More Americans Identify as LGBT than ever before

[Loeje]

It hasn't really helped all that much. Homophobia isn't necessarily religious, and the assumption that it is can actually be harmful to people.

I disagree. The reasons why people express homophobic views frequently include religious beliefs or viewpoints. Quoted from the article:

"Of course not all people of faith persecute LGBT+ people, but all of the main faiths bear responsibility for directing hate towards LGBT+ people over the years."

I couldn't find a source for all religions. But if you look at Christianity only, the majority of Christians say that LGBT should be accepted by society. And the trend is that Christians are becoming more affirming, not that they're simply outnumbered by atheists. Because they're not.

[Kilobugya]

I disagree. The reasons why people express homophobic views frequently include religious beliefs or viewpoints.

There has been a few exceptions, like socialist Cuba in the 60s who oppressed homosexuals because it was "bourgeois decadence". But they quickly realized they were wrong and are now one of the most pro-LGBT countries of latam. And on a personal level, some atheists do consider homosexuality with disgust and while they might not go as far as want to throw them in jail (or kill them), they might very well tease, ridicule and bully them, which is still bad.

But sure, the main driving force of homophobia is by far religions and religious belief, or least a certain subset of them.

[Punished UMN]

But religious decline really didn't become that big of a thing until the LGBT rights movement was already big. The LGBT rights movement and its growth, as well as the increasing acceptance of LGBT people, predate the big religious decline by decades. And this is anecdotal, but I have seen a lot more of LGBT acceptance eroding trust in traditional religious authorities than I have seen eroding trust in religious authorities leading to acceptance of LGBT people. On the ground anyway. This is especially true considering that in the most conservative American religious groups like the Mormons and the SBC, being gay will essentially eject you from the group altogether and most people just don't convert to another religion and become atheists.

But I am not disagreeing with you? I just think you're only showing one side of the medallion, the other being that a decline of religiousness leads to the acceptance of LGBTQers.

But acceptance of LGBT people is clearly the main driver of the phenomenon, and the decline in traditional religiousness is observably seen to be the result of the perception that traditional religious authorities are homophobic. Decline in religion is obviously a thing, but it's a pretty nebulous social force that isn't really influential in politics. Political changes are having greater influences on religious changes than the latter is on the former, and that has been the case in most of the Western world for centuries since the French Revolution began the process of driving religious authorities out of statecraft entirely.

[Kubra]

And why can't they be mindful of others?

Well the elderly people are the reason we have freedom now but the gays have never died in war fighting for freedom

neither have my elders, given that they're alive.

[Ifreann]

And the concept of race must be invented for people to designate other people outsiders based on their race. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that Europeans and Africans were interacting for millennia before anyone came up with the idea that the former are white and the master race and the latter black and closer to animal than human.

---

White people invented racism. More specifically, rich white people invented racism because it rather helpfully served to justify their highly profitable enslavement of Africans.

White people certainly invented Western racism and the racism which is dominant throughout most of the world, but there are microcosms of racism throughout the world which developed independently of the Western development of racism (e.g. Arab racism against Sub-Saharan Africans, which predates the Atlantic slave trade by centuries) and which are based more on local dynamics than Western ideology seeping into local culture (an example of the latter being the Hutu-Tutsi distinction).

Bigotry by one people against another has probably happened at a lot of different times and in a lot of different places, but that's not always the same as racism.

---

And the concept of race must be invented for people to designate other people outsiders based on their race.

Not really, no. People were doing it in the Bronze Age, iirc there's some writings where Egyptians differentiate Hurrians from Hittites based on skin tone and nose shape for example. Skin color is probably the most easily definable physical characteristic of a human, you don't need 18th century racialism for that to be true.

Noticing that the people from over that way have different skin tone isn't the same as deciding that they are of a different race.

[Punished UMN]

White people certainly invented Western racism and the racism which is dominant throughout most of the world, but there are microcosms of racism throughout the world which developed independently of the Western development of racism (e.g. Arab racism against Sub-Saharan Africans, which predates the Atlantic slave trade by centuries) and which are based more on local dynamics than Western ideology seeping into local culture (an example of the latter being the Hutu-Tutsi distinction).

Bigotry by one people against another has probably happened at a lot of different times and in a lot of different places, but that's not always the same as racism.

