Anti-gay bias is stupid

[Kikajon]

I've been arguing with internet antigay people for 20 years now. Here's how it goes.

First, use "anti-gay bias" instead of "homophobia." A lot less chance for sidetracking.

If they say that being gay is a choice, don't argue with them that it is not. Instead, ask them why choosing to be gay is a bad thing. They will either choose (1) argument from nature or (2) argument from Bible.

For the Nature argument, it breaks down to (1a) We need to reproduce, (1b ) Animals/ancestors are heterosexual.

Counter (1a) with (1ai) Sterile heterosexual couples (age or infertility) and heterosexual couples who choose not to reproduce, (1aii) Gay couples can donate sperm and eggs to fulfill the reproductive imperative, so will they forego their objection if each same-sex couple donate their sperms/eggs?

Counter (1b ) with (1bi) Almost all mammalian species showed degrees of homosexuality, as well as many birds, (1bii) many animals also kill the youngs of competing reproductive pairs, and eat their own shit, too. Should we imitate that, as well?

If they choose track 2, it can be either (2a) The Bible/Koran forbids homosexuality and (2b ) Love the sinner, hate the sin.

Counter (2a) wiith (2ai) The holy text also condemns many other things we ignore today, like ritual cleanliness for menstruating women. They will come back with (2ai-1) which is that some of those laws have been done away with by the coming of Christ. Counter with (2ai-1a) which is that the 10 Commandments haven't been done away with, and yet, we do not make laws to forbid worshipping of false Gods (first 2 Commandments).

Counter (2b ) with (2bi) not all religious faiths take it as true that homosexuality is a sin. Reformed Judaism, Episcapols, etc., plenty of denominations that accept and welcome LBG Chrsitians, (2bii) In what way is it a demonstration of "loving the sinner" by denying they equal treatments from society?

Then go on counter-offensive. Ask them why are they so scared that children will fail to choose the "right" option. If heterosexuality is moral, right, just, natural, and favored by God, what do they have to fear from gay parents? Are gay parents more powerful than God, to turn people away from His intended path for people?

Ask them, further, that since God moves in mysterious ways and we cannot know His will, is it not possible that it is His plan to allow some people to be gay for His own reasons? After all, He allows free will of people to choose. Are they not offending God in presuming to know better?

Finally, cap it off with the argument that a faith tested is a true faith, and cite Jesus' time spent in the desert. So having children grow up in a gay household is a great thing, because then it will reinforce their choice to be straight later on.

ETA

Notice that you're not arguing that their faith is wrong, at all. That is a no-win battle. You're also not arguing about translation and interpretation of the Bible. That is also a no-win because most Christians don't even know the history of the Bible, let alone the nuances in translation. You are, instead, taking their premises and accepting it, and then arguing with it.

Awesome! I'm going to study and practice it.

And what do you answer to the common answer that they just don't like "parading" homosexuality?

I really have no words for that, starting with the fact that I do not really understand what it means....

[Kyoshi]

I don't think that there is any logic at play here, it's just an emotional reaction. Firstly men are quite likely to find lesbian PDA attractive and arousing, I'd wager most men have watched lesbian porn at some point, if not frequently. So it's something that they are more familiar with. Much of homophobia is I think just a negative reaction to something new, but lesbian PDA is something they are used to. And also, related to that is that society tends to expect women to be more "touchy feely" with one another anyway. Women hug, touch, hold hands a lot more than men do. So Lesbian PDA is not far removed from the expressions of affection we might expect from platonic female friends.

And that double standard is obviously wrong, but I think that's the reasoning behind it.

I was part of a discussion that in the end, seemed to suggest that most people, at least subconsciously, expect women to be more "wanton" than men. That is, lesbian PDA is okay mostly because well, in the most crude way I can summarise the discussion, most people tend to reduce women to sex objects. IMHO, most men watch lesbian porn because they seek it out; they don't first stumble upon it and then become used to it. Being used to seeing it seems to be a consequence, not a cause. And most importantly, the discussion revealed that it is imperative to the lesbian porn-watchers that both participating lesbians be explicitly feminine. To give an example, not a lot of people would want to see Tracy Chapman and Ellen DeGeneres yet almost everyone was willing to see...say Megan Fox and Angelina Jolie. And of the women who participated, very few were open to the idea of watching male/male homosexual porn. Forget about the men.

