Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyAugust 16th, 2011
I came across this comment on one of the NOM blogs:
Letting lesbians adopt and have children is horrible…Having homosexual male couples is even worse. They are always off and having sex with multiple partners rather than being the parent the child needs.
I’d like to ask this of all opponents of marriage equality who are such experts on what same-sex relationships are like:
How many times have you sat down to dinner with a same-sex couple in their own home?
Obviously, this won’t have much impact on the hopeless tool who wrote the comment above. But it’ll highlight his hopeless toolery to anyone else listening, especially if he gets all puffed up and sputtery.
This approach might be even more useful in less hostile environments, the kind where someone protests, “But I have lots of gay friends!”
See, in my field (instructional design), we focus on measurable (and hopefully quantifiable) results. “Friend” is too vague a term for that. Plus, you won’t get far demanding the names of these “friends” and evaluating the claim for yourself.
But the number of dinners eaten in the home of a same-sex couple? That’s data.
Addendum: And if they turn the question around and ask about our own dinner history with opposite-sexers, those of us who spent a good chunk of our childhood in homes with two opposite-sex parents can truthfully answer: “Thousands of times.”
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Cooner
August 16th, 2011
Not to mention the fact that there are PLENTY of heterosexual couples out there who are just as busy sleeping around with multiple sex partners.
It got old a long time ago, this assumption that ALL homosexuals sleep around with anything and everything that moves and ALL heterosexuals are completely monogamous, chaste, and faithful.
Anyone who continues to believe such has never been to a college campus. Or a business trade show hotel.
Ben in Maine for now
August 16th, 2011
It is getting harder nad harder to tell the difference between stupidity and outright evil.
Maybe there isn’t one?
CPT_Doom
August 16th, 2011
@Cooner – Exactly. My retort would be “so gay men are acting exactly like Rudy Guiliani, whose adultery was so destructive to his family that his own children won’t speak to him.”
TampaZeke
August 16th, 2011
Better yet, since they’re now trying to paint gay people as bullies and Christian haters, ANY of us could tell them about the HUNDREDS of Christian families we’ve had dinner with; some of them were even GAY!
RavenBiker
August 16th, 2011
I’m sorry, Rob, your question to equality opponents is a bit weak. It doesn’t question the anti-LGBT wing nut’s assertion that they are “experts” of same-sex couples’ behaviors. Are they peering in windows now? They’re not even “experts†on opposite-sex couples for crying out loud! If they where so-o concerned about the sanctity of marriage, they’d be moving to abolish no-fault divorce and creating support for failing opposite-sex marriages!
Simply ask a variety of harder questions like: What is your fascination with gay sex? Should same-sex parents’ sex lives be monitored? Is domestic abuse in GLBT households a problem? Do same-sex parents simply forget their kids are locked in a car on a hot day or is that an opposite-sex couple problem? —you get my point.
The truth is something that shakes their logic. The truth is too simple for their simple minds. Same-sex couples can simply choose not have kids or adopt them. It is not a GLBT social requirement or expectation. When same-sex couples have children, it is because they want them. In essence, kids of same-sex couples are loved more and more often. Thus it is the nature of parental love among same-sex parents that confuses, disturbs and disrupts their world view as truth always does to them so they don’t want the truth.
Donny D.
August 17th, 2011
“I have gay friends!” — the cry of every anti-gay straight person under 60.
(The ones who are over sixty don’t have gay friends, and don’t care enough to lie about it.)
David in Houston
August 17th, 2011
My current response to statements like that is “Prove it.” — “Where EXACTLY are these gay couples that are having sex with multiple partners? Since you obviously don’t know a single gay couple on the entire planet, one should assume that you’re lying when you say that.”
When Rick Santorum said that no one has the right to destroy American families by allowing gay couples to marry, I posted a comment on his Facebook page. “Prove it. Exactly how does allowing gay couples to make a legal commitment with each other, destroy American families?” Suffice to say, my comment vanished 30 minutes later. You’d think Rick would have a boilerplate response to a straightforward question like that. Apparently not.
Maurice Lacunza
August 17th, 2011
“now that’s data!”
Brilliant. Forget naming names. Get the data.
I am going to use that if it ever comes up.
Jamie Fraser
August 17th, 2011
So I was thinking about this very subject yesterday while I was puttering around. I have a proposal I’d like some feedback on.
Here in Toronto we have the Metropolitan Community Church which serves (not exclusively) the christian LGBT community. I think it’s an offshoot of a church with the same name in LA, and I’m sure there have to be others in the US or at least other gay-friendly churches or parishes.
Since one of the primary symbols of christianity is “breaking bread” I propose (with oodles of publicity) a public invitation from these friendly churches to some mega-church, or other gay-unfriendly church to join together for dinner. The idea is that the smitey, hatey “christians” are always going on about how christian they are, so they can’t very well turn down an honest invitation to join together in fellowship.
If they take the invitation, great – get every married and long-term partnered couple you can find in your church and make sure they’re there and mingling. A great opportunity to open minds. If they don’t, great – issue a disappointed press release (or figure out a way to get coverage without a release) and make sure the invitation *stays* open.
Thoughts?
Regan DuCasse
August 18th, 2011
Excellent Jamie!
I was talking to a pair of youngsters who were out front of Ralphs and trying to talk to the public about supporting marriage.
But now it’s going to be a ballot issue and I think that’s a huge mistake. I noted during canvassing and similar outreach that people can run past you to easily, or not engage you at all in door to door.
It would be best to do several things. Infiltrate their churches, and other public places and SHOW them that gay parents have beautiful children the same as anyone else.
Or, as you suggest, throw down an invitation because it IS a life or death issue and the stakes are unquestionably higher for gay couples and their children.
If they refuse to come to an open, innocuous and neutral environment, with actual gay people, then it should be shouted from the rooftops that the only discussions these people want to have is without any gay people there.
There is no end to the ironies in their excuses for what they do or don’t do. Or reasons for their actions.
For example, they keep saying that marriage discrimination is valid because a same sex parental couple ‘deprives’ a child of either a mom or dad.
Not having ideal parents isn’t against the law, nor is it a rational basis for discrimination.
The irony is that they want to deprive that child of gay parents of even MORE. Having unmarried parents who cannot secure their life is a deprivation their parents have no choice in.
So it’s obvious a child being deprived isn’t their concern at all.
Timothy Kincaid
August 18th, 2011
Jamie, that is a great idea.
Yes, MCC was founded in Los Angeles in the 70’s and is now international. But don’t just stop with them.
It’s easy for the Baptists and the Pentecostals to say no to “that homosexual church.” But it is not nearly so easy to refuse fellowship with Methodists or Lutherans. And in many many cities there are churches with lovely old-fashioned names and long history – Episcopalian, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and many more – which fully support our community and which honor the gay families that are part of their congregation. Who could turn down a joint invitation from Pilgrim Community Church, St. John’s Presbyterian, and the Hope Street Methodist church?
Have the pastors of those churches issue a joint invitation and have the gay families – and supporting straight families as well – be there just living their normal existence.
It’s a beautiful idea.
Jamie Fraser
August 18th, 2011
Groovy – thanks for the feedback folks. I think I’ll take the next step and speak with the MCC pastor here and see what comes of it.
/j
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