We the Few Who Never Accepted the Sexual Revolution: Treading the Line Between a Conservative Sexual Ethic and Hating Homosexuals (Part I)

As Rod Dreher has argued, we live in a difficult time for social conservatives. The rise of the LGBTQ community as a political force has finally eliminated any pretense, in the wake of the Sexual Revolution, that we are still dealing with a Judeo-Christian society. The previous generation could pretend that even if society was sinful and full of people who had strayed from traditional values, they could be brought in line with a slight nudge. For example, if you voted Republicans into office, they could take over the Supreme Court, allow prayer back in public schools, ban abortion and the country would eventually turn itself around. Regardless of the fate of Donald Trump and the Republican Party, this will not happen.

One might have hoped to live in a world in which we social conservatives, even if we had no influence, were left alone. This is increasingly not the case as the Overton Window has moved from a libertarian neutral or even oppositional tolerance regarding homosexuality where I might have utter contempt for your personal life choices, but believe that you should be allowed to pursue them in the privacy of your own home to a demand for active tolerance that declares the LGBTQ lifestyle to be an active good. Social conservatives are quickly finding themselves treated in the same fashion as white supremacists, chased out of universities and unable to hold down jobs in mainstream professions. It only remains to be seen if the government will one day come for our children. 

To further complicate matters, our opponents in the LGBTQ community are not entirely wrong. As a historically oppressed group that has often been denied even libertarian tolerance and subject to violence, it should come as no surprise that, now that the tables are turned, they show little in the way of tolerance in return. Also, let us be honest, many people use social conservatism as cover for genuine hatred of LGBTQ people as opposed to ideological opposition to that lifestyle. In that spirit, here are my guidelines for those trying to walk a narrow line between maintaining their credibility as social conservatives without giving our opponents plausible cause to accuse us of hatred.

The first point is to avoid active conflict. One should not directly attack members of the LGBTQ community as such even to make the point that they are sinners. The fact that LGBTQs are likely to become casualties of a conservative sexual ethic may not be avoidable but it should never be an end in itself. This position is necessary even as it means giving up any chance of winning the larger social conflict.

To understand why this is the case, it may be useful to consider the example of opponents of Israel. Clearly, one can be opposed to the State of Israel without being an anti-Semite. There are valid criticisms of Israel to be made. As an anarcho-capitalist, who opposes all governments as the products of violence, I am hardly unsympathetic to those who would consider Israel to be illegitimate. The problem with opponents of Israel, even when they are right on the facts, is that they are trapped by the existence of people using the anti-Israel cause as a Trojan Horse for anti-Semitism. This means that anyone attacking Israel is obligated to demonstrate clear daylight between themselves and anti-Semites. 

This is the case even when that means that, under certain circumstances, one is forced into silence. For example, one might object to Israel's handling of Gaza but it is rather difficult to articulate those criticisms without sounding like an apologist for Hamas. This may mean that the people in Gaza will not receive Justice but there are many other causes not blatantly tainted by terrorism worthy of attention. When Hamas is no longer a factor, then we could revisit the Israeli Occupation. You can consider yourself exempt from standing up for the Palestinians because of Hamas. It is their fault that there is no independent Palestinian State in Gaza.

The problem with attacking the gay rights movement is simply the existence of opponents of gay rights. For example, we live in a world in which the Westboro Baptist Church exists and is not simply a Poe Law begging satire of religious fundamentalists. You have people like Scott Lively, who are clearly motivated by a pathological hatred of gays and wish them physical harm. This limits one's ability to oppose the gay rights movement without implicitly being an apologist for them. This does not change the fact that there is no such thing as gay rights and that the term is simply a trap to discredit opponents. One has to conclude that there are many sins out there that are damaging society. Focus on one that is not gay sex. If that means that promotors of homosexuality win, the WBC and Scott Lively can answer to God for how they sacrificed traditional marriage in this country for the sake of being on television.

There is a lesson my father has tried to teach me. Sometimes, it is not enough to be right. There are certain battles that are not worth the cost even when you are right. The very act of trying to defend certain things, even when you are right, indicates that there is a larger lesson you have failed to learn. For example, anti-BDS legislation may technically be defendable on free-speech grounds. That being said, a true defender of civil liberties should not want to be stuck having to defend themselves, allowing the free speech debate to distract from the fact that BDS is part of a conspiracy to kill Jews. Similarly, if leftist opponents of Trump were serious about fighting racism, they would not have allowed anti-Semitism to become an issue. For social conservatives to willingly initiate an exchange that requires them to explain how they are not homophobic indicates something skewered in their priorities.

A good example of this is the recent Jewish Press article on homosexuality. I have no particular love for the Jewish "De-Pressed." That being said, I find nothing objectionable in the article's argument per se. The fact that there was a controversy indicates something about the state of affairs and how little the Left is willing to tolerate deviation from their established line. That being said, this is a battle I do not wish to fight even if I suspect that many of the people who criticized the article would not recognize any difference between the author and myself. At the end of the day, Irwin Benjamin shows little empathy for why people march in pride parades. His article could have made the same point while avoiding the implication that homosexuals are animals and ending with something along the lines of "I wish those marching well and understand why they are doing so even as I am constrained from joining in." The fact that he did not do so indicates that what motivates him is not a love of God's Torah but that he honestly sees homosexuals as animals and is offended that they could take pride in themselves as human beings. (See Rabbi Yakov Horowitz's pitch-perfect letter to the editor.) If this means that gays will be able to blaspheme the Torah to their heart's content well that is on Benjamin. 

(To be continued ...)

Scott Lively Defends America Against the Threat of Gay Nazis on the Daily Show

Yesterday my roommate showed me a clip from Jon Stewart's Daily Show about an anti-homosexual pastor, arguing that homosexuals are exceptionally brutal since they lack any self control.

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I had an even bigger laugh since this pastor was none other than Scott Lively, with whom I had a long series of exchanges several months ago on this very blog. My responses to Lively were more substantive, but not nearly as devastating as what Jason Jones does to him.

Porno Theaters and Aryan Coffee Shops: The Libertarian Case for Legalized Discrimination (Part III)

(Part I, II) 

This relatively recent redefinition of rights as protecting not just one's physical person, but one's own personal emotional well being, is one of the foundational hypocrisies of modern liberalism and a death blow to a free society. The moment we are allowed to bring non-empirical psychological suffering then all of a sudden I have a case against the sinful women of Nevada. It bothers me that such things are allowed in this country. I am kept awake at night worried about what sort of hurricanes my zealous patriarchal deity might bring to this country and if he will stop viewing us as his special chosen nation with the right to bomb other countries at will. Scott Lively will finally be able to do something about all the homosexual activity that bothers him and will be able to push through the sorts of laws that he has been helping pass in Uganda.

