and even when you DO know that something is clearly and definitely the wrong way to go about it (say, as above using the "n" word on a racial issue), how are you going to make sure that everybody on your side follows your lead and sticks to the best approach?

You can't. Luckily, we don't need them to - if they screw up badly (once again, I bring up the example of Shocked), you turn on them and make them into a media sacrifice if you can, if it becomes public enough. If they're too important to manage that with, you get them to apologize, try to make sure they learned from their mistake, and move on. That turns a liability into an asset - they give you an extremist you can distance yourself from. Granted, this takes some amount of rhetorical skill and finesse, but it's not the most difficult thing in the world to expect a politician to manage.