From a long pro-homosex piece in Salon by
homosex propagandist Rick Rosendall:
“A work of questionable scientific merit that has been seized upon recently
by the religious right is ‘The Man Who Would Be Queen,’ by J. Michael
Bailey, a psychology professor at Northwestern University. Bailey’s errors
include accepting old stereotypes of gay femininity and relying on wildly
unrepresentative samples, such as the men he found at Chicago’s gay dance
bars. The book was praised by John Derbyshire, a virulently anti-gay
contributor to National Review.”
Here are some samples of my “virulently anti-gay” review of Michael’s book
(which, by the way, is infused with sympathy for sexually odd people, and
with a sincere desire to understand them).
“Sexual eccentricity raises difficult philosophical issues for
conservatives. On the one hand we have a core belief in the individual and
his privacy. Since no form of activity is more private than sex, our
instinct is to let people follow their inclinations, within obvious legal
constraints against, for example, the corruption of minors. Further, we all
have friends whom we know to be, or suspect of being, sexually odd in one
way or another, and we do not want to say or write things that would hurt
their feelings.”
“All of these types – girlish boys, male homosexuals, transsexuals of both
styles – are of course human beings, who, like the rest of us, must play the
best game they can with the cards Nature has dealt them. No decent person
would wish to inflict on them any more unhappiness than their mismatched
bodies and psyches have already burdened them with.”
The entire review can be found in the 6/30/03 issue of National Review.
There is an image on my personal web site, olimu.com, under “Print
journalism.”
This kind of thing is “virulently anti-gay.” But then, so is any other kind
of thing that does not swoon at the authenticity, beauty, spirituality,
social responsibility, healthfulness and, yes!, conservatism of homosex. If
you are not with these people a hundred percent in their campaign to
overhaul Western society in their personal interest, you are a warped
psychopath. (My Webster’s Third defines “virulent” as “extremely poisonous
or venomous … able to overcome or break down the defensive mechanism of
the host.” Watch out!)
As for all the unthinking obloquy hurled at “stereotypes,” here is a
stirring defense of those very useful statistical constructions.