Lucy Kemnitzer

One of my kids is 26 and the other is 18. Their social circles overlap a lot because of common interest and because my son was my daughter's chaperone when she was young -- by that I mean he took her places with him when she was too young to go by herself. In these circles, they go beyond tolerance. Being gay is not only not a liability among their friends, it's a positive personality attribute. It's almost true throughout my daughter's high school -- there are social circles within the school where mere tolerance prevails, and others where intolerance lives. Mostly the school is merely tolerant. It has to do with the attitude of the adults, partly, but also it has to do with being in a college town with decent politics. There are anecdotes that arise from this, but I just tried telling one and it was three paragraphs long before I could begin to come to the point. Anyway, if one high school can be like this, the world can be like this too. (no, the 26 year old is not in high school, but he did go to the same school for a year and a half and a lot of his friends went there too, besides the ones he has in common with his sister).