Are people born homophobic? Or can they choose not to be?

Question

Or is homophobia an illness that needs to be cured?

Also, when dealing with a homophobe, should we 'love the sinner and hate the sin'? Or should we tell them that theirs is a vile abomination that tears at the fabric of society?

Answer 1

Homophobia is a fear/belief really, much easier changed than sexuality. I've known people in my life that were very homophobic but changed their views after getting to know a few gay people. I guess that's the secret, the closest there is to a cure, letting people with those attitudes get to know as people instead of remaining a faceless avatar to them. As a gay male as much as I would love for everyone to universally accept us, we don't have the right to tell someone what they can or can't believe. When dealing with a people like this it's ok to be assertive, but I refuse to gve them even an iota of power over me by letting their words hurt me.

Answer 2

i say lets give thema bit of their own medicine!
to say that its an illness is a conclusion and it was the conclusion about gays that were made by madmen like adolf hitler and herman goring.
so lets persecute them and prosecute them by sending homophobes to concentration camps and force reparative theraphy on them so that they turn UN-homophobic!
lets discriminate against all homophobes because they are different from us and lets recognise homophobia as a mental illness in the national medical association.......

untill all these oppressive things are done to homophobes, i dont think we can actually address the "love the sinner and hate the sin" issue. because we cant fully understand, as the synthesis of the issue hasnt been seen. THEY wouldnt be able to understand "equal rights" until that happens. unfortunately.

now lets get back to the question at hand, does it matter? even if we tell homophobes that homophobia is dividing the country right down the middle, there will always be some wise a$$ bibble thumper telling us that they have the mandate from God and they KNOW for a fact that we are going to hell. and we'll always have some idiotic red-necks which has racism or some other form of discrimination running in their veins harass us homosexuals.

so my agenda is, maybe, not to tell them that they are vile but rather educate them...... this is not a one person battle..... it takes time and patience( quite frankly, i'm sick and tired of it already) but i guess to make a better world for our children, we'll need to do this.

so homosexuals of the world, unite!

(PS if this sounds a little crazy please forgive me as i'm typing this at 3 am)

Answer 3

Hm, in case you imprint some thing right into a baby's mind they might have poor issues shaking it off even with if that is regularly and obviously volatile of their lives. as an get jointly I state my Catholic upbringings. i'm an atheist now, yet I nevertheless kept lots of the weird and wonderful illogical concern and constraints to what I enable myself say or imagine. As yet another, even more desirable suitable get jointly I back state my homophobic upbringings. i'm gay, pleased with it and that i'm able to't provide up hating myself for being gay together. Sucks. yet i do not declare that i have not moved right into a more desirable self-accepting route in any respect, for sure.

Answer 4

I feel homophobia is almost completely a product of environment, whether they learned it from their parents, their classmates, local society, etc. You CAN choose not to hate and fear others just because they are different.

As for how I feel about homophobes...I've finally realized it's not my place to "fix", "correct", or even help those that don't want help. Even though I may want to educate closed-minded people to open their eyes, it won't work if they are forced, and I don't want to force.

Answer 5

first i wanna tell angelpockets that her reason for being homophobic is just plain stupid.....first of all not all lesbians are attackers and second if you were attacked by str8 people would you be a heterophobe right now? think about that ...sometimes all the ignorance makes me sick


and no, people arent born homophobic and everyone is misslead to think that the real meaning of the term homophobic is hate of gays , phobia is fear, its not hate they are affraid of gays, the people who hate gays should b called haters not homophobic ......but its true that the fear of the unknown for some people turns into hate ....i dont know why.....but its their choice to hate, no1 was born with the hate.

Answer 6

WOW! Five questions rolled into one. I'll tackle the first one. Are people born homophobic? Nope. Just like people aren't born rasict. It's conditioning from your parents and the people around you.

Answer 7

I am homophobic because I was attacked in a public restroom by two lesbians. I was NOT homophobic before that. So you decide.

Answer 8

darn, and i was a little proud of asking for proof of the hetero-sexual gen. i even thought i was original with that thought.

thanks for making me laugh loudly about this brilliant question.

i know you don't really want a serious answer, because your statement says all already. but i'll say that (even if i never pray) that i'm willing to pray that they find a cure for it.

Answer 9

no ones born homophobic its picked up during their childhood or bad experiences. just let them be, its weird but most homophobes get turned on by gay sex. scouts honor.

Answer 10

I don´t think it´s a SIN - but I have the impression, that they wan´t to "convince" others who really love a person (e.g. a friend) and who are far from being homosexual - that they are "that way". And that´s what I hate!

Read my answers to these questions (in this order) - and also read the questions itself:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Ah4vLKHIJtQfyXKs9nbCxkDsy6IX?qid=20060615132321AAmLRhL
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/;_ylt=AoiaJ_1YJQEeLlQ53.uqhLojzKIX?qid=1006050107219
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ArkAjzfR_MBIuTSNdFY.9N_sy6IX?qid=1006052900408
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aiv3qK.UNqCdHy2Q.2j.AATsy6IX?qid=20060606135310AAPrKDM