Will you befriend him if you know that he's a 'gay'?.

yes, one of my best friends is gay

I would not befriend anyone who had that attitude about gays.

I’d befriend someone if I liked them, regardless of sexuality. Who cares! Your preference for one set of genitalia over the other would have no impact on our friendship.

I have a motto. To each their own. I don’t care what gets them aroused as long as they’re decent people. Gay or straight.

I have had gay friends and their sexual prefence made no difference to me. People are people and good, caring people are too hard to find to reject someone because they are gay.

What anyone does in their bedroom is none of my business and has no influence on whether I want them for a friend or not.

I don’t care either way if they are gay or straight or even if we don’t agree on political issues, if they are black, hispanic, white, chinese, european, boy or girl so long as they are not an ass. My friendships are based on the following. Ass, not an ass.

Gay people are great, very smart and also funny

is this a real question? gay people are just people with different sexual taste… We are living in 2010 not middleage…

@rooeytoo “What anyone does in their bedroom is none of my business”. Try telling that to some of the people who post questions on here.

Oh god, your description on how people work sometimes, really scares me. But I know what you are talking about. It’s sad and scary. Sexuality is private and it has nothing to do with whom I befriend or people I enjoy being with. As @tenderness put it, we’re living in 2010.

@tenderness , I would say that Fluther has mostly liberal minded people, not that everyone is a liberal. However some things that I go through on a daily basis are incredibly horrible. I think that there are three groups, homophobic people, people who don’t care and accept you, and those who rush to be your friend or are so excited when you come out to them. You have to be careful with the last group, because sometimes you are just a piece of water cooler gossip. However, being gay myself, it might be a little bit hypocritical if I decided not to be friends with someone based on their sexual orientation.

I have had many gay coworkers who became friends. Some female and some male.
I befriend people based on common interest and their intelligence.
I am turned off by any come ons from anyone. Since I am married. Most of my gay friends have understood this.

”...a gay.” That’s funny.

If I like a person enough to call him or her friend, I don’t care what their sexual preference is.

I agree 100% with all of you. People are people. What they do behind closed doors is totally their business.

”..a gay?”
Well…as long as he wasn’t THE gay

@rhodes54 – He might be the only one in the village, you never know…!

Of course. I don’t care what someone does in bed (unless I want him to do it with me, of course), but whether or not we get along and the potential friend shows good character, regardless of gender or orientation, that’s the important thing.

What comes first the befriending or the knowledge that that individual is gay?

I would assume that the friendship came first in which case what does anything else have to do with it.

Unless your gay friend was always trying to get in your pants and you only wanted a friendship.
. In that case the outcome would be the same even if that was a heterosexual friend.

One of the best dates in my life was with a lesbian. I had no clue and she only agreed because she thought I was a nice guy who might be interesting to talk to over a pizza and a beer. It turned out to be an amazing night that closed the place down with apologies from the wait staff. We quickly grew to be close friends after that and though I lost touch with her long ago I will always consider her a friend.

In college one of the guys on our hall was gay. We had been friends for many months and I found out about his orientation one evening when he came on to me (I wasn’t just dense per se, it just never crossed my mind one way or the other). Seriously awkward – yes; but it didn’t dent our friendship in the least, we still laugh about it today.

I’ve always had the opinion of what you do in the bedroom is your business, and if it makes you happy, as long as it’s not hurting others (unless they’re into that >.>), you shouldn’t be judged by it. To each their own, but I’ll stick to basing my friendships on mutual respect, commitment, and genuine connection and feeling.

This is a weird question.

I’ve always found it odd when people are concerned about a person’s sexuality. My father is gay and when school mates would ask me what I thought about it, I would always say “the same way you think about your mother and father a having sex, not at all. Why would it matter who my father is interested in having sex with?”

