I cried at church today

[dtom67]

10. You are quite right....

most of us here ( and I include myself ) would not consider ourselves to be anti-gay or bigots of any kind. However, we all have that primitive fear of "those who are not like Us ", and it does have some effect. For example, if we see a skit on TV where an actor is acting like a stereotypical homosexual character ( Charles Nelson Riley or Paul Lind ) , we laugh even though nothing funny has been said. If we hear " gay|" joke , we laugh.

If you put me ( a middle-aged, middle-class white male { who does not make 250k/year}) in a room with 100 young black men who speak like stereotypical " gangsta's ", I would be uncomfortable. If you put me in a room with 100 young black men who were wearing Izod sweaters and talking like college students, I would feel less so.

I think it is perfectly natural to be uncomfortable around those that are different from ones' self; The best we can do is to acknowledge that the fear is not an excuse to treat our brothers and sisters with anything but respect. And to make sure the next generation improves on this idea...