by Adam Levick, CIF WATCH
Dan Savage’s report in CiF America (Rick Santorum’s homophobic frothing, Jan 5) was ostensibly about the anti-gay politics of Republican Presidential candidate, Rick Santorum. However, as with so many critiques of American conservatives in the Guardian, Savage couldnt’ help contextualize Santorum’s views without an unrelated pejorative characterization of Christian Zionists.
While I’m personally sympathetic to Savage’s views on the rights of the LGBT community – and, without question, one of the many moral advantages Israel has over its neighbors is the legal protections afforded to its sexual minorities – there is a passage in his essay as gratuitous as it is bigoted.
As with other Guardian reporters and contributors, Savage’s a priori assumption is that support for Israel couldn’t merely reflect a moral and rational decision by Americans who see Israel as a state which shares American values and national strategic interests.
Savage first critiques what he characterizes as conservative Christians’ dismissal of the LGBT community as a marginal voice:
“…America’s religious conservatives/extremists…argue that the LGBT community is so tiny – just 9 million Americans, according to the Williams Institute – that our calls for civil rights protections and full civil equality shouldn’t be taken seriously.”
He then pivots, quite awkwardly, to Israel:
This is a curious argument coming from the same people – evangelical Christians – who seem to regard Israel as the 51st state in our union. There may be “just” 9 million LGBT Americans – but that number that is greater than the entire population of Israel (7 million). And if we are “just” 3.8% of the US population, the LGBT community – a figure that includes hundreds of thousands of LGBT Jews – is still more than twice the size of the total Jewish community in the United States (1.4% of the population)
in short, [the LGBT community is] not “too small in number”, or too insignificant a portion of the American electorate…to be taken seriously as a political force.
Savage, in arguing that the size of the LGBT community in the U.S. is large enough to be taken seriously, references evangelical Christian support for Israel which, he suggests, is informed by the political lobbying of a Jewish community much smaller than the population of gays.
But, leaving his demographic arguments, and electoral math, aside, its clear that it never occurs to Savage that support for Israel – from Christians, Jews and others in America – is typically motivated by moral factors, namely the Jewish state’s undeniable democratic advantage in the region.
Moreover, Gallup Polls have consistently demonstrated that support for Israel by Americans of all backgrounds is overwhelming, based on annual polling data as far back as 1967.
Finally, while savage accuses Christians, and not Jews per se, of viewing Israel as America’s 51st state, his implicit assumption is that Americans who passionately support Israel view a foreign country’s needs as on par with their own.
Such tropes have, of late, penetrated the American progressive landscape so deeply that bloggers associated with the liberal “Center for American Progress” recently made news for using the term “Israel Firster” in the context of accusing members of Congress of having a greater allegiance to Israel than the United States.
If Savage, or any other commentator, wishes to critique U.S. support for Israel they are, of course, free to do so. But, you’d think that self-styled progressive bloggers would strenuously avoid suggestions that such pro-Israel sentiments within the American political milieu represents something dark, a corruption of the American political system, or a cynical alliance with the organized Jewish community.
Hate to say this Yamit, but neither is true… How about this:
What do we really “know” outside of what we see?
That’s the essence of the matter. Good thinking…
CuriousAmerican wrote:
The RCC still has power, more so than ever. They just go underground when they are exposed and make a new organization and come up elsewhere.
The problem with laws against religion is that the Globalists use those laws against the righteous. For example, anti-spanking laws are supposedly designed to stop child abuse, but are now aimed at good parents who want to correctly discipline their children according to the Bible and end up being arrested for Child Abuse. Satan knows that without discipline a child will grow up without respect for authority and become lawless. Law is good when correctly administered but it is tyranny when it is not.
“Intelligent people know of what they speak; fools speak of what they know.”
Ethics Of The Fathers
Thank you, CA, for that extremely valuable message. Too many are hung up on the left-right jibber jabber. They need to get over it, fast. Millions of lives may depend on it.
I remember Tovia Singer on Israel National Radio once recommending that the LGBT organizations, if they really want to promote tolerance, should request permits to stage their parades in Mecca rather than Jerusalem.
HE WAS RIGHT!
To understand what is going on, one has to see this battle as a spiritual one.
There is no logical reason that any LGBT should support any Islamic endeavor.
But we make a mistake when we view this as a left-right issue. It is more of a truth vs. lie issue.
It is those grounded in truth vs. those grounded in lies.
The enemies of truth will come from both the left and right.
Pat Buchanan’s view of Israel can be as damaging as the LGBT groups.
And, from what I see as a Christian, it also comes from Jewish extreme views. Liberal Jews and Satmyr Jews are equally destructive. Probably most destructive are the Hasidim in Jerusalem, who don’t serve; and will drive out to emigration those who do serve in the IDF.
The essence of true religion is love and freedom, NOT regulation. Regulation is only meant to protect love and freedom, but not an end in itself.
The left and right can both be destructive.
It is folly to aim all criticism at the left. Some leftists are okay.
This is not a left-right issue.
This is darkness vs. light.
Two things have to be addressed.
1) Most of Israel’s support comes from Conservative American Evangelicals. It ain’t coming from a lot of Liberal New York Jews; too many of whom support Palestine.
2) Jews do have influence above the percentage of the numbers in the population. A consequence of higher rates of education, literacy, and organization. This cannot be denied. It is NOT totalitarian! But it is there.
It is however fading.
In the 1950s, no one in New York dared criticize the Cardinal of New York. Catholics were unifed with political power. That day has gone.
Likewise, Jewish political power has peaked.
What broke the power of the Catholic Church was Sexual Liberation, assimilation, and Catholicism’s sex scandals. They refuse to amend their celibacy rules which give cover to predators.
What is damaging Judaism now is similar. The Hasidim are awash in scandal – see FAILED MESSIAH – and they are getting out of control in Jerusalem and, also, in upstate New York. See this (Forward Article).
Here again, Islam might be partly to blame. Hasidic women are now adopting the (Frumka).
You either reign in the religious extremism or you suffer. This happened to Catholicism in the 1960s and 1970s. They wouldn’t change, and they hemorraged membership.
This happened with the Protestants in the 1920s, until the KKK leadership was caught in sexual scandal.
This will happen with Judaism if Israel, and Jewish leadership do not crack down on Hyper-halachic Hasidic idiocy.
Sex segregation should be a clarion call to stop these destructive tendencies.
I made the mistake of looking up the original article. It was a complete waste of time, the guy has nothing to say and anyone who takes the time to critique what he has to say gives it more dignity than it deserves.
This sounds like a similar argument from the LGBT’s comparing resistance to homosexuality as being the same thing as racism. But all it takes is to remember that anyone can, for any reason whatsoever, participate in homosexual acts. And if they want to make it a lifetime activity, then who is to question their motives in doing so? It is bad science and medicine to subject such behavior to analysis and the prognosis for a “cure”. But it is also bad law to enforce protections against such behavior as if it were race which is not anything like a choice.
The link between LGBT acceptance and tolerance for triumphalist Islam is excessive self-derision. Europe’s inability to react intellectually to these deviations from average human interactions is the acceptance of the inevitable oblivion for both the individual and the society that was so carefully and artfully crafted over many generations by people who did not accept oblivion. Chaos is not a goal, but something to be avoided, except if you have no children and do not much care for yourself or others.
How about we discuss islamic power in England and Europe. Something which is real and truly problematic. It is impossible for Europeans to conceive of the idea that Americans support Israel out of moral conviction since Europe lacks any moral compass and is itself beholden to the massive islamic lobby. The guardian is obviously projecting.