Chapter 27 . The Corruption of American Culture . . . Dr. Charles Socarides saw it all coming. His 1995 book, Homosexuality. A Freedom Too Far, includes a number of passages that discuss the shape of American education in the future as emerging programs in so-called "gay studies" started appearing in universities from coast to coast. It is instructive to think about what he was observing at that time and comparing it with what is known in 2015, twenty years later. . . This was the beginning: . "According to a 1993 report by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, more than 45 U.S. colleges and universities have started to offer at least one course on the homosexual experience -usually in literature, history, sociology or psychology departments. The City University of New York began a gay and lesbian research center for graduate students in 1991. In the fall of 1993, San Francisco State University became the country's first four-year school to offer a formal academic program of courses on gay, lesbian and bisexual culture. Students there can get a minor in Gay and Lesbian Studies. Professor John DeCecco, who is gay, heads the program." . All of these programs, said Socarides, have teachers who "believe that same-sex sex orientation fundamentally affects the way literature is written, art produced, history analyzed, science investigated. And anyone who isn't gay or lesbian is obviously unqualified to teach gay or lesbian literature, or art, or history." In other words, even in the nineties a privileged place for homosexuals was being created in higher education. . As well, homosexuals were organizing in the schools, hence "several national conferences devoted to gay studies, three at Yale and one each at Harvard and Rutgers. There are plans for others, at CUNY and San Francisco. Since 1991, they have had a national Lesbian and Gay Studies Association. There are a number of academic journals focused on homosexuality. And they've published dozens of books on the history, incidence, and culture of homosexuality." . The nucleus for a culture shift was taking shape. . This included the role of philosophy in the process, most of all through the works of Michel Foucault, a French thinker whose History of Sexuality would play a key part in reconceptualizing culture through his view that, as Socarides characterized the idea, "what most people consider as "normal" are mere human inventions. By implication, they're also arbitrary." In so many words, "anything goes." . Right and wrong do not exist in the homosexual realm, certainly nothing that has been considered good or evil through the ages. Which, of course, (1) justifies homosexuality and (2) destroys society altogether even if not all at once. . You might have thought that the AIDS crisis of the 1980s would have wrecked the homosexual movement but that did not happen. Why not? Because "through skillful propaganda, and by picturing themselves as helpless victims, the gay movement gained strength, even though many gay males were already dying." . Moreover, as questionable as Foucault's ideas were, there was a compelling attractiveness for homosexuals in his view that, again to cite Socarides' summarization, "truth is merely the product of power." Therefore, by changing the structure of power truth is transformed into whatever serves your interests, viz., there is no objective truth. Lies are as good as truth if you can make the lies stick. Thus, homosexuals "do not engage anyone in debate according to any norms that are traditional. To them, there are no valid norms." The only rules are those of whomever controls or seizes power. . To call this classical Marxism would be a serious mistake; for "old fashioned" Marxists truth necessarily was objective, its just that -as they understood things- objective truth resided with the proletariat and science. Indeed, the selfish interests of the bourgeoisie was what blinded them to the truth. The well-off middle class and the wealthy as such, were the subjectivists. . The Left-wing homosexuals were -and are- Cultural Marxists; they had no interest in the working class, only in their own political agenda -which consisted of advancing their sexual purposes. And in this they were aligned with feminists and the non-religious among African-Americans or, much the same thing, blacks who assumed the guise of some religion which, in fact, was anti-Christian (and anti-Semitic) whatever false front identity it might project to normative society. And why not? Simple-minded actual Christians would never get the idea since they are a population who refuses to become informed about the real world on principle. About which, the homosexuals and other Leftists sure got that right. . . There was one other factor in this, as Socarides explained: . There's been virtually no resistance to this ideology within American academic life. Tim Egan, ...from The New York Times in Seattle, reported in 1988 about a business major named Pete Schaub at the University of Washington who enrolled in a course called "Introduction to Women's Studies" taught by Donna Langston and Dana-Michele Brown. On the first day of class, he and the class were told that traditional American families are dysfunctional. Students who said their families were quite functional were shouted down by the teaching assistants with cries, in unison, of "Denial! Denial!" A few days later, Professor Langston brought guest speakers in to talk about