Recent events - first, the rape of a 13 year old girl by a male student wearing a skirt, in a wealthy DC suburb, where the male student was protected by the Loudoun County (Virginia) school board's transgender policies, second, the head of the Human Rights Campaign (a major gay lobby) helping cover up Governor Andrew Cuomo's history of sexual harassment - raise the question of whether the LGBT movement has become amoral.
We used to think just being gay was immoral. Just thinking about gay people involved what philosopher (and left-liberal feminist) Martha Nussbaum called an "ick" factor. Odd in a way, since the anatomical concatenations available to two men or to two women are virtually all available to and used by heterosexual couples (with some recherche exceptions).
Of course some schools of natural law theory might press harder, and suggest that many people's icky feelings were not over particular acts which gay and straight people both perform, but over something else: giving up procreation, giving up gender-specific roles in sexual coupling, giving up having children that are produced with the one you love.
Modern medicine has overcome the first of these objections: lesbians could always easily become pregnant and have children, but now gay men, from Bravo host Andy Cohen on down, can have biological children as well, at least those gay men with enough disposable income.
The third objection, being unable to have a child that is the genetic fusion of yourself and your spouse, is a serious downside. Though I know at least one gay male couple who have two children, each with a different one of the two fathers, but both from the same mother, so that the children are biological half-siblings, and everyone in the household is biologically related to at least one, if not two, members of the family. One suspects biotechnology is going to provide a solution here as well.
The middle objection - that men in gay couples must at least sometimes be unmanly and women in gay couples must be unwomanly - is probably the objection that makes people feel the "ick." It's probably why people - even “CIS gender” gay people - feel uncomfortable with transgender and nonbinary and gender fluid people. (And Merrick Garland.). Whether this is a ... fruitful ... line of inquiry is questionable. There are heterosexual couples who seem to reverse roles about who is more aggressive and who more passive, both in bed and out. And if as most gay people believe, they were born that way, opposing their legal equality or social respectability because of what then would be rightly seen as a birth defect, would be cruel and itself a moral failing. Even if, as with many defects and deformities, one feels an “ick.”
But this is not what is involved in the gay amorality we are seeing in the public square today.
Neither is the now regular stream of famous gay people who are exposed for major moral failings. Ellen Degeneres is ending her famous talk show in part from being accused of being a mean and racially bigoted employer who allowed her immediate underlings to sexually harass her lower staff. Rosie O'Donnell seems to have a problem with drink and is unable to keep a wife, despite being fabulously wealthy. CNN anchor Don Lemon is charged with groping a man in a bar. Actor Kevin Spacey comes out as gay to deflect from charges that he sexually assaulted an underage actor. Actor Jussie Smollette lies about being the victim of a hate crime to further his career. Director Bryan Singer leaves a long and lucrative association with the Marvel X-Men franchise because of accusations of sexual harassment of actors and underage males. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who like Vice President Kamala Harris, ran a somewhat fraudulent Presidential campaign just to get a job in the Biden administration, then disappeared furtively into paternity leave exactly at the moment of a national crisis the oversight for which his Department is responsible. (I leave aside as ancient history Congressman Barney Frank's fixing parking tickets for the johns of his prostitute lover.)
This parade of moral turpitude by America's homosexual celebrities is interesting in that each failing seems to involve a gender inflected failure: the lesbians are mean, when women are supposed to be nice, and the men are cowardly and furtive, when men are supposed to be brave. It is also interesting that after the #MeToo movement (and other popular culture campaigns) we are all now expected to view heterosexual men (especially white heterosexual men) as suspect, because of Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Anthony Weiner, and Richard Epstein. (And Teddy Kennedy and Bill Clinton.) But we can't have stereotypes of mean lesbians or cowardly gay men, no matter how many children are abused by the gay woman in control of American schools, Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers. (If Randi Weingarten is the witch who eats Hansel and Gretel, Pete Buttigieg is about to be the Grinch who stole Christmas.)
This pattern of celebrity immorality is also not what I am asking a question about, but it does get closer. You can now make all the jokes you want about male lechery and bad behavior. But you can't joke about us gays. Comedian Dave Chappelle responded to some gay activists criticizing the black community for not rushing to support victim Jussie Smollete, by observing that black people were supporting him "with our silence," because he was so obviously lying. Chappelle added that if he were Smollette's father, he would have "broken a doll house over his head."
