Now you know how conservatives felt when Big Tech fucked us over in 2020 and banned us all. Thoughts? Shall we momentarily share a group hug
As I had heard it described by a few people, it was considered cool in the 70s to have gay friends.
By a very very very small amount of people maybe, those who were considered to be radicals. Not only did a majority of people believe that homosexuality should not be accepted or tolerated, this was a time where at least half of the population believed that homosexual relations should be illegal… And this didn’t change until quite recently.
people were still living in the wake of the hippie revolution.
The “hippie revolution” was pretty much dead at that point. And of course, “normies” always hated the hippies. They were considered to be radicals, they were probably seen in a less favourable way than people see “antifa” today. And at that time, the hippies were associated with murderers and cults (Jim Jones, Charles Manson).
Recreational drugs were very widely used, as was all sorts of things like swinging…
Compared to how things were before the 60s, yes. But that’s just because before the 60s, “free love” was unthinkable and recreational drugs simply did not exist in the eyes of the general public (outside of alcohol and tabacco). But we also shouldn’t forget that those things happened in very specific metropolian areas.
So, having gay friends was considered normal
Again, by a very very specific subsection of people. It’s as if you said that today, it’s considered normal to have a “gender-fluid pan-sexual furry who identifies as a fox” as a friend. But for 99% of people, it just isn’t.
by the 1990s, the mainstreaming of gay actors and gay themes in TV began to take off.
And it’s not until the 90s that views on homosexuality slowly started to change. In 1997, it was still more people who believed that homosexuality should be illegal compared to those who believed it should be legal. Views on homosexuality only really started to radically change in the 2000s and 2010s. In 2008, while most people believed that homosexuality should not be punished by a law, it was still half of the population that believed that homosexuality is immoral and should be discouraged. In 2023, 64% believe that homosexuality is morally acceptable while 33% belive it’s not. So there has definitely been a radical change of attitude towards homosexuality that is still going on, but this only happened relatively recently.
And of course people who are still opposed to homosexuality have noticed this shift too, which is why politicians have shifted focus away from scapegoating homosexual men towards scapegoating trans people (who are still a lot less tolerated today than gay men). The same talking points which are today used against trans people (“they are crazy and mentally unstable”, “they are pedophiles”) were traditionally used against homosexual men.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/1651/gay-lesbian-rights.aspx
I’d also like you to know that, if I had my way, we would have not made any provocative posts at all and pot a moratorium on such content in order to establish trust
In my admittedly biased view, to a majority of people on the right, provocation is an elemental part of their behaviour. It seems that some people orient their entire identity based on “triggering the libs/triggering the left” and then complain when they actually succeed…
I had a discussion the other day with a user here who had the username “Ihatretroons” who was complaining that people would unfairly accuse him of, well, “hating troons”. To me, this is absurd. Everyone should know by now that people on the internet form their opinions based on the smallest amount of information, when you choose the username “ihatetroons”, most people will obviously think you hate trans people…
By a very very very small amount of people maybe, those who were considered to be radicals. Not only did a majority of people believe that homosexuality should not be accepted or tolerated, this was a time where at least half of the population believed that homosexual relations should be illegal… And this didn’t change until quite recently.
I think it was far more widespread than you think. Yes, it’s absolutely the case that there were scary, intimidatingly conservative places in America in the 1970s… But it is also the case that people in Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Texas, etc. were all listening to what was being released from the coasts. Boomers & Gen X grew up knowing who all these stars overdosing on drugs and practicing alternative lifestyles were. Which is why things like Roe v Wade were possible…
You also see crazy numbers like this:
Gallup’s trend by age reveals that widespread experimentation with marijuana first occurred among adults aged 18 to 29 between 1969 and 1973, rising from 8% to 35%. It then continued to mount, reaching 56% by 1977, and remained at that level in 1985. Since then, however, marijuana use among young adults has progressively declined. At the same time, as the bulge of young adults who tried marijuana in the 1970s ages and replaces older Americans who never tried it, the rate of all Americans who have ever tried the drug has increased slightly.
