Societal attitudes towards homosexuality
Encyclopedia
Societal attitudes toward homosexuality vary greatly in different cultures and different historical periods, as do attitudes toward sexual desire, activity and relationships in general. All cultures have their own values regarding appropriate and inappropriate sexuality
; some sanction same-sex love and sexuality, while others disapprove of such activities. As with heterosexual behaviour, different sets of prescriptions and proscriptions may be given to individuals according to their gender
, age, social status
and/or class
. For example, among the samurai
class of pre-modern Japan, it was recommended for a teenage novice to enter into an erotic relationship with an older warrior (see Shudo), but sexual relations between the two became inappropriate once the boy came of age.
Most of the world's cultures have considered procreative sex within a recognized relationship to be a sexual norm — sometimes exclusively so, and sometimes alongside norms of same-sex love, whether passionate, intimate or sexual. Some religion
s, especially those influenced by the Abrahamic tradition, have traditionally censured homosexual acts and relationships, in some cases implementing severe punishments for offenders. Since the 1970s, much of the world has become more accepting of same-sex sexuality between partners of legal age
. The Pew Research Center
's 2007 Global Attitudes Survey found that "[p]eople in Africa and the Middle East strongly object to societal acceptance of homosexuality. Acceptance for homosexuality
and bisexuality
however is much higher in Western Europe
, Canada
, the United States
, Australia
, and New Zealand
. Many Latin American countries including Argentina
, Brazil
, Chile
, and Mexico
also have a gay-accepting majority. In fact, aside from South Africa, every country that has legalized either civil unions or same-sex marriage is located either in Europe, the Americas, or Oceania.
and gender
to other times and places; what looks like same-sex sexuality to a Western observer may not be "same-sex" or "sexual" at all to the people engaging in such behaviour. For example, in the Bugis
cultures of Sulawesi
, a female who dresses and works in a masculine fashion and marries a woman is seen as belonging to a third gender
; to the Bugis, their relationship is not homosexual (see sexual orientation and gender identity). In the case of 'Sambia' (a pseudonym
) boys in New Guinea who ingest the semen of older males to aid in their maturation, it is disputed whether this is best understood as a sexual act at all. In recent times, scholars have argued that notions of a homosexual and heterosexual identity, as they are currently known in the Western world, only began to emerge in Europe in the mid to late 19th century. Behaviors that today would be widely regarded as homosexual, at least in the West, enjoyed a degree of acceptance in around three quarters of the cultures surveyed in Patterns of Sexual Behavior (1951).
homosexuals. They are also more likely to have positive attitudes towards other minority groups and are less likely to support traditional gender roles. Several studies have also suggested that heterosexual females have strong likings toward gay men, and some (but not all) have found that heterosexual males have strong likings toward lesbians.
Social psychologists
such as Gregory Herek have examined underlying motivations for homophobia
(hostility toward lesbians and gays), and cultural theorists have noted how portrayals of homosexuality often center around stigmatized phenomena such as AIDS, pedophilia, and gender variance. The extent to which such portrayals are stereotype
s is disputed.
Contemporary researchers have measured attitudes held by heterosexuals toward gay men and lesbians in a number of different ways. Commonly used scales include those designed by Herek, Larson et al., Kite and Deaux and Haddock et al.
Certain populations are also found to accept homosexuality better than others. In the United States
, African-Americans are generally less tolerant of homosexuality than European or Hispanic Americans. Israel
is were found to be the most accepting of homosexuality among Middle East
ern nations, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found, and Israeli laws and culture reflects that. Pew Global included Arab citizens of Israel
in their survey of the Israeli population, who are much less tolerant of homosexuality than Jewish Israelis. According to a 2007 poll, a strong majority of Israeli Jews say they would accept a gay child and go on with life as usual. A 2009 Haaretz
-Dialog poll found that most of the religious sector, the Arab sector, and the Russian-speaking sector saw homosexuality as a perversion, while the majority of traditional and secular Jews say they have no problem with it. The poll found homophobia to be declining.
Much less research has been conducted into societal attitudes toward bisexuality
. What studies do exist suggest that the attitude of heterosexuals toward bisexuals mirrors their attitude toward homosexuals, and that bisexuals experience a similar degree of hostility, discrimination, and violence relating to their sexual orientation as do homosexuals.
Research (mainly conducted in the United States) show that people with more permissive attitudes on sexual orientation issues tend to be younger, well-educated, and politically liberal. Tolerant attitudes toward homosexuality and bisexuality have been increasing with time.
A study done in Sweden in the 1990s found that most Swedish college students did not consider homosexual couples (as well as cohabitating couples and divorced partners) to be a family. Though the majority still side with that view, a similar study done a decade later show that the percentage of students who share that opinion has dwindled considerably.
Homosexual sex acts may be illegal, especially under sodomy law
s, and where they are legal, the age of consent
often differs from country to country. In some cases, homosexuals are prosecuted under vaguely-worded "public decency" or morality laws. Some countries have special laws preventing certain public expressions of homosexuality. Nations or subnational entities may have anti-discrimination legislation in place to protect against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation
in the workplace, housing, health services and education. Some give exemptions, allowing employers to discriminate if they are a religious organisation, or if the employee works with children.
Legal recognition of same-sex relationship
s also varies greatly. Legal privileges pertaining to different-sex relationships that may be extended to same-sex couples include parenting, adoption
and access to reproductive technologies
; immigration
; spousal benefits for employees such as pensions, health funds and other services; family leave; medical rights, including hospital visitation, notification and power of attorney
; inheritance
when a partner dies without leaving a will; and social security and tax benefits. Same-sex couples without legal recognition may also lack access to domestic violence services, as well as mediation and arbitration over custody and property when relationships end. Some regions have laws specifically excluding same-sex couples from particular rights such as adoption.
In 2001, the Netherlands
became the first country to recognize same-sex marriage
, and same-sex marriages were subsequently recognized in Belgium
(2003); Spain
and Canada
(2005); the U.S. states of Massachusetts
(2004), California
(2008 – later banned by Proposition 8
), Connecticut
(2008), Iowa
(2009), Vermont
(2009), and Maine
(2009 – later repealed by Question 1); South Africa
(2006); Norway
(2009); Sweden
(2009), Iceland
(2010), Portugal
(2010) and Argentina
(2010). Other legal recognition of same sex relationships (offering fewer benefits than marriage) include civil unions and domestic partnership
s. In 2015 the UK will also make same-sex marriage legal.
Application of Islamic Law
On the other end of the spectrum, several countries impose the death penalty for homosexual acts, per the application of some interpretations of Shari'a law. As of 2006, these include Mauritania
, Sudan
, Iran
, Saudi Arabia
, United Arab Emirates
, Yemen
, Pakistan
, the parts of Chechnya
under Sharia, and some Islamist dominated regions within Nigeria
and Somalia
.
In Saudi Arabia, the maximum punishment for homosexuality is public execution. However, the government will use other punishments – e.g., fines, jail time, and whipping – as alternatives, unless it feels that homosexuals are challenging state authority by engaging in LGBT social movements
.
Iran is perhaps the nation to execute the largest number of its citizens for homosexuality. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution
in Iran, the Iranian government has executed more than 4,000 people charged with homosexual acts. In Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, homosexuality went from a capital crime to one that it punished with fines and prison sentences.
Most international human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch
and Amnesty International
, condemn laws that make homosexual relations between consenting adults a crime. Since 1994, the United Nations
Human Rights Committee
has also ruled that such laws violated the right to privacy guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
.
However, most Muslim nations insist that such laws are necessary to preserve Islamic morality and virtue. Of the nations with a majority of Muslim inhabitants, only Lebanon has an internal effort to legalize homosexuality. The notable exception is Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation by population, which does not criminalise homosexuality.
Abrahamic religions such as Judaism
, Islam
, and various denominations of Christianity
, traditionally forbid sexual relations between people of the same sex and teach that such behaviour is sin
ful. Religious authorities point to passages in the Qur'an
(7:80–81, 26:165), the Old Testament
(Leviticus 18:22) and the New Testament
(Romans 1:26–27, I Timothy 1:9–10) for scriptural justification of these beliefs.
Among Indic religions (also known as Dharmic
religions), including Hinduism
, Buddhism
, Jainism
and Sikhism
, teachings regarding homosexuality are less clear. Unlike in western religions, homosexuality is rarely discussed. However, most contemporary religious authorities in the various Dharmic traditions view homosexuality negatively, and when it is discussed, it is discouraged or actively forbidden. Ancient religious texts such as the Vedas
often refer to people of a third gender
, who are neither female nor male. Some see this third gender as an ancient parallel to modern western lesbian, gay, transgender
and/or intersex
identities. However, this third sex is usually negatively valued as a pariah class in ancient texts. Ancient Hindu law books, from the first century onward, categorize non-vaginal sex (ayoni) as impure. Same-sex sexuality and gender transformations are common among the Hindu pantheon of deities.
Among the Sinic religions of East Asia
, including Confucianism
, Chinese folk religion
and Taoism
, passionate homosexual expression is usually discouraged because it is believed to not lead to human fulfillment.
A mythology of same-sex love
can be found around the world.
countries, large private sector
firms
often lead the way in the equal treatment of gay men and lesbians. For instance, more than half of the Fortune 500
offer domestic partnership
benefits and 49 of the Fortune 50 companies include sexual orientation
in their non-discrimination policies (only ExxonMobil
does not).
is a term broadly used for people who are inclined to traditional values.
Whilst conservatism includes people of many views, it has a significant proportion of adherents who consider homosexuals, and especially the efforts of homosexuals to achieve equal rights and recognition, to be a threat to valued traditions, institutions and freedoms. Such attitudes are generally tied in with opposition to what some conservatives call the "homosexual agenda
".
The finding that attitudes to alternative sexualities correlate strongly with nature of contact and with personal beliefs is stated in a variety of research over a substantial time period, and conservative men and women stand out in their views specifically.
Thus Herek, who established the Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Scale in psychology, states:
An example of conservative views can also be found in the discussion of what conservatives call "homosexual recruitment
", within a document released by the conservative Christian organization Alliance Defense Fund
states:
As this statement illustrates, those who believe that a disapproving attitude toward homosexuality is a tenet of their religion can see efforts to abolish such attitudes as an attack on their religious freedom. Those who regard homosexuality as a sin or perversion can believe that acceptance of homosexual parents and same-sex marriage will redefine and diminish the institutions of family and marriage.
