I caught an interesting, but, well, strange, post a reader linked on his Facebook page. The writer, Robert Klein Engler, offered some interesting background on the Marxist roots of the gay and lesbian movement. Now, I’m sure that the better part of the rank-and-file gay activists have little knowledge of or sympathy for the Marxian ideals which animated some of the earliest gay rights’ activists, but those leanings are there among some of the leaders.
In this post, I will not consider Engler’s read on the push for gay marriage, but encourage you to read it yourself and to let me know what you make of it. That said, I did want to offer this paragraph where I do believe he’s onto something:
Likewise, the goal of freedom for gays that queer theory offers, dressed as it is in the feathers and sequins of Marxism-lite, is really an illusion. Instead of opening up being gay to multiple meanings, queer theory straps gays into another straitjacket, this time worn in an alternative universe of gender Gnosticism.
Now, I would put the word, “freedom,” above in quotation marks for the primary reason that, as Engler put its, it’s just an illusion. Some activists seem to assume that “coming out” means me need not only be open and honest about our emotional/sexual inclinations, but adopt a worldview that accords with leftist principles, hence, the assumption that a gay Republicans is, by definition, self-hating.
In their view, to be a true gay, in addition to being attracted to and longing of intimacy with individuals of your own sex, but you also have to subscribe to leftist political principles.
More on this anon (I hope).
All my adult life I’ve heard, “how can you vote the way you do and still call yourself a gay man?” But it’s because I’m a republican, that I know Im being true to myself. The left, as it manifests itself in the democrat party is anathema to just about everything I value and espouse to. I don’t want to be told who to support, nor do I want to be taken care of. I don’t hide who I am, but certainly how I live and love is my business…. and has only become an issue if I’ve allowed it to be.
I’m afraid that Jack Donovan put it all too well and clearly in his book Androphilia, when he said that contemporary gayness was a fully prepackaged didentity which required adherence to leftwing politics, anti-male feminism and a group victim mentality. Try to cross the herd on any of those three items and you’ll find out how right he is. Regretfully.
That’s “identity”, not “didentity”.
This reminds me a bit of a moment in a graduate seminar on Whitman, when one of my far-left graduate students objected to the fact that Whitman would celebrate “the self.” Her reasoning proceeded along the following lines: what is “the self,” after all, she asked, but the “rhetoric of capitalist, imperialist oppression.”
The gay left cannot have gay people believing that they have unique and individual selves. They are only of value as part of the collective, and “self-expression” and “self-invention” are to be approved and accepted only to the extent that they fit within the prescribed norms of all that is anti-family, anti-capitalist, anti-Christian, and so on. Hence, one of the reason that queer theorists are interested in “reclaiming” the work of writers like Whitman is to prevent them from being seen as saying anything that is outside of the realm of what is deemed to be “acceptable” self expression. To queer theorists, gays and gay writers are only seen as having value to the extent that they can undermine and subvert commonly accepted values and beliefs. (That is at least part of the reason that they insist on labeling themselves as “queer”–to make it an affirmation rather than a critique.)
To clarify, “the far-left graduate student” I referred to was a classmate of mine in the seminar in question.
I think it has to do more with the overall popular image of the Republican party, not what the party stands. A lot of gay and lesbian, so on, people just see bits and pieces of daily political action and don’t really take the time to dive in deeper. Santorum’s famous rant about man dog sex as equivalent to man on man sex was pretty prominent in the news and if thats all you ever got or heard about from the Republican party, you might have hard time understanding why someone would vote for people like him.
As the offspring of Cuban immigrants to the U.S. I was expected to be a Republican by my family. Those were strong expectations to deal with and, yet, the Democrats called when I came of age. I was told they were inclusive of me and my “homosexual” tendencies. The Religious Right had usurped the Republicans and I was told they did not want me. So, I turned left.
I turned hard right once more when I saw Hillary Clinton’s nomination stolen by an illegal thug with the Chicago Political Mob backing him up.
I was born a conservative and I will die a conservative.
Some of the intervening years during my 20s are just vanilla filling in a Twinkie with no nutritional requirements except fats and sugars.
