Meaning and Connotation
"Homosexual recruitment" and similar terms refer to the allegation that LGBTQ people engage in a concerted effort to indoctrinate children into being LGBTQ as well, and becoming, according to social conservatives and Christian right groups, part of a "lifestyle that can kill them." Supporters of recruitment allegations point at "deviant" and "prurient" sex education as evidence. They express concern that anti-bullying efforts teach that "homosexuality is normal, and that students shouldn't harass their classmates because they're gay", suggesting recruitment as the primary motivation.
Supporters of this theory cite the inability for same-sex couples to reproduce offspring as a motivation for recruitment.
Critics of the term describe it as an anti-gay myth, and a fear-inducing bogeyman. Many critics believes the term promotes the myth of homosexuals as pedophiles.
In a 1990 New York Times piece, David Leavitt criticized the term stating, "Of course, to any gay person who, as a frightened and confused teenager, searched desperately for books or films or television shows that offered even a mention of homosexual experience to latch on to, the idea of gay "recruitment" is laughable. It is also profoundly insulting."
Read more about this topic: Homosexual Recruitment
Famous quotes containing the words meaning and, meaning and/or connotation:
“Every time a child organizes and completes a chore, spends some time alone without feeling lonely, loses herself in play for an hour, or refuses to go along with her peers in some activity she feels is wrong, she will be building meaning and a sense of worth for herself and harmony in her family.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)
“It’s given new meaning to me of the scientific term black hole.”
—Don Logan, U.S. businessman, president and chief executive of Time Inc. His response when asked how much his company had spent in the last year to develop Pathfinder, Time Inc.’S site on the World Wide Web. Quoted in New York Times, p. D7 (November 13, 1995)
“When “reality” is sought for at large, it is without intellectual import; at most the term carries the connotation of an agreeable emotional state.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)