More generally, conservatives—by definition—prefer that institutions, traditions and values remain unchanged, and this has put many of them in opposition to increasing the cultural acceptance and legal rights of homosexuals.
continues to occur today, fueled by anti-gay rhetoric.
2500 years ago. These slogans have expressed numerous derogatory viewpoints against gays which have ranged from disrespectful to overtly insulting.
In 1973, the (US) American Psychiatric Association
voted to remove homosexuality from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
. The current DSM contains a diagnosis of "persistent and marked distress about one’s sexual orientation
." The decision was supported by a majority of the membership. Though some criticized this as a political decision, the social and political impetus for change was supported by scientific evidence. In fact, the research of Evelyn Hooker
and other psychologists and psychiatrists helped to end the notion that homosexuality was in and of itself a mental illness. The World Health Organization
currently lists ego-dystonic sexual orientation
in the ICD-10
.
Many religious groups and other advocates, like National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality
(NARTH), believe that they can "heal" or "cure" homosexuality through conversion therapy or another method to change sexual orientation
. In a survey of 882 people who were undergoing conversion therapy, attending ex-gay
groups or ex-gay conferences, 22. 9% reported they had not undergone any changes, 42.7% reported some changes, and 34.3% reported much change in sexual orientation. Many Western health and mental health professional organizations believe sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime, but that this therapy is unnecessary, potentially harmful, and the effectiveness has not been rigorously and scientifically proven. Most notable for his dissent from this opinion is Dr. Robert Spitzer
. Another study refuting the claims of conversion therapy proponents was done in 2001 by Dr. Ariel Shidlo and Dr. Michael Schroeder, which showed only 3% of the participants claiming to have completely changed their orientation from gay to straight.
In many non-Western post-colonial countries, homosexual orientation is still considered to be a mental disorder and illness. In Muslim areas, this position is ascribed to the earlier adoption of European Victorian attitudes by the westernized elite, in areas where previously native traditions embraced same-sex relations.
Lesbians (or gay women) are usually stereotyped as being man-haters, having an overly tough or unattractive appearance, having health problems such as obesity, interested in sports or life-risking occupations such as the police force or the military and having a preference for short haircuts, tattoos and male attire.
Bisexual men and women are portrayed as being sexually immoral, manipulative, insincere or undecided. Male bisexuals are particularly stereotyped living on the down-low and female bisexuals are stereotyped as attention-seeking and having bad experiences with men.
as takes place in the Bible
is sometimes attributed to attempted homosexual rape, but this is disputed and differs from earlier beliefs. Early Jewish belief variously attributed the destruction to turning a blind eye to social injustice or lack of hospitality.
Since the Middle Ages
, sodomites
were blamed for "bringing down the wrath of God
" upon the land, and their pleasures blamed for the periodic epidemics of disease which decimated the population. This "pollution" was thought to be cleansed by fire, as a result of which countless individuals were burned at the stake or run through with white-hot iron rods.
Since the end of the 1980s similar accusations have been made, inspired by the AIDS
epidemic. In the years since, the epidemic has spread and now has many more heterosexual victims than homosexual.
Other contemporary American examples:
, when they were reported among a number of cultures, among which the Celt
ic, the Persian and the Greek
. See Plato's Phaedrus (dialogue) and Lucian's Erotes
. The best documented, and perhaps the most formalized, being the Greek tradition, it is the one that has become emblematic of erotic relations between men and adolescent boys. The association of modern masculine desire for adolescent youths with Greek man/boy practices has been resuscitated periodically by various cultural movements such as the Italian Neo-Platonists (including Marsilio Ficino
) and literary figures such as Oscar Wilde
and André Gide
, and has continued into contemporary times. Invariably, each such instance has been met with alarm and accusations of corruption of the young.
Thus, some people fear exposing their children to homosexuals in unsupervised settings, their fear being that they might be molested, raped, or recruited
to be homosexuals themselves. The publicity surrounding the Roman Catholic sex abuse cases
has heightened these concerns. Many organizations focus on these concerns, drawing connections between homosexuality and pedophilia. According to a study
commissioned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
, under the auspices of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice
and an all-lay review board headed by Illinois
Appellate Court
Justice Anne M. Burke, “81% of the reported victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy were boys.” The review board went on to conclude that, “the crisis was characterized by homosexual behavior”, and in light of this, “the current crisis cannot be addressed without consideration of issues related to homosexuality.” According to Margaret Smith, one of John Jay's researchers, however, it is “an unwarranted conclusion” to assert that the majority of priests who abused male victims are gay. Though “the majority of the abusive acts were homosexual in nature [...] participation in homosexual acts is not the same as sexual identity as a gay man.” One of her fellow researchers, Louis Schlesinger, argued that the main problem was pedophilia
or ephebophilia
, not sexual orientation and said that some men who are married to adult women are attracted to adolescent males.
A number of small-scale studies by Dr. Carole Jenny, Dr. A.W. Richard Sipe, and others have not found evidence that homosexuals are more likely to molest children than heterosexuals. Based on phallometric tests, Dr. Kurt Freund
asserted that "androphiles" (male homosexuals with a preference for adults) are no more attracted to adolescent or younger boys than "gynephiles" (male heterosexuals with a preference for adults) are to adolescent or younger girls. According to him, only rarely does a sex offender against male children have a preference for adult males. Other researches available also suggest men who molest boys (specially prepubertal ones) tend to prefer adult women over men as sexual partners, as famously proven in the study of Paxson Helgesen.
Johns Hopkins University
psychiatrist
Dr. Frederick Berlin, who runs a treatment program for offenders, says it's flawed to assume that men who molest young boys are attracted to adult men; Berlin defines attraction to children as a separate orientation of its own. Psychotherapist Dr. A.W. Richard Sipe, also argue that the sexual deprivation that occurs in the priesthood could lead one to turn to children and that boys are more accessible to priests and other male authority figures than girls. A study by Dr. A. Nicholas Groth found that nearly half of the child sex offenders in his small sample were exclusively attracted to children. The other half regressed to children after finding trouble in adult relationships. No one in his sample was primarily attracted to same-sex adults.
The empirical research show that sexual orientation does not affect the likelihood that people will abuse children. Many child molesters cannot be characterized as having an adult sexual orientation at all; they are fixated on children.
is a group of behaviours believed by some gay rights opponents to be carried out in media
, public places etc.
In the UK Section 28
of the 1988 Local Government Act
banned promotion of homosexuality "as a pretended family relationship" by local government employees in the course of their duties. The act was aimed to prevent the promotion of homosexuality in schools. It was later repealed. This promotion is opposed by Morocco. Article 200
section of the Penal Code of Romania
had criminalised promotion of homosexuality, which was later repealed. Uganda
is considering a ban on promotion of homosexuality, with the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill along with other measures.
Lithuania
banned it on June 16, 2009 amid protests by gay rights groups. Poland
is also considering a ban.
In Ancient Greece
homoerotic practices were widely present, and integrated into the religion, education, philosophy and military culture. The sexualized form of these relationships was the topic of vigorous debate. In particular, anal intercourse was condemned by many, including Plato
, as a form of hubris
and faulted for dishonoring and feminizing the boys. Relations between adult males were generally ridiculed. Plato also believed that the chaste form of the relationship was the mark of an enlightened society, while only barbarians condemned it.
Athens
and Sparta
are both well known for encouraging same-sex relationships as part of a youth's education and socialization. In both societies, though, once a youth came of age he was expected to take on another youth as beloved, and eventually to marry and continue the family line.
, and Latin
lacks words that would translate these concepts exactly. The primary dichotomy of Roman sexuality was active/dominant/masculine and passive/submissive/"feminized". The masculinity of an adult male citizen was defined sexually by his taking the penetrative role, whether his partner was female or a male of lower status
. A Roman citizen's political liberty (libertas) was defined in part by the right to preserve his body from physical compulsion or use by others; for the male citizen to use his body to give pleasure was considered servile and subversive of the social hierarchy.
It was considered natural for a man to be attracted to a beautiful young male, but the bodies of citizen youths were strictly off-limits. Acceptable male partners were slaves
, male prostitutes
, or others who lacked social standing (the infames). Same-sex relations among male citizens of equal status, including soldiers, were disparaged, and in some circumstances penalized harshly. In political rhetoric, a man might be attacked for effeminacy
or playing the passive role in sex acts, but not for performing penetrative sex on a socially acceptable male partner. Threats of anal or oral rape
against another man were forms of masculine braggadocio.
Homosexual behaviors were regulated in so far as they threatened or impinged on an ideal of liberty for the dominant male, who retained his masculinity by not being penetrated. The Lex Scantinia
imposed penalties on those who committed a sex crime (stuprum) against a freeborn male minor; it may also have been used to prosecute adult male citizens who willingly took the "passive" role. Children who were born into slavery or became enslaved had no legal protections against sexual abuse; a good-looking and graceful slave-boy might be chosen and groomed as his owner's sexual favorite. Pederasty in ancient Rome thus differed from pederastic practice in ancient Greece
, where by custom the couple were both freeborn males of equal social status.
The 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon
declared that of the first fifteen Roman emperor
s, only Claudius
was "entirely correct" in his sexual practices, by which Gibbon meant exclusively heterosexual. Confining one's sexual activities to women was considered unusual among the Romans. Although Roman law
did not recognize marriage between men, and in general Romans regarded marriage as a heterosexual union with the primary purpose of producing children, in the early Imperial period
some male couples were celebrating traditional marriage rites. Juvenal
remarks that his friends often attended such ceremonies. The emperor Nero
had two marriages to men, once as the bride and once as the groom. He had his pederastic lover Sporus castrated, and during their marriage Sporus appeared in public as Nero's wife wearing the regalia that was customary for Roman empresses.
Same-sex relations among women are infrequently documented during the Republic and Principate
, but better attested during the Empire. An early reference to homosexual women as "lesbians" is found in the Roman-era Greek writer Lucian
(2nd century AD): "They say there are women like that in Lesbos, masculine-looking, but they don't want to give it up for men. Instead, they consort with women, just like men." Since male writers thought a sex act required an active or dominant partner who was "phallic", they imagined that in lesbian sex one of the women would use a dildo
or have an exceptionally large clitoris for penetration, and that she would be the one experiencing pleasure. The poet Martial
describes lesbians as having outsized sexual appetites and performing penetrative sex on both women and boys. Satiric portrayals of women who sodomize boys, drink and eat like men, and engage in vigorous physical regimens, may reflect cultural anxieties about the growing independence of Roman women.
