What’s in a Name? :: Research Papers

Whats in a Name?Throughout his book Virtually Normal, Andrew Sullivan explains how great deal of all different kinds of beliefs think nearly and treat gays and homosexual air in society. He labels the four most commonly held notionpoints on braveness (liberationist, conservative, liberal, and prohibitionist) and poses his own politics of queerness. According to Sullivans labels, gay and lesbian activist Urvashi Vaid would be considered a liberal. Vaid is a liberal because even though she may oblige some aspects of the some other four viewpoints, the main points that the other four involve clash considerably with her own beliefs. Vaid is not a prohibitionist, a conservative, a liberationist, or a believer in Sullivans own politics she is a liberal under Sullivans classification.Prohibitionists, according to Sullivan, atomic number 18 those who wish to cure or punish pack who practice homosexual acts, and to deter all the others who might be tempted to stray into the homose xual milieu (Sullivan 22). These people believe that homosexuality is a choice, and that homosexuality violates a natural law. This natural law is the prohibitionist view that heterosexuality is the normal, natural form of human sexuality and that all other deviance, inducing homosexuality, is not normal and not natural. Scripture, and this natural law philosophy, are some of the intellectual ammunition prohibitionists use. They want to stop tolerance of homosexuality at all costs. Urvashi Vaid, on the other hand, wants complete tolerance for homosexuals. She argues against these evils for able rights for gays. She desires liberation of gay people, so they do not have to brisk in closets or in gay ghettos, and she wants the end of discrimination against gay and lesbian people. She exit not settle for virtual equality, and her finis of complete equality is against all a prohibitionist stands for.Andrew Sullivan describes his conservatives as people who are inconsistent, people wh o have a hypocritical stance on the issue of homosexuality. These people combine a private tolerance of homosexuals with a public disapproval of homosexuality. While they do not want to overtake legal persecution of homosexuals, they see no problem with the discouragement and disparagement of homosexual sexual behavior (Sullivan 97). They believe that peoples private lives are their own, but in public the heterosexual form is the right form, and anything publicly against that norm go away hurt society. So if homosexual people keep quiet about their homosexuality and let heterosexual dominance continue, then all will be well.