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The New Taboos
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 There
are times when, if I had a sense of humor, I’d be tempted to laugh.
One of
these moments occurred last weekend when I watched a panel of talking
heads discussing Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott’s
“gaffe” in calling homosexuality a sin, and likening it to
addictions like alcoholism. Not one of these tolerant souls dared to say that
of course Lott was right,
or  even
that he held a tenable position.
All of them
agreed with Mike McCurry, Bill Clinton’s press secretary, that
“we” have known for 25 years (!) that there is nothing wrong
with homosexuality. I wish I knew who this “we” is who always
“know” so many things.
It’s
really not a matter of “knowing” anything, of course. It’s
a matter of social pressure among the intelligentsia, who like to erect a
dozen new taboos for every old taboo they manage to raze.
What it
comes to is that your conception of human nature may be not merely wrong,
but impolite. If you think God or nature had a purpose in making two sexes,
so that sodomy isn’t quite on a par with making babies, please —
keep it to yourself!
In
Washington, sodomy isn’t disapproved; but the word sodomy
is, and you can damage your career by using it in public. You are expected to
let on that you’d be horrified to learn that your son smokes Camels,
but proud to learn that he’s gay. Would these be the reactions of any
parent you know?
What
hypocrisy! But such is sophistication. We display our refinement by
pretending not to have natural feelings. In the space of a few years, the
tradition of millennia is repudiated. What’s more, the repudiation is
mandatory for everyone. You might think that a liberal, tolerant society
would leave a little room for what, until recently, everyone assumed, but no!
— no trace of the old attitude is permitted.
The one
thing liberalism has “zero tolerance” for is the past. We live in a
pluralistic society now, where everyone must think and talk alike, in keeping
with the latest federal diversity guidelines.
![[Breaker quote for The New Taboos: The fashionable conscience]](2007breakers/070319.gif) Needless
to say, there is precious
little diversity about all this. What you think of homosexuality depends on
what you think about other things. Do you believe in God? In a fixed human
nature? In the immortality of the soul? In divine revelation? In the Catholic
Church? In hell?
These are
just sample questions. We can’t prescribe one attitude toward
homosexuality unless we can assume that everyone is in full philosophical,
religious, and moral agreement about prior things. It’s typical of
today’s Procrustean liberalism that it wants to destroy the depth and
solidity of traditional consensus while demanding rigid superficial consensus
on its own pet topics.
The new
morality — pro-sex, anti-smoking — claims to be based on
scientific and especially hygienic considerations, without the irrational
emotions of traditional morality. And yet it’s become painfully obvious
that male homosexuality is hazardous to your health, far more hazardous
than cigarettes.
It’s
equally obvious that most liberals, having taken sodomy to their bosom,
can’t bear to admit this. They can’t even comfortably admit
that lesbianism is essentially different from male sodomy, and a lot safer.
These free and easy people are still embarrassed by basic differences
between the sexes. (Ask one of them whether it’s fair to ban bare
chests in public for women but not for men.)
The pundits
who shook their heads over Lott’s “gaffe” were playing it
safe by observing the current etiquette. They weren’t speaking as
adults who feel any sense of responsibility toward children and adolescents in
need of guidance; they were speaking like adolescents who are chiefly
worried about what the other kids will think of them if they say something
egregiously square.
Lott, to his
credit, was speaking precisely out of moral concern, not to damn
homosexuals, but to help them. Being fashionable was apparently the last
thing on his mind. And Washington already has more than enough people
whose consciences are always in fashion.
Joseph Sobran |
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| Copyright © 2007 by the
Griffin Internet Syndicate, a division of Griffin Communications This column may not be reprinted in print or Internet publications without express permission of Griffin Internet Syndicate 
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