A t-shirt of mine sums it up best. Homophobia is the state of being uncomfortable with being heterosexual. It seems totally cliche, but I have found in my random wanderings of this strange little planet that the people who are the most rabid homophobes are often those who are privately questioning their own sexuality. This level of self-doubt and questioning is often raised to almost pathological proportions. It's really unfortunate that these people can't be comfortable adressing such issues, but this is the side effect of being raised in a very close minded environment, where fear and hate of things unknown or not fully understood are hard wired into people's heads. Another possible genesis for this kind of behavior is hatred towards an entire community after being abused, and not understanding that homosexuality and pedophilia are like apples and pavement.