# Why did people hate gays for so long? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 27, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703 "2010-06-27T20:03:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/61 "2010-06-29T01:48:20Z")
The question should not be “What does the Bible say?” The question should be “Why do people believe it?” ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/62 "2010-06-29T23:33:51Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > i guess the various women i went to college with and sat around discussing men arent to be trusted …I know that because I have had TMJ all my life… Most the people I’ve ever met have [TMJ (temporomandibular joints)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TMJ). > [@aruvqan](#): > > BJs are very uncomfortable for me to perform, Sounds like you have [TMD (Temporomandibular joint disorder)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temporomandibular_joint_disorder). > [@aruvqan](#): > > and without an exception for about the entire 4 years I was in college every guy I dated wanted to be blown, and despite my TMJ, they got really freaking snotty about it. When confronted with the ill do you if you do me, got an almost universal whinge of but you pee out of _there_ I think I had 2 guys perform cunilingus on me voluntarily that were under the age of 30. The pressure to blow was pretty much universal to the female friends I had in school, and the pretty much universal reluctance to reciprocate as well. No pun intended, but it sounds like your college boyfriends were all pricks. I never pressure my GFs for BJ, but if the mood struck them, great. I did reciprocate, and not just when they began. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/63 "2010-06-29T23:36:06Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Sodomy is forbidden. I am aware that the modern position is that the crime of the Sodomites is unknown and unknowable so to say that “sodomy” equates to sex that has no chance of producing babies is on a loose foundation. But, so far as I’m aware there’s no evidence that “sodomy” ever meant anything different, so while the Bible might not describe what the Sodomites did, that the church had rules against these sorts of sexual acts from times ancient in spite of no clear Biblical text, and that people sure seem to have thought that the Sodomites were sexually deviant from times ancient both indicate to me that sodomy means what we think it means, that it always has, and that the Bible forbids it. Retroactively deciding that the word “sodomy” doesn’t have any meaning is just being intellectually dishonest. I always wondered what gomorrahizing was. Something so bad God destroyed a whole city, but so unspeakable that it wasn’t even euphemized. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2010, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/64 "2010-06-29T23:53:43Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > Because its an evolutionary cul-de-sac, That seems unlikely given that it is both relatively common (compared to genuine defects), and the fact it appears in so many species. It seems likely that a certain amount of homosexual behavior is either desirable (in the Darwinian sense) for its own sake , or is a side effect of something else that is. ---
**Author:** ![SantaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/da6949/32.png) [@SantaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SantaMan)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2010, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/65 "2010-06-30T00:23:41Z")
Wasn’t there a discussion recently on how addiioinal support by non parent relatives could be an advantage? As in, one child supported by parents and non-reproducing aunts and uncles might have a better shot than two kids supported only by their respective parents? Also, in olden times, there was the “homosexual acts are associated with temple idolatry” could be a factor. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/66 "2010-07-01T01:20:06Z")
> [@Xenocrates](#): > > I don’t really have any actual knowledge about this but I would guess that homosexual sex is a thing that has a fairly easy time disgusting people. Sex is integrated with a lot of emotions. And people tend to make negative moral judgments about things that disgust them. I’m able to separate my emotions and moral judgments to some extent so I don’t think that male homosexual sex is wrong but it still disgusts me. If I hadn’t thought about it a lot I would probably think it was wrong. I feel the same way about heterosexual sex. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/67 "2010-07-01T05:20:31Z")
> [@AWB](#): > > I always wondered what gomorrahizing was. Whatever it was, I’m sure I’ve done it (or had it done to me). And yes, there are things you heteros do that turn my stomach. And if you think that male-male sex is disgusting, remember that there are damn few things 2 men can do that can’t be done by a man and a woman (e.g. docking). ---
