Like the good pastor Haggard, for instance. Is it common for religious zealotry to be caused by a fear of or denial of one’s own sexual orientation?
52,346
Well, you can’t count that guy from Albany. He did get his 327J form filed by the 14th, so he’s clear, but yeah, 52,345 sounds right.
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Factual answer not possible.
I am denying that I ever moved this thread to Great Debates
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I salute you, sir or madam.
There’s a lot more to religious fundamentalism than gay bashing. And not all gay bashers are religious fundamentalists or even religious at all.
If you’re brought up to think a certain way, and you don’t change the way you think, then what’s that to do with gaydom anyway?
All of them?
I’m not saying that all gay bashers are religious fundamentalists, but people like Haggard and Phelps are so obsessed with every aspect of homosexuality it kind of makes you wonder.
The more rabid the rant, the deeper the closet.
On the broad big-picture scale? I speculate that probably a bit more percentagewise than in the general population, but not something huge, either;s just that those who are, have extra motivating factors to be specially intense about the rejection. Add also those who may not quite be, but upon experiencing an episode of sexual uncertainty, panicked about catching The Gay and then overcompensate.
Damn! I knew I forgot to do something.
Are we talking only about Christian religious zealotry, or that of other religions?
Speaking from memory, which may be off somewhat, something like 5-8% of the US population self-identifies as gay, and something over 90% Christian. I don’t know how someone would classify ‘zealous’ Christians out of that cohort, and I don’t have any reliable figures either way, but I’d be really surprised if the percentage of gay Christian zealots was much above that of the general poulation.
In the case of Christians, many if not most varieties of the faith aren’t real enthusiastic about even hetero sex, particularly outside of marriage. Therefore, if there is a large number of Christians living “fear or denial of their sexual orientation”, it would seem just as likely they are straight as gay.
By the same logic of the homophobe=repressed gay, Der Trihs and badchad are on the verge of becoming Fire-Baptized, Blood-Washed Tongue-Talkers.
Shouldn’t that be “and/or”? 
There was only one … but he got outed a couple weeks ago. Honest.
w.
42?
Nope. I guess I’ll keep looking.
Nope. I guess I’ll keep looking.
And, more importantly, how many does it take to change a light bulb? 
Did you ever move this thread to great debates?
I think that there are a lot of gays in denial who compensate by being venemously anti-gay, like Haggard, but whether Phelps is among that group is another story. I hear a lot of people saying “well, to be that anti-gay, you’ve got to be gay yourself” and I don’t really think this is always true. I mean, were Adolf Eichmann, Heinrich Himmler and Josef Goebbels all closeted Jews? Did James Earl Ray actually have black ancestry? I mean, the “self-hating” complex makes for a more compelling story, but sometimes it’s just the plain old hatred of anyone who’s not like you.