When I saw the headline yesterday about how “Duck Dynasty” patriarch Phil Robertson had commented on a certain sexuality-defined group, I wondered how long it would be before he got the “treatment.”
I saw the next headline no more than a few hours later.
In case you haven’t heard, the faith-filled Louisianan wound up in hot water after being asked what was sinful by a GQ interviewer and offering the following answer, as presented by the magazine:
“Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men,” he says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: “Don’t be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers — they won’t inherit the kingdom of God.”
Can you guess which of the above groups caused what subsequently befell Robertson: suspension from his A&E show?
Or the idolaters.
It wasn’t bestialists, though there’s an effort to legitimize their behavior now, too.
The swindlers?
Nope — not the slanderers, either.
Hint: One of the organizations whose complaints got Robertson suspended was GLAAD, and that doesn’t stand for Guiding Light Advocates for Adulterers and Drunkards.
Of course, we all know the answer. GLAAD characterized Robertson’s comments as vile and “extreme,” and now he joins Dr. Laura Schlessinger and others whose careers were hobbled by the Velvet Mafia.
This is probably where I’m expected to ask, “Where’s freedom of speech?” or whine about how the left should respect the other side’s beliefs. But this would ignore reality, which is that every civilization has its “values.” And as someone once pointed out, stigmas are the corollaries of values; if we’re going to value certain things, it follows that what contradicts or condemns them will be de-valued.
People who don’t understand this will utter refrains such as “I don’t care what you do in your private life, just don’t shove it in my face,” as if something can be completely de-stigmatized but then, somehow, remain in the closet. Those who do grasp it, however, might say something such as what homosexual activists Hunter Madsen and Marshall Kirk wrote in their book After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90’s. They said that once homosexuality was normalized, those who would “still feel compelled” to oppose it would be “cow[ed] and silence[d]…as far as possible” and that if homosexual activists can “produce a major realignment solidly in favour of gay rights, the intransigents (like the racists of twenty years ago) will eventually be effectively silenced by both law and polite society.” And what do we see 20 years later? Criticism of homosexuality will get overseas Westerners punished through law and Americans punished through social pressure.
How’s that tolerance workin’ for ya’?
“Tolerance,” as it has been marketed, was always a con. Aristotle said that “[t]olerance is the last virtue of a dying society,” but it’s also the vice that kills it. And it so often is a vice because it’s generally misunderstood. For one thing, tolerance always implies a negative, real or perceived; you wouldn’t have to tolerate a beautiful car or a delectable meal — you relish those things. But you might have to tolerate a cold or bad weather. Thus, tolerance is only noble in two situations: One is when dealing with something objectively negative that cannot be eliminated, such as irremediable pain. The other is when confronted with something you don’t happen to like and could avoid, but that is objectively good or neutral; an example would be tolerating a food you detest in order to avoid offending your hosts.
So while we might admire a person who can bear a cross with a stiff upper lip, what if he abides a negative he needn’t put up with? He then is either a doormat or a masochist.
That’s us.
The doormat, that is.
This brings us back to that modernistic “I don’t care…just don’t shove it in my face” attitude. This is a pipe dream and the first step toward degradation and tyranny; it is a false Americanism. As John Wesley said, “What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace.” And once this happens it is ridiculous to wonder why the thing in question is out of the closet; accepted things by definition always will be. At this point those with an affinity for it will take the next step: marketing.
This is precisely what Madsen and Kirk prescribed with respect to homosexuality, writing that Americans needed to be desensitized to the behavior via a “continuous flood of gay-related advertising,” a “conversion of the average American’s emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media.” Madsen, mind you, was a marketing man by trade.
And when this marketing is successful enough and the newly exalted product is considered a good, what will that which condemns it be considered? This is how good becomes bad, bad becomes good, and those conned into being tolerant come to be seen as intolerable (I discuss this in-depth here).
And thus is Christianity being suppressed. Make no mistake, the concept of sin is central to Christianity — and sexual sin is part of that centrality. Lust, correctly defined as disordered sexual desire, is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. So saying you cannot talk about sexual sin — in its entirety — is to say you cannot talk about Christianity in its entirety. And this is part of the process of relegating Christianity to the closet.
This tolerance trap is why Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen wrote in 1931:
America, it is said, is suffering from intolerance — it is not. It is suffering from tolerance. Tolerance of right and wrong, truth and error, virtue and evil, Christ and chaos. Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded.
…Tolerance is an attitude of reasoned patience toward evil, and a forbearance that restrains us from showing anger or inflicting punishment. …Architects are as intolerant about sand as foundations for skyscrapers as doctors are intolerant about germs in their laboratories….
