‘Gay rights” is currently a big issue—which is merely to say that a good deal of thought on several levels is being given to the question, To what extent is the American polity willing to tolerate the increasingly vehement demands of this country’s homosexuals for explicit statutory guarantees of their civil rights? This is also an issue on which comparatively little clear thinking has been done by conservatives—and yet it is a very important issue for the Right For the whole problem of civil liberties and the homosexual (and it is, by any reckoning, a problem) is likely to drive a wedge into the conservative movement—and not the trusty old libertarian/traditionalist hatchet that mainstream right-wingers buried years ago, but a more unpleasantly divisive one with thoroughly disagreeable implications. It therefore wants discussing; and the purpose of this essay is to make a start. How, I shall ask in due course, should a conservative think about gay rights? The answer is, Constitutionally; but we have a certain amount of groundwork to lay before we get that far.
The Discreet Years
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