Race, Opposition to Equal Marriage Rights, And Homophobia
| February 9th, 2007While reading Family Scholar’s blog, I noticed Elizabeth’s quoting of a New York Times article. Here’s the complete text of Elizabeth’s post:
RACE AND SSM
In a new University of Chicago study:
Fifty-eight percent of blacks opposed legalizing same-sex marriage compared to 36 percent of Hispanics, and 35 percent of whites.
Elizabeth’s partial quoting of the paragraph from the news story obscures the striking correspondence between homophobia and opposing marriage equality. Here’s what the complete paragraph in the Times story says:
In addition 55 percent of blacks felt homosexual activity was always wrong compared to 36 percent of Hispanics and 35 percent for whites. Fifty-eight percent of blacks opposed legalizing same-sex marriage compared to 36 percent of Hispanics, and 35 percent of whites.
So in all three populations, according to this survey, the rates of homophobia and the rates of opposing equal marriage rights are virtually identical. Although I doubt Elizabeth left that out of her post on purpose, the strong popular connection between anti-gay bigotry and opposition to marriage equality is certainly a subject that she avoids discussing.
So why are blacks more likely to oppose SSM — and gay sex — than whites? I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet the fact that blacks attend church more than whites (I don’t know what the stats are for Latinas) has a lot to do with it.
February 9th, 2007 at 10:59 am
I don’t think the religious aspect is the main reason. I believe that many black men strive to be pillars of strength for their families and for their communities. Also, there is alot of emphasis on how other people perceive you. They want to be seen as a “strong black man”. Unfortunately, due to stereotypes, homosexuality is not something that many people equate with strength.
This comment was written by Angel H..Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 11:16 am
Since we’re going for clarity, thinking homosexual activity is “wrong” is not the same as “homophobia.” The difference here is, yes, probably due to religious beliefs, but that doesn’t mean people holding those views would endorse harassment, violence, or job or housing discrimination against GLBT people. (I’m thinking a Tammy Faye-style hate-the-sin-love-the-sinner deal, here.) It doesn’t help to enflame the conversation by assigning levels of hatred or pathology to people just because they hold different religious beliefs than you do.
This comment was written by Kell.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 11:49 am
As a white who is married into a Mexican family, I can state that the connection between beliefs and religious affiliation is completely different from the way whiet and black Americans see things. I absolutely DO believe that the connection between going to church and homophobia/opposing gay marriage is the primary consideration for American whites and blacks. We view religion in free market terms. If we prefer the teachings of a different church, we go there. If we do not like the teachings of any church, we do not go to any. Latinos cannot be use to dispute this, because they view religion completely differently. Yes, virtually all Mexicans are Catholic and believe in God, Jesus, the Virgin of Guadalupe, and saying the rosary. And almost no Mexican I know trusts the Pope or Priests. They usually seem to hold Nuns in a BIT higher regard, but none seem to beleive any of these people know more about morality than they do themselves. Mexicans aparently believe that they can view the Pope with the same esteem that I view George W. Bush and still be a good Catholic the same way that I can still be a patriotic American.
Do not ask me to explain this, I am just reporting what I have seen.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 12:19 pm
Conversations like this about the racial nature of homophobia always make me nervous, because they often turn into a whole lot of white or other not Black folks hypothesizing about what makes Black folks tick. And that’s never a fun path to go down.
Not that such phenomena should be ignored; I just think it’s a lot more productive and a lot less prone to awfulness for communities of color to talk internally about how to deal with their community’s homophobia.
I also think that it’s important to note that, while these statistics may be true, the politicians and legislators who actually wield the most clout in determining what rights queer folks do or do not get are, for the most part, a bunch of white men. So maybe, statistically, a larger percentage of Black folks believe homosexuality is wrong and are against queer marriage, but that smaller white percentage probably has a lot more power to doing anything about it, at least on a legislative level.
This comment was written by jack.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 12:29 pm
Of homophobes, sexists, and racists
Nichole Sconiers deals with this topic in her article, “Losing Isaiah: Anatomy of Black and Gay Conflict”. It is her description of her own experiences that makes this much more compelling than Amp’s armchair analysis.
This comment was written by The Opine Editorials.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I feel that religion plays a huge role in this, and at the same time I also feel there is an issue masculinity with black men. Also, I read a statistic somewhere stating that more blacks were attending Pentecostal churchs, which in my opinion, I believe is almost close to fundementalism. I think that’s part of the reason why alot of black people believe that homosexuality is wrong.
This comment was written by SakuraPassion.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
So why are blacks more likely to oppose SSM — and gay sex — than whites? I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet the fact that blacks attend church more than whites (I don’t know what the stats are for Latinas) has a lot to do with it.
Let’s not go too far down the road of religious indoctrination. Correlation is not causation. I’d bet that there is a common factor that causes both opposition to SSM and gay sex and an encouragement to church membership.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Since we’re going for clarity, thinking homosexual activity is “wrong” is not the same as “homophobia.”
Quite true.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 5:06 pm
At least two semi-hidden factors are involved here.
First, class differences matter a lot on this subject. I would expect the differences to be much smaller if comparing whites and blacks of the same education and wealth level.
Second, culture differences matter a lot. The swaggering, strutting, “respect”-based cultures of poor Southern whites and blacks tend to be pretty hostile to (male) homosexuality.
A random observation–it’s been my observation and (lesbian) friends’ experience that prejudice against gay men in the black community is much greater than against lesbians.
And I second Kell and RonF–opposition to homosexuality on moral grounds and homophobia are quite different phenomena.
This comment was written by SamChevre.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
While I’d agree that this is a useful and necessary conversation, I think that it’s dangerous to tell folks who are facing discrimination that it’s not their place to discuss that discrimination.
Is honestly believing that black folks are genetically predisposed to be less intelligent ‘racism’? I’ve always thought it to be so, whether or not the person holding that belief endorses overt discrimination.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 6:09 pm
I’d say it depends on what the person does with that belief.
In the case of “Homosexuality is wrong”, Christians fall into two broad categories. On the one hand are those Christians who feel sin is sin — there are no degrees of sin, so same-sex relations are on the same level as every other sin, and since everyone is a sinner anyway, lesbians and gays are just like everyone else. On the other hand are Christians who believe that there is something so unique about homosexuality that it cannot be overlooked, even though they might believe that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of G-d”.
