"out" envy

There are a lot of things about the conservative point of view that I have to push really hard and get creative to even hope to understand.

This is certainly an idea that has been proposed many times, but I think usually when I hear it, it's as an off-handed statement just for the sake of argument, and not followed up on and considered as a reasonable and correct explanation of a certain behavior / point of view.  Certainly not insisted upon.  Just always considered a kind of a jest, really, and not a correct and rational full explanation.

So, what if everyone who fights the hardest for "traditional marriage" and thinks that homosexuality is "unnatural" and "sinful" is actually just a closeted gay person?

I think this next is an understatement that can only be interpreted as sarcasm - I believe there are certain quarters in our society where people are under pressure to not be gay or admit they're gay.

So it's not so hard to understand why at least some of these people would refuse to acknowledge their gayness, and just bury it down inside, rather than accept this thing that their own families clearly would not accept or tolerate.

It's also not hard to understand that burying such a fundamental thing about a person could cause them great stress and frustration, or anger, not being able to live this life that they desperately want to live but feel they cannot.  Then imagine if you will, them "having" to listen to people who are out and proud, and enjoying their lives as homosexuals and being accepted in doing so.  The resentment towards those people that must be felt - the jealousy.  Persecuting gay people as a result is a grade-school-level-of-maturity response, but as we've seen that is not unusual for closed-minded conservative thinkers.

The other thing is I've always believed (at least once I started to meet and befriend gay folks) is that there are way more gay people out there than is generally thought or accepted or documented.  In polls and such, the people who identify as gay is something in the single digit percent, middle or maybe high.  But I think a lot of us know that it must be higher than that, and possibly a LOT higher.

I have had trouble understanding how people could hide such a fundamental part of their personalities for so long, and fool so many others, and just never admit it to anyone or possibly even themselves.  But I did not grow up in a household where I was told that being gay is unnatural, or wrong, or sinful, or behavior that would be punished.  I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that if I had, my views would be very different today.

So while it is hard to fully relate to for me, I believe it makes perfect sense that people would rather hide this than alienate their families, friends, and communities, everything they've ever known.  And I believe that these people exist in large numbers, in the millions.

So rather than accept and acknowledge being gay, their way of dealing with these feelings is belittling and persecuting "out" gay people.  I'm sure the psychology behind this is complicated, and not done justice by as simple a statement as this, but:  They probably want to lash out against the part of themselves that knows they are gay, but since they can't even admit that this part of them exists, the only target available is people who are admittedly gay.

In all seriousness, I think it's possible that gay people number upwards of 20% of the population or something.  Maybe half, or slightly less, accept it to some degree, and the other half is so deep in the closet that they're passionate about marginalizing people who are enjoying the life they secretly want to embrace.  This would be very difficult to prove, of course, but to me it is the simplest explanation of how so many people could get so fired up in opposition to another person's lifestyle, which should not affect them at all.

Philosophy and reason instruct us that we should always consider the simplest explanation for a phenomenon first, when attempting to determine the truth.  The explanation that these people are out there crusading so vehemently against gay rights due to a couple of isolated and random lines in the Old Testament, which they just happen to believe in so much that they dominate their lives, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense, especially since 1) there are so many other "rules" in there that no one, even the most conservative, practices or takes seriously anymore. 2) the mentions are very few and far between and 3) Jesus himself made no mention of it.

The explanation that they lash out at individuals who are what they wish they could be, but in their culture never can be, makes perfect freaking sense in a way that we've all seen and experienced in our own lives.  This is not a jab meant to push the buttons of, and provoke, conservatives.  No, instead it is the naked truth, unwashed, emotional, irrational, and quintessentially human.