, intercourse between males was condemned outright as an "abomination" and Mosaic Law demanded the death penalty for those men who "lie with a man as with a woman". Other aspects of same-sex relations were not discussed.
Though there are no recorded cases of punishment for homosexuality in Ancient Israel.
followed the Hebrew
tradition of condemnation of male sexual intercourse and certain forms of sexual relations between men and women, labeling both as sodomy
. Some contemporary Christian scholars dispute this however. The teachings of Jesus Christ encouraged a turning away from and forgiveness of sin, including those sins of sexual impurity, although Jesus never referred to homosexuality specifically. Jesus was known as a defender of those whose sexual sins were condemned by the Pharisees
. At the same time, Jesus strongly upheld the Ten Commandments
and urged those whose sexual sins were forgiven to, "go, and sin no more".
Saint Paul
was even more explicit in his condemnation of sinful behavior, including sodomy, saying, "Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God" However, the exact meanings of two of the ancient Greek words that Paul used that supposedly refer to homosexuality are disputed amongst scholars.
and made Christianity
the official state religion in the 4th century, Christian attitudes toward sexual behavior were soon incorporated into Roman Law. In the year 528, the emperor Justinian I
, responding to an outbreak of pederasty
among the Christian clergy, issued a law which made castration
the punishment for sodomy.
Attitudes have changed radically in the past hundred and fifty years, swinging from casual acceptance to antagonism to guarded acceptance again. The Chinese Psychiatrists’ Association removed homosexuality
from the list of mental illnesses in April 2001. However, as scriptwriter and teacher Cui Zi’en, one of the few openly gay intellectuals in today's China
points out, in his country, it is still seen as a psychological disorder. "In the West, it’s frowned on to criticize homosexuals and even more to make them feel different", says Cui Zi’en, contrasting it with Chinese society which, "is changing, but there’ll always be people who’ll feel disgust."
believe that semen is the main source of masculinity and strength. In consequence, the sharing of semen between men, particularly when there is an age gap, is seen as promoting growth throughout nature, while excessive heterosexual activities are seen as leading to decay and death.
In the 1950s in the United States
, open homosexuality was taboo. Many politicians treated the homosexual as a symbol of antinationalism, construing masculinity as patriotism and marking the "unmasculine" homosexual as a threat to national security. This perceived connection between homosexuality and antinationalism was present in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia
as well, and appears in contemporary politics to this day.
Senator Joseph McCarthy
used accusations of homosexuality as a smear tactic in his anti-Communist crusade
, often combining the Second Red Scare with the Lavender Scare
. On one occasion, he went so far as to announce to reporters, "If you want to be against McCarthy, boys, you've got to be either a Communist or a cocksucker."
Senator Kenneth Wherry
likewise attempted to invoke some connection between homosexuality and antinationalism as, for example, when he said in an interview with Max Lerner
that "You can't hardly separate homosexuals from subversives." Later in that same interview he draws the line between patriotic Americans and gay men: "But look Lerner, we're both Americans, aren't we? I say, let's get these fellows [closeted gay men in government positions] out of the government."
There were other perceived connections between homosexuality and Communism. Wherry publicized fears that Joseph Stalin
had obtained a list of closeted homosexuals in positions of power from Adolf Hitler
, which he believed Stalin intended to use to blackmail these men into working against the U.S. for the Soviet regime. In the 1950 report produced by a Senate subcommittee titled "Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government" said that "the pervert is easy prey to the blackmailer.... It is an accepted fact among intelligence agencies that espionage organizations the world over consider sex perverts who are in possession of or have access to confidential material to be prime targets where pressure can be exerted". Along with that security-based concern, the report found homosexuals unsuitable for government employment because "those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons. In addition there is an abundance of evidence to sustain the conclusion that indulgence in acts of sex perversion weakens the moral fiber of an individual to a degree that he is not suitable for a position of responsibility." McCarthy and Roy Cohn
more often used the secrets of closeted gay American politicians as tools for blackmail than did foreign powers.
and non-gender-specific civil union
s is one of the major goals of gay rights activism. (See: LGBT rights organization
.)
Attitudes toward homosexuality have changed in western societies in the latter part of the 20th century, accompanied by a greater acceptance of gay men and women into both secular and religious institutions.
Some say the term 'LGBT civil rights' is a misnomer and an attempt to piggyback on the civil rights movement. Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson
, for example, called the comparison of the civil rights movement to the "gay rights movement" a "disgrace to a black American". He said that "homosexuality is not a civil right. What we have is a bunch of radical homosexuals trying to attach their agenda to the struggles of the 1960s", while Jesse Jackson has said "Gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution." Gene Rivers, a Boston minister, has accused gays of "pimping" the civil rights movement.
Some opponents of the movement, such as Ralph Reed
, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, say that gay people are seeking special rights
, not equal rights, and that the movement should not be referred to as a civil rights movement. They argue, for example, that in seeking the right to marry members of the same sex, gay people are seeking a special right for themselves and disregarding the fact that polygamists
and other groups defined by sexual behaviour do not have this right either.
, lesbian
, or bisexual. This is the result of a steady increase from 1983 when there were 24%, 43% in 1993, 55% in 1998, or 62% in 2000. The percentage of the general public who say there is more acceptance of LGB
people in 2001 than before was 64%. Acceptance was measured on many different levels — 87% of the general public would shop at a store owned by someone who is gay or lesbian but only 46% of the general public would attend a church
or synagogue
where a minister or rabbi
is openly gay or lesbian. 51% of the general public in the United States think that "homosexual behavior" is morally wrong (38% "completely agreeing" it is morally wrong and 13% "somewhat agreeing"). Males and people over 65 years old are more likely to think it is wrong. Among people who don't know someone who is LGB, 61% think the behavior is wrong. Broken down by religion, 60% of evangelical Christians
think that it is wrong, whereas 11% with no religious affiliation are against it. 57% of the general public think that gays and lesbians experience a lot of prejudice
and discrimination
, making it the group most believed to experience prejudice and discrimination. (Black Americans come in second at 42%).
In terms of support of public policies, according to the same 2001 study, 76% of the general public think that there should be laws to protect gay and lesbian people from job discrimination, 74% from housing discrimination, 73% for inheritance rights, 70% support health and other employee benefits for domestic partners, 68% support social security benefits, and 56% support GL people openly serving in the military. 73% favor sexual orientation
being included in the hate crimes statutes. 39% support same-sex marriage
, while 47% support civil unions, and 46% support adoption rights.
A separate study shows that, in the United States, the younger generation is more supportive of gay rights than average. For example, a Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 18–24 year olds strongly supported gay rights in 2001. However, polling data also shows a trend among Americans in general toward rejection of homosexual-specific legal expansion of rights, especially same-sex marriage. A poll commissioned by CNN/USA Today Gallup in 2005 asked the question, "Do you think marriages between homosexuals should or should not be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages?" 56% said "should not be valid", while 39% said "should be valid", and 5% were unsure.
Sexual norm
A sexual norm can refer to a personal or a social norm. Most cultures have social norms regarding sexuality, and define normal sexuality to consist only of certain legal sex acts between individuals who meet specific criteria of age, consanguinity , race/ethnicity A sexual norm can refer to a...
; some sanction same-sex love and sexuality, while others disapprove of such activities. As with heterosexual behaviour, different sets of prescriptions and proscriptions may be given to individuals according to their gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
, age, social status
Social status
In sociology or anthropology, social status is the honor or prestige attached to one's position in society . It may also refer to a rank or position that one holds in a group, for example son or daughter, playmate, pupil, etc....
and/or class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
. For example, among the samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
class of pre-modern Japan, it was recommended for a teenage novice to enter into an erotic relationship with an older warrior (see Shudo), but sexual relations between the two became inappropriate once the boy came of age.
Most of the world's cultures have considered procreative sex within a recognized relationship to be a sexual norm — sometimes exclusively so, and sometimes alongside norms of same-sex love, whether passionate, intimate or sexual. Some religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
s, especially those influenced by the Abrahamic tradition, have traditionally censured homosexual acts and relationships, in some cases implementing severe punishments for offenders. Since the 1970s, much of the world has become more accepting of same-sex sexuality between partners of legal age
Age of consent
While the phrase age of consent typically does not appear in legal statutes, when used in relation to sexual activity, the age of consent is the minimum age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. The European Union calls it the legal age for sexual...
. The Pew Research Center
Pew Research Center
The Pew Research Center is an American think tank organization based in Washington, D.C. that provides information on issues, attitudes and trends shaping the United States and the world. The Center and its projects receive funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts. In 1990, Donald S...
's 2007 Global Attitudes Survey found that "[p]eople in Africa and the Middle East strongly object to societal acceptance of homosexuality. Acceptance for homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
and bisexuality
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
however is much higher in Western Europe
Western Europe
Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the western most region of the European continents, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity—the region lying in the...
, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
. Many Latin American countries including Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
also have a gay-accepting majority. In fact, aside from South Africa, every country that has legalized either civil unions or same-sex marriage is located either in Europe, the Americas, or Oceania.
Difficulties interpreting homosexuality in different cultures
Contemporary scholars caution against applying modern Western assumptions about sexSex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
and gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...
to other times and places; what looks like same-sex sexuality to a Western observer may not be "same-sex" or "sexual" at all to the people engaging in such behaviour. For example, in the Bugis
Bugis
The Bugis are the most numerous of the three major linguistic and ethnic groups of South Sulawesi, the southwestern province of Sulawesi, Indonesia's third largest island. Although many Bugis live in the large port cities of Makassar and Parepare, the majority are farmers who grow wet rice on the...
cultures of Sulawesi
Sulawesi
Sulawesi is one of the four larger Sunda Islands of Indonesia and is situated between Borneo and the Maluku Islands. In Indonesia, only Sumatra, Borneo, and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger Indonesian populations.- Etymology :The Portuguese were the first to...
, a female who dresses and works in a masculine fashion and marries a woman is seen as belonging to a third gender
Third gender
The terms third gender and third sex describe individuals who are categorized as neither man nor woman, as well as the social category present in those societies who recognize three or more genders...
; to the Bugis, their relationship is not homosexual (see sexual orientation and gender identity). In the case of 'Sambia' (a pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
) boys in New Guinea who ingest the semen of older males to aid in their maturation, it is disputed whether this is best understood as a sexual act at all. In recent times, scholars have argued that notions of a homosexual and heterosexual identity, as they are currently known in the Western world, only began to emerge in Europe in the mid to late 19th century. Behaviors that today would be widely regarded as homosexual, at least in the West, enjoyed a degree of acceptance in around three quarters of the cultures surveyed in Patterns of Sexual Behavior (1951).
