As you were expecting, Rod Dreher is even better. He's particularly enraged that Jones used the term "ash heap of history" in reference to the exclusion of gay people:
That phrase “ash heap of history” used in this context is outrageous. Know where it first came from? Trotsky, denouncing moderate revolutionaries, and consigning them to “the dustbin of history.”The very next sentence:
Ronald Reagan memorably used it to describe the fate of Marxism-Leninism.Reagan can cleverly appropriate commie metaphors, but when you homosexualists do it, it's like you're giving it back to Trotsky. Further down: "This kind of radicalism is familiar, but it must be said that Robespierre was a much better writer."
Poor Rod is having a bad gay week. In a later post, after hearing about the possibility that the U.S. is spying on domestic dissidents, he shivers, "I look forward to what [Glenn] Greenwald has yet to report. All Americans, especially we whose beliefs are being consigned to what a federal judge called this week 'the ash heap of history,' are going to live through some difficult times." That's why Obama wants them drones -- not because no Democratic President could get away with even one-hundredth of a 9/11, but because he yearns to snatch up Maggie Gallagher and put her in Gay Gitmo. (Equally hilariously, Dreher cites J. Edgar Hoover in his headline.)
Dreher's highlight, though, at least so far this week, is an earlier post in which he quotes Thierry Cruvellier, interviewed on "a trial in Cambodia of one of Pol Pot’s henchmen," and winds up guess where:
If you read the boldfaced material in Cruvellier’s response, and think of the culture war in this country over same-sex marriage and gay rights, you will understand much better the Error Has No Rights phenomenon, and the Law of Merited Impossibility — and you will better be able to anticipate what comes next in the name of justice.Pol Pot and gay rights -- there's a new one. Where can he go next? Please, nobody tell him about Ernst Rohm.
UPDATE. Comments are lively, but I must single out what aimai found in a 2013 Rod Dreher update to yet another why-do-all-these-homosexuals-keep-sucking-my-cock post:
It’s funny. Some liberal commenters complain that I spend too much time blogging about gay marriage, but those threads are almost always the most popular ones, in terms of comments. Only race consistently draws the number of comments. If marriage weren’t at issue, I would almost never blog about homosexuality, because it just doesn’t interest me all that much.Whatever you say, Mary. Can we get a drag queen in here to do video responses to Dreher? It would beat the holy shit out of Bloggingheads.
after hearing about the possibility that the U.S. is spying on domestic dissidents
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, Rod, the surest way to bring down the fed hammer is to a) oppose the existing social order, or b) not be white. Tea Partiers (despite their pretensions with regard to a) do neither.
And the proof of that is already in, via what was done to Occupy.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/29/fbi-coordinated-crackdown-occupy
E.g.: Cecily McMillan
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/05/1297102/-Woman-Sexually-Assaulted-Beaten-by-NYPD-Convicted-of-Felony-Assault
~
"Hanby doesn’t think Ross Douthat and I are going to be successful in hoping that the victors will treat the vanquished with magnanimity."
ReplyDeleteAside from some internet trolling, what, exactly, does he imagine is going to happen here? Teh gays are going to prevent straight marriages?
Fred Clark at Slactivist has frequently observed, or his commenters have which is the same thing, right?, that a lot of Christianist evangelical hysteria is a form of cosplay--you cast yourself in a drama and then you admire yourself posing in front of the mirror. You churn out your 1000 words on a topic and then you kiss it while posting it to yourself. I really get the feeling that this is true when I read Rod Dreher's stuff.
ReplyDeleteHe is going through an existential crisis because his principle form of entertainment--masturbating and flogging himself in order to convert the gays (or jews)--is about to be not outlawed but rendered...impotent. Even worse than losing is not mattering. No one is going to be more upset than Rod when he is not even offered the chance at being martyred, but rather has to mock up new martyrdoms out of everyday insults like "saw too elderly women holding hands while crossing the street!" or "I hear from a friend that there are two gay couples in their PTA and no one is even trying to shun them."
I'm trying to make sense of Dreher's "Law of Merited Impossibility" and "Error Has No Rights Phenomenon". The second I can kind of get -- he's complaining about how liberals think they're entitled to criticize bigotry they feel is wrong, which is pretty hilarious considering that the phrase comes from a papal bull which basically says "Catholicism should be the state religion, but we'll grudgingly let you be wrong if you really want" -- but the first is Protein Wisdom-level word salad:
ReplyDelete"The Law Of Merited Impossibility is an epistemological
construct governing the paradoxical way overclass opinion makers frame
the discourse about the clash between religious liberty and gay civil
rights."
Epistemology? Paradoxes? Overclass discourse? Sounds mighty Alinskyite, comrade.
"And you will better be able to anticipate what comes next in the name of justice." So us libs are going to drive all the gay-haters into the countryside to re-education camps where we work them to death or hack them to pieces with machetes? Can Dreher tell me where I get a job application as a guard?
ReplyDeleteDreher's constantly wringing his hands about how the liberals and atheists and gays are going to do something to faithful Christians like him. He doesn't know what, but it's coming any day now, by golly.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I'm a pretty well educated person and I've even read Raymond Aron but can anyone tell me what the fuck Rod ("I'm a Christian") thinks he is arguing with this supposed quote from Aron:
ReplyDeleteAs opposed to the boredom of prosaic reforms, advocating for human rights is, in its own way, another grandiose and poetic enterprise where we, as a people, fight against exploiters. As the French philosopher Raymond Aron astutely noted, human rights, as a political philosophy, is based on a notion of purity. It’s not about taking responsibility for a decision “in unpredicted circumstances, based on incomplete knowledge”—that’s politics, said Aron. Instead, human rights function as a refuge for utopia.
Since when did a utopia founded on the rights of human beings become a synonym for hell? Has anyone discussed this with the Catholic Church with its focus on the total worth of all humans made in the image of g-d?
I wish.
ReplyDeletePol Pot and gay rights -- there's a new one. Where can he go next?
ReplyDeletehttp://24.media.tumblr.com/0d2ed4ba89225394ad493ae3fcdfa819/tumblr_n3fv9rzfZ61s3dykto3_250.gif
~
I'm pretty sure that Pol Pot's position on gay rights was a lot closer to Dreher's than the judge's. Jones, by the way wrote that delicious decision on the Dover School Board case. "breathtaking in its inanity".
