We must get a handle on WHY people are anti-GLBT

[DuaneBidoux]

I've been thinking about this a great deal lately and started to realize that it is now exactly the same people who fought against rights for black people who are fighting against GLBT rights. And in many ways they are using the same arguments ("Biblical" and "moral").

My grandmother, I remember,used the story of the tower of Babel and God separating the nations to justify segregation. BUT, and I think this is where we need to focus, there was an entire generation that grew up being segregationists with these same stories and originally believed it was a "moral" stance to be a segregationist but they have now changed.

We need to understand the mechanism of why this happened: the mental and psychological steps that led this generation of segregationists (which was my mother's generation) to change.

It seems if we truly begin to understand the mechanisms of how people change to the core of their being on such profound issues we can as progressives begin to change public opinion on this.

[atommom]

1. I think they're angry, ignorant people who see the GLBT community

as a safe scapegoat. It's made even worse by the religious right's encouragement.

[DuaneBidoux]

3. But your missing my point. There is a mechanism by which this can be

changed. It's easy to throw words around like angry and ignorant, but that does nothing to help understand the steps that bring about change in people's core attitudes.

As I tried to point out, people who grew up being segregationists have changed. They were probably ignorant, and angry. And, for the most part it was the religious right then that tried to stop integration--again using many of the same arguments now used by those fighting against GLBT rights. But, in spite of the best efforts of flaming right wing radicals good prevailed and many people changed. How? Why?

This is probably deserving of very serious study, and I suspect could shed great light on how to win on this issue.

[atommom]

10. You're right. I gave you my knee-jerk response based on my

feelings about bigoted people. I suspect that reversing this kind of bias will take awhile. It will require a cultural shift away from the strict religious right and its insistence on finger-pointing. I hope that a backlash is starting to build, as the public sees just how intolerant these views are.

But I don't expect it to be easy. Desegregation had to be forced on people who were very much against it. As it became the norm, most people learned to accept it. But I don't see the same kind of government support for GLBT rights, at least not yet.

[DuaneBidoux]

11. And the Democratic party, I think, still pays a heavy price for leading

the way. You had people like Johnson (one of his great achievements) who said: to hell with the political cost, I'm moving forward--and indeed he (and indeed "activist" judges) did cram it down people's throats. But, there were people who, to the core, really changed on their own. They began, somehow, to find their way out of their own darkness.

[Meeker Morgan]

16. It isn't just the religious right.

I grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 70s. I never even knew any fundies, but there was plenty of homophobia.

I got beat up by junior Mafia types for being a "faggot". Nominally Catholic, but not particularly religious.

[Warpy]

14. Most of them are just unthinking and accept what their

preachers and acquaintances tell them. Those folks are reachable.

Then there's the smaller hard core, probably self loathing and closeted, who will always loathe anything gay and, by extension, anything female. They aren't reachable. All you can do about them is identify them and make sure everybody knows what they are.

[okieinpain]

2. first you have to explain why gay people fight against gay rights.

[DuaneBidoux]

5. No you don't. There were black people that fought against integration.

Integration happened anyway. There are black racists! I suspect that it is in approx. the same proportion as the GLBT people that voted Shrub.

[okieinpain]

23. no I think most of the blacks that were against integration were

want to stir things up. gay's know these people are against, that they are using them to run their campaigns, yet they vote for them, help raise money, and will defend their policy's. the log cabin types are way different from those blacks that you're referring to.

[DuaneBidoux]

25. My point is simply that not everyone has to be for something, even if they

are impacted by it, for there to be real change. All women weren't for the women's vote, all workers didn't care about getting week-ends and a 40 hour work week. Not everyone in the group impacted has to be for it, or passionate about it for change to occur.

[terrya]

4. I think that would be delving into the origins of homophobia itself.

And that, indeed, would be the basis of an interesting study.

I agree with you about getting to the root causes of why people are anti-GLBT.

[DuaneBidoux]

6. And not just the root causes of bigotry but the root CHANGES that occur

in people who personally overcome bigotry: i.e., the path out.

I have been very heavily influenced by a philosopher named Ken Wilber recently. His complaint about people who have transcended the ethnocentric and pathologically dominant cultures to become, in essence, enlightened, is that we don't focus on really understanding the path we took to get where we are and try to help people follow that path. I think it is a very valid point.

