Seriously, why does the right hate gays?

[Timefortruth]

They hate the poor because they think the poor suck tax dollars and are laggards. They hate the Democrats because they think we want to suck all the tax dollars to help the poor. I could go on but you get the picture.

But what is the deal with homosexuality? Gays don’t cost anything extra so why doesn’t the right leave them alone?

[speckledgator]

1. We are a threat

To marriage and family of course! Like hets have gotten the marriage thing straight...hehehe. There is a funny thread in the lounge about this guy having a gay cat.....check it out!

[eleny]

3. Until the right wing deals with eliminating adultery & divorce...

they need to shut up and stop scapegoating homosexuals. Seems like the right wing knows one heck of a lot about adultery.

[mermaid]

40. No, The Hate Us Because

WE GROSS THEM OUT!!! Simple! but they can't come out and SAY that...so they use code words like "family values" and "Christian morals" to talk about their fear, bigotry, prejudice, and outright disgust.

For them it is a very visceral thing.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. Because...

Their leaders need a bogeyman. Its just that simple.

[Brian Sweat]

5. Ding, Ding, Ding

[eleny]

12. But I think it goes beyond needingt a bogeyman.

I believe it's also their homophobia based on fear and consequently, loathing. And to be able to go after something, it's important to demonize it.

It reminds me of Poppy Bush's presidential campaign against Dukakis. He kept calling Dukakis "scary" until I heard people repeating that as if it were their own assessment. So, turning people into bogeymen becomes a means of rallying others to feel the way the homophobes do, in this instance.

I was listening to the recent Pacifica radio interview with Michael Moore where he asks the question - "Why was the 9/11 tradgedy called an act of terrorism instead of an act of war?" For one thing, it's scarier than war because we have such a strong army. But terrorism is that unknown that lurks and leaps out at you.

Where homosexuals are concerned, there are two myths that come to mind - one, that they prey on children and two, they want to recruit others to choose that lifestyle. Those two alone freeze the blood of the right wingnut homophobes.

[salin]

28. Keep folks focused on a "threat"

and they will look away from what really ails them.

[terrya]

4. The influence of the religious right.

That would be one reason, I think. The right wing has been heavily influenced by the relgious right. So, the right wingers have adopted that hatred. I've never been able to understand homophobia itself.

I'm certain that pure homophobia is driving the attack on gay marriage by the right wing. The wingnuts can't come up with a logical reason for opposing gay marriage...they blather on about "protecting the sanctity of marriage" without offering any reason WHY gay and lesbian couples marrying would destroy the institution itself. Being biased as a gay man myself, I would think that more couples marrying would STRENGTHEN the institution of marriage.

[speckledgator]

6. Amen!

I recently got married in Ontario, and throughout the whole process, my wife and I were treated with the utmost respect. I can imagine the reaction we would have gotten in Florida....sheesh.

[Timefortruth]

8. J Lo planned her next wedding on her honeymoon

but they crowd her movies, shitty as they are. This has nothing to do with family values, and almost everything they hate gets back to money eventually, so this one mystifies me.

Edited because my fingers move faster then my brain.

[ScreamingMeemie]

7. Because they are fearful of what would happen if "they got their hands

on our children???" Which is ridiculous, but well believed by a lot of my neighbors. Sigh.

[Democrats unite]

9. They hate homosexuals

because they don't have our fashion sense!

[marley]

25. No offence

but I have yet to meet any American who has fashion sense, straight or gay !!

[Democrats unite]

29. Then you have not met many Gay Americans.

No offense taken.

[marley]

34. You are

probably right. I only see the tourists walking by my office, and judging from their appearance, I am willing to bet most are straight.

[NicoleM]

10. I believe there are three reasons:

1. Some people believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, but they haven't actually read the whole thing. Somebody told them along the way that Leviticus says that "gayz is bad." Leviticus also says "an eye for an eye," but I guess God didn't mean that part literally.

AND/OR

2. They are afraid of what they will do if homosexuality becomes acceptable within their peer group. Maybe they're gay, maybe they're not, but they are unsure enough that it scares them.

AND/OR

3. They think it's really icky.

[pandatimothy]

16. Being gay is labled as wrong in the Bible

NOWHERE in the Bible does it say "homosexuality is good."

So do you wanna keep reading it?

[Terwilliger]

20. Wait a minute...just where does it say that 'homosexuality' is bad?

And let's talk about Christians and Red Lobster, shall we?

[kodi]

24. Leviticus 18:22

now i have to put my neighbor to death for planting two different crops side by side and rend my garments since they are made from two different fiber types or be stoned to death, just like the bible tells me.

