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Well, I've obviously been living under a rock for the past couple of months and only just read the entire way through this thread. 
Anyway, some interesting points here, guess it's time for me to bore you all and chip in with my two cents:
| quote: | as for the topic, it doesn't necessary has to be men. it boils down to the image from ethnocentric programming. We are programmed from birth to believe, think, and act this way. It's all subliminal.. Only those who are more liberal can accept sexual orientation as a birthright and freedom of personal choice.
it's also pathocentric if you view the it from religious intolerance. |
I'm going to leave the matter of religious morality aside for the time being (which I could write pages on just by itself) and focus on your concept of "ethnocentric programming".
Firstly, I will agree that much of what we believe about the world, and much of how we view it is derived directly from what we were taught or what we were able to learn via example. But approaching this issue from an individual perspective - as opposed to a societal one - the way in which we, as human beings, are "programmed" to function are inherently similar. The theories devised in a book of psychology are - and have to be - just as applicable to any given human being as to any other. While I'm not arguing that morailty - or the abject views of any human being - are in any way congenitally set, but the way in which our hardware has been wired means, essentially, that different people are likely to reach the same conclusion for the same reasons, even if they are completely isolated from one another in every way.
Thus we have a sort of "chicken and egg" problem: does the morality of society as a whole propogate itself in the views of the individuals within it, or do the individuals themselves create the societal morals? It is, undoubtedly, a bit of both, but I'd be leaning towards the latter of the two alternatives. If there is a societal value, we can usually analyse how it may have arose within our collective human psyche in the first place, by analysing how it can arise in an isolated individual.
Given the human concept of masculinity, I can tell you exactly men "hate" homosexuals without understanding why: it ilicits insecurity of their own masculinity. A man finds the sight of two men copulating to be disgusting because it goes against every biological urge in his body: it ridicules his role as the warrior, the protector, the father. A man feels insecure about the thought of homosexuals because it revolts against every preconceived image (societal or inherent, it doesn't matter) of what he believes a man should be. It is natural, in this sense, for "masculine" males to feel uncomfortable around "effeminate" males (and vice versa, I'm quite sure).
If we take a look at the possible psychological reasons, as opposed to the slightly more "biological" ones above, then we could identify a slightly different rationale behind homophobia: insecurity about one's own sexuality. If you're an advocate of Freudian psychology, you'll doubtless be aware that the majority of people - staunchly heterosexual or not - have some measure of homosexual impulses deep within them. Now I'll leave it up to you all to decide whether you've had "homosexual impulses" or not, but for a man with the inherent, biological impulse that revolts him away from homosexuality, in coupling with the unenlightened societal view that homosexuality is somehow wrong or perverse, having the slightest homosexual urge causes him to revolt against himself and hate himself for the deep-seated impulses he has no control over. A man who, for biological and societal reasons, hates homosexuality, and then is then struck with such an impulse, can only begin to hate himself for it, and then begin to look for people to take it out on.
I believe, genuinely, that anyone who beats up gays (not necessarily referring to you DJ O'Callaghan) is simply transferring his inward antipathy towards his own emotional insecurity onto the "tangible enemy": one who represents everything they hate about themselves. To beat up a homosexual is to be subservient to the Freudian concept of "over-compensation": the only way I can prove to myself - and to others - that I am a bona fide heterosexual is to explicity display my disdain for homosexuals.
I don't know, perhaps I'm delving too deeply into what is really just an issue of "inherited morality", but this is just a view I've manufactured given what I've read.
Oh, and I suppose that this is the right time to point out that I am not homo-sexual, though nor do I have anything against them. Homosexuality, I believe, is still primarily the result of environmental factors - despite evidence existing for latent homosexual impulses in every human being - and that homosexuality is simply a sexual preference, no different to any other sexual preference one may have. Personally the thought of homosexual sex doesn't "do it" for me (unless we're talking about two women...... ) but I still respect those who have taken that path, for the same reason that I can still respect people who like vanilla icecream even though I view chocolate as the tastier dish.
Having said all this, and made clear my indifference towards homosexuality, I must make it clear that I do side with ABT and am opposed to homosexuals being allowed to adopt children.
It has nothing to do with any doubts I have regarding their ability as parents, or their ability to love their child as well as heterosexual parents, it's simply that no amount of "love" or "good parenting" can over-ride the fact bringing a child up within a homosexual household is not, in my opinion, congenial to the best interests of the child. Essentially the decision for "socially infertile" individuals (which, in my mind, is little more than, a popular PC euphamism for something slightly less harmless - be it homosexuals or partnerless men or women) to have children via IVF is often a selfish decision that hasn't properly taken into consideration the rights of the child. I'm not saying that all "socially fertile" individuals put any more thought into - or are any better at caring for - children, but this actually just goes to highlight my point.
Anyway, at this point I have neither the time nor the inclination to delve into exactly why it is I feel this way (it's 3.47am), but I would be happy to cite why it is that I feel this way for anyone who's interested at a later date.
Exeunt. 
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I was careless that I didn't elaborate further but left it open to interpretation... Heck, my last sentence came out like mashed potatoes.
