I belive that Homophobia is equal to racsim*, in and of every entire single way. This is a core moral value of mine, and I believe it needs to be spread.It is based on my belief of universal equality to all humankind.
How can we move this value into the mainstream? How can we make homophobia as taboo as racism?
Any Ideas?
(Oh, and if you disagree with me about this core value, I’m glad you have an opinion. This post is not about that, it presupposes for the sake of discussion this value. Please post elswhere or in your own journal, thanks. Off-topic or flame-worthy posts will be deleted.)
*and sexism, religionism, etc. (see the anti-discrimination act of 1964)
I don’t know. Get out of the closet, stay out of the closet, and fight for equal rights every time they’re denied to you?
Yeah, That’s a good ‘given.’
I was thinking last night that while we may have “Will & Grace,” we have no “Archie Bunker.”
I fully beleive that All in the Family helped to move forward mainstream echewing of racism and allowed it to become able to be a ‘taboo,’ or at least a value that only a buffoon (though loveable) would have.
We need a homophobic archie bunker.
How can we move this value into the mainstream? How can we make homophobia as taboo as racism?
The core text on this subject is Gordon W. Allport’s
The Nature of Prejudice. The Amazon.com link is selling it as the 25th anniversary version, which is odd since it was published in 1954. I’ve read this book, all 800 pages of it, and it is well worth reading. He even talks about homophobia in liberal, accepting terms, in several places–amazing considering the publication date. His book is the definitive work on the subject of prejudice (which includes homophobia) and although many excellent books have been published since, they all rely on his book for grounds.
He said that discriminationg can be stopped. Prejudice–that’s a different matter.
According to Allport’s research, undermining prejudice is very difficult. Education is, of course, helpful, but his research showed it was not the answer to the problem. It just helped make people more receptive.
Contact with members of the group can help, but it is no guarantee.
The most effective method for combating prejudice was literal roleplaying, where people act out skits in which they are a different race or sex or sexual orientation or religion, etc. This is difficult because people harboring prejudice are not likely to just up and volunteer for roleplaying.
Don’t forget though, that Archie Bunker was also a hero to the Black Hats of Civil Rights at the time. If someone already has the values he espoused (values CAN be negative), he is seen as a spokesperson.
I’ve seen two sides of the social effect of Archie Bunker.
Very interesting post. I will share this with my wife who is the current president of the Gordon Allport Society at UC Berkeley and see if there’s anything she’d like to add.
Oh, yes – this was part of my idea. The black hats did have their Archie Bunker, yet at the same time they became a characature of themselves.
Please do. Especially if I mixed a few things up. I haven’t read the book since I was an undergrad.
I’m watching a film on the Underground Railroad with the kiddos right now, and I was thinking the same thing. MOST people don’t have an actual belief (not on a deep level, anyway) that black-skinned people are inferior to white-skinned people. Somehow we got there after many years. However, the widely believed lie that the Jesus disliked homosexuality is going to be a big hurdle. The racists who created the slave trade thought God was behind them, too. I don’t know the bible well enough
Last night Hubby asked one of his homophobic friends “Why are you so scared of the fags?” (This is largely rhetorical, as we suspect he’s so far in the closet he’ll never see daylight) He went “bible blah blah Christ blah blah” at which point hubby (an extremely well informed Bible scholar, as well as a hard-core agnostic) pointed out that he ought to really make a choice: old testament, or Christian? Are you going to sacrifice goats and hate fags, or are you going to follow Jesus the Christ and love all your neighbors AND your enemies? He had no response, of course (because he’s not stupid, just brainwashed).
Gah. I’ve never been Christian, so I don’t get it at all. plus, I’m not very articulate as I have to keep stopping to tell these little monsters to SHUT THE HELL UP.
I’m surprised by people like my dad, who’s 66 and not that *much* of a social liberal, who, when we talked about the gay marriage measures, said that it wasn’t a big deal for him – that if gay people wanted to marry, he was for it.
I don’t know if that’s a growing feeling of “government, leave me alone” as he’s getting older, knowing gay people (including the daughter of the next-door neighbor and another friend of his), or just reacting to changing times.
