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[CORRECTED] Kevin D Williamson Is Gay? Ain’t That A Victory For Classical Liberalism?

On the 7th April 2018 we wrote an article stating that Kevin D. Williamson was gay. this turned out to be factually untrue and based on an entire misconception of another artice – Kevin Williamson is not gay.

So, err, pretty stupid of me really.

Continental Telegraph clearly apologise to Kevin for that error.

Tim. 

 

It comes to my attention that Kevin D Williamson, fired from the Atlantic over his comments concerning abortion, is gay. This isn’t something to remark upon these days except to remark upon how no one is remarking upon it. I’d regard that as one of the great victories of the classical liberal ideal in recent decades.

I’ve been reading Williamson for ages, the green eyed goddess often enough making an appearance as I try to work out how that style works and why I can’t make it do so. I’d not known – nor, obviously, cared – that he was gay. It’s not something that’s at the core of his writing like it is of, say, Owen Jones’. So, I didn’t know this:

Its ironic – Kevin Williamson even has a UK analogue – Matthew Parris. Both gay.

So what?

Well, it marks how society has changed. As a minor point it shows that diversity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. We get a constant wail of how organisations must be diverse on such matters as the sexuality, gender, sex, melanin content, of the workforce and yet when diversity of thought rears its ugly head everyone is all aquiver.

The major point being, well, more major. It was only a couple of decades back that a gay conservative was seen as a near lunatic aberration. Akin in the US to a black Republican. Sure, they existed, but rather quietly. The Log Cabin Republicans were seen as being somehow a betrayal. For to be gay was to be part of the left coalition, wan’t it? That stitching together of everyone with a grievance about the current order into a political force.

Which is the thing I note about this current furore. Absolutely no one thinks that Williamson’s sexuality has anything to do with anything other than his own sexuality. He’s not being attacked nor defended upon the basis of it. His ideas, sure, they’re being machine gunned. And I think that’s a vast advance. In that properly classical liberal direction.

We rather went from no one knowing about the sexuality of a commentator, through to both a prurience about it and also an assumption that leaning one way would mean belonging to one particular thought gang, to today’s who gives a s**t? Yes, that is a better society. It’s a pretty good definition of that classical liberalism in fact, that where and when you affect some third party we need to take note but for the vast majority of how you live your life who gives a s**t?

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Tim Newman
5 years ago

Absolutely no one thinks that Williamson’s sexuality has anything to do with anything other than his own sexuality.

I’m not so sure. I think it’s more a case of, in the great game of victim hood poker, being a white male cancels out his being gay. I’ve mentioned a few times on my blog that gay men are being thrown under the bus by SJWs, trannies, and feminists using the forces they helped unleash. If being gay is the only card they hold, they’re screwed.

Spike
Spike
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim Newman

The biggest chumps of all are African Americans, who on average are Christians, oppose abortion and homosexuality, and have no sympathy for the struggles of jihadists. Downtown, they get paid to have single-parent families, put children in unsafe welfare schools, look to the government as provider, and be led in prayer by one community activist after another for that day when the white race falters. They vote Democrat most overwhelmingly and get nothing for the party’s hierarchy of victims.

Southerner
5 years ago
Reply to  Spike

Not your proudest moment Spike.

benaud
benaud
5 years ago
Reply to  Southerner

Really whats the offensive bit.

I see PoC’s as simply on a plantation, being used and abused by the political overlords.

Spike
Spike
5 years ago
Reply to  Spike

I stand by my comment; would you care to offer more than ridicule?

Spike
Spike
5 years ago

If one lives a political life of assembling Pitiable Victim Classes and advocating for “equality,” never mind whether of opportunity or results, then one is duty-bound to continually count Victims, just to measure one’s own success. So Williamson is not a columnist but a “gay columnist” to measure the progress against the presumed enemy of anti-gay publishers. Ever since James Watt was fired for bragging that a council he set up was compulsively balanced, with “a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple,” the real taboo is to state what the left is doing: reducing people to ciphers. There… Read more »

Spike
Spike
5 years ago

Tim, we would move toward not-giving-a-shit much faster if homosexuals, and other people playing games of pretend, would also regard it as a personal matter and not flock to the legislature seeking legal recognition, protection, penalties for people who believe they are wrong, and imprisonment for psychologists their parents hire to try to straighten them out.

Southerner
5 years ago

So, silently, like wrongs hushed up, they went. This is one of those embarrassing things like Rupert and the Genital Cuff that you don’t talk about.

Rhoda Klapp
Rhoda Klapp
5 years ago

Fed up with identity p..no, not politics but an invasion of the entire social space. I don’t like victim communities existing, and if you ever find yourself in one, reject the characterisation. Even if you are gay black crippled poor all at once and trans-gender too.

Don’t classify people for any social purpose as anything other than people,. of presumed equal value.

NiV
NiV
5 years ago

“I’m not so sure. I think it’s more a case of, in the great game of victim hood poker, being a white male cancels out his being gay. I’ve mentioned a few times on my blog that gay men are being thrown under the bus by SJWs, trannies, and feminists using the forces they helped unleash.” We’re seemingly still thoroughly stuck in “an assumption that leaning one way would mean belonging to one particular thought gang”. The assumption is that being gay, he’s one of the gays who “helped unleashed forces”. Even with an overtly right-wing columnist who made so… Read more »

Spike
Spike
5 years ago
Reply to  NiV

Not all homosexuals flock to the legislature. I do not know that Williamson did, nor did I write that he did. I did not know he was gay. Nevertheless, many still clamor for special political rights, and they are the reason identity politics persists. Thank you for not quite calling me a homophobe, this time.

NiV
NiV
5 years ago
Reply to  Spike

Hi Spike, Tim was talking about Williamson specifically (“this current furore”) – that it was wonderful how people had moved to not giving a shit about his sexual orientation, which he hadn’t made an issue of. I’m pretty sure Tim wasn’t saying this applied to *all* such cases. You responded “Tim, we would move toward not-giving-a-shit much faster if homosexuals, and other people playing games of pretend, would also regard it as a personal matter and…” which I therefore assumed was about the same subject Tim was talking about – i.e. the Williamson furore. Apologies if I misunderstood. And you’re… Read more »

Tim Newman
5 years ago
Reply to  NiV

NiV,

You could have saved both your time and everyone else’s by getting to grips with what the word “they” can mean in all it’s forms.

NiV
NiV
5 years ago
Reply to  Tim Newman

It’s generally taken to refer to the same subject mentioned earlier in the conversation, used as a means to avoid repetition. Thus, I would assume the “gay men thrown under the bus” are supposed to be the same as those who “unleashed forces”. Of course, the people who actually unleashed these forces were the Christians – following centuries of religious war in which Catholics persecuted Protestants, and then Protestants persecuted Catholics, until everyone got fed up of it and started talking about the benefits of religious tolerance, which led to Enlightenment philosophers like J S Mill generalising the principle, and,… Read more »

Bloke in Wales
Bloke in Wales
5 years ago

I see I’m going to have to find the time to adapt my commenter filter for this site too.

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