OK, several things here...
So, since a "phobia" is a mental illness then anyone whose opinion is different than yours on this particular subject is mentally ill in your mind? WOW!!
A "phobia" is now generally classified as a mental illness, mainly by those who can make money off classifying it as such. In reality, it only becomes a mental illness when the phobia becomes disabling and begins to adversely affect daily activities. A phobia is simply a fear of something, sometimes irrational, sometimes not. The fear of the number thirteen is just stupid, and if it becomes a life-altering debilitating fear, you're got a serious mental problem. The fear of heights is hardly an irrational fear, but it's a phobia nonetheless. The fear of creepy crawly things like snakes and spiders are deeply rooted within the brain. It's a fear that keeps people alive in places like Australia where there are more poisonous snakes and spiders than anywhere else on the planet. Without the phobia of snakes and spiders, more people here would be bitten by rattlers, corals, Black Widows and Fiddlebacks.
As someone here mentioned earlier, "Homophobe" may be a made up term....but so what? Are not all words made up by someone?
Yes, all words are made up by someone, but they usually have a valid etymology, and thus an unambiguous meaning. Homophobe does not. The purely specious etymology of
homophobia with the union of
homos and
phobos would literally mean the fear of mankind. The meaning has become a baѕtardization of not only the original meaning, but of basic etymology.
The term "homophobia" is indeed a made up word, invented initially to describe the irrational fear of heterosexual men who were afraid others might think they were gay. There was no fear, irrational or otherwise, of homosexuals themselves. It was quickly scooped up by homosexuals and then redefined so broadly as to mean a wide range of negative attitudes and resistance to acceptance of homosexuality and homosexuals, to the point where tolerance isn't enough, you must accept and embrace homosexuality and homosexuals as perfectly fine and normal, and if you don't you are labeled a homophobe, and the term becomes a full-blown pejorative with all the negative connotations that come with it, which is ironic coming from a group who so hates labels and pejoratives.
People don't like to be called something negative, to be labeled in an unfavored light, to be the end result of a pejorative, so when someones gets called a homophobia, the natural tendency is to recoil, to question their attitudes and their thinking, and perhaps alter it. The term homophobe is absolutely by design, for political purposes, used ubiquitously as a means of pushing others to accept, to embrace. You asked, "So what?" That's so what.
I am quite sure there is a term for an individual who is fearful, intimidated, loathsome, distrusting, etc. of homosexuals.
There is. It's called "normal".
I submit that any of those who would even allow the issue of a Supreme Court nominee's sexuality to be a concern before knowing anything about her record as an attorney is likely whatever the real word for "homophobe" is.
Yup. We're back to "normal" again.
Equal or not, what beliefs or agendas is a lesbian going to bring to the Supreme Court that are detrimental to the rest of us?
Without delving into meaningless hypotheticals of specific cases that do not yet exist, the agenda and beliefs of a homosexual on the court is almost certainly to have a profound effect on their decisions. Homosexuality is anormal behavior, and is behavior that homosexuals think is perfectly normal. It is behavior that homosexuals want heterosexuals to view as normal. The political and personal agenda of homosexuals is to quite literally
force a change in thinking of those who disagree with the normalcy of homosexuality. A justice of the Supreme Court would be in the position of not only being able to force a change in thinking, but in legislating the illegality of not willing to conform to the "correct" thinking.
People who object to homosexual behavior on either moral, psychological or even medical grounds are marginalized and often derided by homosexuals. Because Supreme Court justices impose their personal beliefs and agendas onto Constitutional interpretations, these attitudes of marginalization and derision will, absolutely, affect their decisions.