[Terran]

48. The thing about Leviticus...

and what no one seems to be bothered to point out is that Leviticus is merely a set of instructions to the priestly tribe of Levi regarding ritual purity.

The ostensibly general prohibition against homesexuality in Leviticus is actually just a prohibition against the Levites (Jewish priests) consorting with male temple prostitutes, which was a common practice at the time. Doing so made one ritually unclean and unsuited to enter a Jewish temple. Leviticus doesn't even make reference to female homosexuality, since there were no female priests. Leviticus simply is not a generalized statement demonizing all forms of homosexuality, much as many Christians would like us to believe that; it is in fact a very *narrowly* focused prohibition on a very particular custom. This is just one of *many* examples of how the original meaning of Biblical text has been warped.

[NicoleM]

26. Lots of things we do all the time are wrong according to the Bible.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21 prescribes stoning as the punishment for stubborn and rebellious sons. Leviticus and Deuteronomy both say that adulterers should be put to death. Exodus says people who work on the Sabbath should be put to death.

[kodi]

30. ancient hittites & assyrians were a lot more civilized than the hebrews

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/MESO/ASSYRIA.HTM

[Touchdown]

44. No. It's just plain hate.

The Bible only gives a convenient justification to continue hating. It also gives thenm a easy out to say "that we don't hate homosexuals. We love them and want them to come to God"...which is also a load of shit. Don't believe any of it.

[Stanchetalarooni]

11. Just as the scientific community is finding a bio-genetic basis for ......

.......homo/hetero-sexuallity, so too they might be finding a hate gene or some such bio-genetic basis for this extreme aversion to other members of the human race.
Physiology precedes psychology!

[LeahMira]

46. Why...

... is anyone so obsessed with a need to prove that homosexuality is genetic? I mean, will anyone think any differently about it if it is proved to be genetic? Will the homophobes and haters suddenly change and claim that homosexuals can't be blamed because it's the way they were born? Or will they start with the genetic engineering to try to take homosexuality out of the human gene pool?

I guess I just think that some things are better thought of as just incomprehensible and wonderful.

[Terran]

49. One reason, maybe:

Many anti-Gay rights people claim that we don't deserve legal protections because our sexual orientation is a choice, voluntary behavior, unlike race, gender, handicap, etc. (religion could be seen that way too but that's another argument). So if it's proven that sexual orientation is hardwired, then that argument goes away. But you're right, I'm not too comfortable with it being proven either way, because calls for genetic tweaking of the gay gene, if it exists, are inevitable. Who actually *wants* a Gay kid?

Personally, I don't buy an exclusively genetic explanation, because I've heard of research that shows a good argument for other factors (pre-natal effects, rearing, etc.) as well. And if there's a Gay gene, is there a bi-sexual gene as well? Somehow that doesn't seem like a set-up nature would create. It's far more likely that we're all just bisexual and don't know it. It's a mental state, not a physical one.

[Kamika]

13. Two reasons

nr1 is from a religious point of view. and nr2 is what i think a basic fear of gays ruining their lifestyle (and also one or two closet gays)

[ixion]

14. homophobes are scared of gays because

secretly, they are attracted to men and can't admit it, and manifest this attraction through hatred, IMHO.

[pandatimothy]

18. What about women and lesibians? n/t

[Champion Jack]

32. Exactly

The real reason they hate gays....Fear,
Fear and self loathing.

[Minstrel Boy]

15. I think, for many, it's pathological self-loathing.

How many Roy Cohn's are there? More than a few.

[bloom]

17. I think there is an anti-authoritarian aspect to homosexualtiy

I think it ties in with why there are so many creative people who are gay.

They aren't afraid to live outside the norms.

Think Different(ly).

[Cat Atomic]

27. That's very insightful. I agree with you completely.

It's outside the accepted (and arbitrary) norm. It pisses fundamentalists off for the same reason that running in the halls used to piss off the nerdy hall monitor in elementary school.

[AP]

19. They just love money. All social issues are just wedges for the right

If any of them stopped working as a wedge they'd drop them -- witness Arnold. Money always comes first, like Enrong -- witness Arnold.

Religioun, homosexuality, abortion, are all exploited only to get poor and middle class people to vote against their economic best interests and for Republicans.

The only people Republicans hate are all poor, working class, and middle class people. And they only hate them becasue they want their money and they don't care about their misery.

[skippysmom]

21. you took the words out of my mouth

Anti gay rhetoric, along with other "family values" rhetoric (re: abortion, school prayer, etc.), is used to appease the Christian right and keep them voting Republican, even though it is against the economic interests of most of the Christian right's footsoldiers.

