During an interview with Joe Rogan, Republican Vice-Presidential candidate J.D. Vance claimed that he would not be surprised if he and Donald Trump won the “normal gay guy vote” because “they just wanted to be left the hell alone.” Vance’s statement encouraged speculation as to what a “normal gay” might be, with many gay men suggesting that “normal gay” was a coded way of referring to white, cisgender gay men who benefit from the structures of patriarchy (see, e.g. Tony Bravo, “What is a ‘normal gay guy’ to J.D. Vance?,” San Francisco Chronicle, November 4, 2024). Regardless of what Vance meant by invoking a “normal gay guy” trope, his appeal implied a shift in conservative politics from hateful contempt of gay men towards one of recognition and accommodation. Building off the work of Frantz Fanon and Glen Sean Coulthard, this paper argues that Vance’s rhetoric of the “normal gay guy” constitutes a recognition-based strategy of colonization designed to dictate the terms of the relationship between gay men and conservatives in a way that benefits the cisheteropatriarchal status quo. Moreover, this paper will unmask Vance’s rhetorical strategy as an extension of that of his own Church: like Vance’s “normal gay” rhetoric, the Catholic hierarchy’s “same-sex attraction” rhetoric creates a politics of recognition and accommodation that reinforces Catholic colonial aims.
Placing J.D. Vance’s “normal gay” rhetoric in conversation with three seminal texts of contemporary, intellectual conservatism reveals a dissonance between communitarian ideals and libertarian accommodation. In different ways, J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy, Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option, and Patrick Deneen’s Why Liberalism Failed all argue for political conservatism as a means of rebuilding society torn apart by social disintegration caused by liberal politics. Hillbilly Elegy, rooted in Vance’s personal narrative, contends that government programs designed to alleviate poverty are “ivory tower” solutions that, when actually implemented, foster laziness and separation from “natural” communitarian forms of support. In The Benedict Option, Rod Dreher argues that faithful Christians, living on the edge of another Dark Age ushered in by a decline in shared faith and an increase in individualism, must engage in a kind of fuga mundi by exercising the “Benedict Option”—the formation of alternative communities rooted in a shared rule of life. Finally, Why Liberalism Failed argues that a social contract that elevates the individual at the expense of “naturally” privileged societies—such as the family, the church, and the local community—is destined to dismantle the dimensions of social life necessary for human flourishing. Thus, from different angles, each text argues that liberal individualism is the core problem in contemporary American politics, and that the path to flourishing involves a rediscovery of “natural” community. Yet the gay man—whose very existence challenges the hegemony of the supposedly “natural”—can never be a full citizen within the conservative ideal. The best the gay man can hope for is a pragmatic accommodation arising from the very individualism that contemporary conservatism condemns.
Even though gay men can never become full citizens within the conservative, communitarian ideal, Vance implicitly suggests a pragmatic, recognition-based accommodation. Because many (predominantly white) gay men have seen relative economic success under the same laissez-faire economic policies that enable the flourishing of conservative ideology’s “natural communities,” Vance hints that a vote for Republicans is a vote for gay self-interest. In contrast to the politics and rhetoric of the Moral Majority, Vance offers a form of limited recognition to gay men in exchange for political support: if you support us, we’ll recognize you as gay people, leave you alone to live your life, and leave your wealth untouched. As Glen Sean Coulthard points out, building off of Frantz Fanon, such recognition-based politics of accommodation leave untouched the dominant-subaltern relationship of colonialism (Coulthard 2014, 25-49). As such, Vance’s “normal gay guy” rhetoric is seen as an extension of colonial discourse.
Vance’s political rhetoric about gay men mirrors the ecclesial rhetoric of the Catholic magisterium. Whereas the magisterium once spoke of sodomy and damnation, it now uses language of recognition and limited accommodation. The Magisterium recognizes the depth of “homosexual” desire and promises opposition to “unjust discrimination” and an accompaniment of “friendship” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2358; USCCB, “Ministry to Persons with a Homosexual Inclination,” p. 11-12). Through a postcolonial analysis of magisterial rhetoric in conversation with Mark D. Jordan’s work, I argue that the magisterium’s requirement of total sexual abstinence as a precondition for relationships of justice and friendship implies that any ecclesial recognition of the gay man is subject to an underlying colonial power structure. As such, whether contending with recognition politics in either Church or State, genuine liberation requires a fundamental rejection of underlying colonial structures that define the parameters of existing discourse.
Building off the work of Frantz Fanon and Glen Sean Coulthard, this paper argues that J.D. Vance’s rhetoric of the “normal gay guy” during the 2024 United States Presidential election constitutes a recognition-based strategy of colonization designed to dictate the terms of the relationship between gay men and conservatives in a way that benefits the cisheteropatriarchal status quo. Moreover, this paper will unmask Vance’s rhetorical strategy as an extension of that of his own Church: like Vance’s “normal gay” rhetoric, the Catholic hierarchy’s “same-sex attraction” rhetoric creates a politics of recognition and accommodation that reinforces Catholic colonial aims. As such, in both church and state, politics of recognition rely upon an affirmation of the dominant-subaltern relationship characteristic of colonialism. Genuine liberation for gay men thus requires a fundamental rejection of underlying colonial structures that define the parameters of existing discourse.