#66 - On Politics, Genderspeak and a Queer New World (Part I)

With this episode, we commence the fifth and final season of the podcast which focuses on sociopolitical and religious topics, themes related to gender and transgenderism,  as well as broader topics of relevance to the larger community.

The season premieres with a 2-episode series that addresses the history and politics of the gay liberation movement, the influence of the LGBT movement on countless aspects of everyday life and how far things have progressed in a few decades.

How did the gay liberation movement start and progress over the past few decades? In what ways was the book After the Ball foundational in laying out the vision and plans for society's desensitization towards the LGBT community, as well as the acceptance and even celebration of queerness and homosexuality, as part of a fight towards civil rights and integration into mainstream politics? In what ways have the Orwellian themes of Newspeak, thought crimes and thought police become a tangible reality in today's world? These and other questions are explored in this episode.

Resources used in the episode:
- After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the '90s by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen
- A Queer Thing Happened to America: And What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been by Michael Brown

Chapters

• 0:37 Episode Introduction
• 7:00 Gay Liberation: Then and Now
• 11:59 After the Ball: An Introduction
• 23:50 The Waging Peace Campaign
• 42:18 Outlining the Faults from Within
• 55:35 Alternatives?
• 1:02:03 Critiques and Reflections
• 1:12:37 An LGBT Agenda?
• 1:22:24 Identity and Civil Rights
• 1:37:42 Ending Remarks

Transcript

Waheed 0:37
Assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi ta’ala wa barakatuh, and welcome back to “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, this podcast series dedicated to Muslims experiencing same-sex attractions who want to live a life true to Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala and Islam. I'm your host Waheed Jensen, thank you so much for joining me in today's episode.

We are back with our fifth and final season of this podcast series. Subhan Allah, what a journey this has been so far! I am very honored and grateful to know that the content of the four seasons so far has been helpful to so many of you, alhamdulillah, I continue to receive so many heartwarming emails from men and women experiencing SSA as well as their parents, siblings and friends, alhamdulillah. Jazakom Allah khairan for all your love and wonderful messages, may Allah bless you and increase you. 

As you know, in season one, we covered topics related to identity, we talked about shame, self-compassion, and vulnerability. We covered the psychology of same-sex attractions, from the genesis of SSA and associated characteristics, to the roles of therapy in their different kinds in helping individuals experiencing SSA. In season two, we touched upon many pertinent spiritual and religious themes that are relevant to our struggle, such as hardships, trials and tribulations, patient forbearance, attachments and surrender, pure love for the sake of Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, desires and temptations, spiritual awakening and much more. In the third season, the focus was on different support systems available for individuals experiencing same-sex attractions, as well as the big topic of marriage and intimacy. Season four was focused on healing and recovery work; we talked about self-awareness, understanding and healing from complex trauma, embracing and reparenting the inner child, understanding attachment types, emotional dependency and codependent relationships, as well as the topics of self-esteem and self-discipline. We also covered relevant topics on sexual recovery, like Islamic sexual ethics and gender norms, masturbation, pornography and sex addictions, as well as sexual abuse.

With this episode, we kick start our fifth season which tackles a diversity of topics: we will be talking about the history of and politics related to the gay liberation movement, as well as themes of toxic masculinity and radical feminism. We will discuss Qur’anic revisionism and revisionist arguments that reinterpret Islam from a pro-LGBT lens, and we will cover contemporary issues and Shar’i perspectives on relevant themes pertaining to same-sex attractions, gender dysphoria and and the ripple effects of the LGBT movement on our everyday lives. We also have a series of episodes dedicated to the topics of gender, gender non-conformity, gender atypical individuals and intersex, gender dysphoria and transgenderism, and we will cover all these themes from sociopolitical, medical and religious angles, in addition to gender transitioning, as well as Shar’i perspectives and relevant contemporary challenges. In the second half of the season, we have a series of episodes dedicated to parents and family members, spouses, teachers and educators, as well as imams and community leaders.

I am excited to share that Br. Mobeen Vaid is joining me for five episodes this season, and we have Sh. Mustafa Umar from California as a guest speaker over four episodes as well. We also have other guest speakers and co-hosts joining me this season, including Dr. Ty Mansfield and his wife Daniele Mansfield who will be sharing with us their story over two episodes inshaAllah. I can’t wait for the episodes to come out and for you guys to check them out. I hope and pray that you find the content insightful and helpful in your journeys.

Today’s episode and the next episode are part of a 2-episode series that addresses history and politics of the gay liberation movement, the influence of the LGBT movement on countless aspects of everyday life and how far things have progressed in a few decades. We will talk about agenda politics, the paradigm of identity and civil right, the role of media in paving the way for such radical shifts in collective consciousness, as well as the influence of the LGBT movement on religion and theology, schools and educational systems, corporations and businesses, major psychological institutions and access to therapy, as well as other aspects of life. The title of these two episodes are “On Politics, Genderspeak and a Queer New World”, and for those of you who are fans of dystopian literature, you would have guessed that that’s a word play on the concept of Newspeak from George Orwell’s 1984, as well as Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. If we look critically at the paradigm shifts from the last few decades and the forces at play, it would strike us that all of this is nothing short of dystopian. The totalitarian forces are subtle but pervasive, the thought police are vigilant and thoughtcrimes are indeed a reality, Newspeak (or rather, Genderspeak) is becoming the new global language, and we’re living in a Queer New World.

The content of these two episodes is a synthesis of two major books, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the '90s by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, as well as the book A Queer Thing Happened to America: And What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been by Michael Brown. I will add these books and other resources in the episode description, so make sure to check them out.

I would like to start this episode with a quote by George Orwell from his novel 1984, “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

07:00
Let’s start our discussion by going back in history to the late 1960’s, particularly the year 1969 when the ​​Stonewall riots of 1969 in New York became the spark that produced a new movement calling for gay rights in the US and across the world. Of course, for decades and even centuries before that date, there were organized movements, particularly in Western Europe, which produced publications, formed social groups and campaigned for social and legal reform. The movements of from the end of World War II to the late 1960s are collectively known as the homophile movement, which, although described as "politically conservative", its calls for acceptance of same-sex love were perceived as radical fringe views by the culture of the time.

In June 1969, and in the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, New York City, the famous Stonewall riots erupted as demonstrations by members of the gay community in response to a police raid on the Inn, where the patrons of the Inn as well as other lesbian and gay bars, in addition to neighborhood street people fought back when the police became violent. The riots became widely considered a watershed event that transformed the gay liberation movement and became the cradle of the modern LGBT rights movement. Since then, annual political marches through major cities were usually held in June, originally to commemorate the yearly anniversary of the events at Stonewall, and they later transformed into “gay pride parades”, and the movement involved lesbian and gay communities in North and South America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand. 

The gay liberation movement in its early years was associated with the counterculture of the time, and gay liberationists joined with other social and activist groups with their calls to transform or abolish fundamental societal institutions like gender and the traditional nuclear family. In general, their politics were radical, anti-racist, and anti-capitalist. New waves of radical gay and lesbian groups emerged and have continued to exist ever since, but by the early 1990s, such radical groups were eclipsed by “tamer” gay men and women who focused more on civil rights and mainstream politics instead. A foundational book that helped bring about that change and lay out the vision and plans for the desensitization towards homosexuals, as well as the acceptance and even celebration of queerness and homosexuality, is the book After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the '90s, which was published in 1989 and written by neuropsychologist Marshall Kirk and social marketing and advertising executive Hunter Madsen, both graduates of Harvard. The book was born out of a 1987 article the two penned called "The Overhauling of Straight America" which was published in Guide magazine.

Conceiving their book as a "gay manifesto for the 1990s", the authors combined psychiatric and public relations expertise in devising their strategy, calling for homosexuals to repackage themselves as mainstream citizens demanding equal treatment, rather than as a promiscuous sexual minority seeking greater opportunity and influence. They make it clear that they have written this book as a manifesto on the steps which should be taken to deal with homophobia. “The campaign we outline in this book, though complex, depends centrally upon a program of unabashed propaganda, firmly grounded in long-established principles of psychology and advertising.” 