masturbation. "They said you don't need a man," Schaub told Reporter Egan. "They proceeded to show how to masturbate with a feather duster, and they had dildos right there." When Professor. Brown said statistics showed lesbians could raise children better than married couples, Schaub went up after class and quietly asked for her source. Professor Brown dismissed him and his question. "Why are you challenging me?" she said. "Get away from me. Just leave me alone." A member of the class called Schaub "a chauvinist goddamn bastard." The next day, his professor had two campus police officers there to enforce her order, banning Schaub from her class. Schaub protested the ban. Weeks later, the administration said he could go back to class. But Associate Dean James Nason advised him to drop the course." . "Gays and lesbians have pre-empted criticism from outside academe (principally from the media, including the world of book publishing) because they've been able to define any opposition as a disease called "homophobia." Insofar as the media buy that gay-and-lesbian definition, Professor Muller said, "it is impossible to give good reasons for the cultural disapproval of homosexuality." . Especially if you have not made yourself informed which, as we have seen, is typical of nearly everyone, on the Right as a general principle, but also on the Left among working class Democrats who persist in making arguments as if the party was what it used to be in a previous era when organized labor actually meant something in its ranks and leading Democrats were anti-Communist. But those days came to a halt after 1993 when whatever had survived of an American Democratic Party was destroyed by the Clintons.
. The vignettes sketched in Socarides' book, which reflected something fairly new at the time, now seem dated because, instead of being new and strange, they now typify universities. Which is a phenomenon that David Horowitz has documented many times over, all the while as the Republican Party he has cast his lot with ignores what he says because Republicans believe in making money and nothing else counts. And how are you going to make money with social criticism? . Which is not some kind of Leftist rant about the GOP, not hardly, but merely a statement of the obvious. Republicans, minus pundits like George Will and Charles Krauthammer, are not anti-intellectuals, they are non-intellectuals for whom the world of ideas scarcely exists. . . To bring us up to date, we can turn to an article in the Christian Post for February 24, 2015, written by Napp Nazworth. This is a study of Wesleyan University in Connecticut, ostensibly a Methodist-Episcopal institution, but in reality another bastion of Cultural Marxism. . As Nazworth reported, "campus housing specifically for 15 alternative sexualities," -"queer," transgender,etc.- "including sadomasochists, is acceptable, but fraternities that just allow men are not, "a result of new school policies that requires fraternities to admit women. . How this came about is best explained in an official Wesleyan document cited in the Christian Post essay, which explains: . "Because fraternities are male-exclusive and the possessors of some of our campus' largest party spaces, they explicitly and implicitly cultivate a gender-based power dynamic that privileges men, the hosts, over women, who are among the guests. This power dynamic engenders sexual assault because women are institutionally encouraged to 'repay' men for their hospitality, often with sex, and men are institutionally provided with a control over their guests, especially women...." all of which can be overcome through the process of disallowing "the gender-based power dynamics by which sexual assault is promoted within fraternities." . Vote Democratic and you will receive all of the feminist mumbo jumbo you ever wanted, is what this comes down to, along with lying about campus rape, claimed to effect one out of five coeds, a myth debunked by Christian Hoff Sommers in Who Stole Feminism? and which has been debunked again, this time in an article by Heather Wilhelm in the March 2015 edition of Commentary. What is the actual rate of rapes? According to most recent US government data, the known figure in 0.61% -about one in 200. Which, moreover, is consistent with common sense on the issue. It is rare, not at all common, for rapes to be reported in news outlets not because of a cover-up but because there aren't very many. . These are the actual facts -all the while as false allegations of rape now receive national publicity as if these smears were true, -Duke University, UVA, and 57 other cases- false statistics which portray women as under threat wherever they walk proliferate. . Qui bono? . The question is rhetorical except to shills for the political Left. But it should be no mystery. All of this benefits constituents of the Democratic party, especially unmarried women who -surprise, surprise- vote for Leftist candidates every chance they get, and if a candidate is black, that is a bonus, for the Democratic party represents the reversal, up and down the line, of each and every value that is responsible for the existence of the United States. . Not that African-Americans qua black people are anti-American but major segments of that population are exactly that, viz, Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam, Muslims per se, latter-day Communists in the tradition of Paul Robeson, rabble