An early pioneer of conservative talk radio was the late Bob Grant (1929–2013), who broadcast out of New York City.  Often when Grant was commenting on some outrage in the news, he'd say, "It's sick out there and getting sicker."  If only he knew how his words would ring ever more true in the years to come. 

The case in point is the cover of the current Time magazine.  It is a photograph of "Mayor Pete" Buttigieg and his "husband" Chasten Buttigieg standing close together with the caption "First Family."  (Permit me a minor digression here.  If Chasten is the "husband" of this couple, why are both of them using Buttigieg's last name and not Chasten's, which is Glezman?  I guess I'm too old and deplorable to understand such nuances.)

This cover and its accompanying story is an in-your-face, full-blown endorsement of homosexual "marriage" and the effort to make it appear normal.  Here we are seeing propaganda at its finest.  It is an example of what the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.) meant when he talked about "defining deviancy down." 

Moynihan based this observation of the work of sociologist Emile Durkheim, who said there is a limit to bad behavior that a society can tolerate before it starts to lower its standards.  Is this not what we have been seeing since the 1960s?  One insult to the family, to fatherhood, to patriotism, and to normality itself ratchets traditional standards down.  At that point, the system digests the changes, rests for a brief time, and then the Left begins its next assault.  The trajectory is always down, never up.   

I have been following the 'defining deviance down' process for more years than I care to remember.  At first I was shocked at what the counterculture was able to get away with.  Now I unfortunately believe that the end is not yet in sight in America's race to the gutter.