And what is the ultimate goal in mind? “We're fighting for a tomorrow in which it simply doesn't occur to anyone that there's anything more unusual about being gay than about preferring praline ice cream to double Dutch chocolate… ​​We want, as others want, to be seen and judged, first and foremost, as individuals… and only second, third, or not at all, as nameless members of the group called homosexuals. We want, at the very worst, to be let alone; at best, to be liked, valued, and welcomed into the family of man.” Let’s dive into the book and see how they carefully planned for this to happen - now, after 30 years of writing the book, their plans have become a reality.

11:59
Written just as the AIDS crisis reached its greatest momentum at the time, the authors saw the disease as an opportunity to influence the public mind. "As cynical as it may seem, AIDS gives us a chance, however brief, to establish ourselves as a victimized minority legitimately deserving of America's special protection and care.”

Before discussing “what should be”, they start off by highlighting “what is”, and that is “Straight America”, i.e. what straight people think about gay people: “They don’t.” Kirk and Madsen argue that, at that time, straight people barely thought about homosexuals, and they avoided the topic altogether, as they considered it disturbing. This goes hand in hand with what they refer to as the “big lie” in America: That there are really no gays to speak of. There is willful ignorance by the general American population who knows very little, avoids gay news and issues, is reluctant to engage in discussions on the topic, perpetuates ignorance about homosexuality, and refuses to get educated on the topic, among others. Unlike today, there was no representation of the LGBTQ community in mass media or pop culture back then. “The public is bothered by the portrayal of homosexuality as a settled fact of life but rather enjoys watching it portrayed as a disease or mental illness from which the victim will either perish or recover.”

The advent of the AIDS pandemic forced people to reconsider the above: the numbers of AIDS victims were large enough that they could no longer be ignored, bringing to the limelight the fact that gay people exist. However, even then, according to the authors, gay people still had to fight for themselves to be recognized and resist the desires of straight America to deny their existence.

Kirk and Madsen argue that there are a lot of “folk beliefs” that people take for granted, such as that homosexuality is caused by sinfulness, mental illness, or recruitment, that homosexuals are sex addicts, useless members of society, self-indulgent, and suicidally unhappy because they’re “gay”. Such beliefs, according to the authors, “are designed to point toward a common conclusion: that straights are logically justified in condemning and blaming gays (and, to a lesser extent, their families) for their 'deviant' sexual preference.” Such disapproval of homosexuals in America was not based on facts or real knowledge about homosexuality, according to the authors, it put a halt to intellectual fact-based explorations of homosexuality, and it helps fester uninformed, negative ideas about the LGBT community. Even though straight America, at the time, reached a point of realizing that expressing bigotry against other minorities was not acceptable, at a fundamental level, homosexuality was still seen as OK to castigate.

Continuing with their survey of the current conditions at the time, Kirk and Madsen then go on to discuss the “hostile actions” and anti-gay behavior by the general public, which they classified into three actions:

1. Actions which prevent/criminalize homosexual behavior per se (i.e. sodomy laws), with police apprehending sexual criminals under these laws and their punishments issued and carried out by a court of law. Despite the fact that such laws seemed disorganized (in their texts and application), they still sanctified a system of sexual oppression and social discrimination and sustained society’s taboo against homosexuality.
2. Actions which deny gays their fundamental civil rights: e.g. unequal treatment and discrimination when it comes to housing, employment, marriage and parental rights, etc.; denial of particular rights, such as free speech and assembly (it was common for gay bars to be raided and even gatherings in churches, colleges, and public properties to be denied); and broadcast networks actively denying the coverage or portrayal of “gay voices”.
3. Actions which otherwise vent public disapproval, such as the use of verbal slurs, physical assault, hate crimes and murder.

Of course, such hostile actions and anti-gay actions would be considered “homophobia” in modern terms, but according to Kirk and Madsen, the term homophobia is, in a way, comforting, because it implies that straight people are scared of homosexuals (implying that gay people hold some form of power). But that’s not true, since “queerbashing” happens because of hatred, not fear. So they use the term “homohatred” instead. 

They then go into dissecting the “physiology” of prejudice, explaining how prejudice is part of the “emotional brain” (i.e. pertains to feelings), and how there’s a reward system inherent to the expression of prejudice (such that if it is culturally accepted to “hate” on particular groups, actions would be encouraged, they would make the “hater” feel a sense of belonging to a group, and how such actions fuel and entrench reward pathways in the brain when the actions lead to their desired outcomes). By the same token, merely arguing with “homohaters” won’t change anything, since prejudice, phobia and fear are not part of the rational brain, but the emotional one. And one can address that through systematic desensitization, “forcing yourself to experience the feared thing in small but increasing doses, thus short-circuiting the withdrawal-reward, and allowing the fear to peter out.”

Arguments may have a role in ending prejudice, but only insofar as they target emotions rather than thoughts. Persuasion through argument only really works on an emotional level. There ideally should exist an emotional relationship between the two arguing. In this case, according to Kirk and Madsen, it is important to conceal the true purpose of an argument, which is to emotionally evoke sympathy and support for homosexuals, for the tactic to work.

Of course, they recognize that there are people who can be swayed by intellectual reasoning alone, but that’s roughly 10% of the population. The remaining 90% are not affected by such reasoning. Hence, the authors posit the following: “Our primary focus is the lower 90%, but influencing the top 10% can influence the lower 90%. The top 10% can influence what is appropriate in the social domain to believe and say. Two things can happen: the bigots may shut up because they don't want to look like Neanderthals. And those who have been won over by emotional appeal will feel comfortable in their new opinions.” 

To this end, the authors propose first becoming as similar as possible to heterosexuals, thereafter bringing each uniqueness in gradually until people are no longer phased by homosexuals. On a practical level, the authors then outline the processes to be employed to end prejudice:

• Desensitization: if the novelty activates the brain’s alert mechanisms, people will fight or flee. However, if it’s low-grade or non-threatening, alert mechanisms will be mild to non-existing. The principle of desensitization builds on people’s primal instincts, whereby a flood of gay-related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion possible, gets the job done. “If straights can't shut off the shower, they may at least eventually get used to being wet.” Novelty ceases to be one if it sticks around for a long time. 
• Jamming: this involves triggering a pre-existing incompatible emotional response within an individual and making him/her think twice about their “homohatred”. In other words, when an individual is compelled (through one’s automatic, habituated behavior) to say something or act in ways deemed as “homohatred”, he/she will experience shame or guilt and would think twice before doing so. This involves media depicting “homophobic and homohating bigots as crude loudmouths and assholes - people who say not only 'faggot' but 'nigger,' 'kike,' and other shameful epithets - who are 'not Christian.' It can show them being criticized, hated, shunned. It can depict gays experiencing horrific suffering as the direct result of homohatred - suffering of which even most bigots would be ashamed to be the cause.” The shame comes as a result of jeopardizing one’s inherent need to fit into a crowd and the fear of being rejected by others, so such behavior gets quelled in the long run.
• Conversion: which is the ultimate goal made possible by desensitization and jamming, to make society like homosexuals and to completely normalize their existence in society’s eyes. Conversion results from attaching good images to the label “gay” in the minds of “straight” people, and gradually conditioning them to replace negative feelings with positive ones. “It isn't enough that antigay bigots should become confused about us, or even indifferent to us - we are safest, in the long run, if we can actually make them like us… Yet, ironically, by Conversion we actually mean something far more profoundly threatening to the American Way of Life, without which no truly sweeping social change can occur. We mean conversion of the average American's emotions, mind, and will, through a planned psychological attack, in the form of propaganda fed to the nation via the media.”

Kirk and Madsen highlight the importance of widespread propaganda to achieve this goal, which requires money, man-hours, and a unification of the gay community towards this end. And with this comes this unambiguous statement, “Let's be blunt: those who aren't with us in this effort, either because they have better ways of wasting their time, or because they think we're politically incorrect, are most decidedly against us, against unification, and against the best interests of the gay community as a whole.”

