Homophobia: My Funny Valentine

20-year-old Degas Sikorski is openly gay – and has spent three years working at the Party City in Edmonton [Canada].

However, the retail worker spoke out after he was the victim of a homophobic ‘prank’ at the store on Valentine’s Day.

On the Saturday Valentine’s Day shift, a supervisor had put up the Valentine’s cards left for all the employees in the break room.

However, one for Mr Sikorski had been defaced with the words “Faggot – you are not getting shifts for a reason”.

Mr Sikorski had not been assigned a shift for six weeks.

The worker told Global News he has never had issues with staff or management over his sexual orientation – and is in the dark about the nasty message.

He said: “My jaw hit the floor. [I thought] Oh my God, I’m not safe here.”

“Suddenly I can’t be myself. Suddenly I can’t accept myself and be who I am at Party City for fear of retaliation from somebody in the staff." ...

Pink News.

Seeing as so many of these cases where someone has gone public claiming to be the victim of homophobia have turned out to be hoaxes, you'd think the gay media would have learnt to treat them with some caution.

Social Attitudes: Bigots R Us

The Observer's Britain Uncovered Survey.

Define 'common'?

Still, Fagburn is fairly baffled how anyone could disagree with any of the above.

You may want to compare it with the one below...

But what would they know, eh?

Homophobia: Get A Grip

A self-confessed Telegraph journalist attends a rugby match and overhears another fan slagging off out referee, Nigel Owens, and using the word 'gay' as an insult.

Thus proving - and I shit you not - that 'Britain remains in the grip of homophobia'!

Bravely, and seemingly without a thought for his own safety, our valiant hack turns round and tells him off.

First they came for the gay rugby referees...

Those who use racist, homophobic or sexist language may try to brush off those who would hold them to account by crying “PC!”. But this has nothing to do with political correctness. It’s about exercising basic respect for each other and the identities none of us should feel ashamed about. At school my hair was even redder than it is now and I was teased relentlessly. I ended up peroxiding it at university and then, during my years as a BBC presenter, shaving it, influenced in part perhaps by the insults. But you can’t peroxide your sexuality [Eh?]

It may be easy if you haven’t been bullied or experienced life as a minority to fail in your empathy for those who have. But we should all aspire to live in a world where decent values aren’t just upheld by the law but by each and every one of us.

So brave.

The Telegraph is the last place you expect to read wanky 'bleedin' heart' liberal patronising guff like this.

Truly, the times they are a-changin'.

Though not necessarily for the best.

Daily Telegraph: Homophobia Taints This British Newspaper

You couldn't make it up etc etc.

Owen Jones: Bad Science

Let me explain what the researchers at Goldsmiths University found. In the first study, British students who were asked to imagine borrowing a phone from a gay man came up with significantly more words about cleansing in a word-completion task. In another study, Portuguese students were offered either a yellow pencil or yellow disinfecting wipe after the experiment; those who imagined borrowing a phone from a gay man were more likely to choose the wipe. And, finally, Polish students – again asked to imagine borrowing a phone from a gay man – expressed a preference for cleaning products. Seems pretty definitive: on a subconscious level, gay men are seen as a contaminant, something to be washed away. "Ugh, I've got gay on me!", if you will...

The Guardian.

It's depressing that a journalist with Owen Jones' intelligence can base an article on such a ridiculous piece of 'research'. 

Another 'study' published recently tried to demonstrate a link between homophobic views and bad smells.

You may want to read that sentence again til it sinks in.

As with the above only around 50 people took part in tests, which is about as 'scientific' as claiming you're extracting sunbeams from cucumbers.

Do we automatically believe every study on homosexuality, homophobia, or anything else?

A personal favourite from the 70s claimed listening to Disco music caused homosexuality in mice.

If so many of the theories about what causes homosexuality - 'the gay brain', momism. too much wanking etc etc - seem laughable, why show such intellectual obedience to theories about what causes homophobia?

Should we not have cried bullshit at the often respected scientists in the 80s and 90s who said Aids did not exist?

Or climate change today?

Whatever, our Owen thinks the 'results' 'provide a fascinating insight into what makes homophobia tick.'

'One possible explanation is what you could call an HIV/Aids crisis hangover,' he muses. 'HIV was, after all, once the "gay plague"; good old-fashioned homophobia fused with the dread of a frightening illness.'

You can always  trust a scientist.

Aha, ye good old-fashioned Victorian contagion fears!

'But actually, Agnieszka Golec de Zavala – one of the researchers – tells me this is one of the least interesting explanations.

'The most compelling theory is that this impulse to scrub off gayness has everything to do with group identity. Cleansing is about separating: it has "a very social meaning" as de Zavala puts it. If you have established a clear division with another group, that they are "the other", and you convince yourself that you have nothing in common with them, then any form of interaction becomes contamination.' 

Scientists do this a lot - you come up with a theory, then set out to prove it.

And - Eureka! - guess what, they usually do.

Sooner or later someone else will often disprove it.

