Christophobia

Before today I had never heard of this word. Yet, there is a wiki entry for it. Here is how it describes Christophobia:

Anti-Christian sentiment is an opposition to some or all Christians, the Christian religion, or the practice of Christianity.

Now I have to admit that, using this definition, the phobia aspect of the word doesn't seem to fit.. of course it rarely does.. but maybe the phobia part has more to do with the fear of Christian influence in society? Even so, the wiki expands the definition to include:

"every form of discrimination and intolerance against Christians"

DefendChristians.org cites these examples of Christophobia:

Department of Homeland Security’s report on “Rightwing Extremism” that labeled conservative Christians as potential terrorists. Or when the police were called to a middle school in Kentucky to stop 8th graders from praying during lunch for a student whose mother was tragically killed. Or the murder of pro-life activist Jim Pullion in front of his granddaughter’s high school for showing the truth about abortion.

These things seem a bit extreme to me. Yet maybe that is the whole point of attaching phobia to words. Maybe it is a way to marginalize a large segment of society by equating adherents to the most extremes of the sect. Consider how Islamophobia has it's roots in the terrorist acts committed by the most extreme factions of it. Or how Homophobia incorrectly lumps all homosexuals in with it's most radical segments.

I guess I don't like the phobia suffix because it gives people a way to incorrectly, and unjustly, stereotype a large mass of people. It makes us suspicious of each other and it often brings out the worst in us. And the words are usually pretty imprecise.. at first glance you might think that Christophobic folks were afraid of Christ.