Gay bashing

Gay bashing is an expression used to designate verbal confrontation with, denigration of, or physical violence against people thought to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered (LGBT) because of their apparent sexual orientation or gender identity. Similar terms such as "lesbian bashing" or "queer bashing" may also be formed. A "bashing" may be a specific incident, or one could also use the verb "to bash" e.g. "I was gay bashed." As there is no foolproof way to detect a person's sexual orientation, people sometimes fall victim even if they are not LGBT, should they be perceived to conform to the relevant stereotypes.

A verbal gay bashing might take place on any street corner and use sexual slurs, expletives, intimidation, or threats of violence -— or, it might take place in a political forum and include one or more common anti-gay slogans. Passionate invective fits more closely into the general idea of gay bashing than does a calm, intellectual justification for anti-LGBT attitudes or policies. However, some people would include any expression of anti-LGBT sentiment in one or another category of "bashing".

The term can also be applied to non-verbal acts of homophobia although that application is less common.

Gospel of Matthew
In Byrne Fone's book Homophobia: A History, the author explores the theory that Matthew 5:22 from the Bible contains a reference to verbal gay bashing. The word "raca" is often translated as "fool", and sometimes refers to one who deserves to be spat upon, or was sometimes used to insult homosexuals. If this is the case, then Jesus is warning of hell fire for those who engage in verbal gay bashing as part of the Sermon on the Mount, and the warning is even harsher than Jesus' pronouncement about murder in Matthew 5:21. (Fone's book, by the way, gives a global and a broad historical overview of gay bashing.)

USA
Gay bashing was especially serious in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when many gays were forced out of government by boards set up by presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. As historian David K. Johnson explains:

"The Lavender Scare helped fan the flames of the Red Scare. In popular discourse, communists and homosexuals were often conflated. Both groups were perceived as hidden subcultures with their own meeting places, literature, cultural codes, and bonds of loyalty. Both groups were thought to recruit to their ranks the psychologically weak or disturbed. And both groups were considered immoral and godless. Many people believed that the two groups were working together to undermine the government."

Johnson concludes that Senator Joe McCarthy, notorious for his attacks on alleged Communists in government, was often pressured by his allies to denounce homosexuals in government, but he resisted and did not do so. Using rumors collected by Drew Pearson one Nevada publisher wrote in 1952 that both McCarthy and his chief counsel, Roy Cohn, were homosexuals. Washington Post editor Benjamin C. Bradlee said, "There was a lot of time spent investigating" these allegations, "although no one came close to proving it." No reputable McCarthy biographer has accepted it as probable.