Tolerance does not apply to truth or principles. About these things we must be intolerant, and for this kind of intolerance, so much needed to rouse us from sentimental gush, I make a plea. Intolerance of this kind is the foundation of all stability.
Our culture war is a fight to the death. The barbarians are inside the gate, and they don’t listen to reason. Show them the same tolerance they show you — and then show them the door. In the case of A&E, what should happen is that they be boycotted till brought to their knees.
To their knees.
Unless we can rediscover virtue and muster total intolerance for the intolerable, our decline will be inexorable.
Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com
© 2013 Selwyn Duke — All Rights Reserved
GLAAD: Gays and lesbians against any and all DISAGREEMENT. These sodomites conflate truth with hate.
Outstanding article Selwyn. When are you going to publish a book? I am prepared to pre-pay for it at this very moment.
Posted by: Philip France | December 21, 2013 at 01:59 PM
I just read the article about beastiality that Selwyn linked to his column. Michele Bachmann and the Christian Right have been vindicated (as though any vindication were actually necessary)!
PS Some reader comments were also quite troubling.
Posted by: Philip France | December 21, 2013 at 02:24 PM
What a load of you-know-what . Nobody is being "silenced" by gay rights activists, least of all that jerk Phil Robertson. He had every right to say what he did, but A7E had every right to suspend his program . The first amendment does not say your employer cannot fire you if it disagress with something you said . It says the government cannot persecute you for free speech .
Right-wing jerks like Selwyn and Phil France don't want gay people to fight for THEIR rights .
They think it's perfectly okay for gay people to be fired from their jobs merely for being gay, which is still legal in many US states, and for them not to be allowed to serve in the military,
join the Boy Scouts etc, or to get married, adopt children etc, possibly even not be allowed to teach in public schools .
Robertson is reaping his bad Karma for making a fool of hismelf in GQ . If he can make bigoted
statements about gay people, others, gay or straight, have the right to criticize him harshly. This harsh criticim is NOT "political coreectness." It is the RIGHT THING TO DO . Bigotry is bigotry .
Homophobes can dish it out ,but they can't take it.
Posted by: Robert Berger | December 23, 2013 at 04:27 PM
What if some celebrity on a reality show sponsored by a conservtive religious network had made comments saying that homosexuality is NOT sin , and that homophobia is thre true "abomination," and that what the Bible says about it is nothing but ancient superstition and poppycock , and that gay people should be left alone, allowed to marry , serve in the military, join the Boy Scouts, etc ?
And what if the employer had fired HIM for stating HIS liberal views ?
Would Selwyn Duke have su[pported him and his right to frees speech and demand the employer reinstate him ? I doubt it . Selwyn is total hypocrite .
His homophobic statements here are actually far more vicious and bigoted than what Phil Robertson said . But I support Selwyn's right to say what he did, as despicable as his comments are .
Posted by: Robert Berger | December 23, 2013 at 04:35 PM
Robert,
If you are responding to me, don't waste your time. I stopped reading your comments last June. You are abjectly and perversely wrong on every count and your comments are hopelessly predictable.
You commenting here is as though you were to enter a large cathedral at a crowded mass and stand at the center of the altar and masturbate. No one wants to see it, but you insist on proceding anyway.
Go away.
Posted by: Philip France | December 26, 2013 at 01:59 PM
Great article, Selwyn. I'm a nonpracticing member of at least one of those other hell-bound groups mentioned by Phil Robertson and was not the least bit offended at being reminded. Of course I recognize the behavior as being at odds with leading a good life whether you are religious or not.
As for the nonstop coverage since Phil outed himself as a Bible reader, it's ridiculous. I was wondering if, somewhere between Communist News Network and Fascist News Network, a cable news channel friendly to the views of conservative Americans actually exists.
Posted by: Dismayed in Texas | December 26, 2013 at 02:16 PM
Hi, Philip,
Thanks for responding again and for the kind words. I actually have two books in the pipeline. One is already completed except for illustrations, but it has nothing to do with matters of import. The other book has everything to do with such matters, but, owing to how lazy I am, I haven't completed it yet. But, with God's help, hopefully soon.
God bless,
Selwyn Duke
Posted by: Selwyn Duke | December 26, 2013 at 06:12 PM
Selwyn,
Please alert me immediately when either book is available for purchase.
God bless.
Posted by: Philip France | December 27, 2013 at 03:45 PM
Is this the same Robert Berger that's been trolling this site for how many years? Maybe it's his twin or completely different person sharing the same name. Or not. Maybe it's the Robert Berger that's been showing how much of a fool he is.
Posted by: Jacque | January 13, 2014 at 02:54 PM