Once people realize they have gay friends and family members, the fear goes away. They see that gay people don't threaten their lives in any way, that there is no "secret gay agenda," that they are not pedophiles, that they will not "convert" the children, and so on. Once the fear goes away, acceptance will follow.

'other' are revealed to be unfounded, the resistance just fades away.

I remember when Phyllis Schlafely discovered she had a gay son, she shut up until lately...now he's grown. Same with Cheney and many others.

Conservatives are empathy-challenged in their very DNA.

and ours. Because if everyone didn't chip in and help, with men in the fields and women taking care of the home, survival was at risk. The world was only as far as the nearest neighbors and they met on Sunday to socialize at potlucks. Not much room for change.

Also, guns for hunting and protection...mostly 22s... were required.

But the New World has outpaced this way of living and thinking, and those entrenched in it for generations are having a hard time. My Dad was a member of the John Birch Societyand would proabably still be, were he alive. I had the opportunty to attend a Liberal Arts College on the West Coast, so I was able to learn to think for myself and my first vote was for McGovern....still had to be 21 to vote.

Built a fake 10 ft.-high rocket in the front yard intended to blow away the 'Gubmint' (and Ted Kennedy) and erected a big billboard next to it listing his grievances bullet point by bullet point.

The city council forced him to take it down as a zoning violation, even in my red, red state.

What're ya gonna do?

Nebraska aiirport. They had lists with time slots, and people filled in their 30 minutes of duty...using binoculars to scan the sky in case of "incoming commies"...I kid you not. Fortunately it didn't last very long, but that sense of importance and commitment to a young mind was powerful.

The favorite 'coffee table' token reading matter was 'THE NAKED COMMUNIST', by Cleon Skousen.

Born in Omaha, but moved to Wayne, Nebraska. Just looked it up and found out the downtown is now a Historical District.

in my teens. Left for Europe in my 20s.

Like everywhere, some fine people in Huskerland, but a hell of a lot of blinkered bigots, too.

Early on I was going to chime in and offer a rural Nebraska perspective that differs from the generically rural perspective you were offering. And now I see you are actually talking about Nebraska...

Where I grew up, helping each other out - much farther afield than the nearest neighbor - was the norm. Equipment was expensive enough that farmers shared (informally) the cost of the equipment that was only needed a few times a year. Ensilage season was one of those, when the crews would move from farm to farm - depending on the weather, proximity, readiness for harvest. I remember, as a teen, being responsible for feeding the crew at lunch when they were working our fields. Massive quantities of food and cold beverages.

And - at least in the community I grew up in - that neighborly kindness extended to everyone in the community (~3000). We had, during that time, an openly gay minister (late 70s, early 80s). As long as he wasn't out drinking and carousing, everyone was fine with it. And, mostly, no one talked about it. Sort of an early version of DADT.

I've been back since then - and have been out since the early 80s. Since my family doesn't live there I don't get back frequently, I don't have daily interactions. But by and large, I encounter more tea-party-wackos where I live now than I ever have in rural Nebraska - one of those small towns along Highway 30.

found the historical information online. Wow. We then moved to rural Oklahoma and I went to high school in a place called Clayton, Oklahoma and the auditorium I graduated from Jr. High School and almost from high school is also listed as a historical place...done in beautiful native stone. The road I lived on was the last paved Oklahoma State Highway. Talk about bridging regions...now back after 50 years on the West Coast. This interchange has been interesting.

A couple of friends and I, who on the fringe in high school - and have gotten fringier since then, are having our own little alternate 40th reunion! (I would have gone to the real one, but my new-ish job demanded my presence on the same date.)

If you went straight north from Lincoln to hit Highway 30, you were about 80-90 miles NE of me.

You said you moved north from Lincoln to the Platte River floodplains. I just picked a point on HW30 straight north of Lincoln and walked my way west 80-90 miles until I hit my hometown.

Actually, for a few years after college, I taught English way out there, near and past the 100th meridian. North Platte and then Scottsbluff--Panhandle country.

so true. as a great philosopher once said “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
– Yoda

as long as it did to get it that two men or two women ought to be able to marry.

In the 1970's I worked in a job where there were a surprising number of gay men, so I early on understood they shouldn't be discriminated against in things like employment or housing.

Can't say exactly when I came around to recognizing there should be legal gay marriage, possibly as early as the 1990's, but not as early as I see I should have.

I do suspect that a lot of divorce laws will need to be re-written to have gender neutral language, but that in reality will be relatively easy, although time-consuming, and the dinosaurs in the state legislatures will be obstructionist jerks about it.

more resistant than you. During the 2000 presidential 'selection', I was angry with 'teh gays' for forcing SSM into the public debate and supposedly jeopardizing the Dems' chances.

