An Aside Regarding Homosexuality

[Randwolf]

New study shows homophobes live shorter lives

"Homophobia is killing us — literally.

I love the irony inherent in Syne's comments considering many believe Homophobia merits its own category of recognized personality disorders:

Mary H. Guindon, PhD, Chair of the Department of Counseling and Human Services at Johns Hopkins University, et al., wrote in a Apr. 2003 article, "Intolerance and Psychopathology: Toward a General Diagnosis for Racism, Sexism and Homophobia," published by the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry that: (pictured below, Diane Gramley, President of the Venango County-based HATE GROUP American Family Association of Pennsylvania)

"[W]e explore the characteristics of persons who perpetrate pain and injustice on others through racism, sexism, or homophobia. We propose that those who engage in such harmful behaviors are in fact displaying a type of psychopathology that deserves its own particular category... In other words, behind racism, sexism, and homophobia, there seems to be a common core of intolerance that supports and contributes to these attitudes or mindsets in their various manifestations. The traits associated with this form of intolerance, when taken as a whole, seem to be descriptive of a personality disorder.

This is a disorder that deserves full acknowledgment as a psychological problem unto itself. It is not enough to merely note the harm or lament the damage. Researchers and therapists need to develop treatment approaches that have the capacity to alleviate it." -- Apr. 2003 - Mary H. Guindon, PhD​

http://endbigotryinvenangocounty.blogspot.com/2011/05/is-homophobia-diagnosable-psychological.html

Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). It can be expressed as antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, or hatred, may be based on irrational fear, and is sometimes related to religious beliefs.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Homophobia is observable in critical and hostile behavior such as discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientations that are non-heterosexual.[1][2] According to the 2010 Hate Crimes Statistics released by the FBI National Press Office, 19.3 percent of hate crimes across the United States "were motivated by a sexual orientation bias."[7] Moreover, in a Southern Poverty Law Center 2010 Intelligence Report extrapolating data from fourteen years (1995–2008), which had complete data available at the time, of the FBI's national hate crime statistics found that LGBT people were "far more likely than any other minority group in the United States to be victimized by violent hate crime."[8]

Recognized types of homophobia include institutionalized homophobia, e.g. religious homophobia and state-sponsored homophobia,[9] and internalized homophobia, experienced by people who have same-sex attractions, regardless of how they identify. Forms of homophobia toward identifiable LGBT social groups have similar yet specific names: lesbophobia[10] – the intersection of homophobia and sexism directed against lesbians, biphobia – towards bisexuality and bisexual people, and transphobia, which targets transsexualism, transsexual and transgender people, and gender variance or gender role nonconformity.​

Bolded emphasis mine. From Wiki, love it or hate it...

Had a psychiatric check up lately Syne? Just looking out for your welfare bud...

 

[Magical Realist]

Fraggle Rocker/Magical Realist:
Comprehensive clinical care for men who have sex with men: an integrated approach

Excellent article. Here's the abstract:

"Men who have sex with men (MSM) have unique health-care needs, not only because of biological factors such as an
increased susceptibility to infection with HIV and sexually transmitted infections associated with their sexual
behaviour, but also because of internalisation of societal stigma related to homosexuality and gender non-conformity,
resulting in depression, anxiety, substance use, and other adverse outcomes. Successful responses to the global HIV/
AIDS epidemic will require the development of culturally sensitive clinical care programmes for MSM that address
these health disparities and root causes of maladaptive behaviour (eg, societal homophobia). Health-care providers
need to become familiar with local outreach agencies, hotlines, and media that can connect MSM with positive role
models and social opportunities. Research is needed to understand how many MSM lead resilient and productive
lives in the face of discrimination to develop assets-based interventions that build on community support. Optimum
clinical care for sexual and gender minorities is a fundamental human right. MSM deserve to be treated with respect,
and health-care providers need to interact with them in ways that promote disclosure of actionable health information."

