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Post subject: Proud Mother Defends Her Gay Son
 Posted: Aug 27, 2007 - 04:09 AM
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Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1754
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Proud Mother Defends Her Gay Son
Quote:
There is nothing quite so amazing as watching parents stand up for their kids, particularly when the kid is gay. That is definitely the reason that PFLAG always gets the loudest cheers at LGBT Pride events. Now comes an amazing letter from a Vermont mother with a gay child in response to anti-gay letters to the editor sent to newspapers in Vermont about the “homosexual menace.”
Yeah -- it's amazing precisely because it's so very rare. Still, it's a decent letter.
That bit about "the loudest cheers", though: I'm not sure that it's at all true. There are cheers, to be sure, and they are loud. There are those who do not cheer for PFLAG though, and they have their reasons. It may just be the case that certain sanctimonious 'mos feel obliged to cheer all the louder to compensate. Call it a theory. |
_________________
"If you want the freedom, the abilities, you have to find a way. Just don't be so passive. We are capable of so much more." -- Larry Kramer
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Post subject: Re: Proud Mother Defends Her Gay Son
Posted: Aug 28, 2007 - 02:29 AM
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Site Admin
Joined: Aug 26, 2006
Posts: 440
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Feral wrote:
There are those who do not cheer for PFLAG though, and they have their reasons.
May I ask you to become slightly more explicit?  |
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Post subject: RE: Re: Proud Mother Defends Her Gay Son
Posted: Aug 28, 2007 - 09:31 AM
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Joined: Sep 06, 2006
Posts: 1754
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Sure... though I'm supposed to be "playing nice" with PFLAG because there has been evidence that they've improved.
It has been my experience over the years that PFLAG is little more than some sort of "12-step recovery program" for parents of Gays -- sort of an Alcoholics Anonymous.
"Hello. My name is Barbara and my son is a homosexual."
"Hello, Barbara."
Whatever gets them through the day.
Among the better representatives of this organization I've met are a gaggle of really quite sweet people who are really well meaning and obviously "love their children very much, no matter what." The 'no matter what' is quite important to them -- right at the very front of their minds at all times -- the phrase just dribbles off their tongues repeatedly.
Having a Gay child is, you see, something for them to 'come to terms with,' something to 'learn to accept,' something to 'get over.' It's something they despise. To their credit, they do make some small effort. It's more than the nothing most Gays get from their parents. Still... I have no time for parents who cannot celebrate their children.
Mind you, I speak of only those few individuals I have personal experience with. To the best of my knowledge, none of them have written letters to the editor like the one posted. None of them have raised money to post a reward for information leading to the arrest of a gay-basher as has been noted in another thread. I've never once encountered anything of the kind in real life, which is why I take pleasure in noting the rare exceptions that come to my attention.
Sure... there are good "PFLAG parents." Just not very damn many of them in my experience. Perhaps there are more now. More likely, there are not... there's just more Gay news sites and blogs to talk about them when they do appear.
PFLAG is free to demonstrate that I am completely wrong about them. I'd really like that. They might start by making the number of homeless Gay teenagers approach zero. Raising teens is hardly rocket science, and it's only for a couple years (not at all like buying a dog), and these supposedly wonderful gay-friendly parents already have experience so it's not like it's not something they've never done before.
They could start by making every one of the stupid stories that will appear in the next year about how this or that high school can't have a Gay-Straight-Alliance include the phrase "the students have up to now been meeting in the homes of their parents."
There really are parents who can manage these things -- I've talked with them. It's a damn rare thing. It ought to be common... at least among people who claim to be Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
But then I'm told I expect just way too much from people. I can be a real bitch that way... expecting people to actually be good rather than just claiming to be good.
As a post-script, there are also people who have no intention of applauding common decency. I wouldn't normally count myself among this group... I find decency sufficiently rare to often merit applause. I can, however, see the point that refraining from throwing your kid out on the street does not qualify for cheering. |
_________________
"If you want the freedom, the abilities, you have to find a way. Just don't be so passive. We are capable of so much more." -- Larry Kramer
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Post subject: RE: Re: Proud Mother Defends Her Gay Son
Posted: Aug 28, 2007 - 01:25 PM
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Joined: Apr 12, 2007
Posts: 472
Location: NYC
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| She's from Vermont, baby. That says it all. This would have been newsworthy had she been from Mississippi. |
_________________
Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless - each of us with his or her right upon the earth; Each of us allowed the eternal purports of the earth; Each of us here as divinely as any is here. ~ Walt Whitman
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Post subject: Re: RE: Re: Proud Mother Defends Her Gay Son
Posted: Aug 29, 2007 - 03:20 AM
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Site Admin
Joined: Aug 26, 2006
Posts: 440
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Feral wrote:
Whatever gets them through the day.
This is, of course, a central point. There are parents who think in first line about their children, and there are parents who think of themselves first. In all fairness we must accept the possibility that there are those parents who need help, the most. A baptist follower would experience the shock of her life by learning she raised "a homosexual" under her roof. The question is then, if such an unfortunate person (the baptist mother, of course!) will evolve towards some better understanding of the world. Some do, most do not. At the end of the day, we must learn that straight mothers are usually not much different than any other straight people: even if they try really hard, their homophobia and decade-long training as bigots are not easily shaken off. But alas, even many of our own ilk have difficulties to abandon their incorporated self-hatred.
Perhapts, we must simply acknowledge the undenieable fact that most people in the world either hate or detest us, or both - whatever their reasons are. However, we need not necessarily associate with them at any cost - peaceful co-existence with safe distance would suffice. |
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