I had some things I wanted to follow up on from the previous thread...
Think of me as a same-sex marriage skeptic.
You're really more of a same-sex
parenting skeptic, aren't you? As I understand it, you have doubts about same-sex-headed families as a childrearing environment, and while recognizing that gays and lesbians do and will have children regardless, you're unwilling to see that USDA Grade A stamp of cultural approval placed on it. Is that not correct?
the gays are still ghettoed, to a large extent, and most of us live in worlds where no one bats an eyelash if we hold hands with our partners while walking down the street.
I do think this is a big problem, both in terms of general public acceptance of homosexuality and more specifically in terms of parents' fears of their children "turning gay" or otherwise being "corrupted" in some way through social exposure to gay people. It does not create, but in the big picture certainly doesn't help the perception that gay people are "subversives," that simply being openly gay somehow constitutes an in-your-face attack on heterosexual culture--not that in reality there is such a thing, but families, monogamy, churchgoing, Joe and Jane Six-Pack
stuff like that basically (think of McCarthy's witch hunts of homosexuals in government and slurs about "Commies and c***suckers" to the media). At the same time, the legitimacy and ultimate social advantageousness of maintaining intentional "safe spaces" for historically suppressed and still-stigmatized groups needs to be recognized.
what a group like ACT-UP does is mobilize and shock into action members of said community. but, ultimately, what wins is the simple, grassroots, humble organization and the talking, arguing, convincing, and demonstration of lives that aren't all that different from yours.
I agree, when evaluating how "good" or "useful" a group like ACT UP is, you need to look not only at policy achievements (which they can claim quite a few of), but also at effectiveness in motivating the group in crisis to stop suffering in silent isolation and start self-reliantly networking and petitioning and awareness-raising. You could say much the same about the Black Power movement--contrary to what a superficial comparison of, say, John Lewis to Stokely Carmichael might seem to suggest, that wasn't some simple, straightforward study in morally generous hope vs. poisonously embittered cynicism.
I think the history books might do us a disservice with their tendency to compress the stories of civil rights struggles into a timeline of key legislative victories livened with biographies of civil rights "celebrities," seeming paragons of righteousness and devotion who inspired thousands of others to do the step-by-step grassroots grunt work--sometimes brilliantly and to great effect, sometimes stumblingly and to heartbreakingly little avail. In real life, breakthroughs are seldom if ever spontaneous and change can feel like it takes an eternity, even if in retrospect things might look to--and have--changed drastically in what by historical standards is an astoundingly short time.
I don't know that I have anything to add to them, but I thought melon had some great points and insights on this topic.
When my sister in law first came out, I think her mom was initially disappointed because it shattered an image of her little girl one day walking down an aisle in a white dress, getting married. I also think she was sad because she knew how hard it would be for her (my S-I-L) in our society.
I'd add that for religious parents, and that's a lot of them, there's an additional sense of loss in knowing that your child won't be able to remain socially integrated in your religious community, unless it's one of the few that truly recognizes and honors the dignity of gay and lesbian people. Which
ought to be a reason to seek to be a voice for change within that community...though that's perhaps (or perhaps not) a separate story from the thread topic.
I think the "ghettoized" perception of gay people plays a role here, too; parents may fear that their children will somehow vanish into a disconcertingly unfamilar social "underworld."
...And parents I think don't want their children looked at funny. Think about the stereotypes and what that comes with. You look at a lesbian like Portia De Rossi, who looks just like a supermodel and compare her to a very "butch" looking lesbian and you'll see that people or a parent would probably be more accepting of the "pretty" lesbian because she looks like she's "supposed" to, she looks like a girl. The same for the gay man with the feminine voice.
Absolutely; even among straight people, it's disturbing and sad the number of men (especially in their late 30s through 50s) who recall being routinely psychologically brutalized by their fathers for being "sissy boys" who preferred art and theater to sports and tools, or women of the same age who recall being routinely shamed by their mothers for not looking and behaving "feminine" and "pretty" enough. And very often there are deep-seated fears at work there about what might befall the child, as well as what it might say about them as parents if their child "turns out wrong." In a world where sexual orientation truly didn't matter, that wouldn't be a problem.
I really like the thoughtful generosity in your posts, hope you'll stick around.
Marriage is HIGHLY overrated.
If your expectations for it are on the order of nonstop romantic passion and continuously effortless mutual affirmation of what fantastic people you both are, then yes, you'll almost certainly be in for a nasty shock if you get married. (You could say much the same for parenting, except that particular relationship can't be readily terminated.) No one can ever know in advance which and how many struggles and disappointments lie ahead, so you have to have a robust and flexible shared vision of what you want from the future. And the self-awareness to know your own relationship weaknesses as well as your partner's...and the self-confidence to know that if it must come to an end, you can move on alone if need be.
That said, if you're suited for marriage and clear-headed about what it entails and, yes, have some measure of luck going for you as well...then from where I stand, it's one of the greatest and most profoundly enriching experiences there can be, to have love, intimacy, support, companionship and a shared project in life as the two of you progress through all its twists and turns, perhaps together with the children, born or adopted, you've committed yourselves to guiding into adulthood. With the support (and occasionally hindrance
) of family and friends--the ones who were there when you took your vows, and others you encounter further down the road. That would be tops on my list at least of reasons why formalizing, legally giving consequence to, and above all honoring the choice to make that commitment continues to be a tremendous social good.
Bottom line is that it would be unjustified and reprehensible to blow something like this up into a collective smear of the entire gay community, or to make simplistic moral equations between isolated incidents like this and the reality of pervasive homophobia in American society, including but by no stretch of the imagination limited to African-American society. But, having said that, a temporary rash of such incidents in the wake of what's happened shouldn't surprise anyone.
All of us are affected to some degree by racist, sexist, homophobic and other prejudicial attitudes and ideas that we've been exposed to regularly since childhood. And particularly when you're hurting and angry over some recent deep affront to your dignity, those feelings are far more liable to suddenly surface, whether you even consciously realized they were there or not. A white lesbian might find herself blurting racist slurs, a straight woman might find herself blurting homophobic slurs, a black man might find himself blurting anti-Semitic slurs, a gay man might find himself blurting misogynistic slurs...etc. etc. And hopefully when that happens we catch ourselves, engage in some sober self-scrutiny, and take accountability for these self-defeating conflations of problems that reside in others with problems that reside in us. But, it happens.