this is my forum...

I live in a ghetto. not the kind where the houses are made of tin and everyone is black and/or living below the povety line. I live in a ghetto known as "the inner west". I work in that ghetto too, and go to uni in that ghetto. My life is lived in a happy little place where being gay is ok, not unusual, normal. I can hold hands with my girlfriend while waiting for a train and not be worried at all. My barista is gay, and so is the chef. More than 50% of my work colleagues are gay. I sing in two queer choirs. There are straight people in one of these groups - but we're talking 3 or 4 out of 80. I have gay friends who are parents, whose kids go to school with other kids who have 2 mummies or two daddies, or 4 gay parents, or any combination of family you can think of. My life is easy, and good, and i often forget that there is a world outside my ghetto where life isn't ok. I also went to high school in this ghetto, though I didn't live here then, and only one person in my grade seemed to have a problem with me being gay. At least three of my class mates also came out, and we felt no need to have a gay straight alliance, coz no-one seemed to care. Apart from a few rare instances of people yelling at me from a cowardly distance, i have personally experienced no strong homophobia. I have been asked to cover my tattoos (i have 9) during a stage performance, which i found annoying, but hardly a harsh form of discrimination.
I have marched for marriage equality, I have participated in mardi gras as a marcher, a performer and a spectator. I have shown my support by just being in the right place when required. I care about marriage equality. not because i necessarily want to get married, but because the message that that equality would send to youth struggling with their sexuality - it's ok to be gay.
I read a heap of articles about mass discrimination, mass inequality, stupid remarks made by the ACL (Australian Christian Lobby) and i feel like i want to say some things.  Today i have been reading about one town's war on gay teens  (i haven't finished it yet...) and i finally decided that my blog should be my forum to say something. I'm sure anyone who reads my blog doesn't need to be told what i'm going to say, nor do they need to have their thoughts provoked by my questions, but maybe, just maybe, someone will read this and share it, and so on, until someone who DOES need to have their way of thinking challenged will read it.
The comment that got me today is "any form of gay tolerance in school is actually an insidious means of promoting homosexuality – that openly discussing the matter would encourage kids to try it, turning straight kids gay" (from the article linked above).
As an adult, i would have thought people would be smarter than to think this kind of thing. Say, for instance, you are a straight person. i don't care if you're an ultra right wing christian or a lefty green atheist.you are a straight adult. If you kissed someone of the same gender as you, do you think you might suddenly become gay? try it. go on. kiss one of your friends. even just thinking about it probably makes you pull a face. you are not gay, and no amount of hearing that being gay is normal and ok is going to make you gay. you are never likely to want to kiss your best friend of the same gender, the same way I am never really likely to want to kiss my best male friend (unless he was to bring me a heap of chocolate, and then i would wipe my mouth on my sleeve...)
So simple point for today - it doesn't matter how much knowledge you have or how normalised being gay is, if you're not gay, you are not going to become gay just because it's acceptable. what might happen though is that a young person won't get bullied at school for their hair cut, and won't consider or actually action suicide. Why does suicidal contemplation have to be part of sexual discovery? because so many people with big mouths have attitudes that suck.