The Gay Agenda

Plutarch, “Life of Pelopidas”, “For men of the same tribe or family little value one another when dangers press; but a band cemented by friendship grounded upon love is never to be broken, and invincible; since the lovers, ashamed to be base in sight of their beloved, and the beloved before their lovers, willingly rush into danger for the relief of one another. Nor can that be wondered at since they have more regard for their absent lovers than for others present; as in the instance of the man who, when his enemy was going to kill him, earnestly requested him to run him through the breast, that his lover might not blush to see him wounded in the back. It is a tradition likewise that Iolaus, who assisted Hercules in his labours and fought at his side, was beloved of him; and Aristotle observes that, even in his time, lovers plighted their faith at Iolaus's tomb. It is likely, therefore, that this band was called sacred on this account; as Plato calls a lover a divine friend. It is stated that it was never beaten till the battle at Chaeronea: and when Philip, after the fight, took a view of the slain, and came to the place where the three hundred that fought his phalanx lay dead together, he wondered, and understanding that it was the band of lovers, he shed tears and said, "Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything that was base."“

Here, lovers paired together and united in a band of 300 was the spearhead of the army of Thebes which overthrew Sparta at the battle of Leuctra.

Greek warriors in homosexual pairs are a famous fact of history. Samurai warriors forming homosexual bonds were almost as traditional. Genghis Khan is supposed to have had a homosexual friend in his early days. In all these cases, the men involved were still expected as a social duty to marry and father children to carry on the family. In Sparta one man who did not have children was disrespected by a youth and the Spartans supported the youths argument that he would not rise for the man because the man would have no children to give him the same courtesy. In Confucian ethics the worst form of impiety was to fail to have children to honor the ancestral graves. Homosexuality was tolerated if the homosexual also did his duty as a father. It was condemned otherwise.

Plato, in his old age, goes further in his condemnation of homosexuality.

The Greek philosophers condemned homosexuality on the basis of reason. Reason was the highest faculty of man. To act in accordance with reason was a virtue. To act on the basis of passion unjustified by reason was the behavior of a brute beast. Sex between man and woman met the test of reason and served a positive purpose. Sex between man and man was to surrender reason and act entirely on the basis of passion. This is a philosophical argument and applies only to philosophers and to those who share the same essentially moral values.

It has been noted elsewhere that the vast majority of people are not saints nor philosophers. Most affairs of love are not based on reason. Indeed, Bogart is famous for the phrase, “This is bigger than both of us”. According to modern romantic notions real love is supposed to be strong enough to overcome reason.

In this, modern custom and tradition, contradict the religious reverence for reason of the Greek philosophers. There is little reason to suspect that homosexuals are any less rational in their sexual behaviors than the majority of humanity. This is so, not because of any virtue on the part of Gays, but because generally speaking sex is not a rational behavior.

The entire issue of Gay rights is peripheral. Abortion has the potential of effecting the behavior, socialization, and norms of 100% of the population as more and more women have abortions. Women’s issues have the same potential. The Civil War demonstrated that Black issues do as well. Gay issues are limited in their effect to between 10% and 20% of the population, or even less. The history of revolution suggests that it takes only 10% of the population actively engaged in a revolt to overthrow an existing government. Such a movement also requires tacit support from about another 20% and pacific acceptance from a silent majority. A gay attempt to overthrow the government would not command either of the last two necessary components. Any such attempt would almost certainly command the passionate resistance of a usually silent majority. Unlike economic issues, Gay issues simply cannot be a significant threat to the existence of the Social Contract. They are a minor issue.

What is Homosexuality and other forms of ‘Gayness’?

It was only a few decades back that Homosexuality was classified as a sort of mental illness. Today there is argument about its being genetic, environmental, a matter of personal choice or something else. It could be all of these and still be a disease, or it could be a healthy biological adaptation to promote either individual or group survival. Historically homosexuality is perennial. It occurs in most societies as a form of bonding between males which does not exclude sex with wives and fathering children. In this sense, homosexuality as it is stereotyped in the modern world is a cultural artifact.

In societies where homosexuality was widely practiced and fairly well accepted it appears to have been accepted only as long as the man also did his duty with a woman and fathered children to carry on the family name. Nothing in Greece, Rome, China, or Japan was more disgraceful or unfilial than to fail to have a son to attend the ancestors graves. There are a great many homosexual men in the world today who have been married for decades, have children, have sex with their wives, but only really enjoy sex with other men. The following website has a letter from one man in this position. http://www.geocities.com/alanandsteve/controv-choice2bgay.html. Obviously these men made a choice to ignore their sexual feelings in favor of other feelings and desires. They chose to live a non-gay lifestyle despite their gay feelings. It is possible that the fulfillment of being a parent, a husband, etc. is greater than the mere sexual gratification of gay sex for many people who might be predisposed to have gay sex.

If a man were to be married to a woman, and were to discover after years of marriage another woman who was much, much more sexually attractive to him, no one would suggest that he should ditch his wife and chase the other woman in order to be true to his sexual nature. If a married woman were to meet a really sexy man, no one would condemn her for remaining faithful to her husband because the other values in the relationship were more important to her than just intense sexual pleasure.

If we apply these same standards to gay men who marry women and are fathers, it is clear that there is nothing wrong with just refusing to follow a gay inclination because you value other things more. Why should we have a double standard and say that straight people are supposed to place a normal stable family relationship above sexual gratification and resist temptation on the one hand and then say that Gays have a license to yield to temptation because they are Gay?

