HOMOPHOBIA/PART THREE: ¨...there are psychological and social payoffs provided by homophobia and its rhetorical and/or behavioral expressions!¨

¨It seems to me that all emotionally healthy people recognize Freud's assertion that, "The Ego is not master in its own house!" (Sigmund Freud, "A Difficulty in the Path of Psycho-Analysis," 1917.)

That is, we contain unconscious forces within us that we can barely, if at all, understand; we do not have the degree of control over our thoughts and behaviors that we often, though falsely, think we have!

One of the indicators of emotional intactness, and also intelligence, is the ability to handle the many uncertainties and ambiguities of life! Homophobes, and xenophobes of all types, those who feel the need to denigrate and exclude others, seem to lack that ability and, hence, they show themselves fearful of the many gray areas that exist in society, exist in what and who they perceive to be "the other," and exist in what often unknown forces reside within themselves as well.

After all, as I've often written, emotionally healthy people don't really care about the love and sex lives of others, let alone compulsively focus on, and condemn, Gay people, to the degree that some people even make careers (and sometimes a handsome living) as professional homophobes!

So, simply put, people do what they perceive to be rewarding for them! And there can be no doubt that there are psychological and social payoffs provided by homophobia and its rhetorical and/or behavioral expressions!

Both externalized and internalized homophobia are largely used as defense mechanisms to repress and/or suppress often sexually tempestuous forces that threaten to come to consciousness, often when provoked by the mere existence of LGBT people; the objects of one's fear, be it others and/or him/herself, become objects of derision, and even hate, that reflects, and futilely seeks to eradicate, the very derision and hate that one feels toward him/herself.¨ read it all, By Dr. Jerry Maneker, HERE

· Thanks to A Christian Voice for LGBT People, sidebar
· Thanks to The Reverend Dr. Jerry Maneker
· Thanks to Flickr Photo Sharing