[hecate77]

7. It is based on fear and repetition (brain-washing)

I think these folks are raised on a diet of fear, and to keep them in that state of fear, there has to be something causing that fear, and that leads eventually to anger and hatred of the perceived enemy.

Those who prey on children's minds (and it is as children that they are brain washed) understand well the old adage about giving them a child for 7 years and the child is theirs...

I know this works because it happened to me. My primary lesson out of the Catholic Church was fear of hell, fear of sinning, guilt, guilt, guilt. Now, there were other lessons buried in there, and I still keep those, like love, compassion, and such things as that. However, there was an overwhelming emphasis on sin and fear. This led us to hate others, to blame others, particularly Jewish folk, for instance.

Now, the Catholic Church is pretty much an amateur at all this. Consider the real professionals, the 'bible-thumping hell and damnation' preachers of some of the protestant groups. Repeated exposure to this kind of trash changes children, makes them into fearful beings, leaves them ripe for the message of hatred.

Anyway, I think that is part of it. I am sure there are other issues.

How do you fight it? Only one way. Love. We must show them that love and compassion are the answer to hate and fear. And we have to do that by having love and compassion. It is not something that falls to rational discourse. Somehow the humanity of the people involved must be shown. They must come to see that the gay folks are no different in essential ways than anyone else.

In the meantime, the hate mongers keep at it, the Dobsons, the Limbaughs, the Bushes, and we have to find a way to counter that as well, with our own media, our own coverage, and it can't be attack stuff, but has to be positive. We will lose if we go head to head with their hatreds and fears. We are not mean enough to win that one, thank the Goddess.

[DuaneBidoux]

12. I grew up in that same environment: four kids, a brother and stepsister

a stepbrother. I'm the only one who found the way out. How? Why?

And you're right, there is nothing rational about love and compassion. It is trans-rational. It is a new step over and above rationality, but enfolding rationality into its being.

[hecate77]

17. Well, I think love and compassion are rational in the end

We are clearly all connected at some level. I am a physicist and I am a spiritual being as well. I find no conflict in those two things. So, logically, I have to love and have compassion, since I am related to everything and everyone. As a lesbian in California, of course, I do not see so much prejudice against us, but in my earlier years in Wisconsin, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Mexico, I did. I also saw a lot of that in the peace movement in Boston in the early years.

So, how did we come to embrace GLBT in the left at that time? It wasn't easy. There was fear, there was a sense of the issues not being important compared to the 'big' issues. Even after the big Civil Rights push of the mid 60s, there was still a complete blind spot concerning women, and especially lesbians (almost a forbidden word). There was no sympathy for gay men, and I am not sure transgendered was even understood as an issue. There were some transvestites and so forth, but at that time, I would have to say it was only GL that had even the tiniest visibility. Bi? forget it. That was just promiscous behavior, and certainly not worth expending energy on.

First, women got together and started talking and doing and having a movement. Within that, the lesbian issue arose, and not always peacefully or quietly. It wasn't until the late 70s and early 80s that Lesbians and Gay Men started to work together, in spite of the problems between us. We didn't see many issues that were similar between us. We thought all gay men wanted was to have more sex with more partners and wanted to be able to have sex with kids. And they were men, too, which put them in the oppressor class. They thought we were too hung up on women's issues and stuff like that (and other things, I am sure), so there seemed to be no common ground. Also, this was in a time when separatism was common, so there was a huge mistrust of men in the women's movement, and especially in the radical lesbian movement.

What happened to get us over that? Well, one thing was AIDS, of course, but the groundwork was laid before that. It was laid on logic, in the end. We were all oppressed by the system. Not just women, not just lesbians, not just gay men, not just blacks, and hispanics, and asians, but all people of consience. So, when we all started to see that we were all oppressed by the same system, by the same people, by the same greed, we put aside our differences and came together as an all-embracing movement.

Some of that started with the ideas of open love in the 60s, where we found that it was ok to be open to other people, and love them, not just sexually (which is mostly what gets reported on), but as brothers and sisters, starting communes and communal projects. It was this love and the consequent understanding and embracing of differences that led eventually to us all recognizing ourselves in each other and then working together.

I know that is kind of disorganized and wandering, but I think the answer is in there somewhere.

