Is Homophobia Just Narcissism?
| Thu Apr. 2, 2009 10:46 AM PDT
Ta-Nehisi Coates thinks so:
Bigotry is the heaping of one man's insecurity on to another. Sexism, racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-Islamism, anti-immigrantism, really all come from the same place--cowardice. In his history of lynching, Phillip Dray notes that mob violence against black men wasn't simply about keeping black men in their place--it was about keeping white women in their place. Lynching peaked as white women went to work outside the home in greater numbers, developing their own financial power base. White men, afraid that they couldn't compete with their women, would cowardly resort to lynching. I am not saying that the anti-gay marriage crowd is a lynch mob. But in tying opposition to the sexual revolution what you see is, beyond a fear of gay marriage, a fear for marriage itself. A fear that their way of life can't compete in these new times. It's ridiculous, of course. But bigotry always is.
DuBois wrote about racism as "the psychological wages of whiteness". Black equality would cost white people, and, of course, it did. You can't kill or rape blacks with impunity anymore, you can't make them sit in the back of the bus or stop them from drinking from 'your' fountain. So whites definitely lost things, both tangible and intangible, with the coming of equality. Of course, whites never had a right to those things. That's why the racial hierarchy had to be established, with all the attendant bennies and burdens nicely justified (whites are smart and work harder, etc.)
So, I think Coates is on to something with this notion - heteros lose one of the few advantages left to those born on the lucky side of any hierarchy, in this case, the sexuality continuum. Homophobes are manic about losing the right to have someone to openly look down on. To consider innately inferior. Which is convenient because their unworthiness then allows you to collect those psychological wages like straights only in the military, straights only in the classroom, straights only in public office (just imagine an openly gay Prez), straights only with the right to marry and all the bennies that come with it. Notice how quickly the psychological wages become all too tangible.
But this is an issue, like race, whose time has come. Enjoy the last few years left of discriminating against gays 'cuz them days is almost gone.
It's hard out there for a bigot. Homophobia is on a short list of acceptable bigotries. But it's fading fast.
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Comments
Fix your spam filter
Submitted by Gary K on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 5:19 AM PDT.
Your overzealous spam filter is blocking legitimate responses.
Ditto on the spam filter
Submitted by SocraticGadfly (not verified) on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 9:41 AM PDT.
Geez o pete.
And now, funky captchas too.
Is Homophobia Just Narcissism?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 11:28 AM PDT.
wow... I worked with a narcissist once - craig barron - he is also a HUGE homophobe! Too weird how he fits the profile!
Is Homophobia Just Narcissism?
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 1:44 PM PDT.
Homophobia is the worst face of narcissism, for it denies the liberty of the people in name of a cynic moralism whose most popular leader in our times is the Pope, a zealot of Dark Ages.
H.Quiron
Short season for bigotry
Submitted by Svengali (not verified) on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 3:03 PM PDT.
Yeah, it is getting tougher to find someone to pick on. Of course, like religious conquest (err, convert or die), state or church-sanctioned marriage, bigotry is really all about creating an uneven economic playing field, despite all the other rhetoric. Which some morons actually believe. It actually fits in well in a society based more on style than merit. Too bad writers like Ms. Coates keep outing the rationales, making it tougher to be a bigot.
And what's up with the rabidly gay homophobes, like the Roy Cohen's? Just an extreme form of self-loathing?
I'm white and straight and
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 4:23 PM PDT.
I'm white and straight and haven't paid yet. Guess I'm out of the loop.
Agreed with one glaring point of dissent
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 5:28 PM PDT.
I respectfully object to including "Anti-Islamism" in your list of bigotries. You could say "Anti-Arab" but Islam represents a supremacist mindset steeped in sexism, racism, homophobia, anti-Semitism, and anti-immigrant-ism (unless the immigrants disavow their culture and adopt an Islamic point of view), masquerading as a religion. I'm so sorry that so many women buy into the horrible oppressiveness of Islam and I'm really sick of hearing people thump their breasts defending the intolerance and hate that practitioners of Islam profess and practice. I do not speak from ignorance. I spent a long time - years - examining the phenomenon of contemporary and traditional Islam hoping to find some redeeming value in it. A few mystical sects mostly keep to themselves (such as the Sufis) but those who move in the world among us are either in-your-face posers or they really believe the crap they read in the Koran and the Torah which tells them their highest mission is to convert, enslave or kill everyone who does not believe as they do. Read those texts. Find me one redeeming phrase. We are fools to tolerate this sham in the name of political correctness. You may have been born an arab but you were not born a muslim. Our coddling their hatred of us is just stupid.
