So I'm a 'homophobe,' am I? (National Post, July 21)

MONTREAL - One hears that the scourge of political correctness has peaked, and is even on the wane. But an unsettling episode in my Montreal synagogue around the subject of gay marriage has persuaded me otherwise.

As many Christians, especially Anglicans, have learned in recent years, gay marriage is a bitterly divisive issue. Both churches and synagogues must balance tradition's claims against those of tolerance and civil rights, and there are a variety of good faith arguments on both sides of the debate.

Last month, our synagogue held a panel discussion on gay marriage. Well, I say "panel discussion," which normally implies a balance of views. But this program was anything but balanced. It was in fact a love-in for the advancement of gay marriage.

I don't support gay marriage, for sociological more than religious reasons. I do support civil unions, and the equal legal rights and benefits they confer. That used to be considered a legitimate, even liberal, position. No longer.

Our synagogue is a constituent congregation of Reconstructionist Judaism -- liturgically traditional but philosophically liberal. For some time our rabbi has resisted pressure to perform gay marriages. The pressure comes not only from synagogue activists, but from the Reconstructionist movement's strongly feminist academic elites, including a critical mass of lesbian rabbis disproportionately engaged in the cause of social engineering.

The evening in question began with the "neutral" moderator waving a magazine aloft, urging us to read the pro-gay marriage article within. The panelists then held forth: A legal expert sneered at the U.S. Supreme Court for its Christian, right-wing bias without referencing Canada's judiciary. A psychiatrist complacently opined that science and the sexual revolution have effectively sundered questions of morality from sexuality, all manifestations of which are now equally worthy of social approval.

No spokesman had been invited to argue what I, and fully half of Canadians believe: that from any religious perspective -- since all religions posit the family as the basic unit of a healthy culture -- unions that are inherently fruitful (and contingently sterile) should be privileged over those that are inherently sterile (and only contingently fruitful).

The programmers' failure to include this popular, but un-PC, opinion indicates to what extent progressive religions have been co-opted by liberal ideologues. They exploit our congregations' commitment to inclusiveness -- a value mainstream conservatives like me heartily endorse -- by handcuffing inclusiveness to support for gay marriage -- which most conservatives don't. Those who protest the linkage are ipso facto labelled homophobic.

The synagogue program was a template for the phenomenon. Attending gays and lesbians were ranged together in a grimly alert two-row bloc, creating the rather intimidating image of a jury. Tension filled the air.

I'm not particularly keen on martyrdom, but since nobody else was offering a dissenting opinion, I stated the conservative case for heterosexual marriage. A lesbian immediately leaped to her feet to denounce me, yelling -- as if she were at some Marxist jamboree rather than a house of worship -- that I had no right to imply that lesbian parenting was less worthy than heterosexual.

To illustrate, she gave histrionic voice to memories of her mother's three husbands, all of whom, apparently, were "s--ts."

So much for the rational and refined discourse of yore that was once the often-cited hallmark of our synagogue.

I then braced myself for the inevitable accusations the PCs routinely employ to chill further discussion. Sure enough, a few seconds later a gay man rose with a victim's anguished air and, casting a baleful glare at me, urged an end to hurtful expressions of "racism and homophobia." At this, the 200-some assembled burst into applause.

Do my co-members really believe I am homophobic? No. The words "racist" and "homophobic" are a kind of totalitarian cue card, shibboleths of leftist discourse. Those who say them intend to cut off discussion. Those who applaud are demonstrating they have Correct Thoughts. Perhaps unwittingly, they applaud to shame and punish those enemies of progressivism who have Incorrect Thoughts.

Needless to say, there were no further interventions that evening opposing gay marriage.

Reconstructionist Judaism's catchy, high-minded slogan is, "The past has a vote, but not a veto" -- the idea being that each new generation can be trusted to balance historically sanctioned traditions against modern values. I think a more honest version today might read, "The past has neither a vote nor a veto." Accordingly, I must henceforth avoid certain synagogue programs, and that, I assure you, is a more ominous sign of the times than the question of who is marrying whom.

Muslims, Christian fundamentalists, Catholics and Orthodox Jews are spared these divisive experiences, but churches and synagogues committed to accommodating new sociological realities are obliged to see the issue through to a workable conclusion. Whether that transpires as a constructive dialogue producing a compromise most people can live with, or as the steady erosion of congregational sodality in the name of those who consider religious organizations to be vehicles for advancing their dogmas, will depend in large part on whether we can eradicate the toxin of political correctness from the debate, while reinstating civility of discourse and a safe environment for dissent.

© National Post 2004