rousers like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, gangsta rappers, street gangs, and the whole cast of characters since 2008. It all is so "heroic" to a large swath of single white women, nurtured on romanticized revolutionary traditions. . There is also status to consider. The French led the way in the 1920s when they were trying to legitimate colonial rule over large parts of sub-Saharan Africa. "Negroes" became instant celebrities, maybe sometimes because of accomplishment, but at other times simply because they were black. . This story is told in a 2000 book by Petrine Archer-Straw, entitled Negrophilia, the passion for all things African, also what we now call African-American, that swept through Parisian society in those years. There was even an American offshoot which was mostly centered on talented black entertainers and artists more generally, known as the Harlem Renaissance. . Which is anything but a critique of quality black artists. For some years I have been (metaphorically) in love with Anita Baker, her songs are amazing. And there are black Jazz musicians of exceptional talent, black scholars like E. Franklin Frazier, author of Black Bourgeoisie and The Negro Church in America, plus, overseas, polymaths and political leaders such as Leopold Senghor. But white women have shown remarkably little interest in black people like these. They usually prefer the opposite, whomever is black and who sounds anti-American and primitif, trophies to show off to other political Leftist women to verify their bona fides. Or, failing this, there are lines even some Left wing women will not cross, cultivated tastes in rap (so-called) music, in African derived arts (Picasso started that trend), or in black literature. , In a way, who can blame them? What is the alternative? You do know whereof I speak, don't you? An all-star cast on the Right of the lightest of intellectual lightweights, many enamored of a political philosophy that turns off almost all women because of its anti-social values, libertarianism, the perfect political ideology for immature white males of any age, men who remain teen agers all of their lives. . You do not need to be a feminist to see this glaring truth for what it is. . Which the Carl Roves of the Republican Party are unable to recognize, however, because they fail to see where understanding something like this can possibly net them any money. And capital gains tax reform is so much more interesting anyway. . These are people who not only wear starched collars, they wear starched underwear. . This, of course, is over-the-top metaphor, but we all know how true it is, don't we? . . Meanwhile at Wesleyan, Political Correctness and multi-culturalism thrive in an atmosphere of intimidation for anyone who is not also a Cultural Marxist. And sexual categories multiply like mushrooms after a warm Spring rain. . What is going on? . The answer, said Napworth, is supplied in an essay by Carl R. Trueman, a professor at another school, Westminster Theological Seminary, who argues that: . "This endless expansion of sexual categories is a necessary consequence of what is now the fundamental tenet of modern sexual politics, and perhaps a key element of modern politics in general: That a person's attitude to sex is the primary criterion for assessing their moral standing in the public square. If you say that sex has intrinsic moral significance, then you set it within a larger moral framework and set limits to the legitimate use of sex. In doing so, you declare certain sexual acts illegitimate, something which is now considered hate speech. This constant coining of new categories of sexual identity serves both to demonstrate this and to facilitate its policing." . At the forefront of this development are homosexuals of both sexes, plus feminists and a contingent of transgenders, utter misfits in any sane society, now in charge of society, at least of that part of society which supplies us with our future educated leadership. . Homosexuals are direct beneficiaries. . This may be direct or indirect. What is most insidious has been the horribly negative indirect effects that homosexuals have had in the realm of Classical music. That story is multifaceted and cannot be discussed here without a major diversion from the theme of this book, but suffice it to say that homosexual composers have been a major factor in the near complete destruction of Classical in the years since about 1970. This is to speak of composers such as John Cage, Ned Rorem, and John Corigliano particularly, not of an earlier generation for whom Classical music still meant music that was recognized as music rather than as dissonant sound effects mediated by disharmonies invented by people like Anton Webern. For more information on related subjects see Frances Stoner Saunders' 1999 book, The Cultural Cold War. . The point to make is that "white straight men" had largely abandoned high culture before the dawn of the 2000s and homosexuals filled the void. Sexually normal white men who did become part of the cultural elite were accommodating of homosexuals and basically emasculated themselves in the process. And everyone could see the results, or hear the results, as Classical music, once approximately as popular as "popular music," became the least popular of all forms of music already in the 1990s and has sunk even lower in the 21st century. Who can respect that? . This was one part of the