Box Turtle Bulletin
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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyFebruary 3rd, 2009
Via Andrew Sullivan, we read this outburst from Peter Hitchens:
If I never again had to read or write a word about homosexuals, I would be very happy. I really don’t want to know what other people do in their bedrooms. But these days they really, really want us all to know. And, more important, they insist that we approve. No longer are we allowed to keep our thoughts to ourselves, while being polite and kind.
Hitchens is wrong. We really, really don’t want them to know what goes on. Or, perhaps more accurately, the vast majority of us would prefer that they simply butt out of things that are none of their business. Which is why we don’t talk about what goes on in our bedrooms. In all of the political campaigns surrounding marriage, adoption rights, employment discrimination, hate crimes, safe schools, “what other people do in their bedrooms” has never been part of the discussion — unless LGBT opponents bring it up.
The fact is, we can see straight couples, married and unmarried, having dinner in restaurants, going to the movies, pushing baby strollers, showing up for work, going out for drinks afterwords, volunteering at school and in the community — and nobody thinks about what they’re doing in their bedrooms.
But people who regard public acceptance of LGBT people as evidence of a cultural pathology carry a huge burden. When they are fighting against marriage or partnership rights, adoption rights, or even against the simply dignity of hospital visitation rights, all they can think about is what they imagine we’re doing in our bedrooms. And whenever they meet with us face to face, their own personal imaginary porno flicks prevent them from seeing the real people standing before them.
If there is a pathology, that’s it. People suffering from schizophrenia sometimes see and hear things that aren’t there. Apparently, so do many who oppose LGBT equality.
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sjbouza
February 3rd, 2009
I agree, I mean why are we as LGBT people only seen as what we do in our bedrooms? What is the straight communities fixation on gay sex all about? I mean really? Are you that desperate for sex that one must imagine what goes on in someone elses bedroom? Keep your thoughts to yourself. If that is the only reason that anti-gay people come up with to deny us rights, then they really need to take a look at their own lives.
AJD
February 3rd, 2009
What’s interesting is that Peter Hitchens’ brother, the better-known Christopher Hitchens, openly brags about having homosexual experiences in boarding school and is known for being a little perverted around other guys, so he can’t be 100% straight. Maybe it runs in the Hitchens family, and it’s really Peter himself who’s imagining what gays (particularly gay men) are doing in their bedrooms.
Ben in Oakland
February 3rd, 2009
I always tell people that if it bothers them so much to think aobut whatever it is they think i do in their bedrooms–
maybe they shouldn’t think about it so much.
Ben in Oakland
February 3rd, 2009
sorry, my bedroom.
freudian slip.
Jonathon
February 3rd, 2009
There is a reason that homophobia is the label used to describe those who have a pathological hatred of homosexuals. The “phobia” part of the word makes it clear that it is FEAR that is the basis of that hatred.
Many people, like P. Hitchens, are deeply homophobic because there is something that scares the hell out of them about homosexuality. Given that the biggest gay-bashers often turn out to be gay themselves, one wonders just how often PH has those imaginary gay porno flicks playing in his head.
Is the fear that because they already have some same-sex attraction that it wouldn’t take much to get them to come over to our side of the fence? Any self-respecting heterosexual man who is secure in his masculinity and his sexual orientation has no reason to fear homosexuals – and usually don’t.
Let’s also remember that P. Hitchens’ brother Christopher is a NOTORIOUS drunkard. It wouldn’t surprise me if Peter is the same.
Alex
February 3rd, 2009
Is there even a remote possibility that things like “pride” parades, the Folsom street fair, and dating ads featuring hot shirtless guys might have a tiny hand in this?
Nah, that’s ridiculous. Everyone knows that it’s always the homophobes’ fault, never ours!
Kith
February 3rd, 2009
“Alex
Is there even a remote possibility that things like “pride†parades, the Folsom street fair, and dating ads featuring hot shirtless guys might have a tiny hand in this?”
Ever been to Spring break, Mardi Grais, Carnival,the beach on a warm Summer Sunday, seen a commercial for a Girls Gone Wild video or looked at the adds in the back of your typical free community paper?
Last I checked our western world is hypersexualized now whether you like that or not is a very valid argument. Yet it is not a reflection on gays being any more/less guilty then their straight brethren. Yet they are constantly judged so.
I really don’t like this double standard and never have. I don’t want to have to wear a Victorian frock and hide my proclivities least it insense the horses cause I’m gay, while some randy teenager who’s wearing a belly shirt and is desperately trying to orally retrieve her gum from her boyfriend’s throat is given a pass cause she’s straight.
