It is often said by pro-homosexuals that people who oppose homosexuality do so because they are latently homosexual themselves. I've never understood the logic of this.
Some time ago
Brian Leiter posted the following, which he thinks highly enoughly to have expanded and reposted more recently:
You see, the standard, but I guess no longer familiar, Freudian explanation for hostility towards homosexuals is that such hostility is a defense mechanism against the subject's own homosexual desires. So, e.g., Justice Scalia, all too aware at some level of his powerful homosexual urges, tries to defend against these unacceptable desires by adopting very publically--say, in a dissenting opinion (see esp. 18 ff. of the slip opinion)--the cause of those opposed to the "homosexual agenda" in the "culture wars." If the "homosexual agenda" prevails in the culture war, then Justice Scalia, himself, is at greater risk of succumbing to his latent homosexuality. And by very publically committing himself to opposition to homosexuality, he is better able to strengthen his resolve against his own homosexual tendencies. "Rank speculation!" you object. Perhaps. But consider the University of Georgia psychologist, an avowed Freud-skeptic (before), who conducted an experiment to test the Freudian hypothesis. (For the details, see Henry E. Adams, Lester W. Wright, Jr., and Bethany A. Lohr, "Is Homophobia Associated with Homosexual Arousal?" Journal of Abnormal Psychology 105 (1996): 440-445.) The finding: those who expressed the most hostile and negative attitudes towards homosexuals demonstrated the highest level of sexual arousal when exposed to homosexual pornography. In Freudian terms: their homophobia was a reaction formation designed to protect them from their own powerful homosexual desires.
I haven't read the JAP article yet, and with this kind of study one must be skeptical of press reports, even from the APA but let's suppose that the claim is true. So what? The claim would strengthens the anti-homosexual position, if anything. It says that anti-homosexuals are not ignorant of the pleasures of homosexuality; they are attracted by them, and can empathize with homosexuals. Please realize that "empathize" does not mean "sympathize" even though ignorant people use the two terms as synonymns. "To understand all is to forgive all," is a stupid maxim, I've always thought. Rather, if I am prone to homicidal rages, but keep them under control, I can well understand the man who beats his wife to death-- I can understand him and empathize with him--- but I should still condemn him, rather than sympathizing with him.
Even so here. Someone who is tempted by homosexuality is certainly not disqualified from criticizing it-- quite the opposite. I seem to recall, even, that C.S. Lewis somewhere says that he, taking the opposite approach, refrained from criticizing homosexuality and gambling because he could not feel a twinge of temptation for those vices, and hence felt he was not in a position to condemn. (He also takes note of the implication his statement makes about his temptation towards every other major vice!)
And of course there is no hypocrisy in condemning homosexuality even if one is tempted by it. Former alcoholics are often very condemnatory of drinking, but that does not make them hypocrites. Hypocrisy is a charge that can be levelled only if the critic is secretly engaging in the activity he is criticizing--- if he is tempted but does not succumb, he has the moral high ground.
It is true that you can explain the opposition of some people to alcohol by their personal temptation for it, but that does not mean most temperance advocates secretly (or even admittedly, but without succumbing) yearn for a drink. The same goes for homosexuality. Only a tiny fraction of men have strong homosexual desires (say, 3%?-- make it 10% if you like for purposes of this argument), but historically a large majority have abhorred it-- not to mention all the women for whom sodomy is an impersonal issue.
In any case, explaining opposition to homosexuality as fear of one's own homosexuality begs the question. Why do those people fear their own homosexuality? If nobody had any opposition on moral or prudential grounds, nobody would fear being homosexual. Only if there is some external reason for thinking homosexuality is bad would anyone fear being homosexual.
I should add that Scalia's dissent in Lawrence is actually a very bad example for Leiter's thesis. Scalia does not condemn homosexuality there at all, if I remember rightly. He does note that there is strong homosexual activism and a desire to overthrown the democratic process by judicial decree, but he is writing just the opinion one would expect of a judge who wishes his colleagues would pay attention to the Constitution instead of to their personal desires. It is almost certainly true that Scalia, being libertarian in his sentiments, actually would be a a leftist as far as restrictions on homosexuality, and would, as a Georgia citizen or legislator, have voted against the Georgia law that Lawrence struck down. He just would not pretend that the law is unconstitutional.
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