Even Deep in Dixie, Gays Sense Acceptance

It's a Bible Belt state, almost certain to toughen its prohibition of gay marriage next month. A major candidate for governor has called homosexuality evil, and a national gay magazine branded Alabama the worst state for gays and lesbians. So why does Howard Bayless want to stay? Well, his roots are here, he says. So are his friends. He's partial to the congenial neighborhood in Birmingham that he and other gays helped rescue from decline.

``This is where I've carved out a niche for myself,'' says Bayless, who has spent most of his 40 years in Alabama. ``We've created our community here, and I don't want to leave. I'd rather do the extra work of making my neighbors realize who and what I am.'' Leader of Equality Alabama, a statewide gay-rights group, Bayless is one of many with the same conviction. In Mobile, Tuscaloosa and elsewhere, Alabama's gays and lesbians - like their counterparts throughout the U.S. heartland - are slowly, steadily gaining more confidence and finding more acceptance.

That doesn't mean relations between gays and other Americans are settled. Gay rights causes still endure their share of setbacks - amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman have passed in 19 states and Alabama is poised to become No. 20 by an overwhelming vote on June 6. But in the long view, there has been slow, powerful momentum building in the other direction: the quashing of anti-sodomy laws; the extension of anti-bias codes to cover gays; the adoption of domestic-partner policies by countless companies.

Recent polls suggest opposition to gay marriage has peaked, and a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution banning it is expected to fall far short of the required two-thirds support when the Senate votes on it in early June.
``What Americans see increasingly is there's no negative impact on their own lives to have gays and lesbians living out in the open,'' said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. ``They go from an abstract idea to a real person with a real name and a real story. That makes all the difference.''

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5834472,00.html

By building up links within his community he can start to make the small circle around him realise that gays don't have cloven-hooves or tails. The ripples may be small at the moment, but the road to acceptance is one of personal contact, they will grow over time.

A TRUE redneck would have no problem with gays.

That can't be a coincidence.

in Chapel Hill in the mid 60s. It was about as mixed a bar as I've ever seen, and I never saw the cops come in and harass gays. I'm sure it happened, but not when I was around and not as heavily as the Stonewall in New York was attacked.

Fast forward to the northeast, where everything was kept hidden, no dancing, cops coming through the place every hour at least.

I'm not surprised the south is a little more tolerant in some ways. It always was. The problem they have with gay marriage is just the same old problem of changing their thinking toward civil rights for everybody.

Don't judge the south by Alabama, by the way. Alabama is worse than most of it. However, even Alabama doesn't seem terribly interested in having Roy Moore as governor.