23:50
Kirk and Madsen write, “Gays must launch a large-scale campaign - we've called it the Waging Peace campaign - to reach straights through the mainstream media. We're talking about propaganda.” Every campaign requires a target population, and so the authors split the American people into three groups: “Intransigents” (who make up roughly 30-35% of the population, they are opposed to homosexuality and prefer to avoid the topic as much as possible), “ambivalent skeptics” (roughly 35-40%, they are skeptical about homosexuals and do not want to punish/cause them harm) and “friends” (25-30% of the population, they do not disapprove of homosexuality and are willing to defend the rights of gay people). 

Kirk and Madsen propose that the media campaign should target “ambivalent skeptics”, whom they believed held the biggest promise. They further break down the “ambivalent skeptics” into those who are “passively negative” or “ambivalently positive” about homosexuality. The former will automatically be opposed to homosexuality without being too worked up about it, while the latter are those who believe in civil rights for all (including homosexuals) but still feel uneasy about the issue of homosexuality. Based on this breakdown, they then outline the propaganda objectives for each group: Intransigents should be silenced, the passive-negative group should be desensitized, ambivalent-positives could possibly be jammed or converted, and friends should be mobilized.

“Coming out” is given as an example that contributes to the desensitization and jamming aspects of the strategy. The more people “come out”, the more the Big Lie would crumble, and the less likely people would want to look bad or cause a scene. People would start to realize that they know gay people as a group/collective, and the stereotypes would begin to be dispelled. Of course, the effect is better than a few instances of gays coming out, hence the need for a media campaign as a catalyst to come out. In addition, emphasis is placed on proper communication with straight America, whereby it’s important to determine exactly what straights want to hear, and not just what gays want to tell them. “Straights must be helped to believe you and they speak the same language.” 

Keeping all this in mind, Kirk and Madsen put forward a vision/agenda for the “Waging Peace campaign”; in other words, their plan to change the current situation (at the time) to how it ought to be for gays in America. The campaign included seven public beliefs that needed to change as well as five main action plans:

Current beliefs vs. preferred beliefs
- “Gays don't warrant or deserve much attention from straights” --> “Gays are a valuable part of American society: we should be familiar with their nature, culture, news, and heroes”.
- “Gays are few in number; I don't know any gays” --> “Gays constitute a large minority of our society; and some of my friends/family are gay”.
- “Gays are easy to spot” --> “They are not: most of them look just like anyone else”.
- “Gays become gay because of sin, insanity, and seduction” --> “Sexual feelings are not really chosen by anybody: homosexuality is just as healthy and natural for some persons as heterosexuality is for others”.
- “Gays are kinky sex addicts” --> “The sex and love lives of most gays and straights today are both similar and conventional”.
- “Gays are unproductive, untrustworthy members of society” --> “Gays are hardworking, patriotic Americans”.
- “Gays are suicidally unhappy” --> “Gays would be as happy as anyone else, if we'd just treat them fairly”.

Current actions vs. preferred actions
- Homosexual acts, and intimate public contact, are outlawed across roughly one half the nation --> All sex acts among consenting adults are decriminalized; no discrimination is permitted between straights and gays in content and application of laws.
- Freedoms of speech and assembly by gays are impeded by public intolerance --> Gays are provided, by special law if necessary, the same opportunity to speak (including access to mass media) and gather as straights currently enjoy.
- Rights of gays to work, shelter, and public accommodations are limited by public intolerance  --> Gays are assured, by affirmative action if necessary, equal opportunity in these regards.
Gay couples cannot legally marry (nor enjoy property rights therefrom); nor are their rights to parent natural or adoptive children secure --> Gays are permitted all the standard rights of marriage and parenthood.
Gays are often taunted, harassed, and brutalized  --> The public no longer sanctions this behavior, which becomes as socially incorrect, discreditable, and repugnant as overt racism or anti-Semitism.

Looking at the “preferred” beliefs and actions, one can see that what they had as a vision at the time has literally become a reality nowadays. But how did this happen? Kirk and Madsen realized that, for any campaign to accomplish this turnaround, it should involve six main objectives:

1. “Talk about gays and gayness as loudly and as often as possible”: Homosexuality and gay rights should be talked about constantly so that finally the wider public acknowledges their normalcy. Again, in the early stages, things start at a low-grade level, whereby the imagery of gay sex is downplayed and the issue of gay rights reduced to an abstract social question. With religion seen as a hurdle here, the aim is to challenge the rationalizations that justify religious bigotry, resort to jamming and to “muddy the moral waters”. There is also a focus on pinpointing inconsistencies in religious doctrine, or those between doctrine and practice (an example of which is how Christian conservative churches did not help out people suffering from AIDS at the time). As for the less religious people, it suffices to reinforce principles of secularism and secular humanism, where the church is portrayed as outmoded. Topics like abortion and divorce involved such arguments anyway, and so can homosexuality, according to Kirk and Madsen.

2. “Portray gays as victims, not as aggressive challengers”: Gay people need to be portrayed as victims needing protection. This means dubbing down the mantle of “gay pride” which carries the risk of appearing as “arrogant, defiant and non-conformist”, and instead, utilizing media spokespersons and representatives who are just like straight people. This was skillfully planned: Unconventional gay people like “drag queens”, “bull dykes” and “leather men” would not be featured, but rather normal-looking young people, middle-aged women and elderly people from various racial backgrounds, as well as the families and friends of the LGBT. There was also emphasis on featuring more lesbians as “people have less cloudy conceptions of lesbians” and because “women are generally seen as weaker and more vulnerable, they will trigger more feelings of sympathy from the straight audience.”

The portrayal as victims plays along the strings of victimhood of circumstance and prejudice. For the former, homosexuality should be portrayed as inborn even if there is an interplay between different factors during development. “To suggest in public that homosexuality might be chosen is to open the can of worms labeled 'moral choice and sin' and give the religious Intransigents a stick to beat us with." As a result, it’s not a choice, it’s similar to being straight, and one cannot choose his/her sexual orientation as one would choose his/her skin color or other physical features. Victimhood of prejudice involves showing the suffering of homosexuals at the hands of “straight people”, by showing “graphic pictures of brutalized gays, dramatizations of job and housing insecurity, loss of child custody, public humiliation, etc.”

Kirk and Madsen also provide a rebuttal to the counter-argument that portraying the gay community as victims makes them look weak and self-hating. According to them, one could be proud of his/her identity while being seen as a victim, conjuring up the image of a black child who confronts a gang of racists: “The child has every reason to be proud of his identity but also has good cause to remind his persecutors that there is no sense or justice in condemning him for his skin color. The campaign can and should make this distinction clear.” They also give the example of the Jewish communities: “...who have effectively leveraged widespread sympathy for themselves as past victims of circumstance”, in reference to the Holocaust. Notice how the issue is equated with race and religious communities, further buttressing the civil rights cause and the identity paradigm. “March, if you must, but don’t parade. Drop the Mardi Gras foolishness and assemble yourselves into a proud, dedicated legion of freedom fighters, like the civil rights marchers of the '60s.” And later on, once “straight America” has become more comfortable with the existence of homosexuals as a group more generally, more “diversity” could be introduced with the more “unconventional gays” mentioned above.

3. “Give protectors a just cause”: Protectors here refers to straight people, where their sympathy would be triggered after witnessing homosexuals as victims they would want to protect, as a result. However, at a time with few straight people willing to explicitly support homosexuality, the aim was to capitalize on their willingness to support general efforts to protect everyone’s civil rights, including those of homosexuals. A campaign theme of “anti-discrimination” would be easier for straight people to adopt and embrace, along with “Fundamental freedoms, constitutional rights, due process and equal protection of laws, basic fairness and decency toward all of humanity - these should be the concerns brought to mind by our campaign.” The already existing standards of law, justice and human rights would be utilized by straight allies to counteract the moralistic arguments of “homohaters”.

4. “Make gays look good”: One aspect of the campaign focuses on portraying gay people as “harmless as everyday man”, but another takes it a step further and portrays them as “superior-veritable pillars of society”. To achieve this, more focus is placed on how homosexuals have fundamentally contributed to society, both historically and contemporarily. Amongst the historical figures the authors claim to be gay include: Socrates, Eleanor Roosevelt, Tchaikovsky, Alexander the Great, Alexander Hamilton, and Leonardo da Vinci, among others. They also point out that celebrity endorsements, whether gay or straight (as long as they’re loved and well respected), should not be forgotten from the contemporary world. If they’re gay, “their homosexuality can help jam the homohatred with an image of a loved celebrity who counters the homohating stereotype,” and if they’re straight, the spokesperson would be considered a good example of tolerance and acceptance, which other straight people could take as an example.