As John Stuart Mill understood, if liberty, as the right to pursue your own good in your own way as long as it does not interfere with the liberties of others, is to mean something, interference with the liberties of others, in essence harm, must be very narrowly understood. Living in a society, every action affects someone else and can thus open itself to the charge of harm. If harm is understood in the sense of causing psychological harm than all actions interfere with the liberties of others and therefore there ceases to be any such thing as pursuing your own good in your own way. In essence, there is no meaningful difference between modern liberals, with their psychological harm, and historic conservatism, which denied the principle of liberty to begin with. At least conservatives are not hypocritical enough to pretend that they are offering anything else but privileges for select groups.

From this perspective, a major plank of the civil rights movement collapses. School segregation ceases to be an inherent violation of civil liberties as long as there is equal funding. It would simply be the absurd and immoral attempt to maintain a racial version of medieval hierarchy in the modern age. Blacks attempting to demand service in white restaurants were not fighting for liberty. On the contrary, they were trespassing on the property of others in the attempt to force their values on other people and violate their right to property, association and the pursuit of happiness. Our legal system and federal government failed in their role as they chose to pursue a series of fake manufactured rights over real and legitimate ones.

Granted, I am hard-pressed to find a more deserving group for this to happen to. As all civil libertarians know, you protect the rights of those who do not deserve it, such as drug dealers, child molesters, and terrorists, knowing that this harms society. You do this because you would rather be in court defending drug dealers, child molesters, and terrorists than your child, your neighbor, or your best friend, with the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting on the bad side of the wrong public official.         

Make no mistake about it; we are paying a price for violating the civil liberties of segregationists and white supremacists, no matter how much I think we are better off for them getting what they "deserved." We have allowed the left to abuse the rights of others and it is not stopping with the "bad guys." Now we have a gay rights movement taking up the mantel and claiming group victimhood and the protection of their "right" to have their lifestyles validated by society through marriage. (Note that I support gay marriage on libertarian grounds as long as it is not considered a civil right.) Our debate on same-sex marriage has long since devolved from whether it is a good thing to whether someone can oppose it without being a bigot out to oppress others. By going to the courts and arguing for gay marriage on civil rights grounds, gay rights supporters have committed themselves to demonizing their opponents and using the power of government to force their values on other people. With hate crime legislation, this becomes all the more ominous. Will I lose my job or even any future theoretical children on the grounds that I am known to believe that gay sex is a sin like eating pork or, even worse, that I deny that sex can define people any more than eating and that therefore homosexuality is about as meaningful for our discourse of rights as pig eating?    

(To be continued …)

The Bible as the Political Foundation of the Democratic State: My Response to Dr. Lively IV

Mr. Chinn,

I did not blame the Rwandan genocide on homosexuals.  Once again, you can't trust these "gay" activists to do anything but misrepresent the facts to their political advantage.  The Box Turtle video is heavily edited in true Hitlerian style.  I used the Rwandan genocide only as an example of conduct of which only certain types of people are capable who have such an lack of "feminine" characteristics in their gender balance (vis a vis the principle of male/female duality in Genesis 1:27) that they can commit horrible atrocities without any sense of shame.  If you want to understand the context, see pages 50-56 of my book, which I was lecturing from during that segment of the seminar.  Even if I had accused the Rwandan killers of homosexuality, which I did not, I clearly stated that homosexuals of this type are fortunately very rare and that most homosexuals are not like this.  I also spoke at length about the necessity of treating homosexuals as fellow human beings who happen to suffer from a behavioral problem that the rest of us don't -- but that we all have challenges in life to address.  No one who attended my lectures and listened attentively could reasonably justify capital punishment for homosexuals based solely on my teachings.

I read Rabbi Sacks' editorial and agree with him.  I think his position is closer to mine that to yours, especially in his affirmation of natural rights as they were understood by the founding fathers.  Locke's Second Treatise of Government is precisely the sort of application of Biblical principles to government that I am recommending.

I only yielded on Shaw to make the greater point that my purpose in contacting you was not to advocate a position, but to refer you to a source that was relevant to your research.  I don't concede re Shaw, but am tabling my original assertion pending an eventual review of the source by either one of us.

I don't think you understood my arguments regarding secularism.  I do not argue for religious tests or rituals in government, but for the necessity of a Biblically-informed worldview in the leadership and culture (to the extent that government actively influences culture. I do not argue that atheists cannot be good citizens, just that their worldview cannot produce a healthy orderly society.

I don't think my discussion of Biblical principles is spiritual in the sense that you meant it.  Yes, I believe Scripture must be the final authority in spiritual matters, and I suspect (though I haven't read them) that Maimonides, et al would agree -- as I believe with some confidence based on my limited readings of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine that they would also agree. Neither do I disregard the physical commandment against homosexuality. I start with the physical commandment and the actions of God as stated in Scripture, and, like the authorities you cite, engage in deductive and inductive reasoning to extrapolate the principles.

True, this is also what the "gay" affirming heretics of the "mainline" protestant denominations have done, but that isn't proof that the method is invalid, but merely that someone is wrong in his analysis.

This method of extrapolating and applying Biblical principles is literally the essence of the common-law jurisprudence that undergirds Western Civilization. And its concept of Stare Decisis is the same philosophical assumption inherent in Catholic and Jewish approach to religious authority i.e. that once a matter has been decided by a learned man under God-granted authority, it needn't be contested the next time that same or closely similar matter arises. Why is Maimonides a great authority? Because he invented his own theology independent of the Torah or because he analyzed the meaning of the Torah so brilliantly that other great minds conceded that he was right?

Protestantism arose when great minds became unwilling to accept the conclusions of the religious authorities of their age and began to offer alternative analyses. Granted, it is a tradition that produces a lot of division, but I think its legacy via men like Locke is a vast improvement over the centralized authority of the Holy Roman Empire and is successors.

As for your final comments regarding "homophobia," I still think you're embracing politically correct assumptions in contradiction to your faith and to good logic.

Dr. Scott Lively

My response:

Dr. Lively,  

I do not trust homosexual activists nor do I trust you. For that matter, I do not trust activists in general with any claim that furthers their cause. This is a basic part of the historian's training. We interrogate texts; we can tell when we our sources are being dishonest with us and we can often even make a good guess of what the truth is. Like a good police interrogator, we can take our source and turn his words against him. Your stated position is that you do not blame Rwanda on homosexuals, but simply believe that homosexuality played an important in creating the sort of people who could do such a thing. In an ivory tower of dialectics, I can recognize that between such beliefs. There would even be a distinction if we were to "legally" put homosexuals on trial for causing genocide. That being said, for a lay person on the street there is not going to be a difference. If homosexuality helps create people capable of mass murder than the future safety of the country requires that we round up and imprison homosexuals and if that proves impractical we must kill them. You did not make your arguments in a legal or genocide studies journal. You traveled to Uganda to publically make these statements. I am certainly no gay rights activist, but there is nothing unfair about that video of yours. You cannot play innocent on this one.

