The Divide Comes Into Closer Focus

Bien pensant opinion has been at best bemused at the Bud Light boycott, and it's taken more than a month for the pro-trans forces to form an organized response. But as of this past week, it's begun to take shape.

The nation's largest LGBTQ advocacy group is taking action against Anheuser-Busch over its handling of the conservative backlash to transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney, accusing the multinational beer company of caving to political pressure.

In a May 9 letter shared exclusively with USA TODAY, the Human Rights Campaign informed the Bud Light maker that it has suspended its Corporate Equality Index score – a tool that scores companies on their policies for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer employees.

. . . Anheuser-Busch, which had a score of 100, has 90 days to respond or the organization will consider docking its score, the Human Rights Campaign told the company in the letter.

According to the New York Post,

At stake is their Corporate Equality Index — or CEI — score, which is overseen by the Human Rights Campaign, the largest LGBTQ+ political lobbying group in the world.

HRC, which has received millions from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation among others, issues report cards for America’s biggest corporations via the CEI: awarding or subtracting points for how well companies adhere to what HRC calls its “rating criteria.”

Businesses that attain the maximum 100 total points earn the coveted title “Best Place To Work For LGBTQ Equality.” Fifteen of the top 20 Fortune-ranked companies received 100% ratings last year, according to HRC data.

Andrew Sullivan, a traditionally same-sex attracted commentator who is deeply skeptical of the trans movement, had this to say yesterday:

The Human Rights Campaign, once a relatively moderate group, replaced “gay” and “lesbian” with the acronym “LGBTQ+” and expanded the word “queer” to describe anyone gay, lesbian, transgender, or even straight who defied heteronormativity. They changed the flag from a simple rainbow, to one that included some races (only black and brown — no Asians or whites) and transgender ideology. Their building in DC is festooned with a massive banner declaring their mission: “Black Lives Matter, Black Trans Lives Matter.” Their new head is a woman who calls herself “queer,” not lesbian.

Then they quietly changed the meaning of the word “gay” so that it no longer referred to same-sex attraction, but to same-gender attraction; and changed the word “men” to include people with vaginas and uteruses, and the word “women” to include people with dicks and balls. Checkmate for the gays! We are all now just bigots with “genital preferences,” just like the Christianist right used to claim. Just to add to the confusion, hundreds of new “genders” were adopted — because some teens on Tumblr once invented them and queer theorists loved them.

While Mr Sullivan has a point, as I noted yesterday, calling a lobbying group for the same-sex attracted a "human rights" campaign suggests it's based on natural law, but the problem with same-sex conduct is that it violates natural law. Thus the abolitionist and civil rights argument that to deny the rights of African slaves and their descendants violates natural law, since Africans are human and can't be owned like animals, doesn't carry over to same-sex conduct. Whatever argument can be made in favor of the legal or moral standing of the same-sex attracted, it can't be based on natural law (this isn't to say that other arguments can't be made).

Mr Sullivan looks back to the gay rights movement of the 1960s and 70s and in fact buys into the idea that it was based on natural law:

It was the most speedily successful civil rights story in memory. Its case for equality was simple and clear: including us in existing institutions needn’t change anything in heterosexual life. . . . They were not some strange, alien tribe. They were just like every other human, part of our families and communities; and we cared about each other.

. . . And now? Back in culture war hell.

So what went wrong?

The core belief of critical queer theorists is that homosexuality is not a part of human nature because there is no such thing as human nature; and that everything is socially constructed, even the body. Because heterosexuality is the overwhelming norm, and homosexuality the exception, and because society is nothing but a complex of oppression, homosexuals are defined by their rejection of heteronormativity.

I think he's unintentionally pointing out the weakness of the natural law argument in favor of normalizing same-sex attraction. Bp Robert Barron often cites St John Henry Newman on conscience: it is effectively a primitive gospel built into human nature, and it responds to natural law. I think the basic natural-law problem for same-sex attraction is that it violates conscience, whatever argument may be put forth for tolerating or normalizing it. Thus the problem over same-sex attraction is that it can never quite get over the hurdle of natural law, and to solve its problem without acknowledging this means we have to abolish natural law.

How will we do this? Well, we'll start by forcing our institutions to stop privileging it, however unconsciously they may do so. Thus the Human Rights Campaign threatens a shunning of Anheuser Busch, while two Los Angeles gay-and-trans rights organiztions have withdrawn their support for the Dodgers' Pride Night in response to their decision to disinvite the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence:

"Our community is being used as political pawns in a way that I don't remember in my lifetime," said Joe Hollendoner, CEO of the Los Angeles LGBT Center. "This is why we need the Dodgers to not bend in the slightest, and in fact be strong in their allyship to us because it's not just about this once instance."

. . . In a statement issued Thursday, LA Pride said the following in response to the Dodgers' decision: "As a longstanding partner of the Los Angeles Dodgers, we are very disappointed in their decision to rescind their invitation to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to be honored at the 10th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night. As a result and in solidarity with our community, LA Pride will not be participating in this year's Dodgers Pride Night event."

There's really no conflict between Mr Sullivan's retrospective, though perhaps fanciful, idea of a brief golden age of mutual tolerance between the heteronormative and the same-sex attracted and the natural-law view, which is expressed in CCC 2358:

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.

The problem is that in a fallen world, this isn't a stable situation, because for those who are troubled by conscience over their attraction, which is a natural condition, but want to persist in same-sex conduct, they must either continue to be troubled or try to abolish the conscience and natural law that are at the basis of the problem. This is their current project.

Part of this strategy in legacy media has been to identify those behind measures like the Bud Light boycott or disinviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence fom the Dodgers' Pride Night as "conservatives" or "extremists". Over Bud Light, I think they're more accurately "populists", while in respect to the Dodgers, they're "Catholic laity", who make up about 25% of the US population. These people can't be swatted away like gnats or mosquitoes, while trying to dismiss natural law never has a good outcome.