Re: Agreed with one glaring point of dissent
Submitted by felkakarp on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 8:50 PM PDT.
Alan P.
If you alter the above comment by replacing "Islam" with "Christianity", "Arab" with "American" or "White" or "Westerner", and "Koran" with "Bible" ("Sufis" maybe with "Quakers"?) I think you'll find that it rings just as true, but only if you believe the Immoral Minority who presume to speak for all of us (and for God Himself). I know enough Muslims to say that most of them feel the same way.
Amen to that - Islam IS bigotry in motion.........
Submitted by FreeThinker on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 1:23 AM PDT.
The comments by Anonymous are so true! Why do we bow and scrape to accomodate this "religion" of hate? The Islamic Republic of Iran has murdered around 4,000 gay men (lesbians are just beaten, since no man can seriously believe a woman doesn't really yearn for a big penis!) and the 7 countries in the world that kill gay people all are Muslim. The "progressive" Muslim countries merely imprison them (just as was done not long ago in that great bastion of democracy and freedom - USAmerica.)
Islamic countries are incredibly intolerant of anything that is not in their vile, hatefilled Qu'ran. There is no Muslim country that has freedom of religion, despite what they may say. They "allow" Christians & Jews to worship but discriminate against them in employment and do not allow them to build new houses of worship - other religions may not even get that much "freedom". Saudi Arabia, the Holy Land of Islam allows zero non-Muslim houses of worship & no visible signs of any other religion (US troops stationed there are kept segregated - infidels & therefore inferior, you know), a cross or star of David around a neck will be ripped off by the religious police. Yet, the Saudis spend millions around the world building mosques and missionary centers to spread Islam. There are mosques in Rome, Italy, the seat of Roman Catholicism; in Salt Lake City, Utah, the seat of Mormonism; in England, the seat of Anglicanism; in India, the seat of Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism etc. - yet none of these religions are allowed to build houses of worship in Holy Saudi Arabia or worship openly - it is considered insulting to the One True Religion, so they don't need to be tolerant. They have the only truth so why pretend any differently? Muslims in Germany are demanding that Islam be taught in public schools! They would never allow anything of the sort in any Muslim country.
And it is the death penalty, according to the Qu'ran, to anyone who renounces Islam and/or converts to another religion. (The "Progressive" Muslim States merely imprison those poor Infidels). The US is putting its youth in risk of death to save Afghanistan which has Sharia law as its legal framework and they are one of the Muslim States that kill Muslims who renounce it or convert to other faiths. What are we defending there? Certainly not freedom of religion, or of gay people who are killed, or of women who are considered property in Islam and only worth a fraction of what a man is worth.
Mohammed was a bandit who led his followers in robbing passing caravans and in one case murdered all the men (who had previously rejected him as a new Jewish prophet) and ransomed all the women and children. In Medina he participated in the slaughter of 600 Jewish men who refused to convert to his new religion and sold their wives and children into slavery. He received a "revelation" from Allah so he could take the wife of his adopted son as his own wife whom he lusted after. He had 10 wives and at least 2 mistresses (would he be stoned to death today for his adultery?) and he "married" and had sex with an 8 year old girl. He was very vain and wore perfume, dyed his hair and wore eye make-up. This is the role model for Muslims everywhere!?
I am reading the Qu'ran now and I concur with the previous comments about it. There is nothing in it that will uplift you - nothing of the beauty you may find in the words of Jesus, Gautama the first Buddha or Zarathustra the Zoroastrian prophet who taught that god was too good and loving to ever condemn any of his children to everylasting Hell/punishment. It is full of vengeance, cruelty and bigotry with verse after verse of its god revelling in the punishments and torments he can't wait to mete out to sinners, infidels and to some he has condemned even before they are born just because he wants to!
