Dialogue

Let’s be honest: Crusaders for doctor-assisted suicide and gay rights are not interested in dialogue. Secular progressives demand unconditional surrender. ‘Dialogue’ has become one of their many tactics for neutralizing opposition.
“In my years as a theology professor, as a rare conservative in higher education, I became accustomed to calls for dialogue on this or that issue. In almost every instance, it was a set-up for mandatory public capitulation. If someone regards abortion as a moral evil and same-sex marriage as an oxymoron, as I do, he cannot say so in a public forum, for it amounts to a sin against dialogue. It ‘shuts down conversation,’ I was told on many occasions. As I learned over the years, there’s dialogue—until there isn’t. Once homosexuality is affirmed on a Catholic university campus, there’s no more ‘dialogue.’ Can you imagine ‘dialogue’ on global climate change? The movement from dialogue to censure and then denunciation is often a smooth one.

R. R. Reno, First Things