One thing lost in the horrible parodies of southern and rural states - they take their hospitality and politeness seriously. I know many people who think that homosexuality is wrong, who would vote against gay marriage, who may even make derogatory marks among themselves, but who would never support the kind of behavior in that video.

Those "It Gets Better" videos always make me cry like a little baby.

I think the assumption that because we Texans have a very conservative government we ourselves are unkind to LGBT induviduals is rather unfair - and untrue. Sure, we have our redneck bigots, but most people (at least in Austin) are nice and allies.

It's always bothersome when adults interpret feminine behavior as homosexual, as if there aren't any masculine homosexuals or bisexuals. Still, even among the gay community feminine men are less desirable. Just look on any gay/bi dating site and see how many men only want a 'straight acting' or 'masculine' guy.

The rise of acceptance of gay rights seems largely to reflect the large quantity of homosexuals and homosexual relationships in books, movies and television, and their overwhelmingly positive or idealized nature. I'm hard-pressed to think of a single negative or critical representation in popular culture of homosexuality, but the list is nearly endless when it comes to positive representations.

This sort of unbalanced representation seems to skew the perception of homosexuality towards the positive, glossing over many of the more difficult and negative life experiences that homosexuals face.

While I'm a supporter of gay rights, I find that the methods employed to promote such rights in our culture are often deceptive. It's not that millennials have an increased appreciation or awareness of gay rights. Instead they've been smothered with unrealistic and uncritical representations of homosexuality in entertainment.

The video about the gay parents are documenting maybe the bystander-effect but I don't think they document whether the people in Texas are more tolerant than other people.

All people in this restaurant could have been perfectly fine with gays but due to the amount of people in the restaurant I doubt that they can really measure acceptance with such a test.

While I love WWYD, I do have a bone to pick with it: it doesn't prove that Texans (or any part of the general public) are not homophobic (or racist or willing to call out someone doing something wrong). It proves that when people are faced with over the top, unambiguous bigotry, they will make it known that they don't support it. It's nice to watch, and it's a step in the right direction, but as a part of marginalized groups, I very rarely see the situations acted out in that sort of blatant way. Very few people stand up on a table and scream "I AM A HOMOPHOBE, AND I AM GOING TO DISCRIMINATE AGAINST GAYS NOW, EVERYONE ATCH ME DO IT!" In these situations, they talk unusually loudly, use blatant language, and engage bystanders....discrimination doesn't usually look like that. And when faced with more common forms of discrimination, I don't think as many of the heroic people would actually stand up. Not because they secretly support it, but because they wouldn't recognize it, even if they noticed. I can't say for gay parents being kicked out of a restaurant, but I can speak from, say, the point of view of a black teenager being followed in a store (another famous segment they did). It was not a salesperson loudly announcing that "you people" aren't allowed because we steal things. It's the type of stuff that, if you are a part of a group that doesn't normally experience this type of behavior, you would ask "are you SURE? No no, I don't think she was racist, I think she was just tired/you must have done something rude/she was just a general asshole/you're misinterpreting things because they do that to everyone." Or when faced with an interracial couple; rarely do people say "what you're doing is wrong" loud enough for bystanders immersed in their own conversations to hear. It's more often, say, dirty looks and snide comments under their breath if they aren't engaged. On one hand, WWYD is a good example that people will stand up when faced with something unambiguously wrong. However, prejudice is rarely unambiguous to an uninformed bystander. It just gives the idea that racism and homophobia and bad behavior are easily noticed.

The note the man slipped to the lesbian couple in the WWYD video was eally an amazing gesture, and beautifully worded. Everyday hero.

The second video tried to make a very interesting point about the difference between reactions in Texas vs NYC, but I call spurious correlation. I don't think it showed a difference in political beliefs about LGBT rights, BUT it did show an equally interesting difference in local norms about public behavior and individual vs community responsibility. It's possible that the New Yorkers thought that if they stepped in to "help" it would imply that the gay couple was incapable of handling the situation themselves, which would be disrespectful. The Texans seemed to think that if they DIDN'T step in, they were implying that the situation was acceptable, which would be disrespectful. As other commenters have noted, none of this necessarily has a direct correlation to political support of LGBT rights.

Well I quess I am going to take the hit on this one. I am or have been raised on the basis of belief in the bible and old testament. My understanding teaches me that it was an abomination for two people of the same sex to be together as a man and woman. It was so great that G'd destroyed the entire city , that people . Nothing grows there today, in the water there are no fish, so on and so forth. See where i am going? So do you think God changed his mind ? What because there are so many Gays we now start to ignore the Torah, or old Testament? For me this is a matter of belief. I will never accept homosexuality for myself and pray it doesn't effect my family. There is nothing that can refute this. Somewhere along time ago we dropped the ball on interpretation on this for it to evolve to this. Now they are here and we don't want to hurt there feelings so we disregard the word of God. I know you people have all kinds of refutations on this and it will never change my mind. Initially , yes they are human beings. This evolution is a example of how and why we are so disfunction. I know a lot of Gays and there is a lot of confusion in most of there lives because of their sexuality.

I've been reading this blog for a long time without commenting, so let me first say that I always look forward posts here!

I noticed something troubling in the “What Would You Do?” segment, though. Although they only mention that the waitress and family are actors, the same woman appears in all three segments, as a customer. She is the one sitting alone at a table behind the parents of the children, reading a book & writing. She's definitely there for all the confrontations, it's not just editing: You can see her at 0:20, 2:22 (with the man with a baseball hat) 2:50 (with Donovan), and 6:03 (with the first man who defends the male couple). She's missing after that.

Either she is a normal customer who takes a very long time eating and obviously must be aware by this point there is a show being taped and doesn't care at all, or she is plant by the show, and actually works for them and is instructed to ignore what is going on. The second seems much more likely, as she's completely disinterested, which is troubling because it implies there might be other such plants among the "patrons" who will never interfere in what is going on, and are both giving the actual patrons social cues that "other people are ignoring it" or are giving the viewers a false sense of the attitudes of the other actual patrons towards what is going on.

I know there are many other methodological issues with this segment, it's not really useful as research, but this one stood out to me in this case.

Some love to the ads: First thing I noticed is that almost all of the clips in the chrome- video are of men. Makes you wonder wether the deiting is to blame ofr that, or wether men really are overrepresented in the project. It gets a problematic when an emergency aoutreach project like this is so obviously contributes to the marginalization of other parts of the LGBTQAI spectrum.

Secondly, did anyone else get uncomfortable with the bed ad? It sort of connects to the dicsourse about homosecxuality being about sex, where any discussion of a gay persons family becomes inapropriate and equal rights hampered by extension

Anyone else think it odd that the graph that supposedly breaks things down by religion only shows different sects of Christianity? Aside from what it says about views on gay marriage, the graph is interesting for it makes invisible Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists and others that are neither Christian nor unaffiliated.

I only watched part of the Texas video, but I think it is worth mentioning that not intervening is actually best course of action in situations like these. In a situation in which you are clearly a third party and you do decide to intervene, if the confrontation turns physical then there is a good chance that you will be considered the aggressor and have to face the legal ramifications of that . In this specific situation, the best thing to do is either nothing at all, or notify the manager of the restaurant. Confronting someone over their behavior is just asking for trouble.

Am I the only person who felt like it was cheap and verging on appropriation for Google to use "It Gets Better" in order to market a commercial product?

Im gay, born in 1974, and looking at the info-graphic I found out I'm part of "generation X". Isn't it also a form os generalization?