In the UK, Brendan O’Neill has had enough of the public discussion over Islam, which he says is dishonest on both the pro- and anti- sides. Excerpt:

Behind these wild exaggerations of both the hatred for Muslims and the threat posed by Islamists, there lurk political agendas. Islam has effectively been turned into a proxy for the expression of ideas that might otherwise prove difficult to articulate. Among Leftish Islamophiles, ratcheting up panic about rampant Islamophobia has become a PC way of expressing fear of the masses, particularly the tabloid-reading white working classes. Claims that Muslims are constantly at risk from ignorant haters is just a more acceptable way of expressing prejudices about the volatility of the uneducated mob. And among the Right-leaning panickers about Islamism, bashing extremism is a cop-out from having a serious debate about the state of enlightened, reasoned thinking in Britain. How much easier it is to wail “The Islamists are undermining our values of free speech and tolerance!” than to examine the various homegrown trends, from environmentalism to multiculturalism, that are really mauling the enlightened, universalist outlook.

Let’s ditch the Islamo-obsession. Muslims aren’t ruining Britain, nor are they being ruined by Britain. More people must surely be suffering from Islamofatigue; if so, stand up and be counted.

We don’t talk about Islam nearly so much in the US, mostly because Muslims are proportionately less numerous and less visible in our country than in the UK. Reading this “Islamofatigue” essay, it occurred to me that many Americans must be suffering from “homofatigue” — that is, a weariness with the central place homosexuality has taken in our public conversation.

I say that as someone who has participated a great deal in that conversation, and who agrees that it is an important conversation to have, both from the cultural left and the cultural right. Jonathan Rauch, one of the most important (and persuasive) pro-SSM writers, calls the swiftness with which the American public changed its views on homosexuality a “miracle” — and I would say he’s right, in this sense: that the virtual overnight collapse of a conception of marriage that has been at the center of Western life since, well, forever, is a staggering thing. As I have written on this blog many times, and in the print magazine, this is a watershed moment for our culture and civilization. So, yes, gay rights and same-sex marriage are a big deal.

(So is the role of Islam in Great Britain, by the way. I don’t think O’Neill would dispute that. He’s just complaining over what the debate has degenerated into.)

Following O’Neill’s lead, it’s worth considering the extent to which the gay rights fight in America is a proxy for deeper concerns on the Left and the Right. I credit that there are sincere people on both sides of the issue, people who understand what’s at stake and are arguing in good faith. But I think there are also a lot of people who have brought a good deal of other baggage into the argument.

For the Left, aside from the actual merits of gay rights (which exist!), the cause offers them a way to use the moral authority of the Civil Rights Movement as a cudgel with which to bash the Religious Right and working-class people. They don’t like these people in the first place, but now they get to clothe their prejudices in the language of secular righteousness. Similarly, it gives at least some elites a cause that dramatically increases their social status and eases their consciences without forcing them to think about the kind of “diversity” that they find off-putting (e.g., “Say, are we doing enough to recruit employees from working-class backgrounds?”). Along those lines, it allows well-off, upper middle class, and some middle class people an emotionally-charged issue to focus on to avoid having to think about how the economic structure in the US is screwing the middle class and the working poor.

For the Right, aside from the actual demerits of gay rights (which exist!), the cause offers them a way to vent their fear over the inescapable fact that we are living in a post-Christian nation, where what they thought were the “permanent things” aren’t permanent at all. They feel that they are losing control because, well, they are. The gay rights fight gives them the opportunity to offload their deep anxiety over the future onto a minority they don’t like anyway, and whose cause has been taken up in full force by a cultural and media elite that the cultural Right despises. Plus, it allows religious and culturally conservative people of all classes an emotionally-charged issue to focus on to avoid having to think about how the economic structure in the US is screwing the middle class and the working poor.