The Other Side of the Sorba Incident Cont’d

In a follow up to my Ryan Sorba post of yesterday, I see that both Erik over at his True/Slant digs and Megan McArdle have taken roughly the same approach to the CPAC audience’s reaction to Sorba. Megan commented,

To me, the news story was this: Sorba got booed off the stage. At CPAC. This seems like great news. So why focus on the sad truth that yes, there are still homophobes out there? Maybe this is just heterosexual privilege, but this seems like a genuinely great moment in gay rights–and the gay conservatives and libertarians who sent met that clip seemed to take it as such.

And Erik noted,

That’s pretty astonishing if you ask me. While Andrew and others lament how awful conservatives have gotten lately, I see quite the opposite. Never before in the history of this country have gays and lesbians received such support from conservatives – and that support is growing at a pretty incredible pace.

Many of the commenters to the post have expressed their skepticism about how much this incident ought to count as a marker of change within American conservatism writ large. I think that skepticism is well founded and in light of Erik and Megan’s comments I would wend more closely towards that skepticism than describing Sorba speaking and getting booed off stage as “astonishing” or “a genuinely great moment in gay rights”. Especially insofar as that skepticism keeps us real about what kind of challenge stands in front of us and keeps us working hard .

It is, at best, a marker of what could perhaps best be described as the slow shifting in a general direction. That general direction is towards a greater acceptance of gay rights within conservative discourse, but the reaction to Sorba isn’t a slam dunk or a touchdown in terms of that movement such that I would call it describe it as Erik and Megan do.

A genuinely great moment in gay rights will be when everyone has the right to marry whomever they choose in every state in the country. That’s a touchdown and it won’t hearken the end of the culture wars either, but it will be a genuinely great moment. Frankly, even the final repeal of DADT doesn’t auger as a touchdown in my books, though it will be a great moment. The repeal of DADT is, maybe, a field goal and an important one.

But the reaction to Sorba, that’s basically moving the ball a couple of yards down the field. It might get you your first down, to extend the metaphor, but you’ve still got a lot of plays to go before you do any victory dances.

The reason I thought it was worth mentioning is less because of how substantial it was and more because of how it marks a movement towards a larger goal. What I think I found most heartening is that the dissent to what has been a pretty standard conservative line of thought was coming from within the ranks of conservatives themselves. Liberals and Democrats should and will continue hammering away at conservative attitudes towards gay men and women such that folks like Sorba get invited to speak at events like CPAC. But a touchdown in terms of really shifting attitudes amongst a majority of conservatives such that the ideology, movement, and party ceases to be even marginally antagonistic and obstructionist towards gay rights comes both from the kind of shifting of norms externally and from a movement within the self-identified subset of individuals and institutions towards accepting and internalizing those norms.

Even if the people booing Sorba were entirely made up of, as some have suggested and may be at least somewhat accurate, “college kids”, I find it at least marginally heartening to see those college kids in attendance at CPAC and emboldned enough in their beliefs to voice them an unapologetic and even somewhat forceful manner. It is equally heartening, therefore, to see a group like GOPride at CPAC and causing a conversation about this particular issue, knowing full well that doing so will result in blow back for them from not insubstantial quarters.

Having advocates within the particular ideological subsection in possession of the requisite courage to challenge one of the malignant beliefs of their ideological and party elders is, unequivocally, a good and positive thing, if not also a relatively small thing in the grand scheme.

And so in my commentary directed towards Andrew Sullivan, I was less frothing about the impending shift of conservative beliefs and actions and more redirecting focus in terms of what I took to be an important marker. There have for some time now been guys like Ryan Sorba in the conservative movement. People willing to use a microphone to bluntly and destructively deliver a message of discrimination wrapped in philosophical pretense and abstraction.

There’s nothing new there.

But to have a larger-ish group of people, many of whom are as young if not younger than Sorba, stand up and denounce that message at a highly watched national conservative event. To have an openly and proudly gay conservative group attend that same event to engage and challenge many of its participants in their biases and bigotry, knowing that a sizable chunk of the response is going to be negative. Those things are less predictable trope for American conservatism.

And so without lapsing into euphemistic cheer leading — of which I am not accusing either Erik or Megan, per se — I think weighing the two offers justification for a modicum of optimism and impetus to keep moving the ball further down the field.

Tagged as: American conservatism, gay rights, megan mcardle, Ryan Sorba, social norms