I’ve recently started using Twitter as a social networking tool to get more readers for my blog.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am a diehard Facebook junkie, so I thought that it would be similar.  It is not.  I heard a saying (on Twitter) something to the effect that Facebook is for communicating with people that you used to know and Twitter is to communicate with people you might want to get to know.  

I only actually know three of my followers on Twitter, and have had direct messages with about another dozen.  That leaves about 200 people that I am communicating with that have no idea who I am, and vice versa.  So I’ve been monitoring my tweets (messages on Twitter for those of you that are unfamiliar) and generally the people I follow are quite positive.  Over the past few days though, I’ve noticed some tweets that verge on gay bashing.  I was shocked!  I thought society had gotten past the era of large scale homophobia!

Now maybe because I’m straight, I’m not exposed to homophobia very often.  I do have gay and lesbian friends and co-workers and I thought for the most part, homophobia was rapidly disappearing.  After all, isn’t bisexuality trendy now?  Maybe I travel in a circle of people that are more enlightened and don’t care what goes on in people’s bedrooms, as long as it is between consenting adults.  I also think I may be influenced by my nationality.  Pierre Trudeau, one of Canada’s greatest Prime Ministers, once said “The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation”.  I’m not saying that gay bashing or homophobes don`t exist in Canada, I just think we as a society, are more tolerant of people’s differences.  Live and let live.

The tweet that ticked me off was this guy saying something like “Tell the gay guy on the other side of the coffee shop to quit staring at me”.  So many responses ran through my head!  I restrained myself from some horribly biting sarcastic remark and tweeted back “Maybe he thinks you are staring at him”.  I wanted to say “He was looking at the s**t on your face “, or some other witty reply (thanks, Mom, I still love that one!), but I will not stoop to his level.

Is homophobia more prevalent than I had thought?  I gave this some thought and have decided that Twitter and most of the rest of the internet makes us pretty anonymous.  We create avatars to represent ourselves, tell people little snippets about ourselves that show us in a positive light, and generally act fairly superficially.  Not too many people show the real them, the deep dark secrets that they hold close.  Homophobes generally don’t update their status by saying “Last night I kicked the crap out of a fag” and homosexuals usually don’t update theirs saying “I cried myself to sleep because I don’t know how to tell my parents I’m gay”.

The point of all this?  I’m hoping that at least one person reads this and changes his or her mind about homosexuality.  Maybe the light bulb will go on and he or she will reach the conclusion that what people do with their lives shouldn’t matter to the rest of us, as long as no one gets hurt.  What do you think?  I’d love to hear your perspectives.  I can be reached at donig@mts.net.  Peace out. 

Orianne