Sex, Sexuality and Why Are Homophobes So Obsessed With It?

I started thinking about this when I was watching the coverage of the Republican debates, but had forgotten about this until something else made it come back to my mind.

While it is always amusing to watch bigots squirm under direct questioning regarding their bigotry, Rick Santorum actually brought up something that I have heard repeated a few times from homophobes when discussing, for example, whether or not it is appropriate to expose children to the idea of same sex couples.

What?? How is allowing gay men and women to die from their country adding a provision to include sexual activity in the military?? What the HELL does sex have to do with someone's sexual identity? Of course the people that someone will choose to have sex with will be influenced by their sexual identity, and the two words share three letters, but what exactly does Rick Santorum think? If we allow gay men into the military there will be rampant ass-fucking orgies in the showers every night?

It is this incredibly ridiculous notion that talking about gay rights automatically means talking about gay sex. It is because of this that many homophobes freak at the idea of children finding out about gay couples. They're too young to understand!! Understand what exactly? This is just another example of sexualizing our children. When you tell your 6 year old "Uncle John and Aunt Sarah are getting married, do you want to be a flower girl?" she doesnt think "that means that John and Sarah are going to hump like bunnies on their wedding night!" It's absurd. Telling you child that sometimes, two men or two women will get married too, will result in the response "oh... OK!" not "But where do they put their pee-pees then Daddy?" If your child doesn't even know where babies come from, how is clueing them in on the existence of same-sex couples in any way exposing them to gay sex?

Is it because homophobes think of gay sex everytime they see two men or two women together? Is it just with gays, or do they imagine the dirty between-the-sheets details of every single couple they see on the street? Are they really that repressed? Of course some of them are closeted homosexuals, there has been plenty of evidence to that, but Im not going to pretend that they all are. Maybe the combination of an overly sexual person and a lifetime of religiously inspired sexual repression and shame is the perfect storm which results in hateful and bigoted people.

What is your theory on the subject?