They've not homophobes, they just don't like homosexuality. Do you know what -phobe means?
This makes you seem like you are are being willfully disingenuous about the definition of homophobia just to exempt yourself from being defined as a homophobe.
The word "homophobia" is a combination of two different words that come from the Greek--the vast majority of English words are derived from other languages' words--but like most words that have come into our language from others', the meaning of "homophobia" has evolved past literal Greek translation to its actual English meaning.
It sounds like you are trying to find a loophole by which a person is not a homophobe if he or she only
hates homosexuality and is not
afraid of them. But (as the previous poster pointed out) both the literal dictionary definition and the widely understood cultural meaning of the word "homophobia" show that your narrow and probably deliberate misunderstanding of the word is obviously not its whole meaning.
Merriam-Webster:
homophobia
noun ho·mo·pho·bia \ˌhō-mə-ˈfō-bē-ə\
Definition of homophobia
: irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals
homophobic \ˌhō-mə-ˈfō-bik\ adjective
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homophobia
reply
share