Something I Will Never Fully Understand

I for the life of me can't wrap my head around the homophobic thought process. It's such a bizarre thing to me for anyone to be so preoccupied with the sexcapades of others when the behavior is consensual and doesn't affect you in any tangible way whatsoever. Obviously, religion plays a large part in the foundational spread of homophobic attitudes and systemic institutions of repression, the Abrahamic ones specifically. I've never been much of a pious believer myself so maybe these dogmatic beliefs are so incomprehensible to me precisely because I've never been in the thick of it, but it really doesn't make any sense in my mind for a righteous, omnipotent God to be so contemptible in his hatred of his children that he would command his followers to persecute each other for the crime of sleeping with the same sex. With racism, I can at least understand (not empathize or condone, obviously) that there are visible and more tangible differences there with which to seep your prejudices in, not to mention the existence of hundred of years of enslaved Africans in the South, pogroms against Jews, discrimination directed at Latinos and Asians, southern Europeans, and all other kinds of immigrants. Homophobia, however, is just such a ludicrous disease of the mind that it's too hard for me to take seriously with anything even remotely resembling intellectual scrutiny. Maybe I'm just saying that because of my queer disposition. One of these days I'm sure I'll have a sit down face-to-face with a raging homophobe and we'll see if we can't have a civilized debate before they drop the F-bomb. That might be mildly entertaining if nothing else.

The meat and potatoes of today's lesson was about German-Indian writer Anita Desai's short story A Devoted Son. This Indian culture unit has been really insightful and I'd be lying if I said I haven't learned a lot so far, but my God, this is easily one of the most long-winded and boring works of short-form content I have ever read. The climax and themes are definitely its most redeeming aspects but this still isn't something I'd ever really go out of my way to read. Hopefully this project flies by with a quickness. Miss Desai's work just might not be for me. She's a competent writer though, just a little self-indulgent for my liking