Count me as a ditto to the earlier posts. Never remember any time I had a problem with it. When I was in the third grade we went to visit my aunt and her “roomate”. I looked at her. I looked at her “roomate”. When I got home I asked mom is said aunt gay? She looked at me funny. And then, bless her, just said yes. I said oh I thought so, and rolled over and went to sleep.
Funny thing is said aunt seemed more uncomfortable about it than I was. She wouldn’t even admit to why she was boycotting orange juice during the whole Anita Bryant thing. Like I didn’t already know.
And when I was in Jr. High and people would make “faggot” comments I was fond of quoting Joe Jackson: “Don’t call me a faggot unless you are a friend”. Nobody seemed to get it but it made me feel better.
My parents are liberal atheists and I grew up in San Francisco. The result is that my experience was the reverse of some of those in this thread - it was years before I realized that some people think there’s something wrong with homosexuality.
When I was a kid (maybe four or five), the boys downstairs, who were my playmates, had an argument about which of them were gay.
“I’m gay!”
“No, I’m gay!”
“No, you can’t be gay, I’M gay.”
So I went inside and asked my mom “what does ‘gay’ mean?” And my mom told me that it meant you were a boy who dated boys or a girl who dated girls. “Like my boss. He has a boyfriend,” my mom told me. I knew my mom loved her boss and he was really nice and always gave me candy when I went to visit her office. And the mom of the boys downstairs was gay, so she had a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend. I spent pretty much half of my waking hours in their apartment, and they were pretty much like my family. (Except, with three boys, louder and with more pushing. Also, they had a Lite Brite and we were always losing the pieces in the orange shag carpeting and then stepping on them with bare feet. Ahh, the 80s.)
I can peg the exact moment. I grew up homophobic, I’m not proud to admit. When I was 17/18 I worked at a rennaissance faire, and I was driving home a guy who would later become one of my best friends. As we were driving, I gave some homophobic remark, and he looked at me with true horror. “Dude… You know how many people you work with that are gay?”
It hit me right between the eyes- the fact that it didn’t matter. They were just people, not horribly strange monsters. People I worked with and joked with and had fun with every weekend. The homophobia literally crumbled to nothing imediately.
Oy vey, I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but here it goes:
Homosexuality was something that was discussed pretty openly in my family when I was young. My uncle’s best friend growing up was openly gay, as well as my stepfather’s brother, my older sister was friends with a gay couple, etc. My parents weren’t particularly approving of it even if they spoke about it freely, though. I was mostly indifferent to it until around twelve when I had a dream (one of those dreams) about a girl. And I became horrified with the idea of lesbianism, decided it was disgusting and wrong and lived in fear that someone might find out about what was going on inside my head. Hell, even now, writing essentially anonymously on a message board, it’s difficult to admit to it.
In my family, homosexuality was a flaw or a character quirk that someone couldn’t help and everyone would roll their eyes and cluck their tongues but accept and love the poor unfortunate dear, queerness and all. But I didn’t want to be seen as somebody with something wrong with them who was loved anyway. I didn’t want to be “wrong.”
Eventually, over the course of my teen years and seeing the coming out struggles of friends, I realized that there wasn’t anything wrong with it. It was okay, in other people. As far as those tendencies in myself, though, I still haven’t come to terms with them. The fact that I’ve dated girls has been kept from my family and since I found that I liked pretty boys, it seemed to be something that I could keep hidden indefinitely.
So, I suppose, in some deep, personal way, I’ve yet to fully accept that there isn’t anything wrong with it, though I’d never judge another person. For myself, despite being a tolerant person with numerous gay or bisexual friends, I have a fierce internalized homophobia.
And fisha, you seem to be more reasonable than you first stuck me as.
But I still have a problem with “wrongness”. You mentioned raising children…well my aunt did more to raise her wife’s child than her ex-husband did. God works in myterious ways .
Would that be a rounding error darlin?
Anyway, I’ve known I was gay since I was about 5. (born in 75) Though I didn’t really know what it meant at that age and didn’t have a word for it until I was around 13. I was homeschooled and raised by very conservative, fundamentalist christian parents so had this vague idea that it wasn’t the accepted way to be, but it really didn’t come up at home.
When I found out what ‘gay’ meant, I knew right away it described me. I never had any struggle with it or anything, it just was the way I was. I was probably 16 before I realized I wasn’t the only person in the world that felt that way, which was a huge relief to me. I’ve always been the outsider type and knowing I wasn’t alone in this issue helped a lot.
My parents were never intolerant/racist/bigots. They weren’t the most open-minded people on the planet, but they’re better than most. I remember we were watching Ricki Lake and the guy from godhatesfags.com was on, spouting his views, and I asked my dad what was going on, and he said “Well, men should only marry women because that’s the way God wants it” or something like that. He didn’t add “and fags should burn in hell” or anything like that. That satisfied me at the time.
But I honestly don’t know when I made the decision that homosexuality was not a problem. I remember a friend of mine came out to me when I was a sophomore in high school, and I was just thrilled he trusted me, and I didn’t have a single problem with it. And then, of course, joining this here message board when I was seventeen helped a great deal. I was suddenly exposed to all sorts of people I would have never met otherwise, and a lot of my attitudes and beliefs changed as a result.
And for the nth time, Cervaise, you’ve sent me falling helplessly off of my chair! Keep making me laugh like that, and I just might fall in love with you.
…
Well…hold on for a sec. First thing’s first. Are you hot?
Ah, I thought it was a math thing: 2007-1974=33, not 32. But I just haven’t had the actual birthday yet. Many member sites insist I’m already 33, although MySpace finally figured out we don’t all have January 1st birthdays.
