Interesting "test-" and interesting article

Here is a test of how "homophobic" you are.

I blog it only because I find it interesting that it seems not to be interested in labeling people who have moral problems with homosexuality, but rather seems to target legitimately problematic attitudes toward gay people themselves. This is rare in any usage of the term "homophobia," and worth a look for that reason alone.

My result:

27 - Your score rates you as "non-homophobic." In his 1996 study of 64 white, male college students, Dr. Henry Adams classed 29 participants as "non-homophobic." Their mean score was 30.48. This is not conclusive, however. Dr. Adams, the researcher who helped develop this scale, writes that "a major difficulty of this area of research is in defining and measuring homophobia." Elsewhere, he cautions: Since there is no universally accepted definition of homophobia, the scales currently in use may not measure all aspects of homophobia.

Did you catch that last line? An interesting admission, that.

It's a lie that people who disapprove of homosexuality necessarily, or even usually, do so out of hatred or insecurity. I find it interesting, not that that a test for "homophobia" exists, but that this one actually does look for hatred toward gays and insecurity concerning one's own sexual identiy, rather than politically incorrect attitudes toward homosexual behavior. That's an important distinction- and a major step toward turning an ad hominem argument against people with biblical views on sexual ethics into a description of behaviors and attitudes which any Christian ought to find as problematic as homosexuality itself.

Here is the article from The American Spectator which links to that test- in the process of discussing the entire history and concept of "homophobia" in the context of "Brokeback Mountain."

HT: Rev. Mike Zamzow