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In 2015, before Ireland was due to vote and change its constitution to legalise gay marriage, a friend asked my opinion. I said vote ‘yes’. My reasoning was simple: what consenting adults do is nobody’s business. I asked a question: what negative impact would gay marriage have on the lives of heterosexual people?
I still hold unambiguously to my first argument. I believe gay marriage is good, because I believe in freedom of the individual. But as to my second point, that it would make no difference to our lives, I was completely wrong. The world since 2015 has been turned upside down and not in a good way. Since that time, modern puritans, in other words, advocates of social justice philosophy, have taken over government institutions, technology companies, education departments, charities, non governmental organisations, churches, entertainment, the media (it’s everywhere, in other words), and in the name of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, forced people, at the risk of having their lives destroyed, to subscribe to an anti-human rights ideology that ordinary people reject and which is antithetical to normative values. The change has been so rapid and perilous to freedom of speech that many people are unaware that they cannot say things which were uncontroversial a few years ago.
While most gay marriage proponents cannot be held accountable for what came after the acceptance of gay marriage, they can, though, be held responsible, with a few brave, notable exceptions, for marching under a flag which has come to symbolise, in part, the anti-democratic and illiberal forces that are now ranged against individual freedom and liberal democracy.
How we arrived at our current situation is one of the most insidious stories of recent history. To put it simply — what was written on the tin was not in the box. Or, to put it another way, what the rainbow flag represents is not what the average person thinks it does.
What occurred since 2015 was a blitzkrieg (e.g., lightning war) of organisational capture, in other words, an attempt to win a war as quickly as possible, so that it would be nearly impossible, or, at least, extraordinarily difficult, to reverse course and return the world to its essential normative, pluralistic status quo, where people are entitled to freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of conscience.
It was social justice warriors, or, as they’re derisively and accurately called, the Woke, who, in thrall to the propaganda of Critical Race Theory, the feminist idea that everything, including biology, is “socially constructed”, and postmodernism (including Queer Studies, Disability Studies and Fat Studies), decided that their values should be accepted by everyone, without question or a democratic mandate. And while their lightning war tactics very nearly won the war, they’re now, thankfully, in an almost headlong intellectual retreat (to continue the World War Two metaphors, we’ve landed in Normandy but we’ve yet to take Berlin).
Or to put it another way, they may still control the bureaucracy, but they’ve lost the intellectual, philosophical, scientific and moral arguments.
In Britain, to give three examples of reversals to the ideology, the High Court upheld Maya Forstater’s claim that she was entitled to gender-critical beliefs; in other words, you cannot force people to believe in trans ideology. In another recent legal judgment, Allison Bailey, a barrister, who is a lesbian, was awarded substantial damages against her former employers, Garden Court Chambers (GCC) — the firm discriminated against her after she stated that no-one can change their biological sex. And, almost overnight, the Tavistock children’s transgender clinic closed its doors after a damning report into its philosophy and practices was published.
We should never forget, though, that the methods employed by partisans who waged this ideological war were a constellation of the most intellectually dishonest and abusive propaganda strategies ever used by political activists, at least by ostensibly human rights advocates in modern liberal democracies.
The list is long and egregious: profound and widespread intellectual dishonesty, including uncharitable and blatantly untrue interpretations of their opponents’ arguments. Selective and deeply skewed readings of history and of historical figures. Social media mobbing and the cancellation of people’s reputations and livelihoods. The use of vastly expanded definitions of mental health problems linked in intellectually dishonest ways with the threat of self harm and suicide as emotional blackmail. Death threats issued towards anyone who criticised the ideology, especially against gender-critical women. And, most importantly, the undermining of science and the rejection of reality for the superficial idea of “lived experience” — in other words, privileging feelings over facts or data.
The methodology used to achieve such a massive cultural shift was founded on a simple but devastatingly deceitful premise. Nothing presented to the public was as it seemed and seems. The tip of the iceberg was the colourful flags and the idea of equality, with which few people disagreed. Below the surface, though, the iceberg contained profoundly disturbing changes to how we view reality and how we navigate the everyday world. Suddenly, men were allowed access to women’s spaces, including toilets, prisons, shelters and changing rooms, and in a recent situation in the United Kingdom, transgender nurses, in other words, men, were given the right to administer to the bodily functions of a disabled teenage girl. The girl’s parents were rightly appalled and believe that only women should have this role. Drag queen story time became normalised in libraries across the Western world (why drag queens would want to read stories to young children is a question left unanswered). Puberty blockers and invasive surgery, including double mastectomies, were administered to teenagers and young adults; the results are irreversible and can lead to a lifetime of medical problems. Parents, in many jurisdictions around the world, and in contradiction to the idea of basic human rights, suddenly did not have the right to know that their child was transitioning to the opposite sex. And, in an almost Maoist indoctrination program, gender ideology, the idea that sex and gender are the same thing, (and paradoxically not the same thing), that there are multiple genders, and that you can be born as the opposite gender in the wrong body are taught, as fact, in schools.
