Talk:Homophobic hate speech

This article has been on vfd in the past; see Talk:Homophobic hate speech/deletion

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Homophobic hate speech (Revision as of 18:01, 20 Feb 2004)

The neutrality of this article is disputed.

Homophobic hate speech is hate speech or is thoughtcrime directed against homosexuals which is taken to be homophobic.

This hate speech may refer to homosexuality in general, such as queer, fag, or poof. In an effort to neutralise homophobia, these words began to be adopted and redefined by the homosexual community in the 1980s, especially the word queer. All these words, though widely used by the homosexual community as a positive affirmation of their sexuality, can still be taken as hate speech in some contexts. One such context is within phrases or anti-gay slogans used by groups with a homophobic agenda, another common form of hate speech.

Hate speech directed at homosexuals may also refer to specific sexual acts that the speaker associates with homosexuals (e.g., fudgepacker, which refers to anal sex).

Occasionally, entire books which attack homosexuals and attempt to justify anti-homosexual views have been described as hate speech. A recent example was Sexual Revolution in South Africa: The Pink Agenda: The Ruin of the Family (2001) by Christine McCafferty and Peter Hammond, a South African book. In 2002, the sale of this was restricted to individuals aged 18 and over, though many were calling for it to be banned outright, accusing it of inciting hatred. Homophobic hate speech is now a criminal offence in many countries.

See also: homosexuality, anti-homosexual views, homophobia, homosexuality and morality, religion and homosexuality, List of sexual slurs

External links The South African Film and Publication Board on The Pink Agenda

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We can revert until the cows come home to get this article to be NPOV.

Why is this article titled "Homophobic hate speech", yet it only contains one example and no further discussion of the concept in the title? AxelBoldt 01:36 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

There are plenty of examples of homophobic hatespeech out there, yet from the article, it seems like we are dealing with just one. This should also link to gay bashing and give more examples, as well as an overview of the phenomenon. Danny 01:41 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

I just think that this article is sorely lacking. Danny

The article has just begun. Instead of complaining that there's only one example, why not add more? -- Zoe

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Im curious, JT, Mav, Zoe, other reasonable people... is the term "homophobic" itself too much of an adjective for a NPOV article? (Can't one be anti-gay in beliefs without necessarily being "homophobic") -&#35918&#30505

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The motivation for the adoption of words like queer by the gay community is more complicated than just neutralizing homophobia, right? My understanding is that it's as much, if not more so, a positive action, implying "You're using this word to describe something you consider shameful. But we're not ashamed about being "queer". In fact, we're more than happy about it." --The Cunctator

I suppose you can say that the motivation in adopting it was a desire to neutralise a negative slur (after all, if that wasn't the motivation, any word, like "grampling" or "trepanort", might have been chosen), but the way this aim was brought about was by adopting it as a positive word, a symbol of pride. I've fiddled with the paragraph a little, I hope it's an improvemet.

By the way, can we get the word "poof" in here? Is that primarily a British word (or at least, non-American)? That's the impression I have, but I may well be wrong. And that too, of course, has been reclaimed.

On a (half) personal note, I'm a little (only a little) upset that JTD summarised one of his edits here as "de-homophobed". That edit was to a version of the page largely written by me, and while it wasn't very well written (I was in a bit of a rush), I don't think it was homophobic. Let's try to assume good intentions, eh? --Camembert

"Poof" is very much not American slang.

It's common, if nowhere else, among blacks in DC. Tuf-Kat

Lord, a link between blacks in DC and unemployed coalminers in Rotherham - conspicuous use of the word "poof". Who would've thought it. I'll just put the word "poof" in alongside "fag", I think, without trying to attribute it to any geographical group (at least for now). --Camembert 02:28 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

To make matters even stranger, I'm pretty sure it comes via Jamaican slang. Tuf-Kat

Sorry, Cam. I didn't mean to upset you. A couple of words were in the context open to misrepresentation. I had been told that someone else was responsible and that their viewpoint would not exactly be gay-friendly. It certainly is not a description that could be applied to you. It is so easy for a word in a context to give an impression that was not intended; I've had that experience myself, with meanings attached to things I wrote that never intended, and which were the opposite of what my views are. (When writing on Australia, I've been accused one week of being a 'clear republican', only to be told the following week that I was a 'blatent unapologetic monarchist!', all on the basis of the exact same set of words in the exact same paragraph!) JtdIrL 23:07 Mar 3, 2003 (UTC)