ReplyDeletefrom the comments:
ReplyDelete"Falconer, I think you need to brush up on your American history. Specifically the history of the Fugitive Slave Law, as upheld by the Dred Scott Decision. Before that, many people in the North felt about slavery in the South as you suggest we should feel about homosexual so-called “marriage”: how does the fact that someone in Charleston own slaves affect me? Live and let live! The Fugitive Slave Law required everyone to become legally complicit in the maintenance of slavery by required everyone, even those living in free states, to assist in the return of runaway slaves.
Once something has been imposed by judicial fiat in this country, there is no escaping it, even for those who find it morally repugnant and want merely to be left alone. Well, we won’t be left alone. I suspect that pretty soon, even teaching your children that homosexual so-called “marriage” is morally unacceptable will be considered a “hate crime” and might even result in a visit from CPS and having your children taken away from you."
So, PA allowing gay marriage is just like Dred Scott and the Fugitive Slave Law, because now others will be forced to gay marry I guess?
Also, once something has been imposed by judicial fiat, it can never be escaped. This is why we still live with the Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Law to this day, and no court decisions have ever been overturned.
Rod complains that liberals are trying to remove suffering from Christianity while also complaining that he is being forced to suffer for his Christianity. He should be on his hands and knees begging gays to punish him so he can bear the Cross for Jesus.
ReplyDeleteNever mind that Jesus said he was here to end suffering and sacrifice. It's a lot easier to demand others suffer than it is to give up everything and follow him.
But you have to wonder about the role of money in all this. Rod knows he can say whatever he wants; he'll be treated with contempt, perhaps, but nobody's going to toss him down an oubliette. He might, however, lose funding for anti-gay rhetoric and have to get a real job. Now that's suffering.
Yeah, but cosplayers at least know they're pretending.
ReplyDelete"No one could read this decision and think the judge is merely following the dictates of the law wherever that might lead,"
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I'm wondering what in particular is giving Richwine (great conservative name, by the way) the vapors. "Couples"? Well, maybe he's one of those guys who can't stand words that imply intimacy would prefer 'cohabitational reproductive units" or something. "Deserve"? Could be. Conservatives don't think people really 'deserve' anything that their superiors don't deign to allow.
Ah, I got it! It's 'dignity'. Basically, we're hearing that not only do gay people not deserve dignity, but that dignity as a concept has no place in the rule of law. Whew, I'm glad we have someone like that looking out for our freedimz.
The dumbest part is that there still were plenty of people who opposed the Fugitive Slave Act and continued their abolitionist campaigns, even while it was the law of the land. He's saying without realizing it that judicial fiat can be overturned through massive resistance, but that the anti-gay movement doesn't have the righteousness and resolve of the anti-slavery movement, and really they'd rather just sit home and stew in their own resentment anyway, so it all works out.
ReplyDeleteOh well, I guess I should just be glad that he said slavery instead of "so called 'slavery'".
So Rod is equating his desire to limit the freedom and rights of strangers--in this case, gays and lesbians--to the campaign to free the slaves. I know that's not the colloquially most famous example of chutzpah, but it'll do as a stand-in.
ReplyDelete'Biblical' marriage unmasked
ReplyDelete"Biblical marriage was considered valid only if the bride was a
virgin. If she was not, then she needed to be executed (Dt. 22:13-21)."
"Marriages could only take place if the spouses were believers (Ezra
9:12). And if the husband were to die before having children, then his
brother was required to marry the widow. If he refused, he had to
forfeit one of his sandals, be spit on by the widow, and change his name
to “House of the Unshoed” (Dt. 25:5-10)."
complete article here: http://www.abpnews.com/opinion/commentaries/item/8209-%E2%80%98biblical%E2%80%99-marriage-unmasked
It would be a mistake to assume that Dreher disagrees with the above though.
ReplyDeleteThat's not Rod but some random commentor. But yes, that appears to be what's going on in that comment.
ReplyDeleteThat's one of the reasons he's not a Catholic, because you're suppose to offer up your own suffering as a sacrifice to Christ.
ReplyDeleteI had to go to the source to verify whether the author was embellishing or being snarky about the shoe thing but alas, it's true:
ReplyDeleteDeuteronomy 25:5-10 (King James Version)
5 If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her.
6 And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.
7 And if the man like not to take his brother's wife, then let his brother's wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband's brother.
8 Then the elders of his city shall call him, and speak unto him: and if he stand to it, and say, I like not to take her;
9 Then shall his brother's wife come unto him in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother's house.
10 And his name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.
I have yet to hear a coherent explanation from any of these dolts as to why gay people in general, and gay marriage in particular, are such a threat. About the only thing I can figure, based on the available evidence, is that most of the most vocal opponents of gay rights believe that social approbation is the only thing keeping themselves from being gay. That if gay marriage is allowed, Rod Dreher will break up his marriage and take up with a gay lover because only the social unacceptability of doing so is what keeps him married to a woman.
ReplyDeleteI have to pity anyone whose bedrock beliefs cannot withstand even notional contact with anything that might even slightly contradict those beliefs.
So this is what Gay Panic looks - or rather, reads - like.
ReplyDeleteGeez...it's really awkward to walk with just one sandal!
ReplyDeleteRichwine (isn't he the kid who got in trouble for writing some craptacular racist screed as his phd?) is upset because although it was inevitable and legally necessary for the law to change the judge should have acted more upset about it and used more sorry and angry legalistic language to at least remind the gayz that they are second class citizens. The decision should have been peppered with remarks like "Look what you have made us do!" and "You'll be sorry eventually!"
ReplyDeleteSo: public shaming for thee and not for me.
ReplyDeleteNo, we're not going to drive them into camps. We'll simply pass a law that everyone has to gay-marry and then have at least one abortion (men, too--or maybe men in particular).
ReplyDeleteIn the absence of actual victimhood, future victimhood will have to suffice.
ReplyDelete"How awful it is to live in fear. It's like having an itch you can never scratch." (Leon in Bladerunner,
Speaking of awkward:
ReplyDeleteJosh MarshallVerified account @joshtpm
At what point do we add so many letters to LGBTQ that physics makes the letters at the end on the right crack or maybe even break off?
----
# U so funny, Josh.
~
As far as I can tell, Dreher's thesis is that the liberals are loading up society with multiculturalism and genderbending with the explicit purpose of making Christians snap and complain out loud, at which point they'll lose their jobs and die in poverty.
ReplyDeletewe whose beliefs are being consigned to what a federal judge called this week 'the ash heap of history,'
ReplyDeleteNo-one has consigned Rod's beliefs to the ash-heap, only his claim to impose them on other people... but to Rod the two are evidently the same.