Measuring attitudes toward homosexuality
From the 1970s, academics have researched attitudes held by individuals toward lesbians, gay men and bisexuals, and the social and cultural factors that underlie such attitudes. Numerous studies have investigated the prevalence of acceptance and disapproval of homosexuality, and have consistently found correlates with various demographic, psychological, and social variables. For example, studies (mainly conducted in the United States) have found that heterosexuals with positive attitudes towards homosexuality are more likely to be female, white, young, non-religious, well-educated, politically liberal or moderate, and have close personal contact with outComing out
Coming out is a figure of speech for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people's disclosure of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity....
homosexuals. They are also more likely to have positive attitudes towards other minority groups and are less likely to support traditional gender roles. Several studies have also suggested that heterosexual females have strong likings toward gay men, and some (but not all) have found that heterosexual males have strong likings toward lesbians.
Social psychologists
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
such as Gregory Herek have examined underlying motivations for homophobia
Homophobia
Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
(hostility toward lesbians and gays), and cultural theorists have noted how portrayals of homosexuality often center around stigmatized phenomena such as AIDS, pedophilia, and gender variance. The extent to which such portrayals are stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
s is disputed.
Contemporary researchers have measured attitudes held by heterosexuals toward gay men and lesbians in a number of different ways. Commonly used scales include those designed by Herek, Larson et al., Kite and Deaux and Haddock et al.
Certain populations are also found to accept homosexuality better than others. In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, African-Americans are generally less tolerant of homosexuality than European or Hispanic Americans. Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
is were found to be the most accepting of homosexuality among Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
ern nations, the Pew Global Attitudes Project found, and Israeli laws and culture reflects that. Pew Global included Arab citizens of Israel
Arab citizens of Israel
Arab citizens of Israel refers to citizens of Israel who are not Jewish, and whose cultural and linguistic heritage or ethnic identity is Arab....
in their survey of the Israeli population, who are much less tolerant of homosexuality than Jewish Israelis. According to a 2007 poll, a strong majority of Israeli Jews say they would accept a gay child and go on with life as usual. A 2009 Haaretz
Haaretz
Haaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
-Dialog poll found that most of the religious sector, the Arab sector, and the Russian-speaking sector saw homosexuality as a perversion, while the majority of traditional and secular Jews say they have no problem with it. The poll found homophobia to be declining.
Much less research has been conducted into societal attitudes toward bisexuality
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
. What studies do exist suggest that the attitude of heterosexuals toward bisexuals mirrors their attitude toward homosexuals, and that bisexuals experience a similar degree of hostility, discrimination, and violence relating to their sexual orientation as do homosexuals.
Research (mainly conducted in the United States) show that people with more permissive attitudes on sexual orientation issues tend to be younger, well-educated, and politically liberal. Tolerant attitudes toward homosexuality and bisexuality have been increasing with time.
A study done in Sweden in the 1990s found that most Swedish college students did not consider homosexual couples (as well as cohabitating couples and divorced partners) to be a family. Though the majority still side with that view, a similar study done a decade later show that the percentage of students who share that opinion has dwindled considerably.
Law
The legal status of homosexuality varies greatly around the world. Homosexual acts between consenting adults are known to be illegal in about 70 out of the 195 countries of the world.Homosexual sex acts may be illegal, especially under sodomy law
Sodomy law
A sodomy law is a law that defines certain sexual acts as crimes. The precise sexual acts meant by the term sodomy are rarely spelled out in the law, but are typically understood by courts to include any sexual act deemed unnatural. It also has a range of similar euphemisms...
s, and where they are legal, the age of consent
Age of consent
While the phrase age of consent typically does not appear in legal statutes, when used in relation to sexual activity, the age of consent is the minimum age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts. The European Union calls it the legal age for sexual...
often differs from country to country. In some cases, homosexuals are prosecuted under vaguely-worded "public decency" or morality laws. Some countries have special laws preventing certain public expressions of homosexuality. Nations or subnational entities may have anti-discrimination legislation in place to protect against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
in the workplace, housing, health services and education. Some give exemptions, allowing employers to discriminate if they are a religious organisation, or if the employee works with children.
Legal recognition of same-sex relationship
Same-sex relationship
A same-sex relationship is a relationship between two persons of the same sex and can take many forms, from romantic and sexual, to non-romantic close relationships. The term is mainly associated with gay and lesbian people...
s also varies greatly. Legal privileges pertaining to different-sex relationships that may be extended to same-sex couples include parenting, adoption
Adoption
Adoption is a process whereby a person assumes the parenting for another and, in so doing, permanently transfers all rights and responsibilities from the original parent or parents...
and access to reproductive technologies
Reproductive technology
Reproductive technology encompasses all current and anticipated uses of technology in human and animal reproduction, including assisted reproductive technology, contraception and others.-Assisted reproductive technology:...
; immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
; spousal benefits for employees such as pensions, health funds and other services; family leave; medical rights, including hospital visitation, notification and power of attorney
Power of attorney
A power of attorney or letter of attorney is a written authorization to represent or act on another's behalf in private affairs, business, or some other legal matter...
; inheritance
Inheritance
Inheritance is the practice of passing on property, titles, debts, rights and obligations upon the death of an individual. It has long played an important role in human societies...
when a partner dies without leaving a will; and social security and tax benefits. Same-sex couples without legal recognition may also lack access to domestic violence services, as well as mediation and arbitration over custody and property when relationships end. Some regions have laws specifically excluding same-sex couples from particular rights such as adoption.
In 2001, the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
became the first country to recognize same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
, and same-sex marriages were subsequently recognized in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
(2003); Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
(2005); the U.S. states of Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
(2004), California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
(2008 – later banned by Proposition 8
California Proposition 8 (2008)
Proposition 8 was a ballot proposition and constitutional amendment passed in the November 2008 state elections...
), Connecticut
Connecticut
Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
(2008), Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
(2009), Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
(2009), and Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...
(2009 – later repealed by Question 1); South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
(2006); Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
(2009); Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
(2009), Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
(2010), Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
(2010) and Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
(2010). Other legal recognition of same sex relationships (offering fewer benefits than marriage) include civil unions and domestic partnership
Domestic partnership
A domestic partnership is a legal or personal relationship between two individuals who live together and share a common domestic life but are neither joined by marriage nor a civil union...
s. In 2015 the UK will also make same-sex marriage legal.
Application of Islamic LawShariaSharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
On the other end of the spectrum, several countries impose the death penalty for homosexual acts, per the application of some interpretations of Shari'a law. As of 2006, these include MauritaniaMauritania
Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...
, Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...
, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
, United Arab Emirates
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates, abbreviated as the UAE, or shortened to "the Emirates", is a state situated in the southeast of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia on the Persian Gulf, bordering Oman, and Saudi Arabia, and sharing sea borders with Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Iran.The UAE is a...
, Yemen
Yemen
The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east....
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, the parts of Chechnya
Chechnya
The Chechen Republic , commonly referred to as Chechnya , also spelled Chechnia or Chechenia, sometimes referred to as Ichkeria , is a federal subject of Russia . It is located in the southeastern part of Europe in the Northern Caucasus mountains. The capital of the republic is the city of Grozny...
under Sharia, and some Islamist dominated regions within Nigeria
Nigeria
Nigeria , officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in...
and Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...
.
In Saudi Arabia, the maximum punishment for homosexuality is public execution. However, the government will use other punishments – e.g., fines, jail time, and whipping – as alternatives, unless it feels that homosexuals are challenging state authority by engaging in LGBT social movements
LGBT social movements
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender social movements share inter-related goals of social acceptance of sexual and gender minorities. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies have a long history of campaigning for what is generally called LGBT rights, also called gay...
.
Iran is perhaps the nation to execute the largest number of its citizens for homosexuality. Since the 1979 Islamic revolution
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution refers to events involving the overthrow of Iran's monarchy under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and its replacement with an Islamic republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the...
in Iran, the Iranian government has executed more than 4,000 people charged with homosexual acts. In Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, homosexuality went from a capital crime to one that it punished with fines and prison sentences.
Most international human rights organizations, such as Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Its headquarters are in New York City and it has offices in Berlin, Beirut, Brussels, Chicago, Geneva, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Moscow, Paris, San Francisco, Tokyo,...
and Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
, condemn laws that make homosexual relations between consenting adults a crime. Since 1994, the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Human Rights Committee
Human Rights Committee
The United Nations Human Rights Committee is a United Nations body of 18 experts that meets three times a year for four-week sessions to consider the five-yearly reports submitted by 162 UN member states on their compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,...
has also ruled that such laws violated the right to privacy guaranteed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...
and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 16, 1966, and in force from March 23, 1976...
.
However, most Muslim nations insist that such laws are necessary to preserve Islamic morality and virtue. Of the nations with a majority of Muslim inhabitants, only Lebanon has an internal effort to legalize homosexuality. The notable exception is Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation by population, which does not criminalise homosexuality.
Religion
As with social attitudes in general, religious attitudes towards homosexuality vary between and among religions and their adherents. Traditionalists among the world's major religions generally disapprove of homosexuality, and prominent opponents of social acceptance of homosexuality often cite religious arguments to support their views. Liberal currents also exist within most religions, and modern lesbian and gay scholars of religion sometimes point to a place for homosexuality among historical traditions and scriptures, and emphasise religious teachings of compassion and love.Abrahamic religions such as Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
, Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
, and various denominations of Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, traditionally forbid sexual relations between people of the same sex and teach that such behaviour is sin
Sin
In religion, sin is the violation or deviation of an eternal divine law or standard. The term sin may also refer to the state of having committed such a violation. Christians believe the moral code of conduct is decreed by God In religion, sin (also called peccancy) is the violation or deviation...
ful. Religious authorities point to passages in the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
(7:80–81, 26:165), the Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
(Leviticus 18:22) and the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
(Romans 1:26–27, I Timothy 1:9–10) for scriptural justification of these beliefs.
Among Indic religions (also known as Dharmic
Dharma
Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...
religions), including Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, Jainism
Jainism
Jainism is an Indian religion that prescribes a path of non-violence towards all living beings. Its philosophy and practice emphasize the necessity of self-effort to move the soul towards divine consciousness and liberation. Any soul that has conquered its own inner enemies and achieved the state...
and Sikhism
Sikhism
Sikhism is a monotheistic religion founded during the 15th century in the Punjab region, by Guru Nanak Dev and continued to progress with ten successive Sikh Gurus . It is the fifth-largest organized religion in the world and one of the fastest-growing...
