Acceptance of Gays in Ventura County

[stormbow]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

Just as a clarification... "the Church" itself wasn't. Many members of the Church, at the encouragement of the Church, were. As a Mormon myself, I was very disappointed to see my church get involved in this issue by requesting its members support the proposition. This may seem like a fine line to some people, but to a member of the Church who did not support the proposition, I can at least be satisfied that none of my contributions to the Church (i.e. my tithing, etc.) went to support the proposition.

When "the church" encourages their members to support something, the church is playing very loose with honesty. I applaud you for your stand. My grandmother was raised Mormon and her family goes back to Nauvoo, plus I have had friends that are Mormon so I have been around the teachings most of my life. I mostly find Mormons to be very good people, but this support of Prop 8 soured me severely.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by stormbow

When "the church" encourages their members to support something, the church is playing very loose with honesty. I applaud you for your stand. My grandmother was raised Mormon and her family goes back to Nauvoo, plus I have had friends that are Mormon so I have been around the teachings most of my life. I mostly find Mormons to be very good people, but this support of Prop 8 soured me severely.

I can understand that, and trust me, I'm not the only one who feels that way.

[LadyKLO]

Originally Posted by denverian

I doubt there are many places in this country where the general population is openly hostile toward gay people outside of very rural areas. But I lived with my partner for 10 years in Orange County and it did not at all feel gay friendly. We knew a fair number of neighbors and no one ever asked us if we were a couple and referred to us as "roommates". A couple neighbors would make rude comments to make sure we knew they disapproved of gay people (guess they were assuming we were gay?), there were no gay bars anywhere near us (not that that mattered to us since we don't go out to bars), our school district went into an uproar when a couple high school students wanted to start a "gay straight alliance", and in my place of employment, not a single "out" person in the company - meaning if you're gay, you keep it hidden at work. And I did find out that one executive level man was gay, but went so far as to keep a picture of a "fake girlfriend" on his desk. This is what I call a not so gay-friendly environment. It wasn't oppressive, but we left because we wanted kids and didn't want to raise them in such an environment.

So we moved to Denver where there are gay people everywhere, we now have kids and there are many other same sex couples in our neighborhood with kids, the straight parent families are completely accepting of us, I'm out at work and there are plenty of other out employees, and the city itself has a vocal gay community and lots of bars, organizations, etc. I would definitely call Denver a gay-friendly city.

Thanks for posting on this thread. You are right...not too many people will be openly hostile. I don't see the point in why a person needs to go out of their way to let someone know they are hated, not liked or whatever...that is just mean!!! The gay/lesbian people that I know have had no issues at work being out. One of my coworkers who is gay retired today after 40 years. He didn't hide who he was at all. He was who he was. Oxnard is rather tiny compared to Denver. I suspect there is a gay community here but it's probably just small in numbers.