It’s the Sixties for Gays

RANT WARNING, bail now if you are not interested.

A while back I met a very conflicted man.  A very religious man whose wife proudly bragged of all the “good work” he did for the church in his spare time.

He launched into a verbal attack as a result of a story I told of a gay man that had hit on me while Teri and I were in the Keys.  I tell the story to give an example of how slow I can be to read other peoples reactions and non verbal clues (I’m getting better).  The fact that I was blindsided by his tirade was another reminder of my cluelessness.

Anyway, he thought I was gay bashing with my story.  Seems that he had a gay son and was deeply offended.  Later, after discussing the incident with the other two guys who were present and also targeted by the assault, we realized the source of his anguish.

He loved his son, but his religious beliefs convinced him that his son’s lifestyle choices were condemning him to eternal damnation.

We can legislate tolerance but it will take generations of children growing up in a tolerant environment to bring about a tolerant society.  As long as there are people preaching that homosexuality is a choice and a sin, and as long as there are people buying that crap, the movement for tolerance will be stuck in the same place the movement for racial equality was in the sixties.

Xenophobia, “an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers” according to dictionary.reference.com.  Will we ever learn tolerance, or will we always be stuck in the sixties?

What do you think?