Sexuality is a very complicated thing, even once you break down to one denomination. There are still layers beneath layers beneath layers. I felt so ignorant when I discovered there are so many types of lesbians, and from that one can get different pairings. Going off-topic:

which was the reason most of the participating women cited the biggest problem they had with porn in the first place as this--it reduces sexuality and the role played by each participant, especially women and lesbianism, to a simple thing/brand that caters to heterosexual males. *end of ramble*

[drawkcabi]

Not much more to add except yes homophobia and anti gay bias is stupid.

:grouphug: to everyone

[TerraPrime]

Re: Kika

Awesome! I'm going to study and practice it.

And what do you answer to the common answer that they just don't like "parading" homosexuality?

I really have no words for that, starting with the fact that I do not really understand what it means....

First, you ask them to give you some examples of "parading" homosexuality. Usually this means PDA, or the gay parade, or the apperance of gay characters in entertainment. You then offer examples of heterosexuality being portrayed similarly, like Mardi Gras or Spring Break, and you should be able to either (1) push them back into the "... because homosexuality is immoral" corner, which gets you back to either nature or Bible, or (2) you get them into the "I am against all PDA" argument. And, in most cases, they are not really against all PDA. They just say they are against all PDA because it's the only winning ground. But if they do retreat there, you need to decide how bloody you want the battle to be, because you can indeed follow up and pursue, but it will start becoming personal because you can only win now by successfully showing that s/he just lied. That's a difficult debate to win because most people don't like being shown to be a liar. So they will dig in their heels and growl. Best approach is to actually let it go at this stage, and then in the future, when there's a PDA of heterosexual couple and they say nothing, and they won't, bring it up to them "Hey, arent' you going to say something to that couple for holding hands and kissing outside of the bar?" or "Can you believe how gross Uncle Joe and Aunt Jane are being for sitting on each other's laps in front of the family?"

Alternatively, you can also point out that religious people are parading their faith whenever they wear signifiers of their faith, like crucifixes, and that in pluralistic society we don't hold it against people for displaying their personalities that are important to them. You can try the empathy route and ask them to imagine how they'd feel if they can't tell people that they're Christian/Muslim/etc. If they're devout Christians, and they often are, it's great because you can use the stories of the early Martyrs, where Christians who were persecuted for their faiths still refused to denounce their faith. This usually get them really pissed off because you're comparing being gay to being Christian, at which point, you segway into choice and the constitutional protection of religious choices as a contrast to the need for respect of people's sexuality choices. Or you can try the angry militant route and tell them that if they want to live in the U.S. they will just have to deal with people who are different, and you're leading by example in actually being nice to an anti-gay bigot so maybe they can do their share by being less of a douchebag, too.

What about 3a) gays will lead to people marrying their dogs?

Tell them that most LBGT people prefer cats. :p

No, seriously, gay marriage is even easier to defend than the morality of homosexuality.

Re: Lesbian vs Gay male sexuality

It's one of my old soap boxes where I opine that sexism is at the roots of anti-gay biases. A lot of the visceral reactions that some straight men have against male homosexuality is, imo, rooted in sexism. It goes something like this:

--> Women get sexual/emotional needs satisified by men

--> Women are weak and dependent

--> A gay male couple means that both of them are getting their sexual/emotional needs satisfied by men

--> Gay men make men look weak and dependent

--> Male homosexuality is wrong

Here's another strand of thought, too:

--> I like sex with women

--> I objectify women as sexual targets and think of having sex with them

--> Gay men like sex with men

--> they objectify men as sexual targets and think of having sex with men

--> these gay men are thinking of gangbanging me and jizzing all over my face because that's what I think of when I see some women

--> How dare they

Then there's the stuff that has already been mentioned, which is that female sexuality is seen as something that can be tamed (and sometimes as something that needs to be tamed) and controlled, whereas male sexuality is not seen in the same light. The male gaze in p0rn where female-female sex is depicted in a way to pleasure men is a good example already mentioned.

So yeah, sexism.

