In reading the survey arguments, I wondered if people are aware of the history of the term homosexual lifestyle, so I thought I'd offer some background about the evolution in meaning over several decades from neutral to pejorative.
The term homosexual lifestyle started out as a neutral term used in dozens or hundreds of books, magazines, and academic publications, and remained that way for two decades after Stonewall. In response to activism in support of gay rights, the Christian right launched counter-campaigns starting in 1992, the first of which was called The Gay Agenda. The latter term soon shifted to become "Homosexual agenda". By 2003, the Supreme Court had used homosexual agenda in a decision, and by 2004, a U.S. Senator rated the "homosexual agenda" as more dangerous to Americans than terrorist activity. Meanwhile, the meaning of the term Homosexual lifestyle was undergoing a semantic shift to a pejorative sense.[A semantic shift likely to due to its similarity to Homosexual agenda; but the actual reason for the shift doesn't matter. What matters is that it happened, for whatever reason.]
Usage of the term Homosexual lifestyle began to change until it became used mostly as as a derogatory term, or as a dog-whistle term for LGBT anti-discrimination activism, or for the homosexual recruitment conspiracy theory.
;Evolution over time
:The rough time periods corresponding to usage of Homosexual lifestyle are (dates are approximate):
:* 1960–1980: a neutral term; very little academic usage
:* 1980–1990s: discovery of AIDS; still neutral; lots of academic usage especially in biology, virology, etc.
:* 1992–2000s: transitional period – mixed use
:** academics continue to use Homosexual lifestyle neutrally, but less and less frequently, due to increasing recognition of:
:** the Christian right starts using the terms Gay agenda and Homosexual agenda in a derogatory fashion
:** the term Homosexual lifestyle, previously used only neutrally, undergoes pejoration as Homosexual agenda gains in frequency
:* mid-2000s–present: the meaning of Homosexual lifestyle is mostly pejorative
:** Christian right and allies uses the terms Homosexual agenda and Homosexual lifestyle pejoratively
:** term Homosexual lifestyle no longer used by LGBT individuals; among the public, it takes on aspects of the culture wars and is used by those opposed to LGBT rights; among academics, neutral usage has dwindled but still exists, largely by those whose native language is not English.
;Supporting data
:The term homosexual lifestyle first appeared in print right around the time of Stonewall and increased in frequency thereafter (see [https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=homosexual+lifestyle&year_start=1960&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Chomosexual%20lifestyle%3B%2Cc0#t1%3B%2Chomosexual%20lifestyle%3B%2Cc0 ngrams chart]).[The ngrams chart shows total usage of the term over time, and does not identify whether it is neutral or pejorative use.] Early usage, from Stonewall (1969), to roughly the appearance of the AIDS crisis (early 1980s) was entirely neutral and non-pejorative.[Early usage was neutral: [https://books.google.com/books?id=apLzAAAAMAAJ Creative Marriage] (1976, p. 334): "If a person is committed to an exclusively homosexual lifestyle, then s/he will probably not even consider heterosexual living together or marriage.", or [https://books.google.com/books?id=RUIDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA32 Jet magazine (1979)]: "James Baldwin, award-winning author, who recently released his 19th published work, Just Above My Head, discussing his homosexual lifestyle." See also [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22homosexual%20lifestyle%22&tbm=bks&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:1960,cd_max:1983&lr=lang_en All books 1960–1983].]
:In scientific journals, papers using the term appeared suddenly in the wake of the AIDS crisis, starting around 1981.[The term appeared suddenly: [https://www.popline.org/node/421156 MMWR (1981)]: "The occurrence of pneumocystosis in these 5 previously healthy men without a clinically apparent underlying immunodeficiency is unusual, but seems to reflect some association with a homosexual lifestyle or disease acquired through sexual contact." , or: [https://annals.org/aim/article-abstract/696765/national-case-control-study-kaposi-s-sarcoma-pneumocystis-carinii-pneumonia Ann Intern Med (1983)] "Discussion In this exploratory case-control study, the element of homosexual lifestylemost strongly associated with the occurrence of Kaposi's sarcoma and Pneumocystis pneumonia was a history of sexual contact with large numbers of male partners."] but on rare occasions articles using the term appeared on non HIV-related topics before that.[Rarely appeared before that E.g.: [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00987134 Qualitative Sociology (1980)]: "Although the bar's patrons may perceive all homosexuals as equally deserving of violent treatment, victims of such abuse are more apt to be people with a particular kind of homosexual lifestyle."]