Personally it is hard to estimate how much psychological damage homophobia has inflicted upon me. In my teens I was zealously fundamentalist Christian to the point of just ignoring my same sex feelings. Later I joined the military and basically put up with 9 years of suppressing my true self just to play a role that was mandatory for all military personel at that time. I feel to this day my anxiety disorder and depressive inclinations were spawned directly by this ongoing consciousness I had that I was considered abnormal and a pariah by society in general-- what in psychological circles is known as "internalized homophobia." There comes a point where unconsciously you always feel ashamed and guilty about something vague and undefined, even though consciously you know it is perfectly ok to be gay. Support from a totally accepting family and my best friend/school buddy works to undo some of this. But I will probably never be rid of it entirely, especially when there are people still around like Syne who stigmatize homosexuality in any way they can.

 

[Magical Realist]

I love the irony inherent in Syne's comments considering many believe Homophobia merits its own category of recognized personality disorders:

Mary H. Guindon, PhD, Chair of the Department of Counseling and Human Services at Johns Hopkins University, et al., wrote in a Apr. 2003 article, "Intolerance and Psychopathology: Toward a General Diagnosis for Racism, Sexism and Homophobia," published by the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry that: (pictured below, Diane Gramley, President of the Venango County-based HATE GROUP American Family Association of Pennsylvania)

"[W]e explore the characteristics of persons who perpetrate pain and injustice on others through racism, sexism, or homophobia. We propose that those who engage in such harmful behaviors are in fact displaying a type of psychopathology that deserves its own particular category... In other words, behind racism, sexism, and homophobia, there seems to be a common core of intolerance that supports and contributes to these attitudes or mindsets in their various manifestations. The traits associated with this form of intolerance, when taken as a whole, seem to be descriptive of a personality disorder.

This is a disorder that deserves full acknowledgment as a psychological problem unto itself. It is not enough to merely note the harm or lament the damage. Researchers and therapists need to develop treatment approaches that have the capacity to alleviate it." -- Apr. 2003 - Mary H. Guindon, PhD​

http://endbigotryinvenangocounty.blogspot.com/2011/05/is-homophobia-diagnosable-psychological.html

Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who are identified or perceived as being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT). It can be expressed as antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, or hatred, may be based on irrational fear, and is sometimes related to religious beliefs.[1][2][3][4][5][6]

Homophobia is observable in critical and hostile behavior such as discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientations that are non-heterosexual.[1][2] According to the 2010 Hate Crimes Statistics released by the FBI National Press Office, 19.3 percent of hate crimes across the United States "were motivated by a sexual orientation bias."[7] Moreover, in a Southern Poverty Law Center 2010 Intelligence Report extrapolating data from fourteen years (1995–2008), which had complete data available at the time, of the FBI's national hate crime statistics found that LGBT people were "far more likely than any other minority group in the United States to be victimized by violent hate crime."[8]

Recognized types of homophobia include institutionalized homophobia, e.g. religious homophobia and state-sponsored homophobia,[9] and internalized homophobia, experienced by people who have same-sex attractions, regardless of how they identify. Forms of homophobia toward identifiable LGBT social groups have similar yet specific names: lesbophobia[10] – the intersection of homophobia and sexism directed against lesbians, biphobia – towards bisexuality and bisexual people, and transphobia, which targets transsexualism, transsexual and transgender people, and gender variance or gender role nonconformity.​

Bolded emphasis mine. From Wiki, love it or hate it...

Had a psychiatric check up lately Syne? Just looking out for your welfare bud...

Great articles! I'm totally on board with the view that homophobia and other forms of bigotry be treated as mental disorders in need of treatment. It has all the hallmarks of a complex: the strong yet unwarranted projection of inferior traits on a social class, the inability to function normally around gay people, the emotional stress and anger that arises out of delusional stereotypes, and an overpersonalized disvaluation of people you don't even know. This is why homophobia is so often linked with religious fundamentalism, which imo is but another expression of psychopathy and delusional states of mind. The cure? Exposure therapy. Just like how we treat all phobias. Get to know some gay people. Soon you begin to realize that gay people are just as human and individual and diverse as heterosexuals are. I saw the movie "Dallas Buyer's Club" yesterday and it demonstrated how homophobia really can be cured with direct familiarity with gay people.

