by Daniele Scalea

In the last few weeks, talking about the controversy surrounding General Vannacci's views on homosexuality, it occurred to me that traditionalist Catholics rejected them on the basis ( shared with the Left) that they would be too harsh on homosexuals as individuals. The classic position of the Church has been to condemn the sin (the homosexual act) but not the sinner (the one who performs it). Other, more secular conservatives blame neither the acts nor the actors. I agree with the latter and as well - however seemingly contradictory - with the gist of what Vannacci wrote. I will try to explain why in the following paragraphs.

Discussing homosexuality

From a secular perspective, one cannot condemn the homosexual act itself. I, like most men and women, have never engaged in sexual acts with people of the same gender; but I am not disturbed that consenting adults, in their private lives, may do so. Keeping religion and politics separate, we are not concerned with private "sin" (assuming it is such). It is the public dimension of the phenomena that concerns us.

When one critically addresses "non-heterosexuality" (in the age of gender theory, it is now reductive and out of place to speak of "homosexuality," although for convenience we will continue to use this term from time to time), one is either accused of being a "bigot" or a "homophobe." The complete delegitimization and often criminalization of any opinion other than enthusiastic endorsement stems from a fundamental misunderstanding: the (erroneous) idea that non-heterosexual people and the LGBTQ+ movement are one and the same and that, therefore, criticizing the latter amounts to insulting the former.

"Homosexuals" and "LGBTQ+ movement" are not the same thing

Needless to say, a homosexual person will tend to sympathize with a movement that describes itself as its representative, but there is a share of non-straight people who disdain or openly fight against the LGBTQ+ movement. Similarly, the movement is supported by a great many people who have no homosexual inclinations.

This is also what happens with feminism: the movement is named after females, but it responds not to them but to a specific doctrine. Women who oppose that doctrine are perceived as enemies by feminists, despite being, precisely, females.

Both feminism and LGBTQ+ took their first steps by vindicating the rights of the categories from which they take their names; often sacrosanct rights that were previously denied, resulting in the unequal treatment of citizens before the law. Having obtained these rights, however, both movements began to up the ante: they invented new "rights" (actually privileges) embedded in a more general paradigm of social deconstruction and engineering.

Feminism against females, LGBTQ+ against homosexuals

Today women are more successful in school than men. The hardest or most dangerous jobs are done almost exclusively by men. Public discourse favors women to such an extent that "feminism" is synonymous with virtuousness and "machismo," though its correlative, with abjection. The woman relegated to the homely role of mother and wife is now a distant memory in the West, where the birth rate is in free fall. Yet, ignoring all this, feminists continue tirelessly to fight against the bogeyman of patriarchy, to discourage women from choosing motherhood, to promote demeanizing and emasculation of men. Paradoxically, as evidenced by the advent of gender theory, the ultimate goal of feminism has become the abolition of the "female" as a category.

The LGBTQ+ movement has long since departed from the mere emancipation of homosexuals. By now, no country in the West punishes homosexuality. Homosexuals have been recognized as a "protected category," sometimes the beneficiary of positive discrimination ("affirmative action") and shielded from insolence or criticism - these, on the other hand, criminalized as "hate crimes." Civil unions and stepchild adoption grant same-sex couples de facto parity with marriage, even where gay marriage has not been legislated. Every year for the entire month of June, the rainbow flag is displayed in public demonstrations of ideological adherence reminiscent of totalitarian regimes' rallies. Nowadays to be merely tolerant is to be bigoted and homophobic. The call for tolerance has been replaced by the call for approval, when not exaltation.

Yet, the LGBTQ+ movement is more embattled than ever and is focusing more and more on children. It is demanding a growing role in defining school education, in shaping young minds. It has postulated the nonexistent "right to parenting" even where nature does not permit it, as is the case with same-sex couples. If two men or two women cannot procreate, then it is the duty of the state to give them children (by granting adoptions) or, at the very least, not to stand in the way when an indentured servant (i.e., a time slave) is exploited for the gestation of a child conceived in a test tube.

Many homosexuals are horrified by the practice of surrogacy, but this counts for little or nothing: LGBTQ+ is not a representative union (although it suits them to pretend to be one, in order to brand all criticism as "hate" and "discrimination"), it is a radical meta-political movement. And, just as the ultimate manifestation of feminism is the abolition of the female, the final form of the gay movement renamed LGBTQ+ is the abolition of the gay, a "too binary" category, which must be melted in the acid of sexual fluidity postulated by gender theory.

LGBTQ+ as an ideological agenda

The LGBTQ+ movement, then, does not correspond to the set of "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and more," as the acronym purportedly states. It is the screen of the followers of a precise ideology, whose underlying doctrine stems from the encounter between Marxism and post-modernism, united by the struggle against tradition. The Marxists were in search of new blood after the failure of laborism. The post-modernists offered it in the form of a rejection of objectivity as well as methods of "deconstructing/reconstructing" the world by exploiting language.

With regard to sexuality, the new doctrine postulates that, supposing the existence of a biological sex (Judith Butler, for example, does not concede it), "gender" does not correspond to it but is a mere social construct, imposed on us so far by the dominance of the evil white male. Heterosexuality, according to them, is neither natural nor normal but only normative: it is patriarchy that inculcates this idea from a very young age, and it is only because of patriarchy that women have sexual urges toward men and vice versa (Adrienne Rich). In this framework, homosexuality becomes political action. As Sheila Jeffreys wrote thirty years ago now, heterosexuality is based on the ideology of difference, the white male paradigm. Therefore, to counter it, one must eroticize equality: homosexuality.

