How the Right Twists Itself When Exposed
Eugene Volokh has been protesting that he is NOT a homophobe. He merely disagrees with some about something and therefore gets labelled a homophobe.
Oh, if only.
The issue isn’t whether Volokh is offering ideas with which many of us don’t “completely agree.” The issue is whether Volokh is offering hypotheses without any factual foundation at all, and whether he uses statistics in so selective and misleading a manner that he distorts what may be legitimate issues (if approached in a very different manner) into particularly vicious attacks on a group which is already under constant assault.Put it another way: the issue is whether Volokh is offering ideas which are completely arbitrary—and then demanding that we treat them “seriously” or risk being viewed as narrow-minded. That last element is worthy of special note: there is a very strong attempt at intimidation present in Volokh’s argument. He is maintaining that if you treat his ideas as of no worth whatsoever than you are the bigot, at the very least an intellectual bigot. You’re not genuinely “open-minded”; you aren’t willing to consider whatever conclusions the evidence might support.
But all of that is a lie, too: Volokh’s theories are not supported by any facts at all, and no evidence supports his alleged conclusions. It is not “narrow-minded” to reject ideas that are arbitrary and nonsensical: that is precisely how we protect our intellectual integrity, and prevent genuine knowledge from contamination by dangerous foolishness. There is another part to this attempt at intimidation: the implication that to ever identify someone—especially a “well-respected” law professor at a major university!—as an “anti-gay bigot” is somehow beyond the pale. But that isn’t what is beyond the pale: what is intolerable is that Volokh actually is one. And I own that charge completely: if someone’s baseless arguments consistently feed directly into the agenda of the Hate-Filled Right and its nonstop attacks on gays, then he becomes an anti-gay bigot in fact and for all relevant purposes. If Volokh doesn’t want to be regarded as an anti-gay bigot, then he should stop talking and acting like one.
It's a standard right-wing tactic. Make some bullshit up and then look appalled when others call you on it. Then say it's your critics who are being illiberal or intolerant. That way the debate gets shifted to the terms of liberalism rather than the ridiculousness of your original statements.
Well done, Gene. Lord Duku has taught you well.