Within many cultures, people can define what constitutes functional behavior. Colombia’s society, similar to the United States, incorporates different parts of the system like family, education, government, and religion to maintain social stability. As such, homosexuality is viewed as dysfunctional in the Colombian social system, regardless of the more recent laws on the books for gay rights. Traditionally, Colombia’s culture is based in the religious teaching of Catholicism, though the government has been working towards a comparable legislations like America. As a transfer student from Bogota, Columbia, my interviewee said, “Colombia likes to mimic America in their government, but the different parts our society does not influence each other
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My interviewee said, “As a sexual minority, you are a threat to the stability of the system, so no one is concerned about your protection from the armed conflicts like paramilitary or guerilla groups.” Being gay, he was forced to move to a safer place in Colombia called Bogota, because the government was not concerned about the removal of dysfunctional behavior. Homosexuals in Columbia are considered a “defect” of the system with their dysfunctional sexual behavior making them targets for homosexual displacement. “The long history of armed conflict in Colombia has permeated many aspects of society and findings showed that the lack of civilian rule and the supremacy of guerrilla or paramilitary groups in certain areas have resulted in violence that infects social interactions” (Zea, Reisen, Bianchi, Gonzales, Betancourt, Aguilar, & Poppen, 2013). Similar to these findings, my interviewee grew up in a small town where the paramilitary and guerilla groups terrorized his community causing him to eventually leave his family for a life of freedom to live out his sexuality without homonegativity from armed groups and …show more content…
“Moreover, in rural areas social norms and values are generally more traditional and restrictive and greater acceptance of sexual minorities has not been achieved” ( ) Fleeing to urban areas allows those who participate in “dysfunctional behavior” to freely live their lives without the constant fear of “social cleansing” and harm to families. Bogota is a large city known for its vast population of homosexuals and can be considered an area of necessary change to the structural society. According to my interviewee, the city is not without sexual minority victimization, but it is a safer place to live a gay lifestyle. At 15, he was able to move to the city with an uncle to freely live out his sexual life. Bogota is a clear example of how changes in the government laws for homosexuals produced changes in the other social institutions. The institution of education in the city demonstrates these changes by incorporating all sexual relations in their sex health classes as opposed to solely heterosexual relationships like most school systems in the United States. There is also more balance between government and religion in the cities with religious institutions allowing homosexuals to practice Catholicism and government offices being preoccupied by people of differing sexual
My interviewee said, “As a sexual minority, you are a threat to the stability of the system, so no one is concerned about your protection from the armed conflicts like paramilitary or guerilla groups.” Being gay, he was forced to move to a safer place in Colombia called Bogota, because the government was not concerned about the removal of dysfunctional behavior. Homosexuals in Columbia are considered a “defect” of the system with their dysfunctional sexual behavior making them targets for homosexual displacement. “The long history of armed conflict in Colombia has permeated many aspects of society and findings showed that the lack of civilian rule and the supremacy of guerrilla or paramilitary groups in certain areas have resulted in violence that infects social interactions” (Zea, Reisen, Bianchi, Gonzales, Betancourt, Aguilar, & Poppen, 2013). Similar to these findings, my interviewee grew up in a small town where the paramilitary and guerilla groups terrorized his community causing him to eventually leave his family for a life of freedom to live out his sexuality without homonegativity from armed groups and …show more content…
“Moreover, in rural areas social norms and values are generally more traditional and restrictive and greater acceptance of sexual minorities has not been achieved” ( ) Fleeing to urban areas allows those who participate in “dysfunctional behavior” to freely live their lives without the constant fear of “social cleansing” and harm to families. Bogota is a large city known for its vast population of homosexuals and can be considered an area of necessary change to the structural society. According to my interviewee, the city is not without sexual minority victimization, but it is a safer place to live a gay lifestyle. At 15, he was able to move to the city with an uncle to freely live out his sexual life. Bogota is a clear example of how changes in the government laws for homosexuals produced changes in the other social institutions. The institution of education in the city demonstrates these changes by incorporating all sexual relations in their sex health classes as opposed to solely heterosexual relationships like most school systems in the United States. There is also more balance between government and religion in the cities with religious institutions allowing homosexuals to practice Catholicism and government offices being preoccupied by people of differing sexual