Sunday, June 28, 2015

The End of the Gay Movement

“What do gay men have in common when they don’t have oppression?” asked Andrew Sullivan, one of the intellectual architects of the marriage movement. “I don’t know the answer to that yet.”

Told you.

When the gay marriage issue hit Friday and talk radio land was talking about the end of the world and setting themselves on fire, I made a couple points in the comments. The most important point was that this ruling would be a disaster for the left. Right now, the American voting public is divided 50/50 on elections. The Republicans have claimed most white males and many older white females. The Democrats have put together a grievance coalition of everyone else. The problem with the Democratic coalition, as I've pointed out before, is that it's unstable because they don't share a common ideology. All they have together is a desire to get their pet peeves put into law over the objections of Team GOP.

That means that blacks (the race lobby actually) don't care if women/feminists get what they want or not, they are just using feminists as voting power to get their spoils, e.g. proportional voting, affirmative action, reparations, and ultimately a much larger share of what they see as a zero-sum game economic pie. Feminists, in turn, don't care about blacks or Hispanics or atheists. They want an ERA and for men to be just as weepy and pathetic as they are. Atheists couldn't give a crap about blacks or unions. They want you dumbasses who believe in God to be forced to drop your stupid superstition and this God thing removed from history. Environmentalists don't really care about these other fools because they just want them all exterminated so glorious nature can be free of man. And gays... well, gays don't care about anyone but themselves.

And that is the problem.

That is why the Democrats have for decades now been very careful to never actually give their alliance partners what they want. Indeed, ask yourself why not a single partner got what they wanted when the Democrats held a super-majority in the Senate? The Democrats had absolute control over ever lever of power. They could have passed anything and everything they wanted for over two years.... a carbon tax (or ban), the equal rights amendment, enhanced voting power for minorities, reparations, gay marriage, equal protection for gays, amnesty for illegal aliens, an end to right-to-work laws, and so on. It was all there for the taking. And what did the Democrats do? They freaked out. They started blabbering about how they needed Republican support to somethingsomething and they went to work on passing an Obamacare law that ultimately looked like it came out of the Heritage Foundation circa 1992 as everyone except a couple Senate Democrats went into hiding.

Not a single Democratic wish list item was even voted on.

And this was no accident. The Democrats know that if any one of their constituent groups gets what they want, they no longer have any reason to hang out with the loser club because they just don't care about the other interests. In fact, the interests of the others often conflict with their own. Blacks are deeply religious, and hate the goals of the atheists. Blacks and women are in direct competition for affirmative action jobs, and blacks and Hispanics are notoriously enemies in inner cities, where they compete for the same jobs. Unions and environmentalists are directly opposed in their goals as well. Gay males tend to be wealthy entrepreneurs, tech employees or managers in Fortune 500 companies or government. They are much richer as a class than regular folk and their economic lives are not compatible with unions. And so on.

The Democrats know this, so while they will go full retard in their rhetorical support of these groups, they won't ever actually give them what they want because they can't afford to lose them. The Supreme Court ruling has in essence given gays everything they want. Within a year, laws will be finalized in every state giving them marriage rights, adoption rights, and equal-rights protection. There is nothing more they can want and, hence, nothing to hold them together. To repeat Andrew Sullivan's quote: “What do gay men have in common when they don’t have oppression? I don’t know the answer to that yet.”

The answer is nothing. The gay movement will evaporate and gays will drop out of the coalition. Some liberals will stay. Some libertarian gays will switch sides. The ones raising families will become conservative. And many more will simply go back to clubbing and forget politics entirely. Right now, gays make up about 3% of the population, but they vote in strong numbers. That gives them maybe a 4% punch in the elections... all for the Democrats. Imagine if gays just go back to normal voting levels and 1% of the 3% simply drop out. Now imagine if another third (1%) switch to the Republicans. Suddenly, Republican totals go up 1% and Democratic totals go down 2%. That's a 3% point swing in a 50/50 electorate to 48/51! That represents a permanent run of Republican presidents, a new natural Republican majority in the Senate, and continued Republican dominance in the House.

That is the problem for the Democrats right now.

