PERMISSIBLE PREJUDICES: Responding to bigotry by well meaning religious people/society, Part III

Mr. Alan Hevesi
Comptroller of the City of New York
Public Forum on Homophobia
The American Psychoanalytic Foundation

¨...It is important that we are all here to address, in all of its components, a terrible blight on our society which is the bigotry that is focused against gay men and lesbians.

I assume that a substantial proportion of you are trained academicians and/or clinicians, health professionals, experts in psychoanalytic and other psychological treatments. I have a little bit of an academic background, completely and totally unrelated to your experience. I have no expertise in the science of treating people or in the science of generalizing about populations of people and what motivates them. I come at this issue from the point of view of public policy, but I do not believe my total lack of expertise is terribly relevant in terms of how society should be responding to issues of bigotry.

So let me tell you where I am coming from on these issues. One: bigots are stupid people, ignorant people, sometimes led by people who are neither stupid nor ignorant, but are exploiting the underlying feelings of hatred and anger that bigots express. This is sort of a grand oversimplification and yet in the public policy debate, such broad oversimplifications have great power.¨

·¨America has been more successful than most societies in labeling bigotry for what it is, the evil that it is, the stupidity, the ignorance, the anger, the hatred, and ultimately the violence that flows from it. In institutional American life, it is no longer acceptable for the most part for people to be overtly anti-Semitic or overtly racist or overtly sexist or to express, in a generalized way, negative feelings about the disabled. The one bigotry that remains acceptable in large portions of American society is the bigotry against gay men and lesbians.

·More than fifty percent of gay men and lesbians experience some kind of incident, verbal or physical or otherwise, because of the perception of their sexual orientation. Nine percent of gay men and lesbians have been assaulted with a weapon and the rates are going up, not down. Every other category is down, but crimes against gays and lesbians are going up and that means people are being killed. Matthew Shepard was not an isolated case. People being killed because of the perception of who they are. Bigotry towards gay men and lesbians has been reinforced in institutional America with a variety of rationales. Some are based in theology, which for me has as much legitimacy as for example the justification of apartheid by the theology of the Dutch Reformed Church which rationalized racial bigotry.

·It is not acceptable to talk about civil rights on the basis of race, creed, color, gender, disability and accept bigotry against other people because of their sexual orientation. That is just wrong and there is no way to overcomplicate it, it is wrong in principle.¨

¨Crimes against gays and lesbians are going up and that means people are being killed. Matthew Shepard was not an isolated case. People being killed because of the perception of who they are.

Bigotry towards gay men and lesbians has been reinforced in institutional America with a variety of rationales. Some are based in theology...¨

read it all, click HERE

·Thanks to Mr. Alan Hevesi, Comptroller of the City of New York
·Thanks to The Public Forum on Homophobia
·Thanks to The American Psychoanalytic Foundation
·Thanks to The Reverend Jerry Maneker
·Thanks to Flickr Photosharing
·Thanks to A Christian Voice For Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights, at the right side bar