Since I think this is still National Coming Out Day (correct me if I'm wrong), I think I should probably step up with my own story...although it's about me arising out from the "Dark Side". I may ramble a bit here, and I hope no-one minds.
You see, I am one of many people who have been utterly terrified of gay people. In the sense that I've always felt it was somehow "wrong" to be gay.
I am rather ashamed of it actually. I look back at my teenage self and wonder who this maniac was. But I digress.
The homophobia began with ignorance. The simple fact is I had no idea what gay meant until my mom explained it during an episode we were watching together of the animated series The Critic. I was a kid at the time. I wouldn't know what a lesbian was either, until I also heard the term in the TV show. I believe in both cases the words "gay" and "lesbian" were used in a derogatory context.
An ounce of prevention, as they say, is a pound of cure, or something like that, and I firmly believe that if the Saturday morning cartoons and kid's shows I watched when I was younger had instances of same-sex couples, or even characters attracted to characters of the same gender.
I firmly believe that gay people will always be marginalized unless we teach the children, all the children, early on that being gay is perfectly normal and acceptable. Not that the "moral rights" groups would allow such things. Even though this is a moral problem.
I should say that my homophobia began with summer camp.
Until high school, I went to a Conservative Jewish (the denomination, not the opposite of liberal) parochial school. This was partially due to the fact that I am not "normal"; I have some twisted combination of ADHD, Asperger's Syndrome, and the lingering remnants of an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that was more prevalent in my younger years. So summer camp was essentially my first encounter with kids in the "outside world" so to speak.
I just happened to be grouped with the sociopaths.
Okay, maybe they weren't sociopaths. But they were the most bigoted immature jerks I have ever met in my life. And they liberally used the term "gay" as an insult, as well as the "f-word".
And, due to my various social problems, they inevitably called me that.
At least, I think they did. It may be that it was just the environment that pressured me to not be or act gay...or what they called "gay".
Summer camp was not a good time for me. And worse, it colored my beliefs in a way that wouldn't be reversed for years. That's when my fear and...I hate to say this-revulsion of gay people really got off the ground.
It was actually ironic, since I was (still am) a fan of Japanese cartoons. Anime is extremely tolerant of homosexual relationships...at least male homosexual relationships, and often have rather effeminate characters. Of course, when it was dubbed to be shown on television, they would always try to remove those things. And the sad part was I supported those changes.
And this is to say nothing of the yaoi (boy's love) groups in Japanese cartoon fandom. I opposed it vehemently! I found it was easier for me to process yuri (girl's love), but I still opposed it anyway, just so I wouldn't look like a hypocrite.
Like I said, I look back and wonder who that maniac was.
What's really sad is that I'm probably one of the supposedly 10% of males who identify as straight but are still "turned on" by men. I'm not entirely sure because I've suppressed so much of it. My homophobia, I am sad to say, hasn't completely left me. There's is still a part of me that is terrified to be thought of as gay, and I'm not sure there's much I can do about it.
I'm not sure when I mellowed out and realized that heterosexism and homophobia was a moral problem akin to Antisemitism and racism. It was probably around high school (which was a public school, but somewhat better than summer camp; the worst I had was this kid who would grab my stomach without my consent, but I digress again). It was either the human ethics class I took Senior year (which talked about the Matthew Sheppard killings a great deal) or the fact that I learned my maternal uncle was gay.
That was a bit of a shocker, really. Before high school I only met my uncle when I was much younger, and all I really remember from that time was his face, him giving me a gift, and being yelled at by my parents. Later though, he and his partner (an excellent cook) visited our house, and we visited them in California.
When he visited, I wasn't sure if he was gay or not, and I think I didn't want him to be gay either. I hoped that his friend was just a heterosexual life partner, as ridiculous as it sounds. My uncle follows none of the gay stereotypes. (His partner towed the line a bit, but not by much; he was apparently married to a woman at one point). I remember a kid in my chemistry lab talking about how other kids have "gay uncles in California" and I wondered "am I one of them?"
My mom confirmed it for me later. She asked me if it was a problem. I said, somewhat untruthfully, no.
I think a number of factors ended my overt heterosexism. There was the comic book feminism I participated in when I was interested in superhero comics (I am such a geek, I know) which really gave me an appreciation for...I hate this word, but I have to say it: "alternative lifestyles" that were outside what most people considered "normal", as well as the idea of the sexuality continuum, the idea that there is a large scale between homosexuality and heterosexuality, and people are usually somewhere in between. Or maybe it was the floor meetings in my college dorm which encouraged diversity.
I've seen the light now, personal flaws aside. It's reached the point where I can't stand people who say that homosexuality is a disease, or a sin, or a flaw. It just makes me want to yell and scream and throw their hatred right back at them, that their beliefs are flawed, sinful, and diseased, and I hope they rot in hell.
I am rather intolerant of bigotry, as you can see. Including my own.
For every gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and anyone I've missed, I'm sorry for being against you, and I hope to see the day where everyone accepts you as perfectly "normal".
Then again, what is "normal" anyway?