Homophobia refers to prejudice, fear, or dislike toward people who identify as or are perceived to be lesbian, gay, or bisexual. This bias can manifest in negative attitudes, discriminatory behavior, or harmful actions against individuals based on their sexual orientation. It can arise from cultural, social, or personal beliefs and may lead to exclusion, harassment, or violence directed at LGBTQ+ individuals.
“People have free will, and they make choices that determine their fate. Luke chose to stay and help Karen. You chose to get in the car. No one is blaming you for the choice that you made, but you have to accept responsibility for making it, because only then can you fully receive the forgiveness your heart needs to heal.”
— Monica/ Touched by an Angel/ Season 3, Episode 16 (“Crisis of Faith”)
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or antipathy, may be based on irrational fear and may sometimes be attributed to religious beliefs. Homophobia is observable in critical and hostile behavior such as discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientations that are non-heterosexual.
Boys Beware, a 1961 US social guidance film warning boys to beware the “predatory” dangers of homosexual men. The film pushes the common homophobic tropes that homosexuality is a mental illness, and that gay men are pedophiles.
Homophobia refers to prejudice, fear, or dislike toward people who identify as or are perceived to be lesbian, gay, or bisexual. This bias can manifest in negative attitudes, discriminatory behavior, or harmful actions against individuals based on their sexual orientation. It can arise from cultural, social, or personal beliefs and may lead to exclusion, harassment, or violence directed at LGBTQ+ individuals.
“Harvey Milk and His Legacy” In 1974, Harvey Milk was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, becoming the first openly gay elected official in California history. On November 27, 1978 he was shot and killed, along with beloved Mayor George Moscone, by Dan White, another city supervisor. Since his landmark years of service, San Franciscans have been represented in City Hall and the state legislature by out and proud LGBTQ+ officials, including people like Mark Leno, David Campos, and Scott Weiner. Two of the city’s most important political organizations are focused on LGBTQ+ issues, and are named in honor of local queer icons: Harvey Milk himself and Alice B. Toklas. These groups wield tremendous influence, meaning that the LGBTQ+ community always has a seat at the table when major decisions are being made in San Francisco.
Indeed, religion allows people to imagine that their concerns are moral when they are highly immoral – that is, when pressing these concerns inflicts unnecessary and appalling suffering on innocent human beings. This explains why Christians like yourself expend more “moral” energy opposing abortion than fighting genocide. It explains why you are more concerned about human embryos than about the lifesaving promise of stem-cell research. And it explains why you can preach against condom use in sub-Saharan Africa while millions die from AIDS there each year.
“The hardest part about my work is the fact that most people don’t want a real relationship with God. Yeah sure, they’ll pray to a man nailed to a cross, but they’ll ignore the gay kid who gets strung up, or the black man who gets dragged behind a car, or someone’s mother living in a box.”