Do you see any substantive difference between this and Harry Reid’s call the other day that, too paraphrase, there was no possible reason for Hispanics to do anything other than vote Democrat? The left promises to promote whatever group’s single interest politics in return for that groups unyielding support for the left’s larger goals, money and power.
Would it not be fair to add, though, that only Marxist-leaning homosexuals would have had the kind of courage or radical worldview required even to consider coming out of the closet in the 1950’s? Can one imagine any other group coming out of the closet back then? This does not suggest that gays and lesbians ought to be left-leaning now – that being left-leaning is somehow a prerequisite now in order to be gay. I’ve lost that sense that I once had that the genetic predisposition to being gay was an essential fellow traveler with any sort of predisposition to being liberal.
Of course, it’s also difficult to imagine the AIDS crisis occurring without the radical influence of early gay activists. To their laudable desire to knock down the walls that kept them from being able to express their love for other men, they added a furious and unwise desire to knock down all the rules and mores guiding responsible sexual conduct. We continue to pay a horrible price for those behaviors.
do gays ever think about how they had to leave every communist country on the planet and come to the united states to be able to have a little freedom. it the gay rights people ever get the type of government in this country that they want where are gays going to go then.
In debates like this I’m often reminded of the Churchill statement about being a liberal and a conservative. If you are not a liberal in your 20s you have no heart. If you are not a conservative by your 40s you have no brain. The debate between liberal and conservative will always come down to that difference. If feelings win out in your internal debates your a lib. If your intellect does you’re a conservative. Those that continue to follow their feelings about a policy are doomed to disappointment and heartache.
So Phil ostensibly agrees with many on the conservative right that the objective of the gay rights movement was not free and equal participation in society but a radical restructuring of society in which traditional values would be torn down and replaced with radical values.
I never really went left, other than the time I voted for Clinton, in my younger years. BUT, I did so mainly because “everybody else was doin’ it”. I was 18, didn’t care about politics and didn’t know any better. Nobody directly influenced me to do so.
Around the time of his reelction campaign, a gay friend had a Clinton/Gore bumper sticker on his Jeep. I asked why. The answer was “Because he’s done more for gays than anybody else”. I asked “Like what?”. My friend thought about it and changed the subject.
I was born in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. So I grew up being slowly indoctrinated with Leftist principles and ended up being a registered Democrat voter and voting for Obama. After the big “Prop 8” political issue a few years ago, I thought that maybe staying a political Democrat for the rest of my life would keep my freedom and civil rights safe as a Gay American.
I was personally mistaken — until I realized, just recently, that I was missing some values in my everyday life and ironically not knowing that I also had them but never exercising them — traditional Conservative and Libertarian values. I became a registered Republican voter this year for the first time ever in my everyday life — and it did make me feel a bit uncomfortable at first. And about Christianity — I was raised a devout Christian but recently became a Deist (God-believer without organized religion) because of my difficult reconciliation with my sexuality and my Abrahamic religion. Don’t get me started with the “Religious Right” in the Republican Party — sometimes I want to flash the First Amendment of the Constitution in front of their faces. But I pray to God every night, as always, and I believe my God to be the God of Israel. Just don’t tell the Leftist Atheists and Radical Islamists that because they will feel angry at me, hahaha!
After spending my time reading GayPatriot and other conservative blogs like anti-Islamist/pro-Israel Atlas Shrugs by Pamela Geller and watching news reports of the fiscally-Conservative/less-Government TEA Party Movement for several months, then I began to strongly embrace common-sense Conservative/Libertarian values for the first time. In addition, GOProud also inspires me.
I still live in the Bay Area California. The core values of the TEA Party is really what we need to save the economy. And I want illegal immigration and radical Islamism to end while supporting stronger gun rights and stronger national defense so I could feel more safe living in the Bay Area. And I have said this several times before on this blog, Gay Americans should know how difficult it is to be safe in the Bay Area given its tendency of hate crime rates and rising economic troubles. And the Democrats in the California Legislature act like Communists and Environmentalists on crack. Something needs to be done with California and the rest of America.
#8, that’s a real sticking point for me. It seems to me that it’s the radicals/lefties who fought the system and got the gay rights movement to where it is today. We have liberal Democrats to thank for all of it and thats a hard pill to swallow. I would love to know everyone’s thoughts on that. Am I wrong? Or am I missing something?