For making jokes about the un-manliness of Smollette's dishonesty and attention-seeking, Chappelle is now a prime target of gay activists. In Chapelle's new and great (but often misinterpreted) comedy special, The Closer, Chappelle observes that black people are shocked and awed by the progress of the gay community in America. Gays have leap frogged over African Americans, moving from being held in contempt in the 1950s as mentally ill, immoral, national security risks, and a threat to children, to now being the group that above all one dare not criticize, or make the butt of a joke, in public. Even if you happen to be black or are America's greatest stand up comic.
Earlier this year there was a piece in the Washington Blade, Washington. D.C.'s oldest gay newspaper, revealing a curious disregard by gaydom for another oppressed group that started the movements for civil rights for people in marginalized communities. In a review of a biography of Billie Jean King, the Blade's regular arts and book reviewer, writes "King, a feminist and lesbian, is believed to be the first woman athlete activist." Thus overlooking Wilma Rudolph, the black woman who won Olympic medals in the early 1960s and insisted that her hometown of Clarksville, Tennessee desegregate the homecoming parade it wanted to throw in her honor. And then went on to lead lunch counter sit ins, start a foundation, and meet with President Kennedy. Over a decade before Billy Jean King.
This solipsism is part and parcel of official gay activism's disregard for women and racial minorities, whose movements for civil rights were the template for the gay activism that has been so successful. Of course, gay activists do not think they are anti-woman or anti-black. After all they support Democrats in every election! Recent events suggest gays - or more precisely what Chris Barron, the founder of the defunct conservative gay Republican group GoProud called the GayTM - have become entitled, solipsistic, callous, thoughtless, and believe they not only can no longer be joked about, but don't have to answer any questions about their failures or the failures of policies they push. Policies they push that are often little more than grist for the gay lobbies’ fundraising mills.
Though the official gay movement, the gay PR team for the ruling political class, decided some time ago to throw women under the bus by agreeing to adopt the transgender demand to destroy the women’s sports that Billie Jean King (and Martina Navratilova and others) built, by allowing biological men to compete in them, recently political class gays have been caught in hiding sexual assaults against women.
Alphonso David, the head of the largest gay lobby, the Human Rights Campaign, was fired for helping Governor Cuomo strategize about how to cover up his history of sexual harassment. But not pro-actively - neither the New York Democrats nor the HRC Board of Directors took action against Cuomo or David when they were covering up sexual harassment, but only when the story became too public to hide.
A 13 year old girl is raped by a biological male student wearing a skirt in Loudoun County, Virginia. The transgender student is then discovered to be a serial rapist, who has been protected by the local school board, eager to enact transgender inclusive policies, by being moved from school to school after accusations, rather than being suspended and immediately charged with a crime. When the father of the victim tries to speak at a school board meeting, he is beaten, stripped (maybe unintentionally), handcuffed, and arrested.
Since the accused rapist was given increased access to female students by the school system's transgender policies, and since the school officials seemed to have been covering the crimes up, perhaps in their minds to prevent criticism of these transgender policies, one might think the local LGBT activists would be out in front denouncing the rape and criticizing the presumably faulty implementation of the transgender policies they advocate.
Local suburban Virginia LGBT groups routinely email anyone on their mailing lists asking that they show up at local school board meetings wearing purple, carrying rainbow flags, and speaking on behalf of policies allowing transgender students to pick their bathrooms and locker rooms, regardless of anatomy. As I was writing this I received an email from the gay activists in neighboring Fairfax County:
"Friends,
If you are able, sign up to speak to the school board this week: either
1) in support of LGBTQIA+ stakeholders in our schools; or 2) in support of preserving accurate history teaching in face of false claims of “CRT” in our schools; 3) in support of inclusive schools for all; or 4) any other topic.
Deadline for registering is Tuesday 10-19-21 at 7 p.m.
https://www.fcps.edu/school-board/citizen-participation …”
The email went on to give the address of the school board meeting and tips on parking. But no mention of the rape in Loudoun County schools.
I wondered when and how local gay activists would address this rape and its cover up.
I posted a link to investigative reporter Luke Rosiak's piece breaking the story in the Loudoun/Fairfax gay Facebook group. I received an immediate reply from a member of the group: "The Daily Wire is not a credible news source."
Curious about whether any local gay movement spokespeople were going to address the issue, I contacted one of the few sane reporters at one of the two DC area gay news publications (both of which are mainly run by Democrats whose partisanship veers into delusion, with one even having a former Bella Abzug staffer as its chief political columnist).
This sane journalist emailed me back:
"Bruce,
I'm working on this story now. Thanks for sending this commentary piece from the [Washington] Examiner.
The one thing it omits is that the Loudoun County Sheriff's department has arrested the teenager who committed the sexual assaults and filed multiple rape related charges against him. But due to the secrecy requirements for juvenile offenders, I and other press people have had a difficult time trying to confirm what is happening.
