Coming Full Circle: The Left is Self-Destructing

And no, it’s not about gay people being thrown off of buildings in Gaza.

Last weekend, comedian Emil Wakim took to Saturday Night Live (SNL’s) Weekend Update to make a stunning revelation: LGBT life in Gaza would flourish were it not for Israel’s current war against Hamas.

“If you want [Gazans] to be gay, just stop bombing them…like they’ll get to gay [but] they’re busy…they don’t have time to be like who am I? Like you can’t watch your village get blown up and be like ‘I think I’m bisexual.”

Oh, if only you could flip a switch to turn off your gay, my 19 year old self would have been absolutely thrilled!

On a serious note, I truly thought that we progressed beyond the idea that sexual orientation can be altered, wished, or prayed away. For better or worse, the gay is stubborn: to my younger self’s horror, no amount of denial, distraction, or change in life circumstances could shake it. The gay does not bend to the will of the individual, nor does it wait for a convenient time to emerge. 

But don’t take my word for it: after decades of research, the medical, psychological, and scientific communities have come to the conclusion that sexual orientation is an innate characteristic.

For over a century psychologists, doctors, and other “professionals” attempted to alter the sexual orientation of gays and lesbians. These pseudoscientific practices, collectively known as “conversion therapy” were fraught with serious ethical violations; at times involving castration, electroshock therapy, lobotomies, and more. Unsurprisingly, none of it worked; alas, the gay is stubborn. But it wasn’t just the questionable methods or unorthodox tactics of conversion therapy that progressives object to. It was the pseudoscientific notion that sexual orientation can be willingly altered. 

Today, outlawing conversion therapy represents a significant step in the fight for LGBT rights, at least in the west. And for good reason–major medical and psychological bodies support ending the “treatment” because it is harmful and ineffective. It is therefore inconsistent for progressives, who spent the past few years agonizing over the oppression of LGBT people in the west, were happy to overlook Wakim’s framing of homosexuality as some kind of luxury, but I digress. 

The immutability of sexual orientation is well understood and virtually undisputed in leftist circles. Yet, Wakim was lauded by progressive audiences, his words taken as gospel. Yet, this is the expected outcome of the intellectual epidemic plaguing the new left where narratives have replaced truth and reality has become irrelevant; a world where nothing means anything, everything is genocide, and truth is subjective (of course everyone is entitled to their own!) 

It wasn’t always like this. Once upon a time, universally applicable truth was a core component of the left, whereas blind faith was a cornerstone of the right, who often supported their arguments with religion. When the right said, “two men can’t get married because it says so in the bible”, the left asked “why?”, understanding that one’s beliefs should not trump another's rights to equality and freedom.

Political commentator Brianna Wu discussed this in her recent appearance on Honestly with Bari Weiss. Raised in a fringe right-wing family, Wu initially embraced her parents’ politics before shifting to the left. She attributed her political transition to the stark contrast between the left, whose arguments led with logic and reason, and the right, who often justified their opinions with universally inapplicable religious beliefs. 

“I started talking to Democratic friends [who] would say things like, ‘A higher tax basis makes sense because of this reason.’ And then I noticed the Republicans were the ones moralizing everything. ‘Well, women can’t have the right to choose, because it says so in the Bible.’ And that really turned me away. So I was like, let’s go with the people that, you know, can make an argument.”

Unfortunately, the left’s ability to create a structured argument is withering away. Plagued with guilt about identity politics, American racism, and post 9/11 prejudices, the left has demonstrated a willingness to compromise the values they claim to hold dear. At this juncture, the mental gymnastics tournament at the oppression olympics has enabled leftists to contort themselves into unrecognizable shills for violent regimes, including Islamist theocracies. This is only possible because the left has sacrificed honesty and integrity.

When it comes to truth, Pro-Palestine protesters often claim that they stand against nationalism while their comrades chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine is Arab.” The cognitive dissonance required to  hold a “ceasefire now”  sign in one hand and a “globalize the intifada” sign in the other reveals a willingness to sacrifice reality for ideology. 

As for the compromise on values, the left has really shit the bed. Rather than staying true to foundational principles like equality, freedom, and democracy, the left continuously moves the goalposts to accommodate misogyny, sexism, homophobia, antisemitism, and other fascist ideologies that they claim to abhor. When allegations of islamophobia or racism are on the line, all values go out the window. In doing so, they’ve paved the way for selective moral outrage, where solidarity is extended only when it aligns with the latest ideological trends.

But it’s not just SNL cast members spewing propaganda, or Twitch streamers lying about the Islamic Republic of Iran “very pro trans.” At the very heart of leftist circles, even feminist activists like Judith Butler–whose work is studied in Women’s Studies classes–insist on the importance of “understanding Hamas and Hezbollah as progressive social movements.” 

A core component of the left’s compromise on truth is whitewashing the history and impact of Islamism, oftentimes blaming western influences for egregious human rights violations. For example, when a 15 year old British girl was forced to strip at Egyptian airport security, trans activist Ari Drennen tweeted, “this is the world that JK Rowling and Chaya Raichik are building.” It should not need to be said that misogyny and sexism in the Islamic world far predate TikTok and Harry Potter, but when truth is subjective it bears repeating. 

In a striking display of ideological hypocrisy, Matt Bernstein, one of the most well-known LGBT advocacy influencers in the world—who spent the last four years vehemently denouncing Christian nationalism on the religious right—began excusing religiously motivated homophobia, so long as that religion was Islam. Bernstein, who regularly accosted Evangelical Christians for attempting to force their religious beliefs onto others now believes that “we shouldn't get caught up trying to judge different nations and different views on gay rights by a western standard.”

In his “Pinkwashing” video, Bernstein explains that even he has been “guilty” of judging countries where homosexuality is criminalized, thereby letting it “justify [his] own internalized racism.” An activist who once proudly proclaimed “religion is fine as long as you don’t use it to tell anyone else how to live” is now adamant that harboring contempt for governments that criminalize queer people is a form of racism. The “advocate” who appeared so passionate online couldn't even muster up the courage to promote a message as simple as “equality for all.”

This abandonment of core values extends even further. Abby Stein, a progressive trans Rabbi, recently met with officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran—a regime notorious for hanging women from cranes, imprisoning and torturing LGBTQ individuals, and silencing political dissidents with brutal force. By engaging with leaders who openly persecute the very communities she claims to support, Stein and others disgrace the legacy of leftist social justice movements.

In the end, the left has drifted far from its once-unshakable commitment to truth and equality, forsaking universal principles for selective outrage. Today, they champion the causes that align with the latest ideological fads, while silencing voices and excusing abuses that don’t fit their narrative. This erosion of integrity has paved the way for a movement that’s barely recognizable—one where moral clarity is replaced with blind allegiance, and inconvenient truths are dismissed as mere biases. At the altar of ideology, the left has sacrificed not only its core values but, perhaps, its very soul.