Confession: I was raised as and used to be a homophobe [View All]

[boolean]

The talk about Michael Richards' rant made me realize something about how we are raised and how certain things that we don't really believe become ingrained in our minds, only to burst out in moments of anger or frustration.

This post (unlike a lot of my posts) is not tongue in cheek or semi-serious.

I was born and raised Catholic. We were taught from a very early age about the deviant gays. This was back in the day before the Church became a little more "accepting" of homosexuality. (My understanding of it now is that being gay isn't a sin anymore, but "acting upon it" is). Before I even lost my first milk tooth I knew the following things:
- Gay people are sick in the head
- Gay people are going to hell if they don't repent
- We should just round them all up and kill them
- Being gay is a choice that they made ("Free will")
- To be called a faggot or a queer on the playground meant a great insult

This was before I even knew all about sex. The only thing I knew about gay people were that "they slept in the same bed together", and that was wrong. Then came the teen years, and things got worse.

Turns out that a gay man is so disgusting that he would put his penis in another man's anus, or even worse, another man's mouth. Oddly, most of us born and raised homophobes didn't have much of a problem with gay women. (Surprised? I didn't think so!) I went through high school the typical homophobe. Any male in the class that displayed certain "gay tendencies" (if you will), was teased and ridiculed. He would be called a faggot, a fudge packer, a fruit, you know all the terms. Whenever a friendly insult needed to be hurled amongst buddies, these words would be prime candidates. Whenever mean spirited bullying came about, you can be 100% sure these words would be used.

Now, thankfully, I was not among the bullies. I had my own problems. People bullied me all the time for other reasons that we won't get into here. But there was one classmate who was very clearly gay and who was teased relentlessly by others. I usually laughed when that happened. I never actually teased him, but I didn't have a problem with others teasing him. Maybe it was because it took some of the heat off of me, but mostly it was because I was a homophobe, so dammit, he deserved it. Why was he acting like such a faggot? Didn't he like GIRLS?!

One day, I had the chance to talk to this person. Like I said, I was not a bully. I didn't actively insult him or ridicule him. We just had a normal conversation about whatever the fuck (I can't even remember), but somewhere along the line the conversation turned to his perceived gayness. I knew one thing I had in common with this guy is that we were both on the receiving end of the bullies. But I was still a homophobe. I became Mr. Sympathetic, telling him that he's not gay, he just thinks he is. "They just keep calling you gay, so now you think you are", I said. "Just stop acting like that", I said.

My homophobia stuck with me throughout high school. It was in university that I finally began to change. It's quite striking how quickly my change came. I remember the exact day clearly. I was sitting in a lecture of one of my elective courses. Included in this lecture was a short video about animal sexual behavior. Homosexuality had been observed in monkeys, penguins, bison, elephants, etc. I was shocked to my very core. Gay ANIMALS? I always thought being gay was something sick humans did! It occurred to me right then and there that perhaps this warranted further investigation, but I was still homophobic. I wasn't actually going to seek out information, mostly because I didn't really care one way or the other.

Then I saw the same thing on the Discovery channel about gay animals. Still, I didn't really care, but I became a little more open to the idea that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't a choice.

Then I saw gay people on CNN, demanding their rights. I saw gay rights parades. I saw protests. I saw celebrities coming out of the closet. It's not that I haven't seen these things before, but that I always just dismissed them. I realized that I didn't need a scientific explanation to be convinced. Who CARES why people are gay? Whether it's genetic or it comes from experiences, or whatever? Here are a bunch of gay people that just won't quit, that just won't stop demanding acceptance of them, that just keep on insisting that they are NOT evil, that they did NOT choose their sexual orientation.

Is being gay a choice? Shit, I didn't need a scientific explanation. All I needed to do was to ASK!

And it just so happened that years later, I encountered the very person from highschool who was teased and ridiculed. We talked about how things are going...You know, the usual stuff. "What're you up to? How have you been? Blah blah blah". He told me that he is fully out of the closet now, he has a boyfriend, and he's happy. I could tell that the only reason he told me was because he probably remembered that conversation we had those many years ago. I told him that I didn't know anything back then, that I totally get it now, and that I'm happy to see he's doing OK. I didn't ask him if he chose to be gay. I said "I know you didn't choose to be gay", and he said "I'm glad you know that". I didn't need to watch the Discovery channel or read it in a book. Here was a gay man right in front of me telling me to my face HE DID NOT CHOOSE TO BE GAY. That's really all there is to it.

If anybody thinks that the parades, the protests, the media appearances, and the court battles don't help, I want to say to everybody right now that I am living proof that they do. Not only did I change, but the very parents that passed the ignorance down to me have also changed. My father was the first one to realize it. My mother took a little bit longer, but now all three of us are on the same page. My brother and sister needed work, but they've come around as well. It wasn't really HATE or FEAR of homosexuals, it was good old fashioned IGNORANCE that afflicted us. It's not surprising that people who are educated tend to be liberal. It took university for me to finally think critically and clearly about the matter.

Everything from racism to homophobia to the Iraq war to the opposition to universal healthcare to tax cuts for the rich to anti-choice to guns to global warming to the war on terror the war on drugs the war on Christmas the war on this the war on that the war on the other....It's all rooted in ignorance. The GOP have successfully kept the powerful at the top by keeping the people ignorant. From ignorance comes fear, and from fear comes hate. If we're all busy hating others because we don't know any better, then Dick Cheney is able to make billions. Rupert Murdoch, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly are able to make billions.

Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell make billions.

Exxon Mobil, pfizer, Altria, and Smith & Wesson make billions.

The Carlyle Group makes billions.

The Catholic Church makes billions.

The Saudi King makes billions.

Osama Bin Laden makes billions.

Billions upon billions upon billions upon billions for the people at the top as long as the rest of us remain ignorant.

I want to close this by saying that we are all ignorant in one way or another. I was ignorant regarding homosexuals. Some of us are ignorant regarding race. Some of us are ignorant regarding guns. Some of us are ignorant regarding abortion. It is ignorance that is our enemy. That's what it means to be a liberal, to me. Liberals hate ignorance. Sometimes we argue around here, sometimes we fight each other, sometimes we disagree, sometimes we have flamewars...But if there is one thing that we must all work together for, it's the abolition of ignorance. If we are to bring the powerful to their knees, we must attack ignorance. And when you attack ignorance, it works. It'll work on Michael Richards and it'll work on Mel Gibson. It worked during the civil war and it worked during civil rights.

It worked on me.