To understand the current homosexual revolution properly,
we must see it within the broader picture of the sexual
revolution.
Chastity, modesty and temperance—distinctive signs of
Christian civilization—have given way to an unbridled quest for
carnal pleasure and an unimaginable display of the human body.
This obsession for the sexual permeates our culture. Be it
literature, fashion, entertainment, advertising or simply
common speech and behavior, almost everything today is
branded with this erotic stamp. Today’s hypersexualized
world has become a perfect hotbed for every form of sexual
aberration.
DETACHING SENTIMENT FROM REASON
The sexual revolution of the sixties was prepared by a
century of cultural developments where sentiment was
detached from reason. In this regard, the Romantic School of
literature and the arts celebrated a general exaltation of
emotion over reason and the senses over the intellect.
In so doing, romance and love became the highest ideal. In
the name of love and passion, every rule and social convention
could be broken. When applied to morality, this mentality was
devastating, since adultery and even prostitution could be
rationalized and even acclaimed.1
(1. George P. Landow, Professor of English and Art History at Brown University,) writes about the philosophical and religious implications of Romanticism:
“For the first time, philosophers no longer urged that the healthy human mind is organized hierarchically with reason, like a king, unruling will and passions.
Reason now shares rule with feelings or emotions… For art and literature: the emotions become the proper subject of the arts…For religion: …Christianity’s doctrine of Original Sin and human depravity must be wrong. Christianity and religion in general appear founded on an error.”
Emotionalist Moral Philosophy:
Sympathy and the Moral Theory that Overthrew Kings,
www.victorianweb.org/
philosophy/phil4.html.
12 CHAPTER 2
Such themes mark modern literature. Thousands of romantic
novels and films present highly emotive and sentimental plots.
Atypical example of this is Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Lady
of the Camellias (1848), which revolves around a glamorous
upper class prostitute. Despite its blatantly immoral characters,
the novel enjoyed huge success worldwide. Verdi turned it into
an opera, La Traviata (1853), which enjoyed equal success.
Later, the novel inspired several Hollywood movies, the most
famous being Camille (1936) starring Greta Garbo.
THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION:
FROM SENTIMENT TO CARNAL SENSATION
This prolonged overemphasis on sentiment and the erosion
of morals prepared the way for the next step: the unbridled,
hedonistic pleasure of the senses. This was pleasure sought for
its own sake—even when unaccompanied by sentiment or
emotion—simply because it felt good.
In 1953, Hugh Hefner founded Playboy. Unabashedly hedonistic,
this magazine “was a seminal influence on the ‘sexual
revolution’ of the 1960s.”2
Another contributing factor was the discovery and mass
marketing of the contraceptive pill:
In May 1960, the FDA approved the sale of a pill
that arguably would have a greater impact on American
culture than any other drug in the nation’s history. For
women across the country, the contraceptive pill was
liberating: it allowed them to pursue careers, fueled the
feminist and pro-choice movements and encouraged
more open attitudes towards sex.3
2. S.v. “Hefner, Hugh,” in Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, www.britannica.com/
ebc/article?eu=392129.
3. www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/pill/filmmore/index.html.
MAKING THE LINK NO ONE WANTS TO MAKE 13
THE HIPPIE MOVEMENT AND STUDENT
REVOLT SERVE AS STANDARD-BEARERS
The separation of sexual activity from procreation, facilitated
by the contraceptive pill, sparked a sexual explosion. The hippie
movement and the student revolt that swept across America
and the world during the sixties became the symbols of this
urge for total sexual freedom.
A revolutionary slogan painted on the walls of Paris’s Sorbonne University aptly summarized this anarchic spirit: Défense d’interdire (It is forbidden to forbid). While the two differed from many standpoints, the hippie and student movements of the sixties were united in their rejection of the “establishment.”4
A 1999 Time magazine article reads: What was needed, they sang, was a revolution. Love and marriage—which once went together like a horse and carriage—were no longer a cool combination.
The flared and freely 60s generation seized liberation
of the flesh as its hot gospel; free love in freefall. In 1968 Paris—one year after France legalized the pill—the cry was Jouissez sans entraves, the carnal equivalent of today’s Just Do It.5
At the heart of the sexual revolution is a revolt against all
norms of morality that temper or restrain man’s disordered
passions. Indeed, in a society where “it is forbidden to forbid,”
morality has no place and unbridled instincts become the norm
4.
This revolutionary thought was fed by authors such as Herbert Marcuse especially in Eros and Civilization (1955), Wilhem Reich in Dialectical Materialism and Psychoanalysis (1929), which mixed the theories of Marx and Freud and Charles Reich in The Greening of America (1970).
5. Rod Usher, “Revels Without a Cause,” Time, Aug. 16, 1999. Jouissez sans entraves (Pleasure without restraint in English) was another slogan of the May 1968 revolt that was painted on the walls of the University of Paris. Cf. www.les-ours.com/novel/mai68.14 CHAPTER 2 of conduct. “Promiscuous,” “abnormal” or “bizarre” become
irrelevant labels for behavior in a culture where all that is needed
is an urge to do something and a desire to enjoy it. Hippies
rightly summed up their hedonistic philosophy with the
expression: “If it feels good, do it!”
The hippie and student movements were the radical standard bearers of this lifestyle and philosophy. When the explosion of
the sixties subsided, the hippie communes and student radicals
gradually faded away, but their influence pervaded society.
The bizarre fashions and the informal cohabitation of couples that so shocked society then are hardly contested today.6
Thus, the sexual liberation movement all but destroyed the
sense of modesty—which protects chastity—and seriously
eroded both marriage and the family.
NEW STANDARD-BEARERS
FOR THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION
The ongoing homosexual offensive is on the cutting edge of
the sexual revolution today. Homosexual activists are the new
standard-bearers who prepare society to accept and follow ever
more promiscuous and abnormal forms of behavior.
To fight this new revolution effectively, one must clearly see
the link between the sexual and homosexual revolutions.
To counter the homosexual offensive without also combating
the sexual revolution is to disregard a most important part of
this battle. Thus, we must struggle all the more against abortion,
pornography and promiscuity. We must wage a spiritual crusade
to bring chastity back to society and to restore modesty as
the necessary guardian of purity and the expression of human
dignity and honor.
6. To better understand this process of slow assimilation by society, see Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, Revolution and Counter-Revolution (York, Penn.: The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, 2003), pp. 31-32, 96-98. Available at www.tfp.org/what_we_think/rcronline.html.
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