Many Are Chilled But Few Are Frozen: How Transformative Learning in Popular Culture, Christianity, and Science Will Lead To the Eventual Demise of Legally Sanctioned Discrimination Against Sexual Minorities in the United States

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2006

Publication Title

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Keywords

sex discrimination, gay rights, sexual minorities

Abstract

While this country's historically chilly reception to lesbian, gay and bisexual people cannot be denied, evidence of warming trends abound. Developments in law, science, popular culture, and even Christianity indicate that the ongoing crusade against sexual minorities is not, as news and political pundits would have us believe, at its zenith. Rather, evidence strongly suggests that despite conservative crusaders' zealous efforts to maintain the status quo, discrimination against sexual minorities is on its deathbed. I support a prediction of discrimination's demise by first explaining my conceptualization of behavior-identity compression, a multi-step, synergistic assembly of false assumptions about sexual minorities that fuels myths and stereotypes. Next, I introduce readers to transformative learning, an andragogical theory that explains how humans process information in a way that inspires revisions and reversals of long-held beliefs, perspectives, and even prejudices. Finally, I turn the transformative learning lens on recent developments and events, with resulting analyses pointing inescapably to the conclusion that discrimination against sexual minorities will one day be an historic relic rather than ongoing reality in this country.

Comments

Link to a copy on HeinOnline - Available at your institution or remotely via their proxy server or via password. Prepublication version available at SSRN.

Volume

14

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