My regular readers know that I am homosexual but it is actually the least interesting part of who I am and there's much more significant stuff to write about than what I do in private. Also most people find the subject boring or distasteful but, whether we like it or not, the "gay rights" agenda has raised it's Hydra head.
Recently I discovered that there are quite a few conservative gay blogs. Some call them themselves right-wing Libertarians and others say they are Republicans. Many are patriotic and support the War on Terror. Some are pro-Christian and anti-abortion and believe in old-fashioned morals. When I first started reading them, they were a breath of fresh air to me after being surrounded by the America-hating, anti-Christian, communist gays in San Francisco BUT I soon realised that I part company with most of them because nearly all of them are proponents of "gay rights" and "gay marriage" and I am not.
I read and comment on several of these blogs and have tried to explain why I don't believe in "gay rights" but the leftists start in with their usual collectivist nonsense and skew the whole debate to their paradigm. It is impossible to make oneself clear because the gay commies have created the playing field and have made the rules for the past 20 years. Even the socalled conservative gays have been suckered into thinking like the leftist gays.
One of the "conservative" gay blogs recently wondered if Harriet Miers is "gay-friendly." I commented that I did not care as long as she was anti-abortion. If Miers is anti-abortion, I trust her to be sane on other topics. Some leftie took umbrage that I was only concerned with Miers' stance on abortion. I replied that I was also concerned about her stance on the Second Amendment but that I could not care less about her stance on "gay rights" because there is no such thing as "gay rights." I said that I thought that the arrogant demand for "gay rights" had actually done more harm than good. I bowed out of the debate when someone started using the fallacious comparison between blacks and gays. That exchange triggered off this post.
Let me digress for a bit: I have known from a very early age that I was homosexual or bisexual and soon realized that it was not accepted by society. But I also read a lot and discovered that I was not alone. The ancient Greeks laid the foundations for Western civilization and practically invented philosophy and democracy yet many were homosexual. (Most Greeks were not homosexual - they were bisexual and practiced homosexual pederasty just as the Cretans did before them and just as they do in Papua-New Guinea to this day. However there were many adult homosexual relationships that were recorded.)
The lovers, Aristogeiton and Harmodius, were glorified for overthrowing tyranny in Athens and bringing about democracy. Orestes, the hero of the Oresteia cycle, and Pylades were such a devoted couple that there names were invoked by the Greeks to exemplify loyalty and life-long commitment. Lucian writes in his "History of Orestes and Pylades": Phoeis records from ancient times the history of the love between Orestes and Pylades who, calling on God to be the witness of the passion between them, sailed through life together as though in one boat....When it was decided that one should stay behind to be put to death and the other should go to Mycenae to take a letter, each wanted to remain for the sake of the other. Each thought that saving the life of his friend was more important than saving his own life.
The story of Damon and Phythias has a similar scenario. The two men lived together and had their possessions in common. They were such faithful lovers to each other that, when Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse in Sicily, intended to execute Pythias, Damon gave himself up as a pledge of his friend's return because Pythias had been allowed to first go home and arrange his affairs before his death. When Pythias returned to be executed, Dionysius was so moved by their loyalty to each other that he remitted Pythias' sentence of death.
I need not say much about Alexander the Great and Hephaestion because their devotion to each other has been more thoroughly documented and speculated upon in non-academic circles than the aforementioned (including in the latest Oliver Stone clunker of a movie.)
Another example of a long-term adult homosexual relationship is that of Philolaus, a lawyer in Thebes, and his lover, Diocles, an Olympic Athlete. Epaminondas, who led Thebes in its greatest days in the fourth century, saved the life of his life-long lover, Pelopidas, at the battle of Mantinea. They belonged to the Sacred Band of Thebes which was an army composed of pairs of adult male lovers.
Plutarch wrote in his "Life of Pelopidas:" It is stated that [the Sacred Band] was never beaten till the battle at Chaeronea: and when Philip, [Alexander the Great's father] after the fight, took a view of the slain, and came to the place where the three hundred that fought his phalanx lay dead together, he wondered, and understanding that it was the band of lovers, he shed tears and said, "Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything that was base."
Plutarch adds: It is a tradition likewise that Iolaus, who assisted Hercules in his labours and fought at his side, was beloved of him; and Aristotle observes that, even in his time, lovers plighted their faith at Iolaus's tomb. It is likely, therefore, that this band [of Thebes] was called sacred on this account; as Plato calls a lover a divine friend.
