Will it ever be possible to force gays back into the closet? That rhetorical question is considered a crushing rejoinder when someone objects to the attempt to normalize homosexuality. Whoever is making the objection, it implies, is a typical reactionary—either he hasn’t thought things through, and is living in the past, or else he’s planning something really brutal and oppressive.
The answer, of course, is that it’s not a matter of force but of accepted public principle. On liberal principles the closeting of homosexuality is oppressive because it doesn’t belong in the closet—it’s as respectable as any other form of sexual expression. On traditional principles that make the sexual affiliation of men and women fundamental to social order, however, homosexuality is at odds with the kinds of connections that ought to exist among people. It’s treason against the social constitution. From that point of view it’s as bad as liberals think racism is. So if traditional views of sex come once again to prevail the closeting of homosexuality will be as natural as the closeting of hard core racism is today. Force, on the whole, will be aside the point.
Homosexual discretion:
It’s true that “the closet” is characterized, by liberals, as a psychological prison for oppressed homosexuals. But why isn’t it just understood to be a discreet refuge in which homosexual behaviour can carry on in private, and without it being “celebrated” in the public domain?
Because to a liberal it’s not
Because to a liberal it’s not a disgusting, shameful, sinful act. So why should it have to be private?
Its being kept in the closet was an injustice. Public celebration helps to correct that injustice.
Here’s a question for them. If it’s “natural” and therefore normal, why isn’t the near universal revulsion it causes among all peoples (not just so-called people of the book) “natural” and, therefore, normal. Can I celebrate anti-homosexuality publicly?
I think the practical answer
I think the practical answer is that the stubbornness of “deeply rooted social stereotypes and prejudices” is thought to call for ever more comprehensive and energetic efforts to root them out. In other words, the more unnatural something is, the more wonderful it must be said to be. That’s the only way things can become equal and therefore rational and just.
A Suffering Minority
Homosexuals are among the classes of people identified by their suffering. As a “suffering minority”, according to liberal assumptions, they rate special consideration in order to alleviate their distress.
But what are they “suffering” from? The answer seems to be a widespread revulsion from their so-called “life style”. This natural revulsion is defined as prejudice or bigotry in the upside-down world which normal people are being forced to accept.
Even the use of the word “normal” is challenged by the apologists for homosexuality. I’m not sure it’s possible to have liberal sympathies without also embracing moral relativism.
Normality
The current viewpoint, I think, is that “normal” is a remnant of essentialist thinking and as such a bigoted concept. It’s a denial that man makes his world in accordance with his will and technical skill.
deeply rooted prejudices persist
I’ve noticed that among teenage boys and twentysomethings the word “gay” is used as a general pejorative, as in “this or that’s gay.” That despite the intensive and persistant indoctrination. Try as they might, they just can’t make some things cool.