"Preservation of Innocence:" On the Deterioration of Heterosexual Relationships

What’s wrong with this picture? To many gays, it’s a farce. Why should gay marriage be accepted or not accepted? Let’s get deeper into the issue. The other day, I was walking my dog and I noticed a gay (male) couple walking towards me on the other side of the street. They were pushing a stroller. (Hmmm) As I walked past them, I started thinking, “why is that not okay?” Precisely what is it?

My favorite writer is James Baldwin, an openly gay man. I respect his opinions on nearly all matters. In Baldwin’s essay, Preservation of Innocence, Baldwin suggests that homosexuality is natural and that homophobia is the consequence of heterosexual “panic.” Hostility towards homosexuals, Baldwin contends, like racially motivated hostility, signals “a radical failure of imagination and an inability to acknowledge the fullness of one’s own humanity,” according to the GLBTQ. In forming my own opinions on the matter, I have concluded that simplistic condemnations such as “it’s a sin,” “it’s unnatural” or “they are faggots” are not good enough to satisfy the high-thinking mind. There must be a more complete explanation of why widespread homosexuality is unacceptable.

Baldwin posits heterosexuals disapprove of homosexuality because of the effect homosexuality has on heterosexual relationships. I agree. Baldwin rips the American male image as overblown and oozing a ridiculous machismo, and observes that, “Men and women seem to function as imperfect and sometimes unwilling mirrors for one another; a falsification or distortion of the nature of the one is immediately reflected in the nature of the other.” So I gather he disapproves of the picture, above. He further asserts that if “men recapture their status as men” and “women must embrace their function as women” it “puts to death any possible communion.” Therein lies the problem with the gay movement.

The problem with the “gay movement” is that in order to succeed in changing opinions, gays must necessarily attack the intrisic value and nature of heterosexual couples. For gay relationships to be legitimate, heterosexual relationships, which have been the norm for eternity, must be brought into a different light. Families must be turned from a basic unit of love and happiness into a questionable political concept, equated solely with mere sexual preference. This, like rampant single motherhood and fatherlessness, has profound and dangerous implications for society. Further, many gay rights advocates, such as, in this case, Baldwin, demonstrate an open hostitlity towards heterosexual relationships, denigrating the man as a heathen filled with testosterone and the woman as an oppressed and incompetent servant of her male master. Thus, it is precisely that gay relationships, and the gay movement interfere with the family unit that I find the movement unacceptable.