euphemistic drift for the
semantic elite: The word
homophobe was created by joining "homosexual" with the root "phobic" for "illogical fear". This is understandable as "homosexual" is the only word a given
slack-jawed yokel might know with this prefix, but it is as etymologically twisted as the word
mathematics.
The prefix of "homosexual" is not the Latin "homo-" meaning human. (Otherwise "homosexual" would mean "human-sexual" or "bisexual" and "heterosexual" would mean "other-than-human-sexual". Bestiality?) No, the root is the New Latin "hom-" or "homos-", meaning "same." Károly Mária Kertbeny first coined the term homosexual in the late 19th century as a neutral term to distinguish between people who were sexual with the other "hetero-" gender, from people who were sexual with the same "hom-" gender.
In either case, "Homophobe" would mean "fear of humans" or "fear of what is the same," neither of which fits its actual usage.