[recycled material - first appeared here]

Roughly twenty years after the birth of the term, I still don’t like homophobia. The word. But before arguing against the use of this term, let me emphasize that by taking a position against the word I am by no means taking a position in support of any or all behavior the term is used to categorize. The issue I address here is solely the perceived misuse of language.

Why quibble over “homophobia”? First, as popularly employed, homophobia implies a diagnosis, and supports a perspective, that rests upon a tenet of pop-psychology. The tenet asserts that behind all aggression, anger, and resistance, exists the true causal emotion — fear. But does fear underlie all aggression, all anger, all opposition?

As Andrew Ortony and Terence J. Turner, researchers specializing in the psychology of emotion, long ago outlined in the pages of Psychological Review, anger is a distinct emotion that has its developmental roots in the infant’s experience of frustration. The infantile experience of frustration, especially that of restraint, develops into the adult emotion of anger. Furthermore, the expression of anger emerges prior to that of fear. Hence anger does not develop out of fear.

What underlies adult anger?

In a 1993 edition of another psychological journal, Cognition and Emotion, renown authority on human emotion Nico Frijda wrote, “As for anger: The most elementary elicitors…are acute goal interference.”

For the above and other reasons, the fear-as-primary-motivator tenet of pop-psychology seems to me to be more than highly questionable. It is likely outright false.

Returning to the specific case of homophobia, opposition to the increasing presence and political clout of homosexuals cannot and should not be written off as a mere symptom of widespread phobia. It is more complicated than that.

If you think about it, the reasoning behind “homophobia,” “homophobic,” and “homophobe,” is almost absurd. With similarly applied reasoning, one could diagnose anti-abortion activists as choice-phobic, environmentalists as development-phobic, and republicans as tax-phobic. As an even more ridiculous example, I myself could be called “creamed-corn-phobic,” for I intensely dislike this canned vegetable and resolutely oppose its inclusion into my diet.

Why not diagnose as phobic all aversive and oppositional behavior? Because the underlying reasoning is defective, and because a term as serious as phobia should not be used to categorize a person or people with reckless abandon.

The second and perhaps primary reason why the popular use of homophobia concerns me is that behind this term lurks moral and political bullying. All too frequently individuals employ the term in an attempt to pathologize opposing perspectives. To force values. To close issues. By labeling and defining people as “homophobic” you easily discredit their concerns. Calling someone homophobic is equivalent to saying, “You are sick. Your feelings and beliefs have absolutely no place in this society.”

True, the “other side” is frequently guilty of the above, but does that justify it?

The questions of homosexual rights (the extension of civil rights to people with differing sexual orientations), and how and to what degree society should accept and accommodate homosexuality, are controversial and complex. Personally, I’m for homosexual rights such as the right to marry and adopt children. However, using words that discredit the holders of opposing opinions and values, and thus, indirectly, the opinions and values themselves, is a strong-arm political tactic–a tactic that undermines the effort to make our communities and nation more free-thinking.

Language is a powerful tool. Sure, it would be nice if we could classify all behavior and persons we didn’t like as pathological, hence undeserving a legitimate place in the world. But it just isn’t that simple. Furthermore, by doing so we undermine a better understanding.

[cartoon thanks to atheistcartoons.com]

[cartoon thanks to jesusandmo.net]

[cartoon thanks to treelobsters.com]

Before answering that question, let me explain what I mean by ‘keepers of the garden.’  No primate species but one will cultivate and tend a garden.  Yet many if not most will defend a territory — not because they win Monopoly money for doing so, but because any territory worth defending contains gardens of the naturally occurring sort.  Food sources.

Dominant males are also keepers because they fight not to lose what they have.  Lastly, our own species qualifies as keepers in terms of tending to it in order to insure and optimize food production.  In this regard females play a significant role, the size and importance of that role depending upon the particular culture.

Why do males tend to be ‘keepers’?  Male primates tend to be larger and stronger.  Which makes for a good defender.  Additionally, males are more expendable.  Evolutionary speaking.  If you lose a female, you lose more than one individual.  You also endanger if not lose dependent children, as well as lose the potential production of more offspring.  The social group that has 5 females to every male will grow more quickly than will the opposite.  To put it bluntly, wombs are limited resources.  In contrast, as a naturalist friend of mine put it, “sperm is  cheap.”

