Responding to the homophobes

(As far as the anti-bigotry part of this blog, I decided at some point early on that I wanted to work around the edges of battling bigotry, offering ideas and information that most people are unaware of but which might help them here and there with anti-bigotry work. So that’s why there are a lot of posts that seem a little weird, including this one)

I've done it, I've cracked the code of how we destroy the homophobic movement. Actually, probably not, but it might be helpful. As I've explained before, this blog might now be more about me posting comments I've made on other sites. I did one a couple days ago about homophobia on the blog of the Southern Poverty Law Center. That post is here.

1. When I say that there are some medical problem found disproportionately among women, different ethnic groups, I might be wrong about the ethnicity thing.

2. When I offer the link to a wikipedia article that looks at AIDS globally, I have confirmed the general picture with a source better than wikipedia (to find the numbers I looked at, you probably have to look at the full article for each region).

3. I generally believe in responding to everything my opponents say, partly because I'm concerned that if I DON'T, people listening or lurking will think that what my opponent says is true.

I think that's it. Below is my comment.

"This raises two of the arguments that homophobes make.

1. The drugs, suicide, depression, alcohol, abusive relationships. It’s the first I’ve heard of the drugs, abusive relationships and alcohol, but the suicide and depression I’ve heard of before, and the other three would be related to what I’m going to say. What the homophobes don’t say and might not understand is that that wouldn’t be any more common among gay people than it is with straight people if it wasn’t for the homophobia. I mean, it’s like breaking someone’s legs and then criticizing them because they don’t get around so fast on crutches.

2. STDs. I’m not too familiar with homosexuals and STDs in GENERAL, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is based largely/entirely on AIDS. The thing is, it seems like it was just bad luck that AIDs in America at first was vastly disproportionately among gay men. The fact that it’s still very dispoportionately gay men is not surprising since gay men like to have sex with gay men. And world-wide, at this point it seems like it’s not disproportionate at all (that’s based on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_pandemic). And in general, it’s not the first time something like has happened- there are lots of diseases that are common to one or another group based on sex or ethnicity. No one says there’s something wrong with those groups.

The thing is, what these homophobes ignore, is that you’re a LOT less likely to get an STD if you’re a woman having sex with another woman than if you’re a woman having sex with a man. The CDC doesn’t say anything about woman-woman transmission of AIDS (http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/surveillance/basic.htm) because it almost never happens. And in general, women almost never get STDs through lesbian sex. I mean, how often have you heard people lecturing straight men to use some kind of barrier during oral sex? Never, and they never use one. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but you are less likely to get an STD through lesbian sex than if you’re a woman having sex with a man.

So, when are these homophobes going to tell women that they should be gay?"