Recognizing Intolerance, The Easy Way.

Chances are, this has happened to you too: You start feeling slightly uncomfortable while listening to somebody, like there's something wrong with something they've just said, but somehow you can't quite put your finger on it.

Take, for example, Pope Francis' recent remarks on Homosexuality:

"The problem is not having this orientation, it is lobbying," he said. "That's the most serious problem I think.

"If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?"

That's great news, right? The Pope promoting tolerance of Gay people - perhaps there is actual change happening in the catholic church! Except, I can't seem to get rid of that funny feeling. Am I just prejudiced after years of criticizing the Pope? Have I become so used to the role of condemning everything the Pope says that I now feel the need to find something wrong with every statement he makes, even good ones? Am I being queasy for no reason here?

Well luckily, there's an easy way to test this. It works like this: Most of us have extremely well trained alarm-bells with regards to racism - It's just one of those things most of us have very little trouble spotting. So, to exploit that fact, all we need to do is to take the above statement, and change its content from gay vs straight to black vs white. While otherwise keeping the wording intact. The result looks something like this:

"The problem is not having black skin, it is lobbying," he said. "That's the most serious problem I think.

"If someone is black and seeks to act white with good will, who am I to judge?"

Suddenly, the reason for my uneasy feeling becomes very clear.

I highly recommend doing this every time somebody makes a public statement regarding any minority. Especially when what they're saying is designed to make them seem open-minded and tolerant. Gays, atheists, women - whatever they're talking about, just write down the exact statement and then replace the minority with "black". I promise, you'll be shocked what kind of statements you almost let people get away with.

Dear Judge: That's Not How Justice Works

A priest who threatened two gay men with hellfire has just been cleared from two charges of using threatening words or behaviour. According to BBC News, his defense lawyer said he was "merely reciting a passage in the bible".

What astonishes me about this story is the complete and utter ignorance of the judge, accepting the defense that a threat of violence ceases to be a threat of violence because it is a threat of violence read from the bible.
Please note that the wording of the charge is "using threatening words or behaviour". In this situation, that is an unambiguous given. It does not matter at all who the priest said would supposedly supply the torture. Yet surprisingly, the judge seems to think it does. In an astounding act of ignorance, he somehow managed to entangle the substance of the threat with whether or not the one uttering it was actually guilty of uttering it, and defended the religious priviledge to discriminate at will.
Fact of the matter is that the priest threatened the two men with torture if they didn't change their lifestyle according to his views. Legally it is completely besides the point what book the defendant read from. There are many ways of saying "do as I say or suffer horribly". I might say "Do as I say or I'll kill you", or perhaps "...or my brother will kill you". I might even say "...or that zebra-unicorn over there will kill you". It doesn't matter whether or not the threat is credible, or even remotely believable. What matters is whether it has been pronounced openly or not, and in all of the above cases I would be found guilty (or, in the last case, insane). But for some reason truly beyond me, there seems to be an unwritten free-pass to threaten anybody I chose, as long as I make sure to substitute "God" as the source of violence.

The sad fact remains that the priest in question threatened two men with being burned by fire if they didn't change their lifestyle according to his views, in clear words. And however supernatural or figurative that fire might be, I find it incredible that an elected judge can ignore that without having his decision challanged in any way.

The priest, of course, is now now more than happy to play the persecuted victim. "Something is wrong", he says, "[when] police arrest me, a Christian preacher who cares deeply for Jesus Christ and the people of Taunton". (Emphasis added according to how I imagine his whiney voice.) As you might already have guessed, he didn't fail to add:
"Christians like me are being harassed."

How to Shut Up Homophobes

We all know the awkward situation of having to share a room with someone going off on a rant about those damn homosexuals, about how disgusting they are, how they're always parading their sexuality, always shove it in your face, why can't they keep it in the privacy of their bedrooms, why can't they just stay in the closet and let everybody be happy, it's just not natural, it's just wrong somehow, you know?

Whenever that happens, a reasonable person is usually left with only few options:

a) Leave the room
b) Stay silent and sit through it
c) Start a long-winded and probably pointless discussion about equality, values, and gay rights.

None of these are particularly pleasing. But luckily, the list is not complete. There is one more option, another way of ending the derailed-anti-gay-rant-situation. It's been my personal favorite for years. Today, I'll share it with you.
One can end this tired old discussion in a short and easy (and fun) way, simply by pointing to one of the dusty little forgotten gems of scientific research, published in 1996:

There is a strong positive correlation between homophobia and homosexual arousal.
Yup, that's right: Homophobes are closeted homosexuals in denial. I quote here from the abstract of the paper:

The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies. [Emphasis added]

(Doubters may follow this link to view the publication on PubMed.)

That translates to "We showed a group of guys a lot of porn, and the self-professed homophobes were the only ones getting turned on by the gay porn."
Gotta love the phrasing, too: "exhibiting an increase in penile circumference" must be the nerdiest possible term for "getting a hard-on". The findings also explain why almost every evangelical anti-gay preacher gets caught with male prostitutes sooner or later.
The story of pretty much every homophobe is basically the same: As children these people have learned that homosexuality is evil, and then experienced a mental conflict at some point in their lives, as they felt a tingling between their legs upon seeing a gay couple making out. They then solved the ensuing cognitive dissonance by telling themselves that that feeling was actually disgust, not sexual arousal. Naturally that's not a very convincing lie, and hence the need to keep reassuring themselves by voicing their disgust so loudly and publicly.

So that's it: Now you know every homophobes dark little secret. And perhaps the next time you're subjected to one of their rants, you may consider using that knowledge to pull a little psychic on them.