In the 20's after WWI Gays became more accepted and there was a very progressive air in that decade. Then once WWII cam the religious right took over and everything was very traditional. Formerly gay people were forced to renounce their sexuality and marry. Then once stonewall happened gays became more accepted. Then the AIDS epidemic came in the 80s and gays were seen as starting the disease. This set back gay rights. Now in the 00s there is gay marriage and an increasingly liberal atmosphere but how permanent is it? How do we know that there wont be something else that could set the movement backwards maybe even to the point where we would have to renounce our sexualities? Feel free to post your opinion on how permanent the gay rights movement is? I think that if marriage is allowed and we are protected by law then It would be very hard maybe even impossible to reverse or set back the gay-rights movement. What do you think? Thanks!
Well, in America Gay Rights may have been jumping forwards and backwards for awhile, but if you look on a global scale, Gay Rights have only been progressing. I forget the site, but you can watch a map of the world change colors as a timeline goes by of gay rights. The map only gets more blue with time (blue = good). So i do think "the human race" is constantly growing more and more excepting, with a few exceptions like some of the middle east and the USA. It would be hard to find a socially forward country that would pass something like Prop 8 other than America.
I will try and find the map, but i honestly have NO clue were it is haha. Maybe some HRC website or something...
I think now that we have actual laws protecting LGBT people the chances of us having to renounce our sexualities is extremely low.
I agree, America is socially very backwards for a 'developed' country. If you look at western Europe (discounting the UK for now) it is extremely progressive and accepting in attitude, not just in law (which the UK is).
It's funny, i just read this yesterday! It's from Wikipedia. In a 2002 Pew Global Attitudes Project surveyed by the Pew Research Center, showed majorities in every Western European nation said homosexuality should be accepted by society, while most Russians, Poles and Ukrainians disagreed. In 2006 a recent Eurobarometer poll surveying up to 30,000 people from each European Union countries, showed split opinion around the 27 member states on the issue of same sex marriage. The majority of support came from the Netherlands (82%), Sweden (71%), Denmark (69%), Belgium (62%), Luxembourg (58%), Spain (56%), Germany (52%) and Czech Republic (52%). All other countries within the EU had below 50% support; with Romania (11%), Latvia (12%), Cyprus (14%), Bulgaria (15%), Greece (15%), Poland (17%), Lithuania (17%) and Malta (18%) at the other end of the list. Same sex adoption had majority support from only two countries: Netherlands at 69% and Sweden at 51% and the least support from Poland and Malta on 7% respectively. A more recent survey carried out in October 2008 by The Observer affirmed that the majority of Britons - 55% - support gay marriage. Other polls show that the majority of the Irish public support civil unions and gay adoption, 51% and 50%, respectively. France has support for same sex marriage at 62%, and Russians at 14%. Italy has support for the 'Civil Partnership Law' between gays at 45% with 47% opposed. In 2009 58.9% of Italians supported civil unions, while 40.4 supported same-sex marriage. According to pollster Gallup Europe: women, younger generations, and the highly educated are more likely to support same-sex marriage and adoption rights for gay people. The rest can be read here- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Europe
Very interesting statistics. It shows that there is still a very long way to go before we get equal rights. We definitely are only tolerated but not accepted in society.
Religion has been pretty much the foremost enemy of the Gay Rights Movement. Advances in the natural sciences have been doing pretty good at hurting the power of the orthodoxy, so, I'd say, because we aren't regressing scientifically, we won't regress here either.
aids, if i remeber correctly, originated from parts of africa where the socitial values is that if your a female, you have no right to refuse a man's demand for sex. coupled with no protection, when the virius first formed, it spread fast, and slowly migrated to the other parts of the world. hence why aids is still such a problem in parts of africa, because the very practices that allowed it to take hold still flourish. it was spread because of promiscuity, not homosexuality. Just wanted to put that out, since alot of people use aids to try to explain why giving equal rights to gays is wrong. well, there are far more people in this world that are heterosexual that have aids. last I heard, it is 3-1 hetero-gay. Gay rights is a shakey issue because fundementalist keep fighting to prevent progress. they spread lies *if gays can marry, they will break into your house and rape your young boys!*. but equality is a enevitabilty. progress may be slow, but more and more people are becoming accepting of the need for equality, and are finding they know more people who are apart of the lgbt community. doing so helps them to see we arent some threat to the fabric of socieity, and are not really any different than heterosexuals. once it is accepted enough that we have a clear majaority * it has been growing to a 50/50 for years, and thats about where we are right now*, and it will keep getting close to a cemented majority in the coming years that we should be able to continue to make more progress... we saw alot of progress in the last year alone compaired to the last five years prior, so I am hopeful.
Hmm I have thought about this quite alot and have never been able to come to a conclusion however i do think thing's are better and i am grateful that i wasn't a gay in the 50's or something
Straight up, it'll probably last now. Look at the Civil Rights movement. Slavery and all the other bullshit we put people through lasted for a long ass time, yet once they stood up for their rights the fight was won. Yeah, formerly gays have been riding the rollercoaster of acceptance, but now that we've put our fight out there 100% there's no stopping us. Previously we weren't even able to protest or anything like we do now, so that's probably why the acceptance was so ridiculous. I think that since now we're able to put our voice out there we are definitely going to get we want and make it permanent. Plus a lot of the ignorance from before has evaporated, so we won't be getting shit like AIDS put on us.
exactly. We now have a voice. We dont sit back and take the abuse. we push back with reasoned logic and commen sense and decency, which is lacking from the other side of the debate.
I was appalled when California "voted" down rights. That's even against the Constitution itself. I think there were serious homophobes in the California Supreme Court itself that helped pass that (in addition to the rich religious sects of Utah). They better not vote down rights. Whose business is it except the families involved in the same sex couples that want to get married?? Like, honestly!
the main problem with prop 8 was that it wasnt a california inititive. it was a intitive from a church in utah... what happened to seperation of church and state? oh yah, conservatives sold their souls to fundementalist chirstian groups to get campaign donations. those groups who have no boundaries, and cant be argued with because they assume they have 'god on their side'. they dont call tornado alley the bible belt for nothing... maybe god is sending them a message.
I know for a fact that LGBT rights have a long way to go. There will be a lot setbacks but when the war is won . Its gonna be great ! *Refering to what Keller mentioned* Im know Im gonna get blasted for this but Civil Rights and LGBT Rights are similar but there are some differences.
Actually tornado alley runs perpendicular to the bible belt. Though they do intersect in Texas and Oklahoma.
As we go further in to the future people develope and become more understanding of things. I belive we are going to struggle more for a little while befor something is actually done. i mean look at the slavery times. they waited and waited times got hard but finnaly they were set free. also look back when it was uncomen to see a black and white person together or use the same things. people were so against it becuase they thought we were diffrent because of our skin color. people will begin to realise that gay people are just reguler people with diffrent feelings. and realise that we are all the same.
In Canada, it will stay this way because the Supreme Court has ruled there will be NO MORE rulings over gay marriage. Stephen Harper tried to do it when he was elected and the Supreme Court basically kicked his butt right back out the door.