The oft quoted statements that Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance are completely unsupportable. There is no proof of either of these qualities anywhere in Islam. Islam and government are said in the Qu'ran as being the same and inseparable. Democracy and freedom of conscience are not allowed, or only as far as it doesn't "offend" the true religion. Muslims demand respect and tolerance from everyone else as they emigrate increasingly to Europe, the US and other western nations, but they will not give it in return unless specified in the Qu'ran, Sharia Law or the sayings of the Prophet (The Hadiths).
"Kill all unbelievers wherever you find them." (Sura 2:191)
"O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends." (5:51)
"War is ordained of Allah." (2:216)
Cutting off the hands and feet of thieves, male or female, is "an exemplary punishment from Allah." 5:38
These are just a small sample of the delights to be found in Mohammed's Holy Book. We in the West are endangering all we believe in and hold dear when we allow this ugly, intolerant philosophy so much tolerance and latitude with our leaders' bowing and scraping to its most strident leaders. Islam is a religion of violence from its beginnings and its followers are to spread it to the ends of the earth by force if necessary and you are in serious peril if you do not believe that many of these people have every intention of doing just that. Muslim leaders in Denmark and The Netherlands have stated that they intend to take over those lands by the middle of this century and impose Sharia Law and they already target homosexuals in acts of violence previously unheard of in these once leading lights of tolerance and progressive thinking. So sad.
Examining the "phenomenon"
Submitted by danaseilhan on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 7:54 AM PDT.
Examining the "phenomenon" (whatever that means--how pretentious) of a religion and examining the actual religion are two different things. If you'd stop going "ew, religion cooties!" long enough to actually talk with people who practice the faith, maybe you would learn something.
I lived upstairs from Muslims for four years and never once did they offer violence to me. They asked after me frequently if they saw someone I knew, they invited me in for tea, and they always had something nice to say to my daughter, even though she goes around in short-sleeved shirts and shorts in warm weather. (The wife is a hijabi.) If that's hate, I think I'll give love a miss... don't know if I could stand it.
I see good and bad in every religion--I've even see things I could admire in Laveyian Satanism. (Yes. But, if it makes you feel better, never practiced it.) What I never see as good is someone like you coming along condemning an entire faith just because they don't kiss your butt and bow to your superiority. That's what this is about. As long as the you-know-whats sit in the back of the bus and stay in their ghetto and never bother you, you're fine with them. The moment they expect equal respect with everyone else, is when you freak out and start slandering them. I mean, look at how you compare Sufis with Sunnis and Shi'ites. I bet you have an ischemic attack every time you see a hijabi. I lived upstairs from one for four years and I'm still here. I turn and look at them when I see them, because sometimes they dress downright beautifully. I don't want them to ever feel like they have to give it up to avoid attacks from people like you. For what? The ugly, flimsy, factory-made cheap crap that the rest of us wear? The more we reveal, the more liberated we are? Yeah, OK. If you say so.
I lived among "progressives" for a while. I'm not impressed. And I mean fringe progressives, I mean open marriages and free love and multiple relationships going at once with everyone's knowledge, and Pagan to boot, THAT kind of progressive. And they didn't believe a damn thing they were spouting. The Paganism was assimilationist one-size-fits-all, one pantheon this week and another the next and they're just archetypes anyway... the open marriage was a threat to the people actually in it... the multiple relationships were not equal to one another, most folks involved were just there for the sex play... and when I got pregnant near the end and my man was treating me badly, everyone sided with him and sat back and did nothing, even though he was obviously in the wrong. Why should they bother? It was all my fault I was involved with him, I "chose" to be, therefore I "chose" for him to mistreat me. This is where "open choice" gets you. Apparently you have to "choose" what everyone around you does to you as well.
I don't want to see women in purdah (a Hindu invention, by the way) in this country and I do think Islam is interpreted wrongly by bullies with agendas... but there is something to be said for a culture in which the rules are explicitly laid out. You even see this in indigenous cultures--you know, the ones we progressives love to romanticize. When people know what the rules are, then they know how to behave and there are clear remedies for when they don't. It's the same principle used in effective childrearing.