Richwine (isn't he the kid who got in trouble for writing some craptacular racist screed as his phd?)
ReplyDeleteMore accurate to say that the craptacular racist screed was ghost-written for him by Charles Murray and four AEI interns.
"all couples deserve equal dignity in the realm of civil marriage" Why that's treasonous I say - treason! hang that judge from the yardarm.
ReplyDeletethe paradoxical way overclass opinion makers frame
ReplyDeletethe discourse about the clash between religious liberty and gay civil
rights.
The only way there's a "clash between religious liberty and gay civil
rights" is when theocrats insist that their religious liberty should govern the way other people should behave. So Imma guessing that "overclass opinion makers framing the discourse" is a self-serving euphemism for "everyone else telling the theocrats to take their Sharia Law and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine".
[Dreher] should be on his hands and knees begging gays
ReplyDeleteBRAIN-BLEACH NOW IN AISLE 9
Yep, Richwine was a co-author of a big Heritage Foundation report on immigration last year, and then someone noticed that his Harvard thesis was all about how Mexicans have low IQs. I thought NR would have cast him out after that, like they did with John Derbyshire, but I guess they calculated that they can still be more openly contemptuous of Hispanics than of blacks.
ReplyDelete---------Leaving aside the big words that Rod misuses and doesn't understand, what he means is that gay marriage is justified under the notion of “You conservative Christians won’t be affected at all by the redefinition of marriage…"
ReplyDelete--------But then, to that, is added:
---------"...and boy do you have it coming!”
-----------With things like the Elaine photography case being supposed examples of the what Christians have, allegedly unfairly, "coming" to them.
-----------Typical trivial Rod statement, and just as typically overdressed in philosophical jargon. Of course, implicit in the claim that conservative Christians won't be affected by gay marriage is the understanding that "affected" means what it normally means. IE that there will be no burden on you economically, personally, religiously, and so on. You, as an individual, can still hate on gays and disapprove their marriage. Your net worth won't be affected by gay marriage. Your straight marriage won't be affected by gay marriage. Your church will not be required to perform or recognize gay marriages, and so on. Yes, yes, if you are in certain retail businesses, you may have to make a cake or take pictures that you don't want to.
-----But, for one thing, big deal. That is a trivial impact if any at all.
-----And, for another, how is that any different from gays having rights outside of marriage? For example, the baker might already have to make a birthday cake for a gay man, and he might not want to do that either. And, how is it different from non discrimination laws generally? For example, the baker might not like Black folks either, but he has to make cakes for their birthdays and weddings already. Gay marriage, qua marriage, is not responsible for the "I have to make cakes or take pictures when I don't wanna phenomenon."
-----To all of which I would also add that MOST (not all) advocates of marriage equality actually don't take any delight or glee in reveling in what the Christians have "coming" to them and how they're "gonna get it."
------Like the "Error has no rights" thing, it is fake from start to finish. Error has the same rights that error, and correctness, always have. Gay bashers still have their First Amendment rights, and they have their rights to association (ie can keep gays out of their private lives). What Error does not have, and has never had, just as correctness has never had it, is the "right" to exist free of consequences. Just like if a TV personality or NBA owner said that Blacks (or Christians) should be second class citizens, the public response to such a person saying that gays should have limited rights might be some sort of backlash. Too bad.
one and the same - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/08/09/jason-richwine-doesnt-understand-why-people-are-mad-at-him/
ReplyDelete------Yeah, except that it doesn't actually infringe even on Rod's right to lecture them. It infringes only on a public figure whose job is subject to the approval of a general audience and who "complains out loud." Rod works for conservative entities that are NOT subject to the approval of a general audience, and so his own, personal "rights" are not even theoretically at risk.
ReplyDelete-------But as with the Duck guy and that cooking lady and the NBA owner and so on when it comes to Black folks, the same here. If you don't want gay marriage, and you say so, your at will employer might dump you because you are pissing off the customers, employees, suppliers, etc. Or, if you are in some sort of partnership like the NBA, your partners might kick you out for the same reasons. Of course, that kind of thing has never, ever, ever been held to violate anyone's "rights" in the USA. You have the right to oppose gay marriage. You don't have the right to oppose gay marriage and hold such and such position.
------Arguably, there IS something wrong with that. But then one would have to completely reexamine labor law and employment regimes generally, if one was not simply engaged in special pleading. Of course, these free marketeers, lovers of the at will employment regime in general, fellows are only engaging in special pleading. The last thing in the world they want to do is expand workers' rights at the expense of employers. Except in this case. Rip into Palin, like that MSNBC guy, and of course they can, and should, fire your liberal ass. Rip into gay marriage, and? Well, somehow, that's different.
Yeah, this. Just once I'd like to see the antis present evidence of a marriage that was ruined by legalized same-sex marriage. Not 'the institution of marriage' but a specific marriage that was ruined.
ReplyDeleteRod's too timid to spell it out. It's the Opposite-Marriage Killing Fields, as immortalized in the Dead Kennedys' Holiday in San Francisco.
ReplyDelete"What hath GLAAD wrought?"
ReplyDeleteGLAAD bags.
Well, you know what happened in Massachusetts. http://www.theonion.com/articles/massachusetts-supreme-court-orders-all-citizens-to,1135/
ReplyDeleteWell, perhaps the context provides some clue into Rod's "thinking."
ReplyDelete----"There is a historical lineage between the far left and the human-rights movement. In the nineteen-sixties, after Stalin’s terror was widely acknowledged; in the seventies, after Solzhenitsyn’s denunciation of the Gulag; and then, finally, in the eighties, after the horrors of Pol Pot were fully revealed, many Western intellectuals moved from the discredited and disgraced Marxism-Leninism to the ideals of universal human rights. As opposed to the boredom of prosaic reforms..."
---I think, perhaps, what Aron was saying that "human rights" are often treated as non negotiable, non interactive, "pure" concepts. "Politics" assumes compromise. It assumes giving up some of what you want to get some of what you want. But, if something is a "right," well then, no compromise is possible. Thus, politics, even reform politics, is messy and prosaic, while "human rights" are pure.
