I honestly don’t understand why religions persecute homosexuality. I honestly don’t. And the ridiculous reasons they use!! I just saw this comment on Youtube about gay marriage:
“Here is an intersesting fact to consider: gayism/lesbianism are against the principles of both evolution and religion, perhaps because it contradicts human’s survival attitude. Of course, no offense to the civic “human” rights of those whose endeavours contribute to our extinction.”
And my response (posted underneath that Youtube comment):
“What extinction? As far as I know we have a population issue. Besides, the existence of humanity is not about making babies. The evolution of humanity is not about producing better or more babies either. It’s about community, acceptance, and the betterment of self as well as one’s community. Gays and lesbians can love as much and truly as anyone straight because WE ARE ALL HUMAN and your capacity to love and well-being is totally not dependent on your sexual orientation.”
My extended response:
To simply say, “homosexuality is against God or religion” is an extremely vexing and problematic assertion. First of all, you obviously cannot prove that it is indeed the word of God, given that you believe in God and that you have a religion.
Second of all, it is extremely irresponsible to verbalize such injustice just because the religion says so, or the Bible says so, or whatever whoever high up says so, or God says so–because you should be responsible for the words you say, the thoughts and beliefs those words represent, and the implications and consequences those words will bring to the world around you. One way to be responsible is to engage in discourse and intellectual exchange. If your views can be challenged, then it’s not absolute. It can’t be absolute because nothing is absolute. (Well, perhaps one thing is: there are stupid people in this world, period.) To say you are against homosexuality or you hate gay/lesbian people simply because basically means that you just want to be hateful, that or you’re being a chauvinistic idiot.
Third of all, the reason why homosexuality is considered “deviant” is because of heteronormative oppression and the rigid gender dichotomies that govern our society–which are all socially constructed and reinforced through the norm-upholding, anyhow. Heterosexuality is not natural or the normal way of life; it’s just the dominant way in which we agree to, as a society, to organize, perceive, and regulate ourselves. It’s all socially constructed! It’s not the laws of nature nor is it the will of God that we live this way. Heterosexuality is normalized through the power of discourse and cultural indoctrination, and anyone who doesn’t fit the heterosexual categories becomes “deviant”, “abnormal”, “unhuman”. It’s really just blind ideological bullshit.
And my fourth point, which is the most important point, since when does homosexuality constitute the entirety of a person? I’m straight, which means I’m mostly attracted to people of the opposite sex. That fact alone doesn’t determine who I am. My sexual orientation is not the only thing that defines me as a person. In my opinion, it’s more like a “tendency” rather than an “identity”. It’s an aspect of human tendency (or preference) that unfortunately has been distorted, negated, pathologized, and hegemonized.
To me, it’s mind-boggling how anyone can be stupid enough to make that assertion without considering what it means. Like what I said in my response to that abhorrent Youtube comment: WE ARE ALL HUMAN. We are all people, each of us an individual. Isn’t that enough to say that we are all similar, and that we belong to the same category? Don’t we belong to the same species? Why is someone who is attracted to the same sex suddenly less than human? Honestly, what’s the big deal?
If you degrade and condescend towards someone because you think they are “less than human”, you’re the one not human enough to see that we are all human.
And that is the truth of the matter.
