Homosexuality Homosexuality has always been an issue among society.

Homosexuality has negative situations that include homophobic confrontations and its moral related issues influenced by biblical and cultural influences. As well as its positive acceptance in society, relating to marriage and other such topics. Opinions toward homosexual people have changed vastly over the years. To this day, some would consider homosexuality an illness, overlooking the psychological facts that prove otherwise. Some people would also consider homosexuality as a preference chosen by the man or women despite sociological statistics that show evidence of the reason why. Homosexuals have dealt with negative situations more than positive. The criminal courts have long been familiar with the heterosexual defendant, in a case of murder, who uses in his defense the argument that a homosexual advance was a sufficient provocation to overwhelm his self-control and drive him to violence (Kenyon, 1990). The concept of homosexual panic was introduced by Kempf (1921). He described it as a feverish panic or agitated furor, amounting sometimes to temporary manic insanity pp 477-515. Courts continue to allow homosexual provocation to be used as a defense (Wall, 2000). By it being allowed, homosexuals are not defended equally in the way that because of what they are, it is allowed in society the acceptance of violence toward a homosexual due to the persons preference in sex and the attackers disgust of it. According to Moss (2003), one hates oneself for wanting what one wants and therefore for being what one is. When the pain associated with such apparently irresolvable conflicts becomes itself intolerable-when internalized homophobia as a symptom can no longer bind and contain its own determinants- the result can lead to murder and suicide. Five men were chosen for individual interviews. These five men had all committed an offense, which were related to homophobia. All five of the men, were patients of a psychiatric hospital. A semi-structured questionnaire was devised (see Appendix) which contained a series of questions grouped under three headings: the subjects attitude to the crime, his mental illness, and homosexuality. The local ethics committee (Institute of Psychiatry, London) approved the project. Signed consent was obtained (Murphy 2000). Mr. A. Mr. A, a Caucasian man, a painter and decorator, was aged 27 at the time of interview. He had been convicted of grievous bodily harm when he was 20 and had spent seven years in a medium secure unit at the time of the interview. He had no psychiatric contact prior to the offence. He stabbed a male friend in the back with a kitchen knife (Murphy 2000). The subject did not know the victim and had not had any sexual relationship with him. In the interview, the subject said, I was thinking a lot of things about my sexuality around that time. I was thinking that people might think I was gay. According to Murphy (2000), the subjects eyes were drawn to the victims groin though he tried to concentrate on other things. The subject thought at the time, Am I gay? When Mr. A was in the hospital, schizoaffective disorder was diagnosed. A psychotherapist said, He is clearly markedly anxious about being considered homosexual. All we can say is that he has this anxiety; we do not know if he is homosexual and struggling with the resulting ego-dystonic reaction of the super-ego, internal and projected, or whether he is heterosexual and has homosexual anxiety.

