OI! Homophobes! Over here!

[ooojimaflip]

I'm genuinly interested in why you object to homosexuality, and everytime I ask on the other thread it gets lost in the general hubbub.

So - name change if you want, but please tell me what your objections are?

If it's because it's not natural or against biology, please expand your answer to include why you care about that.

Show your working for extra credit.

n.b. Don't bother if it's a religous justification, you'll need to find someone who believes in that kind of stuff to debate with as I'll just dismiss that out of hand. If you are a homopohbic religous person with a secular objection then please go ahead.

OK sorry I am late in responding pooexplosions - hectic weekend.

Why do some rules get ignored and others not?

Well, firstly can I point out that Christians can really varey in what they believe and how they interpret things. That is us just being humans. Secondly I dont know what Catholics beileve or do so I cant speak for them either. Thirdly some people who cliam to be Christians mean they are raised in a christian society and do not necessarily mean they have a personal relationship with Christ.

Ok that is all the technical side over and done with. Now to my own views. Some things are no longer necessary because of Christs death. For example, sacrifices as he was The Ultimate Sacrifice for our sins. Also when Christ came he taught us new ways. You have to remember that those 'rules' were guidlines for the people to live righteous lives at the time. Some things are mentioned throughout the bible though, before and after Christ. Acting out gay desires is one of these. I don't know what rules are being ignored to be honest. Sacrifices are like I said because the ultimate sacfirife has been made now already for us if we chose to accept it. I don't think anything should be ignored as such.

It's a tough one to be honest because different Christians have different opinions and really you would need to ask each one why they do what they do (or don't do) and Christians are unfortunately as flawed as everyone else and wil very often get it wrong. We can all only do what we think is right and do our best.

Blu said earlier about my son knowing he wouldn't be as accepted if he came out gay or something along those lines. Can I say that I have gay family members. I love them and their partners to bits. It doesn't make a difference to how I feel about them or how I treat them. If my son felt at all rejected or thought of differently because he chose something in his life that I would not chose then I will have seriously failed as a parent. No matter what he does he will always be my baby. My faith is a personal thing. I know he has to make his own choises and he may not chose the same route I have. He will still be my diamond.

great post hester

I'm really truly shocked. This thread was quite nasty reading yesterday but I feel like a line has been crossed today.

All of this 'leftie PC brigade' whining is bullshit. Total utter bullshit.

It comes down to basic human rights.
Sexual preference of an individual should have no bearing on basic rights, and as such expecting certain members of society to keep quiet/lie/hide etc is discriminatory and utterly uncalled for.

daftpunk - I've read a lot of things on mumsnet that you have posted and that I have disagreed with and tend to have a fairly easygoing attitude to differing opinions, but your comment today about 'respect' (that was deleted - good call HQ) was vile. You should be ashamed.

at work yesterday i found out a young man hanged himself a few days ago because he came out, and his parents had disowned him. he had recently split with his partner and was alone in his pain.

why is a life worth that? who give a flying fuck about who a person chooses to sleep with? what is wrong with some people? people are just people. what decent person despises someone because of who they love?

hester;

tres sorry for not replying to you yesterday...

(was getting stoned myself)

have taken in everything you said...honestly..

i'm not friends with anyone on MN....i have spoken to LG about 6 or 7 times..about nothing much...she's just someone i talk to on here....

i am a loner...

but i have listened to you...

if children have love,affirmation,cuddles why care whether hetro or gay parents raise the children

good parenting is attitudinal and behavioural.and good parents should be valued not vilified for personal partner preference

To lighten the mood. I read this and thought DP might approve.

Church bans 'Deck The Halls' for being too gay

(Yes.. I know it's a spoof, but I had to laugh at Randy Pillock)

I really, truly, cannot understand why anyone cares what other people get up to in the bedroom! I mean - how does it affect someone in any way whether someone else sleeps with men, women or both?

I wouldn't sleep with a woman, the idea turns me off. But I don't give a monkeys if some other woman chooses to - it just doesn't matter to my life!

I do think it is genetic. Genes control everything about us -physically, our personality... so it makes sense to me that our sexuality is also genetic.

When you look at it that way, you can no more feel it's 'wrong' than to feel that having blue eyes is wrong, or black skin is wrong, or to go grey in later life is wrong.

I just want to say to anyone on this thread who is of the opinion that being gay is something that you can change that you are very wrong and amazingly ignorant. I posted on abother similar thread about my son who came out when he was 16, and did so in a very dramatic way. Slitting his wrists and overdosing, mainly because of totally ignorant and narrowminded people. He was afraid what other people would say and think of him. He hated being gay and has only in the last few years accepted his sexuality.