The fundamental principle on which all teaching is founded is that there are lessons to be learned. Whether it is science, cooking, woodworking, mechanics, or ethics, the fundamental principle of all education is that you can learn from the experience of others. The fundamental principle of all ethical or moral education is that you learn how to govern your feelings to live a better life. You learn either from the experience of others, “Listen Kid, I did the same stuff when I was young and it Messed Up My Life”, or you learn from the rational analysis of others, “Man is a rational animal and the rational faculty being superior to the animal faculty Man should be ruled by reason not by passion”.

This position is obnoxious to the Gay rights movement. You are supposed to be Gay, suggesting that possibly choosing to not be Gay can be a valid lifestyle choice for those with homosexual inclinations is seen as treason and brutally condemned. Gays are supposed to surrender to and be ruled by passions. They are supposed to have a license to behave sexually in a way which created difficulties in their lives and will likely prevent them from having normal marriages and families. This is antithetical to the entire idea that we can teach our children anything about living a better life. On this basis, Gay Liberation is a movement not for Liberty in any meaningful sense of the word, but for a License to behave irresponsibly and expect other people to protect you from the consequences of your actions. Anyone who suggests that making a choice to simply resist the impulse to be Gay is a traitor to the Gay movement. In this sense the Gay rights movement is a hate movement set on the brutal oppression of any viewpoint about choice which does not make choosing to be Gay mandatory. Gays are apparently as confused about this issue of choice as anyone else, http://cellar.usc.edu:9673/review/iglr/review.html?rec_id=666 reviews a book, “Queer by Choice: Lesbians, Gay Men, and the Politics of Identity” by Vera Whisman.

There are two sources of wisdom cited above as providing moral and ethical guidance, experience and reason. Reason as reverenced by the Greeks condemned Homosexuality. The accumulation of folk wisdom or experience in the Bible condemns homosexuality along with all forms of sexual excess. There is another source of experience, the experience of people with homosexual impulses struggling with those impulses.

On this subject http://home.att.net/~david.cornwell/Choice.htm is an interesting statement by a United Methodist Church minister who is married and has accepted himself as being Gay. For him the question of choice is not one of choice at all but self-acceptance. While he rejected his Gayness he hated himself. After his ‘choosing’ to be Gay, he accepted himself. It is clear that he had no choice about having Gay feelings. He did not choose to be Gay, he chose to accept himself as he was. His experience teaches a different lesson. His experience is that the moral condemnation of self because of impulses which cannot be controlled resulted in a life of misery and unhappiness. Only by accepting himself as he is did he find adjustment and happiness. He is still married and apparently his wife also accepts him as he is. Historically this is fairly normal. Greek and Samurai warriors had homosexual love relationships and still had wives and children. This pattern which he has reached after years of struggle is probably closer to the normal or natural pattern of this behavior than the commonly accepted stereotypes of our modern society.

In the context of choice, it is clear that for most homosexuals there is a choice of either acting or not acting on their homosexual inclinations, but there is no choice about having homosexual inclinations. The experience of lesbians is apparently quite different. Women have less choice inherently about sexual experiences. This is a position which Ms. Whisman develops in her book.

It is important when looking at human issues to take evolution into account. Can homosexuality have a positive survival value? This is a riddle which is currently puzzling biologists and zoologists as there is an enormous amount of variety in sexual behaviors in the animal kingdom, http://www.salon.com/it/feature/1999/03/cov_15featurea.html reviews a book entitled, “Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity” by Bruce Bagemihl. This book catalogues a huge amount of scientific data which is traditionally ignored about diverse sexual behaviors in nature. The point of the book is apparently that life is subject to natural variation and that this applies to sexual behavior as well as to everything else.

Evolution is mindless. The section of this book on abortion starts with a table showing the stages of conception and pregnancy. Something like 80% of all pregnancies end spontaneously at a very early stage. Frequently because mindless evolution reshuffled genes and chromosomes in a manner which could not survive or develop normally. Many genetic diseases are more common as the product of spontaneous mutation than because of inheritance because people who have them rarely live long enough to have children. The process of genetic mutation makes far more mistakes to produce diversity than master strokes of brilliant design. Nature then ruthlessly removes the mistakes in every generation. This process of variation automatically produces variation in sexuality. It can produce variation in the most obvious physical signs of sexuality as in hermaphrodites, discussed in this web article, http://www.devbio.com/chap17/link1711b.shtml. It follows that it can probably even more easily produce variations in more subtle things like innate sexual drive. In this sense homosexuality and other forms of variation in sexual behaviors are birth defects like a cleft palate. This would make homosexuality genetic in origin.

The process of adaptation is how life applies a mistake or variation in genetic factors to survival and makes it work as a survival strategy. The mistake thus becomes an adaptation and a new variety or species eventually emerges. Humans create culture to adapt their behaviors. In most societies homosexuality has existed. It has either been condemned or accepted where the homosexual also was a husband and father. As a form of male bonding, it can create a strong partnership between adult males which allow them to control resources and females and be more successful at passing their genes along. As a form of dominance behavior it can cement hierarchical relationships between males that allow for peaceful coexistence and survival of the weaker with the stronger. These are not purposes of sexual variation, evolution has no mind or purpose, they are adaptations of that sexual variation which naturally occurs. As adaptations, they become more sophisticated as time goes on. Species which adapt them for one purpose or the other tend to streamline the behavior for that purpose. There is little doubt that sexual submission of one male to another is a dominance behavior among baboons.

