to really not get why some people hate gays?

[wilfsfrozenbanana]

Just seen this article about an opera singer in Australia who wrote on facebook that gays are "faecal masses" and that she is pleased when they get their jaws broken. See here; www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/23/soprano-tamar-iveri-dropped-opera-australia-anti-gay

I just don't get this visceral hatred of gays. It's nobody else's business what people do sexually in their bedroom. Why so much hatred for people because of their sexuality?

No I really don't get it either.

I think parents have a responsibility to teach their children about the equality of homosexuality and heterosexuality from a young age. Future generations really should be different.

My dc are 8, 5 and 3 and we have always made it clear to them that men can love men, women can love women, you can get 2 mums and 2 dads, as well as the more common man/woman mum/dad scenario.

If they grow up knowing this is normal natural and good then hopefully future gay people won't suffer so much. Any of our dc could grow up to be gay, I don't want them spending their lives feeling wrong or different.

I think real hatred towards gay people (as oppose to vague discomfort/awkwardness/not really thinking things through) is reasonably rare. I haven't seen much of it anyway.

What I have seen is completely unexplainable and very frightening. I have no idea where it comes from. It definitely isn't religion.

It's 3 of my aunts and 3 of my uncles. The aunts are sisters but the uncles aren't related. I just don't know how or why they can be so extreme. One of my aunts in particular; 'no gay's ever going to set foot in my house'. Oh, and her husband; 'if any of my kids were gay they could just get out. Not happening.' And another uncle; 'I'd line them all up against the wall and shoot them.' Completely chilling and very weird.

These are attitudes from a group in middle aged, atheist, well educated, generally egalitarian, friendly, liberal people. So strange.

In most cases is just stupid rant. Rude, unreasonable, but i don't think to would they do that in reality.
And most so called homophobes these days simply don't give a shit, they have gay co-workers, neighbours, even friends, just don't like their sexuality shoved into their faces.
Like i had a conversation with one guy. He asked i i've been to a certain nightclub. I said no, it is a gay club. He said "i am not a homophobe, i have no problem going to a gay club." So, if i don't care going to gay clubs makes me a homophobe?
Also i don't believe in teaching children about homosexuality at such young ages where they don't really grasp the idea of sexuality at all. Teenagers, fine, but not 5yos.

Going back to religions, Christians believe in New Testament, but over 2000 years many things has changed, like we now know slavery is wrong. In islamic countries they still stone or hang people for homosexuality, but PC brigade never accuses Muslims of being bigots or demand gay marriage in Mosques. Isn't that double standard?

Also i don't believe in teaching children about homosexuality at such young ages where they don't really grasp the idea of sexuality at all. Teenagers, fine, but not 5yos

But why? You don't need to "teach children about homosexuality" in any other way that telling them its perfectly normal.

My daughter is 7 and knows some boys love boys and some boys love girls, some girls love girls and some girls love boys. All exactly the same. IMO its utterly the best age to be instilling knowledge of this type.

Back to the OP, my gay professional opera singer friend posted a link on FB with "she really chose the wrong career darlings"

I agree House - young children are very accepting of things until their parents'/other people's/society's views are inflicted upon them.

Totally different topic but I watched a very sad video of some small children, only aged about 5 I think, being shown 2 dolls, a black doll and a white doll, and asked which they preferred and why. Nearly all of them preferred the white doll, including all the non-white children, because they had had it put into their heads that non-white skin = bad, white skin = better. So very very sad to see.

Let them know that it is natural, normal, just the way things are in some people's families from a very early age and they won't start to think that anything is "wrong".

Never met a gay man who wasn't bitchy and backstabby and two faced

WTF???!!!

I disagree it comes from religion. Athiests and agnostics are just as homophobic, in my experience as an athiest.

Where does it come from? Home and schools. From the poster who will not explain same sex relationships to a young child to the poster who explains kids use gay all the time but makes mention of lecturing pupils while not actually carrying out sanctions.

It is banned at DS's school. He never uses gay as a negative, nor do his friends, at home, online or at school, because school got rid of the culture. Yet people let their kids do it and let their pupils do it.

Zero tolerance on homophobia. Stop blaming it on some tiny group of Christians and look at wider society.

ostracising and vilifying people who are 'different' whether they be black, gay, fat, French, spectacle wearer, benefits claimant, helps 'bond' everyone else, It appeals to our tribal instinct.

Agree
"Zero tolerance on homophobia. Stop blaming it on some tiny group of Christians and look at wider society."
things only get into religeon because people believed it at the time, so the hatered existed before the religeon did.