equation, which is not even to talk about the unfortunate results of some types of Post-Modern visual art, but let us return to education because it is so pivotal to everything else. . Many schools now have a policy of requiring dorms to employ "gay tutors." This has been a rule at various universities ever since Harvard led the way in the 1990s. Charles Socarides, himself a Harvard graduate, was alarmed about this but, of course, there was almost no support for his views from anyone on the Right because, and there is no face-saving way to say this, Rightists are stupid. And why is the fact that homosexuals are tutoring their kids in college important anyway? If tutors help their kids make money that is all the better, if there is no effect on their future earnings, who cares? That is the attitude of the Republican elite. . As Socarides observed, however, "this is just another form of child abuse, late-adolescent branch. Kids in their late teens are still vulnerable to assaults on their sexual identity. Many of them haven't yet come to full terms with their identities.....But bombarding them with misinformation and disinformation and enticements to try same-sex sex because they might like it -well that's a form of sexual subversion." . Even one-time citadels of Christian conservatism are under siege. This story is told in an article by Philip Francis and Mark Longhurst published in The Atlantic magazine for July 23, 2014. "How LGBT Students Are Changing Christian Colleges" describes how much has changed since 2004. . That was the year when 11 states, all that had ballot initiatives, passed, affirming that marriages must be between men and women. What is known as "gay marriage" was overwhelmingly rejected by the 20 million voters in those states by a 2:1 margin. Even Oregon, which homosexuals had considered might favor their cause, went 57% - 43% against. The other states were Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Ohio and Utah. . What was the response of the political Right? Matt Daniels, a leader of the Alliance for Marriage, insisted that there had to be follow-up in the form of a Federal Marriage Amendment. And the time was ripe, Republicans had large majorities in Congress and had just re-elected George W. Bush. What Mr. Bush did, of course, was to heavily promote an idea that had almost no popular support, privatization of Social Security, which dismayed senior citizens and was seen by unmarried women voters as a threat to their future. For Evangelical Christians, moreover, roughly half of all Republicans who cast ballots, Social Security privatization was completely irrelevant. It spoke to precisely one population group only, the affluent. Even among them the reaction was mixed. . Did Bush rescind "Don't Ask, Don't tell?" Apparently the thought never entered his mind. Did he get behind the movement to pass an amendment to safeguard the institution of marriage? He certainly sounded like it for a time, there was a good amount of lip service to the idea, but in the end he made no sustained effort. He could not be bothered, and his political calculus -furnished to him by Carl Rove- would not allow him to go that far. So he persisted in squandering his political capital after a big win in the 2004 election, pushing for reforms to Social Security that no-one wanted. . But what did anyone expect from a faux Christian president as ignorant of all relevant subject matter as George W. Bush? He had said the magic word "Jesus" prior to his election in 2000, and Evangelicals of the time were delirious. What did he give them for their votes?. . Somehow I can't remember. Can anyone remember? Maybe no-one can remember because there isn't anything to remember -except Laura Bush saying that she supports "gay rights" and her husband meeting with homosexual Republicans while campaigning for the presidency, and his various comments after that, showing "respect" to the perverted. And, of course, his vice president, dick Cheyney, had a daughter who was a female homosexual -whether "bull dyke" or "fem" is unclear- and Cheyney supported homosexuals in their quest. . Bush, in his highly publicized meeting with Republicans like Robert Stears and Steve Gunderson, said effusive things on their behalf, as reported in the New York Times on April 14, 2000: . " These are individuals who've got interesting stories to tell and it's important for the next president to listen to people's real-life stories...These are people from our neighborhoods, people with whom all of us went to school, people who generally care about America, and I appreciate them sharing their stories with me. And I'm mindful that we're all God's children." . Which showed utter lack of interest in the critique of homosexuality then being made by a number of professional people and by various conservative organizations. And it showed, clearly, that Bush had never (ever) taken seriously the devastating critique of sodomy in the Bible itself. . . These things being true, it should not be all that much of a surprise that the Right is now in the process of falling apart as young Evangelicals have become increasingly accepting of homosexuality and older Christians, never informed to begin with, have little to say to stop them. . And above all, it is pointless to bring this up to Evangelicals. None that I know about, certainly speaking on this issue, ever admit to being wrong about anything. Why should they bother to become