Gay on a NYC date present and past

I went on a date in New York City last night with my partner. No kids.  Nice restaurant, good wine bar and a great play, "Venus in Fur."   In the wine bar, we ran into two young gay men who wanted to party with us all night but alas we had to leave for the play.  As my partner and I walked around, we saw other gay couples holding hands.  This was nice and such a contrast from twenty years ago when the only place I dared show affection was in the gay enclave in Greenwich Village.

One night about twenty summers ago, I was walking around the Village with my then girlfriend R.  We were coming from dinner on our way to a gay bar on an obscure street.  I had my arm around her and we were in new romance bliss.  We saw a small car drive past once looking for parking.  It drove past a few minutes later and stopped.  In the car was an Arab family and all the females wore hijabs.   The man/driver began to shout that it was immoral for us to be gay and how he was offended.  I yelled he should go back to his own repressive country whatever that was and said he should leave the women behind because they didn't need him anyway.  He raised his fist at me and drove away.  In the back seat, a hijab-head turned back and looked at us as the car drove away.  I saw a young woman wave at me and then quickly blow me a kiss with a shy smile.


I forgot about this until last night when I saw all kids of gay people holding hands and people of all backgrounds all over, including some Muslims and some Arabs.  I wondered what happened to that young woman.