Why do religions hate gays so darn much?

[uberrogo]

As there are people who are both gay and religious I don't understand your question.

Back at ya.

 

[freeeekyyy]

Well. Yes. Things change. Remember that the bible is also the originator for the strong racism that occurred through the last millennia. It's written over and over about the superiority of the white man. Through curses people became black skinned, marry across races and death will strike. It's actually more references to racism in the bible, then it is against homosexuality. But there is not much racism going on in the church today I think, or is there? I don't know, there is at least gay suppression. Maybe because they can still get away with it?

I think you're confusing the Bible with the Book of Mormon. Mormonism is not generally accepted as a mainstream Christian belief, and conflicts with it in many areas, including the idea of racial superiority.

 

[Octarine]

Oh, the indignity!

Hey, that's what he gets for being a celebrity!

 

[CzeCze]

I was just gonna say - not all religions. Buddhism and Taoism dont care. Certaing societies that sprung up around those religions might care, but the founders didnt.

 

[Yuurei]

Many of the older religions/cultures were actually fine with homosexuality, Greek and Roman were especially fond of it. But it was overtaken Christianity and whenever one tribe is taken over by another the first thing they do is vilify old traditions.

The Japanese shogunate and Buddhists were also pretty okay with homosexuality and most likely abandoned it when they were introduced to Western Culture and Christianity.

I can’t speak for the mideast since that isn’t a speciality of mine, but they are not far from Turkey, the home of the Ottoman Empire, which took over the seat ( no pun intended) of the original Roman Empire, so they too would have reason to eliminate the tradition so of the Roman Empire.

So, tl;dr everyone hates the Romans.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

I realize this is a very old thread, but oh well. Religions that have deeply established gender roles, and especially when these are gender hierarchies, homosexuality throws off the core of that system. The Christian religions that are considered "conservative" or "traditional" have distinct gender roles, especially in relationship to marriage. They have defined gender hierarchy and there is no way that homosexuality fits into that framework. It breaks down foundational assumptions about basic living in a way that they cannot process or integrate it. I know because I was raised in one of these and understand its philosophy, but also reject it absolutely.

 

[rav3n]

My hypothesis about why Abrahamic religions hate gays. The Church demonized sex because of the excessive amounts of orphans running around where the Church had to care for them. In other words, a form of socially engineered birth control. But gays didn't experience this difficulty so they were despised due to envy and potentially a way for the Church to continue controlling its uneducated, unwashed masses, by focusing hatred towards a minority group. People unify against a common enemy.

 

[Lark]

To be honest I dont think that they do, the problem is that when they consider homosexuality its always male homosexuality and it could not be said to be behaviour among consenting adults that they are talking about.

For a long time homosexuality was exclusively associated with sodomy as a form of sexual cruelty and sadism. Not for no reason either as it was associated with humiliation and capitulation on a lot historical battlefield and other violent scenarios.

The very modern perspective on what same sex attraction is would not have got a look in at the times and in the historical contexts that most scriptural or textual criticisms of the same thing where written, decided or codified. This is one of the problems I find with much of the ahistorical and decontextualised criticisms of religion or similar systems of belief by very recently innovated or adopted systems of belief, especially those that cant formally identify as systems of belief themselves for different reasons.

Its a different topic, maybe, but I do think some of the most legitimate contemporary criticism of attempts to make same sex attraction the norm arise from the very criticisms that formerly where made by LGBT groups themselves of so called "straight" society. That and I think its part of the overall anti-natalist, Malthusian culture thing, some religious sources are among the only ones to criticise that but I think that is much more to do with the poverty in any sort of public discourse and discussion than it is about religion.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Its a different topic, maybe, but I do think some of the most legitimate contemporary criticism of attempts to make same sex attraction the norm arise from the very criticisms that formerly where made by LGBT groups themselves of so called "straight" society. That and I think its part of the overall anti-natalist, Malthusian culture thing, some religious sources are among the only ones to criticise that but I think that is much more to do with the poverty in any sort of public discourse and discussion than it is about religion.