He *was* in the Marines soon after they desegregated (mid-late 50s), and caught hell from Southerners for treating black Marines decently and playing basketball and sharing tents while on maneuvers. Maybe he sees the paralell…
that the US is making some progress towards tolerance to homosexuality. Homosexuality is being dealt with in more and more frank ways in TV and Movies. I know people who were violently anti-gay who are much more mellow nowadays. People tend to buy into stuff they see in the media.
You crash into a brick wall when dealing with conservative Christians though. Too easy to fall back on some gloom and doom old testament verses.
I think the ‘good ole boy’ types who gay bash etcetera are excellent candidates for education and exposure as a long-term cure. But the religious zealots… good luck man!
and yeah, I’m predjudiced against people, having a generally low opinion of the human race so I’m probably not the best person to pitch in for the cause. 🙂
Did you know that I am now the proud owner of said shirt? 😉
(unless he purchased another)
A key step is to get people to realize that some gays don’t have the choice to be gay any more than some hets have the choice to be het. I just had a *ahem* spirited discussion with someone, and no matter how much evidence I brought to the table to convince them that (a) homosexuality occurs in nature and (b) some gays don’t have the choice, she still believes that it’s a choice because God says so. It was rather like arguing with, well, you know who.
If you can accomplish this step, the rest becomes easier.
Haha!
Well, we can start by coming up with a more appropriate “ism” word than Homophobia.
I understand the desire to point out that prejudice often originates from a fear of the unknown, but it is die-hard pc-think to not realize, that not all people who hate do so out of ignorance. Prejudice and hatred often have the same result, but they are not the same. I know more people than I can count who do not hate homosexuality because of ignorance or fear. It is sometimes through a conscious act. I understand the popular retort is to say that all people who dislike homosexuality are in the closet. But that simply is not true. Now for the skinheads down in Huntington Beach that go out of their way to “queer-bash,” well they might very well be dealing with issues of latent homosexuality.
The one problem I foresee with trying to rid faith-based prejudice is that you are then attacking someone’s faith. At which point you have a battle of protected people, so to speak. dryad271 stated that her friend could not support his anti-homosexual feelings with his faith, but many Christians can. I used to be one. Pretty serious, I even planned on going to seminary, (An odd word in the context of this discussion now that I think about it.) Homosexuality is condemned in the New Testament as well as the Old. The only way around that is to toss out the epistles of Saul/Paul. Which, (While that would be convenient given Saul/Paul’s misogyny,)is not an option for those who believe the Bible is the absolute word of God. Now I realize that many modern Christians are aware of the fact that a lot of the Bible, (Like so many others elements of mythology,) has large parts of metaphor which are not to be taken literally. But the Epistles don’t fit in this category at all, unless you count a parable or two. Saul/Paul makes no bones about the Christian viewpoint of Homosexuality.
So that part of anti homosexual bias will be hard to get rid of. Although, the Catholics had Jew-hating plays they used to stir up anti-Semitism, (Another inaccurate ism,) you don’t see these “passions” anymore, do you?
Oh wait, they do still exist. Now I don’t think that Mel Gibson & co actually hate Jews or Hebrews, but they did make the movie, and it has stirred up a lot of anti-Semitic behavior. I have heard plenty of acquaintances, (Who didn’t appear to give a shit about their religion the week before the movie, when they were partaking of fornication, gluttony, and drunkenness,) state after seeing it that they hate the Jews, “Cause the Jooz kilt Jeezus!” Whoa, buddy what the fuck? I thought that stuff was long dead.
Here is the thing about the racism-taboo. Racism has not gone away, (And I realize you never said that it did,) but the taboo has forced it underground, made it semi-illegal, and forced it to manifest in a different form. For the educated man, (Or woman,) cultural bias has replaced racism. I guess you would call it culturism, but I hate ism words, because they often fail to convey the correct meaning. But I constantly meet people who espress their dislikes to me. Unaware of my Hispanic heritage, plenty of my co-workers, and others I meet, tell me all about them dirty wetback beaners and how they are ruining our country with their cheap labour. When I pin them down on the issue of whether they would be willing to harvest said produce, they admit, no they wouldn’t, but they are more than willing to consume it. And they don’t want to pay anymore for it. So, they are not ignorant, but they still hang on to their hatred.
