What an ignorant, crapulently postmodernist, Marxist-doggerel article! The author knows nothing about the origins of homophobia. Typical contribution from someone who doesn't understand that his doctrinaire "socialist alternative" is wrecked - foundered on the rock of human nature. The one thing that offers hope of overcoming the evil in human nature, John, is the message of Jesus Christ. Your "socialism" - whether utopian or totalitarian - is a delusion, a cancer of the human spirit.

Glorfindel

Thanks. Your abuse presumably emanates from your Christian viewpoint and/or ethics.

So what do you attribute homophobia to, since I apparently know nothign about it?

Maybe I shouldn't bite but I will. Glorfindel shows his/her ignorance in a number of ways. Sh/e describes the article as post-modern AND Marxist. Anyone who knows the basics of political theories knows that post-modernism and Marxism are mutually exclusive. It's like describing Cardinal Pell as a typical Islamic Christian.

Secondly, anyone who knows anything about Christ's teachings knows He once said "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" - and He meant it. So, strike two - ignorance of Christianity (and not so much as a stone throwing but more an avalanche here).

Thirdly, Glorfindel accuses the author of knowing nothing about the origins of homophobia - but neglects to enlighten us if s/he knows the answer (nor tells us what human nature is).

And finally, it proves my point that homophobia can only sometimes be dropped by some individuals when they have a profound emotional experience where a loved one's homosexuality conflicts with their beliefs. Reason will not work.

Indeed, DavidJS, and more:

>>Glorfindel shows his/her ignorance in a number of ways<<

You forgot to mention that s/he is also ignorant of the English language - crapulent does not remotely mean what s/he thinks it does.

It cannot even be squeezed into a metaphor.

But the post is so chock-full of rent-a-quote christian rote-speak that it has to be suspect. Methinks someone has invented a new monicker so that they can stir the pot a bit.

After all, nothing gets the OLO juices going more than a good old display of moral rectitude.

Just a troll. Nothing to see here, move on.

Passy - My original post was directed at John Passant, not you.

I was attempting to express in very few words my irritation at a socialist critique of homophobia. As it happens, I am well acquainted with homophobia and homosexuality. I am certainly NOT homophobic - far from it. The origins of homosexuality itself are a mystery .... and I see absolutely no point in demonizing people of non-"standard" sexuality. Some of the gentlest, most sensitive, and also creative people have been and are gay.
As a Christian - and AS A GAY PERSON MYSELF - I deplore the judgmental, sanctimonious evil of the "Christian Right", which so often reduces "morality" only to matters about sex and reproduction (eg abortion) and gay marriage. Those attitudes are selective, hypocritical, uncompassionate and unreflective; they are also unChristian as they clearly run counter to "Let the one among you who is without sin cast the first stone".

(Yes, DavidJS, I am very well acquainted with Christ's words to the mob who brought the woman taken in adultery to Jesus, as a setup by the Pharisees and Sadduccees, trying to induce him to say something contrary to Jewish law. He didn't - he merely asked the mob to examine their own consciences before judging another sinner. That's a pretty salutary lesson.)

It is true that a *literal* reading of the scriptures yields strictures against homosexual practice. I'm not a fundamentalist. Each reference to gay behaviour needs to be read against the historical and situational context at the time it was written. Theologians have written different commentaries on the subject. I have heard the former Moderator of the Uniting Church in Brisbane say that he agrees with every word of Christ in the New Testament on the subject of homosexuality - which is absolutely zero.

The present Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, expressed pretty liberal views of homosexuality before he was enthroned as Archbishop. In his paper 'The Body’s Grace', delivered in 1989 to the Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, he asserted:

"In a church that accepts the legitimacy of contraception, the absolute condemnation of same-sex relations of intimacy must rely either on an abstract fundamentalist deployment of a number of very ambiguous biblical texts, or on a problematic and nonscriptural theory about natural complementarity, applied narrowly and crudely to physical differentiation without regard to psychological structures."

Also in 1989 he founded the 'Institute for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality' (which in 1996 became the 'Centre for the Study of Christianity and Sexuality'). This was an effort to make the Anglican Church's moral stance on homosexuality more accepting. His views are shared by MANY non-fundamentalist Christians.

And now, to the ORIGINS of homophobia.

I was quite irritated at John Passant's comment, in his eclectic recital of history, "This is precisely the thinking that led the ruling elite under capitalism to attack homosexuality." I used together the words postmodernist and Marxist in my "abuse" of the article because it seemed to me quite inappropriate to apply to this subject the same, tired, doctrinaire leftist, "critical literacy" deconstruction which so tiresomely enjoins students to examine "discourses" through the standard filters of feminism and Marxism.

I don't believe that homophobia can be attributed to any particular economic system. (I also have difficulty with Passant's characterization of the economic system in fourth century Roman Empire as 'capitalist'. The term seems rather pointless before the rise of forces which were capable of generating significant 'surplus value'.)

The three Abrahamic faiths all have traditions opposing homosexuality, going back to the story of Lot and the men of Sodom (Genesis 19). Christianity appropriated the Jewish scriptures as its Old Testament. In Islam, the Koran makes specific recognition of the people "to whom we gave the Book" [the Jewish scriptures] and includes in itself repeated paraphrases (albeit wildly inaccurate ones!) of content from the Jewish scriptures. It also recognizes the Injeel (gospel) but shows no influence from it or from Christ's teachings - being a precipitate rush back to "eye for eye and tooth for tooth", belief in retaliation rather than forgiveness.