Hostility towards homosexuals, men and women, has unfortunately always existed. What’s new is that people are more aware of its existence and have started denouncing it. The mere absence of the word homophobia for so many years clearly illustrates society’s refusal to recognize the legitimacy of a sexual orientation that was thought to be abnormal.
Homophobia stems from individual, social, and systemic prejudice. It reveals a real hostility for or exclusion of homosexual persons, men and women, which has repercussions on every walks of life.
Like all attitudes and behaviour based on prejudice and hatred, such as sexism or misogyny, racism and antisemitism, homophobia has no serious foundation. It comes from one’s and society’s inability to grasp the differences of others, which are then perceived as a threat to individuals, and, consequently, society in general. Some secular and religious movements even pretend that full legal and social recognition of homosexuality will put the perpetuation of the human race in peril. Homophobia’s premiss is that homosexuality is inferior, abnormal and marginal. |