What I mean is that because I’m denying your assessment of caginess on my part, that I think myself superior to you in some way. You may very well not have construed my comment in that way, but I wanted to clairify it in lieu of how some of my words are being taken this evening/morning.
Okay, Starving Artist, let’s stipulate that Diogenes the Cynic’s post didn’t really add anything to the discussion. Not that his implicit accusations and arguments in themselves were invalid; just that one might say he came out with his guns blazing, pouncing on some of your word and phrase choices to ascribe to you attitudes stronger than any you have yet admitted to.
Now, at the same time, neuroman, MrVisible, and I, have made an effort to provide an answer to the question that you appear to have actually asked. The answer being, no, homophobia does not require a phobic personality type, because the word does not properly describe a recognized personality disorder. Yet you choose to spend your efforts responding to Dio’s barbs. And, yep, you do it by playing word games. This tempts me to form my own conclusions regarding your “position,” your refusal to definitively state one notwithstanding.
But, being the prince of a fellow that I am, I will extend to you the benefit of the doubt for at least this one more post.
The term “homophobe” is a pejorative, used in a certain cultural/social/political debate, whose purpose is to characterize people taking one position in the debate as bigoted. The topic of the debate is, “Is sexual orientation a characteristic of an individual that should be respected, in matters of civil rights, to the same degree that an individual’s other characteristics, such as ethnicity and gender, are respected?”
The fact that the word is constructed to resemble the form of a personality disorder is an unfortunate weakness that has been pointed out by MrVisible and me. But if you keep in mind that it is first and foremost a pejorative that is aptly translated as “bigot,” you will never again need to be distracted by a bigot who wants to play word games.
Now, you may wish to take the position that no one engaged in a debate should ever direct a pejorative against his opponents, and I will have a hard time contradicting you. But the fact that advocates of one position use pejoratives, and advocates of the opposing position refrain from doing so, does not render the name-callers’ argument inferior. Please note that I have not asserted that you said it does; but I think I know a trend when I see one developing, and I don’t think I’m wrong to remind you that being the last one to call somebody a name doesn’t let you off the hook for addressing the substance of his argument.
I don’t know if we’re in agreement or not. The thing is, the question you posed is rarely one of purely academic interest. Usually, in my experience, when someone objects to the term “homophobe” on semantic grounds, they are in fact prejudiced against gays. I’m not saying that’s necessarily the case with you, but if not, this will be a first. Which is why I asked for clarification.
As Mr. Visible touched on earlier, your feelings are your feelings. If you have some ingrained discomfort around gays, but support gay rights anyway, no problem. If you use that discomfort as a justification for denying those rights, sorry, but you are a bad person in my book.
And speaking of clarification, I gather from your reassurance that you think I’m gay. Not that it matters, but I’m not. I do, however, believe in full equality for gays, including marriage rights.
What you’re probably not aware of is that this topic has been discussed many many times on this board, usually with great acrimony, going on for pages and pages. “Lifestyle” is a particularly loaded term for some. I’m sure others will take up that particular gauntlet, so I’ll leave it alone.
Another central point is that it is no more reasonable to “disapprove” of homosexuality than it is to disapprove of people who have blonde hair, or are left-handed. It is something you are, not something you do.
Believe me, you ain’t seen nothing yet. If you have the fortitude to stick with it, and probably even if you don’t, this could go for four or five pages easy.
Unfortunately, that’s going to be difficult. As a semantic discussion, there’s not much to it. “Phobia” doesn’t just mean fear. It also means discomfort, hatred, or aversion to something. So your motivation for raising the question is bound to come up.
Nah, that’s not necessary. No offense, but I’m not really interested in your personal life; I just thought it would help clarify your position regarding this discussion. As I said, it’s kind of hard to give you the benefit of the doubt when I’ve seen it so often: “You can’t call me a homophobe. I’m not afraid of gays, I just don’t like them.” It’s not an argument I have much sympathy for, I’m afraid.
