Ok...I for one was a bit... Naw...too soft.

Ok...I for one was hasty.  There, much better. (and punctuate this time)

Ok...I, for one was pretty quick to jump the gun on my last response. Dale, does your post make you a homophobe?  I dunno. Depends on you. Are you afraid of homosexuals?  I would imagine the answer is no.  I think you're in the process of understanding a culture that is different from many of us. 

I moved into the city when I was 21 years old after going to school in a rural community.  I hung out at a Coffee Shop that, over a period of a month, became populated by a large quantity of folks with alternative lifestyles of all variety.  I used to think the same thing about outward expression of one's sexuality.  And coming out of the relatively puritainistic environs of the 80's, cross-dressing and transgenered individuals...gay, lesbian, bi, curious...all this kind of thing would have felt better had it just been going on "at home!"  But, being the good little amatuer social scientist I was, I stuck it out at my little table near the window and listened.  What I found was that living-at-full-volume like they did, they were pushing their cause forward.  Almost as if to say, "If you can learn to accept me...then you can certainly live with those two guys over in the corner who are a couple that you didn't even notice."

If you're taking part in this conversation, you're not a bigot...because you're thinking about it.  Thinking about it makes one WAY less prejudiced than the individual who drops an inflammatory comment and then leaves...never to be heard from again. 

Our society is changing. Things are MUCH more open now then they were even ten years ago.  That coffee shop is still there and is still a haven for all sorts of folks.  Folks like me...folks not like me.  But it just doesn't seem quite so weird.  I think that's a good thing. 

Me, I should have written this post rather than my other one, but without an edit feature, I ended up writing a mistake. 

Just keep talkin,

PRH