The multi-pronged disingenuous campaign, though, was not accidental. It was a deliberate strategy. The “Denton’s Document”, to give one example, which was signed by two major companies and an activist organisation (Denton’s, the largest lawyers group in the world; Thomson Reuters, the international media conglomerate; and the International, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Youth and Student Organisation), informed activists that sneaking in legislation under the cover of gay rights was a legitimate strategy, which in fact happened during the Irish gay marriage referendum:
Changes to the law on legal gender recognition were put through at the same time as other more popular reforms such as marriage equality legislation. This provided a veil of protection where … gender identity remained a more difficult issue to win public support for.
Whenever anyone questioned these profoundly new ideas, they were immediately labelled a “transphobe”, told they were discriminating against a marginalised group, and informed that they were killing trans people (which is not true: there is no difference in the rates of suicide between pre- and post-transition). The fact that trans people have the same legal rights as other citizens was not enough. What people were compelled to do, in essence, was affirm the subjective reality of a small group of people who suffer from the medically recognised issue of gender dysphoria, which is a cruel and terrible psychological condition, and which should elicit profound sympathy for people suffering from its effects. But no other group, at least in modern liberal democracies, has ever demanded that their subjective understanding of the world should override other people’s genuinely held beliefs. The reasoning behind this change in metaphysical, epistemological and logical analysis was specious and irrational: because a historical wrong was committed against homosexual people, everyone was expected to acquiesce to a complete overturning of objective reality.
To be clear, Pride was originally a good and ethical idea. Gay people, of whatever kind, are entitled to the same rights as everyone else. Pride, though, in its current iteration, no longer adheres to liberal democratic values. In order to reorient society to the notion of pluralism, social justice ideology, which is now the defining feature of Pride, should be rejected by gay rights activists, even if it takes time to reverse the more ludicrous ideas now considered normal in public discourse. In the same way that women are the only people who can restrain the excesses of feminism, there is an obligation on the broader gay movement to stop the anti-intellectual, anti-rational and anti-democratic excesses of trans ideology. This is finally happening. SexMatters and the LGB Alliance are two organisations which are standing up, respectively, for the legitimate rights of women and of gay people.
The sooner, though, that this anti-liberal and anti-human rights philosophy becomes an unfortunate footnote in intellectual history the better. The lesson: read the small print and understand verbal equivocation. Any fool can march and wave a flag.
Some of us foresaw the consequences. Normal marriage and family is the bedrock of society, the molecule that permeates it all.. Altering that foundation would naturally cause repercussions throughout the whole social and legal fabric. It was really that simple to understand and predict.
The problem is as the old maxim goes – give them an inch and they take a mile.
I don’t care what people do sexually in private, nor with whom they enter into a relationship they call marriage. I would think that applies to most Australians.
However, the problem with the Yes vote in terms of same-sex marriages is that it is a parody and a travesty of real marriage between a man and a woman.
The goal was and is, to establish that two women or two men in a ‘marriage’ are no different to a man and a woman in a marriage where patently they are, regardless of how many children the same-sexers purchase.
The flagrant promotion of homosexuality is to sell their choices as a valid option to the norm and the majority, heterosexuality. The crass and garish nature of these performances is a clear indicator of how out of balance, if not dysfunctional, homosexuality is. If they just wanted the right to a same-sex relationship then once they had that right, go away and get on with life.
But instead the industry, and it is an industry, has upped the ante. They are driven by an unconscious knowing that what they are and do is not a norm and they desperately want to prove to themselves and everyone else that it is. The whole thing is sad, tawdry, dysfunctional and destructive.
“they may still control the bureaucracy, but they’ve lost the intellectual, philosophical, scientific and moral arguments.”
But they don’t care. So long as they are in control, they don’t care about rational arguments.
