Thought experiment concerning LGTBQ rights | Hacker News Reader

Thought experiment concerning LGTBQ rights

6 pointsLayke11239 comments

I wonder, do you think if society had grown with no particular faith system that LGBTQ people would still have been stigmatized for other reasons?

Curious to hear other thoughts if anyone has contemplated ideas similar to this.

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I'm reminded of the ancient Romans and Greeks, who had no religious opposition to homosexuality, since the "homosexual/heterosexual" axis is a modern invention, and it, along with the stigma, mostly derives from Christianity. But they did attach social stigma to being the "bottom" rather than the "top." [0,1]

So maybe, yes. But as stigmas go, probably no one would be disowned or killed over it.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Rome

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_in_ancient_Greec...

> particular faith system

How do you define this? Any sort of values system? I'm just thinking to myself, but I feel like as long as you have some concept of society or community that tries to impose norm on behavior, there is potential for stigmatizing anything different. There is a herd mentality or instinct that makes many people naturally wary of something different. It takes people standing up and saying "hey, I like to do this, there is nothing wrong with it" is order for it to become part of what society considers acceptable.

Specifically any religious notion really. Like, if you didn't believe in a particular outcome after death or reason for how we came to be, would homosexuality still be considered a not normal thing.

Yes. Part of the hatred stems from economic exploitation that it facilitated by the nuclear family; care work is mostly done by women; this system is predicated on having male breadwinners on whom women are dependent and thus have no choice but to do this care work. The whole relation breaks down once people move away from these normalised societal structures and those who previously benefited feel as though they are now oppressed.

Wait what? How does this deal with homosexuality? Because men want to continue to exploit women? So anything that deviates from that system is considered abnormal?

Just look at other cultures and time periods to get perspective.

Some cultures had a role for people who are not heterosexual or the culture didn't care.

In Abrahamic religions sexuality seems to be is tightly connected to the role in family and society. If cultures don't see sexuality as a important part of role people play in the society, it does not matter so much.

I guess that just kind of reinforces the concept that religion really is the only defining school of thought that has arbitrarily decided homosexuality is bad or unusual.

You can take a look at Japan[0] for a place without a history of religious animosity towards homosexuality. TL;DR: it's a mixed bag.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Japan

It seems they largely imported same sex religious discrimination from western law that was largely written by religious men.

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