Quote:
Originally Posted by Xurtio
JWB, the linear correlation between homophobia and related mental illness is completely fallacious. You're talking about people not accepting thing that go against their preconceived notions, but you seem to be guilty of that yourself.
|
nope. all i have questioned is arguments that seem less than convincing to me. mostly because i know that if i don't play devil's advocate here, nobody will. it's just not socially acceptable to do so. people are too afraid of appearing hateful. but for the record, i never said 'homophobia doesn't cause mental illness' or anything remotely close to that.
Quote:
|
If we have a community of 100 people and 10 of them are homosexual and 15 of them are homophobic (and the rest are complacent, not taking any sides) the homosexuals will be closeted and suppressed. Some percentage of them will become mentally ill as a result. If we double the number of homophobic people, it's not going to change much. When everyone else is complacent, it gives the impression that the whole of society agrees with the loudest negative voices (by not speaking against them). And the people who do snap and become mentally ill are going to depend on the nature of their home and interpersonal relationships, not the prevalence of homophobia in their country.
|
if you say so... that just doesn't seem self evident to me. i mean would you extend that logic to a scenario where 15 are homos, 1 is homophobic, and the rest are complacent? you'd expect homosexuals to be just as affected by 1 man's homophobia as they would if it were a relatively popular sentiment? that just sounds counter-intuitive to me.
or to bring it back to the real world... a gay man living in san fran vs a gay man living in saudi arabia.. you think they would be equally closeted and repressed?