Essay On Homosexuality In 1973

Following the declassification of homosexuality as a disease in 1973, a variety of methods have been made in attempts to help members of the LGBT community become

Over the next two decades, half the states decriminalized homosexual behavior, and police harassment grew less frequent and obvious to the public. Also in 1975, it became legal for gays to hold federal jobs. However all this headway also made room for more opposition. In 1977, Anita Bryant was so successful at obtaining a repeal of a recent gay ordinance in her home state of Florida that by 1980, a league of anti gay clubs had come together to make a force, led in part by Jesse Helms. The AIDS scare that began in the eighties did not help the gay image either, but more citizens joined their ranks in order to combat the oppression and fund a search for the cure, so in the end it actually made the movement stronger. According to the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia (2000), by 1999, the anti-sodomy laws of 32 states had been repealed, and in 1996 Vermont granted its gay citizens the right to same sex marriages. Gay rights has come a long way as a social movement, and though it still has a long way to go, it makes a good topic to analyze the process of the social movement.

The topic of homosexuality in religion has many sides. There are those who believe that it is a sin in God’s eyes and according to the Bible, and there are those who believe the God and the Bible are not specific to homosexuals. It is a tough debate based on whether you are a religious person, how you were raised, and where your morals and ethics stand. You cannot truly believe one way without taking into account the other side and have valid proof to back it up.

In the early 1980’s the nation feelings were very anti-gay. At the same time the HIV/AIDS virus which attacked the immune system and could prove fatal, started showing up in many homosexuals and was named the gay disease. The public was so afraid that many medical facilities refused to treat anyone suspected of the having the virus. President Reagan refused to mention or support research or education to find a cure until the late 1980’s. He went along with what many TV Evangelists preached that this was god’s way of punishing homosexuals. He ignored the problem until he was politically pressured to recognize that the AIDS virus could affect more than just Homosexuals. The result of his non-action was that in the 1980’s over 100,000 thousand

Homosexual Americans in the 1950s and 1960s faced an anti-gay legal system. Early homophile groups in the U.S. tried to prove that gay people could be assimilated into society, and they favored dealing with the situation calmly by educating homosexuals and heterosexuals alike. When the 1960s ended, many social movements were on the move, including the African American Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture of the 1960s,Very few establishments welcomed openly gay people in the 1950s and 1960s and at the time, the Stonewall Inn was owned by the Mafia It catered to an assortment of patrons and was known to be popular among the poorest and most marginalized people in the gay community: drag queens, transgender people, effeminate young men, butch

Within the 1990s there is a persistent problem of Gay culture. Early in the 1990s it was hard to come out and let the world know that you are gay. Within the early 1990s The Wedding Banquet (1993), although it approached the issue of Wei-Tung Gao trying to tell his parents that he is gay and still accepting as who he is. Contrastingly within the late 1990s it becomes more acceptable to society by having celebrities coming out like Ellen Degeneres during her tv show Ellen. The two kinds of media contrast as a form of whether or not to come out as a gay or not during a time when AIDs was prominent and new.

In the early 1900’s people showed little to no sexual orientation. If one were to show their orientation, it would be in a heterosexual way. Homosexuals were not allowed, and extremely frowned upon by society. Most homosexuals covered up their sexual orientation. Today, our world is changed. We as a society, have become more accepting of different orientations such as gay or lesbian. To understand what a homosexual in the 1900’s might have been like I will be participating in an experiment. For the experiment date, I chose to select Thursday, October 27 to show no public display of affection in any way.

In the 1960s homosexual activists were not an important part of the lawless coalition. The focus was mainly on antiwar protestors, who were crowding the streets of the nation, requiring the complete reconstitution of American society. Homosexuals as well as gay rights activist were nearly nonexistent. Homosexuality was both hidden and stigmatized. Being gay or lesbian in most Western countries, especially in the United States, meant a mostly sneaky, shameful, and guilt-ridden life, with strong social condemnations against them. They avoided publicity and remained “in the closet” throughout the decade. The sixties counterculture was as sexist and homophobic as the mainstream culture at that time.

Homosexuality Annotated Bibliography Adriaens, Pieter R., and Andreas De Block. “The Evolution of a Social Construction: the Case of Male Homosexuality.” Scholarly Journals, vol. 49, ser. 4, University Press, 2006, pp. 570–585.

Homosexuality has become accepted by many in our culture today. PBS estimates that there are 9 million members of the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community (Greve, Joan. “LGBT America: By the Numbers.”). This makes up 3.8% of the US population. Some of these members identify as Christians. So this poses a couple of questions: does the Bible really condemn homosexuality, can you be a gay Christian, and can two people of the same sex be legitimately married? These are important questions for churches to have answers to as the LGBT movement is becoming very popular.

Homosexual marriage is a public concept that should be acknowledged in the Middle East. Yet the idea can’t be acknowledged without a few key phases. The government is one of the main reasons why gay marriage is not permitted in the Middle East. Most Arab people abide by the law, and religion, and hence do not approve of homosexuality. If the rules and regulations were to change, there may be a change in how people view homosexuals. Moreover, the regime is greatly influenced by religion. Religion can’t be altered, but marriage can. If all marriages were to become civil, out of religious jurisdiction, there may be a possibility for gay marriage to occur. All these steps can slowly

Queer theory derives from Women's Studies and Queer Studies during the early 1990's. Queer theory is said to be related to bisexual and lesbian roles. The main focus of queer theory is to reject the categories of gender and sexuality that we as a society have come to know as traditional. Queer theory is rapidly expanding through more and more findings and studies. What is interesting about queer theory is that it does not just challenge the traditional makeup of society., it challenges what is normal, how normal came to be recognized. Queer theory seems to be more of a celebration for the people that have been excluded by society that has built up a wall that is available to the heterosexual. Queer theory is showing us what we have been

“All men are created equal, No matter how hard you try, you can never erase those words,” Harvey Milk. A homosexual, as defined by the dictionary, is someone of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex. Homosexuality is ethical, and I will provide rational arguments for, and irrational arguments against the topic. A few objections are as follows: It is forbidden in the Bible and frowned upon by God; It is unnatural; Men and women are needed to reproduce; There are no known examples in nature; and the most common argument that concerns homosexuality is whether it is a choice or human biology.

Homosexuality is not a 20th century situation but has been in history from the age of ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt, and even China. The attitude toward homosexuality always has been a variable, depending on the social, cultural and morality, or even the political development (Barnecka et al., 2005). Back in Greek history the concept of relations between two men was seen as the highest form of love, whereas the Judaic view always was against and frowned upon these relations considering it immoral and illegal. However, when the Roman rule was destroyed and the Christians took over Europe, homosexuality was seen as perverse (Woodward, 1997).

As a society, we feed off of each other for what a proper response to something may be. As children, we first look to see our mother’s reaction after falling down; if she is calm, I should also be. We look to each other for what a definition of things should be, as well. In the 1950’s, it was generally obscene for a woman on television to show her belly button, whereas today we will show nude breasts on primetime programming. This follows the sociological theory of symbolic interactionism, where society and individual social interaction provides a subjective meaning to deviant behavior. Many social definitions change for the better, however some change for the worse. One such example was once viewed as normal, with no second thoughts given