 

[Trippy]

Excellent article.

I know

As I recall it'd based on a metastudy of 100 ir 150 papers published over a 30 or 40 year period.

If you go back a few pages I cited a bunch of quotes from a summary for policy makers and provided two links, one to a pdf of the summary, and one to a special issue of lancet on the matter of MSM. This paper is one of the papers that forms the basis of the summary and is available through the edition of lancet.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

But I will probably never be rid of it entirely, especially when there are people still around like Syne who stigmatize homosexuality in any way they can.

I am saddened by the statistic that a number of deaths among the gay community are due to people like Syne ragging on them. Many of these people are actually worse than Syne (what a thought!) and wreak violence on them the way they (and of course it really is pretty much the same people) used to wreak violence on black people. But even the ones who don't drag them behind their pickup trucks do their best to make their lives miserable: campaigning politically to restrict their rights, ostracizing them socially, and now even dragging out third-rate medical bullshit to "prove" that who they are--their very identify--is wrong and needs to be cured! Crap like this leads people to suicide and drug overdoses. Duh?

I wonder how Syne and the rest of the religious bullies would react if we discovered a medical researcher who claims to have proven that their irrational belief in supernatural phenomena is a mental disorder (and shit, it really is one, isn't it?) so we start lobbying to treat them like dangerous and/or handicapped people: not allowing them to have weddings, putting their books and magazines in brown wrappers in the back room of the bookstore, giving them hostile glances whenever they get too close to our children?

And the sad, ironic thing about this is that religion actually has caused immense damage to civilization, and even as I write this the Christians and Muslims and Jews are rubbing their hands with glee as they plan a three-way Nuclear Holy War that might, finally, actually destroy civilization!

Both the Christians and the Muslims have done unspeakable evil in the name of their imaginary God. And I don't for a second believe that the Jews wouldn't do exactly the same thing if there were only more of them. They're certainly doing a fine job of persecuting the Muslim Palestinians for the Holocaust because nobody let them bomb the Christians in Germany.

What have the gays ever done to anybody? Make religious people feel uncomfortable? Well I regard that as a public service!

 

[James R]

wellwisher:

This rape aspect of Gay is still be seen in prisons, where the male mind gets confinement desperation to breed with anything.

Rape is primarily about power, not sex. Male rape in prison is almost always about power, not sex.

If prison can turn straight men gay...

It can't. Men who rape other men in prison, most of the time, are not gay.

...the vast majority of church related pedophilia was gay if you wanted to see that statistic.

I want to see that statistic. Show me your evidence.

An ancient Greek banging a boy did not mean all the boys wanted to be banged but rather they were raped. Yet we glorify Greek gay as a natural thing and proof of how this is natural.

Who exactly is glorifying it? Please expand.

 

[James R]

An aside on moral philosophy...

The meta-ethical topic also addresses why it is problematic or impossible to go into the whole issue of why someone thinks something is right or wrong.

Either somebody can give reasons for the moral positions they hold, or they can't.

If they can't, then by definition their moral positions are not rational. They can only be based on some kind of "gut feeling", personal history or inclination, and similar.

If somebody tells you that they take a certain moral stance, but that it is impossible for them to explain why they take that stance, then most likely they don't know why themselves. There is also some chance that their personal moral "system" - not really being a system of any kind at all - is internally inconsistent and unjustifiable.

Trying to discuss issues of morality without going into the problems of philosophy of morality is merely a matter of power play.

No.

You can have a discussion of normative ethics - what is or should be considered right or wrong - or you can have a meta-ethical discussion about questions like "What is morality, anyway?", "What determines whether things are right or wrong?", "What do the words 'right' and 'wrong' really mean?" But you should realise that these are quite separate discussions.