, teachings regarding homosexuality are less clear. Unlike in western religions, homosexuality is rarely discussed. However, most contemporary religious authorities in the various Dharmic traditions view homosexuality negatively, and when it is discussed, it is discouraged or actively forbidden. Ancient religious texts such as the Vedas
Vedas
The Vedas are a large body of texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism....
often refer to people of a third gender
Third gender
The terms third gender and third sex describe individuals who are categorized as neither man nor woman, as well as the social category present in those societies who recognize three or more genders...
, who are neither female nor male. Some see this third gender as an ancient parallel to modern western lesbian, gay, transgender
Transgender
Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....
and/or intersex
Intersex
Intersex, in humans and other animals, is the presence of intermediate or atypical combinations of physical features that usually distinguish female from male...
identities. However, this third sex is usually negatively valued as a pariah class in ancient texts. Ancient Hindu law books, from the first century onward, categorize non-vaginal sex (ayoni) as impure. Same-sex sexuality and gender transformations are common among the Hindu pantheon of deities.
Among the Sinic religions of East Asia
East Asia
East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...
, including Confucianism
Confucianism
Confucianism is a Chinese ethical and philosophical system developed from the teachings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius . Confucianism originated as an "ethical-sociopolitical teaching" during the Spring and Autumn Period, but later developed metaphysical and cosmological elements in the Han...
, Chinese folk religion
Chinese folk religion
Chinese folk religion or Shenism , which is a term of considerable debate, are labels used to describe the collection of ethnic religious traditions which have been a main belief system in China and among Han Chinese ethnic groups for most of the civilization's history until today...
and Taoism
Taoism
Taoism refers to a philosophical or religious tradition in which the basic concept is to establish harmony with the Tao , which is the mechanism of everything that exists...
, passionate homosexual expression is usually discouraged because it is believed to not lead to human fulfillment.
A mythology of same-sex love
LGBT themes in mythology
LGBT themes in mythology refers to mythologies and religious narratives that include stories of romantic affection or sexuality between figures of the same sex or feature divine actions that result in changes in gender...
can be found around the world.
Corporate attitudes
In some capitalistCapitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
countries, large private sector
Private sector
In economics, the private sector is that part of the economy, sometimes referred to as the citizen sector, which is run by private individuals or groups, usually as a means of enterprise for profit, and is not controlled by the state...
firms
Corporation
A corporation is created under the laws of a state as a separate legal entity that has privileges and liabilities that are distinct from those of its members. There are many different forms of corporations, most of which are used to conduct business. Early corporations were established by charter...
often lead the way in the equal treatment of gay men and lesbians. For instance, more than half of the Fortune 500
Fortune 500
The Fortune 500 is an annual list compiled and published by Fortune magazine that ranks the top 500 U.S. closely held and public corporations as ranked by their gross revenue after adjustments made by Fortune to exclude the impact of excise taxes companies collect. The list includes publicly and...
offer domestic partnership
Domestic partnership
A domestic partnership is a legal or personal relationship between two individuals who live together and share a common domestic life but are neither joined by marriage nor a civil union...
benefits and 49 of the Fortune 50 companies include sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
in their non-discrimination policies (only ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil
Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas...
does not).
Anti-homosexual attitudes
Conservatism
ConservatismConservatism
Conservatism is a political and social philosophy that promotes the maintenance of traditional institutions and supports, at the most, minimal and gradual change in society. Some conservatives seek to preserve things as they are, emphasizing stability and continuity, while others oppose modernism...
is a term broadly used for people who are inclined to traditional values.
Whilst conservatism includes people of many views, it has a significant proportion of adherents who consider homosexuals, and especially the efforts of homosexuals to achieve equal rights and recognition, to be a threat to valued traditions, institutions and freedoms. Such attitudes are generally tied in with opposition to what some conservatives call the "homosexual agenda
Homosexual agenda
Homosexual agenda is a pejorative term used by some conservatives in the United States to describe the advocacy of cultural acceptance and normalization of non-heterosexual orientations and relationships...
".
The finding that attitudes to alternative sexualities correlate strongly with nature of contact and with personal beliefs is stated in a variety of research over a substantial time period, and conservative men and women stand out in their views specifically.
Thus Herek, who established the Attitudes Toward Lesbians and Gay Men Scale in psychology, states:
- "The ATLG and its subscales are consistently correlated with other theoretically-relevant constructs. Higher scores (more negative attitudes) correlate significantly with high religiosity, lack of contact with gay men and lesbians, adherence to traditional sex-role attitudes, belief in a traditional family ideology, and high levels of dogmatism (Herek, 1987a, 1987b, 1988, 1994; Herek & Glunt, 1993; Herek & Capitanio, 1995, 1996)"
- and that:
- "The strongest predictor of positive attitudes toward homosexuals was that the interviewee knew a gay man or lesbian. The correlation held across each demographic subset represented in the survey—sex, education level, age—bar one: political persuasion. [Conservative men and women]"
An example of conservative views can also be found in the discussion of what conservatives call "homosexual recruitment
Homosexual recruitment
Homosexual recruitment is a term used, primarily in the U.S., to describe alleged attempts by homosexuals to actively "recruit" otherwise heterosexual youths into the 'gay lifestyle'. Allegations of gay recruitment are sometimes leveled at efforts by gay activists to encourage homosexuals to "come...
", within a document released by the conservative Christian organization Alliance Defense Fund
Alliance Defense Fund
The Alliance Defense Fund is a conservative Christian nonprofit organization with the stated goal of "defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation." ADF was founded in 1994 by the late Bill Bright , the late Larry Burkett , James Dobson The...
states:
- The homosexual activist movement are driving an agenda that will severely limit the ability to live and practice the Gospel, whether it is in the boardroom, the classroom, halls of government, private organizations, and even in places of worship. In their relentless attempts to obtain special rights, that no other special interest group has, they are in the process of redefining the family, demanding not only 'tolerance' [...] but 'acceptance', and ultimately seeking to marginalize, censor, and punish those individuals who stand in the way of their multiple goals.
As this statement illustrates, those who believe that a disapproving attitude toward homosexuality is a tenet of their religion can see efforts to abolish such attitudes as an attack on their religious freedom. Those who regard homosexuality as a sin or perversion can believe that acceptance of homosexual parents and same-sex marriage will redefine and diminish the institutions of family and marriage.
More generally, conservatives—by definition—prefer that institutions, traditions and values remain unchanged, and this has put many of them in opposition to increasing the cultural acceptance and legal rights of homosexuals.
Violence
Gay people have been the target of violence for their sexuality in various cultures throughout history. Violence against gay people reached its height during the Holocaust, when at least 15,000 homosexuals were killed and many more imprisoned and institutionalized as insane. Violence against homosexualsViolence against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and the transgendered
Persecution of homosexuals may occur either via legislation prohibiting homosexual acts, or by ad hoc intimidation, mobbing, assault or lynching motivated by homophobia ....
continues to occur today, fueled by anti-gay rhetoric.
Anti-gay speech
Anti-gay slogans date back at least as far as Classical GreeceClassical Greece
Classical Greece was a 200 year period in Greek culture lasting from the 5th through 4th centuries BC. This classical period had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and greatly influenced the foundation of Western civilizations. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, such as...
2500 years ago. These slogans have expressed numerous derogatory viewpoints against gays which have ranged from disrespectful to overtly insulting.
Psychology and attempts at modification of sexual orientation
- Main articles: Homosexuality and psychologyHomosexuality and psychologyPsychology was one of the first disciplines to study homosexuality as a discrete phenomenon. Prior to and throughout most of the 20th century, common standard psychology viewed homosexuality in terms of pathological models as a mental illness...
, Sexual orientation change effortsSexual orientation change effortsSexual orientation change efforts are methods that aim to eliminate a same-sex sexual orientation. They may include behavioral techniques, cognitive behavioral techniques , psychoanalytic techniques, medical approaches, religious and spiritual approaches.The longstanding consensus of the...
In 1973, the (US) American Psychiatric Association
American Psychiatric Association
The American Psychiatric Association is the main professional organization of psychiatrists and trainee psychiatrists in the United States, and the most influential worldwide. Its some 38,000 members are mainly American but some are international...
voted to remove homosexuality from Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is published by the American Psychiatric Association and provides a common language and standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders...
. The current DSM contains a diagnosis of "persistent and marked distress about one’s sexual orientation
Ego-dystonic sexual orientation
Ego-dystonic sexual orientation is an ego-dystonic condition characterized by having a sexual orientation or an attraction that is at odds with one's idealized self-image, causing anxiety and a desire to change one's orientation or become more comfortable with one's sexual...
." The decision was supported by a majority of the membership. Though some criticized this as a political decision, the social and political impetus for change was supported by scientific evidence. In fact, the research of Evelyn Hooker
Evelyn Hooker
Evelyn Hooker was a North American psychologist most notable for her 1957 paper "The Adjustment of the Male Overt Homosexual" in which she administered psychological tests to groups of self-identified homosexuals and heterosexuals and asked experts, based on those tests alone, to select the...
and other psychologists and psychiatrists helped to end the notion that homosexuality was in and of itself a mental illness. The World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
currently lists ego-dystonic sexual orientation
Ego-dystonic sexual orientation
Ego-dystonic sexual orientation is an ego-dystonic condition characterized by having a sexual orientation or an attraction that is at odds with one's idealized self-image, causing anxiety and a desire to change one's orientation or become more comfortable with one's sexual...
in the ICD-10
ICD-10
The International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th Revision is a medical classification list for the coding of diseases, signs and symptoms, abnormal findings, complaints, social circumstances, and external causes of injury or diseases, as maintained by the...
.
Many religious groups and other advocates, like National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality
National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality
The National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality is a non-profit organization that offers reparative therapy and other regimens that purport to change the sexual orientation of individuals who experience unwanted same-sex attraction...
(NARTH), believe that they can "heal" or "cure" homosexuality through conversion therapy or another method to change sexual orientation
Sexual orientation change efforts
Sexual orientation change efforts are methods that aim to eliminate a same-sex sexual orientation. They may include behavioral techniques, cognitive behavioral techniques , psychoanalytic techniques, medical approaches, religious and spiritual approaches.The longstanding consensus of the...