---

Not really, no. People were doing it in the Bronze Age, iirc there's some writings where Egyptians differentiate Hurrians from Hittites based on skin tone and nose shape for example. Skin color is probably the most easily definable physical characteristic of a human, you don't need 18th century racialism for that to be true.

Noticing that the people from over that way have different skin tone isn't the same as deciding that they are of a different race.

True, but certainly some examples, such as Arab bigotry against Sub-Saharans was very similar to later Western racism, and medieval accounts by Arabs often describe Black Africans in much the same way Europeans would later describe them.

[Caribbean Confederation]

True, but certainly some examples, such as Arab bigotry against Sub-Saharans was very similar to later Western racism, and medieval accounts by Arabs often describe Black Africans in much the same way Europeans would later describe them.

I would bring up the whole Majusi and Ajam thing, which were and remain racist in concept too, but since Ifreann apparently thinks it's not racism unless the one doing it is white, I'm not sure how he'll take it lmao.

[Ifreann]

Bigotry by one people against another has probably happened at a lot of different times and in a lot of different places, but that's not always the same as racism.

---

Noticing that the people from over that way have different skin tone isn't the same as deciding that they are of a different race.

True, but certainly some examples, such as Arab bigotry against Sub-Saharans was very similar to later Western racism, and medieval accounts by Arabs often describe Black Africans in much the same way Europeans would later describe them.

I guess what stays the same is that racists are never very creative.

[Punished UMN]

True, but certainly some examples, such as Arab bigotry against Sub-Saharans was very similar to later Western racism, and medieval accounts by Arabs often describe Black Africans in much the same way Europeans would later describe them.

I would bring up the whole Majusi and Ajam thing, which were and remain racist in concept too, but since Ifreann apparently thinks it's not racism unless the one doing it is white, I'm not sure how he'll take it lmao.

The Majoosi can shove it.

[Nilokeras]

Bigotry by one people against another has probably happened at a lot of different times and in a lot of different places, but that's not always the same as racism.

---

Noticing that the people from over that way have different skin tone isn't the same as deciding that they are of a different race.

True, but certainly some examples, such as Arab bigotry against Sub-Saharans was very similar to later Western racism, and medieval accounts by Arabs often describe Black Africans in much the same way Europeans would later describe them.

As with colonialism and imperialism, I think it's useful to consider racism as something Europeans innovated upon from the base 'background' xenophobia of premodern cultures and which spread to other countries - specifically the construction of racism as an ideology and in building systematized hierarchies of race as a consequence of their colonial/imperial expansions. It's why medieval Arab conceptions of 'race' come closest to our modern variety, since they too operated in a colonial and imperial framework while in Africa but didn't develop the ideological construction quite as much.

[Daarwyrth]

People just need to accept that nature is diverse, and beautiful because of its diversity, and move on. There is no reasonable justification to discriminate LGBTQers. We are not morally wrong, we are harming no one. Just accept us and treat us as humans, and that's it. Literally, that's it.

[Punished UMN]

True, but certainly some examples, such as Arab bigotry against Sub-Saharans was very similar to later Western racism, and medieval accounts by Arabs often describe Black Africans in much the same way Europeans would later describe them.

As with colonialism and imperialism, I think it's useful to consider racism as something Europeans innovated upon from the base 'background' xenophobia of premodern cultures and which spread to other countries - specifically the construction of racism as an ideology and in building systematized hierarchies of race as a consequence of their colonial/imperial expansions. It's why medieval Arab conceptions of 'race' come closest to our modern variety, since they too operated in a colonial and imperial framework while in Africa but didn't develop the ideological construction quite as much.

Yeah, I would say that's pretty accurate and also explains why different empires (even within the European context) had different racial caste systems dependent on their own political situations.

[Insaanistan]

Bigotry by one people against another has probably happened at a lot of different times and in a lot of different places, but that's not always the same as racism.

---

Noticing that the people from over that way have different skin tone isn't the same as deciding that they are of a different race.

True, but certainly some examples, such as Arab bigotry against Sub-Saharans was very similar to later Western racism, and medieval accounts by Arabs often describe Black Africans in much the same way Europeans would later describe them.

^This. The Arabs looked down upon sub-Saharans. That’s the entire reason Muhammad said
“There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab. Nor is there any superiority of a non-Arab over an Arab. Nor is there any superiority of a white over a black. Nor is there any superiority of a black over a white.”
The first muezzin in Islam, Bilal ibn Rabah, was once angrily referred to by another Muslim as “You son of a black woman!”

