The Scapegoating of Homosexuals as Threats to Society Essay

Politics of Exclusion - The Scapegoating of Homosexuals as Threats to Society It is hard to believe that this bill is anything other than a thinly veiled attempt to score political debating points by scapegoating gay and lesbian Americans.-John F. Kerry The monster lulls reason into a night of unknowing in which sleeping leviathans do not lie.-Timothy K. Beal Introduction The scapegoating of homosexuals as monstrous threats to the order of society allows for their exclusion from institutions such as marriage, legal adoption, and The Boy Scouts of America. To reverse this discrimination, we must learn to make room for the chaotic queer monster, to perceive its presence not as threatening, but rather as inevitable,†¦show more content†¦The Creation of Queer Monsters This politics of exclusion is grounded in the depiction of homosexuals as monsters. It would be silly to deny that gays and lesbians, in their sexual preference, clearly diverge from the societal norm. Furthermore, we cannot ignore that this deviation introduces a degree of chaos to society. However, when we view homosexuals’ difference and challenge to convention as monstrously threatening, discrimination is justified. Homosexuals can be correlated with Freud’s concept of the unheimlich. This term describes the â€Å"unhomely†, the outside which threatens one’s sense of security, one’s â€Å"at-homeness† from the inside; it is the â€Å"otherness within sameness† [1] . The gay and lesbian population constitutes an element of difference, an â€Å"other†, within an American society nearly obsessed with the maintenance of order and security. Like the subjects of Timothy Beal’s book Religion and Its Monsters, homosexuals â€Å"are threatening figures of anomaly within the well-established and accepted order of things†. In their difference, they serve to disorient, to introduce a degree of chaos, and to reveal deep insecurities in our confidence in the meaning, integrity, and well-being of society [2] . Therefore, gays and lesbians are demonized as threats to our sense of order. We create queer monsters of chaos that must be repressed andSh ow MoreRelatedThe Negative Stereotypes About Bisexual Lifestyle1408 Words   |  6 Pageslesbians see bisexuality as a transitional identity between heterosexuality and lesbianism; notably, 83% lesbians agreed that â€Å"some women claim to be bisexual when they are really lesbians who are afraid to admit it† (Rust, â€Å"Neutralizing the Political Threat† 9). Stone also notes in her memoir that lesbians are often bitter about the â€Å"straight-passing privilege† that bisexual women possess (2). 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