This comment was written by FurryCatHerder.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 6:12 pm
“Homophobia is the fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. It can also mean hatred, hostility, or disapproval of homosexual people, sexual behavior, or cultures, and is generally used to insinuate bigotry.” (Wikipedia)
Now, everyone’s free to think what they will about other people. But if you think that homosexual activity is wrong, you are homophobic. That’s simply what the definition says.
I often hear people compare the struggles of black people during the Civil Rights Movement with the current struggle for gay rights. Others say that that is a bad comparison, and I wonder whether the alleged 53% of black people who oppose gay marriage fall within that group.
This comment was written by Eva Key.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Historically and psychologically, poor people tend to be more everything-phobic than rich people. Did they, by any chance, bother to income-match the study participants?
This comment was written by A. J. Luxton.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
By the way, this was a national survey of 18 - 25 year-olds, so it appears to be dramatically good news for the future. Current battles are important, but in the long run the anti-gay forces are just doomed by demographics.
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
February 9th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Er, what’s happening to my comments? Tried to comment here and in two other threads, and I believe something got stuck up the queue.
This comment was written by A.J. Luxton.Report this comment to the moderators
February 10th, 2007 at 1:49 am
I think that’s true, more because of party identification issues than for the reasons you state here. Most black voters, no matter what their opinion on gay rights issues, are still going to vote for Democrats - which means that they’re voting for the party of less anti-gay discrimination. (I’m not saying the Democrats aren’t often awful, just that the Republicans are consistently worse.) For the most part, legislators who originate and push anti-gay legislation are Republicans; and Republicans know that they get a lot further by appealing to whites than black.
Via On Lawn’s link above, I read this interesting article by a black, liberal, Christian woman, about confronting her own internalized homophobia. From the article:
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 10th, 2007 at 11:59 am
This is purely anecdotal, but here in Toronto, a lot of the (fellow) black people I’ve talked to about homosexuality see it as a white phenomenon. Even though they know that there are gay blacks - even when they know some personally - they still often equate queerness with whiteness and white culture. For people who see homosexuality that way, gay blacks present a serious challenge to their conception of what it means to be black. I don’t know if this is a common attitude throughout Canada or the US, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was, or if it was at least a small part of why disapproval of homosexuality is so high among black people.
I had such a sense of recognition when I watched the movie Bend It Like Beckham, because there’s a scene where one of the characters comes out to his best friend, and she responds with, “But you’re Indian!”
This comment was written by Enyonam.Report this comment to the moderators
February 10th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
Echoing earlier thoughts, I think a lot of it has to do with the need for a lot of black guys to be “strong” and of course the general association with homosexuality being weak. And, really, it’s understandable, given that blacks have had to fight tooth and nail for their rights in this country and that sort of environment is of course going to result in people who have to be strong no matter what. When society today still has lingering examples of racism right and left, allying yourself with something else that’s socially unacceptable isn’t going to seem like an attractive option. I think the difference between blacks and Hispanics is probably a matter partially of the fact that the Hispanic population has never had to deal with (to my knowledge) years of legislation aimed directly at taking away their rights. They’ve been discriminated against, sure, but never in such a wide-spread, organized, and institutionalized way. So it would make sense that they have, perhaps, less of a knee-jerk defensive reaction. Of course, these are the completely anecdotal observations of a middle-class white girl with a woeful lack of sociology training, but hey, if I don’t say anything, no one can correct me.
This comment was written by Neev.Report this comment to the moderators
February 10th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
“Homophobia is the fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. It can also mean hatred, hostility, or disapproval of homosexual people, sexual behavior, or cultures, and is generally used to insinuate bigotry.” (Wikipedia)
Now, everyone’s free to think what they will about other people. But if you think that homosexual activity is wrong, you are homophobic. That’s simply what the definition says.
No, that’s what whoever wrote the article for Wikipedia thinks. Wikipedia can be a handy reference, but the articles in it don’t exactly get the review and scrutiny that something like the entries in the Encyclopedia Britannica or the Merriam-Webster dictionary do.
Every other word that uses “-phobia” as a root or modifier signifies some kind of irrational fear. The invention and promotion of the word “homophobia” is an attempt to plant a meme in the mind of the general public that dissaproval of homosexual behavior is both irrational and based on fear, regardless of the actual facts. I’m perfectly willing to use the word in some contexts, as when discussing what happened to Matthew Shepard (to use an extreme example). But to use it when people talk about any dissaproval of homosexual behavior at all is just wrong.
Hm. Maybe I should just log into Wikipedia and change the definition.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
February 10th, 2007 at 11:54 pm
By the way, this was a national survey of 18 - 25 year-olds, so it appears to be dramatically good news for the future. Current battles are important, but in the long run the anti-gay forces are just doomed by demographics.
Keep holding on to that thought. But remember as well that people tend to change their minds about a lot of things that they thought were a good idea back when they were 18 and 25. I think it was Winston Churchill that said something along the lines of “If a man isn’t a Liberal when he’s 25 he has no heart, but if he’s not a Conservative when he’s 50 he has not brains.” The terms meant something differen then than they do now, but the basic principle holds. Mark Twain had something to say about it too. I once again search a failing memory, but his was more along the line of “when I was 20 I thought my father to be a complete idiot, but when I was 30 I was amazed at how much he had learned.”
On the one hand are those Christians who feel sin is sin — there are no degrees of sin, so same-sex relations are on the same level as every other sin, and since everyone is a sinner anyway, lesbians and gays are just like everyone else. On the other hand are Christians who believe that there is something so unique about homosexuality that it cannot be overlooked, even though they might believe that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of G-d”.
I see it differently. There are some Christians who think that God loves us all and that we should all love each other unconditionally, and accept each other as we are, and that this overrides everything else. There are other Christians who believe that while God understands we are all sinners, what He wants us to do is recognize our sins, repent of them, and do our best (within our human limits) to stop sinning, and that our salvation depends on this. We should love each other, but that love means that we help each other deal with our sins, not ignore or affirm them.
The real problem that Christians have with homosexual behavior is not that people who engage in it are sinners; it’s that it’s proponents don’t recognize it as sinful and in fact promote it as not only not sinful, but as the equal of heterosexual relationships. It’s the promotion of sinful activity as not sinful that is the crux of the matter.
