The Gay Love Coach

The Battle Against Homophobia

Date: 
08/08/2002
Teaser: 

This article is directed at the Catholic Church. While I have nothing against the Catholic Church, I believe that they are still major players in promoting homophobia. The only effective way to deal with homophobia like this is to go straight to the source and attack it. It is not meant to be offensive. I believe it is just the truth. This article is being written to help combat the homophobia that still remains in the church, particularly in the Catholic Church.

Source: 
ga_editor
notes: 
This is not strictly speaking an attack on the Catholic Church, nor is it intended as such. It is an attack on anybody who thinks homophobia is acceptable behavior. I am just using the church as an example because, although their attitude towards homosexuality is improving, some sections of the church are still major players in the argument against homosexuality.

In the last 20 years or so, gays have become accepted more and more in our community. But for many Christians, this is seen as a bad thing. You see, the Christian belief is that God thinks that being gay is a sin and is immoral. While most sections of the church have rejected this view and have started to accept gay and lesbian people as "normal" human beings, some parts of the Church have not kept up-to-date with these trends and have, unfortunately, stuck to their views.

But when you think about it, God has never said anything bad about being gay. There are some references to being gay in the Old and New Testament, these are not necessarily the words of God, but of the people who wrote these particular parts of the Bible. So the argument that "God thinks it's wrong" is not always strictly speaking true. In actual fact, the closest thing they have to using this argument is that the great floods where Noah made his famous Ark were done to rid the world of homosexuality. As far as I know, this is really no more than a rumor and that the real reason it happened was to rid the world of all sins.

But the thing is that God did not rid the world of homosexuality when he did this. There is evidence to suggest that being gay is not just a human thing, and that it is part of the lives of all living creatures. So maybe there is such a thing as a gay dog, as depicted in that classic South Park episode?

There is one thing that puzzles me even more, though. If the Christians are against gay people because they are gay, then why aren't they against "black" people because they are "black"? Or women because they are women? Or Jews because they are Jews? This makes absolutely no sense at all.

Basically, what this boils down to is that the Christians are trying to push their religion onto people who do not believe in it. While I respect people's right to choose their religion, I find it downright rude when they inflict their religion onto other people, particularly when they're not interested. I mean, what right do these people have to tell others how they should live their lives in this way?

It's just plain ridiculous. The only way to combat homophobia like this is for gay and lesbian people to speak out and stand up for their rights. Gay and lesbian people are just the same as everyone else in the sense that we are all human beings. Christians, we are sick and tired of your prejudice. We may be "different" from you, and you may not agree with our "lifestyle", but we ask you not to protest against us. We ask you not to try and "cure us" (it never actually works: the people you are curing are brainwashed into thinking they are not gay, are experiencing a change that was going to happen anyway, or they weren't gay in the first place). We ask you to stop telling us how we should be living our lives. We also ask you to stop promoting violence against gay people (Why does a god who loves everyone hate gay people?).

What we ask is that you accept us for the human beings that we are. We understand that you want to go back to the "good ol' days", where you thought you had control over everything, where you thought everything was working. But the honest truth is that this is not the early 1900's. People are rejecting the values you were (partly) responsible for. Do you want to know why? Because your system didn't work. Women were in the kitchen, "black" people were separated from "white", gay people were bashed and left for dead. Do you call this a system that works?

Governments are starting to catch up with the issues of the gay community. Already, all states and territories in Australia have anti-discrimination laws against gays. Many US states are the same, and many more are following suit. Don't be surprised if you are forced to accept gay couples for marriage. Your gay protest marches may be deemed illegal, in the same way that pro-gay marches were illegal all those years ago. Discrimination against gay people is wrong. It will always be wrong. Homophobia may soon be a thing of the past.

© Tim Kerslake 2002