5. “Make the victimizers look bad”: By making “homohaters” look bad in public, Americans would start to disassociate from them and any “homohatred” as much as possible. This end could be achieved visually by combining pictures of gay victimizers with gay victims, which can put into perspective the harm these victimizers are doing, and therefore portraying such people as appalling. Examples cited include “Klansmen demanding that gays be slaughtered or castrated” and “hysterical backwoods preachers, drooling with hate to a degree that looks both comical and deranged”, among others. It is emphasized that media strategists employ the so-called “bracket technique”, where an image of a “homohater” is superseded/superimposed with an image of gay people being victimized. The plan was to start gradually, since, at the time, the media was not ready to attack archconservatives, for example, but the vilification of Nazi concentration camps would be an initial viable image to portray, using their oppression and killing of homosexuals, for instance. 

6. “Solicit funds: The Buck Stops Here”: The authors emphasize the more than obvious need of money for this campaign to work effectively. They point out that the homosexual movement has a lot of money, since homosexuals tend to be wealthier than the rest of the population, and the movement itself is also an integral part of the American left and has a lot of money coming in. At the time, only a minority actually supported such movements, and the authors go into detail as to why that is the case. They then outline strategies to increase fundraising of the Waging Peace campaign within the gay communities, which are beyond the scope of this episode.

The two fundamental objectives are: to get into mass media, and then desensitize the public about gay issues. Succeeding with the first objective will help accomplish the second. The authors outline different forms of media and their pros and cons, particularly in the context of the campaign (TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, outdoor advertising (e.g. billboards, posters)), and they actually give examples of visual ads that fulfill the aforementioned criteria and those that don’t, with the intention of improving messaging and outreach.

After outlining the Waging Peace campaign above and the different media and PR tactics that could be employed, Kirk and Madsen emphasize the need for the gay community to be unified for this campaign to work. This would be under a national gay organization, coordinating task forces dedicated to political lobbying, legal action, gay life, and so on. Such an organization should represent gay people from all different backgrounds, have local branches in every city and be able to direct its national resources to specific regions. Membership and donation should be strongly encouraged by local branches.

Reflecting on all of this content which was published a little over 30 years ago, we can clearly see how the tides have turned. It’s fascinating how a neuropsychologist and social marketing and advertising expert teamed up and laid out a very smart and detailed plan, which did indeed become a tangible reality. And of course, it doesn’t stop here. The tides have indeed turned, but they’ve brought with them tsunamis across the world, with profound global ripple effects that we are all witnessing nowadays on a daily basis.

42:18
Interestingly, the final chapters of the book expose the gay communities’ faults and weaknesses, taken from the angle of calling for action to sanitize the gay communities’ own image in the eyes of “straight people”. Ten behaviors are outlined that are praised and idealized by the gay leadership as part of said “lifestyle”, which, according to Kirk and Madsen, can no longer be tolerated, since they make the community look bad in front of the “straights”, as well as lower the quality of life within the gay community. The authors assert that it is necessary for gays to condemn such “evil” and harmful practices within its communities. These ten misbehaviors are:

• Lying to an immoral extent and being deceitful. Of course, they refer to “self-serving cowardice” in terms of lying about one’s sexuality or letting workplace jokes/remarks slide out of fear of being outed, but they also talk about constant lying and deceit in general as well.
• Rejection of morality and choosing a life doing as you please. There is also a huge pressure on gays to accept the gay lifestyle wholeheartedly, even the immoral aspects of it, which is framed as “celebrating our unique sensibility and culture”, otherwise one would be called out for following traditional morality or accused of not being able to fully embrace their sexuality. The authors point out that gays carry out destruction without reconstruction; they destroy the traditional notions of morality which constrained them, but they do not replace them with their own system of morality. As a result, self-centeredness and self-indulgence follow.
• Narcissism and self-centered behavior. The authors claim that many homosexuals have narcissistic traits, although they make it clear that they are not pathologizing homosexuality. Society is to be blamed for forcing gay people to adopt such characteristics to deal with life’s hardships, making it easy to develop particular personality disorders like histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders. The authors believe that more gays fall under the umbrella of narcissism than straight people, and a common example given of self-centered behavior is having unsafe sex without caring about the partners one might be endangering with sexually-transmitted infections.
• Self-indulgence and self-destruction. The authors argue that the gay community is willing to engage in self-indulgence to the extent of harming oneself. “Of all the misbehaviors we decry, self-indulgence is perhaps most characteristic of gays, and of the gay community as a whole.” Kirk and Madsen point out that the gay lifestyle is over-extravagant and hedonistic, selfish and immature, as well as deadening and unsustainable. There’s lots of sex and drugs involved. Initial tame sex becomes boring and unsatisfying, and the person becomes more promiscuous with multiple partners. At that point, there are two avenues of sexual excess to which this may lead: one of raunch and another of aggression. The authors also debunk the idea that ‘rough’ sex is harmless and take issue with the idea that it is just another expression of love. They argue that it is instead rooted in pain and hate, and such feelings have nothing to do with love, but lust.
• “Indulging our privates in public”. The authors claim that some gays act vulgarly in public, and the aim is to actually seek attention and revenge, while the “straight” community views such vulgar behavior as a kind of antagonism. Kirk and Madsen argue that public sex is the most malignant form of gay misbehavior, and there’s a lot of exhibitionism that goes on. Such ludicrous behaviors are common, and rather than discouraging them, many in the community rather “tacitly or vocally encourage them to continue”, and any legal action taken against such people is seen by the LGBT community as “anti-gay harassment”.
• Misbehavior in bars. The authors remark that the gay bar is the arena of sexual competition and gays reveal themselves as “single-minded, selfish sexual predators”. The game is youth and beauty, and the objective is to “score sexually”. If you are attractive in the eyes of others, you are welcomed universally. If not, you are going to have a hard time. In addition, it is clear that many gay people want attention and affection, and not any of the “dirty stuff” that goes around; hence, they get disillusioned with the obsession with sex, appearances, and looking and staying young (through obsessions with exercise, make-up and plastic surgery).
• Misbehavior in relationships: The authors claim that because of the temperament of men, gay relationships generally don’t last long. “Everybody’s looking, but nobody’s finding”, and because of the physiology and psychology of men, the man-man pairing is inherently less stable than that of man-woman. Women have a less intense sex drive than men and are more susceptible to emotions than to visual cues. Men are more visually stimulated than women and are therefore aroused more quickly and powerfully by the sight of an ‘ideal mate’. The man and woman in a heterosexual relationship balance each other, and women are less likely to experience everyday lust triggers, unlike men. Therefore, male-male relationships are unusually unstable and female-female relationships are unusually stable. Furthermore, sexual arousability depends heavily on ‘mystery’, i.e. to what extent the other is ‘unknown’ and more needs to be found out about the ‘other’. Because men are like men more than they are like women, there is less mystery between two men; therefore, sexual desire between men dwindles quickly and new relationships are sought constantly.  As for other kinds of relationships:
  • The authors claim it is hard for gay people to keep friends for a long time. Gays have a very superficial attitude towards friendship. Almost all gay relationships are based on sexual experiences, which can be a shallow ‘test’ of friendship. More meaningful characteristics of relationships are habitually less prioritized. “They cannot open up their emotions to others, because they can’t open them up to themselves.” And there’s always constant competition. “The same phony, saccharine smiles and cutting remarks, the same poisonous cattiness, the same insincere, grating use of the term 'dear' as though one were wielding a buzz saw.” They see each other as potential competition and as mere sex objects.
  • There’s an ongoing feeling of worthlessness, and one can only suppress this by providing the reassurance that one is desired sexually.
  • Promiscuity with anonymous partners is very common, the fuel of which are self-doubt and an inability to communicate emotions with others. Some people also engage in this lifestyle because they’re not confident in pursuing long-term or stable relationships, since they’re perceived as unattractive. 
  • Fear of commitment, unbalanced relationships, attachments, recurrent break-ups and backing out of relationships are common. Infidelities and unfaithfulness among couples are the norm and not the exception, given the sexual volatility in males. As such, “open relationships” are quite common. “It is, indeed, our impression that when gay relationships last at all, it's in diluted form, as the result of some such accommodation… But they don't usually last; eventually, one party heads for the door.”
  • Many times, partners are treated insensitively and are “disposed of” if the other party feels they have become too boring or they want to move on to somebody or something else. 
• Emotional blockage and anesthesia: it’s very common to be self-conscious and experience bodily discomfort, keeping emotions within, running away from emotions, putting on masks to please people, and using excessive humor or insults to distract from one’s real emotions. Alcohol and drugs are used to numb pain and difficult emotions, which include, according to the authors, the anxiety of approaching potential sexual partners and dealing with cruel rejections, as well as the greater fear of the homohatred in the larger society. Substance dependency of course makes matters worse.
• Problems with reasoning: it’s common for gay people to place a heavy emphasis on emotions and emotional reasoning, and cognitive distortions are common place, e.g. denial of reality, nonsensical or illogical thinking, wishful thinking and paranoia. Again, the authors subscribe this to social prejudice and stigma, that gay people deny the reality of the “homohatred” in which they live and suppress their emotions and feelings in order to make life more bearable. Hence, gay people have a greater tendency to take a trip to fantasy land and pick and choose reality denying beliefs more than straight people, and after all this suppression of emotions, they place a heavy emphasis on their emotions and voicing them, even more than facts.
• “Gay political fascism” and the oppression of political correctness: the authors talk about how gay intelligentsia create a climate where expressing certain opinions is met with hostility. Gay leaders and spokespersons like to describe relationships between gays and straights in oppressor/victim, black/white, friend/foe terms, leaving no room for nuanced opinions. This black/white attitude leads to an environment of antagonism and angry and violent rhetoric. As such, gays are confrontational in their activism rather than cooperative, and they reject all criticism of the gay community, including criticism given by gays themselves. They employ the same tactics as the “straight oppressors'' to silence critics, including “lying, smearing, shouting down, refusing the right of reply, name-calling, and counterstereotyping (imputing to all 'enemies' the same indiscriminate grab-bag of characteristics). ​​Their counterattacks have the same curiously formulaic, sloganeering quality in which their far-right enemies excel: be the criticism large or small, the critic straight or gay, the diagnosis is always the same cheap shot: you're a homophobe! - and you must also hate women, blacks, and all other oppressed minorities.” Even Kirk and Madsen criticize such behaviors and all-or-none thinking, which even includes straight authorities who try to help gay communities even if they cannot provide the ideal level of help and support (given the political constraints which would be placed on such authorities if they were to appear to wholeheartedly support homosexuals). And it is not just straight people, but even any criticism from within the gay community - an example is given of gay doctor Dan Williams who emphasized the ‘epidemiological threat’ to promiscuity within gay communities, he was silenced as a ‘monogamist’. The authors also denounce the gay community’s rejection of values of morality and family structure (which initially excluded homosexuals) without providing alternative structures and values, which leaves gays to explore a world of “individual isolation and communal immorality”. In short, “they know how to tear down, but not how to rebuild.”

