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this post was submitted on 26 Nov 2024
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In my experience it's also a fear of their child learning that sex can be just for pleasure as well as something more utilitarian and 'responsible' like making babies. My experience is predominantly with religious people though. Other bigots may vary.
Religious people (esp conservative Christians) have worked themselves into a mental knot where they're trying to deny their own instincts and curiosity. Be that the porn they feel guilty over or whether they're actually sexually compatible with their partner they married quite quickly some 30 years ago. So sex can't primarily be for pleasure (because this denial helps them protect themselves from their own shame). It's has to be part of god's purpose, it has to be part of physically making the next generation.
Gay couples upend this delusion. To put compatibility and attraction and relationship above the 'duty' of having a pregnancy? Gay couples show that's perfectly fine. And sex is fun and beautiful.
When your go-to is to scare your curious kids about sex (the sex you as a joyless 30-40 something can't have), then "getting someone pregnant" is the ever useful bogeyman. But gay couples are immune to this.
I think it's why conservative religious people end up hating with such vitriol. They hate gayness. Probably are disgusted on some learned level. But also hate it because they want it. They want sexual freedom. Sexual curiosity. Joy without duty. Their mind and body are screaming at them "Why not?" But the religious mind refuses to acknowledge the emperor has no clothes (ha). If they do their whole world (and marriage and social standing) comes crashing down.
So perish the thought their kids discover safe consensual sex is fun. That undoes everything.
This is a really great insight but I think there’s even more depth here. Highly religious Christians can be in a very happy and loving relationship (having a lot of sex and producing a large family) and still have these views about gay and lesbian couples.
I think what it ultimately comes down to is that religion is the foundation of their life. All of their friends and family are religious. They all participate by going to regular Sunday services at church and also attending church-run social events too. Their whole life is wrapped up in religion and all of their shared beliefs are a packaged deal (picking and choosing is not acceptable).
So when their religion tells them an alternative lifestyle is wrong (and we’re not just talking gay couples here, but also having sex outside of marriage) they have to accept that belief even if they feel differently. Why? Because challenging that belief means rejecting all of their friends and family, their church community, and walking off into the unknown, completely alone. For many people this is impossible! And even people who do manage it have a very difficult road ahead of them, and many don’t make it. I recall a local window and door maker who took his own life years after having walked away from his church and community.
I, personally, grew up in a religious Catholic family. We went to church every Sunday and afterwards to my grandparents’ house for brunch (they lived right beside the church). We all loved my grandmother dearly; she put so much effort into creating this beautiful spread on her big dining room table. We celebrated many Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter dinners together as well!
Everything began to change when my grandparents left and moved to a retirement home. Since then they passed away and we as a family see each other less and less. I personally am no longer religious and I know the same is true for many of my cousins. I consider myself lucky that this process happened to all of us at once. But I still miss the closeness and celebrations we shared as a family back then. I wouldn’t wish this profound loss on anyone.
Yes this is all true too. I've seen it all first hand, including the power (and wholesomeness) of deep family bonds built around church. Even more so when it's a whole community where you feel like you become family. I think religious groups are one of the few social structures that actually recreate the homogeneous "clans" that our evolved bodies and minds crave, because for so much history they meant safety and flourishing.
Going against the group is a kind of 'suicide'. Not just socially but as a learned instinct of a very real consequence - just like you said. Going against your clan almost certainly means being isolated and cut off and on a deep level we're terrified of that.