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Recommended: Religion and LGBT issues
The movie Dope (2015) has a colorful cast including Malcolm, Diggy, and Jib. Diggy is a lesbian teenager whose grandmother takes to church every Sunday. While at church, fellow church members pray over Diggy in hopes to “pray away the gay.” In today’s culture some people believe that if they pray hard enough then they will no longer be attracted to the same sex. On one occasion Diggy was undressing a female church member with her eyes while she was praying for her. That showed that that theory is not always true.
Praying away the gay does not always work. Diggy and her friends are walking down the hallway at school. They are taking about yesterday’s church event that involved Diggy being prayed over, Jib asks Diggy did she think the praying
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The cultural aspect of homophobia and heterosexism is sugarcoated in its generational effects on a people. These cultural beliefs are predominantly established through community, religious and family relationships, along with social norms. It is also based on cultural norms and dominant cultural values, which is subjective and dictates what is acceptable, beautiful, and appreciated (Perez. 2005; Ungar, 2004). When queer people of color are rejected by their own communities, they experience a double exclusion. They feel they are not a part of the queer community, which is predominantly white, nor do they fit into heterosexual groups of color. These dynamics are a psychological, emotional and social mountain that queer people of color must learn how to continuously climb (Perez, 2005). One notable example of parents not accepting their child’s sexuality in the character Veronica Harrington on The Haves and The Haves Nots. Veronica expressed extreme hatred for her son Jeffery’s homosexuality. When Jeffrey came out of the closet to his parents his father was open and heartfelt with him, his mother showed the opposite reaction. Her actions toward him include forcing him to get a girlfriend (who knows that he is gay), ruining his friendship with his best friend Wyatt, telling …show more content…
I always knew they would be accepting.” Gloria Vanderbilt’s celebrity TV Journalist Anderson Cooper came out in 2012 and received nothing but love and support from his mother. Republican U.S. Senator Rob Portman was well known for his stand against gay marriage, that is until his son announced that he was gay in the year 2011. In 2013 he changed his position on the matter. In a column for The Columbus Dispatch, he wrote, “I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn’t deny them the opportunity to get married.” The Huffington Post reports that New York’s Lesbian Chef Mirella Salemi was awarded $1.6 Million after her employer attempted to pray away the gay in her. Edward Globokar held employee prayer meetings inside his establishment, Mary Ann’s. Salemi had worked at the restaurant for six years. "He not only threatened her soul, but he also threatened her livelihood," Derek Smith, a lawyer for Salemi, told the Post. "He thought praying might cure her of her sexuality, but she is someone who didn’t need to be
I reached many other people since last week, some of them did not show much interest in doing the interview when they heard it was about homosexual representation analysis; the other people were unable to do the interview because the lack of time or other reasons. Anyway, diverse interviewees were picked to convey a considerably fair research for the attitudes toward the homosexual representation in the show Glee. These three chosen interview subjects not only vary in race (Both my boss and my roommate are Asian-American and my friend’s sister Lily is Caucasian) but also in gender (My boss is male and the other two are female). Because the main focus of the show Glee is about daily life of a group of high school students who attend their school glee club, the audience’s age range is unavoidably narrow. Despite the fact
The first story centers on Gene Robinson, now the first openly gay Episcopal bishop, and the son of a loving, church-going couple from Kentucky. Next, we meet the Poteats, a Baptist family from North Carolina with a gay son and daughter. Then there are the Reitans, from Minnesota, whose son Jake comes from a long line of Lutheran pastors. When Jake came out of the closet, some of the locals threw a brick through their windshield and wrote “fag” in chalk outside the house. The mother’s description of immediately scrubbing the profanity off the driveway was very poignant. Perhaps the most heartbreaking story was that of Mary Lou Wallner, a Christian fundamentalist who rejected her lesbian daughter, which ...
“For The Bible Tells Me So” by Daniel Karslake is a documentary style film that focuses on issues about sexuality. The film focuses on the conflict between homosexuality and Christianity and the analysis of several Bible verses about homosexuality. The film attempts to alter the minds of homophobes by using facts, science and several interviews with Christians who also have gay children. The interviews are done with five American, very Christian families and “how they handle the realization of having a gay child” (Karslake, 2007.) The film looks at both the understanding of the church, that is portrayed within the film, and the suggestion that there can only be one sexuality, heterosexuality, and that all others are sins in the eye of God.
In the past decades, the struggle for gay rights in the Unites States has taken many forms. Previously, homosexuality was viewed as immoral. Many people also viewed it as pathologic because the American Psychiatric Association classified it as a psychiatric disorder. As a result, many people remained in ‘the closet’ because they were afraid of losing their jobs or being discriminated against in the society. According to David Allyn, though most gays could pass in the heterosexual world, they tended to live in fear and lies because they could not look towards their families for support. At the same time, openly gay establishments were often shut down to keep openly gay people under close scrutiny (Allyn 146). But since the 1960s, people have dedicated themselves in fighting for
Andrew Sullivan, author of, What is a Homosexual, portrays his experience growing up; trapped in his own identity. He paints a detailed portrait of the hardships caused by being homosexual. He explains the struggle of self-concealment, and how doing so is vital for social acceptation. The ability to hide one’s true feelings make it easier to be “invisible” as Sullivan puts it. “The experience of growing up profoundly different in emotional and psychological makeup inevitably alters a person’s self-perception.”(Sullivan)This statement marks one of the many reasons for this concealment. The main idea of this passage is to reflect on those hardships, and too understand true self-conscious difference. Being different can cause identity problems, especially in adolescents.
