If you thought the Robertson-Giuliani love-in could be the stirrings of renewed political pragmatism among the religious right, think again, because the Family Research Council is here to tell you that "Homosexuality is not a civil right."
Yes, wedge issues that have nothing to do with the real problems this country faces will once again be front and center in 2008 if the Family Research Council has its way.
If you have a few minutes, read this policy pamphlet, which may be the most illogical and bigoted thing I've read it a long while. The best part is the many contradictions strewn throughout. My favorite is after the pamphlet does its best to argue that homosexuality is a personal choice, and therefore does not warrant the civil rights protections afforded other groups such as women and racial minorities, it concedes that homosexual attractions are "indeed involuntary."
But do not fear, the Council has an argument why involuntary homosexual urges should not be acted upon.
But people do choose, and can be held responsible for, what overt sexual behaviors they actually engage in. A heterosexual married man might feel sexually attracted to a woman who is not his wife, but if he acts on that attraction, he is rightly condemned for an act of adultery. The fact that his sexual attraction was "involuntary" is no excuse for failing to control his actual behavior.
Comparing the urge to cheat on your wife and the urge of a man to have sex with another man, unimpeachable evangelical logic at its best.
Which makes me wonder, if they had to, which would the religious right prefer: an unfaithful heterosexual relationship or a loving, committed homosexual one?
