Essay On Heterosexism

Throughout history and across the globe and across many cultures, those with same-sex desires have been a part of and accepted and sometimes welcomed by their communities (ancient Greece is a fantastic example.) It was not until the beginning of the 20th century did homosexuality become associated with negative things such as communism, destruction of the sanctity of marriage, and most importantly the destruction of family values. Throughout the years, homosexuality has been judged as a mental illness, it has been labeled a crime, and considered a sin. Because of America is more conservative and accepts heterosexuality as the only acceptable sexual orientation and the fact that the LGBT community was heavily discriminated against in the past and even today in America, the history is definitely ignored from contemporary debates on the topic of same-sex marriage. In many ways, the heterosexism is exactly like the patriarchy and racism and all three issues have been dealt with the same way; the parts that make America look bad …show more content…
It wasn’t until the 20th century that people actually stated to care about homosexuals and their activities; instead of a person committing homosexual acts (like sodomy) being unacceptable, being homosexual started becoming unacceptable. And the argument “it’s just always been that way,” should not be good enough to outlaw same-sex marriage because that means it would have been condoning past atrocities; For many years, most societies were organized around slavery or other unjust forms of labor and eventually that became unacceptable to many societies. Why can’t now be the point when discriminating against gay people becomes