The comment from Mr Smith that I have reproduced below is in response to the Times article, "A time for Tolerence". Most of us tend to move on and become more accepting of others despite our backgrounds. My parents were racist but went out of their way to help my friend at infant school who was in the foster home and of South American descent. My father didn't like gays but the two transvestites who grew up in the local hardened community of terraced back to backs(Imagine Quentin Crisp) were revered and 'protected by the local 'mafia' and could go anywhere in relative safety. The locals were offered a new pub to name that was part of a housing development and wanted to call it after 'Brenda' one of the transvestites but the brewery vetoed it and it became the 'Firey Fred after Freddie Trueman, the Yorkshireman and cricketer.

Confusing times. I lived in London for many years and developed my own likes and dislikes, noticed cultural trends and had conversations with people from many cultures and faiths. I even spent a while living on the Broadwater Farm Estate after the riots.

Anyway, I digress. Christian faith does indeed appear to be eating itself from the inside, without any help from us militant atheists.

Derek Smith wrote:

I was born directly after WWII into a country where morals were, to a great
extent, dictated by various religions. We were taught that Jews were sinners
because – well they never said why. Gays were beyond all hope because they loved
people. Blacks were all right in their place and the same with Germans. But
there was a lot of resentment against those living together or, much more worthy
of condemnation, children of such couples. Special contempt was reserved for
those who were stripped of their loved ones by the war before they could marry,
especially if they had a child.

I was treated with care by some parents
as I was allowed to play with Tommy, whose mother wasn’t married. That would
have been bad enough but his father was an American GI. And, just to make things
much worse, was an African. I found out later that he had been from South
America but not being white was enough.

As religion lost its influence
so tolerance has become more widespread. My children have little comprehension
of differences in the way I was taught. My daughter didn’t think to tell me that
one of her friends was overtly gay before she introduced me to him. It didn’t
concern her so why should it concern me? ‘You’ll like him.’ she told us. And we
do.

This country has moved on tremendously in my 60 years. It would have
gone much further had it not been for religion. Most people I know are
bewildered by the church’s problems with gays and women. As my daughter said
about women priests: ‘They should keep up at the back. We’re not waiting for
them.’

We’ve just had an international rugby player ‘come out’ as
homosexual and most of my non-religious, and rugby fan friends wonder what all
the fuss is about.

Don’t look for tolerance in religions. But it is
blossoming everywhere else.