Why is the youngest generation the least homophobic?

[ButterflyBlood]

I know why I'm not but that's basically just personal experience. We really didn't grow up in a culture anymore accepting than our parents. My mom says there was once a huge controversy over some show in the late 80's because it showed two guys sleeping in the same bed, doing nothing sexual at all. I can still remember back then. Yet it seems to me more as that society is telling us homosexuality is wrong and we aren't listening rather than that society is telling us homosexuality is OK and we're listening.

[wryter2000]

1. Maybe

Maybe you've learned from the idiocy of past times.

[Maple]

2. Maybe because of

the cultural side of 'globalization'

In that people now are coming to realize that it's a big world...and there are lots of ideas and lifestyles out there...and that not everyone lives or thinks the same way you do.

And that's cool.....

[cspiguy]

3. maybe cuz they're the h@rniest...

n/t

[bearfartinthewoods]

4. mtv

.

[ButterflyBlood]

7. hmmm, i think you might have it right there

ever seen Undressed? It boggles my mind why Jerry Falwell and Focus on the Family haven't bitched about that show ever.

[Maple]

9. Except it's the same

for young people everywhere....and they don't get MTV

[bearfartinthewoods]

26. where don't they get MTV??

it's in Europe, all through the americas, bootleg stuff is in China.

specificly, Real World...showing a gay person in day to day life has made a HUGE difference.

i come from dem parents who try to be tolerant but they are in their 80s. they adopted, for all intents and purposes, a gay guy who, while he was still allowed to live in his father's house, was shown no love or support.

my folks did that for him, without ever acknowedging the reason he was ostracized. it was the way of their generation....c;pseted support.

my generation, came to love everybody because of the sixties and some of those people were gay. when the sixties ended, the club scene started and there were gay people in the clubs. so we grew to tolerate, openly, the concept of gay people in the abstract.

since MTV showed gay people specificly, in everyday situations and in romantic situations the change has been dramatic. kids who didn't have the advantage of growing up knowing one of the people they loved were gay grew to love a gay person, via TV.

[Dookus]

5. Actually...

I think a lot of is it is cultural exposure.

I was born in 1961 and I think I was probably 15 years old when I first saw a self-identified homosexual on television (It was Quentin Crisp).

Fast forward a few years and kids are growing up with Boy George, George Michael, Elton John, Greg Louganis, Ellen DeGeneris, kd lang, etc. etc. etc.

Depictions of homosexuality in films and television were almost unheard of when I was young. They're pretty frequent today.

And as Martha says, that's a good thing.

[dofus]

6. I thina there's also been

an effort on the part of their elders to raise them to be more liberal, tolerant, and accepting of others.

This obviously isn't true of people who are truly homophobic, fundamentalists of any stripe, and bigotted people in general.

[patrice]

8. Maybe they have the deepest instinct for

how much Earth is burdened by us.

Maybe they want unconditional Love the most.

Maybe they are the least afraid.

Maybe they are the craziest.

Maybe they have the least to lose.

Maybe they believe in maybe more than we do.

[kayell]

10. More GLBT people are out of the closet

so younger people actually know that they know someone (probably several someones) who is gay, and realize that they are humans, just like everyone else.

[JohnKleeb]

19. not what I encountered

I am 16 myself and I had a bad encounter with my homophobic and anti public school friends the other night but youre right I guess.

[kayell]

32. I'm sorry that you've had to deal with that

There are still creeps all over. But it does seem like there is more acceptance in general. Of course, with more people openly out, the assholes can find their targets easier. While there may be setbacks and hardship on the way I do think that over all we are going to win this fight. I'd much rather be an out lesbian now than in the '50s, and in the early '70s when I was in high school, I didn't know anyone who was out.

Hang in there. Look for the good people and stay safe.

[JohnKleeb]

34. dont worry about it I got really pissed though

[Clete]

11. Back in the fifties, they couldn't even show a married

couple in bed, let alone a gay one. We are developing a new morality, that is based on tolerance of those who are different than us rather than hate of something we don't understand.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

12. I don't know..the youngest generation killed Matthew Shepard and is more

likely than an older generation to bash a homosexual or beat them up according to statistics..so please explain how that equates to less homophobic.

[QC]

15. "That's so gay!"

I don't remember earlier generations casually (and constantly) using the word "gay" as a popular term for weak, stupid, strange, etc. But then that's a particular gripe of mine.

OTOH, being a teacher has given me the impression that this younger crowd has a much stronger libertarian streak than we saw in the past. They might not approve of something or want to do it, but they're less likely to see those as reasons for stopping other people from doing as they please.

[ButterflyBlood]

20. that's mostly from the pre-teens

I didn't hear it too much after I turned 16, and in college it's practically nonexistant.

[JohnKleeb]

22. come to think havent heard it in a while myself

[goobergunch]

30. I hear it frequently at my school

:puke:

[JohnKleeb]

33. I hear fairly too but I havent heard it in a while

but I will join you in a :puke:
I hear more insulting marks on gays than anything though.

[Uzybone]

40. I agree

I havent heard any one over 15 or 16 use that as an insult.

[Aristus]

23. My stepson uses that term. It pisses me off no end.

But I don't call him on it. My wife wouldn't let me. It's her son, and anyway, my wife is no supporter of gay rights. Homophobia is the result of my son going to a Baptist high school. I hate that.

