The Denver Post recently ran an opinion piece on the “Pride” revolution which caught my eye. In it the author -- a proud gay man -- said, “What many people don’t realize is that queer people are subjected to judgment from the moment we’re born.”
This made me think of my dad and his left hand and something gay folks find difficult to accept.
My recently deceased 97-year-old dad’s left hand was, for lack of a better word, messed up. It didn’t develop properly in the womb. It was an oval-shaped thing with small, dangly, non-working nubs.
I never considered him handicapped. I’d guess the same is true of most kids whose parents were in some manner not physically “right.”
He was a great athlete in his youth. He’s also a pretty good carpenter, plumber, electrician, mechanic, horseman, farrier, farmer, rancher, hunter, and fisher. And yes, like many of his generation he could do all of those. Better than I can on all counts, even with my working left hand.
My dad’s birth defect -- yes that’s what it is, it isn’t supposed to be like that -- has absolutely no bearing on his moral standing as a human. He was not somehow morally “less” simply because a hand didn’t develop as designed. His hand is both natural -- it occurred, didn’t it? -- and unnatural -- that’s not how a hand is supposed to be -- at the same time.
But in no way was he morally inferior because of this reality. He was not defined by his left hand. It was an aspect of him, but only one of thousands, and not a very important one to boot. I suppose people could use his left hand as the sole means to define him but that would be rather silly and in 97 years I don’t think a single person ever did.
And here is where the LGB activists -- those other letters are not included because none of them are real -- went off the rails.
Of course, being gay is unnatural. Pretty much by definition. These individuals are normal but their sexual attraction most assuredly is abnormal -- just like my dad’s hand.
If you need help with this concept, I recommend you go back and read some basic biology. Sexual reproduction has been around for almost two billion years, so I’d hazard to say the issue is fairly well settled. And without procreation, no species exists.
But like my dad’s hand, same-sex attraction it is also natural; it happened, didn’t it? And like my dad, whether it is a messed-up hand or a same-sex attraction these are but a very small part of a much larger mosaic and in no way defined him or my gay friends.
Unfortunately, LGB activists refuse to accept the biological facts and then compound this error by making this one trait the ultimate -- and often only -- defining trait of an individual.
Most of us don’t give a damn who you choose to have sex with and what you like to put where. This is true for most of us whether homosexual or normal.
I don’t know how to go back and change the past so I see no need to dwell on that. Rather in the here-and-now in the United States, the LGB activists are the only ones pushing this damaging idea that this single attribute solely defines millions of individuals. It is incredibly damaging for young folks who are attempting to navigate this reality as they reach physical maturity and become individual adults.
My dad’s left hand didn’t define him and had no impact on his worth as an individual. Our gay friends are no different. Now if only they would accept that.
John Conlin is an expert in organizational design and change. He also holds a BS in Earth Sciences and an MBA and is the founder and President of E.I.C. Enterprises. He has been published in American Greatness, The Federalist, The Daily Caller, American Thinker, the Houston Chronicle, the Denver Post, and Public Square Magazine among others.
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