I’ve often thought that writers who put homophobia in scare quotes don’t really deserve a further read. Having experienced our culture’s stigmatization of gays and gayness since I was aware of such things (about the age of 13), it seems evident to me that it’s systematic on the order of racism or sexism, even if the form it takes is different from either.
Well, over at Crooked Timber, John Quiggin takes on a Jeff Jacoby op-ed and has an interesting post about the politics of language.
I came to this Boston Globe piece by Jeff Jacoby, who complains that the term “partial birth abortion”, when used in news stories, is normally surrounded by scare quotes, with the explanation that this term is used by opponents of legal abortion, but disputed by supporters. Jacoby complains about liberal bias here and says, among other things “when reporting on the same-sex marriage controversy, they should observe that “what critics call ‘homophobia’ — a term promoted by gay and lesbian activists — is not recognized by medical authorities”
As far as I can recall, I’ve never seen the word “homophobia” used in a news story in a major newspaper, other than in quotes, usually direct, but occasionally indirect (”activist X is concerned about homophobia”) Certainly I’ve never seen it used as if it referred to a recognised medical condition analogous to, say, claustrophobia.
Quiggin’s point is that both left and right are misguided in thinking that terminology is destiny. I see his point - in fact gays and lesbians have re-appropriated queer from insult to affirmative. But such reverse discourse notwithstanding, the framing implications of terminology do seem important. When someone puts homophobia (or even the word gay) in quotes, they’re essentially saying “people claim that men and women who have sex with members of the same sex suffer unjust prejudice, but those claims are wrong: same-sex affection deserves stigma because it’s a sin and counter to natural order and in any case is a choice not an innate identity.” Conversely, using the term homophobia (or sexual orientation for that matter) unadorned is to assume that gay people have a coherent, immutable identity and that they face systematic prejudice worth pointing out.
Now, like I say, to me it’s obvious that such prejudice exists - often with similar tropes of other forms of prejudice - just as it’s obvious that one doesn’t really choose one’s affective and sexual orientation. And there are many who aren’t gay who have an intellectual awareness of these things as well. But - and this is a naive question, I know - how can one persuade those who don’t see the reality of homophobia and/or gay identity? After all, at base there’s a phenomenological difference of experience. (See my comments along these lines in a comparison I’ve made between gay identity and race.)
Insisting on one terminology over the other will not bridge this experiencial gap in the debate. But terminology, if not a cause of one’s position in the recognition of gay identity and rights, does seem an emblem of that position.
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