Is anti-gay sentiment on the rise?

Try to hang on, because it can get worst than that. Here in Portugal I am constantly hearing about cases of anti-gay violence, and some of them are caused by homophobic policemen.
I got bullied at school even before I discovered I fancied boys.
And don’t forget, it’s easy for anybody to hassle on the Internet, but in a face-to-face basis the bad boys always shit in their pants.

There really are some tedious wankers in the world. Illegitimus non carborundum.

I don’t mind bigots, as long as they keep it in the privacy of their own homes.
Consider me angry on your behalf.

I bet the Manchester City Council idiot is subject to an Internet use policy. Harassing strangers on company time and bandwidth is taken more seriously than you might think.

Tom,
Two words: Aurora medicritas… Have noticed how abismally inarticulate those people are? They obviously haven’t got a clue what they are talking about. two solutions: try and educate them by talking rationally (that would take time, lots of energy and will probably fail) or ignore them and leave them to wallow in their lovely mire.
Things might not be as bad as they seem though:
http://www.365gay.com/newscon05/01/011305poliBan.htm
This might make you smile too:
http://www.landoverbaptist.org
All the best

I’d say to try not to worry about it. It always seems that it’s always the assholes who speak up and harass people. But there’s plenty of the rest of us out here too. We just don’t feel the need to comment all the time. Have a good day. 🙂

All of us meet our fair share of idiots, wingnuts and loonies online – it’s the price we pay for he freedom to communicate like this, but please don’t let it get you down – there are things far more worthy of your ire than ignorant mesanthropes and their phobias.
Like Jake says, the silent majority of visitors to your site are very much on your side. The majority of straight visitors to your site will probably never mention your sexuality, because it quite simply isn’t an issue to us.
Have a nice day indeed.

Myself being gay, you have my full sympathy: but I can’t help feeling that perhaps us on the lefty-liberal side of things expect a few too many favours, and positive bias. If we stand up for freedom of speech and expression – which is what allows us to speak and behave as we do – then surely we must extend that right consistently in all directions. I’ve read through the comments which you refer to, and, to be honest, there are similar levels of righteous indignation on both sides.
I accept that my sexuality, opinions, and choices are often offensive to others, but I still expect the right to be myself. So if others offend me from time to time, I just have to either brush it aside or engage in debate, which may or may not be constructive.
I am slightly concerned – in a more general sense – that freedom of expression is gradually being eroded, or that it is a cause that people are not so concerned about these days. Just look back last week to Jerry Springer – The Opera: if that is allowed to be broadcasted, containing as it does significantly offensive content for Christians and others, then in a free society Christian groups and other faiths should logically be allowed to broadcast religious material that cuts right to the centre of their beliefs? And don’t tell me Songs of Praise is anything but a watered-down attempt at pleasing everyone.
I am no Christian – far from it – but if we, as gay people and liberals in general, are going to argue so strongly for our own freedom of speech and expression we must surely support it in all its forms.

OK Coates, you’re ultimately rather boring so I don’t have much more to say: I’ve said it already, and you’re going off-topic over at the Belle de Jour thread. So I will just comment on the general stance and content of your last post over there. Basically, you insist on construing this in terms of ‘homosexual rights’, ie as a political agenda. I said before, how you *understand* homosexuality is not a political subject. Further, that a political agenda should not obstruct or impair a more neutral or objective understanding. Homosexuals are no better or worse than anyone else, and are entitled to the same freedoms, respect etc etc. And so what? That doesn’t mean it changes your understanding of the subject. The fact that the nazis corrupted and abused the science of genetics doesn’t mean genetics is a debased or crap subject. You seem to have an intellectual block here, based on personal subjectivity.
OK, maybe I do have a little more to say….
Personally, I have very little respect for the medical profession when they start to comment on psychological matters. They are a pharmacological, narrow-empirical institution that is notoriously deficient in these areas, in the hugely typical consulting room situation. I dont think what the “BMA” have to say about homosexuality is very interesting. I’m sure you are correct in your knowledge of the ‘average’ or typical homosexual, because you have far more experience. But to your tiresomely predictable suggestion of “repressed homosexuality”, I have this to say. First, Freud was not always correct: and its a Freudian tactic, equivalent to saying what someone says always expresses an unconscious denial. Mr Sigmund, and Mr Coates, my response is this: no. Don’t be so f****** smug and patronising. It is entirely possible that someone has a reasonable opinion, deriving from conscious thought. And additionally it is entirely possible that there are repressed and denied aspects to the average homosexual, in terms of the origin and derivation of their condition. That firstly they are not being honest, and secondly they lack psychological self-awareness.
I haven’t “freaked out” Coates. What planet are you living on? My ‘terminology’ mirrors your own tendency to splash people with flowery and emotive language, to create an effect. I have objected to the propagandist element to your posts, for which my repellence towards homosexual buggery is a good example: that it is an opinion I am entitled to, without being labelled with the hysterical term “homophobe!” – a point you apparently have the grace to now concede.
You conclude by referring to discrimination policies, etc etc, and I fail to see how that relates to what I’ve said. You describe them as “intelligent”, and I suggest that it is not intelligent to block, deny or defame reasonable thinking, on the basis of personal politics. There’s a difference between social policy and human understanding. The middle ground between the two is admittedly quite delicate and easily abused (the nazis mis-use of genetics), but that doesn’t mean it does not exist. Further, that a political agenda does not define or circumscribe the other. Which is what you tend to do. Nothing “nasty” about this Coates…try reading with a little more objectivity and being less judgemental yourself (“homophobe!!”).
Oh, and for the other “yeahright” out there (apprarently): hi!…..we seem to have the same name.

