I thought you were telling him to forgive homosexuals, not homophobes.
I was suggesting that
both are deserving of acceptance and forgiveness.
I think that homophobic statements require forgiveness.
Why? Do you think people wake up one day and decide to choose their emotional makeup? I see several people in this thread suggesting that things like race and sexual preference aren't something that people choose. Ok. That's fine. But what makes you think the average person consciously chooses their beliefs and emotional responses?
Hypothetical scenario 1Bob is a young boy with a pretty sister. Their parents love and pamper her at every opportunity, but expect him to be tough and take care of himself because he's a boy. He is very lonely and feels unloved because of this. One day, his pretty sister and her 3 pretty friends dress him up in their clothes and spend several hours making him do runway walks in dresses and sitting on his lap putting makeup on him. He knows he's not "supposed to" like it, but for once is his life he is the certain of attention and he adores it. And while sitting in a chair, feeling oh-so-pretty in his oh-so-pretty dress and lacey panties and bra, one of the girls sits on his lap with her legs spread, solely for the purpose of getting easy access to apply mascara to his eyelashes...and in the process gives him his first sexual climax.
Is it any surprise if he grows up to be a cross dresser? And if he does, does it make any sense to "hate him" for it? No. It's all very understandable. This kind of thing can happen. Very few people choose their sexual nature, and I can easily give you any number of scenarios that will tend to push someone along the line towards any kind of sexual preference you can imagine.
Hypothetical scenario 2Joe grows up in a religious household, being told that it's "sinful" for "men to lie with men.' Unfortunately for Joe, his uncle has been molesting him since he was six years old. This goes on for years. He spends those years hating and dreading it, hearing on Sunday's that what he's being compelled to participate in is evil, and then going home and being taken into the bedroom for private "spankings" and compulsory games of "cave spelunker" and so forth. This goes on for years of fear and pain and anguish but nobody ever believes him and nobody does anything about it, until eventually the uncle dies in a traffic accident having never been caught, leaving Joe to carry that burden for the rest of his life.
It's no surprise if he grows up hating gay men because of what happened to him. Imagine how he might react to finding out that part of his son's school sex-ed curriculum is being taught that homosexuality is an "equally valid lifestyle." And if, amidst years of pent up humiliation and rage, he unleashes an angry cry of "faggot" at the people who casually dismiss his feelings as mere "ignorance," I think we can forgive him his outburst.
Mean-spirited intentions should be met with positive opposition.
Hate breeds hate, and all that.
Ok. Well, I'm the one suggesting here that we try to accept people for who they are. Rare is the creature on this earth with the benefit of choosing the nature of their own biases. When you see a gay man heading into a bathroom stall in a bar looking for a glory hole...you don't what happened in his life that led him to that kind of lifestyle. And when you see the angry man proselytizing outside the bar, holding signs that say "God hates fags" you
also don't know what happened to him that led him to believe the way he does.
Both of those people might have very good reasons to feel and act the way they do.
"Love everyone" doesn't mean to love only the people who happen to have belief systems that you're comfortable with.
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Topic: Gender Stereotypes & Homosexuality (Read 6224 times)