so gay

Ah Maggie,

It seems you have reached the next door in the damned hall!  The hall never really lasts forever...it just seems that way.

Reading and responding to complaints would offer a wonderful perspective of your field.  And what a great place to put a Friend!

For your youngest - is this a resilience developing opportunity?  It is so hard to be adolescent.

Everyone is reacting to the latest Supreme Court ruling - gay marriage is now legal everywhere in the US.  I've been reading some of the responses. One that stopped me was from the Duggars.  I was following that story until they began identifying the sisters that were attacked by their brother.  As soon as the focus changed to the titillation of identifying victims of a sexual crime, I knew we were not going to go any deeper into this issue.

So, they issued a totally uninspired, almost rote, bible based comment about sin.

And it came to me that many of the people who are so anti-gay, so terrified of homosexuality, seem to be hiding in conservative religion.  I thought about how petrified of gays Dad has always been, how vitriolic his hatred.  I was suddenly overwhelmed by the understanding of how many families must be just like ours.  Families where pain is passed down the line, generations attacking each other sexually.  The most powerful members of the family preying on the least powerful.

Little boys who are raped by older men must associate the attack with homosexuality - when it is not. Rape is not about sex, it's always about power.  And all our uncles, our grandfather, our brothers, our father - they were/are not gay.

Hmmmm.....maybe someone should research the difference between pedophile, attacking and violating children, and gay - developing adult, egalitarian  relationships with same sex partners.  Do pedophiles care about gender?  Or just discharging pain by causing pain - no matter who they hurt?

I hated putting that paragraph together. It seems to suggest that pedophilia and homosexuality are both aberrant. I do not believe this.  I truly believe we have a spectrum of human sexual behavior for healthy adults.  At one extreme is the person who only responds to persons of the opposite sex, and at the other, there are those who only respond to persons of the same sex.  We are all somewhere on this line, and mostly not at an extreme. And we all want to be in a loving, adult partnership...

Aberrants fall off the spectrum when they sexually respond to children or animals, or anything besides another adult of the same species...

Once it becomes generational, drilled into who we are, how is it possible to get it out?

The biggest thing that has always bothered me about the gay marriage movement, though, is that if we have a true separation of church and state, what is the government doing in the middle of this argument? If marriage is a sacrament, then only a religious group can decide who is married, who is not.  I think the only power the government should have is to force businesses, etc. to not discriminate against...well, anyone.

I always liked the movement of just living together - making a commitment to be a family between selves and immediate community. People decide to couple and become a family without notifying the government.  

It just seems that allowing the Supreme Court to dictate a sacrament further erodes the Constitution.  Of course, that set of rules has been so corrupted...

One last thought before I start cleaning house, in preparation for the arrival of a two year old tornado who will dismantle it...it seems there are two main ways of dealing with secrets - like the secrets in our family.  We can pull on fundamental religion. We can insist that everyone obey a set of rigid rules.  Marriage is only one man and one woman.  God says so. If you deviate a fraction of an inch - you will burn forever.  This is fear...and hiding in concrete rules, and pretending that everyone else is also entombed in the same rules...ah, we are safe And the stuff that happens outside of this safe place - it didn't really happen.  And if it did - they'll burn in Hell - all of them.  Unless it's our family, then it was a minor slip, but he's sorry and God forgave him. So, you know, it really didn't happen...shut up and smile kids. We have to look normal.

Or...we pull it out...like a load of dirty laundry and we wash it as well as we can.  And we hang it out for people to notice - if they are interested.  And we shine the Light on it, just like we put stained clothes in the sunshine, knowing sunlight removes stains...

Have a wonderful First Day!!

Love and hugs from Clare