In fairness, the city nearest my cabin also has a vibrant gay community. Asheville has benefited greatly from it. Those folks seem to be ahead of the curve in entrepreneurship as well as providing great contributions to the arts, philanthropy, etc., and, man can they run a restaurant.
Asheville has an absurd number of interesting little bistros.
While the economy here dipped a bit during the Great Recession, the diversity of the city kept us from ever feeling the brunt the rest of the country endured. I checked our unemployment rate as I write this and it's about 5.9%, which is quite a bit higher than its historical normal. It touched 8% for about a month in 2010 but has generally stayed well below that throughout the recession.
If you check across the country, the cities with the most diversity, including the gay community (FYI, you probably know Houston is considered to be VERY gay friendly and the mayor is openly gay), tend to be much better places to live with better economies, better schools, lower crime (not sure about Houston on that), more parks, restaurants, protected lands, etc.
Other than annoying homophobes, I've yet to see a downside to acceptance of the gay community.
You know 1957 has come and gone. We now know homosexuality is not a choice. That's just silly. In a few years homophobes will be treated with as much disdain as someone that would throw the "N word" around are now.
Life is too short to hate people you don't even know.
Last edited by Smokey3214; 01/03/2013 10:33 AM.
