Wednesday, November 26, 2008

The Polite Bigotry of Peter LaBarbera

photo: Todd Winters
“I sincerely believe that nobody has to be ‘gay."

Savannah, Ga. Peter LaBarbera lives for conflict. For all of the neo-Puritans, there is always an ongoing battle in the cosmic war for Gideon against the forces of Satan and Hell. His crusade pour la vie is against the Leviathan Homosexual, homosexual activists, homosexual agenda, homosexual fanatics, and anything smacking of "normalizing homosexuality in the culture."

LaBarbera really puts himself out there as the go-to guy for All Things Considered Homosexual. From his website: "He has done over a thousand interviews on the [homosexual activist movement] and written extensively on most aspects of the homosexual, bisexual, and--(in quotes)--"transgender" agenda--with special focus on the inroads that the pro-homosexuality movement has made among America's youth." Further, his website states: "LaBarbera has debated the top[sic] homosexual advocates while appearing on hundreds of TV and radio news programs." Despite this veritable trove of exposure, LaBarbera politely demures that he is not in any way "obsessed" about homosexuality. Far from the fact. The site points out that "LaBarbera has been falsely accused of being a repressed homosexual more times than he can remember." Might this be selective memory loss? For a man who writes "thousands" of articles and appears on "hundreds" of on-air media programs all addressing a homosexual agenda, and at the same juncture claiming a non-fixation of the subject, then perhaps topic hobbyist would be a better choice of words, or homosexual dilettante a better turn of phrase. In any event, Peter the 'pro-family' activist spends quite a bit of time away from Le Mme et cinq enfants trying to pin scarlet Lambda's on homosexual chests in Op-Ed pages and TV/Radio studios across the land.

No "liberal caricature of the angry 'homophobe'" he, LaBarbera prides himself in damning homosexuals with civility. He's even dinged Fred Phelps for having an "unChristian message." Bully. Phelps is a bit too flamboyant, too red-meated, for the muted LaBarbera, who nonetheless believes that "homosexual practice is always wrong," "rejects the notion of inborn "gay" identity," denies the idea of transgender issues, and believes a radical, harmful, homosexual agenda is a force of evil to be engaged in holy struggle. Like the title of Bernard Henri-Levy's 1977 book, Barbarism with Human Face, the very mannerly and always civil Peter LaBarbera prefers to show all of us his affable facade. But mistake him not: LaBarbera is a barbarian, a modern Cromwell, who in the name of his god and the ego of his belief will force compliance, his order, and his radical religious agenda upon us all.

The battle is enjoined.

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