In certain parts of New York City, I see gay men and women holding hands openly while walking down the street. Very nice, and how it should be.
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Where I live, St Helens, Merseyside is a former Coal mining town typical of this part of North West England from the height of the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th Century.
Times were hard in the 19th Century working class areas of England, as was the work and life. Sentiment had little room to thrive and it's little wonder therefore that there is still a certain degree of backwardness and homophobia amongst the modern population.
As well as Coal mining the town also supported some other heavy industries such a locomotive building, metal foundries, chemical production including bleach powder and famously, glass manufacturing and pharmaceuticals.
A Victorian chronicler, Robert Blatchford, described St Helens (Then in Lancashire) in the following words in his book, 'Dismal England' published in 1899:
"St Helens is a sordid, ugly town. The sky is a low-hanging roof of smeary smoke and the atmosphere is a blend of railway tunnel, hospital ward, gasworks and open sewer. The 'features' of the place are chimneys, furnaces, steam jets, smoke clouds and coal mines. The products are pills, coals, glass, chemicals, cripples, millionaires and paupers. The population is estimated at nearly eighty thousand, most of whom are engaged in the staple industries of mining, smelting, glass-blowing, shopkeeping, stench-making, slave driving and slow murder."
That, I feel, goes some way to understanding why many folk here are still living in the past.
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I would say #2 for where I live
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2,5....progressing to 3 I guess.
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2, there's still a lot of ignorance and discrimination around here.
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Well, I kinda live in 3 places,
A gay nudist resort on weekends
At home with my son, read my posting "2 plastic shopping bags"
And at work
So 5+++ for number 1
5++++ for number
Indifferent for no 3
As for the rest
Wanna piece of me ?
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I'm originally from a 2, but now live in a 4. Much better.
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I dont know, and its not something I want to go around getting a consensus on either.
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My town is about 40 miles south of San Francisco (the quintessential 5), so we're probably somewhere between a 4 and a 5.
Employers around here clearly don't care about orientation or try to discriminate against it. In the shopping malls, especially the one near Stanford, I frequently see gay couples holding hands, and no one thinks anything of it.
There's clearly a large population of openly gay folks in the general area, so this has got to be one of the top spots in the world for minimal homophobia.
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