Check out these numbers
In the days when pre-marital sex was taboo, many couples had at least one powerful incentive to marry. This may have been the case in 1969 when Gallup found that premarital sex was frowned upon by two-thirds of Americans, while only 21% felt these relations were acceptable. That critical view dropped sharply by the early 1970s to 47%, and in 1985 Gallup found a majority of Americans on the other side, with 52% saying premarital sex was morally okay. Today, according to a May 10-14 Gallup poll, only 38% of U.S. adults say it is wrong for a man and a woman to have sexual relations before marriage, while 60% disagree.
34% of people in 1983 said that homosexuality should be an acceptable moral lifestyle as well…
Again, Gallup…
1/3 people saying it is acceptable probably indicates a far greater amount of people thinking it is somehow cool - like how being in a biker gang is cool, or like how being a drugged out disco burnout or hippie was also cool.
The “hippie revolution” was pretty much dead at that point. And of course, “normies” always hated the hippies. They were considered to be radicals, they were probably seen in a less favourable way than people see “antifa” today. And at that time, the hippies were associated with murderers and cults (Jim Jones, Charles Manson).
… But its impact never left. 1/3 of people found homosexuality a morally acceptable lifestyle in 1983. Do you think it was anywhere close to that prior to the hippie revolution?
Compared to how things were before the 60s, yes. But that’s just because before the 60s, “free love” was unthinkable and recreational drugs simply did not exist in the eyes of the general public (outside of alcohol and tabacco). But we also shouldn’t forget that those things happened in very specific metropolian areas.
Kids in suburban America were smoking pot in the 1970s.
My sources show 56% of people having smoked pot by 1977.
I think it was far more widespread than you think.
Widespread is relative. Compared to before, it was very much widespread. But overall, it was still not popular or mainstream at all.
But it is also the case that people in Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Texas, etc. were all listening to what was being released from the coasts.
Sure, but this was during a time where even within the left or left leaning spaces, homosexuality was seen as a controversial and often negative thing. Even if somebody was sympathetic to some aspects of the “hippie movement”, that doesn’t automatically mean that they were accepting of homosexuality.
widespread experimentation with marijuana
Yes, experimentation with recreational drugs definitely exploded, but I don’t think that just because people tried pot doesn’t mean they were all ultra-leftist pro-LGBT activists.
In the days when pre-marital sex was taboo, many couples had at least one powerful incentive to marry.
Yeah it was the norm that pre-marital sex was taboo, that doesn’t suprise me at all. But as is often the case, many people still engaged in pre-martial sex, they just did it in secret. And the same was sort of true for the LGBT community because homosexuals and transsexuals have existed before the 1960s, they just existed on the edge of society.
1/3 people saying it is acceptable probably indicates a far greater amount of people thinking it is somehow cool - like how being in a biker gang is cool, or like how being a drugged out disco burnout or hippie was also cool.
But those people were not seen as “cool” by most people. Yes, there was a certain fascination with both the hippies and biker gangs as they were seen as outlaw rebels in a sense, which has some coolness factor, especially in America where the “rooting for the underdog” narrative is baked into the culture. Homosexuals were not seen as cool just as trans-people or non-binary people today are not really seen as cool in the same sense because they don’t really fit the rebel image.
Bikers and hippies were opposed by conservatives because they believed them to be revolutionaries who are threatening the system and causing instability and lack of order. Homosexuals and the LGBT community are/were opposed by conservatives because they are seen as degenerate, perverted, unnatural and weak.
OK I think we have just had some different experiences with this… And that is completely fine and valid. I do not dispute yours.
I knew a girl who struggled with a lot of gender issues that I did not understand because I was actually raised in a relatively liberal, upper middle class home. Of course, my father is a devout conservative, but so many people in my extended family have all manner of conflicting ideas, and discussion of these things was never barred…
So when she talked to me about how her family frowned on her for even being interested in sports or dressing "boyish"ly , I was shocked.
So, who knows.
The United States is a very big place.
I remember, as a conservative, even getting culture shock at the levels of conservatism among Texans (lol). So, I will say that… I just don’t know.
I think I am right for one segment of the society, and you are right for another. Which is another reason to prefer decentralization, IMO: let each area address its own issues, and to have a standard be one of largely tolerance.