Heheh, that's quite an achievement! No hard feelings - I think everybody's emotions were running a little high last night, and probably none of us (including me) came out at our best. --Camembert

Poof is short for 'poofter', which, along with its twin 'woofter', were both english terms of abuse for gay people, along with terms like 'shirt-lifter', 'pillow-eater', 'cock-muncher', 'nancy boy', 'queenie' and 'shit-stabber'. I'm not surprised they made it back to the African-American community, though. Many US soldiers of all races were stationed in the UK during WWII and that led to a degree of cross-fertilisation of language.

re-TK's mention of Jamaican slang, I don't know if it went to UK -> Jamaica -> DC or Jamaica -> UK -> DC, though I think it predates the wave of Jamaican immigrants to the UK, so it probably went UK -> Jamaica and then both Jamaica -> DC and UK -> DC

Chambers Dictionary has it coming from the French "pouffe" (puff), just to throw a spanner at things. -Nommo

excellent. so that is France -> UK -> Jamaica -> DC. :)

And ah, yeah, Cam, I'm a rabid-monarchist queen-loving agenda pushing republican!!! Or was it a rabid republican-loving, agenda-pushing monarchist? Or maybe a republic-pushing mon . . . oh what the hell!!!) JtdIrL 02:48 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC)

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This page should say something about that jerk Phelps.

--jaknouse

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I have nothing against gays, but the fact that anyone's talking about book-banning and hate speech illegality disturbs me. Why do people have to get the government involved in everything?

Don't you think that wikipedia is starting to prove that the internet could easily replace government? I mean, if people were monitored by eachother, regulated by the collective good, rather than by some centralised force, don't you think that society would be better off?

I don't personally know any homosexuals that would support such things as making hate speech illegal, though I assume they must be out there somewhere--most likely in politics. ;) Khranus

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Why is this one offensive term allowed to be included in this article, in such graphic detail? Why not a list of all of them? Why not a list of offensive terms used to describe Jews, Italians, Irish people, Germans? Because those were deleted as offensive. So then, why is this one term being kept? RickK 03:05, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

So where do I go to get an article like Homophobic hate speech rewritten? It doesn't belong on Votes for Deletion, because the article itself doesn't need to be deleted. It doesn't need to go on the page listing POV articles, because it isn't the POV that I'm objecting to. It's the use of a single term which takes up 1/3 of the entire article, in graphic detail. There are tons of other offensive terms that could be listed here, let's not be minimalists, let's go with all of them, okay? And then we can have Offensive terms for Jews and Offensive terms for Italians and Offensive terms for African Americans, etc. I seem to recall List of offensive terms for Germans having gotten deleted at some point. So why does this one term, on this page, keep getting re-added, when other offensive terms for gays are not included, and why are we not coming up with exhaustive pages of offensive terms for every other group in the world? RickK 03:10, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Given that (and I agree with the deletions) probably this whole article ought to be up on VfD. - Hephaestos 03:23, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

If you are talking about Offensive terms for Germans and Offensive terms for the French, they were kept -- not deleted. Personally I think they should've been deleted. Assuming those were the articles you were alluding to. InanimateCarbonRod 03:30, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I renamed this. The new title, I am sure, is not proper english, but none was offered to me when I asked. Anthère

I worked it over a bit. The original article was not as bad. It was plopping down another article at the bottom (to avoid its deletion elsewhere) that caused the problem. I made the term into a simple example as it ought to be. There are other examples that could replace it if someone saw the need.Ark30inf 03:33, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

In my experience, the best place to go is to the "edit this page" button. If someone reverts you, then you discuss the matter with them, and try to reach a consensus. If they refuse to discuss, then you can either wait to see if another reader comes to the same conclusion as you, or (if you are feeling very confident) go back to the "edit this page" button. Martin 11:39, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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The article as it currently stands is kinda biased against the homo-haters. Just because a POV is widely seen as bad doesn't mean it shouldn't get any prime-time does it? BL 08:19, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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In 2002, the sale of this was restricted to individuals aged 18 and over, though many were calling for it to be banned outright, accusing it of inciting hatred.

Where was it restricted? U.S.? Canada? Europe?

Homophobic hate speech is now a criminal offence in many countries.