As to Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, notice that he openly acknowledges that homosexuals were victims of the Holocaust. He does not advocate rounding up homosexuals, putting them in prison, or even trying to cure them. All that he is interested in doing is to prevent gay rights from turning into a right to go on the offense and blackmailing people of faith. In terms of the role of the Bible in government, I acknowledge that historically the rise of democratic political theory in Europe had a lot to do with the Christian, particularly Protestant, theology of the Early Modern period. Much of my efforts in teaching history go into debunking the secularist narrative that assumes that modernity was a secular project. As I often tell my student, "modernity was a Christian project that had interesting unforeseen consequences." John Locke is a very good example of this. One cannot read Locke without coming to terms with the fact that he is engaged in a Christian project to create a reformed Christian society. My friend Michael Makovi has been blogging on this issue. You might enjoy his work. He recommended an article to me by Michael McVicar on R. J. Rushdoony that I think may offer some context as to where someone like you fits into the liberal tradition.

The fact that the Bible has played an important role in the rise of free societies means that it should be a part of the historical and philosophical discussion; it does not mean that we should be trying to implement biblical law or that we need a society of Bible believers. Liberal Democracy seems to work in Japan and South Korea despite the fact that they are not a Bible believing Christian society. I am glad you recognize that atheists can, as individuals, be good citizens. For me, that is all that is needed. Good law abiding atheists are welcome to join my religion neutral state. They can vote, hold public office and even attempt to convince people that atheism is the truth and that it will lead to a more ethical society. They may be wrong, but I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and accept that they came by these beliefs honestly and they are not involved in some satanic conspiracy to destroy society.

As to the influence of modern political correctness on my thought, I plead guilty as charged. I am a product of late twentieth and early twenty-first century American culture. Historians of the future who read my writing will have me quickly pegged. My historical context plays a critical role in explaining what issues interest me and what approaches I take to responding to the issues of my day. I am the son of an Orthodox rabbi, who grew up in Columbus OH and is trying to reconcile the religious sensibilities of his youth and the liberal culture that he has spent his life as a spectator of. This sense of being a spectator is reinforced by my Asperger syndrome. The attempted reconciliation has been to turn to the past toward the medieval rationalism of Maimonides and the classical liberalism of John Locke and J. S. Mill. Maybe I will be of interest to historians of the future as someone, in the twenty-first century, who still managed to be a harbinger of future thought.

How might I have thought about homosexuality if I had lived several decades ago? I probably would have thought a lot less about it since it would not have been a major political issue for my historical context. I probably would have a much stronger visceral reaction against it. For example, despite the fact that polygamy is in the Bible, I still have a strong visceral reaction to the very idea of women taking their turn with the man. I stopped reading Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series once you had the main female characters deciding that they all loved Rand and that therefore they would share him. If I spent time in a society where polygamy was accepted I would probably say that, while polygamy is not my thing, people are free to do it in the privacy of their own homes. (By the way, I do believe that polygamy should be legal even if I do not support government recognition of it and that polygamous couples have the right to anything that the government chooses to give homosexual couples.) In the end, I am guided by principles, principles that have little to do with modern liberalism. If I were really interested in bowing before political correctness I would not be taking the sort of positions that I do. Remember, that within the context of academia, I am what passes for a conservative.

(I think this marks the end of the conversation. It has been fun.)

Toward a More Spiritual Meaning of the Homosexuality Taboo: My Response to Dr. Lively III

Evan Hurst did a post, commenting on my original encounter with Dr. Scott Lively. He also pointed me to a video of Dr. Lively blaming the Rwandan genocide on homosexuals.



I have no problem acknowledging that homosexual individuals took part in the genocide. I do have a problem with linking the genocide to Homosexuality. You are free to make your own judgments as to whether this is a call for mass murder. Can someone like Dr. Lively truly play innocent in urging the mass murder of homosexuals when saying things like this? Is this not a matter of saying: "Homosexuals should not be killed (wink wink), but they are responsible for all the world's worst blood baths (wink wink) and you need to do everything necessary (wink wink) to protect yourself."

I would like to point you to a recent op-ed by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the Chief Rabbi of England, in the Times. He takes a similar position to mine, though he is a much better writer, in regards to homosexuality and freedom of religion. Do take a look at the comments. The rabid venom of some of these secularists is simply frightening. These people do not have a meaningful notion of what rights mean and they actively seek to be able trample over the liberties of people of faith. Such people need to be kept as far as possible from government.





Mr. Chinn,


Thank you for your change of tone.  


I'm not defending Igra regarding Shaw.  I'm actually now questioning whether it was even Shaw that Igra implicated in his book based the violence on your reaction to the idea. You certainly know much more about the Protocols than I do.  I don't have any notes on this question in my files because the issue was irrelevant to my research at the time -- and I cannot be confident in my fading memory of that book.   However, I didn't give you the tip because of Shaw's connection, but primarily because it related to the Protocols. In any case, I agree that evidence is the necessary prerequiste to deciding whether to entertain a theory, which is all the more reason why you should not have dismissed Igra.  You haven't yet seen the evidence. 


Just to play Devil's Advocate, let us assume I remembered correctly and Shaw was Igra's subject.  Is it really so implausible that he could have written the Protocols?  He was morally capable such an act, wouldn't you agree?  He was certainly artistically capable of writing it in the persona of its purported author.  By analogy, good actors can play bad actors when the script calls for it. And if Shaw, a reportedly "celibate homosexual" was a close friend of the "out and proud" translator of the document, you have what any good prosecutor would call probable cause for a search warrant: motive and opportunity. I'm not saying it's enough to persuade a jury, or that I am personally persuaded, but it's not a crackpot theory in the vein of Mormon "theology". 


You may be surprised to learn that I completely agree with your arguments in paragraphs 3 and 4.  I, too, prefer a secular society.  I too would be unwilling at accept any current religious leaders in any sort of theocratic rulership.  That said, I strongly disagree with your premise that secularism can be "religiously neutral."  Every legal or governmental system necessarily rests on moral presuppositions which in turn assume an ultimate source of moral authority.  This is why atheism in not only morally bankrupt, but literally irrational, in the truest sense of the word.  By definition it denies G-d, whose existence is the only possible "prime reality" in logic (a "prime reality" being the logical presupposition that does not itself depend on any other presupposition) and thus, true atheists (as opposed to confused thesists just looking for a way to escape accountability) cannot accurately perceive reality.    


The enlightened secularism achieved by the founders rested firmly on Biblical presuppositions.  The founding documents, including the Declaration of Independence and Constitution reflect a distinctly Judeo-Christian world view, and the historic record is replete with admonitions from the framers of those documents that to deviate from their world view would lead to disintegration of the nation.  Their "secularism" held (for example) the Ten Commandments to be objectively true and inviolable moral precepts, and viewed religious freedom as a matter of tolerance for views that deviated from unarguable truth NOT the system of religious pluralism we're suffering today in which every theological notion, however foolish, is deemed equal.  


