The real family values

Why is it that senators who run on a platform of "family values" and one-man-one-woman marriage law are always the ones who get caught with an intern or in the airport bathroom, or maybe soliciting an "escort"? Why is it that people are so damn afraid of people unlike them? Or even more, people like what they're afraid to be?

Please, someone, anyone, explain these things to me. Why in a nation where the separation of church and state is a part of our law, we have let our law be dictated by the Bible? Why any religious group except for mainstream Protestant Christians faces more challenges, prejudice, and persecution?

The Mormons were declared heretics and cast out. They found a home (what kind of God declares a lake home to his chosen people if it is too salty to even drink from and sustain life?), and established their own society according to their beliefs. That's how the colonies got started in the first place. Now it is only a splinter group that still practices polygamy, but just because the idea of polygamy makes the "family values" people feel uncomfortable, they persecute this group every chance they get.

I'll admit, I won't let a Jehovah's Witness in unless there is nothing good on TV. That's actually more than a little bit cruel, now that I think about it. But would you rather spend two hours knocking on doors and getting turned away, usually rudely, or talking about god and the afterlife with someone who doesn't believe one word you say, but will listen, entertain the idea, and bring you ice tea and snacks? I appreciate the fact that these people feel that they are duty bound to attempt to convert others. They honestly believe that they are saving souls. That's a noble thing to try to do. But I always wonder, while we're discussing the fine points of Genesis, is there someone down the block that would actually be listening and believing what this person has to say? Am I preventing this person from actually "saving a soul?" I don't know what to believe when it comes to religion, but I do believe that everyone is entitled to believe and practice whatever they want, without interference from other people.

I do know that religion is a very sophisticated brainwashing system. Brainwashing is one of those terms that depends on perspective. It's education when your side does it. It's indoctrination when the other guy does it. Religion, regardless of any basis in facts, organizes people, gives people something to think, say, and do (or tell others to do, even as they sin themselves). Religion is a necessary part of society.

But is bigotry a part of that, too? Must there always be an enemy, a subversive? This country has been jumping at shadows. It makes me angry. Jaded, too, and at times resigned to "this, too, shall pass." But then I see a loving couple who by all rights should be married by now. Or I hear someone explain their own twisted version of "morality." If only I could count the number of times I've wanted to kick in the television in the process of kicking the pundit or politician on the screen, when they began discussing that is or isn't immoral. I'll tell you what's immoral. It's deciding that people whom you have never met, who have never done anything to you, whose personal conduct does not have any bearing whatsoever on your life, that they are not equal. That they are not entitled to the same rights as everyone else.

We've seen it over and over again through history. Racism. Sexism. Social elitism and either a legal or de facto caste system. Heteronormativity.

Yeah, that's a big-ass word. That's fancy speak for straight people deciding that anyone who isn't like them, who doesn't feel or think like they do, is by definition inferior. That one man can only love one woman, and that anything other than that system is not only immoral in their eyes, but actually worthy of active defamation, persecution, and legislation against it.

Walk around on any given day, and just listen. Listen to how many times "gay" is used as an adjective synonymous with "wrong," "perverted," or "stupid." Any given day. Roger Waters has a new song, for which there is a comic strip projected behind the stage, helping to tell the story in the song. It is the story of how in the early 1960s, Waters went hitchhiking to Lebanon. I love his musical work, both with and after his time with Pink Floyd, don't get me wrong. At one point, when he was sleeping on a porch, a man who had lost a leg in WWII came up and asked him if he'd like to come back to his place for dinner and a roof over his head for that night. He said that his wife cooked very well, and would be delighted to have a guest. In the comic, there is a thought bubble from the young Waters' head which reads "Thanks God. Monopod, but not queer." I will admit, the prospect of getting taken to someone's home and raped is an unpleasant one, but really, the vast majority or rapists and pedophiles are straight men. In prison, maybe, male-on-male rape is relatively common, but that is a special case.

There is no arguing that homophobia and animosity toward gays is pervasive in our society. This is a part of people's learning from an early age, and to many people is as natural as male chauvinism or support of Jim Crow laws and distrust toward non-whites in decades past.

It is interesting, though, that although blacks and women generally enjoy an equal legal footing with the rest of society after their respective liberation movements, even after "gay liberation" in the 80s, we still face legal (not to mention social) roadblocks toward health plans, employment, adoption, foster parenting, military service, and marriage.

There was an unprecedented conservative backlash when the concept of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender equality really gained popular support. I have said before how much I admire and stand in awe of the right-wing propaganda machine. This is no different. Their ability to play on people's fears, deliver misinformation and straw-man arguments, instill new fears, drum up hate, and all the while pass themselves off as being pro-family values, protecting the masses, and most of all, not be seen my many was the hatemongers they are is staggering.

Let's talk about family values. More than half of all children are now born out of wedlock. Divorce rates are over 50%. Obviously, most people don't take the old-fashioned family unit seriously unless they happen to be voting to "protect it." Lemme tell you something, if it is so fragile that it can be destroyed by gay marriage, we are obviously not talking about the same "family." Sprechen ze englisch? Are you sure? We're both talking about the same kind of family where there are two parents, a house, 1.7 cars, a white picket fence, and 2.7 kids? Where they are still "family" to one another for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do them part? Well, it's true, 63% or American families are now considered dysfunctional according to the L.A. Times.

Let me tell you, two women or two men are far more likely to be good, prepared parents than your average two yahoos who had some fun one night and she got knocked up. They are more likely to be good parents than a married couple who decided that maybe they'd like a baby, but didn't think it through (it happens a lot). Think about it. There is so much red tape to adopting a child, you really have to want to adopt that kid (unless you're celebrity in Hollywood....). Now think about all the extra red tape gay couples face. It's true. It's part of the administrative decision checklist: are they "morally fit" to raise this child? What the fuck do you think? Becoming a foster parent is even worse. In many states an municipalities, it is actually illegal for a same-sex couple to become foster parents.

That is especially not right. The foster care system in this country is overworked and overbooked. Foster parents are underpaid for the responsibility, but if they raise the tax breaks, more people will do it just for the money, with no real regard to the people. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Many children fall through the cracks. Turning away qualified, caring foster parents is downright criminal.

While we're at it, let's talk about transgender rights. The laws are patchwork laws, and are often on the wrong side of things anyway. Most of the law is a gray area up to individual judges, and we all know how bad that can be.

Have you ever walked into a bathroom (or out of one) and had people either tell you you're in the wrong bathroom, or stare, glance away, and say something to someone near them? It doesn't happen terribly often, but just plain weird looks do. Double takes, basically.

Funny story. About two and a half weeks after freshman year started, I stopped to use the toilet in between classes. Then when I went to the sink to wash my hands, another girl came out of a stall and started washing her hands at the sink next to me, at about the same time. We had seen each other around campus. We both looked up, looked at each other, and said, "I thought you were a guy."

It's less fucking hilarious when someone says "get outta here, dyke." That's when the asskicking happens. It don't care if your dad has threatened to kill me before, tell me that and I'll rearrange your face before he can get here. And the unconscious don't make phone calls.