The key story for me in that is the one where the crowd was getting ready to stone an adultress to death. Jesus stepped forward, defying convention, and challenged everyone there to look into their own hearts and see their own sins. Killing that woman for her sins when they themselves were all sinners was wrong. So they all dropped their stones and went away. But then comes the key; Jesus tells the woman, “Go and sin no more.” He didn’t tell the crowd that adultery was O.K. and was not sinful. And he told her that what she had done was sinful and that she needed to stop. “Hate the sin, but love the sinner” is part of the lesson here. Human nature is such that people often transfer their feelings about a sin to the person who committs it. But this Christianity thing isn’t meant to be easy; it is supposed to transform us, not to keep us as we are.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2007 at 1:48 am
Ron., think back to the 1950s: Do you think 60% of youths were in favor of legal recognition of same-sex marriage back then? How about in the 60s, or 80s?
Clearly, there has been increasing acceptance of queers over the past few decades. This suggests that real changes have been happening; it’s not true that younger generations inevitably grow up to be as bigoted as their parents and grandparents.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2007 at 2:07 am
Ron wrote:
No, that’s not true; sometimes it’s used to indicate bigotry, such as the word “transphobia” and the word “fatophobe.”
It is true that most of the “phobia” words indicate some sort of irrational fear. But that’s because those words are medical terminology; “homophobia,” in contrast, is not a medical term. There is no such thing as “clinical homophobia,” for instance.
In the English language, etymology doesn’t dictate meaning; instead, meanings are determined by usage. Do you seriously claim that people nowadays aren’t commonly using “homophobia” to refer to a wide variety of forms of anti-gay bigotry?
That sounds a little paranoid. In fact, the word “homophobia” was invented in 1972 in the book Society and the Healthy Homosexual, written by psychologist George Weinberg. Dr. Weinberg intended the word the same way you’re saying it should be used now; to refer to people who are driven to violence against homosexuals by fear of homosexuality.
But over the years, people needed a word for prejudice against homosexuals that would parallel “racism” and “sexism.” For whatever reason, “homophobia” ended up filling that slot in the collective dictionary, and that’s how a huge number of English speakers use the word today. It’s unfair to pretend that most speakers are using it to refer to a literal “phobia” or fear when it’s pretty obvious that this isn’t how the word is always used.
* * *
I’d argue that all disapproval of homosexual behavior in and of itself is irrational, and should thus be considered bigotry. Gay sex does no harm that straight sex doesn’t also do; there is no rational harm-based reason to disapprove of gay sex and not straight sex. Since rational reasons for disapproval of gay sex don’t exist, the reasons people disapprove of it must be irrational prejudice.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2007 at 4:36 am
“Keep holding on to that thought. But remember as well that people tend to change their minds about a lot of things that they thought were a good idea back when they were 18 and 25. I think it was Winston Churchill that said something along the lines of “If a man isn’t a Liberal when he’s 25 he has no heart, but if he’s not a Conservative when he’s 50 he has not brains.” The terms meant something differen then than they do now, but the basic principle holds. Mark Twain had something to say about it too. I once again search a failing memory, but his was more along the line of “when I was 20 I thought my father to be a complete idiot, but when I was 30 I was amazed at how much he had learned.” ”
Mark Twain also said something about what is liberal and revolutionary today being conservative and reactionary tomorrow, which would be impossible if the generations ran an immobile liberal-to-conservative treadmill. People become less adventurous and more set in their ways as they get older, but the ways in which they get set are different than those their own parents set into thirty years before.
Just to point out the obvious.
“There are other Christians who believe that while God understands we are all sinners, what He wants us to do is recognize our sins, repent of them, and do our best (within our human limits) to stop sinning, and that our salvation depends on this.”
There was no such thing as a sucky gate called the ‘the needle’ through which merchants had to pass, as the archaeological record shows. What Jesus said about the Camelus dromedarius and sewing implements is exactly what it sounds like he meant. When Christians repent of that, then maybe gay citizens will oblige kindly with a ‘one gay-bash free’ card, redeemable at your local megachurch.
This comment was written by sylphhead.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2007 at 8:31 am
I’d argue that all disapproval of homosexual behavior in and of itself is irrational, and should thus be considered bigotry. Gay sex does no harm that straight sex doesn’t also do; there is no rational harm-based reason to disapprove of gay sex and not straight sex. Since rational reasons for disapproval of gay sex don’t exist, the reasons people disapprove of it must be irrational prejudice.
This is a rather strong set of statements.
What proof do you have that gay sex does no harm? I can think of one form of “harm” (broadly construed, which seems to be your intention) which seems indisputable: gay sex creates homosocial bonding that causes men to eschew or de-emphasize relationships with women, or women themselves. Cf. ancient Greece.
You are also asserting a rational primacy that I, and I think most people, are uncomfortable with. There are non-rational values which are nonetheless valid and legitimate values. There are also non-rational values about which people reason correctly. My preference for Coke over Pepsi has no rational basis, but I correctly and rationally acquire and consume soda pop in the world, and successfully integrate my soda habits into my shopping routine, using reason. Nor am I an anti-Pepsi bigot for preferring Coke; it’s simply a preference.
The Biblical condemnation of homosexual behavior is largely echoed by the major faith traditions of the world. It is not irrational to assign the moral tradition of a culture some intrinsic value on the assumption that cultural evolution functions, and that a rule which appears everywhere may have some rational basis - even if we cannot articulate what that basis is.
I think your position is rather arrogant. You cannot think up a reason that homosexuality is bad without resorting to bigotry; that doesn’t prove anything about homosexuality, it just proves something about your own intellectual limitations. (Not intending that as a slam, everyone has the same limitations.)
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Yup. This isn’t an issue I feel much uncertainty on.
It’s not logically possible to prove a negative, Robert. The burden of proof is on the people who believe that gay sex intrinsically does more harm than straight sex.
I’ve heard this theory before, but far from “indisputable,” it’s utter garbage. It’s a false stereotype to believe that gay men don’t form bonds with women. Yes, there are some misogynistic gay men who basically only form friendships with men; but there are also some straight men like that. (Even married straight men — there are some who have no respect for their wives). If anything, the dating/marriage/divorce scene seems to make some bitter straight guys more misogynistic — look at the men who become bitter misogynists after they go through nasty divorces.
