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Author: surgoshan

Aug 17th 2013 at 11:41:50 PM

One of the things that differentiates homophobia from clinical phobias is the nature of the response. With a clinical or diagnosable phobia, it's a fear response: "Get me away from that!" With homophobia it appears to be a disgust response: "Get that away from me!"

The fear response prompts flight that turns violent only when flight is impossible. The disgust response can provoke immediate violence, though not necessarily.

http://mentalhealth.about.com/library/sci/0602/blhomo602.htm

In short, unlike phobias, this appears to be a culturally derived response rather than an actual mental pathology.

This can tie in with [[http://www.moralfoundations.org/ the moral foundation theory]] developed by Jonathan Haidt and others. They found that one of the five principal foundations of human morality, seen across politics and culture around the world, is that of sanctity or purity, the drive to maintain physical and ideological purity. This response is mediated by the emotion of disgust and tends to be expressed more strongly in conservatives than in liberals, hence why conservatives are much more adamant about flag-burning, blasphemy, and homosexuality.