LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Student CAMP: Won't Someone Please Stop Thinking of the Children? |
by Kristen Minor |
With the recent "yes, we've known for years, dear" coming outof Rosie O'Donnell, much attention has been given to issues surrounding gay adoption rights and what happens to children who grow up in same-sex home environments. Focus on the Family, a right-wing organization dedicated to "preserving traditional values and the family," has once again decided to move us all further down the path to enlightenment by declaring that by golly, queers shouldn't raise kids because children need both a masculine and a feminine influence in their lives. In various articles on their website, www.family.org, the Focus crew goes into great detail as to what is wrong with gay people, gay parenting, and all things queer. They should of course be given a cookie for their efforts, but I wish they would pick a stereotype and run with it instead of muddying the view from the moral high ground. Focus and groups like it also note that many homosexuals suffer from skewed gender expression. Within every gay or lesbian couple, one of them is the woman and one is the man. It's true-take a look at butch/femme couples! Clearly, even those of us trapped in the confines of perversion seek to emulate heterosexuality because we know that it is right. I find these positions to be a contradiction. Take the lesbian couple Moe and Bethany. Moe is an auto mechanic-diesel dyke, if you will-and Bethany is an English teacher. They have two young children, Alice-Gertrude and Quentin. Clearly, Alice-Gertrude's need for a feminine influence is filled by Bethany, but what about Quentin and what he needs to learn to become a man? Focus notes that dads need to teach their male sons "all of the things that go along with being a man, such as shaving, working on cars, building things, caring for and protecting women, (and) defending themselves against bullies." I am amazed that Focus can think that Moe and Bethany are incapable of teaching these things-being butch, Moe already shaves her face. Bethany, conversely, regularly shaves her legs, which have ten times the surface to de-hair than any man's jaw line. Moe bought Quentin his first tool set on the event of his birth and is a master carpenter, which takes care of those two requirements. I might have to write to Focus and ask them to clarify the whole "caring for women" thing, as I can't figure out why lesbians would know nothing about this topic. Or defending themselves against bullies, for that matter-I was certainly harassed in high school for being gay. But that was mostly done by fundamentalist Christians, so maybe being slammed against lockers and called names is described in the Gospels as one of the paths to Christ. Further research is needed. Turning their attention to gay male parents, Focus asks, "And who is going to help a little girl being raised by two men buy her first bra, understand her first period or prepare for her first dance?" Richard and Peter-a doctor and fashion designer, respectively, would like to point out that their daughter Barbara Liza looked simply divine for her senior prom-she wore one of the lovely strapless numbers that Peter uses when he impersonates Carol Channing. Her first bra-buying experience was equally memorable-a group of drag queens spirited her off to Wal-Mart and even offered tips on the best ways to "play up what nature gave you, honey." Richard, despite being "the masculine one," even managed to talk to his daughter about menstruation. I think he could have done it without a degree in medicine, but one never knows; Focus seems to think that periods, like the art of making excellent piecrusts, are unfathomable mysteries to men. I am uncertain as to what damage is done to children being raised by just one parent of either gender, regardless of their particular sexual orientation. The impression that I'm getting is that children of such families will have so much repressed pain over their fathers buying them tampons and their mothers playing catch with them that they never even have a chance at surviving in a society where the vast, vast majority of people are from good and stable two-parent Christian homes where tradition was strongly enforced and everyone knew their place. What? In closing, Focus notes that "Fathers do man things and mothers do woman things." I hope that I can someday have a child so that I can forget how to change oil and magically figure out how to knit, wear makeup, and do all of those other things that are hardwired into my ovaries. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a souffl in the oven. Kristen Minor, a member of the class of 2004 at Dartmouth College, is working on a degree in linguistics with a focus in sarcasm. She can be reached at kristen@youth-guard.org . |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 12, No. 07, June 14, 2002. |