You know, it's easy to say nasty things about people you don't personally know but it gets a lot more difficult when they become real to you.

How true. When I was in my 20s, I found out a close friend whom I had known for many years was gay. I wasn't a homophobe, but at that stage of my life, I pretty much accepted the "gays are bad" mentality. But after I found out I had a gay friend whom I had been buddies with, palled around with, and got high with (yes those were my druggie days), I realized that he was still the same person he always was. That was when my perceptions of gays started to change.

Dakota