The experience of the majority of gay and lesbian New Yorkers in the bubble that is the Big Apple is comparatively easy compared to their brothers and sisters in other parts of the United States and the world, but a piece of homophobic graffiti upon which I stumbled on an iPod advertisement on the side of a phone booth on East 16th Street near the Coffee Shop yesterday afternoon once again shattered that ideal.

As a journalist, I am routinely reminded of the homophobia and other forms of discrimination gays and lesbians continue to face. I would like to think New York is a city in which homophobia does not exist. I would also like to assume the young people I suspect scrawled the graffiti are aware of the diverse city in which they live. Their actions are a stark reminder that homophobia remains alive and well… even in New York.