Every Homophobe is in the closet really?

 

 

For a few years now I've been keeping an eye peeled on LGBT issues and outspoken sources of homophobia. Unsurprisingly a major source for a lot of the bigotry comes from religious organisations. I say its unsurprising because religious groups in general tend to be traditionalist and a number of them like Judaism, Islam and Christianity have explicitly anti Gay passages in their holy books.

 


However whilst monitoring these groups I often came across a rather bizarre counter argument, it has a number of variations but can be summed up as Pastor X is in the closet.At first I thought it was just a joke, a way to rile up the obviously homophobic and angry person shouting in the embedded video. I didn't find the joke funny, but so what each to their own, was my opinion. And I didn't let it bother me, I'd just skip them.

 But after a while I started seeing this supposed joke made in a serious manner, and I quickly learned that this joke was actually being used as a proper argument for debate. A big user of this argument is the Young Turks the internets Liberal "Rebels", but there not the only ones I've seen quite a few intellectual types make essential the same argument.

 Here's a pretty good example of what I'm talking about.


The video starts off as a joke, I understand Jimmy (on the left) is a proper comedian, but John (the guy on the right) isn't in fact I think he's a Doctoral student, but if he is making a joke his delivery is awful. And his comments don't sound very funny.

"No one is like, that disgusted by it and that scared of it, if your straight. I'm straight I don't care." and so on. This is not an isolated incident I see comments like this all the time and it really gets on my nerves. The argument is literally this, "major homophobes are Gay". That's all the argument is, if you have an irrational fear or hatred of Gay people you are homosexual. First that simply isn't possible and I'll get back to why a little later. Second that argument is ridiculously homophobic.

In effect what they are saying is this, "no heterosexual could be so irrational and hate filled", that's the argument, and it's really insulting to homosexuals. I'm surprised no Gay rights group bothers to call out the Liberals on this bigotry.

Now are their self hating homosexuals? Of course there are, the image at the top is famous anti gay pastor Ted Haggard who was caught with male prostitutes. Just like their are women who believe men are superior, or ethnic minorities who identify with the majority, and mixed race racists. But do we assume ever misogynist is a woman trapped in a man's body? No, do we assume that every single Swastika armband and jackboot wearer has a black or Jewish father? Again no, so why do so for Gays?

I suppose the argument stems from an inability to empathise (which is funny because I've seen Young Turks vids where they wag the finger at others for not being able to)  with others. What was one of the first things John said "I'm straight I don't care" since he's straight and doesn't care it follows that every straight person must also not care? I thought Liberals were all about treating others as individuals.

To demonstrate how absurd and stupid that reasoning is let me apply to another situation. I'm over 6ft tall and I don't like cheese, so according to the "logic" above I could accuse every other 6ft+ person I see enjoying a Pizza of wearing platform shoes. That's crazy, but the argument is the same. In fact its very close to the no true Scotsman/Christian argument, which is more commonly known as the no true Scotsman/Christian FALLACY.

Typing in Fred Phelps (you know from the Westboro cult) name into youtube, it auto suggested "Fred Phelps is gay" clicking that takes me to dozens of pages about him supposedly being Gay. Some are jokes others not. The one's that aren't revolve around his defensiveness over being asked if he's Gay.



Now the overall argument is the same, "why act so defensive if your not Gay" but I bring this up mainly to remind people of something. Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptists, are not just against Gays. Yes they are famous for the "God hates Fags" signs and protests at soldiers funerals, but they also believe God hates Jews, Muslims, other Christians, anyone who dies of non natural causes. In fact the only people they don't believe God hates is Black people.

So if you were to ask Phelps if he was a Muslim Imam or had Rabbi urges I'm pretty sure he'd react the same way. I just don't understand the thick skulls on this issue, is it really that hard to understand that someone who dedicates all that time and energy into hating and opposing a group of people to react badly and call you an idiot when you ask them if they are one themselves?

Now on to why this argument is not only stupid but impossible.

Remember the argument is an absolute, every homophobe is a secret Gay according to this argument. So then why is it that homosexuality has been repressed legally, culturally and socially around the world over for centuries? That would require the majority of the human race to be homosexual and self loathing, and since the punishment for homosexuality was often torture and death, also suicidal.

So that means that every nation that persecutes Gays is done so by a self hating Gay leadership, after all what can be more irrational and hate filled then arbitrary imprisonment and execution?

According to the argument both the hangmen and crowd are in the closet

 Now at this point I'm sure you're thinking that is absurd, and you would be correct, the entire argument is absurd and its shocking to me that so many Liberals with a background in academia and journalism would make such an absurd and obviously flawed argument. But there you go.