[Farnhamia]

It’s kind of insane that we’re arguing about whether homophobia exists outside Arab countries

Nobody Is saying homophobia doesn't exist outside of Arab countries i'm just saying Arab and Jews spread homophobia with Christianity and their version of Islam

Azerbaystan is DEAT for trolling (which is what he lost his previous nation for about a week ago).

[Borderlands of Rojava]

It hasn't really helped all that much. Homophobia isn't necessarily religious, and the assumption that it is can actually be harmful to people.

I disagree. The reasons why people express homophobic views frequently include religious beliefs or viewpoints. Quoted from the article:

"Of course not all people of faith persecute LGBT+ people, but all of the main faiths bear responsibility for directing hate towards LGBT+ people over the years."

Bro the reason people hated gays when I was growing up was because "they're wimps and they're weird for wanting to fuck dudes." It had nothing to do with religion and getting rid of religion won't get rid of this mentality.

[Borderlands of Rojava]

True, but certainly some examples, such as Arab bigotry against Sub-Saharans was very similar to later Western racism, and medieval accounts by Arabs often describe Black Africans in much the same way Europeans would later describe them.

^This. The Arabs looked down upon sub-Saharans. That’s the entire reason Muhammad said
“There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab. Nor is there any superiority of a non-Arab over an Arab. Nor is there any superiority of a white over a black. Nor is there any superiority of a black over a white.”
The first muezzin in Islam, Bilal ibn Rabah, was once angrily referred to by another Muslim as “You son of a black woman!”

So the Arabs invented race?

[Borderlands of Rojava]

And the concept of race must be invented for people to designate other people outsiders based on their race.

Not really, no. People were doing it in the Bronze Age, iirc there's some writings where Egyptians differentiate Hurrians from Hittites based on skin tone and nose shape for example. Skin color is probably the most easily definable physical characteristic of a human, you don't need 18th century racialism for that to be true.

That's not race though. They didn't have an overarching umbrella group that Egyptians belonged to like how we have white, black and Asian today.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

I, for one, fail to see what race has to do with the LGBT.

It seems the Topic Train has been derailed. Let's see if we can't get it back on track, hm?

[Farnhamia]

I, for one, fail to see what race has to do with the LGBT.

It seems the Topic Train has been derailed. Let's see if we can't get it back on track, hm?

Seconded.

[Nilokeras]

^This. The Arabs looked down upon sub-Saharans. That’s the entire reason Muhammad said
“There is no superiority of an Arab over a non-Arab. Nor is there any superiority of a non-Arab over an Arab. Nor is there any superiority of a white over a black. Nor is there any superiority of a black over a white.”
The first muezzin in Islam, Bilal ibn Rabah, was once angrily referred to by another Muslim as “You son of a black woman!”

So the Arabs invented race?

Not in a systematized way. They made observations about differences in things like skin colour but it didn't really become an ideological construct incorporated into Arab states. Premodern conceptions of the 'other' tended to revolve around religion more than they did visible ethnicity - Africans were enslaved because they were non-Muslims, not because they were African. Free Africans, particularly those who converted to Islam, were readily incorporated into Islamic social structures. Compare to the thriving Venetian slave trading enterprise in the 8th and 9th centuries, which took pagan Slavic captives from the Balkans or in the Black Sea to markets in Muslim-occupied North Africa, al-Andalus and the eastern Mediterranean.

[Farnhamia]

So the Arabs invented race?

Not in a systematized way. They made observations about differences in things like skin colour but it didn't really become an ideological construct incorporated into Arab states. Premodern conceptions of the 'other' tended to revolve around religion more than they did visible ethnicity - Africans were enslaved because they were non-Muslims, not because they were African. Free Africans, particularly those who converted to Islam, were readily incorporated into Islamic social structures. Compare to the thriving Venetian slave trading enterprise in the 8th and 9th centuries, which took pagan Slavic captives from the Balkans or in the Black Sea to markets in Muslim-occupied North Africa, al-Andalus and the eastern Mediterranean.

I beg your pardon, did you think this was the discussion on race and what various peoples thought about it? It isn't, you know, it's about more Americans identifying as LGBT than ever before. Get on topic, please.

