Is Vice President Biden Against All “Culture?”

January 21, 2016

It is reported that Vice President Biden heatedly demanded LGBT supportive compliance—on the part of everyone, everywhere in the world—while in Davos, Switzerland recently.

Speaking to business leaders, he said:

When it comes to LGBT rights in the workplace the world is looking to you. I know that sounds like hyperbole, sounds like exaggeration, but they look to you. You have more impact than anything the federal government has done, or the Supreme Court of the United States has done, or that Barack Obama and Joe Biden have done, lighting up the White House. You have more impact. You have more impact in countries around the world than we do on those social issues. You literally can change the terms of the debate – not overnight – but collectively you can change the terms of the debate. And shift some public opinion. You actually put governments on notice.

I’ve had it up to HERE with culture. I really mean it. Culture NEVER JUSTIFIES rank, raw discrimination or violation of human rights. There is NO CULTURAL JUSTIFICATION. None. None. None.

Aside from the implicit admission that Vice President Biden and others are seeking to force compliance (a point which could involve a whole separate discussion) and his assertion that business has an incredible impact on these issues (he’s correct about that, as we have seen in the United States), what’s most striking is his condemnation of a “culture” which does not believe that certain sexual acts are pleasing to God.

We must assume that Vice President Biden is exempting himself from having “culture.” I doubt he would say that. Assuming that much, what he is really saying then is that certain cultures are the problem and others aren’t. And if he’s saying that, then in condemning other cultures and demanding acceptance of his own, he must then admit that he is demanding allegiance to the object of worship in his culture: its permission and approval of radical, individual, sexual autonomy.

But does any genuine analysis of culture here really matter anyway? We know that Vice President Biden, like so many others, seems eager to follow the political winds and to embrace, and be embraced by, social approval from cultural elites. After all, this is from the man who at one time voted in favor of the Defense of Marriage Act and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”