55:35
Kirk and Madsen at the end try to posit some solutions, one of which is the notion of the “traditional gay family”, one which adheres to a list of social codes for the sake of moral uprightness, whilst retaining the ability to live an acceptable gay lifestyle. However, the authors believe the gay communities have a very negative idea of the traditional family, given that they themselves have come from emotionally broken families or have had negative experiences within their families. Hence, it’s common to find a promotion of “absolute individuality” in the gay community. “The sad truth is that, in real life, absolute individuality produces only absolute isolation and absolute loneliness.” They then assert that the gay lifestyle fails to serve two functions: “to constrain people's natural impulses to behave badly and to meet their natural needs.”

The gay lifestyle does not work, according to Kirk and Madsen, as gays form relationships “for the wrong reasons, with the wrong people, of the wrong ages.” The authors stress that, for a relationship to last, there needs to be a desire to give to the other “and not just sexually, but of love, support, and, not least, wisdom - with the intent of helping his lover to develop, grow personally, become the best he can be.” However, in reality, gay couples are forged not for love but for “sexual convenience”. So when the person gets tired of one sexual partner, he leaves him and goes on to find another one. In addition, the authors point out that there is no generation-to-generation continuity within the gay community; the young and old are socially separated: there’s “the young and attractive, who pair off only with the young and attractive, and the old and ugly, who pair off with nobody.” The gay person moves from young to old in this miserable dynamic, which the authors call the “two edged sexual sword”. The authors claim this terrible situation is brought about because there is not really anything within the gay community which resembles a family. As a result, “the community, as a whole, fails to grow in wisdom, or in the dependent capacity to protect itself, with the years; the prevailing mood of the individuals who make up that community becomes one of self-absorption and self-pity without charity or mercy for others, narcissism and loneliness, unrestrained folly, and a lack of communal solidarity, either emotional, political, or fiscal.”

While the authors claim that the traditional family structure serves positive social ends, it is still filled with much ‘suffering and neuroses’. This leads them to question the nuclear family structure and contemplate on alternatives, particularly beyond the Western civilization. The authors claim that: “Around the world, children are raised not only by Mom and Pop, but by Mom alone, Pop alone, extended matriarchies or patriarchies of great size,…” The authors claim that between the claustrophobia of the nuclear family and the ‘asphyxiating airlessness’ of the gay ghetto, there are many opportunities for gay people to integrate homosexuality into a social structure. They argue that there are examples of this in the past, particularly within Greek civilization, where homosexuality was allowed, but within clear cut normative grounds. The model is based on pederasty, where an attractive young boy would attract the attention of an older, more established man, and the relationship would be like a father-son, teacher-student or big brother-little brother relationship, with the addition of sex. “The youth would share his beauty and enthusiasm, the adult his strength, security, and guidance-as well as more tangible assets, including training in arms, a position in the adult's business, and so forth. Both parties would benefit to an extent beyond mere genital relief. From the point of view of the community, as well, this arrangement discharged a natural need - for homosexual gratification - in a manner advantageous to public character and morality.”

The authors stress however that homosexual relations based merely on orgasmic gratification would not be allowed. In other words, homosexuality outside of the prescribed social bounds would be condemned. It was also understood that once the youth became an adult, he would cease to become a lover and marry a woman, have children and build and nurture a family. The authors then quickly interject, proposing that in the model they outline, the wife and kids would be ejected from this picture.

“Among the Greeks, the erastes solicited the love of the eromenos through demonstration of what he had to offer over and above sexual intercourse: practical and occupational aid, wisdom, kindness, and love. Remember, it was considered shameful for a youth to submit to the advances of a man who, though attractive, was otherwise unworthy. The idea was that once the lover had gained the beloved's love, desire might follow-which is the way it should be, and, apparently, the way it often was.”

So Kirk and Madsen suggest the following: An older gay person can find a younger one in the current era, help him, impart his wisdom, etc., so that the younger one can grow up to be himself worthy to be an older participant in the relationship. This kind of configuration described by the authors is referred to as a “return to Plato”. They also stress for a better way for homosexuals to meet to explore relationships in this manner, beyond the usual gay bars and clubs. All viable social relationships have been structured around give and take, and they argue that the same should be for gay relationships too. ‘Mere sexual arousal’ should not be the only factor prompting sex with another man, according to Kirk and Madsen.

1:02:03
Kirk and Madsen emphasize towards the end of the book that they are not fighting for homosexuals to carry out ludicrous sexual acts in public, nor are they fighting against the family structure, nor are they fighting for the right of homosexuals to act with selfishness and narcissism. And while that may be true, the results we have been witnessing are far more damaging. Once the door is cracked open just a little bit, you can’t control the flood that comes through. Once the lifestyle is normalized and encouraged, there’s going to be decadence and debauchery, whether you like it or not, the family structure will be undermined, and the negative behaviors and characteristics that Kirk and Madsen themselves criticized will only be further entrenched, because one is not solving the actual underlying problems pervading the gay communities.