So Freud actually didn’t say that stuff about homophobia, that was another guy. And it wasn’t a hundred years ago. It was ten.
I’m confused here – basically you cite psychologists when they agree with you, but you don’t trust them when they don’t? If you don’t believe these people, then where the hell are you getting the evidence to support your conjecture that gay people lack psychological self-awareness or suffer from a disorder. I mean – if this is your personal opinion, then that’s fine – but if you’re going to decry any reasonable body of medical or psychological opinion, let’s just call it that – your opinion, no better and no worse than anyone else’s. And – as you say yourself – you have a perfect right to an opinion and you have the means to express it. There is a difference, however, between expressing it to the world (get your own bloody weblog if you want to do that) and hanging around on my site bitching about my little camp bitchings and my homosexual boy-chums or whatever it is. If I sat on your doorstep shouting about you having front-bottom sex with women all the time and how it was evidence of your mental incapacity, you could have the cops come around and remove me. It would be at the very least really bloody rude and bad behaviour, and at the worst it’s abusive.
So I’ll say it again – if you’re saying that medical and psychiatric opinions are worthless in this context, then you don’t have any authority to back up your arguments, so it’s just your opinion, in which case you are free to express it, but maybe you should think about how you could express it in a way that wasn’t so bloody rude.
Personally, of course, I don’t believe that everyone’s opinion in the world is equally right. I think they’re all entitled to have them and express them – just like I think people should be able to do what they like as long as it doesn’t stop other people doing what they like – but I think that well-organised scientific thinkers and the medical profession are more likely to be right than some bloke on the street. And so, in my opinion, if you want your opinion to be taken seriously then you should read some of that stuff and come to an informed position, rather than saying that they’re just all talking crap.
When you grow up gay in a place and time that doesn’t really like gay people very much – like say all-boys schools, mid-80s AIDS scare farming communities of Norfolk – then you’re normally pretty keen to work out why everyone thinks you’re disgusting and weird for something you have no control of. So I’ve read dozens of books on whether homosexuality is genetic, I’ve read Freud, I’ve read books on the incidence of homosexuality in non-human species, I’ve read political works by gay people and against gay people and looked into the religious stuff surrounding it too. In all that time I was looking for answers to explain why I was the way I was and what it meant. After much reading, I came to the conclusion that none of it really matters very much. Gay people can be happy, they don’t hurt anyone and they generally understand their sexuality to be as fixed as straight people’s. The medical opinion agrees, the psychiatric opinion agrees and increasingly the political will of the people seems to agree as well. Calling gay people names serves no function, looking to get rid of homosexuality is only relevant if the people who are gay are unhappy with it. It’s not up to other people to decide who should be forced to change if they’re not hurting anyone else.
Point is – it doesn’t matter if gay people are insane and dribbling as long as they can function in the world. I don’t care if gay people can’t tell a badger from a car as long as they’re not anywhere near a car. None of the stuff you think about gay people and their mindsets or psychology could create people who are capable of making logical arguments that are still broken or wrong.
Gay psychology is totally irrelevant if you can’t tell their faulty brains and faulty arguments from everyone else’s! So address the logic of the arguments or shut up and go home. I think I’ve been astonishingly tolerant of your posts to this site, given that you’ve called me all kinds of names. Personal abuse, or comments made with no evidence that are designed to be insulting aren’t welcome here. If you want to do that kind of stuff do it on your own site, where maybe you’d be prepared to put your name to it in public.
On the subject of which, you post from the same IP address in Manchester City Council every time you post here. If I wanted to get you into trouble, all I’d have to do is send that stuff to your employers and then all they’d have to do is work out which computer the IP address corresponds with. It would take them about ten minutes most. But I haven’t done any of that stuff – I’ve just warned you that if you continued to be abusive I’d be forced to contact them.
So let’s not pretend that you’re being victimised by me here. Whether you say what your name is out loud has no bearing on whether or not your employer could trace back your name to your words. You’re just too ashamed to have your opinions of gay people written on the internet with your name next to them. And if this little camp gay bitchy self-important boy-chum has the balls to stand up and be gay in public with his real name and his opinions and beliefs made clear to his employer and fully referencable online, then what kind of bloody wimp does that make you?

