# Enough with the "homophobe" bullshit, okay? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 28, 2004, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387 "2004-09-28T00:13:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/41 "2004-09-28T02:31:32Z")
Just been rereading the wonderful books by Warren Farrell, who writes about sexism against men. He postulates that long long ago, homosexual men were a “bad thing” because they would not feel their “assigned role” of providing for women and their children. It makes sense, but it has persisted nowadays, when women do not need to be totally supported. Its still a male thing, I think, as most women aren’t phobed-out by lesbians. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/42 "2004-09-28T02:41:25Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > For your information, there’s a difference between ex-gay and anti-gay. Many ex-gay people are also anti-gay (not to mention detrimental to the struggle for gay rights). This particular individual was, if memory serves, both self-proclaimed ex-gay and firmly anti-gay. That is why I included mention of him in my post. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/43 "2004-09-28T02:41:33Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > This isn’t the Pit, alright. > > I’m hate things which are alike? Do you mean I hate things which are alike? > > I don’t know that this issue comes up all the time. Don’t get mad at me. > > All this shit about the average “homophobe” hating “gay tendencies within himself”? I don’t buy it. Despite what the movies portray (as in American Beauty,) when was the last time an outright gay-hating public figure has come out as gay? When was the last time anyone you knew came out as gay after a lifetime of gay-bashing? Why don’t all these conservative Christians get embarrassingly “outed” and have their careers destroyed if they all have inner homosexual desires? > > Surely one of them would have by now if you’re correct. Ever hear of Roy Cohn? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![PaulFitzroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PaulFitzroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulFitzroy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/44 "2004-09-28T02:48:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Dude… quit digging… Dude…shut the fuck up… ---
**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/45 "2004-09-28T02:49:34Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > I want to know the date that the word “Homophobia” was added to the dictionary. I would suspect it was sometime after the gay movement began to get attention. And this would invalidate the etymology exactly _how_? The word “nigger” wasn’t as harshly frowned upon before the Civil Rights movement, I daresay. You gonna pick and choose which episodes in a word’s evolution you’re gonna acknowledge? And you’re gonna start by refusing to acknowledge any etymological influence the “gay movement” may have had on a word that’s critically relevant to that movement? Well, if it quacks like a duck . . . ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/46 "2004-09-28T02:50:15Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > For your information, there’s a difference between ex-gay and anti-gay. > The ex-gay thing makes sense because I don’t think you can make yourself un-gay, nor do most logical people. Thus far you’ve been consistently talking out your ass. Apart from your misplaced and ludicrous outraged nature, is their going to be the slightest shard of substance to your posts in this thread? The ‘ex-gays’ are virulently anti gay and parrot all the the slimy dishonest bullshit that the Christian Right has been claiming about gay people bringing ruin to society, causing cats and dogs to cohabit without the bonds of marriage, and for the grass to turn blue and the sky green. ---
**Author:** ![PaulFitzroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PaulFitzroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulFitzroy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/47 "2004-09-28T02:50:29Z")
No, I’m saying maybe a certain group of people decided to coin a word to make it pack more of a punch. ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/48 "2004-09-28T02:51:42Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > Dude…shut the fuck up… Dud… you’re the one spouting pointless tripe. Do you just type to reassure yourself that you’re alive? ---
**Author:** ![PaulFitzroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PaulFitzroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulFitzroy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/49 "2004-09-28T02:52:49Z")
> [@](#): > > The ‘ex-gays’ are virulently anti gay and parrot all the the slimy dishonest bullshit that the Christian Right has been claiming about gay people bringing ruin to society, causing cats and dogs to cohabit without the bonds of marriage, and for the grass to turn blue and the sky green. Sure. I’m not saying that the anti-gays and the ex-gays have any difference in their rhetoric. The ex-gays ARE anti-gays. The comment was in the context of anti-gay leaders coming out as gay. There’s a big difference between an admitted gay deciding to become “un-gay” (which is impossible) and then go on a crusade against gays, only to finally be “outed” when it is revealed that, surprise, he was GAY all along, and someone who goes his WHOLE LIFE criticizing gays and then, out of the blue, turns out to himself be homosexual. It’d be like if Rick Santorum came out as gay. Or even better, Fred Phelps. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/50 "2004-09-28T02:58:27Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > No, I’m saying maybe a certain group of people decided to coin a word to make it pack more of a punch. If [this](http://www.campusprogram.com/reference/en/wikipedia/h/ho/homophobia.html) is to be believed, it was coined not by a group of people so much as one. [This](http://www.nakedtranslations.com/en/2004/02/000070.php) has an article with a bit of a different slant to it. I make no claims about the scholarship of that, but [these](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=etymology+homophobia+time+1969&btnG=Search) sources may help bolster things a bit. ---
