Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It was always there, there were always the very nice, matronly old ladies that lived together down the street who raised dogs and owned a pickup.
There was always the absent uncle who lived in exotic places like Arizona or California and was described as being "light in the shorts".
Nobody made a big deal about things and nobody was worried that there was some type of q.ueer-mind-control that would make us kids into slobbering sex depraved goddless monkey molesting sons of satan.
In the mid-70s when I was a kid, my friend who was a year older and knew so much, told me that Elton John (who was HUGE at the time) was gay. I asked what that meant, and she said it means when a man and a lady get married and the man starts to act like a lady and the lady starts to act like a man. I remember envisioning my parents, and my dad ironing with curlers in his hair while gabbing on the phone and my mom going to work in a uniform and mowing the lawn. It made no sense to me.
It was only in about 6th grade, around 1980-81 that I learned what "gay" really meant.
I do understand how some feel like "gay propaganda" is being "shoved down our throats" by the media in recent years. But I also understand why many felt this "in your face" approach had to happen.
I've never really felt there was anything wrong with being gay, and I've known many gay people. I understand that for years they had to live in the closet or be persecuted. But it's gotten so much better for gay people in the last 15-20 years. So much better. However, I think that some got too impatient, and wanted to rush too much change all at once, changing what was just a positive message to change hearts and minds into an apparent "propaganda" campaign. So a change in general public opinion that would have evolved naturally over, say, 30 years, got compressed and rushed into like a 10 year period. Sure I understand people being impatient, but part of me wanted to say "look how far things have come! Can't you appreciate that for now and let the other changes happen over time?" Still, we've evidently gotten to the point where the majority of people in our country are at least somewhat accepting, and that's a good thing overall in my opinion. But I think the media artificially sped up the zeitgeist.
LGBT people have higher rate of homelessness and poverty.
Where did you derive that information from? LGBT individuals tend to be more educated than average and as a result not typically in danger of either homelessness and/or poverty.
I was about 17 and was surprised people can be like that.
I was raised in Eastern Europe when i moved to USA. i found out.
I also think that on USA television, there is a lot of LGBT people. and Media is pushing it on purpose to brainwash people. LGBT people have higher rate of homelessness and poverty.
the government wants those people to be powerless and weak!.
Russia has banned gay discussions for 100 years in public.
China has banned same sex relationships on TV.
I learned about it at 6 years old, in church. I grew up in an extremely anti-gay denomination and the topic came up almost every service by the fire and brimstone preacher. Funny how back in the early 1990s, America was already "Sodom and Gomorrah" even before Lawrence v Texas and well before Obergefell.
I remember after the service asking my parents why the pastor was talking about women marrying women and how that was even possible. My dad then told me that men with men and women with women is the most offensive thing to God and that's why our family could never support Bill Clinton for President, because he thinks men should marry men.
A couple years later, people in school started accusing me of being gay. I didn't know what "gay" was at the time. I knew what "men marrying men and women marrying women" was. This was in second grade. I came home from school and asked what gay was and my mom about threw a fit. My dad jumped in and said "we don't use that word. Gay means happy. We call them f-g-ots or sodomites."
Needless to say, I was extremely homophobic growing up, despite my own internal struggle with my sexuality. I felt like I had to be to please God. I also was extra homophobic to overcompensate for my on insecurity about my sexuality.
Personally I don't think the USA is as gay-friendly as what you see on TV. Even the gay characters you see on TV are usually a comic side-kick or a joke and they perpetuate gay stereotypes. Hollywood is very gay-friendly on the surface but there is a lot of subtle homophobia there below the surface. In places like Oklahoma, a person cannot be openly gay without social repercussions. It is simply not accepted here and there likely would be Russia-style laws if it wasn't for the U.S. Supreme Court.
The high rate of homelessness and poverty among LGBT people, especially youth, is directly related to homophobic parents rejecting their gay children. They send them to the streets, where they are homeless and fall into a life of drugs and prostitution just to get by.
Same here, in fact I remember people using (inappropriate today) slang terms for gay to insult others in 4th grade, and that was in 1962. We all knew what it meant.
I was actually in high school and someone had to explain what the term we were using for an unpopular kid meant.
Where did you derive that information from? LGBT individuals tend to be more educated than average and as a result not typically in danger of either homelessness and/or poverty.
I would say homelessness, poverty, drug abuse, prostitution, and even suicide are a HUGE problem in the LGBT community for those in their teens and early twenties. Why? Homophobic families and friends reject them and send them to the streets. The homophobes blame those statistics on homosexuality when in fact it's THEM that is causing that.
It's like when Christians blame the "homosexual lifestyle" for the high rate of suicide in the LGBT community. They are causing that. What do they expect when they continually run over and beat down a group of people, calling them abominations and the reason God will wipe America off the face of the planet, accusing them of being worse than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung combined in the eyes of God, all because they love someone of the same sex? When they open up and plead for mercy, all the Christians have for them is "You are an abomination, God is disgusted by you, and you're going to the deepest pits of hell." When this is how somebody is treated time and time again because of who they love, it begins to take a toll on the psyche after a while, which can eventually lead to suicide.
Where did you derive that information from? LGBT individuals tend to be more educated than average and as a result not typically in danger of either homelessness and/or poverty.
I would say homelessness, poverty, drug abuse, prostitution, and even suicide are a HUGE problem in the LGBT community for those in their teens and early twenties. Why? Homophobic families and friends reject them and send them to the streets. The homophobes blame those statistics on homosexuality when in fact it's THEM that is causing that.
It's like when Christians blame the "homosexual lifestyle" for the high rate of suicide in the LGBT community. They are causing that. What do they expect when they continually run over and beat down a group of people, calling them abominations and the reason God will wipe America off the face of the planet, accusing them of being worse than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung combined in the eyes of God, all because they love someone of the same sex? When they open up and plead for mercy, all the Christians have for them is "You are an abomination, God is disgusted by you, and you're going to the deepest pits of hell." When this is how somebody is treated time and time again because of who they love, it begins to take a toll on the psyche after a while, which can eventually lead to suicide.
Do you not allow those people to be true to their religious tenets?
Do they have the right to follow their beliefs?
I think it's opposite ends of the spectrum--you have your DINK gay couples in major metropolitan areas who have beautiful homes and who travel and entertain, but you also have the homeless gay teens who were kicked out by their parents and have no support and no where to go.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
LGBT individuals tend to be more educated than average and as a result not typically in danger of either homelessness and/or poverty.