I don’t honestly believe culturalism will ever go away, and you can’t legislate it out of existence, that’s not unlike legislating morality. Of course, some morality HAS to be legislated, just for peaceful co-existence. Not being able to steal or murder, for example. So the activity that can be shown to be anti-social is the stuff that can be made illegal. Some discrimination will always remain in society until we all become faceless drones. With differences and choice comes discrimination. That doesn’t make it right, but that does make it difficult to ascertain the best course for peace and harmony.
Damn, my comment is too long, gonna have to make it into 2.
As for a more accurate word to describe sexual orientation bias; Sexualism, Orientism, no ism really seems appropriate. Perhaps a Greek Miso word would be appropriate. Misanthropy and Misogyny are excellent examples that immediately convey the intended meaning with no muddling add-ins to suppose the origin of said emotion. (As a side note how do you say Man-hater? Misoprocty?) What would the Miso(homosexual)y word be?
Of course the semantics of homosexuality are fairly silly anyway. The original context of the words Gay, Queer and Fag don’t really relate to sexual orientation except for the fact that our society has caused them to. Even Lesbian, with its roots in mythology is something of a misnomer.
But you asked for solutions, not lengthy nay saying conjecture, so here is what I think has a shot of working.
More extreme separation of Church and State. I socialize with people who are not ignorant or stupid, (And no they are not Marines, either,) yet they still believe that they can support Church-led Government as Constitutional. For me, the first step is to be active in supporting measures and representatives who support a true separation of church and state.
Well, the choice thing is a bit of a red herring to me.
I mean, we’re ok with recognizing the choice of religion as far as being a no-go for discrimination.
There’s a precident.
The nature/nurture thing always seemed to me a too-obvious way of trying to trick homophobes using semantics.
Phobia not only means “fear,” is also means “hating.”
I think it’s a fine term, at any rate. The semantics of who is/isn’t a homophobe is mostly separate from the issue. (though that is a great issue separately).
You know, if we started calling them Sexualists or Misohomosexualists, it wouldn’t make them any less bigoted.
Besides, it is fear based. I battle my faithophobia myslef.
fidesphobia?
Hmm….
I’m continually shocked at the acceptance of anti-mexican racism in southern california.
It took a long time of self awareness and critical thinking to overcome my own internal prejuice with mexican culture (having grown up in an extremely racist environment).
That sounds nice.
I’d also like to add that when I use faith as a term, I imply the “fundamentalist” definition, rather than the synonym for “hope.”
I have no problem for hope. I use it myslef daily.
Last night on the phone, my dad (who’s 54) thanked me for, in his words, showing him the light regarding homosexuality and human rights. “It’s a lot more for to be FOR things than against them,” he says. I guess it was a combination of having a queer daughter and recognizing reason when he sees it. Which you can’t count on everyone being able to do, but at one point my Dad was a teacher in the most conservative Lutheran synod out there (Wisconsin Evangelical; they think the Missouri synod Lutherans are too liberal) — he was one of those conservative Christians, but he opened up his mind. It gives me hope.
But there are people of certain cultures that I do not like, merely on the basis of my past experiences with their culture. I recognize the bias, and the fact that it is not logical or right, but it still exists. I do not fear their culture, I just don’t like it.
As an example people who do not bathe or take steps to combat the natural odor of their body offend me. No universal moral law states that one must smell pretty, but I don’t like it. I have no fear of stinky people, but I don’t like them.
I’m not sure I’m following you.
Hope is sometimes the only thing that gets me up in the morning…
simply don’t get it either, so the nature/nuture thing always ends up being a moot point.
And there are lots who have a strong hatred for the “non-practical” religions, such as paganism and wiccans.
But..this isn’t a religious discussion so I’ll leave it at that…
Right, so there is no phobia.
