Is "family" code for hate?
I wonder when it was that "family" became a sledgehammer to hit people over the head.
Have you noticed how the fundamentalists and so-called traditionalists always latch onto the word "family" to justify their hate?
Antigay religionist James Dobson calls his outfit "Focus on the Family". Another outfit of bigots calls itself the "Family Research Council". Campus Crusade for Christ (and against a hell of a lot of other people) has a ministry called "Family Life Today".
What is shocking is that so many of these "family" groups are not created to support the family but to attack people-people who are members of families.
One thing that can't be denied is that "family" has become a code word that means "antigay". Any sort of bigotry is justified under this label.
When right-wing religious groups try to pass laws that ban private companies from offering any benefits to the same-sex partners of employees they don't admit that what they are trying to do is attack gays. Not at all. Stripping gay people of private benefits is justified as "supporting the family."
Now precisely where do gay citizens come from? I know that next to homosexuality the one thing these individuals hate is sexuality but surely they don't think that gay men and women are found under cabbage leaves.
They have parents and brothers and sisters and grandparents and cousins. They have aunts and uncles. They are born into the family and most remain in the family until they die.
Many I know are the backbone of their family. They are the one family member expected to help all other members of the family. When their siblings have children many gay men and women are expected to help raise those kids, to be god parents to them, to take them on outings, to help in anyway needed. When the parents get older the "unmarried" kid is the one most often expected to care for them.
Some evolutionary biologists have posited the view that one reason that gay gene does not die out is that is useful to the survival of the family genes. It may be a trait that is selected for because the presence of gay men and women act to fortify some families and increase their liklihood of survival.
Of course right-wing religionists don't see it that way. Nor are they particularly "pro-family" themselves.
Conservative Alan Keyes has a loving daughter, Maya. Apparently the love goes one way. Her father is an extreme right-wing gadfly and was the losing Republican candidate for the US Senate in Illinois. When he ran for office Maya gave up her home to move to Illinois to work hard for his campaign. Her father knew she was a lesbian and despised it but he was happy to have her help provided no one else knew she was a lesbian. If she lied to people that was "family values" but the truth was not acceptable.
When people found out that Maya was a lesbian, according to the Washington Post, her father and mother "threw her out of their house, refused to pay her college tuition and stopped speaking to her."
Even though Keyes knew his daughter was a lesbian he attacked Republican Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter for being a lesbian. Certainly an odd thing to do considering that Cheney was the candidate for Keye's own party. Keyes publicly stated, in reference to Cheney, "if my daughter were a lesbian, I'd look at her and say, 'That is a relationship that is based on selfish hedonism." I would also tell my daughter that it's a sin and she needs to pray to the Lord God to help her deal with that sin." Keyes was aware that his daughter was gay at the time he said this but choose to word it in a way that pretended the contrary was true while still slapping her in face with the statement. Maya says that as long as she "was quiet" about being gay "we got along."
Maya didn't have to give up college. The Point Foundation came to her rescue and gave her a scholarship. The foundation helps kids who were rejected by their families for being gay fund their education. They give out about 40 scholarships per year and have to turn down 29 applicants for every one they fund. Maya says she loves her father. He doesn't say anything in return. Family values.
Jamiel Terry is the son of the right-wing antigay, antiabortion crusader Randall Terry. Terry is another one of the "family values" Right. Family values means rejecting his son. Instead of trying to be a family and love one another Randall Terry issued a public statement to "help other grieving parents and serve as a warning to moms and dads of small children to be unflinching and unashamedly diligent to protect their children from predators, and bring a reality check to those exploiting my son." What hateful rubbish.
Terry, like Keyes, was willing to have his son visit him provided that no one found out he was gay. The father says that it "is not true" that his son was unwelcome in his home and that he has "had him in my home for many days after knowing he was a homosexual." But now that it is public knowledge that Jamiel is gay he is no longer welcome. "he betrayed our family privacy" and is not "welcome in my home right now" "because he could sell us out again."
Terry's response was vicious. I won't repeat much of what he said about his own son but it was cruel and intended to be cruel. Family values.
Jamiel tells those who ask that he loves his father. His father who is the pro-family guy tells people his son brings "great sadness to our home and embarrassment to our family." What is surprising is to read the interviews done with father and son. Jamiel has praise for his father and speaks of his love for his family. His father is anything but loving.
Sadie Fields runs the Christian Coalition in the bible-belt state of Georgia. She is also leading the campaign to stop gay marriage before anyone there proposes it. Her daughter Tess is a lesbian. When Tess was 24 her mother found out she was gay. "My mother came over to where I worked, screaming and told me that I was 'dead' to the family. She called me "sick,' and 'of the devil.'" Like so many "pro-family, pro-marriage" activists Fields is divorced.
Tess lives with a long-time partner and recently gave birth. During a short period when marriage licenses were being issued to gay couples in Oregon she and her partner married. Her mother prefers that act be illegal. Apparently she'd rather her grandchild grow up with unmarried parents. Sadie says she and her daughter will be "OK one day. She is going to have to come back to God first and then she'll come back to me." She says she has to reject her daughter because if she didn't she would be sacrificing Tess' chance for eternal life. Family values.
State Senator Peter Knight of California was constantly on an antigay crusade of one kind or another. His son is gay. His son said, "I'm a cabinetmaker by trade, and I lead a quiet, full life." He says he is not politically active but he has lived with the fact that "my father has authored and pushed a number of antigay bills in the Legislature... Why is he doing this? I believe, based on my experience, that his is a blind, uncaring, uninformed, knee-jerk reaction to a subject about which he knows nothing and wants to know nothing, but which serves his political career." David Knight, the son, is a graduate of the Air Force Academy and was a fighter pilot who served in the Gulf War. He says his father rejected him because he was gay. Peter Knight, who also had a gay brother, lamented that "a private, family matter" was made public.
A family matter? How is that? Gays don't have families. Gays are antifamily. Just read book after book, article after article and web site after web site put out by the Religious Right. The litany is always the same. Homosexuals are an assault on the family. Nothing is said when the family assaults homosexuals.
David Knight had a civil union with his partner Joe Lazzaro and when San Francisco issued married licenses to same-sex couples David and Joe were there to be married. David says: "Joe is my family. And my blood family that has accepted me is my family" His father said: Two people of the same sex are not a family. They're not normal." David said his father refused to even discuss the issue with him "and I know that he never discussed the issue with his gay brother". "Three years ago, I told my father I was gay and that I have a life partner, Joe. From that moment on, my relationship with my father was over. I can't begin to explain the hurt that has come from this rejection."
David says his brothers and their families "have embraced Joe and me, and we share our lives as most families do (my mother died when I was a teenager)." But "my father's idea of family values is very different from mine. He insists his are right and mine are wrong. I'm deeply sorry that my father feels that he can no longer be a part of my life. I miss him."
What strikes me is that over and over the gay child speaks with respect and love for the parent. In each of these cases they attempted to stay a part of the family. They fought for family, for keeping family as a unit and together. But the pro-family activists smashed the family unit by throwing out their child, by casting them away from the hearth and home in which they grew up. That's family values.
David Knight said it well and I will close with his remarks: "Gay people are forming strong, loving families. Understand and accepting this will make our communities stronger and safer places to live."
All items in this journal reflect the personal opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of the Institute for Liberal Values or its Board members.
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Institute for Liberal Values, Thursday September 9th 2010. |
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