Dear Jim Bob,
I read the other day that US Congressman Barney Frank referred to Supreme Court Justice Antony Scalia as a homophobe. Isn’t a ‘phobia’ some kind of condition that involves being afraid of something? Why would Rep Frank say that a Supreme Court Justice is afraid of gay people or “gayness”. Come to think of it, I hear lots of people called homophobes. What’s this about Jim Bob?
Latisimus J. Forscan
Fern Park, Florida
Dear Latisimus,
You ask a legitimate question Latisimus. To explain this I first need to give you the definition of “Homophobe”. By the way…did you know there is a ‘Gay Dictionary’? If you don’t believe me, just Google it. There is some real interesting reading in the thing. Anyway, according to the Gay Dictionary, homophobe is a term that originated in the 1970’s.
Here’s the definition: “homophobia: Irrational fear or hatred of gay people and of homosexuality.
Latisimus, the first thing you have to understand is that there are two camps of people when it comes to the subject of homosexuality. There are people who believe there is nothing morally wrong with people of the same sex playing around with each other’s private parts. Then, there is another camp of people who believe that same sex activity is a form of sin and a form of sexual perversion.
The people who believe that homosexuality is morally ‘wrong’ base their opinions on common sense about what is normal and what isn’t normal. Their opinions are supported by various descriptions of homosexuality in the Bible. Since the vast majority of human beings are not homosexual, they find the acts homosexuals perform on each other to be repugnant and offensive, just on the basis of common sense. If you want to understand some of those acts, just go browse through the homosexual dictionary for a couple of hours and you’ll get the picture pretty quick.
The people who believe there is nothing morally wrong with homosexual activity are mostly people who are gay, along with ‘straight’ people they have persuaded to agree with them from a political perspective. Homophobia is the term the people who like homosexuality use to demonize anyone who disagrees with them.
When you see that the definition of homophobia paints people who do not approve of homosexuality as being “irrational”, you can understand why it is used. When people are trying to defend something that is pretty hard to defend on the basis of common sense and right and wrong, they usually resort to name calling to marginalize their opponents. The way the homosexual lobby does it is by painting all people who disagree with them as being “irrational”. In other words, if their opponents can be made to appear as unreasonable, hateful, crazy people, then they don’t have to debate them on the basis of fact, or common sense.
So, Latisimus, Rep Barney Frank, who is gay, accused Supreme Court Justice Scalia of being ‘homophobic’ because Scalia believes homosexuality is a sexual perversion and a sin. I’m pretty sure Justice Scalia doesn’t hate gay people. He just has an opinion that is different from Rep Frank. It is an opinion that Rep Frank is unwilling to debate on the basis of morality, so he chooses to paint Scalia as “irrational”.
Hope that clears it up for you.
©2009, James C. Norman
All Rights Reserved

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In an recent interview with Hoover Institution, elaborating on his earlier statement that “devotees of The Living Constitution do not seek to facilitate social change but to prevent it”[1], Justice Scalia said:
“To make things change you don’t need a constitution. The function of a Constitution is to rigidify, to ossify, NOT to facilitate change. You want change? All you need is a legislature and a ballot box. Things will change as fast as you like. My constitution, very flexible, when you want a right to abortion, persuade your fellow citizens that it’s a good idea. And pass a law. And then you find out, the results are worse than we ever thought, you can repeal the law. That’s flexibility. The reason people want the Supreme Court to declare that abortion is a constitutional right is precisely to rigidify that right, it means it sweeps across all fifty states and it is a law now and forever or until the Supreme Court changes its mind. That’s not flexibility.”
1. Scalia, A., & Gutmann, A. (1998). A Matter of Interpretation: Federal Courts and the Law. Princeton University Press.
Hello. Great job. I did not expect this on a Wednesday. This is a great story. Thanks!
My fellow on Orkut shared this link with me and I’m not dissapointed at all that I came here.
It’s fair to call homosexuality immoral because the Bible says it’s immoral. After all, much of the Bible is explicitly moral instruction. But to call homosexuality immoral because it’s not “normal” is totally illogical. An analogy: just because the vast majority of humans do not eat dogs does not make it common sense to consider it morally “repugnant and offensive.”
Actually, they eat lots of dogs in the Philippines. I just believe most “normal” people don’t believe that homosexuality is “normal”. It’s probably normal to homosexuals, however.
If you enjoyed this post you’re going to love the letter I just got from the pedophile!
This might be belaboring the issue, but why should states or the federal government bother to legislate consensual activities that don’t have clear negative effects/externalities on those who are not participating? Pedophilia, on the other hand, is characterized by either non-consensual behavior (either because the child is demonstrably not consenting or because society believes a child is incapable of demonstrating a sufficient level of consent in sexual situations).
Anyway, it’s arguable whether or not the U.S. constitution limits the states’ ability to outlaw same-sex marriage. But I find it morally repugnant and offensive to conflate pedophilia and homosexuality the way you appeared to.
All I did was respond to the guy’s question. Thought he made a good point. I do agree with you about the morally repugnant part though. In both instances. What the heck does conflate mean?
You agree your comments were morally repugnant? I don’t think you meant to say that. Would you like suggestions for a dictionary?
Nope. This here blog ain’t no venue for philosophical debate.
Politics is pretty much just the philosophy of governance. No political debate, either?
Here’s the deal. I started this blog just to express what I want to say. It’s my blog and I say what I want to. I do not promote it and I do not do anything to get people to come here and read it.
This is a totally voluntary experience for everyone. Therefore, I don’t care to debate much of anything. See, my mind is made up! It got made up by living through Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and countless hoards of Democrat legislators who don’t have enough sense to come in out of the rain. And now we have the messiah. What that bunch peddles doesn’t work.
Debating with liberals gives me a headache and goes nowhere. I’ve also learned that from experience. If anybody wants to dabate stuff they can go hang out at The Huffington Post or The Daily Kos.
Blogroll links aint that great
but i am not the admin?
? Just Telling
Of course, what a great site and informative posts, I will add backlink – bookmark this site? Regards, Reader.
Hi. Just more question. Realy, need your help.
How long does champagne keep for?
Thenks, bro. I am vaiting for answer!!!
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Have a nice day
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Tania
You are mistaken.
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I’ve been having problems subscribing to this feed. It lets me subscribe and it loads in the rss reader program I use (which is netnewswire for mac) but it’s not showing new posts. A few duplicates too. Am I using the wrong url perhaps?
Not sure that this is true:), but thanks for a post.
Tania
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AnnaHopn
I don’t know what to say!
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Where are you from? Is it a secret?
Thanks
Elcorin
No, its not a secret. It’s on the “About Jim Bob” page.
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