Ignored Causes of Anti-Gay Sentiment
It is understandable that we focus on major causes of anti-gay sentiment, but I think it will be interesting to discuss some of the ignored causes, causes we don’t often consider or discuss.
Select the causes of anti-gay sentiment that are ignored the most. If you want to explain or discuss the reasons behind your answers, please post them in the comment section.
You are allowed to select up to three answers. Your options will be randomized to prevent order bias. After you take the poll you can see the results. Please take a moment to comment.
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This should be very interesting. I’m looking forward to the poll results, and to your comments. Remember — the three causes that get the least amount of attention.
Bible-Thumping Liberal 
You left out one very BIG potential… that they simply cannot imagine being attracted sexually to a member of the same sex.
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You’re right, Jay. That is a big one, a very big one.
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This is odd, because I’ve always thought that although there are people on either extreme, most people are probably basically bi-sexual, and could go either way.
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Actually, as a mono-sexual, the fact that I can’t imagine having sex with a woman leads me to understand that my sexuality isn’t a choice, which makes imagining the opposite– someone who can’t imagine having sex with the opposite sex– not that difficult a concept. I can see homosexuality is no more a choice than my heterosexuality. I believe it’s those people who are, at least mildly, bisexual but have chosen to act only on the heterosexual desires they feel who think orientation itself is a choice and, therefore, condemn it as a wrong choice.
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I don’t know if this is a cause…or if it falls under “peer pressure” if it is a cause…but I notice that even well-meaning media/entertainment outlets regard it as sort of a funny/scandalous thing if it turns out that a person (a real life person or a character on a show) is gay or does something or says something that suggests that that might be true. It suggests that the person/character is flawed. And the fact that this message comes from people who are otherwise very careful or outwardly respectful of gay people and may even openly advocate for their legal interests makes it, in my opinion, the worst kind of message.
For example, in a sit-com, two men will hug each other and maybe it lasts a little “too” long and they notice it, become self-conscious of it, and then quickly release and start doing things like punching each other on the arm to emphasize a point or they talk about football, etc. (so, in that example, it might also be the “phobia” cause that’s in play). Put that in another context and it’s done very differently. Take two white guys from the suburbs and they do something that makes them behave in some stereotyped “black” behavior — maybe they start using hip-hop gestures or forcing street slang — and when they do that, there’s no scandalous overreaction. But if the character/celebrity might be gay then it’s a dirty, shameful thing.
I think I see this on The Daily Show and the Colbert Report very often, where a figure in the news is lampooned and portrayed in a way that suggests he’s gay. It’s a joke. It’s laughable. And it’s a stain on that person’s record. Of course these shows would, I think, be out front in terms of disapproving of people in the news who push against gay rights. And here they’re dehumanizing gay people. They might even do it in the same segment: noting how a politician who is sponsoring a law that reduces the rights of gay citizens engages in some stereotyped behavior (the aforementioned lingering hug with another politician, perhaps). Ha ha ha…if the politician is gay himself, then it’s hypocritical and funny. But try pulling off the hypocrisy humor in some other context: the war-monger who avoided the draft, for example. Are we laughing at the schmuck because he’s didn’t fight in the Vietnam War? Not really. Are we laughing at the other schmuck because he’s gay? You betcha.
Jim Hennigan
Clermont-Ferrand, France
[Copied from Facebook]
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In terms of both “willful gullibility” and “peer pressure,” there are many people for whom homosexuality is not an issue at all who simply align themselves with the majority (or the most passionately outspoken advocates) on the issue so as not to have to deal with having to defend the fact that they really don’t give a damn about it to people who seem to think it’s a scourge on society that needs to be eradicated.
And relative to the “unholy alliance between politics and religion,” it’s been clear for decades that when social conservatives are afraid their candidate or issue won’t win at the ballot box, they trot out the whipping boy of homosexuality to ensure that enough who align themselves politically with them will go to the polls, thus doing their best to ensure the “right” outcome for the candidate or issue in which they were really interested in the first place. (They use the issue as a sure-fire fund-raiser, too, even though their interest is more in asserting their power over society in general – like the Taliban in Islam – rather than specifically to oppose the acceptance or normalization of homosexuality.)
[Copied from Facebook]
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God is the ONLY cause, all else are effects… If it seems otherwise your mind is playing tricks. The same goes for “anti” anything. God always says YES, man says no.
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Yup — the philosophers say that God is the ultimate cause, only God is uncaused.
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Wow, that is really profound – may I ‘borrow’ that?
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it irritates me that when you mention gays, the first thing some people think about is “what they do in bed” – it’s not about sex, it’s about love, and you really can’t help who you fall in love with…that, and the idea that its a ‘choice’ – people are born that way and they can’t help it.
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Totally. One mother in the movie, For the Bible tells me so was so adamantly against her daughter being lesbian, until she realized that the only thing she could think of was her daughter in bed with a woman. When the segment was filmed, she still didn’t accept her daughter’s orientation, but communication and love was open again.
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While I felt terrible for the daughter, I was glad they included parents who didn’t fully embrace their child’s homosexuality in the movie. It lent a broader perspective. I only pray that maybe the Poteets will eventually do so.
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The desire of many people to feel superior to someone else is, to my mind, second only to picking and choosing of Biblical passages as a reason for homophobia. Now that open racism is frowned on (though it can still masquerade as being against illegal immigrants or Newt’s”lazy poor,”) who’s left to hate? LGBT people, of course! Or is this the “Poor White Trash Syndrome” choice that I didn’t understand? That hardly makes sense, c.f. Elton John. Ellen Degeneres, etc.
I object strongly even to including sexual molestation as a child. Study after study has shown this has no effect on sexual orientation, though it can certainly mess up the victim’s life in other ways. Including it gives the belief validity to some participants.
Edra Bogle
[Comment copied from Polldaddy]
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Socio-economics contribute to anti-gay sentiment. People near the bottom of the socio-economic heap need someone they can look down on. In the absence of ethnic targets, only LGBT folk are left to look down on, as you’ve observed. It is the “Poor White Trash” status of the hater that is in view here, not the economic status of the targets.
Regarding “Victim of childhood sexual abuse,” this is on the list as a cause of anti-gay sentiment, not as a cause of being gay or lesbian.
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Religion, religion, religion.
Rarely discussed in mass media, only among small groups of the choir.
End the Harm from religion-based bigotry and prejudice now.
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And how do we end that harm?
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Really? I rarely see a story on someone who is anti-gay where their religion is *not* mentioned as a factor.
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I agree with Lynette. Anytime a homophobe earns mention in the mass media, their religion is typically the main contributing factor to their homophobic perspectives/rhetoric… and their religion is always mentioned. We all know about Fred Phelps and his brood, Pat Robertson, Joel Osteen, The Pope, Chief Rabbis, etc. … and they ARE identified by religion.
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Agreed. The poll question was, however, what three contributing factors are ignored the most, not the most important.
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I interpreted the “sexual molestation as a child” as a reason for anti-gay sentiment, not as a reason for being gay, hence I voted for it. I think that survivors of such molestation can (but not always) mistakenly believe that all GLBT persons are pedophiles, and therefore the cause of their anti-gay sentiment.
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Unfortunately people often generalize based on their narrow slice of experience, especially childhood experience. All animals make such generalizations as a matter of survival. I suspect that for most of us, our deepest animosities are rooted in bad experiences. (No great revelation there!)
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