how liberal are you?


i know a wonderfully talented, extremely intelligent, beautiful and friendly young girl who has been bullied out of her flat by her three flatmates. her landlady sent her a letter asking her what was her 'problem'. her 'problem' is that she is in love with another beautiful and talented young lady. the two of them were in a car, at a crossing, and embraced each other. a woman driver stopped, rolled down her window and shouted across to them that it was wrong for two girls to be together like that. can someone explain to me why it is wrong that two adult people have managed to develop an intimate caring relationship with each other? and if that is the case (i.e. they have a caring relationship), what business is it of others outside of the relationship? surely the aim of a relationship is not just to express your sexuality. i suspect that if such people as that woman had the chance to get to know the ugly side of heterosexual domestic violence cases, they wouldn't dare to be so homophobic.


sexuality is not really a completely individual issue, though, if you believe foucault's (incredibly difficult and complex - i'm sure someone else can read it whole!!!) account of it. what your reaction is to this issue is going to depend a lot on how your beliefs are moulded in the context of the society you are in - hence the political compass test i introduced above.


so what, you may say. well, so plenty. this is an issue that affects all of us - i want the society i am living in to be respectful of the individual. institutional homophobia, for example, implies to me a level of societal control that i do not desire at all. but don't be too defensive if you don't agree with me, and likewise for those of you who do, let's not be too smug in our liberalism. afterall, we have to find a solution to co-exist.