[salin]

31. Not to mention the effectiveness

they have had, via Pat Robertson, in politicizing the pulpit (starting in the late 80s through the Christian Coalition). Thus these wedge issues are used as rallying points for this very loud - but previously not working as a block - group of voters.

To those who think, it makes no sense to vilify on these issues ("based on the bible"), yet to ignore that these leaders advocate many things that directly go against the teachings in that same bible. Why, for example, is homosexuality harped on so much with only a few mentions in the bible, while the promotion of greed (and for many it rises to the level of idolotry) is not only a central tenant/nono, but it also (greed) is the theme of many of Jesus's parables.

The emotional wedges used that are targeted to two groups (often overlapping) - the old 'southern strategy' good ole boys, and the politicized evangelical, far right churches, get the extra power of having "Men of God" speak to these issues - in a political context - from the front of a Church, making it seem to the followers that it is righteous.

It is very intentional.

[srubick]

33. more than money a lack of compassion

First I do not think the majority of the right feel this animosity toward gays or poor people. They ARE willing to allow the homophobes and minority (poor people) bashers to hide behind theie political banner because this is the only segment of middle and lower income America they have in their camp.
These people, the less than compassionate, even rate their own political sloganeering-"compassionate conservatism", to further hide them from open view.
I think the openly hateful minority are people who have not come to any understanding of their own fears. Fears of failure, of being not accepted by the norm, drive there hatred to people they fear becomeing. The fear of poverty drives a disdane for poor people. A fear on one's own sexualality drives a hatred of gay people and anyone who has accepted the gay community.
Fear is something we come to grips with through challenging our perceptions of the world. All people are not able to make this leap of faith nor live in a culture that supports any change.
It is unfortunate that the majority of "christian" leaders are afraid to help these poor sufferers out of their hatred.

[KaraokeKarlton]

22. It's not the "right" who hate gays, it's the "religious right"

Honestly, this isn't anywhere near as big an issue as people on here seem to think it is. The vast majority of Americans couldn't care less what anyone else's sexual preference is. The only significant battles I can foresee coming from the right on the matter of gay rights would be adoption and gay marriage. Society will accept Civil Unions or something that grants all the rights but isn't called "marriage". The only reason the term matters is because of the church. It just can't be called marriage because that will infringe upon the autonomy of the church and separation of church and state and you just can't go there or you open up a huge can of worms that will come back to bite everyone sqaure on the rump. Adoption is an issue because it concerns the welfare of children. It has nothing at all to do with what kind of parents gay people are. It's about what's in the best interest of the children. The jury is still out on what kind of effect adoption by gays would have on children. The gay people raising children now need to be looked at and child specialists should study how things go for the kids. Does this mean gays shouldn't ever be able to adopt? Of course not. It just means that there needs to be some research to make sure it's in the best interest of the kids. Within the home is not where the concern is at all...it's what emotional issues those kids face outside of the home. This is just how the majority of people think and it has nothing to do with gay parents and everything to do with whether or not the kids can cope with outside influences. If the gay community could unite on agreeing to compromise on the name of what grants them equal relationship rights and doesn't push for adoption until after the relationship rights are addressed I see nothing preventing Civil Unions from becoming a reality throughout the country and gay adoption following not long after once more information is out on the effects on the kids.

[ScreamingMeemie]

23. You could say that, unfortunately I have met agnostics who

are just as openly hateful. Can't pin this totally on religion. It's fear.

[OldSoldier]

35. They're different. That's all.

Lots of people don't like things to be different. In their eyes, a good loyal American waves a flag from the window of his American-branded car, has three children and a stay-at-home wife, goes to church every Sunday morning and worships the ground George W. Bush walks on. Anything else...like, say, attending church on Saturday or not wanting children, is to be feared and loathed and branded as un-American.

And that's why they hate gays. Not because of anything a gay person might or might not do to them, but just because they're different.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

36. Traditional Republicans don't care one way or the other

about sexual issues. The country club set has always had the upper-class laissez-faire attitude of maintaining a "proper" marriage on the surface, so that you have a legal spouse to accompany you to charity events and $2000 a plate fundraisers, and bedding or even living with other women or men on the side as long as you're not too blatant about it.

When the gay rights movements began in the late 1960s, you didn't hear a peep out of the tranditional Republicans. I can't remember Nixon ever saying a thing either way, and there were lots of closet cases like J.Edgar Hoover, Roy Cohn, and Terry Dolan associated with the Republicans.

The fundamentalists got all upset with the gay rights movement, of course, and the AIDS epidemic gave them the opportunity to crow about "God's wrath against homosexuals."

