I WANT TO EAT A NUT OF LAERMA!

"CUE THE KLAUS NOMI" UPDATE

Okay, I think it's fine for politicians to express their personal convictions on homosexuality if they don't think it's a 100% super-de-yooper lifestyle option. I had no problem with Elsie Wayne expressing her views against gay marriage and I do get outraged when the "pink triangle gestapo", the fringest of the "Queer Rights" (their term, not mine) activists, go to the courts to send mayors to the politically correct re-education camps known as "sensitivity training" for refusing to endorse gay pride activities or to force Christian printers to print flyers for gay pride events or, most recently, to attempt to get gay pride floats into a Santa Claus parades, but, yeah, Canadian Alliance MP Larry Spencer's comments on homosexuality were over the line.

"Spencer, a U.S.-born former Baptist pastor, said he believed that because of the gay rights movement, there will soon be strong pushes to legalize polygamy and pedophilia.

He said he believed gays had conspired to seduce and recruit young boys in playgrounds and locker rooms and that a "well-orchestrated'' conspiracy has led to recent successes in gay rights."

Now, see, as someone that thinks sexual orientation is psychological**, not physiological, and that sexual orientation can be fluid for many people (and, as always, I recommend that you read this little essay which I fully agree with), I have plenty of what I feel are legitimate concerns about the message well-meaning individuals in groups like Project 10 give to young people in order to end discrimination against teens that perceive themselves as being gay or lesbian, that sexuality is fixed, predetermined and immutable, considering that to be perfectly honest, my earliest sexual thoughts were homosexual in nature and, while most of my crushes in high school were towards girls, most of the sexual thoughts I had were gay, at least in the earlier high school grades, had Project 10 come to my high school at the time, they could have easily convinced me that I was gay. But using the word "recruit" is just stupid, and merely serves to polarize those on the other side of the issue whom like to jump all over people with more conservative views on the subject and paint them as being bigots. Implying that gays are lurking in locker rooms and playgrounds with recruitment papers in hand is just playing on people's worst fears, subliminally equating gays with child molesters. Yes, there are plenty of homosexual feelings in locker rooms, but that's because there are plenty of kids eager to experiment, whether they admit it or not. The fact of the matter is that, even if every radical "Queer" activist went and joined Reverend Fred Phelps's God Hates Fags group*** tomorrow, there would still be the desire among kids to experiment, since I think the desire to experiment is quite normal. The only way homosexuality should be equated with pedophilia is that, since a large portion of people have been led to believe that homosexuality is a genetically-predetermined sexual orientation which they didn't consciously choose (a position which some very radical gays don't even hold), some people that have, for one reason or another, sexual attraction to children have taken the logic one step further and are now trying to push forward the notion that pedophilia is also a pre-determined sexual orientation, because, hey, no one "chooses" to be attracted to children, so, if it's not a conscious choice, it must be genetic****. But there's a difference between homosexual sex between two consenting adults and a pedophile molesting a child (not that there aren't likely many people out there whom are secretly attracted to children but realize that they should never act on the attraction).

As for whether the gay activists have inspired those pedophiles whom feel that there's nothing wrong with the way they feel and it's how other people feel about pedophilia is the problem, I tend to agree with Jonah Goldberg's position on the slippery-slope fallacy.

"The only place where I think slippery-slope arguments are valid is where they involve activists and ideologues who fight for A because it will get them closer to B. And once they achieve B, they press on for C, falsely promising that that's where they will stop ? even as they lay the groundwork for D. Their ultimate goal is, of course, the absolutist position of Z. This is why slippery-slope arguments over, say, gun control make some sense. Because there are people out there who want to ban guns outright, they are actively pushing an issue down an unslippery slope."

Yes, there are pedophile groups that indeed are inspired by the gay rights movement, but I don't think they'll have the same success in "normalizing" pedophilia, for the reasons given in the classic South Park episode "Cartman Joins NAMBLA".

NAMBLA Leader: Rights? Does anybody know their rights? You see, I've learned something today. [Stan and Kyle look at each other] Our forefathers came to this country because? they believed in an idea. An idea called "freedom." They wanted to live in a place where a group couldn't be prosecuted for their beliefs. Where a person can live the way he chooses to live. [Stan, Kyle, and Cartman look at each other] You see us as being perverted because we're different from you. People are afraid of us, because they don't understand. And sometimes it's easier to persecute than to understand. [Stan and Kyle look at each other, then at the NAMBLA leader]

Kyle: Dude. You have sex with children.

NAMBLA Leader: We are human. Most of us didn't even choose to be attracted to young boys. We were born that way. We can't help the way we are, and if you all can't understand that, well, then, I guess you'll just have to put us away.

[shots of the agents, then the Brando look-alikes, then Stan and Kyle, who look at each other, then at the NAMBLA leader]

Kyle: [slowly, for emphasis] Dude. You have sex with children.

Stan: Yeah. You know, we believe in equality for everybody, and tolerance, and all that gay stuff, but dude, fuck you.

Kyle: Seriously.

Anyhow, I think it's fine for politicians to express politically incorrect views on homosexuality as long as those views are reasonably mainstream and are against the activities or the lifestyle and are not demonizing gay or lesbain individuals, but I do not feel you need to create straw men and use slippery-slope arguments to do so, and much of what Spencer said is just silly. I'm glad that he's no longer the Canadian Alliance's "Family Issues" critic.


**And despite what some some activists will have you believe, there is no consensus on the origins of homosexuality. When the APA declassified homosexuality from the DSM-IV in 1973, all it really meant that homosexuality was no longer to be considered a mental illness, which is different from saying that homosexuality is not a psychological condition.

***As you may recall, I have certain suspicions of Rev. Phelps's true motivations.

****By the way, I think that's a false dichotomy; just because most people don't make a conscious decision as to whom they're attracted doesn't mean that it can only be genetically predetermined. I'm also very attracted to Asians, and I don't know exactly how that attraction came about, but it would be ridiculous to suggest that there's a "being attracted to Asians" gene. I think the human mind is ridiculously complex, and the reasons these attractions come about are nebulous and very personal, often based on long-forgotten experiences, and vary from individual to individual.

posted by Steve Brandon @ 8:09 PM