My personal opinion is that if the newspaper articles are true, then there is just too much judgement laid out by Dr Thio. Her ideas are about separation. They do not resonate well, since I come from the understanding on the soul perspective that essentially we are One; notwithstanding, differences in sexual preferences. I come from a neutral stance mostly. I think it helps if we are more understanding and accepting of other people's life choices.

I am glad to know that you have a very supportive father, who accepts you for the way you are. I also disagree that many of us have had bad relationships with our own father. It is a generalization. Abusive parents can come from either mothers or fathers. It is also not a crime if anyone turns out to be gay!

AWARE is to fight for the fair rights for women. I am not sure how it became one with other agendas coming in!

To me, the new guards should set up their own group, get their own members, question the old guards on the right platform. And yes, they can also spread their religious belief within their new group. To overtake in such a way, is just not socially correct and acceptable.

First of all, thank you for this story. I think those who espouse the new exco's world-view need to take a long hard look at the realities of the situation, because right now all they are doing is stirring up an emotional response and squashing rationality - which is a dark road to go down.

Secondly, I think you should be optimistic about the attitudes of youth. Speaking as a fifteen-year-old, I assure you that many people are either allies or otherwise - as our good PM put it - adopting a 'live and let live' mentality to the wider issue and to queer friends. Those who indulge in a little homophobia tend to be the more immature guys acting out the normative übermachismo attitude that conservatives identify as a traditional gender role for them; and even so it's again a vast minority who would be anywhere as vehement as the COOS parties. These people are speaking neither for the LGBT community nor for feminists nor for youth (nor for queer feminist youth either ;)).

And the slant the COOS-AWARE members are taking is definitely accelerating our society to a more sympathetic tolerance, on the bright side.

Again, thank you for sharing a post that must have been intensely personal.