If humans adapted to homosexuality, it could serve a variety of purposes, it could as among Bonobos be a means of defusing potential aggression and violence. It could serve to deepen a bond between adult males enhancing their individual success. It could stabilize dominance hierarchies as among baboons. Regardless of whether or not it exists as an adaptive behavior in these forms in the human population, it will also occur spontaneously in every generation as a mutation as the natural result of genetic changes. A summary of studies looking at possible genetic causes of homosexuality is at http://hcqsa.virtualave.net/studies.html and at http://www.gaysouthafrica.org.za/homosexuality/studies.asp. In this sense, homosexuality would be genetic not environmental. On the other hand some studies have not shown evidence of genetic causes of homosexuality. http://www.northwestern.edu/neurobiology/faculty/allada2/gbbpapers/RiceEbers99.pdf. Considering that sex drives are certainly genetic in origin, it is highly unlikely that there are not genetic components involved.

There is a lot of data suggesting environmental contributions to homosexuality as well as genetic elements. http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3behav/Williams%20et%20al%202000.pdf is a study comparing homosexuality with finger length and relating these to androgen levels in the womb. http://www.transgendercare.com/news/Hormones_orientation_00_0330.htm is an article discussing another study showing similar data. There are a number of studies showing that younger brothers are more likely to be homosexual than older brothers. A woman’s womb apparently ‘remembers’ having a boy and the hormone levels change sometimes predisposing the younger brother to homosexuality.

This suggests a sophisticated adaptive Mechanism. A dominant alpha male already exists, subsequent males are sexually oriented towards a more submissive feminine behavior. This would reduce competition and friction in the social group. In this case the difference is environmental, not genetic, but it is still involuntary. The homosexual has no choice about his sexual orientation, only about whether or not he chooses to indulge these sexual feelings or chooses to seek a normal marriage.

There is finally the chance that environmental factors after the womb may determine homosexuality. If homosexuality is adaptive under various circumstances. Adaptive to living with an alpha male for example, then it could be a genetic potential triggered by environmental factors. Such a potential would produce physical differences in the phenotype such as those which have been measured in homosexuals without any genetic difference between them and straights. Such a mechanism has been demonstated in other forms of life from fish through horses and wolves to primates. See the section on taking care of your man in the part of this book on woman’s issues.

The probability is that some people are genetically predetermined to be gay due to natural genetic variation. Some people are environmentally determined to be gay. Some people are indeterminate and can swing either way. The existence of environmental factors increasing the likelihood of homosexuality in adaptive patterns such as in younger brothers demonstrates that homosexual behavior has been a part of the human genotype long enough to become an adaptive behavior to anticipated environmental stresses. In cases where homosexuality is environmentally determined it can probably be environmentally reversed. Even where the orientation began as early as in the womb, the need for the potential alpha male to become an alpha male if the original alpha male is killed would make such reversal a necessary potential. Though homosexual impulses would doubtless remain present in some degree, heterosexual mating would occur. This appears to be the normal pattern historically.

Human culture has adapted to the presence of homosexuality in two ways. One is to condemn it as immoral, the other is to allow it as bonding between males but to insist on men still doing their duty as men and being fathers and husbands. In sophisticated societies where reproduction and the continuance of family lines lose their importance homosexual behavior becomes a personal not a social issue. Cultural requirements become secondary because the general power of the culture to maintain itself is no longer dependent on individual Citizens doing their sexual duty.

What should societies attitude towards Homosexuals be?

There is the question of the social, psychological and behavioral effect of persecuting Gays. A free society threatens its freedom when it allows any group to be singled out and repressed unjustly. However, the hostility towards Gays is driven by homophobia. The feeling is of self-defense rather than the power to abuse a lesser class. There is always an element of fear in any movement against a given group. Generally it is accompanied with a sense of superiority. In this instance the fear is dominant and superiority the minor emotion. There is no desire to keep the gays on the plantation picking cotton. There is no desire to keep gays in the kitchen taking care of the kids. Blacks are obviously Black, women are obviously women. Gays look just like everyone else. Gays can avoid discrimination by simply keeping their private lives private. It was by ceasing to be obviously Greek, Italian, or Irish that other minorities gained acceptance in the mainstream. The Gay rights movement is inherently more aggressive and intrusive than other rights movements. The Gay “Liberation” Movement is not about freeing an oppressed people from slave labor, it is about freeing a sexual minority from any restrictions in the public expression of their sexuality.

Only a silly, utopian, idealist, a Liberal could see these issues as similar. Thus the arguments which normally apply against such laws being enacted by the state do not apply as strongly or clearly in the case of Gay rights. Since the primary emotional motivator in this issue is one of self-defense rather than a desire for power over others, it is fundamentally different, different in kind, than other rights issues. Self-defense is a right recognized as absolutely impossible for the Social Contract to violate without violating Natural Law. On the other hand there is no clear evidence that tolerance for Gays and extending them the same rights which all other Citizens possess will, in any way, destroy the Social Contract. The fear may be unjustified. It really doesn’t make much difference one way or the other unless you care about moral issues divorced from practical significance. Such moral issues divorced from practical significance are entirely religious in nature and not the concern of the Social Contract.

Still, each individual issue may tilt one way or another in a manner which may be reasoned out in practical terms. There may be a rational position to take by considering each issue individually.

The political situation with relation to gay rights is complicated by perception problems between the different political communities involved in the issue. There is an inherent interface problem between the gay and straight communities. In both communities the level of aggressiveness is bound to vary among individuals. The most aggressive members of either community are likely to make up the majority of encounters from the other group which non-aggressive members experience. This means that the majority of individuals whom gays encounter from the straight community are those most likely to be abusive of them, and that the majority of encounters from the gay community that straight people encounter are likely to be that minority of gays most likely to advance their sexuality in a manner which would constitute harassment, abuse or stalking if a straight man did it to a straight woman. The corollary here is that the majority of both communities are not as threatening to the members of the other community as daily experience would suggest. This would lead the majority of the gay community to assume that when there is friction between the two communities that the straight individual is always at fault. It would also lead the majority of the straight community to make the assumption that the gay person is at fault. The gay community feeling itself oppressed in it’s sexuality almost certainly projects a freedom of sexual expression on the straight community which does not exist.

