Camille on gays, Christianity and the West

A decade or so ago, I remembered reading something by Camille Paglia in which she -- pagan, atheist, lesbian -- defended orthodox Christianity from gay activist attacks. In my recollection, she argued that gays shouldn't forget that homosexuality flourishes only in urban civilization, and that they would be wise to remember that insofar as the Church is a pillar of civilization, and a tolerable civic order, their own liberties, ironically, depend on the Church being strong (but not too strong, obviously). I thought it a novel argument, but I can't find the piece where she made it. I did find this typically provocative Salon column of hers from 1998 where she made that argument, for the most part, but this isn't what I recall reading. In my recollection, she argued that people don't realize how fragile civilization is, and how easily what we think of as solid can melt.

But perhaps I'm combining several different Paglia pieces in my mind. Anyway, here's an argument-starter from Madama:

So gays should quit bitching about Southern Baptists exercising their constitutional right to free speech about homosexuality, which is indeed condemned by the Bible, despite the tortuous casuistry of so many self-interested parties, including clerics. I have been warning and warning for years that the insulting disrespect shown by gay activists to religion -- which has been going on for 20 years virtually unchecked on TV talk shows, with their biased liberal hosts -- would produce a backlash over time.

Gay men must never get complacent, for they are forever on the edge of a precipice: In a political cataclysm, they have usually been among the first to be purged. No major world religion has ever endorsed homosexuality, which can be openly practiced only in peaceful, affluent, cosmopolitan periods. But history shows that male homosexuality, which like prostitution flourishes with urbanization and soon becomes predictably ritualized, always tends toward decadence. In my interpretation, total sexual freedom allows humanity's repressed animality to go wild.

As a libertarian, I believe that government must stay out of our private lives. As an atheist, I believe that government has no business sanctifying the unions of some persons (heterosexuals) but not others (homosexuals), particularly when certain benefits (such as employer-sponsored spousal health-insurance) flow to one group only.

As a scholar, however, I am troubled by the provincialism and amorality of the gay male world, when compared to the vastness of philosophical perspective provided by orthodox religion -- or even by ancient paganism, which honored nature. And as a lesbian, I'm sick and tired of the gay rights movement being damaged by the cowardly incapacity for self-examination of many gay men.

Sometimes, I wish Camille would just quit holding back, and say what she really thinks.