[3CityApache]

It would be easy if it was just dumb. But I'm afraid it's not always that simple.

Homophobia is stupid, of course, but I do know a few people who are homophobic and really intelligent and smart at the same time. For some reason they just can't overcome their deeply rooted prejudices. It's much harder to talk sense to such people than those who haven't really given that much thought after all.

Spelling.

[Buckwheat]

Yes. Yes, it is stupid.

Terra is wise though.

And now the Error 500 ate my post ... again ...

On 3rd March, a law was passed in Slovenia that allows homosexual marriage and that homosexual couples adopt children.

After that, a petition "It is about the children" was started by conservative - mainly Catholic - groups against this law (they wanted to organise a referendum against it). It was signed by more than 80 000 people, which is about 4 % of the population.

The main argument seems to be that, well, it is about the children: that a child has the right to have A MOTHER AND A FATHER, that the definition of a family is A MOTHER, A FATHER AND CHILD(REN) and this should not be changed ("redefinition of family" is a big political word right now). The argument is that a child deserves a "normal", "natural" family because growing up with a homosexual couple will have terrible terrible consequences for them.

The whole thing has plenty of stupid in it, the two I find most stupid right now are that 1. children most definitely do not develop any differently if they grow up with a pair of homosexual people and 2. it looks like plenty of the members of the clergy told their listeners in church to sign the petition and when they were leaving the mass, the forms and the pencils waited neatly prepared at the exit so they all could sign the stupid petition. I am sure plenty of people do not even think of it, they just do what the priest told them was right and they did not know the details of what they were signing ... so stupid and sad.

The happier news is, a counter-petition was started which wants to collect even more signatures in support of the new law. Looks like 12 000 or so signatures right now (in about a day, as much as I can undersand).

[Weeping Sore]

Here's another strand of thought, too:

--> I like sex with women

--> I objectify women as sexual targets and think of having sex with them

--> Gay men like sex with men

--> they objectify men as sexual targets and think of having sex with men

--> these gay men are thinking of gangbanging me and jizzing all over my face because that's what I think of when I see some women

--> How dare they

It's a good thing imaginary jizz washes off pretty easily.

[HexMachina]

People I've encountered are worse. According to them, they can't be homophobes because they aren't ' afraid of gays ' , they just don't want them gays to 'parade it in their faces'. This illogic follows that there is nothing wrong with being gay, but then the person should be prepared to be treated inferior for the rest of their lives.

I think transgendered people have it worse- today at least people know homophobia isn't acceptable , but trans people just have vileness spewed at them ,even openly.

Ugh, this reminds me of a discussion we had in class a couple of years back, one girl comes out with: "I'm not homophobic but something about two men kissing in public is just wrong."

Facepalm moment if ever there was one

[Dr. Pepper]

TP, do you have guidelines on how to frame the argument when it's a person who uses a past same sex sexual assault as the basis for homophobia? I've encountered this countless times and it makes me feel helplessly angry.

I usually start by pointing out that sexual assault is horrific and is perpetrated by people of all types. The response to this is almost always one that seems to invalidate or downgrade hetero sexual assault by claiming that same sex rape is somehow inherently worse or the only type of sexual assault worthy of experiencing ongoing trauma, enough to warrant a bigot agenda.

I tend to back off there because (1) I'm fucking angry and (2) I start worrying that further debate on my part will only serve to invalidate their experience and I know very well how painful that can be.

What's a better way to approach this?

[Biglose]

Ugh, this reminds me of a discussion we had in class a couple of years back, one girl comes out with: "I'm not homophobic but something about two men kissing in public is just wrong."

Facepalm moment if ever there was one

How much do you think this has to do with the "horrorsenario" in a lot of TV-Series and Movies: My husband turns out to be gay!

[Aerys Blackfyre]

yes it is!

[karaddin]

Kyoshi - I know one study found those results, but the viewing patterns of registered users on pornhub showed women were all about watching male gay sex, just as much as men watching lesbian porn, however women were also quite down with lesbian porn too. So I'm not sure if that study was flawed or what.

[Kyoshi]

^I think it may also depend on cultural background. The one I participated in was pretty homogenous. I don't know, sexuality is a very complicated thing.

