Debra’s article this month introduces an important topic: sexual identity. We’ve known for a long time that not all cultures treated sexual orientation the way we in modern, Western civilization have treated it. Homosexuality—especially male homosexuality—has been both well-accepted and severely punished at different times in history and in different cultures.
I would be the first to admit that I don’t fully understand either homosexuality or bisexuality, although I have friends who are homosexual and have known people who are bisexual. I also know a person who is fully heterosexual and a “cross dresser”—a male who has sex only with women but enjoys dressing as a woman. I do not share any of the feelings those individuals have that lead them to adopt their various sexual identities, Nor do I feel the need to condemn or reject them for their differences.
A long time ago, a musician named Richard Rodgers said that we had to be taught to hate:
You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear
You’ve got to be taught from year to year
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taughtYou’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade
You’ve got to be carefully taughtYou’ve got to be taught before it’s too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You’ve got to be carefully taught
In general, cultures adopt rules that serve their purposes. Obviously, people in a culture need to reproduce and raise children to maintain the culture, so cultures usually evolve slowly. The fear of homosexuality has at various times and locations in history been criminalized. This is in spite of the intellectual and cultural contributions of the LGBT community.
Lurking in the background of this issue is the question about why anyone should care about the sexual orientation of others. The reason seems related to the fear of contamination and the possibility that homosexuality was a communicable disease in the same way the various plagues were in the days before “modern medicine.” I suspect that when we (as a culture) know and understand more about homosexuality, the fear will evaporate.
You may have noticed that those who have one social fear, tend to have others. Many of the same people who express fear of homosexuality also express fear of those of a different race. The big problem, of course, is that one of the principal expressions of fear is anger. When people are afraid of someone, they blame the other and get angry. At one time, lynchings were the way whites expressed their fear of blacks. It is also true, of course, of the way the white culture treated the Native Americans, the Chinese coolies, and Japanese Americans, whose property was confiscated while they were sent to internment camps at the start of World War II.
So … the real issue isn’t so much “sexual identity” as it fear of “other”: I feel safe with those I perceive to be “like me” and am afraid of those I perceive as being “not like me.” It is time for us to look past superficial similarities and differences and to recognize that we all have more in common than is apparent from a superficial point of view. All of humanity—and the entire planet—is in the “same boat,” and it is up to us to keep the boat afloat. The United States has long been known as a cultural melting pot because of the mixing of races and nationalities, but the process hasn’t been without its conflicts.
The idea that the sins of the father also haunt the children is very old. Children are indeed taught to hate, but they are also—or at least they can be—taught to “put away childish fears.” Sexual orientation is not a communicable disease.