Variations on a theme

Great post. No matter what position one holds on gay rights, the media does nobody any favors by playing favorites. To be honest, I'm very concerned with a backlash on liberal issues once the boomers have passed on. Even though I'm conservative on many issues, I see myself as Chesterton did: "I'm still a liberal. It's those people who aren't liberals". But this generation of media have turned liberal into a dirty word. The outrageous media bias for homosexuality, abortion, feminism, multiculturism, environmentalism, secularism - you name it - puts the potential for a backlash at a high water mark in another generation. Emotionally, I (and millions of other liberally-minded types) see "Democrat-Liberal" and "Bully-Media" as the same thing. And this is mainly due to the shameless pimping the media does for them. It's gonna be hard to care much when it all goes the other way.

Most days, I worry about gay activists more than terrorists. And that's why, most days, many liberals worry more about fundamentalist Christians than about terrorists. Say what you will about the sometimes cuthroat (metaphorically speaking) episcopal politics, poisoning a prelate doesn't seem like the kind of step any churchman would take -- liberal or conservative.

The outrageous media bias for homosexuality, abortion, feminism, multiculturism, environmentalism, secularism - you name it - puts the potential for a backlash at a high water mark in another generation. One can hope and pray. It seems especially likely this could happen with abortion, as many "can't believe my daughter is pro-life" stories attest. But the gay-pride crusade is still winning the hearts and minds of young people who endure Days of Silence where, it seems, the only ones silent are the Christians.

Here are the other two, less-recent first: Pro-Con in Tablet Utah Mass update

One can hope and pray. ron, I hear you. But let me give you an example of overreach and backlash: feminism.
Overreach *draconian child support laws *no-fault divorce *silly combat options in the military for women held to lower physical standards *preferences like Title IX Backlash *family breakdown *child obesity and decline *a whole generation of men who think women deserve no quarter, and family and children too risky to consider Abortion? Abortion, like slavery, will surely become culturally taboo and illegal over time for Darwinian reasons (Roe effect, Mexican family influence, and all that). But for all of us who grew up with Democrats kissing this evil, it will be nearly impossible to think about Democrats rationally after they dump abortion rights. A past example: my Irish grandmother only recently stopped voting Democrat, and is now reflecting how she supported a lot of evil over the last few decades due her historical bias against Republicans. Voters like her were the reason abortion is legal. She should have woke up in '73. This could happen again, but reversed. Who knows what evil Republicans are capable of in the future. Bottom line: backlash is dangerous. The media doesn't help by picking sides.

Your friend TMatt is becoming more and more conspiratorial. And shame on you for connecting two gay posts with the Malawi story, suggesting that somehow gay issues resulted in the death in Malawi. I know your rampant discomfort--and odd obsession--with homosexuality leads you to focus inordinate attention on the issue, but it seems rather shameless to talk about "variations on a theme" and insinuate a gay connection to the Malawi killing.

puts the potential for a backlash at a high water mark in another generation. One can hope and pray. Where there's life,t here's hope. The Russians seem to be embracing dictatorship again as well. I'm sure there will always be a place for another Joe McCarthy in this country.

McGreevey ... [is] scum, but he never held himself out as a paragon of virtue. So you point is that sinners should only preach sin and/or that nobody should tell anybody else to be a better person than he himself is? If not ... what IS your point?

My point is that a bunch of adulterers inhabit the upper echelon of Xtian morality in this country, and they are preaching that "morality" (and stirring up hatred for gay people/trying to curtail their civil liberties) while some of them doing what they tell their flock not to. If they're going to tell people to keep their penises in their pants, it might be nice if they did the same and if they are going to tell people not to be gay, they should be seeing male whores/drug dealers. It doesn't look nice, ya know?
Which is why I have no respect for the Xtian establishment in this country. The Catholic Church lost it a long time ago, and the protestants are catching up quite nicely.

Susan S.'s post about many gays being suspicious about Mc Greevey does seem to hold water. I've heard him get hammered pretty good on Gay USA, (which is on Free Speech TV), and gay people I've talked to see him as an oppurtunist, if that's the right word. Granted, it's pretty much anecdotal, but there are people out there saying such things. As I've said before -- Your Opinion May Vary -- And that's fine, too.