Mr. B. Mr. B was aged 47 at the time of the interview. He was black, of AfroCaribbean descent, unmarried, and unemployed. He had been found guilty of killing a male friend, aged 71. Mr. B killed the victim with an axe (Murphy 2000). According to Murphy (2000), subject B knew the victim for many years. Mr. B maintained that the victim had made homosexual advances to him over many years. Mr. B said that he strongly disapproved and never accepted these advances. Quoted in the interview, Mr. B stated, As soon as I walked into his environment he thought I came to have sex with him. So I said, I didnt come to have sex with. I came to talk to you about how you are treating me. Thinking that the victim was trying to make other people against him, Mr. B then killed the victim. Mr. C. Mr. C was aged 25 at the time of the interview. He was born in the UK into an Asian family with retail business interests. Mr. C managed one of the familys shops (Murphy 2000). The victim was a 21 year old, Asian man. Who was employed in the Mr. Cs shop. During the interview, Mr. C stated, I think he must have said it about a hundred times, You are gay. That used to make me angry and he never used to stop. So one day I thought, I will stop it, I will stab him. When Mr. C was 16, he had had a sexual relationship with an older gentleman and it had disgusted him, and then had another relationship with another man in his late 20s. Mr. C said, I was quite stupid and perhaps I did feel attracted to him, Im not sure. I mean, I never got anything out of it. There were signs of confusion about his sexual identity (Murphy 2000). Mr. C the said, I would say I was heterosexual. I would not even say I was bisexual. I mean I want to get married. What I think of mainly is for my mum to find a good girl for me to get married to and have three to four kids and just be with my wife. Later in the interview, Mr. C stated, I used to cry and pray to God, Why am I gay? Why do I sleep with men? and I used to despise myself. I even ran away from home and I used to cry at night. I used to try and get aroused over women but I couldnt but I could get easily aroused over men. I thought there was something wrong with me. Mr. D. Mr. D killed a man with whom he had a homosexual relationship and was found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He was 27 at the time of the crime. He had been in hospital for 18 years at the time of the interview and was aged 45. He spent some years in a maximum security hospital, then medium security, until he came to a low security ward where he was seen for this study. Prior to the crime he had been admitted twice to hospital and received a diagnosis of schizophrenia (Murphy 2000). Mr. D was uncertain about his sexual status and during the interview; he said that during the time of the crime, he was unhappy about his homosexual activity. Mr. D was quoted on saying, Never be found in bed with a dead woman or a live man. Mr. D had sexual fantasies and some sexual relationships with both men and women. At the age of 16, Mr. D also had a sexual relationship with his stepfather. Mr. E. Murphy (2000) states that, Mr. E was 35 at the time of the interview. He was English, Caucasian, unmarried, and had intermittently undertaken casual work. At age 30 he stabbed a stranger in the back. He experienced brief psychotic episodes during which he believed that he was a soldier fighting in the Vietnam War. After a year discharge from hospital he took a carving knife from his mothers kitchen and went to the flat of a man in a nearby estate. He kicked down the door, entered, found the occupant in bed, and stabbed him several times. The explanation that was given from Mr. E for the second crime was in

no relation to his first crime. Mr. E states that he had a brief sexual relationship with the victim and was drunk. Then he states that the sexual relationship was very disturbing to him. Mr. E then began to wonder if he was gay and blamed the victim for this feeling. After explaining the second crimes reason, Mr. E then stated that the first victim had called him a Spoof. The motivation for the second crime was revenge (Murphy 2000). With all 5 subjects being interviewed, the conclusion was that all but 2 of the subjects had a sexual relationship with the same gender. The attack came because the attacker became enraged with the victim who, he felt, had humiliated and corrupted him (Murphy 2000). The subjects C, D and, E all seemed to be bisexual and unaccepting of this. All the attackers in this study felt that they were wanted sexually by a man (the victim) (Murphy 2000). To conclude with the study, Mr. C, Mr. D, nor Mr. E had never had a history of violence in their past before being submitted to psychiatric hospitalization. The only subject who had a history of violence was Mr. B. There is a range of possible origins for homophobia, including fear of sexuality in general, a societal need for scapegoats, intrapsychic strategies to manage specific gender and homosexual concerns, and mental illness (Murphy 2000). Moss (2003), attempting to explain the apparent contradiction of homophobic people having homosexual activity, describes one homophobic killer telling of his long hatred of whatever is inside that drives him to seek out homosexual contact. In the study it was discovered that neither Mr. C, Mr. D, nor Mr. E wanted to be homosexual. There was a conflict between their wish to be heterosexual and their homosexual impulses. Cultural factors played an influence in the subject, Mr. C. It was clear that the lack of acceptance of homosexuality in his Asian culture was a major factor in producing the conflict that lead to the assault. It seemed as if his primary sexual orientation was homosexual but hat the strong expectations of his family were that he should get married (Murphy 2000). The pressure of ones families acceptance has a significant impact on someones view of feelings toward a controversial issue. Attitudes are likely to serve a defensive function when an individual perceives some analogy between homosexual persons and her or his own unconscious conflicts. Subsequently, that person responds to a gay men and lesbians as a way of externalizing inner conflicts and thereby reducing the anxiety associated with them (Herek 1984). Males are less tolerant of homosexuality than females, but blacks and whites do not hold significantly different attitudes (Glenn and Weaver 1979; Herek 1988; Loftus 2001; Smith 1985; 1992). It appears that heterosexuals tend to have more negative attitudes toward homosexuals of their own sex than of the opposite sex (Herek 1984). It frequently is assumed that feelings of personal threat result in strong negative attitudes toward homosexuality, whereas lack of threat leads to neutral or positive attitudes (Herek 1984). One who is secure with their own sexuality is less likely to have a negative attitude toward homosexuality. Due to the high ego associated with men, men usually are insecure about their sexuality. Thus, men are more likely to have negative issues with homosexual people. Intolerance towards the morality of homosexuality increased in the diffusion period, a period of increased agitation by religious and political factions against AIDS prevention education campaigns (Ruel and Campbell 2006). Most common stereotypes are related to cross-sex characteristics. Additionally, significant numbers of individuals characterize male homosexuals as mentally ill, promiscuous, lonely, insecure, and likely to be child molesters, while lesbians have been described as

