TO COMBAT HOMOPHOBIA, it is crucial that we first understand it. We often talk about homophobia as if it were a monolith, requiring just one set of solutions. In truth, this phenomenon comes in several varieties that are linked by a web of overlapping motivations, theories, religious doctrines, political calculations, and psychological issues. Its roots are as complex and diverse as homophobia is itself multifarious. The reality of this social disease necessitates that we carefully diagnose it so we can calibrate our responses and tailor our educational campaigns.
Traditional Homophobia
Most homophobia is traditional in the sense that it refers to tradition to justify anti-gay discrimination, as in the formula: “marriage has always been between a man and a woman.” It is also institutionalized in that it’s a learned habit, reinforced by socialization and cultural messages (for us, in the mass media). Traditionalism is by its nature resistant to change.
This kind of mental imprinting is difficult to overcome, particularly with older demographics. Negative attitudes learned from childhood are reinforced by a genuine ignorance, a lack of exposure to actual gay and lesbian people that could neutralize these messages. Such people are hard-pressed to break out of a paradigm that defines gay people as radically other. Their views are based on stigmatizing stereotypes, such as the notion that gay people live a depraved “lifestyle” or that they’re seeking unfair advantages or “special rights.”
Some of these homophobes may even believe they’re open-minded because they have “gay friends,” based on quarterly hair appointments or causal conversations with the “bachelor” who lives down the street. Yet they have never really explored gay issues and how they affect their alleged gay friends. Most people who fit this profile aren’t particularly invested in this topic and give it little thought. There may be more apprehension than outright hostility. However, this can translate into harm because these folks tend to be susceptible to fear-mongering, such as the demagogic campaigns that we saw during recent marriage referendums in California and Maine.
The operatives who run these anti-gay campaigns know that they can sway some voters by appealing to fear—particularly when they invoke the welfare of children. Aside from the more hysterical arguments about child molestation, what they’re essentially saying is that giving GLBT people equal rights will somehow increase the likelihood of their teenage son or daughter turning out gay. Unfortunately, a lot of people still believe that the sexuality of children and teenagers can be influenced by a change in the legal status of GLBT people.
This is a notion that our community must work to dispel if we’re serious about eroding traditional bastions of homophobia and winning referendums. We need arguments and public relations campaigns that can explode the idea that sexual orientation is “chosen” as a “lifestyle.” Studies show that if a person believes that a homosexual can become heterosexual through prayer and therapy, he or she is significantly less likely to vote for equality. There needs to a be concerted effort to impart the message that the existence of GLBT families has no chance of turning a young person gay.
Those who cling to traditional homophobic attitudes also tend to conflate cultural permissiveness with gay issues. Last year, my organization, Truth Wins Out, conducted public opinion research that revealed the confusion some Americans have in distinguishing between obscenity in the media and GLBT people coming out. Some parents see both as obstacles to raising healthy children.
Fortunately, traditional homophobes are not necessarily ideologues. They are busy, hard-working people who are doing the best they can to raise a solid family. Therefore, many can be persuaded to become supporters of equality through productive conversations and traditional educational methods.
Worldview Homophobia
Some of the most vociferous opponents of gay equality deny that they’re homophobic because they do not in fact fear gay people. And they’re probably right. Indeed I would argue that their aversion to gay people isn’t even about homosexuality for the most part. These hardcore activists often hold totalitarian religious views and a desire to set up a theocracy in the U.S. and around the globe. This dangerous worldview is mostly the province of Christian and Muslim fundamentalists here and abroad. What they desire is universal conversion, clerical governance, and dominion over non-believers.
While they may hold traditionally homophobic views, their real objection to GLBT equality is existential, based on a belief that they can achieve a religious utopia through a process of societal purification. Their ultimate goal is to transform society in accord with a divine vision of final ends, such as the one presented in the book of Revelation in the Christian Bible. In practice, this vision can take nonviolent forms, such as mass prayer, or deadly ones, such as terrorist activities.
The existence of the GLBT community is hugely problematical for those who hold this worldview. They believe that the moral and spiritual purity needed to fulfill their dream can never be achieved if gay people are living openly and freely. The kind of open, secular society that can support and sustain equality for sexual minorities is altogether incompatible with their vision of a fundamentalist totalitarian state.
I do want to take a moment to emphasize that this is not an attack on religion as such. There are many faiths that support gay equality, and religious institutions often take the lead in the fight for equal rights. I personally have stood side-by-side with many of these faith leaders in seminars, press conferences, houses of worship, and protest demonstrations. Here I’m not talking about faiths that preach love and mutual respect for all people, but instead about those that depend on their ability to marginalize and scapegoat people with whom they disagree, or whose very existence they reject. It is important that we respect everyone’s right to believe as they wish, but we’re under no obligation to turn a blind eye to belief systems that advocate our destruction.
I have visited 49 states and spoken at universities, community centers, conferences, and religious institutions across the country. I’m invariably asked if anti-gay religious extremists are sincere, or is it their goal to profit from gullible believers? Mainstream Americans in general tend to believe that the most extreme zealots are primarily con artists out to fleece the flock of their wealth. In truth, while avarice certainly exists, particularly among the televangelists, most of these leaders are true believers who have embraced an especially radical and apocalyptic version of Christianity, one with enormous consequences for civilization itself if their vision ever came to power. When religious zealots call their ongoing attacks a “cultural war,” they mean it in a more literal sense than most people realize.