Although I wouldn’t shun them.. we probably wouldn’t get along the greatest… so while I believe it could happen, I don’t think it’s likely. I also wouldn’t get along with many other people… for reasons not having to do with sexual persuasion.. so it’s really a moot point as far as I’m concerned.

Of course I would! Anyone who wouldn’t is a misguided fool.

What would I do without gay men in my life?

I wouldn’t have had a prom date in high school.
I wouldn’t have had dates in high school. Full stop.
I wouldn’t have had anyone to go shopping with.
I wouldn’t have ever had someone to tell me how beautiful I was..without trying to get into my knickers. (No one can tell you how beautiful you look, when you look like crap, like a gay male friend…and no one can quite tell you how crap you look when you think you look fantastic, like a gay male friend…and thank goodness for that.)
I wouldn’t have had received such thoughtful presents for Christmas, birthdays and for no reason at all.
I wouldn’t have had anyone answer the phone at three in the morning when I thought I heard a sound outside my window. (“Geez, girl, look outside…if he’s cute, get his number…Lord knows you need to meet somebody!”)
I wouldn’t have ever gone blonde (and still looked like gummy wallpaper.)
I wouldn’t have ever learned every showtune from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s.
I wouldn’t have ever known that for me, pink was not the new black
I wouldn’t have had anyone tell me, “You need to leave that sorry troll man now honey!”.
I wouldn’t have had shoulders to cry on, men to help me raise my daughter, make me laugh, love me unconditionally…and feed me gourmet food.

I love gay men….and if I didn’t have them in my life…I’d be lost and would have never had such a rich and adventurous life.

I will support them and love them till I am six feet under…no doubt dressed to the nines…because they would never let me go meet St Peter in tacky that’s-so-last-year clothes. .

So would I _befriend_a gay man? A gay man is a man first and gay second. And any good and loving man is worth befriending. Case closed.

I’m sure that I already have. I don’t ask, so I wouldn’t know.

I said this on another thread but it bears repeating. Your sexuality should not define you. The only gays I would have a problem with are the ones who talk about nothing but their sex lives as if there were nothing else to life. Your race should not define you. I would have a problem with ANYONE who thought about little else other than the color of teir own skin or other peoples as if there were nothing else to life. Your religion should not define you, do you see what I’m getting at here? Gender, race, sexuality, religion, etc; all have nothing to do with a persons ability to complete a task, render assistance in a crisis, be a good person or friend, etc.
I don’t want to get into a big rant here. I think what I’ve said should be sufficient for this thread.
Y’all have a nice day.
Oh, one more thing. We shouldn’t any of us pretend not to notice our differences. Don’t be afraid to say something about your curiosity about someone who is different than you in some way. It’s OK!

lol @rhodes54

repeatedly stabs fork into eyes

Jesus crap, was that a logical thought process?? I think it was vaguely pro-gay (somehow) but, egads. Obviously I’d befriend someone whether or not they were “a gay” as I would hope that other people don’t base whether or not they will be friends with me on the fact that I am “a gay.”

@rhodes54…....That was funny…...I thought of Margaret Cho.

This question is being asked in 2010.

Facepalm.

Well not if he’s a gay but if he’s gay, sure.
Seriously though we’re all gay.

@Cubic I wonder how other people feel about this, but my opinion is that generalizing positives is just as lame as generalizing negatives. There are plenty of dumb and boring gay people.

@Likeradar x1000

@Likeradar I agree with you too! Although I must admit I prefer the generalized positives to the generalized negatives… Probably only because I’m “a gay” though. ;)

@fireinthepriory lol

Yes, of course I would. Otherwise I’d be a royal hypocrite. :)

I’m still friends with the people I hung out with in high school; they all know I’m gay now and that’s not a problem to them. Of course, this is San Francisco, not Placerville. I’m sure it varies by geographic location.

I like this quote: A gay man is a man first and gay second. And any good and loving man is worth befriending. Case closed.