TJ McFisty
February 3rd, 2009
Skraights have their Girls Gone Wild videos that force me to think about barely legal girls doing things to and with their bodies because they hate their Daddies.
Where do I get to blog about my anger about being forced to accept and think about teenybopper boobies?
Pomo
February 3rd, 2009
“When they are fighting against marriage or partnership rights, adoption rights, or even against the simply dignity of hospital visitation rights, all they can think about is what they imagine we’re doing in our bedrooms. And whenever they meet with us face to face, their own personal imaginary porno flicks prevent them from seeing the real people standing before them.”
YES! YES! This is what i’ve been saying for awhile now. It seems that some straight people are obsessed with gay sex.
Regan DuCasse
February 3rd, 2009
Hi Alex,
In the 40’s a famous study of JIM CROW was done by Gunnar Myrdal, a Swedish economist.
He had hundreds of researchers travel the Jim Crow states and interview white and black people.
His purpose was to study the motive for Jim Crow as well as it’s cruel enforcement.
It was called “An American Dilemma”, published in 1941.
And although quite comprehensive and truthful, the criticism of such white hypocrisy, of course, wasn’t appreciated.
But here is part of their findings.
The result: black people’s concerns were fairness in jobs, housing and goods and services. They wanted local law enforcement to be sympathetic to their victimization as well as elimination of casual violence against them.
The white people?
They were obsessed with miscegenation, black male sexuality to the point of irrational paranoia, and black female sexuality was conflated with animal like promiscuity.
Whites, while violently paranoid of black males and using them as the political impetus for segregation from white females.
White males chronically exploited black women sexually.
What are gay people concerned with in our time? Virtually the same things blacks under Jim Crow were.
What are straight people concerned with?
Virtually the same things that white people were.
Gay males are the political impetus for protecting children.
While lesbians are exploited in straight male porn, or raped.
The social parallels come at no surprise to me.
And as our religious and political enemies publicly eschew gay males and lesbians as sexually aggressive, they certainly have exploited women for their own needs.
Daily I see billboards for ‘gentlemen’s clubs’. There are strip clubs along routes that families walk in so many neighborhoods.
As are ads for conventions and Erotica expos every summer aimed at heterosexual tastes.
Which has more in common with gay people than they simply care to admit.
But WE know that, getting them to be honest is another problem.
Mardi Gras is a RELIGIOUSLY sanctioned bacchanal before the 40 days of Lenten deprivation.
That’s the ONLY difference between any other street party that adults have.
Blacks and gay people as minorities in this country share VERY similar socio/political standards of the dominant culture’s hypocrisy for THEIR sex lives.
And traditionally, we’ve known more about that dominant culture’s life than they know about ours.
All the while denying there is anything in common with us minorities, for good or bad.
They just blatantly get away with it because they can, not because they should.
Regan DuCasse
February 3rd, 2009
BTW, “An American Dilemma” is still in print. I borrowed it from the library about four years ago.
Plus ca change, plus le meme chose…
Timothy Kincaid
February 3rd, 2009
Regan,
Thank you for providing perspective. You are right, of course, that quite often pejudices and fears remain the same and just look for a new target.
David C.
February 3rd, 2009
If Peter Hitchens is really so tired of going on about homosexuals, then he should just shut up and stop writing his nonsensical drivel about them. Clowns like Hitchens are increasingly irrelevant anyway, and it’s their sense of that fact which drives them to use tawdry imagery and reach ever greater depths of intellectual bankruptcy as they desperately attempt to prop up their egos. Their days are numbered and they know it.
There is no rational basis for fear of giving Gay people the same rights and privileges as heterosexuals. This is just another tiresome example of the same old nonsensical anti-gay rhetoric with all its manufactured and otherwise imagined boogie-men. One cannot make sense of it: is is not the product of sound reasoning or logic, but the work product of ignorance and superstition.
AdrianT
February 3rd, 2009
By the way, this tirade from Peter Hitchens is part of a constant campaign being waged by the Daily Mail (the most reactionary and ant-gay newspaper in the UK) against the adoption of 2 children by a gay couple; the children’s mother is a recovering heroin addict and she is objecting to their upbrigning by gays.
This ‘scandal’ has resulted in 6 articles over the last week from the newspaper, attacking gay people as unfit to bring up children, as being perverted etc.
How this buffoon author is related to Christopher Hitchens I shall never know; pleasing to hear they despise each other….
SharonB
February 3rd, 2009
To Hitchens, et al.:
Keep your nose outa my crotch!
It’s rude!
Thank you.
Jason D
February 3rd, 2009
“Is there even a remote possibility that things like “pride†parades, the Folsom street fair, and dating ads featuring hot shirtless guys might have a tiny hand in this?
