Clearly we've had a very different experience with homophobia. I didn't want to scare the homophobia out of anyone, I just wanted them to leave me alone. I wasn't even openly gay or bi or whatever and I got attacked. Not like, with words... So I can't have the same, "homophobes are people too". I was a kid, and I got harassed and beat up, and those responsible got away with everything because a priest stood up for them.
Ok, that's f***-ed up, that priest needs to be reported to the diocese, because that's so far opposed to church policy that it's unforgivable.
You make excuses for them, most likely because you've never truly had your a** kicked. I'm not a bad-a** in any way shape or form (Jigglypuff, come on here), I mostly just reacted by being socially visible and popular enough that nobody gave me trouble. The time before that basically will never allow me to view homophobes as anything but the enemy.
The enemy... congrats, you've dehumanized them, and once you've done that, anything is acceptable.
Once you can dehumanize a person based on an arbitrary factor, then nobody is safe. In fact, that whole dehumanization (be it as "the enemy", "an object", "worthless", or any number of other such attributions) is behind EVERY SINGLE BIAS IN HUMAN SOCIETY TODAY.
Dehumanization is a cancer to be rooted out wherever it is found, it's an easy trap to fall into but it really does make you no better then your persecutors.
They hurt you, you want to get back at them, but the deepest wounds that they gave you were psychological, the were so vile that they gave you the belief that it was moral to believe what you do about people, that's it right to dehumanize them.
I'm sorry, everybody is a person, dehumanizing them in the long term only prevents resolution.
I agree that adults should refrain from using violence whenever possible. This whole thing about the humanity of homophobes though is f***ing ridiculous and naive. Now that homophobia is less prevalent and acceptable, people get this impression that hateful people aren't violent, won't seek to do you harm in any way. I'm sorry, we haven't gotten to that point yet. Again, people respect force, in whatever form it takes.
No, force is often an encouragement to seek bigger guns.
It depends entirely on the situation.
For the record, I don't hate "hate". I think hate is a valuable emotion. I hate cruelty to animals, heroin, homophobes and any number of other things. Hate makes people take action. Your condescension and periodic insults towards me aren't conducive to winning me over, neither is your pacifistic garbage. Self defense is justified, and violence DOES solve problems, anyone who says otherwise is a fool or a liar (or a hippy lol). This is simply a fact, violence causes problems, and violence also solves them.
Hatred makes you act blindly and irrationally, it makes you unwilling to accept useful compromises and makes destroying what you hate worth destroying yourself and everything you hold dear.
No, hatred gives what you hate control over you, it is irredeemable as an emotion, replace it with a better one, otherwise it can (and often does) destroy you.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not universally opposed to violence (years and years of martial arts experience), but I'm not going to go picking a fight. You must choose how to use it carefully (almost always pure self-defense). Hatred is especially good at impairing this rule of thumb.
In other words hatred + violence usually gets you killed or makes the situation worse.
STFU!
I don't give a s*** about their psychosocial development. They can all get horrible diseases and die alone for all I care. I just wanted them to LEAVE ME ALONE!
He wasn't talking about them, he was talking about you.
By hating them you bait the conflict to excelate which ultimately puts you in a far worse situation.
Furthermore, you impair your OWN psychological development.
Homophobes aren't worth destroying yourself over.
for those in Bible-Belt or regressive areas