So, for what it's worth. Not theory, experience. You could use some.
What a lot of double speak!
Submitted by FreeThinker on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 3:19 PM PDT.
Danaseilhan goes on a real mind trip there! Wow! You lived above ONE Muslim family and can state all those wonderful touchy feely things about Muslims and Islam now? How can you generalize from such a tiny experience as you so roundly condemn the comments that have given many FACTS about Islam, Mohammed, Sharia Law and the FACTS of life in Muslim countries. So you met some nice Muslims. Wow! Good for you. I'm sure there are many of them. I know some very nice ones too - people who fled Muslim countries to escape the bigotry and cruelty of Islamic law and society. Ask those 4,000 young gay men who have been murdered by that nice Islamic Republic of Iran since its inception. Ask the 14 year old girl in Saudi Arabia who was gang raped by her brother and his friends, made pregnant, forced to have the baby by this nice Muslim State, then promptly taken out and publicly stoned to death for her "sin". Her brother, by the way, got off scott free. There's so much more, but if you'd been paying any attention you'd know this and more. How about Afghanistan where the US is sending its youth to die to protect this Islamic Republic that has the death penalty for anyone who converts to another faith and also for gay men, and just passed a law legalizing rape between a husband and his wife (who probably didn't even have the right to "choose" him).
The previous comments are a broad condemnation of individual Muslims but of the religion and the medieval culture it has spawned. You weren't paying attention. Read them again.
You should get some "larnin'" before you spout off. You obviously aren't gay, the way you speak, so you wouldn't have to fear execution or prison in one of these countries. And you don't sound like a woman who has to hide her hair away and remain locked up in her little house until a male (even a young son) will escort her so she can go out in public so she is not considered a slut for firing lustful thoughts in weak, sex-obsesses men, who by the way are worth a whole lot more in the sight of Allah than those lowly women. (Just read the Qu'ran and see what Allah promises to men in his Paradise - pretty boring if you ask me - and see if you can find any reward promised to women in the Islamic Paradise. Nada! Zip! Nothing!)
You are spouting nonsense you know nothing about. Read the Qu'ran. Read about Muslim countries and their oppression, repression, homophobia, sexism, intolerance to other religions etc. Your ignorance is no excuse.
Your painting "progressive" people - even "fringe" ones - all with the same brush seems to be exactly what you claim others are doing to Islam, but these "fringe progressives" are not stifling peoples' freedom of thought, speech, religion, association, right to love whom they will etc. and pouring out death and persecution to anyone who doesn't toe their rigid, intolerant 7th century philosophy.
One nice Muslim family living in a foreign situation does not negate any of the FACTS presented in the previous comments about the reality of life in an Islamic land. Of course, as a heterosexual male you would be a protected species (unless you tried to marry or have a relationship with a Muslim woman. Then you'd see how tolerant and peaceful those nice Muslim countries can be!)
Your ignorance and tolerance may be the end of life as you know it, or for your young daughter.
Is Homophobia Just Narcissism?
Submitted by Satis on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 6:47 PM PDT.
The passage of Prop 8 illustrated well the bigotry of some groups and cultures.
Is Homophobia Just narcissism
Submitted by Richard S. on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 7:29 PM PDT.
I'm a white male, 69-years old. I'm not sure that my position is threatened by rights for blacks. It could be for some. One wonders how the South, so adamantly Christian, could be so thoroughly racist. (I grew up in Texas and saw it first hand.) Obama becoming president of the U.S. was an uplifting and liberating event, for whites as well as blacks. Or, perhaps, some whites.
Richard S.
Obama becoming president of U.S. was an uplifting and liberal
Submitted by Satis on Sat Jul. 18, 2009 11:28 AM PDT.
This man is not uplifting to anyone other than to the rich bankers to whom he kneels daily. He's a fraud, a liar of the first rate. He hates just like as his kin hates that Gays have the same rights as anyone one of his kin. And it's showing more and more that he's just a "mouth". A mouth on an empty suit devoid of understanding that the Bill of Rights is for all American Citizens.
