"Gay? Whatever, Dude," NYT Headline

As stunning as the facts presented in a Friday New York Times Op-Ed column were, in some ways it's the headline that shows just how much things have changed.

"Gay? Whatever, Dude" was the headline on the center of the op-ed page. It's hard to imagine that headline even a few years ago in a major national newspaper.

Charles M. Blow reported that more than half of Americans now think that "gay and lesbian relations" are morally acceptable, and for the first time, more men than women do. Male positive attitudes have increased by 48% since 2006.

He pointed out that more people answer affirmatively to questions about gays and lesbians than they do to questions about 'homosexuals." He wrote, "the inclusion of the root word sex still raises an aversive response" by some. It's noteworthy, then, that the headline writers didn't use, "Homosexual? Whatever" in their national newspaper. There is still the "ick" factor that gets in the way of people being okay with sexual diversity.

But all of this points to a maturing of sexual attitudes, and gives me hope that one day soon there will be an end to employment discrimination, an end to marriage discrimination, an end to military discrimination, and an end to social discrimination because of people's sexual orientation.

May it be so.