In the book, as well as the current LGBT narrative we witness nowadays, there is the assumption (or rather, the assertion) that homosexuality is a healthy fact of life, a normal variation of human sexuality, just like heterosexuality. This deliberately overlooks the countless problems propagated by the original wounds and traumas that are characteristic of the homosexual condition. When Kirk and Madsen address these “misbehaviors” in their book, they attribute many of them to social stigma and prejudice, as well as the pain encountered by gay people. While this may be true, it is, if anything, a partial explanation; it is only the tip of the iceberg. The main problems are much larger and more profound. We cannot and should not overlook the traumatic foundations of homosexuality; trauma propagates further trauma. 

How can we blame society for gay people’s hedonism, self-indulgence and narcissistic behavior, when clearly this is coming from deep within? Can we blame this on society if other minority groups were to exhibit similar behaviors (a hypothetical example which is unheard of), or is this only reserved for the LGBT community? What we see are trauma responses and pain-numbing mechanisms, self-gratification to soothe the pain, shame and inferiority that are lurking beneath the surface. The over fixation on the “ideal” comes as a response to broken families and a painful upbringing, the longing for the “ideal” masculine father-figure to save us from the pain and longing to be whole. How can we blame prejudice for the rampant promiscuity in gay communities, when it is in fact a never-ending loop of chasing a mirage that we think satisfies our need for intimacy and belonging but never fills that void within? Emotional blockage, an over activated fight-flight-freeze response, a greater propensity for emotional dependency and codependency, and running away at the first hint of “threat” or “boredom” are not merely signs of social oppression - anyone with trivial experience in human psychology would realize that this is coming from traumatic experiences and their aftermath, and such behaviors only fuel the traumas. This propagates a vicious cycle of further hurt, pain and longing.

Of course, the rejection of morality that Kirk and Madsen mention has its roots in the subconscious rejection of the very broken families in which many gay people were born and raised; the war on traditional values and families carries with it the pain of the past and a reminder of hurt and trauma. Sadly, this only feeds the divide of “us vs. them” and black-or-white thinking. Hurt begets more hate, trauma feeds into more trauma. And we’re forever stuck in a loop that is based on exclusion, division, difference and hate. A paradigm based in trauma can never lead to healing, for everything is interpreted as either “with us” or “against us”, leaving no room for nuance or dialogue. 

Many of the behaviors that Kirk and Madsen criticize are in fact childish behaviors, like narcissism and self-serving behaviors, avoidance of conflict and pain, a tendency for boredom, emotional reasoning and running off to a mental la la land when things get tough, as well as resorting to outrageous behavior to seek attention or revenge, fear of commitment, intimacy and vulnerability, and fear/rejection of criticism at all costs. What do children do when they’re threatened? They either run away and avoid you, or they scream at you and fight you back (and of course, they may shut down altogether). And the same happens here. Gay political fascism is nothing different from a child who wants what he wants and pulls a tantrum when he doesn’t get it (or if he gets anything short of what he demanded in the first place). It’s all about me, myself and I: “Praise me, love me, protect me. I am better than you, but I still need you. I’ll pretend that I don’t, but if you leave me, I’ll make a scene so bad that you’ll never want to leave me again.” Give that child leverage and power, and you’ve got yourself a mini tyrant. And that’s exactly what we’re dealing with here.

The bitter truth is, all this behavior cannot be explained away from the trauma that is foundational to the homosexual condition - it’s not like homosexuality is just another natural variant of human sexuality, or that these negative behaviors have tarnished homosexuality and gave it a bad rep. They’re part and parcel of the homosexual lifestyle, whether we like it or not. And I realize it is politically incorrect to say this, and the gay alarms and sirens would go off at the hint of what I’m saying. But that is the truth, and we cannot deny it. Heal the traumas and fill the voids in healthy ways, and you’ll get a radical shift in one’s experience. Kirk and Madsen preach in their book that gay people need to wake up, grow up and be better, that a pederastic alternative can be cultivated (just like the Greek model), and that such misbehaviors can be quelled. A simple look at today’s world shows you that that’s far from the truth. What Kirk and Madsen preach for is a utopia that is not based in reality or a solid understanding of the homosexual condition (or a state of denial, at the very least). To get to that maturity, one requires a lot of introspection, growth, recovery and healing work, which fundamentally involves facing one’s pains and past traumas, confronting one’s fears, practicing vulnerability with others and not running away from emotions, developing integrity, and, importantly, learning and practicing humility and surrender. Learning to lean into the discomfort, putting in the effort to grow up and change, investing in friendships and long-term relationships. All these are foundational and no easy feats. For people stuck at a psychosexual developmental stage of children who are in denial of their troubles and who yell “homophobia” at any hint of political incorrectness, how will they ever get anywhere near that level?

Blaming society for anything and everything is an immature defense mechanism that prevents us from taking a closer and deeper look in the mirror and examining the errors within. The self-pity and paranoid mentality is self-serving and self-perpetuating, keeping its victims trapped in a never-ending loop. Ironically, Kirk and Madsen call for change within the gay community yet remain trapped in the same-old way of thinking: It’s society’s fault for forcing gay people to adopt destructive behaviors to deal with hardships. However, the reality is that people never change if they blame others for their own mishaps. Of course, pain and trauma come from others, but healing and growth start within. 

A lifestyle that is literally a cry for help is destined to implode, sooner or later. Kirk and Madsen actually said it beautifully when they complained of the lack of something resembling a family: “The community, as a whole, fails to grow in wisdom, or in the dependent capacity to protect itself, with the years; the prevailing mood of the individuals who make up that community becomes one of self-absorption and self-pity without charity or mercy for others, narcissism and loneliness, unrestrained folly, and a lack of communal solidarity, either emotional, political, or fiscal.” And while they criticize the family unit and join other gay people in their despise of traditional families, in addition to trying to find alternative models, they slip into the same emotional reasoning they criticize in the first place – running away from the source of pain instead of trying to fix it. You can’t escape the pain, you can’t run away from your origin, you can’t go against the laws of God in His universe, no matter how hard you try. 

Which brings us to the next point. The driving force behind all this is rage. “Over history, love has severed no colonies from their mother countries, nor overthrown any czars, nor obliterated any Nazis, nor produced any civil rights movements. You may discount what the pious tell you, because it is actually rage, not love, that lay behind all those progressive events.” But anger and rage, as we’ve covered at length in season 4, always masks underlying hurt and pain, and in the case of the LGBT community, full acceptance of the lifestyle will, sadly, not contribute to an alleviation of that, but rather exacerbate them even further. The driving factor for all this is hurt and pain. How can this ever lead to healing and growth? If I’m angry at the broken family systems I grew up in, the answer is not to abolish the nuclear family unit in its entirety. If I’m angry with toxic masculinity and tyrant fathers and brothers, the answer is not to emasculate men altogether. If I’m enraged that I don’t fit in particular gender roles, the solution is not to deconstruct gender altogether and create a world with gender chaos. When all I see is pain and hurt, the overlying anger drives me to destroy instead of rebuild. One can only imagine where all of this is leading us. May Allah help us all.

1:12:37
Studying all this carefully shows us the delicate and decades-long planning and execution to bring about this radical shift in paradigm and collective consciousness. There are gay lobbying and advocacy groups, media groups, educational groups and other groups all harmonized and devoted to societal change in line with a common agenda. Of course, many people, especially the LGBT community, deny the presence of a “gay agenda”, but anyone studying these facts and simply observing what’s happening in today’s world would realize that there is indeed an active agenda at play.

In his book, A Queer Thing Happened to America: And What a Long, Strange Trip It's Been, Michael Brown states, “Whereas homosexuality was once considered a pathological disorder, from here on those who do not affirm homosexuality will be deemed homophobic, perhaps themselves suffering from a pathological disorder. Whereas gay sexual behavior was once considered morally wrong, from here on public condemnation – or even public criticism – of that behavior will be considered morally wrong. Whereas identifying as transgender was once considered abnormal by society, causing one to be marginalized, from here on those who do not accept transgenderism will be considered abnormal and will be marginalized.”

