(I did not perview; read at your own risk.)
I think it’s unfortunate, but more and more evident, that Paul came in here to make one point, but veiled it with another. His stated agenda–an etymological debate which is (surprise!) subject to verifiable fact isn’t going to well; turns out, in fact, he was flat wrong. But because Paul’s etymology row was just draped lightly over his hidden agenda–he doesn’t LIKE being called a homophobe–he’s reluctant to graciously learn the lesson he’s been so resoundingly taught in this thread. To do so would be to reveal his layered agendas. To say “Yeah, I guess you’re right, thanks for the clarification” would be a less bitter pill if the argument were actually about the generic usage of the word “homophobe.” Since, however, the actual argument is about when people call PAUL a homophobe, he cannot say “Yeah, I guess you’re right, thanks for the clarification,” because to do so would be to acknowledge the validity of the accusation.
So let’s deal with these agendas separately.
The masking agenda–etymology–has been pretty well settled. Over and over and over again.
The primary agenda–Paul, friend of homos everywhere, has been called a homophobe–will require a lot more effort, as well as delicacy, not only on our (the educators’) parts, but, needless to say, on Paul’s as well.
So Paul.
Me first.
It is my contention that anyone who is not in support of full and equal gay rights is a homophobe. I take it that you disagree with that contention, and that this disagreement is near to your reasons for objecting to the use of that word, at least in your case.
I will assume, from your writings here, as well as from a bit of generalization from having been over this ground many many times before this, that you believe it’s possible for a person to disagree reasonably on the details of gay rights, but not be homophobic; that a non-homophobe may have perfectly reasonable justifications for voting against, say, gay marriage.
Now for the hard part: this line of reasoning, Paul, is homophobic on its face. Wait, hear me out: I’ll try to explain.
There’s no such thing as homosexuality. Wait. That’s not what I mean. Homosexuality is an artificial construct. Hmm. No, that’s not it either. Well kind of: homosexuality is a linguistic concept. Linguistic? Semantic. Something.
Wait: speciation. Do you know what speciation is? Probly you do, but just in case it means the process by which one species evolves into two species; the point at which one species branches off from its parent species. Pretty unambiguous concept, right? Except there’s no such thing as a species, in nature. “Species” is a human concept. Scientists have come up a rigidly codified (and yet hotly debated) system that artificially distinguishes between species, merely for our own convenience in understanding nature. Evolution doesn’t work by pigeonholes or track switches or anything like that, it just is. Artificial distinctions such as species are purely artificial conventions.
Well, it’s the same thing with animal sexuality (not only humans have fluid sexuality, so I chose not to say “human sexuality”). As has been proven time after time after time, there is a whole spectrum of sexual “orientation,” which is affected by many, many things, roughly broken down into genes on the one hand and culture on the other. For long stretches of human history, the concept of a person who felt him/herself to be romantically oriented toward the same sex is a concept that just didn’t exist. Rather, it was more likely to be the case that some individuals, while fulfilling their biological roles and marrying and popping out kidlets, had urges to behave in this or that manner NOT prescribed by what would appear to be the logical path of the march of nature. These urges have been culturally acceptable (e.g ancient Greece), or culturally unacceptable (e.g., modern Islam), as times and cultures change.
The idea of a “gay person” is a uniquely modern idea. But it’s just that: an idea. It’s an individual’s understanding and expression of themselves as a person. It’s a more holistic approach to self awareness, if you will: rather separating oneself and one’s, what, one’s life’s journey or whatever, the modern individual is more likely to try to understand and even embrace those feelings—innate as well as cultural. This makes sense to me: it allows one to get on with one’s life, and to navigate one’s “journey” with the wind at your back, so to speak, rather than devoting a lot of energy to repressing and preventing this individual personality trait or that one, depending upon the vagaries of the culture.
So fine. People like me, at one end of the “orientation spectrum,” find that a close emotional attachment to a person of the same gender can be very fulfilling and help me to achieve personal happiness. Notice that I distinguish between emotional attachment and sexual behavior. Sexual behavior is far more fluid than emotional orientation: I know of many people who perform recreational or vocational sexual behavior that is not necessarily in keeping with their emotional orientation. “Gay” or “straight” has nothing to do with where you stick you dick; it’s about who you fall in love with.
So here we are, in a pretty well enlightened culture, dedicated—in writing, mind you—to personal freedom and the pursuit of happiness. Individuals from all over the emotional map—most personality traits, I’ll venture, play out on a spectrum much like sexual orientation does—are going about their daily lives, freely pursuing happiness. (Always acknowledging the need to avoid encroaching on the freedom of others.)
To dictate a distinction in the rights between an individual at an arbitrary point along this or that personality spectrum, and an individual at another arbitrary point along that spectrum, is utterly antithetical to, on the one hand, the nature of the fluidity of those spectra, and of an individual’s choices as to self definition and expression; and on the other hand, to the fine print of the document that we have collectively agreed defines and directs our social relationships and responsibilities to each other.
In other words, the election of sexuality as a personality trait necessitating a political distinction between individual persons is a betrayal of the individual elector’s (back to you, Paul) personal and cultural prejudices and convictions. For you to consider it reasonable to make an individual’s sexuality relevant to his or her place in society is, in other words, artificial and prejudicial, and is in and of itself homophobic. In choosing to place one point along the spectrum above another point, you betray your personal priorities and prejudices, and therefore your aversion, however slight, to those individual persons who find themselves further over toward the gay end of the spectrum than you find yourself.
In other words, if you aren’t for us you’re against us. I don’t say this in all discussions of political issues. Only in cases where the status quo is actively harmful to real people. Institutionalized slavery, for example: to passively connive at such a status quo is to participate, however passively, in continuing harm to real people. A status quo which limits the rights of certain individuals based on the cultural prejudices of certain other individuals commits harm as long as it is in place, so passivity is tantamount to active support of such a harmful system. So only in such cases will I say that if you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem, and if you’re not unconditionally for total political equality for homosexual individuals, then you have issues of homophobia that bear examination. One’s sexuality or gender should be totally irrelevant to one’s rights in our society.
