Have you ever wondered what motivates people who are rampant homophobes? What lies behind the desperate attempts of some people to prove their heterosexuality by denying freedom to others based on their sexual orientation?

It’s actually supported by scientific evidence that a major cause of homophobia is the desire to repress unacknowledged or unwanted homosexual feelings. In August 1996 the American Psychological Association did a study in which they used penile plethysmography (basically the technological measurement of hard ons) to “precisely measure and record male tumescence” of men who were avowedly straight’s reactions to to erotic images. Some of the men were professed homophobes, and some were not, who acted as a control group. The homophobic group basically got a lot more aroused by gay imagery than the control group. Questioned afterwards, the homophobes consistently underrated how much they responded to homosexuality.

One group of activists even cleverly wrote to homophobic MPs who voted against equalising the age of consent for homosexual and heterosexual sex, and challenged them to take the same test of their knob’s reaction to gay stimuli.

Basically, the homophobes experienced severe anxiety and a sense of threat from gay images, which the non-homophobic control group did not. While this is in many ways tragic, and would lead us to the conclusion that many homophobes need help and support to come to terms with themselves and their own feelings, it doesn’t give an excuse for some of the truly awful things people do as a result of that anxiety.

There are many cases of prominent and powerful people who were driving a homophobic agenda in religion, politics or society in general who were actually gay themselves. While this self-loathing is tragic, the harm that these people do to the rights and freedoms of others is inexcusable. To celebrate today’s gay pride march, Leftfield brings you a selection of some of the world’s greatest sexual hypocrites (apologies for them all being American, if you’d like us help expand our list to the UK and around the world then give us some extras in the comments!):

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There are few countries on Earth that seem to be able to provide us with hilarious crazies like the USA. They elected George ‘Monkey with a razor blade’ Bush twice as President, they respect and admire Tom ‘The Pope of Scientology’ Cruise, they continue to listen to Sarah ‘I can see Russia from my bedroom window [no, you can't]‘ Palin (in fact, for her craziness she is rewarded with her own show!), and they elected the Terminator Governor of California in order to continue their crusade against “economic girly men.”

As a nation they have made a huge contribution to the world of religion, having invented both Mormonism (dumb dumb dumb dumb) and Scientology, (founder L. Ron Hubbard once said the quickest way to make a million dollars would be to invent a religion. Then he did.) Just take a look at some common American religious beliefs handily summarised in cartoon form for you here.

Today Leftfield wants to celebrate the great contribution that American crazies have made to our amusement. The following is by no means a definitive list of American nutjobs, and we may well add to it as more emerge from the woodwork to bring us hour upon hour of laughter. Hopefully as the New World Order is implemented by our socialist illuminati chums more people will be pushed over the brink of sanity, into the pit of hilarity.

So here we present to you a roll of honour of the American reality-challenged:

5. Bill O’ Reilly: Bill presents “The O’Reilly Factor”, the highest rated cable news programme in the US. His show is renowned for getting on people that don’t agree with his extreme right-wing agenda, so that he can shout abuse at them. Here’s an example of him getting a little bit hot under the collar about immigration:

However, it’s not just on the air that Bill can lose his cool, as shown by the number 1 result when you search his name on youtube:

It’s ok Bill, please try to understand that no one is judging you for never having heard the phrase “play us out”, despite it getting used on telly all the time.

4. Glenn Beck: Fellow right wing commentator Glenn goes into similar territory as Bill, but he just doesn’t know when to switch off the crazy tap. Noted as a racist and frequent advocate of violence, youtube has handily put together some of his greatest hits for you:

One of his most famous moments was featured briefly in the video above, but here we bring you the moment when Glenn wrote a bunch of words on the board next to Obama’s name, then picked random letters out to try and spell “oligarchy”. The only problem being that he forgot the letter c:

Glenn has provoked quite a lot of opposition to his craziness, which, while perhaps justifiable on a political and basic human level, does not serve the cause of comedy well. Examples include the ongoing effort to make companies refuse to advertise during his show, and the apparent prank played on his fans when dozens of their cars were towed away while they were hearing him speak.

3. Pastor Steven L. Anderson: Pastor Anderson is noted for his fiery sermons in which he condemns gay people, abortion, and prays for the death of Barack Obama. Apparently he wants the US President to “melt like a snail” because he “hates him personally.”

However, some of his strongest rhetoric has not been reserved for these common targets of the religious right, but for a much more insidious trend, which is undermining the very basis of American society: the creeping horror that is men pissing sitting down:

2. Pastor James David Manning: Fiery black preacher Pastor Manning has an interesting take on race relations under the Obama Presidency. He is “telling you that these white folks ain’t gonna take it no more” (he likes to say that a lot), and are ready to rise up in riots far worse than what black people could ever pull off. He constantly refers to Obama as the “long legged mack daddy,” and even expresses his anger in gargle form in the video below. However, you really do have to keep watching for the full 10 minutes, as it’s only towards the end that he unveils his true calling in life, as an amazing singer songwriter, with beautiful, heart wrenching lyrics such as “Obama and Larry Sinclair/had a steamy affair”:

But coming straight in at NUMBER 1 we have long time Leftfield favourite Alex Jones!