This misperception means that Gays think equal right to express their sexuality includes the right to behave in manners which would get a straight man fired, fined, or subjected to restraining orders if he were to try it. Gays are a minority. Assuming that 20% of the population is gay, which is almost certainly exaggerated, that means 80% is not. An experience is traumatic in proportion to the degree that it is unexpected. Since a gay sexual encounter is inherently less likely and more unexpected than a straight sexual encounter, it is inherently more emotionally threatening and traumatic. Since Gays are a sexual minority this is a fact that will remain true. Finally, the normal human tendency is to judge the world by oneself. Regardless of how different from others a person is they think they are normal and other people are like them. The natural tendency of Gays is to assume that other people are really gay to and just hiding that fact from themselves as they did themselves. Sexual rapture is extremely powerful. It’s identification with religious rapture has been widely written of. Gays upon discovering their own sexual orientation have a tendency like all new converts to a religion to attempt to spread the One True Way with missionary fervor.

The third group involved is the woman’s right movement. The members of this group see male sexuality as threatening and homosexual males as non-threatening. This creates an emotional blind spot which leads them completely fail to realize that homosexuals are just as aggressive as heterosexual males in their sexual advances. They cannot comprehend that certain homosexual males are a real threat to members of the straight community.

In Latin homo means man. The entire body of laws against sexual harassment is a monument to homophobia or fear of male sexual aggression by women. The entire body of laws against sexual harassment demonstrate that Homophobia is a legitimate basis for political and legal action. Clever persons may argue that Homo comes from the Greek meaning same and not from the Latin meaning man. The essence of the argument is not the root of the word but the feelings that are involved. Both involve the fear of unwanted sexual advances. Members of the straight community have as much right to protection from such a threat as women do to protection from sexual harassment by straight men. The principle of reciprocal rights demands that women defend men’s right to protection from sexual harassment in order to protect their own right to protection from sexual harassment. This is not reflected in the political positions taken by the parties involved.

In summary, in order of error from least to greatest, the straight community is probably in error in having an unjustified fear of the gay community. The woman’s rights community is in error in not realizing that some degree of fear is justified. The gay community is in error in not emotionally understanding the rules which govern straight sexuality, not recognizing that people who are not gay really are not gay, not recognizing that what feels good to them is really threatening to others, and insisting on a level of public recognition of their difference not justified by any physical necessity. Since all three parties in the dispute are probably in error, all their positions will turn out to be in error. There will be more room for protection of gay rights than conservatives desire. Much that Gays believe they deserve as rights will turn out to be license to sexually harass or abuse straight persons.

The principle that when a question is nebulous or difficult error should be made towards protecting the Citizen from the State supports Gay Rights. The Libertarian Principle that over his own body a Citizen is Sovereign which defines the Separation of Church and State supports Gay Rights. The principle of Reciprocal Protection of Rights supports Gay Rights. All of these principles stop at the right of a Citizen to Self-Defense.

Fundamental to determining what constitutes legitimate acts of self-defense on the part of straights and what constitutes legitimate acts of self-expression on the part of Gays is the question of how threatening overt sexual behaviors are. Legal precedents make it clear that sexual speech is the form of speech most subject to legal restriction. Most community standards and public obscenity laws deal with sexual matters. This suggests that overt sexual behaviors are inherently more threatening and therefore more subject to legal restriction than other forms of public expression.

It is generally assumed in this work that cultural mores are the result of cultural evolution to adapt a low-population density social animal to a high-population density environment. Sexuality seems to be one of the behaviors most likely to become abusive or pathological when a population is subjected to high population densities. There is a plausible rational justification for the suppression of overt sexual display to control such tendencies. The legal precedents for suppressing overt sexual display appear to reflect cultural adaptations to a high population density.

John Calhoun’s work with rats is the most famous example of studies in this area. Dr. Calhoun described a sort of behavioral sink which resulted from over-population among rats. A search of early literature such as the Bible provides several stories which seem to describe cultures which have become such behavioral sinks as humanity tried to adapt to the high population densities of urban civilization. The story of Noah and the Flood suggests it. In the story of Sodom and Gomorrah you have a society where men think nothing of forming mobs and demanding the right to rape visitors to the city. Most clearly described is the story of how the tribe of Benjamin gang raped a concubine to death using her brutally all night long.

Judges 19:25

Judges 20:5

Even if you are religious, it is difficult to see God in this story. It is the other tribes of Israel which rise up and punish Benjamin for an offense. In terms of cultural adaptation to high population density these stories seem to tell the story of early man finding it difficult to adapt successfully to the constant sexual stimulation of high population density societies. Sometimes failing and falling into behavioral sinks like that described in rats by Calhoun, and the subsequent destruction of these societies being attributed to God. These stories include pathological sexual behaviors which do not distinguish between homosexual and heterosexual. Certain persons will call this a religious argument because it uses evidence from the Bible, but the Bible is not quoted here in a religious sense. Setting community standards relating to overt sexual display is a form of legitimate defense of the individual against behaviors that constitute a form of psychological assault. Self-defense in these issues therefore legitimately extends to the suppression of overt sexual behaviors.

The Gay Agenda

These principles having been developed it is now useful to look at a sample set of political goals from a gay rights organization. A search of the web failed to find a ’gay agenda’ being presented by gay rights organizations. Such agendas were presented on sites opposing gay rights and are attributed to Gays. In fact I did locate a joke about the gay agenda on the web.