Seriously, I have no time for people who wouldn’t want to be friends with someone because of their sexual orientation. “Oh, I’m gonna be gay if I hang out with him”, “He’s going to want to fuck me”, “He’s going to hell and I need to save him”...insert major eye roll…Those types of people are not the type I would ever find myself being around.

A person’s sexuality has no bearing on whether or not I will befriend them. their personality and sense of humor do. I have many gay friends. Making that kind of distinction shows a bit of insecurity and A LOT of ignorance.

I have LOTS of gay friends, is this even an issue in the first world?

Would I not befriend someone because he doesn’t look, behave, think, worship, or in this case, love and make love differently from me? Am I crazy? Why would I risk not having another friend in my life?

@Owl Great Answer and welcome to Fluther

fireinthepriory I base who I want to be friends with on the persons intelligence and if I think they are interesting. LOL it helps if we have similar interest. Anyone who refuses to be friends with someone because they are gay is properly very insecure and dumb.

What turns someone else on has no effect on their character or what kind of a person they are

Certainly. But I would not be friends with someone who thinks like the people you describe in your question.

I will not befriend someone who wouldn’t want to or has a problem with gay people.

My best friend in the world is gay. We’ve been friends for over 25 years. I can’t imagine my life without him. Some of my favorite people in the world are a gay and lesbian. And I agree with @Mike_Hunt generally. I try not to reject people completely out hand for what they believe, but I would never be able to be close friends with anyone who had a problem with gay people.

I know I don’t get out much, but surely there aren’t that many retro people still around, are there? I don’t know anybody who chooses or denies friends based on sexual orientation.

I’d befriend anyone who isn’t a hater or predator, or egocentric semanticist.

That being said, Although a lot of gay male stuff such as shrill voices, snapping fingers, and enjoyment of American Idol and that awful Celine-Dion type of music is kind of annoying to me… I actually find Alpha males more annoying if I have to put up with nothing but beer, billiards, football, grunge-influenced modern rock, and bikini chick posters. But I just find them more annoying, and that’s a generality that doesn’t always fit. There are heroes in every category.

But gays are just one more overlapping category of humanity. I could name all sorts of things about people that I like and dislike, but judging them on being gay itself… that’s so archaic and illogical.

Thanks so much for all your toleration!,I guess people in the country where you live have so much toleration toward this issue,although in the country where I live(high religion country) this kind of people are always considered as pest,they’re banned everywhere else,being sent to quarantine facility,social facility,or else. For religion/God’s sake(as they said) these people should be eliminated so they won’t affect other who is a healthy person.

@Doctor_D mind if I ask where it is you live?

@RareDenver

Well I live in Indonesia(where this country strongly dominated by Islamic culture),most of them in this religion consider ‘gay’ kind of people as prostitutes and get rid of them is the way to save humanity healthiness.

@Doctor_D – I think the word toleration is incorrect. I don’t want to speak for the people of this thread but I believe they actively like their gay friends, not tolerate them.

I personally couldn’t stand to live in an area or environment where someone’s sexual orientation was frowned upon. I really take no notice of it in the people I meet and get to know. In fact, I recently found out that a guy who is friends with my group of friends was gay and I was relieved that his friendliness had no ulterior motives (I am in a relationship), if that makes sense.

@Doctor_D Interesting cultural difference. And @Rachienz is right, I don’t think most of us ”tolerate ” gay people. They’re just people.
How do you actually feel about homosexuality, outside of what your religion or culture tells you to feel?

@Likeradar I’ll stand with you and other who believe in toleration. I just feel that it won’t be fair for gays in my country to accept different treatment from other people.

@Doctor_D Your basic premise of them versus us is just wrong. We are all ‘us’.

@Doctor_D Good for you for looking past what’s common in your area to see what feels right for you. Just a helpful hint, as I know English isn’t your first language and you’re doing a great job – The word is “tolerance” not “toleration.” :)

Yes,. I hope someday my country would accept gay rights on legislation.