It is also an assumption that if you’re gay, you can’t believe Jesus is God, that there are moral absolutes, that your sexuality is a gift from God, and your body is not your own but a temple of the Holy Spirit to be used for the glory of God and not your own pleasure.
In fact, many conservative gays, like some on this blog, think that’s going too far.
I think ‘leftist’ activists on gay issues have done almost exactly as much damage to the ‘movement’ as they’ve brought beneficial attention to it.
In all, I feel progress toward civility and equality has had more to do with a natural evolution of fair-thinking and compassion on the part America’s average persons than anything else.
Why do so many gay people lean left? It all comes down to two questions.
1) Do you think there is a common ideological theme that unites conservatism or unites liberalism, or do you think that they are totally random collections of unrelated ideas. (I believe that there are some core principles and sentiments that define liberalism and conservatism.)
2) If it is wrong when the ideological theme of conservatism misunderstands, has disdain for or disenfranchises gay people, why isn’t it wrong when it misunderstands, has disdain for or disenfranchises other groups of people?
Because I am gay, I have special insight that helps me understand what is wrong with people who are anti-gay. I also see how people who are anti-gay rationalize their anti-gay views through the principles and values of conservatism. I identify those thinking patterns and make sure that I do not engage in those thinking patterns against any other group of people.
I do not want to cause that harm to others. I therefore do not want to be anti-woman, anti-poor, anti-muslim, anti-black.
I understand, mind you, that by being pro-woman I am expending effort even though not all women will stand with me. There will be homophobic women. There will be homophobic immigrants. There will be homophobic muslims, etc. Do I hate those groups of people because some of the individuals are homophobic? No, because that is a style of thinking called “prejudice,” judging a group by the sins of a few, and it is the root of every kind of hate.
However, as a liberal, I am a strong believer in the power of the individual and the power of principle. I do unto others what I would have them do unto me, and that is my strength. I will stand, fiercely, against racism. I will stand, fiercely, against sexism. I will stand, fiercely, against islamophobia. I will stand, fiercely, against any kind of condescension against any group of people. I will defend people whether or not they appreciate what I will do for them. I will make sacrifices for those principles, even if it means admitting that I have been lucky and I have escaped some forms of prejudice, therefore I am charged to expend more energy to listen and learn to understand that prejudice.
I will also acknowledge that I do not know what they are like or how they have suffered, nor do I know why other groups of people choose to do things that may confuse or disgust me. Perhaps it is because of something that I do not yet know, and if I learned, it would all make sense!
That ability and willingness to give all people the benefit of the doubt is unique to liberalism.
I am not at all surprised that a lot of intelligent, thinking and well-grounded gay people have taken the same path.
Matt, in your very long post, you showed no indication whatsoever that you have the slightest notion about what you call “the principles and values of conservatism.”
Or why it is, as per this post, that so many assume that to be gay, you must subscribe to liberal views.
So, please, as per your comment, give us the benefit of the doubt and consider our ideas!
@8: It is very unfortunate that the AIDS Crisis in the past was due to extreme Leftism, also known as Radicalism, on the part of many gay and lesbian Americans. The stereotypes of gay men having AIDS was devastating and those harsh stereotypes continue today. I am sorry to say this but its the ‘Leftist extremism’ of the past Gay Rights movement that caused gay men (especially) to become very promiscuous and politically corrupted. It never hurts to embrace sexually ‘conservative’ traditional values, that don’t always have to be based on Religious traditions. And with today’s technology we have condoms and vaccines to keep both gay and straight people sexually healthy.
@16: I agree with you. Sometimes we don’t need Gay Pride parades or any type of ethnic, gender, or religious “Pride” parades to change people’s minds. Although, it never hurts to privately learn about world cultures in textbooks; teaching United States History is primarily crucial starting at a young age.
Simply “coming out” to people who you know and trust is enough. Creating conversations and dialogue is what changes average Americans’ minds and hearts. Whats will all those civil rights organizations like NAACP, HRC, CAIR, etc for in this day and age? Let’s leave those organizations and look towards the future.