The left blogosphere and gay blogosphere is largely uninterested in McGreevey, beyond the gossip of it all. He'll never be a "leader" on the left or in the gay community; the same can't be said for Gingrich. I'm not sure where CM or Rod get this iead that he is being given royal treatment.

I thought "don't judge" meant "do not judge." I don't have enough time in my life to deal with (i.e. judge: to form or give an opinion after separating and considering the particulars of a situation) the many planks in my own eyes, much less make comments either about other specific individuals or general concepts. If McGreevey or Gingrich asked me to comment on the way they treated their wives, or if they wondered if their homosexual or heterosexual liaisons with women other than their wives were morally wrong, I d tell them how I would feel if I had treated my wife that way. Or if I engaged in aforesaid sexual liaisons. It s not fear of saying whether certain acts by actual human beings are objectively right or wrong I have to do that for myself all the time. It s fear of disobeying my Lord by trying to get around his plain, clear, and simple words through various forms of logic-chopping or reinterpretation. I trust that you are not calling me a coward or a tool of the devil that was just your way of acknowledging that certain objective behavior (i.e. various reified theoretical concepts) is always wrong. Just as, if anyone continues to throw stones, I can infer that they think they are without sin.

I thought "don't judge" meant "do not judge." And saying that homosexual conduct is immoral does not involving judging. Objectively, it IS wrong.
The subjective circumstances, motives, perceptions, knowledge that prompts a particular person to engage in immoral conduct is something no one but God can know. Thus, no one but God can ever know how culpable another person is for anything, no matter how heinous. Attributing guilt or some punishment to a particular person is the judging that Christ forbids, and that the Church never does.
We know that flying airplanes into crowded office towers is among the gravest moral evils, an act worthy of damnation. Nevertheless, a Christian can not judge the souls of even the 9/11 hijackers, and we are commanded to pray for their forgiveness. To refrain from judging them, however, is not the same as believing that no one has the right to say mass murder is evil.

Scott R. wrote: ... of Xtian morality Not worth reading farther. Alert me when you grow up.
And my complaint about double standards was the treatment of McGreevey in the Mainstream Media. Susan's rebuttal points that center on the receptions in the gay or either side's partisan press are simply not on point.
She continues: the high standing that the band of conservative philanders have in the GOP ... [including] Papa Bush. Would you care to provide documentation for that charge? Repudiated-by-the-sources reports in Spy Magazine, anything by Kitty Kelley, anything by Joe Conason that uses Linda Tripp as a hearsay source, and rumors of affairs that NEITHER party alleges -- these do not count as "documentation," BTW. Not do repetitions thereof in the comment fields in Democratic Underground or whatever other rock's underside you liberals scrape this kind of crap off of. metanous wrote" How about "first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. [NIV] Ah ... so you DO have no point besides "people cannot preach morals better than their own conduct." Which makes a downward spiral from the faults of last year the only possible course of history.

Ah - the spectre of "objective reality" rears its ugly head once again. "Objectively, homosexuality is morally wrong," is a subjective statement. If you conservatives wish to have your bugaboos and scapegoats, please feel free to do so - just stop pretending that it's based on anything other than your own subjective prejudices. You'd get a hell of a lot more respect if you'd just be honest about it.

"Ah - the spectre of 'objective reality' rears its ugly head once again." [low chuckles] Get used to it. [low chuckles] It's not going away.

Sigaliris, Talked about conflated and confused. The "acts" you elliptically refer to would be physically wrong regardless of the gender of the participants. Nota bene the word "phyically". It is a recognition of teleology. Regarding why one might consider the act gross if engaged in by men, it is because IT IS ENGAGED IN BY MEN. The same reaction can be expected in seeing men kiss passionately. This doesn't require one to see one kisser as less than another kisser. The male and female kissers are equal. Two guys kissing is just gross. Well, not "just" gross. There is much more to be said of it. Why is it that so many do not find men and women engaged in the sexual acts you mentioned disgusting as well? Because disorder comes in degrees.