You may remember a couple of weeks ago scantron and I went down to Atlanta for the Campus Progress conference. It was so wonderful being surrounded by so much diversity. I just felt so comfortable being around people from so many different walks of life. It was a nice change of pace from what we’re used to here in Wilmington. The conference was predictably fabulous, but what I really want to talk about was my unexpected run-in with homophobia while we were there.

Scantron and I offered to carpool so it was arranged for us to pick up two kids along the way in South Carolina. We’ll call them Tom and Jerry for anonymity’s sake. When we arrived at their college they were both super sweet, young, and enthusiastic. As we got close to Atlanta I turned on the radio to see what was on the local airwaves and they both proceeded to belt out the current Top 40 like nobody’s business. Needless to say, scantron and I both pretty much figured we were a car full of ‘mos at that point.

We didn’t see much of Tom and Jerry during the conference. Tom didn’t really seem too stoked about being there, but Jerry was off making new friends and connections and having a grand time. On the last day we met up, loaded up the car, and headed out to get some lunch before hitting the road. Scantron and I are vegan and Tom is vegetarian so we decided to go to this vegan restaurant called Soul Vegetarian. Jerry wasn’t into it and seemed really freaked out by the idea of meatless food. Turns out Soul Veg wasn’t open until 5 so I quickly Googled a place called Midtown Flying Biscuits.

When we pulled up we noticed it was right across the street from OutWrite, the gay bookstore we’d been hearing about! As we were waiting for our food it became clear that we were totally in the gay district of Atlanta. Yay! The restaurant had a Pride flag in the window and there were tons of queer (and straight) couples out walking their dogs and spending time with their kids. Slowly, it dawned on Jerry.

“Is this a gay restaurant?” he asked with fear all over his face. I said, “It’s, you know… a gay-friendly establishment… but, it’s not like you have to be strictly homosexual to eat here or something.” He looked super freaked out. Seriously uncomfortable. He just buried his head in whatever he was reading. I told him this was the gay area of Atlanta, cool how we just accidentally ended up here, huh? “Don’t worry. It’s not like you’re going to turn gay just from being here. I thought you were ‘progressive,’ Jerry.” He said he was but just not in that way. Oh, really? Sorry, you can’t call yourself “liberal” and “progressive” and not fully embrace diversity. Ugh. Then he said, “I’m afraid it might hurt me someday when I’m running.” I said, “You’re afraid your homophobia will hurt your chances of getting elected?” Nod. “Yeah, well… good.”

I should have said more. I should have gone off about what a huge constituency queers and our allies are. I was just so shocked! I thought this kid was a total queer (well, I still do - he just needs to come out of the closet), and now he’s telling me that he’s homophobic and doesn’t “accept” my lifestyle. I’m just not accustomed to sitting in front of a walking, talking homophobe, I guess. I didn’t really know what to do.

But, in happier news, his friend Tom has got to be gay. We talked about Rent for a while and when explaining to Jerry what straight people who like queers are he said, “They’re called allies.” So, hopefully, he’ll have a good influence on Jerry and maybe someday Jerry will come to terms with his sexuality or finally, truly embrace diversity.