Reply #44: I graduated two years later, and I remember "smear the queer" also.

[madinmaryland]

Being from a small midwestern town, there was little exposure to homosexuals. Like you there was never discussion in school about homosexuality. Even going to college in that area, I was never exposed to that. It wasn't until after I finished and the AIDS epidemic was just beginning to be talked about, that the university made any effort to recognize the homosexual community. It still took a long time for them to be accepted, and I would be surprised if they are even today fully accepted.

The worst insult when I was a kid was to refer to them as gay, which trumped all the racial slurs.