Perhaps it’s time to send our Puritanical ideals to the curb.

I acknowledged in another post that I have biases and prejudices. It’s part of being human. Fortunately, I can do something about those prejudices – especially when those prejudices interfere with my life or the lives of others.

I grew up in a time and place where white men were at the top of the social food chain with women and minorities far below them in the social stratus. Today, thanks to the courage of millions of conscientious people, my world (American) has changed substantially overall. Still there are pockets of resistance in my prejudicial world. One of my vestigial prejudices is homophobia.

Homophobia is a term for a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards homosexuality and people identified or perceived as being homosexual. Definitions of the term refer variably to antipathy, contempt, prejudice, aversion, and irrational fear. (Wikipedia.org)

It’s not that I actively discriminate against those who are of a different sexual persuasion than I am. I simply tend to ignore them or feel indifferent to their societal plight. I’m old enough to still define “gay” as “happy and carefree” – and tend to avoid the word “lesbian” as a sort of dirty word. I have a deep cultural bias – and ignorance!

I feel enraged when I read about some idiot who abuses or otherwise harms another based solely on their sexual preferences – but am I much better when I turn my political and social face away or just “go along” with those who poke fun or “gently ridicule” or socially discourage vulnerable people of any stripe? I no longer wonder. I know. It’s wrong!!!

A study out of Concordia University accentuates what we should all know already:

“This study is one part of a much larger and greatly needed dialogue on the impacts that prejudice, discrimination and victimization have on healthy development and well-being in young people,” says Dr. Hastings, an international member of the Centre for Research in Human Development and now a professor at the University of California Davis. “We need to promote acceptance and respect for the diversity of our population – including sexual diversity – at all levels: government, community, schools and homes.”

Egad! Far from a problem needing to be solved, homosexuality is the solution to human overpopulation and abuse of the planet! What is wrong with our thinking?! We should be celebrating these young people rather than discouraging them. Perhaps it’s time to send our Puritanical ideals to the curb. This particular phobia didn’t work to create a utopian society in 1620 and it hasn’t changed since – it still doesn’t work today.

Any black or brown or yellow skinned man or woman in the USA knows the severe psychological (and often physical) harm of discrimination based on race. Any man or woman who speaks a language other than English in the US has felt the sting of prejudice, too. Americans are not nearly as tolerant as they want to believe they are. But we’re working on it! And that’s what gives me hope.

I don’t often blog about political or social issues, but this one points out a critical thinking flaw that is fixable. When we overcome our irrational fear of people who come from a different culture, sexual orientation, skin color, or other difference – we will tend to embrace diversity in a uniquely human way – incorporating it into the fabric of our individual and collective selves. That level of understanding is, in my opinion, the wave of the future and the solution to humanity’s challenges.

Source: “Mental Health Challenges and Resilience in Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Young Adults: Biological and Psychological Internalization of Minority Stress and Victimization,” was authored by Michael Benibgui, Ph.D., as his doctoral dissertation in clinical psychology at Concordia University. Professor Paul Hastings, Ph.D., now at University of California Davis, was project supervisor.