“Why Gay People are so Scary: The Reasoning Behind Homophobia”

I have a question to pose to anyone who cares to answer.  I want to know the logic behind all of this, the real reason, before I go off and make a fool of myself with my own erroneous explanations.  I would appreciate it if the person who answers were homophobic, too, so it’s not just conjecture.

Why is homosexuality such a problem?  Why is it such a pernicious threat to society that we have to resort to constitutional amendments to keep homosexuals from ripping apart male-female marriages?  And what exactly is this insidious “homosexual agenda?”

I actually would like to hear some answers on that, if you care to venture.  The explanations I’ve heard for why homosexuality is such a problem have typically been religious (of the “because God said so” type), or have been the knee-jerk “uh-uh-no-way-eew-gross-disgusting!” type of explanation.

And now you’ll read my explanation of the phenomenon.  I have two, actually.  One is religious, Christian specifically, and the other is secular.  Before you read them, keep in mind that I am coming at this from a very biased viewpoint, being bisexual myself.  I’m just honestly baffled by the urgency with which homosexuality is abhorred by some people. 

Anyway, moving on, we come to my secular reason.

I contend that gay people seem threatening to many, even on the secular level, but not because of out-and-out fear.  It’s because of the subtle uneasiness that the idea of homosexuality engenders in many people.  Homosexuality undoes some of our basic assumptions about gender roles and the rhythm of life.

Human beings are natural scientists.  We like to know what’s happening around us, we like to know why it’s happening, and we like to know it in as precise detail as possible.  This tendency toward curiosity and inquisitiveness has been bred into us over millennia of evolution.  The early primates who investigated their world fully, who knew what was happening around them, who could find their way to a water hole using familiar landmarks or spot the telltale signs of a predator lurking—those were the apes who were most successful.  They were the ones who survived to become the ancestors of humans.  We retain this thirst for knowledge today.  We want to have a handle on what’s happening around us.  We want to understand the world.

Our quest for knowledge led us, when we were still living quite primitively, to the belief in the pagan deities and their myths.  Myths were the early form of science; our ancestors used them to explain the world and its goings-on.  When Zeus was angry, the lightning struck.  When Demeter was pleased, the farming was good. 

It made sense.  It put our minds at ease.  There was a method to the world’s madness: first comes birth, then life, then death.  Spring, summer, fall, winter.  Male and female come together, complement each other. 

Yes, sexual roles have played an unparalleled part in the human psyche for millennia.  They pervade mythology.  Goddesses of fertility are one of the most common themes in the world’s many pantheons.  Voluptuous female figurines carved from stone have been uncovered at the ruins of ancient settlements.  Phallic symbolism, or symbolism based on the male member, is widespread throughout the world.  Sexual roles, male and female, are one of the things we have “figured out” about the world, one of its most basic “givens.” 

Except when they aren’t.

Except when male compliments male, and female female.  When the genders are behaving differently than they are supposed to.  They break the rules.  It’s threatening to the order of things.

Also along these lines, the stereotype of gay men and lesbians is that they behave like the opposite sex.  The stereotypical gay man is effeminate.  The stereotypical lesbian is “butch”: short hair, masculine clothing, typical “male” interests.  This lends further weight to the unconscious idea of gay people upsetting the order of the world, of gays being “unnatural” and threatening. 

I mean, hey: if gender roles aren’t secure, what about the other things we take for granted?  The world, my friends, is a scary place when there are, at the least, fewer absolutes than we thought.

So here’s my secular reasoning in a nutshell: gay people, by their very existence, upset the universal order we perceive subconsciously.  They are therefore very disconcerting and unnerving.

And now, we get to the fun part that I’m going to get flamed for.  The religious explanation.  Fasten your seatbelts, unless you’re like me and don’t have a seatbelt on your desk chair.  I’ve never understood why not.  Anyway.

Think back to the fall of 2001.  Two days after 9/11, the Reverend Jerry Falwell appeared on Pat Robertson’s television program, The 700 Club.  On the program that day, Falwell stated that the terrorist attacks the previous Tuesday were the fault of…Islamic extremists.

Just kidding.  Here’s an actual quote:

“I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way--all of them who have tried to secularize America--I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”  Falwell stated that all of the people he mentioned above were responsible for causing God to “lift the curtain and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve” ( ).

I hardly believe that the good Reverend speaks for all Christians.  His brand of extremist, political religion is unpopular.  This particular quote of his has been widely disseminated on the airwaves, and he’s received many a condemnation for it.  But, unfortunately, followers of his beliefs seem to be growing in political and numerical strength.  And though most people find the above quote ridiculous, many others may not.