Woke ideology has captured most institutions and is in no way in retreat. I was just reading about the total corruption of the USA medical establishment in an article by Heather Mac Donald, who is an excellent researcher. And it’s frightening to read:
https://www.city-journal.org/the-corruption-of-medicine
Allopathic medicine has been serially corrupted since the early 20th century when the P/Harma Lords set out to destroy all opposition.
The medical system is about money first and last and power, as we have seen with the recent Covid insanity. There are responsible medicos speaking out about this and they have been doing so for a century, albeit generally ignored.
Good comments rosross, both of’em but especially the first.
Like the old saying on the internet goes: Don’t think why the kids need to see drag queens prance around, think of why adult men dancing around in drag need an audience of children…
“I believe gay marriage is good, because I believe in freedom of the individual.”
It’s false to think of marriages as some sort of compact between two individuals. It’s actually a compact between a couple and their community that alters relationships for others, taking in in-laws, and future children which creates new relationships for grandparents. It’s definitely not just an arrangement for only two individuals. That’s why catch phrases about “love equality” and “individual rights” are a lie in this context. Marriage isn’t about individuals. It’s a communal affair.
In terms of freedom and individual rights, children of a gay marriage lose their right to daily life with their mother and father. Yes, that happens too for normal families, but we know they’re an aberation which is why we’ve coined special terms to help describe them – “adopted”, “single parent family”, “surrogacy”, “sperm donor”. That big question – “when should you tell them they’re not a child from an ordinary conception and birth”?
…..’But no other group, at least in modern liberal democracies, has ever demanded that their subjective understanding of the world should override other people’s genuinely held beliefs. The reasoning behind this change in metaphysical, epistemological and logical analysis was specious and irrational: because a historical wrong was committed against homosexual people, everyone was expected to acquiesce to a complete overturning of objective reality.’ This irrational and specious usurping of rationally held beliefs is exactly what the likes of Foucault and Gramsci have brought to the table through an insidious capture of education by postmodernist ideology. Gender theory, critical race theory, third wave feminism are all building blocks of intersectional social theory that requires a hegemonic demon and its conga line of victims. If homosexuality was not a fringe sexual predilection then male mammals would also have vaginas and females penises – evolution would have seen to it. Biology and Chomosomes et al don’t lie! Having said that, I agree with others here who are comfortable with those who wish to practice such predilections in their own sphere – i just don’t need to be ‘re-educated’ about the purported righteousness and ‘pride’ of such activities. Where to next – the celebration of shitting and faecal pride?
The real agenda of the radical homosexual push has not been SSM, (I work with a technique called ‘soft systems methodology, which makes my use of abbreviations self-confusing in the workplace, just sayin’) but the ‘queering’ of society as a whole. That’s the trajectory. Once SSM was in, everything about it became lawful. Thus where we are.
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I’m generally of the view that others’ bedroom business in not my business, but pretending that SSM is really marriage is absurd. Marriage is about difference, finally about sex as the source of children, as well as good in other ways. So homosexual people do not participate in sex in that sense. Whatever genital high jinks they get up to is none of my business, but it ain’t marriage because it isn’t about difference.
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Nor can it produce children. To satisfy the basic social place of marriage a homosexual couple has to reach outside the marriage. Thus the farce. Notwithstanding all that, I also think it only fair that a homosexual couple could have a civil union for their own material comfort. That should have been the course. Indeed, I prefer the practice in some countries where one must be married in a civil process with a religious ceremony the private and optional choice.
Howling at the moon, perhaps …
Before SSM, an Australian workmate in a “third-world” country used to think he regaled people with his tales of how he sent servants out to procure a boy for a few bucks, hose him off on the front lawn and then toss him into the “Master’s” bedroom for the “Master’s” pleasure.
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That creep procured the juvenile brother of a man I employed casually, a macho man, type A (I know that does not mean his brother was), so I am very familiar with the saga. The boy used to take the money and rush off to a brothel and rent a girl; to him it was more than he would earn in a month and no more unpleasant, certainly easier work. The creep (middle-aged) rented a 15yo girl to see what it was like, and told me that because she was so young and petite, she was “just like a boy”.
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The boy keep on with the man, hey, he was a millionaire and the boy had nothing. In the fullness of time the boy stopped going to the brothel and started renting boys himself for threesomes, and eventually came to Oz as the “spouse” of the man.
