Is Homophobia just as immoral as bigotries against people based on Race, Ethnicity or Sex?

But we can't expect everyone to be on board if they are too stupid, uneducated, and fearful.

Maybe it's better to catch flies with honey?

I don't know... I'm going to hope Obama has a plan with this.

but that's not the point, if we are to embrace these people, and attempt to educate them, and I do mean the outspoken ones, like Warren, do you honestly think it will have any effect on their point of view?

enemies of these righties, bigots, and ignorant gay haters.

Obama may have a plan, he had a plan and used it to win the primaries and the elections.

I will have to trust him for now. A two minute invocation with some Christian talk in it might mean something to 5 million or more religious Americans, it means nothing to me, and I can overlook it for now.

If Obama kisses any other boots of homophobic righties, I'll have to reconsider.

Not all of them did, but they were pushed to the fringes of society. For the rest of the racists, they either actually changed their attitude, and their hearts, or they kept their thoughts to themselves, which is just as well. I'm not saying racism was eliminated, but overt racism has been stifled to a large extent.

Should it be called "homophobia"? I'm not sure this discrimination is a result of fear (phobia=fear). Sure, fear is used as a great excuse in their arguments (what about the children?!). But isn't this just hatred, pure and simple? We're all smart enough to see through the phobia bullshit, aren't we? This isn't about fear and never has been. People learn to overcome fears all the time and are open to reason about them. This is hate. A hate that includes finger-in-the-ears blahblahblahing to drown out any reasonable argument anybody else may have. We need a new name for it.

Fear + hate = bigotry. People fear, and hate, that which they do not understand. But you are probably right in the sense that as a society we are taught to hate gay people because "they" are evil, going to hell, rape children, etc. So now that I think about it, maybe it's fear + hate + ignorance = bigotry.

IMO,the fact that we are even polling this is a sign of how far we still have to go.

Please don't trivialize homophobia.

I misunderstood you. My bad.

:hug:

I wish we weren't going through this divisive shit, and that so many people are being assholes on this.

It's been a long day when I can't tell our allies from the jerks around here. :-(

I almost bit off chimpsrsmarter's head today before I saw the sarcasm icon. She's ALWAYS been a good egg.

She's one of the good ones. I'm glad she's on our side. :-)

x(

I bet I know who it is.

in a PM of course!

So many millions of people of color have been in our nation's history.

That's my assumption, as a gay person. Yes, most gay people don't have to drink from separate drinking fountains, go to inferior schools, but there's still much inequality, much discrimination, much bullying and senseless hate crime committed against people who are gay or trans gendered. I think America will grow up, as she did 40-65 years ago about racial inequality... and in 5 years, or 10 or 20, folks like me will thank Obama for moving forward in a reasonable and non-confrontational fashion.

I only hope I am right.

Is it immoral for gay people to hide in the closet? All the while calling for equal rights from the safety of a message board?

Just wondering.

Black people did not have that choice.

I very much dislike hypocrisy.

don't you think?

What is worse, being gay or black? Stupid question......some people are both.

Some people hide in the closet because they have no options, some people have no options because of their skin color.

It's not an ideal world, for many reasons for many ignorant people, lots of minority groups have lots of different ways of being oppressed.

True: they are not all the same, but they are all unjust.

Good job.

:hi:

Sorry boyo.

:grr:

That's a rather insulting and unfair assumption, don't you think?

Edit: Actually, in MY view, it doesn't even make moral sense THEN. I was speaking strictly about your line of reasoning.

:puke:

before they got tagged with the pink triangle and marched into the railroad cars alongside those tagged with a yellow star of David?

like Blacks & Jews they did not have a choice.

Being closeted increases isolation, resulting in gay teen suicide.

At least no black person had to hide that he or she was black from his or her parents.

out of necessity, or fear....hence the word "hide."

And makes straight people that hate us think that we think, ourselves, being gay is wrong.

It is wrong to hide, to live a lie; pretending to be straight is the worst thing one can do against the cause for gay rights.

but I don't think most gay people "hide in the closet" because they want to. For far too may gay people coming out is not an option, although I completely agree that the more that do come out the better it is for our cause.