Instead of passing Left-Wing civil rights laws, why not pass strong Constitutional civil rights laws to remedy discrimination in a reasonable and logical manner? I believe in Individual Rights, not “special rights” for special classes of American citizens.
For instance; instead of ‘hate crimes’ laws, pass ‘gun rights’ laws — instead of ’employment non-discrimination’ laws, pass ‘business creation’ and entrepreneurship-zoning laws — instead of ‘school non-discrimination’ laws, pass ‘home schooling’ or other school-options laws — instead of passing ‘anti-gay’ marriage amendments pass libertarian ‘civil union’ laws State-by-State. We could leave the ‘Civil Rights Act of 1964’ in place. And I have no problem with individual businesses and schools passing their own anti-discrimination policies through their own private actions. All of those sensible civil rights changes could make a tremendous difference for every American citizen.
Actually, Matt’s post demonstrates quite nicely the cognitive dissonance that is at the core of liberalism.
To whit:
I will also acknowledge that I do not know what they are like or how they have suffered, nor do I know why other groups of people choose to do things that may confuse or disgust me. Perhaps it is because of something that I do not yet know, and if I learned, it would all make sense!
That ability and willingness to give all people the benefit of the doubt is unique to liberalism.
Which was preceded by this statement:
Because I am gay, I have special insight that helps me understand what is wrong with people who are anti-gay.
If you actually believed what you were pronouncing, you wouldn’t be insisting that people who you consider “anti-gay” are always wrong, because you claim to give “all people” the “benefit of the doubt”. Your “principles” do not match your actions.
What that clearly demonstrates is that you are a bigot who rationalizes his bigotry by excessive use of self-importance. Furthermore, as we can see by how you and your fellow gay liberals treat other minority members who disagree with you, such as wishing death on Mary Cheney’s children, calling black people who disagree with you “n*****s”, and hanging women like Sarah Palin in effigy, you are in fact a fascist who has established a required worldview for minority members and then attempts to kill and harm any of them who dare to deviate.
In short, liberalism attracts thugs while giving them free rein to attack anyone who disagrees with them. It’s no surprise that liberalism, with its hostility to religious belief, values, and social and fiscal responsibility, would attract gays and lesbians; its values of irresponsibility, perpetual victimhood, and blaming others for your problems are exactly in line with the gay and lesbian community’s value structure.
as a liberal, I am a strong believer in the power of the individual
Nice thought. Too bad the rest of Matt’s comment reveals that he really thinks of individuals not as empowered, but as victims of whatever oppression their victim group claims to have experienced. In fact, he seems to see people as defined by victimhood, not empowerment.
Which I guess may explain why so many of teh gheys are drawn to the left; whining about victimhood is good drama, and excuses you from a degree of personal responsibility for your circumstances.
Actually, liberalism REQUIRES the absolute rejection of core principles.
Claiming change only came from the Marxists, as Phil put it, does put an interesting spin on things…
So should we ‘thank’ Stalin for making the USSR a global power? Or maybe compliment Mao for all the ‘progress’ he made in the PRC?
By painting the ‘pioneers’ with a Marxist brush, is Phil saying that the goal of the destruction of democracy was laudable and should be cheered if the Maxists were gay?
Wow. Pretty sure I was not saying that, Livewire. What I was saying is that some of the earliest gay activists were indeed radical and two conclusions flow from that fact: first, that a lingering leftward tilt to gay politics is therefore not remarkable; and second, that while contemporary conservative gays might not love the politics of these activists, they should ask themselves whether their ability to be more open about their sexuality would have come about if it were not for these more radical activists.
It would be wonderful – truly amazing – if some of the people who post here would not take one statement that I have made, exaggerate it and bend it out of shape, and then perform the truly bizarre and irritating act of blaming me for saying it, when of course I did not.
Where did I say that “change came only from the Marxists,” or that Marxists “should be cheered” for having the laudable goal of destroying democracy?
Dan’s original post said that SOME early gay activist leaders had Marxist ideals, but that many of the early gay rights activists who followed them probably did not realize “the Marxist ideals” that animated those leaders. Are you going to criticise Dan for the same made up comments for which you criticized me?
