Negative attitudes and discrimination toward homosexuality and LGBT people
Homophobia encompasses a range of negative attitudes and feelings toward homosexuality or people who identify or are perceived as being lesbian, gay or bisexual. It has been defined as contempt, prejudice, aversion, hatred, or antipathy, may be based on irrational fear and may sometimes be attributed to religious beliefs. Homophobia is observable in critical and hostile behavior such as discrimination and violence on the basis of sexual orientations that are non-heterosexual.
Recognized types of homophobia include "institutionalized" homophobia, e.g. religious homophobia and state-sponsored homophobia, and "internalized" homophobia, experienced by people who have same-sex attractions, regardless of how they identify. According to 2010 Hate Crimes Statistics released by the FBI National Press Office, 19.3 percent of hate crimes across the United States "were motivated by a sexual orientation bias." Moreover, in a Southern Poverty Law Center 2010 "Intelligence Report" extrapolating data from FBI national hate crime statistics from 1995 to 2008, found that LGBT people were "far more likely than any other minority group in the United States to be victimized by violent hate crime."
Etymology.
Although sexual attitudes tracing back to Ancient Greece – from the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity (c. 600 AD) – have been termed "homophobia" by scholars, and it is used to describe an intolerance towards homosexuality and homosexuals that grew during the Middle Ages, especially by adherents of Islam and Christianity, the term itself is relatively new.
Coined by George Weinberg, a psychologist, in the 1960s, the term "homophobia" is a blend of (1) the word "homosexual", itself a mix of neo-classical morphemes, and (2) "phobia" from the Greek , phóbos, meaning "fear", "morbid fear" or "aversion". Weinberg is credited as the first person to have used the term in speech. The word "homophobia" first appeared in print in an article written for the 23 May 1969 edition of the American pornographic magazine "Screw", in which the word was used to refer to heterosexual men's fear that others might think they are gay.
Conceptualizing anti-LGBT prejudice as a social problem worthy of scholarly attention was not new. A 1969 article in "Time" described examples of negative attitudes toward homosexuality as "homophobia", including "a mixture of revulsion and apprehension" which some called "homosexual panic". In 1971, Kenneth Smith used "homophobia" as a personality profile to describe the psychological aversion to homosexuality. Weinberg also used it this way in his 1972 book "Society and the Healthy Homosexual", published one year before the American Psychiatric Association voted to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Weinberg's term became an important tool for gay and lesbian activists, advocates, and their allies. He describes the concept as a medical phobia:
 ;templatestyles src="Template:Blockquote/styles.css" / ;
In 1981, "homophobia" was used for the first time in "The Times" (of London) to report that the General Synod of the Church of England voted to refuse to condemn homosexuality.
However, when taken literally, "homophobia" may be a problematic term. Professor David A. F. Haaga says that contemporary usage includes "a wide range of negative emotions, attitudes and behaviours toward homosexual people," which are characteristics that are not consistent with accepted definitions of phobias, that of "an intense, illogical, or abnormal fear of a specified thing."
Types.
Homophobia manifests in different forms, and a number of different types have been postulated, among which are internalized homophobia, social homophobia, emotional homophobia, rationalized homophobia, and others. There were also ideas to classify homophobia and other types of bigotry as "intolerant personality disorder".
In 1992, the American Psychiatric Association, recognizing the power of the stigma against homosexuality, issued the following statement, reaffirmed by the Board of Trustees, July 2011:Whereas homosexuality "per se" implies no impairment in judgment, stability, reliability, or general social or vocational capabilities, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) calls on all international health organizations, psychiatric organizations, and individual psychiatrists in other countries to urge the repeal in their own countries of legislation that penalizes homosexual acts by consenting adults in private. Further, APA calls on these organizations and individuals to do all that is possible to decrease the stigma related to homosexuality wherever and whenever it may occur.
Institutional.
Religious attitudes.
Some world religions contain anti-homosexual teachings, while other religions have varying degrees of ambivalence, neutrality, or incorporate teachings that regard homosexuals as third gender. Even within some religions which generally discourage homosexuality, there may also be people who view homosexuality positively, and some religious denominations bless or conduct same-sex marriages. There also exist so-called Queer religions, dedicated to serving the spiritual needs of LGBTQI persons. Queer theology seeks to provide a counterpoint to religious homophobia. In 2015, attorney and author Roberta Kaplan stated that Kim Davis "is the clearest example of someone who wants to use a religious liberty argument to discriminate [against same-sex couples]."
Christianity and the Bible.
Passages commonly interpreted as condemning homosexuality or same-gender sexual relations are found in both Old and New Testaments of the Bible. Leviticus 18:22 says "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is also commonly seen as a condemnation of homosexuality. Christians and Jews who oppose homosexuality may often cite such passages; the historical context and interpretation of which is more complicated. Scholarly debate over the interpretation of these passages has tended to focus on placing them in proper historical context, for instance pointing out that Sodom's sins are historically interpreted as being other than homosexuality, and on the translation of rare or unusual words in the passages in question. In "Religion Dispatches" magazine, Candace Chellew-Hodge argues that the six or so verses that are often cited to condemn LGBT people are referring instead to "abusive sex". She states that the Bible has no condemnation for "loving, committed, gay and lesbian relationships" and that Jesus was silent on the subject. This view is opposed by a number of conservative evangelicals, including Robert A. J. Gagnon.
The official teaching of the Catholic Church regarding homosexuality is that same-sex behavior should not be expressed. In the United States, a February 2012 Pew Research Center poll shows that Catholics support gay marriage by a margin of 52% to 37%. That is a shift upwards from 2010, when 46% of Catholics favored gay marriage. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that, "'homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.'...They are contrary to the natural law... Under no circumstances can they be approved."