6:00 am Gym
8:00 am Breakfast (oatmeal and egg whites)
9:00 am Hair appointment
10:00 am Shopping
12:00 PM Brunch

2:00 PM
1) Assume complete control of the U.S. Federal, State and Local Governments as well as all other national governments,
2) Recruit all straight youngsters to our debauched lifestyle,
3) Destroy all healthy heterosexual marriages,
4) Replace all school counselors in grades K-12 with agents of Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels,
5) Establish planetary chain of homo breeding gulags where over-medicated imprisoned straight women are turned into artificially impregnated baby factories to produce prepubescent love slaves for our devotedly pederastic gay leadership,
6) bulldoze all houses of worship, and
7) Secure total control of the INTERNET and all mass media for the exclusive use of child pornographers.

2:30 PM Get forty winks of beauty rest to prevent facial wrinkles from stress of world conquest
4:00 PM Cocktails
6:00 PM Light Dinner (soup, salad, with Chardonnay)
8:00 PM Theater
11:00 PM Bed (du jour)"

Doubting the authenticity of both the agenda above and those posted on conservative web sites I emailed the webmaster of the Empire State Pride Agenda http://www.prideagenda.org/ and asked for a statement of their political goals. The webmaster directed me to their 2003 public policy and legislative agenda. He also dismissed the gay agenda on conservative websites as a fabrication.

Their mission statement is,

This is unobjectionable except for the definition of equal. The normal human tendency is for equal for me to mean better than you. The perception of what constitutes real equality is the issue.

As a general policy goal this is unobjectionable, though it contains nothing limiting such advances only to equality. As such it can easily include measures that are violations of others freedoms.

followed by a list of political activities. This statement is general enough to be completely legitimate or to justify actions and policies which threaten others rights.

Under “Equality as Citizens” the following is specified.

This gets more specific. Like most political agendas it shows a lack of appropriate distinction between public and private sector. The issue of credit is economic in nature. Businesses which issue credit have to issue it on the basis of the credit records of those applying for loans. There is no financial basis for discrimination in issuing credit to gays because they are gay, unless some studies have shown gays as a community to be a greater credit risk than straights. In general the government should not be interfering in this economic sector. On the principle that the rights of the Citizens come first, the state can act to prevent a Citizens right to equal treatment from being violated by a business, which is, after all not a Citizen but only a legal construct like the state itself. In the cases of corporations or publicly owned businesses which make up the majority of lenders, discrimination should be illegal. In the case of privately owned businesses or private individuals the government should not interfere. Free practice of religion, privacy, property, and other associated rights apply to prevent the state from forcing private individuals to make loans to people they disapprove of. If Gays are a good credit risk as a group businesses which cater to them will do well. If not, not, this is a market issue not a Government one.

In reverse order the next item is Education. There is no reason why self-defense even extended to community standards should justify discrimination in education. The state may legitimately act to prevent discrimination in education in all public sectors. In religious schools not receiving public moneys free practice of religion and freedom to set community standards mean that the state may not interfere. The gray area here is to what degree can small communities set their own standards for public schools. While access to education in public schools should be equal, community standards in the overt display of sexuality may apply. Free practice of religion is meaningless unless it includes the right to form communities which share common behavioral standards, those standards promoted by the religion involved. The right to free practice of religion and freedom of assembly include a right to set community standards on what behaviors are publicly displayed.

In this sense the term community has a limited technical meaning. A community is a small population group roughly equivalent in size to that which would occur in nature. A few hundred, at most a few thousand individuals. The Federal Government, State Governments and large Municipal governments are not communities in this sense. Neighborhoods, School Districts, and Private Schools and Church Congregations are communities in this sense. Such relatively small population groups have rights to set standards of acceptable pubic display of overt sexual behavior within their common areas.

The agenda in this area specifies protection of students from harassment on the basis of their perceived sexual or gender orientation. This is implicitly discriminatory against non-gay students. If you protect one group from harassment but do not extend a similar protection to others, you create automatically a license for the protected group to harass the other group. Overt sexual display and the display of a sexual interest in others is a threatening behavior when it is unwelcome. Any hostile reaction to such unwelcome sexual advances would be interpreted as discrimination against gays by straights. People have a right to protect themselves from unwelcome sexual advances. If a gay person does not accept a simple no, and insists on being openly and flagrantly interested in a person who has said no, this position will allow them to sexually harass that other student and allow that student no legal recourse. A high school student placed in such a desperate situation will be more likely to become violent than if legal protection were available to him.

Public Accommodations. This is probably restaurants, hotels, clubs, and other businesses open to the public. There is an interesting contradiction here. Assume for the sake of argument that radio stations were to be forcibly integrated by the Federal Government. In the name of equal access, if someone called a Country and Western station and requested a Rap song, the station would have to play it. If someone called a Rap station and requested a C&W song the station would have to play it.

No one would be able to tune their radios to a station which played their kind of music. The freedom to choose what kind of music you listened to would be destroyed. Everyone would stop listening to the radio and just listen to their own CD’s. Public businesses are in the same situation. They cater to specific markets. Some are C&W, some are Rap, some are Gay some are Straight. In order to do business they have to offer the atmosphere and surroundings that their customers desire. If they don’t then the customers will go somewhere else.

They have the right to exclude people who don’t meet their dress code, or who behave in a disorderly or threatening manner. Overt sexual behaviors are always potentially disorderly and threatening. If a gay person is not behaving in an overtly sexual manner, how can they know he is gay? How can a public business know that a person is gay unless that person has been displaying his gayness in a manner which is potentially disturbing or threatening to the other customers?

