elfs | Who is Arthur Silber talking to, anyway?

So, yesterday Eugene Volkoh posted an article in which he proposed that homosexuals actively recruit people to homosexuality. Volkoh's comments are a bit silly in one respect: he basically takes the Kinseyan point that sexuality is on a continuum from completely straight to completely gay (and those of us who've been wandering around the queer/poly/bdsm/wiitwd community know that the continuum is a very bent and twisted line) and he claims that homosexuals are actively engaged in a campaign to find those who are even a little attracted to their own sex but have never acted on that attraction to try homosexuality and see if they like it.

His argument is purely Aristotelean; there's no evidence, merely a set of axioms and conjectures that lead to the conclusion he wants, nevermind what the real world is really about. Volkoh repeatedly claims that he's not making "moral" judgements but ends up passing judgement of a kind anyway with a "purely medical grounds" bullpuckey statement that's as pithy as it sounds. Volkoh seems to be in that commonplace "I know I shouldn't argue against it, but it's icky" state.

On the other hand, Arthur Silber's "The Light of Reason" goes over the top responding to Volkoh. Despite its name Silber's blog is far often more heat than light and today's entry is no different. Silber's a gay man who writes, "The last thing gays are concerned about is 'converting' people." Silber describes Volkoh's post as "nauseating."

But Volkoh's basic argument is nauseating only in the context of a nation in the grips of right-wing religiosity. Volkoh only says the obvious: if homosexuality is a morally neutral state and you know a non-Kinsey-Zero who's had a rough time with one gender, encouraging him or her to consider the other is a morally neutral activity. To the extent that numbers are not on our side, it makes tribal sense for gays and lesbians to consider's Volkoh's argument, if not his moralising conclusion. Yes, by saying so Volkoh is encouraging the right wing to believe that "gays recruit," and that's sure to bring out the nutjobs... but so what? They already believe that. Volkoh's not doing anything more than pointing to the obvious, low-level brushwar that exists.

Besides, I don't know if Silber's been to a Pride Parade in the past decade. The "recruitment" poster and "I got my toaster oven^[?]" t-shirts are still out there. Heck, you can buy them on-line. Of course they're tongue in cheek. That doesn't mean they're not serious.