informed when they have the Bible? And there are excuses ready made that justify any accommodation with Satan that may seem advisable. Hence, in the wake of the June 29, 2015 Supreme Court ruling, complete capitulation to the Left on the part of Joel Osteen (he doesn't take stands on social issues, his job is to make people feel happy) and T.D. Jakes, for whom other questions are more important and this one isn't vital. But for the record, in case a few scattered Evangelicals might have some interest, there are 120 Evangelical Christian Colleges —they belong to the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Altogether there are 400,000 students enrolled in these schools. . As the Christian Post article observes, since about 2009 or 2010, even though all of these colleges prohibit homosexuality in any form, there has been a steady rise of homosexual activism; homosexuals now have at least small organizations at 75 of these schools, so-called "LGBT-friendly student groups." There even is one such group now in operation at Gordon College. . And where are alumni organizations in all of this? Nowhere to be seen, and operating without benefit of informed leadership. . Such is part of the price to pay as a result of incredibly bad decisions made in the past -at times when real leadership by informed people just might have made a major difference in American culture. . As the Post article continued: "In 2004, only about 1 in 10 evangelical Christians supported gay marriage. Just 10 years later, almost a quarter of evangelicals support gay marriage, including a near-majority of evangelicals under 35, according to the Public Religion Research Institute." . At Gordon, where you would most suspect that the entire school would strand as one and fight back against homosexuals and against an anti-Christian president named Hussein, that is not the situation at all. The school's executive, D. Michael Lindsay, not long ago drafted an open letter to Obama in which he politely asked the White House for an exemption from new Title IX rules engineered by the administration so that it could continue to follow its policy of long-standing not to hire homosexuals -because dong so would force the school to abandon Christian morality. . What was the reaction to Lindsay's letter among Gordon people? "Nearly 4,000 students, faculty, alumni, and supporters signed a petition urging President Lindsay to rescind his letter to the White House, and numerous instructors voiced disapproval through op-eds and blog posts. . Nothing could be more obvious than the fact that Christians need an altogether new strategy for fighting against homosexuals and against both a political party that is evil and against another that is hopelessly stupid. But I expect no such thing. From experience I know full well that Evangelicals have no interest in making themselves informed so that they can fight, and fight back hard, no desire to learn one damned thing, and if anyone offers help who is not a fellow Evangelical, he should go away, they aren't interested. . There is a passage of scripture that I have always found inspirational; it is from Ephesians and it goes like this: . "Let no one deceive you with shallow arguments; it is for all these things that God's dreadful judgement is coming upon his rebel subjects. Have no part or lot with them....[and] Be most careful then how you conduct yourselves: like sensible men, not like simpletons. Use the present opportunity to the full, for these are evil days. So do not be fools, but try to understand what the will of the Lord is....." . "... find your strength in the Lord, in his mighty power. Put on all the armor which God provides, so that you may be able to stand firm against the devices of the devil. For our fight is not against human foes, but against cosmic powers, against the authorities and potentates of this dark world, against the superhuman forces of evil in the heavens. Therefore, take up God's armor; then you will be able to stand your ground when things are at their worst, to complete every task and still to stand. Stand firm, I say. Buckle on the belt of truth; for coat of mail put on integrity; ...and, with all these, take up the great shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take salvation for helmet; for sword, take that which the Spirit gives you the words that come from God......." . "...and pray for me, that I may be granted the right words when I open my mouth, and may boldly and freely make known his hidden purpose, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may speak of it boldly, as it is my duty to speak." . There is a lot to think about in these words, but what they say to me can be reduced to the following: . * Make yourself informed, don't be a simpleton, become educated; * Be willing to fight for what is right, and fight to win -regardless of difficulties. Christian faith is not for wimps. It is not for the timid. Don't be stupid about it, don't say something you will regret, but say something, take a stand; and * Speak boldly about your convictions, make yourself understood, leave no doubt about your values, your reasons for them, and about your commitment to truth. . . What we are up against, it seems to me -and if you have another opinion, screw you- was spelled out in II Thessalonians during the very first decades of the existence of Christian faith. There is dispute among scholars about whether Paul wrote this epistle, for