Ken Dobson's Queer Ruminations from Thailand
Search this site
  • Life in Thailand
  • Queer Issues in Thailand
  • Queer Christian Issues
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Stories

A Leader Lost

5/3/2018

4 Comments

 
Picture
This week we probably lost another LGBT leader.  What makes it unusual is that he abdicated, in effect.  He felt compelled to proclaim that he thinks his life-long conservative political convictions are falsely understood by “the LGBT community” in such a way that he has to choose between being an LGBT advocate and a supporter of US President Donald Trump. In other words he feels obligated to choose between being consistent with his beliefs and being an advocate for LGBT rights being held by a community that he thinks insists he stand for a whole list of “liberal” issues. Since he cannot pick and choose the issues he wants to advocate, he feels forced to choose between being head of an LGBT advocacy network and being a political conservative “in the Trump era”.

These are key passages from his long message posted this week:
 
I do not support Black Lives Matter; I do not believe in systemic racism, white privilege, safe spaces, intersectionality, reparations or the third wave of feminism. I do not believe in sanctuary cities.
 
I support Brexit, school voucher, nationalism, boarders, equality of opportunity not equality of outcome, rule of law, small government, gun ownership, pro-life, and separation of church and state (rightly understood).
 
I cannot be in the closet [about his political conservatism] any longer simply because I am a gay "activist" and simply because identity politics dictates that I must be liberal or be ostracized from the LGBT group. I choose to be ostracized from the LGBT community, if that's my only choice.

 
He is choosing ostracism, a type of social martyrdom.  He is marching bravely into the Internet coliseum singing “Nearer My God to Thee”.  

What we have here is another gay person who voted for Trump and now wants to ignore the things Trump is doing and defend his vote as from his heart of hearts.  One question is how can any gay people willingly vote against their best interests, but the other question is what do they think their best interests are?  

My first thought was that he is confused and his list of things he supports is quite inconsistent and incompatible with actual issues LGBT groups advocate.  But on second thought he may be right, just unclear about how he is right, that he has to choose between “us and them.”  I propose the following as thoughts as to what is going on between Liberals and Conservatives in the USA and elsewhere:

In many countries (perhaps every country) there is a struggle going on to promote human rights and opportunities for LGBT persons.  This has initially been divisive before finding areas and strategies for rapprochement, in those places where that has been accomplished.  Particular campaigns have included same-sex marriage and the rights of transsexuals and transgender persons to have their sex identity changed on official documents, as well as the right of same-sex couples to adopt children.  Often churches and other religious organizations have been active opponents of these efforts, citing beliefs that the sexual binary is an inviolable law of nature or that males are created superior to females.  LGBT rights groups have sought linkages to other human rights groups whenever possible.  It is a strategy to produce strength through numbers.  Opponents have tried to discredit these groups by focusing on a particular issue in order to divide and defeat them more easily.  The divisions between “liberals and conservatives” have basically been about these linkages.

My “Ah Ha!” is a realization that we often fail to differentiate between principles and strategies.  For example, LGBT advocacy groups have often sought to align themselves with other groups advocating different forms of human rights.  Feminist rights, racial rights, sexual rights, immigration rights, healthcare rights – they have a lot in common and advocates can learn from and assist each other.  We can march together in a Pride parade or #Me Too rally.  But opponents of one of the issues can highlight that and seek to discredit “the whole agenda,” tarring everyone with the same brush.  Church groups, having become convinced that abortion is not a human right but a grievous sin, find it easy to lump anyone favoring abortion with those who favor other issues as well.  Zionist groups excoriate anyone who advocates human rights for Palestinians and call all with whom they associate anti-Semites.  Racists in the USA, feeling threatened by increases in numbers of people of color, have chosen “Confederate Monuments” and battle flags, as a symbolic issue to be used against a wider swath of “dangerous ideas” including controls of any kind on firearms, or homeschooling.  The idea is to unhitch one issue from the package the opposition is presumed to advocate in order to quash the opposition.
​
The fallacy, of course, is the failure to notice that advocacy groups try to form alliances without necessarily subscribing to all items on every list some other marchers are hoping to accomplish.  When we collapse all those distinct aspirations into a lump with a libelous label other aspects of our logic and rationale begin to collapse, too.  Then it is easier to feel like a victim.  When we succumb to paranoia, we are lost to our cause.
4 Comments
Mark
5/3/2018 07:55:55 pm

Great perspective.

Reply
Kenneth Chester Dobson
5/4/2018 09:27:18 am

Thanks, Mark.

Reply
Roy A DeBolt
5/4/2018 02:49:03 am

Whoa! There's a lot to think about in all this so I am going to have to read this more than once. As I have gotten older I am hearing myself say, "I never looked at it that way before" and this article has more than one topic. Thanks for writing it.

Reply
Kenneth Chester Dobson
5/4/2018 09:28:43 am

I was thinking of you, too, Roy, when I wrote some of this. We'll talk about it when you are ready.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Rev. Dr. Kenneth Dobson posts his weekly reflections on this blog. 

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Copyright © 2023 Rev. Dr. Kenneth Dobson