Week 13: Cultural Blog: 10.05.13 - 17.05.13

This week, I was researching something which became a little ‘too close to home’ for me. The research paper, for my ‘Equity and Social Justice in Education’ class is surrounding the topic of Heterosexism and education. For those who may not know, Heterosexism is “an ideological system that denies, denigrates, and stigmatizes any non-heterosexual form of

Belfast Gay Pride Support

behaviour, identity, relationship, or community” Herek (1990). It usually refers to discrimination against the LGBT community (Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender community). As I have a close family member who is homosexual, as well as many friends, I am very passionate about this topic.

 This research paper should discuss whether this type of discrimination exists in your country and your personal opinion on the issue. It also should cover the more controversial topic, of whether we should teach it in schools.

One of my friends
celebrating at Gay Pride

Whilst writing this paper, I discovered a lot. Firstly, of course Heterosexism exists in Northern Ireland. It exists in an institutional, unintentional way, such as filling out a membership form for a gym and also in an individual way, unintentional sometimes and unfortunately sometimes intentional.

However, through doing my research, I was reminded that in Belfast we have a very strong ‘Gay community’. There is also a lot of support for this community, especially among the younger generation. In 2012, almost 35,000 people joined the Belfast Pride march to show their support (12% of Belfast’s population), making it one of the top ten Gay Pride festivals in the U.K. (Gay Pride, 2013). Not to mention the bar and nightclub area known as the ‘Gay Quarter’ which has a calendar full of events catered especially for the LGBT community, although everyone is welcome.

I had thought this was fairly normal, until I attended my ‘Poland for Beginners’ class in Ogrody, Poznan. This class is very mixed, with students from U.S.A., Canada, South Korea, France, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Spain and Latvia. The mixture of different cultures and opinions always creates a very interesting discussion. We were discussing the use of religious symbols in Schools. In the midst of the discussion, someone asked suddenly, ‘Why do gay people want to get married in churches?’ Margo, from France began to talk about how they should have equal rights, they want to feel they have a choice and they may be religious themselves. The class erupted into debate about whether this was true and the lecturer tried to get control of the class again. She asked the two students from Uzbekistan about their views.

My Poland for Beginners Class

They told us that several years ago there were three people who were found to be homosexual in their country. They were arrested. We asked how the public felt about the government’s actions. They replied that this was applauded by the public. I then asked them what their own feelings were about this. They replied that this was the correct thing to do, that homosexuality is wrong. Furthermore, they said that now there are no homosexuals in their country and that homosexuality is a ‘Western Idea’. This caused a huge uproar in the class. People began arguing that there are homosexuals in their country, but they are hiding and that it isn't a ‘Western Idea’. I asked them that if one of their close friends came out as gay, what they would do.  One of them said that they would take their gun and shoot them.

Generally, I think that I am open minded enough to accept other’s views, even if I don’t agree with them. However, I found this opinion very hard to swallow.  It showed me that there are still people who have this opinion, in fact, entire countries. I understand that the strict Muslim values that Uzbekistan holds, shapes public opinion, values and law. However, I was still surprised that students that were on Erasmus in Poland would have these views! 

I was interested in why they had such opinions, however I decided to let sleeping dogs lie, and not push the topic any further.

References:

Gay Pride. (2013) available at: http://www.belfastpride.com/ accessed on 15/5/13

Herek, G. M. (1990). The context of anti-gay violence: Notes on cultural and psychological heterosexism. Journal of Interpersonal Violence,