Homosexuality doesn't predetermine life Focus on individuality, not homosexuality

Published: Monday, July 27, 1998

Monday, July 27, 1998

HOMOSEXUALITY: Separate 'gay community' fosters self-imposed stereotypes

By Daniel B. Rego

The article "Being 'out' gives teacher another role in community" by Lydia Wrobel only undercuts the reasons why there is such discord over being gay. First, I question how being gay requires one to believe and act a particular way. Being homosexual determines absolutely nothing else about a person in and of itself. Being a teacher is being a teacher. What is "gay teaching?" What is "straight teaching?"

When one stresses being gay above all else and how being gay predetermines how one thinks and acts (basically stressing the self-imposed stereotype of the "gay community"), then it is no surprise that straight individuals agree with that gay individual - that being gay predetermines what they are. This is one of the reasons why gays are attacked, both verbally and physically.

Being homosexual predetermines nothing. How does it make a person believe certain things about abortion, taxes and affirmative action, among other things? It doesn't.

Homosexuality is only a part of an individual as a whole. I do not wade into the argument of whether it is genetically predetermined to be attracted to a person of the same gender or whether it is a choice since I am not a genetic scientist. However, one does have a clear choice of whether they actually have any type of sex at all. After all, we do have the will to control our sexual urges, whatever they may be.

I argue that by stressing that other things have nothing to do with one's "sexual orientation," some gay individuals create a self-imposed stereotype, and become "self-ghettoized," thus creating divisiveness and prejudice.

Political individuals of the far left pay lip service to the so-called "gay community" by stressing differences, thus emphasizing an "us vs. them" attitude that only fosters prejudice and dislike. The gay community is an artificial and separatist construct that only serves to emphasize that divisiveness.

Also, there are many individuals who personally dislike homosexuality (i.e. they find it unnatural). Why is it that some homosexuals stress that their homosexuality is genetically predetermined, while thinking that a dislike of homosexuality is also a biological response to something that is "unnatural" to straight people.

Furthermore, the paradox of the perception that "gay is diametrically different" (stressed by far left politicians) is that it must force all straight individuals to accept homosexuality (what ever happened to freedom of conscience and belief?). This attitude only serves to drum up hatred against all homosexual individuals. Noting this and other contradictions makes one see why there is so much divisiveness.Rego is a third-year political science student.