"...was it really as bad as they say? Were a lot of homeless children homeless just 'cuz they were gay? And is it true we let the government fire people for being gay? What was the big deal back then?"
Gramps
"Well, if you told people you were gay, they'd treat you differently. Not everybody, of course, but a lot of people. Especially if you were young, like a teenager."
Kid
"Wow, they would pick on you just for being gay?"
Gramps
"Oh, sure. And worse! In fact, in most parts of the country, kids got beat up every day for it. Some were even killed."
Kid
"So then why did they tell people they were gay?"
Gramps
"Well, lots of times, they didn't. People just kinda knew."
Kid
"Umm...so even though everybody basically knew somebody was gay, they just couldn't say it out loud? Even though they were still getting beaten up, or fired, just for being gay?"
Gramps
"Yeah...pretty much. There were lots of politicians and actors that we all knew were gay, but they just couldn't say it."
Kid
"Why?"
Gramps
"Because everybody would think differently about them."
Kid
"But...didn't people pretty much already know they were gay?"
Gramps
"Yeah."
Kid
"Grampa, your generation was pretty stupid."
Gramps
"Wait until you hear this part: gays couldn't get married! Well, after a while they could, but we just didn't let them call it 'marriage.'"
Kid
"Huh?"
Gramps
"We told the gays, 'You can get married, but, you know, just don't call it marriage. Because only we normies can get married. You guys can just call it a 'civil union.'"
Kid
"So, they could get married?"
Gramps
"Well, yeah...but it was called a 'civil union.'"
Kid
"But if they could just get married, why not just call it marriage?"
Gramps
"Oh, grandchild. So naive. You see, if a politician said they support gay marriage, everybody would hate them. But if they just called it something else--it didn't have to be 'civil unions', they could've called it getting 'gaymarried' or 'garried' or something--it meant they didn't HATE gays, but they weren't exactly thrilled with all the gayness going around."
Kid
"So, did the mean people think that by not calling marriage, they could stop people being gay?"
Gramps
"No, no no. You're not paying attention. It had nothing to do with marriage--obviously, since civil unions were so much more acceptable. It had to do with finding a reason to publicly talk about gays like they were freaks and deviants."
Kid
"Deviants?"
Gramps
"Sure. Why, a US Senator--who served in the same body as John Quincy Adams and Robert F. Kennedy, once compared being gay to making love to an animal."
Kid
"In public?"
Gramps
"Yes."
Kid
"And they still thought it was the gays that were weird?"
Gramps
"Uh-huh. You see, as long a we were debating whether it was smart to call it Civil Unions to just trick people into accepting it, or arguing about 'tolerating' bigotry in order to get our people elected, we weren't talking about the fact that there was a group of Americans who were specifically denied a right everybody else had. The people who hated gays and wanted to see them wiped out--they got us arguing about marriage, but it could've been anything--visitation rights, inheritance, it didn't matter. So long as we weren't focusing on the fact that were basically debating a group of fellow citizens' humanity."
Kid
"Grampa, your generation sounds pretty stupid."
Gramps
"No, it wasn't our generation. It's just humanity. They need to see people talking about right and wrong, truth and lies. Otherwise they just go with who sounds more like them."
Kid
"So, when did somebody start talking about right and wrong, truth and lies?"
end scene