**Author:** ![AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/22d042/32.png) [@AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AboutAsWeirdAsYouCanGet)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/68 "2010-07-01T08:05:45Z")
> [@](#): > > Remember- “Baaa!” means “No!” Does Hal Briston know this? :p:D ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/69 "2010-07-01T11:56:45Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > People are afraid that it’s contagious. > > Sexual arousal is a rather involuntary response. The existence of homosexuals makes homosexuality a reality, so heterosexuals worry that exposure to it might someday trigger a response and they too will turn gay, with all the disgusting implications. > > So they act out with hostility to the idea, to reassure themselves as well as others. Note the number of vocal anti-gay politicians and preachers who turn out to be closet cases. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/70 "2010-07-01T12:02:53Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Actually, the “modern interpretation” is that the “crime of the Sodomites” was inhospitality and lack of compassion. That’s not a “modern interpretation” – that’s what it explicitly says right there in the Bible: [QUOTE=Ezekiel 16:49-50] Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw [/QUOTE] > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > True, that skipped my mind. And I agree that it is theoretically possible that this was the intended original reading. But so far as I’m aware,\* there’s no particular evidence that anyone ever believed that until modern day. At the very least, it has been the stance of most of the European and Islamic world for the last couple of thousand years. > > - And feel free to point out any evidence to the contrary. As you wish; see above. > [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I do understand that there is text in the Bible which supports the modern interpretation For values of “supports” equal to “unambiguously declares to be true”. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/71 "2010-07-01T12:42:53Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > That’s not a “modern interpretation” – that’s what it explicitly says right there in the Bible: You’ll note that the phrase “modern interpretation” is in quotes. I was using **Sage Rat** ’s words in an ironic way. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/72 "2010-07-01T12:45:40Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > That’s not a “modern interpretation” – that’s what it explicitly says right there in the Bible: Hey, if you’re happy to ignore all context and just pick out a single sentence from a full page of text, be my guest. > **[Quoting out of context](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quote_mining#Quote_mining)** > > Quoting out of context (sometimes referred to as contextomy or quote mining) is an informal fallacy in which a passage is removed from its surrounding matter in such a way as to distort its intended meaning. Context may be omitted intentionally or accidentally, thinking it to be non-essential. As a fallacy, quoting out of context differs from false attribution, in that the out of context quote is still attributed to the correct source. > Arguments based on this fallacy typically take two forms: > C... Which of the following points would you unequivocally state is impossible to be true? 1. Ezekiel 16 is a discussion of women, not people in general. Is that impossible? 2. God would only destroy a city if both its men and women had sinned, not if only the women had. Is that unthinkable? 3. Ezekiel 16 is a critique of the Israelites of the time at which Ezekiel was speaking, and hence stressed the sins that he felt the Israelites were committing at that particular time, not the sins that the Sodomites were more generally known for historically. Is that impossible? 4. Ezekiel may not have known what sins were committed by the Sodomites, and simply attached whatever sins he wanted to lambaste to the name Sodom. God striking you down from the sky is, after all, a pretty good motivator to not do that sort of thing. Is that impossible? 5. He was comparing Sodom with Samaria when he pointed out the “hospitality” sins. Is this reading impossible? 6. He accused the Sodomites of prostitution, infidelity, and other sexual misdemeanors. Is this reading impossible? Reading through the whole chapter, to me it sounds like a man ranting against the sins of the day, not the sins of the past. To me, it sounds like he’s talking about women in particular, which would preclude any chance of mentioning sodomy no matter how hard he would try, without going entirely off topic. Sure, he accuses the Sodomites of being inhospitable and makes it out as the crime of the century, but that’s because he’s talking to a group of women, and being hospitable was their only job in life beyond pushing out babies in Ancient Israel. My version of events explains everything we see in Ezekiel 16 plus it jives with the history of the word Sodomy. Your version of events has Ezekiel tangentially throwing out historical trivia about inhospitableness midway through a rant about prostitution, infidelity, licentiousness, vanity, and egotism. And, it conflicts with the history of the word Sodomy. Why is your version, lifted bodily out of all context, supposed to be more believable? ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/73 "2010-07-01T17:33:21Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > 1. Ezekiel 16 is a discussion of women, not people in general. Is that impossible? Impossible, no; irrelevant, yes. > [@](#): > > 1. God would only destroy a city if both its men and women had sinned, not if only the women had. Cite? > [@](#): > > 1. Ezekiel 16 is a critique of the Israelites of the time at which Ezekiel was speaking, and hence stressed the sins that he felt the Israelites were committing at that particular time, not the sins that the Sodomites were more generally known for historically. Ezekiel believed that contemporary Israel was free of proscribed sexual behaviors? I find that a bit difficult to believe. > [@](#): > > 1. Ezekiel may not have known what sins were committed by the Sodomites Ezekiel was ignorant of the religious writings and traditions handed down to his era? That would make it a bit difficult to take him seriously as any sort of prophet. > [@](#): > > 1. He was comparing Sodom with Samaria when he pointed out the “hospitality” sins. Is this reading impossible? See answer #1. > [@](#): > > 1. He accused the Sodomites of prostitution, infidelity, and other sexual misdemeanors. And this has what, exactly, to do with “sodomy” as you are defining the term? > [@](#): > > it sounds like he’s talking about women in particular, which would preclude any chance of mentioning sodomy The women he was talking about had no tongues? Was this an earlier Divine punishment for some sin? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/74 "2010-07-01T18:26:21Z")
> [@Lanzy](#): > > A lot of educated people are exposed to a lot of different world views. Its like being exposed to the measles, it doesn’t always take. Yeah, I still don’t understand the clustering of homophobia that i have observed in physicians, anyone else nnotice that? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/75 "2010-07-01T21:42:09Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Impossible, no; irrelevant, yes. You stated that the one sentence was _unambiguously_ a discussion of everything wrong with Sodom that ever mattered. If it’s a discussion of only the women of Sodom, then it’s not about _everything_ wrong with Sodom. A discussion of male-on-male sex would simply never come up in a discussion about women’s sins, for example. > [@](#): > > Cite? Given that God said, in Genesis, that he wouldn’t destroy the town if he could find more than X righteous people, it seems reasonable to believe that he was a bit choosy about blithely destroying a town where half of everyone wasn’t particularly sinful. > [@](#): > > Ezekiel believed that contemporary Israel was free of proscribed sexual behaviors? I find that a bit difficult to believe. Ezekiel, judging by the text, believed that the women of the time were still committing the sins of prostitution, infidelity, licentiousness, vanity, inhospitality, etc. Hence, he talks about them. > [@](#): > > Ezekiel was ignorant of the religious writings and traditions handed down to his era? That would make it a bit difficult to take him seriously as any sort of prophet. I’m not religious. The idea that Ezekiel was just a guy, limited to what was known in his day, doesn’t seem particularly implausible. According to the Bible chronology, Lot would have lived sometime between 1400 and 1200 BC, six to eight hundred years before Ezekiel was preaching. If it was a historic event to begin with, I’d vote that’s plenty of time for the people to have lost all knowledge of what it was all about. > [@](#): > > See answer #1. If he’s comparing the two, then he’s not saying that these are the _principal_ crimes of Sodom, he’s saying that this particular subset is the one that isn’t shared with Samaria but is also, of course, “really bad to do girls”. If it was impossible for this reading to be true, saying that it’s an unambiguous statement of Sodom’s true crime would be reasonable. If it’s an entirely plausible reading, “unambiguous” it ain’t. > [@](#): > > And this has what, exactly, to do with “sodomy” as you are defining the term? Because, if he was simply pointing out what sins the Sodomites had that the Samarians didn’t in your one, singled out sentence, then the principal sins that he talks about and ascribes to the Sodomites include all the other sins talked about through all of Ezekiel 16. Which, again, doesn’t make the stance that the destruction of Sodom was _unambiguously_ about inhospitality. It could well have been about the infidelity and licentiousness that he accused the Sodomites of a sentence earlier. > [@](#): > > The women he was talking about had no tongues? Was this an earlier Divine punishment for some sin? The ancient definition of sodomy seems principally to have been one of ejaculating (i.e. releasing semen) for purposes other than making babies. This includes anal sex, oral sex, masturbation, pulling out, etc. Tongues, last I heard, do not spray semen. ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2010, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/76 "2010-07-01T22:04:14Z")