Gay bars exist because Gays want to meet other Gays. Straight bars exist because straight people want to meet other straight people. Married people go to activities with other married people. Single people go to clubs with other single people. It is disturbing to the balance in a married group to have an unattached single regularly present. It is disturbing because of potential sexual complications with the other members of the group that would complicate or destroy their relationships. Sexuality is not just another form of speech. It is a potential for extremely powerful and complicated feelings. This potential out of place, not balanced by various other factors is inherently disturbing. Businesses in the business of serving the public should not discriminate against Gays simply because they are Gay, but they do have a right to expel persons whose presence is disturbing to their customers. This is not the same as racial segregation. Race is present without overt, loud demonstration. The expression of ones race is not a voluntary act. The expression of ones race is not inherently aggressive. Sexual expression is inherently aggressive, the reason for broaching sexuality, and sexual topics is to engage in sex. Overt sexual behaviors are much more subject to regulation of one form or another than other forms of public expression.

Employment

Employment is again a commercial market issue. If Gay employees as a group work well and do good jobs, then they will be hired. Businesses which refuse to hire the best employee for the job will suffer if a Gay person is the best and they do not hire him. Businesses which allow a degree of expression of Gay sexuality in their offices which is threatening to their other employees will create a hostile work environment and will also suffer. As a general rule in an employment situation anything which would be sexual harassment if a straight man did it to a straight woman is sexual harassment if a Gay person does it to a member of the same sex. Statistics show that Gays make more money and have better jobs and are better educated on average than straights.

Laws

This statement is either badly or cunningly written. What exactly is being objected to here. Are they objecting to a legal sanction which makes consensual sex a form of rape or sexual assault because it is homosexual in nature? Are they objecting to the language in the laws themselves even though no legal sanction is involved? The entire agenda is so ambiguous that it can mean anything its interpreters want it to.

If they are objecting to moral laws which make their consensual sex illegal, then they are right. Making it illegal for two mature adults to have consensual sex with each other is a violation of the separation of Church and State. The State has no authority to pass such laws and they should be revoked. On the other hand if they are just sensitive to the language, boo hoo, my heart bleeds purple peanut butter.

HIV AIDS

What does this mean? Are there laws in New York calling for people with HIV/AIDS to be shipped off to a Gulag in Siberia for public health reasons? Do the laws set reasonable requirements on people with HIV/AIDS to take precautions to not spread the disease further? A law requiring people with HIV/AIDS to inform their partners or to use condoms would coerce them to protect other citizens. What about the right of other citizens to defense against a potentially deadly disease? Again, the agenda is so broadly written that it can mean anything. It is probably interpreted in many cases to protect gays from prosecution when they put other Citizens lives at risk because of their sexual behaviors.

Hate Crimes Legislation

There is a section in this book on Hate Crimes Legislation. It demonstrates that they are useless and dangerous laws which accomplish no practical purpose and create additional problems.

Women’s Rights

A necessary support of allied political agendas not related to gay rights at all. The section in this book on abortion demonstrates that abortion is antithetical to women’s rights and will help to reduce them to chattel slavery in the long term.

All decision making is coercive in the sense that reason and the facts force the mind to choose the better over the worse course. As Hobbes passage on deliberation frequently quoted demonstrates. The most likely intent of this is to keep women from receiving any counseling on the possible negative effects of abortion so they will in complete ignorance make the politically correct choice.

Equality of Our Families and Equality in Government Benefits and Services

Again this is a call for massive government interference in the private sector. As noted Gays as a group are better educated, make more money and have better jobs than straights on average. This issue here is family benefits. Family benefits are a part of the employment package, they are offered to entice employees to choose one employer over another. An employer has the same reason to extend them to Gays as he does to Straights. There should be no discrimination in the workplace based on economic factors. Similarly Gays make more money and can afford better health insurance than most Straights. Gays make up a significant market which market forces will supply if allowed to do so. The State should not make any laws prohibiting market forces from working and Gays, instead of lobbying for massive government interference in the private sector should be selling the economic case for catering to the Gay element in society to the business world.

These are all essentially private personal issues. In these issues the individual and not the state should reign supreme Sovereign over his own body and private affairs. The individual who is concerned is the final authority over who should dispose of his remains, inherit his estate, make crucial medical decisions when he is incapacitated. The State has no right to make that decision for the individual. Gay unions should have equal status with straight unions in every area mentioned here.

This is a complex issue. Child custody and adoption involve the state in the personal lives and welfare of the Citizens in a frequently abusive and abused manner. On the one hand, the State should be keeping its nose out of the private affairs of its Citizens. On the other hand, when a child is orphaned, that child becomes a ward of the state, and the state has a responsibility to ensure that it is placed in responsible care. This raises two questions, in a custody case involving a gay parent is the state in a position of responsibility? Has the normal choice of the responsible parties been voided? The second question is, “Is there evidence that homosexuality inherently makes someone unfit to be a parent?”

Taking the second question first. Is there evidence that being homosexual makes someone inherently unfit to be a parent? The answer is simply no. Homosexuality is perennial throughout history. In most societies homosexual liaisons between men were accepted as long as those men also married and had children. Through most of history, most homosexual men have also been husbands and fathers. There is no evidence that they were more or less fit to be parents than other men. The lesson of history is clear, Homosexuals can be fit parents. Homosexuality does not make a person automatically unfit to be a parent.

The absence of a male role model in a lesbian couple, or the absence of a female role model in a homosexual couple may have some weight in evaluating that couples ability to provide the best home environment to the child who has become a ward of the state. It is still only one of many factors to be considered. The SES or socioeconomic status of the gay couple is likely to be higher than that of straight couples attempting to adopt. This is another factor of great weight in providing a beneficial environment for a child. Prospective adoptive parents should be evaluated as a whole not on a single issue like their sexual orientation. If other factors suggest that the gay candidates for adoption are capable of discharging the responsibility, then their sexual orientation by itself should not preclude adoption.

