Homophobia's Cost to the Youths
The Standing Commission on Human Affairs of the Episcopal Church wrote in 1994:
"Not only must lesbian and gay youth withstand ridicule and, often, violence from their peers, they risk outright rejection from their parents should they decide to 'come out.' The combination of the culture's condemnation of homosexuality and the alienation from one's home and parents (supposedly a haven of security and support) causes unusually high rate of attempted suicide."
According to a US Health and Human Services report:
"gay adolescents were two to three times more likely than peers to attempt suicide, accounting for as many as 30% of completed youth suicides each year ... 26% percent of gay youth are forced to leave home because of conflicts with their families over their sexual identities. Up to half engage in prostitution to support themselves, greatly increasing their risk for HIV infection."
We have determined that homophobia, largely maintained by conservative and mainline Christian churches, is responsible for the current deaths of young gays and lesbians (even just in the United States) at a rate greater than the church exterminated "witches" during the late Middle Ages and Renaissance.
A recent University of Calgary study has shown that gay men are much fore likely to attempt suicide than others in society.
The National Youth Advocacy Coalition (NYouthAC@aol.com) has referred to two reports on homeless youth:
In 1988, the Los Angeles County Task Force on Runaway and Homeless Youth, issued a "Report and Recommendations of the Task Force" which estimated that 25 to 35% of street youth in that county are gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
Also in 1988, Seattle Commission on Children and Youth of Seattle, WA issued their "Report on Gay and Lesbian Youth in Seattle" which estimated that 40% of Seattle street youth are gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
The National Youth Advocacy Coalition agreed that these figures agree with their experience.
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What Fuels Homophobia?
The root meaning of the word homophobia is: fear of homosexuality. Its meaning has evolved over time; it is now usually defined as fear, loathing and hatred of homosexuals and/or homosexuality. Some reasons are:
- inability or unwillingness to change the hatred taught during childhood.
- fear of people who are different.
- promotion of homophobia by our religious group.
- a heterosexual's natural feeling of repulsion at the thought of engaging in same-sex activity. Realizing that homosexual behavior is unnatural for them, some people generalize this feeling into the
- belief that homosexuality is wrong for everyone.
- actual homosexual feelings that a person cannot acknowledge or handle.
- low self esteem leading to a need to hate other group(s).
There are several possible explanations. One is that homophobia is an attempt to repress or deny one's own homosexual impulses. Another is that homosexual stimuli cause anxiety in non-homophobic men, and anxiety enhances arousal and erection. Further research is needed to clarify the results and to answer questions such as whether these results would generalize to homophobic women and whether homophobic men have poorer heterosexual adjustment than do non-homophobic men.
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Laws against Homosexual Behavior, in America
In the United States, laws prohibiting sexual behavior are the responsibility of the individual states. The result is a patchwork quilt of laws across the country. Many states still have laws which ban specific sexual acts, whether
consensually performed by same-sex couples or by heterosexual couples (married or not). Other states criminalize certain sexual acts between homosexuals, but allow the same activity among consenting heterosexual adults. Other states have laws that prohibit "crimes against nature", a phrase which is open to wide interpretation. Although the term "sodomy" is popularly defined as anal sex, the word is commonly interpreted by the courts as including both anal and oral sex. In some states, police utilize other laws against gays and lesbians; e.g. "solicitation for indecent purposes."
The Georgia anti-sodomy state law was appealed to the US Supreme Court. In 1986, the court upheld the law as constitutional. They decided that individuals have no fundamental federal constitutional right to "engage in sodomy." (Bowers v. Hardwick, 478 U.S. 186).
One Internet source lists the status of anti-sodomy laws for various states as of 1995. The following states were believed to have had laws still on the books: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, and Virginia. You can get life imprisonment in Michigan for repeat offenses. Many other states authorize jail sentences up to 10 or 20 years.
In 1961, Illinois was the first state to repeal anti-sodomy laws. Since that event, state legislatures have repealed their law, or a state court has declared it unconstitutional in: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Delaware, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
NOTE: The above data is believed to be reasonable accurate. However, it may contain errors. It is not intended as legal advice. Please consult a lawyer in your area who is familiar with your state's laws to be safe.
Recent legal activity includes:
Montana: They enacted an anti-sodomy law in 1973 which permitted a judge to assign a 10 year jail sentence and/or a maximum fine of $50,000. On 1996-FEB-20, District Court Judge Jeffrey Sherlock declared that state's law unconstitutional, because it conflicted with state constitutional guarantees of personal privacy. The Montana Supreme Court upheld the District Court decision in mid-1997. Nobody has ever been convicted under the law.
Tennessee: On 1996-JAN-26 The Tennessee Court of Appeals unanimously ruled that the state's anti-gay sodomy law was unconstitutional. The court stated that "the right of the plaintiffs to engage in consensual, private, non-commercial sexual conduct" involved "intimate questions of personal and family concern." Thus, they could not be criminalized by the state. We are unaware whether the state has appealed this decision to their state's Supreme Court.
In Canada, laws controlling sexual behavior are the responsibility of the Federal government, and thus apply across the entire country. They permit sexual activities of all types between adults, although they currently have a higher age of consent for homosexual than for heterosexual consensual sex. It is doubtful whether this form of discrimination could withstand a constitutional challenge.
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"Homophobia could be caused also by low self esteem leading to a need to hate different people"
I retrieved the content of this article from
Religious Tolerance Org. an incredibly interesting site about religious problems and faiths, with hundred of very well written articles. Please, visit it at http://www.religioustolerance.org/!  |
