Well, it's a good thing you don't think there's anything wrong with it, doll.

Quack, quack!

Get off it, Charlie. There are plenty of folks who were raised in Texas and other places outside "Back East" who turned out just fine.

You see vulgar and common people because that is who you choose to associate with. I dare say you met just as many tacky, unrefined people in your halcyon days in Charleston as you have met in Texas.

Your sentimentalism for the South is wearing thin. If living in the South is so magnificent, and we Texans are all so offensive to you, why do you "torture" yourself by living here?

My mother always told me: "If you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all". I'm sure your mother must have said something along those lines as well. Why don't you make your mom proud and keep quiet unless you have something good to say? Nobody likes a complainer.

Yes, you are right CH. It isn't the geographical area that has any impact on people. There are vulgar and common people coast to coast and around the globe. My sentimentalism for the South is a healthy, but different thing altogether.

It isn't Texas, it isn't the people outside of the area where I grew up...that's just me trying to find some reason to explain other than the fact that I am to blame...I am the one that surrounds myself with people and it is only me that is the common denominator...me and my poor judgment.

My apologies to the rest of the country.

I have tried to understand why as a gay community we have embraced so many socially unacceptable behaviors and often go as far as reveling in them. Believe me, I know all about the “trials and tribulations” we endured as adolescents and how those issues can affect the adults we become. Those effects often reach far into our lives and impact the decisions we make and the manners in which we conduct ourselves, for some more than most. What I will never understand is the often flippant dismissal of right and wrong and a general misalignment on what society as a whole deems appropriate and forthright. Acting on impulse with absolute disregard for other peoples feelings or violating a social norm to appease a selfish goal is not humorous, sexy, or applaudable. It’s sad and completely unacceptable.

I am not exonerating myself from having ever made a bad decision or acting in a way that some might deem inappropriate. I can say that to the best of my knowledge, I have never intentionally ignored a social or familial boundary and moved forward with any actions that would clearly anger or hurt someone else. I am also guilty, in a sense, for not appropriately standing my moral ground when friends and acquaintances make bad decisions and not letting them know how I feel about it. I’m sure this has fueled the flames of acceptance and helped them file their behaviors away as “no big deal” or funny. Clearly it’s not.

Charlie, you were wrong to generalize that the people in your hometown area are the only ones who know how to act appropriately. Being from the South myself, I know too well that “trash” lives and breathes there too and often in higher numbers than elsewhere in the country. I’m sorry that you’ve had bad experiences with certain people in your life. We all have. I don’t think that Texas is to blame as much as you are, as you’ve admitted on several occasions. The truth is, we all get what we settle for. For me, I will not accept people into my life anymore who break the rules of friendship whether their actions are focused towards me or anyone else I care about.

It's not just the gay community that "accepts" (? approves...?encourages) antisocial, boorish behavior. If that were true, then the problem would not be so widespread among our society. The gay community, being a minority in our society, can't take "credit" or responsibility for this phenomenon. We "straights" bear the major responsibility.

"All it takes for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing".

It's not the location, it's the times.

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