aggressive and hostile toward men. Positive characteristics are also part of the homosexual stereotype including such traits as sensitivity, intelligence, honesty, imagination, and neatness (Herek 1984). With the negative stereotyping, one has pessimistic feelings toward homosexuals and causes them to be afraid due to what might happen to a child or someone who is mentally ill will do. Thus, this creates a homophobic concept in a persons mind. AIDS evokes stigma, and thus, negative attitudes, in three ways: (1) it is contracted through voluntary and disapproved behaviors- behaviors that are already stigmatized (e.g., homosexual sex) (2) it is contagious and puts other at risk, and (3) is incurable, meaning fatal at worst and chronic at best (Callen 1990; Herek 1999; Rosenberg 1989). Media attention, after announcing the discovery of the disease and labeling it the gay plague, was virtually nonexistent until 1986 (Kinsella 1989). Before this, AIDS did not affect peoples view of homosexuals due to the fact that they werent scared. Herek (1999) defines AIDS-related stigma as prejudice against people believed to have it, expressed through ostracism, discrimination and legislation that deprives persons with AIDS of basic human rights. Authors Ruel and Campbell (2006) conclude that the AIDS epidemic made gay men more visible in our society then they were before. According to the Ruel and Campbell (2006), because of gay rights movement and the AIDS epidemic, gays have become more vocal and in some respects more active in their pursuits of many civil rights that previously were not available to them, such as partner benefits, protection in employment, opportunities to serve in the military and even marriage and child adoption rights. From a negative conflict came a positive outcome overall in homosexual rights. As the issue of homosexual people being accepted in todays culture keeps developing, it is being more and more accepted. The Bible is the ideological platform of the Judeo-Christian ethic, which still has a significant presence in Western civilization. The biblical teachings regarding sexuality bear directly on the attitudes of religious Christians and Jews (Stemmler and Clark 1990). The Bible has played a major role in influencing todays views of homosexuality. A survey of 1003 American adults (Barna Research Group 2001) concluded about one out of every four adults (24 percent) lean primarily upon religious principles and teaching or Bible content when making moral decisions. A large percentage still believe that homosexual relations should not be legalized, and of those who are more accepting, the majority still see such relations as immoral. Thus the Bible still has a considerable impact on peoples attitudes towards homosexuality (Wernik May2005).The discourse against AIDS has become increasingly a moralistic condemnation of homosexuality, empowered by the doctrinal and biblical interpretations of sex and nature that are ancient in origin and, in Catholic and fundamentalist churches, still extremely articulate (Poirier 1988, 462). As I researched homosexuality, it became apparent that the fairness of it all is unjust. I have always considered homosexuals equal in the sense that they have the same are able to do everything that a heterosexual can do. But in todays society, for some reason, people come to the conclusion that homosexuals are not equal and dont deserve the same rights. As a human, they should be allowed the same opportunities as anyone else. If someone who is gay wants to experience the joy of being father, who are we to tell them what they can and can not do. In my research paper, I have shown how the criminal justice system is unfair to homosexuals, how homophobic assaults are created from people who have a mental illness combined with their insecurity about themselves, cultures impact on ones opinion of

someone who prefers the same sex, ones tolerance based on their gender and location, stereotypes and the affects of them in both positive and negative ways, homosexual rights, AIDS affecting homosexuals reputation as the media discriminates, and some biblical points of views that influence society.