In response to Ed Whelan's description of the word homophobe as an epithet designed to silence those who differ with the "homosexual agenda," Andrew Sullivan asks, "what would he call [anti-gay animus], if not homophobia?"
I agree that there ought to be a term for anti-gay animus, but I'm not sure "homophobia" is the best choice. Using the -phobia suffix to create words for specific prejudices is a practice that has become ever more common in recent years. In the post below, I examine why it has, and why it's problematic.
The practice started over a century ago with words like xenophobia and Anglophobia, but it was not that common. The term Negrophobia can actually be found in some dictionaries, and I've even seen Afrophobia in Internet searches. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the term Judeophobia is almost as old as the term anti-Semitism, but it has existed in obscurity for most of that time. Some modern writers, such as French philosopher Pierre-Andre Taguieff, have advocated its use largely to get rid of the semantic trick associated with the more popular term (i.e. "I can't be anti-Semitic, since I support Arabs"). But few have followed his lead.
In recent years, there's been an upsurge in these resolutely non-clinical "phobia" terms, with homophobia and Islamophobia leading the pack. What changed? I think it has to do with our society's increasingly self-conscious rejection of bigotry. Back in the nineteenth century, European racialists like Wilhelm Marr openly and proudly identified as anti-Semitic. When the term racism arose in the 1930s in reference to the Nazi doctrines on race, it, too, could be adopted as a proud self-description.
Nobody, however, can be openly and proudly "phobic" of a group of people. That's why these "phobia" words have caught on--they automatically suggest there's something wrong with whoever has the phobia. It's built into the very etymology of these words, unlike "anti-Semitism" and "racism," which only gradually acquired negative connotations as societal attitudes changed.
The term homophobia has become especially popular because it reinforces the idea that aversion to gays is rooted in people's insecurities about their own sexual identity. We don't assume that racists are afraid of being black, or that anti-Semites are afraid of being Jewish. But we do assume that homophobes are often afraid of their own possible homosexual feelings.
Still, I think this use of the -phobia suffix has problems. It invites confusion with the psychiatric definition of a phobia. A homophobic person isn't afraid of homosexuals the way an arachnophobic person is afraid of spiders. Also, it's debatable whether bigotry is rooted primarily in fear. When we talk about racism or anti-Semitism, the presumed motivations may include fear, but they may also include hatred, ignorance, group-think, or other factors. Referring to a prejudice as a phobia risks oversimplifying its nature and cause.