Here is some results about homophobia and some factors causing it.

Fundamentalism (the belief that there is one set of religious teachings that clearly contain the essential, inerrant truth) was linked both to greater homophobia and racism. So fundamentalist religion generates group cohesion that’s sufficiently powerful to overcome the non-racist message of conventional Christianity.

Christian orthodoxy and intrinsic orientation were linked to more homophobia and less racism. In other words, these people do as they’re told! (Intrinsic orientation reflects the extent to which people truly believe their religions’ teachings and try to live their lives according to them.)

On the other hand, extrinsic orientation (which reflects the extent to which people use religion as a means to achieve nonreligious goals) had no effect on homophobia, but was linked to racism. The ‘group cohesion’ part of religion was strong in these kinds of people.

Finally, Quest orientation – people who score highly on this view religion as a search for answers to questions about the meaning of life. They were less homophobic and and also less racist.

Now, these categories are not mutually exclusive. Most religious people will belong to several to some degree or another. But what seems to be the general conclusion from all this is that the rabble-rousing, church-going aspects of religion are the ones chiefly responsible for both homophobia and racism. And they are counterbalanced to some extent by the quieter, more introspective aspects of religion.

So religion is both Jekyll and Hyde. I guess that’s not too surprising, but it’s nice to have some hard science to back it up!

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