Apparently the gay clergy convened a synod to debate a highly abstruse point of theological doctrine for the purpose of confirming Peter Thiel’s excommunication. The agreement they settled on is that while Thiel might engage in “gay sex,” he’s not truly “gay” in his heart and soul by virtue of his reactionary politics. No word yet as to whether he might be permitted to use his tech fortune to buy some indulgences. But to the superstitious medieval mind, Thiel’s sins are so grievous that his evil spirit still possesses a company he sold more than a decade ago, prompting church officials to urge lay worshipers to boycott it until a professional exorcism can be performed.
If you’ve ever wanted to see the arrhythmic, worm-infested heart of identity politics, there it is — the group giveth identity, and the group taketh away. Black conservatives and anti-feminist, pro-life women nod and smile ruefully. Identity only counts within the boundaries of the party line. According to the Great Chain of Intersectional Being, straight white males, a monolithic group, are at the top. Everyone else is defined by degrees of alienation and oppression, the foundational concepts of the left-wing worldview. If you happen to reside further up the chain among the clouds of privilege, your only hope of being provisionally tolerated by the professionally oppressed clerisy is by engaging in public displays of obsequious flattery, maudlin pity, and anguished self-loathing. Still, however devoted your efforts, you may rest assured that a dossier is nevertheless being kept on you for use when you become inconvenient or tiresome. If, as an officially recognized victim, you deny that your agency has been completely compromised by structural factors far beyond your control or understanding, or you fail to display sufficient resentment against your oppressors, you, too, will be cast out into the outer darkness.
Update: And here I thought I was exaggerating for effect!
The article headline itself goes with “tolerate,” while the URL uses “shun,” but still, the message is the standard progressive party line. “Tolerance” means that conservative-leaning people need to put up with things that bother or offend them. “Diversity” means that everyone looks different in superficial ways while marching in ideological lockstep. For me, the funniest part is Oremus wrinkling his nose in disgust about a book Thiel co-wrote, which he describes as “noxious” and “as un-PC as it gets.” I don’t know, I haven’t read it, but judging by the description, Oremus sounds like quite a delicate flower, which, I suppose, is all too typical of the hothouse environment he and his fellow progressives sequester themselves in.