If you really want a study in absurdity, ponder the question of what religious neutrality by government actually means when atheism and theism are granted equivalence.  It is Aristotle's logical impossibility:  A cannot be Not A.   If A is theism and Not A is atheism government is presented with the impossible task of holding contradictory premises at the same time.  This explains the schizophrenia of our government since the 1940s when "religion" was redefined by the Supreme Court to include atheism.  Atheism must logically win in such a contest since it has no prescriptions of its own but is only a contradiction of theism's prescriptions.  Yet, only theism has rational prescriptions for human needs and underlies the only workable portions of our public policy.  Thus, the literal insanity of our age and the explanation for the so-called "culture war." So how do we restore/achieve a sane and workable secularism without veering into theocracy?  Through the stewardship of individuals with the ability to understand and apply Biblical principles to civil society and the maturity to do so for the greater good and not personal (or sectarian) advantage. 


This brings me to your 2nd paragraph.  I take the Bible at face value and accept its absolute authority, but I believe the greater lessons of Scripture are not in the letter of the law, but much more in the spirit of it.  I seek the principles of the Bible by attempting to discern G-d's meaning and purposes within, beneath and behind the Scripture.  Thus, for example, I do not want to apply the letter of the Mosaic law to homosexuals because I perceive that the letter of the law was meant (and was appropriate) for the nomadic tribal society it was unveiled to and is not intended nor appropriate for today.  However, underlying that law are numerous easily discernable principles (including but not limited to) the importance of heterosexual duality, their sanctification of sex only in marriage, the predictability of harmful consequences for deviating from G-d's design, and the necessity of social/governmental affirmation of G-d's standards. I believe that while the letter of the law is subject to modification in its application, the principles of the law are eternally constant and binding. 


I conclude that G-d's proscription of homosexuality is of greater concern to Him than other things like eating pork or even civil crimes like theft by the way these issues are addressed throughout Scripture.  G-d's emphatic condemnation of homosexuality predates the Mosaic law, is expressly named and clarified in the law in a way that few other sins are, is specifically addressed throughout the historical books -- always in the context of this conduct/lifestyle bringing severe spiritual and sociological consequences -- and is specifically and repeatedly re-affirmed in the New Testament, even while many other Old Testament proscriptions are deemed fulfilled by Christ or otherwise changed. In my reading, only idolatry is treated in Scripture more harshly, but even in this, homosexuality is frequently implicated as an essential aspect.  


(If I am "obsessed", it is with my desire to align my mind with G-d's.  I honestly would love not to deal with the homosexual issue at all and spare myself all of the hate from the Left, but as one of the few people in the West today with both broad knowledge of the issue and the courage to articulate it unapologetically without regard for my personal reputation or safety, I have a responsibility to do so.) 


Contrary to your apparent belief, Biblical law and civil law are not separate and distinct realms regulating believers and non-believers respectively.  Sure, the law related to Jewish ritual may be so, but what we call civil law is almost entirely derived from the Biblical law.  Take a look at Blackstone's Commentaries on the Law of England sometime and you'll see just how much this is true.  You cannot and should not attempt to divorce the criminal law from its true source, which is the mind and will of G-d.  Apply your logic regarding sodomy to other Biblical criminal proscriptions such as murder and you can see it isn't sound or workable.   


I challenge you to consider how much your arguments for minimizing the threat of homosexuality may be rooted in the fear of being ridiculed as "absurd" by your politically-correct peers. Your generation has been subjected to a culture-wide campaign of propaganda on this issue to such an astonishing degree it is a wonder that any of you are still willing to call homosexuality sin.  I respect you for that, but as for your conclusion that homosexuality is a harmless lifestyle alternative outside the scope of secular civil regulation I think you are allowing yourself to be ensnared in an irrational contradiction to your faith and to good public policy.   


Respectfully,


Dr. Scott Lively      






My response: 


Dr. Lively
…

In regards to Shaw and Ingra, I see you are yielding on that front. I will take that as a win. As to why Shaw did not write the Protocols, I would say it is about as likely that he wrote Huckleberry Finn. Shaw, like Mark Twain, was one of the great masters of wit in the English language. Maybe Shaw was experimenting with writing in a more American style? The Protocols first show up in Russian newspapers around 1905. We do not know for certain for actually wrote it, but we can be pretty confident with a profile of a conservative Russian aristocrat.

I do not see a problem with a secular state, properly understood, and see no reason why government cannot be something outside religion. Take your garbage man or highway patrolman; is there a religious way to collect the garbage or hand out speeding tickets? I have no reason to doubt that atheists would be able to collect the trash from my curb or hand out tickets to people driving eighty miles an hour. The government is the sum of all of these little jobs. A government that keeps crime at low levels, defends the borders and handles monetary disputes all while allowing me to pursue my own good in my own way in the privacy of my own home is an effective government. None of this has anything to do with religion or private morality. Rudy Giuliani was a good mayor and I think he would have made a good president. As a human being, he may be an absolute scumbag and I would certainly not want him on the board of my synagogue.

I was particularly interested in how you made that "Christian" turn of turning toward the "spiritual" message of the ban on homosexual sex. I also believe that biblical commandments have a spiritual component underlying them, but that the physical commandment is still real and valid and that the spiritual message must be approached through the physical commandment. It would seem that you operate with a Protestant sola scriptura approach to religious authority. As an Orthodox Jew, I operate within a religious framework that Catholics would empathize with. Religious authority comes less from my personal reading of the Bible and more on rabbinic authority and the Jewish legal tradition. If you wanted to prove something to a Catholic about his faith you would not quote verses from scripture. Instead, you would hand him Augustine, Aquinas, the Fourth Lateran Council, and Vatican II. Similarly, with rabbinic Judaism the most important text is not really the Bible. If you wish to prove something you need to turn to the Talmud, Maimonides, and Rabbi Joseph Caro.

While you can talk about every man being allowed to decide things for himself, if you wish to have a religious community you need to have some sort of final human authority for the buck to stop by. This has nothing to do with this human authority being infallible. A Catholic would tell you that whatever he may personally think of abortion and contraceptives, in order to have a community of Catholics there is a need for someone to set official Catholic policy and that man is the Bishop of Rome. One could personally believe that the Pope is wrong in his ruling and still be a religious Catholic and bow to his rule. Someone had to make a decision and even the wrong decision is better than the Church falling into schisms. The problem with Protestants is that they have no system of authority so every disagreement risks schism. If my neighbor reads scripture differently than I do then he must be a servant of Satan trying to undermine God's True Church and we must break away from him. (I study sixteenth century history; that is Protestantism for you in one sentence.) Protestant movements are only able to succeed by hypocritically bringing in religious authority (whether Luther or Calvin) and hoping that no one will notice that they are adopting "papist" thinking.

