General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Did you hate, fear or dislike gay people at one time? [View all]Erich Bloodaxe BSN
(14,733 posts)You don't waste time hating on people you never run into. Hatred of 'others' is very much tied to wanting someone to scapegoat for bad things. If you never see 'others', it's hard to ascribe evil to them. I might have grown up in a more homophobic environment if there were any homosexuals around who were 'out'. So it's not so much being 'saintly' as simply having no real contact that we knew about. It's kind of like asking us if we grew up hating, fearing, or disliking penguins. We never really saw any, so why should we have any particular feelings toward them at all? While I'm sure I met and maybe even knew homosexuals when I was young, the first time I knew for sure I'd met any was in my sophomore year of college, by which time I was already considering myself a liberal, so it would have made no sense to start hating or fearing them at that point in time.