Poor Linda Harvey

People are picking on her. Do you suppose it was something she said?

Joe Jervis has her rant here. I'm not going to repost it -- it's pretty much self-serving bullshit. But I will respond to her initial statement, which Joe has taken from a tape of her radio program:

"Why should the equal protection argument be made in favor of homosexual behavior, which is changeable? People are not naturally homosexual, so the definition of 'person' in the Fourteenth Amendment is being twisted to make this assumption. 'Person' should be understood based on historic, beneficial, or at least neutral and fact-based traits; it should not be twisted to incorporate behavior that most religions and most cultures have said a firm 'no' to."

Let's take a good look at this.

"Why should the equal protection argument be made in favor of homosexual behavior, which is changeable?"

There's no evidence to support that assertion, just the "testimony" of interested parties who have done no scientifically rigorous studies on "changing" sexual orientation. Yes, she says "behavior," but I'm not willing to let her get away with that sleight-of-hand: she means orientation, as becomes quite clear:

"People are not naturally homosexual . . ."

People, penguins, porpoises -- well, over 400 species of vertebrates, so far, exhibit not only homosexual behavior, but same-sex pair-bonding. I'm not really convinced that all those lizards, seagulls, dogs, cats, etc., just decided to spit in God's eye.

Next is the meat -- she's complaining that others are twisting her words to make it seem as though she claims that we are not people. It's pretty obvious what she means:

". . . the definition of 'person' in the Fourteenth Amendment is being twisted to make this assumption. 'Person' should be understood based on historic, beneficial, or at least neutral and fact-based traits . . ."

Seems pretty clear to me: she's saying that gay people should not be considered "persons" under the law on the basis of their sexual orientation. She's saying "Let's excise the 'homosexuals' from the whole area of fundamental civil rights -- pretend they don't apply." Ignore for the moment that her reasoning in arriving at this point is, at best, specious. She's also trying to substitute her own meaning for "person" based on entirely subjective terms -- at least, that's the thrust of "beneficial" and "neutral." As for "historic" and "fact-based" -- well, she doesn't seem to know much about history or facts, as witness her grand finale:

". . . it should not be twisted to incorporate behavior that most religions and most cultures have said a firm 'no' to."

Actually, if you have any familiarity with a range of cultures and religions at all, you know that most of them don't really care about sexual orientation. How about the ancient Greeks? The ancient Irish? The medieval Chinese, or the Japanese of the Edo period? The pre-Columbian cultures of North America? And all their associated religions? I'm not going to get into a numbers game with Linda Harvey -- she's quite obviously operating within that hermetically sealed universe in which "most religions and most cultures" means Jewish, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, or Protestant. She certainly evidences no awareness of anything beyond that. (Although I bet her attitude toward Islam is worth investigating.)

So, in spite of her hurt feelings -- and I'm finding it exceptionally difficult to have any sympathy for her, although anyone who knows me will tell you that I'm a pretty empathic person -- I have to come to the conclusion that she is not only ignorant, but mendacious.

That's not pretty at all.