The above assumes that the state has become a ward of the child. There remain the case in which the child is not a ward of the state. A child of a heterosexual marriage where one person later became gay may be the object of a custody dispute between the straight and the gay parent, or the straight parent may have died and other relatives may be using a gay sexual orientation to dispute the fitness of the natural parent to adopt. In the section of this book Family and the State the principle is that the State should err on the side of the Family and not interfere where possible. The right of Citizens to raise their own children with a minimum of interference from the State applies directly in proportion to the closeness of the relationship to the children. The direct parent, whether gay or straight, takes precedence over more distant relatives. Similarly a gay Uncle or Aunt well known to the child would have a stronger claim to adopt than a distant relative or unrelated stranger. Homosexuality does not, of itself, constitute just cause for the State to violate the integrity of the home and family.

Adopted children upon reaching adulthood frequently spend enormous amounts of time and money attempting to locate their birth parents or their original families. Humans seem to have a need to know where they come from. Human need roots. This indicates that wherever possible children should be placed preferentially in the homes of the nearest living relative willing to assume that responsibility. Maintaining the integrity of normal human ties within the kinship group. Allowing children a sense of their own origins and roots. Preventing the state from assuming an authority to invade the privacy of the kinship group all indicate that preference for relatives as opposed to strangers should be one of the most significant factors considered in custody disputes over children. These factors strongly indicate that the sexual or gender orientation of a person should not by itself constitute cause for denial of the right to adopt.

Other forms of sexual preference may provide different basis for action. A person who has had a sex change operation has engaged in a form of self-mutilation which suggests a radically negative self image and other mental and emotional health problems. At least it does to this author. If such things exist they will be evident in other behaviors and a probable history of mental health problems. Such evidence is relevant in child custody cases, but it should exist in addition to the mere fact of sexual or gender orientation. It might be argued that such emotional problems were caused by the situation of gender orientation, this does not change the fact of their existence or their negative impact on the suitability of the person to be a parent.

Again this is essentially a private sector issue. Businesses have the same basic reasons for extending benefits to same sex unions as to straight unions. In the absence of government interference there should be no discrimination in this area.

Assisted living situations are commercially provided. If they cater to Southern Baptist Fundamentalists, they cannot be expected to endorse homosexuality in their patrons because it would destroy their market niche. If they cater to the gay community then they will endorse it. The government should not need to interfere in this issue. Gays are commercially powerful enough and represent a large enough market that market forces should provide them with appropriate senior care without government interference.

The section in this book on Why Marriage was invented demonstrates quite clearly that people living together do not automatically have the ‘rights’ of married people. A married couple represents a contractual entity which has a special contractual relationship to the social contract. The ‘rights’ of a married couple are based on the expectation that the marriage will fulfill the traditional role of a married couple, by having and raising children in a stable environment.

In the absence of that expectation, no alternative living arrangement, has any right to claim the legal recognition which is accorded to marriage. It is probably accidental that the above statement ties the word responsibility to the word rights. Unless the gay couple has access to the responsibilities of a traditional marriage, they cannot have, indeed have no legitimate claim to the rights of a traditional marriage. This is a social contract or public as opposed to business sector issue.

Since gay couples can in many cases doubtless provide a home which is equal in merit to though different in individual areas of merit from a normal marriage, a gay couple can fulfill the same social role. The number of gays in stable couples which can fulfill such a role is doubtless much smaller than the number of straight couples in such in such a position. The percentage of gay couples as a percentage of the gay community as a whole is almost certainly smaller than the percentage of straight couples in the straight community capable of fulfilling such a role. Nevertheless, where the conditions exist where the gay union can plausibly accept the responsibilities of a traditional marriage they should be accorded the rights of a traditional marriage. In a nation of 300 million people this will certainly occur hundreds or thousands of times every year.

How do you determine if a gay union will be able to fulfill that role? How do you determine if a straight couple will? The answer is quite simple, you don’t. You do not want the state regulating who can get married and how and when. The question of fitness to fulfill the role of parent will arise in due course when a couple is evaluated for custody of children. In order to avoid setting a precedent for government regulation of personal relationships, gay unions should be accorded courtesy recognition as the same as straight marriages for legal purposes and examined for their fitness as parents only when that specific situation arises in a case where the government has been forced into making such a determination as discussed earlier in this essay.

It has been suggested by some politicians that recognizing gay unions will open the door to legalizing incest, pedophilia, polygamy and other similar behaviors. If you look at the gay movement as a whole and see that it is much more closely related to a desire for sexual license and irresponsibility than other liberation movement this view has a certain validity.

Recognition of gay unions is a different issue. You will have noticed that the only plank in the gay agenda of the Empire Pride group which mentions a desire for responsibility is the desire for recognition of gay unions. The desire for responsibility is different from a desire for sexual license and irresponsibility. In this one issue you see a more mature and responsible element of the gay community stepping up to the plate and attempting to assume, not evade responsibility.

In the section of this book on Why Marriage was Invented, alternative forms of marriage were generally dismissed as not having a legitimate claim to legal recognition by the state. This section maintains that same sex unions do have such a claim. It is necessary to demonstrate why this is true and why recognizing gay unions does not imply any need or make any precedent for recognizing other alternative forms of marriage.