For someone who finds you ‘ultimately rather boring’, yeahright seems to have devoted an inordinate amount of time to commenting on this post, no?

Tom,
Please report him to Manchester Council. There is a chance whoever is posting homophobia may be using a open access terminal in a library, say. But, as a council worker, this person should know better than to post hate messages.

you’re not alone. 🙂

Stephen: my personal viewpoint is not a “belief”, and certainly not in the sense in which you speak – ie, like gender-political ideas are ‘belief’. Its something I’m entitled to feel, and Coates has himself “withdrawn” his remark about that. I doubt that it’s actually rare, that only a small minority find the idea of homosexual buggery strange and unpleasant. It may be politically sensitive or whatever, but what of it? Nowhere have I stated or suggested that people should be inhibited, censored, or anything else. The reverse in fact: but as it applies to the non-homosexual world, which is as valid as anything.
Tom: I never said Freud spoke about homophobia; I referred to the Freudian idea that what you object to = what you repress. It is this Freudian psychological idea which is the basis for the repressed-homosexual argument. That is a ludicrous and patronising stance, designed to ensure that whatever the other person says, they can’t win. So basically, when someone fires up about that, its the end of the conversation because conversation is no longer possible – everything you say is turned around, to suit the other person, citing a well known phenomenon. How convenient. And as I said, psychological non-awareness also applies to homosexuals.
This is not a game, advocating Psychology V. The Homosexuals; it is entirely coherent to cite one aspect of “psychology” ( a very diverse subject), and refute another. I could very easily come up with research and documentation demonstrating how the BMA is apallingly deficient in psychological matters but frankly, I have neither the desire to ‘prove this’ nor the time. Maybe you could watch the BBC site for when this subject next arises; I guarantee that it will, in relation to the consulting room experience. If you think otherwise because what the BMA says suits your politics, well that’s up to you.
Of course this kind of debate can be legislated in terms of social policy. That doesn’t mean it’s any less annoying or offensive to be called an “idiot”, or a “ranting homophobe”. It just means that one subject is politically supported, because of cultural history. And I’ve already told you: I know you have my IP address, hence my rejection of the idea that I’m “anonymous”. What you do with that is your decision. I’m not a “victim” because you have a high profile site with full editorial control; my point is, that is not an equal playing field. I believe I said that.
‘Hanging around’ your site is a matter of interpretation I guess. As you well know it’s an open-comment blog in the public domain, and you like the attention it gets. But if you feel I’m “hanging around” in the way you describe then I guess that’s the meaning it has for you.
Fred:
Newfred says:
“If we stand up for freedom of speech and expression – which is what allows us to speak and behave as we do – then surely we must extend that right consistently in all directions. I’ve read through the comments which you refer to, and, to be honest, there are similar levels of righteous indignation on both sides. I accept that my sexuality, opinions, and choices are often offensive to others, but I still expect the right to be myself.”
….and that’s a decent summary of perhaps the core of my position. Yes, I find (forgive me Fred) the idea of homosexual buggery weird and repellent. I dont think its a healthy society that makes that statement politically scandalous. Every person has all kinds of likes and dislikes. I find it offensive when certain viewpoints are classified like that, when basically they are a personal feeling to which someone is entitled. You are indeed entitled to ‘be yourself’ (Fred). I am entitled to think and feel as I wish, just like you, and object when my thoughts and feelings are controlled, judged and labelled. And they are – Coates did it himself, then retracted it, and there are further echoes of this….but really, I can’t be bothered with this any more. I am also concerned (Fred) about the issue of freedom of speech, and I also, like you, include in that topic the recent BBC and Birmingham plays. I am annoyed when I see similar thought-control, in any area of life.
I found your post (Fred) eminently balanced, because you begin from the position that everyone deserves freedom of expression etc; you don’t begin from an adverserial homosexual agenda versus the big bad world, with a reflex use of the term ‘homophobe’ against anyone with a different viewpoint.
Its quite interesting to see the responses here, and how they differ from Fred’s position. Also, at the beginning of the Belle de Jour thread, Coates questioned and undermined her blog in different ways, one of which was to suggest that a homosex-blog would generate less interest, as if there’s something ‘politically’ wrong with that. That’s quite a strange idea, and it’s an example of what I object to: when normal/acceptable/understandable aspects of society are criticised on the basis of minority partisan politics. And if the ‘tone’ of my early responses was a little vicious….well, read Tom’s opening entry at the Belle thread and you will see how the tone was established – by him. (“spitting phobias”, etc).

