After years of progrs on gay rights, how did the US bee so anti-LGBTQ+? | US news | The Guardian

Contents:

• AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
• LBIANS MORE ACCEPTED THAN GAY MEN AROUND THE WORLD, STUDY FDS
• WHY DO STRAIGHTS HATE GAYS?
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• 25 THGS I HATE ABOUT BEG A GAY MAN
• 10 COUNTRI THAT COMPLETELY HATE GAY PEOPLE
• HOW ‘WHO R’ HAS BEE WORD ONLE FOR ‘I HATE GAY PEOPLE’
• GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET

AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?

Alabama’s laws go a b further than most: The state’s sex tn program mandat that “class mt emphasize, a factual manner and om a public health perspective, that homosexualy is not a liftyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual nduct is a crimal offense unr the laws of the state.

LBIANS MORE ACCEPTED THAN GAY MEN AROUND THE WORLD, STUDY FDS

” Then aga, he’s hardly the bt thory when to matters of health, as Perry recently pared homosexualy to alholism: “I may have the geic dg that I’m cled to be an alholic, but I have the sire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way. This wave of anti-LGBT vlence is part of the reason why Detro was named the most dangero cy the natn for gay travelers, and the survey also ced the metro area’s dwdlg number of gay bars and high poverty rate. Among those exampl are a parison of same-sex marriage to a marriage between “a man and his horse”; llg the “It Gets Better” project, an iative signed to help LGBTQ young people pe wh bullyg and margalizatn, “disgtg” and a “ncerted effort” to rec kids to the gay “liftyle”; and claimg that the “blood” of “young Mar” would be on the hands of lawmakers who voted to repeal the ary’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” Fay Rearch Council did not rpond to a requt for ment.

Another “anti-LGBTQ hate group” named the report is the Alliance Defendg Freedom, a nservative Christian legal group wh attorneys across the untry and a long track rerd of ligatg agast LGBTQ a lawsu that ma natnal headl last year, ADF reprented Jack Phillips, a Christian baker who refed to make a ke for a gay weddg, a narrow victory at the Supreme Court.

“Along the same l that you see today, they put forward stereotyp and vilify, pecially gay men, as predators and predators of children, and e that to jtify the tactics of takg rights way om LGBTQ people, ” Fetner ced as an early example the activism of Ana Bryant Florida. The sger-turned-anti-gay-activist was behd the “Save Our Children” mpaign, which 1977 helped overturn a newly passed lol ordance Miami-Da County that prohibed discrimatn based on sexual orientatn employment, hog and public servic.

WHY DO STRAIGHTS HATE GAYS?

For every highly publicized act of vlence toward sexual mori, such as the recent mass shootg at a gay nightclub Orlando, there are many more physil and verbal asslts, attempted asslts, acts of property damage or timidatns which are never reported to thori, let alone publicized by the media. A rash of laws ncerng the teachg of human sexualy school curricula, banng trans stunt athlet and strippg parents of the right to help their genr-variant children obta appropriate re have popped up numero red stat this same-sex marriage is now part of the fabric of Ameri, nservativ have chosen to explo Amerins’ unfaiary wh trans people and piggyback on parental anger over the perceived overreach of Covid-era school closur, nflatg wh an sid sense of “wokens”, the hop of fdg an electorally viable sluiceway for anti-LGBTQ+ most famo of the anti-LGBTQ+ laws is the piece of Florida legislatn banng stctn on sexual orientatn or genr inty schools between krgarten and third gra, the so-lled “don’t say gay” law.

The ernor and his supporters have labeled as a “groomer” anyone who believ children n learn LGBTQ+ people exist, argug that simply by talkg about gay relatnships to a child, you are sexualizg that child.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

He was followed by Arizona’s ernor, Doug Ducey, who, after barrg mors om genr-affirmatn treatment, wouldn’t even state for the rerd that trans people were Florida lawmaker Michele Rayner-Goolsby, left, hugs her wife, Bian Goolsby, durg a march at cy hall St Petersburg agast the ‘don’t say gay’ bill. Photograph: Bob Daemmrich/Zuma Wire/Rex/ShutterstockPolicians are supported the media by mentators like Tucker Carlson, who claimed “no one had heard of this trans thg four years ago”, or Charlie Kirk, channelg 1980s fears sayg “gays want to rpt your children” rejuvenated, the right wg is poised to make transphobia and homophobia rnerston of the midterms and 2024 electns, wh promis to liver “don’t say gay” legislatn stat cludg Michigan and New Perks, the print of the Fay Rearch Council, a nservative lobbyg group, veighed agast the ernors of Indiana and Utah for vetog legislatn banng trans women om participatg sports, llg the bills “timely, mastream protectns”. The Republin US reprentative Marjorie Taylor Greene vowed to troduce a feral “don’t say gay” bill if Republins w the Hoe this November, only to one-up herself days later by tweetg that for people to be pro-trans is to be pro-pedophilia.

”The bs-iendly wg of the GOP that would quietly team up wh Democrats to scuttle rabidly homophobic bills is now outnumbered, and legislators a dozen or more stat that lean even farther to the right than DeSantis are takg, the Natnal Center for Lbian Rights legal director, believ Florida is the tt se for a renewed ph for an aggrsive, Christian-natnalist program.