That is what Sullivan suddenly senses, and what his comment foretells. And he's not alone. Film director and professional homosexual John Waters hinted at the same in a graduation speech at the Rhode Island School of Design: “Refuse to isolate yourself. Separatism is for losers. Gay is not enough anymore.” In other words, please don't go away, please find something other than gay rights to hold the gay movement together. Good luck with that.

Making this harder, I also saw an interesting article in which several gay sociologists noted that gays are not a strong identity groups like blacks or Jews because they aren't born into gay families, they can't be identified just by appearance, and they don't have any holidays or generational traditions that bind them together. Really, oppression was all they had. Heck, have you ever seen what happens when you put gay men and lesbians in the same room? You could power a city off the hate that oozes out of them. Their movement is at an end. The enemy of their enemy has surrendered. The party is over.

Many articles are being written about this on the left. Some are even calling the Supreme Court's ruling "a secret gift to the Republicans." That might just be right.

Thoughts?

48 comments:

Kit said...

If the GOP goes full Huckabee, then they will lose. If they go the route that Rubio and others have charted, they might have a chance.

Kit said...

Also, the Summer of Marvel is back with The Incredible Hulk!
LINK

LL said...

Excellent analysis.

Unknown said...

Andrew.....I'm hearing about a movement to get the "state" out of marriage altogether. An issue I think that's not being heard is that of who then decides what a 'marriage' is? If a Wiccan marries a sacrificial goat, does the state have to recognize it with benefits and such? Or if the LDS or Muslim's go back to multiple wives, will the state recognize the legitimacy of that, since their "religion" approves and sanctified the marriage?

Really don't know where this all ends, but I believe your premise on what will gays do now. Without the "fight," what will they get riled up for? They got everything they wanted....social and legal legitimacy.

I find this ruling similar to Roe vs. Wade. The gov't should have no standing to rule on some of our most personal decisions. By injecting themselves into the debate, they enhance the role of the gov't of arbiter of what is 'right' and what is not.

Unfortunately, I believe we are too far down this road, and can only look backwards to a time that was never there, contrary to some beliefs.

It's like the old argument about why Rome fell....because they openly embraced gays! If so, it was hundreds of years before they fell as a result. The fact that they went soft and their enemies didn't probably had a lot to do with it. They relied on a old belief that Rome is too powerful to fall, while the Huns, Goth's and assorted barbarians continued to advance until they finally overran the empire.

Great analysis and I just hope you're right about the electoral future.

Bob

BevfromNYC said...

Yes the lamenting the loss of "specialness of being gay" and the outsider culture is the Monday morning hangover about to hit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/27/us/scotus-same-sex-marriage-gay-culture.html

Anthony said...

The Supreme Court decides what is the law of the land but it has never settled debate on controversial social issues (think Dredd Scott, Plessy vs Ferguson, Brown vs Board and Roe vs Wade). I don't see why the gay marriage decision would be any different. Most Republicans/conservatives are condemning the decision, most Democrats/liberals are supporting it those reactions and the host of decisions that remain to be made will probably keep gays voting disproportionately high and disproportionately Democratic.'

As for parties not giving their wings their fondest desires, parties try not to make decisions that will cost them elections and many of their supporters are fine with half measures or even no measures because they get that what was done against the public will can be undone by the next legislature. That is partly why the Supreme Court is such a focus, it does what politicians tend to be reluctant to do and it is harder to undo because justices serve for life.

Also worth keeping in mind is that both parties are weird amalgamations which exist by virtue of the fact that the US's structure makes it a two party country. Many people are on one side because they are diametrically opposed to or by someone on the other side (nods towards gays and social conservatives).

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, In the long run, I'm hoping it won't matter. I'm hoping that over time, the issue vanishes and only a handful of fringers are left fighting about it like they do the gold standard. Then the GOP will be free to win gays over. But in the short term, I do suspect most on the fringe right to go full-Huckabee, and that will make the process harder for a while.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks LL! I really think this is accurate and the comments by guys like Sullivan and Waters tell me that they see this too. This could well turn out to be a huge victory for the right even as it seems like a loss at the moment.

Critch said...