I'm ashamed of my latter day bigotry, just as I was about my environmentally instilled racism back in my lily-white adolescence. Honestly never knew or even saw an AA person until I went away to college.

They will try & they will lose. Eventually, they'll "get it". It will take time but they will surrender to the fact our side has won.

We will drag them kicking & screaming into the 21st century. We have won. Deal with it haters.

controlled legislatures are still tying to chip away at abortion rights. And just you wait. They will continue to try to pass so-called religious exemption laws. And they will continue to oppose employment and housing non discrimination laws in states they control. This is a big victory but you're right, it is far from over.

"not being a fit" or "went in another direction", pay unemployment, avoid the press and court actions as bigots, and call it a day just like they do with supposedly "protected classes" now.

Sure. There's a lot of bad on the internet, but there is also a lot of good. People can communicate with each other without a big corporate media filter biasing public opinion.

Edit: We must give Obama his due respect on this. He weighed in years ago. I'd say that was the Bully Pulpit moment for the LGBT folks.

will untimately bring humanity to a closer understanding of and, dare I say, reverence for their fellows.

Today, the people, interacting and communicating with each other like we do here on DU, are shaping public attitudes.

Look how twitter can start a movement within hours!

The United States is very different than it was 20 years ago. George Washington said the country would become more liberal as time went on and he was right.

Meaning at least a little bit of the "diversity" training and exposure to all types of people thanks to the internet over the past 20 years, got through to a good chunk of the next generation...

Today's kids have grown up with an African-American principal, or an Asian teacher,a female doctor, a gay friend or relative, and maybe they even have an atheist aunt or uncle.

They just don't give a hoot in hell about it and it makes no difference to them. It's the kind of person you are, not the label society tries to put on anyone, that counts.

They support equality -- period.

The only question was whether same-sex marriage would happen now, or 5 or 10 years from now. But it was going to happen.

LGBT acceptance, unpopularity of the war on drugs, income inequality / minimum wage protests, police racism protests, this decade has been quite interesting.

seeds of the ideas of the 60s to usher in the new millenium which should bear real fruit around 2020. The Millenials...grandchildren of the 60s. Technology. An AA President. Equality for most everyone.

We old "bra burners" are now on Social Security. It's y'all's turn.

Everyone has a voice now.

and I think one thing that may be happening is that the Internet exposes them to a variety of cultures and perspectives. My own kids play games with kids from around the world. It is not hard to understand that kids who grow up in isolated areas might be scared of "others" - but the widespread availability of wifi is broadening horizons everywhere.

this effect:

'Les voyages forment la jeunesse'.

Travel [whether by plane or smart-phone] forms or educates the youth.

SO true.

In 2004, Rove's strategy was all about getting gay marriage bans on the ballots of states where there could be a potential for Democratic wins.

That has backfired ten thousand fold over time.

The Republicans have a hard time figuring that out, because they are devoid of humanity.

continue to plague them.

For opponents of marriage equality.

is that they already knew and loved us before learning about our sexual orientation. By the time they learned the secret they were already committed to a relationship with us.

Since we are still a largely segregated society, far too many whites have to get over their conscious or unconscious biases first, and then create the relationship. That's a more challenging task.

God knows, it's a lot easier to keep your sexuality in the closet than hide your skin tone.

they really had no idea about the number in the LBGT community.

There has always been unspoken acknowledgement within my family for all of my life...well over one-fourth are gay (counting first and second cousins, aunts, and uncles).

Back in the 70's I read an article called "Closets of Power" written by a highly placed government official who was gay and in the closet. It was really an eye-opener about gay power structure and the pain of having to be in the closet. What struck me most was just how many of the people in positions of power were gay and very conservative on a range of other social issues...some even openly opposing gay rights and equal employment measures. Many careers hung in the balance because of the risk of being "outed." I worked for a couple who married for the convenience that the cover of marriage provided although both were gay and maintained steady homosexual relationships.

Glad this is a new day.

until my best friend from junior high came out to me in '79.

He had been traveling in Europe for a few months and needed a place to stay for a while after he came back. As there was a spare bedroom in my mom's house - it was just her and I as my dad had passed a few years before - I invited him in. I had been fairly sure he was gay, but Tim was my friend before he was anything else to me.

One day he told me, and I said "Tim, we have been friends for almost ten years. You are a good friend, and a good person. I respect who and what you are and not one thing you have told me is going to change anything about that." And it didn't.

He later moved to Chicago, and passed from AIDS in the early 1990s. He was a good friend and a lovely person and he taught me a lesson I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

.. directly inversional to the upward slide for gay rights.

They WILL 'rage, rage against the coming of the light...

~ with apologies to Dylan Thomas

See ya in 2016, when California, Nevada, Maine, and Massachusetts turn green.

reached by the LGBT community and get a landmark case to SCOTUS.

