No Such Thing As Homophobia!

MachZer0 said:

Therein lies the key. there is noting irrational about hatred of a sinful behavior

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One could make the case that hatred of anything is irrational, but I digress.

Hatred of homosexual behavior becomes irrational when actions against it occur far out of proportion with actions against other "sins." Movements to prevent gay marriage are rampant at all levels of government. But how many times have you heard the same people call for a constitutional amendment preventing obese people from going to McDonald's?

TeddyKGB said:

One could make the case that hatred of anything is irrational, but I digress.

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Like hatred of homophobes?

Hatred of homosexual behavior becomes irrational when actions against it occur far out of proportion with actions against other "sins." Movements to prevent gay marriage are rampant at all levels of government. But how many times have you heard the same people call for a constitutional amendment preventing obese people from going to McDonald's?

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Perhaps you haven't been following the gov't's intrusions into our fast food dining preferences.

ShieldOFaith said:

The obese people are not trying to destroy the country by trying to get special rights in committing their sins.

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You've gotta see obese rights activists then.

Homosexuals aren't trying to get "special rights" either.

personally, if I decided to marry another man, i wouldn't care if the government recognized my marriage or not because I'm an anarchist.

but if you recognize the rights of citizens of your country to marry, and that's really all i think the homosexuals want aside from getting bigots to stop throwing glass bottles into their faces and beating them up and killing them,
you should recognize the rights of citizens of your country to marry the way they so choose, not the way your religious dogma tells you they should.

MachZer0 said:

Like hatred of homophobes?

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My statement required no qualification, but here you go trying to score cheap points. Tres classy.

Perhaps you haven't been following the gov't's intrusions into our fast food dining preferences.

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Perhaps you'll be forced to agree that the government's campaign against trans-fats is hardly in the same league as the religious right's jihad against homosexuality.

ShieldOFaith said:

The obese people are not trying to destroy the country by trying to get special rights in committing their sins.

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When you use strictly religious terminology within the context of a political argument, you lose immediately. The government can neither permit nor prohibit "sin."

Homosexuals aren't trying to get "special rights" either.

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They're just trying to get their unions recognized by a secular government. Is that so hard to understand?

I don't think the law should be used to enforce the beliefs of some religious group, no matter how small or large. And this is probably good, because can you imagine how many people who state they are Christian would be arrested for violating the commandments on how to treat your neighbor and how to do unto others? The jails would be full to bursting.

To get back to the OP, though, I think it's been made quite clear that the term "homophobia" is used to refer to a particular syndrome of behaviors that do not match what the etymology of the term might suggest. But this is only in keeping with the English language's tendency to adapt terminology to meet its needs. Consider that the person who posted the OP is "Shield of Faith." Now, shields are made of metal, formerly of wood and/or leather, and cannot post on the internet. Faith is an abstract concept, from which a shield cannot be fabricated. And even if one could manufacture a shield out of faith, it would be unable to post on the internet. But, we understand that the human being who posts under that name adopted it in reference to the fact that faith is a shield of the believer in a quite real metaphorical sense -- just as 'homophobia' refers to a set of behaviors that are not a 'phobia' in the strict psychopathological sense.