Justifying bigotry

Or trying to, at least. I spent a while this morning reading a fair number of the comments on a report at The Guardian website, one published a few days ago, about the increasing support for marriage equality in the UK, as evidenced by the results of a survey quoted in the report. It showed that backing for 'gay marriage', as most people seem to insist on calling it, had risen by several percentage points even during the course of 2012, with the over-65's now being the only age group to have a majority in favour of the current position, which seems pretty encouraging.
Hardly surprisingly, though, there were those who didn't want to take the results at face value, and sought ways of 'proving' that their own prejudiced (in most cases) position was more accurate. One claimed that the poll was skewed by allowing 'non-UK citizens' to take part, the pernicious influence of 'Johnny Foreigner' again, trying to make the country unfit for xenophobic troglodytes to live in, no doubt (with, of course, a sideswipe at those evil, hand-rubbing bureaucrats at the EU who apparently want to expunge every last trace of 'Britishness' from the face of the earth), another said he couldn't believe that the headline figure of a 62% majority could be true, because he, personally, didn't know 'anyone in favour', which, I suspect, says more about the circles he moves in rather than the views of the country at large, another who suggested that his marriage would be irrevocably changed, and that he would be ashamed to call himself married, if same-sex people were allowed to do the same, yet another prefaced by the transparently disingenuous 'I invite my gay friends to lunch, but....', as though we're some kind of alien species. The most fatuous non-sequitur of an 'argument' I saw, though, was put forward by someone who was evidently a religionist, given that his several contributions to the discussion were full of biblical references, and who suggested to a member of the 'pro' camp that, if gay marriage was such a good thing, they should get a group of their heterosexual friends together and have an 'open-gut conversation' as to why those heterosexuals didn't engage in 'homosexual practices'. Well, duh, it's because they're not gay, presumably - correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that's what the word 'heterosexual' meant. It's on a par with a racist asking a black person to get a group of white friends together to discuss why, if black skin is such a good thing, they haven't got it, too. Arrant nonsense, hardly worth the effort of countering.
What, ultimately, are these people so afraid of? Why does equality seem to be so anathema to them? Could it just be that the white, Christian, straight male group that most of these people seem to belong to are terrified of losing their customary position of unearned power and privilege, and might actually have to make some effort to maintain that position, rather than having it handed to them on a plate? Welcome to the real world, start to prove you're willing and able to earn your privileges, rather than taking them for granted.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B