Plato wrote: Homosexuality is regarded as shameful by barbarians and by those who live under despotic governments just as philosophy is regarded as shameful by them, because it is apparently not in the interest of such rulers to have great ideas engendered in their subjects, or powerful friendships or passionate love - all of which homosexuality is particularly apt to produce."
Yes, I read a lot. By the time that I was ten I had read all the children's books in the library and asked the librarian (the wife of my Scout master) if I could read the adult books. She gave me permission and so began my life-long love of literature. Even before I read the ancient Greeks, I found that some of the men I most revered were homosexual or bisexual such as the Renaissance artists, Donatello, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael and Caravaggio; the composers Brahms and Ravel, Aaron Copeland and Cole Porter; the playwrights, Shakespeare and Marlowe; the poets, Byron and Gerard Manley Hopkins as well as my favorite writers during my late teens and twenties, D. H. Lawrence and E.M. Forster. I could fill a page with the names of great fags who inspired me.
The point of this digression is to show what I grew up thinking homosexuality was. To me it was about passion, romantic love, loyalty and devotion.
When I was 19, I was introduced to the "gay scene" in Durban. It took me all of two "gay" parties to realize that I hated it and would never fit in. I decided that I was not "gay" but bisexual and, in my twenties, embarked on a string of long-term love affairs - three with women and two with men and eventually married and fathered my son. When my marriage broke up (because I joined a guru cult which my wife despised) I decided to stop being bisexual because it was not fair to whatever woman I was with and it was making me crazy and neurotic. I began to hope that I would find one man to whom I could devote my love. I was lucky to find that man 24 years ago and we are still together.
Now compare this with what we know as the "gay life-style" with its malignantly narcissistic drug-fueled "circuit parties," sleazy "gyms" and the predatory promiscuity of anonymous sex arenas (which at least have recently re-labelled themselves more honestly as "sex clubs" rather than the previously euphemistically named "bath-houses.") These "bath-houses" and "sex clubs" are basically abbattoirs where the steer paid to be killed either by syphilis or Aids. The "gay life-style" is a culture of death. If disease doesn't kill you, psychopathic criminals (as in the case Versace) or meth-crazed murderers (as in the case of Matthew Sheppard) will.
The word "gay" was first used in Victorian times as a euphemism to describe the low-life subculture of drug-takers, barflies, prostitutes and other assorted hustlers and thugs. "Going gay" meant slumming it in the world of whores (of both sexes) and crooks, conmen and drug-addicts. It still has exactly the same connotation today. The "gay life-style" as it is practiced in nearly every city in the West is still a world of drugs, predatory sex and whores (both unpaid cheap sluts and expensive "escorts.")
For anyone with children, the whole question of "gay rights" is problematic, especially if you want to raise your kids as decent, polite human beings who retain some childlike innocence at least until puberty. It's particularly difficult if you want your kids to revere the Bible, (preferably the King James version) Shakespeare and Mozart instead of becoming brain-dead automotons listening to the tone-deaf psychopathic cacophony that has been mislabelled "music" for the past few decades, reading airhead Hollywood celebrity magazines and cruising inane internet chatrooms full of predatory pederasts and other assorted perverts, liars and conmen.
Who wants their kids to be exposed to that kind of heavy, egotistical self-indulgence? They have to face enough heavy ugliness anyway thanks to corporate sleaze in the business world and Hollywood insanity and immorality. Any parents who want to perpetuate the beauty and wisdom of Western civilization do not want their kids growing up to be slaves to their own lusts, selfishness and shallowness and that is what the "gay life-style" is all about. That's the way the majority of gays live. Most sane parents pray that their kids will not grow up to be gay.
Before I go any further, let me say that I am just as disgusted by the behavior of heterosexual "swinging singles." In fact, I'm probably more disgusted by straight promiscuity. While I have come to accept that many men are pigs when it comes to sex, I'm old-fashioned enough to be shocked that women can also be sexually narcissistic and irresponsible. I guess that's because I was already an adult before the Pill was invented and female promiscuity in pre-Pill days was associated only with those women who were too dumb or too reckless to care about unwanted pregnancies. I am especially revolted by the young women who behave like Maenads at the drug, booze and sex orgies known as Spring Breaks. The modern TV dating games (have you seen one lately? - they're sick) are not quite as disturbing because you know that the young women are being paid and are basically exhibitionistic whores. And (now I'm really showing my age) I really get angry when I see how young men treat women in this arena of straight promiscuity. But promiscuous straights are in the minority and so far they have not begun making demands for special rights because they are sexual perverts. If straight debauchees started demanded "debauchee rights," I would treat them with the same scorn that I reserve for those demanding "gay rights."