ETA. maybe I should explain. In my case it was found that men with rural backgrounds were most likely to have homophobic inclinations than their urban counterparts. Older men. Religious men, etc. Strangely enough, this was the same group more likely to lie/show discomfort about porn/fantasies. But we were all urban, black men and women who had a significant rural background, most of us migrated to cities either for education or work. That's the only thing I can think of. Don't know if it even makes sense.

[Kyoshi]

In my case, I encounter people who not only show shame in accepting "the gay way" but show discomfort in being sexual, period. I come from a family where the only thing my parents ever told me was, "don't get a girl pregnant." We're not even talking about sex at all. Sexual orientation is a different beast altogether.

This gets confusing since I also come from the sort of culture where being a procreating human being is something highly valued. But like most cultures I think, it's better to be a proudly sexual male than female. Another baffling concept since a procreating male needs a consenting female to go about the business. Even when I have a girlfriend it's not something I can freely state since this will reflect negatively on her back home (especially when I was a teenager). The result of this is the childish bullying: "Oh you don't have a girlfriend so you must be a f**" I never got offended so I ended up in a situation where some of my family feared I was gay. I deliberately remained quiet to see where it would go. And now everyone hopes I'm at least bisexual. I went home for a funeral and my aunt pulled me aside, told me with a heavy heart that her son is just too neat and feminine, wondered if I could help since...you know, I seem to have come out "right" in the end. It's a vicious cycle of ignorance and I honestly don't see it breaking soon.

[karaddin]

Oh studies on arousal, was forgetting one of the other issues I take with them. I find penile response questionable as evidence of arousal questionable, but the production of lubricating fluid in the vagina as proof of arousal is not even questionable, its just outright wrong. Arousal is in the head, not the body. It can cause responses in the body, but those responses can also be caused without arousal so they are not reliable indicators.

As for your last comment on never having a gf that thus being assumed gay, I had the same thing until I realised I was a woman and thus actually was gay lol

[Larry of the Lawn]

Oh studies on arousal, was forgetting one of the other issues I take with them. I find penile response questionable as evidence of arousal questionable, but the production of lubricating fluid in the vagina as proof of arousal is not even questionable, its just outright wrong. Arousal is in the head, not the body. It can cause responses in the body, but those responses can also be caused without arousal so they are not reliable indicators.

As for your last comment on never having a gf that thus being assumed gay, I had the same thing until I realised I was a woman and thus actually was gay lol

Just so.

[Warg Arry]

Reminds me of this.

That is a disgusting. They really are using the "Won't someone think of the children?!!!!?!" argument. My faith in humanity is hurting.

[brook]

That is a disgusting. They really are using the "Won't someone think of the children?!!!!?!" argument. My faith in humanity is hurting.

The ad is irritating but its just bigots fighting a losing battle. What bothers me more is this

Dr van Gend yesterday thanked parishioners of the Holy Name Catholic Church in Toowoomba through which $21,000 had been raised in about one week for the weekend's advertising campaign in Sydney.

I assume Toowoomba has no children in poverty then? No mothers trying to escape violence only to find all the refuges are full? No homeless families?

This would make it pretty unique among Australian towns and especially in regional areas but it is the only explanation I can think of for why one single parish is able to throw away such a huge amount of money on an ad to be aired in ANOTHER STATE because they are so concerned about children.

[Wise Fool]

That is a disgusting. They really are using the "Won't someone think of the children?!!!!?!" argument. My faith in humanity is hurting.

You had faith in humanity? I think I lost mine right around

.

The basic argument against gay marriage is that if gay marriage is legal, gay marriage will be legal. Also something something photographer blah blah religious freedom uhhh just supporting traditional marriage blah blah children blah blah insidious plot.

[Larry of the Lawn]

You had faith in humanity? I think I lost mine right around

.

The basic argument against gay marriage is that if gay marriage is legal, gay marriage will be legal. Also something something photographer blah blah religious freedom uhhh just supporting traditional marriage blah blah children blah blah insidious plot.

We are all dumber for having heard that (the link), and may God have mercy on your soyk

Oh squirrels nuts, that was supposed.to say 'soul'.