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[/QUOTE]
First of all, thank you for your civilised, intelligent and considered response. But I must respectfully disagree. Homophobe is not simply a pejorative aimed at true bigots, those who would sling slurs and/or actively seek to deprive members of the gay community of their rights, respect and dignity, but one which has come to describe anyone not 100% behind the gay rights movement. I would have no quarrel with an honest descriptive term that describes the type of person I just mentioned, but one that doesn’t attribute to them mental deficiencies they don’t have and which doesn’t paint the undecided, indifferent and apathetic with the same brush. I am sure there are those who would have plenty of pejoratives for these types of people, too, but whatever one may think about them, they are not “homophobes” either. I don’t know why it’s so hard for everyone to understand that my beef is with using a descriptive term that is deliberately misapplied in order to acheive a social end.
It is dishonest!!!
Why not just call bigots bigots, and come up with another (honest and descriptive) name for the undecided, uncertain and apathetic? Because everyone (and I’m speaking of the media, Hollywood, and certain zealots that come to mind) knows, even if they won’t admit it, that many people would have an aversion to being labed phobic and would therefore be less likely to do anything that would cause them to be labeled as such, which of course furthers the ultimate goal of social acceptance. To use a less intimidating although accurate term would not suit their purposes. I am not one to believe that the end necessarily justifies the means. For some reason, I am very put off by dishonesty. More so than is the case with just about anyone I know. I could easily go off on a tangent in regard to television commercials, for example. I don’t object to the commercials themselves, but an automobile dealer shouting about how he has to “consolidate his tax position” by taking a loss on every car in his lot really sets my teeth on edge.
Once again…what I object to is the dishonesty of using this term in this way. And I can see by some of the remarks made to me that it has successfully been used in this way for so long that people no longer even question its validity. To most people these days, anyone not an overt supporter of gay rights is a “phobe.” They don’t even question it, and that was the reason behind the OP: to try to get people thinking about the terms they use and whether or not they are honest.
With regard to your perception that I’m being cagey with my own beliefs, I would refer you my previous post to Ferrous two entries above yours.
I must say also that I’m concerned with the way this thread is headed, i.e., word games on my part. This is not so. Perhaps I should just blurt things out that are easy to respond to rather than trying to post a reasoned explanation and/or defense of my position in regard to the OP.
[QUOTE=Ferrous]
“And speaking of clarification, I gather from your reassurance that you think I’m gay.”
How ironic! My clarification was intended to say that I was not intending to imply by part of my previous post that you were. (Not that it matters, of course.)
My apologies if you have been waiting for a response. In my neck of the woods the site has been locked up for the last hour and half or so. I’ve only just now seen your most recent post.
Regards.
Actually, I hadn’t seen your clarification when I wrote that.
The board goes down every night at this time (1:30-ish PST, where I am) for about an hour or so. Regular maintenance. I wrote that just prior to the closure, but didn’t quite get it in, so it’s been sitting on my screen for a while.
Anyway, no sweat on that score. I’m not offended either way.
Of course, the underlying assumption here is that ‘the gay movement’ (or whatever you want to call it, this seems like a good enough tag for you to know what I mean) is in the right.
Yet many people disagree.
If you take a step back, does it look like calling someone a homophobe without justification is a bit like calling someone’s relationship ‘unnatural’ without justification?
Cheers.
Oddly, I’ve also found there is a distinction to be made between “homophobe” and “anti-gay.” I once dated a guy who was “pro-gay” yet still homophobic – which sounds like a contradiction.
He truly embraced diversity and had close friends who were gay, but the actual concept of homosexuality gave him a tremendous case of heebie-jeebies that would almost make him panic. If people thought he was gay (as in “mistook him for his friend’s boyfriend”) he didn’t mind, but if he ever brought to mind the concept “two guys kissing?” he got freaked out.
