Homosexuality, the sexual attraction to, or sexual relations with, members of the same-sex. Homophobia, the fear of or apprehension about homosexuality. In modern-day society, these two words, unfortunately, come hand in hand with each other for a really hateful and nasty reason. Today’s society has become a much safer place for the LGBT community to live compared to the 1950’s and 60’s, but in some places, homophobia is still unfortunately present. In this article, I would like to give my view on the LGBT community as a gay man living in today’s modern society and express why I think homophobia is the real sin and not homosexuality itself.

One common reason for homophobia comes from the religious book known by many as the Holy Bible, where it says in Leviticus 20:13, “If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them”. This is directly saying that if two men lay in bed together, then it is a sin and should be looked down upon. Here is the problem I see though, if one took the idea that God is omni-benevolent and this direct quote from the Bible, then why does he hate gay people so much? Well my answer to that would be that the Bible is only a recollection of the events of God and not a direct book that  was written by God himself, which means that the opinion is solely based on other people’s retelling of the story, which means the whole God hates gay people argument is completely unjustified. Lots of homophobic people use the Bible as a justification for their beliefs, but as a result seem to cherry pick the parts to follow and those not to follow, for example in Deuteronomy 22:11 it says  “do not wear clothing woven from two different kinds of thread”, meaning that it is a sin to wear clothes made of different fabrics. Most people do wear two types of clothing including those who follow the view that being gay is a sin. Why would someone follow a religion and pick the parts to believe and not believe? Surely you should believe all of it or none of it.

Another common argument is that gay people aren’t born that way and that being gay is a choice. The best question to ask yourself at this point is why would somebody in today’s society where people of the LGBT community are still being discriminated against, pick a sexuality which people are discriminated for being? It doesn’t make any sense at all for somebody to choose to be gay when homophobia is still an issue in today’s society. It also seems strange to say that it is a choice when the average age to know that your gay is around 10 years old. At this age you most likely wouldn’t have had any experiences or education regarding the LGBT community and, therefore, how could you choose to be gay if you don’t know anything about the LGBT community? You are born gay and, therefore, is it really a choice?

Possibly the most pathetic argument is that gay people are mentally ill and cause harm. I mean, seriously? I am a gay male and I have never had the urge to cause harm to anyone around me because of my sexuality. Also, gay men like Sir Ian McKellen and Elton John have, to my knowledge, never physically harmed anyone just because they are gay and instead are seen as cultural icons and are admired by thousands of people worldwide. With regards to us being mentally ill, where does this even come from? Wherever it came from, this fallacious belief persisted and homosexuality only stopped being classed as a mental disorder in 1973! The only mental disabilities I have are Autism, ADHD, and Dyspraxia but none of these have in any way had an effect on the fact I am gay so I strongly oppose this argument as well. Aren’t homophobic people just the greatest people alive?

The real shame is that homosexual people are still at risk in many parts of the world including places like Sudan and Iran where being gay can be punishable by death. This is ridiculous. Gay people are really just normal people who just happen to like the same sex, so what? That shouldn’t be illegal or discriminated against because of some bad perceptions of gay people, like the Bible, represents.

I recently had an interview with my gay male English teacher who for disclosure, I will not name in this article. He stated that growing up in New Zealand during the late 70’s and 80’s was for him not very pleasant due to many people having a homophobic outlook. Many people decided he was gay before he even came out, and as such, when he was at school he suffered a lot of physical and verbal abuse due to what was most likely ignorance and media propaganda. Back then, the LGBT community wasn’t viewed as highly as it is today, and though things have come a long way, there is still some distance to go.

To conclude I would like to share with you a quote from Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic Church and The Advocate’s ‘person of the year 2013’ for his support of gay rights: “A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person”. It’s always the person inside you have to look at instead of one characteristic about them, whether this be sexuality, race or religion. As my mother always used to say: “it’s what’s inside that counts”.