I haven't really seen that, unless by "making it the norm" you mean making it accepted by society at large rather than denigrated. Which I don't really see as the same thing.

I haven't really had any experiences with someone trying to convert me to homosexuality, nor have I heard of any such thing.

I could just as easily argue that the demonization of homosexuality serves a sort of hyper-individualized, neoliberal society where human relationships (whether sexual in nature or not) that don't directly serve the interests of capital are discouraged. That is, it retards the growth of friendships of the same gender even when sexuality is not involved. It certainly would be harder to build solidarity that way. It also facilitates the existence of what's often (correctly) referred to as "toxic masculinity." Demonization of homosexuality seems to serve the current power structure (whether by design or not), rather than the other way around as I am interpreting you as suggesting.

I wouldn't place much stock in the alleged support of the alt-right regarding homosexuality. It's more like women's rights in that it's useful for them mostly for demonizing foreigners. In that case, it's an outgrowth and a logical evolution of tendencies that already existed within the American right. In this case, LGBT issues and women's rights are only useful for drawing attention to "over there" or "with those people." They don't exactly appear interested in any of these things when it can't be applied to those contexts.

I was actually thinking about this a few days ago in response of this thread, and had forgotten about until I saw this post, so thanks for reminding me.

 

[ceecee]

I haven't really had any experiences with someone trying to convert me to homosexuality, nor have I heard of any such thing.

I didn't hear anyone even speak about this until I was well into adulthood. I remember laughing so hard like WTF kind of bullshit are you babbling but I found this to be much more wide spread than I imagined, especially from straight men of a more advanced age.

I have never seen, anywhere in the world, in my entire life, anyone trying to make same sex attraction the norm. But trying to tell someone that has this ridiculous belief in their head that is pointless.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Because they’re party poopers.

 

[Totenkindly]

A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality by Joseph Nicolosi, Paperback | Barnes & Noble(R)

Nicolosi was head of NARTH.

I was reminded of the book today because someone in a group I'm in said it appeared for sale on Walmart, then abruptly disappeared off the site. Not like there's not a bunch of other books on the topic of homosexuality on the Walmart site, they simply aren't titled so forthrightly... and it looks like they have more anti-anti-gay books than I would have expected.

I grew up in more rural conservative churches, so I heard the conversion crap (and how gays were recruiting) far more than I cared to, the churches were obsessed with that and some other pet topics (abortion, women's roles, etc). Can't say I ever saw gay recruiting efforts happen IRL though, even if I was pushed to go recruit people for Jesus all the time and obviously het promiscuity is a common thing. My gay friends were typically just trying to survive, especially if they lived in the south.

 

[Jaguar]

because jesus wasn't gay.

Do we know for certain?

 

[Schrödinger's Name]

It's funny that some straight people complain about gays wanting to 'turn them gay'... Whilst heterosexuals have euhm... practiced 'corrective rape' and still try to 'cure' gay people (with therapy) until this very day.

And Jesus was actually a lizard. Know your biology.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It's funny that some straight people complain about gays wanting to 'turn them gay'... Whilst heterosexuals have euhm... practiced 'corrective rape' and still try to 'cure' gay people (with therapy) until this very day.

And Jesus was actually a lizard. Know your biology.

Well, there is a lizard called the Jesus Christ lizard, because it can walk on water.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

Jesus was a dinosaur of the late Triassic. Dinosaurs aren’t reptiles. Get it right, guys. Sheesh.

 

[Maou]

I think it got started with disease and lack of children being a bad thing, everything else is history

 

[Justin of Flavia Neapolis]

Islamophobes be like

 

[Lark]

I haven't really seen that, unless by "making it the norm" you mean making it accepted by society at large rather than denigrated.

No that's not what I mean.

 

[Tellenbach]

Many religions are started by men and are dominated by men; many men find the sexual act between men to be gross. That is why there is opposition to gay people. This is largely a personal aesthetics issue. This is also why centralized authority is a bad idea; eventually, large and powerful institutions get corrupted by jerks.

Or put quite simply, any deviation from the libertarian perspective results in harm to society and the greater the deviation, the greater the damage.