------And I actually agree with that, to some extent, I think the liberal interventionists use "human rights" in just this way. As an appeal to "purity," and as claim unanswerable in terms of mere politics. We, the USA, the West, "must" do "something," because XYZ Third World regime is violating "human rights." No discussion of context, of what realistic chance there is that any likely replacement regime, or a failed state, might be no better or even worse. No notion of what intervention itself means, in terms of neo colonial politics. No, "human rights" are being violated, so we must intervene.
----Of course, I'm pretty sure that Aron did not mean, or mean to imply, that the notion of "rights" was a bad idea per se, which is what Rod seems to be perverting his statement into. And, just as certainly, we don't see Rod arguing for returning to politics the various "rights" that he supports, like the right to practice his religion, or shoot his mouth off about gays, for example.
-----I do think, though, that the notion of a "utopia" of any kind has led to some pretty bad polities. If that is what Dreher and Aron had in mind, well then, and leaving aside the bit about "Western intellectuals" (the vast majority of which were NEVER Marxist Leninists ((or even Marxists, strictly speaking)), the few who were had mostly abandoned it by the Fifties, and even the remaining, tiny M-L minority were mostly anti Stalinists long before the "dissident" movement became prominent), sure, trying to replace sloppy, disorderly, politics with a once and for all utopia based on anything has led to disaster. And, again, I think interventionists, liberal and conservative, have made this mistake, repeatedly.
----And I think you are actually pitching a bit of a softball with that stuff about the RC Church. I think the retort would be, "Sure, in the Kingdom of Heaven, there can be pure, universals, with a focus on the total worth of humans made in the image of God, but in this fallen world, much as we strive to create the City of God, we have to recognize that utopia and purity are not possible, and that striving to achieve them leads to Bonfires of the Vanities and Inquisitions and the Wars of Religions and such like, even when the intent is not M-L, but Catholic and wholly laudable. So, messy politics, while not ideal, are the best we can hope for, in this life."
"At what point do we add so many letters to LGBTQ that physics makes the
ReplyDeleteletters at the end on the right crack or maybe even break off?"
Careful Josh, your breadths are showing.
in what other discipline is inserting one’s personal politics into a technical analysis celebrated rather than discouraged?
ReplyDelete"Personal politics?" It seems to me more as if a professional is excited that he gets to be a part of a historic landmark in his career, instead of the boring lawsuits he has to sit through the rest of the time. Jones sounds like someone who cares about his job and is elated he got to set something right. If that's "politics," then the term is meaningless.
Must feel like he's playing in the Superbowl; or scoring the winning run against hated rivals in the home stadium--rivals who cheated their way to the playoffs.
Well, but thats not the kind of Christianity that Rod aligns himself with. He' s not at all opposed to a bonfire of the vanities or death to heretics. But one of the current lines of the church, in re fetuses, is that there can be no compromising or pragmatism when it comes to the image of god--no balancing of rights. Rights are total or they are meaningless.
ReplyDeleteWow. Just Wow. This reminds me of that line about how every Senator looks in the mirror and sees a President. Truly it can be said that every Jewish man looks in the mirror and sees a great comedian.
ReplyDelete"Truly it can be said that every Jewish man looks in the mirror and sees a great comedian"
ReplyDeleteOuch! You are right, Aimai. I apologize, and will restrict myself to, at most, one wisecrack per thread. It stings, but I had it coming.
Oh, isn't this just precious
ReplyDeleteIt’s funny. Some liberal commenters complain that I spend too much time blogging about gay marriage, but those threads are almost always the most popular ones, in terms of comments. Only race consistently draws the number of comments. If marriage weren’t at issue, I would almost never blog about homosexuality, because it just doesn’t interest me all that much.
I should of course have included myself in my attack! But, in our defense, we are a very funny (looking) people.
ReplyDeleteIn keeping with Roy's point upthread Glaad Sacks.
ReplyDeleteThen did Ash say unto Lord Arthur, Your shoe hath been loosed.
ReplyDeleteAnd Lord Arthur did at last take Ash at his word, and look upon his own feet.
Whereupon Ash did smite Lord Arthur a mighty blow, laying him out upon the earth.
And Ash did ask the multitude there gathered, if any there should wish likewise to be visited upon them.
--from Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, Book III
Yeah, well, they seem reluctant to die and go to Heaven, too.
ReplyDeletethat's a good one. heh heh
ReplyDeleteMost of the time.
ReplyDeletehttp://time.com/106492/high-high-elf-attacks-womans-bmw-with-a-sword/
Actually, I think he would say that it is. That he does not feel the need to berate gays or show them his intolerance at a personal level. That he is opposed to a bonfire of the vanities and death to heretics.
ReplyDelete-----Rather, he espouses a sort of semi lax, world weary vision in which the Church's views are enshrined in law, more or less, but there is a lenient enforcement mechanism. Sort of like how Menken saw the role of the RC Church in the big, Eastern cities at the turn of the century. Against, of course, prostitution, gambling, and so on, but willing to allow a certain amount of it as long as the law prohibited it, it was restricted to certain areas, and was not "in your face."
-----I agree though, that Rod thinks that certain rights are just fine, and it is just these new fangled rights for gays that should be subjected to Aron's analysis.
----Most rights, whatever the Church might say now about fetuses to the contrary notwithstanding, in practice, of course, are actually not "total" or absolute. Which is another counter argument to Aron. Rather, rights are more secure, more protected from a momentary majority or administrative or executive determination than ordinary policies or laws, but are not really totally "pure" either. Rights really do have more of a messy, non pure relationship to "prosaic politics" than Aron's statement, at least as Rod presents it (my guess is that Aron probably recognized and articulated all the limitations and qualifications that we can think of!), seems to allow.
"If marriage weren’t at issue, I would almost never blog about homosexuality, because it just doesn’t interest me all that much."
ReplyDeleteWasn't there an Onion article with a rather tasteless title about something like that? What was that piece called?
Bwahahaha...sorry, Rod, but I've known chicken farmers who spend less time thinking about cocks than you do.
ReplyDeleteThe Gay Mafia will break down his door and force him to get some decent curtains, and a real haircut...
ReplyDelete"But, in our defense, we are a very funny (looking) people."
ReplyDeleteHuh? I'm looking at myself in the mirror right now! Body by Adonis? Check! Hair like the raven's wing? Check! Eye's like twin stars? Got 'em! Ears, like delicate shells? None shellier! And two shapely calves, the bee's knees, and a pair of patrician arches which they bespeaks the breeding of a thousand generations of balebatisheh yiden which terminate in toes like ten perfect shrimp of graduated sizes, from U15s which went to market all the way to 51-60s that cry "wee, wee, wee" all the way home.
