I’ll say this. I am a gay male entering my freshman year and I had very similar concerns. First off, regardless if your son vocalizes this, I am sure he is very thankful that you are thinking about him in this manner. I came out to my parents at the beginning of my senior year, and my mom told me that she has had trouble sleeping because she is worried about how people, especially those I might live with may treat me. So, again, I can’t stress this enough on how much it probably means to him, and I really wish more parents did.
Before I actually came out, I applied to several UC campuses. Accepted into UCI, UCD, UCSD. Personally, I did not feel too much fear when it came to living on dorms with other straight guys at the UC campuses. It is part of the reason I applied there, solely because I know how tolerant it is. They generally have good LGBT populations, and I’ve interacted with a lot of them in the past, and they are very friendly and I’m confident will embrace your son :).
I was also accepted into the University of Florida, and was planning on going there only because I can’t afford out of state tuition to go to a UC. My mother was worried, again, for the same reason you are, and I have to say, it is really nice to have someone on our side for once. We go a lot of our lives in fear, or in self-hatred and it feels really nice to have someone support you. So again, I just genuinely want to thank you for supporting him. UF isn’t particularly known, as far as I know, as being liberal or conservative, and I just wanted a place explicitly tolerant to people like myself, like the UC system is.
Responding to the Christian thing, most LGBT folk don’t hate Christians, a lot of us are, but we know from personal experience what some of you all do to us, and it is very frightening. Living with someone that may hate you, and bring up suppressed self-internalized hatred is a dangerous path, both physically and for mental health. I just want Christians in general to know that we don’t hate you all, in fact, we’d love to be friends. We’re just very apprehensive sometimes because of how people have treated us in the past.
All in all, I would feel very comfortable going to a UC as a gay student. I am not particularly strong physically, so I may not be able to defend myself as much, but I don’t think I’d have to at a UC; they have very good education, and have very diverse campuses. I was accepted into NYU and they tend to embrace the LGBT community just like the UCs, and is a big reason I may end up attending.
Cheers!