While the article acknowledges that older people often tend to be less conversant of new societal trends and understandings, it tends to imply that the baby boomer generation is intolerant and homophobic. Every generation is composed of both good and bad people, educated and ignorant, selfish and selfless, progressive and conservative. My personal experiences enable me to testify of my own cohort.

I was a tail-end baby boomer, and I grew up with older boomer friends as my mentors and role models. This is the generation that stopped the Vietnam War and the Cold War. These are the activists who gave us civil rights, gay liberation (including the Mardi Gras) and second-wave feminism (originally called women’s liberation). They abolished apartheid, and worked hard to educate younger generations against attitudes that separate and divide people.

Many of my older LGBT boomer friends and heroes fought and died confronting the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and they left a legacy that includes non-discrimination, acceptance of diversity, and even the path to Marriage Equality.

Yes, there are still too many homophobic Australians, but their statistical numbers are way down compared to ten or twenty years ago. Rather than seeing this as a condemnation of a generation, I see it as a source of congratulations to all activists who have worked so hard for a lifetime. Their important work continues, and I hope that younger people will continue to pick up and run with the same torch.