. In a survey of 882 people who were undergoing conversion therapy, attending ex-gay
Ex-gay
The ex-gay movement consists of people and organizations that seek to get people to refrain from entering or pursuing same-sex relationships, to eliminate homosexual desires, to develop heterosexual desires, or to enter into a heterosexual relationship...
groups or ex-gay conferences, 22. 9% reported they had not undergone any changes, 42.7% reported some changes, and 34.3% reported much change in sexual orientation. Many Western health and mental health professional organizations believe sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime, but that this therapy is unnecessary, potentially harmful, and the effectiveness has not been rigorously and scientifically proven. Most notable for his dissent from this opinion is Dr. Robert Spitzer
Robert Spitzer (psychiatrist)
Robert L. Spitzer was a major architect of the modern classification of mental disorders. He is a retired professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in New York City, United States and was on the research faculty of the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. He...
. Another study refuting the claims of conversion therapy proponents was done in 2001 by Dr. Ariel Shidlo and Dr. Michael Schroeder, which showed only 3% of the participants claiming to have completely changed their orientation from gay to straight.
In many non-Western post-colonial countries, homosexual orientation is still considered to be a mental disorder and illness. In Muslim areas, this position is ascribed to the earlier adoption of European Victorian attitudes by the westernized elite, in areas where previously native traditions embraced same-sex relations.
Stereotypes
Homosexual males are often stereotyped as being limp-wristed, being interested in women’s fashion such as fashion design or hairdressing, under the influence of alcohol or drugs, having a circle of friends consisting of heterosexual females or unable to be monogamous.Lesbians (or gay women) are usually stereotyped as being man-haters, having an overly tough or unattractive appearance, having health problems such as obesity, interested in sports or life-risking occupations such as the police force or the military and having a preference for short haircuts, tattoos and male attire.
Bisexual men and women are portrayed as being sexually immoral, manipulative, insincere or undecided. Male bisexuals are particularly stereotyped living on the down-low and female bisexuals are stereotyped as attention-seeking and having bad experiences with men.
Blame for plagues and disasters
The destruction of Sodom and GomorrahSodom and Gomorrah
Sodom and Gomorrah were cities mentioned in the Book of Genesis and later expounded upon throughout the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and Deuterocanonical sources....
as takes place in the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
is sometimes attributed to attempted homosexual rape, but this is disputed and differs from earlier beliefs. Early Jewish belief variously attributed the destruction to turning a blind eye to social injustice or lack of hospitality.
Since the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, sodomites
Sodomites
Sodomite may refer to:* A person who practices sodomy* A resident of Sodom* Sodomites , a short film by Gaspar Noé...
were blamed for "bringing down the wrath of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
" upon the land, and their pleasures blamed for the periodic epidemics of disease which decimated the population. This "pollution" was thought to be cleansed by fire, as a result of which countless individuals were burned at the stake or run through with white-hot iron rods.
Since the end of the 1980s similar accusations have been made, inspired by the AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
epidemic. In the years since, the epidemic has spread and now has many more heterosexual victims than homosexual.
Other contemporary American examples:
- Jerry FalwellJerry FalwellJerry Lamon Falwell, Sr. was an evangelical fundamentalist Southern Baptist pastor, televangelist, and a conservative commentator from the United States. He was the founding pastor of the Thomas Road Baptist Church, a megachurch in Lynchburg, Virginia...
made remarks interpreted as blaming "pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gayGayGay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
s and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American WayPeople For the American WayPeople For the American Way is a progressive advocacy group in the United States. Under U.S. tax code, People For the American Way is organized as a tax-exempt 501 non-profit organization.-Purpose:...
" for the September 11 attacks, but later apologized for his remarks. (Pat RobertsonPat RobertsonMarion Gordon "Pat" Robertson is a media mogul, television evangelist, ex-Baptist minister and businessman who is politically aligned with the Christian Right in the United States....
was also participating in the broadcast.) - Westboro Baptist ChurchWestboro Baptist ChurchThe Westboro Baptist Church is an independent Baptist church known for its extreme stance against homosexuality and its protest activities, which include picketing funerals and desecrating the American flag. The church is widely described as a hate group and is monitored as such by the...
leader Fred PhelpsFred PhelpsFred Waldron Phelps, Sr. is an American pastor heading the Westboro Baptist Church , an independent Baptist church based in Topeka, Kansas...
blames homosexuals for the September 11th attacksSeptember 11, 2001 attacksThe September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
and his cult blames the Indian Ocean tsunami of December, 2004 on American, Swedish, and Thai homosexuals. Phelps has little or no support among the wider religious community.
Association with child abuse and pedophilia
Relationships between adults and youths, both male and female, were practiced historically dating back to at least antiquityAncient history
Ancient history is the study of the written past from the beginning of recorded human history to the Early Middle Ages. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, with Cuneiform script, the oldest discovered form of coherent writing, from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC...
, when they were reported among a number of cultures, among which the Celt
Celt
The Celts were a diverse group of tribal societies in Iron Age and Roman-era Europe who spoke Celtic languages.The earliest archaeological culture commonly accepted as Celtic, or rather Proto-Celtic, was the central European Hallstatt culture , named for the rich grave finds in Hallstatt, Austria....
ic, the Persian and the Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
. See Plato's Phaedrus (dialogue) and Lucian's Erotes
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
. The best documented, and perhaps the most formalized, being the Greek tradition, it is the one that has become emblematic of erotic relations between men and adolescent boys. The association of modern masculine desire for adolescent youths with Greek man/boy practices has been resuscitated periodically by various cultural movements such as the Italian Neo-Platonists (including Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino
Marsilio Ficino was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance, an astrologer, a reviver of Neoplatonism who was in touch with every major academic thinker and writer of his day, and the first translator of Plato's complete extant works into Latin...
) and literary figures such as Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
and André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
, and has continued into contemporary times. Invariably, each such instance has been met with alarm and accusations of corruption of the young.
Thus, some people fear exposing their children to homosexuals in unsupervised settings, their fear being that they might be molested, raped, or recruited
Homosexual recruitment
Homosexual recruitment is a term used, primarily in the U.S., to describe alleged attempts by homosexuals to actively "recruit" otherwise heterosexual youths into the 'gay lifestyle'. Allegations of gay recruitment are sometimes leveled at efforts by gay activists to encourage homosexuals to "come...
to be homosexuals themselves. The publicity surrounding the Roman Catholic sex abuse cases
Roman Catholic sex abuse cases
The Catholic sex abuse cases are a series of convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests and members of religious orders. These cases began receiving public attention beginning in the mid-1980s...
has heightened these concerns. Many organizations focus on these concerns, drawing connections between homosexuality and pedophilia. According to a study
John Jay Report
The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States, commonly known as the John Jay Report, is a 2004 report by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, based on surveys...
commissioned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is the episcopal conference of the Catholic Church in the United States. Founded in 1966 as the joint National Conference of Catholic Bishops and United States Catholic Conference, it is composed of all active and retired members of the Catholic...
, under the auspices of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice
John Jay College of Criminal Justice
The John Jay College of Criminal Justice is a senior college of the City University of New York in Midtown Manhattan, New York City and is the only liberal arts college with a criminal justice and forensic focus in the United States. The college offers programs in Forensic Science and Forensic...
and an all-lay review board headed by Illinois
Illinois
Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...
Appellate Court
Appellate court
An appellate court, commonly called an appeals court or court of appeals or appeal court , is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal...
Justice Anne M. Burke, “81% of the reported victims of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy were boys.” The review board went on to conclude that, “the crisis was characterized by homosexual behavior”, and in light of this, “the current crisis cannot be addressed without consideration of issues related to homosexuality.” According to Margaret Smith, one of John Jay's researchers, however, it is “an unwarranted conclusion” to assert that the majority of priests who abused male victims are gay. Though “the majority of the abusive acts were homosexual in nature [...] participation in homosexual acts is not the same as sexual identity as a gay man.” One of her fellow researchers, Louis Schlesinger, argued that the main problem was pedophilia
Pedophilia
As a medical diagnosis, pedophilia is defined as a psychiatric disorder in adults or late adolescents typically characterized by a primary or exclusive sexual interest in prepubescent children...
or ephebophilia
Ephebophilia
Ephebophilia is the sexual preference of adults for mid-to-late adolescents, generally ages 15 to 19. The term was originally used in the late 19th to mid 20th century, and has been more recently revisited by Ray Blanchard. It is one of a number of sexual preferences across age groups subsumed...
, not sexual orientation and said that some men who are married to adult women are attracted to adolescent males.
A number of small-scale studies by Dr. Carole Jenny, Dr. A.W. Richard Sipe, and others have not found evidence that homosexuals are more likely to molest children than heterosexuals. Based on phallometric tests, Dr. Kurt Freund
Kurt Freund
Kurt Freund was a Czech-Canadian physician and sexologist best known for developing phallometry , research studies in pedophilia, and for the "courtship disorder" hypothesis as a taxonomy of certain paraphilias Kurt Freund (17 January 1914–23 October 1996) was a Czech-Canadian physician and...
asserted that "androphiles" (male homosexuals with a preference for adults) are no more attracted to adolescent or younger boys than "gynephiles" (male heterosexuals with a preference for adults) are to adolescent or younger girls. According to him, only rarely does a sex offender against male children have a preference for adult males. Other researches available also suggest men who molest boys (specially prepubertal ones) tend to prefer adult women over men as sexual partners, as famously proven in the study of Paxson Helgesen.
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
psychiatrist
Psychiatrist
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
Dr. Frederick Berlin, who runs a treatment program for offenders, says it's flawed to assume that men who molest young boys are attracted to adult men; Berlin defines attraction to children as a separate orientation of its own. Psychotherapist Dr. A.W. Richard Sipe, also argue that the sexual deprivation that occurs in the priesthood could lead one to turn to children and that boys are more accessible to priests and other male authority figures than girls. A study by Dr. A. Nicholas Groth found that nearly half of the child sex offenders in his small sample were exclusively attracted to children. The other half regressed to children after finding trouble in adult relationships. No one in his sample was primarily attracted to same-sex adults.
The empirical research show that sexual orientation does not affect the likelihood that people will abuse children. Many child molesters cannot be characterized as having an adult sexual orientation at all; they are fixated on children.
Opposition to promotion of homosexuality
Promotion of homosexualityHomosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
is a group of behaviours believed by some gay rights opponents to be carried out in media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
, public places etc.
