Pete Sanlon has brought the following post to my attention.  For the American audience, Peter Tatchell is the ultimate in British one-issue politicians.  He came to prominence nearly thirty years ago when, as a Labour Party candidate,  he was so far to the left that he managed to turn Bermondsey from a rock solid Labour constituency into a safe Liberal (now Liberal Democrat) seat.   As much as anyone, he epitomised why the Labour Party was unfit to govern for nearly two decades.

Now known as a human rights (read: gay rights) campaigner, he has clearly adopted what one might call a fairly radical view of homosexuality and human sexual orientation: we could all be homosexual; indeed, the clear implication of his statements above is that most of us should be homosexual; the problem is that society represses us -- economically, ideologically, politically, etc. -- in such a way that this is not the case.  Thus, most if not all of us are doomed to be inauthentic -- yes, a hackneyed word which trendy postmodern Christians love but seem to struggle to define.  Here it means something akin to `true to oneself' or  `true to one's freely chosen identity.'

What is interesting is that Tatchell also seems to see gay marriage for what it actually is: an attempt to sanitise and make respectable that which is essentially anarchic.  Of course, Camille Paglia has made this point repeatedly, and with greater wit, intelligence, style and, in her disdain for gay marriage, more Nietzschean consistency.  But both come to the same point: human nature is something we, as individuals, create.  We are whatever we choose to be, and those who hinder us are repressive.  Legislating gay marriage is little different from legislating straight marriage: it establishes a norm which makes those who will not conform either deviant, criminal, or inauthentic.  Tatchell correctly sees that hedonistic homosexuality is about the rejection of external authority, and the assumption of authenticity through self-creation.  Gay marriage looks rather like a white, middle class attempt to keep things neat and tidy.

Lest we as Christians take the moral high ground too easily here, one should note that what Tatchell espouses in the realm of sexual identity is only the logic of consumerism pressed to its conclusion in the sexual realm.   Underlying his thinking is the conviction that we are that which we choose to accumulate, whether material goods or sexual experience; interesting, after all, is Tatchell's apparent claim for gay superiority on the basis of the higher quality of the sexual experience.  It is a better product than the rather staid and conventional straight alternative.  

So what are the most dangerous threats to society?  Adam and Steve getting hitched? Elton and Dave adopting a child?   Or the constant drip-drip-drip of television commercials, telling you that the `real you' is just one more purchase away?   Do any of these speak more loudly concerning the plasticity of human nature than any of the others.  I do not think so. 

Pete Sanlon has written a booklet on the assumed plasticity of sexual identities which underlies much of the current gay discussion.  I hope to review it for Ref21 at some point.  In the meantime, let us be clear about one thing: the plasticity of human nature which so much of the contemporary world assumes actually renders us less authentic; and such plasticity is part of the consumer-oriented world in which we live, not the monopoly of Stonewall or Peter Tatchell.  But human nature means something, something external to what we are as individuals.  It imposes a reality upon us. 

Thus, by being who we want to be we ironically prevent ourselves from being who we are really meant to be.  We are creatures made in the image of God; anyone who refuses to acknowledge that, and the limits which it imposes, is tragically self-deceived, whether they create their own identity at a gay pride rally or while shopping at Macy's.  Both are simply attempts to avoid external authority.

I am reminded of the Kinks' song `Plastic Man,' one of the great takes on consumerism which, I believe, can be applied to all of its aspects, material, sexual and all points between, and which raises questions for all of us about who we really are. Plastic, for all of its usefulness, ultimately means inauthentic, cheap sameness  As the song's final lines have it:

He's got a plastic wife who wears a plastic mac
And his children want to be plastic like their dad
He's got a phony smile that makes you think he understands,
But no one ever gets the truth from Plastic Man.

From Tatchell to Tiffany's, those who sell the idea that the consumer is king are indeed selling something.  I think it is called a bill of goods.