The Black Madonna

This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.

Shelby Steele eloquently lays out the case against the homosexual agenda as a civil rights struggle...

The civil rights movement argued that it was precisely the utter innocuousness of racial difference that made segregation an injustice. Racism was evil because it projected a profound difference where there was none--white supremacy, black inferiority--for the sole purpose of exploiting blacks. But there is a profound difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality. In the former, sexual and romantic desire is focused on the same sex, in the latter on the opposite sex. Natural procreation is possible only for heterosexuals, a fact of nature that obligates their sexuality to no less a responsibility than the perpetuation of the species. Unlike racial difference, these two sexual orientations are profoundly--not innocuously--different.

...right before he falls off the Cliffs of Insanity.

Racism projects a false difference in order to exploit. Homophobia is a reactive prejudice against a true and firm difference that already exists.

If there is a "true and firm difference", is it not at least possible that someone could disagree with the endorsement of the other side of that difference without "reactive prejudice"? Why is it that anyone who disagrees with homosexual conduct (or rather, the complete lack of a moral and ethical rationale for it) is always prejudged "homophobic" sans psychotherapy? How is it that in a few short years the stigma has completely reversed itself, and opposition to this "lifestyle choice" is now the mental disorder, and not the pathology itself?

It's absolutely true that "racism projects a false difference in order to exploit". But it is equally true that the desire to impose an acceptance of homosexuality is just as much of a moral stricture as opposition to it. And stating otherwise is just as much of a false difference in order to exploit as is racism - only now the prejudice comes from those who want to deprive certain people of their religious freedom, and their right to cite their religious beliefs when they petition the government of a state to define its own standards.

From there, Steele continues to bounce his way down the cliffside:

The stigmatization of homosexuals is wrong and makes no contribution to the moral health of our society. I was never worried for my children because they grew up knowing a gay couple that lived across the street, or because several family friends were gay. They learned early what we all know: that homosexuality is as permanent a feature of the human condition as heterosexuality. Nothing is gained in denying this.

Nothing, of course, except the one thing in our overly licentious age that we are no longer allowed to regulate: morality itself.

UPDATE: A couple of letters to the Baltimore Sun speak clearly in support of my position. As Mik Megary points out:

The majority of Americans are against homosexual marriage. They make a moral statement that marriage is between a man and a woman. Our laws reflect these morals, as all our laws reflect our morals....

But this is unacceptable to some homosexuals. They want to be labeled as "married," as if that will force the rest of society to accept their actions as morally right....

(N)o right exists for all behavior to be morally accepted by society....

The struggle of a people to be accepted for who they are is just not the same as the effort by a people to be justified in what they do. (my emphasis - Chris)

(I should openly disclose my Dowdification^® of Mr. Megary, who in several places not noted above accepts the notion of civil unions. My editing in no way is meant to detract from his opinion or embolden my own (civil unions are not a concession I feel is desirable or necessary). His drift into that part of the discussion simply detracted from the central issue we've been discussing, IMHO.)