Author Steven Seidman writes that “it is the power of the closet to shape the core of an individual's life that has made homosexuality into a significant personal, social, and political drama in twentieth-century America “(38). Those that are homosexual tends to tell lies and play deceitful silly games just to appease family, coworkers and a few dear old friends. They feed into the prejudices and fears about homosexuality. In Angels in America, many of the characters are homosexual, and the truth about their sexual preferences comes out. Kushner shows us the difficult struggle that often precedes a gay person’s acceptance of her or his identity, and the ways in which one’s ability to enact this identity is dependent on the acceptance of others.
Moody gives a very insightful look into the common line crossings of church and state on the issues of gay marriage. Having the credentials of a clergy member and of someone who writes and lectures often on subjects of ethics and social policy, Moody evokes trust in his
According to a study done by National Youth Association in 2010, 9 out of 10 students in the LGBT community have experienced harassment in school, and over ⅓ of LGBT youth have attempted suicide. More recently, statistics by the Human Rights Campaign (hrc.org) claim that 4 in 10 LGBT youth say that their community is not accepting of LGBT people. In 1998 the Westboro Baptist Church was brought into America’s spotlight when they picketed the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a young man in the LGBT community who had been beaten to death because of his sexuality. Since then, the cruelty of WBC hasn’t ceased to leave many in sickening shock. Bullying, throughout time, has evolved. It’s not just Little Timmy being beaten up for his lunch money anymore. Now, parents are involved. Many religious households raise their children on the beliefs that bullying is A-OK if Little Timmy is a homosexual. Parents ar...
In the essay by Judith Butler, Besides Oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy, she describes the social norms of society slowly changing and designing new social norms of society by the awareness of Gays, Lesbians, and Transgender preference people. She is also describing the struggles of everyday life for gays, lesbians, and transgender people. Butler states a question that makes a good point for this way of thought, “what makes for a livable world?”(Page 240). This question is asked to understand what a livable life is first. A livable life is life that is accepted by society. If society does not accept certain individuals because of the choices they choose to make or the way they are brought up, then society chooses to stay ignorant and uneducated on these types of situations. Individuals who are not accepted by society receive less treatment than that of some who is accepted by society. This does not only extend to gays, lesbians, and transgender, but extends to people who are less fortunate than others. People judge people. This is human life. People are influenced by other people and want they have. The media is a big part of what people strive to be like or accomplish. People watch th...
In the publication Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism, author Patricia Hill Collins, she discusses sexism, gender and the new racism. Collins discusses that heterosexuality operates as a hegemonic ideology that influences human sexuality, racism, and psychological processes (Collins 2004 p.37). This placement of heterosexuality at the top, positions it as the basis of understanding sexuality. For example Collins illustrates that the term sexuality itself is used so synonymously with heterosexuality that schools, churches, and other social institutions treat heterosexuality as natural, normal, and inevitable (Collins 2004 p.37). This in turn facilitates stigmatization of individuals who engage
Note: This paper has a very long Annotated Bibliography. In recent years, same-sex relationships have become more encompassing in US society. State legislation is changing such as accepting gay marriages, enforcing anti-discrimination laws, and legal gay adoptions; the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community is becoming public. Gay-headed families, like heterosexuals, are diverse and varying in different forms.
In this essay, I will explain how religion is sometimes used to mobilize against LGBT people, how some people’s religious and personal doctrines conflict regarding LGBT issues, and how religious belief and community can be a positive force for the LGBT community. In history, mainstream Abrahamic religions have had a negative relationship with LGBT persons. Beginning during the Hebrew exodus of Egypt, the purity codes documented in the Hebrew Bible’s Book of Leviticus explicitly stated a slew of rigid rules that attempted to keep a new Israelite nation “clean”. As William Countryman argues in the article “Dirt, Greed, & Sex”, the Bible sets a precedent for what is “clean” and pure as well as what is “dirty”. In this sense, dirty means where something doesn’t belong, or is out of place.
Baker, Jean M. How Homophobia Hurts Children: Nurturing Diversity at Home, at School, and in the Community. New York: Harrington Park, 2002. Print.
A common family value is to treat others the way you wish to be treated. Why is this never the case when someone is different from what a person considers to be normal? When one considers homosexuals, do all the people around them treat them in a fair manner? Much of the time, people treat them differently because they do not fit the typical gender roles defined by society. So, a prejudiced gender role cause problems between ...
This was reflected in societies structures, for example the legal system, which involved human rights such as adoption and marriage or the definition of spouse and family not taking into consideration same sex couples until these injustices were challenged (Owens, 88). Owens points out these restrictions that were placed on same sex couples as to highlight discrimination that has been imbedded into societal structures which work to conserve a patriarchal society. This demonstrates how families who suffered from this inflicted abuse needed the home as a safe and accepting place where they could feel belonged, in a society full of evident inequality. Overall, this reflects how Owens and Hooks both recognize differences in value that society has placed on people and families through its negative effects it has on people’s lives which is why family as a place of belonging is necessary. However, this is not good enough to work towards change, which is by identifying this oppression and establishing safe places such as the home, individuals can now work towards eradicating the problem as a whole; by taking action through creating the family as an area of