Sally thinks that men and women cannot have platonic friendships. She's willing to have friendships with men, but she just knows that it's either going to lead to a romantic relationship or one of them is going to have unrequited feelings for the other. The more and more Sally and any male interact, the higher the likelihood that one of them is going to develop feelings for the other. She feels this way about male coworkers as well, that the more and more they work together someone is going to develop feelings. Particularly since she's single and all of her coworkers and male friends are single, except for her bosses.

Sally is also in a sorority. She always wanted to be in a sorority, and is so happy to be building relationships with all of her sisters. Sure, she doesn't know them that well, but she took an executive board position and has been interacting with her sisters more and more lately, especially on a one-on-one basis.

Hannah is a potential new member who happens to be an out-of-the-closet lesbian. Sally just knows that even if she doesn't want to be friends with Hannah, she's going to have to interact with her. She's willing to take the risk that she develops feelings for one of her male coworkers because she's straight. Besides, she's dealt with that before, since men and women can't be platonic. She doesn't know how she would handle a female coworker or sister hitting on her, and she's a little scared to find out. She just knows that if Hannah gets a bid, they're going to have to interact so much and build such a relationship that Hannah will eventually develop feelings for her - just like Sally would if she worked closely for a long time with Tim, the reasonably attractive bouncer at the bar she works at. So, she would just prefer not to give a bid to Hannah at all, so she knows she'll never have to deal with it.

Obviously this isn't the case with every homophobe - but in this case it's not a completely illogical jump.

Good example.

While it's not illogical, it's irrational IMO. Sally is making some HUGE assumptions:

1) Hannah is going to be attracted to her
2) Hannah will ignore the fact that Sally is heterosexual and will pursue her anyway, as if she can't separate "business" (sorority) from "pleasure" (romantic relationships)
3) Hannah is single

In my NM class, two girls came out but there was never any weirdness. We had a long talk about it and they told us that, though they like women, they rarely (if ever) fall for heterosexual girls because the vibe is very different, there is no mutual attraction or flirtation.

It's also not an illogical jump to consider that any woman belonging to your sorority may also end up sharing a bedroom with you or a community shower. Since you wouldn't undress or share a bedroom with a heterosexual member of the opposite sex, you also may not want to share a bedroom or shower with a homosexual of your own gender.

So the options would look like this (for a woman):
A) Share bedroom/shower with homosexual man: Sure
B) Share bedroom/shower with heterosexual man: No way
C) Share bedroom/shower with homosexual woman: No way
D) Share bedroom/shower with heterosexual woman: Sure

You guys are arguing while agreeing with each other. Agzg is not saying that the homophobe's point is right or rational just that it makes sense to the homophobe. And it is 'logical' but it is based on a flawed premise. Just because we can understand it doesn't mean we're excusing or condoning it.

People justify a lot of things using faulty logic, this is just another one of them.

No arguing here. Just discussing my viewpoints.

You weren't ;) But it seemed like wires were getting crossed.

Did you drop your feminist baton? :p

Course not. But I don't have a comfortable replacement colloquialism ;)

I need to move south so "y'all" is acceptable.

You all?

Doesn't flow. Eh I'm far from perfect ;) Anyway I'd argue for the gender neutralization of "guys" even if that makes me a bad feminist.

/it doesn't, that's not how it works :p

You are officially in feminist time-out until further review from the feminism board.

Oh shit. I'm going to have to write "I will not shave my legs" 200 times on the board. At least.

In on topic news, the Assistant AG Asshat is now on a "leave of absence"

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/0...ve-of-absence/

Is this a *doink doink* moment?

Yinz? Yous?