According to the Economist, gay men earn less on average than straight men, by around 5% in France and the UK, and 12-16% in Canada and America. What's the reason behind it?

Oh goodness no. I think the racial/cultural diversity of STEM is an asset and really cool part of the field, plus something that should still be worked on in many areas. The anti LGBT folks I've run into were much like myself lily white people but from like Missouri, Texas, Georgia, Florida, those places. I think there is something about the influence of Evangelical Christianity and politics in those regions that makes going out of one's way to hate on LGBTQ folks this like important cultural touchstone for them, something that freaks them out if other people aren't at a similar level? Not to mention there has been the influence of the past few decades where religious and political leaders made queer people out to be public enemy #1 as a way to gather support and influence after communism stopped being a thing.

Also it didn't have to be religious - I'm an atheist myself and met a least one anti gay atheist while at school. There was even this physicist who was kicked off a federal project because he liked to publish rants comparing gay men to the KKK and that sort of thing. A lot of science-minded people from that part of the country seemed have a knee jerk dislike of LGBT people that they would insist wasn't cultural but had to do with "violations of the imperative to reproduce" or some other weird Thomas Aquinas sounding naturalistic fallacy stuff. Otherwise there were probably people from other backgrounds who were anti LGBT but they weren't actively terrible about it? Which is pretty chill I guess? But yeah, if someone's loud and causing problems for queer people I can almost guarantee it's another white person. Also minorities get unfairly blamed for systemic queerphobia a lot and it's a problem that needs to be addressed.

/r/gaybros Thread Parent Link - economist.com