LGBTQ rights opposition
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "natural law theory offers the most common intellectual defense for differential treatment of gays and lesbians".
The treatment was a program of eugenics, starting with sterilisation, then a system of working people to death in forced labour camps, and eventually refined by medical scientists to include euthanasia.
Lifton wrote about this in his book The Nazi Doctors:[17] [...] sexology and defense of homosexuality [...] were aspects of "sexual degeneration, a breakdown of the family and loss of all that is decent," and ultimately the destruction of the German Folk.
[...] Sterilization policies were always associated with the therapeutic and regenerative principles of the biomedical vision: with the "purification of the national body" and the "eradication of morbid hereditary dispositions."
[23] Towards the end of the 1960s homosexuality began to be decriminalised and de-medicalised in areas such as the UK, New Zealand, Australia, North America and Europe, in the context of the sexual revolution and anti-psychiatry movements.
However, the United States, Japan, South Korea, and Israel stand apart from other wealthy nations on this issue; in each of these countries, fewer than half of those surveyed say homosexuality should be accepted by society.
Evangelical Christianity,[29] Catholicism,[30] Mormonism,[31] Orthodox Judaism,[32] and Islam[33] view homosexual sex as a sin and hold that its practice and acceptance in society weakens moral standards.
Passages in the Old Testament that prohibit man to "lie with mankind as with womankind"[note 2] and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah have historically been interpreted as condemning sodomy.
[39] Sodomy is regarded as criminal and forbidden in most Islamic countries, according to Sharia law, and officially carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Brunei, Mauritania, Nigeria, and Yemen.
[47] Among the religions that originated in India, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism, teachings regarding homosexuality are less clear than among the Abrahamic traditions.
[53][54][55] Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard classified homosexuality as a mental illness and paraphilia (then known as "sexual perversion"), citing contemporary psychiatric and psychological textbooks to support his view.
Gay Pride week in Minsk was disrupted by the authorities who forced owners of venues, where events were due to be held, to withdraw at the last minute.
A wave of anti-LGBT rhetoric began in January 2016 when Higher Education Minister Mohamad Nasir said LGBT people should be barred from university campuses.
[68] Amid the heat of the issue, the University of Indonesia refused to be held responsible for SGRC's actions and announced the group was not an officially registered student organisation.
Indonesian Catholic authorities have reiterated that Catholicism does not recognise same-sex marriage but assured that, despite their perceived transgressions, LGBT people should be protected and not harmed.
[74][75] On the other hand, amid fierce hostilities, some officials – including former Governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama and former Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Binsar Panjaitan — have defended the LGBT community.
[84] In 1987, Thatcher also declared that "hard left education authorities and extremist teachers" were indoctrinating the nation by teaching the younger generation "political slogans", "anti-racist mathematics" and telling their pupils that they have an "inalienable right to be gay", rather than "taught to respect traditional moral values".
"[85] In 2003, despite opposition from socially liberal Conservatives such as later prime minister David Cameron,[86] Section 28 was repealed by the Labour government under Tony Blair.
[87] In June 2009, Cameron, whilst campaigning for the 2010 general election, formally apologised for his party introducing the law, stating that it was a mistake and had been offensive to gay people.
Labour passed into law in 2005 the ability for same-sex couples to enter civil partnerships, but they could not take place in a church or be called a "marriage".
"[92] The British National Party has shifted its platform from recriminalisation to an extension of section 28-style legislation, i.e. making it illegal to portray homosexuality positively in the media.
Along with that security-based concern, the report found homosexuals unsuitable for government employment because "those who engage in overt acts of perversion lack the emotional stability of normal persons.
In addition, there is an abundance of evidence to sustain the conclusion that indulgence in acts of sex perversion weakens the moral fiber of an individual to a degree that he is not suitable for a position of responsibility.
[99]: 28 Anita Bryant organized Save Our Children, a widespread campaign to oppose legislation prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
"[100] The Bryant campaign achieved success in repealing some city anti-discrimination laws, and proposed other citizen initiatives such as a failed California ballot question designed to ban gay people or those who supported LGBT rights from holding public teaching jobs.
[106][99]: 15–16 An important stratagem in Christian right anti-gay politics is in its rejection of "the edicts of a Big Brother" state, allowing it to profit from "a general feeling of discontent and demoralization with government".
A number of organizations, including the New Christian Right, "have in various ways rejected liberal America in favor of the regulation of pornography, anti-abortion legislation, the criminalization of homosexuality, and the virtues of faithfulness and loyalty in sexual partnerships", according to sociologist Bryan Turner.
[113] Numerous studies have investigated the prevalence of acceptance and disapproval of homosexuality and have consistently found correlations with various demographic, psychological, and social variables.
For example, studies (mainly conducted in the United States) have found that heterosexuals with positive attitudes towards homosexuality are more likely to be non-religious, politically liberal or moderate, young, female and have close personal contact with openly gay men and lesbians.
[123] In 2005, the U.S. Congress passed the Support Our Scouts Act of 2005 to exempt the BSA from anti-discrimination laws, to require the Department of Defense to support scouting Jamborees (thus rendering ineffective a Federal Court injunction prohibiting this as an unconstitutional establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment) and to require state or local governments that receive Community Development Block Grant money from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to allow BSA to have meetings in their facilities or on their property.