As an example, I have a collegue at work who is a strict Morman, very conservative, total Bush supporter. Our group has normal email contact every day (we are spread across the globe), and we often discuss politics there. We were all left leaning till she joined our group. She objected to the politics in our daily chatter. Well, that made her a bit unpopular with all of us, since we enjoyed our morning banter about Bush and his evil minion, etc. So, one day we had a group lunch for all the people who were in our area. She sat next to me, and I dreaded that. She started out with some anti-Clinton remark out of the blue and I said, be careful, I can slam Bush as easily as you can slam Clinton. She then asked me (paraphrased), 'You know, my daugher couldn't get into graduate school because her position was given to a black girl who didn't even want to be there. How do you liberals explain and justify that, and what do you liberals think, anyway. All you want to do is give my money and life away to people who don't want to work for a living.' Anyway, very confrontational. I could have answered that in anger, and that is what she was looking for. Instead, I answered her question in a calm and quiet way, by just saying, liberals want every child to have health care. Liberals want every child to have an education. Liberals want every child to have enough to eat, a place to live and decent clothing. I acknowledged that there were problems in every means we can come up with to help the disadvantaged, but that did not make the attempt wrong.

This floored her, and she said, well that's what conservatives want. So, instead of getting into a rancorous argument, we found common ground and talked for an hour more about things we had in common, and things that showed we were the same, not enemies.

This is how it works. One person at a time. No rancor. Avoid the temptation to strike out. Find some common ground, start a small dialogue. One person at a time. Show them you are human, like they are, good and loving.

You can't do this if you have hate in your heart, so you have to start be recognizing everyone's humanity, and their sameness to you, not their differences. Then you have to genuinely love them as people, not necessarily their ideas or beliefs, but they themselves as beings just like you.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

[DuaneBidoux]

19. Those are just some thoughts, but some powerful ones.

If you are a physicists and spiritual (I've always thought it rare to find spiritual people in the hard sciences) can I ask if you have ever read or are familiar with Ken Wilber?

He is a philosopher who is influencing my life very heavily, and after reading what you wrote I am under the impression that he could speak to you. He is very tough reading, but I'm under the impression you could handle it. I truly see in him the mythologies of the future we need to unify as a species and make it through what is turning out to be perilous times for our species.

[hecate77]

22. I have never heard of him

My path has taken me from Catholicism to some kind of new age Christiantiy, to Buddhism, to Wicca, to Goddess, to Divine Mother and who knows where else. I no longer see much difference in the core beliefs of most religions, including Secular Humanism. I look everywhere I can for wisdom and truth. I find that in the end, acceptance of others (and that includes all of existence, not just humans) as partners in life is a better way than war, greed, destruction, and hatred.

As for science, well, let me put it this way. Science is one way of looking at the world. French is another. Spirituality is another. You would not try to describe all the kinds of snow and ice using French, when Eskimo could do such a better job. You would not try to describe the behavior of a particle on a trajectory using religion when science can do so much better. Each is just a way of looking at the world. No one way can explain everything. Each way of looking has its own unique strengths and also has deep weaknesses. Science can explain the physical, measurable world in a very deep and succinct way. Science has nothing at all to say about where it all came from, if anywhere. Science has nothing at all to say about the meaning of life. Religion has nothing at all to say about the structure of space-time. Mathematics is not a good tool for understanding the Russian language.

So, although I am a theoretical physicist (General relativity), I also have beliefs about the nature of our existence, our spirituality, and all that. There is no conflict, since I do not look to religious or spiritual beliefs to help me identify a dinosaur bone, or calculate the age of the universe, nor do I look to science to tell me how to be a good person.

I think you will find a lot more (hard) scientists have a deeper spirituality than you might expect. After all, not every Christian uses their bible to tell them about geology (they use it for moral guidance instead), and not every scientist uses Newton's Principia to tell them about their soul. They really are two completely different and completely compatible areas if you do not confuse them the way so many fundamentalist, 'Bible is absolute truty as written, period', Christians do. That doesn't make them bad, just misguided and cut off from so much more of the world than they need to be. How much richer is faith when it does not have to be proven at every turn of the wheel. How much deeper is belief when you do not have to force everyone else to believe as you do in order for you to be comfortable.

[DuaneBidoux]

24. You REALLY should read Ken Wilber based on what you're telling me.

I am currently reading, and would recommend Sex, Ecology,Spirituality; the spirit of evolution.