Also, it needs to be noted that there are plenty of homosexuals who plod along in obscurity either devoting themselves to their loyal partners or wishing for the love of their lives just as we all do. They are mostly decent, kind, considerate friends and neighbors. Some of them are even conservative and patriotic. Quite a few are parents too and deplore the "gay life-style."
Oops! Am I being too judgemental? No, I think I've got my judgementalness in the just the right proportion. Judgementalness is what got civilization going. Without judgementalness we'd still be living in caves eating dirty, unrefrigerated food and dying young of horrible diseases. Judgementalness is what makes us prefer comfort and cleanliness to hardship and squalor. Debauchees, liberals and others who subscribe to "moral equivalence" have succeeded in making judgementalness a dirty word in order to divert attention away from their own filthy behavior.
I can already hear the commies screaming at me: "You hate sex. You're a prude."
That's not true. I have enjoyed sex since the day I discovered it (when I was initiated at the age of seven by an eleven year old girl) and I even went through my own period of promiscuity in my twenties. My sex-addiction was fueled by drugs. When I stopped using drugs, I started getting sex in proportion - it's a pleasurable but very small part of ordinary everyday life. Even in my sex-addict days, sex did not take up more than the smallest fraction of my life and it never consumed me to the point where I started spending every waking moment obsessed with sex or defining myself by my sexual proclivities. But, that's what gays do. The "gay lifestyle" is fueled by drugs and booze. Gays suppress their God-given modesty and natural inhibitions by using alcohol and drugs like crystal meth. They drown their shame as if it was something evil when shame actually is nature's way of steering us away from anti-social and solipsistically irresponsible behavior. Isn't it funny that the ancient Greeks had a goddess of shame whose name was Aids?
Plato condemned the sexual predators of ancient Athens and since then we have used the phrase "Platonic love" to mean sexless love. That's not what Plato meant. Plato, like most ancient Greeks, accepted sex (both hetero and homo) in a fairly matter-of-fact way. What Plato condemned was the predatory pederasty of his time. He despised men who preyed upon and corrupted young boys but he praised romantic love; love that was not driven by lust and hubris. (Hubris came to mean arrogance and egotism but orginally meant rudeness and disrespect.) Plato saw adult homosexuality as a divine and sacred love. That is what is meant by "Platonic love." It does not mean sexless love but it also sure does not mean the type of predatory sexual promiscuity and that one sees among modern "gays." Plato's "Symposium" is set in the house of Agathon who was an Athenian dramatist well-known as a homosexual. At the party Pausanias, Agathon's lover, gives a long speech about homosexuality which shows that he did not approve of pederasty and thought that homesexuality should only be between adult males.
So, what do you call yourself if you are one of those men (or women) who throughout the ages have been romantically attracted to members of your own sex? The word "gay" to me means those who are not romantic or loyal but shallow and predatory. That's why I prefer to call myself "homosexual" and not "gay."
But the predatory promiscuity of gays is not the only reason that I loathe the gay life-style and refuse to call myself "gay."
The word "gay" has also accrued to itself (thanks to "gay activists") a particularly virulent and subversive leftist political connotation. Gays are proud to call themselves the new "blacks" and try to cloak their basically silly and vacuous agenda of getting special rights for their sexual proclivities with the gravitas of "civil rights" when ironically many blacks (most of whom who are old-fashioned, God-fearing church-goers) despise them and think of them as immoral. A black skin (which was once a serious handicap in a negrophobic world but no longer is among civilized people) is not the same as homosexuality.
Now, if gays had been created bright green by God or had penises sticking out of their faces where their noses should be (as many would no doubt like) and if their greenness or their odd organs were the objects of bigotry and were therefore an obvious handicap, I might say that it would be fair to give them special rights. But "gays" do not have any God-given visible handicap. If a gay tells me that he is "handicapped" in the same way that blacks once were, I'll tell him that to stop waving his willie around in public and keep his sex life private because his only handicaps are his big mouth and his undisciplined dick. Why do we need to know about anybody's sex life? Why would we be interested? Gays don't seem to realize that most people are not interested in other peoples' sex lives. Well gays don't seem to realize that there is a whole lot more to life that sex.