In any event, Falwell’s mindset here is intriguing.  That God has protected America in the past, when we were a “Christian nation.”  And that God will forego that protection in the future if we secularize. 

One hardly needs to ponder for very long on how this idea came to Falwell.  The story is a frequent one in the Bible: a nation falls into sin, and God destroys it (or allows it to be destroyed).  Israel, God’s chosen people, fall into idol worship and other sins many times during the Old Testament days.  Sure enough, God always sends armies from surrounding nations to defeat and subjugate the Israelites as punishment.  In addition, God tells Moses that the Canaanites—the people the Israelites must destroy in order to retake the Promised Land—are a thoroughly wicked people, and that He will execute His wrath upon them using the Israelite army.  The Biblical penalty for a nation falling into sin usually involved lots of pillaging, a few thousand murders, and desert animals inhabiting the charred ruins.

And what sins did these wicked peoples fall into?  Let’s take a look at some verses from the book of Leviticus:

“I am Jehovah your God, so don’t act like heathen—like…the people of Canaan where I am going to take you…(here is a long list of sexual sins, most dealing with incest)…Homosexuality is absolutely forbidden, for it is an enormous sin…do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, for these are the things the heathen do; and because they do them I am going to cast them out from the land into which you are going.” Leviticus 18:1-24, The Living Bible Edition.

And there we have it from the Bible: a nation where homosexuality is accepted is a nation that will be destroyed by the Lord.  Our culture’s growing acceptance of homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle makes many people nervous, when they look back at Biblical stories of punishment and destruction—can we be next? 

Add to this the fact that our culture has undergone so many changes in the roles of men and women in the past century that the very fabric of our society is evolving.  The liberation of women has upset our family structure so that the man is no longer in charge.  The situation between men and women is more equal and democratic now, and democracy is always more volatile than a superior-subordinate relationship.  This change, among other factors, surely underlies the fact that divorce will end one out of every two marriages nowadays.  The nuclear family of a homemaker mother and a breadwinner father, which used to be the typical family model in America, is no longer the norm.  Single parents are in charge of raising many children.  In addition, homosexuals are outing themselves in increasing number, adding to the complexity of modern-day family models.  In all, it is a very confusing time. 

Our old norms are going out the window.  Our family structure is being butchered.  Things didn’t used to be this way.  What went wrong?

Unfortunately, Falwell seems to provide an answer to those questions.  And in confusing times, it is easier to listen to hardliners like Falwell rant about how evil our society has become, and how, if we can only follow a few simple rules, we can regain the security of the “good old days.”  It’s easier to blame social problems and family dilemmas on the downward turn of society than to search for real, reasonable solutions.  And, unfortunately, gays, lesbians, and their supporters make an easy target, because they represent an unknown, because their desires and their sexual reality are alien to many heterosexuals.  Like I said above in my secular reasoning, homosexuality challenges one of our most deeply held beliefs about the universe.

Modern-day society is certainly confusing, and especially so in the home, which is our traditional refuge from the pressures of the outside world.  This confusion is interpreted by many people, mostly conservatives, as being “bad.”  It is seen as evidence of society’s backsliding into immorality.  And when a large number of people believe that their society as a whole is becoming “evil,” and when those people are also very religious, they tend to get the idea that God will severely punish their society for that evil.

Gays and lesbians are being targeted because they represent the most radical departure from the traditional family: not just from superior-subordinate to equal-equal, but from man-woman to man-man (or woman-woman).  They also represent a departure from tradition that is considered, not only unusual, but sinful, by the Bible.  Thus any acceptance of homosexuality by society is threatening to these reactionaries. 

These, I believe, are the main reasons why homophobia is so rampant in many quarters.  They also explain the increasing pressure for a Constitutional amendment to ensure marriage stays defined as “one man and one woman.”  Aside from barring homosexuals from marrying, this amendment is also comforting—it establishes a simple, absolute rule.  It establishes our traditional norm as the rule of law.  This is what homophobia really boils down to: fear of the unknown.  When we start trekking into territories where our beliefs and perceptions are turned upside down, fear is almost always the result.  So we fear, and we react, and we erect barriers, and we legislate. 

And gays and lesbians suffer for it.

A/N: In case you’re wondering, I am female, I am a feminist, and I am in support of women’s liberation.  I think an equal, democratic relationship between men and women is the only acceptable model for a heterosexual relationship.  However, a democratic relationship is more tempestuous than one in which the man is in charge, period.  Just to clear things up…