"Tolerance" Degrading through the Generations?

[Sushi-kaichou]

I hope that this is in the right(?) subforum. Anyways.
So there's this club at my school called Gay Straight Alliance and like 9/10ths of the members graduated last year. Thus leaving very few members. BUT what worried me was the reactions freshmen had when (at the club fair) GSA tried to recruit members. Some said very rude things. Some said very sexist things. And some said things that just flat out worried me.
And that got me questioning. Is every generation becoming less and less tolerant? Is that bad?  

[The_Radioactive_Woman]

This is most definitely and interesting theory, and one worth looking into (in my opinion). I think it goes back more to the way their parents raised them or what they've exposed themselves to mentally in their lives. Some of the values that their parents have has been instilled into them, but whether they choose to believe it or not is up to them, unless they don't know any better. Or it might be a regional thing. Some places might be more tolerant of things like a Gay-Straight alliance club than others. Or maybe it's just because they're freshman. wink  

[carrionteeth]

That's a good idea, but I'm thinking; Wasn't the generations in the past so against homosexuality that they would justify killing the ones who dared showed their sexuality? There was a raise intolerency later on, and compared to that maistream society now is pretty tolerant. Perhaps there'll be curve?  

[light shinomi]

I think proof of hope is that the school allows the gsa as a official club. compared to the 1950's or so on even in like biblical times I suppose in some peoples views...this generation is more tolerable because of media attention and pride parades etc. Change is underway but takes time. maybe the freshmen are just acting like weenies and have been influenced by parents belief or think it's embarrassing. *shrug sorry to hear about your club day experience. at least you have some members left  

[Dracavia]

I hope you've just encountered a particularly bad case of what I like to call "Freshman Syndrome", because if the next generation is already swinging back to intolerance, then that would be very depressing. =(

I found the same thing with most of the clubs when I went to high school: most freshmen were either in the "OMG high school everything is so bright and shiny and scary and OMG what's a club leave me alone ahhhh" group or the "I'm in high school now, I'm hot s**t and so much better than you, so your club obviously sucks and I'm going to make fun of it and become even more of a badass" group. -.- Seriously, I wanted to wap some of them upside the head in the hopes that it would knock some of their brain cells back into the right place. Lucky, the freaked-out ones usually mellow out a bit over time and then they become interested in clubs and things. Unfortunately there isn't much hope for the "I'm so cool" ones as they usually just stay jerks all through school.

I'm not sure how clubs work at your school, but hopefully as the freshman become adjusted and find their bearings you might get more people interested. Sometimes it's simply a case of them being afraid that joining a GSA is going to peg them for the rest of high school, and they need a little time to think it over and conquer their fear.

Wow, that came out way longer than I intended... sweatdrop But yes, I really hope you get some new members for your GSA, because they really are so important and I would have been so happy if we had one at my old school. Good luck!  

[Labtech Abi]

It's the youngins. Most of the fresshies are immature, but I think once they mature they'll know better.

I'd like to think its the opposite with tolerence. A few generations ago homosexuality was unheard of. People got arrested for practicing gayness in the 50's. It wasn't until like... the 70's that they started speaking up, the uprising was huge. People weren't fond of it, but it was much more apparent. Then when AIDS started hitting, targeting generally homosexual men, that about flat-lined the uprising. Soo they've started quietly rising in the recent years. I mean, I think it's noticeable, even shows aimed at children are starting to slowly fold in small amounts of gay xD.

So, I'd say in the future generations, being gay will be normal, just like being black, hispanic, etc.

And so I go back to the freshmen. They are freshman. They'll mature eventually.