Gays and lesbians are the new Jews?

(Hat-tip to Talk To Action.)

From Michelle Goldberg's article:

[The] affair between fundamentalism and homophobia has been a long and faithful one. What’s new and chilling, however, is the single-minded ideological obsession of it. This is not something one sees in every theocratic state..... [T]he rhetoric of Iran’s fundamentalist clerics doesn’t treat homosexuality as a cosmically subversive threat; instead, Jews and Zionism play that role (as they so often did in Europe before the Holocaust), a dynamic that may prove useful in deciphering the ubiquity and vehemence of anti-gay rhetoric among conservative Christians the world over.

Goldberg looks for explanations and sees at least two causes:

the globalization of the religious right a phenomenon that [Rick] Warren—with all his overseas contacts—exemplifies as well as anyone. It’s also a result of the globalization of civil rights rhetoric. [Recently,] for example, sixty-six United Nations member states signed a declaration calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide. (The United States, predictably, was the one major Western nation that refused to sign).

Fundamentalists the world over spread myths about gay people, sexual and reproductive health, and science, they do so hoping to leverage the fear they create into power and access for fundamentalist leaders and cultural influence for fundamentalism as a movement.