:In the last ten years, scholarly articles still use the term homosexual lifestyle. But it's not clear how often. Google Scholar won't show more than 1000 results, but if you pick the last five years, it gives 947 results; however, because of how PageRank works, not all of those actually contain the term in question. (For example, [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=935&q=%22homosexual+lifestyleT22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2015&as_yhi=2019 page 94] of results shows no results that contain the term; [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=830&q=%22homosexual+lifestyle%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2015&as_yhi=2019 page 84] has one; [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=490&q=%22homosexual+lifestyle%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2015&as_yhi=2019 page 49] none; [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=290&q=%22homosexual+lifestyle%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&as_ylo=2015&as_yhi=2019 page 37] has seven, which all appear to be non-native speakers. Results 1-10 on the [https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_ylo=2015&as_yhi=2019&as_vis=1&q=%22homosexual+lifestyle%22&btnG= first page] contain six uses of the term, one is in scare quotes, one is a church organization, and two others appear to be non-native speakers. For the [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22homosexual+lifestyle%22&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A2015%2Ccd_max%3A2019&tbm=bks last five years in books], all of the top five are religious sources with negative views, none are academic.
:In books, checking 2000-2019, there are [https://www.google.com/search?q=%22homosexual+lifestyle%22&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:2000,cd_max:12/31/2019&tbm=bks 21 book results], all of which contain the term. Of the top ten results most are polemics related to the culture wars. Looking at those top ten, we have:
{{cot |bg=cornsilk |width=97% |title=excerpts from top ten books for "homosexual lifestyle"}}
- 2005 What is involved in the homosexual lifestyle that we are increasingly being asked to accept and see as normal? Here the gay propagandists are walking a very fine line.
- 2011: Is the Christian church increasingly accepting the homosexual lifestyle?
- 2007: Question of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse Would you please do me a favor and "Google" the phrase "homosexual lifestyle". [context:] For those engaged in political debate, my experience is that that particular phrase—it's not exactly at the level of fighting words, but it's a defining term in the political combat of the debate over the rights of gay people in America .
- 2007 Increasing the numbers of individuals who adopt a homosexual lifestyle would also likely be bad for society.
- 2004 Prager considers the stereotypical phenomenon of a 'homosexual lifestyle'. He writes: While it is possible for male homosexuals to live lives of fidelity comparable to those of heterosexual males, it is usually not the case.
- 2003 This major premise may be reconstructed to state: All adults may legally engage in private consensual sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle. Reference is made to all adults in the above proposition; children are excluded from the...
- 2010 Although the underpinnings of conservative fears are founded on bad history, the prediction that more people will adopt a homosexual lifestyle when society accepts this lifestyle, at first glance, appear to be true. Indeed more men and women ..
- 2006 When the homosexual lifestyle is examined, that downward movement becomes apparent in several ways. First, the homosexual lifestyle is dangerous to children. It's a fact that homosexuals put our children at greater risk of being sexually ...
- 2005 Harmful aspects of the homosexual lifestyle The evidence demonstrates incontrovertibly that the homosexual lifestyle is inconsistent with the proper raising of children. Homosexual relationships are characteristically unstable and are ...
- 2005 She said in the article that I changed, that I left my homosexual lifestyle and went from gay to straight, and I'm married with children now. She didn't question my sincerity or put it into a negative light.
{{cob}}
:Pages 2 and 3 of results are similar to the above. In this Rfd discussion, we are not looking at notability, rather, we are trying to determine if the existing redirect to LGBT culture is correct. Since the term homosexual lifestyle is now largely pejorative and LGBT culture is neutral, it should not redirect to it. Rather, if kept as a redirect, the term should redirect to an article with a title that also has a pejorative meaning, like Homosexual agenda. If expanded into an article, the term should contain a section which explains how the meaning changed over time from a neutral to a pejorative sense.