Sticks and stones will break my bones but your chant of racism will never shame me until I, a Gay Man, can walk the street without hearing or fearing your AA hate.
Islam and religious intolerance
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 8:08 PM PDT.
I agree with anonymous No. 1. We are so fixated on so-called religious freedom and religious tolerance that we condone and defend the rights of murderers, assassins, child molesters, child mutalators and sexual abuse in the name of religion. The State of Texas' Supreme Court has actually held that fraud is not actionable, so long as it is committed in the name of God.
It is not intolerant to be intolerant of religious enterprise. Religious organizations hide behind the shield of the 1st Amendment to commit abuses and claim special privilege. Why do we go on giving them special consideration for expressing a belief in fairy tales?
Take away their special privileges. Make them obey the law like everyone else.
Re: Islam and religious intolerance
Submitted by felkakarp on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 9:04 PM PDT.
Alan P.
A.) anonymous No. 1 wasn't knocking all religions but chose to pick on Islam.
B.) Atheists are fortunate to live in a country where the majority of us who believe in God are tolerant of people who enjoy insulting those who believe differently than they do.
Tolerant God-believers
Submitted by Dick Hudson (not verified) on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 9:48 PM PDT.
I take exception to your patronizing description of God-believers as tolerant, since they are not. If it were not for the disparate cults of Christ believers who all possess the absolute truth about which none can agree, we free thinkers would be enjoying the tolerance of your pits, gallows and fires. Don't hand me that mealy mouthed tolerance nonsense. You haven't an ounce of sincerity and it is as plain as your simpering response.
Dick Hudson in Illinois
Gee, thanks so much for
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 10:13 PM PDT.
Gee, thanks so much for "believers" "tolerance" of atheists.
What a joke!
In the USA there is little tolerance of atheists.
Theists always tell atheists "Prove it".
I always tell theists- no, you prove it. And "faith" is not an acceptable argument.
Guess that's insulting to theists.
Is Homophobia Just Narcissism
Submitted by Dick Hudson (not verified) on Fri Apr. 3, 2009 9:38 PM PDT.
No! Homophobia, which is primarily seen in men in western cultures and, particularly the U.S., is not narcissism. This is not to say that a narcissist could not be a homophobe. But, lumping them together is if they were the same is a poor understanding of psychology. Homophobia is patent fear. Homophobes are looking at themselves, much the same way that mythological Narcissis did, but the outcome is not adoration (as it was with Narcissis), it's terror and in defense of the ego it turns from terror of self to revulsion of the other person. Immediately, they then hate the other and want to annihilate the other in an effort to destroy their inner demon. However, they never are able to examine these feelings and they defend against self examination by ranting and railing against homosexuals and homosexuality. Anita Bryant isn't a homophobe but more of a follower of Christian litany as taught to her in an extreme religious setting. Bryant is more of a dullard than anything else. If it were'nt for orange juice she wouldn't have had a soap box. Oddly, women like Bryant attach to men who are far from truly masculine men. Well adjusted, masculine men are not homophobics. The irony here is that macho men aren't really macho men!
Dick Hudson in Illinois (retired psychotherapist)
Dear Dick Hudson... its not
Submitted by Jennifer on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 12:24 AM PDT.
Dear Dick Hudson... its not just men.. it could be any religious extremist, male or female, from the Abrahamic traditions.
I found this article very interesting and helped me understand the rather unforgivable homophobic behavior of my (former) doctor, (a Frau Dr. Kettenbach of Klinikum Herford in Germany).
Germany, is a largely post-Christian society, so it was rather bad luck that I had, for a while, a psychiatrist who was a fundamentalist Baptist. While under her care she repeatedly told me that I should pray to become heterosexual and that my gayness was unacceptable in the eyes of God! When I finally told her I had had enough of this nonsense and that I had no desire to change my orientation (can't be done anyway, and shame on her for not even understanding the actual nature of homosexuality) she launched into one of the most intolerant tirades against gay people I have ever had to endure. "Es ist immoralische! Es ist in der Bible geschrieben!!! usw.
