YES, IT'S ALL HOMOPHOBIA.

From the hundreds of thousands of aggressive Muslim men being coaxed into the EU without any democratic approval by Europeans themselves to the intentional negligence of the FBI who interviewed the mass murderer of gay bar patrons in Orlando, FL three times prior to the massacre, the universal backlash against the validation of LGBT as human and equal by governments is obvious to me as an openly gay man of 66 years of age. There are Muslim countries with which the US has diplomatic relations where LGBT people can be legally massacred for simply being who they are. So, I do not exempt the US government from collusion in lethal homophobia. 

Gay marriage is window-dressing. It is largely the agenda of wealthy LGBT people who have assets to protect or income taxes to reduce. Gay marriage is more of an accommodation to heterosexuals than to homosexuals. It is a method devised by political gay activists of a sort who have determined a course of assimilation to achieve basic recognition in law of LGBT equality. It has been a successful strategy within its limitations. You can pass all the laws you wish but laws do not really change hearts and minds. The African-American experience in the US since 1863 is evidence in support of that assertion.

The apex of economic power in the world is still populated overwhelmingly by heterosexuals, many of them Catholic/Christian and Muslim. The Bilderberg Group, which has just met in secrecy in Dresden, Germany, is a group of financial and political elite of The West. This group is populated in part by heterosexuals, primarily men, with hereditary roots in the Hapsburg Holy Roman Empire. Their meeting this year was attended by the likes of Peter Thiel, a tech financier who co-founded PayPal and was an early investor in Facebook. One of Thiel's most telling quotes:  “Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” (source:Wikipedia). Thiel is a German and a Christian.

Homophobia, like racism, runs throughout human society all over the planet. Many cultures have evolved into a rather comfortable nonviolent homophobia. Mediterranean cultures in Europe have developed a winking duplicity in sexuality, which includes social attitudes toward homosexuals. In Asian cultures, it is common for people to simply believe there are no homosexuals. This comes perhaps from an entrenched philosophy of detachment from the most personal business of others outside one's own family group. However, religiosity, and those who have been promoting it globally for the past three decades, uses homophobia as a motivator. Religion feeds hatred in the form of pointing fingers at "the evil ones". Religions sell absolution and an afterlife. One sure ticket is hating homosexuals. 

LGBT people who feel that homophobia has been extinguished anywhere in the world are living in denial. I understand the desire to do so, but it is very dangerous for the individual and for all people who are perceived as different. At the very least, each of us must make an effort to be visible and active in our closest communities wherever being different is relatively safe. We owe this to those who live daily under the threat of violence and death. And we owe it to ourselves, because it is the only way to keep whatever gains we have made.