Homophobia refers to the unfounded fear of homosexual individuals and communities. It often manifests as discrimination and hatred, including violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. While legal protections for LGBT individuals have increased in some places since the 1970s, homophobia still exists at the individual, institutional, and social/cultural levels. The debate around gay marriage rights is ongoing both in the US and worldwide.

1. Theme: Culture & Ethics
Unit: Homophobia and Gay Marriage

2. In general, refers to the unfounded fear of
homosexual individuals, of their sexual
behavior, and of gay and lesbian
communities.
Often turns to discrimination and deep-
seated hatred, including violence against
individuals and groups who may be lesbian,
gay (male homosexual), or transgender.
Closely associated with the women's rights
movement and struggles for sexual
liberation

3. The word "homophobia" has been widely
used since the 1970s.
Especially since the Stonewall Inn rebellion
on June 28 and 29, 1969, in New York City,
Hundreds of men and women rioted
against police harassment and extortion of
the patrons of the Stonewall Inn gay bar in
Greenwich Village.

4.  Individual/Interpersonal, Institutional, Cultural/Social
 Individual/interpersonal level: involves an individual's fear
of someone else's homosexuality and may also include
people's fear that they may come to be attracted to their
own gender.
 Related to heterosexism, or the idea that all social and
sexual life is heterosexual—the social and sexual relations
between a woman and a man.
 Heterosexism assumes that there is only one "right" way to
function as a man and as a woman.
 Homophobia at this level sometimes leads to name-calling

5.  Homophobic name-calling often leads to "gay bashing"—
acts of violence against homosexual individuals or those
thought to be homosexual.
 Such violent acts are as much "hate crimes" as are those
targeted at individuals because of their race, religion,
ethnicity, mental or physical disability, or gender.
 Since the 1970s, gay rights groups such as the National Gay
and Lesbian Task Force and Lambda Legal Defense and
Education Fund have recorded an increasing number of
violent attacks against gay, lesbian, and transgender
communities in the United States.

6.  Institutional level: refers to how institutions, employers,
and organizations discriminate on the basis of sexuality.
 Most state and federal laws, for example, do not include
sexuality or sexual orientation as a basis for protection
against discrimination in Employment and attacks of
violence.
 In March 1999, for example, a Bakersfield school district in
California was ordered by the state's Labor Commission to
apologize to an award-winning science teacher for
removing fifteen students from his class because some
parents did not want their children in a gay teacher's class.

7. Cultural and social level: helps create collective
negative attitudes and beliefs against lesbian, gay,
and transgender communities.
In their advertisement and programming, the
media have portrayed heterosexuality as the only
possible norm, and have by and large
underreported and ridiculed all other forms of
sexual or erotic expression.
"Effeminate" and "ineffectual" men in television
and motion pictures often bring ridicule to gay
characters.

8. Focused on creating spaces where they can
socialize and organize safely, without fear of harm
by homophobic individuals or groups.
Activists have emphasized that guaranteeing legal
protection and rights for gays and lesbians must
be part of a tradition of civil rights for all, and that
these should not be considered "special rights."
Recently, gay marriage has been on the forefront
of these civil rights.

9.  39 -- The number of states  9 -- The number of U.S.
that have banned same-sex states that allow same-sex
marriage. marriage. However, due to
 5 -- The number of states the Defense of Marriage
Act, the federal
that allow civil unions government does not
between same-sex couples, recognize the same-sex
but not marriage. marriages in these states.
 1,100 -- The number of
 Connecticut, Iowa,
federal benefits to Massachusetts, New
marriage. Hampshire, New York, and
 2003 -- The year that the Vermont, plus
U.S. Supreme Court ruled Washington D.C.
that it is unconstitutional  Most recently in this
to criminalize sodomy. election: Washington,
Maryland, & Maine

10. 3.5% -- The approx. 646,000 -- The number
percentage of Americans of same-sex-couple
identifying as lesbian, households in the U.S.
gay or bisexual, in 2010, according to the
according to the U.S. census.
Williams Institute at 48% -- The percentage
UCLA. of Americans opposed to
68% -- The percentage gay marriage in 2012,
of Americans opposed to according to a Gallup
gay marriage in 1996, poll.
according to a Gallup
poll.

11. 80.4% -- The percentage growth of same-sex
couple households in the U.S. between 2000 and
2010, according to the U.S. Census.
1.8% -- The percentage of households in the
District of Columbia comprised of same-sex
couples, the highest in the nation.
7% - Approximate percentage of same-sex couple
households that live in states that recognize same-
sex marriage, as of 2010.
115,064 -- Number of same-sex couple households
in the U.S. with children, according to the U.S.
census.

13.  While the United States is  2001 -- The year that the
engaged in debate on a Netherlands made same-
constitutional amendment sex marriage legal, the first
banning gay marriage, country in the world to so.
Canadians legalized it in  11 -- The number of
2007 and many European countries worldwide
countries have adopted or where same-sex marriage
are adopting civil unions is legal.
for gay couples.
 France and Germany have
civil union laws, and
Britain is in the process of
adopting them.

14. In Denmark, civil unions with the same rights as
marriage have been around since 1989, and other
Nordic countries followed suit in the 1990s.
The Dutch were the first to eliminate any
distinction between gay and straight, striking all
references to gender in the marriage laws.
Belgium soon did the same.

15. In most of Africa, homosexuality is illegal and gay
marriage unthinkable.
But in South Africa, gay rights were enshrined in
the post-apartheid constitution and some groups
are lobbying for the right to marry.
In Japan, homosexuality is no longer considered a
mental illness, but many gays still feel pressure to
go through a sham heterosexual marriage.
Japan however is more progressive than most of
Asia.

16. Strongly Roman Catholic countries such as Italy
refuse to recognize gay couples, following the
Vatican's abhorrence of homosexuality.
However, in Portugal, and in Spain's Navarra and
Basque regions, gay couples who live together
long enough receive the same benefits as
heterosexuals under common law unions.
In Argentina's capital, Buenos Aires, gay couples
can register for a civil union.

17.  Horacio N. Roque Ramírez. (2000). Homophobia. In W. E.
Martin, Jr. & P. Sullivan (Eds.), Civil Rights in the United
States (Vol. 1). New York: Macmillan Reference USA. 2 Jul
2012.
 Caitlin Stark. “By the numbers: Same-sex marriage.” CNN
Library.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/11/politics/btn-same-sex-marriage/
: 2 Jul 2012.
 Toby Sterling .”The Global View Of Gay Marriage.” CBS
News World.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-202_162-604084.html. 2 Jul
2012