The few gay activists I talked to, who do not wanted to be identified, say the Loudoun school officials should have said the student who committed the sexual assault should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, but that this was an extremely rare case. They say after years of pro-transgender laws in cities and states across the country, this type of thing simply does not happen. They appear to be saying all trans kids should not be blamed for the action of one kid any more than all conservative political activists should not be blamed for the action of one conservative activist who is a rapist."
Of course, what we don’t know is how many other “woke” school boards are covering up cases of sexual assault as Loudoun County did. The LGBT activists (and their “straight allies”) behind the policy of letting males enter women’s locker and bath rooms hide and the media don’t question them because they are a “protected class,” like rioters and looters who are protected from criticism because of their race - even as they burn down small businesses owned by people who are also racial minorities.
This story took days to appear (and I worried that the author might forget that you can't say "him"). No gay activists from Loudoun County have commented publicly. But the group Equality Loudoun did hold a picnic this past Sunday in Vienna, Virginia. No elected officials have commented on the story either, now has anyone at the Department of Justice, nor have the Democrats running for office in Virginia. (The Republican candidates for Governor and for Attorney General did speak out about it after a few days of coverage.). The National Association of School Boards, the group that wrote a letter to President Biden about the domestic terrorist soccer moms threatening school board members is also silent - apparently whatever best practices they have for their members does not include urging them not to cover up rapes.
As this story was breaking I was filling out an online survey, the Pride Study, for a California non-profit run by gay people that collects data on gay people. The questions in the survey are somewhat tendentious - it is clear that what the researchers think is important to know about is how much sex you have with how many people, which forms of prophylaxis you are informed about and employ if any, and how safe you feel in your family and community or at work with being public about your sexual orientation or gender identity. The survey also asks about your experiences with sexual harassment and assault. But only as a victim, not a perpetrator, The survey nicely asks you for suggestions and questions at the end. So I asked if, since they were asking questions about sexual harassment and assault, why not ask those surveyed about being the aggressor as well as the victim. I was not particularly thinking of transgender people or of schools when I suggested this question, but more of occasions like house parties with overly inebriated gay adult men where the less inebriated might become a little too handsy with the more inebriated, or other same sex situations that might more easily allow for same sex sexual harassment. I received this response from a Pride Study director:
"Hi Bruce,
Thanks for your question and your long-term participation in The PRIDE Study.
There are an infinite number of questions we could ask LGBTQ+ people in The PRIDE Study. As part of our research plan, we engage with LGBTQ+ community members across the country to learn what health information we *need* to be collecting in our research. There are so many domains of our overall health (physical, mental, and social health) that are unstudied, and which really benefit from research. As a result, our team struggles to find the right balance of important physical, mental, and social health questions to include, without making surveys so long that too many people will not want to finish them.
When we consider adding ever more questions to our already-long surveys, we think: how would the collection of this data help support LGBTQ+ wellness, and how might the collection of this data reduce stigma against LGBTQ+ people. While your question is intellectually interesting, collecting that data would likely add to the stigmatization of LGBTQ+ people. Adding questions like that to our already-long surveys aren’t a priority for us right now.
We appreciate your continued participation in The PRIDE Study.
Best wishes,
Micah
Micah Lubensky, PhD
(Pronouns: he, him, his)
Participant Engagement Director
The PRIDE Study
http://www.pridestudy.org/"
I wonder if the victims of sexual assault - gay or straight victims - feel “stigmatized” by the refusal to address sexual assault by this one protected class of people committing these crimes?
The message is clear: we can't ask uncomfortable questions about LGBT people or what are claimed to be pro-LGBT policies. Indeed, when Stacy Langton - the Fairfax County mom who has been complaining about pornographic materials in the schools (and who is explicit that she is not asking fo a ban on LGBT literature, but only any literature depicting such things as sex between 4th graders) - continued to speak out at school board meetings, she received detailed threats against herself and her children by someone who clearly follows her physically and knows her daily schedule.
Gay people are no more intrinsically moral or immoral than heterosexuals, but those they allow to represent them in public are failing in a way that seems like it will boomerang politically. A few gay people - journalist Katie Herzog in a recent interview with Megyn Kelly - have come to the conclusion that gay people need new leadership. And I would add: new allies, party affiliations, and political affiliations. (Perhaps Senator Krysten Sinema can be our Moses.)
The question is: will enough people come to this conclusion before the boomerang comes back?
A slightly different version of this piece ran earlier this week at Splice Today.
