|
|
Post by alongcamejones on Jun 6, 2021 18:30:34 GMT
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr. Homosexuality
A boy once asked King about how he should deal with his homosexuality. King replied: "Your problem is not at all an uncommon one. However, it does require careful attention. The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired. Your reasons for adopting this habit have now been consciously suppressed or unconsciously repressed. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with this problem by getting back to some of the experiences and circumstances that lead to the habit. In order to do this I would suggest that you see a good psychiatrist who can assist you in bringing to the forefront of conscience all of those experiences and circumstances that lead to the habit. You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire to solve it."
I disagree with Martin Luther King, Jr. here: King thought this was a mental illness and that it wasn't likely a type of attraction that was inherent from nature or birth. I don't believe homosexuality was "culturally acquired" back when King was alive because it was so suppresed and taboo back then. Homosexuality was never then (to the best of my knowledge) represented in film released to the broad general public, on television, in public education, in song, in art, on radio or in the press. King had to have been indoctrinated as a Christian clergyman that was "againt God" and "unnatural". King was pushing for civil rights on the basis of race and color, not on sexual orientation. Homosexuality in itself is not a "problem". Unhealthy social attitudes about it are. Was King's solution to go to a shrink to be "de-gayed" so to speak? You cannot convert sexual orientation by any clinical magic wand. Sexual attractions of all kinds are natural and inherent indeed. I don't think the LGBT community ever had a "Martin Luther King" type spokesperson and civil rights leader of their own. This following black-and-white police educational film from the late '50's or early '60's (the American automobiles look like early 1960's models) "criminalizes" homsexuality as something that older white men do to hit on young boys. Homosexuality was only stigmatized as a serious "mental illness" in the rare older media footage about it. |
|
|
|
Post by ellel on Jun 7, 2021 11:59:15 GMT
Hi there. Thanks for your post. I do agree that sometimes important historical figures fighting for civil rights and other human rights causes that were not LGBTQ+ rights also held homophobic views. However, The Cincinnati Enquirer, where that MLK, Jr. quote is from, is a well-known conservative, Republican-leaning newspaper, and the article in which the MLK quote is cited is an opinion piece that ends with this sentence: “Once the LGBT cult is done attacking Catholics, maybe they should attack MLK, Jr. and demand that his holiday be abolished” which to me seems both racist and homophobic. And though MLK, Jr. did in fact give the young boy that advice (https://swap.stanford.edu/20141218230500/https://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/kingweb/publications/papers/vol4/580100-000-Advice_For_Living.htm) I’d like to point out what PinkNews said about it: “Though Dr King’s response may seem ill-informed by modern standards, his advice to the boy is remarkably calm and polite, given the fears and active scaremongering about gay people at the time” a statement that I am inclined to agree with (https://www.pinknews.co.uk/2020/01/20/martin-luther-king-jr-gay-teen-advice-ebony-magazine-civil-rights-coretta-scott/). I absolutely think that being gay or LGBTQ+ is not a mental illness, of course. However, there was actually tolerant, if not accepting, representation of LGBTQ+ folks in film in the 60s. Inside Daisy Clover (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Daisy_Clover) was a film released in 1965 has a limited acknowledgement of a bisexual character, but is recognized as ‘one of the early depictions of a gay or bisexual character in American cinema who is not ashamed of his sexuality and does not commit suicide.’ Up until the 60s, the Hollywood Hays Code (https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93301189_) expressly prohibited ‘discussions of sexual perversity’ in film, though there are examples of coded gay characters appearing in films made during the Hays era. So, it is understandable that there was no real representation of LGBTQ+ folks in American media prior to the 60s. The US LGBT community did, in fact, have a ‘Martin Luther King type spokesperson.’ His name was Bayard Rustin, and he was King’s close advisor www.history.com/news/bayard-rustin-march-on-washington-openly-gay-mlk, www.npr.org/2019/01/06/682598649/in-newly-found-audio-a-forgotten-civil-rights-leader-says-coming-out-was-an-abso?t=1623064669177, kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/rustin-bayard. Though he and King fell apart and came together over the years, Rustin was adamant about being open with his sexuality. He also organized the famed March on Washington. I’d also like to say that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) only removed ‘homosexuality’ as a diagonsis from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) in 1973 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4695779/). Thus, it’s understandable why King thought homosexuality was a mental illness and why that film framing homosexuality as creepy pedophiles was made--because it was considered one in his time. There’s also this article: www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/stonewall-milestones-american-gay-rights-movement/ about key moments in US LGBTQ+ history, including key events that occurred during King’s time (e.g., the state of Illinois repealed its sodomy laws in 1962, becoming the first US state to decriminalize homosexuality). So, all this is to say that there is more to King’s quote than it appears on the surface, as well as attitudes towards homosexuality in the US at the time. Hopefully some of this is interesting and/or enlightening. Elle |
|
|
|
Post by alongcamejones on Jun 7, 2021 16:27:16 GMT
The Christian Church sought to villify and denormalize same-sex attraction following the fall of the Roman Empire. Islam came a few centuries later. It is the most extreme homophobia based on faith. The Islamic nations execute sodomy as a capital crime. Gay hate is rooted in the relatively-modern monotheistic religions. I think the Jewish canon villifies same-sex sex too. Homosexuality was well-accepted in the more ancient pagan societies.
I now understand the thinking of MLK in his time: homosexuality was branded as "bad", it was percieved as "an illness". This negativity stems from the centuries of ignorant conditioning of religions. I can see the ignorance in southern states like Georgia. In 1999, I was living with a sick uncle in Georgia. I saw a local shrink for anxiety. I was asked if I was a homosexual. I answered, "No." I was 35 at the time and told the shrink I never married when I was asked. He said most men are married by age 35. I asked the shrink what homosexuality had to do with anxiety. There is an ignorant assumption that most lifetime bachelors are gay. Perhaps they are just free from marriage regardless of their respective sexual orientations. Well, I'm actually secretly bi but never have revealed it to people I knew or met. My bi-ness allowed me to express open interest in the female sex and occasional dating with them. I have never had sex with another man or boy. That part of me has always been in the closet. I served in the army until the mid-1990's and felt I had to suppress that half of me knowing how homophobic the military was and how homophobic people at my high school were. I'm now celebate in my older age.
|
|
