Lots of my favorite people are tearing this Jonah Goldberg piece apart, and for some reason, I just can’t bring myself to mess with it. Jonah Goldberg is always, consistently, one of the worst writers and least capable minds on the internet, and this is no exception. So instead, I’m going to take the lazy way out, highlight some other great writers making fun of this piece, and be done. Because the piece really has been fully ripped apart at this point. Okay? Okay. I’ll let Alex Pareene set it up for you:
Jonah Goldberg has a doozy of a syndicated column today arguing that the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and the inevitability of gay marriage are both Officially Good News for Conservatives, because they are Bad News For Liberals, because now the gays are bourgeois. As we all know, what liberals have always actually wanted is not “equality” or “equal rights,” but for our radical bohemian values to undermine society until it crumbles and we can erect a glorious anarchic state built on free-gay-child-love. But gay marriage will ruin our plans!
A smart person could write a good column about the trajectory of the gay rights movement, the long journey from Gay Liberation to NOH8, the story of how America deals with radical movements by eventually allowing formerly marginal minorities to join mainstream society. But Jonah Goldberg is not a smart person and this is not a good column.
The column encapsulates Goldberg’s pathetic conservatism: It’s a philosophy defined entirely by opposition to whatever those stupid liberals want. There’s no principle beyond the adolescent desire to be contrary.
Oy. John Cook at Gawker continues, re: Jonah’s arguments about DADT repeal:
Which is why letting them serve in the military is a good thing. That’s what normal people do, and conservatives like normal people. Until now, all gays were hellbent-for-leather freaks on leashes. Now, though, they show up on TV shows like Modern Family, which, Goldberg writes, is the number one sitcom among Republicans and features a “hardworking bourgeois gay couple.” It’s like the gay version of The Cosby Show, which taught Goldberg that there are black people who don’t talk jive.
And in the same vein, Roy Edroso comments on Jonah’s sudden discovery that there are jus’ folks gay people, and how he tries to make this a conservative thing:
Goldberg can’t claim that America, exhausted by the Great Orgy of 1990, has fallen in love with marriage all over again — in part because marriage rates among young people have actually dropped. So he falls back on the standard rightwing idea that getting hitched makes you wealthy, leaving us to wonder why the poor haven’t caught on to this money-making secret and how a bunch of rich people having weddings constitutes a conservative social revival. Maybe getting married is the new Going Galt?
Yeah, it’s a really, really stupid column, and taken in light of the rest of Goldberg’s body of work, that’s sayin’ something. For the full effect, click all of the above clickys, and you will see that, as I said before, there is simply no need for me to spend time tearing this one apart. It’s done fer.
Related: Guess who loves this piece? Yes, that’s right, Dan Blatt of Gay Patriot.
Always shaking my head with that one, I am.
Blatt admires Goldberg, eh?
Stupidity loves company.
Blatt really believes straight couples are better at monogamy? I can only conclude he has no straight friends, does not read newspapers, and believes the propaganda from the Family Research Center. His position is self-loathing and absurd.
I thought everyone knew that lesbians are the best at monogamy.
I can only speak to what I can ascertain from the mindset that prevails at the GP blog…they truly believe they should have to prove themselves to the prevailing straight hierarchy, because they have absorbed the fiction that social conservative heterosexuality is the Best Situation out there. So, while we understand that the actual reality is that straight people are better at LYING about monogamy than gay people, they actually absorb the fiction of that worldview.
amen, and true, emma.
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I sent this to Der Goldbrick. Haven’t heard from him.
Mr. Goldberg:
I read your column for the first time today. I’m not willing write here as much as I could about your comments, because I have no way of knowing if you would care enough to read it. If you are interested, please let me know, and I will take the time.
But, for now, without trying to put too fine of a point on it, I don’t think you know an awful lot of gay people– certainly not those from my “Stonewall” generation– or really, anything about us beyond a socially conservative caricature. Your column was full of broad generalizations about gay, straight, Left, Right, and the so-called Gay Agenda that don’t resonate either with my experience or that of anyone I know.
A lot of people would consider me a Left winger, because I believe in things like equality before the law, social liberalism, and the like. A lot of people would consider me a conservative because I support a strong military, though I oppose militarism and wasteful miltary spending. I also support fiscal responsibility, which the right only talks about. I support families, but not just conservative christian ones. I support welfare laws, especially those intended to get people off welfare.
None of this makes me an ideologue of either stripe. I hope it just makes me concerned about what happens to our country when ideology trumps intelligence and compassion.
I was particularly taken by this comment, though. “I do not think that the arguments against gay marriage are all grounded in bigotry, and I find some of the arguments persuasive.”
Regarding the first clause, if I understood the rest of your column, I think you probably meant to say that “not all bigotry is grounded in hatred.” That’s true. A good deal of bigotry is grounded in an always there, but rarely stated, and wholly imaginary presumption of inherent superiority, concomitant with the social privileging that goes along with it. But ultimately, at least from the point of view of the the people whose lives are deleteriously affected by that presumption, there may not be much difference.
Regarding the second clause of your statement, I would love to know what those “persuasive” arguments might be. As an out, thoughtful, intelligent, legally married gay man, I feel fully competent to address your concerns. But I must tell you, I have yet to hear one argument against the full inclusion of gay people in our society, and the ending of this stupid, wasteful bigotry, that doesn’t boil down to religious prejudice, social prejudice, ignorance, fear, or assumed superiority. And none of those positions is a good basis for sound social policy.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you.
I try not to read Goldberg’s columns–not because he’s conservative but because he’s really, really stupid. All his columns are a mash-up of misread “facts”, bad research, straw man arguments and slippery slope theories. But, occasionally I start reading one without thinking–I’m glad this one caught some well deserved flack. Goldberg wouldn’t have a career if it weren’t for his evil mother.
I had never looked at the Gay Patriot site before–what is it with these gay conservatives–it’s not anti-gay bigots who they see as the “enemy” it’s other gay people. These people are really pathetic.
They are a very strange bunch Daniel, full of hate for gays and proud of it. Perhaps they think that’ll help them score points with the bigots whose approval they seek.
Ben in Oakland – Best. Response. Ever!
Any document, including the Bible and the Constitution, once written is frozen in time and becomes increasingly anachronistic as time goes by. This assertion is contrary to the notion of ‘enduring principles’, but, sorry, there’s no such thing. The founders could not possibly have seen the country we live in today. Reading from the U.S. Constitution before each session of Congress is tantamount to reading tea leaves. Satisfying to the Tea Party no doubt but much ado about nothing.