Fortunately, those men don’t represent all straight men. Most men, regardless of sexual orientation, are quite capable of bonding with women without having sex with them.
Of course it does. At some level, you acquire more pleasure from drinking a Coke than a Pepsi. Maybe you like the taste better; maybe it’s the packaging; maybe it’s subconscious associations from infancy, when your mom bounced you in her lap with one arm while drinking a can of Coke with the other. Who knows?
It doesn’t matter. We don’t have to know why you enjoy Coke more; that you do acquire more pleasure from drinking Coke than Pepsi makes it rational for you to choose Coke, all else held equal.
What would be irrational would be if I said that your Coke preference alone, based on no demonstrable real-world harm, is inferior to a Pepsi preference.
And if we lived in a world in which Coke drinkers were taught to hate themselves for their preference, were discriminated against in the law, were sometimes beaten in the streets by those who hate Coke drinkers, and so forth, then it would be worse than irrational for me to express my opinion that Coke-drinking is intrinsically inferior to Pepsi-drinking. It would be lending my support to a pattern of bigotry and harm against Coke drinkers.
By this logic, antisemitism was a rational position to take 80 years ago. I think that was nonsense then, and it’s nonsense now. Especially when the belief that homosexuality is intrinsically wrong is an essential lynchpin in a system of bigotry that does significant, real harm to real people, it’s important that those who advocate those harms — or who defend the system that makes those harms inevitable — be made to articulate defenses for their stated beliefs.
Besides, it’s simply not true, in our culture, that homosexual inferiority is “a rule which appears everywhere.” If the rule appeared everywhere, there wouldn’t be a controversy.
Cultural evolution didn’t stop fifty years ago; it’s still going on today. In our country, there are many churches and synagogues (possibly a majority of the synagogues) which have accepted same-sex couples as fully equal members; your view can no longer claim universality. Furthermore, there’s also a significant degree of acceptance of homosexuality in our culture’s other sources of wisdom, such as the universities and the arts.
Robert, I respect you. But I can’t respect this argument.
Obviously, your argument here is an ad hom argument. But what’s really astounding about it is that it’s so entirely lacking content, it could be used to rebut any position: “You cannot think of a reason that [position X] is [true/false]; that doesn’t prove anything about [position X], it just shows your intellectual limitations.”
Frankly, the world-class weakness of your argument lends credence to my argument that there is no rational argument against homosexuality.
Do I think it’s possible that I’m wrong? Of course it’s possible; it’s always possible to be mistaken. But that’s the case with every position I take, and also with every position anyone else takes. Judging from the evidence I’ve seen, and from the astonishing weakness of the counter-arguments I’ve seen from your side, I’m convinced it’s much less likely I’m wrong about homosexuality than it is I’m wrong about most other issues.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Maybe so, maybe so.
We’ll see in a hundred years.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2007 at 12:55 pm
I think one of the points for me is that no your religion doesn’t give you an ‘out’ on homophobia. When religions taught that black folks were the children of Cain, it didn’t give an out on racism, when they taught that the Jews killed Christ, it didn’t give an out on antisemitism, and when they teach that women ought to be subservient to men, that doesn’t give an out on sexism.
Own your own freaking beliefs. If you believe things that are repellent, that’s you choosing to believe that. Nobody else.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
February 11th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Homophobes do have an argument that seems vaguely reasonable if you ignore all the known costs of punishing deviants in the prescribed way and all possible benefits of letting them live in peace. (See here for more on the costs.) But those who know openly gay people tend more and more to place the burden of proof on those who argue that society would benefit by treating our friends as fitting subjects for what Brad calls human sacrifice. And the anti-gay side has no proof. It has no valid evidence at all. For this reason, RonF, and because of a larger trend that started with Copernicus, I think the anti-gay side lost the war as soon as they (officially) agreed that we shouldn’t use violence to keep gays in the closet. Presumably this explains Man-on-Dog’s endorsement of state violence and official hypocrisy. As with the “Necronomicon of Porn” (or Copernicus for that matter) you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. You can only try creating a morality that’ll survive the harsh light of exposure.
This comment was written by hf.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2007 at 5:13 am
I have a hyposthesis regarding the hyperhomophobia in the black community. What you’re seeing is that the people near the bottom of the totem pole feel more of an imperative to assert their social superiority than the people at the top, for whom superiority is a given. Since homophobia is, in the estimation of some, merely an extension of misogyny (only thing worse than a nigger is a nigger lover; only thing worse than a woman is a fag), it makes sense that hatred of women would be extended to gays. Black men, being the penultimate (I would argue) losers on the totem pole, scramble much harder to assert their superiority over black women (who are at the very bottom) and by extension, black gay men. It’s sort of the way that poor white trash could be counted on to carry their racism much further than richer whites, both before the Civil Rights Era and now. And while education (which someone mentioned) may have something to do with it, I think the effect is more that the education puts people in a position not to feel threatened by their immediate social inferiors, rather than actually teaching people not to be bigots.
This comment was written by justicewalks.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2007 at 10:14 am
And that’s why straight men have historically treated women as property, denied them education, denied them the vote, ghettoized women into the nursery and the kitchen, have created men-only clubs, etc.?
Robert, at 15% of the population, gay men hardly have a strong hold on the marginalization of women from their lives. Afterall, they’re not the one’s creating the phenomenom of the “football wife.”
This comment was written by Q Grrl.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Oh, Robert. When you have to resort to ‘I can’t prove it now but in a hundred years they’ll be sorry!’ you’ve truly lost the argument.
This comment was written by mythago.Report this comment to the moderators
February 12th, 2007 at 11:00 am
Oh, Robert. When you have to resort to ‘I can’t prove it now but in a hundred years they’ll be sorry!’ you’ve truly lost the argument.
Perhaps so. Of course, the argument is by definition taking place on a small patch of ground in a much larger arena. I can’t prove to a materialist, using materialist arguments, that one particular aspect of the materialist project is a bad idea. For that, we need empirical experience - thus, we’ll have to wait and see.
