y engender an unjustifiable reaction within homophobic men. While this is apparent from the many gay bashing incidents around the country, there is also a study showing a biological reaction to homosexuality. In 1996, Henry Adams, a psychologist at the University of Georgia, devised a way to see if gay bashing was related to suppressed homosexual urges. He recruited a group of men between the ages of 18 and 31, categorizing them as either homophobic or non-homophobic. They were then shown explicit erotic videos depicting straight, gay and lesbian sex, during which penile circumference was measured by a plethysmograph. As a result of the video depicting gay sex, eighty percent of the homophobic participants showed "moderate to definite tumescense" as compared to thirty percent of the non-homophobic subjects (Stryker 5). Professor Adams concluded that most homophobes "demonstrate significant arousal to homosexual erotic stimuli," suggesting that homophobia is a form of "latent homosexuality where persons are either unaware or deny their homosexual urges" (Adams 441; "Antigay" 1). The homosexual panic defense is based on the theory that homophobic men may actually have repressed homosexual urges. Homophobia is often indicative of self-loathing homosexual feelings; many homophobes subconsciously use anti-gay attitudes as a disguise for their own homosexuality. Dr. Patrick Suraci, the author of Male Sexual Armor, suggests that a gay basher wrestling with homosexual impulses of his own, "instead of being able to accept those homosexual feelings within himself, he wants to kill those feelings" (Lawrence 1). Attacks against gays demonstrate an "absolute intent to rub out the human being because of his sexual orientation" (Wilson 42). The attackers project their own self-loathing onto a gay victim. No matter what the basis is for these feelings of hatred towards gay men, they don't excuse cold-blooded murder. Dr. Karen Franklin, a forensic psych...
