Missed the jump to "getting a little gay" but do agree that the country has changed a great deal since the Stonewall riots in '69. Personally, I never saw that as much of an issue. I have always had gay friends and living in SF had a lot of them. I've always been really comfortable with most gay men because they are usually not competitive in some of the ways I find annoying or boring in some straight men.
I just always figured it was a matter of how one was wired, like having blue eyes or red hair or liking Nirvana. <s> And the fact that they piss off the Original Sin / Leviticus crowd just makes me like them more.
I do find it encouraging that a lot of legal and social barriers are being removed. Ohio lagging behind. Making a state inhospitable to gays is about as stupid as Germany getting rid of their Jews in the universities. Nobody can afford to lose human resources like that.
>As you say yourself, we should be thankful that strong men let us sleep at night.
>
>And as my daughters say, this is getting a little gay ;-) They are growing up in a less homophobic country than we grew up in. They both know homosexuals without caring about it or being gay themselves. Even Illinois, which is pretty conservative below I-90, has outlawed discrimination against gays and lesbians and made gay marriage legal. It is the 15th state to do so and will not be the last. Allie and Emily just take it for granted. Most of the recalcitrants are literally dying off, like racists.
>
>>Don't know if I told you but I almost went there for grad school. I was supposed to work with Harvey Goldberg in the history department. Of course it was 1968 and the world had other plans and I dropped down the rabbit hole instead. Interesting to think just how different life might have turned out. Can't say I regret it at all. Malleable as I was at 21 I might have been radicalized to a point of no return. I think I was better off with the mentor that taught me "now turn the board and play black" <s>
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>>>One of the things I love about Madison is that the students are smart without being obnoxious about it. The perfect embodiment is "Jump Around", which is a tradition that came along after my time. The Badgers play on TV today. How can you not love them? The stadium rocks its foundations at the end of the third quarter.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tODlPxhbGF8
Charles Hankey
Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.
- Thomas Hardy
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm-- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
- Ben Franklin
Pardon him, Theodotus. He is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
