Ryan Sorba is a young man who, as Andrew Sullivan and others have put it, is bizarrely obsessed with sodomy. With the world economy in shambles, a fledgling war abroad, an exploding debt, and a healthcare fight that just won’t die, it seems awfully odd for a man to want to dedicate his life’s work to exposing the horrors of gay sex. Indeed, the CPAC straw poll results confirmed that nobody cares: same-sex marriage ranked as a top-two issue for only one percent of straw poll respondents — that is, about 25 people. So what’s the issue, here?
FrumForum contributor John Guardiano and many others have criticized me for accusing Sorba of being a closet homosexual. Growing up gay, I know what it’s like to want to hide it — and I know every trick in the book that’s used to go about doing so. There are certain behaviors that only those of us who have been there can really pick up on — it’s a dog-whistle kind of thing. When I was closeted, I opposed same-sex marriage, figuring that it was the ultimate way to hide my sexuality. When I was 14 and 15, I would spout the typical anti-gay lines, albeit less eloquently than Sorba. All of the gay men I showed the transcript to were laughing their asses off, recognizing exactly what was going on.
But the greater, more important point is this: my insults and Ryan Sorba’s are not morally equivalent. He is wrong about what he is telling me: homosexuality is not a “lifestyle,” and it is not an ideology. This is not an opinion. And when he tells me that he wants to use the force of the state to ban sodomy — including oral sex, anal sex, and fetishistic sex among consenting married couples — he is advocating a regressive, authoritarian policy that has no place in conservatism, libertarianism, or any belief system that honors freedom.
As I told a radio host earlier: even assuming Sorba is right, he hasn’t a clue how to go about reversing homosexuality. In the meantime, he wants not for us to engage in loving, monogamous relationships, but to condemn us to loveless, sexless lives, devoid of passion, romance, and sexuality. I cannot fathom the warped sense of life that a person must possess to want to tell his fellow beings to deny such an essential part of what makes them human. So yes, I absolutely rained down ad hominem attacks on Ryan Sorba: for there can be no respect toward the disrespectful, no kindness to the cruel.
Churl // Feb 22, 2010 at 6:05 pm
According to this
http://meganmcardle.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/02/the_eye_of_the_beholder.php
Sorba was booed off the stage.
So why are Mr. Knepper’s bloomers in a double half-hitch?
ktward // Feb 22, 2010 at 7:03 pm
Churl:
Indeed, Megan highlights a few encouraging angles of an otherwise shameful CPAC event. But I’ll point out, again, that the Republican Party’s own Platform is inherently discriminatory where gay relationships are concerned. As long as that ideology and language remains in the Platform, certain Republican factions of which Sorba represents are granted viability and a podium by the Republican Party.
Talk is talk, but it’s the walk that matters. I’m not holding my breath.
rbottoms // Feb 22, 2010 at 7:19 pm
Maybe because Sorba was there in the first place. It’s a little like the teabaggers suddenly finding out their opening speaker is a birther.Who’da thunk the man would spend the better part of his speech railing about Obama’s birth certificate.
The GOP benefits from the gay bashers at election time and wants to feign ignorance of their existence when it suits them. I’d love to hear Dick Cheney devote a minute or two going off on the people in his party who think his daughter is lower than dirt. That would be a refreshing change.
JonF // Feb 22, 2010 at 7:50 pm
Re: Finally, until 2003 laws against sodomy, lightly enforced were common place.
Actually, no. Most states had gotten rid of them, and (as you also note) they were not much enforced. In fact, almost the only situations in which they were applied was when the accused were caught in flagrante in a public place (and public lewdness remains illegal, as it should). The Lawrence case was unusual in that the acused were in a wholly private venue, and also, the Texas law did not apply to heterosexuals performing the same acts.
sinz54 // Feb 23, 2010 at 11:03 am
rbottoms:
Maybe I’m wrong,
but I’ve noticed that most of the bigoted gay-bashers spend most of their time attacking gay MEN than attacking lesbians. I don’t think that Ryan Sorba hates Cheney’s daughter anywhere near as much as he hates gay men like Mr. Knepper.
Tammy Bruce, a lesbian who loves guns and is proud of having voted for Reagan twice, is a favorite at conservative-type gatherings.
Why? There was actually a study by the Kinsey Institute about this.
dragonlady // Feb 23, 2010 at 3:59 pm
rbottoms,
“Being able to get married, visit a sick lover in the hospital, to not be fired for what a person does in the bedroom? Yep, that’s right up there with Stalinism.”
That post, along with post #19, shows you’re engaging in the same ridiculous unwarranted hyperbole you assign to the GOP. I’ve heard and read lots of arguments for/against gay marriage–and Stalinism has never come up in any of them. Are we really going to get into which side has the monopoly on extremists here? B/C there is certainly no shortage of crazies on the Left.
SFL & CPAC Media Roundup « Students For Liberty // Feb 24, 2010 at 10:49 am
[...] FrumForum: http://www.frumforum.com/sorbas-sodomy-obsession [...]
Stephen Baldwin has a Threesome, plays Barney Rubble, gets a Hannah Montana Tattoo and calls the first black president “Homey”! « Pickling In His Presence // Mar 17, 2010 at 12:39 am
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