Homophobia, Racism, Sexism (HRS)

Homophobia, Racism, and Sexism were all in the news this past week. The Connecticut Post, for example, never tires of bemoaning the existence of these three terrible scourges in our society. Recently, it ran a large banner editorial complaining that someone had dared to criticize the nomination by Dannell Malloy, the lame-duck Democrat Governor, of Andrew McDonald, a State Supreme Court justice, to the position of Chief Justice.

In its editorial the Post characterized McDonald as “openly gay” and sharply blamed a politician who dared to object to the nomination. The politician had claimed that Mc Donald’s past indicated that he would be a highly partisan Chief Justice. After all, Mc Donald has been mired in Democrat politics all of his political life. His career began in the city of Stamford where he was a close associate of then Mayor Malloy. When Malloy was subsequently elected Governor, practically his first political act was to take Mc Donald out of the State Legislature and appoint him as his chief attorney with a nice six-figure salary. Not long after, Malloy raised Mc Donald to his current position on the State Supreme court.

Nevertheless, the Post was shocked that anyone would question Mc Donald’s impartiality, and raised the dreaded issue of homophobia. Apparently, any criticism of an “openly gay” person had to be motivated by homophobia. Moreover, implicit in the Post editorial was the belief that anyone who is “openly gay” may not be criticized for anything or for any reason.

In fact, anyone with their eyes and ears open these days must be aware that “openly gay” has become a badge of honor and that members of the LGBT community are not just equal to everyone else, but superior. I am not a follower of popular TV programs, but I suspect that gays are rarely portrayed in a bad light. How many criminals or offenders on Law and Order are gay? How many villains on Masterpiece theater are gay?

Racism is a much a weapon as homophobia in the hands of progressives. In a recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, black scholar Shelby Steele, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute, wrote that complaints about racism in America have grown despite the substantial progress blacks have made in the past few decades.

“The oppression of black people is over with. This is politically incorrect news, but it is true nonetheless. We blacks are, today, a free people. It is as if freedom sneaked up on us and caught us by surprise.”

He argued that this freedom has difficult consequences. Freedom “meant we had to look at ourselves without the excuse of oppression.” The fact that “more than 4000 people were shot in Chicago in 2016 embarrasses us because this level of largely black-on-black crime cannot be blamed simply on white racism.” Those who cannot bear the responsibility of freedom, he argued, fall back on charges of structural or systemic racism.

Steele also noticed a potential backlash to NFL and Black Lives Matter protests:

“We blacks have lived in a bubble since the 1960s because whites have been deferential for fear of being seen as racist. The NFL protests reveal the fundamental obsolescence—for blacks and whites—of a victim-focused approach to racial equality. It causes whites to retreat into deference and blacks to become nothing more than victims. It makes engaging as human beings and as citizens impermissible, a betrayal of the sacred group identity.”

What Steele wrote about Racism could also apply to Sexism especially with all the charges emanating from the entertainment world. Women have also arrived and found unprecedented freedom and opportunity in American society, but now it is impossible to criticize any woman without being branded a sexist. Even liberal darling Matt Damon was practically tarred and feathered for daring to suggest that there might be different levels of sexual abuse.

Billionaire Oprah Winfrey has been virtually canonized as an American saint. Would anyone dare question her qualifications for the office of President in the same way that Donald Trump was lambasted during and after his run for the Presidency? Where are the insulting cartoons or blog posts?

During my lifetime homosexuals have come out of the closet, blacks have come out of the ghetto, and women have come out of the kitchen. They all sought equality but now activists among them cannot stop at equality but must gain superiority. In George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, a classic study of revolution, the animals overthrew the oppressive farmer and raised the flag proclaiming that “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL.” It didn’t take long for the crafty and strong among them to become leaders and proclaim that “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.”