The 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.

Use of the “gay panic” (or “trans panic”) defense to excuse violence against the LGBT community suggests that fear is still involved for some people, but for many, the repulsion is more likely attributable to what Mike Huckabee calls the “ick factor.” Homosexuality is increasingly described by detractors as “unnatural” rather than “perverted.” Conservatives still claim that gay equality is a threat to children, but the threat has devolved from blatant sexual abuse to “kids will learn about gay marriage“ — the latter often still serving as a dog whistle for the former. The most prominent forces that oppose LGBT equality reinforce homophobia and even rely upon homophobic intentions, but the intensity of the word may have brought about its own undoing. If news readers perceive the label of “homophobia” as an overreach, they may not appreciate the severity of the anti-gay tactics at work. Framing such efforts around “discrimination” or even “heterosexism” and “heterosexual supremacy” provides workable alternatives.

In contrast, the journey of the word “homophobia” emphasizes the current need for the word “Islamophobia.” As a different concept, it might very well be true that people “fear” Islam, Muslim people, and Muslim culture as a threat to physical safety. Muslim people are unfairly cast as terrorists just as gay men have been cast as pedophiles. While education has opened up new language to describe anti-gay attitudes, rhetorical options for the wide-spread efforts to demonize the Islamic faith remain limited. And like “homophobia” did four decades ago, “Islamophobia” effectively captures the intensity of these vitriolic campaigns.

The AP may have made a sensible decision to encourage more accurate language than “homophobia,” but its outright limitations on all -phobia words may deprive media consumers from an important understanding of cultural attitudes.

As the Uganda Parliament prepares to once again consider the infamous “Kill The Gays” bill, a lot of confusion about what the “anti-homosexuality” bill actually does has once again arisen in the media. Many news outlets — notably the BBC, among others — reported last week that lawmakers had dropped the death penalty provision, but without confirmation of a language change, it’s impossible to conclude whether this is another bait-and-switch that basically isn’t true.

According to the BBC, “substantial amendments” were made, but MP Medard Segona could provide no further details. It is just such a proposed amendment that has repeatedly caused confusion about the fate of the death penalty in the bill, replacing the word “death” with a reference to a preexisting Penal Code Act that does allow for the death penalty. Homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda; the sole purpose of this bill is to enhance the extent of the punishment and number of ways offenses can be prosecuted. It is irresponsible to suggest that the death penalty has been removed without a thorough investigation of the bill’s new language.

Box Turtle Bulletin has thoroughly dissected the proposed law’s original text, pointing out that even without a death penalty, the law would still “represent a barbaric regression for Uganda’s human rights record.” Here’s what BTB found:

• Clauses 1 and 2: Anybody Can Be Gay Under the Law. The definition of what constitutes “homosexual act” is so broad that just about anyone can be convicted.
• Clause 3: Anyone Can Be “Liable To Suffer Death”. And you don’t even have to be gay to be sent to the gallows.
• Clause 4: Anyone Can “Attempt to Commit Homosexuality”. All you have to do is “attempt” to “touch” “any part of of the body” “with anything else” “through anything” in an act that does “not necessarily culminate in intercourse.”
• Clauses 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10: How To Get Out Of Jail Free. The bill is written to openly encourage — and even pay — one partner to turn state’s evidence against another.
• Clauses 7, 11, and 14: Straight People In The Crosshairs. Did you think they only wanted to jail gay people? They’re also targeting family members, doctors, lawyers, and even landlords.
• Clause 12: Till Life Imprisonment Do You Part. And if you officiate a same-sex wedding, you’ll be imprisoned for up to three years. So much for religious freedom.
• Clause 13: The Silencing of the Lambs. All advocacy — including suggesting that the law might be repealed — will land you in jail. With this clause, there will be no one left to defend anyone.
• Clause 14: The Requirement Isn’t To Report Just Gay People To Police. It’s To Report Everyone. Look closely: the requirement is to report anyone who has violated any the bill’s clauses.
• Clauses 16 and 17: The Extra-Territorially Long Arm of Ugandan Law. Think you’re safe if you leave the country? Think again.
• Clause 18: We Don’t Need No Stinking Treaties. The bill not only violates several international treaties, it also turns the Ugandan constitution on its head.
• Clauses 15 and 19: The Establishment Clauses For The Ugandan Inquisition. These clauses empower the Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce all of the bill’s provisions. He’s already gotten a head start.

The bill has passed out of committee and been placed on the Parliamentary agenda and it could come up as early as tomorrow, or linger for weeks as has happened in the past. If and when it does pass, news outlets must carefully examine its extremities and report them accurately. There is no redeeming value to this bill, and lawmakers who support it have every reason to soften their language while maintaining their most insidious “anti-homosexuality” intentions.

An extremist militia in Libya has captured twelve men and promised to mutilate and execute them for being gay. The group posted pictures of them on Facebook, describing them as the “third sex,” a regional derogatory term comparable to “queers.”

Human Rights Watch Libya identified the group as Al-Nawasi militia, know for championing Salafist jihad. Al-Nawasi has claimed to have become a legal part of the Libyan Ministry of Interior, pledging to remove “corruption” and “vice,” such as alcohol and homosexuality:

The National Organization for Marriage has sunk to a new low of intolerance. In a “Thanksgiving Message” from Jennifer Roback Morse of NOM’s Ruth Institute, she warns that young people are being “pressured” to support LGBT equality because they have gay friends and peers. Morse relates a story of a Catholic resident assistant (RA) at a college who didn’t want to participate in the “drag party” being organized by her gay supervisor. The supervisor was supposedly “really leaning on her” and trying to “make her feel bad, make her look bad,” an example of a pro-LGBT strategy that Morse feels is a much more significant threat than the media:

MORSE: I think a lot of our students are encountering this type of situation in their dorms and on their college campuses… What I want to say to you, is that the other side has RAs in the dorm where your young people are going to school. There’s no TV message that is going to do the job of countering that type of influence. Somebody’s got to be there talking to young people one at a time in the places where they’re hanging out and doing the things that they’re doing. There’s no mass media strategy by itself that will solve this problem. [...]

And this holiday season, when your young people come home from college, ask them about this. Ask them if they have a gay RA in their dorms… So please, talk to your young people about this and see what kind of pressure they may be under that maybe even they don’t realize how much it’s having an impact upon them.

Watch it:

Apparently, simply knowing a gay person now constitutes “pressure” that conservative Christians are unfairly subjected to. Morse’s inherent solution seems to be that young people should ostracize (or disobey, in the case of someone in a supervisory position like an RA) anybody who might be openly gay and to only talk to other equally anti-gay people, like those provided by NOM.

NOM is surely right to be concerned about the growing generation gap on marriage equality and overall LGBT acceptance. Encouraging a culture of exclusion, however, will not likely endear many young people to the group’s cause.