The LGBT community have been working their asses off to get this done. State by court case by legal action.

Victories in state after state until, a few years down the line, Congress sees the light and repeals federal pot prohibition.

The pro pot people have been busy, too: Colorado and Washington legalized in in 2012; Alaska, Oregon, and DC in 2014; and next year, a bunch more.

Ellen was a pioneer. Paved the way for the next wave like Will and Grace. Then the next wave like Modern Family. Reality shows as well. From the very first Survivor with Richard Hatch. Almost every reality show since features at least one gay person or couple. I think because Americans were so exposed to gay characters, whether actors or reality players, made them realize they didn't have to be afraid of them, or uneasy with them, especially those living away from population centers. That they finally were able to laugh with them, and realize that they were just people like everyone else....and thus deserved the same rights as anybody else.

really showed some of the day to day struggles of gay life. She was a huge influence and still is.

Which means he probably should have done so sooner to help push us closer faster but that was an important moment.

backing civil unions to backing equality. The "sanctimony of marriage" arguments had the opposite effect than what the haters intended. I don't like being preached to- never have, never will. Their "arguments" forced me to really search myself and give it thought.

in my personal change of heart and mind.

Yep, DU played a part, too

The lead up to the Iraq war made me question everything I believe. I didn't agree with them on one social issue. My education here has swayed my thinking on economics, too.

Love this kind of anecdote proving that intelligent people eventually find their way to the light.

and the wife is apolitical as they come. I almost never talk politics at work. I did the other day, but only because one thought the confederate flag was not as bad as the Nazi flag. I disagreed. We had a good discussion. He might not be totally with me, but he did cede some points.

[ing]https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=&w=1484[/img]

Thanks for posting.

There aren't very many that don't have an openly gay character. This has exposed people to them as very human and very much like the rest of us...and likeable.

Much easier these days to move public opinion than it has been ever in human history.

People are interacting with people on the internet they never would have before the internet. it is reshaping our societal beliefs in many amazing ways.

Interestingly enough these charts only go back to the begining of the internet. I would be willing to bet the lines would be nearly horizontal for centuries if you could go back that far before the internet started.

I like the interaction with others. I've learned a lot by listening and trying my best to learn. It has definitely helped me to learn about a lot of things. I do wish we could learn better without yelling and screaming, but I'm hoping that will improve too, as more people who are familiar with internet communication keep interacting.

They cared back when it could be used to get lower income homophobes to raise their own taxes so that the 0.01% could get cuts. Now they realize that this particular divisive tool is well past its "best used by" date.

did a lot, because they showed charming, funny gay people, and because seeing those shows regularly made a lot of people realize that there is nothing scary or horrible about gay people--because they are just people.

Last edited Sun Jun 28, 2015, 03:50 AM - Edit history (1)

observe this social trend until the advent of internet streaming. Didn't get 'Murcan TeeVee.

When I was finally able 'catch up', either through syndication on French TV or over the InnerTubes, I was AMAZED at the transformation.

the past year or so in syndication and it reminded me of just how amazing it was to see those characters.

because it brought her, her delightful, quirky personality, and her humor into the homes of so many people, just as Oprah's wildly popular talk show made so many white American women feel that they had a black "friend."

And Rosie O'Donnell's popular daytime talk show, too. Don't forget, before she became a controversial figure because of her time on The View, Rosie O'Donnell was so popular among middle America housewives that she was nicknamed "the Queen of Nice."

The way people learn to seriously hate a whole group is by having them incessantly "othered," by having them actually demonized through deliberate propaganda efforts. (We've seen it happen to Muslims since 9/11, too.)

But it is not as easy for normal people to viciously hate a whole group of people when they see them frequently in situations that force one to recognize how normal they are, how much they are just like everyone else. And as those TV shows started to modify people's attitudes, and as the LGBT civil rights movement began to make LGBT individuals feel that they could stop hiding from friends and family, more and more people learned that they were not monstrous "others," but beloved friends and family members.

Of course, too many were still rejected by those who should be their closest allies and staunchest defenders, but enough straight people learned that laws that oppress LGBT citizens hit close to home. Just as fierce anti-choicers often back off their absolutism when they or someone they love is in desperate need of an abortion, a lot of people who thought they hated LGBT people have discovered that in fact many of the people they actually love are the ones who have suffered under those unjust, unconstitutional laws and under the vicious prejudice they encounter in their daily lives.

I think he set out to make LGBT rights and equality something his administration would work to advance and through a number of key actions managed to move belief 20 points nationwide.

collective ass off to get this done, as well. The court wins, one after the other, had a snowball effect.

Obama's continuous activism over the 7 years, in favor of LGBT rights, was crucial as well.

I think this is one case where the bully pulpit really made the difference.