Here was my reply to him:

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Wow Jeff, that's a loaded question.

On the one hand, Arizona has been very good to me and a great place to live. On the other hand, Arizona is still a red state in many respects. I think a lot of your experience here depends on where you end up living. I live near the center of Phoenix and the larger "valley of the sun," as the entire metro community is called. As such, I think I am in a area that is a little more tolerant to gays living in their neighborhoods. I am forwarding your e-mail to some other gay Arizona bloggers I know so they can give you their opinion too.

One of the first things you need to know about the Phoenix metro area is that it is still very young. This town really started to grow in the 80's. As such, most areas of town are very new. You won't see a lot of older buildings and such here. The neighborhood I live in was built in 1955, and already this year it qualifies to be considered as a historical district if that gives you any idea.

Many consider Phoenix to be like one giant suburb. Our downtown is beginning to grow, but for years it was completely deserted on evenings and weekends. Land and housing were cheap for so long that people built new homes further and further away from the city's core. There is a huge amount of sprawl, but fortunately getting around is pretty easy. Our highways are not as congested as other major cities. We are building a light rail system, but for right now the only public transportation is the bus system.

If you like sports, there are plenty of them here. We have the Diamondbacks, the Cardinals (though they suck), the Suns, and the Coyotes. Every spring we host several major league baseball teams for spring training. As for the arts, we a have some nice theaters. ASU's Gammage Auditorium hosts many of the traveling Broadway shows when they come to town. The new Dodge Theatre downtown hosts many other concerts and events. We also have the Herberger theatre, the Orphium, Phoenix Theatre, and many other small theatre productions. It is no where near the level of what you may enjoy in NYC, but it's developing.

As for the gay community, you need to know that we don't have a centralized "gay ghetto." Our gay bars and restaurants are spread out all over town. There is not any one place where gays and lesbians seem to live or congregate. This is perhaps one of our biggest weaknesses in my opinion. The leaders of our gay community have tried for years to create a gay district, but internal squabbling seems to keep it from ever happening.

Now for tolerance. Wow. I don't know what to tell you. I myself have been pretty darn lucky in that I have never had a problem (knock on wood). I am openly gay if someone asks me, but I don't flaunt it either. In some of my jobs people have known; in others they haven't. Mesa (a suburb) has a VERY large Mormon community, and they are pretty strict about homosexuality being a sin. There are also large retirement communities here like Sun City. But within Phoenix, Scottsdale, and Tempe, I think there is more tolerance. Tempe had a openly gay mayor for years. This may be in part to the fact that Tempe is home to ASU and many people that live there are a tad younger than the valley's population in general. Every year there is a gay pride parade and festival (in April due to the summer heat). And from what I have heard, the gay community has a pretty good relationship with the Phoenix police.

Our state's politics tend to favor Republicans, though we currently have a Democratic governor. That may be because we had so many scandals involving our past governors over the years. There is currently an initiative to amend the state's constitution to ban gay marriage coming up for a vote in 2006. My guess is that it will probably pass.

I would say that greater than 50% of the people you will meet and work with in Arizona are not from here originally. We have a lot of California transplants as well as a lot of people from the midwest. That makes it hard to peg the population's tolerance toward gays and lesbians. A lot of their attitudes depend on where the person came from originally. Whether you might have a problem at work or not all depends on your coworkers. In general though, you will probably fit in better working for a larger corporation than a smaller employer.

Lastly, there is the heat. In the summers here it is not at all unusual for the temperature to reach 115˚ or above. Fortunately there is very little humidity, so it is different from the heat in somewhere like Florida, but it's still mighty hot. We tend to spend most of our summers indoors. Even this week we are still hitting temperatures around 100˚. We make up for that though by having about 8 months of beautiful weather. Be warned though: Many people who move here from up north complain that they miss the seasons.

So do I recommend Arizona? I don't know. We get a lot of gay men who move here from elsewhere and bitch about it constantly. Then we get others like myself and Buckaroo who have made this area home. I know that doesn't answer your question, but it's the best I can do. I would love to see you come join our community, but I can't guarantee you'll like it.

Let me know what you decide. (I know it's really expensive, but have you considered San Diego? I also hear good things about Austin, TX.)

--
Scott
www.scott-o-rama.com

Jeff

I live in Tucson and have for 20 years. I like it. It is not as crowded, polluted, or as expensive to live as Phoenix.
I run a gay bed and breakfast. so i suggest you come out and see what it is like for yourself. Let me know what questions you may have. We have as much homophobia here as anywhere else, but it is still a reasonable cost of living. You can easily find a new home for 400k. I have some realtors i can put you in touch with.

Marc