In Daniel Jonah Goldhagen’s recent book on genocide, Worse Than War: Genocide, Eliminationism, and the Ongoing Assault on Humanity (2009), he lists five principal ways that aggressors try to eliminate their enemies: transformation, repression, expulsion, prevention of reproduction, and extermination. The religious Right has engaged in all five of these extreme measures in their effort to suppress or even “cleanse” society of gay people.
Truth Wins Out fights the so-called “ex-gay” industry, whose ministries and therapy groups are a classic example of “transformation,” whereby the majority tries to convert the minority to their way, the righteous way, of being. Embraced by politically powerful anti-gay organizations, ex-gay groups claim in effect that gay people don’t really exist. They define gayness as strictly a behavior, which they give the pseudo-clinical label Same-Sex Attraction or SSA. Joseph Nicolosi, the co-founder of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (narth), argues that gay people are just heterosexuals with a “homosexual problem” that can, with treatment, be overcome.
Once GLBT people are delegitimized and their love reduced to a sin, the way is paved for punitive actions to “correct the problem.” What Goldhagen calls “repression” is present in the form of laws that separate lesbian and gay people from respectable society, such as laws that bar gays from valued institutions like military service or marriage. Extreme repression can lead to expulsion (gay refugees abound in the world), denial of reproduction (e.g., laws that prohibit gay adoption or denial of custody), and in some cases even execution, as in the pending Anti-Homosexuality Bill in Uganda. This terrifying bill was introduced following an ex-gay conference in Kampala last year that featured several activists from the U.S. This included Exodus International board member Don Schmierer, the International Healing Foundation’s Caleb Lee Brundidge, and Holocaust revisionist and author of The Pink Swastika (1995), Scott Lively. There was also evangelical interference in Uganda from pastor Rick Warren and the secretive Washington-based organization, The Family, which hosts the National Prayer Breakfast.*
There are also groups such as C. Peter Wagner’s New Apostolic Reformation, which are crusading across the world promoting Christian theocracy. These organizations have a keen interest in foreign lands because they’re using them as laboratories to test market the extreme ideas they aren’t quite able to sell at home—at least not yet.
Homophobia that derives from such a skewed and alarming worldview is particularly pernicious and difficult to counteract, if only because its adherents don’t really care about homosexuality as such except insofar as it’s an obstacle to their grand designs. I sometimes meet gay rights advocates who think they can sway such zealots, but when they try, they might as well be talking to a wall. To move such people on the issue of gay equality, one would need to convince them that their entire worldview is wrong. However, if you begin by arguing on the basis of equality under the law with people who don’t believe in the separation of church and state and think that America is a Christian nation, you won’t get very far. This is a total waste of time that could be better spent trying to influence mainstream Americans to move away from their traditionally homophobic attitudes.
Personalized Homophobia
Another, quite distinct brand of homophobia afflicts those who have personal issues related to gay people or same-sex desires. They’re the professional homophobes who seem to be obsessed with homosexuality, such as Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth and disgraced psychologist Paul Cameron, who project their own self-hatred onto their anti-gay politics. Or they’re the embittered parents of gay children who can’t accept reality, such as Regina Griggs of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX). A wonderful example of the first type is the fiercely anti-gay Republican state senator from California, Roy Ashburn, who recently came out as gay following his DUI arrest upon leaving a gay bar. An example of the second type is Arthur Abba Goldberg, the Wall Street con artist and ex-felon who co-founded the “ex-gay” organization Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (jonah) in response to his son’s coming out. In both cases, these men elected to harm the gay community by fighting their personal demons on a public stage.
This category of homophobes is important because of the extreme passion and energy, often fueled by rage, with which they approach the task of undermining the gay community. This commitment gives them a destructive power well beyond their limited numbers. This desire to undermine the GLBT community—by opposing pro-gay legislation or railing against gay rights at the podium or pulpit—seems to be a proxy for the inability to destroy something in oneself or a loved one. But this is the province of mental health professionals, not GLBT activists.
In Conclusion
Thus homophobia comes in several varieties, and it’s important for gay activists to recognize this fact. Only when you can identify and analyze the various forms of homophobia can you tailor an effective response that addresses the concerns of the people that you’re trying to persuade. Like other forms of hatred and discrimination, homophobia will be with us for a long time to come. The more we study and the better understand this phenomenon, the better equipped we will be to limit its deleterious influence and toxic effects.
* Prominent members of the Family include: Senators Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), James Inhofe (R-OK), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Mike Enzi (R-WY), Mark Pryor (R-AK), Bill Nelson (D-FL), and John Ensign (R-NV). Key House members include: Representatives Zach Wamp (R-TN) Frank Wolf (R-VA), Mike McIntyre (D-NC), Heath Shuler (D-NC), Bart Stupak (D-MI), and Joe Pitts (R-PA).
Wayne Besen is the founder and executive director of Truth Wins Out, which is based in New York City.
