Is Homophobia Actually Self-Phobia?

I've often noted that the extreme homophobia displayed by some of the leading anti-gay Christianists - and I'd include GOP presidential want to be Rick Santorum in this group - suggests to me that these individuals doth protest too much. Now, a new study from the University of Rochester tends to support the premise that the loudest homophobes hysteria really comes from their own deeply repressed homoerotic feelings. These findings are in line with past findings that homophobic men were most aroused by watching gay porn. As I suggested to Robert Knight years ago, perhaps he simply needs to hire a hot gay escort and face reality. Needless to say, he wasn't amused. But seriously, Knight, Tony Perkins, Matt Barber, Peter Sprigg, Bryan Fischer, and a number of others need to focus on their own screwed up psyches rather than attacking others who are merely living their lives as these men apparently only fantasize about. First some highlights from USA Today on the study:

A new study suggests intense hostility toward homosexuals may be linked to a repressed same-sex attraction, combined with an authoritarian upbringing.

Though such factors are not the only cause of homophobia, the findings suggest those "who have a discrepancy within themselves about their expressed vs. unconscious sexual attraction find gay and lesbian people more threatening and are more likely to express prejudice and discrimination toward them," says University of Rochester psychology professor Richard Ryan, co-author of the study, which is published in the April Journalof Personality and Social Psychology. Also an author is Netta Weinstein of the University of Essex, England.

The blocking of unconscious desires by adopting an opposite view is a well-known psychoanalytic concept, suggested by Freud and others. The new study uses "modern methods that allow us to more reliably peer into these less explicitly available parts of peoples' psyches and see what's arising," Ryan says.

The findings suggest participants with accepting parents were more in touch with their innate sexual orientation. But, Ryan says, "if you come from a controlling home where your parents do have negative attitudes toward gays and lesbians, you're even more likely to suppress same-sex attraction and more likely to have this discrepancy that leads to having homophobia and feeling threatened."

Ryan says the study may help explain the personal dynamics behind some bullying and hate crimes directed at gays and sheds light on high-profile cases in which public figures who have expressed anti-gay views have been caught engaging in same-sex sexual acts. "Some people who are threatened by gays and lesbians and are most vociferous in their opposition to them are suffering internally themselves," he says.

More details on the study findings are available at Newswise.com. Here are a few more details:

Homophobia is more pronounced in individuals with an unacknowledged attraction to the same sex and who grew up with authoritarian parents who forbade such desires, a series of psychology studies demonstrates.

The study is the first to document the role that both parenting and sexual orientation play in the formation of intense and visceral fear of homosexuals, including self-reported homophobic attitudes, discriminatory bias, implicit hostility towards gays, and endorsement of anti-gay policies.

“Individuals who identify as straight but in psychological tests show a strong attraction to the same sex may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves,” explains Netta Weinstein, a lecturer at the University of Essex and the study’s lead author.

“In many cases these are people who are at war with themselves and they are turning this internal conflict outward,” adds co-author Richard Ryan, professor of psychology at the University of Rochester who helped direct the research.

People in denial about their sexual orientation may lash out because gay targets threaten and bring this internal conflict to the forefront, the authors write.

“In a predominately heterosexual society, ‘know thyself’ can be a challenge for many gay individuals. But in controlling and homophobic homes, embracing a minority sexual orientation can be terrifying,” explains Weinstein. These individuals risk losing the love and approval of their parents if they admit to same sex attractions, so many people deny or repress that part of themselves, she said.

In addition, participants who reported themselves to be more heterosexual than their performance on the reaction time task indicated were most likely to react with hostility to gay others, the studies showed. That incongruence between implicit and explicit measures of sexual orientation predicted a variety of homophobic behaviors, . . . .

Bottom line, the next time you hear a professional Christian engaged in a homophobic rant, we all will know what is likely really going on. I just wished they would focus their self-hate on themselves and leave the rest of us alone.