Homophobia

Homophobia. We know it is there, but we do not want to talk about it.

Homophobia is a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards homosexuality and people identified or perceived as being homosexual.

I never really worried about the word, when I came out 4 years ago, and never really worried about up until recently, with my son's school and when the article of Jason Akermanis telling the "gays to stay in the closet". I read the article with quite some interest as to how the article was constructed. It shocked me as to how the article was strong about homophobia and being gay was like a disease. Jason explaining how he felt uncomfortable being around a gay person and he could never understand it.

Maybe, if he did the research on homophobia and being gay, the article would have been constructed in a completely different manner and have a completely different meaning. I am sure if he had taken the time to find an organisation in the GLBTIQ community to discuss his article before it was publish, he would thought twice about what to say. I can see the point that what he was trying to say, that now is not the time for the AFL to embrace homosexuality, but to come across as closet homophobia does make you think that he has not been educated enough to understand what he was saying.I applaud the younger generation in taking the step to identifying their sexuality and being proud of it dealing with homophobia in such a resilent manner.

As a gay parent, I realise that my children will be exposed to homophobia behaviour one day, that will be directed at them because their dad is gay. How do you teach your children about homophobia behaviour, when they are not gay? This is one area, that I think that it has not been addresses in the gay community on a large scale. Has there ever been any gay bashing directed at a heterosexual child of a gay parent? We may never know, as the child, may see it as a normal bullying issue. I had a situation not long ago with my eldest at school, I addressed the school about it and asked the question what they thought the bullying was about. They did not understand my question or where I was coming from. I asked them if they looked into the bullying in relation to homophobia behaviour. They were quite shocked and not happy that I would bring up such a subject. This just go to show you that the school had no strategies put in place for this kind of bullying issue. I found out later, that I was probably the other gay parent related to any child in the school. Thes school has drafted a homophobia policy, to integrated with their racist, sexism policy. Oh by the way, the bullying issue had nothing to do with homophobia, they were fighting over a book. But this did demonstrate the mentality of the education of homophobia in the general society. I have taught my children that they do not have accept homophobia and that it is not a disease.