Insights on Outlasting the Gay Revolution
You may not be aware of this, but the key to the success of the “gay revolution” was that it became more conservative. In other words, rather than continuing to shout, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” and rather than bashing marriage as an oppressive patriarchal dinosaur, a new approach was taken. Allow me to share some insights with you from my 2015 book Outlasting the Gay Revolution: Where Homosexual Activism Is Really Going and How to Turn the Tide.
What follows is taken verbatim from the book. You can judge for yourself how it has aged:
Has This Aged Well?
The new message said that, aside from some variations in private sexual practices (along with plenty of standard sexual practices), gays are just like straights — as individuals, as couples, as parents, as families. Therefore, as Judge Henry Floyd wrote in overturning the ban on same-sex “marriage” in Virginia, “Denying same-sex couples this choice prohibits them from participating fully in our society, which is precisely the type of segregation that the Fourteenth Amendment cannot countenance.”
And every time a homosexual couple wants to have a child, they are reminded that, in a very important way, they are not like everyone else.
To a certain extent, this was the very thing that pioneer gay activists like Carl Wittman opposed, the very thing that some contemporary gay activists feel has taken away the cutting edge of their movement, the very thing that steals their counterculture distinctives. That’s why a radical gay group — but one that would have been in lockstep with the gay pioneers — vandalized a Human Rights Campaign store in Washington, DC in June, 2011, announcing, “ROWDY QUEERS TRASH AND GLAMDALIZE HUMAN RIGHTS CAMPAIGN GIFT SHOP IN WASHINGTON, DC ON THE 42nd ANNIVERSARY OF THE STONEWALL RIOT.” (The HRC, it will be recalled, is the world’s largest gay activist organization, featuring President Obama as a regular speaker at their annual DC fund raising dinner.)
The group that took responsibility for this, called “THE RIGHT HONORABLE WICKED STEPMOTHERS’ TRAVELING, DRINKING AND DEBATING SOCIETY AND MEN’S AUXILIARY,” shared their disgust with the HRC in a vulgar press release which said in part:
The modern LGBT movement owes its success to three days of smashing, burning, punching, and kicking — all of it happily indiscriminate — and the confrontational tactics of groups like ACT-UP that followed in the decades since. Yet, somehow we’ve forgotten our riotous roots.
“Queers Against Assimilation” Don’t Like How Tame the HRC Is
Similarly, in October, 2009, the HRC headquarters in DC was vandalized by a group that left this message:
Communique from the Forgotton:
Human Rights Campaign HQ Glamdalized By Queers Against Assimilation
HRC headquarters was rocked by an act of glamdalism last night by a crew of radical queer and allied folks armed with pink and black paint and glitter grenades. Beside the front entrance and the inscribed mission statement now reads a tag, “Quit leaving queers behind.”
The HRC is not a democratic or inclusive institution, especially for the people who they claim to represent. Just like society today, the HRC is run by a few wealthy elites who are in bed with corporate sponsors who proliferate militarism, heteronormativity, and capitalist exploitation. …
The queer liberation movement has been misrepresented and co-opted by the HRC. The HRC marginalizes us into a limited struggle for aspiring homosexual elites to regain the privilege that they’ve lost and climb the social ladder towards becoming bourgeoisie. …
REMEMBER THE STONEWALL RIOTS! On the 40th anniversary of Stonewall, pigs raided a queer bar in Texas, arrested and beat our friends, and we looked towards politicians and lawyers to protect us. This mentality is what keeps the money flowing to the HRC and their pet Democrats, and keeps our fists in our pockets.
Most of all we disagree that collective liberation will be granted by the state or its institutions like prisons, marriage, and the military. We need to escalate our struggle, or it will collapse.
What an eye-opening “communique”! These “Queers Against Assimilation” are fighting against the very thing that almost all major gay activist organizations today are fighting for, namely, the institutional right to be just like the prevailing, straight, married with kids, society.
Emphasizing Their Queerness Isn’t What Got Them Here
On the one hand, this does represent a definite change in strategy in order to influence public opinion, since plenty of gays have no desire to “marry” and settle down, and highlighting their lifestyles would hardly advance the gay cause. On the other hand, this is not just a matter of strategy, since there has, in fact, been a domesticating of many in the LGBT community, just as there has been a domesticating of most gay pride events. (Some would argue that, rather than this reflecting a “domesticating” of the movement, it points to the conservatives triumphing over the radicals.)
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This points to something very profound: It is only by seeking to become just like the heterosexual society that homosexual activism has made so much progress. If gay activists emphasized their queerness, like their Stonewall forebears did, their revolution would have petered out a long time ago. (Ironically, they still celebrate and commemorate the Stonewall Riots every year.) Instead, they have had to recognize the importance of the foundations of heterosexual society in order to succeed.
But alas — and I genuinely mean “alas,” since I write this with sadness not with joy — two men cannot produce their own child and two women cannot have a baby, and so, every year at Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, kids raised in gay homes are reminded that something fundamental is missing. And every time a homosexual couple wants to have a child, they are reminded that, in a very important way, they are not like everyone else.
Two Possible Scenarios and Eight Right Responses
In light of this, it appears that one of two scenarios will play out: 1) As the LGBT community gets more and more domesticated, the gay revolution will lose its purpose and vision, and, with gay families being massively outnumbered by straight families, “heteronormativity” will again be the societal norm. 2) To the extent that the more promiscuous, radical elements of the LGBT community become dominant, perhaps feeling they have less reason to be discreet about their lifestyles, this sexual anarchy will drag their whole community down, to be rejected by a society increasingly longing for sexual purity. Either way, this does not bode well for the gay revolution.
Regardless, though, of the successes or failures of the gay revolution, it is our responsibility to do our part to bring about positive change, and that means: 1) Never compromising our moral convictions; 2) being people of light, not darkness; 3) living in sexual purity; 4) making solid marriages a priority; 5) recognizing the importance of male-female distinctives; 6) continuing to propagate the truth; 7) looking to God for His intervention; 8) persevering to the end in order to write the last chapter of the book.
Dr. Michael Brown (www.askdrbrown.org) is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. His latest book is Why So Many Christians Have Left the Faith. Connect with him on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube.
