On the Other Hand

I've been thinking recently about the way society has traditionally treated left-handedness.  For centuries, favoring the left hand has been considered by many cultures to be evil or unclean.  As a result, left-handed children were often forced by their parents and teachers to use their right hand. Britain's future King George VI was forced by his strict father to use his right hand. The younger George developed a severe stammer which plagued him all his life.  Baseball players Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth were also forced to use their right hands in childhood. Although they wrote right-handed, their natural southpaw tendencies came out when they hit or threw a baseball.

There are several Biblical passages that are unfavorable of the left hand, and these passages were influential in perpetuating the practice of forcing lefties to go right.  To this day, science does not understand what causes left-handedness.  It is not hereditary, although there may be a genetic component.  The hormonal environment in the womb is another possible cause (high prenatal testosterone levels seem to result in more left-handed children, and older mothers are more likely to have left-handed children). Ultrasound studies show that we seem to develop our lateral orientation in the womb (fetuses favor sucking one thumb or the other, which corresponds to their dominant hand after birth).

Lefties seem to have an advantage in combat sports, probably because they are accustomed to competing against righties, but righties find lefties to be novel and challenging.  Despite this, the percentage of true lefties in the population seems to be stable. Various studies estimate it at anywhere from 5% to 15%. 

Most Americans nowadays believe that left-handedness is an accident of birth, a minor inconvenience (considering all the modern tools that are designed for righties) that should be simply accepted, and not inherently evil or sinful.  Left-handed children can be trained to use their right hands, but they will not excel at it, and their self esteem is likely to suffer.  Therefore, most parents and teachers no longer force children to go against their nature, at least with regards to lateral orientation.

Our society is gradually coming around to the idea that sexual orientation is also an accident of birth. Gay youngsters can be forced to behave like straight people, but they do not excel at it. There are still plenty of Bible-thumpers who cite Leviticus as a reason to send their gay children to a deprogramming camp (while they themselves eat bacon-wrapped shrimp, enjoy interest-bearing bank accounts and argue about politics with their own parents), but the Haggard and Rekers scandals are undermining the belief that homosexuality is a choice that can be willed away by faith in God. 

If these men, who are in the public eye proclaiming against homosexual behavior and claiming that gay people can be "cured" by faith, are unable to suppress their nature, how can anyone be expected to do so?  These men had sex with prostitutes, risking their own health and that of their poor, unwitting wives.  It is within the segments of society that are most homophobic that gay men seem to engage in the most risky sex.  In the African-American community, the term "on the down-low" was coined for gay men who pretend to be straight but engage in discreet casual sex with other men.  I am reminded of the bumper sticker "If Guns Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Guns."

There are still many who persist in believing that sexual orientation is a choice (as if anyone would choose to be ostracized by society).  Younger Americans are more likely to believe that sexual orientation is inborn.  That is why there is such a wide gap in attitudes toward gay rights between older and younger conservatives. The politics of division that are practiced by some on the right are actually painting them into a corner.  In the short term, they will gain votes (since older people vote in much larger numbers), but in the long-term, their electorate will die off faster than it can be replaced.

MoveOn.org Won't Move On

I have followed the misadventures of MoveOn.org since the organization first formed to urge Congress to drop the impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton. Undaunted by its initial failure, it tried to whip up the left during the 2000 presidential election, warning that voting for Ralph Nader could throw the election to George W. Bush. Not since Cassandra of Troy has an entity been so simultaneously prescient and impotent.

In 2002, MoveOn.org circulated online petitions opposing war in Iraq. In 2003, it held a virtual primary and selected Howard Dean as the Democratic Party standard-bearer and also became involved in the California gubenatorial election, actively opposing the campaign of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

In 2008, MoveOn.org accidentally ruined its perfect record of quixotic failure by endorsing Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party primaries. Facing a severe identity crisis as mainstream voters moved toward Obama in large numbers, MoveOn tried to make the now-popular anti-war movement repellent to centrists with its "Petraeus Betray Us" ad.

Unfortunately for MoveOn.org, Barack Obama was elected anyway. Now, as far as many formerly-angry liberals are concerned, the windmill has been toppled. So how can MoveOn.org convince them to donate money and sign online petitions? They have to come up with some new anger-inducing issues. So they have decided to hold Obama's feet to the fire in order to make sure he follows a MoveOn-approved "progressive" agenda.

A series of "fired up and ready to go" meetings were held around the country on Thursday night. The state coordinator for MoveOn.org claims that about 350 people registered for 18 meetings around Wisconsin. However, the Capital Times reported that the Madison meeting "drew 15 people, all white and over 50." What are the odds that meetings elsewhere in Wisconsin out-drew the Madison meeting?

Compare this to the nationwide demonstrations last Saturday protesting California's anti-gay-marriage Proposition 8. Madison's event reportedly drew 417 people, and that was outside on a cold and windy day.

If MoveOn.org has any sense of self-preservation, it will take a lesson from this and join the marriage-equality bandwagon. The Human Rights Campaign has lost its credibility (at least according to Andrew Sullivan), so there is a niche for a nationally-based left-leaning organization with a huge list of small donors to lobby for the repeal of the federal Defense of Marriage Act and the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell policy.

Of course, if the gay rights activists have any sense of self-preservation, they will avoid MoveOn.org like the plague.