For example, when he was in Italy with a bunch of friends (one of whom was gay), a local thug in the small town they were visiting called his friend a faggot and started making all sorts of threats and slurs. So my ex came to his defense, punched the guy, which started a brawl until the Italian police in their snazzy suits were called and everyone had to run away.
He supports gay rights, would defend any gay person against prejudice if there was the oppornitunity to do so, but conceptually, he had a childish “ew, ick! ick! ick!” panic a the thought of two men together.
And no, he wasn’t “in doubt” of his own sexuality. I hate it when people dismiss some homophobia that way. He was positivley straight. As a man, he just couldn’t fathom how a man could love another man - and that caused some kind of feedback loop in his head that freaked him out.
First off, I’d like to address the “lifestyle” concept. There may very well be a stereotypical “gay lifestyle” to which some gay men (and a rather few Lesbians) conform, just as there is a “starving artist lifestyle” to which Starving Artist conforms. But to suggest that that lifestyle is equal to what all gay men and women live as, is itself a form of bigotry, about equivalent to suggesting that all Christians are homophobic bigots right out of the starting gate.
For example, I am personally acquainted, off the boards, with a woman who is firmly convinced that sex outside of marriage is sinful, who has married and (since she and her spouse cannot conceive children together) adopted two little girls. Her spouse supports her while she functions as homemaker and completes her postgraduate degree part-time while the girls are in school. The difference from the social whitebread norm is that the person she fell in love with and married is a lady psychologist. If that’s the “gay lifestyle” in any sense that the anti-gay websites use the term, then I’m one of jdavis’s hamsters, and we’re all living in the Matrix!
“Homophobia” is to me deeply rooted in the insidious and supercilious concept that one has the right to make decisions about how another person ought to live, and to have those decisions enforced by the force of law or of social pressure. Such an attitude is regrettably common, in a wide variety of people with a wide variety of opinions, and is to me antithetical to the free society to which we pay our allegiance.
On the other hand, the term has been thrown around rather indiscriminately by a few people. I can recall one member of this board who very emphatically expressed views that may be summarized as: (1) I believe that gay people deserve equal rights with everyone else, and that the goals of the gay rights movement deserve support, including legally recognized civil unions; (2) I believe that each gay person deserves the same dignity and respect that everyone else does, and should never be condemned or ostracized; (3) I believe that sex outside marriage is sinful; (4) I believe that marriage was ordained by God as being between one man and one woman; (5) I believe that it’s my duty as a Christian to tell gay people that my understanding of God’s word suggests that they are sinning, so that they can repent and receive His forgiveness – so long as I’m clear that this is not a condemnation of them as people and that I am equally a sinner in need of His forgiveness too. While I don’t agree in full with positions (3) and (5) and disagree firmly with position (4), I cannot see where this person is being in any way “homophobic” in any meaningful sense of the term.
Strangely, at MSN Encarta, I get the definition of “homophobe” as:
having irrational hatred of homosexuality: showing an irrational hatred, disapproval, or fear of homosexuality, homosexual men and lesbians, and their culture
However, if you break down the word, “phobic” means:
1. intensely fearful of something: having or showing an intense fear and dislike of something
2. psychiatry relating to phobias: affected with or arising out of a phobia
And phobia is defined as:
strong fear or dislike: an irrational or very powerful fear and dislike of something, for example, spiders or confined spaces
I’ve always believed the root-word “phobia” to mean “fear of”.
My original statement was going to be that you could be anti-gay without being “scared of” gays. However, simply by the definitions I’ve found, phobias include irrational hatred, disapproval, dislike.
So I conclude you must be phobic to be a homophobe.
And my 2¢, you’re also an idiot.
So, Starving Artist, can you give a concrete example of the “misuse” of homophobia? It’s difficult to know if you have a point when you’re being so vague about how you consider the word misused.