Hope you will take the time to read this:

Basics (so far):
Everything is a holon. Holons are whole parts, and whole parts exist infinitely down and infinitely up. I am a Holon. A part of my family, but a whole of a human being. "This" (the word)is a holon. A whole in its function as a word by itself, a part in its function as part of a sentence. A molecule is a holon: whole as a molecule, part of something larger, maybe an organism. Holons exist infinitely back in time, and infinitely forward in time, and infinitely bigger and infinitely smaller.

All Holons, display four main characteristics: the drive toward autonomy, the drive to community. These two drives are on the same axis, on opposite ends, and always in tension. When healthy the tension keeps the holon somewhere in the middle. Society as a holon enters the pathology of fascism when the characteristic of autonomy begins to engulf the value structure of society. A religious cult is a holon that has gone pathologically communal (subsuming the autonomy of the individual).

The other two main characteristics are a drive toward transcendence (stepping up to the next level of evolution which enfolds yet negates all prior levels), and a drive toward dissolution (or if you wish devolution). transcendence and devolution are opposites, always in tension, on the same axis. If we become extremely healthy (as a society, or a person, or any holon) and have taken care of pathologies at more fundamental levels we may transcend ourselves. If we experience much external pressure and we are not adequately healthy to handle it, we may devolve, or regress into a lower level. No level is finally privileged or finally earned. All holons are always capable of either transcendence or devolution, given the right circumstances.

All holons have four perspectives: I, we, it, they. Since The Enlightenment The I and we perspective have been overwhelmed by the it and they perspectives in post modern post structuralist society. The scientific domains are the domains of it and they. Everything is studied, surfaces are studied, even when science thinks it studies depth it studies but surfaces, and negates the I and the we. The brain is studied, but even if you cut it open and look at it, it tells you nothing about the experiences of the "I" it used to be. You are still studying surfaces. The experience of the "I" is the depth, and it can not be studied or understood using the perspective of the it. It is simply not touchable or understandable from the it or they perspective.

Society is analyzed and patterns are found, but it tells us nothing about the "we" that is society. And yet, that doesn't negate the importance of the it and they. But things have become unbalanced--the it and they domains have taken over and told educated people that there are no facts or realities that can not be explained except in these two domains (it is not "empirical" otherwise). But it leads to understanding without meaning. It leads to nihilism (it leads he would say, to the kind of religious fundamentalist backlash and return to tribalism that the world is now witnessing). I will not allow you to explain my love for my wife in terms of a biochemical reaction in my brain. From the "it" perspective that may be reality, but without considering the "I" perspective (my perspective) you negate that love and make it meaningless.

All four of these domains have truth and meaning. But society has become dominated by the it and they since the scientific revolution.

I grew up fundamentalist and became a Unitarian. But I've always struggled. My path in education took me toward a nihilistic view--a world in which all was valid but nothing was worthy. This is the first philosopher I have ever read that looks like he may actually create a philosophy of existence that unifies into a coherent working organism for all modes of being and knowing.

[Fridays Child]

8. At least some of it is RW media driven. Hate Radio and Hate TV.

To riff on an old adage, "the hand that holds the microphone rules the world."

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. Some common misperceptions I've heard

Many think all GBLT people molest children. This is because, I'm sure, the big scandals about gay priests and the like, which gets more attention than the adult men who prey on little girls. It would be interesting to give people statistics on pedophiles, and how many are heterosexual-and also how many homosexuals NEVER prey on children.

Another misconception I've heard is that GBLT people "recruit" people into their ranks. I know for a fact this isn't so, because my GBLT friends have never hit on me and show me the respect I show to them. This notion goes along with the idea that homosexuality is somehow a "learned" behavior that can be "corrected"....I tell friends if homosexuality is "learned" than so are my blue myopic eyes and brown hair!

The third misconception I've heard is that gay/lesbian parters have a different relationship than heterosexual couples-that somehow they aren't concerned about jobs, taxes, repairs on the house, etc, etc. This always comes from people who don't live around gay couples, or don't know that the people down the street sharing a house are life partners.