And I'm just average, really,
I'm so glad I am not the only one who had this thought rammed down my mind's throat.
ReplyDeleteMooser, he just an ass.
ReplyDelete~
Rod Dreher: defending the ash-heap of the present.
ReplyDeletethe happiness and stability and security it brings to many couples
ReplyDeleteYes, I can see how her expectations might have been raised.
Even setting aside the "I'm absolutely fixated about where these homosexuals put their knobs" angle and taking Dreher at his word, he is simply here admitting that he's a stupid, insincere attention troll.
ReplyDeleteWhich, of course is, about as unrevealing, and yet unexpected, as Rusty admitting he likes an under-ripe Dominican with his Oxies.
.
Great, first Joan Didon, now Josh Marshall. Are we sending all the Californians too crazy for California to NY these days?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to move out to the country and raise poultry with this comment.
ReplyDeleteYeah, Richwine is the one who wants to follow the trail blazed by luminaries like Charles Murray. I was going to express mild surprise that he didn't get thrown off the wingnut gravy train for it, until I remembered that still Murray has a sinecure at the AEI.
ReplyDeleteYou know, most of us are less hostile to bad behavior on the part of people we consider part of our group then we are to bad behavior on the part of people who we consider to be outsiders.
ReplyDeleteI think Rod Dreher is actually worse about this than most people, which really makes me think he should have some kind of job other than punditry.
I'm really damn tired of this "error has no rights" schtick he's on. He's pretty much arguing that when people ostracize the Brendan Eichs and Donald Sterlings of the world, that's the first step onto a slippery slope which leads to a terror state where those people have no rights.
What about private businesses and public institutions that ostracize or exclude gays? Are those the first steps on a slippery slope to a world where gays are hated, persecuted, and stripped of their rights?
Of course not! People Dreher likes are perfectly capable of socially ostracizing gays without stripping them of their rights!
It's just such a fucking dishonest way of arguing with people. If I say "Murderers should be punished" that in no way leads to the conclusion that I think that murderers have no rights. Our entire legal system is based on that distinction.
You know, if one were searching for an analogy to the social progress of gay marriage and general social standing of homosexuals, it wouldn't be too hard to find one in the black civil rights movement. It's just that it runs the other way from your commenter's Procrustean attempt. Conservatives are now legally complicit in miscegenation be being required not to burn crosses on someone else's lawn, whereas maybe living in the North they wouldn't have worried about mixed marriages in the Confederate states.
ReplyDeleteOnly race consistently draws the number of comments.
ReplyDeleteNice crowd of commenters you have there, Rod.
Welcome to the world of my oldest sister, where all her kids were required to go to Bob Jones U. instead of risking any dangerous contact with evolution at any public U. Why, their Rock and Savior is the most powerful force on the planet, except when confronted by anyone or anything outside their collective realty. The mental gymnastics required to get each year's flu vaccine must be impressive.
ReplyDeleteWhat can I say? I looked in the mirror, saw a great comedian, but he wouldn't give me a punch line!
ReplyDelete"Yes, I can see how her expectations might have been raised."
ReplyDeleteYou said it, man. That's what I live in mortal fear of.
The one-sandal theme is a folklore motif that binds together Cinderella, Chinese culture-hero Yu the Lame and the Plataeans who left their right feet unshod when they attacked the Spartans in 428 BCE. It marks a character as a liminal figure, not entirely belonging to the realm of the living. See the penultimate chapter in Ginzburg's "Ecstacies".We therefore have figures distinguished (a)
ReplyDeleteby malformations or wounds to the feet or legs; (b) by possession of a
single sandal; (c) by possession of two sandals.Unaccountably, Ginzburg's list omits the one-legged men in 'The Third Policeman'.
Thanks for the Christianist evangelical hysteria = cosplay angle; you just explained the lifelong sense of unease with this crap that started while I a child in the backwaters of the intermountain west, where fundy performance art is part of the cultural wallpaper. Even as a kid I knew it had to be more than just smugness and a chance to show off their latest innovation in Speaking in Tongues.
ReplyDeleteThis one just got posted today:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theonion.com/articles/man-disgusted-just-by-constant-thought-of-2-guys-k,36092/
As a matter of fact, I e-mailed Marshall when he referred to the Cicada mating season as a "17 yr booty call". He pleaded "contemporary English".
ReplyDeleteThis was during a lot of news about sexual assault in the military and I rather pointedly asked him if he would title an article "Sexual Assault in the Military, Call of Duty or Booty?" but the point, apparently, went ungotten, I'm pretty sure.
It's different because of TEH BUTTSECHS
ReplyDeleteWho sticks around to see the BUTTSECHS? Just a kiss seems to do it. Remember how that gay kiss violated that poor TV lady's rights?
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, if Twitter was limited to apropos comments, it wouldn't exist.
ReplyDeleteAdopted as a plank in the GOP platform at the party convention in 1968.
ReplyDeleteThe wingnuts have been throwing Orwell around a lot lately (badly, of course), but I'll be damned if I've ever seen a better distillation of "Freedom is Slavery" than that particular bit of circumlocutory drivel.
ReplyDeleteI will kneel down and unbind the sandals of this comment. Both of them.
ReplyDeleteThat "so called 'marriage'" thing is my personal favorite anti-gay marriage "argument". "We define the word X to specifically exclude Y, so therefore Y can never be X, even though our definition is entirely arbitrary!"
ReplyDeleteAfter gay marriage in Pennsylvania straight women were held down and violated by seeing gay men kiss. Its in the new code.
ReplyDeleteMirror Mirror on the Wall, who has the GLAADIEST Rags of all?
ReplyDelete^^
ReplyDeleteIt is my job to know these things. Or it would be if I could persuade anyone to pay me.
ReplyDeleteWhat is your avocation, smut clyde? And do you think that Oedipus fits into this model. Also there was a High King of Ireland who, although he was lame, also became King. I can't remember his name but it was a big deal because the King was supposed to be perfect and unblemished.
ReplyDeleteGinzburg does indeed mention Oedipus of the Swollen Feet. Sadly, he fails to make the connection to another King figure whose feet were pierced and who -- in his adult role -- fucked his own mother.
ReplyDelete"I should of course have included myself in my attack!"
ReplyDelete"Attack"? Please don't say that! It was about time somebody took an izmel to my congenital jocosity and gave it a snip.