And finally, you still won’t say why you won’t post your name! You’ve apparently ‘rejected the idea that you’re anonymous’ but at the moment the only way in which we could actually put a name to your words is if I contacted your employer, which I don’t want to do. So why won’t you just tell us? Why won’t you stand up on the Googleable internet and make it clear that you find gay people weird and repellent? I’m prepared to stand up and argue against you. If this is really what you believe, what possible reason could you have for being such a wimp about saying it out loud?

As far as I can work out ‘repressed homosexual’ means ‘heterosexual’.

Er. No. Richard – repressed homosexual would mean homosexual pretending to be heterosexual (well kind of). Just like you wouldn’t say that a man in a dress was de facto a woman.
And to ‘e’ – I’ve been on the internet a long long time. I’m not unused to fuckwits. I was just commenting on how I thought the anti-gay stuff was getting worse.

Hi Tom,
I don’t know exactly what Mr Anonymous said to piss you off but he has certainly got your goat. So what if he’s anti the particular way you choose to live your life? You are the one who chose to label yourself. You didn’t have to tell anyone on the internet you were gay. You chose to do so. Stop whinging. It’s a public forum. And free speech rules. He’s entitled to his opinion, and since you have a forum. can inflict it on you. If you don’t like it, just ignore it, and delete his rants. It’s your forum – you can censor whatever you like!

Sorry that my “‘repressed homosexual’ means ‘heterosexual'” joke fell a bit flat. I’ll use a smiley next time… I just meant that, to that madman Freud, ‘repressed homosexuality’ was a convenient tag to explain just about any sort of ‘unusual’ behaviour – even in the most hetero of heteroes.
Mind you, I hear that Freud was a bit of a repressed homosexual himself 🙂

apologies for throwing myself in here.
all i wanted to say is that i think conflict (and not only healthy conflict but ANY kind of conflict) is a basic trait of humanity, in my opinion evolved as counter-measure #1 for their fear, which (again imho) is probably the most dominant force in human life.
while we may strive for a world in which there is no need for conflict, i doubt there ever will be anything like that. it may increase and decrease periodically, given different circumstances and fashions, but it will most probably never go away.
for instance, i will always be attacked by various people for having homosexual friends. other heterosexual males will look strangely upon me and even act aggressively towards me for not fitting their view of how a heterosexual male has got to be. and so on and so forth…
please, don’t misunderstand, i do have my opinions and i stand up for them. i am not bending over in any way and i strongly dislike being abused, but to me… well, to me conflict (straight/gay, male/female, black/white, whatever it may be) is intrinsically beautiful and a major part of what living means to me.
this has absolutely nothing to with the argument going on, i have no proof for it (other than my own experience and observation)… but i wanted to write this one down.

I’m sorry, Tom. Sincerely. While I’ve never attacked anyone because of their sexuality (in public or secret), nor ever commented on your site before, I think that needs to be said to you.

Your blog is one of my favourite reads. Someday we’ll win, and by “we” I mean humanity. Everytime someone posts something like the inane vomit above this post humanity drops down an evolutionary notch.