In an absolutely unprofessional exercise of her authority in a clinical setting, she shouted at me for 20 minutes against the evils of homosexuality before I finally left.
I think she feels basically threatened by the growing irrelevance of her religious faith in a largely secular society and I represented the symbolic secular challenge to her fragile and rather ridiculous fundamentalist beliefs.
So ... attack me and defend the crumbling faith.
(Plus her husband is a great candidate to be a closet case like Ted Haggert which probably fuels the fires of vengeance!!!)
Breaking the spell of religious intolerance whenever I can.
Homophobia has much to do with the macho disdain for women
Submitted by FreeThinker on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 2:05 AM PDT.
I think something that is missing from discussions of homophobia, though the comments that have been made are good and relevant, is how much of the hatred of homosexual men (lesbians fare much better in macho societies like the US and Islamic and other religious societies) is because homosexual men are perceived as lowering themselves to be like women in their relationships, and women are traditionally of much lower worth and objects of scorn even to many of those men who lust after them sexually. So homophobia is closely tied in with sexism.
Homosexual men are thought to perform sexually in submissive ways (someone has to be on the bottom, after all, right?) and the stereotype is of effeminacy, all of which is an affront to machismo masculinity. This is subconsciously repulsive to men in macho cultures to see men "debasing" themselves by adopting sexual positions and/or behavior that is considered to be of the inferior sex, women.
This is also the reason that women can, and do, dress and act like men and find acceptance generally fairly easily in society (they are, after all, only trying to emulate their superiors), but nowhere will you see men accepted in women's clothing or acting like women except in some American Indian cultures and others such as those. (It hasn't been that long that many men would be seen even wearing pink shirts!)
Homophobia has as much, or more, to do with the male dominated culture's disdain for women and all things feminine (except the breasts and the vagina), and the perception that some men may be lowering themselves to the level of women, as it has to do with cultural revulsion of sexual relations between two members of the same sex. This was not the case in ancient Greece where love and sexual relations between men was considered superior and whole platoons were made up of male homosexual partners because they were thought to be more ferocious fighters in order to defend their lovers. Thus it wasn't at all shocking that Alexander the Great went around building monuments to his dead lover Hephastion whom he mourned greatly. My how times change, and then maybe change again. He wouldn't even be allowed in the military in the US today.
Controlled dialogue and censors
Submitted by Charity (not verified) on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 9:44 AM PDT.
As I stated to the website yesterday, you are only allowing content through that gushes the praises of homosexuality. Opposing views are not getting through your extremely strict filters, thus your article seems to be supported by the masses. Your view is not supported by the masses, but you control the dialogue. Thus, your website is controlled thinking, thereby being useless to real thoughtful dialogue and argument. Dr. Charity Blake
Homophobia is an indulgence with brutal consequences
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 3:58 PM PDT.
The Bay Area Reporter has found that violent hate crimes against LGBT Californians rose by as much as 100 percent in some Northern California counties, with Santa Clara District Attorney Jay Boyarsky citing prop 8-fueled bigotry as the likely suspect. Other counties reported similar increases. The non-profit, MEUSA, also cites 3 independent American Psychology Association studies regarding this unfortunate phenomenon (see: http://ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=3839 ).
Knowing Onesself
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat Apr. 4, 2009 7:23 PM PDT.
I've noticed that the most rabidly homophobic people are not so hetero themselves.
On NPR I heard a man talking about how in the military, before he came out, he kept trying to prove to himself that he was macho, volunteering for all the most dangerous jobs. He said he noticed the most macho-acting of the military are often closet homosexuals like himself. I think the same is true in the rest of society as well.
One study of worldwide homosexuality said about 20% of all peoples are of mixed sexuality. I do not think a person can change their sexuality. It is sad that so many people feel they are not at home in their own bodies.
All this talk about Muslims condemning homosexuals is no different than our society was 100-200 yrs ago. We usually do not put homosexuals to death or imprison them, but we used to.
As for the Koran teaching to hate & kill, the Bible does so as well. The Old Testament teaches that their people were to defeat all the other peoples around them, never marry them or consider them equals. A man was permitted permanent slaves, but not of his own Jewish people. Debts to one's own people had to be forgiven, but not to pagans. A man could put to death his own daughter or son or wife or slave for working on the Sabbath, for wearing clothes of 2 different materials. He could sell his own daughter or son.