**Author:** ![buns3000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c89c15/32.png) [@buns3000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buns3000)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/51 "2004-09-28T03:02:41Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > No, I’m saying maybe a certain group of people decided to coin a word to make it pack more of a punch. Um, would that be a - ahem - poo-punch, Mr Homophobe? ---
**Author:** ![Jenaroph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e8c25b/32.png) [@Jenaroph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jenaroph)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/52 "2004-09-28T03:06:03Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > It’d be like if Rick Santorum came out as gay. Or even better, Fred Phelps. Or, as someone mentioned, [Roy Cohn.](http://www.planetout.com/news/history/archive/20000103.html) ---
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/53 "2004-09-28T03:06:49Z")
Does anyone else think that this thread isn’t going AT ALL, how the OP hoped it would? Ahem, sorry. Carry on… ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/54 "2004-09-28T03:17:17Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > No, no, no. Because it has a very different implication. > > Call me a homophobe and you’re saying I’m afraid of homosexuals. But I’m not. I might hate homosexuals, but I’m not afraid of them. (I don’t actually hate them, I’m using the generic “I” here.) \ Nyaahhh… All right you queers listen up! We ain’t afraid of you mugs… _see!_ \ ---
**Author:** ![PaulFitzroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PaulFitzroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulFitzroy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/55 "2004-09-28T03:25:57Z")
> [@](#): > > Um, would that be a - ahem - poo-punch, Mr Homophobe? Very funny. I have stated repeatedly that I’m not anti-gay nor “homophobic,” so don’t try to turn things around on me. Nobody here is listening to what I’m trying to say. Too many people have gotten upset. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/56 "2004-09-28T03:26:57Z")
**Paul** , I started a thread on this very subject last winter, and I can tell you you’re not going to get anywhere…and as I found out, perhaps for a pretty good reason. I am fully in favor of gay people and gay rights (and I’m happy to say I made some good friends from the gay community here as a result of that thread) but I found the use of this word in this way to be objectionable for pretty much the same reason as you. I know of no other word in common usage where the suffix “phobe” is added to a word to indicate mere aversion. When people are deathly afraid of flying they are said to have a phobia; when they simply don’t like to fly they are said to have an aversion to it. When people are deathly afraid of spiders they are said to have a phobia about them; when they simply don’t like spiders they are said to have an aversion to them. In short, I objected to it because I thought it was basically dishonest. I tend to have a problem with dishonesty and I felt that labelling people as being phobic when they weren’t was simply wrong. However, I’ve been here longer now and I’ve developed the philosophy that gays have enough problems to deal with, and unfairness and dishonesty to deal with in their own lives, that if they should misappropriate a word in their effort to acheive equality and a better life, it really isn’t that big of a deal in the overall scope of things. In other words, it seems like a rather minor infraction compared with the guff and unfairness and dishonesty they have to contend with. And since coming to this realization I find the word doesn’t bother me nearly as much. I hope the same for you. Regards. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/57 "2004-09-28T03:29:43Z")
Ahem…make that “and _enough_ unfairness and dishonesty to deal with…etc.” And I even previewed! :smack: ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/58 "2004-09-28T03:33:15Z")
> [@PaulFitzroy](#): > > First of all, I don’t want anyone to get the impression that I’m anti-gay or “afraid” of gays, because I swear I’m not. I just hate it when people use word games. And yet in this very thread you said: > [@](#): > > In fact I doubt most people are afraid of homosexuals, and I doubt most people have latent gay urges. And I doubt most people to whom that label is applied have actual FEAR of homosexuals. More like annoyance. Most of them probably are annoyed **the “gay” attitude and the “gay” voice and the body language and the very obvious, very real physical attributes that many, though not all, homosexual men display**. That’s not the same as fear, do you understand? :rolleyes: Stereotype much? Now, about this “annoyance” you attribute to those you consider anti-gay. That’s an interesting word choice. Other misguided fools call them homophobes, but they’re not askeered of gays. Nope, just annoyed. Annoyed enough to treat treat gays as second-class citizens. Not afraid, nope, just annoyed, maybe even irked by those faggoty mannerisms. Perturbed, even, enough to incite a little venting of pique via gay-bashing. ---
**Author:** ![PaulFitzroy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@PaulFitzroy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PaulFitzroy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/59 "2004-09-28T03:35:58Z")
No, I don’t think so. Don’t twist things around. I’m telling you why I think most people (especially people my age, in college) who do not like gays do not like them. I’m not anti-gay and you can’t prove that I am with your theory. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2004, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387/60 "2004-09-28T03:47:12Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > Ahem…make that “and _enough_ unfairness and dishonesty to deal with…etc.” > > And I even previewed! :smack: Don’t sweat it, dumpling. I got what you meant even without that pesky stray. 😉 Very good post, by the way, even if it did make you fervently wish for an “edit” function. You’ve grown a lot since you joined the Dope. I’ll continue to disagree with you (and the OP) on whether “homophobe” should be restricted to its etymological roots, or allowed to develop and accrete new layers of meaning, but if you choose a narrower definition for your own speech and writing, no big deal. In language no less than law, there is a perpetual tension between strict construction and expansive interpretation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enough-with-the-homophobe-bullshit-okay/266387.md?page=4)