In the last couple of decades, and with regards to the aforementioned points, major changes have taken place in the public’s perception of homosexuality, same-sex relationships and the trans movement; the educational system’s embrace of homosexuality and the trans movement; legislative decisions recognizing the LGBT as a distinct group of people, equivalent to other ethnic groups, with particular civil rights and the prosecution of anti-discriminatory behavior; the media’s positive portrayal of LGBT people; corporations embracing and advertising for what was once considered unacceptable behavior; and religious groups no longer allowed to view homosexual practice or transgenderism as immoral, with such opposition branded as “hate speech.”

The global vocabulary has even witnessed a major shift. For example, “diversity” now is a code word to embracing all kinds of sexual orientation, gender identification and sexual expression (with a rejection of religious or moral conviction that does not embrace said “diversity”); “tolerance” now is equivalent to complete acceptance of LGBTQ lifestyles and ideology, in one’s family, workplace, education, media, religion, and so on (and intolerance to anything or anyone that does not); “inclusion” refers to supporting, sponsoring, and even encouraging gay events and LGBTQ goals (with the exclusion of those not in line with such events and goals); and “hate” refers to any thoughts, words and actions not in line with LGBTQ narrative, with gay people themselves being virtually exempt from said hate speech, since they’re the perceived victims and not the victimizers.

The LGBTQ movement has usurped certain words and changed their meaning in an act of deliberate “semantic transformation” that conveys ownership and de-stigmatization. Take the example of the word “queer”, for instance. It was essentially a derogatory word used to point out people of deviant behavior, but then it was reclaimed and branded as positive by the LGBTQ community, and it’s now mainstream and even hipster. Queer is cool. Recall the threefold strategy put forward by Kirk and Madsen for the normalization of the agenda in the larger community: desensitization, jamming and conversion. The transformation of the “heteronormative lexicon” is by no means a coincidence, but rather a deliberate act of social change. As Michael Brown states, “The strategy is simple: Take the offensiveness out of the offense. Normalize the abnormal. Make the unacceptable acceptable. Legitimize the illegitimate. Remove the outrage from the outrageous. Take the sense of urgency out of the alarm. This way, when the alarm is sounded, people will not even hear it. Their ears will have become so accustomed to its tone that it no longer startles them, no longer alerts them, no longer wakes them up.”

It is no longer the case to provide freedom of overt expression to the gay or lesbian movements, but rather to all forms of sexual preferences and gender expression. Language has been weaponized, and definitions reshuffled towards that end, culminating in what is termed “Lavender Language” i.e. if you free one group of people from sexual constraints born of morality, religion, and culture, then all people must be free and protected by law, and all those in opposition are discriminatory and criminal. Such a major shift in definitions will inevitably lead to a society of “omnisexuals”, as Michael Brown calls it, i.e. a society where anything goes and all is accepted in the sexuality and gender sphere, which no longer has set and defined boundaries. In other words, gender is fluid and arbitrary.

Hello, Orwellian Newspeak (or shall we say, Genderspeak)! In his novel 1984, George Orwell presents us with a controlled language system known as Newspeak, which restricts people’s vocabulary and self-expression, using purposefully ambiguous and confusing language, which diminishes people’s range of thought. Does this ring any bells?

Under the banner of “inclusivity” and “equality”, we are now forced to use what is known as “inclusive communication” - and it’s not one related to race or ethnicity or religion, but rather one that’s “inclusive” of gender identities and sexual orientations. World languages are literally being transformed to accommodate “woke” culture and LGBTQ guidelines. Instead of assuming that gender is male or female, it’s becoming a norm nowadays to include “other” and “prefer not to say” on application forms; “ladies and gentlemen” is being replaced with “dear colleagues”; gendered nouns like “man-made”, “policeman” and “husband” are being dropped for gender neutral terms like “synthetic”, “member of the police force” and “spouse”, for example; declaring pronouns in public and private institutions, as well as online, is becoming more normalized, and we are forced to use people’s declared pronouns when addressing them. 

Things are going too far actually. Nowadays, we can’t say “women who are pregnant” or “women who menstruate”, as this can be deemed transphobic. It’s rather “person who is pregnant” or “person who menstruates”, as trans-men can get pregnant and menstruate. A recent article in The Economist entitled “Why the word “woman” is tying people in knots” states: “A growing number of officials and organizations are finding themselves tongue-tied when it comes to using the word “woman”. A British hospital has instructed staff on its maternity wards to offer to use the phrase “birthing people”.” What really made me appalled at one point was seeing the cover of an issue of one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, The Lancet, say: “Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected.” Bodies with vaginas? Is this how we describe biological females now? Can we appreciate how ridiculous and confusing this is? But no, we can’t say anything, otherwise we’re slapped with a transphobic stamp and canceled. Remember when the author of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling, was crucified online in 2020 for ridiculing a headline that said “people who menstruate” instead of using the term “women”, and since then, she’s been considered transphobic?

All of this is not inclusivity, but rather a complete erasure of gender. And what better way to achieve it than using Newspeak, or Genderspeak. Again, the definition of Newspeak is carefully-crafted ambiguous and confusing language, which aims to diminish people’s range of thought. And of course, nowadays, this isn’t limited to gender, but also involves history, religion and national identities. Any noncompliance is a thought crime, and the thought police will make sure you’re caught, stamped as a “bigot”, and canceled for life.

Actually, in one of her tweets mocking these charades, J.K. Rowling herself quotes the three slogans of the Ministry of Truth from Orwell’s 1984, “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength” to reveal the Orwellian irony of what we’re experiencing today. Indeed, as Orwell himself said, “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” And this is what we’re witnessing today.

1:22:24
It has also been a major gay strategy, traced back to the 1980’s, to shift the emphasis from behavior to identity, emphasizing the “rights” of gays as people and deemphasizing their sexual behavior. As explained by conservative journalist David Kupelian: “Simple case in point: homosexual activists call their movement “gay rights.” This accomplishes two major objectives: (1) Use of the word gay rather than homosexual masks the controversial sexual behavior involved and accentuates instead a vague but positive-sounding cultural identity – gay, which, after all, once meant “happy”; and (2) describing their battle from the get-go as one over “rights” implies homosexuals are being denied the basic freedoms of citizenship that others enjoy. So merely by using the term gay rights, and persuading politicians and the media to adopt this terminology, activists seeking to transform America have framed the terms of the debate in their favor almost before the contest begins. (And in public relations warfare, he who frames the terms of the debate almost always wins….).”

Put in more sympathetic terms, Prof. David Halperin, professor of gender studies and queer theory, explains: “In the wake of more than a century of medical and forensic treatment of homosexuality as a psychiatric pathology or aberration, lesbians and gay men of the post-Stonewall era directed much political effort to undoing the presumption that there was something fundamentally wrong with us. In this context, it seemed necessary to close off the entire topic of gay subjectivity to respectable inquiry, so as to prevent gayness from ever again being understood as a sickness. In pursuit of that goal, the lesbian and gay movement has produced a remarkably plausible and persuasive new definition of homosexuality in political rather than psychological terms. To be gay, according to this new definition, is not to exhibit a queer subjectivity, but to belong to a social group. Homosexuality refers not to an individual abnormality but to a collective identity…. What gay people have in common, then, is not a psychological disorder but a social disqualification. We also share a long history of savage, even genocidal oppression, which gives us an immediate claim to social tolerance, freedom from discrimination, and overall improvement in our life chances.”

Commenting on this, Michael Brown in his book says, “What this ultimately means is that, rather than seeing the LGBT movement as part of the sexual revolution of the 60’s (which is associated with promiscuity and the casting off of moral restraints) or, worse still, as reflecting an aberrant, disordered condition, it is seen as part of the Civil Rights movement, thereby being identified as a struggle for equality and justice. Thus LGBT issues are framed in terms of civil rights rather than being associated with a sexual behavior or sexual focus.”

Of course, the gay and lesbian community perceives their cause as a matter of civil rights and as a struggle for equality and justice. It is not merely a matter of rhetoric or good PR. The LGBT community would emphasize that they are regular people who live their lives like everyone else, going to school, working jobs, paying their taxes, falling in love, having families, and so on, so why stigmatize them because of their sexual orientation or sexual behavior?

