Comment I know... (Score 1) 452
Certainly I know about Turing, and I know that the US still has problems which can be blamed, in part, on slavery, so I don't believe that homosexuality will stop being a social issue anytime soon, but that doesn't meant that such opinions should go unanswered. Certainly such opinions should never be censored, and he has every right to make unhelpful comments (as far as I'm concerned, his local laws may say otherwise), but such comments (probably unthinkingly) reinforce anti-homosexual opinion. Indeed, if there wasn't prejudice against non-heterosexuals, my comment would have been entirely redundant.
I think, perhaps, that I forgot how much stigma is attached to homosexuality simply because the CS department at my uni (where I spend much of my time) has so many bisexual and homosexual students (approximately 70% of the male domestic students, mostly bisexual[1][2]), that it is generally assumed that any stranger who says they are heterosexual is probably in the closet and merely haven't spent enough time with sufficiently open people[3] to feel comfortable coming out (this is backed up by the fact that many of those who are completely out at uni are completely in the closet to their families).
In such an environment it is easy to forget what the real world is like, and even that one small department is not representative of the rest of the tech world.[4]
[1] I know this because last year someone posted "do it, faggot" on a departmental discussion board, which raised the question of "Which one?" and so lead to an informal study of students' sexuality. The methodology was simple but reasonably sound, albeit rather too long to put in a footnote.
[2] This, incidentally, made the CS club almost certainly the second-gayest club on campus (after the queer club), and far in excess of the "progressive" clubs who make a political stand on gay rights.
[3]Mild autism-spectrum disorders are fairly common, so there is a reasonable base of students who just don't care much about the social stigma, and a core of already-out students and a fairly small department all help here.
[4] wow that was long:
TL/DR: I know, but I thought it should be said. I forgot the real world, sorry..