Okay, call me a dope if you must but I just can’t figure out what the hell the "radical homosexual agenda" that so many conservatives talk about actually is. Yeah, yeah, you could insert a lot of sexual identity jokes here, but really that just plays into stereotypes about our gay citizens. The fact is, and most of you will be able to confirm this from your own experience is that gay, lesbian, bisexual citizens span the same range of good, bad, conservative and liberal as those who are heterosexual.
Just take a look at the Log Cabin Republicans (a group who has the best ability to compartmentalize and segregate concepts that I have ever seen), here is a Republican gay rights group. Almost a oxymoron in and of itself. Yet these are conservative gay citizens who support most of the Republican agenda.
"Originally posted at Squarestate.net"
In my life I have known a lot of people who are gay. I was a child actor associated with a couple of professional theater troops. As you might guess, some of the folks who acted, directed, did costumes or lighting were gay. In a way I think I was lucky, it was not an issue that Tom and Dan were living together and loved each other, it just was what it was and even a callow teen like I was couldn’t get too worked up over two men in love.
The point though it this fear mongering idea of the "radical homosexual agenda". I suppose it is pretty dammed radical to want to not be fired because you boss is afraid of "the gay". In most states if you are gay or transgendered then you are working at the whim of the most homophobic of your management team. They can fire you for your gender identity or your sexuality with no recourse. Hell they can tell you that this is the reason that you’re being fired and there is not a dammed thing you can do about it.
Trying to find out what the "agenda" is I went over to Conservapedia (to paraphrase Obiwan Kenobi "A more wretched hive of scum and villainy you will never find) They seem to feel that the "agenda" is all about making homosexuality acceptable. That’s it really. Here is a quote that features prominently in the post from Justice Antonin Scalia:
Today's opinion is the product of a Court, which is the product of a law-profession culture, that has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda, by which I mean the agenda promoted by some homosexual activists directed at eliminating the moral opprobrium that has traditionally attached to homosexual conduct.
That quote is from Lawrence v. Texas which invalidated the homosexual sodomy laws. That is also the case on which the overturning of Maj. Margaret Witt’s dismissal from the Air Force under DADT was based.
I don’t know about you, but is being accepted for who you are really that radical an idea? To me, not so much. After all, the argument from the Right on this is based primarily on their religious beliefs that the Abrhamic (Christians, Muslims and Jews having the same root god) god hates homosexuals. They are insisting that any attempt to give full rights to those who their god has said are bad is infringing on their rights. After all if you can’t fire a faggot for being a faggot it must be an offense to God or something like that.
It is always telling that the folks who scream the loudest about us trying to extend tolerance to all people are the ones who use tolerance as the basis for their discrimination. They want us to tolerate their bigotry so others can’t have tolerance or full civil rights under the law.
There is a lot of talk about indoctrination in the schools. Basically they are upset that there might be books where Jenny has two mommies or two daddies. In a way they are right, there is teaching (which can always be called indoctrination) going on here, but it is in response to the indoctrination or teaching that kids are getting in Church and at home. If there were not poisonous jackasses out there telling their kids that gay citizens are evil, it probably wouldn’t be an issue.
This all seems to come down to the common Conservative trope that if one group gains full rights then the majority’s rights are somehow diminished. It has been the primary argument against full marriage rights; that by allowing two men or women in love to get married weakens marriage. It was always a scarcity fallacy and the recent Prop 8 ruling by Judge Vaughn Walker eviscerated this premise in the finding of fact.
In the end, this all comes down to being a good scary phrase, this "radical homosexual agenda" rather than something they can point to which is actually radical. Gay folks want to be able to serve in the military, marry the love of their lives, be able to rent where ever they want, be able to be secure in their jobs from the small minded bigots of our older generations. That is nothing more than every American wants; to be able to live openly and proudly as whom they are, protected by the Constitution that our nation is founded on.
In the Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson wrote "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, chief amongst these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" at the time it was a radical idea. Today Conservatives think that our gay citizens wanting to redeem this promise for themselves is a still a radical idea. Who would have thought that people who want to wrap themselves in the mantle of the Founders would wind up on the side of the Monarchists?
The floor is yours.