I am not painting the pioneers with a Marxist brush, Dan and Engler are. To some extent, I agree with them that some of the first gay activists were very radical people. Not all, but some. For example, if you read about Harry Hay, one of the founders of the Mattachine Society, you will find that he started out as a communist and remained radical throughout his life.
If you think that the gay rights movement would have come about without the push of often very radical thinkers and activists, then by all means step up and tell me who would have done it. The local Elk Club? The county Republican organization? Please. Go ahead. Step up and tell me.
Anyone can dislike the debt that contemporary gays owe to the first radical gay rights activists, but that does not mean that they do not owe that debt. And anyone can bemoan the ramifications of the radicalism of those first gay pioneers, but if you think that the ability to be openly gay would have come about without those first gay pioneers, the burden of proof is upon you, not me.
Phil wrote: “Would it not be fair to add, though, that only Marxist-leaning homosexuals would have had the kind of courage or radical worldview required even to consider coming out of the closet in the 1950’s?”
Or to put it another way…
“Would it not be fair to add, though, that only Fascist leaning Germans would have had the kind of courage or radical worldview required even to consider reviving the German economy in the 30’s?”
“Would it not be fair to add, though, that only Maxist-leaning Chinese would have had the kind of courage or radical worldview required even to consider uniting the country in the 1950’s?”
“Would it not be fair to add, though, that only Marxist-leaning Americans like Bill Ayers would have had the kind of courage or radical worldview required even to consider changing the country in the 1960’s?”
“Would it not be fair to add, though, that only Islamic fanatics like the Ayotolla would have had the courage or radical worldview required even to consider overthrowing the Shah?”
“Would it not be fair to add, though, that only Shaira compliant Muslims would have had the courage or radical worldview required to fly four planes as guided missiles on 9/11?”
By crediting ‘Marxist-leaning homosexuals’ you succeed in pointing out that it is a byproduct of their agenda, not the reason.
A byproduct of Palastinian terrorism is a stronger more secure Israel. I’d hardly laud the Palastinian’s efforts for that.
We can also look at those beacons of Marxist thought and tolerance such as Cuba, North Korea or China for how those ‘Marxist leaning homosexuals’ would have been treated if they were successful.
I don’t thank Marxist-leaning radicals, anymore than I thank the Germans for their research in rockets for us putting a man on the moon.
Quentin Crisp was the first “out” gay man, and he was far from being a Marxist or a leftist. I admire him–his goal was not to shock, but to make homosexuality visible. He was not a supporter of the gay rights movement, and gays ended up attacking the man who set the whole thing in motion. I think his “AIDS is a fad” comment made an important point about how the gay left trivializes even great tragedies.
As to ‘who would do it, if not for the Marxists?’
I’d point out that the first Leather community came from military vets they themselves pretty conservative as a whole.
Dan and Bruce are an example of those conservatives who just wish to live their lives, and are subject to attacks from those radical Marxists you’re praising, up to and including threatening Bruce’s job.
Indeed, such figures as Susan B Anthony and Frederick Douglass did more for freedoms working in the system, than your Marxists did outside.
And what of the gay Conservatives before Stonewall? Do we just ignore them and genuflect to the beloved radical Commies? I damn every one of the radicals. How do you like those apples?
My 2 cents: being gay shouldn’t “require” being liberal or subscribing to any one particular ideology. However, it certainly shouldn’t surprise us that today most gays tend to identify as liberal. Basically for two reasons:
1. For whatever reason, early on in the modern gay rights movement, left-leaning gay activists were more visible/active/successful/whatever, and therefore more heavily influenced the gay rights movement. And we can see the legacy of this today.
2. The Republic Party has been vocally anti-gay at least since the 80s. Many Democrats have been anti-gay, and there have been gay and pro-gay Republicans as well. But in general, Republican politicians and Republican-identified public figures have been much more hateful and insulting towards gay Americans than Democrats have. Fortunately this is slowly changing, and many Republicans are not anti-gay and some even support equality. (What we really need is something like the British conservative party did, and openly acknowledge past mistakes towards gay people and start anew in favor of equality.) But again, the legacy of this is still felt today.
Can we move forward and strive to enjoy political diversity among gay people? Of course. But it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that we have this disparity today.