Trying to overcome my homophobia. (page 3)

baltar447

You'll need to get drunk and make out with another woman while being cheered by gay men. That's the ONLY WAY. And you'll also need to provide pics or ir didn't happen. :P

steve2

Hey Julia, I applaud your honesty. God knows it took me years to truly accept myself as being gay so who am I to quibble over others difficulties in this regard?

Besides, gays are no angels - each minority group has its far share of bigots and small minds. I have been astonished by the racism of some of my gay aquaintances and among men, the misogyny.

I recall from the stormy mists of my early adolescence in a strict JW-raised environment how I kidded myself that I was not gay and I would join in school yard anti-gay jokes. I'm ashamed to say that I also joined in with other peers at school in mercilessly teasing and mimicking a very effeminate young boy. He may not even have been gay but because he did not fit in with the expected stereotype of how boys should talk and act, he was an easy target. By contrast, I was never ever teased or taunted about 'being gay' because I fitted in with the straight 'stereotype' (no mincing or sashaying for me, honey! ).

Terry

All sorts of human psychology is possible simply due to nature.

We might be born with a natural inclination to set fires which is difficult for us to repress.

We might be born with sociopathy and be unable to feel empathy and compassion.

We might be born with an inclination toward attraction to sexual relations with children.

All the above described "natural" identities would be disapproved by most societies, if not all.

IS IT FAIR?

Shouldn't we give pyromaniacs, sociopaths, pediphiles a pass since they can't help being who they are?

Who are we to persecute people who can't help setting fires?

Aren't we insulting them by demanding they try for a psychiatric cure?

____________________________________________________

Obviously, the issue of homosexuality was greeted by most societies in the same regard as any of the above at one time.

Less so now.

The real question isn't our disinclination to accept OUT OF THE NORM nature in humans so much as it becomes a PRACTICAL

question of impact of such 'natural behavior' upon the rest of society.

Is it good, bad, neutral and how is it measured?

If we always go along with the majority we may not dig deep enough into such questions to understand them fundamentally.

When all is said and done, we live in a practical world. Causes and effects are real.

How we deal with them may be just as natural as any aberrations. Or not.

Band on the Run

Julia,

You have the right attitude and rational thinking. I was born-in and during the 1950s so society at large said it was evil. Sometimes people made fun of effeminate men but I was sheltered. My father would take us t see the sights in NY which included drive bys of the men's shelter with gay alcholics and drug addicts having sex on the street. It was gross.

Society started to change. I was drawn to fashion where gays worked in large numbers. A man in our neighborhood could not hide that he was gay. Despite the instant revulsion, I saw him on the bus and very gradually started to disbelieve the gay bashing in the WT and the Catholic church. One day I read the New York Times front page about a massive riot in Greenwich Village the night before. A gay club was raided by police and the gays fought back with violence. Lawyers, doctors, everyone came out of the closet. Also, for some reason, the straight Greenwich Village crowd in the area continuously witnessed the vice raids, which I never saw, and fought the police, too. Millionaires came out of their town houses with weapons to fight the vice squad.

This had never happened as far as anyone knew. Raids would happen and men would commit suicide or get impaled on iron stakes escaping from the shame of arrest and prison. I moved into Manhattan and started encountering masses of gay men. My bias did not change overnight.

I did not see it as my civil rights struggle. It was an interest but I had many interests. As more men came out, I realized how crazy the Witness teaching was. When I moved to Greenwich Village, I lived adjacent to gay central. One day I found I cared passionately even though I was heretosexual. I knew too many real people.

It takes time. Frankly, I can describe the same basic arc with my attitude towards black Americans. The more I met middle class blacks, the stereotypes crumbled. Now I am embarassed by what I believed. My family was hardly racist compared to other whites. Most Witnesses were black and hard working. I called old family friends "aunt" and "uncle." My parents would murder me if I disrespected a distinguished JW brother of long relationship. I was introduced as though it were a special treat for me. Unlike my white neighbors and JW relatives, these black Witnesses would bend down and welcome me warmly. They knew all about me. If I carried a doll, they asked me to introduce them to my baby doll. I fell in love. Individuals shatter stereotypes over time. My parents also made a point of driving us out of the ghetto to a town that had a freed black community since colonial times. We saw rows and rows of perfectly manicured lawns and nice homes. I could no longer believe the crap in the school ground b/c I saw with my own eyes as a young kid. The reality was that the middle class black neighborhood was 100 times nicer than the poor white trash area where we lived. The visual picture told the story.

