Or maybe the more rabid the anti-Bush zealot, the clearer we know the size of the W they have tatooed on their posterior. The greater their pathological denial about their tatoo, the bigger their placard.

Now, the Judy Garland is a little more difficult to explain….

What’s your take on all this, Kaimi?

Aaron – a question for you: how can mormons approach the idea of homosexuality as sinful behavior without being homophobic?

But I would like to ask Sheri Dew what she thinks about it: http://www.affirmation.org/media/2004_03.asp

1. Reporting no homosexual experiences or feelings.

2. Being negative about types of sexual behaviour and relationships which are neither procreative nor take place within marriage.

3. Having a lower educational and social status, for example the lower a person’s level of educational attainment and social class the more negative their attitudes are towards homosexuality.

4. Having and adhering to strong religious beliefs which disapprove of sex and/or homosexuality.

5. Having little/no social contact with lesbian and gay people.

I like it for two reasons: first, it’s more like the risk factors of homophobia — you may be at risk for homophobia if…

Second, I like it because it describes pretty much every mormon out there.

I don’t think that it’s all bunk, but it seems to me that modern psychologists have yet to isolate real causes of homophobia. Matt’s political analogy is interesting but ultimately unsatisfying, because once you enter a sexual context, you’re dealing with emotions and deep-rooted psychoses that politics can’t match (well, with some exceptions *cough*lyle*cough*).

But I’m arguing of a general theory of sexuality as a root of homophobia, not specifically repressed homosexual urges. In the world of your analogy, I would say that racists have ill-formed personal ideas about race in general, that get mixed with hatred and fear. Is that more palatable a theory, in your view?

yes, I’ve woken up from dreams after realizing there were some gay elements in them. Perhaps they’re repressed anxieties? Perhaps they’re evil inspirations? perhaps it’s God’s way of testing my sexual orientation? I dunno. I do know that I seriously disdain the thought of indulging those homosexual thoughts.

I would submit, on your topic of where homophobia comes from, that I’ve sensed the shaking cringes of disgust after having experienced one of those far and few moments of temptation. It’s not hard to imagine someone who is vigorously trying to display his machoism to get outright pissed at such dreams. And then, it’s not hard to imagine that same macho-man getting pretty angry, if not violent in his homophobia.

It starts when that macho man starts saying really rude things, speaking out against all faggots and queers and dykes, etc..then it turns to violence and brainwashing those around you.

So I think that while some homophobes derive their angst from concealing their own homosexual tendancies, I think most follow my example above that they just are disgusted at the proposition that they could have those tendancies..and then overplaying their macho-man image to really distance themselves.

But give one of those guys a gay friend, and suddenly that distance is diminshed and then true representation of how to act is manifest.

I work with, and have gay friends. They are god’s children, they are my brothers, they suck in their decision making and will have a longer trial in their lives if they want to have salvation. But they certainly are not to be hated or derided. I have no doubt that ANY mormon who has a testimony would be in danger of condemnation for thinking otherwise. If God love’s all of his children, especially his sinning ones, and His goal is to bring to pass their immortality and eternal life…then we better be helping that homosexual do it to. It’s that simple.

I deliberately chose an outlandish analogy. A much closer analogy are the ways racists view particular races. I’ve heard some otherwise normal people say some shocking things about different races, and I don’t believe it had anything to do with the person fearing that they were actually part of the despised race. I’ve heard equally mean spirited things against pedophiles, but I’m not persuaded that pedophiliophobes are reacting to a suppressed sexual desire for prepubescents.

But as every homosexual activist knows, the harder the prosecutor pounds on the lectern to send the pedophile to the slammer, the more he displays his desire to sleep with boys.