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Andrew Abshier's avatar

Grew up in Houston, Texas. I'm straight but was called gay in high school, and endured physical and emotional assault, as well as having our house and cars vandalized. One thing my parents did right was that my sisters' gay men friends were always welcome in our house, so I got to be around them and start understand what was going on in their world. Two of them stood up to the bullies in the neighborhood one night, to the point where they didn't touch our house or cars again.

It gave me a tremendous hatred for bigotry. Inflexible hatred, as in I've ended friendships over homophobia and/or racism. What's weird (or not) is that the racists/homophobes have felt comfortable revealing themselves to me, and have been angered when I've called them on it. I guess I've always looked like the evil team, without meaning to.

Hunting gays was an unfortunate by-product of growing up in Houston. Rednecks cruised the Montrose area (the primary gay neighborhood) to look for people to beat up. That sounds like your Denver swim teammates.

I just missed the Zumwalt Navy. I had ADM Heyward, who went on a jihad against drug use in the Navy. He ordered random unannounced searches, and random urine tests for all personnel. I've never touched drugs, but in a testament to how the Navy treats sailors that are "different," I somehow made it onto every single "random" drug test list on my ship. It's just one reason why I made a firm decision to get out when my enlistment was up.

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Fay Reid's avatar

Thank you, Tom. One of the things I like best about Californians is our acceptance, as opposed to tolerance of 'others' I was so shocked when proposition 8 won. I still don't know how. And I was so happy when our State Supreme Court overruled it. What the hell difference does it make who you love. Like you, I've had a lot of gay friends, some I didn't know were gay others whom we, just liked each other. I also have two nieces who are married to their wives. I do not see how the color of one's skin, eyes, hair, whom they love, or what language they speak has anything to do with who they are, nor why they're being who they are can be perceived as a 'threat' to anyone else.

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