Hillary Rodham Clinton wasn’t the only politician at the annual Gay and Lesbian Pride March in Manhattan last June, but she got the most notice. The police had trouble controlling the crowd as she walked behind the Radical Faeries, which featured a man on roller skates who was wearing a silver cape, a tiara, a jockstrap, and nothing else. Mrs. Clinton thought that the absence of Rick Lazio, her Republican rival for the New York Senate scat that’s up for grabs, was just a shame. How could he claim to represent all New Yorkers if he failed to show up for the Gay and Lesbian Pride March?

Well, exactly. Now that Vermont has legalized “gay marriage” and New York has strengthened its “hate crime” laws, the homosexual movement seems to be on a roll, gathering support from just about every direction. But neither Hillary Rodham Clinton nor her liveaway husband down in Washington would allow their place at the leadership of that movement to be questioned. “Bill,” as he is called, tried to create a homosexual fief in the U.S. military in 1993 and got his fingers burned. His compromise “don’t ask, don’t tell” position was a disappointment to the movement, but not his appointment of hundreds of homosexuals to federal positions.

But more recently, not to be outdone by his wife or her like-minded friends in his Cabinet, Bill showed how tar he was willing to go in a moment of highly revealing passion. His mistake was spectacular, considering how much is at stake both in the presidential contest and his spouse’s Senate race. But even more peculiar was the reaction: There wasn’t one. It was a ease of Sherlock Holmes’s dog that didn’t bark.

First, last June 23, the President of the United States—the honorary chairman of the Boy Scouts—actually issued executive order No. 13160 to forbid discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in federal education and training programs. Five days later, the Supreme Court ruled by a margin of one vote that the Boy Scouts could indeed exclude homosexuals as members or leaders. Then the pressure groups got busy. Chicago and San Francisco and other cities revoked the Boy Scouts’ access to public facilities. Corporations (Chase Manhattan Bank, some United Way chapters) withdrew sponsorship, and the White House staff was on the phone to other government agencies, putting in place the edict that would bar the annual Boy Scout Jamboree from being held on federal land (Fort A.P. Hill). As things began to spiral out of control, Attorney General Janet Reno was once again called to put out the fire and cover for Bill. She ruled on September 1 (a Friday night, which is when you do things if von want them played down in the national news) that Bill’s edict did not mean that the Boy Scouts couldn’t camp on federal land, even though the Interior Department and the Justice Department, prodded by the White House, had quietly let it be known that Bill’s temper tantrum meant what it said. So cooler heads (a call from the Gore campaign?) prevailed after a bit of heat, and the honorary chairman of the Scouts was caught trying to punish them after he sniffed the wind about the Supreme Court decision. Somebody figured, “Take it easy. Bill. After Al gets in, we’ll take care of the one vote margin. And who knows—maybe the nominee will be Hillary!”

But what was the response to one of the most absurd episodes in American history? Gore and Lieberman were quiet as mice. George W. Bush let on that he was “troubled.” And the House voted against a bill to revoke the charter of the Boy Scouts of America, 362 to 12. Democrats actually called that bill, sponsored by Lynn Woolsey (D-CA), an attempt to embarrass them. And that was die end—there was no reaction worth mentioning. The conspiracy of homosexuals—no, make that “governing liberals”—to undermine American values in the form of a long-established boys’ association made zero impact on the public, nor was it seized as an issue by the Republicans during an election year. The result looks like another conspiracy—a conspiracy, by those who have something to lose, to lose.

And that is as it should be. Any creature or polity that does not respond to aggression is doomed. The “happiness” or complacency of the American people will not be disturbed by truth, nor can it be. Revolutionary reconstruction of the culture can proceed without protest, signified by the smiley-fece of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who has “always fought for children” in an abstract and governmental way. And the satanic dialectic which we have willfully accepted grinds on inexorably. The American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts will, of course, defend the North American Man/Boy Love Association against a federal lawsuit that claims that the NAMBLA website and literature incited the murder of a ten-year-old boy. Two men are serving life sentences for that murder, but the ACLU believes that advocacy of pedophilia is a First Amendment issue. Lawrence Frisoli, the lawyer who brought the suit, has declared, “We allege an ongoing criminal conspiracy for the rape of children in America” (New York Times, September 1). I think of it more as a Second Amendment issue, myself.

As our country drifts closer to institutionalized instruction in sodomy as a rite of passage for young men, because that will make it easier for them to adjust to the “new” Army (and by the way, the Girl Scouts have had no trouble because they don’t “discriminate”), I was rather shocked that Kweisi Mfume and the NAACP also booted an opportunity. In our land of government-supervised equality and diversity, should an American fort or any installation be named after a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army; a slaveholder and defender of slavery, whose statue, erected by racists, stands in Richmond, Virginia, because he died defending that city in 1865? Yes, I am referring to Ambrose Powell Hill, whose name was on the lips of both Robert F,. Lee and Stonewall Jackson as they died—and I am calling for a boycott of the national economy until Fort A.P. Hill is renamed “Fort Liberace.” That could be the site of a real jamboree, if you know what I mean.