What underlies homophobia: the demand that discourse be structured to respond to delicacies, sensitivities, and ambitions of heterosexual middle-class white men
Rainbow flag. Symbol of gay pride. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) David Blankenhorn posted some comments about me, and Maggie Gallagher has asked me to respond. Here are my two cents in italics: Here is my response: I do not know much of David Blankenhorn's life, even less of his deeper motives. The issues on which he has asserted a stake in the conversation are, I would remind him, not leisurely and slow for all of us. For some of us, engaging in a polite conversation would mean passively turning away from the danger posed to others. The striking words he uses are that he finds in in my voice nothing that reminds him of shared humanity or the complexities of experience. Much of what I write, especially of late, is about the experiences of people other than myself: the activists in France , the forgotten people in the US who write to me, the surrogate mothers in India , poor students in Belgium , etc. By contrast, his comment below revolves entirely about himself. The only thi