Anti-Gay Firebrand Is Earning Himself A Rep
Gays and conservatives may disagree on many things, but in many ways they have similar interests; smaller and less intrusive government, a focus on individual rights and responsibilities, and the opportunity for every American to pursue his or her professional and personal goals. Indeed, many gays are political conservatives, at least in a fiscal and free-market sense.
One more intersection at which both conservatism and gays seem to meet is political firebrand Ryan Sorba, whose career track more or less consists of attacking gays. Sorba, the author of an as-yet unfinished book titled The Born Gay Hoax, which seeks to prove that homosexuality is a condition that can be "cured," recently appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), an annual gathering of conservative groups from around the nation. The 2010 edition of the CPAC convention was co-sponsored by GLBT conservative group GoProud; like anti-gay blogger Peter LaBarbera, who runs Web site Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Sorba took umbrage at the fact that a gay group was co-sponsoring the event.
Appearing as a speaker representing the California Young Americans for Freedom at the CPAC convention, Sorba lost no time in alienating the crowd, reported TPMDC in a Feb. 19 article. Sorba had been invited by the moderator to step to the microphone to talk about how he had participated in an investigation into ACORN and had been misidentified by FOX News celebrity Glenn Beck. "Just to change the subject for just a second," Sorba told his audience upon reaching the podium, "I'd like to condemn CPAC for bringing GOPride [sic] to this event."
The crowd instantly began to jeer Sorba, who responded, "Bring it. Bring it. I love it. I love it. I love it."
"Guess what?" Sorba went on. "Guess what? All right, guess what? Civil rights are grounded in natural rights. Natural rights are grounded in human nature. Human nature is a rational substance in relationship. The intelligible end of the reproductive act is reproduction. You understand that." As the booing continued, Sorba continued, "Civil rights, when they conflict with natural rights, are contrary--hey, you, sit down," he interrupted himself in order to chide someone not visible on-camera.
As the jeering intensified, Sorba insulted the audience directly, telling them, "The lesbians at Smith College protest better than you do. The lesbians at Smith College protest than you do. All right? Bring it."
Sorba was referring to an incident at Smith College in Massachusetts that took place two years ago, when an anti-gay speech he was giving was interrupted by protestors who shouted, chanted, and beat on pots and pans. The melee was described at length at the Web site of Massachusetts-based anti-gay group MassResistance, a little-known organization that opposes marriage equality, anti-discrimination laws, anti-bullying policies, and other issues that the group sees as promoting gay interests.
The Smith college incident raised Sorba's profile among the lower echelons of anti-gay Christian activists, who promoted the episode as proof positive that Christians who speak out against gays are subject to harassment and intimidation, reported Box Turtle Bulletin in a May 5, 2008 article. "Naturally, the less credible of Christian news sources could hardly withhold their glee at reporting this travesty of justice and thrashing of the First Amendment (conveniently forgetting that free speech goes both ways)," the Box Turtle Bulletin article said. "But more responsible Christian press--and, of course, the secular press--hardly considered this story of rude behavior by some lesbians on a college campus to be newsworthy."
As the CPAC crowd shouted and booed, Sorba singled out one member of the audience to tell him that, "you just made an enemy out of me, buddy. Yeah, you... you made an enemy out of me. Thanks a lot."
As Sorba walked away from the podium, the moderator stepped up. "Freedom of opinion," she told the jeering crowd. "Freedom of opinion. Freedom of opinion. All right?"
Following his bizarre outburst, Sorba was approached by gay American University student Alex Knepper, who was attending the CPAC convention. " 'So, you're the infamous Ryan Sorba,' " Knepper relates saying to the young activist in a Feb. 20 article at Race42012.com. " 'You've made quite a name for yourself.' "
Knepper reports that Sorba asked, "So what did you think of my little tirade, then?"
"Oh, I thought it was quite evil, actually. I'm gay," responded Knepper.
"You mean you think you're gay," Sorba told him.
"No, I'm gay," Knepper rejoined. "Do you think it's a choice?"
"I think it's the result of a complex process of social and environmental factors, but that it's reversible," replied Sorba.
The two then began to argue over animals exhibiting homosexual conduct in the wild, with Sorba then claiming that Knepper had "a lisp." Knepper, who denies having a lisp, fired back, "Rudy Giuliani has a lisp--is he gay?"
At that point, Knepper reports, Sorba "went off on what he affectionately called 'his tirade'--giving the same mangled pseudo-Aristotelian spiel about how natural rights have to be grounded in natural law, meaning substance, and the final result of the reproductive organ must be a reproductive act, and all of that.
" 'Yeah, yeah, I get your argument, I understand it,' I tried to interrupt, But he said that I didn't, and he finished.
" 'But the vast majority of married couples partake in sodomy--oral sex, anal sex, fetishes," Knepper told Sorba. "Hasn't your girlfriend ever given you a blowjob? I think the government should just get out of the whole marriage business!" Knepper went on to add, "I'm the one who says that my values shouldn't have anything to do with government. It's you who wants to impose his own biases upon the rest of the world!"
Sorba responded that "conservatives should not be upholding groups who support homosexual marriage and sodomy," and the discussion got more heated from there, with Sorba saying "something about how he could 'take me on' physically if he needed to, to which I mentioned that his quick resort to force and threats said a lot about his political philosophy."
After offering to shake Knepper's hand--and being snubbed--Sorba began to walk away. Knepper reports that someone walking with Sorba said to him, "Really, though, he had a point: why do you care about this so much when the economy is in shambles and the debt is growing and spending is out of control?"
"Because it corrupts the youth and the culture," came Sorba's answer. Sorba then took out a camera and began to take video of Knepper, who struck a post and then said, "OK...Well, I'd like to say, then, that the person behind the camera is a Hitler Youth waiting for a fuhrer [sic] to sweep him off his feet into a grand national project so he can sacrifice individuals like stock-fodder to his own biases."
At that point, writes Knepper, Sorba "turned off the camera and approached me. I told him he should get his girlfriend to give him a blowjob so that he could experience the joys of sodomy. He put two of his fingers an inch from my face and said that he'd want to fight me if a girl wasn't around. 'Ah, the use of force!' I said again."
Sorba's belligerent demeanor was denounced at NewsRealBlog, where a Feb. 21 article posted video of Sorba's meltdown before the CPAC crowd and provided a link to a description of the dustup between Sorba and Knepper. "If this is how he handles disputes, I can only imagine the horror he'd bring to the life of a spouse," writer Ryan Mauro ruminates in the article.
"He goes on to defend his position by saying 'civil rights are grounded in natural rights' and homosexuality isn't natural," Mauro continues. "If I'm following him correctly, is he saying that homosexuals don't deserve civil rights?
"Perhaps what bothers me most about this incident is that it shows how hideous the political scene can be," Mauro adds. "He's condemning CPAC for allowing homosexuals who share their agenda to co-sponsor them. If they weren't gay, he wouldn't care, and he feels they should just be shunned. He'll probably argue that homosexuality is wrong according to the Bible, but if all sinners are in equal need of salvation, why is he singling them out? What makes his sin of being so prideful and judgmental any less of a sin than homosexuality?"