If you react to whatever the thing is in an irrational way, like wanting to pass a constituional ammendment that says people must bathe every other day, or that stinky people shouldn’t be able to marry, then you would be a stinkophobe. 😉
I think the whole “choice” issue is a non-starter.
Even if it was 100% true that homosexuality was 100% choice, this would not change it’s need for equality.
People’s religions and creeds are 100% choice (you aren’t born a christian, you are born into a christian family), and they are still expected to be treated with equality regardless.
Nature/Nuture is IMHO irrelevant.
ARRRGGGHHH
Ignore my ignorant use of it’s for ‘its’ 🙁 damn it.
your slightly innaccurate use of the word, ‘ignorant’ since you clearly knew the rule but failed to spot the error until after you clicked, “post comment” and therefore were not so much ignorant as careless. 😀
Ah.
All of what you say is true. My idea was not to use such an argument as a direct path, but instead as a jumping-off point. To use it as a method to get the other person to relate somehow, because they clearly aren’t willing to relate in any other way. If they can be convinced that some gays don’t have the choice much the same way that some hets don’t have a choice in their decisions, gays become more ‘human’ to them. *Then* you continue with the argument.
Intermediate steps. Sure, it takes longer, but getting one to open one’s mind is usually a long process.
I think that we are well on the way to (mostly) getting rid of homophobia (or whatever Deej is trying to call it in his endless post 🙂
Using other “ism’s” as our benchmarks, we have only been seeing a concerted effort at getting the mainstream to accept homosexuality for a couple of decades. There is still racism, but look at the changes that have happened with race relations in the past 50 years. We’ve gone from a fully segregated South, to having a black woman as our National Security Advisor. Is racism gone? Nope… (probably never will be) but people in general are a LOT more accepting of other races these days.
Now, does that mean you have to wait 50 years to eradicate homophobia? Probably, but the fight during the interum is what brings about the change in the end. So people have to keep trying to change the way other’s think, it’s only through that kind of constant exposure that ideas finally take root and flourish.
These days, only an insane extremist would advocate going back to segregation, or recinding the right of women to vote, and some day the same will be said of people that refuse gays the same rights as heterosexuals.
Hmmmm… not one of my better editorials.
On a strange note… the Mentors started up on my playlist while I was wrapping that all up… it must be a sign!!!!
Halloween Homo Hippy!!!!!!!!!
Why I oughtta!
Banana Royale!
Sorry for my lack of brevity. I couldn’t seem to lj-cut in the comment.
I need to develop a more concise style.
Hmmm, I think broad vagaries and sweeping generalization are the way to go.
Heh… I was just pokin fun at ya… your post was interesting and well written.
LJ doesn’t let you lj-cut comments, I don’t think…
As a side note how do you say Man-hater? Misoprocty?
Misandry, which is practised by misandrists.
Misoprokty would be hatred of the anus/rectum.
What would the Miso(homosexual)y word be?
That’s hard to invent. In the classical sources for Greek or Latin, terminology for sexual orientation is wanting. One can reference a woman who has sex with a woman in so many words, one can reference love for a person or a specific sex, one can reference sexual/social position in a relationship: top or not, masculine or feminine role, etc. But specific orientation terms are not present in any of the sources of which I am aware; it wasn’t an important issue for naming as we name it. For modern Greek, look elsewhere, but I suspect they’ve got a similarly modern, invented term.
On semantics, ‘homosexual’ was only invented as a word during the 19th century movement of psychopathological discourse, wherein psychosexual ‘disease states’ were identified and named. ‘Heterosexual’ was invented as a counterpoint, to label ‘healthy normative behaviour’. I hate that word. Won’t use it, I’m happier with ‘fag’ than ‘homosexual’ for my personal semantic.
Technically, on the roots, ‘homophobia’ would define either a) ‘terror of that which is the same’ (hom[oe]o = same; hetero = different) or b) ‘terror of humans’ (homo = human). But, we have the word rather widely known in usage now, and I don’t think that it especially serves to try to create some shiny new term when there is one which functions. Note the ‘new vocabulary’ of political correctness, the well intentioned but often absurd quality thereof, the resistance to its usage, and the redundancy of it. ‘Homophobia’ as a term of known implication, works, even if its linguistic root forms are muddied.