25 THGS I HATE ABOUT BEG A GAY MAN

”The “don’t say gay” bill, Mter not, is very siar to what’s been passed Rsia, tetherg Amerin nservativ to their thorarian unterparts who have succsfully rolled back mocratic norms across eastern Europe. “I’ve seen this movie before over the last 30 years: The right wg cid to target the LGBTQ muny, whether ’s around marriage or adoptn or trans kids playg sports or bathrooms, ” says the California state senator Stt Wiener, who is gay. “I thought was really important to ph back on the policy level, and to send a clear signal that California and other stat really re about the kids, ” he believ that “don’t say gay” is “patently unnstutnal” but also ntends that relyg on the judicial system to protect human rights may no longer be a sound optn.

“We found that gay men are disliked more than lbian women every untry we tted, ” acrdg to the study, which was nducted by three New York Universy psychologists and published the December issue of the journal Social Psychology and Personaly mori face pervasive discrimatn and hostily globally, wh same-sex sexual activy still illegal approximately 70 untri. ” The nverse is also largely te: For stance Ameri, llege stunts who endorsed “tradnal genr arrangements” were more likely to report negative attus toward gays, lbians and Lra Bettsoli, the study's lead thor, said she and her lleagu were surprised "at the nsistency of the relatnship between genr norm endorsement and sexual prejudice. ""Even though there were some non-Wtern untri that did not nform to the pattern, the majory of untri did, " she said a, untri cludg Cha and India, the survey found that strong genr norms are actually associated wh greater tolerance of homosexualy — that is, people wh the strongt beliefs how men and women should behave were more likely to tolerate homosexualy, the oppose of the Wt, cludg the Ameris and Wtern report speculat that some Eastern untri, “both genr norms and nonheterosexualy are nsired ‘Wtern’ (or, perhaps, palist) ncepts, and those who are pro-Wtern are more likely to feel favorable toward both.

”In all 23 untri studied, the report found "gay men are rated more negatively than lbian women, ” and that trend was almost entirely driven by the views of men, except Poland, Hungary and Rsia, where women also assigned gay men high negative ratgs. “In other words, harborg prejudicial attus toward sexual mori is part of the social nstctn of what means to ‘be a man’” many Wtern untri, acrdg to the January 2019, the Amerin Psychologil Associatn’s first gui to issu specific to men and boys warned that “tradnal masculy iology” — what some characterized as “toxic masculy” — “has been shown to lim mal’ psychologil velopment, nstra their behavr, rult genr role stra and genr role nflict and negatively fluence mental health and physil health” and lked to both homophobia and snapshotThe study also shed light on some ntours of global homophobia.

10 COUNTRI THAT COMPLETELY HATE GAY PEOPLE

”It also placed Amerin attus toward lbian, gay and bisexual people the ntext of other untri around the world: Argenta, Atralia, Belgium, Canada, Great Bra, Spa and Swen all have more posive attus toward sexual mori than do Amerins. However, the ntued existence of homophobia—spe the obv downsis—rais qutns about s basic nature: Do psychologil theori like those above really expla why gayns, specifilly, evok such fear, the kd that n sometim even lead to vlent speech and actn? We don’t hear about gay men disverg an tert women later life, and we rarely believe men when they say they are bisexual—the mon, if erroneo, wisdom is that any man who says he is bi is really jt gay and hasn’t admted yet.

Cred: Getty ImagHomophob should nsir a ltle self-reflectn, suggts a new study fdg those dividuals who are most hostile toward gays and hold strong anti-gay views may themselv have same-sex sir, albe unrver on. Those participants who reported their heterosexualy spe havg hidn same-sex sir were also the most likely to show hostily toward gay dividuals, cludg self-reported anti-gay attus, endorsement of anti-gay polici and discrimatn such as supportg harsher punishments for homosexuals.

HOW ‘WHO R’ HAS BEE WORD ONLE FOR ‘I HATE GAY PEOPLE’

Hillary Rodham Clton and Barack Obama tried to duck the qutns that Pace’s bigotry raised, nfirmg what gay people know: that there is not one ndidate nng for public office anywhere who dar to e right out, unequivolly, and say cent, supportive thgs about should not vote for any of them. We have seen this time after time, even om supposedly progrsive policians such as Print Clton wh his “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays the ary and his support of the hio Defense of Marriage Act.

GAY CULTURE HAS GROWN TOXIC WH UNCHECKED PRIVILEGE. IT'S TIME FOR TO RET

To vote for them is to llu wh them their utter disda for ’t any of you wonr why heterosexuals treat gays so btally year after year after year, as your people take away our manhood, our womanhood, our personhood? Ever sce born-aga sger and orange juice pchwoman Ana Bryant helped kick off the ntemporary anti-gay movement some 40 years ago, hard-le elements of the relig right have been searchg for ways to monize gay people — or, at a mimum, to fd arguments that will prevent their normalizatn society. But addn to hawkg that myth, the legns of anti-gay activists who followed have add a panoply of others, rangg om the extremely doubtful claim that sexual orientatn is a choice, to unalloyed li like the claims that gay men molt children far more than heterosexuals or that hate crime laws will lead to the legalizatn of btialy and necrophilia.