I also object strongly to the poster who suggested that its something to do with the childs upbinging, i'm deeply offended.

Oh and also the poster who said that gays were pretty much not good for anything, what a load of sh**e! My ds works as a carer at our local hospital and does a fantastic job, he is extremely caring and commited to the people he works with.

kaylasmum, your ds sounds lovely!

Daftpunk, you have made the point that you would not speak in RL to people in the same way as you do here.

Well, just because this is an internet forum doesn't mean that you aren't talking to real people with real feelings. Shouldn't you exercise the same restraint that you do in RL?

listen, i am exactly the same in RL as i am on here...

when you meet someone for the first time, you don't immidiately start talking about your prejudices do you...

if i met someone that was 20 stone and not too hot looking...i wouldn't say

" nice to meet you you big fat ugly cow"

would i...?

plus, i have said, if i got to know a lesbian i would tell her how i felt about homosexuality if we got closer...

Your poor son Kaylasmum I'm glad he's ok now.

Dp & others - I guess it's really easy to see gays & lesbians as some unnatural faceless sex-obsessed mob of perverts out to corrupt & recruit. Bollocks.

We work & pay taxes. We help out on school trips & trawl round Sainsburys & clean up our pukey babies & organise playdates for our DCs. Sound familiar at all?

Of course you have the right to disapprove & to not want your DCs to know we exist. But there must be very few schools now - urban ones at least - without at least one child of gay parents, so I don't think you're being very realistic. And if a child came up to my DD and said "My mum says your mums are bad", then she would be devastated and I would make quite sure that all hell broke loose.

daftpunk Wed 16-Dec-09 11:50:30

"when you meet someone for the first time, you don't immidiately start talking about your prejudices do you...

if i met someone that was 20 stone and not too hot looking...i wouldn't say

" nice to meet you you big fat ugly cow" "

Well perhaps that is a difference for most of us- we wouldn't be thinking that either. And just out of interest, would you tell her when you got to know her better?

well surely her point was more that the anonymity of a forum means we all speak like we wouldn't in real life. And I think if you are going to start calling for DP to restrain herself from airing her views then you should only do that once you have asked every other poster to do the same.

I was talking to DH about this a few nights ago. As I mentioned earlier on the thread, he is self confessed homophobe. Although he has gay friends and accpets my gay friend. So he is not as homophobic to attack them/bully them. He just believed taht is wrong.

He still has no reason as to why it is wrong, and listened to all my points about it being natrual and says he already knew that, but there is just something about it that feels wrong to him and used to make him feel uncomfortable.

He now says that he is much happier with homosexuality and that it doesn't bother him in the slightest. This is since he changed teams at work and the team he is now has more homosexual members than hetrosexuals. He says that they are different to how he thought they would be and they don't talk about sex all the time (like he thought they would).

So I think 99% of predjudice is down to ignorance. Dh didn't know what to expect of homosexuals. He had only ever met his friend who is more of an accquiantance and my friend who does talk about sex with me, because that is the nature of our relationship. He is my best friend and we share a lot . Now he met a more rounded group of people, he no problem at all with it.

My 2 best friends are gay, one of them is very camp the other is what most people call 'normal'.

When we go out on the town I have witnessed 2 types of homophobia, the obvious nasty bigotted stuff when jeers and dirty looks are drawn because the 'gayer' of the 2 is dancing/singing or walking like a poof but it's the other kind that annoys us more the bloody patronising kind where a girl (usually) decides that because he is gay that he is so fantastic and parades him around like a handbag claiming she has always wanted a gay friend !

To all the homophobs out there, I'd like to know if you actually have any gay/lesbian friends or family? And how do you treat them?

My godmother is a lesbian and my godfather is gay and both are lovely, not because of tehir sexuality but because they are decent human beings and that's all I'm concerned about.

exactly Mayorquimby;

every single person on here has an opinion....if they haven't, what's the point of being here...?

i've been here long enough to know the posters who have a bit of savvy....

thankfully a few of them have posted on this thread....

I think that if it's shown anything it's that:-

a) not many people will admit to being homophobic on mumsnet.
b) None of them will hang about to discuss why, except Daftpunk.

So, overall I don't think this thread has acheived what I wanted.

Daftpunks reasons seem to be, at root, mainly religous, which is a pity as I personally can't debate that. There weren't any any strongly secular homophobes who actually anwered follow up questions.

(apologies if someone did and I missed it).

