September 24, 2012

  • I should really be going to bed.

    Our friend Ancient_Scribe recently shared, in a pulse, this article: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/son-of-two-moms-defends-regnerus-study-on-same-sex-parenting/.

    This is a really simple matter so I'll try to be brief (if I actually hold that capability). While I hate to discount anyone's personal experience (the first rule of understanding is acknowledging there are other experiences beyond the ones you're familiar with; Mr. Lopez's full testimony can be found here: http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/08/6065), I'm going to assume that none of you are stupid and just acknowledge out the gate that articles such as these are used to discredit the notion of gay marriage (note my lack of scare quotes around the word marriage, unlike the article).

    However, the first point of criticism is the article's (and Mr. Lopez's testimony's) display of all the hallmarks of a piece written to fit a particular viewpoint (which often, in turn, defies lived experience). How?

    There's the never-failing-to-appear point that such behavior leads "one down a sodden path to self-medication in the form of alcoholism, drugs, gambling, antisocial behavior, and irresponsible sex". I once read an article from some site like Yahoo about a mother who (while dealing with her son's decent into homosexuality before he came back to his senses and "became" straight again) would have to tape her eyes shut when she went to bed at night because she cried so much (I don't believe such an endeavor would actually work…). Nothing like sensationalism to drive a point across.

    On that note, there's that hallmark expression of Mr. Lopez descending into the "gay underworld". Sounds scary. Particularly since it preys upon fears of a secretive society of homosexuals that are plotting to overtake your safe and cozy straight life (note that it also plays the card of the Other by literally creating another world of separation from what Mr. Lopez consider's normal). Of course, this is ridiculous. Really, underworld? Boy's Town in Chicago is literally just a 45 minute drive away for me. I've gone down there every pride parade I've attended. Friends of mine in high school have gone down there. There's nothing hidden or scary.

    There's the claim that being raised by two women rendered Mr. Lopez to having "very few recognizable social cues to offer potential male or female friends, since I was neither confident nor sensitive to others". Apparently the Lopez's didn't have T. V.s in their household. Or never left the house, for that matter. And apparently Mr. Lopez didn't go to school. But, you know what, I can somewhat understand. I flounder completely at social cues to give (as I've mentioned more than enough times on this Xanga) and find meeting (let alone befriending) other people difficult. It's not easy. But it's not life-ending.

    Then there's also this peculiar paragraph:

    Those who are 100-percent gay may view bisexuals with a mix of disgust and envy. Bisexual parents threaten the core of the LGBT parenting narrative—we do have a choice to live as gay or straight, and we do have to decide the gender configuration of the household in which our children will grow up. While some gays see bisexuality as an easier position, the fact is that bisexual parents bear a more painful weight on their shoulders. Unlike homosexuals, we cannot write off our decisions as things forced on us by nature. We have no choice but to take responsibility for what we do as parents, and live with the guilt, regret, and self-criticism forever.

    "Okay, alright, science says that being gay isn't a choice. Hmm, well, if we make the argument that those who have the choice to partake happily in heterosexual acts ought to [using the same evidence that's used when arguing that being gay is a choice, no less] then we still kinda win!" Honestly, you don't decide to live as gay or straight as a bisexual; just because I date mostly girls doesn't mean I live as a straight person. It's still trying to fit into a binary understanding of sexuality.

    But what makes the entire affair just hilarious is how disconnected from reality it is.

    I'm sorry that discovering you're bisexual caused you to run into the "gay underworld" and all the drugs and sex it must have contained (because gay people are inseperable from drugs and sex in these types of narratives). I'm bisexual too and – oh, wait, I'm still a virgin and I've never used illegal drugs, ever. I guess I just have self-control.

    Hey, look, Mr. Wahls above was raised by two women too. Except he looks rather well adjusted, doesn't he?

    Or I could appeal to my own life experiences and the people I've known raised in gay/bi households. People who were perfectly well adjusted and had plenty of friends.

    Or when a friend of mine, trying to appeal to how the past or the 50s (I forget which) was better, asked me if we had any decent male role-models these days. For the longest time, I didn't know how to formulate a reply. Here's why: what the Hell would that entail‽ Perhaps it's a generational gap but I can't begin to formulate how being neither confident nor sensitive would be a disability to getting to know a person. And, hence, I can't begin to figure out what it would mean to be, specifically, a male role-model since men (at least when I was growing up, in my traditional heterosexual household) could do anything they pleased. I know, I shouldn't be surprised but I always am whenever anyone lends actual legitimacy to the notion of gender roles (the family was watching a movie about Shakespeare the other day when my mother exclaims, "The king is wearing women's shoes!" This shift in gender roles is atrocious and I think we should all go back to the good old days when men wore feminine shoes, like is proper and natural؟).

     

    And, look, honestly, I am truly sorry if Mr. Lopez had a difficult time in his life because, for him specifically, he was raised by two women. I'm sorry that society was so cruel as to make life difficult for him just because he didn't fit their expectations. I imagine such worries plagued the first children of interracial marriages.

    But we should work to make society more understanding rather than bending to the current whims of today's society and, in turn, trying to make permanent its cruelties. Such behavior, even if under the guise of being practical or realistic, just continues to hurt people in the end.