by Patrick Appel
Yglesias makes a good point:
Acting in a charitable and forgiving manner all the time is hard. Loving your enemies is hard. Turning the other cheek is hard. Homosexuality is totally different. For a small minority of the population, of course, the injunction “don’t have sex with other men!” (or, as the case may be, other women) is painfully difficult to live up to. But for the vast majority of people this is really, really easy to do. Campaigns against gay rights, gay people, and gay sex thus have a lot of the structural elements of other forms of crusading against sexual excess or immorality, but they’re not really asking most people to do anything other than become self-righteous about their pre-existing preferences.
Ryan Sager agrees:
It’s hard to abstain from sex until marriage (and, er, probably not such a great idea, IMHO). It’s hard to take responsibility for children you father (a better idea). It’s hard to stay married (for some people). It’s hard to be a good parent (for most people). What’s not hard? Holding up a sign that says “God hates fags” and parading around like a jackass.