If you don't have these experiences, it is harder. When I was younger, it was all right to make overly racist comments in society. As the civil rights movement gathered momentum, more and more white people risked the ire of other white people to say they were wrong. Making racist comments could cost relationships and business deals.

I don't know your age. This may be old news for you.

Your gut reaction should change with just a bit more time.

Scully

Mr Scully and I were talking about this sort of thing the other day. I was complaining that they didn't seem to have a problem showing lesbian relationships on shows like Grey's Anatomy, but I was wondering out loud why they weren't featuring male main characters in gay relationships. I said if they really wanted to make the point that they supported LGBT rights they had to do this.

It's one thing to make dramedy (drama/comedy) shows featuring gay relationships in the lead roles (like Desperate Housewives did), but it needs to happen on a serious show, with main characters, and needs to explore issues that pertain to these families - like adoption, surrogate parenting, marriage, divorce, etc.

fulltimestudent

Things change!

My GAY XJW friend lives in a small cul-de-sac (only five apartment blocks). I need to background something at this point. Apartment blocks in Sydney are managed by an Owner's Corporation, consisting of all those who own apartments (resident or not). An executive committee is elected each year to actually organise and to attempt to keep a semblance of order. It's often difficult to find people who are public spirited enough to do this work (its voluntary) without turning into dictators. In my friends street, three of the five blocks have secretaries who are gay or lesbian, they are the only ones who are publically spirited enough to keep doing this work year after year. Its not as if they have nothing else to do, they all seem to have active social and work lives.

Most importantly, from a social viewpoint, they are accepted by the neighbourhood. My friend tells me, that if he's walking in the street and passes a neighbour they will invariably ask after his partner.

Really, does it make any difference who anyone is sleeping with?

Of course it does not. And I think, as a national whole, Australians now recognise that fact. Polls show a consistently high acceptance (usually around 70%) for the rights of GLBT people to marry who they want. Who the bloody hell are Christians to deny anyone else a right?

And, in regard to the so-called 'yuck' factor about male2male sex, sociologists suggest that on any given night on our large cities, more str8 (M+F) are having anal sex than gay male couples, so maybe that 'yuck' factor covers something else, rather than real disgust at this sex act.

NewYork44M

The gay issue is one of the things that helped me understand TTATT.

There is no question that people are born gay. There was a young boy in our congregation that was "gay." He just was, and everyone understood this. But he also really loved the "truth." You can guess the outcome, he was eventually disfellowshipped for being gay; he also grew up to be a very respectable individual who I consider a friend. BTW, I a sure you know that you can be a gay jw, you just cannot have sex. How fair is that?

So, why could a loving god do this to a lad? There obviously is no answer, which was one of the many things that added to my ultimate decision to leave the organization.

laverite

Try not to be so hard on yourself, Julia. The fact that you care about this shows you are a good person. No need to worry... Your emotions will catch up over time. In the meantime, please keep letting gay folks buy birds from you. And just try not to worry about what you think or how you feel about gay people. You will continue to evolve. It's a process.

PS - I am gay and I adore birds.

Bella15

We tend to judge people whose supposedly "sin" is different than ours and when we add the JW doctrine into the mix boy! one really feels superior!!!

DJS

Julia,

I wonder. Do you have children? When I was an elder in WT land, I remember taking a look at my two beautiful amazing children and thinking to myself that if either turned out to be gay there wasn't a chance in hell I was going to eliminate them from my life. That was a defining moment in my life and one of the reasons I began my exit from JW land and Christianity. It didn't take me long.

I have lots of gay and bi sexual friends, and I don't give it any thought really. The type of person they are is all I care about. Actually bi girls are kinda sorta a requirement for me. ;=)

Trying to overcome my homophobia.

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