Its easy to blame Stig for an attitude that has prevailed in our community for thousands of years. When you are conditioned to believe something when you're a child and when its reinforced by those you associate with, its difficult to see outside of the boundaries of that attitude. I'm 62 and I recall when I was younger, that homosexuality was an 'evil'. Certainly it was reinforced by the community and churches of that time. Its only when you become exposed to other values and see the world through different eyes that you begin to question the very values you hold to be sacrosanct.
When I was younger I believed homosexuality was unnatural and against God's will. I had the same attitude to abortion, euthanasia, suicide, unionism, other religions, even Catholicism. Laugh if you like but that was the world I was raised in in the 1950s and 1960s. Indigenous Australians were still seen as lesser people; didnt even have the vote. Suspicion was held regarding the Italians and Greeks because they stuck together and took jobs (sound familiar).
So entrenched were some of those attitudes that many were, and still are, bound in the legal system. I was a Probation and Parole officer for over 30 years and in those early years I actually had some clients on probation because they had been involved in homosexual activities.
Today I recognise homosexuality as just part of human behaviour; even animals participate in such acts. I'm heterosexual myself, but that's through choice, and I believe such choices should remain between consenting adults. I also now agree with abortion, euthanasia; I consider suicide not a crime but a personal expression of despair, sometimes even because of an inherent depressive condition. Its a medical/psychological issue. Indigenous Australians, Italians, Greeks, Catholics and people of other beliefs are no different from anyone else (though I'm still unsure about Queenslanders). And I was a former union official.
The answer so often comes from meeting people of different beliefs, cultures and values and getting to realise that fundamentally they are no different. Unfortunately though we always have a tendency to demonise others who we dont know well and dont understand and may even present an apparent threat to us. Look to the Jewish people as an example through history of that demonising.
Stig is caught obviously in a conditioned attitude that he has never questioned or truly examined. Educate him, dont crucify him