I can remember the thoughts I had when I was a kid and the school was indoctrinating us to not say words such as crippled, blind, or deaf. They kept saying that "after all they are no different than you and want to be treated just like everyone else". I couldn't understand that concept. They were different, No matter what word they were trying to have me use such as visually impaired, physically handicapped etc. it didn't change the fact that they were still crippled or blind etc. If I had really treated them the same as the rest of the kids especially on the playground, I would have ended up in the PRincipal's office. After all, can you imagine playing crack the whip with a cripple or a blind person and not treat them differently?
I can't imagine what would have gone through my head, if someone would have told me to treat gay people the same. The girls were still holding hands, and the boys were still patting each other on the seats. Had we been introduced to the sexual element, (something that was still a foreign thought because prime time TV was still G rated) we would have though we were all gay or would have started wondering in someone we knew was gay. It would have had a chilling effect on our normal childhood behavior and started a whole host of subjects to be discussed. Deep down inside we still would have felt that they were abnormal, just as we couldn't be convinced that the cripple or blind person wasn't different from us.