What causes homophobia?

Question

I can’t understand what causes homophobia from a natural point of view. Normally in nature, the male animals complete for the mate and others try to steal the girl away. Homosexuals pose no threat. A gay boy isn’t going to steal your chicks. There’s no threat there.

nightdrot · Accepted Answer

Actually, it is a mixture of factors that have been reinforcing of one another and actually do, in part, have their origins in evolution. Indeed, it is man's capacity, unique among all creatures, to transcend his instincts that both made homophobia both more intractable and now plays its part in the stigmatizing of homophobia.

Leaving aside the question of the degree to which homosexuality is either biological or psychological in its origins, in the context of early man, it was a danger. Early man, as an evolutionary matter, sought sex not for pleasure or companionship, but for the perpetuation of the species.

In a species living at the margins. Surrounded by dangerous predators, with food and shelter hard to come by, sex was essential to the perpetuation of a species with an inevitably high mortality rate. In this context, homosexuality was an evolutionary threat to the species - it would not result in offspring - and therefore at an instinctive level early man saw it as a threat and a drain and acted accordingly.

In time, these behaviors became internalized and as man evolved these instinctive reactions became cultural and then were effectively embodied and encoded in moral, religious and even legal prohibitions. This then in turn reinforcing the cultural bias against homosexuality and becoming deeply rooted. Hence what is called "homophobia."

The irony is that as it was man's ability to go beyond his instincts and think rationally and philosophically - to refine and define ethics and morals - so now that same capacity is changing social views of the acceptability of homosexuality. With all his technological and other changes, man as a species is no longer living on the edge of survival. Difference is therefore less of a threat and is, to some extent, even seen as virtue that helps man survive in a world where thought is more crucial to survival than instinct and muscle.

This will never be completed or perfected. Man is neither perfect nor perfectible and the origins of his biases - not just homophobia - are too deeply rooted to be eliminated. However, slowly but surely, the culture is refining what is acceptable conduct and the expression of biases is increasingly frowned upon. This in turn reinforcing in the individual that conduct and even thought that is socially acceptable - and ultimately moral.

That is the short version. I have skipped over much nuance and detail. Suffice to say that, in fact, homophobia does indeed have its origins in man's evolution. It was not born of the competition for females but in fact of the need of males and females to mate to make babies. In this context, the homosexual was perceived as not being able to give what man needed most to survive as a species - more babies.

In effect, he consumed scarce resources necessary to survival without creating more humans to perpetuate the species. Thus the homosexual was seen as a threat to the species and thus developed the bias against him or her.

Doody22 · Accepted Answer

It can come from a history of men in families teaching their children it's wrong, extremly religious people can cause issue especially if they have the capacity to reach a wide audience to spread the message, and young men or teens who are struggling to come to terms with the fact they may be gay are likely to lash out in homophobic behaviour in fear of so called friends finding out.

SpiderManFan2002 · Accepted Answer

Homophobia is another kind of hatred, and it's caused by ignorance, fear, and a person's upbringing. " A gay boy isn’t going to steal your chicks." I don't know why but this made me laugh xD

OlderAndWiser · Answer

Homophobia is an idea created by the left to try to badger heterosexual people into acting as if homosexuality is normal. In real life, I have never met a heterosexual who had a pathological fear of homosexuals.