[zalinda]

13. It's very simple

You must find another group of people that they can hate. Everyone wants to be better than someone else. Every group of people seem to take their turn at being at the bottom, except maybe white Englishmen. The trick now is to find a group that you can put at the bottom. My pick, the rabid right. You would have to know your bible, and be able to quote a passage and then quote something that the rabid right has done that is against the passage. Use the bible against them and they can't dispute it.

zalinda

[DuaneBidoux]

20. Yea' that's a real solution.

[DawnneOBTS]

15. Think about it

Freepers like to blame everyone else for their problems-they could NEVER cause anything to go wrong on their own. Their spiritual leader, remember, Jerky Fuckwell said that the reason for 9/11 were God's punishment for gays, lesbians, and feminists, which he DEFENDED on Meet The Press, where poor Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jim Wallis had to sit at the same table as him and the fat-assed president of the SBC, along with Russert (as if that wasn't bad enough).

[kweerwolf]

18. Here's an interesting study on prejudice ...

Homophobia 'Hard-Wired' Into Brain Study Claims

http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/05/052605prejudice.htm

Neuberg and Cottrell had 235 European American students at ASU think about nine different groups: gay men, activist feminists, African Americans, Asian Americans, European Americans, fundamentalist Christians, Mexican Americans, Native Americans and nonfundamentalist Christians.

The researchers then had the participants rate these groups on the threats they pose to American society (e.g., to physical safety, values, health, etc.) and report the emotions they felt toward these groups (e.g., fear, anger, disgust, pity, etc.). Consistent with the researchers' hypotheses, findings revealed that distinct prejudices exist toward different groups of people. Some groups elicited prejudices characterized largely by fear, others by disgust, others by anger, and so on. Moreover, the different "flavors" of prejudice were associated with different patterns of perceived threat.

Follow-up work further shows that these different prejudices motivate inclinations toward different kinds of discrimination, in ways apparently aimed at reducing the perceived threat. "Groups seen as posing threats to physical safety elicit fear and self-protective actions, groups seen as choosing to take more than they give elicit anger and inclinations toward aggression, and groups seen as posing health threats elicit disgust and the desire to avoid close physical contact," says Cottrell.

"One important practical implication of this research is that we may need to create different interventions to reduce inappropriate prejudices against different groups," says Neuberg.

<snip>

Neuberg and Cottrell are both adamant to point out that just because prejudices are a fundamental and natural part of what makes us human, that doesn't mean that learning can't take place and that responses can't be dampened.

[DuaneBidoux]

21. thanks for posting. n/t

[khashka]

26. Those are such really good questions

I've thought about this a lot. I've worked in gay politics. I've worked with fundie Baptists, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, Young Republicans.

This is what it seems to me right now: The issue isn't what we do in bed, it is that we are traitors to our gender. It doesn't depend on a piece of scripture or a political stance or anything else except a deep and unexamined belief in the absolute reality of gender. But gender is a social construction (and since I'm an essentialist that's a major admission).

This is why I try to make common ground with transpeople, feminists, and others. It's all the same thing, whatever excuse is given. It's also why I hate assimilationists.

I don't know how to change this. Education? Best bet it seems but so so slow.

I have tried so hard at this at great personal loss (but I accept this loss gladly) and maybe I have defined the question. But what I really want is the answer. That's harder.


Khash.

[TaleWgnDg]

27. You asked . . .

.
You asked . . .

"We must get a handle on WHY people are anti-GLBT . . .

"I've been thinking about this a great deal lately and started to realize that it is now exactly the same people who fought against rights for black people who are fighting against GLBT rights. And in many ways they are using the same arguments ('Biblical' and 'moral')."

And my answer . . .

Those who debased and lynched and enslaved blacks from 1619 to beyond the Civil Rights laws of the mid-1960s, did so while citing biblical words. It wasn't until Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. said (paraphrase) that God created black men, women and children in His own image thus God could not be wrong, that black civil rights took a positive turn.

Of course, those making a living off debasing blacks had to re-think their breadbasket ticket. Thus, the *new* American scapegoat and meal ticket - homosexuals - for those who make their livings off such demonization.

Where is the new Martin Luther King Jr. who can stop demonization of homosexuals? Who can and will step forward and place homosexuals in a positive light of God as Reverend King did for blacks?

On the other hand and whether another MLKJr is necessary or not, gay civil rights are human rights that are fundamentally fair and equitable. Thus, litigation will continue to challenge those who oppose gay civil rights.




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