Lit-Soc Debate

Against: The Society is Justified in Being Homophobic

The term homophobia was originally coined in 1965 as:

A morbid and irrational dread which forcefully suppresses any natural sexual feelings related to homosexuality, which is unnatural. (clinical psychologist George Weinberg)

But it’s not just that. Homophobia is inhumane, rather murderous. There are murders and suicides inspired by the hatred. The numbers run to thousands; no one knows the precise data as in many countries, the deaths of homosexuals are not considered worth recording as a separate category.

They say homosexuality is not natural. Well, homosexual behaviours have been noted in every primate species so far studied, and in man's closest living relatives, the bonobo chimpanzees, bisexual behaviour is universal. Among humans, homosexuality is found in all cultures and with about the same frequency.

They say it's disgusting? Well, just because you feel that eating non-vegetarian food is disgusting doesn’t have to mean that people eating tandoori chicken at Minar are abhorrent sinners.

Listen to this. A 1996 study conducted at the University of Georgia (by Henry Adams, Lester Wright Jr., and Bethany Lohr) indicates that 54% of "homophobic" males exhibit latent homosexuality. 24% of the non-"homophobic" men showed some degree of tumescence in response to a male homosexual video, compared to 54% of the subjects who scored high on the "homophobia scale". In addition, 66% of the non-homophobic group showed no significant increases in tumescence after this video, but only 20% of the "homophobic" men failed to display any arousal. Additionally the "homophobic" men significantly underestimated their degree of arousal.

So all those who endorse homophobia, you better watch yourselves. You might be trying to suppress some natural feelings, you see. And why yell at others when, you never know, you yourself might be one of them. For inspiration, you can look-up to Achilles and Patroclus; Alexander the Great and his childhood friend, Hephaistion, or for that matter one of the honourable cores of Saarang!

The AIDS epidemic has cost millions of lives. Yet when this epidemic first got started in America, the president of the United States actually obstructed efforts to halt it. Hundreds of thousands have suffered and died. Who is responsible: The homophobia of one politician. Ref: And The Band Played On by Randy Shilts.

In India, homosexuality has been illustrated in Khajuraho sculptures, Bhagvad Gita and Kamasutra. There is no evidence of anyone in India ever having been executed for same-sex relations. It is the British colonial rulers who wrote modern homophobia into education, law and politics. No wonder, the 145-year-old colonial Indian Penal Code clearly describes a same sex relationship as an "unnatural offence".

We have listened to fairy tales of prince and princess, had we read about prince-prince or princess-princess stories, we would have been absolutely comfortable with it. Sex education about homosexuality will completely wipe-out homophobia over a period of time. The need is to replace fear with awareness. Thank you. Questions please.

For: The Society is Justified in Being Homophobic

The term homophobia is defined as fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality.It is the moral judgement that homosexuality is wrong. While many claim that homophobia is irrational, neither the American Heritage Dictionary nor the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) includes the term "irrational" in the definition. This is in spite of the fact that the term phobia in itself implies that the fear is irrational. Therefore, to interpret the topic without any bias, let us change the terminology to homo-negativity.


For those who still feel that fear of homosexuality is irrational, i would like to pose
a question to them - could you please define what exactly is rational? They define rational
as anything that is logically valid. Now, what exactly is the purpose of logic? Logic is
just a way to explain what you observe or experience. I submit that fear of homosexuality
is the experience.

Now, logic would be something that would explain why it is so and not why it is not so. You can only say something is rational or not, when you have a choice and you need to make a decision. On the contrary, the status quo is that you simply experience fear and you have no choice but to abominate homosexuality. So, it goes without saying that homophobia can’t be adjudged irrational. If fear of wild animals is justified, if fear of terrorists is justified, if fear of death is justified, homophobia is surely justified.

Now let us delve into the question why fear of homosexuality exists in the society.

Recent medical history suggests that the first victims of the modern AIDS epidemic which began suddenly in about 1980 were promiscuous homosexual males.This is primarily because the human body is not designed to be promiscuous, and it was not designed to engage in homosexual acts.

Besides, homosexuality implicitly implies anal sex which is considered to be comparatively high in risk, for a number of reasons related to the vulnerability of the tissues and the septic nature of the anus.

I would like to add that a homophobe does not engage in violence against homosexuals. Its just that he prefers to stay away from them because there is a natural fear for the unnatural. We homophobes believe the best approach is moral condemnation, which is the approach our society now applies to many other destructive practices, such as adultery, alcohol and tobacco abuse, and suicide. Moral condemnation will not extirpate them, but neither can the law; a climate of disapproval may reduce their frequency and their harm.

I had teamed-up with Tool who was cunningly coaxed into making his public-speaking debut in Lit-Soc. With not a single sentence mugged-up we realized the indispensable usage of print in public-speaking. The strategy was to pretend as if we're looking at our "paper" for statistics and then go on to the next point showing them a phony expression of having found the data needed to make the point. Everything was fine until the rebuttal began. With a few twists and twirls of logic, we 'barely' managed not to come-off the stage in a bare appearance. We finally got through to the finale which is supposedly going to be based on the 'British Parliamentary Debate' template.