One is a bare-knuckled political operative; the other a young soldier who was awarded a Purple Heart in Iraq. Last week, we discovered that the former has married his long-time partner and the latter has demanded that he be allowed to serve openly to defend his country. You can argue over homosexuality for ever, but what is changing the world – what has already changed the world – is the simple witness of people from all backgrounds and walks of life that this is who they are. What social conservatives have to grapple with is that openly gay people are not going away. The coming generations will have even greater cohorts, as fear and shame recede. Where do these people fit in? How can they be integrated into family life? How do we acknowledge their citizenship? And their humanity? The pro-gay-marriage forces have an argument: we want full integration into civil institutions, the same rules, the same principles of responsibility. No excuses. The anti-gay-marriage forces have … what exactly? They are against civil unions, against domestic partnerships, against military service, against any form of recognition. They want to create a shadow class of people operating somehow in a cultural and social limbo. That strategy may have worked as long as gay people cooperated – by staying in the closet, keeping their heads down, playing the euphemism game. But the cooperation is over, as last week once again demonstrated. The old conservative politics of homosexuality has disintegrated; so the social right turns to even older, more virulent and prohibitionist methods. They won’t work either. Get real, guys. Deal with the world as it is, not as you would imagine it should be. That was once a conservative project.
ANOTHER PVS TWIST: This time in Ohio.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I was glad to see you praise John Derbyshire’s latest column (which was excellent, I agree). The thing is, I think you’ve been too hard on Derbyshire; he’s one of the few interesting writers left at National Review. Yes, he is virulently and often appallingly homophobic. But that’s nothing new among conservatives (or among people in general), is it? But his open homophobia is far more tolerable than a Stanley Kurtz, who disguises his homophobia, or at least homophobic policy prescriptions, behind a veneer of fake sociology. At least with Derbyshire you know where he stands. And he’s willing to admit inconvenient facts that don’t support his worldview, as in his piece on why he believes that homosexuality is inborn. Have you ever seen Kurtz admit that? Doubtful. He will not admit anything that doesn’t back up his talking points.
Which is the reason I like Derbyshire’s writing even when I find it appalling: he’s one of the few writers at NRO who has no use for talking points. Most of the writers there just go to prove that conservatism now is where liberalism was twenty years ago: ossified, unthinking, dependent on stupid cliches. My heart sinks whenever a new issue comes up because I know exactly what most of the posters in The Corner will say; they’ll recite the same talking points that are on Fox News. The exceptions are Jonah Goldberg, who doesn’t have a lot of original ideas but seems uncomfortable with reciting talking points (except about the war in Iraq, where he never really seemed to know what he was talking about), and Derbyshire, who, for good or for ill, always has something original to say.
I notice that of late Derbyshire’s tendency to think for himself has taken him “off the reservation” several times, as he’s split with the other NRO-niks on nation-building in Iraq, on intelligent design, on Terri Schiavo and now the Pope. Be interesting to see whether he gets dropped from NRO, not for being homophobic, but for independent thought.”
The Dish 