The commonest argument for comparing "gay rights" with "civil rights" is that there are prejudices against gays (just as there were against blacks) which have to be legislated away. "Gay activists" point to the anti-sodomy laws which they claim were enacted to "persecute" gays. That's not true; they were enacted to protect society from what was percieved (and still is perceived by the vast majority of people all over the world) as immoral and unhealthy behavior. Society also disallows incest, bestiality, pedophilia and prostitution for the same reason. Society regulates sexual behavior for the health of society as a whole. The AIDS epidemic in the West was a direct result of relaxing societal taboos on homosexuality. It started with promiscuous male homosexuals and spread from there. Only with hindsight do we see that gay "bath-houses" were breeding grounds for disease.
Sure, gays are born that way and cannot change themselves but does that mean that they are therefore entitled to "special" rights? That is like arguing that epileptics need special rights and that society must adapt to them. (I deliberately chose "epileptic" because it is a condition with which one is born just like homosexuality.) Does this mean that we have to change the whole of society to accommodate the "special" needs of epileptics? If so, we will have to ban strobe-lights and anything else that would trigger grand-mal seizures and we would have to make all dangerous machinery "epileptic-proof." And what about sociopaths and psychopaths? Some psychiatrists theorize that even they are born that way. Would we need to allow them to commit rape and murder?
Gays are not discriminated against because of some obvious condition as skin-color. It is not only fallacious but dishonest and manipulative to compare "gay rights" to "civil rights" (or less euphemistically - "black rights.") You can't change the color of your skin but you can be polite and not wave your willy in peoples' faces the way the arrogant espousers of "gay pride" do. Gays are discriminated against because of behaviors that are not essential to the survival of the human race or Western civilization. Sodomy is regarded by 90% of the human race as not only being unessential but detrimental. It is out of civilized tolerance and kindness that such unessential behavior is tolerated by society (as long as it is not unhealthy or harmful) and gays will simply have to achieve acceptance the way everyone else does - by becoming responsible valued members of society. Then they may politely ask for tolerance of a behavior that most human beings abhor. That does not mean they they should not insist on their individual rights to pursue happiness in the privacy of their own homes but they need to bear in mind that to most people, concerned with survival, protecting their families and waging a war on terrorism, the demand for "gay rights" seems a bit like re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
I've survived and prospered and been trusted and respected all my life by nearly everyone I've known in spite of being queer - and I've been open and honest about it ever since I figured out that I was homosexual or bisexual at the age of fourteen. The arrogant "gay pride" willie-wavers have done me no favors and I think that the angry, petulant demands for special treatment by "gay activists" has done more harm than good.
Yes, I despise the leftist political agenda of the "gay activists." Most gays have joined the "Hate America Club" and seem to think that European-style statism and socialism is better than individual sovereignty and responsibility. Gays have chosen the left fork in the road of political and cultural evolution. Instead of chosing cool, calm, logical, Lockean liberal individualism (the epitome of which is the American Revolution) they have chosen the collectivism and class-warfare mentality which brought about the horrors of the French and Russian Revolutions.
All important cultural and political advances made in the past 400 hundred years come from the Scottish Enlightenment - the classical Locke-Smithian liberal tenets of individual rights, individual sovereignty and individual responsibility which brought about the American Revolution and are enshrined in our Constitution. Socialism and leftist ideology comes from The French Revolution and the counter-Enlightenment and is based on group rights and collectivism. The muddleheaded notions of "fraternity" and "social equality" were reactions to the class divisions that were entrenched in Europe and which were destroyed by the American revolution. Yes, we may have been created equal and have equal rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but, in a free society, everyone ends up different owing to their choices. The concepts of "equality," "fraternity" and class rights or group rights like "gay rights" are destructive unenlightened Marxist nonsense. Any protection that we need to survive, thrive and be happy is guaranteed by our Constitution's emphasis on individual rights. There is no need for group or class rights in the USA and they are in fact destructive of individual rights.
I don't mind if gays want to politicize their sexual preferences and turn it into a collectivist agenda and try force cultural change through politics. It's none of my business. Just as it is none of their business if I prefer to deal with my homosexuality privately and hopefully change hearts and minds through my character, my usefulness to society, ordinary common courtesy and good-neighborliness. Decent, modest homosexuals who have gone about their lives being good neighbors and productive, trustworthy members of society have quietly changed peoples' hearts and minds more than the noisiest and most aggressive "gay activists" ever have.