While I don’t want to give ‘yeahright’ any more attention than he deserves, as a Manchester council tax payer I’d quite like him to be exposed to Manchester City Council for using their resources to send homophobic hatred to blogs by gay people (he is quite at liberty to NOT read plastic bag if it so offends him, though he seemed to know an alarming amount about the author in his Belle de Jour post comments!). Since Manchester City Council have just been given (shared) 2nd position in Stonewall’s top 100 most gay-friendly employers, perhaps they should know what their less than gay-friendly employees are getting up to in work time.

I can’t quite believe I’m bothering to respond to this.
Let’s start with your statement that you are liberal and believe in freedom of speech. I also believe in freedom of speech. I have no problem with you expressing your opinions, but that doesn’t mean that your opinions cannot be stupid, or ill-informed, or ignorant. I’ve read just as much material on gay stuff as you have, probably a considerable amount more, and your opinions simply don’t bear much resemblence to reality. Point is most gay teenagers think they’re broken and wrong and are ashamed of their attraction towards people of the same sex. They go and read up about these issues – they’re engaged with these debates. And whatever else you might argue, the issue is simply not as simple as you make it seem. There are many incidences of same-sex pairings in other species, which suggests an biological factor – gay sexuality seems to run in families to an extent, yet twins do not always end up with the same sexual preference. There is something genetic going on, there may be something social going on, there may be something psychological going on. I’m afraid your instincts on these matters just don’t cut the mustard for me, I”m afraid. If you want to argue a case, back it up – I will listen, I’m as interested as anyone else. If you just want to be rude, then please for Christ’s sake go and do it somewhere else…
With regards to your comments about camp – well I’m not going to deny that some gay men are camp, nor that some gay men are effeminate or that some gay women are masculine. Again – it’s difficult to determine precisely why that might be the case. What’s clear is that not all gay men are camp / effeminate and not all gay women are masculine. So the causality isn’t entirely clear. They don’t always go together, there are also masculine straight women and effeminate straight men. Whether being effeminate or whatever indicates developmental-narcissistic ‘problems’ again might be a slightly dodgy argument to make unless you’re saying that feminine women are obsessively narcissistic in the same way.
Anyway – this is irrelevant – I have no problem with people wearing little hats. Up to them. I don’t personally do it. So where’s the relevance? I’m not camp, so what’s your point?
Your section on your friends not being happy – well again, I’m not particularly interested in denying that some gay people have trouble being gay or that it doesn’t make them happy and that they feel abnomal. But I’d like you – in turn – to accept the possibility that one possible reason for gay people to be unhappy or wish themselves to be straight might be because they experience abusive comments and are told that they’re ill, diseased or disgusting. I want to make it clear that I am not saying that this is the case, just that your position doesn’t even take this on board as a possibility.
With regards to what you feel about anal sex, then yet again I’m going to point you to the large numbers of straight people who have anal sex. You only have to look at e-mail spam to see that. Anal sex is not the exclusive preserve of gay people. If you think that’s equally disgusting, then rephrase your argument in terms of people who have anal sex being disgusting, rather than just men.
Lesbians – I should point out (again) do not have much in the way of anal sex. Is this disgusting to you? Or not? What is the actual thing that upsets you here? And again – I ask you – why should something being ugly to you mean that other people should not do it, even though you’re only likely to see it happening in your mind when you actively think about it!
Your last paragraph I find particularly annoying. Earlier in your comment you seem to suggest that the very concept of evidence is redundant, and yet you are arguing that gay people might be a threat to children! You must be able to see that if you want to make a statement like that, then you need evidence to say that talking about homosexuality recruits people, or that gay people are actively trying to recruit young people, or that homosexuality itself is even something that can be an influence on young people. Otherwise you’re just scaremongering! That’s not politics, that’s prejudice. Find yourself some evidence, look at the balance and weight of scientific opinion by straight people with no axe to grind, and try and convince people of your position. Otherwise, please god shut up!
And in the absence of any evidence, I’ll repeat my point here – if you don’t like what gay people do in bed, then don’t think about it. If you are a liberal individual then you must surely be able to accept that gay people doing what they feel comes naturally hurts no one and compromises none of your freedoms, apart from – perhaps – your freedom to operate in the world without there being anything in it that you might personally find ugly. Given that the world isn’t entirely built to suit your aesthetics, maybe that’s something you’re just going to have to live with.