The Real Reason Christians (and Others) Get So Crazy About Gays

John Shore has a piece at Huffington Post which while tongue in cheek in someways looks at the bizarre emotions gays evoke in some and makes the case that power, not true religious belief that motivates the homophobes - that and their own psychological insecurities. He maintains that the Bible is a convenient crutch when an excuse is needed, but the quest for a sense of power - and money in the case of members of the whore-like professional Christian set such as James Dobson - is the true driving force. The flip side is that men and women who are secure in their own sexuality and sense of who they are don't get all crazed and hysterical over the issue of gays. Closet cases like Robert Knight and Peter LaBarbera truly take the crazy right off the charts, while those comfortable with themselves do not. Here are some column highlights:
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The reason is power. It's all about power. The problem Christians and others have with homosexuality isn't about sex. Nobody cares that much about what consenting adults do in the privacy of their bedrooms. Sure, it says in the Bible that homosexuality is bad. And of course that matters. As a Christian, what the Bible says certainly matters to me. But the Bible also says that slavery is good, and that women shouldn't speak in church, and that Christians should never eat shellfish, and on and on an on. We've long ago made our peace with the idea that sometimes we have to modify our understanding of Biblical texts---especially when (as is true with the Pauline proscriptions of homosexuality), there are sound reasons to question the way the text has been translated.
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What fuels the fiery hatred that so many Christians and others harbor for gays can't be explained by pointing to the Bible alone. Clearly something more visceral is going on with that.
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When you hear the word homosexual, what's the first thing that comes to mind? A gay man. It's always a gay man. It's gay men that get people out on the street waving signs and screaming. It's gay men about which people tend to get so emotional; in the main, that's what all the hate and anger is about.
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Why are we, both personally and societally, as reactive to gay men as we are? What is it about them that we hate so much? And the answer to that question is simple: they threaten the traditional power base of men. Here's the basic run of it inside a man's brain/heart/subconscious: I may not be much. But I'm a man. And that entitles me to a lot.
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[T]wo men together? Yikes. That's a problem for me. That's when all the walls in my world begin to crumble. Each of those men is my equal, my peer; they're my kind. If it's okay for them to be romantic with each other, then, for me, everything gets upended. [Oh, will you just stop already?!] Because where the heck does that leave me?
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Today, the ground beneath the personal politics and power of gender is shaking like a California earthquake. And grabbing onto your Bible won't stop that movement. Nothing can. Men are going to kiss men. And that will always seem intensely weird to straight people---just like men and women kissing will always seem intensely weird to gay people. It's a new world, y'all. And it's time to be brave about it.