I think they do, for reasons that are probably as diverse as people themselves.

When I was in college at a small conservative southern university, I came out. I met with nothing but positive response from straight people, most especially the professors who asked me to talk to their incoming freshman classes. I was amazed.

I was more amazed, however, at how my gay friends immediately distanced themselves from me. They called me up demanding to know why I would do such a thing.

I have never forgotten that experience and learned from that - the self-hating of so many gay people is our biggest obstacle.

That was the case with me, I was "in the closet" for many years because I feared I would be shunned by family and friends if I told them the truth. All my life I heard how "faggots" like to rape little boys and have sex with animals and are going straight to hell and every other hateful stereotype one can imagine, and I feared the worst if I came out.

However, the burden of not being true to myself overcame me and I finally mustered up the courage to tell everyone I was gay, and to my surprise, and great relief....like you, I met with nothing but positive reactions!

So I think it's fear that keeps a lot of us in the closet. Fear of being shunned, fear of being hated. Also, fear of losing ones job or even their home.

I think many of us, when we come out, find that everyone already "knew".

I am so glad to hear of your experience and I think, actually, that it is harder for gay men than it is for women.

But until everyone comes out, we will never have equal rights.

The hiding shows that we think it is wrong as well. It makes me crazy, that so many people continue to live in the closet - pretending to have a "boyfriend" or a "girlfriend" who is nonexistent.

Really.

I'm pretty damned masculine. I survived 9 years in the military while others I knew got harrassed far more than I did (my harrassment came via guilt by association). I don't lisp, I tend to walk with Marine military bearing everywhere I go. My voice is moderately deep. I'm amazingly good at the pronoun game.

I'm also 40 and single, and it got me fired from one teaching job and harrassed at another by students, parents, other teachers, and administrators until I quit.

Don't give me this, "You can choose to pass," crap. No, you can't. Once you're single and refuse to lie and put up pictures of women you're not dating and over a certain age, you no longer are allowed to pass.

Why don't the rest of you bigoted pieces of shit go ahead and order yours too?



Chef Elmo is standing by........

I thought the point in this discussion was that the minority has rights. Any kind of McCarthyism is icky, even when I agree with the McCarthyite on the issue at hand. It's wrong to run people out on rails for having less enlightened positions.

just like we aren't of racists and their ilk. This isn't a government run website, the admins have more than enough of a right to run these people out on a rail.

It was the bigotry that was "icky", and his campaign of fear and terror was as bad if not worse as the one perpetuated by the Bush Crime Family and the right wing media earlier this decade. And the one they STILL perpetuate against the LGBT community.

So why should those who are guilty of advancing that bigotry be allowed to do so on a Democratic board, especially when the admin has specifically said that homophobia is not tolerated?

I'm not saying I support doing this based on polls, but if it's done it ought to be consistent.

They are not progressives.

Not even close.

They are bigots.

Do me favor: never get into a position of power and authority.

bigotry is nothing mroe than a bigot.

Period.

just sayin'...

Why not have the courage to step up and explain?

oppressing one group of people is just as unconscionable as oppressing another group. Who decides which one is more important?

And have to deal with the fact that the bulk of the population is not. How to convince them is the issue. IMHO, guilt and accusation does not work. Following the example of the civil rights movement is a better idea.

That was actually part of the tactics of non-violence, after all. Make yourself purposely defenseless, and it accomplishes this, first you are non-threatening, in a physical way, so that means when people do start acting violent towards you, the injustice becomes more obvious. This is a great way to guilt the side liners onto your side. Perfectly valid tactic.

We have about 3 of them now and a month ago we had even more. I think we all know that the vast majority of DUers support gay rights but instead of focusing on that I think people just want to freak out over the 4 or 5 votes that we inevitably get in these polls. This feels like a witch hunt more than wanting to hear peoples actual explanation and have a thoughtful debate.

"Well gay people can pass as straight, something blacks can't do, so there problems aren't serious."

"Sorry, gay rights aren't a priority for me."

"You'll just have to wait for civil rights, we have the economy to consider."

"Perverts."

