YOU MAY BE A HOMOPHOBE IF . . .

Our world is changing rapidly. Society, as a whole, no longer tolerates bullies attacking members of the LGBT community.   Gays and lesbians can finally be open about who they love. It's just a matter of time that same sex marriage will be recognized in all 50 states.  The next major Civil Rights initiative will be protection from LGBT discrimination and harassment in jobs. I have been eagerly awaiting these changes   I and my law partners Marie and Kristi are eager to fight for equality for all oppressed groups.  The LGBT community is oftentimes subjected to this bullying, discrimination and harassment. Equality has been a long time coming.

Yet there are still those homophobes out their.  My mother relates that her friends struggle more with the issue.  I thought I would put together some indicators of homophobes so that you could determine if you are in that group and get help. We don't need more homophobes.

YOU MIGHT BE A HOMOPHOBE IF:

1.    When you and your wife had a child, you prayed that he or she would be straight;

2.   You let your girls play with trucks, but there was no way your son was getting that Barbie doll he wanted;

3.   You worried when your son did not like sports;

4.   As a child, or even much later, you used the term "fag" but not as a substitute for cigarette;

5.  You've called people fag and worse to his or her face, and laughed about it;

6.  You may have found it "funny" when you heard of people going to Liberty Memorial and "rolling fags."

7.  As a child, you didn't wear pink and green on Thursdays because those are "fag" colors;

8.  As a parent, you irrationally worry that homosexuals will be bent on turning your child gay;

9.  Perhaps you have some warm and scary feelings towards people of the same gender, and you don't want to deal with it because if you are gay, you think you must be bad;

10.  You need other people to demonize to elevate your miserably low and shaky self-esteem.

If you're a homophobe, you may never change. But you have a much greater chance of change than a gay person. That's because homophobes often lack empathy, and empathy can sometimes be learned.

If you are gay, there is a much greater chance that you already have empathy and it won't help you change. Also there's less of a chance for a gay person to turn straight, because, frankly, why would anyone want to do that. We are who we are.  It is finally dawning on society that there is nothing wrong with being gay and people need to butt out on issues that do not affect them , especially since love brings so much happiness to the world.