Mike Rosebush, PhD, Spot on. Evangelical culture tends to include a large dollop of shame around sexuality, rather than relying on justice and wisdom concerns primarily. So there is a lot of shame re straight sexual behaviors that is painful for evangelicals to face in themselves, and this pain, through projection, is shifted to LGBTQ people and their sexuality. Projection — the driving power of scapegoating. Religious homophobia is powerfully driven by angst over straight sex.