Take it easy folks, let’s not get bent out of shape over the title. Just a means of grabbing the reader’s attention. I am fully aware that not all people who oppose gay marriage hate gays. Some of you honestly believe it has a negative impact on society. Some of you are simply opposed to it because your god says it’s wrong. I’m going to explain the reason behind both of those, as well as why some people out there really do hate homosexuals. You may or may not agree with it. This ties in with those lessons I just can’t find the motivation to finish, and is related to the broader category, “Things I don’t think you’re ready to hear yet.” What I’m about to put forth is advanced, but nowhere near the magnitude of the full Revelation of Subjectivity. But think of this as a preview.

See, this issue has a way of resurfacing at somewhat regular intervals. My confidence in the reasoning abilities and values of people is, to say the least, shaken, by the fact that a debate about gay marriage even exists. It should be an issue as simple to resolve as women having jobs, or black people voting. But then, those issues weren’t always so easy to resolve, either. Analytical minds might notice a lot of similar patterns between each of these equal rights issues. It’s no coincidence, they each address the same basic principle. They also engage the same facets of human behavior, and the same mental processes.

It’s safe to say, opposition to gay marriage is something seen far more frequently among conservatives, because it’s rooted in conservative values. Conformity, tradition, that sort of thing. But why are they so fond of those values? Well, here’s where I piss off any conservatives who read this: Liberals are literally more evolved. My source, this article, avoids drawing such a controversial conclusion. However, the function of the amygdala is emotional learning and processing fear, which are more primitive animal traits. The front of the brain evolved more recently, and deals with more advanced reasoning processes. But whether you’re opposed to science, or feel this is inaccurate science, or that I’ve simply drawn the wrong conclusions, by all means, feel free to regard this as socialist libtard devilry. Yep, you got us. This is why we came up with evolution. So we could eventually find something that suggests we’re smarter than you.

But wait, I hear you saying, what does any of that have to do with conformity, tradition, or much less, gay marriage? Relax, hypothetical impatient person, I’m getting there. Believe it or not, conformity is very important to civilization, in many ways. We rely on everyone accepting certain rules, values, and guidelines. A red traffic light means stop. We all agree on this, nobody questions it. This is an example where conformity is beneficial. What would happen if a bunch of us decided to be rebels, and say, “Hey, I don’t have to stop just because that light tells me to!”? What a disaster we would cause, right? A dollar bill is worth one dollar. A five dollar bill is worth five dollars, and so on. Unless we all accept that, money becomes meaningless. After all, why would you give more for the same piece of paper with a different person’s picture on it? So here is another example where a vital part of our culture depends on us all accepting something just because “we say so”. And this goes back to our ancestors. For primitive humans, it was even more important to be part of the group, and for that group to have a sense of solidarity. If the group was being chased by a hungry animal, everyone would run away. Now say you saw the rest of the group running, but didn’t know why. What would happen if you decided that just because they’re running doesn’t mean you have to, and stayed where you were? And if there’s anything your group is trying to accomplish together, it’s important for you all to cooperate, and follow an agreed upon set of rules. Perhaps more relevant to this issue, if you’re leading a group, and operating under an established set of rules, any deviation from those rules, without your approval, represents a threat to your authority. So humans developed a tendency to find comfort in conformity, tradition, routine, and to be disrupted by the unfamiliar. Order represents safety. It’s a sign that all is well. Breaching that order is potentially threatening.

This forms the basis for prejudice. We evolved to be uncomfortable with people who are different from ourselves. We are conditioned to view people who look, speak, and act differently as potential threats to our own way of life, and thus, our well being. As we evolved the ability to reason, though, we figured out that this was not always the case, and that we could coexist peacefully, even thrive, not despite diversity, but because of it. But in many ways, that’s something we’re still learning. When we see something we’re not familiar with, the primitive parts of our minds instantly register it as a potential threat, and we become uncomfortable. We all do it. I don’t care how open-minded you think you are, when you see something you’re unfamiliar with, part of your brain goes, “Holy shit, look at that! What the FUCK is THAT?!” And those parts of our minds remain very much active, as long as a threat is perceived. The more severe the perceived threat, the stronger that reaction becomes. If the threat is deemed dangerous enough, that response can develop into fear, and progress further, to hate.

This causes a problem for the next mental process, when our rational minds attempt to analyze that potential threat, and determine whether or not it’s something we really do need to worry about. It’s difficult to perform that function while the threat-monitoring section is in straight up shitstorm mode. It’s a violently disruptive alarm, in our brains, that we desperately want to shut off, which means eliminating the threat. This can be done in a number of ways. For one, we can declare a false alarm. We can convince ourselves that there is no threat. That whatever provoked the alarm does not endanger us. If we find that isn’t possible, we move on to neutralizing the threat. Fight or flight. Yeah, well, humans don’t do the flight thing very often. Usually, if we consider fighting an option at all, that’s what we’ll do. Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. If there really is a threat, and you have a realistic shot at fighting it, that’s probably the better option. If you can get rid of it, you’re safe. If you run, there’s always the chance that it will catch you. And fighting can come in the form of elimination or dominance, depending on the circumstances. We either try to remove the threat, or exert and maintain control over it.

This is your real problem with homosexuality, and gay marriage. You see it as a challenge to what you believe to be the social order. People believed the same thing about blacks and women, in the past, and had the same reactions to them. Some combination of your lack of familiarity with homosexuals, and your mind’s tendency to overreact to what it regards as potential threats, to go into and remain in shitstorm mode, inhibits your analytical mind, and prevents you from seeing it as the simple, harmless alternative lifestyle choice it is. And this is why some of you equate gay marriage to the destruction of society and total disorder. This is why some of you have fabricated an insidious "gay agenda", to rationalize that impulse reaction that told you, "This is a threat to your way of life." Rather than your reasoning and facts overpowering the intial impulse reaction, that reaction dominates and dictates your reasoning, and so your reasoning seeks to justify it, facts be damned.

Naturally, the human mind and human behavior are much more complex than I can explain in a simple blog entry. This is just a basic overview, but it’s enough to provide a pretty solid understanding. This is why people dislike what they aren’t familiar with. This is why people resist change. This is why people choose to compete rather than coexist. This is why people oppress each other. The most “evil” people who ever lived, were/are actually very afraid, insecure, and frustrated.

Moreover, this is why “God” is against homosexuality. People are opposed to a lot of things. We’re against things like murder, rape, and theft for very good reasons that are directly related to our well being. Some of us are against other, less harmful things, for less rational reasons. Most of us don’t really understand why we’re against any of those things, though, and when we don’t understand something, magic entities tend to get credit for it.