What’s important to realize is that the hallmark of the LGBTQ movement is the issue of sexuality and gender expression, meaning that homosexuality and same-sex sexual behavior, and most recently transgenderism, are at the forefront of the movement. After all, it is a person’s sexual attractions, behaviors and gender expression that identifies him/her as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and so on. So, naturally, sexual issues would receive more focus among gay people than straight ones. In addition to that, and while heterosexual sex is inherently procreative in nature (even if every instance of sex doesn’t result in children), homosexual sex, by definition, is devoid of that quality; hence, sex takes on a more dominant role in gay relationships, compared to straight ones. That is not to say that gay relationships are 100% about sex while straight ones aren’t, but it is a logical conclusion (coupled with empirical evidence to support it) that gay relationships have a more profound sexual aspect, which is a defining factor in such bonds, hence one would expect more promiscuity and a broader emphasis on sex itself.

Furthermore, and as Michael Brown says, “Since heterosexuality is the assumed norm for the vast majority of people, “being gay” (in terms of embracing a homosexual orientation and lifestyle) means swimming against the tide of a heterosexual society. Thus, one’s homosexuality can easily become the major focus of life (often by necessity, in order to survive and maintain sanity, or, at the least, in order to keep intact one’s sexual – meaning, gay – identity). Moreover, because most gays and lesbians do not raise children and are not in committed, long-term relationships (especially the men), multiple relationships and an identity wrapped up in sex become the norm for many.” It is not uncommon to find that many gay men have had hundreds, even thousands of sexual partners by the time they hit forty years of age.

The point from all of this is not to demonize the LGBT community or say that all they’re concerned about is sex and promiscuity, but rather to show how disingenuous it is to say that the issue before us is only one of identity, civil rights, tolerance and equality, and not one related to sexuality and behavior. There is so much in gay culture that is about sex, more so than in the heterosexual world, and that is just facts. And as one would expect, an over-fixation on sex and sexuality with resultant promiscuity carries with it a myriad of STDs, including HIV and other life-threatening illnesses. As gay activist and author Gabriel Rotello says “HIV truly strikes us where we live. Its means of transmission – sex – is the very thing that to many of us defines us as gay men, drives our politics and our erotics, gives us our modern identity, provides the mortar of much of our philosophy and community, and animates much of our lives.” Multiple empirical studies and epidemiological research from the past decades have revealed shocking statistics about the level of promiscuity among homosexual men and women and the rapid spread of STDs among the community, with monogamy being the exception not the rule.

Gay couples commonly have a different definition of “monogamy” than do straight couples. As Kirk and Madsen wrote, “Yes, that wayward impulse is as inevitable in man-to-man, affairs as in man-to-woman, only, for gays, it starts itching faster.” Thus, “Many gay lovers, bowing to the inevitable, agree to an ‘open relationship,’ for which there are as many sets of ground rules as there are couples.” But that’s not a message we get from gay activists or the media, who are constantly showing us touching stories of gay couples remaining faithful to one another or living a normal, healthy lifestyle just like their straight counterparts. Of course, faithful, truly monogamous, long-term gay relationships may exist, but they are quite a rare occurence in the gay world. As Michael Brown states, “To the extent that this is representative of even a minority of gay men, it reminds us that we can’t focus only on identity; behavior is an issue as well. And it would be ludicrous to think that, with the advent of same-sex marriage or civil unions in some countries and states, gay male promiscuity will suddenly and dramatically decline. That hasn’t happened yet.” And it won’t happen.

Once again, this is not about demonizing the LGBT community or to say that the majority of gay men have had multiplied thousands of sexual partners. There are issues with people, regardless of their sexuality, there are plenty of other behaviors and attitudes that matter, and there are of course plenty of promiscuous, lust-filled, and deviant heterosexual men and women. That being said, one cannot deny that homosexual identity is largely connected to homosexual practice, despite the popular emphasis on identity rather than behavior. The two cannot be so easily separated. Also, the notion that there are no real differences between heterosexual couples and same-sex couples (especially male ones) is simply not true. Promiscuity is real, bathhouses and looking for partners, hook-up culture, anonymous sex, etc. are very common. Higher rates of infidelity and open relationships are the rule, and monogamy is the exception, and this is agreed upon and not considered cheating. All of this defeats the argument that homo- and heterosexual relationships/marriages are the same, or that homosexuality is a normal and healthy variation of human sexuality.

Even Kirk and Madsen admit to this, “There is more promiscuity among gays (or at least among gay men) than among straights …. Correspondingly, the snail trail of promiscuity – sexually transmitted disease – also occurs among gay men at a rate five to ten times higher than average.” Far more shocking – and tragic – is the fact that AIDS and HIV occur among gay men at a rate more than 400 times higher than average. And let’s not forget the self-indulgence, narcissistic tendencies and the myriad of misbehaviors that Kirk and Madsen themselves outlined which we discussed before in this episode.

The more the LGBTQ agenda advances in its “milestones” and “triumphs”, the more rampant these issues become; despite increasing levels of social acceptance of homosexuality and despite major advances in the gay activist agenda, gay men in particular continue to be notoriously promiscuous and tragically unsafe in their sexual practices. HIV among gay men is still spreading at an alarming rate. Of course, the immediate reply from the gay community would be “social prejudice” and “communal stigma”, that gay people have long been oppressed and not allowed to get married, hence promiscuity is a reaction to social pressures. Data actually shows that is simply not true, and the three primary reasons given for unsafe gay sex are: AIDS optimism (meaning that there is less concern about the potentially fatal consequences of AIDS), condom fatigue (meaning that over a period of time, the men grow weary of using condoms), and low self-esteem (meaning that a gay man with low self-esteem will not want to put off his partner by refusing to have unprotected sex). Studies also indicate that “out of the closet” gay men apparently engage in far more frequent and risky sex than do “closeted” gays. As one would expect, it is often in the most “liberated” homosexual circles that things are so often out of control sexually.

Major gay pride events and parades have often been marked by the flaunting of all kinds of sexuality and sexual perversions, in stark contrast with other public events and parades in the secular and religious world. In the same way, watershed gay literature is all too frequently marked by a pronounced emphasis on sex – often in its most perverse, degraded forms, while even “queer theology” is often shockingly sex-centered. As Michael Brown posits, “Go ahead and tell me it’s not about sex, or that sex is not a major driving factor. And let the larger gay community prove that it’s not about sex by demonstrating that gay men are no more promiscuous than heterosexual men, that committed gay couples (especially male) are just as faithful as committed heterosexual couples, that gay literature and scientific studies clearly, decisively, and unequivocally shut the door on “man-boy love,” that there is not a strongly sexual side even to many segments of “gay Christianity,” that perverse and blasphemous papers will no longer be presented by gay theologians, or that children’s books and stories are not celebrating these ideas, and so on.”

Pointing out all of these issues is nowadays politically incorrect and homophobic, but the truth is, and as Michael Brown states, “Pointing out the dangers of certain homosexual practices is an act of love, not hate or irrational fear. Indeed, if we truly care about gay men – and are prepared to love them in a self-sacrificing way – then we should compassionately and candidly speak with them about the dangers they routinely expose themselves (and others) to through their sexual practices.”

Given everything discussed so far, if the whole LGBTQ issue was only one of treating gays and lesbians with civility and decency, one eliminating all violence against the community, we would all wholeheartedly join in the efforts against such heinous acts. But that is not the whole picture. We can’t deny that much of today’s debate is actually sex driven. While we stand up for the LGBTQ community when they are attacked and hated, we won’t stand up and fight so that men can have sex with men and women can have sex with women, or for men to transition to women and vice versa, or for people to break down the male-female dichotomy and deconstruct notions of gender, or support an agenda that opens the door to all kinds of sexual perversions, gender confusion and social chaos.

1:37:42
And with this, we have come to the end of today’s episode, which is part I of our 2-episode series entitled “On Politics, Genderspeak and a Queer New World”. In the next episode, inshaAllah, we will continue this discussion and explore the influence of the LGBTQ movement on the media, religion and theology, educational systems, businesses and corporations, psychology and therapy as well as society at large. Until next time, stay safe and healthy. This has been Waheed Jensen in “A Way Beyond the Rainbow”, assalamu alaikom wa rahmatullahi ta’ala wa barakatuh.