As Science magazine reported after Pulse, there is a “scattering of research” that suggests “some conflicted gay men might indeed be homophobic,” like a small 1996 study in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology that measured penile arousal and found a link between “homophobia” and “homosexual arousal.”īut the keyword in all of the above literature is “some.” There are other studies that have come to similar conclusions. It’s continually cited whenever it seems to apply to a homophobic figure, like after Pulse nightclub gunman Omar Mateen was rumored to have frequented the LGBT nightclub in the buildup to the shooting. The psychological mechanism behind this subgroup’s anti-LGBT vitriol is, in theory, relatively simple: They are taking out their own issues with sexual identity on other people.Īs Netta Weinstein, the study’s lead author, said in a press release, they “may be threatened by gays and lesbians because homosexuals remind them of similar tendencies within themselves.” So if you’re an American politician, there may be no more effective way to prove to yourself that you’re straight than to target LGBT people.
“Thus our research suggests that some who oppose homosexuality do tacitly harbor same-sex attraction,” they concluded. The result: The researchers isolated a “subgroup of participants”-more than “20 percent of self-described highly straight individuals”-who “indicated some level of same-sex attraction,” and who were “significantly more likely than other participants to favor anti-gay policies to be willing to assign significantly harsher punishments to perpetrators of petty crimes if they were presumed to be homosexual and to express greater implicit hostility toward gay subjects.” The “twist,” as they put it, were subliminal flashes of the words “me” or “other” before each image that can theoretically reveal subconscious bias based on how long it takes the subjects to sort images that don’t match their self-described sexual identity into the right category. Ryan-wrote in their accompanying New York Times opinion piece that they had asked 784 college students to rate their sexual orientation on a 10-point scale and then told them to sort “images and words indicative of hetero- and homosexuality” into categories. Two authors on the study-psychologists Richard M. (As GQ sarcastically put it in response to the Goodman news: “Anti-Gay Ohio Republican Resigns After, Surprise, Having Sex with a Man in the State Capitol.”)Ī 2012 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology generated a fair number of headlines that year-including The New York Times’ “Homophobic? Maybe You’re Gay”-for suggesting that some self-avowed straight people who showed signs of same-sex desire were more likely to hold discriminatory attitudes. The LGBT community will never tire of bringing up the long history of Republican gay sex scandals every time new-and increasingly unsurprising-allegations emerge, precisely because they seem to be so predictable in hindsight.
Republican.”Īs more information about their alleged misdeeds emerges-Goodman now stands accused of fondling an 18-year-old man at a conservative event, and of pursuing several young gay men-there is a certain grim catharsis in seeing such hypocrisy exposed. More strident was Goodman who, as the Columbus Dispatch reported, “consistently touted his faith and conservative values,” with a Twitter bio that read: “Christian. Shortey has reportedly decided this week to plead guilty to a child sex trafficking charge.īoth Goodman and Shortey are married men who were clear political opponents of the LGBT community while in office.Īfter Shortey was arrested, the Associated Press noted that he “routinely” voted for anti-LGBT bills, quoting the director of the LGBT advocacy organization Freedom Oklahoma who said, “He was never vitriolic about it, but he would make the bad votes.” Ralph Shortey resigned after being hit with child prostitution charges for allegedly soliciting sex from a 17-year-old boy.