Ungentle Reader, are you suspicious of this attack on the homosexual? Does the attack, this declaration of disgust, this manifesto of adamantine refusal to affirm the homosexual in the activity of his disgrace, does it ignite your Holy Ire? O my Ungentle Reader, how I shall tremble as you bring forth your Holy Books and all the Icons of your young religion to brand me heretic and pagan! But here as I pronounce my heresy, note well that if I am the heretic, you are the orthodoxy.

So listen, it is then upon you, you and your Great New Orthodoxy, to preserve the authority of all morality, all ethical principles, not just your righteous denouncements of the homophobe. For as it was once to the Ancient Faiths to hold the torrentous spirit of Man within the banks of moral action, now it is to you, Confident Reader, to you and your shining New Faith, to protect that deteriorating wall. The Ancient Faiths by your own analysis, indeed because of your analysis, have nothing left to help you.

They were Faiths dependent upon a fragile Scripture interpreted by a brittle Tradition, not like your hearty Rationalism or your flexible Relativism. Rationalism can survive many mismade arguments; Relativism can bend to ignore the validity of any claim. Yet, once the Scripture tears, once doubt is injected into that which is to religion the Symbol of all Truth, then nothing can remain.

The Religions of the Christian, the Jew, and the Mussulman were all as homophobic as they were dependent upon the validity of Scripture. Sodom has met its just and unequivocal destruction in the common Scripture of all three. Faithful Christian, Jew, and Mussulman can to this day see the flames which consumed that City of Homosexual Intercourse still burning in the Testament handed over to them. The ferocity of this Divine Judgement of active homosexuality stands as clearly in each religion as the corresponding praise of Chastity and Monogamous, Marital Procreation.

To remove the homophobia which your New Faith so little tolerates, it was impossible to say that the Scripture was wrong on this one point. To prevent God's destruction of Sodom is also to cancel his judgement of Cain. To destroy the authority of God's judgement of Sodom, to destroy the authority of His command for us to treat those sinners, all sinners, as sinners, is to destroy the authority which damned murder, which damned rape, which damned genocide; for all authority is one authority in Scripture.

To satisfy the pride of your spoiled Olympians, Rationalism, Relativism, and Tolerance, the whole moral order of the Titans of Religion had to be thrown down. What have you gained beside your pride? You have freed the homosexual to wander in his perversion, yet you have loosed the pedophile too, and with him the rapist, the cannibal, the sadist, the racist, and most especially--most ironically--the intolerant homophobe as well. There is the defense of the homophobe. Not an argument from morality, rather it is an acknowlement of the moral oblivion which you have created and deserve.

You have destroyed it all. "God is dead." Do you imagine you will reconstruct all morality from Reason? There can be no logic for morality, for there is no moral premise which your scepticism will allow. Will it come from the natural kindness which lands universally in the human heart? There is no natural and universal kindness; remember Auschwitz. You have destroyed it all so well that you can not condemn anything. Not Nazi torture, not even homophobia. Will you reject the religion of your fathers? Then suffer the fate of their animals.

You cannot face the first test. You cannot even denounce the homophobe. When he laughs at your faith and calls the faggot, "faggot," how shall you respond? With Logic? How's this for logic: "I hate fags; I bash what I hate; therefore, I bash fags."

Look close, it is impossible for you to say anything, even one little thing to him. Sanctimony is for the Ancient Faiths. That was one of the things which you rejected, one of the hypocrisies you pointed out. It is a little disappoiniting to see you returning to it so quickly. But then, you are so far more enlightened with your theology of tolerance and rectal cathedrals than we ever could have been with Divine Absolutes and mere stained glass. So very enlightened, perhaps you have even discovered how to endure your inconsistencies.

Still the day is yours. You have won completely. All the old moral arguments, all the old hypocrisies fall before your victory. Homosexuality is no perversion of nature. But in your victory, do not be suprised if a real pervert like me comes to remind you of the consequences. Certainly, you'll have your men sleeping with men without any public ridicule. But you will also have nothing to say when the Strong come and rip them out of their well deserved love-nests, throw them out on the street and bash their brains in with the butts of their rifles. Pervert that I am, heretic that you will judge me, I must still shout that you will be able to say nothing. But how peaceful your amorous homosexuals look, lying there, freed of all societal slurs and negative judgments, lying next to the thousands of traditional families killed so that your friends could have their trist in moral peace. Remember Hitler's smile, he overthrew the primacy of the Old Faiths as well. We already know what its like when they are gone.

Reprinted with permission from the Yale Free Press.