Never ones to ignore a good hate group, the Reaganite branch of the Republicanites courted the fundies (who traditionally avoided politics) with promises of championing "traditional values." This was especially ironic, since Reagan himself had no known religious affiliation, so it was pure cynicism, rather than personal belief that motivated the Reaganites' embrace of the fundies.

Once the Republicanites realized what a hot button issue homosexuality is for fundies and self-loathing closet cases, they knew they had a winner.

Some of my gay friends in Portland said that certain Republican party functionaries and elected officials set off their gaydar something fierce, but if one has no integrity, I suppose it's okay to serve a party that officially considers you persona non grata.

[undergroundpanther]

39. Family value

Hmm I read Stephanie Coontz's book The Way We Never Were, in it she noted originally the word family meant a band of slaves.

A family today is defined as a hetero mother-father-kids.People in this culture are conditioned to accept a certain way of life, because unawares they've been conditioned to live like little islands,the public has been engineered to want seperate houses,cars,rooms,things.
This social engineering has severed community ties.This unhealthy form of social individuation has fostered seperation from community.It has fostered a desire for privacy and a want of things .This was what the elites wanted out of the lower classes in the 1900's.The social engineering was a sucess,sadly.

The elites do this social engineering on people because they deeply fear poor,or lower class people of different races,classes,genders,sexual orientations getting together as freinds,companions and communitiers.They fear citizens turning to each other and turning away from the profit/wage system,becoming independant of the elites.The rich are horribly dependant on the labor,ignorance,unhapiness,fear,deprivation and obedience of the lowerclasses and they want us to forget that.The elites fear people becoming loyal and committed to one another instead of the state or company.

When people in the streets feel they know and trust one another solidarity and sharing comes with that too..Popular uprisings can occur when people band together once enough people are put out of work and are forced to talk to each other face to face enough to empathize and understand each other's plight,and they learn to not be so scared of the differences people have anymore.People can become radicalized,politicized and angry when they realize they are being exploited and they understand people suffer as they do.It's only a matter of time until someone says what are we to do about this?

The 'family" and the 'home' is the place where elites have made thier hegemony base the strongest. It is a belief in the sanctity of a particular definition of family imposed on the lower class and middle class that has been exploited by elite people for a long time.Eletes presidents and Ceos don't follow the definition of family that your typical citizen does. Beliefs of patriarchy have been used to reinforce hegemony over people's lives too.What would family look like if there was no king of the house? What person would learn how to unquestionably listen to the demands of political leader,boss or the church, if they never learned to accept the rule of father first?

Religion is a tool of elite hegemony too..So,of course Gay marriage is threat to elite hegemony it implies having children isn't as important as having a relationship,and Religion is all about controlling how you relate to others and to god.

Gay marriage psychologically undoes the underlying top down thinking, eugenics and social darwinism type engineering of society put forth in the 1900's to secure corporate hegemony and elite dominion over the masses..
Abortion is touted as evil because it's bad for business it short circuits the awful biological dependance women have on men and the dependance men and women have on the wage system that having a child creates.Having kids be an optional thing means people are not chained to the state and wage system by biology,guilt or tradition anymore.So women can't be dominated so easily by men and sex can't be controlled and forced into insane puritan forms (puritans brought us the work ethic too).

When average citizen america gets with the idea that legitamate familes can consist of more than mother-father-kids,and accept it..as a 'norm' then this re-definition opens the door to more communistic modes of living,when people redefine familiy to suit thier own needs and lives independant of what church or state says.It can either happen because of liberal enlightenment or nessecity.

Pooling resources is the opposite of ideas like profit or privatization where being feirce and exploitative ,competing,scheming, and becoming a master of winning internecine infighting is the backbone of'sucess'.
Up until the 1970's it was a violation of food stamp rules to share food with a poor neighbor,even if it was baby formula,you could lose your food stamps if you had compassion for a hungry baby and shared what you had.

Today sharing has been co-opted by corporations,an industry of charities which make profits as it 'helps'.This is not real help that builds up communities because it requires nothing from us personally,when we help,we throw money at it,we can stay uninvolved impersonal and 'feel good' about it.
Because we are conditioned to not get involved with other people around us we let other people fix what we should be fixing. It's because we really believe we are little compeating "kingdoms" (families). It's easier to think in terms of "families" because over time,the intimate ties and histories with our communities(and sometimes families) have been severed when we go everywhere chasing jobs, leave hometowns because of the closing of plants, we are in emotional effect without social supports,alone, rootless calling home to talk to mom via long distance watching the minutes.