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I’m a little late coming back to this, but Myca wrote:
I think that it’s dangerous to tell folks who are facing discrimination that it’s not their place to discuss that discrimination.
Well, as someone who faces discrimination for being both a person of color and a queer person, I maintain that a conversation that involves white or non-Black people speculating about why Black people, specifically, are “more homophobic” than whites is bound to be riddled with some dodgy, even racist, assumptions. I don’t think anyone should be barred from discussing discrimination against them; I just think that it’s important to pay attention to how power and privilege enter the conversation in complex, multifaceted ways when you have, say, white queer people making speculations about straight Black people.
This comment was written by jack.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
I’d agree, especially with the statement that this is a complex issue, but . . . look, would you be cool with a bunch of white queer people spewing racist statements, then turning around and explaining that straight black folks shouldn’t discuss their racism, because they’ll just end up saying homophobic things?
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
Myca, your analogy implies Jack said something she never said.
Jack did not say that she’d be “cool with a bunch of [straight black] people spewing [homophobic] statements, then turning around and explaining that [queer white] folks shouldn’t discuss their [homophobia], because they’ll just end up saying [racist] things.” Since she never said, or even implied, such a statement, your question to her seems unfair at best.
What she DID say is that “it’s important to pay attention to how power and privilege enter the conversation in complex, multifaceted ways when you have, say, white queer people making speculations about straight Black people.” And I’m pretty sure, from what I’ve read of her writings, that she’d also agree that “it’s important to pay attention to how power and privilege enter the conversation in complex, multifaceted ways when you have, say, [black straight] people making speculations about [queer white] people.”
Edited to add: As might be obvious, I agree with Jack (and I suspect you mostly agree with Jack, too). I think it needs to be discussed: and I’m feeling uneasy about having brought the matter up at all, since the resulting conversation is full of speculation, some of which is very uninformed. It doesn’t help that I didn’t even bring it up to discuss homophobia in the black community, really; I just wanted to illustrate how the “marriage movement” folks ignore the elephant named “homophobia” sitting in their living room.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 13th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Ah, okay, I see that I responded to something that was not intended.
I apologize for my misreading and subsequent response, and I believe that Jack and I are in agreement, pretty much.
When you have group X responding to the bigotry of group Y, you need to be very careful, because it’s possible (or even likely) that group X will say bigoted things about group Y in the process. Am I sort of getting it?
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
February 14th, 2007 at 7:52 am
Yup, Amp, you’re reading me pretty well there. And yup, Myca - you’re seeing more of my point. :-)
Going beyond what Amp wrote - I think the key thing here for me is the racial power dynamic going on when/if white people begin discussing why Black straight people, not just straight people in general, are homophobic. The conversation shifts from a discussion about straight people discriminating against queer people to one about Blackness itself, and whenever you’ve got white folks making assumptions, speculations, and pronouncements about Black people, you’re almost guaranteed to get some racism seeping in there, whether overt or subtle.
Myca, you put forth the idea of Black straight folks discussing the racism of white queer people. I think there are major differences between sexuality and race, in terms of how power and privilege play themselves out, so I don’t think an exact and accurate comparison can be made to the situation above. But similarly, if Black straight folks started discussing white racism specifically in relation to queerness - asking the question, “Why are those white gays so racist?” - then there’s a strong likelihood that some homophobic sentiments would seep in. It might be more productive to focus on white racism in general (and there’s just so much material there!), rather than singling out a minority within that larger group.
Very different, of course, is the case of queer people of color calling out the white queer community, specifically, for the racism therein. See the difference in the power dynamic there?
All right, at this point I don’t know if I’m rambling pointlessly or making useful expansions upon my original point, so I’ll stop there. :-)
This comment was written by jack.Report this comment to the moderators
February 14th, 2007 at 10:15 am
No, no, you’re making really really interesting points. IMHO, at least.
And thank you.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
February 14th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
No, that’s not true; sometimes it’s used to indicate bigotry, such as the word “transphobia” and the word “fatophobe.”
I’ve never heard either term, so I’m afraid the examples are lost on me.
In the English language, etymology doesn’t dictate meaning; instead, meanings are determined by usage. Do you seriously claim that people nowadays aren’t commonly using “homophobia” to refer to a wide variety of forms of anti-gay bigotry?
My point is that people are taking a term with an agreed-upon meaning and are using it to try to change the viewpoint of what other people are saying. Yes, homophobia is being used to refer to anti-gay bigotry. But it’s also being used to refer to other things as well in an attempt to make anything that’s even mildly dissaproving of homosexual behavior to look like anti-gay bigotry or worse.
For whatever reason, “homophobia” ended up filling that slot in the collective dictionary,
And I suspect that “whatever reason” was in fact a very specific one; an attempt to steer the collective meme so that any dissaproval of homosexual behavior would be conflated with stringing Matthew Shepard up on the barbed wire fence, so as to cut off debate on the matter.
By this logic, antisemitism was a rational position to take 80 years ago.
No. Antisemitism is a position that is not called for in the Bible, although there are those who cherry-picked specific verses and then twisted their intended meanings to support their viewpoint. Whereas disapproval of homosexual behavior is in fact pretty specific in it.
The interesting thing is that if you read through the story of Passion Week, what you see is that the vast majority of Jews loved Jesus; it was only a few of the ones that had been co-opted by the Roman power structure that wanted him dead (whether to either preserve their power structure or to keep the Romans from viewing him as a revolutionary leader and going after the whole community is a good debate). To say that the Bible shows that the Jews hated Jesus and killed him is a pretty blatant misreading of the text, but it was successful because people already hated them and just needed some justification (which for a long time was easy because few people had both a Bible and the ability to read it).
Gay sex does no harm that straight sex doesn’t also do;
Well, gay (vs. lesbian) sex sure as hell is a much more efficient transmission vector for various diseases than straight sex is. There’s a harm right there, even if modern technology permits it’s alleviation to a certain extent (with an associated cost).
Qgrrl:
at 15% of the population, gay men
I’d appreciate it if you could tell me where this number comes from?
slyphhead:
There was no such thing as a sucky gate called the ‘the needle’ through which merchants had to pass, as the archaeological record shows. What Jesus said about the Camelus dromedarius and sewing implements is exactly what it sounds like he meant. When Christians repent of that, then maybe gay citizens will oblige kindly with a ‘one gay-bash free’ card, redeemable at your local megachurch.
