I had another sociological thought. I don't know whether or not this thought is unique, old news, or completely baseless, but here it is.
Homophobia isn't just homophobia. What homophobia also implies is a rejection of the shifting gender roles that non-heterosexuality represents. Or, to put it more crudely, if you're a homophobe, you're also probably a sexist.
Think of it this way - what do you think of when you hear the expression "boys will be boys?" Ladies, how many of you would actually have a good time at a golf course, a sports bar or a gentleman's club? Guys, do you ever wonder why girls always seem to go to the bathroom in packs? There are certain expectations that come with being a boy or a girl, at least in the western world, and they seem largely inescapable to a lot of people, and more importantly, have been the norm for the better part of a generation.
To include homosexuals in the heterosexual majority's definition of gender roles would be to confuse decades of sexual identity. To the majority, men were people who watched football, drank beer, lit their farts on fire, and were plagued with the uncontrollable desire to get into womens' pants. To the majority, women were people who were wanted to dress nicely, keep a domestic household, were naturally nurturing and caring, and all wanted a decent man to settle down with. If you find these stereotypes insulting, that's good - so do I.
The problem for people that grew up steeped in these gender roles is that, for the longest time, homosexuality was considered an oddity, a fluke in the system, a life-choice, something that wasn't accepted, and generally treated like a defect - anything except as part of the norm. When the 70's hit, however, and the civil rights movement made the issue more widely known, and over the years, equal rights' activists began petitioning for equal treatment of gays, the heterosexual majority is faced with the possibility of these "oddities" suddenly becoming part of the norm. Suddenly, the definitions of "man" and "woman" has to be slightly, but oh so unacceptably altered to accommodate men who weren't interested in women and women who weren't interested in men. So much of our gender roles revolved around the things we did to attract mates, that to change that, even just to accommodate different views, turns the entire world upside for people who grew up knowing only heterosexual gender roles.
And here's where the sexism comes in. For the longest time, particularly in the workplace and the professional world, the rules, the styles and the norms have been dictated by men, and generally represented masculine sensibilities. When women attempt to move up in the workplace, it usually has to be according to men's rules. She'll often wear a suit, and most of the time, and coworkers she will be speaking to and negotiating will be men, introducing the possibility of sexual harassment and abuse. She earns less money on average, and will hold fewer roles of authority as men, not to mention maternity leave. And this is all because the rules of game, as it were, have been created and dictated by men to create an environment suitable for men to thrive and succeed, without any regard for the feminine viewpoint.
And this will probably stay largely unchanged, even if the number of working men and women in the professional western world were completely equal, because the people in charge want it this way. The system is run by men who follow rules set by men to appeal to masculine sensibilities. If there were more women in power, these rules and norms would change, even if only slightly, and allow for a blend of rules and norms that appeal to both masculine and feminine sensibilities. But this won't happen, at least for a while, because women are at a distinct disadvantage having spent most of history in the back seat.
But what if the definition of masculinity itself were to change? What if the world of men were to suddenly shift to accommodate men who weren't really all that interested in which sports team won last week, or who the latest girl is on the cover of Maxim magazine? Homosexuality threatens the male power in places like the workplace because it allows non-masculine values to pervade into the very men the system is designed to empower. In the mind of the male majority, women are rather easy to segregate. This is not as true for homosexual men.
And therein lies the issue: to the heterosexual majority, homosexuality mixes up gender roles. Having spent an entire lifetime keeping men and women separate in their minds, and having to suddenly deal with what amounts to girly men and butch women. This is not to say that these stereotypes are the reality, but it makes little difference in the mind of the heterosexual majority. The easiest coping mechanism is, of course, to reject homosexuality, and anything else that doesn't fit into their heterosexual gender roles. A generation of men in the office don't want to have to deal with the fact that their male co-worker may have more in common with Suzy down the hall then with them. And the unfortunate women of that generation, who were cowed by their parents and teachers into their narrow gender roles, are presented with a troubling conundrum: either the roles pushed upon them were meaningless, outdated, and sexist, making their entire life's struggle seem unnecessary...or homosexuality is just a fluke and their gender roles are exactly what they thought they were. It's almost always easier to reject change than to reject your own reality, and that's not even getting into the religious aspect.
Homophobia is sexism taken to its logical conclusion. Sexist men don't want to tolerate women stepping into their world, so naturally, they wouldn't want to tolerate men who (in their minds) act like women stepping into their world either. Being as offended as they are by femininity in women, is it really so hard to believe that a chauvinist would feel the same way towards femininity in men?
And this needs to change. Is a world ruled by people who only acknowledge a part of its people as people really a good world for all people? More to the point, does our view of ourselves, as men and women, really change all that much if we include gays and lesbians and everything in between?
Does "masculine" necessarily have to be synonymous for "likes women?" Does feminine also have to mean "likes men?" And more importantly, do we want these terms to mean these things? These terms hold only as much meaning as we allow them to have. With as many people as there are, even just in the western world, it's impossible to escape the hold of labels. Can we at least agree on what these labels mean? Because we've all been labeled, and whether you realize it or not, you use labels constantly. And if you're using labels knowingly, use them wisely. Doing so is essentially drawing a line in the sand between people you consider "normal," and people you consider "abnormal," and thus, "sub-human." And if you're going to put entire gender roles in the latter category, all you're really doing is labeling yourself as a "bigot."