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I loved the action of a friend who was asked to supply a confirmation of the relationship between the boy (by then a young man) and the man to support the application for immigration – he wrote “I believe they have a form of sexual relationship, and may God forgive them for what they do”.
Just thought of a neologism: TWIDS = Tail Wagging Its Dog Syndrome, a classical case of which is reported here. Another is the inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands (population less than 5,000, less than in the average Oz suburb) demanding a Voice to Parliament.
Getting back to this sex/gender thing, what’s to stop a heterosexual male declaring himself to be a butch lesbian trans-woman? Imagine the fun’n’games as he/she/it/they demanded access to women’s change rooms and loos.
In polite company, I once described the chemical “treatment” by “doctors” of children in the Tavistock Clinic in London as something Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi who experimented on children in Auschwitz, would dream up. My friends were horrified at the comparison and after being severely scolded I beat a hasty retreat. Apparently, questioning the growing trend of subjecting dysphoric children to treatments that ranged from life-changing puberty blocking chemicals to surgical mutilation, was evidence of my “transphobia”. At the time of the encounter described I admit I threw Mengele’s name into the debate for rhetorical purposes. But, information that has come into the public domain since suggests that the comparison was not too wide of the mark. The recent announcement that the Tavistock Clinic was to close because it was judged to be “unsafe” has triggered widespread debate, not only on transgender issues, but on the entire Woke agenda.
The author is aghast at the downstream consequences of the Gay Marriage referendum and yet does not recognise the internal lack of logic in his own thought processes. True, any person with a basic respect for human dignity and individual rights is appalled at the totalitarian bullying that is currently being conducted in the name of “trans rights”. However, the lie that is present in the imposition of the distortion of reality on which trans rights is based was present from the inception of the gay rights movement, and, in particular, the same sex “marriage” movement – which, of course, tolerated no discussion, no argument, and relied on name-calling and persecution of any who disagreed. Same sex “marriage” is a nonsense, in part, because of the social reasons mentioned here in the comments but additionally, and above all, because marriage is a sacrament – a binding vow before God, which, in our Christian society, was implemented in accordance with Genesis: “Man and woman He created them, ” and which was directed to the procreation of children. The reluctance to declare our religious origins, the source of our legal and moral law and our complete moral framework (including that of the right of the individual) and to fail to acknowledge any gratitude to our Christian foundations, has allowed the untruth of a false chimera of “marriage” to be presented under the guise of “tolerance”. The consequence further downstream, once that incremental erosion is consolidated, is the complete erosion of the notion, respect and reality of womanhood – as is patently evidence by the claim by men that they are “biological” women – a scientific nonsense, but one which carries with it the full force of the law, the media and, in the individual cases, the male physical dominance over the hated “TERF” – that woman who dares to say that a man, genetically, chromosomal, DNA and every cells in his body, is not a woman. That reality is to reduce the notion and idea of “woman” to make-up, choice of frocks and to enable the grotesque circumstance of men presenting themselves as “woman” and forcing those present, in true totalitarian style (yes, jbbrick- in exactly the same manner as practised by the Nazis), to accede to a nonsense under the threat of physical violence, workplace persecution and targeting to a degree that would have been previously incomprehensible.
The same sex “marriage” presentation relied upon the fiction that gay relationships are exactly the same as heterosexual relationships – a tactic that was advised in the manifesto that was used to advance the gay rights agenda from the 1990’s, in the book, “After the Ball” by Kirk and Madsen. These authors freely acknowledged the repulsive and perverted side of the gay “community”. However, they advised to eschew any mention of paedophilia and the more blatant sides of gay lifestyles until such time as there was a more general acceptance of the gay way of life. Until that time, they advised, gay people should be presented as identical to the heterosexual
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It is because the lie starts with same sex marriage that it is not about the “rights of an individual” – we have a society – a community- which has been founded upon a moral framework – one which completely changed humanity- and in which some possess more power than others. We are now seeing and will see more of, a move by the paedophiles to normalise “inter-generational relations” (or, as it is sometimes called “Minor attracted persons”). The attack on womanhood is an example of the power balance being exploited to erode the respect and status of women in our society (a respect which was the direct result of the veneration of the Virgin Mary in the early Catholic Church). The feminists are yet to own up for their contribution to the erosion of the reality of womanhood – they are in the same conundrum as the author of this piece: if you uphold any of these constructed, artificial beliefs, the downstream consequences may not be to your liking.