Why Tolerance of Homosexuality Is Never Enough

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2019/01/10/why-tolerance-of-homosexuality-is-never-enough/

People who scoff at the idea of a homosexual agenda ought to read a column in the Fall River Herald News about the arts scene in New Bedford.

The author, Steven Froias, questions whether New Bedford’s “arts and culture” are “gay enough.”

The problem, according to Froias, has nothing to do with freedom of expression, artistic freedom, tolerance, or interpersonal relations. He reports no problems in any of those areas.

“The general consensus of almost all of the people spoke to for this column is that the city is regarded to be LGBTQ okay on a small personal level …” Froias writes.

In other words:  People in New Bedford treat homosexuals fine.

So what don’t they do?

They don’t spend enough of their own money promoting the artistic expression of homosexuals.

There are some exceptions, he notes.

Some years ago a same-sex couple died and left a lot of money to fund queer culture on the South Coast of Massachusetts. But that’s just one fund, he says, and there are so many others that don’t.

When artists on the South Coast seek diversity in creativity, they talk about racial or ethnic diversity, he says, but not “Sexuality or gender identity.”

For students in the New Bedford public schools, the New Bedford Festival Theatre is “the only truly safe space for LGBTQ folks in the arts.”

In other words:  There is no persecution. There are no restraints. There are outlets for queer-inclined artists who wish to express themselves. There is money available to subsidize such pursuits.

But not enough.

And not everyone supports this activity.

Why?

Here we get to the second part of the sentence about how the city of New Bedford treats homosexuals. The city is “okay on a small personal level,” Froias says … “but somewhat awkward or even a bit backward at best in a large societal sense.”

In other words:  There’s no unabashed, full-throated endorsement of homosexuality from everyone you meet.

And why not?

“The prevailing thought seems to be that its attitude toward the LGBTQ community is heavily influenced by its lingering old-world, religious character and blue-collar background.”

Let’s see … “old-world” … That means traditional, right?

And … “blue-collar background” … Those are people who generally work with their hands, right? The sort of people who didn’t go to college and might not appreciate fine arts that go over their head?

And then … “religious character” … hmmm … What religion might that be?

The 2010 federal census found that the city of New Bedford had about 95,000 people. According to one estimate, the people of New Bedford are:

33.8 percent Portuguese
10.1 percent Puerto Rican
9.1 percent French-Canadian
8.8 percent Cape Verdean
6.9 percent Irish

That’s 68.7 percent, or more than two-thirds, from cultures that are predominately Roman Catholic.

Indeed, the most notable architectural features in New Bedford are old ship captains’ homes and Catholic churches.

We can see these cultural heritages in the founding ethnic groups of current and former Catholic parishes in New Bedford — like St. John the Baptist and Our Lady of Mount Carmel (Portuguese), Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish at St. James Church (Spanish-speaking), St. Anthony of Padua and St. Joseph’s (French-Canadian), Our Lady of the Assumption (Cape Verdean), St. Lawrence Martyr and St. Kilian (Irish).

The point of Froias’s column is that many of these people – old-world, blue-collar, religious – are culturally deficient because they don’t support the artistic expression of homosexuality enough with their money.

What are they missing?

He quotes a museum curator saying how she remembers “the moment my own internalized homophobia was shaken” when she saw “portraits of LGBTQ people” by an artist whose work includes photographic portraits for lesbian sex magazines.

Froias doesn’t quite say it, but the implication is that these socially backward people of New Bedford should see such things and should use some of their money to promote such things.

In other words:  Freedom is not enough. Tolerance is not enough. Respect is not enough. Good manners are not enough.

What’s needed are endorsement and support.

That, in a nutshell, is the homosexual agenda. (By that term, by the way, we mean a political and social ideology that advocates for encouragement of homosexuality; we don’t mean to refer to anyone and everyone who feels physical attraction to members of the same sex.)

This agenda is not about allowing people to live their lives the way they want. It’s not about allowing people to express affection for anyone they want in any way that they want.

It’s about surrendering to their point of view and outwardly conforming to it and inwardly assenting to it.

There’s a word for that:  Totalitarian.