Send him to the FEMA death camps, probably. Even though those FEMA camps have been around since Clinton, it's going to be any day now that all the good, Christian, true patriots like Rod and Cliven Bundy are sent there to die. Any day...
ReplyDelete"And do you think that Oedipus fits into this model."
ReplyDeleteOedipus? Don't put him in any model, subcompact, midsize or SUV. You won't get it back in one piece Whatever he gets, Oedipus wrecks.
"there was a High King of Ireland who, although he was lame, also became King. "
ReplyDeleteSelf-medicating?
Something about that decadently sinful behavior, that lustful temptation they constantly have to fight against, something about it draws them in...
ReplyDeleteCicada sex is not sexual assault. I don't think the comparison is apt.
ReplyDeleteAlso:
ReplyDelete"in what other discipline is inserting one’s personal politics into a technical analysis celebrated rather than discouraged?"
Climate science, when you're a conservative.
Fascinating. This reminds me of The Kid, the protagonist of Samuel R. Delany's Dhalgren. He wears a sandal or shoe or boot on only one foot throughout his odyssey through Bellona. The one foot shod/one foot bare image is used in some of his other works as well.
ReplyDeleteHelp me out here. I'm assuming that Q stands for "queer." How is that distinct from L, G, B, and T?
ReplyDeleteThe haunting strophes of the Geek Chorus come back to me even now in iambic pentameter::
ReplyDelete"Tho' he's often made us sore,
No one's called him THAT before,
And it seems the King might be
a Mother-shagger.
It's a first-class tragic trauma,
To be told you've humped your Mama,
And further hear you've murdered
Dear Old Dad!"
Oy.
ReplyDeleteHa! I recognise 'Giles Goatboy' when I see it.
ReplyDeleteOy, those modern translations, I hate them.
ReplyDeleteOedipus wrecks
ReplyDeleteDo not exceed your quota of wisecracks!
I have yet to hear a coherent explanation from any of these dolts
ReplyDeleteWhite Protestant Christians used to be able to consider themselves the top dogs in the US of A. They'd walk around bowlegged because their nutsacks were so huge. Then they had to start respecting black people--treating them like they were regular people or something. Then womenfolk wanted to vote. And then there were all those Italians and Polacks and Chinese and Mexicans. And then there were the blacks again, and then their own goddamned kids got in on the racket, and there was Vietnam and disco and the world's been shit ever since. Now the rump-wranglers want to move in next door, and the next thing you know they'll be over asking to borrow the extension ladder to clean out their gutters, and it's just too much.
If you need one of 'em, they'll be in the den eating Ben & Jerry's right out of the container while silently weeping.
"Do not exceed your quota of wisecracks!"
ReplyDeleteI can't help it! I was brought up in the land of milk 'em, honey, and boy, do I! My ancestors were simple gag-writers, who lived in the Holy Land and tended their flocks of Yoks.
You don't have to read much Dreher to realize that very little excites him more than the idea of imposing his beliefs on other people.
ReplyDeleteYes, yes, if you are in certain retail businesses, you may have to make a cake or take pictures that you don't want to.
ReplyDeleteSomeone on an earlier thread, I think, made the point that a bakery can always claim to be out of flour, or a photographer out of film, or their Grandma just died, or the dog ate the payroll and they have to close down. Seriously, if you hate teh gaii enough, this seems trivially easy, and the rationalization ritual should be a snap, since your conscience wouldn't really suffer. Assuming you have one.
I don't think Cicadas can dial telephones, either. Hell, I bet they can't even speed-dial.
ReplyDeleteLesbian
ReplyDeleteGay
Bisexual
Transgendered
Questioning
It's pretty clunky. We'll outgrow it eventually, but our culture is still grappling with a lot of issues around sex, gender, and social roles.
"How is that distinct from L, G, B, and T?"
ReplyDeleteOh, come on! If you have to ask, you're never gonna know.
Ah! Curious, in other words.
ReplyDeleteOh--that Ginzburg! I read The Cheese and the Worms about a gazillion years ago. This book looks very interesting, if a bit crazed. Are you arguing that Jesus is another of these lame/liminal figures? because he's not lame when he walks.
ReplyDeleteLike jazz?
ReplyDelete"All Americans, especially we whose beliefs are being consigned to what a federal judge called this week 'the ash heap of history,' are going to live through some difficult times."
ReplyDeleteJesus Christ. I said it on the Facebook feed and I'll say it here -- It's always Year Zero with these freaks. I mean, YES, if the U.S. is spying on domestic dissidents (however you define it) it'll be awful. Just as it was awful when Ike did it, when JFK and LBJ did it, when NIXON did it and when Reagan did it.. It's a fucking American tradition! Wilson did it. W did it and bragged about it, because "terrorism". J. Edgar Hoover did it for every President he served, he even did it ON every President he served. The trick is, that it's almost always for dissidents on the Left (and sometimes the Muslim right). The Right now, at long last, wants to whine because they'll have files too? Boo-fucking-hoo. Just call yourselves Rippies or something and hold sit-ins. Lefties used to march at least. These losers can't be assed to do anything but brandish weapons at fast food restaurants to assert their rights.
I promise to be outraged on their behalves when they apologize for being racist, war-mongering triumphalists. Fuck them.
What is at issue is Marshall's stupid sense of entitlement. I'm afraid I'd better not say anything more than that or I will say something regrettable.
ReplyDeletehis Harvard thesis was all about how Mexicans have low IQs.
ReplyDeleteAnd he got his degree? Yikes...
"Like Jazz?"
ReplyDeleteA lot, a whole lot, always have.
every Jewish man looks in the mirror and sees a great comedian.
ReplyDelete...then he turns around and tells Woody Allen to get out of his bedroom. I'm here all week, folks!
Calling it "his" dissertation is something of a stretch:
ReplyDeletehttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ItsV-pcoEq4/UY7qb-2FzpI/AAAAAAAAMbE/vbDB8UvPvPQ/s1600/murray2.PNG
Silence, ruffian! Now bring me my crossbow!
ReplyDeleteThey do make an ungodly buzzing racket, which I suppose is their way of saying "come hither".
ReplyDelete"...then he turns around and tells Woody Allen to get out of his bedroom."
ReplyDeleteHey, Woody was just looking in the mirror, and it was all going great til he put his glasses on.
because he's not lame when he walks
ReplyDeleteThe disciples who met him on the road to Emmaus were reticent on this point.
Not-so-old joke: I believe in same sex marriage because I'm in one. Same sex, every time.
