What happens when prejudice doesn’t die but merely changes its form?
The burgeoning cliché amongst the younger, ostensibly pro-gay set is that we’re just waiting on the crotchety old homophobes to die off. The upcoming generation supports equality for gays, we’re told. At last, gays and lesbians will be liberated as these citizens change the policies of the government.
Forgive me for crashing the party, but I’m one of those who doesn’t view the federal government’s acceptance of my sexuality as the end-game. If we’re really taking the same route as the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s did — that is, through the state and through the courts, rather than through the culture — then I’d like to channel William F. Buckley, stand athwart history, and yell, “stop!”
The dirty little secret of the Civil Rights Movement is that the lives of actual individuals were swept under the rug. While the policy of the state is that blacks have equality before the law at every level — that is, abstractly, we are integrated — we are more segregated than ever as a culture. Whites and blacks live in different neighborhoods, attend different schools, watch different television stations and vote for different political candidates. Overt racism is virtually dead, but in its place, we have the patronizing “look-at-my-black-friend” phenomenon.
Already, this is manifesting itself in how straight people interact with gay people. We get gay characters on television, but they’re Gay Characters, not characters who are gay. We get “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” - your friendly neighborhood homosexual who wants to redesign your house and give you a makeover. We get young women who learn that we’re gay and exclaim, “I’ve always wanted a gay friend! Can we go shopping together?” At last, liberation!
This disgusting phenomenon, which I call liberal homophobia, is a symptom, not a cause. An article in the Eagle last semester covered the National Equality March by remarking excitedly about a “new civil rights movement.” The reader could gather that it was an exciting opportunity for young people to get involved, to get down on the ground with the oppressed. Not a problem, right?
Not so fast. These “enlightened” youth emphatically do not view gay people as individuals who have been unfairly singled out for their sexual orientation. Rather, they view them as people who must be honored for their group membership. There is a monumental difference.
Once we start viewing people in terms of their group identity, we inevitably descend into tribalism. When I penned a column last year decrying the university’s new Women’s Resource Center, several campus feminist leaders lambasted me for “betraying” the feminist community, which had done so much for “my people.” Apparently, these “people” are those who are similarly attracted to the same sex. This attitude is appalling, but hardly surprising: these women had been trained by the culture to view people as members of identity groups, rather than as individuals, with their complexities, personal interests and singularities.
In the final analysis, identity politics is hoisted by its own petard. Instead of liberating minorities, it ensnares them in a cage built with the same steel used to construct the walls keeping them from the mainstream. The gay man is reduced to his sexuality, the black man to his race. That is the new face of liberation. Boy, am I excited for this new generation.
Alex Knepper is a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs and a classical liberal columnist for The Eagle. You can reach him at edpage@theeagleonline.com.