I believe in the importance of each person having their relationship with God in their basement or on a hilltop. The moment you wish to have a religious society then you are going to need to agree to some form of religious authority and submit to it even in those situations where you disagree with the religious authority. Just as I am willing to split public politics from private religion, I am also willing to split a personal private spirituality from public established religion. Each one is legitimate within its own particular sphere.

Regardless of this general objection to your approach to religious authority, your application of this approach to homosexuality only ties the noose all the tighter in terms of homophobia. You understand the spiritual meaning of the ban on homosexuality as "the importance of heterosexual duality, their sanctification of sex only in marriage, the predictability of harmful consequences for deviating from G-d's design, and the necessity of social/governmental affirmation of G-d's standards."

I have met Episcopalians who have told me that the spiritual meaning of the ban on homosexuality was to stop the sort of predatory homosexual relationships that were common in biblical times. It was never meant to ban "warm" "loving" "committed" "monogamous" homosexual relationships that exist today. Therefore such homosexuals should be welcomed into the Church without prejudice. How is this spiritual reading of scripture any less valid than yours? This raises the question of why you go with your reading; is it possible that you are motivated, just a little bit, by a personal hatred to homosexuals that has nothing to do with God or scripture?

This is not a problem for Orthodox Jews like me or for Catholics. I could respond to the Episcopalian (or the Reform Jew) that, regardless of the moral and spiritual commitment of our homosexual couple, we could not accept them into our religious community because their actions are not in keeping with the demands of the community. This is nothing personal; I am fully willing to acknowledge that these people may be fully right with God, maybe even more so than I am, but the community cannot admit them without undermining the very integrity of the community. This would be no different than if a righteous Jewish pork lover would raise and slaughter his pig in an ethical manner and eat it with the highest spiritual intentions. This Jew may be very holy and beloved by God. God can see into this man's heart and accept him for spiritually keeping his commandments. As a guardian of the community, I can only see that he has willfully violated the physical commandments of God.

I can hide behind my religious legal traditions, you cannot. To do that would be Catholic or, even worse, Pharisaic of you.

A Religious Defense of a Secular State Not Enforcing Biblical Punishment: My Response to Dr. Lively II

We have a second exchange of more series emails between Dr. Scott Lively and me. Dr. Lively continues his challenge to my commitment to biblical law in that I seem to be willing to let certain verses in Leviticus slide when they do not suit my liberal beliefs. There is a certain irony to this in that, as the Orthodox Jew, I take all of Leviticus very seriously, including the passages that deal with pork. I counter by using Augustine's model of two cities to formulate a religious argument for a secular state.


Mr. Chinn,


Regarding Igra's take on Shaw, I was quite clear that I don't know enough about the subject to hold a firm opinion.  It is fair to assume that you have not read the book or investigated its claims in which case it is unfair if not unscholarly to dismiss them out-of-hand.  Regarding Igra himself, if you are basing your opinion of him on Germany's National Vice, I can assure you that I have independently validated most of his assertions using mainstream sources of the period and overtly "gay" sources.  He was sensationalistic in style, but not factually wrong on most points. 

Regarding your claim to be a classic liberal, I must disagree.  Your correspondence leans much closer to the snide arrogance of the New Left than the dignified civility of classic liberalism.  

Regarding your claim to be a faithful Orthodox Jew, I believe my Orthodox friends would disagree.  By the standard you have articulated G-d Himself should be considered a "homophobe" for singling out the Sodomites of Canaan for special punishment not meted out to any other group.   In my observation, the Orthodox position acknowledges Scripture's repeated characterization of this lifestyle as an abomination, whereas your uninformed position, obviously influenced by popular culture, minimizes what G-d specially emphasized.  As for my specialization in this field of study, you should know from my writings that I oppose all forms of sex outside of marriage equally, but I focus on homosexuality because it is the only form with a global advocacy movement demanding political power and control for its practitioners.    
Regarding Uganda, my advice to the Ugandan Parliament was to go pro-active in support of marriage and the natural family to inoculate the population against promiscuity in all of its forms, and regarding homosexuality specifically I urged an emphasis on therapy, not punishment.  I did not advocate for the death penalty, nor did any of my teachings provide a reasonable rationalization for it.  The "gay" and leftist press are misrepresenting the facts for political advantage as they always do.  As for Proposition 8, your investment in its importance as a bulwark against "gay" power shows a gross misreading of the state of the culture.  Prop 8 will not stop their agenda, even if it is upheld by the 9th Circuit (a highly unlikely event in any case -- I have personally argued a pro-family case before this court and learned just how fully it is committed to the "gay" cause).  Absent a dramatic political shift of national power into the hands of people who believe like I do, you will suffer persecution for your view that homosexuality is a sin, as will I to a likely much greater extent. 
It seems rather odd that you can foresee the real possibility of persecution from them for your tepid opposition, while at the same time arguing that they do not represent a serious threat to society. That's a rather bizarre disconnect, don't you think?  They're seeking fascistic control over the speech of others but they're not really dangerous?  Sort of reminiscent of the attitude of the German Jews in the 20s, isn't it?  You really should read The Pink Swastika. 
Regarding your claim to be consistent in your principles, I don't know enough about you to say.  I suspect, however, based on our short exchange, the degree to which your ideas accommodate the politically correct sensibilities of the day (despite your claim to orthodoxy), and the "show-offish" way you've treated me on your blog that you are not. Nevertheless, as a Christian I am willing, within reason, to tolerate both your erroneous views and your demeaning tone to show you that I care about you as a person. 
I do happen to agree with some of what you wrote in your next-to-last paragraph, which I concede does reflect a more classic liberal perspective.  I also believe in freedom of choice (within reason) and would be happy to tolerate a "gay" subculture so long as it does not work to mainstream itself at the expense of family-centered society.  I also support religious freedom, but only as the concept was known by the Founders i.e. tolerance for all who acknowledge the existence of G-d.  Inclusion of atheism as a "religion" toward which government must be neutral is a 20th century concept that breaks the entire model.  Scott Lively


My Response:

Dr. Lively,

You are correct in assuming that I have not done a thorough scholarly investigation of Ingra's work nor of the claim that George Bernard Shaw wrote the Protocols. He may very well have had some evidence up his sleeve that I am unaware of. There are lots of claims that I have not given serious consideration to. For example, that it was a body double of Julius Caesar, who was assassinated and that Caesar and Cleopatra fled to the new world where they met up with the ten lost tribes and founded a race of uber-Indians, whose history was written on gold tablets buried in a hill in upstate New York. I may very well be the victim of an Augustian conspiracy to cover up this truth. The historical method upon which I rest my sanity requires that I dismiss any person making such claims as insane and be willing to sign them over to a padded cell and a lifetime supply of happy pills.