that matter whether he wrote all of Ephesians, but my best guess is that at a minimum he wrote parts of it, maybe most of it, a scribe may well have added passages, but in any case, this document is filled with wisdom we ignore at our peril. This includes: . Let no one deceive you in any way whatever..... ...already the secret power of wickedness is at work, ...the coming of that wicked man is the work of Satan It will be attended by all the powerful signs and miracles of the Lie, and all the deception that sinfulness can impose on those doomed to destruction. Destroyed they shall be, because they did not open their minds to love of the truth, so as to find salvation. Therefore God puts them under a delusion, which works upon them to believe the lie, so that they may all be brought to judgement, all who do not believe the truth but make sinfulness their deliberate choice. . . That is, although such an interpretation is very much open to debate, it strikes me as totally clear that everything fits like a glove if we think of the evil being referred to as Barack Hussein Obama and his master as Satan. At a minimum this is a useful way to frame the matter. Homosexuality is Satanic in essence and character and has been facilitated like no-one else in history, not even Nero. . This is useful because it focuses attention of the seriousness of what we are up against, unimaginable evil that has now become manifest in public life through the powers of government, and uncompromising evil in the person of a president of the United States who embodies Beelzebub. . Sure, this kind of "poetic metaphor" may not admit of laboratory proof. That is not the claim anyway. But this is the kind of conception that is necessary if you have any hope to "beat the devil" -thoroughly, mercilessly, until he is completely humiliated and loses everything. . If, like Mitt Romney in 2012, your preference is to bend over backwards in deference to Barack Hussein, you will be defeated. If your response is to trust in the efficacy of prayer and retreat into pietism, you will lose -ignominiously. . Or if you are like Ben Carson, one more well-intentioned but ridiculously uninformed aspirant for the presidency, you will make a fool of yourself and show the world how poorly prepared you are for higher office in a time of social crisis. . As a Christian Post story by Samuel Smith for March 6, 2015, tells us, Carson was interviewed by Chris Cuomo on CNN ands was asked whether he thought homosexuality was a choice. His reply was that it is "absolutely" a matter of choice inasmuch as some people who were not homosexual prior to entering prison become homosexual as a result of incarceration. . That may be true enough but clinicians generally do not consider forced choice situations -like coercion into becoming a gangster's 'bitch' while in prison- an example of becoming homosexual at all. There are many other far more meaningful examples Carson could have used, starting with homosexual insistence it is a choice until the years of the AIDS epidemic, or stories from psychoanalytic literature about homosexuals recounting their pathways into sodomy. And many female homosexuals to this day claim that it is a choice with no possibility it could be anything else. But Carson didn't know any of that; he had never studied the issue beyond, it seems, a smattering of anecdotes he picked up along the way. . This is inexcusable especially since as a skilled surgeon he knows how to do serious research in fields like medical consequences of homosexuality. Instead he makes his points on the issue with "I believe" and "I think" and "as a man of God..." . Carson was clueless, moreover, about how to answer critics who used the argument that the American Psychological Association and similar groups have stated that homosexuality is not a choice. So what? Each of a number of previously respected medical or psychological organizations was taken over by pro-homosexual interests starting in the 1970s and continuing until recently; none of their pronouncements on the issue have any credibility -which you would never know, of course, unless you had done the necessary research. Carson has not done any serious research. . As a result Carson has been forced to walk back his comments, in the process offering profuse apologies like this: . "In a recent interview on CNN, I realized that my choice of language does not reflect fully my heart on gay issues, I regret that my words to express that concept were hurtful and divisive. For that I apologize unreservedly to all that were offended." . In another context he added: "As a human being my obligation is to learn from my mistakes and to treat all people with respect and dignity." . Including sadists and child molesters? . For one, while there may be times when an apology for some other mistake may well be appropriate in life, falling all over oneself in offering apologies because you are too lazy to make yourself informed about homosexuality merely puts your inadequacies in high relief. . Carson also went on record as saying that he "believes in the constitutional rights of homosexuals and supports civil unions for same-sex couples." . Is that so? As a Christian? If that is his rationalization then he obviously is ignorant of the Bible as well as the literature of homosexual psychopathology. . What, exactly, is he trying to accomplish? Does he seek to become the next George W. Bush? That is what it sounds