By Paul Weiser
A frequent canard hurled at the normal is "homophobia" (and its variants, "male chauvinist" misogyny and "Islamophobia"). Each of these accusations constitutes a tangle of planted assumptions... all false.
"Homophobia," so-called, is hatred of homosexuals resulting from fear (phobos) of them. It implies that this fear - purported cause of the hatred - results from "homophobes'" recognition that they are themselves repressed homosexuals; their guilty arousal in the presence of gays reminds them they could become homosexual, jeopardizing their carefully constructed straight personality and life style.
In a word, nonsense. Most normal (heterosexual) people feel a real and justified discomfort around gays because they have difficulty understanding them (just as one feels discomfort around people who don't share your language: how to communicate?) This discomfort seldom rises to the level of hatred (strike one basic planted assumption). Where it does, the hatred generally arises from contempt rather than fear: a person insecure enough to hate expresses this emotion toward safe targets - those who are or appear even weaker (strike the second planted assumption). Nazis went genocidally mad with hatred of Jews because they were disarmed and inoffensive; Klansmen felt safe to hate inoffensive, disarmed blacks after Reconstruction (and, like gay-haters confronted by gay bodybuilders or bikers, turned tail at the first sign of resistance).
So hatred (of gays, feminists, and Muslims) arises from contempt - not fear - where it exists at all. For the most part, the irrational "leaders" of these groups see hatred where there is only mild discomfort and politely veiled contempt: the hatred is an immature projection of their own self-hatred and hatred of the normal (not necessarily two things when they hate the normal in themselves).
In short, "homophobia" and its cousins are mere propaganda disguised with psychobabble. The accusers, not their feared and hated accused, are deranged.
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