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[LordBucket]

Why are people like this?

If you want a serious answer, it's the same reason as for most phobias: early childhood trauma. Any number of possible scenarios could lead to it.

For example, imagine being a scared kid on your first day in first grade. You don't know anyone, you're scared, you're trying to fit it...and you happen to see one of your neighbors. You're all happy and excited to see someone you know, you rush over and the two of you hug.

Everyone seeing this jeers and laughs and insults you, calls you queer and throws things at you. So you quickly let go of the hug, try to look tough and say "I'm not a queer." For the next six monthsthe kids in your class keep making fun of you for it. And it doesn't stop until some other kid hugs somebody, and you chime in with the people hurling insults to prove that you're "one of them" so you can fit in.

Congratulations. Your subconscious mind has now learned that hating on gays is the key to acceptance by your peers.

[Grakelin]

Did this happen to you?

Because little kids hug eachother all the time, and most six year olds don't know the term 'queer'.

[sonerohi]

You'd be surprised Grakelin. My cousins are 5 and 7, vicious little kids.

[LordBucket]

Did this happen to you?

No. Why would that be relevant? It's one possible scenario that could lead to a programmed emotional response. There could be many.

Imagine a boy who is molested by his uncle and grows up in fear and anger. Do you think he might have issues with gays?

Imagine a boy who says he wants a toy that happens to be pink and his father freaks out and yells about how his boy isn't going to be a homo. Do you think he might grow up feeling the need to prove that he isn't?

Saying that people who have problems with gays must obviously be repressing homosexual tendancies themselves is silly. Is a person who's afraid of spiders and smashes them whenever he sees one repressing some sort of secret fondness for them?

No, they're expressing a childhood trauma. Homophobia is no different.

[Grakelin]

Whoever said that homophobes are repressing sexual desires?

And you realize that this doesn't go back to the source at all, right? Somebody else had to be homophobic first in all your examples.

[Jackrabbit]

Did this happen to you?

Because little kids hug eachother all the time, and most six year olds don't know the term 'queer'.

I don't know what six year olds you know but...

[LordBucket]

And you realize that this doesn't go back to the source at all, right?

What's more important to you, arguing or understanding?

If you just want to argue, I'm not interested.

[Grakelin]

You seem to be very attached to what you posted. Maybe you should calm down, breathe deeply for a few minutes, and then come back and reread the posts here.

[Leafsnail]

I don't think it's down to childhood trauma - LordBucket has a point, but it's more about what people are taught when they're young.  If the people at church, home and school all say gays are bad, that's what they'll assume to be correct.  This isn't necessarily trauma (otherwise huge swathes of America have been subjected to some kind of mass trauma involving homosexuality).

[Euld]

Personally I don't like the term "homophobe," it seems like a smear than any real usable classification.  "Gay hater" I could live with, homophobe brings to mind a person who is irrationally terrified of homosexuals and doesn't really represent the attitude some people have against gays.  I'd say that some people who don't have a religious dislike for gays could easily be judgemental people to begin with.  A military friend of mine HATES gays, but also hates asians and muslims (and has all sorts of colorful metaphors to describe them and how their bodies behave when shot).  He also seemed to lose respect for me when I said I got a BA in English.

[nenjin]

Your friend sounds like a tool.

[Nikov]

Getting shot at rapidly makes you lose your sense of decorum.

I agree wholeheartedly, the word 'homophobe' is entirely misused. Someone who's entirely ambivilant about homosexuals they meet on a daily basis and could even be friends with one is going to be instantly labeled a homophobe when they say something about being against gay marriage.

I mean, I hate Barney Frank. I hate him with a passion. I hated him before I found out he was gay, and now... I hate him ever so very slightly more, largely because now I realize he's speaking in gay accent and doesn't just have a very unfortunate childhood lisp or something. That doesn't make me a homophobe.

Homophobe is like racist; you just slap it on your opposition to invalidate everything they say.

[Zangi]

And you realize that this doesn't go back to the source at all, right? Somebody else had to be homophobic first in all your examples.

Nah, doesn't have to be. 

Kids fills in the blanks on their own from the way people around them react to certain things. 

Its like gambling. 
Roll a 6, kid figures that gay people are bad and scary.

Roll a 2 3 4 or 5, kid rather fit in with the 'crowd', may start to believe the bad and scary or just end up not giving a damn.

Roll a 1, kid 'rebels' and whatever else.

[nenjin]

Kids fills in the blanks on their own from the way people around them react to certain things.

You're continuing to make Grakelin's point for him.

[kuro_suna]

I agree wholeheartedly, the word 'homophobe' is entirely misused. Someone who's entirely ambivilant about homosexuals they meet on a daily basis and could even be friends with one is going to be instantly labeled a homophobe when they say something about being against gay marriage.

Isn't that like saying

"I'm not racist, I just believe all black people should sit at the back of the bus and attend separate schools"