Jack Donovan wrote Androphilia (as Jack Malebranche), the feisty 2007 farewell of an unrepentantly man-loving man to the pre-packaged identity of gayness. For better or worse, that little book has had a big impact on how I see myself and how I see the gay world, which I increasingly see myself as "in" but not "of". (Cf John 17:13-16!).
As I was walking down Castro Street today, I was thinking again that pretty well the only thing I have in common with the denizens of the gay ghetto is a common interest in same-sex eros. I do not agree with the victim-based LGBT grievance-group identity, nor with the captivity of these folks to progressive Left thinking and statist politics, nor with the feminist-led ambivalence (at best) about being a man.
Part of the conservative temper is a hesitancy to fiddle with what has been long established and seems to work pretty well. In conservative parlance, "work pretty well" is practically an ecstatic outburst, since so much does not. Marriage, for all its limitations, works pretty well. Has anyone found an empirically superior long-term societal alternative? The law of unintended consequences takes up a lot of space in conservative minds. And although I have a lot of personal sympathy with gay and lesbian people whom I know (and love) who want same-sex marriage, on a wider cultural scale I am skeptical.
It would please me more to have the military decide, on its own, to ignore sexual orientation than to have same-sex marriage enshrined in law.
Well, Mr. Donovan has taken a stand on both these issues in his usual forceful, clear, kinda take-no-prisoners way.
Gay marriage. No. Homosexual soldiers. Yes.
Here's his piece. Enjoy.
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