In the UK Section 28
Section 28
Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 caused the controversial addition of Section 2A to the Local Government Act 1986 , enacted on 24 May 1988 and repealed on 21 June 2000 in Scotland, and on 18 November 2003 in the rest of Great Britain by section 122 of the Local Government Act 2003...
of the 1988 Local Government Act
Local Government Act 1988
The United Kingdom Local Government Act of 1988 was famous for introducing the controversial Section 28 into law. In terms of the section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, Local Authorities were prohibited from promoting in specified category of schools, "the teaching of the acceptability of...
banned promotion of homosexuality "as a pretended family relationship" by local government employees in the course of their duties. The act was aimed to prevent the promotion of homosexuality in schools. It was later repealed. This promotion is opposed by Morocco. Article 200
Article 200
Article 200 was a section of the Penal Code of Romania that criminalised homosexual relationships. It was introduced in 1968, under the communist regime, during the rule Nicolae Ceauşescu, and remained in force until it was repealed by the Năstase government on 22 June 2001...
section of the Penal Code of Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
had criminalised promotion of homosexuality, which was later repealed. Uganda
Uganda
Uganda , officially the Republic of Uganda, is a landlocked country in East Africa. Uganda is also known as the "Pearl of Africa". It is bordered on the east by Kenya, on the north by South Sudan, on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on the southwest by Rwanda, and on the south by...
is considering a ban on promotion of homosexuality, with the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill along with other measures.
Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
banned it on June 16, 2009 amid protests by gay rights groups. Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
is also considering a ban.
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
homoerotic practices were widely present, and integrated into the religion, education, philosophy and military culture. The sexualized form of these relationships was the topic of vigorous debate. In particular, anal intercourse was condemned by many, including Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
, as a form of hubris
Hubris
Hubris , also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power....
and faulted for dishonoring and feminizing the boys. Relations between adult males were generally ridiculed. Plato also believed that the chaste form of the relationship was the mark of an enlightened society, while only barbarians condemned it.
Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
and Sparta
Sparta
Sparta or Lacedaemon, was a prominent city-state in ancient Greece, situated on the banks of the River Eurotas in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. It emerged as a political entity around the 10th century BC, when the invading Dorians subjugated the local, non-Dorian population. From c...
are both well known for encouraging same-sex relationships as part of a youth's education and socialization. In both societies, though, once a youth came of age he was expected to take on another youth as beloved, and eventually to marry and continue the family line.
Ancient Rome
"Homosexual" and "heterosexual" were not categories of Roman sexualitySexuality in Ancient Rome
Sexual attitudes and behaviors in ancient Rome are indicated by Roman art, literature and inscriptions, and to a lesser extent by archaeological remains such as erotic artifacts and architecture...
, and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
lacks words that would translate these concepts exactly. The primary dichotomy of Roman sexuality was active/dominant/masculine and passive/submissive/"feminized". The masculinity of an adult male citizen was defined sexually by his taking the penetrative role, whether his partner was female or a male of lower status
Social class in ancient Rome
Social class in ancient Rome was hierarchical, but there were multiple and overlapping social hierarchies. The status of free-born Romans was established by:* ancestry ;...
. A Roman citizen's political liberty (libertas) was defined in part by the right to preserve his body from physical compulsion or use by others; for the male citizen to use his body to give pleasure was considered servile and subversive of the social hierarchy.
It was considered natural for a man to be attracted to a beautiful young male, but the bodies of citizen youths were strictly off-limits. Acceptable male partners were slaves
Slavery in ancient Rome
The institution of slavery in ancient Rome played an important role in society and the Roman economy. Besides manual labor on farms and in mines, slaves performed many domestic services and a variety of other tasks, such as accounting...
, male prostitutes
Prostitution in ancient Rome
Prostitution in ancient Rome reflects the ambivalent attitudes of Romans toward pleasure and sexuality. Prostitution was legal and licensed. Some large brothels in the 4th century, when Rome was becoming officially Christianized, seem to have been counted as tourist attractions and were possibly...
, or others who lacked social standing (the infames). Same-sex relations among male citizens of equal status, including soldiers, were disparaged, and in some circumstances penalized harshly. In political rhetoric, a man might be attacked for effeminacy
Effeminacy
Effeminacy describes traits in a human male, that are more often associated with traditional feminine nature, behaviour, mannerisms, style or gender roles rather than masculine nature, behaviour, mannerisms, style or roles....
or playing the passive role in sex acts, but not for performing penetrative sex on a socially acceptable male partner. Threats of anal or oral rape
Irrumatio
Irrumatio, also called irrumation, is a type of sexual intercourse performed by actively thrusting one's penis into a partner's mouth and throat. It may also be the thrusting of the penis between the legs, breasts, feet, upper thighs , or between the abdomens of two partners."Latin erotic...
against another man were forms of masculine braggadocio.
Homosexual behaviors were regulated in so far as they threatened or impinged on an ideal of liberty for the dominant male, who retained his masculinity by not being penetrated. The Lex Scantinia
Lex Scantinia
The Lex Scantinia is a poorly documented ancient Roman law that penalized a sex crime against a freeborn male minor . The law may also have been used to prosecute adult male citizens who willingly took a passive role in having sex with other men...
imposed penalties on those who committed a sex crime (stuprum) against a freeborn male minor; it may also have been used to prosecute adult male citizens who willingly took the "passive" role. Children who were born into slavery or became enslaved had no legal protections against sexual abuse; a good-looking and graceful slave-boy might be chosen and groomed as his owner's sexual favorite. Pederasty in ancient Rome thus differed from pederastic practice in ancient Greece
Pederasty in ancient Greece
Pederasty in ancient Greece was a socially acknowledged relationship between an adult and a younger male usually in his teens. It was characteristic of the Archaic and Classical periods...
, where by custom the couple were both freeborn males of equal social status.
The 18th-century historian Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...
declared that of the first fifteen Roman emperor
Roman Emperor
The Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office although at any given time, a given title was associated with the emperor...
s, only Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
was "entirely correct" in his sexual practices, by which Gibbon meant exclusively heterosexual. Confining one's sexual activities to women was considered unusual among the Romans. Although Roman law
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...
did not recognize marriage between men, and in general Romans regarded marriage as a heterosexual union with the primary purpose of producing children, in the early Imperial period
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
some male couples were celebrating traditional marriage rites. Juvenal
Juvenal
The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by the Latin author Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD.Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a...
remarks that his friends often attended such ceremonies. The emperor Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
had two marriages to men, once as the bride and once as the groom. He had his pederastic lover Sporus castrated, and during their marriage Sporus appeared in public as Nero's wife wearing the regalia that was customary for Roman empresses.
Same-sex relations among women are infrequently documented during the Republic and Principate
Principate
The Principate is the first period of the Roman Empire, extending from the beginning of the reign of Caesar Augustus to the Crisis of the Third Century, after which it was replaced with the Dominate. The Principate is characterized by a concerted effort on the part of the Emperors to preserve the...
, but better attested during the Empire. An early reference to homosexual women as "lesbians" is found in the Roman-era Greek writer Lucian
Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....
(2nd century AD): "They say there are women like that in Lesbos, masculine-looking, but they don't want to give it up for men. Instead, they consort with women, just like men." Since male writers thought a sex act required an active or dominant partner who was "phallic", they imagined that in lesbian sex one of the women would use a dildo
Dildo
A dildo is a sex toy, often explicitly phallic in appearance, intended for bodily penetration during masturbation or sex with partners.- Description and uses :...
or have an exceptionally large clitoris for penetration, and that she would be the one experiencing pleasure. The poet Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
describes lesbians as having outsized sexual appetites and performing penetrative sex on both women and boys. Satiric portrayals of women who sodomize boys, drink and eat like men, and engage in vigorous physical regimens, may reflect cultural anxieties about the growing independence of Roman women.
Ancient Israel
Throughout most of the history of ancient IsraelIsrael
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, intercourse between males was condemned outright as an "abomination" and Mosaic Law demanded the death penalty for those men who "lie with a man as with a woman". Other aspects of same-sex relations were not discussed.
Though there are no recorded cases of punishment for homosexuality in Ancient Israel.
Early Christianity
Many contend that from its earliest days, ChristianityChristianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
followed the Hebrew
Hebrews
Hebrews is an ethnonym used in the Hebrew Bible...
tradition of condemnation of male sexual intercourse and certain forms of sexual relations between men and women, labeling both as sodomy
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
. Some contemporary Christian scholars dispute this however. The teachings of Jesus Christ encouraged a turning away from and forgiveness of sin, including those sins of sexual impurity, although Jesus never referred to homosexuality specifically. Jesus was known as a defender of those whose sexual sins were condemned by the Pharisees
Pharisees
The Pharisees were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty in the wake of...
. At the same time, Jesus strongly upheld the Ten Commandments
Ten Commandments
The Ten Commandments, also known as the Decalogue , are a set of biblical principles relating to ethics and worship, which play a fundamental role in Judaism and most forms of Christianity. They include instructions to worship only God and to keep the Sabbath, and prohibitions against idolatry,...
and urged those whose sexual sins were forgiven to, "go, and sin no more".
Saint Paul
Paul of Tarsus
Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
was even more explicit in his condemnation of sinful behavior, including sodomy, saying, "Know you not that the unjust shall not possess the kingdom of God? Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God" However, the exact meanings of two of the ancient Greek words that Paul used that supposedly refer to homosexuality are disputed amongst scholars.
Christian Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire
After the emperor Constantine ended the persecution of Christians throughout the Roman EmpireRoman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
and made Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
the official state religion in the 4th century, Christian attitudes toward sexual behavior were soon incorporated into Roman Law. In the year 528, the emperor Justinian I
Justinian I
Justinian I ; , ; 483– 13 or 14 November 565), commonly known as Justinian the Great, was Byzantine Emperor from 527 to 565. During his reign, Justinian sought to revive the Empire's greatness and reconquer the lost western half of the classical Roman Empire.One of the most important figures of...
, responding to an outbreak of pederasty
Pederasty
Pederasty or paederasty is an intimate relationship between an adult and an adolescent boy outside his immediate family. The word pederasty derives from Greek "love of boys", a compound derived from "child, boy" and "lover".Historically, pederasty has existed as a variety of customs and...
among the Christian clergy, issued a law which made castration
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
the punishment for sodomy.
