Not defending the reaction, but I guess it's just what you are used to. I'm gay, and so of course I have no problem with it, and yet just an hour ago on my lunch break I saw two women holding hands as they passed me in the park, and I took a double take. Not because I thought such things didn't exist or were unnatural, but because I never see it where I live. Not in public, anyway.
The rain we knew is a thing of the past -
deep-delving, dark, deliberate you would say
browsing on spire and bogland; but today
our sky-blue slates are steaming in the sun,
our yachts tinkling and dancing in the bay
like racehorses. We contemplate at last
shining windows, a future forbidden to no one.
Derek Mahon
"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."
Arthur Miller