“What Can I Do to Help Stop [Christophobia]?”

A funny thing happened while I was doing research…

In preparation for an upcoming post, I came across some information on Planned Parenthood’s website. What I found was a list of things one could do to in order to “help stop homophobia.”

That got me to thinking… What if we took out the words homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia and replaced them with other terms, such as Christophobia, Christian, and religious?

What is Christophobia? Well, why don’t we go ahead and practice a little word replacement in Planned Parenthood’s definition of the term homophobia?

“The [Christophobia] definition is the fear, hatred, discomfort with, or mistrust of people who are [Christians]…”

See how that worked? Pretty simple.

Is Christophobia a real thing? I think so, but you can decide. Below are the re-worded suggestions from Planned Parenthood’s website. I think they speak for themselves.

What can I do to help stop [Christophobia]?

No one has the right to discriminate against or bully another person, or to hurt them emotionally or physically. There are several things you can do to help stop [Christophobia]:

• Don’t ever use negative or offensive language to describe [Christian] people.
• Be careful of how even casual language — such as saying “that’s so [Christian]”— can hurt others.
• Don’t believe stereotypes about [Christian] people or make assumptions about them.
• Be a vocal supporter of the [Christian] community, regardless of your own sexual orientation and identity. This is called being an ally.
• Let the [Christian] people in your life know that you’re a friend and ally.
• Educate yourself on [Christian] issues.
• Respect [Christian] people’s decisions about when and where to come out.
• Join your school’s [Christian] Alliance, or start one at your school. [Lifeway] can help with that.
• Remember that being [Christian] is just one part of a person’s complex identity and life.
• Show as much interest in your [Christian] friends’ or family members’ partners as you would show in [your own] partner.
• If you feel safe doing so, speak up when other people are being [Christophobic], such as making offensive jokes, using negative language, or bullying or harassing someone because of their [religious] orientation or identity.

Interesting, don’t you think?