I'm sure many gay men will latch onto the simplistic 'theory' that homophobia is based on disgust, just as many love the equally silly idea that most homophobes are secretly gay.

It's surprising no-one's argued the anti-gay are born that way.

Like two halves of different second-hand cars soldered together, we get to Owen's conclusion; 'homophobia is ultimately doomed.'

That's nice, dear. Why?

'Before the 18th century, it was widely believed that men and women were part of the same sex, and that women's vaginas were actually penises tucked inside the body.' 

Widely believed, Owen?!!

'The idea of a rigid division between the genders only became dominant in the 19th century...'

This is utter nonsense.

Yip Harburg wrote Over The Rainbow actually.

Hang on, he starts making some sense now.

'...but, with the rise of the women's and LGBT movements, this division has been dramatically eroded.'

Kinda, yeah. 

'The old binary divisions are being swept away.'

The old Blue Mink 'What we need is a great big melting pot' school of radical philosophy, there.

'Sexism – and its bastard offspring, homophobia – still abound, of course. But because of the struggle of the women's and LGBT movements, identities are now more fluid and the urge to protect an oppressive, unreconstructed form of "manliness" becomes weaker. A society free of sexism and homophobia won't just emancipate women and gay men: it will free straight men, too.'

Okay. Though I can't help feeling sometimes that what Owen Jones would really like to see is not just a society free of homophobia, but one free of that pesky homosexuality, too.

Saturday Night Show: Homophobia

This proved quite the hit with our fellow Irish brethren last night.
An in-depth discussion on "homophobia" on one of Ireland's most popular TV shows.
I've put "homophobia" in inverted commas because apparently it may not exist.
Relive the love this programme generated on Twitter by searching #SatNightShow.
Britishers etc may watch it here.

PS The show also features Pussy Riot - or as the presenter calls them, "the girls"!

Thanks to Wolfgang and marvell78. x

Nick Cohen: Yah Boo Sucks!

Of course, there is so much more in The Observer today than La Burchill's hate-filled bigotry-by-numbers.
Columnist Nick Cohen is wondering out loud; Why This Obsession With What Gay People Do In Bed?
Nick, you're getting paid a lot for this - how about you telling us?

If nothing else, the arguments about homosexual emancipation have taught us that the penis stands tall in the conservative imagination. Like the dark tower of Mordor, it looms over all else: filling the mind and blotting out the light. Those who attempt to pretend otherwise always stumble over their own flat feet...

Good intro, Nick.
But can he keep it up? 
Cohen argues;

"Many homophobes, who make a great show of their disgust at "unnatural practices", imitate the old man. In 1965, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein tried to stop the repeal of criminal penalties on homosexuals by bellowing that "one may just as well condone the devil and all his works" as allow gay sex. True to form, Nigel Hamilton, his biographer, revealed that Monty had passionate, if unconsummated, relationships with young men"

An overly simplistic and reductive cliche this may be - but always fun for winding up rabid anti-gayers, nonetheless.
Next he quotes that great hoary old quote from his old chum Christopher Hitchens...

Whenever I hear some bigmouth in Washington or the Christian heartland banging on about the evils of sodomy, I mentally enter his name in my notebook and contentedly set my watch. Sooner, rather than later, he will be discovered down on his weary and well-worn old knees in some dreary motel or latrine.*

Warming to his admittedly half-baked theme, Nick Cohen then strikes a note of caution.

But 'yah boo sucks, you're really gay' is not an adequate response to prejudice, however true it may be in individual cases... hatred flows from many sources.

Who knew!!?
Apart from you, for half this article, Nick?
Well, you've well and truly buggered that straw man.
I doubt he'll ever walk again.
And in conclusion, sir?

I've no doubt it is satisfying for gays and lesbians to say tu quoque but noli me tangere is the more conclusive response.

And that's your actual Latin - offered in The Observer without translation, natch.
What do you mean you don't know what it means?
Bloody pleb!

* Nick shows how totally down he is with The Gays by writing about a "gay massage parlour". Anyone ever heard of one of these? Nope, me neither.

Associated Press: An End To Homophobia

The Associated Press has nixed "homophobia," "ethnic cleansing," and a number of other terms from its Style Book in recent months.
The online Style Book now says that "-phobia," "an irrational, uncontrollable fear, often a form of mental illness" should not be used "in political or social contexts," including "homophobia" and "Islamophobia." It also calls "ethnic cleansing" a "euphemism," and says the AP "does not use 'ethnic cleansing' on its own. It must be enclosed in quotes, attributed and explained."

Politico.com.

I sort of agree with this, though words change their meaning, and homophobia is rarely used now to mean a literal fear of homosexuals.
I much prefer anti-gay.
Preferably followed by the word "asshole".
AP farm out stories to all newspapers.
You have to pay to view the AP Style Guide, so I can't verify this.
But I learn from the splendid copy-writer's blog, A Capital Idea, The AP Stylebook updated its gay entry in 2006.