Again, where? -- Matty j 21:15, Apr 4, 2004 (UTC)

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• discussion of now moved content to Talk:Anti-gay slogan

Contents

1 This article is irredeemable 2 Factual accuracy 3 VFD 4 religion/law 5 Dispute header

This article is irredeemable

and must be merged to anti-gay slogan. I object to the name in many, many ways. It is POV, and anything written in this article, no matter how NPOV, is always going to be tainted by the profound bias of the title. I will be doing my utmost to have this page moved, forthwith. Sam Spade 06:25, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Factual accuracy

Why is the factual accuracy of this article in dispute? -Seth Mahoney 00:01, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Actually the article is totally disputed, as I say above, is entirely irredeemable. It uses the term 'hate speech' as tho it were an NPOV lable for anything, rather than an offense to freedom and intellectual dignity. Sam Spade 01:47, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

That someone can freely (or not) use hate speech does not mean they are not using hate speech. There are some objective standards by which we can call something hate speech (e.g. does it intend to incite hatred towards a group, is in intended to make members of a specific group feel inferior to others, etc.) which have nothing to do with whether we permit such hate speech to occur. -- Matty j 04:15, Apr 10, 2004 (UTC)

I am objecting to the use of the term hate speech. If you review the article on hate speech, you will see that it is a controvercial concept, inherantly objectionable to many. Therefore I find it POV and non-factual to use the word in this article as tho it were an accepted term. I am, BTW, the one who listed the article of VFD, and I am not alone in seeing it as inherantly irredeemably POV. Sam Spade 04:19, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I don't agree that it is necessarily POV, but even if it were, that doesn't mean that it is non-factual. So, I repeat: why is the factual accuracy of this article in dispute? -Seth Mahoney 00:32, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I no longer dispute either the factual accuracy or the neutrality after my edits, you may feel free to remove the dispute headers unless you still feel them necessary. I would have removed them myself, but sometimes people get mad about me adding headers, rewriting, and removing the headers, all in a short period of time ;) Sam Spade 04:55, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)~

VFD

The majority hgas spoken, and we're keeping the article. I decided to herald in this new age by rewriting. Comments if you please. Sam Spade 21:21, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I would like to mention the use of the words 'Thought Crime' (words that serve to mock this discussion) in this article although most will see this as semantic criticism, i think it important that we dont confuse the ideas of inciting homophobia with verbal or written initiative and the right for every man to have his own opinion. As Oscar Wilde the Irish playwrite and 'Poof' stated at his libel trial "there is no such thing as morality and immorality in thought"

Samuel Dey, UK, 18

religion/law

Others see this as an attempt to legislate morality at best, and at worst an attempt at destroying the religious rights ability to proclaim its values, in other words enforced political correctness.

I think this, at the very least, needs to be contextualized. Perhaps a paragraph on the religious nature of dissent against this concept? As it is, this reads as though there's something intrinsic about religion which is being attacked by this concept -- and there isn't. It just so happens that some people use their specific religion to justify their derogatory/inflammatory views about homosexuality. The same could be said about sexism and racism. I think that needs to be contextualized rather than universalized as it appears here.

I also humbly object to the "legislate morality" comment. For one thing, the acknowledgement of hate speech has nothing to do with the legislation of laws against it (that's a separate and perhaps more important issue). Secondly, even if "homophobic hate speech" is legislated against, it would not constitute "legislating morality" any more than legislating against "racist hate speech" (as in some countries) would be. No moral actions are affected by this legislation unless one assumes it's a moral obligation to impose one's views onto another, whether they be racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. -- Matty j 21:51, Apr 13, 2004 (UTC)

You bring up 2 central points. #1 religion. Every major religions holy texts contain what could easilly be refered to as 'homophobic hate speech'. #2 point, the law. Yes, this law is nearly identical to "racist hate speech" or any other kinds of 'hate speech' for that matter. One difference however is that 'homophobic hate speech' laws interefere with religion. And yes, most religions do find it to be their moral obligation to impose their views, particularly historically. I agree that more content should be added, but my abilities are limited as far as adding bulk content due to my over-riding anti-"hate" speech/crimes POV. Sam Spade 22:01, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Dispute header

Is anybody disputing anything, or can I take the diapute header off? I will take no response whatsoever to mean I should remove the header. I will take any sort of objection (including rewriting the article) as reason to keep the header. If I hear two knocks and one whistle, I'll go fix another pot of tea. Cheers, Sam [Spade (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Sam_Spade&action=edit&section=new)] 05:04, 26 Jun 2004 (UTC)