Right liberals and the culture wars

A right liberal contributor to a recent comment thread at Oz Conservative argued that homosexuality is biologically natural, and so is heterosexual loathing of homosexuality, and so heterosexuals and homosexuals should agree to disagree about sexuality issues.

While I agree it's possible that both these claims about sexuality are accurate, mainstream liberal society just doesn't seem to be capable of agreeing to disagree.

If someone in a government office said they thought gay sex was revolting, and that it was natural for heterosexuals to be repulsed by it, they would probably be criticised for being homophobic and insensitive towards homosexuals. Indeed, they might even lose their job over such a statement.

And while many homosexuals and heterosexual progressives may privately not be offended by such comments, in the public sphere, almost any critical opinion of homosexuality is considered unacceptable, even if made by liberals who support pro-gay policies such as civil unions.

Hence, in the public sphere there is a clear double standard - the views of homosexuals must be respected, but the views of heterosexuals don't have to be.

This victory of left liberals over right liberals in the social sphere is partly down to the problem that right liberals fail to acknowledge that people's opinions can be influenced by legislation and social norms.

For example, if left-liberals push through legislation in support of gay marriage and gay adoption, then it soon becomes socially unacceptable to publicly criticise such legislation.

Right-liberals seem to assume that most people are independently-minded individualists, who will always publicly say what they think, regardless of what the government or those in their social circles tell them, and that society at large will tolerate such independent individualism.

In contrast, left-liberals and their conservative adversaries are more socially perceptive - they know that progress towards a more liberal society depends on exploiting natural groupthink behaviour and the reticence of the majority to publicly criticise elite opinion.

When I was younger I tended to agree with the right-liberal idea that traditional conservatives were hopelessly out of date and that their stubbornly traditional views on social issues like homosexuality and abortion helped strengthen the radically anti-traditional initiatives of left liberals.

Lately though I've come to the conclusion that right-liberals are totally incapable of drawing a line in the sand and stopping progressives from continually moving the goal posts further to the left.

In contrast, traditional conservatives take a firm line on legislation they perceive to be in conflict with their core values, as they know compromise will usually end in victory for their liberal opponents.

Subsequently, even though I don't measure up as particularly socially conservative on tests of political orientation, I'm moving towards a more traditionalist stance on social issues because I don't want to see society becoming even more liberal than it already is.

Society should tolerate peaceful minorities, but minorities shouldn't have a right to undermine society.