> [@Superhal](#): > > Imho, the status of gays reflects the status of women in a society. Of course, “fear of gays” is only and always “fear of homosexual men.” > > You can tell how homosexuals will be treated in a society by how women are treated. Are women equal in terms of income, behavior, status, etc.? Regardless of how you think women are treated, how they are **really** treated is reflected in attitudes towards gays. > > For example, if you ask a man why they would be opposed to homosexual rights, the usual answer is that they don’t want to be approached by gay men on the street, propositioned, or even possibly raped. Why would a straight man have this fear from gay men? The reason, in essence, is that a man doesn’t want to get treated like a woman in that society. > > Therefore, throughout history, women have had a lower status in society, and men have always feared being treated like women. In fact, being treated like a woman is just about the worst thing to do to a man. I don’t think that’s accurate, or at least not [universally so](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shudo#Terminology) (even though Japanese women are, to this day, very much second rate citizen) ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2010, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/77 "2010-07-02T13:56:49Z")
Yeah they have some pretty liberated ideas about sex. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/78 "2010-07-06T22:42:35Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > On the other hand, we don’t tend to throw people in jail for sodomy any more. > [@Marley23](#): > > I think a better response to **friedo** ’s point is that anti-sodomy laws are still on the books and were only ruled unconstitutional a few years ago. And just the other day people on this board were discussed efforts (at least in Texas) to start enforcing those laws again. My wife’s nephew was charged with having anal sex with his girlfriend. She was “of majority.” legally old enough to have sex with, and it is legal to have anal sex in Virginia – but for because of the anti-sodomy laws, the “age of majority” is _higher_ for anal sex, and he ran afoul of that. It was not (yet) legal to have sex with her _in that way_. That specific charge was dropped – I do not know the mind of the prosecutors, but they declined to put the girl on the stand for any reason, and dropped _all_ charges depending on assertions she had made, so I would assume they found her a poor witness and wanted to keep her out of cross-examination (as opposed to deciding not to enforce the anti-sodomy provision of the age of consent). ---
**Author:** ![newcomer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e5b9ba/32.png) [@newcomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcomer)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/79 "2010-07-07T01:56:07Z")
I remember reading some historical social study that looked into the matter and came up with some observations, possibly self-evident. For example, homosexual hate through history is male led with the loudest having their own issues that needed constant reminding. Then, considering that male’s sex perspective and big-time turn-on is the perception of and actual power (penetration being the key exhibit of that power) during sexual act with a woman the idea of any male being sexually subjugated by another male arouses (pun not intended) sense of weakness and unmanliness. One that needs to be addressed. Also, even today, the ultimate act of shame upon a young male is penetration by a foreign object performed by heterosexual males. Because they know that the victim knows how shameful of an act that is. I think it goes very deep into dark alleys of male psych difficult to articulate. That is why, I’m guessing, unwanted attention and overt signaling by a homosexual person to a heterosexual man sometime ends up very badly. Anyway, man written God’s Books only hyperbolized essence of the male herd mentality and its sexual power supreme. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703/80 "2010-07-07T11:02:13Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > My wife’s nephew was charged with having anal sex with his girlfriend. She was “of majority.” legally old enough to have sex with, and it is legal to have anal sex in Virginia – but for because of the anti-sodomy laws, the “age of majority” is _higher_ for anal sex, and he ran afoul of that. It was not (yet) legal to have sex with her _in that way_. If I might ask… how did anyone find out in order to press charges? 😕 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-people-hate-gays-for-so-long/544703.md?page=5)