I have no idea what this means, or how it relates to the discussion.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
February 14th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
So then, as a matter of public policy, we should privilege lesbian relationships over straight ones and straight relationships over gay ones? Just to be consistent, I mean.
I believe that what it means is that Jesus himself said far more about the accumulation of wealth and the need for caring for our least privileged members of society than he ever said about homosexuality. Yet at least in the US, the most vocally outspoken proponents of Christianity are also the most likely to favor policies extremely favorable to the very very wealthy.
Thus, when you say that the ‘Christian’ objection to homosexuality is that the pro-homosexuality movement is trying to turn ‘a sin’ into ‘not a sin’, one has to wonder why there hasn’t been a similarly vociferous objection to . . . say . . . the Republican party, which has been campaignign to turn the love of money into ‘not a sin’ for years.
—Myca
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
February 14th, 2007 at 3:19 pm
Well, it seems to be a short road from “we should consider the ramifications of ______” to “don’t talk about _______”. that seems, um…. ** well, i don’t know what it seems. Mostly it seems like passing the buck. What’s up with that?
*** Damn, I need a new word (can anyone help here?) to reflect the universal tendency to characterize all groups somewhat inaccurately… on this board, “racist” won’t fly as applied to blacks; is there some new word that means “making a lot of assumptions about someone based on the class they fall into” which IS appropriate to use to describe a speaker who is also disempowered in some way? Is “bigoted” appropriate, or….?
I ask this because there are times (like here) where it’s apposite, and I don’t especially want to get into the whole “can ___ be racist” every time it comes up.
This comment was written by Sailorman.Report this comment to the moderators
February 14th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
I believe that what it means is that Jesus himself said far more about the accumulation of wealth and the need for caring for our least privileged members of society than he ever said about homosexuality.
A common argument. But back in Jesus’ day, the moral issues around being wealthy were much at issue; the moral issues around sexuality were not. He spent the majority of his time teaching about those things that people needed teaching about, not things they already knew.
Yet at least in the US, the most vocally outspoken proponents of Christianity are also the most likely to favor policies extremely favorable to the very very wealthy.
Well, there’s outspoken and there’s what the media covers. There are plenty of outspoken proponents of Christianity that are mindful of Jesus’ words regarding wealth. But, forsaking wealth, they don’t own their own TV stations, and they can talk all they want without getting media coverage. I wonder if a slight paraphrase of H.L. Mencken fits here; “Freedom of the press belongs to the person who owns one.”
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
February 14th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
While I agree, I also don’t think that the outrage and activism of Christians (as a group) over the growing gap between the very rich and the very poor comes anywhere freaking near at all in anyway even a little, goddammit to the outrage and activism of Christians (as a group) over homosexuality.
I believe that this is because most Christians want to be wealthy, but don’t particularly want to have sex with other men.
—Josh
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
February 14th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
I’d appreciate it if you could tell me where this information comes from.
If by “gay sex” you mean anal sex, some opposite sex couples engage in anal sex. Some same-sex male couples do not.
I do not understand what you are arguing here.
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
February 14th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
/sorry ’bout messing up the block quote
/still learning
[No problem, and it's now fixed! --Amp]
This comment was written by Bonnie.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 9:02 am
RonF: Can we please stop flogging that dead horse? Focusing here on HIV and AIDS: while men who have sex with men still account for a larger proportion of new HIV infections in the United States, heterosexual transmission has the highest growing rate - from 3% of all new cases in 1985 to 35% in 2004. And in many other regions of the world, especially impoverished regions such as sub-Saharan Africa (which is more heavily impacted by HIV and AIDS than any other region in the world), heterosexual sex is by far the most prevalent method of transmission.
Especially in the United States, the erroneous and damaging myth that only, or mostly, gay men get AIDS and other STDs is one of the reasons that the rate of transmission among heterosexuals is rising - because they think they’re somehow safer and therefore can afford to be less careful because they’re straight. To repeat a mantra of HIV/AIDS awareness: No one is immune.
And really, your statement should read “receptive penile insertion is sure as hell a much more efficient transmission vector for various diseases than sex without penile insertion is.” And to apply your logic: since the majority of people with penises are men, there’s a harm right there, to men, in general, having sex.
This comment was written by jack.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 9:16 am
Neev: Er… what? Take the recent immigration battles for one; laws that are currently being proposed, as well the a whole long history of la migra (INS), disproportionately target Latino immigrants. Take the invasion, colonization, and subjugation of Puerto Rico, for another example. No, Latinos were not the victims of slavery, but slavery is certainly not the only way in which people of color have been oppressed in the history of the u.s.
See my above concerns about white people speculating on homophobia in communities of color? Case in point.
Sailorman: Well, I personally feel very comfortable saying, yes, white people, don’t make speculative pronouncements about why you think Black people are homophobic based on your probably limited knowledge of and assumptions about Black culture, which are bound to be tainted by racism.
I believe the word you’re looking for is prejudice.
This comment was written by jack.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 10:22 am
“I’d appreciate it if you could tell me where this information comes from” was a reference to Qgrrl’s apparent statement that 15% of the male population is homosexual.
Yes, what you note about anal sex is true, but overall anal sex is practiced, oh, I’d guess an order of magnitude or more by male homosexual couples than heterosexual couples.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 11:06 am
As someone else already asked, do you therefore argue that lesbian sex is in some way more moral than straight sex? It’s inconsistent to use this argument to suggest that straight sex is morally superior to man/man sex unless you’re also going to argue that lesbian sex is morally superior to straight sex.
Regarding “homophobia,” it seems to me that you’re the one who’s trying to control language here. One of the legitimate uses of the word is to refer to bigotry or prejudice against homosexuals; that’s how the language developed. You’re trying to say that we shouldn’t use the word the way native English speakers commonly use it because you object to the political ramifications.
I actually agree with you that the use of a medical-sounding term is unfortunate; I wish that some other term, like “heterosexist” or “sexualist,” had ended up being the word. But that’s not how things worked out. And speculating about how the Big Gay Conspiracy pushed the word “homophobia” for nefarious purposes isn’t useful, and ignores that it’s actually incredibly difficult for any interest group to control how the English language organically develops.
