I GREW UP A HOMOPHOBE.
It’s not easy to say, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
It wasn’t so much that I hated gay people; it’s that “gay” was an abstract concept — an ideology.
There were no LGBTQ2S-plus people in our town of 10,000 to personify that abstract concept.
Well, of course there were, and I know that now.
But it’s understandable that no LGBTQ2S-plus person would have dared come out in a town like mine.
It was small, homogenous and, almost without exception, morally opposed to anything other than traditional heterosexual relationships.
The level of harrassment and ostracization that person would have experienced is probably no different in smaller communities across Canada today.
So it was very easy for me, following the example of good church people, not to love these neighbours, because they weren’t my literal neighbours.
It wasn’t until meeting and talking to and working with and becoming friends with people who had different experiences than I did, that my perspective began to change.
And leaving my hometown was the key.
So I don’t shed as many tears as some at the demise of the North American small town.
Still, many of us have a tendency to make our worlds very small.
We watch the same television shows, go to the same restaurants, have the same discussions with our families – over and over and over again.
We listen to our own echo chambers that reinforce what we already believe – what we have always been taught to believe.
Our prejudices often aren’t fed by hatred, but by misunderstanding, and a reluctance to learn or to change our minds.
We don’t understand why events like this weekend’s pride parade in downtown Kamloops are necessary, so we deride them or roll our eyes.
Instead, we should be widening our worlds, trying to understand the perspectives and experiences of people who differ from us.
Learning is growing, and growing prevents our spirits from withering and dying.
Why are pride parades still necessary?
Because there are still thousands of people out there who are willingly burying their heads in the sand rather than allowing their perspectives to be challenged.
It’s far better to live your life as a book still being written, than a set of commandments etched in stone.
Take it from someone who knows
