Author: Jimmy Akin
Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live." View all posts by Jimmy Akin
I also have concerns about the term phobia.
This term is indeed confusing to many in this day and age because of the implication that to be homophobic is to “hate” gays. I think this is an error all around.
Some people accept the term homophobic in the sense that it does not mean hatred but fear. Hatred would be ‘homomeisos’. So they accept the term homophobic because they (correctly) reject the mistranslation as hatred. They claim to only ‘fear’.
I do not accept the term because a phobia per se is not just a fear of something (like flying or cats or hair) but a true phobia is an ‘unreasonable’ fear of something. Phoboa is not just caution or concern. These are reasonable. Phobia is an absence of reason (more or less).
I think that our fear is not of gay people in particular but of the gay lifestyle and the advocacy to sin or disobey God. In this sense our phobia – our fear- is not unreasonable but realistic. So we are not ‘homophobic’ nor can we ever accept the term ‘homophobic’.
Tim