Homosexual Myths

Even in this twenty-first century, there are myths about homosexuality, whether it is in a political venue, social venue, cultural venue, or any other aspect of one’s life. Cultural biases seem to be evident in almost every realm in our society. This is perhaps because of lack of education on the subject, or rather an evident ignorance on gender specific roles and stipulations put upon people because “that’s the way it has always been.� Until we become a society educated in all aspects and walks of life, we will always have prejudices, laws, and myths hindering us as a city, state, nation, or world to accelerate. Homosexuality has and still is to some degree a taboo subject. Many different views and myths about how, why, what, and who homosexuals are have been clearly evident and voiced throughout history. Different cultures view homosexuality in extremely different ways. The rights of openly gay and lesbian individuals are slowly becoming equal to those of heterosexual citizens of the United States. In this paper, I will focus on five issues that I found most important. The first aspect I focus on is homosexuality as a biological trait; the second point is how homosexuality is viewed by

When one’s particular religion and or faith comes into play, the idea of being gay or lesbian seems to be very uncomfortable. “One of the oldest myths in the modern western tradition is that homosexuality is evil: a sin, a disease, and a crime, whether against society or against nature; an abnormal lifeway that creates hypersexual and selfish delinquents, fiendish vampires, and monsters on the edge of society” (Herdt 25). However absurd this sounds to rational people today, this is still very much a part of some people's beliefs. In the 1930’s some also believed that masturbation was a cause of homosexuality so at night when the children slept, restraints were put on the children so they were unable to touch their body parts. The idea that homosexuals are condemned by God in the Bible is addressed also by Corvino in his book. He says that the Bible can provide ultimate rationalization for those people who want to condemn homosexuality (Corvino 81). Any Christian religion believes in love thy neighbor as thyself. Does this apply to all men, or only to those who do the socially accepted things in everyday life in our current society?

The argument that these myths are still evident in our society is a strong one. Only when we as a society consider our peers, elders, and younger generations to be human and not categorize will we ever be able to reach true equality within a population. When people like Levin still have opinions such that homosexuality is abnormal because it is a “misuse of body parts” as he states in his article "Why Homosexuality is Abnormal," it seems we have only begun the uphill climb with the hopeful end result being acceptance (Levin 251). When fighting for rights in our judicial system one author believes that “to be strong, arguments for the rights of gay men and lesbians should be cast in terms of justice, privacy, equality, and liberty, not in terms of lack of choice or genetic determinism” (Corvino 111). Whether or not biology or environment has anything to do with the origins of sexuality in all actuality has nothing to do with the natural rights granted to you as a citizen. I think the argument is essentially equal rights among all men. Not only for some elite classes of people that is not what this land was founded on. We have come a long way with equal rights for minorities, and now it is time for equal rights for people regardless of sexual orientation.

Krantz, Susan E. “Reconsidering t