Cityview's "progressive" bigotry

No, a "bigot" cannot properly be defined as "someone who is winning an argument with a liberal."

But when I saw a button a few years ago that made that claim, I had to smile. It appealed to my inner Rush Limbaugh- the naughty little boy in me who cannot resist something that gets a rise out of a group of people who, as a group, are notorious for lacking a sense of humor. It's the same part of me that led me, when I was a seminary senior (and a registered Democrat at the time, having voted for Walter Mondale two years before- in fact, having been a delegate to the Democratic State Convention- and destined to vote for Michael Dukakis two years hence) to display a poster featuring a military parade in Red Square with the caption: "Russia: Visit us before we visit you!" on my dorm room door. The reaction of my humorless and intolerant Far Left classmates was priceless.

It was the same phenomenon that gets Rush his ratings. Our friends on the Left never seem to disappoint ol' Rushbo when he goes deliberately overboard in an attempt to get them to make fools of themselves by taking him seriously. He's quite upfront about it: "demonstrating absurdity by being absurd," he calls it. In fact, many on the Left seem not to have not yet caught to the fact that if they developed a sense of humor and laughed at Rush's intentional absurdity instead of becoming apoplectic over it, he would soon go off the air.

No, I don't really believe that a bigot is somebody who is winning an argument with a liberal. Bigotry is an ugly thing. It isn't merely uncool. It's un-Christian, un-American, and indecent. But I am absolutely convinced that in the minds of most liberals, a bigot is, very simply, anybody who simply disagrees with them.  About almost anything.

Social conservatives, it seems to me,  have been ineffective in the ongoing debate over contemporary attitudes toward homosexuality for two reasons. First, for entirely too long, most have insisted on maintaining the untenable position that homosexuality is either voluntarily chosen, or in any case reversible in most cases through psychotherapy or an effort of the will. Both assertions are, in the present state of knowledge, untenable, and by continuing to cling to an untenable position traditionalists have prevented society as a whole from taking their position seriously. It's hard to take anybody seriously who doesn't understand the very phenomenon he's opining on.

A little over half of the identical twins of gay men, raised separately, are also gay. While that is a rate of heritability substantially less than that of, say ADD or OCD (and, since identical twins are genetically identical, the fact that all identical twins of gay men are not gay themselves pretty much blows the "gay gene" theory out of the water), 52%  is high enough to prove conclusively that something biological is going on. One theory gaining currency is that male children of women who have already borne several males are often gay because the biochemical environment of the wombs of such women are predisposed to be more hospitable to female kids, the law of averages being what it is.

But in any case, homosexuality is not a choice. It is not merely "habituated." It is none of the crackpot things social conservatives have come up with to try to make the case that there isn't a biological predisposition to homosexual orientation.

The second way in which traditionalists have shot themselves in the foot is even more inexcusable. There is a bit of logical slight-of-hand in the position of those favoring the acceptance of homosexuality, and attempting to bludgeon society into following suit. These folks ignore the point that the controversy is about a behavior.
Granted, there are unwitting allies of the social Left who not only refuse to acknowledge that sexual orientation is something other than voluntarily chosen, but disapprove of people because of their sexual orientation- something they can't help. Thoughtful social conservatives, on the other hand, recognize something neither social "progressives" or the obscurantists among social conservatives will concede: that there is a distinction between homosexual orientation, which is not chosen, and homosexual behavior, which is.

Despite the efforts of many in the ELCA and elsewhere on the religious Left to argue otherwise, both Testaments and  five thousand years of Jewish and Christian ethical tradition condemn homosexual behavior. There is no intellectually honest way around it. But homosexual orientation is another matter. No thoughtful social conservative would think of suggesting that homosexual orientation- a thing outside the individual's control- is even an ethical issue, much less something to be condemned. But social conservatives have nevertheless allowed the social Left to conflate the separate issues of orientation on one hand, and behavior on the other.

One difficulty, of course, is the fact that we live in an era in which the very concept of sexual self-restraint is looked upon askance. Many people openly express the opinion that it isn't possible. It is, of course, certainly difficult. But the experience of our species testifies that in fact it not only is possible, but is necessary for the well-being of society. The poverty and human suffering which current sexual mores have created among the forty percent of children currently born out of wedlock and their mothers is testimony to the fact that self-restraint of some kind is often necessary for the welfare of the individual members of society, as well as for the whole

Homosexuals, as well as heterosexuals, are human beings, and not brute beasts. We cannot control our sexual orientation. But being human beings, we are capable of controlling our sexual behavior. And it is behavior, not orientation, which lies at the heart of Judaism's and  Christianity's ethical rejection of homosexual behavior. In fact, the very concept of homosexual orientation is sufficiently recent that it doubtful in the extreme that previous generations even recognize that there were issues involved other than mere behavior. Certainly the authors of the biblical condemnations of homosexuality were unaware that something called homosexual orientation, as distinct from homosexual behavior, even existed.