like. . . About Dr. Carson, it must be said that at least his heart is mostly in the right place; its just that he is too uninformed to say what is right or to justify his stands on social values issues. About Barack Hussein, the man is even less informed that Carson, has his heart in exactly the wrong place, and is someone who is contemptuous of America, of which he has little understanding anyway, given his youth in Indonesia, his pro-Islam values, his identification with his Marxist African father, his anti-American mother, his relationship with Bill Ayers a self-professed Communist, and his associations with black Leftist zealots like Frank Marshall Davis, also a Communist, and Rev. Jermiah Wright, a certified America hater. . Obama epitomizes evil, that should be the starting point of any discussion about him, this is what needs to be understood, not any kind of view that excuses or softens his gross indecency and immorality . None of this admits of any compromise at all. And the record of recent history should be more then sufficient to tell you why... . . Consider the fact that Oklahoma is one of the most religious states in the Union. Yet in 2013, as reported in the November 26 issue of the Daily Oklahoman newspaper, an openly anti-Christian homosexual play was scheduled for performance at the Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City, to run during the Christmas season. . A large number of pastors -Baptist, Lutheran, Assemblies of God, etc.- wrote a letter of complaint that was sent to city officials asking that the play, because it was to be held in a city owned building partly financed with public money- should not be allowed to proceed in that venue. According to the pastors the play was essentially "gross pornography" and asked, in conclusion, is it "necessary to mock the Bible in the Christmas season"? . About which my sentiments are 100% with the pastors. But city officials had a point in their reply, denying the clergy request, namely, the fact that the First Amendment applies and they have no authority to override it. . For the moment let us concede that point, actually there are grounds to not concede it for one minute, but for the sake of argument... . Why, exactly, didn't Christians see this coming? The answer is that they chose to be cowards, chose not to face some very unpleasant facts for what they are, and acted like children, hoping that they would not need to deal with the issue of sodomy and the homosexuals would simply leave them alone. Spinelessness has become, in some Christian communities, the new normal. Is there some other way to put it? How about a pastor who guides his flock toward whatever non-controversial path he can identify, or at least not all that controversial, maybe a local Congressman is having an affair, maybe there is an increase in crime in the city, real enough issues, but strictly send rate in comparison to the horrible threat posed by homosexuals. What do you call that? . What should have been done was to have mobilized to totally discredit homosexuality itself, find the necessary resources, organize to research the issue thoroughly so that hard facts are ready to be put to good use, recruit the best people, organize for a sustained effort. Do your best to convince national Christian organisations to take action -not by taking to the streets except as a secondary option- by discrediting homosexuality in the media, in government, and especially in the schools. . But none of this was done. Why not? . . Think of those Christians who have been bitten by the libertarian bug: In due curse the market will sort it all out, give it time, meanwhile ignore the threat, shrug it off as 'God's will.' Or make lame excuses for yourself, viz., "I don't have time to do any reading," "I can't be bothered with this because the only public issue that matters is abortion, " or "why can't we all just live and let live?" . Why it is that many Christians cannot see that libertarian philosophy is anti-Christian is a good question. For that is exactly what it is as the number of libertarians who are Atheists should tell you with little room to doubt. . To be certain, the free speech part of libertarianism isn't anti-Christian, nor is the contrarian part. But just about everything else is. Plus it rests on a totally obvious fallacy: People can and do organize. For this reason there can be no market of nothing but rational choice optimizers. Groups function to maximize "good" for the group, sometimes denying value to clear economic advantage in favor of some other purpose. Besides, the rich always have superior market leverage; they don't expedite rational optimization for anyone but themselves, or usually do not, and that is a fact of life. . Which says that to get things done you need leadership that the market cannot provide, determination that is extraneous to any market, and a sense that values matter far more than money. . Which is brought up because libertarianism does help explain Christian ineffectiveness -it provides a whole set of excuses to do nothing. . It could just be that by now I have heard every excuses there is. They all stink. . If Christians in Oklahoma had made a serious effort, done the necessary research, carried out large scale campaigns to educate the public, there would have been no-one willing to co-operate with the homosexuals when they decided to, in effect, defecate all over Christmas. . And after all, nearly