Juvenal and the Juvenile

Courtesy of Eve Samborn, we have this amusing satire on liberal “tolerance.” Assuming, that is, giving new meaning to Juvenal’s adage that difficile est satunam non scribere, “the difficult thing is not to write satire,” that satire need not be intentional. In response to College Republican’s “Conservative Coming out Day” (an admittedly absurd event, with all due charity to our younger brothers in the faith), Ms. Samborn is rather upset that conservatives would dare compare their plight to that of homosexuals:

At best, the chosen event name represents gross negligence. At worst, it misappropriates the term “coming out,” a long-standing rhetorical symbol of gay liberation, to serve a movement that oppresses and marginalizes the LGBTQIA community. This linguistic theft is both offensive and morally wrong.

And by golly, she means it. Your humble servant offered this waggish reply:

The author’s appropriation of the word “oppression,” historically used to describe enslavement, systematic violent repression, or denial of basic citizenship rights such as the right to vote, is patently offensive when used to describe the conditions of gays in our society. The author’s implicit contention is that not redefining marriage to suit every possible carnal configuration which wishes to win legitimacy in our society is equivalent to the Black Codes or the Fugitive Slave Laws. By belittling the historical struggle of African-Americans, women and others for basic rights the author is obviously harboring crypto-racist and crypto-misogynistic tendencies.

Ms. Sanborn is simply part of a general trend in gay rhetoric to convert inconveniences into necessities. Bob and Ted, great guys though they are, have to draw up a contract if they want to divide their property between them or explicitly declare who has to be at whose deathbed. But waitaminnit–Jack and Jill get all that in a package deal with that ceremony down at the courthouse! Therefore–ohmygod–Bob and Ted are oppressed! Nevermind they have the same rights as every other citizen, are probably generally more affluent than many minority groups in our society, get the perk of having an average of thousands of sexual partners in their lifetime, and yes, even have the right to marry, as our culture understands marriage. Our definition just doesn’t happen to recognize their carnal preferences.

The false equivocation of anti-gay marriage laws to anti-miscegenation laws (though Ms. Samborn does not spell it out) is absurd. Anti-miscegenation laws were not predicated on a certain definition of marriage, but on a certain conception of race. It was our understanding of race, and not our understanding of marriage which changed and was recognized in Loving v. Virginia. Loving did not require any new conception of the sexual roles in marriage–it just required the casting away of absurd ideas of racial purity.

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