And by the way, I'm not saying that fear of homosexuals necessarily means hatred of them.  Most people I know who fear gays do not hate them (one or two of them do, at least they did as teenagers, and for all I know they don't anymore).

And let's not forget that modern Islamism is a relatively new phenomenon, that popped up a mere hundred years ago (if I remember correctly).

That's not my experience.  People either fear homosexuals directly, or they fear the loss of male social trust—usually, they fear both.

Actually, there may some truth to that—but I think not.  By the way, fear of homosexuality is not quite the same as disapproval—I've met people who have no animus towards gays but nonetheless are a bit afraid of them. 

Anyway, the typical homophobic behavior I've encountered falls into two categories: people who find the reputation that homosexuals have lots of sex alluring, but are nonetheless straight themselves (they find the sex tempting, basically, but without any sense of attraction), and a much more rare group (at least among my age cohort) of people who simply hate gays.

Or just reporting what we see in our daily lives.  Now that I think about it, I suppose the negative stereotypes actively promulgated by the gay rights crowd may make people feel nervous (especially if they've only seen "feminine" gays, and view homosexuality as an attack on male masculinity).

Another possibility is the fear of eroding social trust among males. 

I honestly don't know, myself.  It's never made sense to me.

My point was that political consultants used and abused social conservatives; SoCon politics reward people who fear homosexuality much more than it rewards people who, say, speak out against single motherhood, or no-fault divorce.

That's entirely a consultant-driven phenomenon, in my opinion.  In other words, Karl Rove ruined the social conservatism movement.

Oh come on.  Most people with negative attitudes toward homosexuality do fear it.

I suppose I should.  Let's just say that political consultants encouraged homophobia to increase turnout for short-term electoral gain, at the cost of destroying the social conservative movement over the long run.

That's not an American social norm, though.  If memory serves, the average American relationship involving out-of-wedlock children lasts less then 5 years.

I wouldn't go that far.  Just because the two movies share a common plotline (an attempt to start a war) doesn't mean they are at all the same.

As for Roddenberry, I've always found his vision of the Federation to be bland beyond belief, little more than an anarcho-socialist fantasy.

Part of the problem, I would argue, is that SoCons became overly politicized; political consultants played on their homophobia to entice them to the polls, at the cost of delegitimizing everything else they had to say.

Can we invade the damn country, already?  This is getting ridiculous.

Privatizing fire services is something you do when you're absolutely out of money and need to fill a budget hole.  Otherwise, it's just not worth the hassle.

I don't think it matters.  At any given time, some social groups will always be statistically "superior" to others.  That's a fact.  But things change over time, too; it used to be white people were the most accomplished, hard-working and intelligent race, but nowadays East Asians are better at that stuff than we are.  The Flynn effect (where average intelligence increases in successive generations of adults in modern societies) makes things unpredictable. 

For all we know, in fifty years social groups that rank at the bottom of socially-desired traits could rise to the top.

Reduce existing rent seeking?  The entire point of my post is that this is impossible.  Skilled workers would much rather vote for massive welfare benefits for the unskilled and pay higher taxes than face real competition themselves.  This is a consistent pattern in all developed nations, America included.