ReplyDeleteMoose got toes?
ReplyDelete"They do make an ungodly buzzing racket, which I suppose is their way of saying...."
ReplyDeleteScientists have actually deciphered the rasping sounds emitted by mating Cicadas. Digital audio analysis and super-computers now let us know which sounds mean "faster" and which ones mean "harder" and which mean "don't stop". Modren science is wonderful..
You know, they were very surprised last night when I played "Stormy Monday" so well. Funny, they said, you don't look....
ReplyDeleteWell, split hooves, and a whole lotta split ends.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, if you hate teh gaii enough, this seems trivially easy, and the rationalization ritual should be a snap, since your conscience wouldn't really suffer. Assuming you have one.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with this is that doing deprives the photographer/baker/whatever of the opportunity to publicly look down upon and shame someone else. Just turning away the business isn't enough. The gay customer has to be told, "I don't like your kind."
Teen Girl Squad Bund Deutscher Mädel!
ReplyDeleteAimai, you know my principles concerning the rights of humor life. Every little joke that is conceived should be delivered, and have a chance at laugh.
ReplyDeleteMoose got toes?
ReplyDeleteWell, they're kosher, so ... sorta?
I have yet to hear a coherent explanation from any of these dolts
ReplyDeleteNot that I'm complaining, but you, uh, could have stopped typing there.
What makes this Jew look in the mirror and see red is that so many Jews look in the mirror now and see white. I hope I never do.
ReplyDeletethey'll be in the den eating Ben & Jerry's right out of the container
ReplyDeleteHippie ice cream? From Vermont? I think not. Blue Bunny ice cream, being located in northwestern Iowa, would be much likelier to find favor with the LORD. Why risk divine wrath with Cherry Garcia when Bordeaux cherry chocolate is available?
During the Arab Spring uprising in Yemen when the president, Saleh, kept promising to leave and making deals to leave and then breaking them by coming back, one of the tribal chiefs was particularly disgusted with him and said, "we will send him away barefoot." I'm wondering in that quote from the KJV whether "shoe" is meant to be understood as plural or singular. Jamaicans use singular nouns when they mean plural, as in "He went to the shop and all he brought me was the little so-so orange," which means a measly few oranges, not a mediocre one,
ReplyDeleteI honestly think his comment was just an attempt at making a small funny about the expanding number of letters, nothing deeper than that. Maybe a bit of exasperation about staying up to date with the latest nomenclature.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he was saying something like "LGBT is fine, but the Qs aren't even a *real thing*", or otherwise dismissing the *people*.
But yeah, definitely tone-deaf. I raised an eyebrow when I saw that one.
Why do all these homosexuals keep sucking Trotsky's cock?
ReplyDelete(and right in front of Rod Dreher, too!)
This comment is woefully lacking in woodcuts.
ReplyDeleteI don't foresee Dreher needing to get a real job unless there's an unexpected cash shortage in the wingnut welfare machinery.
ReplyDeleteBrick Testament!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thebricktestament.com//the_law/when_to_marry_your_sister-in-law/dt25_09.jpg
"...in what other discipline is inserting one’s personal politics into a
ReplyDeletetechnical analysis celebrated rather than discouraged?"
I'm sorry, does he actually know any right-wingers? His own personal history?
Yeah, I don't really buy that. We should not, I think, be encouraging people to use pre texts to hide their discrimination. The goal is an open, fully integrated society, where services available to some are available to all. Not merely that only those people who "agree" with providing services on that basis do so, while the others, the bigots, hide behind a lie.
ReplyDelete---Encouraging lying is not so hot in its own right, but, even more, in this case, it ignores the perspective of the gay, lesbian, Black, Latino, whatever discriminated group person who is seeking services. Should these folks be denied service, and then have no recourse, because the service providers lie to them, as you seem to recommend they do? No, services should be available on an equal basis, for everyone, and pretexts for refusals of service should be exposed, and punished, not encouraged.
It's a combination bumper sticker regurgitation / vaguebooking / gaffe elicitation machine.
ReplyDeleteThere's the makings of a "world revolution" joke here, but I'm not quite deviationist enough to construct it.
ReplyDeleteNAG NAG NAG.
ReplyDeletehttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Os6aUImRi8I/SwuqxTqV6pI/AAAAAAAAABo/CYF6GmbaOvU/s1600/f%26c3.jpg
Jeez, this is a guy who blogs against a Christmas song written and performed by a gay person, for Crissakes! And against what some random gay man said about his mom in a obscure article in a friggin' cake magazine! And about gay sex in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, approximately a thousand miles from where he lives!
ReplyDelete------And how does the number of comments relate to the issue of his, Rod's, obsession with the gayz!
The Dred Scott decision caused a backlash among many who were sort of on the fence about slavery, creating more abolitionists than it discouraged. The commenters are free to hope the same thing happens as a result of recent same sex marriage decisions, although for numerous reasons I don't think it will.
ReplyDeleteWould ejecting this pasta-and-pizza-fueled spare tire on my stomach qualify as a 'male abortion?'
ReplyDeleteGood thing it's northwestern and not northeastern; you'd be crossing from good American Christian territory into dastardly hippie commie blue state country without any appreciable difference in the people or landscape. Those liberals sure are sneaky!
ReplyDeleteWait, what? I had to do a dissertation--I didn't have any four interns doing research assistance.
ReplyDeleteVery good point. Shoeless is an insult. Having only one shoe is just weird.
ReplyDeleteI love Lego Leviticus. I've used it for my passover invitations.
ReplyDeleteI see that the right sandal was the one to remove.
ReplyDeleteWhich one means "put a ring on it?"
ReplyDeleteI really brooded over using Woody Allen in place of "great comedian" but ever since the Farrow pedophilia scandal I can't even bring myself to think of him.
ReplyDeleteAdmit that 1/3 of all jokes are stillborn.
ReplyDeleteHe's just givin' the people what they want. If they want burgers, he'll sell burgers, even though he's a vegetarian himself.
ReplyDeleteHeh. He said "inserting."
ReplyDeleteBen & Jerry's has been a subsidiary of Unilever for some time now. They sold out, man.
ReplyDeleteYou have nothing to lose but your (whips and) chains!
ReplyDeleteNot to trivialize it, but I wonder if he hasn't been met with as much outrage because people can't imagine Woody Allen being sexually aggressive.
ReplyDeleteMore relevant to your complaint, have they figured out what cicada sound means "NO!"?
