Liberals in California are up in arms at comments on gays made by Texas Governor Rick Perry during a speech for San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club on Wednesday, yet willingly bury their heads in the sand as the state continues to lose jobs to the Lone Star State due to Democrats animosity to business. As Apple, Inc. opens up its Austin location and Toyota flee over-regulated and over-taxed California, left-wing opinion makers obsess about a social-agenda that affects a minuscule portion of the population, while families throughout the state struggle just to make ends meet.
Headlines up and down the state, as well as the left-wing blogosphere, are frothing at the mouth from one inconsequential statement made by Perry during his comments last night. When asked by Commonwealth Club interviewer Greg Dalton whether he believes homosexuality is a disorder, Perry replied, “Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that.” He continued on the discussion, in part prompted by the Texas Republican Party’s adoption of platform language supporting access to “reparative therapy,” a psychological approach that claims to be able to change sexual orientation of adults, from gay to straight, “I may have the genetic coding that I’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue that same way.”
That was it. That was all it took to divert attention away from the tens of thousands of jobs migrating into Texas from California to emotionally driven outrage from the states gay left, who have proven on countless issues that they feel their concerns and agenda should take precedent over those of all other Californians. There will be no discussion this week in California as how we can become more competitive in the business market and save more of our jobs from fleeing to states, such as Texas, which understand the key to a growing economy and individual opportunity begins with healthy job creation. No, my fellow Californians, the feeling of a certain segment of the gay community are far more important than your children’s future, your job security or whether or not you’ll still be in your home this time next year. They are more important than you and I and we should fall into place, express our collective outrage and vote politicians into office who will ensure that their needs come first. And for the white urban liberal whose greatest fear on earth is to not be considered “tolerant and progressive,” the will happily oblige and pay lip service to this social-expectation. The story caught the attention of not just California, but the national press as well. Consider this clip from CBS News for a moment and the importance its given, in comparison to the apparently “inconsequential” preceding stories which they briefly mention before getting to Perry:
Forget for a moment that if you look at the actual statement made by Perry, it’s fairly benign. For one, he is reaffirming the talking points of the gay community by calling homosexuality an inclination and not purely a choice. Despite the fact that the psychiatric community is nearly unified in its assertion that individual sexual tastes and practices are strongly influenced by instances, influences and events throughout our life, even as young as early childhood, we have come to accept that the lone exception to this rule is sexual orientation. While the practitioner of BDSM, the sex addict, the man who chases younger women, those exclusively into larger women or dangerously thin men, cougar-hunters, etc. all are believed to have had their tastes molded as consequence of life experiences, it is considered taboo to even hint that our gender preferences are anything but ingrained in us before we leave the womb. At the very least, you would think the radical-wing of the gay community would give Perry due credit in accepting this premise.
And while there is certainly reasonable debate as to whether reparative therapy can be successful or not, other than the individual who chooses to enter into such programs, why should the gay community, or anyone else for that matter concern themselves with it? Does this not go against the left-wing mantra of minding one’s own business as it relates to what goes on in our bedrooms? Sexual therapy, in all forms, is an unproven science that provides desired results for some, but not for all. It’s not as if Texas is suggesting the state busts into gay and lesbian bars like Elliot Ness and drag people off for reprogramming. The platform language merely suggests that no laws or executive orders shall be imposed to limit or restrict access to this therapy.
So in fact the language of the Texas Republican Party platform actually speaks to the alleged feelings of liberal Americans, that the state should not be involved in our bedroom decisions. But this runs counter to what the gay left wishes to do. They specifically wish to utilize state power to forbid individuals from seeking such therapy. I find this a curious hypocrisy of the left, and makes one wonder if “thou doth protest too much.” If an individual person wishes to engage in therapy, of any sort, to either curb or cease any sort of behavior they feel is damaging to their overall happiness, what business is it of the government? I have my own doubts as to the ultimate effectiveness of many aspects of the psychiatric world, but I don’t begrudge anyone from seeking help, be it for depression, alcoholism, compulsive eating or shopping, gambling, drug use, obsessive trips to the strip club, homosexuality or an inability to get off of Facebook. Its their business. In the famous words of Hillary Clinton, “what difference does it make?”
Ah, but there’s the rub. This is why the “born this way” argument is so important for the gay-left and why they must reverse their stance on government intrusion into our personal choices, because they cannot allow it to be a choice. Their entire long-term agenda is to equate sexual orientation as a condition of birth so that their legislative goal to have orientation legally treated in the same manner as we do gender and racial/ethnic identity can become a reality. To acknowledged anything but forces them into an intellectual rather than emotional argument, something the Progressive-left fears more than anything else.
So of course the hyperbolic offensive on Perry must commence. Contrary to what is being spun, he didn’t compare homosexuality to alcoholism, in the sense of calling it a disease, but merely the relation that we as human beings ultimately “choose” our actions. For the average 40-something male, their “preference” may be to socially engage with a revolving-door of well-manicured early twenties young women who they don’t know very well (other than in the Biblical sense). While many men with the means and necessary prolonged adolescence do enjoy such a lifestyle, but social norms, love and a desire for a stable family life (as well as our receding hair lines and expanding guts) compel us to make other choices in life. This applies to all things in life, yet somehow we are coerced to believe there is the one “special exception.”
At its crux, this is the primary friction between conservatives and the gay community. You’re not special. You are, ironically enough, just like the rest of us. You have inalienable rights, as we all do. And just like the rest of us, some people will disagree with your lifestyle, some will be “supportive” but most of us really don’t care and we sincerely don’t need reminding of it at nearly every juncture. My best friend at work may go home at night, dress up like the “Gimp” from Pulp Fiction, be force-fed Gerber’s baby food by his wife while he calls her “mama,” or they may have the most vanilla, mundane sex life in the western hemisphere, I could care less either way and I certainly don’t feel the desire to be given constant updates on the nature of their marital matters. It has nothing to do with why he is my friend and why I enjoy his company, in fact if he did feel compelled to provide me details of what he and his wife do in their bedroom I would possibly start looking to expand my options of lunch mates.
This is far more important than Californians trying to impose their personal beliefs on Texas.
I sincerely wish much of California was not discussing this tonight. I would be much happier engaging in a debate as to what we could do to be more competitive so that adventurers like Perry could not so easily come into my home state and seduce companies away merely by providing a common-sense, pro-growth atmosphere on his home of Texas. I wish the executives Apple, Inc. were not preparing for their “Campus Opening” gala event in Austin, Texas. I wish the ads on Monster and Indeed for new Facebook jobs were not in the “Texas” tab, but they are. And they are because the attention of the opinion makers and rabble-rouser’s in this state are obsessed with government inserting itself into matters of our bedrooms. Rick Perry’s opinion on homosexuality shouldn’t matter to you. Nor should you concern yourself if some man or woman in Texas chooses to seek therapy in hopes of being content in a heterosexual relationship and have children. It doesn’t affect your life or any Californian one bit, but Toyota leaving Cerritos for Texas does. So practice what you constantly preach and stay out of other people’s bedroom business and let’s focus on what future we leave to the children of California, gay, straight or celibate.
Commentary by Paul M Winters
Editor in Chief, Dignitas News Service
Sources:
SanFranciscoGate
AustinBusinessJournal
Newsweek
TheStatesman
GuardianLV
CBSThisMorning (via YouTube)
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