How close?

How close can you come, that is, to calling your work colleagues a bunch of imbecilic bigots without actually doing it? Not much closer than I did towards the end of my shift this morning, I suspect. The exchange that so annoyed me was elicited by a throwaway news story, typical tabloid 'human interest' fodder, which someone had read, about a rugby player who'd had a stroke after a training accident, and had 'become gay' and retrained as a hairdresser after his recovery. How many mindless stereotypes and misconceptions can be fitted into one short sentence? No rugby players are gay? All male hairdressers are gay? Hairdressers never play rugby? A person's sexuality is set in tablets of stone? Needless to say, the conversation was littered with the usual offensive remarks about gays and all their works, winding me up still further. I think it was only the fact that the incident happened in the last hour of the shift, when the night shift relative quiet had been replaced by the beginning of the busier early morning period, where the position I was covering required something close to my full attention, that allowed me to keep my seething resentment of their stupidity in check. What are these people so afraid of, FFS? Because I can't envisage such prejudice and hatred being engendered by anything other than fear. Some people are gay, fucking get over it.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B