ReplyDeleteSo what are you saying about Shoeless Joe Jackson?
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, a large number of comments are surely from decent people responding to something idiotic that Dreher emitted.
ReplyDeleteOne of these days he's going to write about his priest's dangling censer and its sensual swinging, and the jig will be up.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure a good Republican would buy Walmart store brand ice cream.
ReplyDeleteYou aren't a woman, are you? Because little creeping creatures like Woody Allen can be damned sexually agressive. I wasn't surprised at all.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I'd go that far. Would you wade into a sewer if you didn't have to?
ReplyDeleteOh come on, sometimes it's fun to poke them with a stick. It's not like you're stuck in a physical room with them.
ReplyDeleteCorrect, I'm not. And I'm pretty terrible with social cues in general and sexual ones in particular, so no surprise that I missed something there.
ReplyDeleteBen & Jerry's has been a subsidiary of Unilever for some time now.
ReplyDeleteA big lever is involved? That just makes it worse.
You never know, one of those jokes could grow up to be The Aristocrats!
ReplyDeleteRectum? Damn near destroyed the foundations of western civilization!
ReplyDeleteSo what's Thanksgiving like at the OnAStick household?
ReplyDelete"These liberal egghead colleges are so useless, they even gave a degree to a dimwit like me!"
ReplyDeleteFrom each according to his ability to deepthroat, to each according to his need for throbbing manmeat.
ReplyDeleteBring back traditional marriage. One man and as many twelve year olds as he can buy.
ReplyDeleteRod complains that liberals are trying to remove suffering from Christianity while also complaining that he is being forced to suffer for his Christianity.
ReplyDeleteGood observation. Why, it's almost as if Rod Dreher's conception of conservatism, religion and the natural order (all the same thing, of course) hinged on Dreher and his crowd calling the shots, and deciding who prospers and who suffers. How terribly uppity that others don't mind their place!
Religion is the amyl nitrate of the people.
ReplyDeleteI am applying for a no-knock-knock warrant to use on this comment.
ReplyDeleteI can't figure it out either. In theory, you'd think gay people would be the least offensive to them. Just about every other liberal interest (racism, sexism, poverty in general) involves at least a bit of someone demanding their fair share, which would mean that well-off conservatives would be required to give up a bit of their unfair share. Gay people, on the other hand, just want to be left alone to do their thing without anyone picking on them for it. In other words, they want other people to Not Give A Shit. And conservatives are normally the world-class champions of Not Giving A Shit, but on this one issue, they are suddenly all about the shit-giving. I mean, what the hell?
ReplyDeleteActually, it occurs to me that perhaps it's exactly because of that? In every other issue, they can appeal to the greed and selfishness of other more-or-less-well-off people, and that makes them feel optimistic enough about their chances to relax a little. But the demands of gay people are just so eminently reasonable and modest that there's no self-interest to appeal to in anyone who isn't allergic to gayness in and of itself. That means that conservatives think that they might lose (as, indeed, they are losing, far more quickly and decisively than in any other issue I can think of), and that just drives them crazy.
It's a theory, at least.
"Error Has No Rights"?
ReplyDeleteMy first thought is, "good! Error deserves no rights." But that may be half a lifetime spent around kill-the-heretic-who-only-agrees-with-us-to-99% crowd. I am trying not to think like that anymore.
Should error have rights? Er... I suppose it should have the right not be punished beyond what is reasonable given the gravity of the error? But I am not sure how much that even is.
Ugh. My brain is not equipped to handle this. It keeps wanting to scream "kill the heretics!" but at the same time I've been flamed as a heretic too many times not to see the downside of that stance. :P
Some liberal commenters complain that I spend too much time blogging
about gay marriage, but those threads are almost always the most popular
ones, in terms of comments. Only race consistently draws the number of
comments.
What, his posts about race draws comments? What the hell is he saying about race that actually manages to rile people up? My (bitter and cynical) experience is that no one who isn't personally affected really gives a hoot about race issues unless some bigot really gets astonishingly hateful and disgusting.
I'm not sure I even want to know...
That is indeed an interesting possibility. I know I look like I was in approximately the eleventh trimester...
ReplyDeleteTaxing "religious" organizations would be an excellent start.
ReplyDeleteThis.
ReplyDeleteHe is pretty much an ass, but I'm inclined to agree in this case.
You damn right. Blue Bunny's corporate masters don't like no homos neither.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone had the nerve to see if the Rod of God has weighed in firmly on the side of Putin & the Russki Orthodox church in their battle against the Forces of Faggotry?
ReplyDeleteI think a bigger part of their freak-out with teh gheys is that they need to pick on and denigrate some "outsiders," and gay people were one of the few groups you could openly discriminate against without getting sued. One common complaint you hear when you spend time around folks like Dreher runs along the lines of "You can't complain about the [fill in list of minority groups] any more because of the PC police. So who can I run down?"
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly the way I see it.
ReplyDeleteI think the fact that gay people are gay has little to do with the way the Right treats them. What do Blacks, Gays and Women have in common, except that they are groups the Right would give lesser social status to? From the point of view of the Right, there HAS to be a rigid, never-changing social hierarchy, a totem pole that never gets re-carved.
What kind of world would we have if some lesser group of people could voluntarily decide that they were just as good as anyone else? Not any kind of world the Right would want to live in.
We may not have heard any coherent explanation FROM these dolts, but you certainly provided a coherent explanation OF these dolts...
ReplyDeleteHe'll sell burgers, but he gobbles weeners.
ReplyDeleteCapitalists will sell us the rope with which we will engage in B&D!
ReplyDeletePossibly. Though if so, their imagination is deplorable. There are still tons of groups that you can look down on and deride almost no social consequences - you just can't refuse to take their business. And many of those groups are quite poor and unlikely to have any business to give you, so where's the downside? (the homeless comes to mind. I don't advocate hating on the homeless, mind you, in fact I think doing so is in extremely poor taste, I'm just pointing out that you can do it and get away with it, if you absolutely feel that you must hate on someone)
ReplyDeleteNah, it still seems to me that there must be something about gay people that especially raise their wingnut-hackles...
Call me a cockeyed optimist (on second thought, don't), but I think it's entirely possible that the marriage rate among young straights might actually tick up a little soon--when they see the excitement their gay friends have on the subject and see them eager to get married. Is that such a crazy thought?
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons why I read blogs like Roy's is so that I don't actually have to steer the boat towards those shores.
ReplyDelete