Pro-homosexual political action occurs almost daily. Meanwhile, the designers of popular culture do their part to advance the cause, probably hourly. What is the goal of this movement? On the surface, it’s the “normalization” of homosexuality, its assimilation into society as an acceptable way of life. On the surface, supporters (“gay” or “straight”) see a social injustice corrected, perhaps a humanity made more accepting, more “loving.” Opponents, with or without religious motivation, see the destruction of the natural family—and the social destruction that would result from the loss of the natural family.

Both views look forward toward surface consequences, but to see quite different consequences below the surface, we have to look backward just a bit, not so far that we’re looking at “history,” where we have no experiential knowledge, but far enough to encompass the archetypal event that worked as a catalyst to empower all such movements.

That event was the Holocaust. The world saw consummate evil face to face. An entire people were denied a right to exist, condemned to death by hatred. The hatred was irrational, as all true hatred is. Anger toward a collective people, and its often violent consequences, is not irrational; it’s based on something that the identified people have collectively done (whether they’re actually guilty or not.). But true hatred is based solely on the fact that they exist—on their Being, not on their Doing. The real nature of hatred and its ultimate consequence were confronted in the Holocaust, not as an abstract theory, but as unavoidable concrete reality. Thereafter, it was recognizable, known, impossible to deny or to justify. And so, “discrimination” became universally objectionable as the perceived root of profound evil. Within a generation, the civil rights movement succeeded, and the next generation saw the success of the equal rights movement. Now we see the homosexual movement succeeding, based on the same moral premise.

But there’s a critical difference. Like the victims of the Holocaust, both African-Americans and women had suffered from discrimination on the basis of what they were, not on the basis of anything they had done. Denied full status as citizens because of their Being (not their Doing), they were victims of the same kind, if not to the same degree.

Homosexual persons, however, are homosexual because of what they do. Of course, the movement is aware of this distinction and the danger it poses to their success, so the term “sexual orientation” was invented to use in place of “race” or “gender.” It works, too—at least, among those who prefer not to think deeply about sex. (Surprisingly, that’s most people, not few.) That “sexual orientation” is illogical as a defining noun doesn’t matter (its only logical use is, possibly, descriptive). It accomplishes what it was intended for.

Those who oppose the assimilation of homosexual practice base their arguments on theology (the practice is condemned by all major religions) or on philosophy (universal Natural Law, on which all concepts of morality are based). These are the obvious arguments, those on the surface. But the less obvious issue has nothing to do with religion or morality. It exists below the surface where human reason resides. All of Creation (theology), of nature (philosophy) is grounded in the male and female principles. All observed natural science, as cause and effect, is grounded on those principles. But the abstraction that underlies that concrete reality is passivity and activity. It’s the distinction between the two that forms the ground of human reason (science, mathematics, the arts), as well as the concepts of good and evil (theology, philosophy, law). Reason is dependent on it because it is the form reality takes, the form by which reality is recognizable; without it, nothing can be defined.

In order to deny that sexual activity—of any kind—is something that people do (or not do), activity must be converted to passivity. But the eradication of the distinction between active and passive has consequences that challenge the imagination, frankly, nightmarish enough to make invasions from outer space look like fun. The most immediate effect, apart from the loss of religious freedom, is the annihilation of the concepts of good and evil. It’s no accident, therefore, no mere coincidence, that relativism has already replaced human moral discernment. That’s just the beginning.

It’s not always the surface consequences that matter most.