Why alpha’s?  In terms of physical power and aggressiveness, alphas tend to be “at the top.”  Perhaps more importantly, in terms of social power, they are definitely at the top of the heap.  They are more likely to have others follow them and thereby multiply the muscle available for a task.  Indeed, as Jane Goodall and others have documented, dominant males tend to take the lead in defending a “feeding territory for all members.”(1)

But why would a territory need to defending?  Because resources equate to survival.  They are valued for a reason.  And can be stolen.  As evidenced by these . . . Bible verses [emphasis added].

The sons of Jacob came upon the dead bodies and looted the city where their sister had been defiled. They seized their flocks and herds and donkeys and everything else of theirs in the city and out in the fields. They carried off all their wealth and all their women and children, taking as plunder everything in the houses. (Genesis 34:27-29)

So the LORD our God also gave into our hands Og king of Bashan and all his army. We struck them down, leaving no survivors.  At that time we took all his cities. There was not one of the sixty cities that we did not take from them—the whole region of Argob, Og’s kingdom in Bashan. All these cities were fortified with high walls and with gates and bars, and there were also a great many unwalled villages. We completely destroyed them, as we had done with Sihon king of Heshbon, destroying  every city—men, women and children. But all the livestock and the plunder from their cities we carried off for ourselves. (Deuteronomy 3:3-7)

Gardens need to be protected from vandals and other threats.  Yet can you protect a garden from plagues and drought?  Well, you can try. And when it comes to food, to not do everything in your power to protect it — that would be crazy.  So maybe the many Bible verses that evidence attempts at assuring a healthy garden — while they are misguided — are not so crazy.

Let us fear the LORD our God, who gives autumn and spring rains in season, who assures us of the regular weeks of harvest. (Jeremiah 5:24)

What brings the rains that nourish your garden?  If your understanding of nature is rudimentary and/or you have a hyperactive tendency to attribute events to the work of agents (related to the theorized human HADD – hyperactive agency detection device (2)).

Of course, a great leader-god gets credit for the good, because he is loving and/or pleased with his people.  So be sure to please him.  Refrain from behavior that could anger him.  But when plagues strike, when rains don’t come and plants wither, this is also a god’s doing.  But the bad does not reflect poorly on his nature.  Rather, a bad turn of events will be attributed to a people’s bad actions, which provoked their god.  Just ask Pat Robertson.  This renown preacher from a more modern age informed people that the reason for the hurricane of 2005 that wrecked havoc on the city of New Orleans — bringing way too much of those nurturing rains — was that people had sinned.  The nation had been too soft on the issue of abortion.(3)

A productive garden must be nurtured.  And protected.  This is why religion speaks to the issue so often.  Food is indeed sacred — though in a fully mundane, evolutionary way.

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(1) de Waal, F. B. M., (ed.), Tree of Origin: What Primate Behavior Can Tell Us About Human Social Evolution, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001, p. 19
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_psychology_of_religion
(3) http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1953778_1953776_1953771,00.html

Even back then, when in my more Buddhist days, I couldn’t fully embrace that idea. I knew that people are basically more animal than spiritual, no matter how hard we try to transcend the fact. And so I could see a benefit in limiting things like jealousy.

New research of the cultural-anthropology sort supports the idea that there may be benefits to the practice of monogamy — beyond limited the spread of STDs.

The finding:

In cultures that permit men to take multiple wives, the intra-sexual competition that occurs causes greater levels of crime, violence, poverty and gender inequality than in societies that institutionalize and practice monogamous marriage.

Hmm. The skeptic in me wonders whether there could also be a downside to monogamy. Certainly becoming stuck in a coupling can be bad. Are there other drawbacks?

It seems that three cheers are in order for religion. At least if you accept things on face value. And read no further than the headline. What did the study actually find?

“After unscrambling sentences containing religiously oriented words, participants in our studies exercised significantly more self-control,” says psychology graduate student and lead researcher on the study, Kevin Rounding.

Oh. Okay. But wait. Is this effect exclusive to religion? The answer: Can’t tell.

Rather than having a control condition involving the unscrambling of sentences neutral to religion, why not test to see if other terms have an equally pro-self-control effect? I can think of a few sets, including family (and/or other social-group-oriented words) career-aspirations, dangers in the world, etc.

My alternative headline: Compared to complete ambivalence, religion kinda moves people.

Bah.

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Note: My comments are based upon the news release of the finding. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a link to more in-depth information about the study.