re: #25 Fairly Sure I’m Still Obdicut

You might have had friends who were gay and didn’t know it.

I’ve never been homophobic but I can’t take any credit for it. I grew up in San Francisco, and just saw regular gay people around when I was growing up. Gay cops, gay taxi cab drivers, gay butchers, gay guys walking their dogs together, gay guys getting into dumb arguments. It couldn’t have been more clear that they were just people.

There are a lot of individuals, like Harvey Milk, who did a lot to advance gay rights. But the biggest advancement of all has just come from the distributed effects of those brave gay guys living their lives openly. To change a mind already made up takes extraordinary effort; for kids to learn that gay people are fine just takes growing up seeing gay people living normal lives.

I’ve never been homophobic, and I grew up in literally the most conservative county in Pennsylvania. I SAW a lot of homophobia growing up, even though I didn’t see more than one or two guys I’m pretty sure were gay, in retrospect.

I was exposed to even more blatant homophobia on the Bowsite, where guys like me occasionally wondered whether gay guys were as obsessed with the mechanics of bowhunting as bowhunters seem obsessed with the mechanics of gay sex.

But I’ve never, ever understood it. I’ve been propositioned by a gay guy once in my life, and what I said was, “Sorry, not interested. Who’s buying the next round?”