Are Gays a Threat to Civilization?

(Originally posted on Freespace)

Gay Marriage might come to a town near where I grew up: “The gay-friendly borough of New Hope, Pa., a picturesque town on the Delaware River that has long attracted artists, antiquers, and tourists, wants Bucks County officials to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.”

Yes, New Hope is a very gay-friendly town. It’s also a beautiful town. It’s about 15 minutes north, up the Delaware River, from the town Yardley, PA, where I grew up. Everyday, especially on the weekends, you’ll see young college kids, families and their children, lots of educated and urbane yuppies, as well as punks, bikers and artists walking the streets, eating at the restaurants, hanging out and shopping. And the real estate prices are outrageously high. It probably is a bit like San Francisco or Berkeley.

Some social conservatives claim that gays represent a threat to civilization. I find this claim odd because the towns and cities where gays tend to congregate are some of the most civilized—or at least the most livable, (and expensive) places in the nation. I have seen anti-gay conservatives, as well as some gay friendly folks, trot out statistics demonstrating that gays have disproportionate levels of wealth, income, and education. Anti-gay conservatives usually disseminate these in order to demonstrate why gays aren’t an oppressed minority, why they don’t need civil rights status, etc. But isn’t there perhaps another way to interpret these figures? That gays, like Jews and Asians, are “model minorities” who are thriving in the free market. I don’t know whether these figures are accurate. There is much junk science about gays from both the left (the 10% of the population figure—it’s more like 3%) and the right (hyperpromiscuity, phony lifespan figures, made up diseases like “gay bowel syndrome”) that one hardly knows what to believe.

There are certain cities (or parts of them) in this country populated by various subcultures where it really does seem as if civilization has broken down, where poverty and crime are rampant, businesses are gone, people don’t work and depend on the government for support (and as an optimist, I see that things have gotten better since we reformed welfare, started locking up more criminals, and reduced the teen birth rate). But go to any geographic area where gays disproportionately congregate and you will see the antithesis of this. You will see towns where culture and business thrive—some of the most in demand and expensive real estate locations. Think about any town that you are aware of where gays congregate and see if you can find an exception: New Hope, PA, San Francisco, CA, Dupont Circle, DC, the Village in NY, Provincetown, MA, Key West and Miami South Beach, Fla.—Do we see a pattern here?