“Environmental Causes of Multiple Sclerosis and certain other Co-occurring Diseases”

RM-215-218

The Westboro Baptist Church are notorious for their signs proclaiming anti-homosexuality epithets such as “God Hates Fag,” and references to Biblical verses to revile homosexuality (e.g., Romans 1:24-27). Although the homonegative bias that Westboro patrons and many Christians express is often understood as being rooted in religion, we explored the possibility religion can be a justification rather than source of homonegativity. Participants specified their religious affiliation and political orientation and then completed measures of implicit homonegativity bias and religiosity. We hypothesized that when participants were given false feedback and told they held negative biases towards homosexuals, participants would be more religious compared to those who were given neutral feedback and told they held no biases towards homosexuals or heterosexuals. This effect was moderated by political affiliation. We found that liberals were more religious after receiving false feedback that said they held negative biases towards homosexuals, compared to conservatives when given the same feedback. There were no differences between those given neutral feedback that told participants they held no biases towards homosexuals or heterosexuals. We suggest the differences between liberals and conservative in the negative feedback condition might be due to differences in political and egalitarian ideology. When liberals are told they are prejudice, participants’ higher religiosity might be an attempt at reducing the dissonance between their feedback and ideology. These findings lend support to the notion that in some cases, religion might serve as a justification for some people’s negative attitudes towards homosexuals rather than being the source of it.