[mlawson]

27. Yep, leave it to them, to keep hate going!!!

And to keep GWB in office. :mad:

[rusk2003]

28. It is like this

The people in their teens and twenties are busy living their own life. And understnad hate leads to violance. Iam a christian I have morals I beleive certain actions and thoughts are sinful. But know where dose it say in my religon I have a right to judge or force those beliefs upon others. We all beleive certain things or wrong and right we have political parties diffrent religons and etc .
Conservatives just beleive they have a right to impose their beleifs on everybody.

And I resent the right wing branch of my religon giving it a bad name with some people.

[theemu]

35. I hear it constantly

And I go to one of those liberal ivy league schools where, conservatives would have you believe, we are all restricted by speech codes and expelled immediately after insulting anyone.

Oh yeah. And I hear people tossing the word 'faggot' around constantly.

Oh yeah. And a gay RA's door was peed on (by, they determined, multiple people) and the message 'Go away, Fag' was written all over his white board.

The youngest generation isn't any less homophobic than any other.

[ButterflyBlood]

16. well statistics also show the other way

57% of people 18-29 support same sex marriage. our gay bashers are more extreme, but much less common.

[jburton]

17. Well, for one thing

The Matthew Shepard murder would not have been called a 'hate crime' until recent years. It would never have gotten the attention and outrage it did, either...just chalked up as "keeping the queers in line"

[Clete]

18. That was something that reverted back to the days

when they regularly lynched African-Americans. I don't think it speaks for the majority of young people today, or even the majority of young people in Wyoming where that took place, even though they are much more conservative than us.

Even though Wyoming is mostly unpopulated and the residents that are there are either white or Native American, I never ran across much prejudice of any sort in my travels around there.

[bearfartinthewoods]

29. the statistics are probably skewed.

there would never be a mention of why a gay person got beat up in the fifties or sixties out of respect for the family.......

[jburton]

13. More un-closeted role models

I don't mean in the media, although that has a huge effect.

But just normal people like relatives, friends, neighbors who decades ago would be in the closet.

[carolinayellowdog]

14. APA decision in 1973 to declassify it as a disorder

had a huge impact. For 30 years those now who call it a disease have been going against the tide. Before that even many gays accepted the disease model. The younger generation today was born after all that pseudoscientific justification for homophobia became extinct.

BTW I called you a bad name; you seem like a good person apart from the hurtful anti-Southern remarks.

[Scaramouche]

21. It's becuz' of (take your pick):

Liberal teachers;
Hollywood;
Liberals in general;
Clinton's Fault;
Hollywood, Broadway, and The Canadian Film Commission;
Hillary's Fault;
The SCOTUS;
Mike Morford's Fault;
The Homosexual Agenda;
MTV;
:crazy: :shrug: ;)
I could go on and on about what quite few on the right think...But that would be a waste of time...

[David__77]

24. Because their gay age-peers are openly gay and living their lives.

I'm not a "youth," but am still in my 20's so I'll speak as a younger person anyway. My friends are a mix of lesbian, gay and bisexual and straight. A lot of straight friends. But they have no problem with two guys or two girls having sexual relations, being in love, living together or raising children. I think it's because they know people like me. It's not just TV shows like "Will and Grace." Not to brag, but many of my friends and the friends of the man I love know us as a couple that they somehow see as a model. They're saying "you two are such a good couple! I have such a hard time with relationships!" But the point is that these straight friends recognize that the anti-gay lies are just that--lies. We're living our lives, and among younger gay and lesbian people, doing so freer and freer from feeling oppressed by their sexual orientation. We're getting freer in all senses. I'm even more amazed by the generation coming after me, who are so relatively unencumbered by that bullshit. Of course, I'm in CA, and I know it's different in a place like, say, Mississippi! But even there we're making progress!

[JVS]

25. Boy George

[mlawson]

31. They have information now that we didn't, in the 50s and 60s.

If you wanted to get any valid info about homosexuality back then, unless you lived in NYC, you had to research it in the library. It WAS the subject that could not be discussed in 'polite' company. But now, young'uns have all the sources they could possibly imagine. In this case, information breeds tolerance.

[maxanne]

36. because in some cases

their parents are old hippies who weren't homophobes, either. :thumbsup:

[gully]

37. HOLLYWOOD... n/t

[GirlinContempt]

38. The way I see it...

To some extent, I think it's because it's less of an 'unknown horror' now. People talk about it, openly, good or bad.
Even if people are saying "I hate gays, they're dirty", they're bringing homosexuality more out in the open than it has been for a long time. Even if its bad publicity, I think its destroying some of that 'fear of the unknown'. Once thats gone, I believe it's easier for people to get past the other stuff.

[Uzybone]

39. Gays coming out in the open..

its nothing to do with MTV. I think people are learning more and more that they cannot be turned gay by a gay person. That leads to more tolerance of it. The intolerant are either closet gays who fear being exposed as what they are, or people who are ignorant enough to believe homosexuality can be spread.

[theboss]

41. Simple . . .

EVERYBODY'S GAY!!!

[DrWeird]

42. That's the way it works.

Young people are always more liberal, on average, that the parents and quite a bit more than the grandparents. On average.

Liberals always push envelopes, while conservatives cling to the past. And that's why, no matter how many elections they win, we'll always win in the end.