The gay evolutionary psychologist Jesse Bering has just published a piece pretty much confirming his agreement with your position, Matteo. “Homophobics” can’t help being that way, he says. The article is called Natural Homophobes, and he ends it with,

That Gallup’s ideas could be championed by antisocial conservatives to promote further intolerance against gays is inevitable, perhaps; but if it’s any consolation, it should also have them doing a bit of navel-gazing, seeing that their hatred is just an artifact of their godlessly evolved minds.

If hatred is just an artifact of evolution…

I do wonder sometimes, if evangelicalism with its tendencies towards utilitarianism and the uncritical acceptance of methods of modern advertising and the use of media, has not (unwittingly) promoted the ‘strategic and effective’ without really fully considering issues of integrity, or civility.

But like I said, I’m crusty…

But seriously. To brand a serious religious/moral conviction as a species of mental illness is to participate willingly in the destruction of rational debate. It’s a trump card played as part of a pure power game which seeks not so much to engage the opposition as to silence them and brand them as outside the pale of rational, civil society. It is almost never appropriate. It may be descriptive of some small sample of folks on the fringe (Westboro Baptist ‘Church’ for example) but it really is a variant of the “shut up, I explained’ gambit. It operates much like the term “racist” — an accusation which immediately sucks all the air out of any rational discussion. Which, I suspect, is the intent.

Finally, (in the ‘sauce for the goose’ style) if it is really fair to use such a term, broadly speaking, why don’t we brand those favoring abortion as “biophobic”? Or the atheist as “theophobic”?

Don’t those with the gene for homophobia need to be accepted and tolerated? They didn’t ask to be born with the condition, and, what with it being a mental disorder and all, they are not morally culpable.

Can’t leftists please, please show a little compassion for a problem that is much more widespread than homosexuality itself?

The fact that modern democracies are founded on these two principles has led to a society that is, to a large degree, morally diverse, especially when it comes to matters of sexuality and sexual expression.

I’m enough of a libertarian that for the most part I’m okay with this, as long as my rights and personal moral choices are respected.

The problem with the so called gay rights movement is that it undermines the two basic principles I’ve listed above. In arguing that certain kinds of moral and religious thinking is unhealthy or pathological the rhetoric itself, at least implicitly, advocates the undermining those rights. In other words, a Christian believing and thinking that homosexuality is immoral is, in the view of gay activists, thinking and believing things that are not only illegitimate but also not to be tolerated. A Christian’s freedom of conscience is, therefore, essentially nullified.

The beauty of natural rights as conceived by the founders was that they were universal and not mutually exclusive. Advocates of so called “gay rights,” on the other hand, posit a position that is mutually exclusive with the vision of the founders and the vast majority of people that enjoy our societie’s freedoms.

If Christians pushed their morality the same way the gay rights advocates push theirs they would be accused of trying to establish a theocracy. Like a man-made theocracy the utopian vision of these militant gays can only lead one place– a totalitarian society.

I know that I’ve been guilty of painting with a broad brush, before, as well.

After all, I have a lot of atheist friends who are very, very clear thinkers.

But I still stick by my comments–as long as it’s recognized that I am broad-brushing, just a tad.

Granted there are people with an evil and/or irrational hatred toward homosexuals. The term “homophobic” is still wrong for them; it still short-circuits rational discourse; it is still tarred by its over-application to people who neither fear nor hate homosexuals. I mean, if you think it’s important to qualify statements concerning Islam’s treatment of women, then for consistency you ought to be joining us in calling an end to the use of “homophobia.” Why not just identify the people you are speaking of, those who hate homosexuals with an evil and/or irrational hatred toward homosexuals, as people with an evil and/or irrational hatred toward homosexuals?

Don’t lose sight of gay-rights insurgents’ documented intentionally manipulative purposes. Don’t support it, either; you know better than that, I’m sure.

When you refer to the “secular mind”, you seem to imply that, it consists of a monolithic cognitive structure, with respect to its moral judgments: they claim all cultures are equal, and yet, Islam treatment of women is bad, two seemingly contradictory views. While I agree with you that, those who do hold these opposing notions, are being illogical, in this regard (one cannot affirm moral relativism, as implied by the view that all cultures are equally valid, or good, since this same claim-all cultures are equally valid-is an absolutist claim, but also, the notion that a particular culture, Islam’s treatment of women, is bad, is an absolutist moral claim), it’s important to point out that, not all secular minds, are oriented toward moral relativism, or hold, the moral relativism, and moral absolutism, at the same time, and are therefore inconsistent. Some, or many, but not all. Thomas Nagal, a New York philosopher, and atheist, for example, is an absolutist, morally.

Also, it’s inaccurate for someone to assert “Islam’s treatment of women”. Which branch? Some branches treat women better than others. I know you were just using this as an example, and you propbably don’t believe that all Islam, treats women badly, but it’s important to qualify, these statements.

Clearly, moral relativism is untenable, as is the intellectual cancer, of which moral relativism, is a portion of, the postmodern denial of truth. But this is not the exclusive domain, of secularists. Some Christians, have flirted with postmodernism, as well.