I’ve kind of been stewing for the last couple of days.  Say, since about Tuesday, when I found out that the voters of Maine had decided that they were going to deny marriage rights to same-sex couples.  And I keep going back to this question that my dad asked me when I went on a rant a couple of years back when Michigan decided to remove “common-law marriage” and ban The Same Sex Marriage, essentially ensuring that gay people and straight couples that didn’t really want a government sanctioned relationship were doomed to be legal strangers.  He asked me “Why the hell do you care so much?  It’s not like you’re gay.  Just suck it up and get married if you want those rights.”

I responded with whatever had seemed right at that particular point and time, but it’s a question that always comes back to me whenever the subject of gay marriage comes up.  My emotional tie up is more than wanting equal rights, and it’s more than fighting against religion having a bitchfit that they can’t make the government their happy fun-time bigotry playground.  I guess I have a little bit of a confession to make – I want same-sex marriage because I’m selfish.

Perhaps I should explain.

I got married at the ripe old age of twenty one, after dating the boy for over five years.  I also do not have the greatest opinion of marriage – I feel culture kind of hands us this shit ton of baggage regarding marriage and a lot of it falls on the woman.  Marriage is about “until death do us part”, not getting caught cheating instead of having honest conversation and exhibiting slightly stalkerish behavior about finding your fulfillment in one person for the rest of your life.  And there’s something wrong with you if you deviate from this.  You become a failure, a fallen woman, a harlot or a frigid bitch if your marriage doesn’t end with one of you in the grave.  If my marriage fails, society tells me it’s my fucking fault for not being/doing/whatever enough.

Before I got married, I literally sat down with a two page list with the man and went over things like religion, child raising, chore breakdown, and my big huge freakouts.  After we got through that, I realized it wasn’t him that I was worried about – it was everyone else.  It’s the government tacitly supporting women giving up their maiden name if they feel their families should be united under a single name.  It’s about the presumption that if I’m married, then you should talk to my husband, and that of course I’m running the household.  And, of course, the woman in the relationship should be giving birth to the children (who belong to her husband), and should stay at home and raise them.  If she’s going to work, she damn well better do it all – work, handle the house, raise the children and have dinner on the table when her man gets home.

These are all the things that acknowledging same-sex couples threatens.  Not that women can’t have kids and stay at home if we legally recognise gay marriage – but same-sex marriage forces all of us to have a conversation about all of this bullshit baggage that comes with the word “marriage” right now.  To decide what we want to keep and what we want to make anew.  There will be plenty of people out there who want that old-timey traditional marriage of “until death do us part”, but it shouldn’t be a foregone conclusion.  So I’ll continue to fight for marriage equality for same-sex couples, to hit the pavement and talk until people’s ears bleed, because without it, my marriage isn’t equal.  Not even close.

Dear parents, I have some news for you that will shock, horrify and astound. Your child is not a Christian. Your  child is not a Muslim. Your child is not a Buddhist, a Wiccan or a Scientologist. Your child is a child. 

Your child may, however, by gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered. Right now your little innocent potential-someone is a ticking time bomb. Your days of easy prejudice are running out, decision time approaches.

However you choose to bring up your kids, you cannot ultimately control who they will eventually become. A weak minded person of any age, and particularly a young developing mind, can be directed. Can be pushed and pulled and molded to believe in your God, to walk in your path, and to live as you see fit. But their sexual identity? That, you don’t get a say in.

This is the important part: neither do we.

I’ll say it again, because I’m not sure it’s getting through. Dear parents – we cannot turn your children gay. We do not want to turn your children gay, and would not know where to begin if we did. If your children are going to be gay, they are already gay. It is not like tamagotchis, Pokemon cards or pogs – they won’t want in on it just because their friends are. 

Promoting homosexuality is a myth, it is a fantasy, it is bullshit. But as far as urban legends go, it’s a popular one. A very quick google turns up 57,600 results for ‘promoting homosexuality in schools’. Admittedly, searching without quotation marks so I’m sure there’s plenty of irrelevant results, but here’s a few choice ones from the first couple of pages:

Councils should NOT be spending your money on promoting homosexuality

British children to be sodomized at school at the taxpayers expense – why?

Sir Ian McKellen to promote homosexuality in schools

Church schools could be forced to promote Islam and homosexuality, Catholics fear

What I want to know is, what do these people fear? They can pretend to worry about their children being ‘tempted’ into our icky lifestyle, but I don’t think that’s it. I think what they fear is knowledge.

Religion and traditionalism flourish where knowledge stagnates, where progress is hampered and ignorance reigns. Knowledge is the enemy of superstition – knowledge is power.

The second thing they fear is acceptance; if alternative lifestyles are taught about in schools then they will inevitably become more and more accepted, inch ever closer towards normal. Normal means we get treated like people, get equal rights and kick the door off the damn closet once and for all. And they don’t like that – not one bit. The children today are the adults of tomorrow – the politicians, scientists, religious leaders. They will shape the future, and if they learn to accept others for who they are – not to judge but to accept – then the future is one of greater tolerance, understanding and communication.

In short – what they are fighting is progress in its purest state.

I have made it clear that I cannot accept the belief that homosexuality (or bisexuality, or transexuality, or any other ‘alternative’ sexual orientation or identity) can be taught, learned or promoted. There is, however, something that can be taught. Something that worms its’ way into the minds of young children. Minds bubbling with imagination, young enough to still see a world full of magic and wonder, too young for skepticism and cold logic. 

Children are an ideal target for religion. When I was six or seven years old I remember a Christian lady coming into my class to promote her beliefs. She asked us to raise our hands if we wanted to be Christians. There was not one child in the room whose hand did not shoot up – the Muslim boy (his parents would have been horrified, no doubt), the girls who had always mocked me for my (faithfully parroted from my parents) religious beliefs. every one of them. They listened, open mouthed, to her every word. 

Of course, a lot of it won’t have stuck longer than the next break time. But the seeds are planted there. A trustworthy adult (and aren’t we all taught to respect our teachers?) tells you that God is real, and it’s so easy to listen. School is where you go to learn, not to be lied to. It’s rare for a child to be confident enough in what they know to correct an adult, and rarer still for them to get away with it.

By all means, teach religious tolerance. Teach what the different religions believe from a historical or mythological perspective. But there are some aspects of religion that should be kept firmly outside the school gates and out of reach of children until they are of an age to decide independently. Religious music, Bible stories and prayer should not be permitted in school. Religion’s representatives should leave their free samples and steps to a perfect sale at home, save the hard sell for church and the captive audience within. 

We’re not out to make converts or followers, and we don’t want your kids. But they do – and they are being given something very closely resembling a free rein to do so. I like to imagine a future where tolerance is taught to our youth instead of dogma, and facts are taught without space for malicious fictions. But the pessimistic side of me reckons that to believe that takes more faith than your average religious nut, and makes me twice as delusional. After all, people don’t change.

The build-up is so precious!  You already know what’s going to happen… but just watch.  It’s fucking priceless.

LOL!

(For our non-Yank readers, the text of the Pledge of Allegiance is, “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”)