Enforced Homo-geneity

It's not often that I can give a hat tip to Mike Rogers, but in this case I will, although probably not for the reason he might hope.

A couple of days ago, by way of Mike's cesspool blog, I found a link to this editorial (also here) by the Washington Blade's Chris Crain.  Mike and others of his phylum are all a-tither that Chris would dare defend his decision to allow Jeff Gannon onto the Blade's op-ed page.

Gannon, you will recall, is the former White House reporter of extremely flimsy portfolio who was also apparently an escort on the side.  But he was also an influential and highly read voice of the right.  Money quotes:

The job of any good opinion section is to challenge readers, not just preach to the choir. For that reason, our Forum pages are open to anyone, gay and non-gay, whether or not they support the goals of the gay rights movement. [...]

LET’S SAY, FOR the sake of argument, that the role played by newspapers isn’t enough to justify publication of provocative views by someone as controversial as Jeff Gannon. Let’s say that this man, or his opinions, somehow deserve to be excluded from this “tolerance” about which we all preach so much.

Then remember this: We gay Americans do not have the luxury of intolerance. When it comes to minorities, we are remarkably minor. Kinsey was nice enough to propagate the 10 percent myth, but subsequent surveys place us at even smaller numbers, well under half that amount. And about one-quarter of us — of us! — voted for the election and the re-election of George W. Bush.

If we cannot tolerate the viewpoint of someone who tries to explain why one-quarter of us like and support the president, then how can we expect the 96 percent of Americans who are heterosexual to listen seriously to our demands for equality?

Now, journalists' defenses of the First Amendment are common, and are usually joined full-throat by the left.  Except when they're the gay left, and the voices that are being defended belong to the right.

So perhaps stung by Crain's level-headed response, the enforcers on the gay left have temporarily turned their guns elsewhere: against bisexuals.  (The letter linked, which Rogers giddily reprints, is full of the characteristic vulgarity and tautologies of much of the gay left.)

It is not enough for Rogersites to deem all non-left-liberals unfit for inclusion in the GLBT community, but now they want to erase the "B" itself from that equation.  Anything that does not conform to their narrow view of life experiences is a threat, something to be excised, rather than understood.  It is the face of fear itself, and it is pathetic.

If these people get their way, the big, annual gay-rights dinners will soon consist of Mike and a couple of other bitter, angry queens splitting a Domino's pizza on the living-room floor.

At some point, this enforced "homo-geneity" must stop.  Gay people have demanded for decades that the larger public "celebrate diversity."  So you cannot put that concept on the table and then jerk it back, retroactively redefining it for everyone else, or walling off anyone who looks at you a bit oddly.  (I'm sure where Mike Rogers is concerned, that is a large chunk of the population.)

Prism Warden has a similar and excellent take on conformity and the self-appointed arbiters of "hypocrisy."  ("Pinkists."  I like that.)

So three cheers to Chris Crain for running an op-ed page rather than an echo chamber.

Comments

[Kevin]

bravo, M.

i've always known that the world is a big, complex, highly varied place. and our community is no different - it's a very very richly complex world in itself.

people like mike rogers and jerry falwell hate that the world is inherently complex, and want to purify it for their own selfish, narrow-minded reasons.

too bad for them that they'll never enjoy the world the way it is. but also, there's no doubt that they'll never succeed in their 'mission' no matter what delusional self-aggrandizements they bathe themselves in, perhaps beyond ruining some people's lives here and there.

but ultimately, God will sort out their ilk.

[Ray]

Glad to see that Chris Crain managed to stand up to the gay-thought-police-wannabes. These people are of course entitled to their opinion, but hopefully they aren't as deluded as to believe that everyone takes them seriously.

[Will]

Jeff Gannon was not a journalist. He was a whore! Hello! He had no journalistic background but was allowed into the Whitehouse to act as a shill, tossing soft balls at the Press Secretary.

Putting him on any respectable Op-Ed page is like putting a five year old behind the wheel of an 18-wheeler.

[The Malcontent]

I see, so a Republican suck-ass is not a "journalist," whereas all of the liberals that suck Dem ass are above reproach.

Besides, op-ed pages are not just for the elites that people like you deem a journalist; they are for regular, flyover-type folk too.

[Hyper]

I usually agree with you, but not this time. Cain's intent was to be even-handed, but both you and he miss the point. It's one thing to defend Gannon's right to his opinion. It's another to assign the man credibility that he himself has destroyed. As I said at my site,
"I, too, advocate the deliberate and gradual conversation we must have with our sociopolitical opposites in order to try and reach at least an understanding. But to use Gannon as the benchmark is like saying that Pat Robertson represents the majority of Christians--it's simply untrue. He stands with the fringe of his group. There are many gay republicans who do not behave or present themselves as Gannon has, such as the mayor of Plattsburgh, NY, Dan Stewart, who would be much more helpful in developing a meaninful discussion."

I know, I quoted myself. How egoist!