Am not!
EddyTeddyFreddy, thank you. Actually, I no longer really pay that much attention to the strict application of the word. As I said, since I’ve come to relate a little better to the battles being fought and the difficulties being confronted by the gay community (and quite importantly and more so than I realized before coming here, the psychic toll these difficulties take on gay people), the use of the word in its current context really doesn’t bother me much at all. I don’t use it myself, but that’s about it.
And since we’re all here I wanted to thank you for your post to the other thread as well. I see your point about how people may see me and my “ensconcement,” but I think the thing I was trying to accomplish was to get them to see that their point of view isn’t the only important one. A great many others are similarly ensconced, and they may well be persuaded to the pro-gay point of view, but the task will be much more difficult if they are railed against and assailed as enemies because they offer only 90% support.
However, that’s another thread and I don’t want hijack this one. Time has been at a premium the last few days and I just wanted to acknowledge your excellent (as usual 
) post to me in the other thread.
Many regards, my “inestimable” friend.
(With acknowledgements to Miller for the adjective.)
Dude, you’re talking about your own personal impressions of how these words are used. Crack a fucking dictionary! Your (and Paul’s) misunderstanding that *phobia *means, literally and exclusively, a “deathly” fear, is not an accurate understanding of the facts.
In addition, like MANY words, it has accumulated connotations of its own along the way. In short, YOU, sir, are WRONG, simply put, if your personal impression is that it’s being used inaccurately.
What a load of patronizing bullshit. (I keep hoping eventually you’ll have a breakthrough and understand what I mean when I say this.) The “gays” didn’t misappropriate anything, you smug little bastard! NEWSFLASH: there is no secret cabal of homos sitting around listening to Barbra Streisand and dictating the evolution of the English fucking language! And if there is such a cabal, why the fuck wasn’t I invited?
Try “xenophobia” for example, that high-falutin’ word for racism and perhaps the closest equivalent to “homophobia”. When you accuse someone of being xenophobic, you’re not accusing them of merely fearing foreigners. You’re accusing them of having an aversion to foreigners, presumably based on fear and ignorance. Same with homophobia - it’s an aversion to homosexuality and homosexuals based on fear and ignorance (ie not a “mere aversion”).
The evidence for this aversion being the result of fear and ignorance? Take a look at the tactics of those politicians accused of being homophobes, who discuss how they must defend marriage, for example, from the attacks of a shadowy cabal of gays and sympathisers.
In that case, can I suggest you read this thread?
Given my active participation in The Pit today, I was wondering if I’d posted the bit about hydrophobic and hydrophilic heads in soaps here or otherwise. There it is near the top of the thread, all for your delight, Starving Artist
I don’t know how common it is, but I daresay you’ll see it used more often than antidisestablishmentarianism:D
You’ve been smacked down, and roundly, Paul and Starving. Ignoring the well-documented and thought-out posts in this thread, as you continue to do, smack of, well, ignorance. Unless “ignorance” doesn’t mean what it sounds like it should mean. :rolleyes:
…which I suggested in post number seven, for Chrissake.
PaulFitzroy
Unfortunately, unless you come on here to post stuff about how “great” gay people are or how much of a “martyr” they are made out to be; then you can bet you ass everbody and there mother is going to come in here and tell you what an ass you are. :rolleyes:
Which is stupid to the umpteenth degree.
FWIW, I understood your post completely. You weren’t saying anything pajoritive about being* gay, just what you thought (as did I) was the miss-use of the word homophobe. Which I’m pretty sure 90% of the people who walk the face of this Earth take that word to mean: “Affraid of gay people” and not to mean "Someone with an aversion to gay people.
I swear some of you gay advocates just need to all join hands together and sing songs about how evil everbody is who doesn’t 100% agree with you and how shitty we’ve made your lives… :rolleyes:
Jeesh…
Maybe it’s your breath, matt? Even your best friends…
Are the high horses you people are on so tall that you can no longer see clearly the words you read? I said “common usage,” as in by the population at large! Insofar as the content of my post, it doesn’t make one bit of difference what is or isn’t in this thread.
lissener, kung fu lola, I got an attaboy from ETF. That outweighs roughly…oh, I don’t know…about a hundred insults you could come up with!
By that astoundingly brilliant definition, “the”, “an”, “to”, “a” and “do” would similarly not qualify.
Too bad that’s a fallacy.
We’re here to dispel ignorance. We did.
I’m not sure even the horses get that, SA!
Um, we know that. That’s why we were responding to that argument. Rather than pointing out that it ill behooves someone who can’t spell “pejorative,” “misuse,” or “afraid” to lecture us on word usage.
roger, my smooth, charming, charismatic British friend. How are ya?
Regarding your question, if you’ll take a look at post #60 you’ll see that I got a compliment (an attaboy…as in “thatta way to go, boy”) from EddyTeddyFreddy (ETF). EddyTeddyFreddy is one of the most highly regarded of the Straight Dope’s posters, not to mention that she’s also quite likely the most erudite, well-spoken, well-vocabularized and witty of its posters, as well.
(Sorry, ETF. I know how you hate compliments, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. )
Um, dude?
If you want to come on here and talk about how great gay people are, save it. I’ve met a lot of gay people who just plain aren’t all that great.
If you want to come on here and say that gay people are all perverts, or immoral, or aren’t deserving of the same respect as everybody else, or are just annoying everyone by “acting all gay,” then you’re going to get everybody tell you what an ass you are, and you’ll deserve it.
Do you get the difference?
…And, as a third possibility, if you come down here and tell us all about how a word doesn’t mean what it does, we will feel free to correct you.
As witnessed by the fact that she has never and will never use that non-word:D
Sorry, must have missed that one.
Starving, Eddy, get a room for Christ’s sake…