What needs to be born in mind, though, is that any dictionary’s going to carry the definition of the word as it’s generally used. (Well, duh.) Consequently, what Encarta or anyone else is going to define as the meaning of “homophobe” is the meaning that’s been successfully ascribed to it by the people who’ve been instrumental in bandying it about. Orthography’s beside the point.
The strange thing that comes about is that from the word “homophobe” we then work backwards to prove that this does actually have to do with “phobia”.
Btw, to those who use the expression, AFAICT, “irrational hatred… of homosexuality” is a tautology.
Not to reply for another poster, but I have one.
Let’s say that one person says that same-sex marriage, like driving age, age of consent to sex, speed limits, penalities for manslaughter, amount of sales tax, and employment law, are all decisions that should be made by the state legislatures rather than the federak government.
I can easily imagine a second person calling the first a homophobe, even though the first’s position is not remotely motivated by a feeling of distaste for homosexuals, but simply out of a sense that certain issues are reserved to the states rather than the feds.
I know it’s a far-fetched example.
- Rick
How about ‘heterosexist’?
From m-w online, the definition for ‘sexist’ is
Heterosexism, then, is
1: prejudice or discrimination based on sexual orientation; especially: discrimination against people who aren’t heterosexual
2: behaviour (etc) that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sexual orientation
What Homebrew said.
See, again with the vagueness. What specific items in the media? What, in the mind of the OP, does being “for” gays mean?
Here, I’ll try to explain this as clearly as I can. The bottom line as far as I’m concerned is that I am compeletely unthreatened by individual gays themselves, or by the “homosexual cause”, or the “gay lifestyle” or whatever. I’ll admit to having been a bit skeeved out the time some guy stepped out of a Gay Pride parade in Paris and kissed me full on the lips, but I’ve never much liked anyone touching me without at least implied permission.
As others have said, the issue turns on whether or not people favor gays being denied equal rights and protections under the law. This in fact appears to be the case, insofar as my limited understanding goes. Now, why should gays be denied such protections? The vast majority of the reasoning I’ve seen is that there is something inherently “wrong”, in nature and under the law, with the sexual behavior of gays, and that to grant gays equal rights would somehow cause unspecified damage to society. I am personally at a loss as to what this damage might be. I presume also that some people just feel it wouldn’t be proper to “reward” gay activism, which some people seem to find intensely annoying even if they don’t dislike gays per se, with equal rights.
These attitudes strikes me as examples of an irrational fear, or phobia, of homosexuals, based a single defining aspect of their behavior. Given that I rarely see an argument against equal rights for gays that is not founded in this sort of fear, I don’t get particularly worked up over whether or not the media, whatever that is, overuses the term “homophobia”. Again, we’ll need to see some concrete examples of misuse of this term before I buy the OP’s premise.
I hope the OP appreciates that I’m cutting him a break here. I could have demanded that he define “straight lifestyle” for me.
I would say touche, but it’s not really. Thinking that an innate characteristic is as subject to legislation as traffic rules is inherently bigotted.
Homebrew -
Wait, I don’t buy that. I mean, of course innate characteristics are subject to legislation. Opposite-sex marriage is currently subject to legislation (well, at least legal marriage); why shouldn’t same-sex legislation be subject to the same? And, if I’m understanding Bricker’s point correctly, why should it be bigotted to suggest that said legislation is the province of state-level government rather than federal-level government?
- FCF
Bricker’s point is a carry-over from the Civil Union thread currently active in the Pit. My short answer to you, storyteller0910 is that it’s not a question of legislation or no-legislation but a question of Liberty and whether an act should be subject to strict scrutiny or rational-basis under the 14th Amendment. Look up that other thread if you want the long answer.
OK, some of us (that’d be me) have lots of catch-up reading to do before they’re going to contribute any more on this subject. Looks like fun, and also like I won’t be getting much work done today.
- FCF
Ah, here we go with the name-calling again. I know of no other area of human experience where “phobic” or “phobia” is defined as hatred, disapproval or dislike.