Oh, and many more, I haven't even gotten started, and believe me, NONE of these are strawmen, and most came from long time posters as well. Hell, the first quote I've seen posted by 3 different posters all in the same day, and the second and third ones by at least 5 other different posters. Not the exact wording, of course, but I'm paraphrasing, not quoting, the message is the same.

all that ever comes from these polls is an angry mob of people screaming "BAN them" and quoting Skinner. I would rather these people stay on DU and actually find out what makes them feel this way than force them to go somewhere else and just find a place that validates their views. The primaries showed me that DU has plenty of racists but I want them to stay here where most Duers are the complete opposite of this than some RW site that simply validates their views.

Like, for example, on the poster below.

b/c those racists just went to a place where their racism was mainstream and now have even less of a chance to not be a racist in the future. How is the below poster racist? I think there are no different levels of immorality (its all sin to me) but I do believe that not all groups have had it as bad as others and their struggles shouldn't be put next to each other like they are equal.

Ex. Racism and sexism. To me there is no comparison and I experience both. So equating sexism to racism is laughable to me.

Because the level of immorality of discrimination is related to the severity of the actions taken, not to the basis for the discrimination.

The following were all forms of racial/ethnic discrimination:

Jim Crow
South African segregation (1913-1948)
South African apartheid (1948-1993)
American slavery
The Holocaust
Extermination of the Native Americans
German genocide of the Hereros (Namibia)
Hutu genocide of the Tutsis (Rwanda)
Tutsi genocide of the Hutus (Burundi)

We could go on and on with this list of forms of "racial and ethnic discrimination," but I don't think anyone would say they are of equal standing, morally.

Because of the scale and swiftness of the Hutu genocide against the Tutsi it has assumed special moral repugnance. But the Tutsi at times massacred hundreds of thousands of Hutu in similar campaigns, and those massacres have fallen into the memory hole because of the comparison to the latter massacre.

Apartheid was morally worse than Jim Crow. But American slavery was morally worse than apartheid.

Was Jim Crow bad? Yes. Was it the Holocaust? No.

So the question is how severe is the discrimination GLBT people face right now? What are the moral implications? Even that's impossible to answer.

Discrimination against transgendered people right now is way more severe than discrimination against gays and lesbians.

I would say that discrimination against gays and lesbians today is not as severe as Jim Crow, but discrimination against transgendered people is more severe than Jim Crow was.

C'mon, don't pretend to be that dense. Is a HOMOPHOBE, one fucking person, as IMMORAL as a RACIST, one fucking person? Answer the question.

read: "as bigotries" -- ie, you unclearly mixed persons (homophobes) and forms of discrimination (bigotries). The OP now says "homopobia" versus "bigotries," so my formulation still stands.

That said, anyone, after a moment's reflection, should be able to apply my analysis to your question: a homophobe is as morally repugnant as his actions or behavior.

(Who's pretending to be, or actually being, "dense" here?)

A guy who sits at home and watches the gay pride parade on the news and silently stews and swears under his breath is not in the same moral category as a guy who gathers baseball bats and like thinking friends to bash gays on a Saturday night.

Same is true with racists. I used to discuss race in America and South Africa with an Afrikaner policeman several times a week at a South African government building where I was doing research in the late 80s. I'm sure he was a racist, but a harmless one, and kind of friendly and inquisitive. Was he morally repugnant? Not really, just ill-informed and scared. After all he chose desk duty over going into the townships to bash people.

So it depends on the actions of the racist or the homophobe.

By rights the 6 voting no deserve to be nuked.

who vote on this poll, but won't identify themselves.

How does it feel to be in a closet, bigots? ;)

As wrong as they may be you just want to ostracize them in the same way that you may have been ostracized and ten wonder why things aren't changing. I've met plenty of racists in my lifetime and instead of just saying fuck you racists, I actually tried to sit down and understand how they came to form those views. Sometimes they don't even know why they hold them and me talking to them made them question themselves. Sometimes it was just one bad experience (ex. sister murdered by a black man) that made them feel an irrational hate towards an entire group. I'm glad our civil rights leaders didn't have DU to use as a response to all of the true horrors they faced, or I might be still sitting on the back of the bus.