I do think trying to not pass your subconscious prejudices on to your kids is better than the alternative, even if it doesn't always work. My dad did try pretty hard not to pass his knee-jerk "ew, homosexuality" feelings on to me, which given that I ended up queer made coming out a lot less awful than it could have been.

I was always aware of the dichotomy between his personal feelings and the way he voted, but by the time I was old enough to be thinking about it, I respected him for following conscience rather than gut feeling, even if he never got rid of the gut feeling.