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Let us observe "Pride Month" properly, by recognizing the contributions of the gay-rights movement to the linguistic inversions of today. It is the gay-rights movement that has created, and popularized, the following distortions of modern political speech: 1) The invention of "hate speech." There is no such thing as "hate speech." The very term is a truncation of the term "hateful speech"---and the truncation is significant. Nobody denies that some speech can be "hateful," or express hateful ideas, but the traditional response to "hateful" speech has always been more speech---i.e., engaging with the hateful ideas expressed to show how and why they are hateful, to defeat them in the marketplace of ideas. "Hate speech," by contrast, is a term used to place ideas outside the realm of engagement---to avoid engagement instead of confronting the offending idea. While the terms appear superficially similar, "hateful speech" is an invitation to engagement, debate, and free thought; "hate speech" is a term used to disengage and suppress opposing viewpoints. The gay-rights movement has used and popularized the term "hate speech" for over 40 years. 2) The false equation of speech with violence. "Baiting," as in "red-baiting," was a common term fifty years ago. It referred to the practice of accusing someone (often accurately) of being a Leftist. "Gay-baiting," derived from "red-baiting," was the similar practice of accusing someone of being homosexual. The gay-rights movement used to decry "gay-bashing"---the once-common practice of people (often gangs of teens) randomly physically attacking persons they believed to be homosexual. About 40 years ago, however, the gay-rights movement began to conflate "-baiting" and "-bashing"---i.e., the movement began to refer to those who verbally disagreed with its political goals of the moment as "bashing" the movement. This subtle substitution of a term denoting physical violence for a term denoting political opposition has since become widespread across the political spectrum, so much so that it is now routine to hear people in the news describe someone who disagrees as "bashing" the person they disagree with. 3) The invention of the "-ophobia" locution. The "-ophobia" locution, as in "homophobia," was invented by the gay-rights movement as an "I'm-rubber-you're-glue" retort to the psychiatric establishment; "You say we're "sick?" You're sick!" It is ironic that the Islamists have adopted this locution ("Islamophobia") along with much of the rest of the gay-rights movement playbook, without objection by the gay-rights movement---even though the Islamists would surely slay the adherents of the gay-rights movement were they to gain sufficient political power. 4) Blurring the distinction between civil rights and "human rights." The gay-rights movement has never been a civil-rights movement; it has always been a "human rights" movement. Civil rights under the Constitution are rights held by the individual against the government, to prevent or provide redress against government overreach; "human rights" are invariably demands by an aggrieved group for some form of government preference or largesse on the basis of membership in the aggrieved group. The gay-rights movement has been actively working to blur the distinction between civil rights and "human rights" since at least the Anita Bryant controversy of the late 1970s. The reason the movement fought so hard to obtain same-sex marriage is that this provided the movement with its first toehold in civil rights law---and therefore provided the movement with a siege platform from which it could attack other elements of the First Amendment. 5) Distortion of the concept of "discrimination." "Discrimination" is not illegal---indeed, discrimination, the making of distinctions, is a necessary element of day-to-day existence. Invidious discrimination is something that the law addresses---e.g., distinctions that are based solely on race, religion, or national origin. Even these distinctions may be permissible, if it can be shown that they are done to further a "compelling state interest," but that is a very high bar of proof to meet. Current discourse, however, has degraded "invidious discrimination" to the point where the mere invocation of "discrimination" is considered proof of evil. This is a linguistic and legal distortion akin to the distortion of "hateful speech" to "hate speech." This debasement of the political language may also be laid at the doorstep of the gay-rights movement.
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JCM
6/16/2024 5:21:04 PM