Economic systems tend to dominate life, they don't care about human happiness,sanity or well being,they exist for maximixing profit for business.The psychological effect of this profit system and the mother-father-children definition of family and the myth that sucess means living "on your own two feet" makes it all the easier for corporations to exploit people and keep them afraid of each other's differences.Be it race, sexual orientation or whatever.

[mmonk]

37. They hate gays because of fear and ignorance

and their fundamentalism which teaches them homosexuality is an abomination as well as being taught fundamentalists are the only ones who are going to heaven.

[Kelvin Mace]

38. Because of their twisted sexual psyche and

self-loathing. My theory is that if you were able to purge humanity of all the BS fed into its head by organized religion you would find that the majority of people are happy with whatever gives them physical and emotional pleasure, i.e. basically bi.

Since religion dictates homosexual feelings are wrong, they hate themselves and keep the feelings at bay by savagely attacking homosexuals.

Just my opinion.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Black Friday - The name given to October 26th, 2001, the day George W. Bush signed the "USA Patriot Act" which marked the end of the United States as a democratic republic, and its emergence as a police state. The only senator to oppose the bill was Russ Feingold, a Wisconsin senator, who was assassinated 2 years later by agents of the Homeland Security Office for "seditious criticism of the State."

Encylopedia Britannica, 2162 CE edition

[ForrestGump]

41. All of the above

Homosexuality was illegal in Nazi Germany (it had been prior to Hitler's seizing power, actually) - hence the pink triangle in concentration camps - but...

...meet Ernst Röhm, leader of Hitler's Sturmabteilung (SA - strormtroopers' or 'brownshirts') and rivalled only by Hitler himself, in the early days, in the Nazi power structure:



Hitler had him killed in the end, but not because he was gay. The Nazi hierarchy (the SA notably so, too) was allegedly loaded with gay men - it's even been rumored that Hitler was gay - but there are so many levels of propaganda (anti-Nazi, anti-gay) that we may never know the truth. But just check out some of the homoerotic imagery and symbolism used so heavy-handedly in Nazi art, etc - I think some of those people, the ardently anti-gay ones, had some major 'issues,' including denial and self-loathing.

More hypocrisy from the rabidly anti-gay (heck, just about anti-everyone) radical Right: Martin Webster, high up in the British national front (neo-Nazi putzes) in the '70s, was gay. And I just read about a psycho skinhead UK neo-Nazi leader, named Nicky Crane, a violent pig (his crimes included severe gay-bashing) who was not only gay but who had appeared in hardcore gay porn movies and whose partner was an older Jewish man. Crane died of AIDs not long after he came out. Does anyone do hypocrisy better than the Far Right?

[JohnKleeb]

43. Ernst was gay himself too

You know Forrest they didnt make Rohm look like how he did in that miniseries this past spring, like he was taller and skinnier than he really was. I was reading the magazine oh damnit I forget the name of it about gay neo nazis, it was interesting. Why does the right hate gays, "morals" and fear I think. I am not gay but I think they are fearful and or they view gays and lesbians as a threat.

[ForrestGump]

47. Yea, verily

Maybe it's as simple as homophobia being basically just another manifestation of the pathology that also reveals itself in xenophobia, anti-semitism, or whatever other 'isms' are relevant (as scapegoats, if as nothing else). There's an awful lot of debate about every aspect of Hitler's reign, but it does appear that he was homophobic to some extent - still, I believe that it's possible that a lot of the persecution of gays in Nazi Germany (that, even if the worst figures are correct, was nowhere near the levels of that of other 'undesirables') was less because of the fact of homosexuality than because the people persecuted were seen as poltical threats.

I didn't see the miniseries - don't watch much of anything these days - but old Ernst was rather a stout fellow, to say the least. In photos in which he stands beside Himmler they look like the number 10. And he didn't know that he was gay until one of his officers, I think, seduced him - yes, the Gay Agenda strikes again! Converting all in its path! Run! And thusly have the Right been cowering at the prospect of being 'turned' ever since.

Now, Reinhard Heydrich - there was one complex dude.

[Clete]

42. Gimme that ole time religion.

Somewhere along the road to Sodom and Gomorrah, the churches got the idea that God was against homosexuals, however the sin there was one of hospitality not homosexuality, as many Bible scholars will tell you. Also, in the time of Jesus it was an acceptable and often even desirable practice. Jesus could have been gay, even though celibate, and there are references to "his beloved John".

[LeahMira]

45. Go on...

They hate the poor, they hate the Democrats, they hate the atheists and agnostics, they hate minorities...

People who are different from themselves are a threat. Don't always look for a reason. What's good is also logical, harmonious, in balance, and so on. The farther you get away from what's good, the more chaotic and mixed up things get.

[Selwynn]

50. RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM - that's why.