Nah, that’s ridiculous. Everyone knows that it’s always the homophobes’ fault, never ours!”
Your objection would make sense except for:
– Mardi Gras
– Girls Gone Wild
– Wet T-shirt contests
– Baywatch
– The Girls Next Door (reality show with Playboy bunnies)
As well as all the other 2 billion things we see every day that delight and promote heterosexuality.
The double standard is simple.
A straight female can have a tame picture of her husband on her desk, and nobody considers this “flaunting” her sexuality and “pushing her sex life” onto others.
A gay man has an equally tame picture of his husband? And it’s like he’s left self-made porn, complete with closeups of penetration, open on his desk with lights around it.
Double standard? You bet.
Jake
February 3rd, 2009
Right. On. The. Head.
They’re more infatuated with gay sex than we are!
James Nimmo
February 3rd, 2009
These straight sick puppies out themselves by their fixation on sex, whether it’s same- or opposite-gendered.
They haven’t grown up and matured in their image of themselves. They’re the ones with problems, not us GLBTs.
Dave
February 4th, 2009
I just can’t let this go.
Peter Hitchens’s first paragraph is silly. It might demonstrate some kind of mental pathology, or it may only be a sign of a lost temper. Putting the possible reasons for the contents of the outburst, it seems unfair to me to focus on it while ignoring what prompted the outburst in the first place.
His column is a complaint against the compassion fascism of the British government which he sums up thus:
He says this in reference to an adoption case, which AdrianT greatly oversimplifies.
According to the Daily Mail the mother of the two young children is indeed a recovering heroine addict. That isn’t where the trouble started, however.
Her parents wanted to raise their grandchildren and apparently wanted to adopt them. (Why they felt adoption was necessary isn’t discussed.) The trouble started when the authorities told them that their health problems precluded them from adopting. The 59 year old grandfather has angina, which isn’t the worst condition in the world — he still manages to be a farm laborer. The 46 year old grandmother has diabetes. Why these ailments should keep these not all that old people from caring for their own grandchildren nobody but the social services seems to know.
Now when these grandparents reluctantly agreed to their grandchildren being adopted by someone else they made one stipulation: that the children be adopted by a husband and wife couple like themselves. The government ignored this and allowed a gay male couple to adopt.
Now here is where the shit hit the fan:
And that isn’t the end of the social services’ threats. It seems they’re now threatening the grandparents because they’ve spoken to the press. From Richard Littlejohn’s 30 January column:
Now I have to ask, just what sort of totalitarianism is this?
In a country where a nurse’s job is threatened because she offered to pray for patients — that violates the required “personal and professional commitment to equality and diversity,” you see — it isn’t hard to understand what’s going on. As Littlejohn says, “These unfortunate children gave [the social workers] a golden opportunity to tick another box and flaunt their doctrinaire ‘diversity’ credentials.”
This is what prompted the opening outburst focused on by this post. Hitchens is decrying the complete intolerance being shown all in the name of tolerance. Referring to the threats made against the grandparents, he wrote,
If gay rights activists like Andrew Sullivan and Jim Burroway are going to point out the obsessions and possible neuroses of opponents of things like same-sex marriage or gay adoption, they should also point out the dictatorial ways of so many of their own allies.
Dave
February 4th, 2009
I forgot to include a link to the Richard Littlejohn column I quote.
The column is at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1132042/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-What-kind-selfish-couple-want-adopt-stolen-children.html
Jason D
February 4th, 2009
Dave,
nowhere in your lengthy post do I see anything that justifies or explains this bit of nuttery:
“f I never again had to read or write a word about homosexuals, I would be very happy. I really don’t want to know what other people do in their bedrooms. But these days they really, really want us all to know. And, more important, they insist that we approve. No longer are we allowed to keep our thoughts to ourselves, while being polite and kind.”
I see nothing that says the adoptive couple was talking endlessly about their sex life or anything else to the media.
Jim Burroway
February 4th, 2009
Dave,
The reason we haven’t posted on those allegations is precisely because of their source: the Daily Mail, a British tabloid which has had difficulty keeping itself from running afoul of libel laws. Relying on the Daily Mail would like relying on the New York Post for information. The paper’s publisher, Richard Littlejohn, seems to have something of an obsession with homosexuality in particular.
Stefano A
February 4th, 2009
The problem with the Daily Mail coverage is that they wilfully changed the nature of the debate from whether or not children’s services should have worked with the grandparents by bringing in home-assistance support for the grandparents or if the children should have been put up for adoption in general to a debate about the suitability of gays to be parents.
