Poison

Friday, 2:44 pm

By Kate

Shall we talk about bigotry and hatred for a few moments?

Thank you

It has been a difficult and wrenching experience raising my child, over the past few years, in a time when rising hatred and anti-gay rhetoric have taken center stage in this country. My child is old enough to remember when gays and lesbians were able to live in relative peace without daily assaults in the press and in legislative bodies. It has never been easy, but in the last four years, it has become so much more difficult.

Why would he care, you may wonder. Two of the people he loves most dearly are lesbians. Family members who, had anything happened to his Dad and me, would have been assigned the task of becoming his legal guardians. Two wonderful women who do and would have loved him as much as his Dad and I. Two people who would have raised him to be as fine a young lad as he is now. Maybe even more so, given the obstacles in their lives that he would have assumed as part of his nuclear family.

Recently he asked me, “Mom, if something happened to you and Dad now, would they be able to keep me?” And I’m not sure how to answer that question. Laws have been passed in their state that would make it very difficult for them to keep him and raise him. “Why?” he wonders. “What business is it of anyone else?” Heh. That’s one I really don’t have an answer for. Except...people are bigots. There’s no other explanation because I simply do not accept the idea that it’s about morality. It isn’t. It’s about hatred, fear, and bigotry.

What a shitty lesson for a kid to learn about people in a country where all people are supposed to be created equal and all people have the guarantee of the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

One of the women he loves so dearly is so happy in her equality and pursuit of happiness that she recently checked herself into the hospital. So deeply depressed, fearful, and thinking she might cause herself harm. Her life has been threatened. Her job security has been threatened. Her long-term spouse has been physically attacked. There’s joy busting out all over the place in their lives.

Why?

Because they sleep together. That’s it in a nutshell. Their private lives are now the business of every religious nut in the country, whether their lives touch each other or not. Doesn’t matter. We must save marriage. We must protect the children.

Well, you know what? This fervor of bigotry hasn’t protected my child. It has made his life harder. It has ripped his heart out of his chest. It has made him hate those who hate those two women he loves.

This is not about morality. Not when people’s lives are harmed in this way. This is hatred and fear and cold hearted bigotry at its worst. Hatred. You do not talk about the love of God and hating the sin but loving the sinner when the results of your words and efforts are good people who are attacked, their lives and security destroyed, and fear grips their guts. This is a modern day witch hunt. It’s inherently evil and wrong and most foul.

That is what my child has learned about his country and fellow countrymen. I think it’s high time decent people get off their asses and do something about it. It’s poison and it’s spreading..