Rag on him for both.

“Acceptable of the time” isn’t a valid excuse against bigotry. There’s a differenc between thinking something is criminal but having no moral objection to it, you know, like drugs and free love and everything else their music talks about, and thinking something is criminal and that there is a moral attachment to that act.

There were people in the 60s/70s/80s that wouldn’t write a workers rights song and say “keep it away from fags and girly men though”, because they’re not self-dillusioned assholes, John Lennon just didn’t happen to be one.