I predict the one gay bar in town will close....it won't be cool for the hipsters to hang out there anymore.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Bob! I hope I'm right too. This could be a significant moment in shifting the political center of the country.

On getting the government out of marriage, I think that ship has now sailed. I'm also not sure it would have solved the problem.

What would happen would be that the recognition of what makes a valid marriage would have been up to individuals. So you could say, "I don't recognize gay marriages." You could also say, "I don't recognize Catholic marriages." Or you could be fine with either or both. That would seem to eliminate the issue because no one could claim their marriage had the force of law behind it. But it would also mean that marriage would fade away as it had no societal recognition.

The real problem though, is that the government still will need to recognize a partner for things like benefits and children. That would become a generic thing: "Adult person above the age of __, not related by birth." That would become the new de facto marriage and that would include gays. What's more, anti-discrimination laws would still require Christian businesses (i.e. bakers) to serve gay couples. So I think the same debate would continue. It would just take a different form.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I've seen a LOT of articles about this popping up everywhere and they all seem worried that their movement is about to vanish... with good reason. Other than the gay rights issue, gays have little in common as a group.

So while I'm sure their leaders will continue to claim they represent them all, I really think the troops are going home.

tryanmax said...

I think it's harder to say. Momentum of any kind doesn't simply vanish, political included. The question is, to where has it been transferred? The opposition movement? The no-marriage movement? Some ancillary cause that no one's thinking of just now? There will be a permanent gay-grievance contingent to that will blame the heteroarchy for what is essentially the human condition. "Getting out of bed in the morning is so hard. It must be those nasty heteros keeping me down."

AndrewPrice said...

Anthony, This one is different than other controversial issues because there IS a social consensus already. Outside of older conservative ranks, gay marriage is a settled issue with overwhelming support that grows by the day. Here are some recent poll numbers that are consistent with every other poll on the subject for some time now:

Overall support among the public is between 60-65% versus 30-35% opposed. A 2-1 support is about as strong as any issue gets in the US.

Support among those under 30: 78% (That's the future and that is an overwhelming number which shows the lack of controversy)
Support among those over 65: 46%

Democratic support: 65%
Independent support: 65%
Outliers... conservatives: 71% opposed. Even including them, the GOP still rates 46% approval (and sometimes higher depending on the poll). GOP moderates approve at 65%... same as everyone else.

Support in states that banned it: 54%
Support in all other states: 65%
No state doesn't support it.

So what you have is the opposition is centered on the elderly, who are (1) slowly vanishing, and (2) where support has risen from 18% to 48% in five years. And it's centered in "conservatives," who represent something like 6% to 20% of the public depending on how you count them. Even in the GOP, the issue has overwhelming support among young GOP members and broad (65%) support among moderates. And there isn't a single state where it doesn't have majority support.

That's a solid social consensus. (Keep in mind, consensus need not include 100%). And these numbers are before you add the "settled issue" effect where people shift their opinions in favor of something once it's been made into law. I suspect these numbers will top 70% in the next poll.

By comparison, when Row v. Wade hit, you really had a minority position defeating the majority public in an almost totalitarian way -- "no restrictions!!", and the end result has been a slow and steady rollback of Row by that majority. Ditto on the elimination of the death penalty, which was a tiny minority position and has been rolled back everywhere except the most liberal states.

By comparison, the end of sodomy laws were not controversial despite conservative hand-wringing. Nor was the elimination of bans on birth control (except abortion), again despite conservative opposition, because the public was fine with it.

The Civil Rights stuff is more complicated. Dredd Scott was an attempt to split the baby between two warring sections of the country... truthfully, it was largely an irrelevant legal decision because it just became one more straw on an already collapsing camel. Separate but equal was broadly accepted outside the black community because the public had no will to fight the South again... the fact blacks opposed it was natural too because of what it did to them. But even with their opposition, it didn't really become a fighting cause for the public until after WWII changed attitudes all over the country.

