Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Gay Bourgeoisie?

I thought this was an interesting argument regarding the trend of liberal avant garde becoming ho-hum normal.

Two decades ago, the gay left wanted to smash the bourgeois prisons of monogamy, capitalistic enterprise and patriotic values and bask in the warm sun of bohemian "free love." And avant-garde values. In this, they were simply picking up the torch from the straight left of the 1960s and 1970s, who had sought to throw off the sexual hang-ups of their parents' generation along with their gray flannel suits.

As a sexual lifestyle experiment, that failed pretty miserably, the greatest proof being that the affluent and educated children (and grandchildren) of the baby boomers have reembraced bourgeois notions of marriage as an essential part of life. Sadly, it's the have-nots who are now struggling as marriage is increasingly seen as an unaffordable luxury. The irony is that such bourgeois values — monogamy, hard work, etc. — are the best guarantors of success and happiness.

That homosexuals would want the same things heterosexuals do--love, family, stability--shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone in the 21st Century. I'm sure there was a time when those identifying themselves as gay were doing so in an in-your-face f-u gesture, but I've met few gay people who felt that way. I would say that's a tiny fraction of the population. I have to agree with Goldberg on this part:
Personally, I have always felt that gay marriage was an inevitability, for good or ill (most likely both). I do not think that the arguments against gay marriage are all grounded in bigotry, and I find some of the arguments persuasive. But I also find it cruel and absurd to tell gays that living the free-love lifestyle is abominable while at the same time telling them that their committed relationships are illegitimate too.