Alex Jones is perhaps the USA’s greatest living conspiracy theorist. On his radio and TV show he regularly informs his fans of how they face an imminent takeover by a New World Order hell bent on a programme of eugenics, mass death, and enslavement. If you ever get the chance, look out for the Jon Ronson documentary ‘The Secret Rulers of the World’, which followed Alex on one of his infiltration missions into the global elite, with hilarious consequences.

But youtube is far from short of wonderful Alex gems. Here we select for you just a fraction of the comedy gold that is out there, and we can’t recommend to you enough that you begin exploring the amazing world of Alex Jones for yourself:

Alex’s silly impressions start to annoy his own guests

Alex is slightly miffed with Barack Obama

Alex decides the best protest he can make is to dress as the joker and wreck his own studio

Alex Jones: Best rant ever

(Co-Authored by Sarah.)

Over the weekend it emerged that a government adviser had circulated a memo about the Pope’s upcoming visit to the UK that they have been forced to apologise for.

The document was apparently the result of a “brainstorming” session, where staff tried to come up with a scenario for an ideal visit by the Pope. You can see at least some of the text here, including suggestions that the Pope should launch a ‘Benedict’ brand of condoms, visit an abortion clinic and bless a civil partnership.

This has led to a storm of condemnation of the memo, branded “offensive” and “vile”. Many revealed that this in fact may not have been a serious planning session, but in fact an attempt to take the piss. Paralysed in shock, the nation gradually came to realise that someone had dared to mock a man who promotes views which we all know to be total nonsense.

The government has apologised and been desperate to smooth things over. Meanwhile, the Vatican itself spoke of “dark forces” at the heart of the British government.

It’s difficult to find a full text of the memo online, and there’ve been differing reports of what it contained (which makes you wonder how many of the people rushing to condemn it have actually read it), but based on what has been mainly reported, is it a case of outrageous prejudice?

Is it outrageous to ridicule the church’s mental position on contraception, sex education, homosexuality etc.? Is deliberately misinforming school pupils about abortion and their sexuality really a set of views that we should just respect? Or is it ok to poke fun at reactionary craziness, even if it is supported by lots of religious believers?

When I was in Catholic school we were taught that two thirds of condoms failed, given no education on different kinds of contraception and any discussion of abortion was solely focused on it being traumatic and wrong for the woman in all cases. We never got to see “The Silent Scream”, a disturbing anti-abortion video, but other pupils did, and it had a major effect on how they view abortion. The film is riddled with inaccuracies and downright pish, Leftfield will be coming back to why it’s nonsense in a later post.

I found it offensive that the Catholic Church was allowed to promote their one sided view of the world in schools, and I wasn’t allowed to hear about anyone’s rights regarding sex education, contraception or abortion – and not only was it offensive, it wasn’t even funny unlike the memo done by hard working civil servants, who no doubt had to take their work to the pub with them.

Some people, including some on the Left, say the memo was out of order because it was an attack on a religious minority and have compared it to the attacks you get on Muslims from the far-right, some evangelical Christians and some very confused ’secularists’. What’s happening to Muslims today is much, much worse though – nobody is denying the Catholic Church the right to build spires on Churches, enforcing legal restrictions on what Catholic women can wear, or talking about Catholic birthrates destroying Western civilization.

The Pope gets into the spirit of things after blessing a gay wedding

Also, while there is no Islamic equivalent of the Pope, if for example the King of Saudi Arabia were to visit the UK we probably would find it quite funny if people took the piss out of his regime for its interesting stances on community restorative justice (i.e. beheadings for witchcraft) or its unique plan to encourage use of public transport by not letting women drive cars – which has won it plaudits from the Top Gear presenters, including fellow Islamist Jeremy Clarkson.

If the Pope doesn’t like being mocked he should either abandon his views or try and defend them against attack. When I was in RE classes it was pretty obvious to most if not all of the people in the class that the Church’s position on many of the issues in the memo were patently ridiculous – and very few of the people at my school were atheists or agnostics. Most of them would still have described themselves nominally as Catholics, and ignore all the nonsense bits of it, like banning condoms etc. If the Catholic Church had spent half as much time attacking poverty in Scotland and the world, opposing climate change, or other kinds of injustice in society as they did attacking homosexuality and sex education then it’s likely a lot more people in my school and in Scotland would have a lot more respect and time for the Catholic Church.

As it stands today, if the Pope wants to argue that gays are as big a threat to humanity as climate change then he shouldn’t expect people not to say that’s mental.

(Additional reporting and images by Jack.)