How can I be optimistic that the “homosexual rights” movement will fail in its attempt to radicalize America? Easy. Just look at the news footage and the pictures from this past Sunday’s homosexual “pride parade” in Chicago. Can those people parading down the street win the argument? I don’t believe it.
The pessimist says the moral struggle is over and that we’ve lost. Down the road, they say, there will be a similar parade in every suburb and small town in Illinois. I say don’t bet on it. There are too many other examples from history of things that looked un-winnable but turned out to be otherwise.
In part 1 of this series I referenced the pro-life progress in the polls. Of course that battle isn’t over – most of these battles are never really over.
It wasn’t that long ago that gun control was a winning issue for Democrats. Not any more. Now, the National Rifle Association is turning its momentum towards rolling back big city gun laws and has time to target the United Nations and the global gun-grab. Those aren’t the activities of a group in retreat.
Anyone remember welfare reform? It’s been ten years since people were saying the world would end if the welfare system was radically changed. Ten years later many of the critics have come around due to the overwhelming success of the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996.”
Abortion, guns and welfare were supposed to be issues settled by those shouting in the left-wing echo chamber. But they weren’t. And neither is the “homosexual rights” issue of today.
As the Internet and the alternative media expands its reach, the old left wing echo chamber has become increasingly less effective. And as more Americans join in the discussion, clearer arguments are offered and the rhetoric of the left is shown for what it is: extremist.
The “unbiased” and “impartial” news media sponsored floats in the homosexual “pride” parade. WGN, NBC and others jumped on the float bandwagon like junior high school kids trying to be cool.
If there had been a gun control parade, or a pro-abortion parade, or a pro-welfare system parade ten years ago, those media outlets would have been right there wanting to show that they’re enlightened too.
Today, some polls report that the younger generation is more accepting of homosexuality. I’d argue that it’s growing tolerance, not acceptance, and tolerance rightly defined is not a bad thing. Regardless, polling America’s younger people is problematic for many reasons.
Writer and researcher Michael Barone has observed that from ages six to eighteen most American kids are reared in an environment where there is little competition and accountability. As a result, they’re among the worst prepared eighteen-year-olds in the industrialized world.
But then from age eighteen to thirty the coddling ends and they enter the private sector America that plays for keeps. Barone believes that by the time they’re thirty, America’s young adults make up some of the world’s most competent and competitive people.
Just as people mature in their thinking, societies can as well.
A couple of years ago the Chicago Tribune’s Don Wycliff interviewed the Illinois Family Institute’s Peter LaBarbera and Concerned Women for America’s Kathy Valente about the subject of “homosexual rights.” He wrote:
“…I was surprised to discover that their arguments are not essentially religious. That is, they do not require that one accept their faith in order to believe their argument. That is a big step forward for those arguing their position. It may not, ultimately, be a convincing step, but it at least represents recognition that in a political debate they need to speak in terms that all citizens can understand and, potentially, be convinced by.”
The side that understands the role of traditional morality in this “civilization thing” is getting its act together. Just as bread needs a leavening agent for the dough to rise, societies need a group able to influence the whole towards the good.
In that regard, we have what we need, and I am convinced our arguments are stronger than the ones being made by those parading their “pride” down the streets of Chicago.
