OPINION: Here’s What Tolerance For Sexual Deviancy Has Reaped
Last Sunday on Fox News’ “The Next Revolution,” referencing the effluvia of slander and histrionics being doled out by prominent leftists, host Steve Hilton stated that the Washington, D.C., political and media establishment have “lost their minds.”
While this may sound like hyperbole, some of the rhetoric coming from the left does have elements of clinical insanity. The insistence on the part of prominent Democrats that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 election despite having been cleared of this charge certainly qualifies. Claims that restrictions on abortion being considered in some states will kill black women (an abject fallacy in itself) whilst ignoring the black babies being killed by abortion in the absence of such measures also qualifies.
The most bizarre and incoherent ideas currently being advanced by the left have to do with gender. Only 20 years ago, the idea of same-sex “marriage” was considered ridiculous by a majority of Americans. Similarly, biological males competing in sporting events as females would have been considered not only absurd, but grossly unfair to biologically female athletes.
Today, these “institutions” are practically commonplace, and they’ve become so largely because those who considered them ridiculous remained silent rather than being labeled as bigots.
The most recent incarnation of the left’s efforts to promote sexual ambivalence has to do with the nature of gender itself. Not only does a segment of the tiny but extremely vocal LGBTQ lobby advocate for biological males and females being able to “choose” a preferred gender with which to identify, this bunch also contends that there are multitudes of genders, perhaps even hundreds.
Who knew?
I remember quite well during the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s, when the political left was pushing sexual permissiveness with all the urgency of avoiding the next planetary extinction-level event, catty, mincing liberals accused those who resisted going along with the program of being prudes. As far as they were concerned, a prude was just as bad as a segregationist – and if you ran afoul of their budding doctrine, they certainly let you know it.
Also during this period, court cases and discussions in the public square arose with regard to how these “new sensibilities” would be represented in media and education. Oh, the controversy over sex ed in schools! Many will recall the liberal argument that sexual function and reproduction were “only knowledge,” and that keeping this valuable knowledge from our youth was simply wrong. Further, that argument added that an ignorance of sexuality and reproduction would lead to young people getting into trouble should they become sexually active.
There was a great deal of concern about sexuality being represented in films
In November of 1968, the first voluntary Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) film rating system took effect, not so much because the public was concerned about sexual content in movies, but because the MPAA brass deemed the Hays code (in place since 1930) archaic. Movie makers had been increasingly pushing the envelope in this area anyway; the new ratings code actually gave filmmakers more license to produce explicit material.
While millions of Americans possessing traditional values were alarmed at these emergent sensibilities, there was a certain congruity in the disposition of courts and regulatory agencies, which decided that if a segment of the population wished to expose themselves to smut, it was not the role of the Christian majority or those or secular folks who held to traditional values to dictate mores to them.
Unfortunately, like our Constitution itself, this has become a double-edged sword. Fast-forward 50 years and any child with a computer
As is occurring today, back in the ’60s and ’70s, the perceived “rights” of individuals to engage in sexually deviant behavior superseded any consideration of how propagating sexually deviant behavior might impact society at large.
Well, at this point, I think that the jury is in, and it’s apparent that we’ve pretty much screwed ourselves (pun intended).
An interesting perspective comes from Christine Caine, an Australian activist who has firsthand experience with sexual abuse and trauma. Caine founded A21, a global anti-trafficking organization that operates in 15 countries and aids in prosecuting sex traffickers and rescuing victims.
Now, one could claim that the increasing incidence of sex trafficking, especially that involving children, has nothing whatsoever to do with the phenomenon of an increasing sexual permissiveness in Western culture – but I think that most reading this will know better. Ms. Caine asserts that the proliferation of pornography and other sexually ambivalent materials has fueled human trafficking, and I tend to agree. We’re human beings, and, by our nature, the only ones who’ll find themselves immune to morally ambivalent materials of any kind are those who do not partake in them.
So, we have confirmation that the atmosphere of sexual permissiveness we’ve cultivated has severely compromised us culturally. Also, we can now see that the left (via the LGBTQ lobby) has no intention of exhibiting the same tolerance to people who hold traditional values as was shown them. Indeed, having been extended an olive branch, they continue to cry “oppression” amidst calls for traditional values to be relegated to criminal status.
So much for tolerance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR/COMMENTATOR:
Erik Rush