I grew up around several kids who were gay/lesbian and since I was an outsider, we all hung together. I never really thought there was something wrong with them, but with the people who hated them for being different. I was always treated like I belonged with my friends and some of the best people I’ve ever had the joy to know were gay.
And it’s funny—a few weeks ago I got a letter from a family friend who still lives in the area I grew up in and she told me that this fellow who was the loudest, meanest SOB when it came to gays and lesbians in our area was busted for…you guessed it! Got busted for soliciting a male prostitute.
Well, yes, I reckon that, speaking purely objectively, your position *would * be difficult to articulate. Especially because you don’t seem to occupy either of the extreme ends of the homophobia continuum.
And I assure you that I mean no offense by that. I believe that homophobia, just like racism and other ism’s, is, for the most part, a continuum. IOW, some people are less phobic (or -ist), and others are moreso.
IANAScientist, but I do grok the idea (wow, my first time ever using the word “grok”–damn SDMB!) of a biological imperative. I also grok, however, the idea of biological diversity. Human beings are, in very fundamental ways, all quite alike. Yet, in some other very fundamental ways, we operate under vastly different sets of biological imperatives. For some of us, those differences are merely…well, differences, no judgments required. And for others, some of those differences are anomalous in a “wrong” way.
Hmmm…I’m trying to make myself clear (within the context of your argument), but I’m not sure at the moment how to do that. Yeah…brain fart.
I guess what I don’t understand about what you’re saying is this: You seem, ultimately, to acknowledge that homosexuality has biological underpinnings (though you also seemed to suggest earlier in your post that it has an environmental and/or agency influence, but I won’t deal with that right now), that it’s an intrinsic part of someone’s make-up. Well, if that’s the case (and nobody gets hurt, consenting-and-fully-able-to-consent partners, blah-blah-blah), then why the judgment? Why does different/anomalous=wrong in the way that (for instance) murder=wrong?
I understand that some aspect(s) of homosexuality make you uncomfortable. (I’m guessing that it’s mostly the knocking boots aspect–specifically, the male-on-male action, since you strike me as being male–that squicks you out.) But the thing is this: As much as some things that other people might do make me uncomfortable, I can’t easily (though it depends on the situation, right?) make the leap from “what this person is or does makes me uncomfortable” to “what this person is or does is wrong.”
Now, if that’s what you’re doing, then…well, there’s nothing that I can do about that. If, however, that’s not the picture that you intend for us to get WRT your feelings about homosexuality, then maybe this is all simply a matter of poor word choice.
But, you know, I don’t know.
Incidentally, I must say this: I understand your argument “why would someone, given the societal disapproval (and outright hatred in many quarters), choose to be gay?” and, on some level, that makes sense to me. However, I regard my being gay the same as I do my being Black. I am what I am, and as unsavory as these things have occasionally made life for me (though I’m not the problem–**everyone else ** is), I can’t imagine that I’d become white and heterosexual if I could. I haven’t had the best life (nor the most difficult one, either), but, overall, it’s been okay. And it’s certainly been interesting.
Would I feel differently if I lived, say, a hundred years ago (I was born in 1970, BTW), and I were back home in South Carolina and had to deal with Jim Crow, the daily fear of being lynched, and waaaaaay less enlightened attitudes than exist today about homosexuality? I honestly don’t know, and I’m glad I don’t have to find out.
This commercial pretty much sums my feelings about people who have problems with gays. “Homocil: Until you come around… because it’s YOUR problem, not theirs.”
If you look at the whole of the population, homosexuality is anomalous to the perpertuation of existance (read: nature) as 10% (give or take) of the human population is reported to be homosexual.
Not to say homosexuality is unnatural per se, but it is inconsistent with our biological reasons for existance. I further believe in natural selection, that those not meant to reproduce are meant to contribute in other ways (i.e. musical/acting talent etc.) to society.
All that and back to the OP, I think my mind was changed when I met, got to know, and liked my first gay dude when I realized it was cool, and more importantly, none of my business.
Still, socially, I could care less if someone’s gay or not. It effects me not a bit if they marry, adopt, live together, whatever the straights do, so should the gays, because although it IS a natural anomaly (IMO) it’s STILL a part of nature that you can’t escape, like curly hair or a big nose or small ears, it is what it is, and you are what you are. I think our pseudo-theocratic republican overlords ought to remember that.
For me it was a gradual thing. One of my friends was gay, but I did not mind it and I ‘knew’ he would never hit on me, but I was still intolerant of others that were not my friends and making crude jokes that could be offensive. (Actually, it had to be offensive as I think about it.) I gradually became more liberal in my views over the years and only accepted that gay marriage was not wrong within the last 5 years. Therefore, I have come a long way, but I spent most of my life uneasy about the “gay lifestyle”.
I suspect it helped when I attended my BIL’s wedding. I was a little uncomfortable, but less so than many relatives on both sides of the family. I am also an active green, it appears Green groups have a slightly higher than average percentage of openly gay people. Amazing how easy it is to overcome silly concepts when you actually work with people and get to know them.
I never thought there was anything wrong with being gay, it never occured to me think that what someone does in their private life should impact me in anyway.
However, I will admit I find the thought of another man finding another man sexualy attractive… just, well, odd. Men, by and large, are just nasty (and I say that as a guy). I would think another man would know that about men and just be turned off!
But I suppose a gay man puzzles over why I find women sexually attractive, so it all works out!
I don’t really buy any natural selection argument that suggests anything was “meant” to do something. Gay people are usually perfectly able to reproduce and many are quite determined to do so, or at least to participate in parenting in some way.
People who don’t want children are often seen as unnatural in that desire, too, but, while there are certainly factions who don’t think those couples should marry either, there hasn’t been any serious attempt to legislate it that I’m aware of. Where does “wrongness” begin?
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