[Stellar Colonies]

So there is apparently evidence of people with autism being more likely to be LGBTQ+, although I am not entirely certain as to its validity.

[Kilobugya]

Bro the reason people hated gays when I was growing up was because "they're wimps and they're weird for wanting to fuck dudes." It had nothing to do with religion and getting rid of religion won't get rid of this mentality.

Both exists. There are what I would call the "secular bullies", who would tease/shame/bully/harass gay people because "they are weird" or because they find it "disgusting" (especially anal sex, AFAIK, even if it's not actually specific of gays...). And there are what I would call the "religious right" (which can be of different religions) opposing LGBT for religious reasons.

The "secular bullies" will bully gay people, and it is indeed very bad, it can lead to lots of suffering and even suicide. But they usually don't care much about laws regarding LGBT. When a "gay marriage" law is made they'll just shrug and move to something else. Those who want the state to actively discriminate against LGBT, making them illegal or depriving them of the same rights than heterosexual, are mostly the "religious right". To take my country (France), the only time in modern history were a Bible was brought in Assemblée Nationale to oppose a law was... against PACS, the civil union opened to gay couples in 1999. And more recently, when we allowed marriage and adoption for gay couples in 2013, it was the "religious right" and some religious leaders who staged large-scale protests against it.

And sure, the two groups draw strength from the other. The disgust/rejection of the "secular bullies" is fed and strengthen by the open opposition from the "religious right", and the "religious right" feels comforted by the existence of the "secular bullies".

[Ainland]

Bro the reason people hated gays when I was growing up was because "they're wimps and they're weird for wanting to fuck dudes." It had nothing to do with religion and getting rid of religion won't get rid of this mentality.

Both exists. There are what I would call the "secular bullies", who would tease/shame/bully/harass gay people because "they are weird" or because they find it "disgusting" (especially anal sex, AFAIK, even if it's not actually specific of gays...). And there are what I would call the "religious right" (which can be of different religions) opposing LGBT for religious reasons.

The "secular bullies" will bully gay people, and it is indeed very bad, it can lead to lots of suffering and even suicide. But they usually don't care much about laws regarding LGBT. When a "gay marriage" law is made they'll just shrug and move to something else. Those who want the state to actively discriminate against LGBT, making them illegal or depriving them of the same rights than heterosexual, are mostly the "religious right". To take my country (France), the only time in modern history were a Bible was brought in Assemblée Nationale to oppose a law was... against PACS, the civil union opened to gay couples in 1999. And more recently, when we allowed marriage and adoption for gay couples in 2013, it was the "religious right" and some religious leaders who staged large-scale protests against it.

And sure, the two groups draw strength from the other. The disgust/rejection of the "secular bullies" is fed and strengthen by the open opposition from the "religious right", and the "religious right" feels comforted by the existence of the "secular bullies".

In the UK , negative attitudes towards gay people are broadly similar between Christians and non-Christians. Just like non-Christians, Christians are overwhelmingly in favour of gay marriage. But there is that homophobic minority. In consider joining the similar proportion between Christians and non-Christians, there are a few things to consider. Firstly, Muslims. More than half of British Muslims believe that homosexuality itself should be illegal. This is clearly extremely different from the majority Christian view. So this will affect the 'non-Christian' group. Also, among the non-religious, there may be more of an aversion to certain lifestyles and behaviours, rather than the simple and irrelevant fact of same-sex attraction itself. Certain behaviours, lifestyles, attitudes, are often conflated with homosexuality. The LGBT Pride movement is, I think, likely to play a role in this.

In my view, homosexuality should be an irrelevance. It tells you absolutely nothing about someone other than his sexual preferences; the private thoughts inside his head. And often, many who thought they were homophobic, realise that they are not, when they meet a gay person who is not compatible with the supposed 'LGBT lifestyle'. Plenty gay people are regular responsible people. We need to remove the conflation of certain behaviours with homosexuality.

If people oppose promiscuity, etc., that's fine. But they should remember that heterosexual people can fall into that category, too. And gay people who live that lifestyle, should not conflate it with homosexuality, and hide behind dislike for it as homophobia.

By removing the flawed conflation, not only will acceptance increase, but young gay people struggling with their sexuality, who don't identify with the media LGBT Pride image, will surely find their situation easier.

[Engadine Mcdonalds 1997]

Huh, cool. More power to em' I say