The new guideline:

gay Used to describe men and women attracted to the same sex, though lesbian is the more common term for women. Preferred over homosexual except in clinical contexts or references to sexual activity.

Include sexual orientation only when it is pertinent to a story, and avoid references to "sexual preference" or to a gay or alternative "lifestyle."

Here is how the entry used to read:

gay Acceptable as popular synonym for both male and female homosexuals (n. and adj.), although it is generally associated with males, while lesbian is the more common term for female homosexuals. Avoid references to gay, homosexual or alternative "lifestyle."

Could someone tell the Daily Telegraph?
Oh, and no-one uses "gay" or "gays" as a noun unless they're homophobic or an idiot. 

Twitter: Twits

A daily second-by second count of four choice homophobic words used in Tweets on that Twitter - plus a livefeed as they come in.
Fun!
Oh, and can you Britisher journalists please stop using the Americanism "slur", it sounds as silly as calling the police "feds"?

Nohomophobes.com

PS Also follow the awful/scary/hilarious @homophobes on Twitter.

Homophobia: Maybe They're Not Gay

Last week a New York Times article - 'Homophobic? Maybe You're Gay' - reported on some of the recent research claiming to show that "homophobia can result, at least in part, from the suppression of same-sex desire."
As with the the other studies reported in the UK last month, this was greeted with much wild cheering and high-fiving by many gay men.
"Hey ya! Told ya so! In your face, closet case!" etc etc.
The number of tweets this unleashed, you'd think it was some kind of gay VE Day.
Why question "science" if it's telling you something you really want to - or really need to - believe?
Even if that shows a very unscientific faith over reason?
Here Daniel Engberg writes for Slate about how the NYT's study veers between stating the bleeding obvious, and some extremely questionable research methods; 'Homo Say What?'

The Daily Mail: Homophobia Is Gay

'Homophobes could be attracted to people of the same sex but are not admitting it to themselves, a series of psychology studies has found.
'Researchers in New York, Essex and California say they've found evidence that gays and lesbians remind homophobes of themselves - which is why they develop an intense aversion and fear of them.
'They claim homophobic people tend to repress their true sexuality as they've often been brought up in families where being gay is not acceptable...'

Of course there is no irony AT ALL to be found in The Daily Mail running this story.
No sirree!
This is a theory that's long been popular with many gay men, mainly I suspect because it's comforting and funny and annoys the fuck out of homophobes.
Every gay blog or website I've seen has greeted this with a jubilant uncritical cry somewhere between "Eureka!" "Hosanna!" and "GOTCHA!"
"See! Told you so..."
Of course many homophobes are closet cases, but it seems simplistic and reductive to try and universalise it, or even to argue it explains most cases.
I'll wager most hate-filled anti-gay bigots is just hate-filled bigots with no real back story beyond their own colossal cuntery.
Richard Littlejohn springs to mind.
It also smells like Lysenkoism.
Tropfim Lysenko was Stalin's favourite scientist.
He was also a complete fraud who would twist research and invent "findings" to reach predetermined conclusions that suited the prevailing ideology.
You may have noticed that scientists often manage to "prove" what they set out to do.
Just as people tend to uncritically accept research that confirms their own prejudices (pun intended).
Whatever, have a look at the best-rated posts under the Mail's article; the very idea has driven some readers MENTAL.
So I guess there must be something to this.

• You may also enjoy gayhomophobe.com which counts the "days since the last prominent homophobe was caught in a gay sex scandal", and lists prominent anti-gay American politicians and preachers who've been caught with a metaphorical or literal dick in their mouth.
Also here's a 'Top 15 Anti-Gay Politicians Caught Being Gay' from Ranker.com
It's American again, I may try and do one for the UK...

Homophobia: Found A Cure

BOSTON—During a widely publicized press conference at the Boston University School of Medicine Friday, researchers announced a breakthrough new technique that cures homophobia by immersing patients in a large glass tank overflowing with gays. "Rather than avoid one's fear of homosexual men, we believe it's crucial to face it head on," behavioral psychologist Dr. Dolph Kleineman told reporters, explaining how homophobic subjects are hooked up to a harness and lowered into a room containing bare-chested men dancing suggestively to the latest club hits, kissing, and feeding one another strawberries. "So far the treatment has been successful, with early test subjects being able to go out into the real world and see a gay couple hold hands without making a bigoted remark." When asked if there was a risk of subjects getting stuck in the tank of writhing men, Kleineman said the gays would be so oiled up that patients would have no trouble slipping in and out.

From The Onion (ie It's a joke).

Richard Littlejohn: Gay Men Are Paedophiles

Richard Littlejohn has equated gay men with paedophiles in his rubbish Daily Mail column today.
"When I went to Sunday school, a million years ago, we were taught to love our neighbour.
"I don’t recall ever being told that we should take an ‘eye for an eye’ literally. Or that the punishment for homosexuality was death.
"Aged six, we didn’t even know what homosexuality was, even though we’d been warned to steer clear of that chap who was always hanging round the swimming pool..."
Nice one.