Gay Identity Politics - "Why do they hate Donnie McClurkin?"

Although I don't think anything can sidetrack the juggernaut that is the Obama thread for very long, but I didn't want to take the chance. Nevertheless I had additional thoughts I wanted to add to my comments and so created this thread. Participation is, of course, welcome.

[quote="real life"]Why do homosexuals hate Donnie McClurkin for telling his own life's story?

He was a homosexual . Now he's not.

Both were his choice.

I thought you would support choice, but apparently not.[/quote]

Because he is an apostate of the homosexual orthodoxy.

If homosexuality is a choice then it is a behavior which can be judged as can all choices.

If on the other hand, it is built into the genes of a person, if homosexuals are born, not self-made there is no reasonable basis for judgment of their behavior since it is hard-wired. Most people do not think about concepts of morality when they see a person born without any legs, nor when they see someone who is born a natural athlete.

They do not support choice in this instance because they do not believe choice exists. More importantly, they do not support choice in this instance because to do so opens the door to the judgments that they believe have unfairly excluded them from all the benefits of society.

I'm in no way any expert on genetics and/or homosexuality, and to my knowledge there is no scientific evidence that decides the issue one way or the other, but I am inclined to agree that homosexuality, in most cases, is not a choice. I am also inclined to believe that the socialization process during the early development period of a youth exerts an influence on whether or not a person born with the genetic propensity for homosexuality develops along that path. In any case, for the majority of homosexuals their sexual orientation is not, I believe a conscious choice, and is heavily dependent upon their genetic make-up.

There is more to discuss on this subject but I don't want to sidetrack this thread. Look for the new thread I am going to create if you are interested in further discussion.

I think too that homosexual activists and their straight allies are not happy with McClurkin because not only is insisting that homosexuality is a choice, he has stated that it is "a curse."

Whether their sexual orientation is a choice or part of their genetic blueprint, it is certainly understandable why homosexuals are not fond of Pastor McClurkin.

I never read McClurkin's book and don't know much more about him than one can learn through limited internet research, but any armchair psychologist can conclude that his homosexuality and his religious beliefs were at war, and rather than continue life as an "abomination" he let the Lord change him. Not really a convincing conversion.

Like the political activists of any minority, gay activists tend to have a hair trigger and extreme reaction to anyone and anything that might be perceived, in any way, as intolerance or bigotry. It's an obnoxious but superficially successful tactic. By jumping down the throats of any potential opponent, they are able to create an environment of heightened sensitivity. Most people do not want to be considered a bigot, and they certainly don't want to be called a bigot in a public setting and so they watch what they say and how they act. It's effective, and considering the "enemy" is intolerance and bigotry, what's the problem?

Well, it's obnoxious for one thing, and while it may lead to less public expressions of intolerance, it may also lead to resentment and more expressions of intolerance in private settings. I, at least, have the sense that the people who employ the tactic don't do so with reluctance, or an appreciation that while it may it produce superficial results, it can be rude and demeaning. Instead they approach their work with the righteousness of a zealot.

This would be fine if all of their targets were vile bigots and loutish brutes, but the very scope of the tactic assures that this is not the case, and there is no reason to believe that homosexual activists are perfect judges of character.

It is a bully's tactic used by the very people who have suffered so much at the hands of bullies. Poetic justice perhaps, but I think we would like to believe that people who have been the victims of certain anti-social behavior would not use it themselves. An unrealistic Pollyanna notion?

I don't pin this tactic only on homosexual activists as identity politics can and are used by any minority. As it happens, the left covers more minorities with its umbrella than the right, but a group that is more comfortably aligned with the right, is certainly capable of using the same tactic. After all, it it effective.

I don't believe homosexuals to be unnatural or abominations and there is nothing, in my opinion, that is inherently immoral about homosexuality. I don't think they should be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation, and that with the appropriate level of screening given to any would-be parents they should be allowed to adopt children that would otherwise be se adrift in the generally unnurturing world of foster care.

Now with that as a prologue let me say that I also do not believe homosexuals are any more above judgment than anyone else. If I believe that promiscuous sex in public places is debauched behavior for heterosexuals, then it certainly is for homosexuals as well, irrespective of any notion of a legitimate sub-culture. Similarly, parading down city streets in g-strings while holding up lewd signs is licentious and irrespective of whether or not it should be allowed, it should not be engaged in by anyone who wishes to make a case for being a normal member of society.

Now, of course all homosexuals do not engage in this sort of behavior, but those who don't should be prepared to criticize it rather defending it or looking the other way because os misplaced sense of loyalty to some notion of a Gay Nation. If one wishes to be judged by their personal principles and actions, rather than their skin color, gender, or sexual orientation those principles and actions need to be applied consistently across all groups within society.

Beyond this concern, which is bound to be dismissed by some as nothing more than prudery on my part, I have a larger concern with what I perceive to be a trend towards inculcating our popular culture with the notion that homosexual relations are not just natural in the context of the means of sexuals expression between people born with a same sex sexual orientation, they are hip and cool, and should be part of a heterosexual's natural "sexual experimentation." I don't mean to suggest that is the secret agenda of all homosexuals, or that it is necessarily a specific bullet point in the agenda of gay activists, but to some extent it is a product of the concerted effort to shape popular opinion about homosexuality.

It is, more so though, the product of cultural libertarianism; a natural consequence of an idealogy that holds that progression is, if not the natural then the ideal state of all things. It is a product of the ever expanding solipsistic philosophy that seems to have taken over our society.

Identity politics, in general, are counter-productive to the goals of the groups that employ them and disruptive to the society by which these groups ostensibly, at least, wish to be embraced.