Shutdown

March 5th, 2008 by jason

Tonight on TV I was reminded of one of the many reasons that homophobia is so rampant in the United States. When some people hear that another person, especially a family member, is gay they just shutdown. The immediate reaction is to shutout what we don’t understand and what we don’t want to understand. One guy on TV basically refused to have a relationship with his father-in-law because he was gay. It turned out that he didn’t know that homosexuality wasn’t the choice of this man. He had felt that way for years and tried church, marriage, among other things to “cure” him of his true sexual orientation. None of it worked. Through talking openly with the gay man and beginning to get a sense of where he was coming from, the acceptance started happening. Ignorance is one of the easier kinds of homophobia to overcome, if the person is willing to listen to “new” ideas that define an “alternate” lifestyle.

Tags: gay · media · sex · tv1 Comment

1 response so far ↓

1 Lost in Ohio Mar 14, 2008 at 9:15 am

I just lost my job and though I can’t prove it and there’s no evidence I believe that it is because I am a lesbian. I was working for an agency that has a policy that says they won’t discriminate but when it comes to a major funding source for a pet program of the administrator, then it’s good by lesbo. I am shocked hurt depressed and lost I just want to stop working for homophobes and start a lgbt focused dv shelter that way I know I wouldn;t get fired for being my self