Brown is probably the closest to this ruling. It had nearly 100% acceptance outside the South, and the Feds and the public had the will to enforce it. So it was followed with a series of laws to make it real and permanent and was basically always uncontroversial except in racist circles. Was there opposition? Yes, but it was mainly grandstanding and it was limited to a tiny set of racist strongholds. That's what I expect here. You will see some Huckabees use this for grandstanding... "Gay segregation today, tomorrow, forevah!!" And you will see a couple Southern legislatures try to find ways to prevent the ruling. But everywhere else, this is now the law and no one is going to let anyone stand in the way.

The real question is if the GOP gets stuck pimping for the opposition.

AndrewPrice said...

Critch, Hipsters are fickle people. The gay bars could be in trouble indeed! I suspect they will find a new cause to ooze cool at.

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you will never hear the word gay again. The leaders of the movement certainly will remain and will try to find new causes and the MSM will keep pushing the idea that gays are liberals and better act that way.

But the reality will be different. By the end of the year, I would suspect that all states will have finished passing the laws needed to put this into effect. Some southern states will try to neuter this by including "conscience" clauses allowing people to ignore the law, but those will be struck down by courts pretty must instantly.

As these laws pass, the whole gay issue will get boring... the worst fate in politics. As it does, gays will drop out. Others will then go back to being conservatives, assuming the right doesn't continue to be anti-gay. Or if it does, then I could actually see some of them trying to "de-hate" the GOP from within by supporting moderates against the Huckabees.

By that point, the movement will be dead. It will still have leaders and appear on television, but it will be a body-less head.

I see it a lot like the unions in the 1980s. Their leaders were staunch leftists, but their members supported Reagan or stayed home.

tryanmax said...

Actually, now that I've googled about it (which is the opposite of thinking about it), it looks like transgender/unisex bathrooms are the next cause du jour.

LL said...

I think that both SCOTUS opinions were pro-Republican in that they took contentious issues off the table for the presidential election. They are effectively settled issues. The Republicans will vow to repeal and replace Obamacare without specifying what they will do and as you suggest, half the gays will end up voting for the GOP now that the fight is over.

It's the Democrats who should be upset over this. Privately Hillary must be, because nobody will listen to her crow about it.

tryanmax said...

And now this from Politico: LINK

AndrewPrice said...

tryanmax, Unisex bathrooms are the law already in several states. Colorado did it a couple years back. It didn't really change anything.

Politico is just reaching. People are going to be shocked how quickly these other sex lobbies get left in the dust now that the one good one is gone. Keep in mind that gays can claim a biological basis, an a long history of being part of society, and the ability to make the change they wanted without any actual disruption to society. The others can't claim any of that.

AndrewPrice said...

LL, I agree entirely. It sounds strange that losses can really be victories, especially on such "big" issues, but I think you are right. This puts these issues to bed and lets the Republicans move on as the Democrats lose key points they need to hold their people together and to beat the Republicans over the head with.

It will be very interesting to see the long term effects of this.

As for Hillary, she's a disaster. I read that she was giving away free tickets to fundraisers!

Kit said...

"As for Hillary, she's a disaster. I read that she was giving away free tickets to fundraisers!"

Doesn't that sort of go against the purpose of a fundraiser?

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, Yes, it does. But it sounds like she had no choice or she would have ended up with a big nearly-empty hall. That's a bad sign.

Personally, I think she's already finished and just doesn't know it yet.

Koshcat said...

I think you are right and I think there were signs of this prior to the SCOTUS decision. The homosexual groups have been trying to be more inclusive I assume to garner more numbers. It went from gay to gay and lesbian to GLB to GLBT now it is GLBTQI. I have no idea what the I stands for. Indecisive?

Now that gay and lesbians have what they truly want, I see very little benefit in their continuing to support the fringe of the fringe. There was a good editorial over the weekend about it and calling for more focus on rights around the world.

Polygamy is unlikely to get anywhere because half the population (women) find it repulsive. Recent polling has the public against it 80%. It is also too wrapped in in child abuse and welfare fraud. It might change but will take decades.

AndrewPrice said...

Thanks Koshcat! I agree, I see no reason for the gay community to stay active just to help other people they really don't care about. Even going for gay rights the world over won't keep them active in the US... not to mention that foreign stuff is a hard sell for most people.