Social conservatives have shot themselves in the foot by allowing the social Left to confuse that issue. It is simply not logically possible to condemn ethical disapproval of a behavior, as opposed to condemnation of a group of people for something over which they have no control, as bigotry. And yet, ignoring the fact that it is the behavior rather than the orientation which social social conservatives find objectionable, the social Left has gained untold leverage in the debate over the acceptance of homosexuality in our culture by stigmatizing traditionalists as somehow being "bigots-" as if behavior, as well as orientation, were an immutable characteristic of homosexual individuals!

The fondness of both the social and the political Left for substituting ad hominems for arguments- a characteristic also notable among extremists of the Right, by the way- is noteworthy. It is always easier to shout a slogan than to make a case. And to demonize one's opponents rather than engaging them in civil discourse is the more effective strategy, as well as the less labor-intensive.

Here in Des Moines we have an alternative weekly called Cityview-  a publication whose editorial policy makes even "Iowa's best Red newspaper," the Des Moines Register, look moderate by comparison (I hasten to note that no, I don't really believe that this widely-repeated nickname for the publication which brags that it is "Iowa's best read newspaper" is accurate. The Register is not Communist. It is just very, very liberal. That's my inner Rush acting out again).

Suffice it to say that, in a section entitled "GoodBadUgly," the current edition of Cityview delivers itself of the following bit of hate speech:

Choir members at the Crystal Cathedral were forced to sign a statement that "sexual intimacy is intended by God to be only within the bonds of marriage, between one man and one woman," which is a self-righteous slap-in-the-face (sic) to not only homosexual people, but also heterosexual couples choosing to live together out of wedlock...Greed and hate are a nasty combination.

Now, Jehovah's Witnesses believe that God is offended by blood transfusions. I happen to regard that belief as goofy. But I do not regard it as a self-righteous slap in the face to people who give or receive blood.

The Reformed neighbors of my former parishioners in Sully, Iowa firmly believe that it is immoral to work on Sunday (despite the absence of any indication in Scripture that God ever intended Sunday to be a Sabbath). They are sometimes even a bit judgmental toward people who do work on Sundays. But I do not confuse this judgmental attitude toward those who violate what I believe to be a purely human rule of conduct with the perfectly legitimate- though, I believe, mistaken- belief that working on Sunday is itself sinful. That belief itself- as distinguished from its sometimes arrogant expression- is in no sense a "slap in the face" to those of us who disagree.

I could go on, but I think the point is made. People have all sorts of beliefs concerning God's intentions for human behavior. Reasonable people may disagree with any of them- and, if they have different epistemological beliefs concerning how God's will is to be ascertained by human beings, they probably do. But as obvious a point as this may be to people of good will, apparently it has to be pointed out to the staff of Cityview, as well as to many other bigots on the Far Left: to hold ethical or religious beliefs concerning the propriety of a behavior is not a "slap in the face" to those who disagree.

It is merely to disagree with them.

It would seem that for the staff of Cityview, as for a depressing number of people on the Left, the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech and even freedom of religion actually means freedom only of speech and religion with which Cityview agrees.

No, the policy of the Crystal Cathedral- whether one agrees with it or not-is not an expression of hate. Nor is it a slap in anyone's face. On the other hand, Cityview's religious bigotry is a clear attempt to stigmatize a legitimate exercise by the Crystal Cathedral of the First Amendment rights the Constitution guarantees. And it is clearly motivated by an ugly emotion sadly typical of extremists on both sides of the spectrum, Left as well as right: the very kind of ugly hate it libels the Crystal Cathedral as expressing in its mere adherence to what the Jewish and Christian faiths have taught for two thousand years.

And that, as opposed to the Crystal Cathedral's mere expression of an ethical and theological opinion of certain abstract behaviors, is not only a slap in the face to every Christian or Jew who believes what his or her faith has historically taught, but a textbook example of hatred and intolerance at its ugliest.