Anti-gay slogan
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Anti-gay slogans are catchphrases which express opposition to homosexuality. They have a long history, dating back at least as far as Classical Greece 2500 years ago. After subsiding for a period, they have been increasingly prevalent since the 1980s, and range from disrespectful, denigrating and pejorative slogans to those expressing antipathy on religious or moral grounds. They commonly use pejorative terms like "fag" or "faggot". Godhatesfags.com is a prime example.
In political use, anti-gay slogans are commonly used to convey the varied cases against homosexuality. They reflect the spectrum of opinion among those who oppose homosexuality and gay rights. Many are considered homophobic hate speech by those who accept the concept of hate speech.
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Themes
The stock phrases used against same-sex love have changed little over the centuries. They are one of the main vehicles for the propagation of anti-gay attitudes.
Declaration that same-sex love is unnatural
Main article: Queer studies
This particular charge dates back to Plato, who claimed that male love was "against nature" (para-physein). In recent times the discussion has been framed in psychiatric rather than philosophical terms, with the claim that it is a sexual perversion.
Though the psychiatric establishment did medicalize same-sex love, that position has been revised and at the present time it is not listed as a mental disorder. Recent work in queer studies has shown the practice to be widespread in nature as well as in human society, leading gay right advocates to assert that opposition to same sex love would itself be against nature.
Blame for Biblical plagues and natural disasters
Main article: Religion and homosexuality
Since the middle ages, sodomites were blamed for "bringing down the wrath of God" upon the land, and their pleasures blamed for the periodic epidemics of disease which decimated the population. This "pollution" was thought to be cleansed by fire (modelled after the mythical destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah), as a result of which countless individuals were burned at the stake or run through with white-hot iron rods.
A modern example of this type of thinking was shown by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who blamed gays and lesbians (among others) for indirectly causing the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington of September 11, 2001. On the broadcast of the Christian television program "The 700 Club," Falwell made the following statement (for which he later apologized):
- I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'
Since the end of the 1980's similar accusations have been made, inspired by the AIDS epidemic, labeling it a gay disease and divine retribution against homosexuals. The epidemic, however, has touched primarily people enagaged in opposite-sex behaviors, and medical evidence indicates the disease is propagated not because the sex of the partner is the same as one's own, but as a factor of unhygienic sexual behaviors (such as relations with multiple partners concurrent with an absence of protective techniques). See discussion below
Conflation with child abuse
This is an accusation which predates the current era, as it was leveled against pederasts even during Antiquity (See Lucian's Erotes). More recently, this charge has been phrased as "recruitment", implying that homosexuals are somehow predatory on children, or are "recruiting" in secret. A common slogan is "Homosexuals cannot reproduce — so they must recruit" or its variants.
In an Advocate.com interview[1] (http://www.advocate.com/html/stories/857/857_outlaw.asp) on his 2000 work, Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in 20th-Century American Art, Richard Meyer discusses this line of attack:
- . . . those who attacked Mapplethorpe's work in the late 1980s used this photograph to reinforce long-standing stereotypes of gay men as pedophiles. Although no sexual activity is shown (or even suggested) in the portrait, and although the picture was commissioned by the child's mother who was in the room at the time of its taking, the very fact that Mapplethorpe had photographed a naked boy was enough, at least in the minds of Pat Robertson and Jesse Helms, for the photographer to be accused of child molestation.
Among the counterarguments used to refute the charge are that it is based on the denial of the comparable abuse of young girls by men who prefer the opposite sex, and on the infantilization of adolescents who in a different context would be considered to have come of age. The reports of young people discovering their attraction to others of the same sex at an early age contradict claims that those young people were subject to outside persuasion.
Dissipation of vital force
This argument has been phrased since antiquity in agricultural terms, as "casting one's seed on sterile rocks." It has been countered by pointing out that there are multiple examples of non-procreative heterosexual sex, such as relations between people past the age of conception, commercial sex, and sex in which birth-control measures are used. It has also been suggested that the insemination inherent in same-sex relations, while not producing actual offspring, yields spiritual and intellectual fruit.
Association with effeminacy in men, and masculinity in women
Main article: Gender identity
This accusation seems to be based on the generalization that all those who enage in same-sex relations are also gender variant, a contention which is not sustained by research in the field.
Homosexuality as a sin
Main article: Religion and homosexuality
Certain Christian congregations interpret Biblical texts to imply that same-sex love is "sinful." Other congregations claim that these interpretations are in error. Many slogans, including some listed in the next section, have been used by religious opponents of homosexuality, particularly by Rev. Fred Phelps. These have included "God Hates Fags", "Fear God Not Fags", and "Matthew Shepard Burns In Hell" [2] (http://www.portlandmercury.com/2000-09-14/city.html). Another slogan is "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve".
AIDS as a gay disease
Related article: Homosexuality and medical science
A common theme of anti-gay slogans is that AIDS is a gay disease which is somehow deserved. One example is the slogan "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" (fag being a pejorative term for a male homosexual).
The "AIDS Kills Fags Dead" slogan is a parody of the advertising slogan "Raid: Kills Bugs Dead", the tagline used in television advertising for the SC Johnson insecticide. It thus implicitly identifies gay men with vermin fit for extermination.
The slogan appeared during the early years of AIDS in the United States, when the disease was mainly diagnosed among male homosexuals and was almost invariably fatal. The slogan caught on quickly as a catchy truism, a chant, or simply something written as graffiti.
It is reputed that the slogan first appeared in public in the early 1990s, when Sebastian Bach, lead singer of the heavy metal band Skid Row, wore it on a t-shirt.
The phrase has been used by religious opponents of homosexuality. It was for example seen in 1998 at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a victim of anti-gay violence (who did not have AIDS), when a group led by Rev. Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church staged a protest.
A variant of this is "AIDS cures fags", a role reversal which makes homosexuality the disease and the inevitable death from AIDS the "cure".
See also
- Homophobic hate speech
- Homosexuality and medical science
- Homosexuality and morality
- List of gay-related topics
- List of sexual slurs
- Hate speech
- Fred Phelps
- Skid Row
External links and references
- Slain gay student remembered as 'angel with new wings' (http://www.cnn.com/US/9810/16/shepard.funeral.03/)
- Sebastian Bach's official website (http://www.sebastianbach.com/)
- "La Dolce Musto (http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0022/musto.php)" Michael Musto column discussing Sebastian Bach, dated May 31 - June 6, 2000