Homosexuality as a political project

So here we come to the point: there are, under the shared name of homosexuality, two very different things.

READ ALSO
Dichiarazione degli accademici ungheresi contro l'attacco alla tradizione

The first is the attraction that, for mainly physiological reasons, a minority of people feel toward same-sex individuals. It is not "counter-nature," as used to be said - it is a natural phenomenon itself. But, put without any intent to stigmatize or insult, it is also not "normal," neither in the quantitative sense of what is ordinarily observed, nor in the biological sense, since humans reproduce sexually and autogamy or hermaphroditism do not exist in the human species (so-called "intersexuality" is not hermaphroditism). This "a-normality" - it should be made clear - does not diminish a person's value just because he or she is homosexual.

The second is homosexuality not as a natural phenomenon, not as a set of urges and acts, but as a political project. In many neo-Marxist authors, homosexuality, or rather it would be better to say "non-heterosexuality," becomes a way of life, a role model, whose purpose is ideological: revolution against the white race's patriarchal and capitalist system of power. A way of life, then, to be promoted, first of all by manipulating the minds of those who, for physiological and psychological reasons, are most malleable: prepubescent children and adolescents who are still sexually immature.

"Dear heterosexuals: you are not normal."

It is precisely this second type of homosexuality, which would be better called "homosexualism" and which corresponds to the LGBTQ+ movement, that has always fought against the idea that heterosexuals are "normal."

When confronted with the scandal aroused by General Vannacci's statements, Minister Crosetto declared that he would have reacted as negatively if Vannacci had written the opposite of what is in his book. We take the liberty of doubting this, not because we think Crosetto is in bad faith, but because a phrase like "heterosexuals, you are not normal" would be recognized as the orthodox view by much of academia, journalism and the cultural world, now hegemonized by gender ideology. Among the most quoted aphorisms of writer Dorothy Parker, forerunner of LGBTQ+, is the one for which "heterosexuality is not normal, only common." Jonathan Ned Katz, author of The Invention of Heterosexuality, used Freud's Oedipal theory to ridicule heterosexuality's claim to normality. The whole constructivist critique is based precisely on the assumption that there is nothing normal or natural about heterosexuality, but that it is a blatant artifice used by "Patriarchal Power" to marginalize, we are not sure why, a category of people.

How to fight the neo-Marxist gender ideology

In conclusion, it is important to stress again that the homosexual act should not be stigmatized, nor should the homosexual person. Homosexuality pertains to the sphere of private drives and, as long as it involves consenting adults, is ethically neutral.

The matter becomes more nuanced when it comes to the projection of homosexuality into the public sphere. Today this happens - it should be pointed out - in a much more conspicuous and flamboyant manner than with heterosexuality. Although nudity, eroticism and pornography are increasingly out in the open, there is no "hetero pride." No one has ever thought of marching, half-naked and in lewd attitudes, to celebrate their erotic preferences when directed toward the opposite sex. From Pride parades in other countries we get images of sadomasochists, holding leashes on other men, showing off and impudently interacting with children. If in their place had been a man holding a leash on women, or vice versa, the protagonists would have been rightly branded as perverts holding inappropriate behavior toward minors.

The reason for this public over-exposure of non-heterosexuality was first explained. There is a neo-Marxist doctrine that has included it in a program of deconstruction of Western civilization. This is already moving beyond the stage of "same-sex marriage," which is now a reality in many countries and yet only partially suited to its political agenda. The civilly recognized homosexual couple, in fact, already constitutes in itself a kind of "normalization" of non-heterosexuality. To borrow from the words used by Roberto Vannacci, we are at the enlargement of normality, which is preparatory to its destruction but not coincident with it.

And precisely the abolition of "normality" is the ultimate goal of the neo-Marxist doctrine of gender. The end point is the "queer family" touted in Italy by the recently deceased writer-activist Michela Murgia: fluid, irregular, indefinable. A "family" that cannot be defined is, consequently, a non-family. Here, then, is realized a goal that was already declared between the lines by Engels: to abolish the family. A goal accomplished not through a de jure abolition, but by stretching, by tearing the category to pieces.

And here comes the problem: How can this project be countered?

Condemning single physical (and private) acts of homosexuality, stigmatizing those who perform them, is neither fair nor helpful. But the LGBTQ+ movement, exploiting the semantic confusion described above, has occupied a strong defensive position: it succeeds in passing off as personal attacks on homosexuals any criticism made of its ideology and agenda.

It is the same pattern enacted against General Vannacci. It is the pattern that, unless understood and publicly rejected, will continue to tie the hands of conservatives, preventing any effective defense in the face of the neo-Marxist assault on the pillars of our civilization.

Founder and President of Centro Studi Machiavelli. A graduate in History (University of Milan) and Ph.D. in Political Studies (Sapienza University), he teaches “History and Doctrine of Jihadism” at Marconi University and “Geopolitics of the Middle East” at Cusano University, where he has also taught on Islamic extremism in the past.

From 2018 to 2019, he served as Special Advisor on Immigration and Terrorism to Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs Guglielmo Picchi; he later served as head of the technical secretariat of the President of the Parliamentary Delegation to the Central European Initiative (CEI).

Author of several books, including Immigration: the reasons of populists, which has also been translated into Hungarian.