October 31, 2013 (Turtle Bay and Beyond) – The controversial Estrela-Report may not have flown, but the abortionist/homosexualist lobby’s next onslaught on human rights and human dignity is already in the pipeline.
Once again, it comes in the guise of an “Initiative Report”, i.e. a report on a subject for which the European Parliament has no legal competence, and which therefore, even if it is adopted, will have no binding effect. And once again, the strategy is: (1) to hope that the paper will escape public attention while it is debated in Committee, (2) rush it through the Plenary without debate, and (3) then tout it as a highly important document whose recommendations must be followed even if it is not legally binding.
This time, the Initiative Report is “on the EU Roadmap against homophobia and discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity”.
Is there such a “roadmap”? Not yet. But the report calls for one.The author of the paper is Ulrike Lunacek, a Green MEP from Austria, who is notorious as a self-professed Lesbian garnishing each of her public statements with assertions on her “sexual identity”. (I believe that under Judith Butler’s gender theory there is a name for this type of women: they are called “butches“. Ulrike, the “butch”.)
The report has been commissioned by the EP’s Committee on Civil Liberties (“LIBE”), which, just like the Committee on Women’s Rights from which the ill-fated Estrela-Report has emanated, appears to be a sheltered workshop for homosexualist/abortionist EU politicians with a particularly radical agenda: besides Mrs. Lunacek herself, it includes notorious names like Michael “Blitzkrieg” Cashman, Véronique de Keyser, Sophie in’t Veld, Caecilia Wikstrom, Joanna Szenyszyn, Claude Moraes, Raul Romeva i Rueda, to name just a few. Nowhere are representatives of the most diverse “sexual orientations” so over-represented as in this committee.
It is no wonder, then, that such a committee should adopt a paper that seeks to promote homosexuality. And it is equally unsurprising that this report, while pretending to voice concern over the human rights of lesbian, gay, transgender and intersex people, actually undermines the concept of human rights at large.
There can be no doubt that lesbian, gay, transgender and intersex people have human rights, and that those rights should be respected and safeguarded. But that is not what this report is about. Instead, it seeks to create special rights and privileges for people, merely on the grounds of their self-professed “sexual orientation”. If accepted, the approach underpinning this report would divide humanity in two classes: the LGBT people and the rest. And in doing so, it would, quite ironically, itself undermine the “equality” that it asserts.
These fundamental flaws, which constitute a serious threat for the very idea of human rights, manifest themselves in particular in the following points:
- “Mainstreaming”: when a particular policy is “mainstreamed”, this means that henceforth all political initiatives and legal measures must undergo a formal check regarding whether they stand in conflict with that particular policy. “Mainstreaming” LGBT rights would mean that no legal measure can be adopted against the will of LGBT people (or rather: against the will of those politicians who, like Mrs. Lunacek or Mr. Cashman, claim to represent them). This would effectively result in a sort of veto right against all and everything, which would empower a very marginal social group (or its self-proclaimed representatives) to dictate their agenda to the rest of society. One has reason to ask: why should just “LGBT rights” be mainstreamed, and not the rights of other groups such as Muslims, Jews, Christians, Jehovah’s witnesses, Mormons, atheists, pantheists, druids and shamans, etc.? Why not the rights of men, women, children, the elderly, the sick and disabled, the abusers of drugs and alcohol, smokers and non-smokers, illiterates and intellectuals, and so on, and so forth? Why should LGBT interests be “mainstreamed”, while the interest of all other social groups aren’t?
- Equally questionable is Mrs. Lunacek’s demand that “hate speech” and “hate crimes” against LGBT people should be subject to specific criminal sanctions. Of course, we all agree that there should be no expression of, or incitement to, hate in the public sphere – but why do LGBT people deserve a special protection that other people don’t deserve? Why does Mrs. Lunacek not come up with a proposal that would afford equal protection and equal attention to all, including non-homosexuals? When, as it has happened twice in the last few months, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels was physically attacked and insulted by homosexualist/abortionist activists, did anyone hear Mrs. Lunacek protest? But the intention of the Lunacek-report apparently is to create a privilege for the LGBT-Lobby: they alone are to enjoy the right to freely express their opinions, whereas any public statement that is even remotely critical of their agenda will be denounced as a “hate crime” and evicted from public debate. (For example, collecting signatures for a petition protesting against attempts to redefine marriage is, according to this logic, a “hate crime”. The apparent purpose pursued by the LGBT lobby is to stifle democracy and the freedom of expression, and to intimidate critics.)
- In further course, this would be expanded in a general privilege for public LGBT figures (such as Mrs. Lunacek) to be immunized against any form of criticism, in whichever context it is made. Whenever you criticize any opinion expressed by Mr. Lunacek, she will simply reply: “you only say that because you are homophobe”, thus cutting off any debate on the merits of her opinion and striking back with an argumentum ad hominem. This kind of behaviour has often been observed throughout the last few years, and it should therefore by now be clear that such proposals have a dangerous potential of undermining democracy and public debate.
- The same could be said with regard to other points listed on Mrs. Lunacek’s roadmap. For example, she also wants to secure a privileged “freedom of assembly” for controversial (and oftentimes provokingly obscene) “gay pride events”, whereas any assemblies that serve the purpose of expressing support for normal families (such as the “Manif pour tous” in France) would, of course, not enjoy the same freedom.
- Similarly, Mrs. Lunaceks request for “non-discrimination” in areas such as employment or access to goods and services is in fact a request for social privileges: the protection a person enjoys will increase according to how conspicuously it exhibits its sexual inclinations. A person dressed up normally will not be able to complain about having been turned down for a job or a renting contract, but a conspicuously gay or lesbian person can say: the tenant (or employer) must have noticed that I’m gay/lesbian, and that is the reason why I was turned down. This creates privileges for conspicuous LGBT over all other persons.
- And of course, last but not least, Mrs. Lunacek’s agenda is about social privileges for her LGBT constituency. This includes, for example, the extension tax cuts or survivor’s pensions, which originally had the purpose of providing support to families that raise children and thus make contributions to the common good, to homosexual couples who make no similar contributions. Those privileges come at a cost, and that cost must be assumed by the non-LGBT rest of society.
What we clearly see emerging in Europe today are two radically opposed visions of “human rights”. One is that human rights are indivisible, and that they must therefore be equal for all persons: that is the message so aptly expressed in the slogan of the successful Citizen’s Initiative “One of Us”. The other is Mrs. Lunacek’s approach, which turns human rights into a source of class privileges for particular constituencies.
Reprinted with permission from Turtle Bay and Beyond