The Old Testament outlines a set of personal practices and a theocratic form of government designed to foster a community of people who keep God's law. The God of the Old Testament has 365 prohibitions, one of which happens to be against homosexuality. This biblical theocracy has many rules with extreme punishments for those who violate them. A priest who violates the most minor rule of the Temple cult is guilty of blasphemy. In a theocracy, blasphemy is, by definition, treason against the state and therefore possibly subject to the death penalty. Similarly, sexuality is a type of religious ritual subject to "Temple cult" stringencies. As such someone who goes outside the transcribed forms of sexuality, regardless of whether there is anything bad per se about this action, commits an act of blasphemy and therefore is potentially subject to the death penalty. Just as it is logically conceivable that God would have commanded us to sacrifice a cow for the paschal lamb, God could have also decided to permit us to engage in homosexual relations. In the universe we live in we testify to following God's command in our sexual activity by engaging in heterosexual sex within marriage and refraining from homosexual sex. (Whether homosexuality goes against "nature" or not is irrelevant.)

We do not live under a biblical theocracy and therefore lack the ability to punish people for violating biblical prohibitions, whether it is eating pork chops or homosexual sex. Personally, I think it is a good thing that we are not living under a theocracy and I have no intention, in practice, of trying to bring one about. On the contrary, I seek to live under a government that is completely "secular." By this I mean a government that does nothing to promote or prohibit any religious activity and devotes itself solely to protecting people from direct physical harm. We must recognize that, to go back to the Augustinian political model that is at the foundation of much of my thought, we live in a "fallen" world. As the Old Testament provides ample testimony for, people as a whole are not capable of living up to God's law. Furthermore, I would be hard-pressed to find "men of God" whom I would trust to tend his flock. All the people that I might conceivably trust would laugh at me and tell me to stop bothering them if I ever asked them to step up to the task. This leaves us with limiting the political state to building the earthly city. A properly functioning earthly city would create a large supply of virtuous and rational citizens. It is from this group of citizens that we can hope to recruit a flock of citizens for the heavenly city.
I am glad you are consistent about opposing all forms of extra-marital sex. Would you not agree that any church or synagogue that chooses to wink and nod at the transgressions of heterosexual teenagers should be consistent and look the other way at what the committed homosexual couple may or may not be doing in the privacy of their own home? We should not have a "forgive me father, I slept with my girlfriend this week again."

As of now the government of Uganda engages in coercive behavior to stop people from engaging in homosexual activity and is posed to implement even greater levels of coercion. Even to force homosexuals to undergo therapy would be physical coercion. It should be noted that I understand physical coercion fairly narrowly. For example, I would have no problem if a public school teacher put up a cross in her classroom and told her students about accepting Jesus as her personal savior over vacation.

I certainly do not see Proposition 8 as a cure-all. I do believe though that if we cannot win even on this issue then we are in serious trouble. While I believe that the modern left fully intends to persecute people like you and eventually maybe even me and do not trust them, I do not trust people like you to allow people like me to openly live our non-Jesus lifestyles and negatively influence society. My money is on trying to create a strong political center of classical liberals whose religious values support a secular government; this is what Izgad is all about. We offer a consistent set of principles that will allow our entire political spectrum to live together in peace.

To be clear, I do not view homosexuals even proactive ones as a threat. I see arrayed before me the full might of the modern left, who have destroyed the concept of rights and have reduced it to political spoils for chosen useful groups. In essence, they are armed with a checkbook full of blank checks for persecution. Homosexual activists are simply a group that has managed to end up as one of the privileged groups. It could just have easily been Mormon polygamists as the privileged group and homosexuals having their children snatched by government agents. (I do fear a right-wing theocracy, but I believe that the left is culturally in a better position to stop this than the right is for the reverse. As such I see the left as the more immediate threat.)

You say that you are willing to tolerate a gay subculture as long as it does not challenge mainstream culture. Part of tolerance is the willingness to allow groups you dislike to compete in the public arena and even win. For example, I oppose Israel's anti-missionary laws. Christians should be allowed to travel to Israel and try to convince people to believe in Jesus to their heart's content. Similarly, I support homosexuals not only being allowed to practice their chosen lifestyles with other consenting adults, but they should be allowed to take part in the public sphere and make their case to society at large. I have no problem with gay pride parades as long as they do not violate any local profanity laws. Gay advocacy groups are fine. I do not object to anyone making the case to me or my adult children that homosexuality should not be considered a sin or even that sodomy is a pleasurable activity that I should try some time. (Yes I believe in the right to offer people drugs.)

As I often point out to people, the Enlightenment model of tolerance was tolerance for all people who belonged to an established faith community or believed in a supreme being. I follow John Stuart Mill and offer tolerance for everyone as long as they can live within the law and not cause any physical harm. I am willing to give individual atheists the benefit of the doubt and assume they are moral individuals, even if I have my doubts about the ability of an atheist society to remain moral. There is also the experience of Orthodox Jews in Germany in the 19^th century. German law insisted that everyone belong to established religious communities. This was a problem for the Orthodox who desired to break away from the Reform. In the 1870s the law was changed to allow secularists to not belong to any community. This created the channel for the Orthodox to also gain the right to dissent.

Sincerely,
Benzion N. Chinn

A Classical Liberal Unsheathes His Sword: My Response to Dr. Lively

Dr. Scott Lively, the subject of two earlier posts, was gracious enough to write in a more detailed defense of himself, which I include here along with my response.


Mr. Chinn,
 
…

First, I did not accuse you of being anti-Semitic.  I suggested that your initial response to me was dehumanizing, in the same way that anti-Semites dehumanize Jews.  I approached you as one human being to another because I accidentally stumbled on your blog during an Internet search.  Your post that day was about The Protocols, so I thought I would do you a favor and give you a research tip on the Protocols that you would probably never have encountered on your own.  Igra is an obscure enough figure as it is, and his book about Shaw is for all practical purposes unknown to the world.  What a coup, I thought, for a researcher to find a comprehensive, published analysis of an aspect of one's field of study that no one else in the field has ever even heard of.  As for Shaw's conclusions, I really don't know enough to have a firm opinion.   

I frankly expected a note of thanks.  Instead, and this is the dehumanizing aspect, when you discovered that I am publicly known for my views and work against the homosexual movement, I became for you just a prop for a blog posting.  It was as if I had stopped to help you push a stalled car out of traffic and instead of showing appreciation, you turned to your friends in the car to say "What an a**hole this guy is."     

I don't really care that you posted our exchange.  I obviously do not self-censor my views out of concern for what my opponents will say about me.  What bothers me is that once you had identified me as a "homophobe" you felt entitled to dispense with normal civilities and treat me as an object of ridicule.  That is precisely the attitude of anti-Semites for Jews, and, more importantly to me (since all who share my views on this topic are being subjected to such a campaign in America today), the attitude they would like the general public to hold.  Replace "Jew" with "homophobe" (meaning anyone who holds a Biblical world view) and ask yourself whether it is "gays" or believing Christians (and Orthodox Jews) who are being actively marginalized in this way.
 