This comment was written by Ampersand.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 11:49 am
“highest growing rate” does not equal “most efficient method.” It’s apples and oranges.
To repeat a mantra of HIV/AIDS awareness: No one is immune.
That’s for damn sure. “Less efficient” does not equal “completely immune to” either.
And really, your statement should read “receptive penile insertion is sure as hell a much more efficient transmission vector for various diseases than sex without penile insertion is.”
Actually, my point is that penile/anal sex is a much more efficient transmission vector than penile/vaginal sex is.
do you therefore argue that lesbian sex is in some way more moral than straight sex?
It was proposed that the level of harm represented by gay sex is no different than the level of harm represented by straight sex. I gave a properly qualified example to counter that. There are other factors involved in comparing the morality of the two, so I’m not going to use the one factor to make an overall judgement. If that was the only factor involved, then I’d answer “yes”, but it’s not the only factor involved.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 11:50 am
ignores that it’s actually incredibly difficult for any interest group to control how the English language organically develops.
I actually don’t agree with that.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 11:50 am
I suppose that it’s possible for someone to believe that homosexual behavior is morally wrong and yet not be homophobic/heterosexist/whatever word will get you past your semantic quibbles.
However, far too often, those moral judgments lead to actual discrimination against and oppression of queer people, not limited to physical violence. (And, by the way, I find your reference to the “stringing up” of Matthew Shepherd to be rather insensitive, coming from you.)
Many people use their Christian faith as justification for their disapproval of homosexuality. And many of those people will act on that disapproval in pushing for legislation to ban state-sanctioned gay marriage, gay adoption, domestic partner benefits, etc.
However, that very same Christian faith also strongly disapproves of premarital sex and divorce, amongst other things related to sexuality and relationships. And yet, I don’t see those Christians rallying to restrict state-sanctioned marriage to virgins who have never been married before, or to bar people from adopting if they’ve had premarital sex. People who have sex before marriage and divorcees are not singled out as classes of people to be barred from partaking fully in society’s institutions, whereas queer people are indeed singled out for their sexual orientations and activities.
Therein lies the homophobia, therein lies the heterosexism. It’s not because homosexual behavior is prohibited in the Bible; tons of activities in which heterosexuals partake on a regular basis are similarly prohibited and deemed immoral, but you don’t see anyone trying to take away those heterosexuals’ rights. This isn’t about faith or morality, really; it’s about continued prejudice and discrimination against queer people.
Also, to add another to the list of -phobia words that are often used to refer to bigotry, prejudice and discrimination: xenophobia, in reference to the hatred of and discrimination against immigrants.
This comment was written by jack.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 12:22 pm
Right, right, right!
It’s the hypocrisy of saying:
“My sins are . . .
‘perfectly understandable slips’ (in the case or per-marital sex)
‘part of the modern world’ (in the case of divorce)
‘not really sins’ (in the case of the lust for money that infests the modern right)
. . . and so they certainly don’t need any legislation against them.”
Meanwhile:
“Your sins are abhorrent, an abomination before God, and will cause society itself to CRUMBLE, so we must legislate immediately! Pass an amendment!”
And, if you dislike modern coinings, I can promise you that ‘xenophobia’ wasn’t a product of some shadowy cabal of language manipulators, it’s a perfectly valid word, and has been for a good long while.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
Not to mention that the Bible specifically addresses this in the whole mote/log metaphor and yet bigots continue to think that Other People’s Problems are so much more worth addressing than their own.
This is why I believe that folks who cite their religion to justify their bigotry must really really freaking hate Christ, if they want to go this far out of their way to twist his entire message.
This comment was written by Myca.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
[...] So, to begin: Ampersand at Alas, a Blog recently posted about a New York Times article regarding race and attitudes around same-sex marriage. In the post, Amp asks, “So why are blacks more likely to oppose SSM — and gay sex — than whites?” Discussion ensues. I chime in: Conversations like this about the racial nature of homophobia always make me nervous, because they often turn into a whole lot of white or other not Black folks hypothesizing about what makes Black folks tick. And that’s never a fun path to go down. [...]
This comment was written by AngryBrownButch » Blog Archive » From Alas, A Blog: Race, Opposition to Equal Marriage Rights, And Homophobia.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
RonF - Thanks for the clarification. Can I follow up?
Okay, so I just want to get the numbers straight in my head. (And below I’m going to ignore that there are children in the US population to make the math easier for me.)
Assume that there are 300 million people in the US. A fairly modest estimate (modest in that some researchers claim 10% or even 15%, doubting religious organizations claim 3% or fewer) of the percentage of homosexuals is 5%, or 15 million people. If exactly half of that 5% is male, that is 7.5 million male homosexuals.
A very large percentage of that 7.5 million is, let’s say, 75%. If 75% of male homosexual population has anal sex, that is 5,625,000 men. (I’m not saying that this number is correct; it’s just for illuminating the discusion - the number could be higher or lower.)
The heterosexual population remaining is 285 million people. Using the above numbers, the 75% of homosexual men engaging in anal sex equals 1.974% of the total number of heterosexuals.
I do not believe that it is possible for the number of homosexual men engaging in anal sex to be an order of magnitude or more than the number of heterosexuals engaging in anal sex.
In other words, I believe that far more than 5,625,000 heterosexuals, more than 1.974% of the heterosexual population, engages in anal sex.
Further, let’s go higher. If 10% of the US population is homosexual (30 million), and half of the homosexual population is male (15 million), and all male homosexuals engage in anal sex, that number, 15 million, is still only 5.556% of the remaining heterosexual population (270 million). And still, even with these numbers I do not believe that the number of homosexual men (all of them) engaging in anal sex is greater than the number of heterosexuals engaging in anal sex.
In raw numbers, heterosexuals, being the far larger population, by an order of magnitude or more, engage in anal sex in greater numbers than do homosexual men. So heterosexual anal sex sure as hell is a much more efficient transmission vector for various diseases than homosexual male sex is because the number of heterosexuals engaging in it is larger than the number of homosexual males engaging in it thereby increasing the chances of spreading various diseases within the heterosexual population.