We seemed to end up with a few common arguments:-

1. The argument from religon. I have nothing to say about this.

2. The argument from nature. This is all the points about animal behavior, what bits fit where, evolutionary success etc. Bits have been debunked by various people, but the whole argument seems spurious unless someone explains why what is natural should in any way be a guide to behaviour. If I've missed a someone giving a position on this please point me to it.

3. The argument from 'ick'. This is peoples gut feelings. Not liking to think about sexual behaviours that you would not like to participate in etc. This is fair enough - no one has to like everything. It doesn't seem to me to be a good enough reason to stop other people doing things.

4. The argument from risk. Aspects of Homosexual culture involve high risk behaviour, drugs, sex etc. I think there is a point to answer here, in that I think it's probably true that a higher proportion of gay people than straight people behave in this way. Whether a higher % of people behaving in this way are Gay I doubt though. But risky behaviour and homosexuality are not congruent, so it seems that this objection really need to be about behaviour rather than sexuality, so we really end up with a classical libertarian v communitarian argument.

5. The argument from worth to the community. This was only raised by one person who then pissed off. This is a complex question, and one that if we were to get into it would ineviatably spiral off into bankers v doleys etc. If anyone seriously wants to argue that gay people contribute less than other groups we probably need a new thread . Even if we were to conclude this was true, we need to decide this is a bad thing so your back to libertarian v communitarian again.

6. The argument from discomfort. Gay people have more difficult lives than straight people, therefore it is better to encourage people to be straight. I'm just not sure this is true at all, and if it is, a lot of it is related to being gay in a straight society.

7. The argument from externalities. That the right of people to in general do what they like with in the law is outweighed by the costs on inividuals and society at large that Homosexual behaviour imposes. Cost is not meant in purely monetary terms obviously.

Personally, I think that only 1, 2 and 3 are really about Homosexuality - the others are more to do with specific aspects of some Gay culture, the issues of being gay in a straight society etc. 3 seems clearly invalid, 1 is off limits, and 2 I haven't seen a secualar justification of.

There has probably been more discussion of how or whether to discuss this at all than actual discussion of the topic - we probably needed a meta-meta-meta-meta thread to discuss how this one should have been done

I'm sorry that people have been offended by things that have been said in a thread I started - I hope nothing I personally said was offensive.

Anyway, that's quite enough of all this for this year.

"it's the other kind that annoys us more the bloody patronising kind where a girl (usually) decides that because he is gay that he is so fantastic and parades him around like a handbag claiming she has always wanted a gay friend"

Just out of interest do gay people who play up to this equally annoy you or are they allowed to use their sexuallity how they want because it's theres? There was a trend a few years ago where by the media seemed to mistake being professionally gay for being talented (I'm thinking shows like queer eye,graham norton etc) where the focussed seemed to be the stars of these shows trading on being gay and camp. Now i have no problem with this (the idea that is,didn't find the shows particularly entertaining) but as you have voiced your distaste for vapid straight women using your friends sexuality as some sort of accessory or social badge,how do you feel about the gay men doing it themselves?
I'd agree that what these women and the media do is condescending and further than that damaging because it portrays the image that if your gay you have to be fabulously flamboyant and oh so chic which in reality must make it extremely tough for young normal guys to come out without being faced by prejudice.

you're right...quite enough for one year..

but just to finish off..

1. a person who thinks homosexuality is wrong due to religious/social reasons but leaves them alone (privacy of your own bedroon and all that)....is not homophobic.

2. a person who wants them all destroyed and discriminated against is homophobic.

that's it really....

....= no comprendo

www.thisislondon.co.uk/lifestyle/article-23783438-meet-the-gayjacents.do

exactly the kind of vapid bullshit article I'm trying to describe of a person who most likely thinks she is an all-accepting multi-cultural media trend setter when in reality she is just peddling moronic stereotypes in some sub-standard publication

lol...so true...

and so sad..

And point 3, dp:

In talking to your children, refusing to discuss relationships between people of the same sex on the same terms as you discuss relationships between straight people is discrimination, and therfore homophobic.

Goes round in circels. Again. Hmmm. No progress there, then!

Do you think that would be classed as homophobia? I'm not sure if I'd go that far. now while I'd disagree with a lot of daftpunks views and would put both gay and straight relationships on an equal footing when discussing it with my kids, I'm not sure if a failure to do so would amount to homophobia.
Surely a lot of parents will discuss their culture (be it a national,regional or racial identity) with greater warmth,knowledge and preference to their children. It doesn't automatically make them racist or xenophobic.
Ditto religion, if a parent raises a child to believe in a certain religion ahead of another.