China
According to Louis Crompton, there are historical records that tacitly assumed bisexuality as the human norm in China. Same-sex practices have been documented there since the "Spring and Autumn Annals" period (parallel with Classical Greece) and its roots are found in the legend of China's origin, the reign of the Yellow Emperor, who, among his many inventions, is credited with being the first to take male bedmates. At the same time the practice was not in the mainstream of the culture, and was condemned for corrupting the judgement of rulers, as did relations with female concubines.Attitudes have changed radically in the past hundred and fifty years, swinging from casual acceptance to antagonism to guarded acceptance again. The Chinese Psychiatrists’ Association removed homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
from the list of mental illnesses in April 2001. However, as scriptwriter and teacher Cui Zi’en, one of the few openly gay intellectuals in today's China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
points out, in his country, it is still seen as a psychological disorder. "In the West, it’s frowned on to criticize homosexuals and even more to make them feel different", says Cui Zi’en, contrasting it with Chinese society which, "is changing, but there’ll always be people who’ll feel disgust."
New Guinea
The Bedamini people of New GuineaNew Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
believe that semen is the main source of masculinity and strength. In consequence, the sharing of semen between men, particularly when there is an age gap, is seen as promoting growth throughout nature, while excessive heterosexual activities are seen as leading to decay and death.
McCarthy era
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, open homosexuality was taboo. Many politicians treated the homosexual as a symbol of antinationalism, construing masculinity as patriotism and marking the "unmasculine" homosexual as a threat to national security. This perceived connection between homosexuality and antinationalism was present in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia
Gay rights in Russia
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender persons in Russia may face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents, though many advances have been made in the past two decades...
as well, and appears in contemporary politics to this day.
Senator Joseph McCarthy
Joseph McCarthy
Joseph Raymond "Joe" McCarthy was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957...
used accusations of homosexuality as a smear tactic in his anti-Communist crusade
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
, often combining the Second Red Scare with the Lavender Scare
Lavender scare
The Lavender Scare refers to the fear and persecution of homosexuals in the 1950s in the United States, which paralleled the anti-communist campaign known as McCarthyism....
. On one occasion, he went so far as to announce to reporters, "If you want to be against McCarthy, boys, you've got to be either a Communist or a cocksucker."
Senator Kenneth Wherry
Kenneth S. Wherry
Kenneth Spicer Wherry was a Republican United States Senator from Nebraska.-Early life:He was born in Liberty, Gage County, Nebraska. He graduated from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi, in 1914...
likewise attempted to invoke some connection between homosexuality and antinationalism as, for example, when he said in an interview with Max Lerner
Max Lerner
Maxwell "Max" Alan Lerner was an American journalist and educator known for his controversial syndicated column....
that "You can't hardly separate homosexuals from subversives." Later in that same interview he draws the line between patriotic Americans and gay men: "But look Lerner, we're both Americans, aren't we? I say, let's get these fellows [closeted gay men in government positions] out of the government."
There were other perceived connections between homosexuality and Communism. Wherry publicized fears that Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
had obtained a list of closeted homosexuals in positions of power from Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, which he believed Stalin intended to use to blackmail these men into working against the U.S. for the Soviet regime. In the 1950 report produced by a Senate subcommittee titled "Employment of Homosexuals and Other Sex Perverts in Government" said that "the pervert is easy prey to the blackmailer.... It is an accepted fact among intelligence agencies that espionage organizations the world over consider sex perverts who are in possession of or have access to confidential material to be prime targets where pressure can be exerted". Along with that security-based concern, the report found homosexuals unsuitable for government employment because "those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons. In addition there is an abundance of evidence to sustain the conclusion that indulgence in acts of sex perversion weakens the moral fiber of an individual to a degree that he is not suitable for a position of responsibility." McCarthy and Roy Cohn
Roy Cohn
Roy Marcus Cohn was an American attorney who became famous during Senator Joseph McCarthy's investigations into Communist activity in the United States during the Second Red Scare. Cohn gained special prominence during the Army–McCarthy hearings. He was also an important member of the U.S...
more often used the secrets of closeted gay American politicians as tools for blackmail than did foreign powers.
LGBT civil rights movement
Beginning in the 20th century, gay rights movements have led to changes in social acceptance and in the media portrayal of homosexuality. The legalization of same-sex marriageSame-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
and non-gender-specific civil union
Civil union
A civil union, also referred to as a civil partnership, is a legally recognized form of partnership similar to marriage. Beginning with Denmark in 1989, civil unions under one name or another have been established by law in many developed countries in order to provide same-sex couples rights,...
s is one of the major goals of gay rights activism. (See: LGBT rights organization
LGBT rights organization
LGBT rights organizations are civil rights, health, and community organizations created and existing to further the civil and human rights and health of sexual minorities and to improve the gay community....
.)
Attitudes toward homosexuality have changed in western societies in the latter part of the 20th century, accompanied by a greater acceptance of gay men and women into both secular and religious institutions.
Criticisms of the LGBT civil rights movement
Some say the term 'LGBT civil rights' is a misnomer and an attempt to piggyback on the civil rights movement. Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson
Jesse Lee Peterson
Jesse Lee Peterson is president and founder of The Brotherhood Organization of A New Destiny , an American group dedicated to a conservative agenda among African Americans. Rev. Peterson is also the Founder and President of BOND Action, Inc., a nonprofit, 501 organization. He has hosted a cable...
, for example, called the comparison of the civil rights movement to the "gay rights movement" a "disgrace to a black American". He said that "homosexuality is not a civil right. What we have is a bunch of radical homosexuals trying to attach their agenda to the struggles of the 1960s", while Jesse Jackson has said "Gays were never called three-fifths human in the Constitution." Gene Rivers, a Boston minister, has accused gays of "pimping" the civil rights movement.
Some opponents of the movement, such as Ralph Reed
Ralph E. Reed, Jr.
Ralph Eugene Reed, Jr., is a conservative American political activist, best known as the first executive director of the Christian Coalition during the early 1990s. He sought the Republican nomination for the office of Lieutenant Governor of Georgia but lost the primary election on July 18, 2006,...
, former executive director of the Christian Coalition, say that gay people are seeking special rights
Special rights
Special rights is a term originally used by libertarians to refer to laws granting rights to one or more groups which are not extended to other groups...
, not equal rights, and that the movement should not be referred to as a civil rights movement. They argue, for example, that in seeking the right to marry members of the same sex, gay people are seeking a special right for themselves and disregarding the fact that polygamists
Polygamy
Polygamy is a marriage which includes more than two partners...
and other groups defined by sexual behaviour do not have this right either.
Statistics
73% of the general public in the United States in 2001 stated that they knew someone who is gayGay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
, lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, or bisexual. This is the result of a steady increase from 1983 when there were 24%, 43% in 1993, 55% in 1998, or 62% in 2000. The percentage of the general public who say there is more acceptance of LGB
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
people in 2001 than before was 64%. Acceptance was measured on many different levels — 87% of the general public would shop at a store owned by someone who is gay or lesbian but only 46% of the general public would attend a church
Church Body
A local church is a Christian religious organization that meets in a particular location. Many are formally organized, with constitutions and by-laws, maintain offices, are served by pastors or lay leaders, and, in nations where this is permissible, often seek seek non-profit corporate status...
or synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
where a minister or rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
is openly gay or lesbian. 51% of the general public in the United States think that "homosexual behavior" is morally wrong (38% "completely agreeing" it is morally wrong and 13% "somewhat agreeing"). Males and people over 65 years old are more likely to think it is wrong. Among people who don't know someone who is LGB, 61% think the behavior is wrong. Broken down by religion, 60% of evangelical Christians
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
think that it is wrong, whereas 11% with no religious affiliation are against it. 57% of the general public think that gays and lesbians experience a lot of prejudice
Prejudice
Prejudice is making a judgment or assumption about someone or something before having enough knowledge to be able to do so with guaranteed accuracy, or "judging a book by its cover"...
and discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
, making it the group most believed to experience prejudice and discrimination. (Black Americans come in second at 42%).
In terms of support of public policies, according to the same 2001 study, 76% of the general public think that there should be laws to protect gay and lesbian people from job discrimination, 74% from housing discrimination, 73% for inheritance rights, 70% support health and other employee benefits for domestic partners, 68% support social security benefits, and 56% support GL people openly serving in the military. 73% favor sexual orientation
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
being included in the hate crimes statutes. 39% support same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage is marriage between two persons of the same biological sex or social gender. Supporters of legal recognition for same-sex marriage typically refer to such recognition as marriage equality....
, while 47% support civil unions, and 46% support adoption rights.
A separate study shows that, in the United States, the younger generation is more supportive of gay rights than average. For example, a Kaiser Family Foundation study found that 18–24 year olds strongly supported gay rights in 2001. However, polling data also shows a trend among Americans in general toward rejection of homosexual-specific legal expansion of rights, especially same-sex marriage. A poll commissioned by CNN/USA Today Gallup in 2005 asked the question, "Do you think marriages between homosexuals should or should not be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages?" 56% said "should not be valid", while 39% said "should be valid", and 5% were unsure.
See also
- Gay agenda
- Gay bashingGay bashingGay bashing and gay bullying is verbal or physical abuse against a person who is perceived to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender . Such abuse is used also to bully heterosexual persons and persons of non-specific or unknown sexual orientation.A "bashing" may be a specific incident, and one...
- HeterosexismHeterosexismHeterosexism is a system of attitudes, bias, and discrimination in favor of opposite-sex sexuality and relationships. It can include the presumption that everyone is heterosexual or that opposite-sex attractions and relationships are the only norm and therefore superior...
- HomophobiaHomophobiaHomophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...
- BiphobiaBiphobiaBiphobia is a term used to describe aversion felt toward bisexuality and bisexuals as a social group or as individuals. People of any sexual orientation can experience such feelings of aversion...
- Media portrayal of bisexualityMedia portrayal of bisexualityThe portrayal of bisexuality in the media reflects societal attitudes towards bisexuality. List includes portrayals of bisexual identification as well as non-identified bisexual behavior.- Film :-Fiction:- Comic books :-Non-fiction:...
- Societal abuse
- Sociology of genderSociology of genderSociology of gender is a prominent subfield of sociology. Since 1950 an increasing part of the academic literature, and of the public discourse uses gender for the perceived or projected masculinity or femininity of a person...
- Status of same-sex marriageStatus of same-sex marriageThe status of same-sex marriage changes frequently as legislation and legal action takes place around the world. Summarized in this article are the current trends and consensus of political authorities and religions throughout the world.-Civil recognition:...