Another reason I agree with Hitchens.

[Pyrrho]

.... Homophobia probably originated way back when procreation was an absolute necessity to keep the tribe from dying out.
...

Given that a healthy man can have sex more than once a day, if he had sex half the time with other men, he could still be fathering a lot of children.  Once a woman is pregnant, having sex with her again in that state will not produce any more children, so her mate may as well be having sex with other men.  And given the fact that one man can impregnate many women, there would not be a problem if half of all men were exclusively homosexual.

So I don't think your explanation works at all.


It also does not seem to fit with many ancient cultures, that had no problems with people being homosexual or bisexual.  See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_homosexuality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality

The primary source of anti-homosexual sentiment seems to be the Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam), which makes the primary source the Old Testament of the Bible.  But other religions have sometimes been against homosexuality:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_homosexuality

[Regina]

^Exactly. I imagine pre-Abrahamic men being like "oh you're gay? Cool, more women for me" tbh. Same with the women, more lesbians means more dick for the straight girls.

Sorry to be vulgar but it's the truth. Pre-Abrahamic societies just didn't give a shit *buuurp* and they were hardly dying out by the masses. Have Christianity tell it, the only way humanity survives is for every man and every woman to marry someone of the opposite sex and pump out kids. There's more than enough straight people in the world, evidence for that being that we've managed to pump out enough kids to make 7 billion people. We're not exactly a dying breed.

Thats my semi-drunken input

[robvalue]

Homophobes seem to be really confused about what exactly they are objecting to. Three or four nonsensical broken arguments do not add up to one good argument.

[Brian37]

"If a man lies with a man" I do think is in there and homophobia was a widespread social norm in the monotheism of antiquity.

---

Did it ever occur to you that these religions picked up on preexisting prejudices? That's what these religions are all about, if you strip them from their woo. A mirror of society at a particular place at a particular point in time. Homophobia probably originated way back when procreation was an absolute necessity to keep the tribe from dying out.

Seriously, not every wayward turd on the street is about religion.

Of course that is the case, just like other memes of divine=success and gender rolls. This is why no religion should be given a pedestal, no man who has ever started one, no group who has ever started one, in antiquity or now, magically pops out of dirt out of nothing. All religions start from influences of that which was prior or surrounding or a combo of both.

Not that all atheists are homophobes but look long and hard enough you certainly will find some. 

Our species ability to create groups and based those groups on bad claims and bad ideas is a result of our species flawed perceptions. And nothing any individual can do or say can come out of nothing, something has to be communicated to that individual before they communicate with others to spread their ideas.