"A Breastplate of Righteousness is 'a protective shield of [fake] superpropriety with a shining quality, blinding observers to certain of the wearer’s practices'."
"A Breastplate of Righteousness creates 'a social image and presentation of self-respectability to a fault.'"
"Seeking to learn more about who participates in [anonymous gay sex in public venues], sociologist Laud Humphreys analyzed interview data he collected from a social health survey of the men he surreptitiously contacted a year after the [anonymous public gay sex] observations."
"Of the 50 [anonymous public gay sex] participants he interviewed, 54% were currently married and 8% were divorced or separated. Only 14% could be classified as typical of someone involved in the gay subculture."
"Most interestingly, the closeted and married men were politically and socially conservative, based on scores on a liberalism scale -- the [openly] gay participants scored 26.5 out of 37, marrieds scored 12.1, and closeted men scored 14.5."
"The participants in [anonymous public gay] sex--and in particular, those who were married or were closeted single men--engaged in various forms of minimizing revelations about themselves through a strategy of information control designed to detract from their behaviors."
"Humphreys noted that they lived in the neatest homes, drove the newest and cleanest cars, were the most well groomed and wore the best clothes, saw devoting time to homes and families as their top priority, and were more involved in authoritarian-oriented religions."
"It got to the point that Humphreys gained 'the impression that 'the Bible on the table and the flag upon the wall' may be signs of 'secret deviance' more than of 'right thinking''."
"Fear of exposure and stigmatization and a decrease in the ability to control information, ironically, led the married and closeted single participants to advocate more moral crusades, even endorsing items on the questionnaire that called for additional vice squad activities."
"Thus, 'As anticipated sanctions increase and autonomy decreases, the more elaborate and encompassing will be the Breastplate of Righteousness the 'deviant' assumes for his overt performances in life.'"
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