Trying to undo our generation's openmindedness
| By KevinCollins - Mar 4th, 2005 at 10:29 pm EST |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Sarah Wildman of TAPPED points out an effort what is essentially the anti-PFLAG. The group is called PFOX -- Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays. They're starting "Ex-Gay Clubs," the opposite of gay-straight alliances.
Opposition to gay rights fundementally rests on the notion that sexuality is a choice rather than an inherent fact of being. Once the latter is accepted, all legal discrimination against LGBT people must inevitably be accepted for what it is: ugly, hateful, unconstitutional discrimnation. As with those who supported laws discriminating against women and people of color, the anti-gay movement is trying to establish psuedoscience to try to justify their actions. Hence conservatives are pushing "conversion therapy" to further the idea that sexuality is a choice rather than innate and thus fair game for de jure discrimination.
However, our generation more than any before it -- gay and straight alike -- is rejecting this hateful ideology. "Ex-Gay Clubs" are just one desperate effort to push this psuedoscience onto impressionable high school students, a futile attempt to turn back the clock and the tide of popular support for LGBT civil rights.
What's next? Phrenology societies?
Opposition to gay rights fundementally rests on the notion that sexuality is a choice rather than an inherent fact of being. Once the latter is accepted, all legal discrimination against LGBT people must inevitably be accepted for what it is: ugly, hateful, unconstitutional discrimnation. As with those who supported laws discriminating against women and people of color, the anti-gay movement is trying to establish psuedoscience to try to justify their actions. Hence conservatives are pushing "conversion therapy" to further the idea that sexuality is a choice rather than innate and thus fair game for de jure discrimination.
However, our generation more than any before it -- gay and straight alike -- is rejecting this hateful ideology. "Ex-Gay Clubs" are just one desperate effort to push this psuedoscience onto impressionable high school students, a futile attempt to turn back the clock and the tide of popular support for LGBT civil rights.
What's next? Phrenology societies?
!
Comments are closed for this post.
fail
to mention that thet there is almost NO hard
science to support your claim that
homosexuality
is inate.....You seem to imply that science
must
support the biological theory, but can you
support
this? Better minds than yours have tried and
failed. It is also not a foregone fact that
homosexuality will eventually be accepted
widely
by society. In fact I believe that it never
will
gain widespread acceptance as it is contrary
to
human nature and intuition.
Thus as a mental disorder it can be treated.
PFOX
is simply trying to help folks who are
mentally
ill. How could you oppose helping sick people?
fail
to mention that thet there is almost NO hard
science to support your claim that
homosexuality
is inate.....You seem to imply that science
must
support the biological theory, but can you
support
this? Better minds than yours have tried and
failed. It is also not a foregone fact that
homosexuality will eventually be accepted
widely
by society. In fact I believe that it never
will
gain widespread acceptance as it is contrary
to
human nature and intuition.
Thus as a mental disorder it can be treated.
PFOX
is simply trying to help folks who are
mentally
ill. How could you oppose helping sick people?
It is also interesting to note that the arguments made by the right wing against gay marriage are strikingly similar to arguments it made for years against interracial marriage. Opposition to both is based on discrimination actuated by malevolent prejudice. In 1967, the Supreme Court overturned all bans against interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia, which Randall Kennedy of Harvard Law has termed "the most aptly titled decision in all of American law." Strikingly, in affirming that gays have marriage rights, the Massachusetts Judicial Court in November, 2003, referred to Loving repeatedly. The point it was emphasizing is that the struggle against racism and the struggle against sexual discrimination (against gays and lesbians) are linked. Those who opposed interracial marriage and integration argued that society would collapse if we allowed blacks to participate on equal terms with whites. The rhetoric is strikingly similar to the demonization of gay and lesbian couples as "unnatural." Just as miscegination died with time, so too will the prejudice against gays and lesbians. Today, no self-respecting person would even think of making a prejudicial comment against an interracial couple. With time, the same will be true with respect to gays and lesbians. The arc of history indeed tends toward justice.