If you’re talking percentages I might cede that you are correct - might - but I’d want to see data. I generally do not assume I know what peoples’ sexual practices are based on their sexual orientation. If you are talking sheer numbers, no way can there be an order of magnitude difference with homosexual anal sex being higher. Those engaging in heterosexual anal sex must outnumber those engaging in homosexual anal sex.
And I still do not understand what you are arguing.
—-
This comment was written by Bonnie.Amp - thank you very much for the fix!
Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 2:30 pm
A common argument. But back in Jesus’ day, the moral issues around being wealthy were much at issue; the moral issues around sexuality were not. He spent the majority of his time teaching about those things that people needed teaching about, not things they already knew.
So — The pre-Christian Roman Empire did not have a particular fondness for sexual excess, and Modern America has more or less solved the whole “poverty in midsts of obstentaous wealth” problem?
You really do live in a different world than the rest of us…
This comment was written by Decnavda.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Decnavda, you’re mistaking the incidence of a problem with an understanding of the problem. There was tons of sexual immorality in the Roman Empire, and probably in the Jewish community as well - but there wasn’t much controversy in the Jewish community about what the correct sexual morality was. People knew what was right, they just didn’t do it.
Hey, sounds familiar…
This comment was written by Robert.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 3:01 pm
The argument before me is, if alternative forms of family, including but not limited to homosexual pairings are harmless, why have we seen no example of them naturally developing in human history? It seems to me that every argument being made today in favor of these changes could as easily have been made four thousand years ago in Babylon.
I have a feeling about the word harmless, it means - no harm. For instance, I consider body art harmless, and what do you know? Lots of examples of different cultures practicing all forms of body art can be found throughout history, some of which have been deemed offensive in western eyes and resisted as sinful or grotesque, but which in the end are truly harmless.
Family is a more serious than that. Family is the framework upon which all of our civilizations have been built, and it is not an accident that every civilization that has ever amounted to anything has resisted any effort to change that.
As difficult as it sometimes is to manage, even though it is harder for some people than for others, the adherence to family come good or bad is why we’re here, it’s why we’ve made it. The modern ethic of family fidelity is that if your family isn’t exactly the way you want it, you can and should bail out of it. We stress that your happiness is what matters, so each day you decide hmmm is this the family I really want, or could I get a better one with someone else?
I don’t believe any society could have survived if they allowed that point of view to take root. I don’t believe it would have had a snowball’s chance.
This comment was written by CJ.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Decnavada:
So — The pre-Christian Roman Empire did not have a particular fondness for sexual excess, and Modern America has more or less solved the whole “poverty in midsts of obstentaous wealth” problem?
The question at hand was homosexuality, not sexual excess in general. There certainly was homosexuality in the Roman era, but there was little debate among the people that Jesus was preaching to that it was sinful. And there is plenty of agitation about poverty in the midst of ostentatious wealth, and plenty of Christians not just talking about feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc., but actually doing it.
Well, Bonnie, perhaps I’m just old fashioned, but it would never occur to me that even 2% of heterosexuals would be engaging in anal sex. Oh, I can hear the shock reverberating around this site now! So when I hear “anal sex” outside of a reference to pornography, I presume that people are talking about male homosexuals. I further presume, with I confess nothing other than my unsupported opinion, that my reaction would be shared by most people. However, if there’s a reference to heterosexual sex practices that has information on this, I’ll read it.
“Heterosexism” I can see. I’ve also heard the word “heteronormative”, used when a speaker at a college (a wife of a famous athlete, but I can’t remember her name) talked about young women starting up romantic relationships and using language that presumed that they would be with young men.
Myca:
“… Not to mention that the Bible specifically addresses this in the whole mote/log metaphor …”
A fair criticism. But, again, it’s one thing for people to go looking for something to criticize in other people, and another for a proponent of what is considered an immoral or sinful act to come to people and ask them to explicitly bless it.
Jack:
And, by the way, I find your reference to the “stringing up” of Matthew Shepherd to be rather insensitive, coming from you.
I apologize if I seemed insensitive. I was trying to give an explicit and extreme example of a horrible thing. When that happened, my principle that capital punishment is wrong was sorely tried. Again, my apology.
Myca, from the online Merriam-Webster dictionary (the first one I turned to, I didn’t go “shopping”) entry for “xenophobia”:
fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners or of anything that is strange or foreign
So that word is understood to include the concept of “fear”, which, given the entymology, it should. Discrimination would be a possible (and likely) result of xenophobia, but it does not appear to be a part of the meaning of the word itself.
As far as other immoral activities that heterosexuals engage in - first, plenty of Christians fought against making those legal or easier to do too, and lost. that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t fight this one. Second, there is no call to give such things special societial sanction. So, for example, there is no call to grant the privileges of marriage to heterosexual unmarried couples or adulterers.
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
For instance, I consider body art harmless, and what do you know? Lots of examples of different cultures practicing all forms of body art can be found throughout history, some of which have been deemed offensive in western eyes and resisted as sinful or grotesque, but which in the end are truly harmless.
[ off_topic ]
Such as covering women’s bodies with watercolor or latex paints and nothing else and then publishing them in general-circulation magazines such as Sports Illustrated. Not that I have a problem with regarding the unclothed female form, but I’m trying to figure out exactly when this became acceptable. Or at least permissible by large corporations sensitive to public opinion.
[ /off_topic ]
This comment was written by RonF.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Well, I was referring more to tatoos, piercings, dreadlocks and the like. Porn is harmful in my opinion. The sexual objectification of women and men also contributes to the weakening of family bonds.
I’m trying to figure out exactly when this became acceptable. Or at least permissible by large corporations sensitive to public opinion.
There’s public opinion on one hand and there’s consumer demand on the other. It’s a sad fact that money and influence tend to go hand in hand. I don’t think Heffner loses much sleep over the frowns of harmless elderly Christians.
This comment was written by CJ.Report this comment to the moderators
February 15th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
CJ: Seems like you have a rather parochial view of human history that conveniently props up your views on what does or does not constitute a family.
Do you think that the concept of “family” has been limited to one coherent definition, across all cultures and throughout the many millennia of human existence? This is simply not the case. I’m guessing that by “alternative forms of family,” you mean something other than a married man and woman and probably some kids. Well, many cultures and societies throughout history have defined “family” in very different ways than the standard concept of family in the uni