Total agreement on the parents' vibe. Unfortunately there's no real way to guard individuals from this. Here in the UK we had a case a couple of years back of a Christian couple who were banned from foster caring as they refused to state that they'd stay neutral on the topic of homosexuality (as in they'd tell the foster child they received that being gay was sinful and wrong). Due to the fact that they could have theoretically received a homosexual youngster to foster, they were struck off the list. The right wing campaigned and complained about free speech being violated, and oppression from minorities etc, but that thankfully had a happy ending. However, in the case of people's natural-born children, you pretty much have the right to force your views on them until they leave home, by which point those views will be heavily ingrained.
I come from a background that is on the border zone between working-class and underclass. The people I was surrounded by growing up were pretty prejudiced, including my immediate family. Insults about racial minorities, non-Judaic/Catholic faiths, sexualities, and disabilities were fairly commonplace. It was pretty hard to "come out" in that environment. However, once I did, I learned some things about a few people, and it was like society was completely turned on its head. My mother will fight people now if she THINKS that they're not cool with me being gay, my father lectures co-workers on gay rights, my brothers have actually beaten a cousin up of mine who was insulting me in my absence about it. I attended a family party a few months ago with Paolo and the argument that happened was about the fact that he wanted to go early, rather than that we'd been clearly a couple all evening. Older dudes who I'll admit I'm scared of (pretty prejudicedly so, as I'm judging them before actively forming a relationship with them) who are "friends of the family" were laying into him for that reason, and telling him how you're meant to love your boyfriend and want to please them etc. Don't get me wrong, it was embarrassing a little for both of us, but the point I'm making is that once these people actively knew a gay person, they seemed to lose all their prejudiced beliefs (or, at least, decided to hide them extremely well).
It's changed a lot in the last ten years of course, but as more LGBTIQ people have made themselves known, the more people seem fine about it in the UK. Like it's almost a blasé thing to many now (at least, those who I've met anyway). Kids at school have actively asked me if I'm gay in an interested way (as in not LOL U R GAY SIR, but "Sir, you're gay right? It's ok to say, I don't care". I've never confirmed this as working at an all boys' school always makes me feel a little vulnerable in terms of accusations or whatever, plus it might be considered unprofessional to be discussing my personal relationships with students, but how much it's changed since I went to school is phenomenal to see.
Speaking of, I attended school under a piece of legislation called 'Section 28'. This prohibited the "promotion" of homosexuality, forcing public employees to either be neutral about homosexuality OR allowing them to be actively negative. That might not sound too bad to some - being neutral is great right? Unfortunately, much like the excellent analogies dada was coming out with earlier, it meant that teachers were actively prohibited in stopping homophobic bullying. I was outed in the sixth form by my boyfriend at the time, who was drunk and told people some stuff I won't go into. Suddenly, without my consent, everybody knew I was gay. Quite a few people were actively interested, asking questions etc - especially younger students. Some went out of their way to tell me it was cool. However, there were still a section of people who acted pretty disgustingly towards me because of it. I lost some friends I hung around with, and some tertiary friends I had decided they'd definitely be making comments about it to me in classes we attended together. I ended up not going to Computer Science much, for example, as a few individuals in that group took great joy in loudly discussing how disgusting gay people and homosexual acts were, pretty much every lesson I turned up to. What did the teachers do? Nothing - I couldn't understand this at the time at all. However, I learned not long afterwards that they were PROHIBITED from doing anything. They could have been disciplined or lost their jobs if seen to "promote homosexuality".
