Some years ago, Camille Paglia rightly ripped gay activists:
For gays to demand that sincere Christians cease lobbying Washington about the increasing liberal drift of government policy shows colossal historical amnesia. For pity’s sake, it was the flamboyant, thunderous activism of evangelical Protestant ministers in the 19th century that powered the abolitionist movement and led to the end of slavery in the United States. (Of course, these massively documented facts were concealed in Steven Spielberg’s Liberal Hollywood Lite version of “Amistad.”)
Abolitionist ideas, traceable to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, came to America from England via the Quakers in the late 18th century. It was thanks to the Quakers’ religious presence in Pennsylvania that Philadelphia became the birthplace of the first Anti-Slavery Society. Within five years of its founding in 1833, there were more than 1,350 such organizations in the United States.
Similarly, eloquent Protestant ministers like Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesse Jackson have been central to the modern Civil Rights Movement, which secured voting rights for African-Americans and opened the way to the election of a rising number of black politicians at the local, state and federal levels.
So gays should quit bitching about Southern Baptists exercising their constitutional right to free speech about homosexuality, which is indeed condemned by the Bible, despite the tortuous casuistry of so many self-interested parties, including clerics. I have been warning and warning for years that the insulting disrespect shown by gay activists to religion — which has been going on for 20 years virtually unchecked on TV talk shows, with their biased liberal hosts — would produce a backlash over time.
La Paglia wrote this over a decade ago, and she’s still right. What seems to have happened is that gay activists have relied so heavily on the courts to push their agenda that they’ve forgotten (or perhaps never learned) how to make an argument that will convince ordinary people rather than judges. And ordinary people, God love ‘em, are rightly suspicious when unelected judges start attempting to remake society. The common consensus about marriage these days—as much as a consensus that can be made—is that the institution is in bad shape. Conservatives and liberals alike probably agree on that much. The consensus breaks down over why this important institution is faltering.
Perhaps there will never be a full consensus over what to do, but right now it’s hard for both sides to disagree without being disagreeable. A few stories.
Several years ago, I was floored when I heard an black grandmother refer to Strom Thurmond as a lovely man. I asked how she came to that conclusion about the old segregationist firebrand, and I’ll try to put it as she did. “He didn’t understand us. He didn’t understand how it hurt. But after all those civil rights bills passed that he opposed, he backed them. He hired black folk to work for him, worked as hard for us as constituents as he did for the whites. To him, he was a segregationist then, and now he wasn’t, so what was the big deal? And I realized that he never understood the pain, that a small thing to him was a huge thing to us, maybe he never would, so how should I deal with it? I know a lot of people, some of them my family, were mad, and stayed mad. But I don’t like doing that. When a man starts doing right, it’s time to let the anger go.” It’s usually a bad thing to be angry, but it’s usually a good thing to be as big-hearted as she was.
Another story. A few weeks ago, I was having a discussion with a conservative activist. This woman was irked about an advertisement that showed a same-sex couple, and didn’t I think it was appalling? No, I replied, but then I happen to be gay. Her reaction was to explain that she was sorry, to hug me, and suggest I change “or else.” That condescension enrages. It certainly means well, but it also implies that a superiority on her part that doesn’t impress me. It’s the sort of story that just about every gay person has, and it explains—but does not excuse—the rage of the No on Prop 8 crowd. I considered raging against the activist, and then I rememberd that grandmother. To the woman I was dealing with, my huge issue was a little one for her. I let it go.
Elizabeth Scalia (aka the Anchoress) documents the fury of both sides and proposes a solution over at Pajamas:
A willingness to disregard established freedoms of expression and worship in pursuit of new freedoms will ultimately destroy more than it creates. Or, as Pope Leo the Great wrote, “Those who are not good to others are bad to themselves.”
That sounds simplistic, but it is also correct. Tearing others down does not build up. Instead of bullying the electorate, the gay community needs to calmly make their case, ask for support, and bring it to a vote as many times as it takes. If the Christians are wrong to proselytize without actually getting to know their neighbors, well, the gays are also wrong to browbeat, intimidate, or ruin others, instead of working within the democratic process.
The Christians at Castro need to remember that Jesus joined others in community. Excusing nothing, he loved others, even in all their faults and — only when asked to — he healed them. He never just said, “Hey, I’m going to whip a little faith on you, whether you want it or not.”
Meanwhile, the churches should reconsider their roles in authenticating marriage. Governments issue birth certificates; churches issue baptismal certificates. Governments issue death certificates; churches pray the funerals. Governments issue divorces; Churches annul. Both work within their separate and necessary spheres, serving the corporeal and the spiritual. It is only in the issue of marriage that church and state have commingled authority. That should perhaps change, and soon. Let the government certify and the churches sanctify according to their rites and sacraments.
Mrs. Scalia’s proposal is a good one. In the mean time, I’ll hope (probably in vain) for civility.
Posted by Hubbard in Here and Queer