I voted “yes”, and I’m not going to cop-out with any “…but…” qualifications. The way I see it is simple - if you’re not even a little bit actively pro-gay, you’re part of the problem and (a little) evil. It’s possible to be a little evil and not be a total waste of skin, in my book. Your net moral worth may be overwhelmingly positive - you may be a very good person. But you carry a little bit of evil too. Good and evil don’t mix like paint.
In all respects were people assume insanity is the only possible answer (other than evil).
Well, if you think homophobia is the right term for your attitude then I’m not really in a position to disagree with you. But I see a large difference between being uncomfortable with people and being grossed out by what they might do in the bedroom. I don’t consider it homophobic for a straight person to have an aversion to, say, watching gay porn. Now, if your feeling that gay sex is kind of gross bleeds over into how you feel about gay people in everyday non-sexual situations and causes you to feel uncomfortable around them then I’d agree this is homophobic, although if you keep these feelings under control then at least it’s not hurting anyone else.
You are welcome to them!
That’s not actually what you said.
It isn’t my fault if you can’t express yourself clearly.
A lot of gay people are grossed out by heterosexual sex. Columnist Dan Savage once referred to female genitalia as looking like someone threw a canned ham off a tall building.
Are these people heterophobic?
Ooops - me too! Sorry - skewed the poll a bit. I’d have to be more undecided. Someone can be homophobic and not do anything overt about it, other than saying hateful things within their social group. Its certainly a shitty attitude, but I don’t know that I’d call it evil.
Evil, no. Ignorant, yes.
However, could we get a definition for homophia? Does a homophobic hate gay people? Can a homophobic be creeped out by gay people but support their civil rights?
That’s not an answer. Why are you avoiding answering?
Yes. Gay people who have the temerity to think we deserve the same rights as straight people are the equivalent of Nazis.
The bolded quote is misogynist, not heterophobic, and as a woman I’m sort of irritated that you’re trying to imply otherwise. But hey thanks for repeating it and giving me another reason to hate Dan Savage.
There is no meaningful comparison that can be made between homophobia and “heterophobia”, as I am sure you know, so I’m not sure what your point is here.
[QUOTE=Rigamarole]
Well if homophobic people are evil, then obviously we need a solution for dealing with them in order to protect society. Perhaps we could round them all up into some type of… camps, yes, camps, and then we could sew badges onto their clothes so they can be clearly identified in public. I think we’re finally on to something!
[/QUOTE]
What the fuck are you on about?
I’m with Lamia.
As has already been pointed out, this is a heaping dose of misogyny. Tell me something, how exactly is female genitalia itself equivalent to “straight sex”? I mean, otherwise it’s perplexing why you would specifically choose that as your example.
Or maybe it’s just the natural reaction of someone who isn’t sexually attracted to women. Why do we have to read misogyny into this? Vaginas are sort of weird, from an objective standpoint. In fact, sex in and of itself is pretty gross if you really think about all that swapping of bodily fluids. Don’t you remember being a kid and how weird it was? Grownups do WHAT? What on earth for?!!!
Nobody is morally obligated to find gay sex appealing. They are morally obligated to support the civil rights of all humans regardless of sexual orientation.
Of course homophobia is a social evil. I don’t really believe in evil people, though.
Because experience at the SDMB shows me that trying to answer questions whose only answers are a) *Agree with the questioner *or b) *Insanity and/or Evil *is a waste of time.
Besides, gay rights have been discussed to death and you can find my opinion with a nice little search.
In fairness to Dan Savage, the “canned ham” comment was made years ago (like 15-20) when his column was more satirical than it is now. Looking at the original context it’s also clear that, while he certainly doesn’t find women’s genitals to be appealing, he also considered his squeamishness to be rather silly. I found the full quote on Google Books:
“What I don’t know about vaginas could fill, well, several thousand vaginas probably. Until I got this job, I was one of those gynophobic cocksuckers who went all woozy at the sight of a woman’s genitals. They look like something dropped from a great height. A canned ham dropped from the 23rd floor of the Empire State Building, I don’t know.”
Nevermind.
I don’t even have to search to know that you apparently are not “100% pro-gay in everything” and I’m having a hard time avoiding the implication that some people go too far in being “pro-gay”.
Nobody has made the argument that anyone is obligated. It’s already been pointed out in this thread that there is a difference between finding something appealing and not acting like a grossed out seven year old horrified at the thought of boy / girl cooties. Can we please stop acting like we don’t know the difference?
The Dan Savage quote is really ugly and I don’t get from it that he had (at the time of writing) backpedaled from his view point at all (he says “they look..”, not “I thought they looked…”).
Comparing vaginas to smashed canned ham (with the implication that they are repulsive) is sexist. Being grossed out by the thought of two dudes making out or whatever is homophobic. Being grossed out by the idea of two women making out is also homophobic (I notice none of the straight men have mentioned this at all, because LGBT women totally don’t exist or something). There are scales to this stuff, people. Not every homophobic (or sexist) thought or impulse or random comment is THE WORST THING EVER, but it’s still a problem. There’s two things that have to be acknowledged here: 1) People who are nice and good and all those qualities that we like to think of ourselves as having can still fuck up and 2) just because you are nice and good doesn’t mean you don’t still have to examine your own mind and try to change for the better when you HAVE fucked up. That’s why this poll is sorta dumb, IMO. Words like “evil” just make everybody shut down.
Of course, there are total assholes (why, some may even be present in this very thread!) who are total unrepentant homophobes and who are totally uninterested in examining their behavior or changing one bit. I personally find those people pretty useless but YMMV.
Don’t avoid it, it’s true, however I don’t want this to turn into yet another gay rights debate.
In your eyes it’s going too far for gay people to expect to be treated as equals. Okay, that’s all I wanted to know.
I understand - who would expect people to start discussing treating gays like actual human beings in a thread about homophobia?