End of civilization, blah blah blah

Coming off the recent gay marriage victory in New York, perennial doomsayer Pat Robertson had some choice words for America. Recounting the story of Sodom being destroyed by God for trying to rape angels, he claims that “There isn’t one single civilization that has survived that openly embraced homosexuality.” Meanwhile, marriage opponent Maggie Gallagher says that “in the end, a civilization built against nature falls. Every time.”

That’s quite the carefully worded prediction. On closer examination, it essentially says nothing of any substance. Sure, you can point to any number of civilizations that accepted gay people, and note that they’re all gone now, but what’s that supposed to mean? Is that all it takes to conclude that gay people must have destroyed them? Because it doesn’t work that way. I bet they had plenty of straight people too, but you don’t see anyone blaming them. Unless you can point out how gay people actually caused their downfall, this is not a credible assertion. It is an incredible assertion. And no, stories about God do not count until he shows up in person. Really, if God is going to destroy us, doesn’t that mean we’d be doing just fine if it wasn’t for him? Wouldn’t he be the real problem here? Why would we need God if we’re going to destroy ourselves? I don’t think we’re raping any angels yet – but feel free to prove me wrong.

Aside from how utterly irresponsible it is to accuse a certain group of posing an existential threat to society, these gay end times prophecies are nothing but a desperate cry for attention from an increasingly irrelevant movement. Gay marriage has been around for a while now, and people can see that the sky isn’t falling. If this is what it takes to get them to listen to you, you’ve pretty much lost already.

Really, what kind of civilization is so fragile that simply accepting gay people is all it takes to destroy it? It probably wasn’t going to last very long, anyway. And if a society’s continued existence requires persecuting gay people, maybe it should be destroyed. But as anyone can see by now, this is a false premise and a false choice. The only civilization that’s coming to an end is the one that straight supremacists long for. And we certainly won’t be missing it.

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