Secondly, I made the mistake of assuming that you were a faithful Jew regarding the issue of homosexuality.  All of my Jewish friends agree with my views, generally, and my first book, The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party was co-authored by Orthodox Jewish researcher Kevin Abrams. We actually wrote The Pink Swastika to stop the "gays" from misappropriating the Holocaust as a political tactic.  You might not be old enough to remember that the primary symbol of their movement in the 70s and 80s was not the rainbow but the pink triangle, in support of the claim that they suffered a "Gay Holocaust" equivalent to that against the Jews.  Our book forced them to back off that claim (though a watered down version is unfortunately still featured in many Holocaust museums).

I truly don't understand how you can consider your tolerance of the mainstreaming of homosexuality as anything other than a repudiation of the Torah.  While I was in law school years ago I had the great privilege of working closely with Rabbi Samuel Dresner, who asked me to do a re-write of his final book "The Case Against Homosexuality: A Jewish View."  He was at that time in the latter stages of his battle with cancer and did not have the stamina to do the work himself.  His argument against homosexuality from Judaism was so strong and compelling I can't see how any Jew can today support the legitimizing of it. 

Unfortunately, Rabbi Dresner passed away before the project was completed and his wife refused to allow the book to be published in an unfinished state.  However, I count my months of interaction with this fine scholar among the most valuable steps in my education and one of the reasons I have continued to focus my career on opposition to the homosexual political agenda (NOT homosexuals as individuals). Indeed, I count Rabbi Dresner as my first (informal) doctoral advisor in the pursuit of my Th.D., the thesis for which is now published in the form of a textbook on my website www.defendthefamily.com and is attached to this e-mail.  It is titled Redeeming the Rainbow: A Christian Response to the "Gay" Agenda.  I incorporated much of what I learned from Rabbi Dresner in this book. 

I earned my Th.D. while serving as a litigation attorney in Southern California (having just graduated law school with a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude and passed the CA Bar Exam on the first attempt in a year when more than half of all applicants failed).  I chose an admittedly humble institution both because it was close to my home and because it allowed me to work directly with Dr. Richard Anderson (then in his early 80s), a highly respected pastor and teacher who had personally known and worked with many of the founders of the Charismatic movement, which is my own theological persuasion. 
I don't know about you, but in my experience there are far too many people trading on the credibility of their alma mater who do not deserve it for their work.  I suppose they got what they paid for.  You may not agree with my positions, but if you read my book you should at least grant that I have paid my scholastic dues for my degree.  
Finally, as to the attacks against me on the Internet.  If you are willing to consider that among social movements in the West the homosexual one is singularly aggressive in the pursuit of its own interests, and that being unconstrained by conventional morality in the matter of their sexual conduct they may be unconstrained in matters of truthfulness and justice, then perhaps you will be willing to reconsider their case against me.  I don't deny or apologize for being a leading opponent of their agenda, which I do in fact consider a great menace to society.  However, I vigorously deny the accusation of malice toward "gay" or lesbian individuals.  
My entire body of work is grounded in systematic logical analysis backed by reasonable observation and careful documentation and is focused on the prevention of the mainstreaming of sexual perversion as a matter of public policy.  I am against what they do, not who they are, and it is for the purpose of steering society toward a more marriage and family-centered model, not to stamp out whatever they want to do in the privacy of their subculture so long as they stop trying to remake civilization in their own image.  You might disagree even with this position, but it is a far cry from the evil caricature they have painted of me.  
Respectfully,
Dr. Scott Lively

My response:
Dr. Lively,

Ironically enough you have been helpful for my research. I am not so much interested in the Protocols in of itself, but as a study in the absurd. Ingra, from what I can tell, was himself someone who had gone off the edge in a delightfully scholarly fashion. For this I am grateful. I think it says something about you that you pointed me in the direction of Ingra as someone who should be taken seriously as a scholar. A recurring theme in Izgad is that people should be understood less in terms of what they officially support or oppose, but in terms of which ideas they believe are worthy of serious consideration and which ideas they dismiss as satanic or insane. For example, how fast would you start edging away from someone who started talking about this interesting idea, which he is not sure about, that the United States government was really behind 9/11? Obviously this is in a completely different category from raising taxes on stock options.

As for whether my actions dehumanized you, on the contrary my response was an important part of my tolerating you. If I were not a classical liberal, it would be much simpler to deal with you. Since you are someone who does not believe like I do, I could come after you to inflict bodily harm in order to "teach" you the "error" of your ways. If my lessons proved fatal well then that would mean one less unbeliever and a better world for everyone else. Since I am a classical liberal, I have to "tolerate" you. Not only that, I am even morally obligated, God help me, to go out of my way and even put my life on the line to protect you from all the non classical liberals, who wish to cause you physical harm. (This would include modern liberals, who wish to jail you for hate speech and take your kids away to be "reeducated.") The one bright spot in this, that makes classical liberalism bearable, is that my classical liberalism allows me to subject you to a withering storm of ridicule and scorn as long as I do not cause you any physical suffering (your feelings get no protection what so ever).

I grant you that that the modern left is quickly transforming the term "homophobe" to mean anyone who takes the prohibitions of Leviticus seriously. This is a cover for an attack on the liberties of religious people. My nightmare scenario is that the government is going to come and take my job and children away on the grounds that I am a hatemonger who believes that homosexuality is a sin. Let us be clear I do believe that homosexuality is a sin in the same way that I believe that eating pork is a sin for Jews. (I do not pick and choose my passages in Leviticus.) When I use the term "homophobe" I mean something much more specific; this singling out of homosexuals, above and beyond other groups of sinners, as some particularly dark and nefarious force and obsessing about it. Notice how you jumped on Bruce Douglas the homosexual for his part in the Protocols. Why didn't you talk about how poets or Catholics created the Protocols? Henry Ford published the Protocols in the United States; are the Protocols an example of Capitalist bigotry?

I believe that the modern left will use any excuse to come after religious people and it is therefore important not give them any excuse. Have you considered that this little joy ride stunt in Uganda may very well lose us Proposition 8. This will mean that a United States court will be declaring that it is bigotry to define marriage as something between a man and a woman (despite the fact that technically homosexuals have an equal right to marry members of the opposite sex as heterosexuals) to such an extent that one is not even allowed to amend the Constitution of a State in order to do this.

I view myself as a faithful and Orthodox Jew. I also oppose laws that that cause physical harm to homosexuals and have no desire to see the government do anything to stop people from choosing to live a gay lifestyle. In theory, I am even open to secular gay marriage as long as we do not say that it is some sort of civil right. I am perfectly willing to buy into the argument that monogamous homosexual relationships provide the sort of benefits to society that homosexual ones provide and that it is reasonable for our secular government to provide similar encouragement (like tax cuts). This is not a contradiction to my Orthodox beliefs that homosexuality, like eating pork, is a sin. As a classical liberal I have learned to live with the fact that people are going to be allowed to do things which I believe to be sinful and immoral, but as long as no physical harm is done, I must not cause any physical harm. I believe that many types of Christianity are idolatry (as are certain types of Orthodox Judaism). That being said I would be in the front lines to stop the Israeli government from closing down the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. I will protect that right of Christians to venerate crucifixes in church and I will protect the right of gay Satanists to shove crucifixes up each other's rectums in Satanist temples.