{{Reflist-talk|group=n}}
Mathglot (talk) 08:31, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
::{{tq|...if kept as a redirect, the term should redirect to an article with a title that also has a pejorative meaning...}} WP:RNEUTRAL is clear that we can and often should redirect from non-neutral titles to neutral ones. The goal is to help readers get where they want to go, not to punish them for using the wrong language. The meaning of homosexual lifestyle in the above excerpts is much closer to "what gay people do in their personal lives" than to "the political agendas of gay people". If someone reading one of the above books wanted to learn more about the "homosexual lifestyle" (possibly deliberately seeking out a more neutral source), I don't see how the homosexual agenda article in any way meets that information need.--Trystan (talk) 14:00, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
::: Trystan, thanks; yes, that's a good point. But one has to consider what has happened with the title of Homosexual agenda as well: either it's inappropriate under its current name (for the same reason you cited) and should rather be a redirect to, perhaps, Homophobic conspiracy theories#Homosexual agenda (which isn't a bad idea at first blush, but a separate issue for a RM perhaps), or else it's at the proper title even though pejorative per WP:POVNAME. If the latter is the case, then there seems to be an inconsistency, or lack of balance, in keeping a pejorative article name supporting a POV view, while redirecting a POV title to a neutral article title. I'm not sure I can cite what policy would refute this, but there's a kind of POVvy unfairness there that bothers me. Put another way, if I were a homophobic activist editor, this is exactly the state of affairs I would want to see with these two article titles. Perhaps the solution is to move Homosexual agenda, I'm not sure. Do you see my point? I think you're probably more familiar with redirect and POV titles than I am; maybe you can suggest something? Mathglot (talk) 18:05, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
::::The general rule is that non-neutral titles should redirect to neutral ones, to get users where they want to go regardless of the language they used. It is quite rare for a non-neutral term to get an article about the term itself. But since there is an article about the term Homosexual agenda, I don't see how it could be moved. Similarly, if someone does go ahead and write an article on homosexual lifestyle as a term, that is where it would have to go. In general, I'm not in favour of such articles, given their risk for becoming POV forks and the barrier they create from connecting users with the substantive, neutral article that best matches their query. (For example, I would support merging Homosexual agenda into LGBT rights in the United States or a similar article.)--Trystan (talk) 20:16, 14 May 2019 (UTC)
{{resize|91%|Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.}}Relisting comment: Discussion is still ongoing and it hasn't been a week since the RfD was "restarted".
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, -- Tavix (talk) 16:17, 15 May 2019 (UTC)
- Weak keep per BDD (and, after reading through the dense history of the term helpfully provided by Mathglot, per Trystan). If there are other pages with potential issues, please nominate them for discussion in the appropriate place(s), but based on the discussion here I agree that both terms currently point to the correct target - LGBT culture. Would it make sense and/or be at all helpful to include a {{tl|redirect}} hatnote there with these terms as well? Another potential option would be to create a disambiguation page pointing to both places, but that could get slippery very quickly. - PaulT[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Psantora&action=edit +]/C 16:52, 16 May 2019 (UTC) Having said that, an article at homosexual lifestyle (with a redirect there from gay lifestyle) based on the above history would be preferable to a disambiguation page. This has the added benefit of removing any (potential) need for a {{tl|redirect}} hatnote at LGBT culture to a non-neutral term and the necessary hatnote could point to the newly created article instead. - PaulT[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Psantora&action=edit +]/C 14:54, 17 May 2019 (UTC)
{{resize|91%|Relisted to generate a more thorough discussion and clearer consensus.}}Relisting comment: Between the "keep/weak keep" and the "create an article" comments, I was half-tempted to close this to "no consensus", but relisting this hopefully could clarify that.
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Steel1943 (talk) 13:31, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
What's really odd, is that I searched Afd to find this Entry, and Wikipedia prefixindex search didn't find it, but turned up reams of other things that mentioned it. Such as:
- Pedophilia and homosexuality: "danger to children' or 'gay people recruit young people into the homosexual lifestyle'{{thin space}}"
- Promotion of homosexuality: "world who seem to share that point of view, that homosexuals are working to promote their wicked lifestyle in the liberal media and in public places where
- Opposition to homosexuality: " It can also mean hatred of and disparagement of homosexual people, their lifestyles, their sexual behaviors"
- Log/2005 May 8: "danger to children' or 'gay people recruit young people into the homosexual lifestyle'."
Thought that was illuminating. The point being, not that WP is a reliable source, but that even Wikipedia can be a battleground for this. Mathglot (talk) 09:14, 28 May 2019 (UTC)
:The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page.