That is, the Daily Mail, instead of questioning the reasoning for why the children are to be adopted at all by anyone (rather than providing in-home family support to the grandparents) and the alleged mishandling by children’s services regarding the alleged “threat” transformed the discussion into attacks on gay adoption based on prejudice, ignorance and some very dodgy research.
Timothy Kincaid
February 4th, 2009
Perhaps social services looked at the excellent parenting job the grandparents had done with their daughter.
Ben in Oakland
February 4th, 2009
Dave; the very headline of the link you provide would give me pause to wonder about the truth of the matter:
“What kind of selfish couple would want to adopt these ‘stolen’ children?”
Adoptive parents as selfish. It does give one pause. Would the same outcry exist of the prospective parents were heterosexual?
There is missing information here, and I would not rely on the daily mail to provide it, and more than I would ask the rhetorical rottweiler of the religious right– you know who she is– to provide an unbiased assessment of the place of gay people in american society.
BTW, are you any relation to a certain DB?
Ben in Oakland
February 4th, 2009
Stefano: more precise than my point, but otherwise the same point. Something is missing here.
Timothy (TRiG)
February 5th, 2009
If that where true, which it isn’t. For a start, she doesn’t have a steady job: she’s a bank nurse, called in when needed. The health trust is currently not calling her in, pending the outcome of an investigation.
Also, offering to pray for a patient is the latest in a long line of similar actions, including pushing prayer cards onto them. She has previously received verbal and written warnings about this behaviour, which she has chosen to ignore.
Such pushiness onto vulnerable people is at the very least inappropriate, and perhaps counts almost as an invasion of emotional privacy. And now she’s gone to the media with a “poor persecuted Christians” story.
***
Back on topic: I’m a fan of Christopher Hitchens, but know little about Peter. And I’ve observed before that some people are strangely obsessed with gay sex.
TRiG.
Timothy (TRiG)
February 5th, 2009
Gah. were.
Why can’t I spell?
TRiG.
Dave
February 6th, 2009
I’ve had some computer troubles so I have been unable to see the responses to my comment until know.
Let me answer them individually.
Jim,
Whether or not the Daily Mail’s allegations are true, it should be obvious that Hitchens believes them.
You don’t seem to care about this, nor do you give evidence of caring that Hitchens concerns about his own country may have some validity.
Timothy,
You write:
How cute. Are you suggesting that parents who have adult drug-addicted offspring should have any younger children taken from them?
The story states the reasons given by the social services as his angina and her diabetes. Want to bet if parents with these conditions usually have their children removed from their custody?
As for your take on the nurse:
1. A part-time job is still a job.
2. Offering to pray for someone, or asking if a patient would like a prayer card, isn’t being pushy. She was trying to offer a kindness, one most patients would appreciate. She wasn’t demanding they convert to her religion.
3. She had indeed received a prior warning about her attempts at Christian kindness. But, as Littlejohn made clear in his column, not because she had upset any patient:
You may sneer at the “poor persecuted Christians†angle, Timothy, but the story fits perfectly with that of the airport employee “suspended for wearing a crucifix.”
This is very, uh, strange behavior in a country where Jewish and Muslim religious courts have legal authority.
Dave
February 6th, 2009
Jason D,
You read nothing that justifies Hitchens’ opening paragraph because I made no attempt to justify it.
I did write that “Peter Hitchens’s first paragraph is silly. It might demonstrate some kind of mental pathology, or it may only be a sign of a lost temper,” after all.
TRiG,
Please excuse my adding my response to you above to my response to Tim Kincaid. My bad.
Ben in Oakland,
Littlejohn asks the following question:
This is about the reaction of the adoptive parents to the behavior of the social services; it has nothing to do with their sexuality.
Littlejohn makes his agenda on gay adoption (and other things) quite plain, so I see no reason to doubt him here.
By the female “rhetorical rottweiler of the religious right,” I assume you mean Ann Coulter. I like Ann Coulter; she has balls.
No, I am not David Benkof nor am I related to David Benkof. And if I may say so you are quite silly to ask.
Jason D
February 6th, 2009
“You may sneer at the “poor persecuted Christians†angle, Timothy, but the story fits perfectly with that of the airport employee “suspended for wearing a crucifix.—
Oh, please, Dave, the situations are hardly analogous. A crucifix is a personal statement, a prayer card is solicitation, and praying for someone is offering a religious service to someone — she’s a nurse, she’s there to care for patients, she’s not there to stump for her religious beliefs by handing out cards nor is she there to offer prayers for people. Whether or not the patients complained is inconsequential.
AdrianT
February 6th, 2009
I suggest that Dave read the other 5 articles to see why this is yet another concerted attack on gay people in that same ridiculous newspaper.