everything in this book is public domain. Anyone with the interest could have looked up everything I looked up and written a similar book years ago. , Regardless, that still leaves us with the First Amendment. . . First, we need to establish the facts about the play. Here is what the pastors' letter asserted and, clearly, what is said is true; very slight editing has been done to make these passages read with maximum clarity: . * Christmas is an official public holiday commemorating the birth of Jesus Christ and recognized as such by the United States. . * The play is an affront to well known community standard in Oklahoma City. Among other things, the play depicts "full frontal nudity, men simulating anal sex on stage, men simulating oral sex on stage and the promotion of bestiality." Even the play's supporters, like the New York Times, admit that the production is filled with cursing and profanities. . * This play is openly offensive to Christians, who comprise 85% of the population of the city...The dialogue intentionally mocks and provokes Christians as it "retells the Bible from a flamboyantly gay perspective, beginning with 'Adam and Steve' in the Garden of Eden." . * Applying contemporary community standards, it is quite possible that this production meets the definition of obscenity and might be in violation of Federal and State obscenity laws. Oklahoma Title 21. Chapter 39, Section 1021 law defines as an offense "Every person who willfully and knowingly...lewdly exposes his person or genitals in any public place." . . Since all of this is, in fact, the case, as carefully explained in "Freedom of Expression - ACLU Position Paper," the type of expression scheduled for performance in Oklahoma City met the Supreme Court definition of wrongful free speech, aka, abuse of freedom of speech. The Court, said the ACLU, "has recognized several limited exceptions to First Amendment protection." Some of these exceptions do not concern us here, although it is useful to know that intimidation is not protected speech, nor, generally, is incitement to violence. . There is also some possibility that the 1942 decision, Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire might apply, namely the "fighting words ... clause whereby some language is so inflammatory that it must be taken to be provocative of violent reaction. This clause also follows from the Court's view that fighting words have approximately no social value "as a step to truth." . Legally obscene content, said the ACLU, " has historically been excluded from First Amendment protection." What upsets the ACLU is the fact that government has used this proviso to censor literary works of art such as James Joyce's classic Ulysses, adding -about which I must express incredulity- "the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe," but in any case even the ACLU recognizes the right of local jurisdictions to set standards for what is and is not obscene. . But the most crucial of all cases was a 1973 ruling in Miller v. California in which the Justices said that three conditions define whether a work of presumed art can be declared "legally obscene." These are: . (1) It must appeal to the average person's prurient (shameful, morbid) interest in sex; . (2) depict sexual conduct in a "patently offensive way" as defined by community standards; and . (3) taken as a whole, lack serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value. . Admittedly there are problems in defining or even understanding these three factors but it should be entirely possible for a plaintiff to find good expert witnesses to explain why a work of art is or is not shameful, offensive to a local community, and without serious artistic merit. . There is some problem in that in a 1969 case, Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Court ruled that "speech can be suppressed only if it is intended, and likely to produce, "imminent lawless action," but this would seem to apply primarily to cases like Brandenburg, involving a KKK group and its activities. Otherwise we have several exemptions from free speech, and a very strong case, indeed, could have been made concerning the anti-Christian homosexual theater production at the Civic Center Music Hall in Oklahoma City. . . However, some larger points should not be overlooked: . City officials apparently lied to the pastors in claiming that the First Amendment justified absolute free speech in all circumstances, which is clearly false. That is, the office of the mayor and other city offices surely have access to legal counsel. Any good lawyer could have told the mayor or others that the pastors had a valid case to make; this the city officials did not do. The best conclusion, therefore, is that they wilfully deceived the pastors in order to take sides with sexual degenerates. . Good lawyers representing the pastors could have put the city on notice that they were willing to "get tough" and would not tolerate such outrages against the Christian faith. Instead the pastors seem to have approached the problem as if pleading -"please Mr Mayor, be nice"- was the kind of approach to use when, instead , what really was called for was a (metaphorical) kick in the teeth. I am so sick of clergy who are wimps. . This was just one incident in a nationwide war against Christian faith being waged by homosexuals. There is much else to report. . . . -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
