On Homophobia

Some people think that gay marriage, or homosexuality in general, is a sign of the decline of morals and civilization. I think the true decline of morals and civilization is when someone, anyone, rejects a form of love in favor of hatred. Homosexuality is not simply about sex; it is about caring for and loving someone of the same sex. It is about wanting to spend your life with them, possibly raise a family, share goals and interests, grow old together. These are basic human desires regardless of how you label the human having them. In sharp contrast, anti-gay people want to deny these basic desires to a group of fellow human beings. In many cases they are willing to go so far as to choose hatred and bigotry for a group of people over love and support for their own family members, even their own children.

Looked at from another angle, would this ever be accepted as moral or civilized. Heterosexuality is not simply about sex; it is about caring for and loving someone of the opposite sex. It is about wanting to spend your life with them, possibly raise a family, share goals and interests, grow old together. These are basic human desires regardless of how you label the human having them. In sharp contrast, anti-straight people want to deny these basic desires to a group of fellow human beings. In many cases they are willing to go so far as to choose hatred and bigotry for a group of people over love and support for their own family members, even their own children.

Ridiculous sounding isn’t it? If you believe in science than you have to accept that people are born the way they are born; male, female, gay, straight, black, white, tall, short, fat, thin. These are things we may try to hide or change about ourselves but they are things we can’t change (without serious scientific interventions). If you believe in God then you have to ask yourself, “who am I to decide that God made a mistake?” because you can’t have it both ways. Either he created us all, or he didn’t create anything. Even more to the point, we should all be looking to ourselves to improve the things we can change; our attitudes towards others, our kindness and generosity, our setting aside of judgments of others. I am not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but what exactly happened to “do unto others as you would have others do unto you”? For any of those people wanting to deny something to someone else or worse, physically hurt them, have you ever stopped to ask yourself what you would want to have happen if the tables were turned? Perhaps you should start.