The Gay Cowards Parades

In the strident and petulant gay protests that erupted after California's Proposition 8 passed I can't be the only one who noticed the broad yellow streak in the crowds. What we've seen in the last couple of weeks is a long, long way from Stonewall. Indeed, if most of the protestors ganging up on the Mormon Church weren't gay, you'd be allowed to call them sissies.

An editorial in The National Review this morning notes,

It’s also worth considering that, while gay-rights advocates cannot discuss same-sex marriage for more than 30 seconds without making faulty analogies to Jim Crow-era anti-miscegenation laws, some 70 percent of blacks voted for Proposition 8. While there have been a few ugly racist statements by gay-rights supporters, such vile sentiment has been restricted. Not so the hatred directed at Mormons, who are convenient targets.

"Convenient targets" is too soft a term for what's up in these cowardly protests. A more accurate term is "safe targets." And, as has been shown again and again over years, Christian churches and beliefs are the safest and most non-threatening targets of choice for twisted ideologues throughout the United States. There is one fact which has not escaped the notice of those who would jam their agendas down the throats of those who disagree with them: there are no consequences -- ever -- for attacking a Christian church or beliefs. None. Zero. Nada.

Gay activists, always with a keen sense of their own personal safety, have seen this and now depend on it. Indeed, the entire gay agenda has degenerated from the heroic and idealistic level of Stonewall and what came after to one that epitomizes the "Culture of No Consequences" in the United States today. The reaction to the passage of Proposition 8 has crystalized this reality.

Within 24 hours of the success of 8 at the polls it was known that the Obama groundswell in California had coattails that also boosted Proposition 8. It arose, it was clear, from the large number of African-Americans who had voted both for Obama and traditional marriage. It was also known that these votes arose from the deeply Christian and conservative beliefs of African-American Christians. They are a group that takes their church seriously. If gay activists had a beef over Proposition 8, it was overwhelmingly with African-Americans.

But of course, that couldn't be acknowledged. Picking fights with African-Americans just isn't the done thing -- especially in the penumbra of good feelings the election cast across the landscape. The linchpin of the gay agenda has always been the tenuous linking between the gay experience and the African-American experience. Nothing can be allowed to disrupt that linkage lest gay Americans and not African -Americans lose credibility as an oppressed group. Being a gay "slave" is not a historic reality, but a "lifestyle" choice made for the excitement of the role. There are no "safe words" that can stop you from being black in America.

But there is also a less admirable reason for demonstrating in front of Mormon churches and not taking your long parade of gay discontent and peevishness through those neighborhoods in LA and other cities that are heavily African-American: fear of getting your ass kicked or worse.

For quite some time African-Americans have made a point of not taking kindly to being "dissed" on any level. To take a phrase from Hillary Clinton, they've "come too far from where they started" to take any guff, bluff, or put-downs from other Americans who might not like how they voted. If any gay activists suggested that, since African-Americans were the primary reason they lost at the polls, their protest should go through those neighborhoods in LA or San Francisco, there would have been a very small crowd at the rallying point. Probably about five fingers worth, and those who showed would have been taken away as dangers to others and themselves. Gay Americans might be angry, but they are not that stupid, nor that courageous. It would have been asking them to show a bit too much courage for their conviction.

If there is any group in LA that is relieved that no gay protests marched through South Central, Anaheim, or Compton venting their anger on African-Americans, it has got to be the Los Angeles Police Department. If gay protestors had been that foolish, it would have been a case of "many footprints going in, fewer footprints coming out." But of course -- as is often the case with our "idealistic" groups and their protests, we don't see people acting with real courage -- as we saw in the Civil Rights era -- but rather mobs of soft people too cowardly to risk more than losing a few hours from their jobs, their shopping, or their sofas.

It could be that, at some point, there might be enough gay anger at the "Homophobic" African-American community to stage a protest march through the heart of anti-gay reaction in LA, New York, or San Francisco, but I doubt it. Bullies don't attack where they know they will find a fierce response. They'd rather keep picking on the Churches in safe white areas. Places where there are no consequences, only prayers for peace and understanding.

Posted by Vanderleun at November 24, 2008 7:09 AM