{"id":35769,"date":"2012-06-01T00:04:02","date_gmt":"2012-06-01T07:04:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=35769"},"modified":"2014-12-30T16:25:32","modified_gmt":"2014-12-30T23:25:32","slug":"court-sez-calling-someone-gay-is-not-defamatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2012\/06\/court-sez-calling-someone-gay-is-not-defamatory.html","title":{"rendered":"Court sez Calling Someone Gay is Not Defamatory"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that.<\/a><\/p>\n

Dan Savage, who simultaneously makes a living from complaining that gays are bullied\u2013and from bullying people half his age by suggesting they are gay\u2013could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s ruling points to one of the more tortured facts about our culture\u2019s attempt to square the circle when it comes to advocates of homosex who cannot bear mere tolerance and feel compelled to glorify homosex as the source and summit of all that is good. On the one hand, the goal of that culture is to compel positive approval of sin and to punish those who are simply not going to change their minds on that point. Hence, the weird and tormented love\/hate relationship of the gay community with Christians (see \u201cPerpetual Indulgence, Sisters of\u201d). Gay activists very much itch with the totalitarian desire to shut the mouths of Christians forever on the subject of the sinfulness of what they do. On the other hand, they also know that merely shutting our mouths simply means the triumph of force when what they really do hunger for is real approval for their sin, which they will never get. It\u2019s an intolerable dilemma, as the attempt to justify sin in the eyes of God always is.<\/p>\n

Relatedly, the project of trying to justify sin is also being attempted through fostering attitudes like this ruling that, in essence, \u201cGay is OK. So OK, in fact, that calling somebody \u2018gay\u2019 is not slander.\u201d This too presents a dilemma. On the one hand, it is true that mere concupiscent desire is, in fact, not sinful and so, in that sense, it should not be regarded as immoral to be same sex attracted any more than it is immoral to feel any other temptation. Even Jesus was tempted. With that realization goes\u2013or should go\u2013the abandonment by Christians of the attempt to identify mere homosexual attraction as somehow sinister, blameworthy, etc. The fact that Melinda Selmys<\/a> has to argue with a considerable number of Christians who will not even allow chaste gays into the Church or the kingdom of heaven demonstrates the poison of uncharity that has, paradoxically, given credibility to apologists for homosex. A vocal minority of Christians will not take yes for an answer from chaste and observant Christians who are same sex attracted. They insist on identifying temptation with sin\u2013homosexual temptation, not their own, of course\u2013and drumming out of the Church people who are doing their best to obey Jesus. The Church herself rejects this approach, but there are always Pharisees who think they are holier than the Church.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, however, is the fact that the gay movement is attempting to say that it is not immoral to give in to the temptation, which is equally rubbish. And since most people know this in their bones, the fact remains that calling somebody \u201cgay\u201d *is* still taken as somewhere between an insult and a titillating joke when the person is not, in fact, gay, while calling somebody \u201cgay\u201d when they are, in fact, gay mean \u201cthis person does things I would prefer not to dwell on too much and which I regard as, at best, morally unsound\u201d. If you don\u2019t believe me, ask yourself why Dan Savage called kids \u201cpansy-asses\u201d when he want to insult them and not, say, \u201cfools\u201d or some other less homosexually-charged insult. If he does not regard homosexual acts as, in some sense, wrong, why would he think it a particularly exquisite stab to suggest that Michele Bachmann\u2019s husband was a closeted homosexual? If I want to insult Nancy Pelosi or Joe Biden, I do not dig down into the mud and haul up the epithet \u201cCatholic\u201d to hurl at them because I think \u201cCatholic\u201d is a good thing. Dan Savage consistently acts as though \u201cgay\u201d is a bad thing when treating with his enemies.<\/p>\n

Indeed, Savage and others betray a *profoundly* conflicted relationship to language when attempting to rationalize the gay lifestyle as a positive good. Most emblematic of this is the simultaneous attempt to shout down anybody who regards homosex as disgusting with the tired epithet \u201chomophobe\u201d while simultaneously laboring with might and main to turn the name Santorum <\/a>into a term synonymous with all that is most disgusting about homosex. It\u2019s a remarkably telling way of expressing hostility to identify your worst enemy with what you yourself do. The question that practically screams out of Savage\u2019s behavior\u2013and the behavior of the legions of other advocates of homosex who cooperated in his campaign\u2013is \u201cexactly whose behavior do you hate and find disgusting?\u201d<\/p>\n

All this betrays the fact that the whole attempt of the gay movement to torque the views of ordinary people past \u201ctolerance\u201d and to force active approval of homosex is deeply compromised by the fact that the advocates themselves know, at some deep level, that what they do is wrong and unnatural. Attempts to re-write human nature by judicial fiat not only won\u2019t change popular attitudes toward homosex among straight people, they also won\u2019t change it among gays like Dan Savage either. The primary losers of this court decision will be those who want to have their cake and eat it by insisting that homosex is great\u2013while attempting to use the odium of homosex as a weapon against their enemies. Every schoolyard bully who says, \u201cHe\u2019s so gay!\u201d of some enemy can now point to this court ruling and preposterously claim, \u201cI wasn\u2019t slandering anybody\u201d. Everybody will know it\u2019s a lie, but guys like Dan Savage will have to agree with the bully\u2013or acknowledge with their words what they already acknowledge with the actions: that there is indeed an odium that attaches to homosex which they themselves exploit even as they deny doing so.<\/p>\n

Sin is built on lies. Lies eventually collapse under their own weight of self-contradiction.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that. Dan Savage, who simultaneously makes a living from complaining that gays are bullied\u2013and from bullying people half his age by suggesting they are gay\u2013could not be reached for comment. The court\u2019s ruling points to one of the more tortured facts about our culture\u2019s attempt to square the circle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[130,117],"class_list":["post-35769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-jansenism-redivivus","tag-the-gay-legion-of-menacing-visigoths-for-tolerance"],"yoast_head":"\nCourt sez Calling Someone Gay is Not Defamatory<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Not that there's anything wrong with that. 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