I agree about polygamy. It has too many problems to follow the same path. Women find it repulsive. It is wrapped up with child abuse and welfare fraud. It is tightly tied to fringe religious cultism. It has no history of public acceptance (people forget that gays were already living "out" in many of the big cities since at least the 1940s). Polygamy has no biological claim, like being gay does either. And once gays leave politics, I think the whole sex lobby will fall apart.

AndrewPrice said...

OT: BTW, The Supreme Court has wiped out the one concrete thing Obama did for environmentalists, which was change the rules that affect power plants. They said he exceeded his authority and struck down his rule change.

Zap.

His environmental record is now basically 0% change from Bush.

Kit said...

I think Plural Marriage (or Polygamy) is inevitable. It is going to happen.

And the reason is because conservatives have essentially thrown in the towel on it. See, here.

Conservatives have more or less assumed it will happen inevitably so they won't really put up a fight on it. Libertarians support it (as always), and you can't be sure where feminists will land. If Salon is any indication, they might support it on the grounds that a polyamorous relationship is "empowering" for women because they can have sex with multiple people or something.

So, yeah, the one group that could push against it, the Right, has quit.

Kit said...

Remember, it is not just polygamy but polyamorous relationships we are discussing as well. That is why the best term is "plural marriage"; marriage to more than one person.

Two men and three women married to each other or two women and three women married to each other or 5 men or 5 women, etcetera.

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, The most fundamental rule in politics though is that nothing changes without the consent of the public. There is no consent to this and there won't be. And while conservative may have given up on this, I seriously doubt that liberals will actually push this. They are better off with polygamists (or whatever) being seen as being on the conservative side.

Kit said...

I guess my concern is the pro-sex-with-anything Left will be the only voice heard on the issue with the Right sulking off quietly, thus allowing the Left to win on an 'individual liberty" argument.

Kit said...

re, Michigan v. EPA, Scalia delivered the majority opinion.
LINK

I wonder how they decide who gets to deliver the majority opinion? Do they draw straws? Is it seniority?

AndrewPrice said...

I can understand that concern, but I actually don't think the left is genuinely pro-sex-with-anything. In my experience, the left is actually quite prudish in general. They only accepted gays into their ranks as a counter to the Religious Right, who fired the first shots in gay war they would lose.

If you look beyond that issue, however, you find that feminists are deeply opposed to heterosexual sex and marriage. They don't mind prostitution, but only as a means to bring women money, and even now they are abandoning that after finding out in Europe that prostitution cannot be made pro-woman. Their solution, by the way, is to arrest male clients.

They and the gay movement pushed away the pedophiles. They never even considered the bestiality set.

They freaked out about BDSM when Fifty Shades came out because they didn't want women being submissive or thinking they could be.

The one crime they still view as worthy of death is rape, which they define as any sex with a man a women regrets.

Basically, to the left, gays were a convenient weapon to use to make the Religious Right look intolerant and who were a needed ally. They reject all other aspects of sex as being anti-woman.

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, It's done first by finding the majority. Then you figure out who in the majority wants to write it, who doesn't, and who would rather do a concurring decision. Then they generally let whoever volunteers write it. That said, I understand there is an element of seniority involved if more than one want to do the same decision.

Kit said...

Ok. I'm still a bit concerned but we shall see.

AndrewPrice said...

Kit, We'll see. All of this is speculative, but I honestly don't see any of the factors it normally takes for the court to buy something like this and I see no desire on the left to adopt this. Don't forget, you're probably only taking about a few hundred people ultimately. The left doesn't want that. They need numbers and this would cost them much more than it would gain them.

AndrewPrice said...

OT: More from the court. It looks like the end of the line for the abortion-regulation game where conservatives have tried to ban abortion by imposing impossible requirements. The Court has granted a stay to protect clinics in Texas and will now consider the law -- since they've already in essence struck down similar laws twice, this will not go well for pro-lifers. Republican state legislatures pushed 267 anti-abortion laws in 2014 alone. This ruling will probably end that.

I'm genuinely starting to wonder if their goal isn't to detoxify the GOP all in one term?

BevfromNYC said...