Exactly the same when the topic came up in Philosophy A-level. The majority of people in the group were very open-minded and friendly. However, one girl named Alex decided to challenge me about it, and really tried to upset me on many occasions. One example specifically that still makes me really upset when I think about it - when the whole lesson was focused on a discussion between the two of us, due to her distracting the ACTUAL focus of the lesson and refusing to be quiet, where we duelled theologically. As I was actively converting to Judaism at the time, and spent a GOOD chunk of my free time reading the Tanakh, New Testament, and tons of theological philosophers, I was "winning" (as childishly as that sounds) the debate. This was mostly due to her actual knowledge of the bible outside of shouting passages like Lev: 18:22 and 20:13. When I was clearly being seen to be being rational and backing myself up significantly, she stood up and screamed "Look, it's just fucking sick and twisted, and you're a fucking pervert" at me. Obviously the group was shocked - there was actually a feeling of joviality while the debate was going on, as I was able to defend myself well. Again, what did the teacher do at the abrupt end of the debate? Said that it's fine to agree to disagree and quickly (with a sense of panic in fact) started talking about the homework.
Man, sorry, it's like fucking SHARE CENTRAL over here, but the point I'm making is that to Alex/the class/etc it WAS just a debate. It was two people disagreeing about an ethical issue. To me though it was an individual specifically criticising who I am, saying pretty disgusting things about me, and then exploding at the end.
Vell hit the nail on the head before when she was speaking about men discussing/arguing with feminism and feminists. The idea is that to them it's JUST an academic exercise - it doesn't actively impact upon them, so they can afford to stay rational and calm, and shake hands and say "good debate" at the end regardless. For the minority who is being persecuted as part of the "debate" however, it can actually be a really scarring experience.
FUCK RAMBLE OVER sorry!
However, I also find the whole "Most gay haters are gay themselves" bag to be unfortunately a way of blaming gay people for their own oppression. Like I know it isn't intentional, and there HAVE been tons of homophobes who have ended up being clearly self-hating gay people, but I think it's fair to assume that the vast majority of homophobes are just bigots in actuality. However fulfilling it is to see an extremely right wing politician get caught with a rentboy, it doesn't take away from the fact that they've been trying to deny me rights.
Here in the UK, most people aren't really religious. No one goes to church too much except for a small minority. It isn't really a big part of the majority of people's lives here. However, a lot more people have been describing themselves as fiercely Christian and religious recently purely on the basis of disagreeing with the "homosexual lifestyle". These people have applied the label "Christian" to themselves as a sanctioned way of being shitty towards gay people. They don't follow the faith whatsoever in the majority of cases, but use it as a cover for their homophobia. As in G-d is against it, so it's cool for them to be too (even if they don't follow any of the other, more important rules).
I also know a lot of actual Christians who are actually pro-equality. I know tons of Jews who actively campaign for equal marriage. Fair, there are Christians who are against it also, but in the UK it's pretty clear that they don't make up the vast majority of anti-gay people there actually are. On a recent YouGov survey, it actually revealed that the majority of people who are actively religious in this country (as in ticked both boxes for BELIEF and ATTENDING REGULAR WORSHIP), are actually in FAVOUR of gay marriage (57%). One of the governors at the school I worked at until recently constantly invited me out to meals, gave positive feedback about me to the head, and was incredibly inclusive about Paolo in spite of being an extremely dedicated Christian. Fuck, Paolo's mother is one of the most Anglican people I've ever met.
Sorry, a little rambly, but the point I'm trying to make is that it isn't self-hating gay people who cause all the problems, nor is it specifically religious people. It's people who actively like to hate others, who believe that their feelings of prejudice are justified and that they should be free to express them/enforce them on others. They might be Christians, they might be secret-gay people, they might just be hateful people. What they have in common though is the potential to make gay, bi and transpeople's lives hell, purely because they don't like that particular minority group. That's the real issue.
Much like in recent arguments I've been observing, pro-gay people have criticised the Catholic church (for the whole molesting children bag). The counter has always been "Yes, Homosexual priests have done this", again finding another way to blame gay people for everything that ever goes wrong of a sexual nature.
So yeah, just saying "Well I don't like the moral preachiness so I'm going to eat chicken anyway" is an absolutely fine thing to do - we live in a democracy where we're all free to spend our money however we choose. But you can't expect all gay people to be totally fine with any individual who actively contributes to groups that persecute them for who they are.
Gaming World Forums
Happy New Salt + What's on your mind 2012: CHILL YOUR HEAD
