Close-mindedness?

Ah, I finally have a tiny breather in which I can catch up with people and update my blog properly haha.

I've been somewhat preoccupied by a conversation I had with someone earlier today. It amazed me that people could be so close-minded. I suppose I'm more of a liberal, who is much more accepting of things such as homosexuality and other pressing issues in today's social and political world. However, the person I spoke to this morning certainly was nowhere near my level of acceptance.

The conversation started fairly innocently; as most of you know, I'm a disney movie freak, and happened to be watching parts of my Aladdin DVD while doing some other work (yes I know, I'm becoming obsessed) haha. So the conversation with him somewhat ended up along the lines of, if we had three wishes, what would we wish for. I was shocked at his first wish. It was to get rid of gay people and homosexuality and keep only straight people. I asked him why it bugged him so much if others were gay; it didn't affect his lifestyle personally, so why should it be an issue for him? Besides, who cares what sexual orientation a person is? I have many gay friends myself, and they are wonderful, intelligent, fun-loving and talented people, some of whom I even admire. He just said he didn't like it. He went on to say that he would tell his kids that homosexuals are evil, and that if one of his kids came home and said he/she was homosexual, he would disown them and then kill them. When I confronted him about that comment later, he said he was exaggerating, but he would certainly disown them, and teach them that homosexuals were "evil" (his exact word-choice).

I was entirely appalled. What surprised me even more, is that he himself is a minority. Minorities suppressing other minorities? There really is no end to racism, discrimination, hatred and prejudices, is there?

Instead of teaching our kids that we are superior to others, shouldn't we teach them that everyone is their own person? There is something unique and special about everyone, and we should accept them for their differences. Why teach our children to hate? If they, through their life, dislike someone or a group of people due to their own experiences or circumstances, then there is nothing we can do about that. But why raise them to feel hatred towards others?

I've just had a very frustrated and disgusted feeling all day, and felt it necessary to share so that I could get it off my chest.

Please share with me your thoughts on this!!