In addition to P Hitchens’ diatribe, the crux of the arguments in articles by Richard Littlejohn, the barren, childless Amanda Platell and Melanie Philips, are that gay couples should not be adopting children.
Look at the headline here, for instance, to see what I mean (you can find the others I am sure):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1130289/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-To-place-children-gay-men-adoptive-mother-father-available-sickening-assault-family-life.html
If you put up a child for adoption, you simply cannot make such a request prevent it from being adopted by gay people, any more than you can prevent it fom being adopted by black or christian people.
As for the case of the christian woman who wanted to break the dresscode and wear a crucifix at work – well, too bad.
The UK is generally gong in the right direction – we had the case of Lilian Ladele who lost her appeal against losign her job – she was fired for refusing to perform ceremonies for gay couples. She, like the evangelising nurse and the British Airways attendant, can always go work elsewhere, if she thinks she’s above the rules. There’s nothing ‘totalitarian’ about that.
Why should superstitious beliefs be privileged in society?
PS Islamic or Jewish courts are most certainly NOT recognised in the UK. Yet, at least….
werdna
February 6th, 2009
PS Islamic or Jewish courts are most certainly NOT recognised in the UK. Yet, at least…
Actually, they are.
Sharia courts as well.
The existence of such courts isn’t terribly relevant to Dave’s arguments, but it is true.
Also Jim: “Sullivan” is misspelled in your link.
AdrianT
February 6th, 2009
Thanks for the links Werdna. That is indeed sheer lunacy. Worse, it’s treason. (Actually, I’m signing this as a result of your comment….
http://www.shariapetition.com/ )
Stefano A
February 6th, 2009
Simply to add some clarity…
Both Rabbinical and Sharia courts are recognized as legitimate arbitrators in several European countries as well as in Canada. However, the quotes posted above should not be construed to mean that the religious courts subjugate the national civil laws nor preclude the individuals ability to have cases decided in the civil courts. If the case is taken to civil courts, national civil law takes precedent. If uncontested a ruling arbitrated may stand if both parties agree, but if contested national civil law always takes precident. And the decision of a Rabbinical or Sharia court, even in decisions some may find confounding still may not subvert civil law.
Dave
February 7th, 2009
With that statement you reveal all the difference between you and myself, JasonD.
The nurse was offering a kindness that her conscience required she offer. I do not share your religiophobic attitude that simply offering to pray for someone is proselytizing. Nor do I accept your view that her not having ever offended any patients is unimportant. Her employer’s attitude is based in the modern-day aversion to doing anything that someone might find offensive, coupled with the assumption that people find other people’s religion offensive.
Both the nurse and the airport employee have run afoul of this perverse attitude.
Dave
February 7th, 2009
AdrianT,
I find it strange to be lectured about not being properly informed by someone who mentioned the controversy over the adoption without giving all the relevant facts.
Nevertheless…
I am well aware of the ideological bent of the Daily Mail, and I read the column by Melanie Phillips. You might have noticed that I quoted from it in my first comment.
It is true that neither Phillips nor Littlejohn think gays should adopt children. (That was the crux of Phillips’ piece, but not of Littlejohn’s.) This, however, has nothing to do with my concern about Hitchen’s outburst being criticized while his concern over the social services’ behavior was ignored.
You’re ignoring the specific facts of this case here. The grandparents didn’t put their grandchildren up for adoption. They were told they couldn’t raise them — as was their and the mother’s wish — for completely nonsensical reasons.
They were then threatened with banishment from their own grandchildren’s lives if they dared object. Do you care to justify this?
I’m surprised to find that wearing personal items like necklaces, etc. violates British Airway rules. Do they ban wedding rings as well?
As for the nurse, offering to pray for someone isn’t evangelizing.
Ah, now the truth is revealed! Just can’t control your hatred of religion, can you, Adrian ?
Dave
February 7th, 2009
Werdna,
There seems to be an attitude among many British institutions, including the government, that religion is something peculiarly dangerous and liable to give offense.
I mention the Jewish and Islamic courts only because their specific legal authorization by Parliament is at odds with this attitude.
Jim Burroway
February 8th, 2009
I think this thread has gone far enough off topic. It was my mistake in allowing it to stray so far, and now that I’m feeling better and paying more attention to what’s going on around here, I intend to bring it back on topic or end it.
We don’t rely on the Daily Mail to get the facts straight or complete any more than we would rely on the National Enquirer or Glenn Beck. Therefore, discussions on whatever so-called “facts” the Daily Mail may selectively choose to print are 1) on shaky ground to begin with, credibility-wise and 2) in this case, off topic.
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