Even Lesbian, with its roots in mythology is something of a misnomer.
Well, more history than mythology. The cultural variant from the Hellenistic diaspora on the isle of Lesbos was more supportive of women than many of its equivalents through the Mediterranean region. With women more free to participate in public life, the apparent incidence of ‘lesbian’ pairings was also higher, and perhaps it was more than just the increased visibility of such couples in comparison to the more repressive continental or Aegean societies. Add in the native of Lesbos, Sappho, whose amazing poetry (dear gods. amazing. the sounds and metre can set my bones to vibrating) includes many love poems addressing other women, and the nomenclatural association was made. Yeah, it’s another stretch, but yeah, I think it works OK.
How can we move this value into the mainstream? How can we make homophobia as taboo as racism?
I note that the phrasing of your question is sensible: not ‘how can we eliminate homophobia’ but rather a question of how we can limit its acceptability in public discourse and policy. Racists are presently (somewhat) limited in that they are now obliged to pretend not to be racist in their approach. Some of this bleeds over already, in that the opponents of same sex marriage (by way of example) do sometimes frame their position in terms of ‘they can have what relationships they want, but these should not be granted a status equal to relations between a man and a woman.’ We also note, however, that political expediency moves even supposedly liberal persons to state this position, only with resistance to legislating it.
The obvious venue is legal. Passage of further hate crime laws, incorporation of sexual orientation into civil rights laws and amendments (I was involved in the process of including sexual orientation in the human rights, but not the civil rights, amendment of the Minnesota state constitution awhile back for example). Expansion of protections which exist in some localities (my county, here in New York for example, has non-discrimination laws applicable to race, sex, creed, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.) into a broader application.
The move towards making homophobia a universal civil rights issue and not a specialised one is essential. The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation for example has nowhere near the clout or impact of the American Civil Liberties Union. Homophobia cannot be kept as its own separate ‘-ism’ and be fought effectively. It must acquire status as assumed component of all efforts against institutionalised prejudice. It seems so obvious to me, but one has to work at it with others; as a highly educated white male queer by personal identity I have never actually thought of it as separate. I loathe all discriminations, and I’ve been involved in as much race, sex, spiritual practise activism as ‘queer issues’ – which is a lot. Not everyone sees it that way, though. Given the cultural homophobia of many communities of colour, I have seen great resistance to the idea of these biases as equivalent. Then again, a couple years after I really put my neck out in activism supporting my local Latino community (more homophobic than not), there was a large conservative backlash within the local queer community: ‘enjoy what we’ve got, enjoy the status quo, don’t rock the boat.’ Community activists were nastily vilified. Our support network disappeared…. and the latino/a population moved to make their support for us known. It was bittersweet, but great. We just need more of that.
Outside of legalist agitation, we’ve also got to rely upon more gradual social change. Let more mainstream queers continue to be more visible, reassuring others in the mainstream that ‘they’re not so different.’ Let the radical, out there, freak-out exhibitionism continue, generating shocks and backlash and quietly pushing the boundaries of what really is shocking.
And be aggressive that the moral opinions of some specific religious sects must not be imposed upon all of them.
Nice and easy, right? *sigh*
A little addendum on ‘Lesbian.’ The current association of that term for sexual orientation, also, is modern. In the classical into early modern world, a ‘Lesbian’ was just someone from Lesbos. The Roman poet Catullus borrowed the Sapphic metre and echoed the love poetry of Sappho towards one of his own woman lovers, addressed towards ‘mea Lesbia’ in this poetry cycle. The implication was one of great romantic love as the parallel, with sexual orientation as a supposed nonissue. Cultural bias is inseparable from vocabulary.
Just as a belated FYI:
She didn’t really have anything too much to add, but did confirm that you had Allport’s ideas spelled out correctly and well stated, so no mix ups.