I am a classical liberal and an Orthodox Jew. I stand for a free society against the unbelievers who never believed in the concept in the first place and the heretics of the modern left, who have sold their liberal principles out for tribalist gain. I have clearly defined principles and I am willing to consistently stick to those principles even when they are inconvenient. You may disagree with my political principles, but I challenge you to find an inconsistency in them.

Sincerely,

Benzion N. Chinn

Scott Lively Responds

Scott Lively responded to my last post. Apparently he did not appreciate the fact that I posted his email to me.

Dear Mr. Chinn,

I offered privately what I thought would be a helpful research tip regarding a source you were not likely to have discovered, not a personal conviction to be publicly ridiculed.  It was a friendly gesture to a stranger.  Your incivility is unbecoming a man of letters.  

If anti-Semitism is the dehumanization of people because of their beliefs and values, I'm sorry to say you have become your own case-in-point.


I put the case to my readers whether I did the right thing by putting out a private email, naming the author and subjecting him to modest levels of implied ridicule. In my defense let me say that in this case we are dealing with a public individual, who never gave any indication that what he was saying was off the record. Readers may feel safe in emailing me if they wish to say something directly to me. I would never reveal what they say to the public without their permission. Lively here has written books and has appeared on television to discuss his political views. Clearly he has agreed to surrender the right to privacy in regards to his political views. I posted his email because I believed it was relevant for the legitimate public discourse of the views of this public figure. What this email only confirms about Lively is that he is obsessed with homosexuals and sees them as this dark menace haunting the twentieth century. This qualifies him as a homophobe, the real kind and not just the voted for Proposition 8 variety. This man's work with the government of Uganda makes him dangerous. Conservatives think of it this way. As long as the Uganda issue is on the table, any opposition to the homosexual political agenda is going to be hamstrung. It gives them the excuse to paint all opponents as trying to make laws to physically stop them engaging in homosexual activity. As opposed to people like me who could not care less about trying to interfere with what consensual adults might do in their bedrooms, but see any attempt to redefine the concept of rights as a mortal threat to all free thinking individuals. If rights cover everything, they cover nothing. As such there is no difference between fascists, who reject the very notion of rights and liberals, for whom rights is just a word to use when it suits a particular purpose. The end either way is the death of liberty and the free reign of tyranny.

Similarly with bigotry and anti-Semitism, these terms mean specific things. Anti-Semitism is a particularly type of bigotry, one applied to Jews. I do not use this term for people who casually do not like Jews. I reserve it for a particular mindset that raises the Jew as a dark force beyond other groups. Lively is correct in viewing anti-Semitism as a dehumanizing force. The Jew is denied the status of a human being, subject to the ethical obligations due to human beings. Notice that I never accused Lively of being an anti-Semite. In fact I was willing to accept that he was acting in good faith when it came to Jews. I accept that he came to me in the spirit of honest scholarly discourse. This honest scholarly discourse just happens to be homophobic and I, therefore, wished to have no part in it. Lively has accused me of being an anti-Semite despite the fact that at no point did I ever say or imply that he was subhuman or not deserving of the ethical obligations due to human beings. (He may not deserve the title of doctor, but that is only because his university looks like a degree shop.) His understanding of anti-Semitism would cover all who dare disagree with him. This would allow him to silence all opponents and in the name of liberty no less. Liberals learn a lesson from this as to what happens when you start throwing charges of bigotry around. It becomes cheap and ultimately meaningless to such an extent that you can help put real bigotry into play in places like Uganda and even the United States.

Email From Scott Lively: The Protocols are a George Bernard Shaw Conspiracy

Last night I received an email response to my post on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

At the Library of Congress is an obscure book by Samuel Igra which makes the case that "The Protocols...Zion" was actually written by George Bernard Shaw.  I don't remember the title, but I read a portion in DC when I was researching another book by Igra and I remember thinking at the time that his case seemed quite plausible, though I don't remember the details now.

It is common knowledge that Shaw was a close friend of the homosexual poet Bruce Douglas, the "translator" of the Protocols.  
Regards,
  
Dr. Scott Lively

Scott Lively (I am willing to assume this email is genuine and really does come from him.) is the head of Abiding Truths Ministry and Defend the Family. He has a doctorate in theology from the School of Bible Theology Seminary and University (Take a look at the website for yourself and decide for yourselves if you feel comfortable with referring to Lively as a doctor. He has a law degree from Trinity Law School and apparently is licensed to practice law in California. Finally he has a Certificate from the Institute of International Human Rights in Strasbourg France. (I always wondered how one becames an official human rights activist.) It is in his capacity as human rights activist that Lively has taken his most important role recently with his involvement with the Uganda gay laws. Lively seems to have managed to get the Ugandan government to abandon the death penalty for homosexuals and to opt for treatment.

Doing a bit of background research on Lively certainly clarified this email a bit, explaining who he was and why he would be interested in making the connection between homosexuality and anti-Semitism. Lively is even the author of a book, the Pink Swastika, which argues that the Nazis were a homosexual movement.

Samuel Igra, Lively's source, seems to have been one of the main originators of this Nazism and homosexuality link with his 1945 book, Germany's National Vice. According to Igra, Hitler was a homosexual prostitute in Vienna and then in Munich from 1907-1914. (See Gregory Woods A History of Gay Literature: the Male Tradition pg. 251-53.) Obviously, there were Nazis who were homosexuals. The most famous example was Ernst Rohm of the SD. While an early member of the party, Rohm was killed off in the infamous "Night of the Long Knives" in 1934. Considering the very real persecution of homosexuals under the Nazi regime, saying that Nazism was a homosexual movement (as opposed to individual Nazis being homosexual) strikes me as the height of perversity.

Bruce Douglas was the young lover of Oscar Wilde's, whose father got into a libel suit with Wilde, which eventually brought about the downfall of Wilde in English society. Douglas did do one of the first English translations of the Protocols in 1919, nearly twenty years after it was first written. The Protocols came out of Russia, and while it was plagiarized from many sources, including one French anti-Semitic tract, it is clearly a product of reactionary Russian circles. Personally I find the idea that George Bernard Shaw would have written the Protocols to be offensive. I would have no problem accepting Shaw as an anti-Semite along the lines of T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. But to think that Shaw would have written such a piece of garbage as the Protocols, boggles the mind. If Shaw had wanted to write a book about Jews plotting to rule the world, this book would have been a model of wit and would have me convinced to become an Elder.

I guess I should be grateful that Christians like Lively are concerned about anti-Semitism. All I can say is that with friends like these who needs enemies.