Any chance the father is left-handed? If so, smack him in the face with his own analogous condition.
I am not sure of the father’s age. He is an acquaintance rather than a a friend, and one I met only after my eyes went to shit. I only get facial details if a person is close enough to kiss, and then if it is a dark-skinned black person, perhaps not even then. I know that the daughter is early 20s, so I would estimate her father is somewhere between 40 & 60. Which is obviously quite a long range.
Well follow that analogy out. Some parents did try to get their left handed kids to become righties, to the frustration of all involved as a general rule. Was that prejudice against, hate of, fear of, lefties? Or simply wrong and a mistake to do?
It probably isn’t malicious. The first premise is true: Life is easier for a straight person than for a gay person. This would be true even if we lived in a society completely free of bigotry: Given that most people are heterosexual, a homosexual person is going to have a smaller pool from which to choose potential partners. So there’s nothing wrong, in itself, with wishing that one were straight.
But even if it isn’t malicious, it is malignant. That’s because the second premise, that people can choose whether to be gay or straight, is false (or at least, mostly false). And thinking otherwise has a long history of leading to atrocities.
Yes, it was prejudice and fear. Some little of which was justified in certain times.
For instance, before we had adequate washing systems, people used their left hand to wash, and their right to eat. If you saw someone eating with their left hand, that would just be disgusting.
The word “sinister” literally means “left handed”, while dexterous means “right handed.”
It sounds to me that the father is well intentioned but misguided. He wants his daughter to have an easier path in life, which is an understandable position and what I believe virtually every parent wants for their child.
His ignorance of homosexuality takes him out of the running for Father of the Universe, but he sincerely wants what he believes is best for his daughter.
Ignorant, yes. Homophobic, no.
mmm
It’s not homophobic at all to acknowledge that different subsets of people experience disproportionate challenges in life.
I’m well over 60, and grew up in an environment where homophobia was the default. At best people “overlooked” those out of the mainstream. It isn’t that hard to get a clue.
As for the question, the father might not be homophobic depending on his reaction to evidence that should be presented to him. Will the daughter have challenges? Maybe in the Bible Belt, but not in LA or the Bay Area. Hell, gay couples are on Wheel of Fortune all the time, and you can’t get more American than that.
The father should consider how he’d feel if someone pressured him to be gay. See “The World Well Lost” by Charles Beaumont, from over 50 years ago, set in a world where straights are in the closet.
It IS homophobic to blame your child for be homosexual and to attempt to pressure them to change. Why is everyone ignoring that part?
Because he is - at least as described in the OP - not homophobic.
Just ignorant.
mmm
Being scared for your child because they might be gay IS homophobia, I’m pretty sure.
60; which happens to be something I have passed. As for those who have shaken hands with 40 mileage can vary. From the people I know they tend to be more liberal concerning anything related to sex than my age range but not as open as the younger folks. Forty years and a lifetime of bad information is hard to overcome; after all look how long The SD has been fighting ignorance. 
I don’t believe that accurately describes the father in the OP.
He is not freaking out because of the gayness itself; he’s freaking out because of the difficulties his son will face as a result of the homosexuality.
There is no indication that he is contemptuous of homosexuals.
mmm
I think it’s a daughter, not a son, firstly.
And I never believe the old canard, ‘I just think you life will be difficult, I just want to protect you!’, is anything more than a transparent attempt to cover prejudice. It was too often invoked by parents of children entering into biracial relationships, during the 60’s. But, Y’know, it’s NEVER that they’re biased or prejudice, of course. Except that, yeah, it actually was, all along, I think.
That he thinks she can choose another sexual preference, on his preference IS contemptuous of homosexuals, I feel.
Fighting ignorance is taking longer than we thought.
Heh. The first guy to ask for kaylasmom’s hand in marriage “had to” rescind the proposal at his parents’ insistence, because they didn’t want their son to be saddled with a blind spouse.
My own parents raised similar concerns when I started dating her, but they left the decision up to me.
And anyone who breaks the word HOMOPHOBIA down into its constituent morphemes to define away its applicability to any subset of homophobes has earned dismissal of their opinion; just the same as someone who will excuse a member of the Aryan Brotherhood of antisemitism because they don’t hate Arabs or other Semitic-descended peoples, just Jews.
Daughter, yes, my mistake.
If your interpretation is correct, then yes, homophobia. But there is nothing there to provoke such assumptions other than you injecting your own slant on it.
My response takes the explanation at face value.
mmm
I am a gay man, FWIW.
I can conceive a situation where they live somewhere less accepting than the SF Bay Area and the daughter is bisexual.
In some areas walking hand in hand with someone if the same sex could get one spat upon, harassed, beaten up or raped.
In such a case, I might suggest choosing one’s dates from among the opposite sex until they get a chance to move somewhere safer.
I think we all have internal desires, but should we always act on them?
Also what if she has had some terrible relations with men which also might make her want to go after women?
Finally who says parents have to support every decision their kid makes?
The dad is a plonker. Surely he should be immensely cheered by the decreased chance of pregnancy and date rape.