I do feel sorry for Laurie, because what lies behind his waffling is a huge weight of culturally-sanctioned homophobia he's internalized. (This is true for Andrew as well, of course, but I have less patience for it from Andrew, partly because Laurie idolizes him so [among other things, as clear-thinking] and partly because for him a lot of it is specifically religious.) But it's frustrating when Laurie lets what is essentially a phantom of Perverse Queerness in his head overrule things he knows to be true, like what kind of person Ralph is.