Reply #31: misogny and homophobia seem to go hand in hand [View All]

[Shallah Kali]

Do Boys in Tutus Break God’s ‘Chain of Command’?
http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/candacechellew-hodge/3692/do_boys_in_tutus_break_god%E2%80%99s_%E2%80%98chain_of_command%E2%80%99

"God created the order from God to Jesus, from Jesus to men, from men to their wives, from wives to their children. So men play a critical role in bridging the gap between the deity and the family. The human male is the person that God uses to bring the truth to the world and the family. If the man quits acting like a man and doesn’t take the man’s responsibilities — that’s what they call gays — then the structure falls apart,” White said.

snip

Feminist theologian Beverly Harrison has written that the connections between homophobia and misogyny run deep because “the social control of women as a group has totally shaped our deepest and most basic attitudes toward sexuality.” That control is so complete that society expects “compulsory heterosexuality” and its only alternatives are celibacy or asexuality.

This social control then, Harrison posits, is at the heart of not just the inequality of women, but the inequality faced by gays and lesbians.

“We must acknowledge that it is through our socialization to sexuality that we begin to learn ‘fear of equality’ and either to feel ‘strong’ by lording it over others or to feel ‘safe’ by being controlled by them. By conforming rigidly to ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ roles, we learn, at a foundational level, to tolerate inequality.”