There was a time when the above phrase could be used in innocence.  Today, the term is either a description of sexuality or a derogatory slur on a person or group.
 
In my years in this area, people have come here who, for one reason or another, want nothing to do with city stresses.  We've added craftsmen, up-market merchants, artists and wanna-be writers.  Incidental to this, we have discovered a number of people who we regard as "gay".
 
In a community where gender is often equated to the size of one's dump truck or bull-dozer, or in the alternative, how well one makes a Chocolate Brownie, we have put a stigma on the person who combines talent with a different lifestyle.  We can be especially cruel if that person displays tendencies that we call 'queer' or who looks like a 'pansy'. 
 
We ask. "Why would someone choose to live such a life?" and face our discrimination.  Families have disowned relatives who they think have decided to be "Homos or Lezzies".  Some use words in the Bible that literally condemn such people.  Hello-o!
 
Science and research have determined that gender orientation is not a matter of choice.  Despite the outcries of homophobic Neanderthals, our gender and to which gender we will ultimately be attracted is formed when our chromosomes do their dance the instant we are conceived.  Nobody chooses to be gay.  In that regard we are all an accident of a near-sighted birth-angel who sometimes misplaces our 'x's and 'y's.  To use the Word of God to pillory Gays defies God's command to love all people.  You can look it up, in the Book of Moses.
 
Many of us make wrong assumptions in deciding who is Gay.  Effeminate men are not necessarily gay.  Even if they are, the question is begged; WHO GIVES A DAMN?  Here, in my sixties, I have a large grown family.  I can say that if I were not heterosexual, I would not want to have arrived at this age without ever knowing what it is to love or be loved.  To be alone and not give and receive affection would be a bigger loss than being denied the right to go moose hunting. 
 
Our traditional mythology has always prized being white and straight. It is blindness to ignore the changes in our population.  People of color, alien religions are here-and-now facts. When you hate, you hurt only yourself.
 
Would "those" people outlaw pick-up trucks and 4x4 ATV's?  Is associating with them going to make you want to paint your snowmobile in a shade of Pink and Mauve?  Yeah, sure.  Meanwhile, just use our intelligence.   Leviticus aside, our community cannot harbor intolerance of people; any people. 
 
Let's enjoy the diversity that is making this region a haven for whoever brings talent and energy to it.  Hey man, we all be God's chillun.