The Scapegoating of Homosexuals as Threats to Society Essay -- Gay Les

Politics of Exclusion - The Scapegoating of Homosexuals as Threats to Society It is hard to be remainve that this measuring stick is anything another(prenominal) than a thinly veiled attempt to score political debating points by scapegoating gay and lesbian Americans.-John F. KerryThe monster lulls reason into a nighttime of unknowing in which sleeping leviathans do not lie.-Timothy K. BealIntroduction The scapegoating of homosexuals as monstrous threats to the order of society allows for their exclusion from institutions such as marriage, lawful adoption, and The Boy Scouts of America. To reverse this discrimination, we must learn to make room for the pell-mell queer monster, to perceive its presence not as threatening, but rather as inevitable, necessary, and vital to the dynamism of our culture. With this shift, we will have the means to acquire a politics of inclusion. In spite of the pluralistic and egalitarian principles that lie at the foundation of our nation, we liv e in a culture with bitty tolerance for deviation from what is considered to be the norm. We have created, and strive to maintain, an illusion of a uniform, ordered, and righteous American disembodied spiritstyle. From this narrow conception of America, we gain a disposition of solidarity and security. Consequently, those who pose a challenge to this ideal are pushed into the margins of society and excluded they grow second-class citizens. As a result of the threat they pose to this control model of conventional order, gays and lesbians are chief among the subclass of secondary citizens. Unlike other marginalized minority groups, homosexuals are explicitly denied access to institutions central to American life and character, namely, the legal family unit and The Boy Scouts. For, if... ...26 February 2004 .36 Gay Men Lose skin on borrowing Ban New York Times On the nett 29 January 2004, 26 February 2004 .37 Rebecca Walsh, For the Family Lesbian Couple Challenging Gay Adoptio n Ban in Utah The Salt Lake Tribune 7 July 2003, 29 February 2004 .38 Bruce Alpert, dig Grows Over Ban on Adoption by Gays Newhouse New assistant 1 April 2002, 29 February 2004 .39 Alpert.40 Alpert.41 Alpert.42 Alpert.43 Walsh.44 Walsh.45 Linda Nicholson and Steven Seidman, ed. Social Postmodernism (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1995) 118.46 Laura Benkov Reinventing the Family (New York Crown Publishers, 1994) 145.47 Beal 19648 Kantor 5.49 Beal 10.50 Beal 196.