Because seriously, I’ve read a lot of truly distressing anti-gay stories this week.
Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio classifies gay people with murderers and rapists in its curriculum. A sociological course on “deviant behavior” includes, along with criminal behaviors like murder, rape, and robbery, the existence of homosexuals. Err, homosexuality is not deviant behavior, it is just non-normative behavior, those are two different things. In addition to being homophobic, they’re also whorephobic and ableist. Sorry, sex work and mental illness are not the same thing as murder. Nice try.
The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) (am I the only person who hears the abbreviation and thinks about cats going OMNOMNOMNOMNOM?) likes to claim that it isn’t homophobic. It’s just protecting traditional marriage! However, a nice gentleman who works for Media Matters went undercover at Omnomnomnom’s anti-gay student conference, and guess what? They actually hate gay people. I’m sure this is a surprise to everyone.
Did you know that gay relationships are dysfunctional and inherently unstable, because the gay partners get bored of each other because they have the same gender? Or that gay stereotypes are proven correct because sometimes pro-gay websites have advertisements for Grindr and pet grooming services? Or that lesbian relationships are unstable because the women’s menstrual cycles get synced up and then they PMS at the same time and break up? Or that gay people are, like, all pedophiles? Or that STIs are God’s payback for queer people engaging in immoral sexual behavior? Or that homosexuality is self-degrading! These are just a few of the exciting things I learned about gay people from reading about NOM’s conference! It’s amazing how many things about homosexuality I didn’t learn by being a bi genderqueer in a long-term relationship with someone with the same bits as me.
Apparently Hurricane Isaac is the fault of the dirty queers in New Orleans. Man, all I got when my area got hit by Isaac was a bit of rain. Literally, it was sunny all day, which is the most ridiculous hurricane ever. Clearly I need to schedule some more orgies so God hates me properly.
Happier news! Ex-gay therapy is progressing towards being banned in California. Not only is ex-gay therapy incredibly homophobic, but it’s also ridiculously gender-policing, mostly directed at men. Did you know that you can make your child less gay by making him play with boy toys and going out to play football with him? Such is the advice provided by ex-gay therapists.
About ozyfrantz
In the context of socialogy – non-normative = deviant. The logic you’re using here seems to imply that an abnormal psych class would be ableist. (Some crimes can even be criminal but not deviant, like illegal music downloading)
Deviant does not mean bad in sociologist-speak. It means that they are not typical behaviors and are thus treated differently, and we all need to understand the context of being outside the typical and how that effects how those behaviors are perceived. Deviant does not mean bad, deviant does not mean criminal. It means “outside the norm”. So I can’t see where you’re going with this article. Basically your argument is about semantics and disagreeing with the jargon of sociology for what deviant means. I think they know their definition. To grab quickly from wikipedia: “Deviance, in a sociological context, describes actions or behaviors that violate social norms, including formally-enacted rules (e.g., crime), as well as informal violations of social norms (e.g., rejecting folkways and mores). It is the purview of sociologists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and criminologists to study how these norms are created, how they change over time and how they are enforced.”
You’re reading a helluva lot into the word deviance here. Deviance used in this context is jargon, saying that things are taboo in the culture at large and not making a moral judgement. And yes, in most places, homosexuality is taboo. Simply using the word “deviant” does not mean they think it is immoral.
But the course context itself could be homophobic, but I am not going to say it is by virtue of using sociology jargon for “breaks taboos”, which homosexuality does. If there is not an LGBT-centric sociology class, LGBT issues are well covered in the deviance segment of sociology, along with kink or atypical behaviors like cross dressing or behavior associated with having Tourette’s.
But the assumption that the useage of “deviant/deviance” in Sociology is the same as in the culture is a big jump to make. When we discussed deviance in my sociology class, it was NEVER in a derogative way, and there was never an attempt made to say that one deviance is the same as another. There was no morality mentioned. Granted, my professor focuses on youth crime issues and made a point of saying that everyone is deviant in some way.
Indeed, you’re not the only one who thinks of cute furry animals eating when you see the acronym “NOM”.
I remember the claims that Katrina was God’s retribution on America for gay marriage.
It always struck me that if God was going to wreak vengeance on America for gay marriage, wouldn’t he have decided to, you know, punish Massachusetts?
Then again, I suppose that the past two Red Sox seasons could qualify as that divine retribution…
Sorry, folks. I’m a sociologist, and I taught Deviance quite a lot before I retired this year, and this is where we put it. I also wrote a Deviance text, which, thankfully, is still in print. You better be glad that it, and other, less common, forms of sexual and other behavior, are there, because otherwise deviance classes and texts would be criminology courses and texts, and that’s boring. My colleagues, for some reason, had a problem seeing that deviance is not a part of crim, but it’s not. I also had a provost who said that “anyone can teach deviance,” and they cant necessarily.
Earlier on, we used to teach deviance entirely without crim, but popular TV shows about cops have made us at least include some.
Deviance has a double definition: the “social norms” one, and the “uncommon behavior” one. Simple. Sometimes, as with masturbation, they contradict each other.