Are homophobes born that way?

[_GoodK]

Coretta Scott King:
"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood."

American Journal of Orthopsychiatry:
"Racism, sexism, and homophobia do not fit into any current diagnostic category. The authors propose that those who engage in such behaviors display a form of psychopathology deserving of its own category. The common denominator seems to be intolerance. The authors explore the possibility of an intolerant personality disorder, outline likely symptoms, and suggest some possible treatment considerations."

this study seems to support the claim that homophobia is the result of repressed homosexual urges.

The Journal of Abnormal Psychology:
Each participant was exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual and lesbian videotapes (but not necessarily in that order). Their degree of sexual arousal was measured by penile plethysmography, which precisely measures and records male tumescence...
Broken down further, the measurements showed that while 66% of the nonhomophobic group showed no significant tumescence while watching the male homosexual video, only 20% of the homophobic men showed little or no evidence of arousal. Similarly, while 24% of the nonhomophobic men showed definite tumescence while watching the homosexual video, 54% of the homophobic men did."

I would like to hear from some of the LDS posters about when they first began to feel an aversion to alternative sexual preferences? Were you born this way? Indoctrinated? Did your aversion begin after you had children?

[_The Nehor]

Homophobe is now a useless word. It's been applied to people who think gay marriage is a bad idea but nothing more all the way up to the guy who thinks gays should be tortured to death over a long period of time.

[_Gazelam]

I have no memory of when I first was exposed to homosexuality. It may have been when I saw an episode of "Married with Children" and the Homo staying with Al was a better cook than Peg.

I did run into a homosexual on my mission who was dying of Aids and was considering suicide. We had to visit him in the hospital and talk him out of it. We ended up baptising him, but soon found out he was getting baptised all over Europe, presumably to make himself clean.

When did I first feel an aversion to "alternative sexual practices"? Probably about the same time I first felt an aversion to the eating of feces or the clubbing of baby seals.

Was I born with an aversion to homosexuality? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I carried over that opinion from the pre-mortal world. I am sure we looked in horror at what went on before we came here in places like Sodom and Gommorah.

My aversion began when I realized what homosexuality really was and what it entailed. Foul perversion.

Also, for the third time now, Homophobia is a completely inappropriate term. It entail fear, of which I have none. What I have is a deep disgust. is there another root word that can be applied that means nauseating, stomach-turning, shocking, and appalling?

[_Daniel Peterson]

I suspect that the term homophobia, loosely applied, represents nothing more than an attempt to gain rhetorical advantage over those who fail to fall into lockstep with the currently fashionable homosexualist agenda by reductionistically dismissing their views as a disease.

It would be really striking if anybody who objects to the claim that all apostates hold their views because of sin were, nonetheless, to accept the assertion that everybody who opposes gay marriage does so because of mental or emotional illness.

[_Bond...James Bond]

...currently fashionable homosexualist agenda...

Equality?

[_Daniel Peterson]

Equality?

No.

[_Ray A]

Was I born with an aversion to homosexuality? I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I carried over that opinion from the pre-mortal world. I am sure we looked in horror at what went on before we came here in places like Sodom and Gommorah.

Gaz, do you have any Gay friends? (I suppose that's like asking a Black in the 1960s if he had any Ku Klux Clan friends?)

[_Ray A]

Although this has been posted here before, perhaps it's appropriate again on this thread.

Letter to Boyd K. Packer

[_GoodK]

I suspect that the term anti-Mormon, loosely applied, represents nothing more than an attempt to gain rhetorical advantage...

[_EAllusion]

Homophobe is now a useless word. It's been applied to people who think gay marriage is a bad idea but nothing more all the way up to the guy who thinks gays should be tortured to death over a long period of time.

The word "homophobe" has evolved to have a basic meaning of "bigoted towards homosexuals" in the same way "racist" means "bigoted towards one or more races." It is useful even though it can apply to a wide range of thoughts for the same reason the word racist is useful even though it can refer to anything from thinking interracial marriage should be illegal to thinking that the Jews should be wiped out.