Political Science is the study of political structures, constitutions, legal systems, etc. It is fundamental to the discussions in the Federalist Papers. This study of the structure of an organization can be applied to analyzing the structure of a marriage. Traditional marriage is limited to two partners. This limit’s the ability of the partners to refuse responsibility. Responsibility is a keyword here. Because this is a study of how responsibility is distributed in a legal contract comments from the Federalist Papers on the structure of the Executive Branch may be applied to the study of the structure of marriage.

This is an argument justifying a single Executive in the Federal System. It will be apparent to most people that it is impossible to have a marriage with only one person. Two person unions therefore become the best and most stable structure for marriage.

A plural marriage in which there are more than two partners fails this test. In it as in a plural executive it becomes impossible to hold persons accountable. Bickering and argument about whose fault something is or who was supposed to do something will be multiplied two or three times by each additional member of the marriage. No such union can be presumed to have the stability of a simple union between two people. This structural superiority is one reason why traditional marriage is superior to many non-traditional models which feature some sort of sexual communism among multiple partners. This principle also acts in defense of same sex unions between two partners which are structurally the same as a traditional marriage with only two partners. So the general fault of the majority of non-traditional marriage systems does not apply to same sex unions.

In the section on Why Marriage was Invented one of the reasons why outlawing polygamy was justified in a Supreme Court decision quoted there was that it reinforces the patriarchal system which is antithetical to Democracy. Incest and pedophilia also reinforce this tendency. The parents, in most cases the Father assume a sexual authority over their children because of their sex and role in the family. The same legal objection applies to such behaviors within the family as apply to polygamy.

In a same sex union the sex of the partner is obviously not the source of his or her authority. A same sex union can hardly be seen as reinforcing the patriarchal system, or reinforcing pecking order psychology in the way that polygamy, pedophilia and incest do. As such the legal objections to polygamy do not apply to same sex unions, in fact they apply even less to same sex unions than they do to traditional marriage.

It follows therefore that the legal principles which apply to outlawing incest, pedophilia, bigamy, and polygamy are not infringed or brought into question when recognizing same sex unions. These behaviors remain clearly subject to legal sanction by the state even if same sex unions are recognized. For these reasons, because the desire for same sex unions is a desire for responsibility not license, because the same sex union is structurally similar to traditional marriage and thus will have a similar hope of stability, because such promise of stability implies the ability to fulfill the same social role, and because the legal sanctions which apply to polygamy and similar institutions do not apply to and are not infringed by recognition of same sex unions, there is no legitimate objection to recognizing such unions.

“Equality in Government Benefits and Services”

If there was ever a more blatant scream for personal irresponsibility and the state acting as parent and buying your way out of every consequence of your personal mistakes, it would be difficult to imagine it. Unlimited government subsidy of the gay lifestyle. No, not a right in any sense at all.

Like most screams for the government to take a more active role in addressing social issues this one has a hidden dark side. One of the loudly trumpeted justifications for increasing regulation of smoking is the public cost of health care for smokers. Similarly the public costs associated with alcohol are used to justify regulation in that area and the public cost of drug abuse is used to justify the war on drugs.

Anytime you take a cost and shift it from the individual incurring that expense through their own behavior and place it on the public in general, the public government acquires a legitimate argument or justification for regulating that behavior. The public health costs of STD’s like AIDS incurred through a sexually promiscuous lifestyle provide a legitimate justification for outlawing sex outside of marriage in general and sexually promiscuous lifestyles like homosexuality in particular. This part of the agenda provides a legitimate justification, in the long run, for Christian Fundamentalists to get laws passed regulating the private sexual behaviors of all Citizens.

If you are going to play you have to pay. The health costs associated with increased risk of AIDS or other STDs due to sexual promiscuity are the responsibility of the individuals involved not the state or the taxpayers in general.

This one is iffy. All government programs to be legitimate must obey Hobbes natural laws and be necessary for the continued existence and stability of the Social Contract. Virtually all government giveaway programs violate Hobbes natural laws for reasons advanced originally in Aristotle’s politics and are the cause of revolution and eventual tyranny. Evaluation of these issues requires a specific case by case analysis.

Employee death benefits are related to the issue of public recognition of same sex unions. No reason to discriminate there. A same sex partner has the same right to compensation as a heterosexual partner.

Communities affected by HIV/AIDS are communities which fail to practice safe responsible sex. This is a blatant scream for the government to protect people from the consequences of their own stupidity and force taxpayers to subsidize other peoples stupidity and irresponsibility. No relationship to any kind of right natural or otherwise. See above for a discussion of how this provides a justification for outlawing homosexuality in the long run.

Summary

The reason why free Citizens support certain elements of Gay rights is not approval of homosexuality. The reason is a touchy sensitivity to government interference in the rights of Citizens. Whenever a Citizen sees the State starting to stick its nose into the private lives of other Citizens that Citizen should react with anger and put the State back into its place.

The agenda discussed above begins almost every plank with the words ‘support legislation to’. It gives the impression of a sustained, high pitched whine for a Totalitarian Nanny State to spank the bad straight people and send them to bed without their supper. In many cases it is a blatant appeal for government subsidy of personal irresponsibility. In others it is a blatant call for Government interference in the free market.

Get government out of these issues and let market forces provide insurance, housing, etc. for the gay community. Recognize gay unions to protect the integrity of straight marriages and families from government interference. Protect the rights of Gays to certify their partners to handle their affairs in order to keep the government out of the private affairs of other citizens. Protect the rights of gays to act as responsible persons with regard to adoption of near relatives and when appropriate other children to protect other Citizens from having the Government assume an authority to violate their privacy and deny them their proper role in their families. Gay rights are important to Citizens only because they offer a toehold to the Government to start violating the integrity of the family and the privacy of other Citizens. The principle of reciprocity applies. You have to protect real rights of Gays to protect your own rights.