The current thread is a debate about normative ethics. That means we're interested in whether people think being homosexual is morally praiseworthy, neutral, or objectionable. If you're going to argue that homosexuality is wrong, you ought to be able to give reasons for your views. Otherwise, you're not really making an argument at all - you're just expressing an opinion that you hold for reasons unknown even to yourself.

 

[James R]

Syne:

Okay, since no one wants anything more than a list of reasons, without any real rationale, here is a non-exhaustive list:

Higher rates of mental illness
Higher rates of substance abuse
Higher HIV risk/transmission
High rates of promiscuity

I'm confused.

Earlier, I think you said you had a moral issue with homosexuality. But the only reasons you have given for your anti-homosexual stance in this thread have to do with health.

Would it be fair to say, then, that you don't consider homosexuality morally wrong, but rather you're concerned primarily about risky sexual practices?

And if that's true, then why the focus on homosexuality? Surely safe sex is just as important for heterosexual people.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Okay, since no one wants anything more than a list of reasons, without any real rationale, here is a non-exhaustive list:
1. Higher rates of mental illness

But this is YOUR fault, not theirs! Being constantly discriminated against, to the point that you may actually conceal a major part of who you are from other people, is bound to greatly increase your risk of mental illness.

Higher rates of substance abuse

Again, this is your fault. Being constantly insulted, and even persecuted, to the point that you may have to conceal who you are, is rather a lot of stress, doncha think? Drugs are a popular way to deal with stress. Millions of heterosexuals do it.

Higher HIV risk/transmission

One out of four. To be 75% wrong doesn't speak well for your status as a scientist.

High rates of promiscuity.

Wait, aren't you religion-mongers the ones who insist that one of the most important reasons to get married is to establish a monogamous relationship? If you don't allow gay people to get married, then what the hell do you expect? You people are so utterly illogical!

It's hard to believe that you're not just a cartoon character somebody invented to entertain us. Like your "God."

 

[Magical Realist]

But this is YOUR fault, not theirs! Being constantly discriminated against, to the point that you may actually conceal a major part of who you are from other people, is bound to greatly increase your risk of mental illness.

This is the luxury of being a homophobe. You get to condemn a class of people for nothing more than what they choose to do in bed, and then you get to condemn them for reacting badly to being condemned by homophobes. It's a no win situation. Like with promiscuity. We are condemned for sleeping around, but when we try to become monogamous and push for marriage rights, we are condemned for corrupting "family values." There is, in the end, no rationality to support bigotry, and hence no end to the attempts by bigots at supporting it. It will find whatever reason it can to justify itself, even if those reasons turn out to be contradictory.

Again, this is your fault. Being constantly insulted, and even persecuted, to the point that you may have to conceal who you are, is rather a lot of stress, doncha think? Drugs are a popular way to deal with stress. Millions of heterosexuals do it.

Drugs and alcohol are also popular ways of self-medicating to treat your own depression and anxiety in a health care system where it is costly and difficult to acquire the proper treatment.

One out of four. To be 75% wrong doesn't speak well for your status as a scientist.

Syne hopes that by spitting out contextless CDC stats we will, by sheer uncritical association, stigmatize all gay people for the traits only a few of their members have. That's why he likes these risk factor assessments. As if being gay in and of itself means I am more likely to be mentally ill, promiscuous, and a drug addict (your basic generic derelict) without considering any other more decisive traits I might have like my socio- economic status, genetic predispositions, my childhood raising, my intelligence, and my moral character. Certainly NOT a very scientific way of evaluating ANY person, unless you have already stereotyped them as just a small subset within certain minority of the population.

Wait, aren't you religion-mongers the ones who insist that one of the most important reasons to get married is to establish a monogamous relationship? If you don't allow gay people to get married, then what the hell do you expect? You people are so utterly illogical!

Bingo!