A wise muppet once said "...Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hatred leads to suffering..." So, fear of something leads ultimately to hate for that thing.
And I feel that fear, or homophobia, should be overcome before it leads to hate. One leading to the other hardly makes them interchangeable.
So, what is the issue with using "homophobia" vice a more technically accurate "homocontemno" or "homoabominor"? (yeah, I used an online translation service to translate "hatred" into latin, sue me).
Haha I was going to be impressed.
Use of the more familiar "phobia" root effectively makes the meaning of "homophobia" more accessible to people, despite those people who argue the semantics (I don't fear teh ghey, I "hate the sin") of using "phobia" vice a root indicating hatred. The point is lost if I have to hand someone a latin-to-english dictionary and wait for them to look up the meaning of "abominor" while discussing the fact that they are acting like an irrational bigot.
I agree that there is much meaning lost when stray meanings are applied to a word out of convenience or hyperbole. I feel, likewise, that the word "bigot" is losing its meaning in exchange for a very general term for "someone who doesn't agree with me, whom I don't appreciate."
On the receiving end of these words, eventually they all run together in a blob of slander. I get the point. You don't like me. You're angry. These are the messages I hear, and those are the ones I think are intended when these words are used anymore. Maybe in 10 years, you'll hear it used much more.
"Arrite. What kind of cereal should we get?"
"Fruity Pebbles."
"Gross, I don't like fruity pebbles. I stopped eating those when I was 5."
"Bigot."
