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Today is the Third Annual Blogging for LGBT Families Day, an occasion to celebrate the beauty of non-traditional families. Kate and I are a child-free couple, but we’re doting aunts, and completely out of the closet to those we love. It means that nieces and nephews will grow up knowing us without a thought to our orientation, that it’s not a dark family secret or a guessing game.
The existence of thriving LGBT families of all shapes and sizes is a grave threat to the Dominionists who see life and love through a very narrow religious worldview, as if morality and good child-rearing is only present in a mother/father parented family. Even though all sorts of configurations of families exist—grandparents raising children, single parents, etc.—we have seen an obsessive focus by the right on denying LGBTs the ability to adopt or foster children, and to deny committed same-sex couples to marry, even though these are culturally and socially stabilizing institutions.
It’s amazing to think that legislators like NC State Sen. Jim Forrester (R) are so hell-bent on making legal life difficult for LGBT families here in our state that one day into the legislative session he introduced his marriage amendment bill—Senate Bill 1608. Issues that all families care about—education, health care, unemployment—were not Forrester’s priority.
That’s why the visibility of LGBT families—and taking time out to honor them—is what will bring about change over time - the fossils of fear cannot continue to ignore the children growing up who don’t see their different families as odd, strange or immoral.
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Pam Spaulding on 02:00 PM •
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I don’t get where people like Forrester are coming from, because Republicans have gay family members too. If the Cheneys didn’t have more money than god, who would take care of them in their old age but their daughter Mary and her spouse?
Yay for gay families! I am the proud egg-donor ancestor of two amazing kids who have the greatest dads in the whole world. They’ll be eight next week, and they’re smart, funny, compassionate--just incredible people.
“...the fossils of fear cannot continue to ignore the children growing up who don’t see their different families as odd, strange or immoral.”
...which, of course, is the single biggest fear the “fossils of fear” have.
Eerily similar to the fear the segregationists had toward integration. Once you see the “others” are human beings just like anyone else, it’s a lot harder to hate them. Not impossible - for those who live on hate - but certainly much harder.
I for one say “More of this, please...”
When I’m arguing about gay rights issues with local homophobes, I tend to fall back on the point that there are plenty of gay-headed households out there right now. If they don’t want gay people around them, they’re totally out of luck. It’s not like gay rights create gay people - they protect the gay people who are our friends and neighbors and family members.
“...they protect the gay people who are our friends and neighbors and family members.”
Oh, but denial can be extremely powerful. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.
That’s one of the reasons why some of these higher profile events are good. The chance exists that somebody may learn about some of the LGBT people around them, and they just might realize that discriminating against them serves no purpose, and is in fact self-defeating…
One can only hope…
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I don’t get where people like Forrester are coming from, because Republicans have gay family members too. If the Cheneys didn’t have more money than god, who would take care of them in their old age but their daughter Mary and her spouse?