I loved the homophobia is gay video, I wish all teachers, parents, and anyone, would show it to children, students, friends, family, anyone.
I grew up in a small neighborhood, with parents who taught me to accept people for their differences, so as a child, I always thought there was no more homophobia in the world, or at least less of it. But through the years and as I grew older and start to understand the world, I realized that there are still people who hate and fear homosexuality for unknown reasons.
As I was watching the Homophobia is Gay video, and came across the segment with the clip from avenue Q's "if you were gay" all I could think of was my senior year in high school, when individual classes were sent to assemblys about acceptance and what have you, and there was a gay segment where a chosen student would go up on a small stage and have to act out how to respond to a friend who comes out to you. A young man was called up, and as soon as the actor said he was gay, the boy said "Ok, that's not normal." in the most polite tone he could manage. I still can't get that out of my head. Just because he said that not in front of his friends, or at a religious rally, but in front of strangers, people he only knew from his school... Maybe if he watched "homophobia is gay" or "avenue Q" he would have known how offensive it would have been, if that had been a real scenario.
...
Yeah, I'm done.
Homophobia is so gay.
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JEFF SWENSON RESPONDS:
Y'know, I feel like I had the same impression for awhile: that there was an acceptance of gays.
Originally, I grew up Homophobic but at the time I believed that I was in the minority of people who believed the way I did--that homosexuality was sinful. Because of this, when I lost my faith I just assumed everyone accepted gays and there wasn't really a problem unless you were a fundamentalist Christian. Boy, was I wrong. I'd have to say that tolerance of homosexuals is a bigger issue than racism towards blacks--regardless of what Kramer yells at a comedy club.
You must have had a very liberal school though. I know that my school would not have had the guts to include homosexuality in an assembly on tolerance. Of course I got of of school in '91 so maybe "tolerance assemblies" are the norm for public schools--or maybe this was private. Regardless, if I was still religious I would have been that kid who said, "Okay, that's not normal" in front of everyone because of my convictions and because God would be disappointed in me if I didn't. I feel bad for that kid, I don't think he even got the idea of tolerance. A better response would have been: "I don't feel homosexuality is normal, but I'm still willing to accept you as a person."
I maintain that step one in eliminating homophobia is to let people say they think being gay isn't normal as long as they understand that gay people are a part of society and should be treated with respect. This includes civil liberties. From there the battle can be slowly won.
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