I come from a little rednecky town in Oregon, and honest to god, if a kid had been openly gay, his or her life might have been at risk. There was simply no tolerance whatsoever, and this wasn’t all that long ago.

Now, the school has several openly gay kids, including my niece, and they are well-liked, popular and accepted. No question that there are still struggles and prejudice, but it’s a different, and better world by far for them.

…

I do have a lot of hope for the future. I feel like the hard wave of sheer, rampant, unapologetic homophobia is in fact fear…these people know the world is passing them by, and they want to hang on to their ignorance any way they can. But they’re going to lose, it’s just inevitable, and their kids will be ashamed of them, and history will portray them as the fearful little bigots they are.