Islam and Sharia.
In some cases, the distinction between religious homophobia and state-sponsored homophobia is not clear, a key example being territories under Islamic authority. All major Islamic sects forbid homosexuality, which is a crime under Sharia Law and treated as such in most Muslim countries. In Afghanistan, for instance, homosexuality carried the death penalty under the Taliban. After their fall, homosexuality was reduced from a capital crime to one that is punished with fines and prison sentences. After the revolution of 1979 in Iran and the establishment of a new government based on Islamic Sharia, the pressure and punishment against LGBT people has expanded in this country. The legal situation in the United Arab Emirates, however, is unclear.
In 2009, the International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) published a report entitled "State Sponsored Homophobia 2009", which is based on research carried out by Daniel Ottosson at Södertörn University College, Stockholm, Sweden. This research found that of the 80 countries around the world that continue to consider homosexuality illegal:
In 2001, Al-Muhajiroun, an international organization seeking the establishment of a global Islamic caliphate, issued a fatwa declaring that all members of The Al-Fatiha Foundation (which advances the cause of gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims) were "murtadd", or apostates, and condemning them to death. Because of the threat and because they come from conservative societies, many members of the foundation's site still prefer to be anonymous so as to protect their identities while they are continuing a tradition of secrecy.
In some regions, gay people have been persecuted and murdered by Islamist militias, such as Al-Nusra Front and ISIL in parts of Iraq and Syria.
State-sponsored.
State-sponsored homophobia includes the criminalization and penalization of homosexuality, hate speech from government figures, and other forms of discrimination, violence, persecution of LGBT people.
Past governments.
In medieval Europe, homosexuality was considered sodomy and was punishable by death. Persecutions reached their height during the Medieval Inquisitions, when the sects of Cathars and Waldensians were accused of fornication and sodomy, alongside accusations of Satanism. In 1307, accusations of sodomy and homosexuality were major charges leveled during the Trial of the Knights Templar. The theologian Thomas Aquinas was influential in linking condemnation of homosexuality with the idea of natural law, arguing that "special sins are against nature, as, for instance, those that run counter to the intercourse of male and female natural to animals, and so are peculiarly qualified as unnatural vices."
Although bisexuality was accepted as normal human behavior in Ancient China, homophobia became ingrained in the late Qing dynasty and the Republic of China due to interactions with the Christian West, and homosexual behavior was outlawed in 1740. During the Cultural Revolution, homosexuality was treated by the government as a "social disgrace or a form of mental illness", and individuals who were homosexual widely faced persecution. Although there were no laws specifically against homosexuality, other laws were used to prosecute homosexual people and they were "charged with hooliganism or disturbing public order."
The Soviet Union under Vladimir Lenin decriminalized homosexuality in 1922, long before many other European countries. The Soviet Communist Party effectively legalized no-fault divorce, abortion and homosexuality, when they abolished all the old Tsarist laws and the initial Soviet criminal code kept these liberal sexual policies in place. Lenin's emancipation was reversed a decade later by Joseph Stalin and homosexuality remained illegal under Article 121 until the Yeltsin era.
In Nazi Germany, gay men were persecuted and approximately five to fifteen thousand were imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps.
Current governments.
Homosexuality is illegal in 74 countries. The North Korean government condemns Western gay culture as a vice caused by the decadence of a capitalist society, and it denounces it as promoting consumerism, classism, and promiscuity. In North Korea, "violating the rules of collective socialist life" can be punished with up to two years' imprisonment. Park Jeong-Won, a law professor at Kookmin University, said that, while he was not aware of any North Korean laws explicitly prohibiting homosexual relationships, laws against extramarital affairs and breaking moral customs would likely be used to prosecute homosexual acts. 
Robert Mugabe, the former president of Zimbabwe, waged a violent campaign against LGBT people, arguing that before colonisation, Zimbabweans did not engage in homosexual acts. His first major public condemnation of homosexuality was in August 1995, during the Zimbabwe International Book Fair. He told an audience: "If you see people parading themselves as lesbians and gays, arrest them and hand them over to the police!" In September 1995, Zimbabwe's parliament introduced legislation banning homosexual acts. In 1997, a court found Canaan Banana, Mugabe's predecessor and the first President of Zimbabwe, guilty of 11 counts of sodomy and indecent assault.
In Poland, local towns, cities, and Voivodeship sejmiks have declared their respective regions as LGBT ideology free zone with the encouragement of the ruling Law and Justice party.
Since 2006, under Vladimir Putin, regions in Russia have enacted varying laws restricting the distribution of materials promoting LGBT relationships to minors. In June 2013, a federal law criminalizing the distribution of materials among minors in support of non-traditional sexual relationships was enacted as an amendment to an existing child protection law. The law resulted in the numerous arrests of Russian LGBT citizens. In 2023 the Russian Supreme Court declared that the international LGBT rights movement is an extremist organization.
Internalized.
Internalized homophobia refers to negative stereotypes, beliefs, stigma, and prejudice about homosexuality and LGBTQ people that a person with same-sex attraction turns inward on themselves, whether or not they identify as LGBT.
Some studies have shown that people who are homophobic are more likely to have repressed homosexual desires. In 1996, a controlled study of 64 heterosexual men (half said they were homophobic by experience, with self-reported orientation) at the University of Georgia found that men who were found to be homophobic (as measured by the Index of Homophobia) were considerably more likely to experience more erectile responses when exposed to homoerotic images than non-homophobic men. Weinstein and colleagues arrived at similar results when researchers found that students who came from