One issue raised by the current sleaze involving New Jersey Governor McGreevey is the issue of homosexuals hiring homosexuals. I have some slight personal experience of the thing, since an Episcopal diocese to which I used to be connected is run by a gay mafia that looks out for its own. Others have noticed it as well, if the Google entries for “gay mafia”, “homosexual mafia”, “velvet mafia”, “homintern” and whatnot are any indication. Many people, for example, find it very hard to understand the response of Catholic authorities to predatory clerical pederasts apart from the influence of homosexual cliques and networks.
Not many people other than the ever-venturesome John Derbyshire have written about the issue, partly because evidence is anecdotal and uncertain, and partly because people these days don’t like conspiracy theories about particular groups. Still, what are blogs for if not thinking aloud? So here are some thoughts:
- People with something major in common that affects how the world looks to them normally prefer to hire each other and work together in various informal ways that tend to exclude others. Not only the gay mafia but the Irish, Jewish and every other kind of mafia is real. If you’re PC, and you can’t bear to contemplate such things, think “old boy network.”
- In the case of homosexuals, the tendency to hire your own is compounded by the motives that lead more normal men to give jobs to their mistresses, exacerbated by the free-floating sexualization of homosexual life. If your way of life features frequent reshuffling of sexual connections, and you have a chance to surround yourself with people you’re sleeping with, have slept with or might want to sleep with, why not?
- It’s also compounded by the view that if you belong to an oppressed minority you have the right to get yours. In certain settings (e.g., religious education and the media) it’s further compounded by a collective interest in turning around social attitudes regarding homosexuality. The treatment of homosexual issues by the New York Times is partly due to general ideological considerations and Pinch Sulzberger’s idiosyncrasies, but also partly due to homosexual editors and reporters who know how they want things covered.
- Other points are more speculative. Many people find that homosexuals often lack a certain seriousness and sense of responsibility, and relish personal dramas and bizarre situations involving play-acting. It seems likely that such attitudes would make abstract obligations like public service seem less weighty and personal connections and concerns more pressing.
All of which shows once again that the superior rationality and virtue of what is called non-discrimination in employment is an illusion. Hiring based solely on particular individual job-related qualifications (i) leaves out concerns that all except the brainwashed should recognize as important, and (ii) in most cases doesn’t exist—since Grutter, not even in theory. If issues of special interest to homosexuals are relevant to a position, whether someone is homosexual is obviously relevant to hiring him. There’s no excuse for attacks on the Boy Scouts for their reluctance to hand boys over to what would often turn out to be a homosexual clique with a special interest in teenaged boys, and if you’re hiring someone to be a newpaper reporter it plainly matters what axes he might have to grind. And even if the position doesn’t involve issues related to sexuality, the number of homosexuals, especially in influential positions, can legitimately concern an organization simply because it affects the nature of human connections within the organization.
When perversion is “a whole way of life,” it affects everything.
“And even if the position doesn’t involve issues related to sexuality […].” —from the log entry
One often hears from individuals afflicted with sexual perversion—male homosexuals, lesbians, sado-masochists—that their perversion is more than just a “sexual” thing in their lives, but is “a whole way of life” for them: their perversion permeates and influences in big or little ways just about everything they do and think. They themselves will tell you this—those of them will, at any rate, who are capable of candidness and introspection. For homosexuals or other sorts of sexual pervert to “put their stamp,” so to speak, on the character of an organization they work for doesn’t at all require that the work they do there have to do with “things sexual.” These individuals are liable to put their special stamp on it no matter what the work involves. That can be a big plus in certain fields, certainly completely irrelevant in the majority, and a big negative in certain others. Government of course has no business sticking its nose into hiring decisions pertaining to these matters: an employer knows very well what he is looking for and what he absolutely does not want.
Whole way life… Yeah right.
As a homosexual myself I have yet to meet another person straight or gay who would suggest that their sexuality is “a whole way of life”. Such an argument postures that homosexuals every motive and decision is predicated on who they have sex with. Decision making based on sexuality would definitely lead to self destruction; examples are clearly visible Gov. McGreevy, Congressman Ed Schrock. Despite these examples of sexual misconduct, the millions of other gay people in world lead normal lives like their straight counterparts. As for “Special Stamps”, we all leave marks on the work we do, the least of which is anything sexual. I would love examples of this please.
My Dear Jason
I am grateful I don’t have the trials of your situation as I am of so many unfortunate situations. I have a trial I find very hard, but it is not yours. My trial seems less than yours; I am not a homosexual. My abnormality is invisible because of great effort by me; I suffer from lifelong depression, OCD, and anxiety—often co-conspirators.
Normal is neither you nor I in our own ways. You in one way and I in another way represent abnormal people. Yours is expressed, and you seek to celebrate it and insist on acceptance as just another way of life. I realize mine is abnormal and destructive, and I prefer to keep it private because some people might use it against me. But let’s get to morality.
The expression of sexuality is limited to the sacrament of marriage, which God has granted to us for the purpose of procreation and possibly other reasons. This belief does not necessarily mean we always follow it; ergo Jesus dying on the Cross. Sex outside marriage between a man and a woman is adultery; this is not really debatable if you are Catholic. It is not easy being Catholic, which Mel Gibson on EWTN declared several times last night; he said he would like to be relieved of his obligations. So would I. Homosexual Catholics, and bachelor Catholics like myself, sometimes seem unable to accept this. But if we are Catholic, we cannot seek acceptance of our immoral behavior, as rare as it is for me. Sure I would like to have sex with as many pretty women that would have me, but I refrain because I detest taking advantage of them, using them. Does this make me better than you? I have no idea. Only Jesus knows that answer. We’ll find out in purgatory.
So search for other interests besides meaningless sexual encounters. Maybe seek psychological therapy and friendships with females; I must admit I would not marry a former lesbian, but I would certainly have no problem becoming close friends. I hope to marry one day, but I have too much to deal with right now. Yet I take enjoyment from life without being a hedonist; you can do it too. For example, I am planning a tailgate party for my dear LSU Tigers, who play Oregon State this Saturday at 5:00 PM Central Time. Talk about an ordeal: check out the Tigers’ grueling SEC schedule this year. The SEC teams have by far the toughest conference in NCAA football, yet they have fewer sportswriters, plus they are “Rebels.†Ergo the stupid AP rankings without the computer that took into account the schedules. LSU must play 4 top ranked teams in their own conference this year while Oklahoma and USC skate through merely two well-ranked teams. They are fine teams, make no mistake, but the rankings fill them with pride that translates into performance. Paul Henri.
Conspiracy
If indeed there was a homosexual conspiracy in relation to the priests molesting children, how do you explain the fact that it was the bishops who were shuttling these men from one diocese to another? While the “mafia” may have gotten these men in (and I do believe there is a difference between run-of-the-mill homosexuals and child molestors), it appears that the “straight” bishops kept them in the fold rather than giving them the boot.
I don’t understand the commen
I don’t understand the comment completely:
1. To say that homosexual cliques and networks appear to have had a decisive influence is not to say they were the only actors.
2. Why shouldn’t bishops or their administrative underlings belong to the cliques and networks? I include a link suggesting the former was the case.
On your parenthetical: homosexuality as far as I know does not often include an inclination to molest children. Not many of the cases involved prepubescent children, though. The great majority involved teenaged boys, and a sexual interest in teenaged boys seems very common among homosexuals.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.