Times change. Some don't change for some people as fast as others. We should not put Arabs down for being slower now. In many ways, our civilization would not be nearly as developed today if Europeans had not learned from the knowledge of the Near Eastern peoples in the Middle Ages, at that time Europe was decimated by disease & ruled by illiterate despotic warlords while the knowledge of Greece & India were being taught at free Muslim universities. We learned algebra & geometry from them.
We have been living in a Golden Age. Society is cyclical, what goes up must eventually level off then come down.
As for homophobia being "just narcissism", I think homophobes are afraid they are less than they were taught they must be. They are truly cowards with poor self-esteem, they live in fear. A narcissist is in love with himself, he has high self-esteem, whether it is earned, or false, doesn't matter, he thinks himself wonderful. Both believe they are better than other people, or should be.
When we learn to help each other, instead of tearing each other down, we will be better people.
Treating animals as lesser than is also accepted by a majority of Americans. Millions are imprisoned, tortured and murdered every day.
I look forward to a day when animals, blacks, whites, women, men, gays, straights and every other group are treated fairly, respectfully and compassionately.
Start by changing what you eat. For more info, visit ChooseVeg.com.
Though often tainted with the righteous vitriol......., spwaned of righteous indignation at the, the......., compelled by the righteous fury that Compels You to Make Things Right Once Again (well, mostly; though sometimes you just B**ch a lot!); it was, this day, particularly sweet to Drink From Your Fountain!
Oh! And I'm not even Gay - I just have(d a) Dyke Friend who was made not alive anymore by Homophobes!
JimRinX
speaking of bigots
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon Apr. 6, 2009 6:29 AM PDT.
I have a homosexual friend of more than 40 years. During all of this time I never once made a disrespectful comment about his sexual behavior. In the past 20 years I have gained weight due to being on prednisone for pain. I repeatedly suffered his ugly verbal slurs and snide remarks about "looking sloppy" and "having no self discipline" and "how could you let yourself look like that?" and "why do you do that to yourself" .. not only to me but to everyone in society who's overweight. So please.... don't ask me to feel sorry for homosexuals. Too many of them attack obese people. I'm tired of being attacked. And I'm also tired of people who "dish it out but can't take it." Male homosexuals won't get my support if they attack people for being fat.
So you are against male
Submitted by FreeThinker on Tue Apr. 7, 2009 5:29 AM PDT.
So you are against male homosexuals because one insensitive one ridiculed your obesity? I presume, then, that you would also feel the same about all the male heterosexuals who ridicule obese people too? Just to be fair.
Your "friend's" homosexuality has nothing to do with his attitudes toward obesity. Do you, then, support the rights of all those obese homosexuals? What's the connection here?
Don't Worry
Submitted by Isaac (not verified) on Tue Apr. 7, 2009 11:09 AM PDT.
Don't worry about losing gays as an acceptable group to look down on.
There are still atheists.
anti-Islamism does not belong on that list
Submitted by Anonymous named Elisabeth (not verified) on Sun Jul. 12, 2009 11:47 PM PDT.
I fully agree with the other posters who take umbrage at the inclusion of "anti-Islamism" on that list. Islam is an ideology, which adults choose to follow and profess, every other trait listed is either in-born or the arbitrary product of birth.
Since "Islamism" is usually employed to denote expressly political forms of Islam, the author's take is doubly disturbing. Not only can those of us who fall in Islam's crosshairs for being women, lesbian/gay/bi, transgendered, Hindu, Jewish, atheist, etc. not oppose the religion itself, but apparently we are 'insecure narcissists' for resisting said religion's influence on world governments.
Ta-Nehisi Coates' biography at The Atlantic website lists "Stud[ying] at the Mecca for some years". Whether this is a generic use of "mecca" or the Islamic religious centre is unclear, but if it is the later it certainly would be indicative of a clear religious bias and/or agenda. In either case it is intellectually insupportable to include a voluntary ideological association like Islam with arbitrary facets of the human condition.
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