OT: The SC just upheld the use of whatever drug anti-death penalty people didn't want them to use anymore.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I saw that. I also just saw an article on the left that is really worried about the Obamacare decision because Roberts apparently stuck language in there to reduce agency discretion, which makes it harder for them to issue broad regulations.

So today, they have affirmed the death penalty, they killed Obama's environmental record/agenda, and they signaled an end to the abortion game. The other day, they ended the gay marriage issue and they apparently made it harder for the executive to issue regulations.

I am seeing a lot of "second thoughts" on the left suddenly. snicker

BevfromNYC said...

The Texas abortion regulation are going to be hard to deal with because they do not impose "impossible standards" if all surgical clinics have to abide by the same standards. The only issue may be regulation that doctors performing the abortions in the clinics must be registered on staff at an accredited hospital. Accredited hospitals are not keen on associating with abortion per se. Their game is to extend life, not end it. But the frequent inspection should be welcomed.

BevfromNYC said...

And Republicans can win the abortion debate by shifting pushing over the counter birth control. I believe the younger candidates have already been pushing this.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, They are doing that, but a lot in the Religious Right are still fighting it as an abortion pill and are attacking those who support it.

On Texas, the problem is this. First, a great many of the GOP supporters sell these laws to the public as means to shut down the clinics. Secondly, many of them have been written specifically to include requirements that cannot be met by local clinics. Third, regulation need not make something impossible to be considered too much, it need only make something impractical, i.e. too expensive to justify continuance of the business.

I think, what you will find is that to the extent the regulations are stiffer than those imposed on other outpatient surgeries providers, they will be struck down... along with language about regulation may not be meant to hinder a business.

Kit said...

Well, the issue on the birth control thing is some argue that any birth control pill is abortive because most can prevent implantation.

That is where the issue comes up.

Koshcat said...

On abortion clinics, I agree with both of you (Bev and Andrew). The clinics should meet the same regulations as any outpatient surgical center. Due to equal protection they should not have rules the single out abortion clinics just to shut them down even if the rules may have the appearance of being reasonable. For example, you can make a rule that all patients must have a referral from a primary care provider. Seems reasonable and not an issue for most patients in a surgical clinic. Except most patients who go to see a plastic surgeon or an abortionist are self referred and may not want their doctor to know. Maybe not the best example but perhaps see my point.

The credentialing issue is a sticky one and I was involved with the local murderer, sorry, clinician here. He does not have credentials at the hospital because the hospital does not want really want him in their building. However, you can make arrangements for other groups to take care of any complications that might occur. For as much as I may despise the guy, his complication rate is very, very low.

For clarification, I am not a big fan of abortion.

Kit said...

I should note I support over-the-counter birth control.

AndrewPrice said...

Koshcat, I agree and that is how I think the Court will see it too. They will accept reasonable restrictions, but not restrictions that are greater than other "similar" doctors (with similar meaning in terms of procedural risks).


Kit, I wasn't sure what to make of the pill until I read what it does. It isn't really an "abortion" pill in the sense the most of the people I know think of abortion, so much as it's a "can't get pregnant" pill. Basically, it stops the fertilized egg from attaching. I don't have a problem with that.

BevfromNYC said...

Kit - I support OTC birth-control too. I also support 1st trimester abortion. What I do not support is irresponsibility. There a hundreds of BC devices, pills, and methods to prevent pregnancy. But the main reason for getting pregnant is NOT using any of them. Yes, some fail 1% of the time, but all fail 100% of the time if not used. An argument I use frequently. Irresponsibility is the only real cause of voluntary unwanted pregnancies.

That is my lecture for the day. You may now resume regular programming.

AndrewPrice said...

Bev, I support irresponsibility when it comes to vacation spending... or donut acquisition! :D

But in all seriousness, your point is a good one. Accidents happen, but you're guaranteed failure if you don't prepare yourself.

EPorvaznik said...

Thanks for the column, AP, and comments, everyone! Please nobody tell El Presidente, but I think this is a "leading from behind," albeit temporarily, strategy I can support!

Critch said...

I think I'm a lesbian in a man's body...especially when I wear plaid....

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