I know I just said this is a personal blog, a place to talk about myself in all my self-absorbed glory (ha), but I figure certain issues and topics are very important to me, and play a role in who I am as a person. So that's my rationalization. Yesterday, October 11, was National Coming Out Day - the twenty-fifth anniversary of it, in fact. Coming out as in, coming out of the closet. Coming out as in, "I identify this way, this is who I am, and if you don't like it, feel free to leave me alone." It's a sore subject in America at the moment, especially in the circles I run in. The conservative Christian circles, that is. But regardless of how many friends or how much respect I may lose, I still want to celebrate the 25th anniversary of National Coming Out Day by saying that I support "gay rights" (the more common colloquial term, and less of a mouthful than Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual-Transgender-Queer-Asexual-Etc.) wholeheartedly, unashamedly, and regardless of my religious upbringing.
But first, a disclaimer: for me, gay rights - whether marriage, or adoption, or simply the right to walk down the street holding hands and not be harassed for it - is not a religious issue, but a social one. Feel free to tear apart the theology on that one. I know it's not the done thing to separate our faith and the rest of our lives like some neat little compartmentalized box, but note that I said it's not a religious issue, not that it isn't an issue of faith. BUT I'm already off-topic. Bottom line is, I'm not here to talk about my theological views of homosexuality. I'm here to talk about why I support it, from a social standpoint.
And having said that, I'm going to totally talk about it: the reason why I started even thinking about supporting gay rights, which is directly related to religious organizations. Yep. I support gay rights because of the Church - gasp, shock, dismay.
I was pretty sheltered on the topic of certain failings in Christian culture until I came to college. Turns out, for every "love the sinner, hate the sin" conference, there are two hundred people lined up with badly-spelled signs dragging God's love for all people in the dirt. Might as well be the Romans spitting at a certain Lord and Savior they all claim to follow. Part of the reason I need to love and accept LGBTQA* people, wholeheartedly, no pious strings attached, is that so many people are unashamed of their intolerance. When I discovered the existence of Westboro Baptist, with their wretched theology on gross display for all to see in their web address "www.godhatesfags.com", I was so disgusted I spent a while doubting the goodness of human beings - but only after I'd spent a lot of time wondering if it was just a big trolling joke. Surely no one, regardless of faith or creed, could ascribe to such vitriol. Ironic how a religious organization can make it so clear that we are fallen.
But I promised that this wasn't a religious issue (clearly it is, but shhh), so I'll move on.
According to the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute, more than 400,000 kids are living without permanent families in America. 115,000 of these children are eligible for adoption, but nearly 40% will wait in foster care for over three years before being adopted. Adoption by gay couples is legal in some states, to varying degrees, but illegal in others. It's hard enough for opposite-sex couples to go through all the rigmarole of paperwork and adoption procedure, but same-sex couples face another kind of prejudice and preventative law entirely. It's been proven by experts that the children of same-sex couples are "just as likely to be well-adjusted as those raised by heterosexual parents." (Thank you Wikipedia. Yes, there is a source.)
Where am I going with this. Ah, yes. I support the right of same-sex couples to adopt because A) WOW look at that huge problem of children without homes we have in America, and that's not even looking at the orphan problem worldwide; and B) there's that interesting factor that same-sex couples are incapable of accidentally getting themselves knocked up. There's no unplanned pregnancies in a same-sex relationship, no struggle over abortion or the upheaval that occurs when two unprepared people find themselves having to support another human being regardless of their financial or emotional fitness for the task. Gay couples have to plan, in excruciating detail, for the ways they can have their own family. It's not a matter of "whoops, baby en route," but of "what's the best way for us to start a family?"
(Disclaimer: accidents don't automatically mean the parents can't/won't support or love the baby just as much as if it was a planned pregnancy. But sometimes, it does.)
I have a private joke with myself that homosexuality is God's solution for overpopulation. More seriously, I believe in evolution, and I believe that God engineered it, that it's an intended part of his creation - so why not engineer a potential way for humans to mate that would help curb overpopulation and take care of all the unwanted children who need homes and families? I dunno, seems feasible to me.
There's a lot more I could say, a lot more research and stats I could whip out, but I won't. Because underneath all of that jargon and science and psychology, there is only this: why are we so fussed with fighting something rooted in love, instead of fighting all the myriad of things in this world rooted in hate? Bottom line is, for me, it's silly and pointless to march against love. And that's all it is. It's not AIDs or perverts or fishnet stockings, it's not butch or queer or I'm a panromantic asexual genderqueer undergoing hormonal transition, it's not signs or parades or nightclubs or prostitution or unsafe sex or my-kid-is-gay parental self-help books.
It's just people in love. Human beings bonding over coffee on rainy Saturdays, or cuddling up to watch the football game, or taking a vacation to Disney World. Ordinary, boring, everyday. Wonderful. Just like boy meets girl, but without the sexist stereotypes.
I have another little private joke with myself (I have a lot of these): the real reason homosexuality freaks people out is because our society is so bound up with gender roles we don't know what to do when a girl cuts her hair short, or when a guy is brave enough to admit that pink is his favorite color. I'm an ardent feminist (not a feminazi, there's a difference); I'm as much in favor of eradicating centuries of male-dominated patriarchy as I am of legalizing the import of Kinder Surprise Eggs - in other words, a lot. (Don't mind the facetiousness, I can't help it.) So that's probably another reason I'm so much of a supporter of LGBTQA* - because equality is equality, regardless of gender roles. I spent a few years working at a daycare, and the amount of pink and purple plastered all over those poor little girls made me weep for future generations of stereotyped young women and men pressed into their perfect cardboard cut-out boxes like Barbie and Ken dolls lined up on display shelves.
But that's a topic for another day.
In conclusion: people are people, love is love, let's focus our efforts on something a little more important than eradicating people who don't fit the gender and sexual orientation binary. Like, I don't know, feeding the hungry, or clothing the naked, or visiting people who are in jail. Jesus thought the pariahs of his day were pretty cool - I will willingly give up my life savings to bet that he'd be chillin' with the crazy half-dressed folks hanging off gay club floats for Pride Parades worldwide.
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