Gay rights hubris risks hard-won freedoms

This week, we’re going to continue exploring political issues within the LGB&T communities, a theme that I’ve touched on lately with guests such as National Post columnist Adam Zivo and New York-based author Ben Appel.

This week’s guest is Ronan McCrea, a Professor of Constitutional and European Law at University College London in the UK, whose new book is called The End of the Gay Rights Revolution: How Hubris and Overreach Threaten Gay Freedom.

As the title of the book suggests, Professor McCrea believes that the fight for gay rights has, in some ways, overshot the mark in at least two ways. First of all, many activists in the field have gone past traditional demands for equality, and now have embraced more dubious and radical causes that really have little to do with gay rights as traditionally understood—causes like ending the nuclear family, or even destroying capitalism.

Secondly, Professor McCrea argues, many gay men have embraced an anything-goes attitude to sexuality that is eroding their own happiness and life satisfaction, as well as alienating political allies in the straight community.

In his book, and in our conversation, Professor McCrea warns that the persecution of gay men and women has been the norm throughout almost all of human history, and that the human-rights gains made in recent decades can be rolled back—not only by right-wing Christian conservatives, who have always been hostile to gay rights; but also possibly by leftists, some of whom are now making common cause with religious Muslim communities.

The history of human rights, he warns, isn’t always destined to move in one direction. And the gains made yesterday can be clawed back tomorrow. 

Please enjoy my interview with Ronan McCrea, author of The End of the Gay Rights Revolution: How Hubris and Overreach Threaten Gay Freedom.