A couple of days ago, there was an opinion piece in the New York Times discussing Republicans fixation on Homophobia. The article says that with words like "grooming" and "predations", Republicans are trafficking in hateful slurs.
Some of us grew up when stereotypes about gay people were largely negative. How many of us have heard that gay men are child molesters? Lately, "grooming" has become a catchword in anti-gay politics. Someone recently pointed out that those words prey on every parent's worst fear, that all gay people see children as prey.
Back in 1997, as the education coordinator in our county, I was asked to give an HIV/AIDS presentation to an elementary school in rural Pennsylvania. Unbeknownst to me, prior to the educational workshop the school administration contacted my employer asking if I was gay. They also requested to screen the HIV/AIDS health brochures and video I was going to present to the students. To make a long story short, they basically gutted more than half of our agency HIV/AIDS educational material before the day of the workshop.
This is 2022. In my opinion, negative assumptions about gays are at an all time high.
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