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Originally Posted by EatingPie
Even in my general despising of Heinlein, he was indeed an important author, and if you like golden age of science fiction you would want to check him out.
But I would not go so far as to say he's required reading if you're interested in Science Fiction at all. There have been a variety of iterations and styles through out the history of the genre, and Heinlein was most important to a specific period. If you preferred "New Wavers" like John Varley or J.G. Ballard, Heinlein (or Asimov, etc.) would not necessarily be an imperative.
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It depends on what your goals are. Heinlein was one of the important influences shaping the field as it exists today. If you just want to read SF, and have particular sorts of things you like, you don't have to read anybody in particular, beyond those who scratch your particular itch.
If your goal it to be knowledgeable about SF as a whole and claim any particular knowledge of it, and you
haven't read Heinlein, expect people who
do know something about the field to point at you and laugh.
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I actually like hard science fiction the best, and a lot of golden age fit in that period, which is why I read Heinlein. I even liked some of his work. But as I said, his viewpoints were terribly off-putting in a few specific works, and I would not recommend him because those particular works are his most seminal.
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You found certain viewpoints off putting. That doesn't mean that others will, and it doesn't even mean they're wrong. (They may
be wrong, but that fact that you didn't like them is not proof of anything save that
you didn't like them.)
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And to this day, every time I hear the word "grok" a shudder runs down my spine. 
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Too bad, because grok has slipped into more general parlance, and may be used by people who have no idea of its provenance.
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Dennis