Dear Sappho,
Homophobia is rampant in modern day society, especially in the Bible Belt and Republican dominated states. It is probably the major cause of teen suicide and sanctioned by bullies as a natural cure for homosexuality.
I found you on Twitter and even though there are thousands of gay activists on Twitter I find homophobia exists there as well. What do you suspect is the major cause for homophobia and can it be cured. Did you deal with homophobia in your time on Lesbos and if so, how?
Homophobia is a Disease
Dear Homophobia is a Disease
ReplyDeleteInteresting, is it not, that although homosexuality is no longer considered to be a disease but homophobia is now considered to be one. The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association offered the following explanation on its website;
"Homophobia operates on two levels: internally and externally. Internal homophobia represents prejudices that all individuals learn (internalize) from their families, friends, teachers, religious institutions, government, and the media. External homophobia is the overt expression of those biases, ranging from social avoidance, to legal and religious proscription, to violence..."
Homophobia is a form of sexism perpetrated by the hegemony to advance control over human behaviors as a form of controlling and increasing the population. Oddly enough I did not experience homophobia until after my death when the church burned my works and changed the pronouns on existing fragments from she to he. Personally I consider homophobia to be anti-love.
“In a patriarchal society, gay and bisexual men could be seen as a threat to the construction and maintenance of the socially accepted 'normal' form of masculinity, being a male. One way of achieving this is to create an extreme, generalized fear and hatred of those men who are different. This hatred is also extended to any men, regardless of their sexuality, who don’t live up to the 'normal' standard." May 14, 2009 - Norman Dean Radican
Perceived sexual orientation may affect how a person is treated. For instance, in the United States, the FBI reported that 15.6% of hate crimes reported to police in 2004 were "because of a sexual-orientation bias." The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, on the page "About Homophobia" on its website (accessed Aug. 3, 2006), outlined several possible causes for homophobia:
"The desire to discriminate against gays and lesbians, and thus to reserve special privileges to heterosexuals, appears to have many causes. Some are:
• Inability or unwillingness to change the information received during childhood.
• Fear of people who are different.
• Promotion of homophobia by a religious group.
• A heterosexual's natural feeling of repulsion at the thought of engaging in same-sex activity. Realizing that homosexual behavior is unnatural for them, some people generalize this feeling into the belief that homosexuality is wrong for everyone.
• Actual homosexual feelings that a person cannot acknowledge or handle.
• Low self esteem leading to a need to hate other group(s)."
Most modern scientific surveys find that the majority of people report a mostly heterosexual orientation. However, the relative percentage of the population that reports a homosexual orientation varies with differing methodologies and selection criteria. I wonder why gender should matter as long as love is involved. In reincarnation people evolve spiritually by experiencing both genders across time, cultures and ethnicity. That may be the meaning of Gospel of Thomas 22: “Shall we then, as children, enter the kingdom?” ... so that the male not be male. nor the female female; ... you cannot even enter the kingdom of Heaven.”
Don’t allow anyone to keep you from entering the Kingdom of Heaven. It can even be found on earth IF you love the person your heart wants instead of the presumed matched gender dictated by others. I’ll never understand how such gender discipline and self-sightedness came to be a mandatory guideline for gender division to begin with. If we could only look at the whole person and not just their reproductive status we would be a much richer civilization. Still I try to avoid or overlook the ignorance of homophobic people in general while I welcome the addition of protective laws and measures that protect all individuals regardless of their gender, race, creed, religion or political preferences as long as they respect mine and allow me to live freely in peace.
Blessings, Sappho