the ramblings of a little girl

At my high school, similar to perhaps many other high schools,  making gay jokes was always a popular thing to do.   I feel ashamed to have participated in this crude and horrible form of "humor" and teasing when I first entered high school.  I loved my high school and I had a great high school experience but I did think my school needed to revise it's policy on tolerance.  Not just on anti-gay rhetoric issue but on an overall issue of tolerance and respect.  It wasn't until the end of high school that one of my very good friends who had been constantly made fun of for "acting gay" that I realized this was not right and that this had to stop.  I couldn't articulate why I felt it was wrong.  I don't think I was the only one who thought this was a problem but I do think it was an easy pitfall to trap yourself into when you were with a group of people and you just wanted to tease someone.  And I saw no way of changing it.  I just knew it was unfair but I didn't know for what reason and I couldn't understand why this kind of homophobic subculture was so deeply ingrained in the way my high school interacted with each other.