AP Denounces Homophobia — The Word, That Is
The news service's widely used style guide has added language advising against use of the term, saying it amounts to a diagnosis of mental disability.
BY Trudy Ring
November 26 2012 6:24 PM ET
http://www.advocate.com/politics/media/2012/11/26/ap-says-homophobia-mark-describing-antigay-bigotryIn mainstream newspapers in the coming year, you're a lot less likely to see bigotry against gay people described as "homophobia."
The Associated Press Stylebook, which most U.S. papers utilize as a usage guide, now frowns upon the use of the term, with editors saying it amounts to a diagnosis of mental illness.
"It's just off the mark," AP deputy standards editor Dave Minthorn told Politico. "It's ascribing a mental disability to someone and suggests a knowledge that we don't have. It seems inaccurate. Instead, we would use something more neutral: antigay, or some such, if we had reason to believe that was the case."
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AP Drops 'Homophobia' And 'Islamophobia' From Its Style Guide
By Zack Ford on Nov 26, 2012 at 5:57 pm
http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/11/26/1239301/ap-drops-homophobia-and-islamophobia-from-its-style-guide/?mobile=ncThe Associate Press has removed "homophobia" from its style guide, which many print journalists follow. According to the guide's new usage for words that end in "-phobia," reporters should avoid any "political or social contexts," such as homophobia or Islamophobia. Dr. George Weinberg, who coined the term "homophobia" in his 1972 book, Society and the Healthy Homosexual, disagreed with the decision:
WEINBERG: It made all the difference to City Councils and other people I spoke to. It encapsulates a whole point of view and of feeling. It was a hard-won word, as you can imagine. It even brought me some death threats. Is homophobia always based on fear? I thought so and still think so. Maybe envy in some cases. But that's a psychological question. Is every snarling dog afraid? Probably yes. But here it shouldn't matter. We have no other word for what we're talking about, and this one is well established. We use 'freelance' for writers who don't throw lances anymore and who want to get paid for their work. Fowler even allows us to mix what he called dead metaphors. It seems curious that this word is getting such scrutiny while words like triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13) hangs around.
Weinberg's points are valid, and yet the word's rhetorical power has seemingly diminished — or at least shifted — since its introduction 40 years ago. Perhaps because of its impact then, conservative groups have now created public profiles for themselves built specifically around not being "homophobic." As an example, the National Organization for Marriage regularly takes umbrage to being called "bigots" for opposing LGBT equality, arguing instead that they "support traditional marriage." It's become quite common — and unfortunately easy — for anti-gay activists to draw a distinction between their positions and any "fear" of gay people, though of course the term never had clinical diagnostic purposes anyway.
