1. Invoking the “Protection of Children”

In both cases, the debate is reframed as being not about the rights and needs of the adults concerned, but about the claim that their very existence somehow poses a threat to children. As if every gay person were a potential “pedophilic predator” and every cannabis user a potential dealer selling drugs to children. In reality, neither is true.

Children are no more harmed by seeing a same-sex couple holding hands in a park than by seeing a heterosexual couple do the same. Nor are they harmed simply by becoming aware that adults, in their free time, may do things other than drink beer, such as smoking cannabis. The real issue is how these topics are presented. This is precisely why schools need modern sex education and evidence-based drug education, as well as restrictions on marketing that targets young people with unhealthy messages. Otherwise, children end up learning about sex from online pornography and developing unhealthy social norms around substance use.

2. Conflating Visibility with Promotion, Acceptance with Advocacy

A common rhetorical move is to portray the public visibility of a phenomenon, or the defense of the rights of those affected, as advertising or recruitment on behalf of that phenomenon itself.

A Pride parade is dismissed as “showing off” or “promotion.” Talking about harm reduction or cannabis reform becomes “encouraging drug use” or “promoting drugs.” Yet this is no more sensible than accusing organizations that advocate for the rights of people with disabilities or older adults of trying to make everyone disabled or elderly.

Visibility is a crucial step in the empowerment of marginalized groups. As long as the majority remains unaware of their problems, addressing those problems cannot become a priority. Recognizing the rights of a minority does not mean seeking to turn that minority into a new social norm.

3. Moralizing or Pathologizing Identity and Behaviour

Both same-sex relationships and the use of illicit substances are often simultaneously framed as moral sins, forms of deviance, diseases, or aberrations.

Scientific evidence, however, is clear. Sexual orientations and gender identities that differ from the statistical norm are natural variations arising from the interaction of genetic and environmental factors. They are not chosen. Condemning them morally makes no more sense than condemning someone for their hair colour. Scientific consensus long ago ceased to regard them as illnesses.

We also know that young people who experiment with illicit substances generally do not differ greatly from their peers, except perhaps in being more curious and willing to explore. Those who develop substance dependence, by contrast, often differ in many other ways. Addiction is not the result of moral weakness. Unresolved trauma, psychiatric disorders, weak social support networks, and unstable family backgrounds are among the factors that help explain it.

4. Moral Panic and Civilizational Decline

Both non-normative sexual orientations and gender identities, as well as drug use, are frequently portrayed as symptoms of civilizational decay.

Sensationalist and demonizing media representations transform both phenomena into an exotic “Other” that threatens social norms. As a result, same-sex relationships or cannabis use are presented not simply as departures from what is typical, but as dangers capable of unraveling the fabric of society itself. They become harbingers of apocalypse.

History repeatedly shows that such moral panics are unfounded. There were times when people predicted societal collapse if divorce were legalized or women were granted the right to vote. Yet in countries where same-sex marriage or cannabis use has been legalized, the sky did not fall and society did not descend into chaos.

5. The Metaphor of Infection

Another common tactic is to describe views that accept diverse sexual orientations, gender identities, or drug-use preferences as if they were infections attacking an otherwise healthy social body.

Such views are portrayed as foreign ideological contagions. A direct link is assumed between the existence of these phenomena and some alleged process of ideological indoctrination.

“Drug liberalism is spreading.”

“They’ve been infected by LGBTQ/gender ideology.”

But this makes little sense. People do not “catch” being gay like they catch influenza, nor do they smoke their first joint because of ideological brainwashing.

There is no single, unified “gender ideology” or “drug liberalism.” The views lumped together under these labels are in fact highly diverse. What they generally share is a willingness to challenge the demonization of these phenomena. Nor is society a homogeneous biological organism in which every change must be interpreted as a virus attacking from outside.

6. Selective Use of Scientific Evidence

Both homophobic and anti-drug narratives often reveal a pattern in which ideological or moral convictions—for example, that homosexuality is sinful or cannabis use is inherently bad—come first, while evidence comes later.

Evidence is then selectively chosen to support these pre-existing beliefs, often taken out of context or misinterpreted. Studies that appear to support the desired conclusion are highlighted, contradictory evidence is ignored, isolated cases are generalized, and correlation is presented as causation.

This position is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. Scientific evidence makes it harder and harder to argue that children raised by same-sex parents are harmed, that needle exchange programmes encourage drug use, or that harsh punishments effectively deter people from using drugs.

7. Magnifying and Cherry-Picking Extreme Cases

It is no coincidence that from a Pride march involving thousands of participants, hostile media outlets repeatedly focus on the same handful of extravagant costumes or sexual references.

A controversial drag show or the behaviour of a single teacher is used to draw conclusions about the entire LGBTQ community. Likewise, the opinion of a fringe online activist is presented as if it represented all gay, lesbian, or transgender people.

Similarly, the heavily dependent and highly visible user becomes the prototype of “the drug addict,” even though we know that most people who use drugs do so occasionally and differ little from their neighbours. Rare accidents are portrayed as evidence of an omnipresent lethal threat. The behaviour of a small number of extremely irresponsible or antisocial individuals is presented as the inevitable consequence of drug use itself.

The same logic has historically been used to stigmatize many minorities and social groups. It is politically effective because people respond more strongly to stories and images than to statistics. The key question is always the same: how representative is the example being presented?

If we judge an entire social group or phenomenon by its most extreme 1 percent, sooner or later anyone can be turned into a public enemy.

What all of these narratives have in common is that they revolve around abstract symbols rather than real people. Labels such as “the LGBTQ lobby” or “drug liberalization” obscure the flesh-and-blood individuals behind them, with their own stories, joys, struggles, and everyday lives.

It is much easier to fear an abstract threat than it is to fear a neighbour, colleague, friend, or family member whom one actually knows.

For this reason, the most effective antidote to these narratives is usually not a louder ideological debate, but the power of visibility and personal stories. When people meet real LGBTQ individuals, learn about the everyday lives of a same-sex couple, or hear the story of a person in recovery, a casual drug user, or a harm reduction worker, stereotypes gradually lose their power.

The demonized Other is replaced by a human being whose life often resembles their own far more than they had imagined.

Throughout the history of social prejudice, we repeatedly see that visibility alone does not solve everything, but it is an indispensable condition for change. It is difficult to hate or fear someone when we know their face, have heard their story, and recognize in them some part of our own human experience.

That is why the greatest enemy of narratives built on stigma is not a competing propaganda, but reality itself: the visibility of real people, real communities, and real stories.