Don't forget places like prisons, sometimes boarding schools or military -- where homosexuality is sort of forced and in very unromantic way. So some people do have this very negative association.

As opposed to heterosexual rape, which is forced in a very unromantic way across the whole of society?

Some truth among men as a group - homophobia, the fear that gay men will treat you the way you treat women.

I don't get it either. It doesn't bother me in the slightest what sexual preference people have.

I do work with prejudiced people though and their reasoning is that 'it means people won't have children' (that came from a deeply religious person) and 'it's not safe to be around them' (that came from two over-fifties married men).

I was lost for words.

Dog I think the word you're looking for in your post of 16.53 is "rape", not "homosexuality" and it's an equally vile act when it's a man forcing it on a man, a man forcing it on a woman or a woman sexually assaulting (the distinction here is a legal one, not a moral one) a man or another woman.

As a teacher, I've discussed this quite a lot in PSHCE lessons. One thing that comes up a lot is the reaction 'eurgh', which I really think must be learned behaviour based on the reaction of family members. When I ask them why they react like this, they often can't articulate it and say 'it's odd' or 'it's weird'. I'm wondering if this vague sense of it being unnatural does stem from Christian or other indoctrination filtering down through the generations. We might not identify it as Christian or religious in origin, but those ideas of it being somehow odd certainly tie in with the bible's message that it is 'an abomination'.

It's probably no coincidence that as this country has become less religious (according to the census, anyway) that it has become more tolerant. In countries where homosexuality is outlawed, religion seems to be a bigger part of their lives.

In case there is any doubt, I am utterly atheist and totally pro-LGBT rights.

We still have academics arguing that King James and George Villiers were just good friends (with secret passage ways between their bedrooms and letters on how they love to take the other as a mistress) and the erasure of John Benson's 'editing' of Shakespeare's sonnets - literally changing pronouns of who Shakespeare was talking to - is completely ignored and uncorrected to this generation. Erase the past, mock the present, one damages any hopes of a future where one can see themselves as safe an equal and where other can see them to help them work for and the result is the dismissal and division those maintaining the system thrive on.

We still live in a society where the representation of people who are not straight is incredibly poor both in quality and quantity across media, education, and so on and what we have left at this time feeds into the damaging stereotypes, jokes, erasures, and fetishization that feed into other systems that reduces people into who they have sex with ignoring the far larger parts of relationships and identities. Along with bisexual people being erased or turned into toggles, pansexuals being made into jokes about cookware, and asexuals main representation is how allosexuals people find them weird and unnatural, it's no wonder that progress in creating equality isn't really moving forward and people can easily find mainstream stuff that agrees with the disgust they have grown.

Its up to supply and demand. Non-heterosexual orientations were at least 50%, media representation would be different.

SarcyMare I agree that "things only get into religion because people believed it at the time". The reason I go on about it is that organised religion has kept homophobia going while we've been trying to wipe it out. People can say "look it says right there that god hates gay people so it must be right." and "the bible must be the word of god because a billion believers can't be wrong".

I know DogCalledRudis and others argue that it's the old testament and no one believes that, but that's daft because so are the 10 commandments.

It's not "some tiny group of Christians" either as discriminating against homosexuals is the policy of major religions to this day. Not every Christian hates gay people, but they belong to churches which teach that they should treat them as less equal and all carry around the book which contains god saying they should be killed.

DogCalledRudis you said In islamic countries they still stone or hang people for homosexuality

Okay firstly you agree with me then that religion encourages homophobia. I never said "Just Christians". In fact I have said many times on here that Islam is worse than the watered down Christianity we have nowadays.

but PC brigade never accuses Muslims of being bigots. Muslims are being called bigots all over the place. That's why they invented the word Islamaphobia, to indicate people who don't like the way their religion treats gay people, women and children. Go in the Muslim Tea Room and tell them they are lucky because they are never criticised.

As for demand gay marriage in Mosques. I don't recall us demanding gay marriage in churches either. The recent fight was over the Christian church insisting that two non-christian gay people shouldn't be allowed to get married in a registry office.

One of my brother's used to often make homophobic remarks but when he was eight, a man in his probable fifties exposed himself to my brother in a busy railway station toilet and asked him to 'touch it'. He didn't of course but came out crying and my dad charged in there looking like a bull with steam coming out of his ears. We heard some shouting and I'm pretty sure Dad would have come out with something homophobic. Dad hadn't gone in there with him that time because I was there and he wanted to make sure I was safe when I came out of the ladies. My brother has never forgotten it ... my husband has a similar story from about the same age or a bit older from a man on a crowded bus.

It's important to know the difference between a child molester and a homosexual.